The Deadly Embrace (31 page)

“I have no idea,” said Helen. “What are you implying?”

“He would never have gone back without telling me,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

When Liza tried to sit up, she immediately felt faint once more. Lying back, she tried desperately to will the stuporous weakness away, but only drifted off to sleep again. Another rumble of thunder brought her up from the blackness. Helen was standing by the dresser, glancing down at several articles Liza had removed from her purse after arriving the previous afternoon.

“How long was I out?” she asked.

“Just ten minutes,” said Helen, coming toward her. “Tell me … why do you have these cards?”

She was holding the two index cards on which Liza had copied the lines originally written in blood that Sam had found in Joss Dunbar’s apartment.

“They are part of an unsolved mystery,” said Liza. “One of too many, I’m afraid.”

“Why are they a mystery?” asked Helen Bellayne.

“The mystery lies in who authored the words,” said Liza.

Holding up the first index card, Helen read it aloud.

“‘I asked you not to send blood but Yet do—because if it means love I will have it. I cut the hair too close & bled much more than you need—I pray that you put not the knife blade near where quei capelli grow.’”

“Yes,” said Liza. “Those words.”

“Were they originally written in blood?” asked Helen.

“Yes,” Liza said, astonished. “How could you know that?”

“The mystery is solved,” said Helen Bellayne.

“You know who wrote those words?” Liza demanded.

Helen nodded, smiling.

“They were written more than a hundred years ago,” she said. “I happen to have a soft spot for Caroline Lamb.”

Liza recognized the name, but couldn’t remember why.

“Lady Caroline Lamb,” said Helen, seeing her confusion. “She was the mistress of Lord Byron. He made her life a living hell. She wrote those words in blood to prove her love and then sent the letter to him with shavings of her pubic hair.”

“And the other one?” asked Liza.

“‘My God, you shall pay for this. I’ll wring that obstinate little heart…. Noel,’” read Helen, aloud.

“Yes.”

“Byron wrote that to her,” she said. “He had a clubfoot, you know…. The man needed complete adoration. It was not enough for a woman to become his lover. He wanted her to love him above all other things in life. Once a woman surrendered to him, he would lose interest and move on to the next one. What he never anticipated was that Caroline was his equal in every way. It was when she refused to concede to him that Byron wrote his note.”

In her mind’s eye, Liza could see the dramatic painting of Byron and his mistress over the fireplace in the cliff cottage. Another peal of thunder rent the sky, and the lace curtains began billowing in through the casement window.

“‘Noel’ was his familiar name to his friends,” said Helen. “George Gordon Noel Byron.”

“Were Joss and Nicholas ever lovers, Helen?” Liza demanded.

Helen’s face reflected her shock at the question.

“Why would you even ...?”

“Were they lovers, Helen?” Liza demanded again.

“I don’t know.”

“Did they know one another growing up?”

“Of course,” said the older woman. “The Dunbar estate is only a few miles from Rawcliff. They both spent their summers down here when they were children. As to their relationship in those days, I have no idea. Joss was a very secretive creature, even as a little girl.”

No, Liza’s mind silently screamed. It couldn’t be. Not Nicholas. With everything he had come to mean to her, it was impossible to conceive that he was a double murderer. But Joss had written one of the notes in blood that mimicked Caroline Lamb. Nicholas had almost certainly written the other one. Liza was gripped by another wave of nausea as she struggled to erase a lurid mental image of Nicholas and the dying Joss from her reeling imagination.

“Are you all right, Liza?” asked Helen with sudden concern. “You’ve gone completely white.”

The nausea slowly ebbed away.

“Nicholas murdered her,” she said, as if proclaiming the horrid truth aloud would allow her to actually believe it.

“That’s absurd,” said Helen. “Joss took her own life, Liza. She was desperately unhappy in the weeks before her death. I believe I told Sam that her father abused her when she was a child.”

“She was pregnant with Nicholas’s child.”

Helen’s eyes widened in disbelief as Liza pulled back the covers and slowly tried to sit up again. The pain in her head slowly subsided to a dull ache. Once on her feet, she walked tentatively to the closet.

“What are you doing?” demanded Helen. “You can’t get up yet.”

“I have to,” she said.

Removing her slip, she began to put on her uniform. There was another knock at the door, and Helen went to answer it, this time opening it just a crack. A butler was standing in the hallway.

“I was asked to deliver this,” he said, handing Helen a folded note. She closed the door and brought it back to the chair where Liza was tying her shoes.

“It is from a General Ernest Manigault,” she said after reading it. “What a remarkably odd message.”

“What does it say?” asked Liza, standing up again.

“It just says … the goddamn cavalry is coming.”

When Liza grinned, the back of her head hurt.

“That’s Sam,” she said. “He is on his way.”

She took Helen’s hand in her own.

“I have something very important to tell you,” said Liza. “I haven’t any idea who can be trusted in this menagerie, but Sam said I can trust you, so I will. As ridiculous as this will probably sound, the future course of the war might be at stake.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“I don’t have time to explain it all. When Sam arrives, tell him that I believe Nicholas Ainsley is involved in a plot to betray both the ULTRA secret and Overlord to the Germans. The key to his plan is Charlie Wainwright. Nicholas, along with Desmond Sullivan, has kidnapped him. They are taking him to Germany.”

“Are you sure that the injury to your head hasn’t temporarily...”

“Stop it,” demanded Liza. “Just give the message to Sam. Do you remember it?”

“Yes,” she said. “You believe they are planning to betray ULTRA and Overlord to the Germans.”

“They probably have an escape route planned across the channel. Tell Sam to alert the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force,” she said.

Helen seemed to sag toward her for a moment.

“Oh God, it can’t be true,” she said.

“I’m counting on you, Helen,” said Liza, heading for the door.

“Where are you going now?” asked Helen, her voice taut with fear.

“To try to find Charlie,” she said. “It’s possible they haven’t left yet.”

“Why don’t you wait until Sam arrives?” asked Helen. “If what you say is true, you have no chance to stop them alone.”

“That might be too late. Tell him that I went to Nicholas’s cottage down by the sea. Oh … and tell him there is a landing strip on the field near the golf course.”

“You don’t even have a weapon,” said Helen.

Liza stopped and quickly glanced around the room, her eyes alighting on the billfold-sized surgical kit she had carried since the first bombing raid she had survived in London. Tucking the flat leather pouch inside her uniform coat, she opened the bedroom door and started down the corridor.

“God be with you,” Helen called out to her from the open doorway.

At the foot of the front staircase, a group of people in nightclothes were milling about in the hallway as she rushed toward the massive entrance door. Several of their faces registered shock and incredulity.

“Lord Ismay told me himself,” Liza heard one of them say as she ran out into the night. “Lady Ainsley died late this afternoon.”

CHAPTER 30

Liza felt the first drop of rain on her cheek as she reached the edge of the formal gardens. She was following the same path that Nicholas had taken her on during their tour of the castle grounds.

Still groggy, she walked unsteadily across the brick-faced courtyard, past the old wooden drawbridge, and through the covered passageway. Emerging onto the rise of ground that overlooked the expanse of lawns, she heard another peal of thunder and waited for the subsequent flash of lightning to light up the sky.

In its incandescent glare, she could see the coal-black sea far in the distance. Off to the left was the little golf course. Directly ahead of her was the flat pasture where Nicholas said he had practiced his takeoffs and landings as a boy. With her head still aching, she began to walk across the field.

Why? she kept repeating in her mind. Why would Nicholas betray his country? He had lost his leg in the Battle of Britain to help save his country. In betraying England he would be giving up his title and vast estates. None of it made sense to her. Could it be an act of insanity?

But if it was, how could she have been so wrong about him? All through her medical training, she had won a well-deserved reputation for unbiased critical reasoning. One of her classmates had once half-seriously accused her of sorcery. Another girl jokingly suggested that Liza would never fall in love with a man as long as she looked at men as human guinea pigs. Perhaps that was it. Nicholas was the first man she had failed to subject to her ruthlessly objective scrutiny.

She suddenly remembered Des Sullivan’s words to her on the dance floor. Nicky would soon be impoverished, he had said. What could that mean? Nicholas was one of the richest men in England. She started to run.

Her brain transmitted an acute jolt of pain with each pounding step, but she didn’t slow down until she had crossed the last stone fence and was able to reorient herself. The smell of the sea was stronger as she arrived at the copse of elms and maples that bordered the path leading to the cottage. She plunged ahead into the woods.

The storm began as a gentle hum of tiny raindrops, a thin pattering against the leaves of the trees lining the path. A few moments later, it was coming down in a raging torrent that forced her to slow down again.

Emerging from the woods, Liza knew she was close to the cottage when she smelled the fragrant power of the wild roses. A harsh wind was coming off the sea as she slowly made her way along the crooked path. Now she could hear the booming of heavy surf as big rollers cascaded into the base of the cliff.

In another arc of lightning, she saw the little stone cottage, dark and forbidding against the raging black sea. They’ve already gone, she concluded, just before seeing the monstrous shadow off to the left of the path. Liza stopped short, momentarily convulsed by a tremor of fear.

The light went out of the sky and she was blinded again. Shielding her eyes from the rain, she took a halting step toward the dark, shadowy outline. It appeared to be some kind of vehicle. Stepping closer, she felt the cold metal rim of its fender.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that it was an old farm truck, its freight bed made of raw wooden planks. What looked like a rolled-up carpet was lying on the bed. In touching it, she realized that was exactly what it was—a section of carpet, tightly wound and tied with heavy rope.

Liza shuddered with horror as it suddenly rolled toward her and she heard a loud groan. A head was protruding from the edge of the carpet. It was Charlie Wainwright, his face a dark mask.

“Oh God,” she cried out.

“He’s not here,” came back the harsh brogue of Des Sullivan as he enveloped her arms from behind. “Somehow I thought you might be along.”

Dragging her away from the truck, he forced her down the path to the cottage, opened the front door, and shoved her inside. The cottage was dark and cold. In the light of a guttering candle, she could barely make out a recumbent form lying on the couch in front of the fireplace. It was Nicholas. He was gazing up at the painting of Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb. An open bottle of champagne sat on the low table next to his elbow.

“Wainwright’s on the truck,” said Des Sullivan as raindrops ferociously lashed the windows. “She found us, just as I told you she would.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t come,” said Nicholas laconically.

The hideous truth became a reality to her for the first time.

“If she could find us here,” said Des, “we have to assume that others are on the way.”

“Perhaps,” said Nicholas, without moving from the couch. “What time is it?”

Sullivan checked his watch. “Ten before three,” he said. “The flight path across France will be open to us in about twenty minutes.”

“Nicholas … what have you done?” cried Liza as rainwater dripped from her uniform onto the old pine floor.

“Why don’t you go and monitor the latest weather report,” he said to Des. “I’ll be along.”

“What about her?”

“I’ll see to her.”

“We can’t leave her here alive,” said Sullivan.

“I said I would see to her,” said Nicholas, his tone sharp.

Sullivan stalked out into the rain, slamming the door behind him.

It was quiet again except for the sound of raindrops hissing on the red coals in the fireplace.

“You already know what I have done,” he said.

“I know,” she said, shivering against her will. “Just please tell me why.”

Getting up from the couch, he began limping toward her. He was wearing his black leather flying jacket over a tan flight suit. It was the same jacket he had lent her during their walk around the estate.

“When Joss first confided the ULTRA secret to me, I had no plans to do this,” he said. “Even later, when she learned the Overlord plans from Jellico, it never entered my mind.”

“So that’s why you killed Joss?” asked Liza. “Because she threatened to tell on you?”

Nicholas’s voice remained surprisingly mild.

“I didn’t kill Joss,” he said.

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No, I suppose not,” he replied. “But I don’t have time to convince you one way or the other.”

He went past her to the table under the front window. A leather briefcase was sitting on it. It was Charlie’s. Lifting the latched cover, Nicholas put his hand inside and withdrew a semi-automatic pistol. He slid back the bolt to inject a bullet into the chamber.