A Masquerade in the Moonlight (46 page)

Ralph took another step forward, and suddenly there was a pistol in his hand. “Not our goal, William—my goal. I don’t need you anymore. What good were you anyway? Keeping to the background, just so that you can step forward at the end and scoop up the lion’s share of the profits, not to mention all the glory? Just as it always was, William—you as the head and we the arms and legs, doing all the work, taking all the risks. Well, no more. You and your whore of a consort will have nothing—and I will have it all.” He smiled again, and this time his smile wasn’t simply distasteful, it was frighteningly triumphant. “And I’ll have it all
forever
.”

William’s hands balled into fists, but he kept his tone even. “Again with this strange obsession with Marguerite. I truly don’t know what you’re talking about. And lower that pistol, please, before you hurt yourself.”

Ralph moved even closer, the pistol looming large in his hand. “Marguerite. Your so pure, so innocent Marguerite. If she’s a virgin, I’m a Dutchman! God save me from the ravings of a man grown too old to recognize an obsession. She’s been tipped on her heels by our dear American friend Donovan. I saw them together, that night you sent me chasing after the American when he left Richmond. I just didn’t tell you, did I? Oh, you look surprised, William. But why? He as good as announced his intentions every time we met. He wanted her, and he got her. She’s Victoria’s daughter, remember. Balfour females seem to have a penchant for throwing themselves away on inferiors. It is not every woman who shares your high opinion of yourself.”

Laleham felt his head beginning to pound. “Liar. You’ve overstepped yourself this time, Ralph. I’ve put up with your foolishness, your dark moods, your endless line of soothsayers. Oh, yes, I know about them—your ridiculous superstitions, your womanish fear of death. I know everything about you, Ralph, about
all
of you. How else has it been so lamentably easy for me to use you? But now you’ve gone too far. You’ll pay for this insult. You’ll pay dearly.”

“Aren’t you waxing fairly ferocious for a man looking down the barrel of a pistol, Willie?” Ralph asked, leaning against the back of a small wooden chair, appearing relaxed and at his ease. Too at his ease. Too relaxed.

William looked down and noticed Ralph was standing on a small rug. He cocked his head to one side. “True enough. I don’t know what came over me. Let’s talk about this, Ralph,” he crooned smoothly, deliberately trading belligerence for a compromising attitude. “We’ve been friends for too long to argue. What do you want? You want to have more power? It can be arranged, now that it’s just the two of us. You know I’ve always planned it that way. The others—they became superfluous the moment their clerks wrote the orders to transfer the goods, the money. And you’ve already signed the orders for your ship captains, haven’t you, so that everything is ready to go once we have the letter from the American? Of course. I shouldn’t have had to ask. Good man, so handy with details. With my ideas and your ability to organize, we have all but won already. There’s more than enough for us to share once the empire begins to crack and I step forward to save it. Remember, Ralph. I’m the one with the claim to the throne. I’m the one with royal blood.”

“Ha! From the wrong side of the blanket. You’ve no more claim to any throne than I do.”

“Again, true enough,” William conceded with some effort, watching Ralph closely. It was important to keep him talking. He had never respected Ralph, and now he despised him. He couldn’t let his hate cloud his judgment, for his clear head was what had kept him above the rest of them for so long. “That, too, was said only to impress our three departed idiots. But I am the one with the largest fortune in hand
now
—not in some nebulous future. I’m the one with the skills necessary to eloquently state our case in Parliament for George’s forced abdication. I’m the one who can rally the people with my eloquent speeches, my considerable consequence—my private army, if need be. Cromwell did it with less. But you can’t do that, Ralph, it simply isn’t in you. You’re a good man, but slow, and plodding, and eminently forgettable. Those are your charms, Ralph, and they have served us both well, but they will not raise you up to power. No one will listen to you.”

The pistol wavered slightly. “I’m different now. Changed. I’ve been like a dead man all these years—since you forced me to be your accomplice the night you killed Geoffrey.”

“Forced you, Ralph?” Laleham raised one eyebrow in mock surprise. “Hardly. You knew it had to be done. He was going to inform on us, condemn us as traitors. We couldn’t have let him go, now could we?”

“Royal blood, now Cromwell—anything at all that ends with you ruling all of Great Britain, eh, Willie? You can’t even keep your lies straight anymore. Here’s the real truth. One way or another, you wanted Geoffrey dead so you could have Victoria for yourself. You never gave up that dream, did you, but have now just substituted the daughter instead? Madness! Cold, cruel, so insane you somehow appear as the sanest among us.” Ralph had the pistol once more firmly pointed at the earl’s chest even as he’d continued to recline against the back of the chair. “You used Geoffrey, you used me—all of us! For what? Victoria’s dead, and her daughter’s a slut. A
slut
! All these years, serving your twisted dreams, your mad schemes for fortune and glory until you’ve actually begun to believe them. You’re mad, Willie, Bedlam bait. But what would never work for you will work for me, so thank you very much. It’s my turn now, all the way to eternity.”

William dropped to his knees and yanked at the carpet, sending Ralph crashing to the floor, the pistol skittering off across the highly polished wood, out of reach. He was on top of Ralph within a heartbeat, his fingers buried in the smaller man’s hair, pounding his head repeatedly against the parquet floor as he knelt on his chest.

He didn’t stop until Ralph went limp beneath him, beaten into unconsciousness, then stood, wiping his hand across his mouth, looking around him for something, some weapon that would finish the job. Not the pistol. It was too noisy for one thing—too messy, for another. And it shouldn’t look like murder. He didn’t wish there to be an investigation of the death. The way there had been no investigation into Geoffrey’s death.

That thought brought a smile to Laleham’s face and, as he adjusted his cuffs, not liking that he might have wrinkled his sleeves in his exertion, he looked about the room until he saw the stout silken cords holding the draperies.

Working quickly, he took cords from three of the windows and knotted all but one of them together. Then, in lieu of an elaborate noose, he tied a large knot in the center of the end loop he had made for Ralph’s head. The pressure of Ralph’s hanging body pressing the knot into his windpipe should shorten the man’s final dance. The last cord secured Ralph’s hands tightly behind his back.

It took several attempts, but he finally managed to toss one end of the makeshift rope up and over one of the curved arms of the chandelier. Using the chair Ralph had been leaning against as a crude stepstool, he was then able to snare the dangling end and pull it down until he could hold onto to both ends. He kicked away the chair, to see if the chandelier could hold the weight of his body.

Perfect.

He hefted Ralph’s slighter, still unconscious body onto the up-righted chair, balancing it there with his knee pressed against his victim’s chest, and slipped the noose around his neck, positioning the knot just below Harewood’s prominent Adam’s apple.

Swiftly, his mind racing, he measured the distance between himself and the large, iron handle that operated the damper on the fireplace. That handle would be his goal. All he had to do was reach it.

Now came the difficult part. He rubbed his hands together briskly, trying to marshal all his strength, congratulating himself for all his care of his still strong and muscular body, then took hold of the other end of the rope, wrapped it twice around his left hand, and began to pull with all his might.

Slowly, the silken, slippery cord began to slide over the arm of the chandelier, lifting Ralph’s weight off the chair, which toppled most conveniently, jerking the knotted noose tight around the man’s neck.

He hadn’t realized an unconscious body could be so heavy, but with his back turned to Ralph and the knotted lengths of cording over his shoulder—like a peddler carrying his sack—William was able at last to take one step, then two, raising Ralph from his prayer-like position on his knees until only the tips of his shoes still remained on the floor.

And then Ralph came awake, and immediately realized his dilemma. “No! This can’t happen! He prom—”

Laleham gave another mighty tug on the drapery cord rope.

Ralph began to kick, reaching with all his might for the floor, garbled sounds coming from his mouth. But no more screams. He couldn’t scream. Not with the knot pushing into his gullet.

William turned around, bracing his feet against the floor and leaning backwards as he continued to pull on the cord, watching with considerable, if detached, interest as Ralph’s normally dim complexion turned first red, then blue, as the kicking increased before finally subsiding. Until all he saw were the man’s bulging eyes, stark with terror... then flat with death.

Only three inches separated Sir Ralph Harewood from the floor when his life ended. Three extraordinarily important inches.

The earl struggled forward, finally reaching the fireplace, and with his last strength tied the cord to the damper handle, then sat down on the floor, laboring to regain his breath.

It was over.

How considerate Ralph had been to send his servants away. That action smacked of a planned suicide. All that was missing was a farewell note—short and to the point.

Forcing himself to his feet, Laleham crossed to the desk and began searching it for a sheet of paper he could use to pen his dead friend’s suicide note. But every paper he picked up had already been written on and marked with yesterday’s date. Every one of them. Written on, and splotched with ink, and—what? tears?—and then written over again, on yet another sheet. What on earth could Ralph have been doing to have scribbled so much?

He took up the papers and headed for his wineglass, giving Ralph’s belly a playful nudge as he passed by it, setting the body to swinging, then sat down and began to read.

He read slowly at first, chuckling under his breath as he saw the words “Shield of Invincibility,” then more rapidly, his smile fading. He sat forward on the couch, one hand to his throat as he continued to read, never stopping until he came to the last paragraph:

And so I vow, on my most sacred oath, that this is my full confession, given freely, as Maxwell says it must be. I am now released from my old life and ready to enter into the world of the reborn, the world of eternal life, and I will deliver this confession to Maxwell tonight at midnight, and he will use it to expunge my sins. I feel so free, so full of life—and I will live forever! Now I cannot die
!

Laleham looked up at Harewood’s lifeless, still slightly swinging body. “You fool,” he bit out through his clenched teeth. “You stupid,
stupid
fool!”

He gathered up all of the papers, then threw them into the fireplace, raising the flames with a poker. Every plan. Every scheme. Everything they had done over all the years. Written down, but not cast in stone.

Except these were rough drafts, filled with scratchings and rewritten sentences. He knew Ralph—had
thought
he knew Ralph—and the man was meticulous. There was also a finished copy, the copy he had already handed over to this man, this charlatan—this
Maxwell
. He had to have already handed it over, and believed himself protected by his asinine Shield of Invincibility, or else he would never have had the temerity to face his betters with a pistol in his hand.

“Who’s Maxwell?” he asked, pacing the length of the room, pausing only to hit at Harewood’s body, wishing the man back to life just long enough to tell him what he’d done, wishing him alive again so he could kill him again for his superstitions, his gullibility—his ridiculous, dangerous, obsession with death. “Couldn’t die, huh? Invincible, were you?” he jibed, giving Harewood’s legs a kick. “Stupid, sorry bastard!”

William quickly ransacked the desk, careful not to disturb anything, just to be sure there weren’t any other copies of the confession, retrieved his belongings, then stood at the doorway, surveying the room one last time, not caring there would be no suicide note for Ralph’s servants to discover along with the body.

Lord knew there had been more than enough notes already. Most important was the original confession Ralph had turned over to this man, this Maxwell, a clever trickster who undoubtedly now knew all Ralph’s secrets, all of William Renfrew’s secrets. Ralph’s association with Maxwell hadn’t been accidental; William knew it in his bones. Someone had wanted Ralph to write that confession. Someone had wanted Ralph to tumble. Wanted him, William Renfrew, Earl of Laleham, to tumble along with him.

Oh, yes. He was convinced of it now.

Two might be considered coincidence.

Three could only be seen as highly questionable.

But four—with the chance of snaring a fifth?

That is a plot.

Then he thought of Marguerite, thought about what Ralph had said about Marguerite. Was it true? Could she have betrayed him—and with that arrogant, uncouth American!

It was falling apart. Just as everything should be falling into place, it was all falling apart.

Perry had run away. Stinky was in prison. Arthur was in disgrace. Ralph—Ralph was dead.

He, William, was the only one left.

Donovan? No, there would be no reason for the American to do this. He had nothing to gain. Besides, whoever had done this, planned this, executed this, had to have known those four men well enough to have pinpointed their weaknesses, then preyed on them successfully.

Then who? Who knew them all so well? Who else could possibly want to see them destroyed? Who else had been with all four men, talked with them, then watched, laughing, as they came to grief? Because the person had watched, and not from a distance. No one plans such public humiliations and is not there to watch.