Night Fire (N1) by Catherine Coulter

Author:Catherine Coulter [Coulter, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-12-03T05:00:00+00:00

Night Fire / 195

“You didn’t recognize him?”

Tibbens shook her head. “He wasn’t particularly tall or short. Just a man, my lord. Maybe on the heavy side. He was wearing a hood over his head. Poor little Mellie doesn’t know who he is either.”

After getting as complete a description of the man as possible, Burke dismissed her. He instructed Cerlew to get a dozen or so men together for a search. He walked back to Arielle and came down on his haunches in front of her. He took her hands in his. Of all the things to happen, and here at Ravensworth.

“I must leave now, Arielle. We are going to look for the man who hurt Mellie.”

“He raped her,” she said, her voice hard. “That is much more than hurt.”

“Yes, it is. When we get him, he will be punished.”

“By whom?”

That made him pause a moment. “There must be laws, very stiff punishments, for rape.”

She looked at him remotely. “A man can do anything he pleases to his wife. I would think that a man can do just as he pleases to any woman, except perhaps kill her. Men have made the laws, after all. Why would they want to punish each other for what they consider to be their right?”

He said nothing, for he had a horrible suspicion she was right. He rose, lightly touched his fingertips to her pale cheek, and left her.

There was no trace of the man except for a small square of dark brown wool snagged on a low branch of a maple tree some twenty yards from where Mellie had been raped.

Burke rode to Sir Edward Pottenham’s manor house, situated just three miles east of Ravensworth Abbey. Sir 196 / Catherine Coulter

Edward was a garrulous old man, fascinated by butterflies, and it took all Burke’s verbal facility to avoid seeing Sir Edward’s colorfully gruesome collection. He did, however, accept a brandy.

“Now, my boy, what brings you here? I fancy it isn’t just for chitchat.”

And Burke told him.

“Oh, dear,” said Sir Edward when Burke had finished. “No idea who the man is, then?”

“No, but we did find this small square of wool. He probably ripped his coat when he was running toward the woods.

We’re fortunate to have this much. If Tibbens hadn’t come so quickly, he very likely would have gotten away without a trace.”

“Yes, probably,” said Sir Edward. “Well, it’s a pity, to be sure. We will hope the girl isn’t with child. No man would marry her. A pity.”

Burke heard Arielle’s words in his mind. He heard himself say, “If I catch the man, what will happen to him?”

Sir Edward guffawed. “Well, if he isn’t married, we’d force him to wed the girl.”

“He raped her. He forced her against her will. He hurt her.

I sincerely doubt she’d want him for a husband.”

“Ah, well, just a girl’s hysterics, my lord, probably because she got caught at it. The man is most certainly her lover, you know. That, or she was encouraging him, teasing him, I daresay.

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