“Well, ye see, it’s like this—”
“Do be quiet, Bernard.”
Meggie looked beyond Bernard Leach’s right shoulder to see Lord Kipper standing just inside the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, wearing riding clothes, holding a single lit candle in one hand.
“Eh, she woke up, milord.”
“Yes, I see that she did. You may go keep watch, Bernard. Oh, by the way, did you kill Thomas?”
Bernard Leach grunted, not looking at Lord Kipper.
“Did you, Bernard? While he was sleeping? While it was so easy since he was helpless, at your mercy?”
Bernard Leach darted a look at Lord Kipper, then his eyes slid away again. He was shaking his head, back and forth. “Oh no, my lord, I jest couldn’t do that. Known him all his life, little Thomas. A fine boy, an excellent man. Only her, my lord, only her, and here she is. Not Thomas, I’ll never kill Thomas. I’ll jest not do it.”
Lord Kipper sighed deeply. “We will speak of this later, Bernard. Go keep guard.”
Thomas was alive. Meggie was so relieved, so very grateful to Bernard Leach that she would have given him everything she owned. Because he’d refused to kill Thomas even though Lord Kipper had ordered him to.
Bernard Leach nodded and took himself out of the room. It was a single room, rude, bare boards forming the walls and ceiling. A cottage of some sort, likely abandoned given the filth she now saw. It was dawn and gray light was seeping through the dirty windows. Years upon years of dirt.
“Where is this place?”
“Actually, you are in a storeroom just behind my stables. No, don’t think you’ll be rescued. No one ever comes here, particularly the men searching for Jenny MacGraff. Why would they? I am Lord Kipper, you know.”
“Why do you want both Thomas and me dead?”
Lord Kipper shrugged. “I realized yesterday when Thomas and your father went around to ask each of us why we believed someone was trying to kill you that everything was collapsing about me. Someone, sooner now rather than later, would realize it had to be me.”
“Someone?”
“Yes, Libby, of course. Even though I have her in my bed again, I knew I couldn’t completely trust her to keep quiet if she did realize what I was doing. She’s got an odd streak of honor. It only shows itself on rare occasion, but I really couldn’t take the chance.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you think Libby in particular would realize the truth?”
He only smiled at her. “It’s been a very long night, a night that has kept me quite on edge. I’m really not used to that. But the night is over and soon all this will be as well.”
Meggie heard a noise. It was a soft moan, just a soft whisper really, the sound of someone barely conscious, moving around just a bit. Meggie tried to sit up, but her shoulder hurt very badly and she fell back. The dizziness hit her again, hard, made her feel as if she were floating for a moment. When the dizziness finally eased, when she saw him clearly again, Lord Kipper no longer looked remotely beautiful. His eyes looked dark and flat, he looked a bit mad. Lord Kipper, the person responsible for all this misery. At least it wasn’t either of the mothers, thank God.
She licked her dry lips. “Who was that?”
“That was Jenny MacGraff.”
Thank God was all she could think, Thank God. Jenny was still alive. “Why did you take her? Why is she here?
Did Jenny discover what you were doing and you were afraid she would tell everyone?”
Lord Kipper laughed. He pinched out the candle because the room was filled with the dirty light filtered through the filthy windows. “Jenny MacGraff is incapable of finding out anything, as you mean it. No, she is merely a simple merchant’s daughter. She knows nothing, she is nothing. Nothing at all. Well, she is reasonably pretty and clean, her brain not too dulled by her breeding, and that does surprise me. No, she didn’t discover anything. I merely wished to kill both of you together, when all the damned searching was finally over. I even plan to bury you together. I think that is quite fitting.”