“What are they doing, Tom?” Martha thought her own voice sounded distant, as though calling to him from a long way off.
“They are looking up at the attics.”
“No! Oh, dear God, no.” Rosie covered her face with her hands.
“They are coming back. Just Overton and the sergeant.”
The hammering of the front-door knocker sounded doubly loud this time. Martha cast a warning glance at Rosie while Tom went to answer the door. When he returned, he brought Captain Overton and his sergeant in his wake.
“Well, Captain?” Mr. Delacourt feigned a note of weariness.
“Your pardon, sir,” Captain Overton said, with a return of his former polite manner. “But Sergeant Daly has just pointed out something odd to me which leads me to the conclusion that we need to investigate the attics again.”
“And what is this ‘something odd’ to which you refer, my good man?” Mr. Delacourt addressed his question directly to the sergeant.
“There is an extra window, sir,” the young man replied promptly. “I counted the attic windows from the inside while I was up there and there were twelve. But from the outside, there are thirteen.”
“Odd indeed. But perhaps you miscounted?”
“It is easily solved, however, sir. Sergeant Daly and I will simply check the attics again,” Captain Overton said.
“This is nonsense.” Mr. Delacourt’s words of protest scarcely registered with the two soldiers, who were distracted by Rosie. Clearly distressed, she had risen from the table and moved swiftly toward the door. Martha hurried after her.
“Stay where you are, please, Miss Delacourt.”
“Captain Overton.” Mr. Delacourt drew the captain’s attention back to the table. “Kindly modify your tone when you address my daughter. You are not issuing orders to one of your men when you speak to her. You cannot be surprised at her anxiety after you have practically kept us prisoners in this room tonight. Now it appears you are proposing to repeat the performance. Well, I must inform you that I will be contacting the local magistrate on the morrow to complain about your conduct.”
The captain bowed. “Nevertheless, sir, we will search the attics again.”
“No, I cannot let you go up there.” All eyes turned to Rosie, who had paused by the door. Her voice was oddly calm, and she raised Tom’s old flintlock with hands that were perfectly steady.
“Rosie, no!” Martha tried to grasp her arm to restrain her, but it was too late. The gun went off with a deafening retort, and Rosie was thrown backward with the force of it. At the same time, Captain Overton clutched his chest then, with a look of dawning surprise, pitched face forward onto the floor.
Time seemed to stand still. Nobody moved, and it felt to Martha that, if they stayed that way, it might be as if nothing had happened. As if the captain were not lying on the floor with a slowly spreading crimson puddle beneath him. As if Rosie were not raising a shaking hand to her lips and turning stricken eyes to her cousin’s face.
The spell was broken as the gun clattered to the floor, and with a strangled sob, Rosie hurled herself into Martha’s arms.
“You’ve killed him.” Sergeant Daly turned to Rosie, his eyes widening in horror. “You’ve killed the captain. It was cold-blooded murder.”
“No.” Mr. Delacourt rose to his feet, moving to his daughter’s side. “Dear Lord, you cannot believe that was her intention.”
The sergeant thrust him aside and made a lunge toward Rosie. Beau, sensing that his mistress was in danger, roused himself from his position on the hearthrug and hurled himself at the sergeant, pinning him to the floor. As he struggled to shake off the dog, Tom hauled the sergeant to his feet by the front of his red coat. He crashed his fist into the young man’s face, knocking him unconscious, before dropping him back to the floor.
“Go and get Jack and Fraser,” he instructed Harry as he knelt beside Captain Overton, turning his lifeless form over onto its back. “Martha, help me here, please.”
Jack and Fraser burst into the room minutes later, alerted already to the situation by the sound of the shot and by a brief outline from Harry.
“It was an accident.” Rosie’s voice was little more than a whisper. Her face was as white as the lace at her throat. Jack drew her into the circle of his arms. “I meant to warn him, to give you time to get away. I never meant to kill him.”
“He is dead, nonetheless.” Tom stepped back from the body. He looked over at the sergeant. “And we have a witness. Sergeant Daly over there saw everything.”
“Then we must make sure our fine sergeant here doubts his own eyes.” Fraser’s voice was decisive. “First things first. Let us get him trussed up and out of here so that we can lay some plans. Tom, d’ye have some rope? Help me carry him, Jack. And while we’re about it, this room is no place for a corpse. Martha—” he paused, realising his error, “—I mean, Miss Wantage, will ye no take Miss Rosie into the breakfast room and see if there is a wee drop a brandy to warm her? And maybe take one yourself?” His smile was reassuring, and she let out a soft sigh. Fraser would make it right. Somehow she knew he would.
It seemed to take an age before the men joined them in the breakfast parlour. Rosie had passed through tears and shaking to a state of shocked numbness. She seemed comforted to have Jack near again, however, and he held her icy hands in his to warm them.
“The cellars around here have seen a wide variety of prisoners these last months.” Fraser rubbed the back of his head reminiscently.
“What is your plan?” Jack asked.
“This Sir Clive ye speak of, he saw me at the stables the other day. He heard me speak so he knows I’m a Scot. Mr. Delacourt and Harry must let it be known that I have been holding ye all hostage. Ye were all too afraid of me to do aught but follow what I told you to do. Of Jack there is to be no mention. It must be as if he was never here.”
“I will say nothing of the sort,” Mr. Delacourt objected. “I’ll not malign you in that way, Fraser. You have been a perfect gentleman in your dealings with us.”
“Whisht now, you must do as I say in this, sir. It matters nought what anyone thinks of me. It’s Rosie we’ve to think of. Ye’re to say I have been holding ye all against your will ever since the stramash at Swarkestone Bridge. Tonight, when the soldiers came, I donned the disguise of a woman. ’Twas while I was wearing that guise that I shot the captain. When I am gone, you must release him and tell him all of this. Tell him Tom clouted him before I could shoot him as well.”
Jack gave a snort of laughter. “You’d have the sergeant believe he mistook you for Rosie?”
“And have you a better plan to put before us, my fine lord? Especially since Mr. Delacourt here will confirm that Rosie and Martha have been away for the last two days visiting friends in the northeast. Ye must insist that Rosie was’nae here when the captain was shot.”
“Ah, now I see what you mean. If he cannot produce Rosie to support his claim, he cannot prove it. That settles it,” Jack said. “We must set off for the border at once and, married or not, Rosie must come with us. We have to get her away from here, sir. Tonight.”
“But what of her reputation if she goes with you while you remain unwed?” Mr. Delacourt’s face was ashen with shock.
“You need not fear for her, Cousin Henry.” Martha surprised everyone, including herself with her next words. “She will be safe. I guarantee it…because I will go with them as well, as her chaperone.”
For Martha, the first two days of their journey had passed in a bleak blur of misty northern landscape. By the time they had gathered together what they needed for the journey, the midnight hour had been upon them. On leaving Delacourt Grange, they had travelled through the darkness and long into the next day until Derbyshire was a distant memory. Crossing the vast shire county of Yorkshire had taken several days, during which they had avoided the main turnpike roads and followed the canal-side tracks that led them past endless forests and dark, brooding hills. In determined silence, they had pressed onward through Durham. Now, as darkness was coming around again, they were on the soil of the ancient borderland where both Jack and Martha had been born. A light drizzle had welcomed them into Northumberland, and this had now become a steady downpour. The horses were bone tired and so were the four travellers. Jack had insisted on this strange, zigzag route across the country so that he could pass close to his estate at St. Anton.