The Taste of Innocence (51 page)

Glancing at the glowing ruin of the farm house, Charlie murmured, “A small mercy.”

Later, with Barnaby and a handful of stalwarts, Charlie circled the farm house, watching the flames slowly sink and die, checking the surroundings for any smoldering fragments thrown out by the numerous explosions. The stable, barn, and outbuildings at the back of the orphanage had survived. While most of the walls of the main building still stood, they’d have to be pulled down; the wooden frames within the stone had been devoured.

“It’ll take days for this to burn out completely.” Barnaby halted beside him on the south side of the farm house.

Charlie nodded. He glanced around at the men who had helped. “Thank you all. We’ve done all we can for to night.”

The men shook his proffered hand, then shambled across the forecourt to where the last carriages were waiting to take them home, horses that had been ridden to the scene tied behind. The children, their goods, and the orphanage staff were long gone. Alathea and Martin had left with those destined for Casleigh; Gabriel and Sarah remained, farewelling the last stragglers.

Beside Barnaby, Charlie walked slowly across the forecourt. Images from the hellish night played across his mind. He frowned and scanned the few men still left. “Have you seen Sinclair?”

“He had to leave,” Barnaby said. “He was helping from the first. Later he was standing next to me after the rescue, when the main house went up—I’ve never seen such naked horror on a man’s face. In fact, he looked so ill I wondered if he had a weak heart. When we started to organize, he said he had to go and take care of something.” Barnaby grimaced. “I’m not sure it wasn’t his horror he needed to deal with—he seemed deeply affected.”

Turning his head, Barnaby studied Charlie’s face. “You do realize, don’t you, that the back of your coat is burned through?”

Charlie raised his brows. “Is it?” He shifted his shoulders and felt the uneven pull of the fabric, felt pain, muted and distant, as skin tugged—and remembered Sarah pushing the burning log off his shoulders and patting his back…He shrugged. “It’s not that bad. I’ll survive.”

They joined Sarah and Gabriel as the last of the carriages rolled away. Charlie caught Sarah’s eyes. “We’ve done all we can here—we should head home.”

She sighed and nodded. Slipping her hand in his, she turned to where their horses stood, the last four remaining. Gabriel and Barnaby fell in behind them.

“Any idea how it started?” Gabriel asked.

Charlie and Sarah glanced back in time to see Barnaby nod.

His face had set, his expression beyond grim. “Some of the children, mostly older ones, the lad Jim, and Joseph Tiller all saw it happen. Flaming arrows—some aimed at the thatch, others at bundles of what must have been oil-soaked rags tucked in crannies around the wings. He, whoever he is, wasn’t taking any chances that the thatch wouldn’t catch—it didn’t in the north wing where it was most exposed to the weather. Even with the other two wings we might have saved them if it hadn’t been for the rags tucked under the eaves.”

“But”—Charlie shook his head—“when did he plant the rags? The staff have been keeping a continuous watch, even at night.”

Barnaby shrugged.

They walked on, frowning, then Sarah sighed. “It would have been earlier today.” She glanced at the others. “It’s Sunday. All the staff and the children go down to the church at Crowcombe. They’d be away for an hour and a half, maybe more. Only Quince is left, and she’s mostly with the babies in the attic. The attic windows overlook the forecourt. Quince would have kept watch, but if the man approached from the rear, she wouldn’t have seen him.”

“And the long ladders were kept in the courtyards between the wings.” Charlie shook his head.

They reached the horses; he lifted Sarah up to her saddle, then swung up to his.

They all paused for one last look at the wreck of the orphanage, still glowing an angry red through the crisp winter night.

Gabriel, his tone harsh, spoke for them all. “Whoever this blackguard is, we have to stop him.”

Malcolm intended to do just that. He’d ridden to Finley House in a wretched, tormented state, emotions he’d never experienced before battering and raking him. What he’d seen that night had literally turned his stomach—not with queasiness but with sheer, unadulterated guilt.

He felt as if his heart—more, his soul—were literally being strangled. This had to stop—he had to stop it—now. To night.

The knowledge that he could had allowed him to calm, to wash the soot from his hands and face, brush it from his hair, to dress in fresh clothes and sit once more behind his desk, and with a massive effort of will wrench his mind free—detach it from all he’d seen, all the implications—enough to plan.

As always, his plans were cold-blooded, calculated to a nicety. They wouldn’t just work, they would work precisely as he intended.

He was waiting, sitting behind his desk in a gloom relieved only by the flickering light from the fire at the other end of the room when Jennings scratched at the French door. Malcolm rose and let his henchman in, wordlessly indicating the chair before the desk. Closing the door, he quietly locked it and slipped the key into his pocket.

He turned back to the desk.

Jennings settled comfortably in the chair. Stretching out his legs, folding his hands over his developing paunch, he grinned confidingly as Malcolm rounded the desk to resume his seat. “I got your note. But I expect you’ll have seen the action up at the orphanage to night. The countess is sure to sell now—she’ll need the money if she wants to rebuild.”

Malcolm let himself sink into his chair, battling a surge of cold fury. Jennings wasn’t made uneasy by the lack of light; Malcolm had for years been extremely careful over anyone, even by chance, seeing them together.

Tonight, the dimness served another purpose. It hid the rage in Malcolm’s eyes.

He took a moment to study Jennings; he hadn’t changed all that much from the young man Malcolm had found and first used in London—was it nearly seventeen?—years ago. A trifle stockier, a few lines in his round, unremarkable, eminently trustworthy face. His even temper, his open expression, his directness in speech and thought, and his above-the-norm intelligence had recommended him to Malcolm. Those attributes remained.

What Malcolm hadn’t, until the last few days, properly appreciated was that Jennings had no conscience. He had caution, and a healthy vein of self-preservation, but…

“The orphanage…” Malcolm paused to ensure he had full command of his voice. Jennings was accustomed to his long pauses, but a quaver of fury would alert him before Malcolm wished. “Did it occur to you that some of the children might get caught in the blaze?”

Jennings shrugged. “Possibly, but it was a reasonable risk—they should have had time to get out.” When Malcolm didn’t immediately reply, Jennings added, “And it’s not as if we’ve balked at a necessary death in the past.”

Beneath the desk, Malcolm’s fist clenched, yet his tone was even, his voice mild as he said, “Quite. However, I’ve never before thought to ask…just how many deaths have we been responsible for?”

Thumbs tapping, Jennings briefly consulted the ceiling, then grimaced. “I can’t say I’ve kept score, exactly, but ten? Some number like that.”

“I see.” Malcolm was finding it harder and harder to rein in his cold fury, especially as it wasn’t directed solely at Jennings—more than half his rage was directed at himself. Slowly he rose; slowly, considering his words, he circled the desk. “I’m not sure if you’ve noted it, but this is the first time I’ve…seen you in action. In all our other projects, I briefly visited the area, identified the land required, then returned to London and sent you to acquire it. I never returned to the area. However, in this case, when I came to this area to scout out the valley I fell in love with the place and stayed, and so started to get to know the local people and appreciate what they have here—the lives they lead, the community, the peace. For the first time in my life, I thought I’d found a place I’d like to call home, to buy a house, settle down, perhaps even think of marrying and having a family.”

Not a hint of the feelings roiling beneath his surface showed in either his voice or his face.

Settling against the front edge of his desk, he inclined his head to Jennings. “Admittedly, when, during our first few projects, you’d return to me without the required title and stumped for ways in which to persuade the owner to sell, I outlined various ways in which people—any normal people with the usual aspirations and emotions—could be prevailed upon to part with their land—avarice, superstition, accidents, and so on. From my point of view that advice was theoretical. Distanced, detached. I never saw you actually use any of those methods.” He paused, then added, his voice still even, devoid of any emotion, “For instance, I never knew about those deaths.”

Jennings blinked up at him, unsure of his direction. “That’s true.”

“If I’d thought about it, of course, I would have guessed how things were—what you were doing. I knew what methods you were employing to persuade, and if I’d thought, I would have realized what that meant, but…unless I actually see things with my own eyes, they remain abstract. Theoretical, not truly real. They don’t touch me.”

He finally looked Jennings directly in the eye, and smiled faintly. “So, you see, until now, I haven’t come face-to-face with the human and emotional consequences of my—our—actions. I haven’t, until now, had to acknowledge even in my own mind any responsibility for the human outcome of my schemes.” He held Jennings’s gaze. “I have to tell you that witnessing our methods of persuasion as applied to the orphanage has come as something of a shock.”

They were now close enough for Jennings to glean some sense of the turbulent emotions Malcolm was suppressing. He shifted uneasily, a puzzled frown in his eyes. “But…I’ve just been following your orders. Doing what I thought I was supposed to.”

“Oh, indeed.” Malcolm acknowledged that with an upraised hand. “However, my question to you is: How could you?”

Jennings blinked.

Abruptly Malcolm dropped the shield concealing his emotions. “These were good people—kind and generous and deserving people.” His fury and condemnation blazed forth. “They were helping children—children who had nothing and no one.”

Like him.

He sucked in a breath as that realization stung, then went on, his voice harsh, unforgiving, his diction frighteningly precise. “Let me explain how I feel about your actions regarding the orphanage now that I’ve been obliged to see them firsthand. I assume you were too far away from your handiwork to notice that I was there, helping to fight the blaze.”

Jennings’s expression was a medley of incomprehension and dawning suspicion, and beneath that a rising fear.

Malcolm kept his eyes locked on Jennings’s. “So I was there to witness not just the devotion of the orphanage staff, not just how everyone around, everyone who could, came running to help. Not just how important to the countess the orphanage was and how much sheer anguish our actions caused, but how, despite his disapproval of the place, the earl unstintingly tried to save it. I was there, Jennings, rooted to the spot by my own contemptible fear when Meredith and his friend risked their lives—actually put themselves in the way of death—to save two mewling pauper babes and their bitter stick of a nurse. For the first time in my life, Jennings, I understood what noblesse oblige means—finally understood what the words ‘courage’ and ‘caring’ really mean.”

Resisting the urge to rise and pace, Malcolm stayed sitting on the edge of the desk and held Jennings’s gaze unwaveringly. “Until I came here I didn’t believe love, selfless courage, noblesse oblige, or any of man’s other supposedly finer qualities truly existed. I’d never come across them, never had them paraded before my face in a manner impossible to dismiss—never been forced to acknowledge that they are real. Now, thanks to our latest project and your actions—your interpretation of my advice on methods of persuasion—my eyes have been opened.”

One long-fingered hand relaxed on his thigh, the other on the desk behind him, Malcolm watched Jennings tense. “Indeed. Understanding as I now do, knowing your actions on my instructions have caused so many so much pain, so much terror, heartache, anguish, and loss, has left me stricken, Jennings, down to the depths of what I suspect is my soul. I never knew I could feel this way—never knew remorse was within my repertoire. But I feel it now—relentlessly. I feel blackened, empty, besmirched—guilty.” He paused, then softly added, “And you, Jennings, are guilty, too.”

Jennings gripped the chair’s arms, but before his backside left the seat, Malcolm clipped him over the ear with the short brass candlestick he’d rested behind him on the desk. Jennings groaned and slumped, unconscious.

Malcolm rose, retrieved the rope he’d left waiting behind the desk, and swiftly tied Jennings’s hands behind his back, then hobbled his ankles. Drawing a kerchief from his pocket, he neatly gagged the man.

After drawing the curtains over all the windows, Malcolm returned to his desk and lit the lamp. Once it was burning brightly, he sat again in his chair. He wondered if he should feel sorry for Jennings, for involving the man in his schemes, but that, it seemed, was an emotion he hadn’t developed. From the first he’d recognized in Jennings the same lack of conscience, the same total absence of compassion that—until recently—had been his; if it hadn’t been through his schemes, Jennings, like his late and unlamented guardian, Lowther, would have found some other route to perdition.