Chapter 25

CHAPTER25

The hubbub of noise in the Tavern was comforting and familiar as Genevra moved between tables wiping up spills and retrieving empty glasses, bowls and plates. Trade was brisk and that was a good thing. Her thoughts skittered over the matter that had taken Garmon out this evening, and she suppressed a shiver of apprehension. He would be fine, he had Mr Rooke with him and both men were very capable of looking after themselves. Provided the blood thirsty Duchess of Mowbray didn’t take into her head to shoot him!

She smiled at a regular and moved towards the bar with her tray of empties and dirty dishes. Joe looked up as she set the tray down, upending a ceramic jug. “We’re out of whisky Mrs Lovell,” he said setting down the empty jar.

“I’ll fetch some from the cellar,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, which curved over her swollen belly. The babe had popped out somewhat in the last couple of weeks, it was impossible to hide her condition now, not that she wanted to. She smoothed a hand protectively over her belly and headed towards the back hall that led to the kitchen and the cellar.

As she passed the kitchen, she stuck her head in to check on Mrs Bell. Flushed with wisps of greying hair slipping from beneath her cap, she wiped her hands on her apron and looked up from doling out pork pies, bowls of stew and plates of fresh bread and cheese, ably assisted by Beth, who was in her element. Since becoming mistress of her own establishment, Beth had discovered a latent talent for cookery, and she was soaking up tips from Mrs Bell as fast as the older lady could dispense them.

“Can I help you Mrs Lovell?”

“Just checking you’re keeping up with the orders. We have quite a crowd tonight.”

“Aye, I’ve two more trays of pies and another pot of stew, should be fine Mrs Lovell.”

“You’re a miracle Mrs Bell,” Genevra smiled and ducked out again, helping herself to a slice of cheese and bread on the way out. She was ravenous pretty much all the time now that the sickness was past.

Heading for the cellar, she selected the right key off her chatelaine and unlocked the door, lifting the lamp from the wall to light her way, she picked her way down the stairs and set the lamp on a table. Turning to the shelves along the back wall she looked for the jars, checking the labels to find the whisky.

“Mrs Lovell, is it?” the voice sent a shiver of horror down her spine and caused her to drop the crock in her hands. It smashed on the stone floor with a loud crash, splashing liquid over her shoes and skirt and sending pottery shards scattering in all directions. The stinging, peaty aroma of expensive malt whisky rose like a cloud, almost choking her.

The cellar door closed with a snick and footsteps traversed the remaining stairs raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Rigid with shock, she blinked streaming eyes, watching the shadow cast on the wall in front of her as a figure moved towards her.

This couldn’t be happening. She must be hallucinating. He was dead. Jacob was dead! She buried his body…

“Turn around.” The voice went on, low and menacing. The stuff of nightmares.

How often had she woken in terror with his voice in her head?

Shuddering with fear, she turned stiffly, her hands groping for the shelf behind her to keep herself from falling, her legs felt numb. She blinked again as the man advanced on her, his face illuminated clearly by the light of the lamp.

She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. Her heart hammered so hard it threatened to leap from her chest. The babe stirred, and she put her hands over her belly in an instinctive gesture. His eyes glittered in the light; his expression choked the breath from her lungs.

“J-Jacob!” She shook her head. “Y-you’re dead.”

“Unfortunately for you, no I’m not.” He came to a stop barely a foot away, well within touching distance. She could smell him, a mix of sour sweat, damp wool and tobacco.

“I buried your body!” she protested, trying to deny the evidence of her senses.

This couldn’t be happening. She was asleep and dreaming.

“Ah you found him, did you? Elijah?”

“Elijah?”

“My brother.”

She shook her head trying to make sense of what was happening.

“How far along are you?” he asked nodding at her belly.

This was surreal. “F-five months.” She shuddered. Her body was rigid with terror.

“Not mine then.” He bared his teeth in a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “I heard them call you Mrs Lovell. You married Garmon Lovell?”

She nodded, her neck felt stiff, her jaw tight.

“So, it’s his brat?”

She nodded again, her hands clutching her belly. A kind of whimper seeped between her numb lips.

“We’ll have to fix that then, won’t we?” he said taking another step towards her.

“No!” She shrieked and dodged as his fist came up knocking her arm out of the way and connecting with her face. Pain exploded as his fist smashed into her jaw and her lip split. Her head snapped back under the force of the blow and her teeth rattled. She tasted blood and with that, some primitive rage took a hold and banished the fear that had held her hostage.

Galvanised, she swung away from him and through a narrowed red haze, her eyes scanned her surroundings for a weapon. Propped against the end of the shelf was an iron bar. What it was doing there she didn’t know nor cared. She seized it and swung back towards him, just as he came at her with another fist.

With a blood-curdling scream, she swung the thing with all her strength aiming for his head. It caught the side of his skull and connected with a sickening crunch. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell where he stood, crumpling to the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

She staggered, leaning her weight in the table, the bar falling from her nerveless fingers as she fought to breathe, strange sobbing sounds ringing in her ears.

The cellar door flung open and Garmon was there. She stared at him across the body on the floor and put out a hand towards him, as the darkness at the edge of her vision closed in, and she felt herself falling.

“Genevra!”

Garmon sprintedacross the space between them and caught her as she collapsed. “Genevra!” he repeated, his heart thudding wildly with fear.

He barked at Rooke as he headed for the stairs, Genevra in his arms. “See to it, he doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Aye, I doubt he will. I think he’s done for; she’s smashed his skull.”

“Then get rid of the body!”

Rooke nodded and bent over the body. Garmon left him to it, rushing up the stairs to the bedchamber yelling at Beth who stood at the foot of the staircase her hands to her face, to fetch the doctor.

“I’ll send one of my lads,” said Joe from somewhere behind him.

Mrs Bell and Beth followed him up the stairs. Entering the bedchamber, he laid her on the bed and checked her for injury. The blood on her face from her smashed lip and the growing bruise on her cheek made him wild, but he could find no other obvious wounds. He was shaking with a mixture of rage and terror and was surprised to find wetness on his cheeks. Wiping it away he held her hands and muttered, “Genevra love, Genevra, can you hear me? Come back to me love, tell me you’re all right...” His voice cracked.

“Garmon?” her voice was a thready whisper.

“Yes love, I’m here, are you hurt, the babe-”

“It was Jacob! He -” she opened her eyes and stared at him terror in their depths. “I hit him.”

“I know love, he won’t hurt you again, I promise.”

She began to sob, jagged sounds that tore at his insides and made him helpless with rage and pain. “Hush love. He’ll never hurt you again. He’s gone.”

“No!” she shook her head. “He wanted to hurt the baby. I couldn’t let him do that.”

“I know love,” he repeated, holding her hands tight with his. “I had no idea it was him. If I’d known, I’d never have let him escape. I’m sorry my darling I failed to protect you.” His tears mingled with hers. “Forgive me, God in heaven forgive me!”

She clung to him and sobbed until they were interrupted by the doctor’s arrival. Standing back to let the physician attend his wife, Garmon watched and listened. When he was assured that she had taken no lasting harm beyond the blow to her face he slipped from the room and pelted back down the stairs to the cellar.

Here he found Seb with the inert form of Tate still lying on the stone floor.

“Is he dead?” he asked his voice rasping. He was molten with rage.

“He still has a pulse, but its weak–”

Garmon bared his teeth and advanced on the body. “Thank you for leaving him for me!”

Seb took one look at Garmon’s face and stepped back. He glanced at the cellar door and went quietly to shut it.

Garmon bent over the body of Jacob Tate and looked at the man who had terrorised Genevra. Objectively he was handsome, except for the bloody contusion on the side of his head. His face was pale, and his eyes were closed, he breathed shallowly but audibly, and a pulse beat visibly in his neck revealed by the open collar of his shirt. Garmon’s stomach curdled at the sight of this man and the hatred and anger he had stored up over decades for all the injustices he had witnessed or experienced came boiling to the surface. This man epitomised it all.

He pulled him up by the shirt and shook him. Tate’s head rolled on his neck.

“Wake up you fucking bastard! I want to kill you while you’re awake to know about it!” roared Garmon in his face.

Tate’s eyes fluttered and opened. He squinted and groaned, putting a hand to his head.

Garmon grinned at him. “My wife did that to you! And it’s nothing less than you deserve you prick! To think I had you within my reach and I didn’t know! You’re going to pay now for everything you did to her!” Garmon grabbed his throat and squeezed. Tate gurgled something unintelligible. His hand scrabbling at Garmon’s grip.

Garmon laughed and let him go. Tate flopped back onto the stone floor. “Don’t worry, you’re not going that easily!” He glanced at Seb. “Find me some implements.”

Seb nodded and left the cellar quietly.

Garmon turned back to Tate who still lay on the floor. Blood seeping from the wound in his head was beginning to pool in the mortar between the floor stones, the metallic smell of it coated Garmon’s tongue.

Tate’s laboured breaths were the only sounds in the room as Garmon contemplated what he was going to do next.

Tate opened his mouth, and a gasping wheeze came out. Then words tumbled out, falling over themselves in their hurry to plead his cause. “I was trying to do you a favour Lovell, get the hell back for you...”

Garmon lunged at him and grabbed his face in a tight grip. “Shut up, you worthless worm! If I’d known who you were then I’d have killed you on the spot! What kind of man hits a woman? What kind of monster hits the woman carrying his child? You cost her two babes, and you blamed her for it?” Garmon spat in his face, dropping his head back onto the stone. “You’re going to pay in pain for that, before you die. My face is the last thing you will ever see, and it will accompany you to hell where you will burn for eternity!”

The cellar door opened, and Seb closed it quietly and came down the steps. He held out a range of implements to Garmon. A sharp knife, a pair of pincers and a hammer.

Garmon smiled and took the pincers. Turning to Tate he said, “Hold him Seb, this is going to get messy!”

Genevra woke sometime laterwith her husband’s arms around her, his head on the pillow beside hers. Her face ached and her cracked lip stung. The horrors of a few hours earlier came crashing back in, and she began to shake. A sob rose in her throat, and she tried to swallow it, closing her eyes.

“Hush love,” he murmured stroking her back. “Don’t cry my darling, I have you safe now, nothing can hurt you like that again. He can’t hurt you; he’s gone.”

“G-gone w-where?” she sobbed. “Is he dead? Did I k-kill him?”

“No, I did. Mr Rooke disposed of the body. As far as the world is concerned, he’s been dead and buried for months. I’ll pay off anyone who knows different. No one here will betray us love. You’re safe.”

“He threatened the baby, I had to-”

“I know love. I had him in my reach at the printery, if I’d known who he was -. You should never have had to confront him like that. I don’t want you to carry this. I killed him. He’s gone, he can never hurt you again I promise. ” He hugged her tight and she subsided into this embrace.

“I thought I was having a nightmare; I couldn’t believe he was back.” she shuddered.

She sighed and after a bit she said brokenly, “my babes are avenged now. I didn’t know how angry I was until he threatened me again. I did it for them.”

“There are some things that can never be set right, but his black soul will pay for what he did for eternity. You have nothing to feel guilty for my darling. He did not deserve to live.”

She nuzzled into his chest, and he held her close. “Sleep sweetheart, I’m here and will never leave you.”

The tension leached out of her body as fatigue took its toll, and she slipped into sleep, a measure of peace in her heart.

The next morningGenevra stirred when her husband brought her tea and toast in bed, and she struggled into a sitting position to drink the refreshing brew and nibble on the hot buttery toast.

“So, what happened last night with the duke, did you liberate him from the extortionists?”

Garmon helped himself to a slice of toast and nodded. “Yes. And I think Diana might forgive me eventually, although I wouldn’t put money on it.”

“I was afraid she was going to put a bullet through you.”

“So was I. My niece is a fierce woman.” He finished the toast and poured himself a cup of tea from the pot.

“Something else I discovered last night.”

“Hm?” she took a sip of tea.

“I suspect, but I can’t prove it, that you may be related to the Duke of Mowbray. When I first met you, I was struck by the familiarity of your eyes. I was sure I’d seen them somewhere before. You have the same deep sapphire blue eyes as the duke. He has red hair too, but his is a much darker red than yours.”

Shock made her heart skip. “You’re not suggesting I’m his daughter? Mama would never-!”

“No. That’s impossible you’re much the same age. But someone in your lineage may have been a child of his grandfather. The old Duke was a notorious rake, and apparently he had numerous children he never acknowledged. Do you know how far back the red hair and blue eyes go?”

“Papa’s mother had them. He always said I resembled her, and Great Aunt Maddie said the same.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I shall write to Great Aunt Maddie and ask her, I suspect she may know the truth, but she would never say.”

He nodded. “Well, that’s one mystery solved.” he sighed. “I still can’t find any trace of Connor.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry.” He shook his head and wrapped an arm round her shoulders, kissing her hair.

“I have everything I ever wanted right here with you, and our child. My hope is that Connor has found what he wants, and no harm has come to him.”

She smiled. “You seem more relaxed this morning.”

“Do I?” He paused. “I think I let go of something last night. Something I’d been carrying for a long time. My rage against the injustice of the world.” He paused again. “I know there will still be injustice in the world but finishing Tate off last night–it made me feel as if my personal injustices were paid up.

“I avenged you. It was satisfying. All along I thought I needed to avenge myself against Mowbray, but once I met you, that began to mean less and less. I thought the hell was so much a part of me I couldn’t be me without it. Turns out I was wrong. I don’t need the hell, all I need is you.”

“Oh Garmon!” She wiped tears from her eyes and flung hr arms round his neck. “I didn’t think I could love anyone without losing myself. But you let me be me and still love me. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

“Yes I do love. I kill people and you still love me. I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Killing Jacob makes me love you even more.” she murmured kissing him. “The only thing I’m sorry about is that I didn’t get to see the body, so I can know absolutely that he’s dead and gone.”

He shook his head. “You wouldn’t want to have seen it love. It was–messy!”

“Oh!” her eyes widened. “Did you torture him?”

“A bit.” Garmon compressed his lips. “I’m not giving you the details, you don’t need that in your head. Just rest assured he’s never coming back to hurt you ever again.”

“Oh Garmon,” she said softly. “I do love you so much!”