Lily

  He cut her off by grabbing a handful of the front of her dress and bringing her face close to his. His lips drew back from his teeth in a bestial snarl. “If Clay lives, I’ll see you hang. If he dies, I swear before God I’ll kill you myself.” With a vicious shove, he let her go. He yanked the key out, closed the door, and locked her in.

  “I’m afraid I can’t offer you much hope.” Dr. Penroy pulled the gore-spattered piece of toweling out of the waist of his immaculate black breeches and used it to wipe the blood from his hands. “I’ve removed the bullet and stopped the bleeding, but his chances of surviving are very slim, very slim indeed. Even if by some miracle he should recover, he’ll never be the same. The ball passed through part of his brain.” Lord Sandown didn’t answer; the doctor wondered for a moment if he’d heard. “I’m very sorry. There’s nothing more I can do, at least for now. I’ll come again in the morning to see how he is.”

  The doctor wiped his forehead with his sleeve and wondered how his lordship would take it if he asked for a brandy. “I’d advise you to leave him where he is now, on the sofa, and not attempt to move him. Keep him warm. You won’t be able to get any food into him, but you could try liquids.” Darkwell’s utter stillness began to unnerve him. “You can call in Marsh if you want, I’ve no objection,” he said, trying not to bluster. “But I daresay he’ll tell you exactly the same thing. I’m sorry,” he repeated. A minute passed. He straightened his wig with snuff-stained fingers, then went a step closer to the motionless figure standing in the shadows outside the library door. “I say, are you all right? Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” came a low response. “Get out.”

  Penroy drew himself up. He opened his mouth to speak, say something self-righteous and offended, and snapped it shut when he saw naked rage behind eyes that seemed to sizzle and spark in the dimness. “You’re upset,” he muttered, “naturally so. I’ll leave now, and come again tomorrow. Good night.” He went back into the library and picked up his surgeon’s case. He slanted a glance at the still figure stretched out under a blanket on the sofa, shook his head in a slight, hopeless gesture, and went out of the room through the terrace doors.

  Devon waited until he heard the doors close, then went into the library. Standing beside the sofa, he listened for the sound of Clay’s breathing. All he could hear was the sighing of the wind. He went closer. Penroy had put a bandage around his head. In flashes, a memory of the bleeding black gash assaulted Devon, and he dropped to his knees. He could feel his strength draining away, all the props that had kept him upright starting to split underneath him. He took Clay’s hand and held it. Tears he hadn’t shed since the day he’d cradled his son’s cold, lifeless body streaked down his face in a hot cascade.

  Don’t die. He clutched Clay’s hand harder, as if he could hold him back. But death was like a yawning mouth, gaping closer. Aghast, he felt its slow nearing. Don’t go. Terror of abandonment swamped him, made him tremble. Why had she shot him, why? The pitiless injustice of it ignited a barbarous emotion; he felt as if he’d been set on fire. A sudden pressure on his shoulder steadied him. He looked up and saw Cobb standing over him, his black-bearded face grim. Devon put his lips to Clay’s pale fingers for a moment, then stumbled to his feet.

  Cobb had a glass of cognac pressed between his chest and his handless wrist. He retrieved it with his right hand and held it out. “’E mayn’t die,” he muttered harshly. “Surgeon said he d’have a chance.”

  “Yes, a chance.” Devon held the glass to his lips, then lowered it without drinking.

  “He’m a strong lad.”

  “Yes.”

  Cobb took a long breath and looked away from the sofa. “I can take a message to your mother, if you d’ want. Leave now, be to Witheridge by—”

  “No. Thank you. Not yet, I don’t think. We’ll wait until tomorrow; we may … know something more then.”

  Cobb nodded heavily. “You did ought t’ rest some. Mrs. Carmichael can sit up wi’ him awhile. Says she knows some about doctorin’ and such.” Devon made no answer. “Is there anything you want me t’ do?”

  Devon stared at him for a full minute. Now was the time to send Cobb to Truro to fetch the constable. They would hold Lily in a cell until the magistrate—Devon—ordered her bound over for the assizes. She’d stay in the Bodmin gaol for the two months before her trial, and they would convict her—there was no question of her guilt. Then they’d hang her. She would die.

  It was what he wanted. It was all he wanted. Cobb shifted, waiting. Devon thought of the noose tightening around Lily’s throat, her eyes dilating with horror. He remembered the night he’d found her in her room, beaten and broken, and how he’d wanted to take all her pain into himself, because she was precious to him. He remembered Clay’s kindness to her. The money in her tin trunk. Clay’s blank, staring eyes. The message in Clay’s hand.

  “Sir?”

  He drank the brandy down in three bitter swallows. “No, there’s nothing. Tell Mrs. Carmichael to stay with Clay.” He thrust the glass into Cobb’s hand, unaware of the nearly rabid look that had come into his face. He’d made a decision, or the beginnings of one. He would not have her arrested, could not, for reasons he didn’t understand. But she had a hold on him—not love, not anymore—and the hold was strong, and he was going to make her pay for it. If Clay died, he might kill her; he didn’t know. If he lived, she might wish that he had.

  He walked out, leaving Cobb staring, and moved steadily toward the stairs.

  He turned the key in the lock of her door slowly, imagining her fear, smiling. He pushed the door open just as slowly and swept the room with a glance. Empty. Impossible—she must be hiding. The thought pleased him, made his vicious smile widen. He stepped inside. He hoped she was cowering under the bed because it would be such a pleasure to drag her out, hearing her whimper and plead for mercy. He would show her as much mercy as she’d shown Clay.

  But she wasn’t under the bed. Behind the curtains, then—shaking with dread, praying he wouldn’t—he saw the broken glass on the floor, under the sash, and went toward it numbly. She’d shut the casement and broken it out, made a larger opening. No! She couldn’t have jumped, it would kill her! Clutching the frame, unaware of pain as the jagged edges cut into his palms, he leaned from the window and gaped down at the dark shrubbery fourteen feet below.

  Nothing.

  He whirled, growling like an animal, beating down the sick relief. He was halfway to the door when he noticed the tin trunk on the bed—with the money on top, exactly as he’d left it. Or was it? Was some missing? But why hadn’t she taken it all?

  He ran from the room, down the stairs, out the door. As he rounded the house for the stables, he saw Cobb hurrying toward him.

  “I don’t know what it can mean, but I thought you did ought t’ know,” he started before Devon reached him, breathing hard.

  “What?”

  “The girl called Lily has runned away on a horse. Stableman give it to ‘er.”

  Shouting a wild, incoherent curse, Devon shoved Cobb out of the way and made a dash for the stables.

  MacLeaf was coming out of the tack room holding a broken bridle. He halted when he saw the master coming toward him with blood in his eyes. His face turned as red as his hair, and the harness slipped from his fingers. He took a sideways step toward the corridor between the stalls that led to the rear door, but it was as far as he got. Leaping across the straw-strewn floor, Devon seized him in a violent grip and hurled him against a stall door. The mare inside screamed, striking the rails with her side.

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Devon struck him in the mouth. He fell sideways, but sprang up immediately and darted for the door. Devon tripped him and he went sprawling. Small and fast, he was on his feet again and had taken two steps toward freedom when Devon grabbed his shirt and hauled him back. “Where is she?”

  “She ran! She was scairt! Said ee’d kill ‘er!”

/>   “Where?”

  “I don’t know!”

  He used the back of his hand to smash across MacLeaf’s face; the force of the blow sent him flying across the floor. Before he could get up, Devon caught him and hit him again. MacLeaf’s back slammed against the door to his own small room, and he fell inside. Devon followed. Straddling him, he wrapped his hands around his neck.

  MacLeaf pummeled Devon’s chest and belly, with panicky fists, but Devon didn’t feel the blows. As if he himself were being strangled, his blood pounded in his throat and his ears, his eyes, blinding him, blotting out everything but fury. Someone was shouting at him, but the words were a meaningless howl. He felt the tearing of his hair from his scalp, then a blow to the side of his face. He gave a roar and tightened his grip. Something sharp struck the back of his head and he pitched forward, enraged, flailing against darkness and nausea. He hauled himself upright and found MacLeaf’s throat with scrabbling fingers, just as a heavy, stunning weight hurtled against him, knocking him to his side.

  It was Cobb who lay on top of him, holding his arms; Devon cursed him, then broke off his words to struggle in earnest when he saw MacLeaf—choking, tears streaming down his face—jackknife to his feet and stagger to the door. Devon made a last desperate attempt to shake Cobb off, and got a hard knee in the abdomen for his trouble. He lost his breath and doubled up.

  When he felt he could stand, he stumbled up, and immediately lurched against the wall. Nausea returned; he touched his fingers to the back of his head and felt the sticky wetness of blood. Nearby on the floor lay a pitchfork.

  Cobb had collapsed on the cot, limp arms hanging between his knees. “I’m sorry,” he got out, panting. “You’d’ve killed him. I had to stop it.” His hair was wild, his face above his fierce black beard a mottled red.

  Devon said nothing.

  “I’ll ride for Truro now, fetch constable.”

  “Why?”

  Cobb looked up. “That girl—she must’ve shot Clay. She runned away, she—”

  “Leave it. Say nothing of this, Cobb, to anyone.”

  Cobb stood up, tall and lanky, anger and bewilderment darkening his harsh features. His good hand clenched into a fist. “But she must be found!”

  “I’ll find her.”

  “And punished!”

  A ghastly smile split Devon’s white, haggard face. “Don’t worry,” he said, and the clipped savagery in his voice gave his words the cadence of a blood oath. “I’ll punish her.”

  Twenty

  “AH, LILY, THERE YOU are. Feeling better now?”

  “Yes, Cousin, much, thank you. I was just dizzy for a few minutes, that’s all. From all the excitement, I expect.”

  “Of course. You look lovely,” Roger Soames added with a false, square-toothed smile.

  Now he was lying; she looked dreadful and she knew it, had said as much to the wan reflection in her bedroom mirror not five minutes ago. But for reasons she was apparently never going to understand, her cousin was as anxious as she to ignore what was obvious and pretend that nothing was amiss. She wondered what Lewis made of it all, but had reconciled herself to ignorance on that score forever: her betrothed was a man of few words—at least to her—and what he thought of her or of his father’s unaccountable eagerness for them to marry were mysteries she would never uncover.

  “Have you met Mr. and Mrs. Blayney?” Soames asked, introducing her to a middle-aged, richly dressed couple whose formal smiles could not quite hide their avid curiosity. What an odd gathering, Lily thought for the second or third time, smiling back at the Blayneys with all the friendliness she could muster. The guests at this “informal” wedding-eve entertainment in Cousin Soames’s new home were a strange assortment to Lily’s mind, a highly curious mix of the fashionable and unfashionable, the secular and the devout. Mr. Blayney, it developed, was a banker. But Mr. McComas, whom she’d met just before a wave of illness had forced her to murmur an excuse and retreat to her room, was a preacher, a disciple of Mr. Wesley, like Soames, and there were others here like him.

  Soames’s house hadn’t been what she’d expected when she’d arrived here three weeks ago. It seemed too large and sumptuous for the dwelling of a humble man of the cloth, an itinerant preacher of repentance and damnation. It was new, made of brick, L-shaped and two-storied, with a fine rear courtyard in the angle of the L planted with flowers and shrubbery and fruit trees. It was here that the pre-wedding festivities were going on—thank God; she couldn’t have endured the stuffiness of an indoor party tonight—and where there was to be even more frivolity after the wedding ceremony tomorrow morning.

  Soames himself was even more of an enigma. He was a man of God, a minister with a sizable “flock” of souls he was hell-bent on saving. And yet she couldn’t believe in him. For all his outward rectitude, his worldliness showed through, at least to Lily. In fact, the longer she knew him, the more convinced she became that his strongest spiritual asset was his voice—a truly compelling instrument he used to good effect. Even in ordinary speech she was struck by the range and beauty of it and the variety of emotions it could evoke. She could imagine sinners falling to their knees in a rush to repent when that voice exhorted them, or the already-redeemed weeping with joy when it described the ineffable peace and happiness waiting for them in God’s heaven.

  She spied Lewis across the way; they nodded to each other decorously. Her fiancé conformed much better than his father to her image of the stern and humorless clergyman. Speaking to Lewis, she sometimes had the wild notion that he was watching hellfire flickering just over her shoulder. With a small sinking feeling, she saw that he was coming to speak to her now.

  “Lily,” he intoned, bowing slightly.

  “Lewis. Are you having a nice time?”

  His heavy brows went up, as though he found the question faintly unsuitable, or at least irrelevant. “Are you?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I’m glad. But you must be hungry. Come, my mother has put the food out.”

  Lily excused herself from Cousin Soames and the Blayneys and went with Lewis toward the long wooden tables across the way, where Mrs. Soames and the servants had indeed laid out a feast. There were hot pasties, cold tongue and partridge, cakes and jellies, syllabubs and fruit, punch and wines. Lily could hardly bring herself to look at it, much less eat any of it. But Lewis prepared her a plate, and to please him she pushed the food around on it with her fork, even touched some to her lips. It was kind of him to take care of her this way, she thought with a twinge of guilt, since he himself had been fasting for the last two days in preparation for their marriage. With weak and weary chagrin, she contemplated this man she didn’t love and hardly knew, whom she would marry in the morning. He was truly devout, about which she had mixed feelings. At least he wasn’t a hypocrite like his father, but what kind of wife would she make for Lewis, and what sort of life could they have together?

  Last night he had confided to her his dream, his “vision” as he’d called it, that God wanted him to go to Wales and preach His gospel to the poor coal miners. Lily’s first reaction had been a kind of subdued horror over the bleak prospect. But her dread had faded, and now any feeble unwillingness she might feel was buried under indifference and inertia. If Lewis had told her that God wanted him to hunt whales in the North Sea, she would have followed passively and tried her best to be a good whaler’s wife. She simply didn’t care. She’d stopped caring the night Devon had shoved her against a wall and told her that she’d shot his brother.

  She’d stolen a horse and enough money to pay for coach fare back to Lyme Regis. During every minute of the nightmarish journey, she’d expected him to ride up and stop her—and then kill her, or beat her, or at least arrest her. In Lyme, Mrs. Troublefield had taken her in. She’d already forwarded a letter to Lily in Cornwall, she told her. From Exeter? Yes—so Lily knew it must be from Soames. She’d written to him immediately, saying she’d missed his letter, would he please write again? She told him she reg
retted what had happened and thanked God he was all right. If he could find it in his heart to forgive her, and if by some miracle Lewis still had any affection for her at all, she would be honored to become his wife.

  Soames had written back by return mail. All was forgiven; come at once. He’d even enclosed money for her to hire a post chaise.

  Three weeks had passed since then. The banns had been published, the wedding would take place tomorrow. Soames’s haste had appalled her at first, until she’d considered how perfectly it accorded with her own secret needs. Need, rather; she only had one now: to give the child she was carrying a father.

  “Are you feeling better, dear?”

  “Thank you, yes, Mrs. Soames, I’m perfectly all right now.” Soames’s wife, Ruth, was a silent, pathetic woman, small and self-effacing, who spoke in shy bursts of speech and then turned away or looked down to hide some inexplicable embarrassment. Lily had hardly gotten a hundred words out of her since she’d arrived. She was completely cowed by her husband, who ignored her except to give her gruff orders. But she’d been kind to Lily in her bashful way, and for that she would always be grateful. Lily began to tell Mrs. Soames what a lovely party it was and how delicious the food tasted, when Soames and a man she hadn’t noticed before bore down on them.

  “Lily, Lewis, will you come inside for a moment?” Soames asked, smiling jovially. It wasn’t an invitation they could refuse, since he had a hand on their shoulders and was propelling them toward the house as he spoke. “This is Mr. Witt,” he added belatedly, indicating the gentleman with him. “He has some papers for you to sign—you know how lawyers are. The merest formality, and then you can go back to our guests.”

  “What sort of papers. Father?” asked Lewis once they were in Soames’s study, a large, dark-paneled chamber lined with shelves of new-smelling books and decorated—rather incongruously for a clergyman, Lily thought—with hunting prints.

  “Just a formality,” Soames repeated; “the signing over of the dowry.”