Dangerous to Hold (39 page)

Though they’d come at different times and by different routes, Catherine and
El Grande
had both left their mounts at the livery stable in the village of Hampstead. Now, with dawn beginning to appear on the horizon, they felt safe enough to walk openly along the lane that led to Hampstead.

When Catherine saw
El Grande’s
mount, she shook her head. “Where did you get that old nag?”

He smiled at her dry tone. “The brothers don’t go in for English thoroughbreds, but Excalibar is no nag. Looks can be deceiving. He suits me very well.” He tightened the girth, then stood looking at her when she made no move toward her own horse. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

“No.”

“I think you should. I think you should give Wrotham’s temper time to cool. If you see him now, you’ll say things you’ll both regret.”

“I can’t leave him, Robert, not like this. I must make him understand. Will you do something for me? Will you go to Woodside House in Chelsea and tell Amy that everything is all right here? You can’t miss the house. It’s at the end of the road to the parish church. You’d better be careful though. The footmen are armed.”

“Why are the footmen armed, and why is Amy there?”

She explained everything about the attack on Amy and Marcus. He made no comment, but his face was gray and stern.

He said, “I’ll wait for you here in case you need me. If you’re not back in thirty minutes, I’ll leave without you.”

It was only a five-minute walk to the house. She didn’t enter at once, but turned away to look out over the heath. It wasn’t Marcus’s last remark that scourged her—
What if you’d been wrong?
—but the one he’d made before that—
So you are both in it.
It seemed he would never
trust her. When it came down to it, he would always think the worst of her.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, looking into a world that was veiled in shadows, shadows that found an echo deep inside her, but finally she turned and made for the French doors.

As she entered the house, she automatically squared her shoulders. Marcus was standing by the fireplace. When he saw her, all the color drained from his face. “I though you’d got away,” he said. “I though you’d gone with
El Grande.
Why the hell did you have to come back?”

She took a few steps into the room then stood stock-still when Marcus’s eyes jerked to a point behind her. When a voice called her name, a voice she recognized, all her senses sharpened and she could feel the fine hairs on her skin begin to rise.

“Or should I say
Catalina”
said the voice again, and she turned slowly to face the man behind her.

Marcus’s cousin, David Lytton, was only a few feet away, and he was pointing her own pistol straight at her. In his other hand, he held Marcus’s pistol.

“Not you, David. Not you.” She was stunned, and put a hand on the back of a chair to steady herself. It couldn’t be him. It didn’t make sense.

“Where is
El Grande?”
he demanded.

“He left, but—”

“Quiet!”

They stood stock-still while David Lytton listened intently. Satisfied that Catherine had returned alone, he said, “What were you doing?”

“We had a lot to talk about,” she said. “He’s—”

An angry gesture from David silenced her. He was listening again, as though he’d just heard a sound from beyond the French doors.

Catherine’s brain was still reeling, and her heart was pounding so hard she was sure the others must hear it.
She was trying to get a grip on herself, weighing her options, wondering what to do next, and she was sure Marcus was doing the same.

After a moment, David relaxed and propped himself against the desk. “Do you know,” he said, “I couldn’t have arranged things better myself? I’m obliged to you, Marcus, for pressing me into service tonight. I really didn’t want to escort your mother and sister to Lady Heathcote’s party, but how could I refuse with Tristram back at Oxford and when you’ve been so very, very kind to me? I was desperate to come here, of course, but the delay served me well. I never suspected a trap. How fortunate for me that
El Grande
walked into it. I didn’t even know he was in England. I don’t mind telling you that I had a few unquiet moments there. I thought I’d have only Miss Courtnay to deal with. I certainly wasn’t prepared to take three of you on. Then, just as I was debating what to do-—exit Miss Courtnay and
El Grande.
Oh, this is perfect. When they find your bodies, who else will they suspect but
El Grande?”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Catherine said. “Marcus, what is going on?”

Marcus said, “David was just about to enter the house when
El Grande
arrived. He’s been hovering in the garden while we entertained him with our little drama. This is our unknown Rifleman, Cat, only he wasn’t a Rifleman. He came out to Portugal with the sole purpose of killing me. He discovered my movements and followed me. I wasn’t shot by the French. David shot me. It was his bad luck to be surprised by a running skirmish between an English and French patrol before he could finish me off. Then
El Grande’s
partisans came on the scene, and that was that.”

“And he told you all this?” she asked incredulously.

“You might say we were killing time, waiting to see if you’d gone for good.”

David cut off Marcus’s explanations. “Was
El Grande
mounted or was he on foot?”

“He was mounted.” She wasn’t sure if that answer was to her advantage, but she could see that he was uneasy, thinking that
El Grande
might be lurking about.
“You won’t get away with this.
El Grande
is waiting for me. I only came back to say goodbye to Marcus.”

David smiled. “You would say that, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Good try, but I heard everything. He won’t be coming back.”

She sensed that David wanted to make sure
El Grande
was well beyond earshot before killing them both. That bought them a few more minutes. Marcus was too far away to take David by surprise. She had to get closer to him and try to catch him off guard. If only she could keep him talking while she edged closer to him.

“I suppose,” she said, looking at David, “you want my journals and sketches? Well, they are not here. They’re in a place where you will never find them.”

“Another good try,” he said, “but I repeat, I heard everything. There’s nothing important in your journal and I know you don’t have a portrait of me or you would have recognized me when we were first introduced.”

“Marcus,” she said, without turning around, “why does your cousin want to kill us?”

“That,” said Marcus, “has yet to be revealed.”

David said, “I was so deathly afraid that you would have worked it out by now. That’s why I fanned the rumor that was going around about the Spanish vendetta. I wanted to keep you guessing.”

“You succeeded,” said Marcus. “But you haven’t answered Catherine’s question.”

“Because I’m your heir, old boy.”

Marcus stared at him wordlessly, then exclaimed, “That’s preposterous!”

“Yes, shocking, isn’t it? No one was more surprised than I when I discovered the truth. My father used to boast about it when I was a boy, but I didn’t believe him. I thought it was the drink speaking. Then, when he died, I fell heir to a box of papers and letters that can prove my claims.”

“What letters?” asked Marcus.

“Letters from your father to my father. I must thank you for a very informative evening.” He was looking at
Catherine. “You know, you were quite safe until you published the article about
El Grande’s
base.”

Marcus said, “Who told you that Catherine wrote the article for
The Journal?”

“No one told me. I worked it out. Oh yes, I knew about Catherine Courtnay, knew you were seeing her, Marcus. But it was only after the article was published that I realized she and Catalina must be one and the same person. There was no English girl at
El Grande’s
base, unless she was posing as someone else. And at Wrotham, when I finally got a clear view of Catalina, it seemed strange to me that she had fair skin and blue eyes. I even mentioned it to her, and she told me she had an English ancestor. Everything came together in my mind when I read the article. Catalina had to be the English girl who rode with the partisans, and I had to get rid of Catalina.”

Catherine burst out,
“You
put that broken lantern on the tower stairs!”

He acknowledged this with a slight inclination of his head. “I thought you were pregnant. The last thing I wanted, after everything I’d worked for, was for you to give Marcus a new heir.”

“I wasn’t pregnant.”

“It was quite a blow when you suddenly returned to Spain. But you hadn’t gone back to Spain, had you? You were here in Hampstead. When I first followed Marcus out here, I didn’t know what to make of the English girl with red hair who had the face of Catalina. I thought you might be Marcus’s mistress and that he’d chosen you because you looked like Catalina.”

“It was you!” she cried. “On Hampstead Heath, when I was with Emily. You were following me!”

“I had to know how you came into the picture. So, I made inquiries.” He smiled. “I probably know more about you now than Marcus does. He was very wise to hide you away from me, but very foolish to allow you to write about the partisans. It told me all I needed to know. You are Marcus’s wife. There’s no point in denying it. When I heard you with
El Grande
tonight, all my doubts were resolved. Not that it makes any difference. You know too much.”

“You attacked Marcus in Hyde Park and in Pall Mall?”

“I did.”

“And you were lying in wait for me that night, after Emily’s party.”

“Oh no. I didn’t know you were Catalina then. I was lying in wait for Marcus and would have had him, too, if you hadn’t turned up.”

Marcus said acidly, “And damn near had me on Amy Spencer’s doorstep!”

David smiled. “Pall Mall is perfect. It’s so well lit. And there’s always a crush of people and coaches coming and going.”

“But you failed,” said Marcus.

David’s smile vanished. “I won’t fail now,” he said.

Catherine could tell that the waiting was over, that David was confident now that
El Grande
was too far away to hear the sound of a gunshot—two gunshots. Inching closer to him, she said, “Would you satisfy my curiosity about one more point, David? Would you tell me please why it was necessary to kill all the English soldiers who were with you at
El Grande’s
base?”

“Can’t you work that out?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. You’ve been too clever for us all along.”

He smiled at this. “Marcus almost had it when he told
El Grande
that he was preparing for something that would happen soon, that he thought
El Grande
was killing everyone who knew his identify. Where Marcus went wrong was in thinking
El Grande
had a motive. I’m the one with the motive.”

Marcus said, “I understand the part about being my heir. If what you say is true, getting rid of me would mean the title passes to you. But that still doesn’t explain why you killed all my comrades.”

David clicked his tongue. “You’re not thinking, Marcus. I told you I wasn’t really a Rifleman. I stole that uniform from a dead man during the confusion, just before
El Grande
rescued me. The only reason that the other Rifleman did not expose me as a fraud was because he was blackmailing me. He signed his own death war
rant, as did your friends because they saw my face. We were kept in close quarters. I lied to them through my teeth. I wasn’t even using my own name. Until I had rid myself of them, I couldn’t dare show my face in London as David Lytton. I had to kill every one of them before I killed you and came into the title.”

“You killed Freddie Barnes,” Marcus said harshly. “And all the others.”

David seemed to be smiling at some private recollection. “Ah yes, Freddie. It’s a long story and I won’t bore you with all the details. Let’s just say your friend Freddie turned up in the sort of place where I never expected to see your friends. We formed a friendship. I told him some cock-and-bull story which he believed. Freddie was very useful to me for a time.”

Catherine sensed that Marcus was doing something at her back and to distract David she cried out, “But what about the partisans? They saw you and would recognize you again.”

“But they’re not in England, my dear Catalina, and I shall certainly make a point of avoiding Spain like the plague.”

“What about
El Grande?”

“He may have caught a glimpse of me once. He wouldn’t recognize me again.”

Several things happened at once. As Marcus lunged, David Lytton pulled the trigger of the pistol in his left hand. Marcus staggered, then fell to the floor. Before the smoke had cleared, Catherine launched herself at David, trying to wrest her own pistol from his right hand. She heard Marcus moan as he pulled to his feet just as David shook her off. He was taking aim at Marcus again. In desperation, she reached over and grabbed a letter opener from the desk. She brought her arm up in an arc and, with every ounce of her strength, struck at him.