“Stop, Flock!” Cecilia cried out.
Flock froze. Thorpe’s feet had gone from beneath him and he hung, suspended, above the flames. Only Flock’s white-knuckled fists held him out of the hungry fire.
“We are leaving,” she commanded, “this man is beneath us.”
She snapped her own blade across the wall and discarded the pieces. Her heart was racing and she took deep breaths, remembering the child that grew within her. Was that to be a fatherless child? Just as she and Arthur had been? The very thought burned a pit in her stomach.
Flock tossed Thorpe aside so that he rolled and only stopped when he thudded into a bookcase. He hit it hard enough that it creaked and swayed, several volumes slipping from the shelves to cascade around him.
“I will destroy you just like I destroyed your husband!” Thorpe spat.
That brought Flock around, and he took a step towards the stricken Viscount, who whimpered involuntarily, raising his hands.
“Flock!” Cecilia repeated, “Ignore him. They are just words. Take me home, please.”
She prayed with all her soul that they were just words.
CHAPTER 33
“You think you can come into my home and assault me!” Thorpe shrieked as Cecilia swept from the room with all the dignity her terror would allow.
Flock followed, she knew from the sound of his heavy footfalls—but she also heard those footfalls hesitate. Without looking back, Cecilia knew that he had stopped to glance back over his shoulder at Thorpe. She also didn’t need to hear the catch in Thorpe’s voice to know the fear that Flock’s hard-eyed stare had engendered in the Viscount. She did not reply as she walked through the almost bare hall to the doors.
“I have the ear of the Regent! I know what the two of you have been planning! I know your husband had sought an audience! It will be useless, you hear me?! I will see to it!” Thorpe screamed.
But Cecilia’s mind was full of one thought only.Lionel.
Was he wounded? Was he dead? Her sickening fear was laced with anger. She had told him why his obsession with vengeance terrified her! She had told him that she did not want to lose him to injury or death because of his obsession. He had promised to remain by her side, and now that she was carrying his child, he ran off like an errant youth seeking his pointless vengeance. For what good could it do him? If Thorpe was ruined or even killed, what would be the ultimate satisfaction? It would not bring back Arthur! At best, it would be a fleeting feeling of victory. Fleeting, but hollow, as the grief and loss would soon rush in to smother it. If she could endure the loss of her brother, endure, and then move on with her life, then Lionel should be able to too!
She waited for Flock to open the carriage door and unhitch the steps, then ascended, before sitting back, staring straight ahead.
Blankly.
Tears brimmed in her eyes but she refused to let them drop.
The carriage rocked as Flock took his seat and then began to move. Cecilia glanced out of the window at Thorpe’s barren house and saw him at a window, watching her.
So, the Viscount Thorpe was short of funds too, just like his friend Sir Gerald. It changed nothing. She did not want to take revenge on Thorpe, only to live her new life with Lionel and raise a family. Thorpe could be rich or poor or the King of England for all she cared. She wondered if Lionel knew.
That brought her mind back to her husband and she was crippled by the fear that while she had slept, her husband had been taken from her.
The short drive back to Bruton Street seemed to take an eternity.
Finally, the carriage was rolling along the cobbles of the lane that led to the house’s stable yard. She jumped down before Flock had a chance to unhitch the steps, and picked up her skirts to run for the kitchen door.
Inside were the startled faces of servants as she burst in. For a moment they froze where they stood and Cecilia realized that they were not engaged in the activity of preparing an evening meal. One maid had an armful of linen, while another, a large basin of steaming water. A footman bore a great bottle of rubbing alcohol, another a brandy bottle and glass. Then she saw Blackwood emerge into the kitchen, his hair awry and his face slack.
“Come along now! Come along! The master needs bandages and… Your Grace!”
His eyes alighted on Cecilia who glared at him. He had conspired to conceal Lionel’s plans from her. He knew his master’s insane plans and had helped him. She stalked towards him.
“How badly is he hurt?” she breathed, for that was all her voice could choke out.
For the wrong answer, Cecilia would have balled her hand into a fist and punched Blackwood on the nose. If he had told her that Lionel was grievously wounded, she would have been lost to rage and he would have been its object.
“A scalp wound. A rifle round grazed his skull. He is well and truly mazed and bleeding like a stuck pig, but he’ll live.”
The relief made Cecilia’s knees slump. She grabbed for the doorframe for support, and when Blackwood grasped her arm, she shook him off fiercely.
