Halfway Home, page 29
Oh, God in heaven, no. Please, no!
“What have you done with Hester and Maulsie and Simon?” she whispered.
Leaning back in his chair, Titus propped his hands behind his head. The stench that emanated from his body nearly caused her to gag, but she suppressed her revulsion. Titus was not only mad, he was dangerous. Her only chance of escape lay in lulling him into believing she would go with him willingly.
If she got up and sauntered casually past the far end of the table, she might be able to grab the knife before he could stop her. “I’ll need to pack a few things if I’m to go with you. Surely, you don’t expect me to leave in what I’m wearing.”
“Leave? Now why would we be leaving, sister Sara? Sweet sister Sara?”
“I’m not your sister,” she retorted, unable to help herself.
Ignoring her disclaimer, Titus rambled on about his plans for the future, which involved marrying Sara and taking over not only her inheritance from her grandfather, but Wilde Oaks, as well. “Louisa was poor. Poor, poor Louisa. Not only poor, but stupid and ugly. You, on the other hand, sweet, sassy sister Sara, are not quite so ugly; and now that Wilde has sold his ship, you’re a wealthy widow.”
“I’m not a wi—”
“Not wealthy? Ah, but you are,” he purred, his bright blue eyes glittering feverishly. “Thought I wouldn’t know about that, didn’t you? Can’t outsmart Titus, Sara. You should know that by now.” He waggled a finger in her face. His fingernails were dirty and ragged, which was somehow even more frightening than what he was saying. Titus, while he had never been one to wash where it didn’t show, had always taken great pride in being well-groomed in all the parts that did.
“Ladymore, y’know. Old sot told me everything.”
Ladymore? What on earth was a ladymore? “Titus, wouldn’t you like a cup of tea? Or coffee? Or perhaps some of our best brandy?”
If she could distract him for just a moment, she could knock him unconscious with the heavy iron kettle, or at least distract him long enough to run for help.
Jericho, come quickly!
And then her gaze fell on that wicked boning knife half hidden beneath the pile of laundry, and she thought, no! Oh, God, no, for he would walk right into a trap, all unsuspecting.
*
Jericho strode down the leaf-strewn lane, satisfied that he had hired a good man. The clogged ditches were already being dug out. Come planting time, the fields would be properly drained, and Moyer had five more men on board to commence clearing for early spring planting. Hired on just yesterday, they would be here within the week so that most of the work could be accomplished before winter came down hard. Their womenfolk would work up at the house, and according to Moyer, all save two who were breeding were strong, willing and capable.
Which was one hell of a lot more than could be said of Moyer’s own wife. That plump little pigeon was a beauty, all right—he could see how a man might be taken in by her looks. But she was a whining sort of female with more complaints than Brig had fleas. Before she’d even offered him the hospitality of the house, she had set in to carping about a chimney that didn’t draw properly and a door that hung crooked. The necessary was too far from the house, and although the cottage had four windows, every one of them was either too high, too small, or in the wrong place.
He understood now why Ivadelle Moyer had moved out and taken up residence in the main house. The cowshed would have been an improvement. At least the milker didn’t whine.
Rafe and Ivadelle, he mused, kicking up a flurry of damp leaves. Now, there was a pair to draw to. Either he’d be the making of her, or she’d be the ruination of him. Jericho didn’t particularly care which, although he would be forever grateful to the man for taking her off his hands.
Rafe had wanted Sara. Jericho hadn’t missed the way he still looked at her when he thought no one was watching. Nor had he been so far under the weather back at the Halfway Hotel that he had failed to notice how friendly the two of them were becoming. Even with the pain and the laudanum, he’d heard them laughing, whispering—heard the slap of cards and Sara’s hiccuping giggles whenever she won a trick.
Darling, Rafe had called her. The old jack-a-dandy fancied himself a great hand with the ladies. “Hothouse roses, my darling ass,” Jericho snorted. If Sara wanted flowers, why then, she would damned well have flowers. Jericho would bury her in flowers up to her armpits, if that was what she wanted.
And comfits. He would find a place that sold store-bought sweets and buy her a locker full. And jewelry, too. A ring, first off. Something wide, that would show up real well so that every man within range would know she was spoken for.
Under a pink and gray sunset, Jericho paused to watch a ragged formation of honkers fly over, headed for the nearby Currituck Sound. It was then that he heard Brig cutting up, making a noise that was part whine, part howl. “Chafing to go after them, aren’t you, old boy,” he murmured.
Maybe he would clean up that old fowling piece of his grandfather’s and go after a few himself. It had been a long time since he’d spent a day crouched down in a rush-covered dugout, waiting for a good shot.
Brig would enjoy it. Hell, he would enjoy it himself.
His boots were muddy when he came up onto the back porch. The road hadn’t had time to dry out since the rains. Jericho was contemplating taking them off outside to spare himself a good raking down by his housekeeper when the dog raced past him, trailing what looked to be a length of harness, to stand quivering at the back door.
“Here, boy, easy as she goes.” He laid a steadying hand on the old dog’s head. Harness leather? Who the devil would have tied him up with a strip of leather?
Who the devil would’ve tied him up at all?
Brig focused a pair of small imploring eyes on him and then went back to whining and twisting, trying to nose open the door. Jericho felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “Shhh, quiet, boy. Whatever it is, we’ll handle it.” Silently, he lifted the latch. The dog burst into the kitchen, circled the table twice, and hurled himself at the door that led to the hallway.
Jericho was more thorough. The kitchen was obviously empty. Not even a lamp was lit. He wet a finger and touched the range. It was warm, not hot. By rights there should be pots simmering on top and bread baking in the oven.
A spill of dried beans crunched under his boot sole. A chair lay on its side, another one was raked out away from the table. At the far end of the table and trailing down onto the floor was an untidy heap of laundry.
“Hester? Maulsie?” Jericho mouthed silently.
Sara. Dear God, he had sent her home alone.
He started to ease back out the back door and look in the shed to see if the gig was there, but he couldn’t leave. Something was wrong. And whatever it was, it was right here in the house. Brig knew it. He should have trusted the dog’s intelligence instead of wasting a single moment.
Moving silently in his damp-soled leather boots, Jericho nudged the dog aside and turned the cast-iron doorknob.
*
“It won’t be long now,” Titus announced gleefully. As if already seeing himself as lord of the manor, he was seated behind Jericho’s desk, drinking Jericho’s brandy, smoking one of Jericho’s thin, dark cigars. On the desk beside his right hand was Hester’s boning knife. He had used it to cut off the end of his cigar, used it again to trim a fingernail, and then amused himself by carving his initials in the gleaming mahogany surface of the desk.
Across the room, Sara tugged painfully at the cord that bound her wrists behind the back of the chair. Her ankles were secured to the chair legs, and Titus’s filthy cravat was tied so tightly across her mouth it was all she could do to keep from retching.
Her eyes were dry. She was too frightened, too furious to weep. Besides, Sara knew from past experience that tears only fueled whatever demons drove the mad, wicked creature. Titus wanted her to weep and to beg.
Jericho, stay away! He means to kill you!
“Hear that? He’s gone up the stairs to hunt for his pretty bride. Don’t you want to call him, Sara? Don’t you want to tell him where you are? Oh, but never mind. He’ll search under every stick of furniture. He’ll find you soon enough, won’t he, sweet sister Sara? And when he does . . .”
Titus picked up the knife, holding it by the tip of the blade. He frowned. “It ain’t balanced. I’ll aim for the heart, but I might as well tell you, Sara—sweet, sassy, silly sister Sara—like as not I’ll miss and spill his miserable guts all over your nice clean floor. It’ll be messy, Sara. You might want to shut your eyes.” He giggled, and then clapped a hand over his mouth. “Shhhh,” he whispered, and giggled again.
Sara thought she heard something right outside the door, but her heart was pounding so hard, she couldn’t be sure. And then Brig barked sharply and began to whimper. The door rattled as he hurled himself against it, but the latch held.
Sara prayed silently, fervently. Jericho, please, please listen to me. Lord, don’t let him come in here. Sooner or later, Titus will fall asleep. The way he’s drinking, he can’t last much longer.
Titus swore. “I tied that goddamned animal in the shed!”
Dear God, where were the others? What had he done to them? Were they in the shed, too? Bound hand and foot, the way she was? Sara couldn’t allow herself to believe he had murdered them.
“Shh, he’s coming downstairs now. Two steps at a time. I hope he don’t break his neck. I got plans . . .”
Brig began to growl, an ominous sound that was dredged from the depths of his massive chest. Then he began to howl. Sara had heard that high, keening sound once before, on the day she’d arrived at Wilde Oaks. She’d been standing beside Louisa’s grave at the time.
“Shut up! Stop that!” Titus jumped up, staggered, and knocked over the brandy decanter. He began to swear. “I should have killed that hellhound! I should have run him through with a pitchfork! I should’ve run them all through with a pitchfork! Do you know why I didn’t, sweet Sara?”
He lurched forward to where she sat bound and gagged. Swaying on his feet, his eyes wide and quite, quite mad, he told her. “Because I wanted to wait and let you watch me do it. Remember how you used to run screaming whenever I cut my finger and threatened to drip blood on you? You never could stand the sight of blood, could you, sweet sister Sara?”
It wasn’t the blood, you fool, it was you! I must have sensed right from the first that you were a monster!
Slowly, Titus lifted the blade and held it in front of her face. Crooning, he began to stroke the cold steel surface against her cheek. Sara shifted her weight in a frantic attempt to heave the chair over onto its side.
Suddenly the door burst open. She tried to voice a garbled warning through the strip of cloth that held her mouth wide open.
Reeling to face the door, Titus stared round-eyed down the barrel of Jericho’s dueling pistol. As the gun barrel rose, he shifted his grip on the boning knife, lifted his arm to throw, and then everything seemed to happen at once.
A streak of red fury flew through the air. There was the sound of a gun exploding. Someone screamed, and then Sara felt herself toppling just before she was buried under a ton of something heavy, wet and stinking.
*
They were seated in the front parlor. Jericho, Sara, Maulsie, Hester, and Big Simon. It was obvious that Simon felt acutely uncomfortable. He was not a parlor man. Seated on the edge of a chair, he stared down at the glass of brandy in his big, scarred hands as if it might be poison.
“We’re all agreed, then, that this needn’t go any farther than right here?” Jericho stood before the fireplace, looking pale and grim, but every inch the captain of this particular ship.
Sara, lying in state on the Beidermeier sofa, blew the hair off her forehead and eased down the coverlet that had her sweating up a storm. With everyone treating her as if she were on the verge of collapse, she’d been cosseted to a fare-the-well. It was a wonder she had even been allowed downstairs.
There was a ragged chorus of agreement from the assembled company. Nothing could be gained from having it told up and down the countryside that Titus had laid a trap for Jericho, using Sara as bait, and that the trap had been sprung prematurely when a red Chester duck dog with particular cause to hate him had torn out his throat before anyone could prevent it.
Jericho had shot the case clock off the mantel. He’d been aiming at Titus when Brig had knocked him off-balance. Sara couldn’t help but believe things had turned out for the best. As far as the authorities were concerned, Titus had broken into the house and thinking he was threatening Sara, the dog had attacked him. Brig would not be punished. Everyone knew that red Chester duck dogs were not vicious. Protective, yes. And somewhat territorial, but never vicious.
It was nearly midnight by the time everything had been settled and Titus’s body was on its way home. Simon had gone for Hiram Moyer, and Moyer had sent for Rafe Turbyfill, who, along with Jericho, had handled the details. Ivadelle had not come with her new husband.
Although whether or not the two of them were actually married was anyone’s guess, not that anyone even bothered to wonder.
“Poor Titus,” Sara said now with a sigh. “Poor Noreen. Do you think I should go and see her?”
“And tell her what? That her precious son was as crazy as a bedbug? That he was a murdering scoundrel who didn’t deserve to live?”
Sara sighed. She was propped up in bed, having been carried upstairs by Jericho despite her protests. He had stoked up the fire until it was blazing up a storm. “Oh, for mercy’s sake, Jericho, you’d think I’d been through a war or something! I’m perfectly all right!”
She might as well have saved her breath. He’d carried her to his own bed, not hers. He had told her that from now on that was where she was to sleep, which suited her just fine, indeed it did. He’d told her he planned to turn her bedroom into a big bathing room, with a double-sized copper bathtub and one of the new patented indoor necessaries.
Sara accepted her fate. He seemed bound and determined to smother her in something. He’d promised flowers in every room in the house, and she’d told him she would just as soon grow her own. He had promised sweets, and she’d told him that too many sweets made her break out in spots. He had mentioned jewelry, and she had said she would settle for a wedding band, which seemed to please him no end.
But a nice new oversize bathtub, that was different. That was only sensible.
Her mind drifted back to the previous night as she waited for him to finish hemming and hawing and move on to whatever was bothering him now. It had been a horrendous evening, and she, for one, was exhausted. Then, too, neither of them had had much sleep the night before.
“Mercy, was it only last night?” she murmured, which had the effect of stopping him in his tracks.
“Was what only last night?”
“Well . . . you know. Last night.”
“Was last night only last night? Sara, you’d better pull the covers up over your shoulders, I think you might be catching a chill.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I never caught a chill in my life! Now, will you please scatter those coals?”
Instead of pulling up the covers, she yanked them down around her waist. And then shoved them all the way down to her knees. “Rico, you’re going to have to stop trying to turn me into an invalid. There’s not a blessed thing wrong with me that a good night’s sleep won’t cure. As for all the awfulness, well . . .” Sighing, she turned to stare at the reflection of lamplight in the rippled surface of a windowpane. “We’ll simply have to put it behind us. I don’t know what else we can do, do you?”
Jericho came to sit on the edge of the bed. He was still dressed, but he had removed his coat, unbuttoned his shirt and turned back his sleeves. His muscular forearm lay dark and heavy across the white coverlet.
Boldly, Sara covered his hand with her own. For no real reason she could put her finger on, she felt suddenly secure in her position as Jericho’s wife. She loved him too much for him not to love her back. God wouldn’t be that unfair.
He turned his hand palm upward to clasp her own. “It’s over now, Sara.”
“I know. It wasn’t before, was it? Not truly.”
Shaking his head, he said, “No, it wasn’t. Louisa would have liked you.” He hiked himself up onto the bed and leaned back against the bolster. “Sara, do you believe in spirits?”
“You mean like brandy and rum? Or like ghosts?”
“Sailors are a superstitious lot. Not me, of course, but I’ve known seamen who wouldn’t sail on a ship after a man had died building her. Some won’t sail with a woman on board, and I had a first mate once who swore some woman wearing black veils came to him every time he stood the graveyard watch.”
She shuddered. “The graveyard watch?”
“Midnight to four of a morning.”
“With a name like that, I can’t much blame him for being fanciful.”
“I reckon none of us knows all there is to know,” he mused.
She waited for him to go on, afraid to lead, not quite daring to hope. “Mercy, no,” she murmured.
“Like what makes a body know that without a certain person beside him, the wind in his sails would die out, the stars he steers by would fade. Oh, he might not founder right off, but he’d probably drift for the rest of his days like some abandoned, rudderless hulk.”
Sara thought she had never heard anything so beautiful. She thought her heart would swell right up and explode. She thought that there were depths to this man she had married in such haste that would take a lifetime to discover.
“It’s a good thing,” she ventured, “that we’re in no great hurry to learn all the answers, isn’t it?”
Turning to her with a look in his dark eyes she had never seen before, he said quietly, “I reckon it is. I reckon we’ve got all the time in the world, and then some . . .”
