Wolds End by Marcus Blacksmith

Author:Marcus Blacksmith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marcus Blacksmith

It was dark, and the air was heavy with damp, when he came round. His head pulsed in waves of pain. As he rubbed the lump inflicted by the cudgel, he felt the weight of the chains attached to his wrists. Pat had no idea where he was and no memory of how he’d arrived. The last thing he could recall was the look in the manservant’s eyes as he entered the house. He tried standing, but the concussion he’d suffered begged to differ. So, he sat and waited, as the dampness and darkness crept into his bones.

When her husband fell, under the blow from Talbott, as she now knew him, Betty raged in shock, protectively reaching across her daughter. Their shouts were silenced as the men at arms raised pistols to their faces.

“Take them to their rooms, please,” Cavendish said, to a woman servant who’d joined them.

“What do you think you are doing? What’s going on?” Betty shouted at him.

The viscount turned and stung her cheek with his hand. She recoiled, Mary-Jane looking on in horror as her mother shrank away from him.

“You will speak when required to, do you understand?”

Betty looked back at Cavendish and was about to say something else when Mayhew moved closer.

“For your own sake, madam, and that of your husband, I suggest you do as you are asked.”

His tone was outwardly compassionate, but she thought it may be expedience rather than concern, rather like Talbott when they entered the house. She thought he looked much as a fox would to a rabbit. Talbott smirked at her exchange with Mayhew, and she saw his joy at her discomfort.

“Come with me, please,” said the woman who’d appeared earlier.

One of the armed men waved his pistol at Betty and Mary-Jane to shoo them along. They followed reluctantly up the staircase; the woman in front, the guard at the rear. Upstairs there were several doors off a long corridor. As they moved along, Betty felt a sense of helplessness she had never encountered before. She imagined how good it would be to hear the voice of the man who waited patiently at the end of her phone. The man who could bring her solace in her very real discomfort. If Pat knew anything about it, he never let on. It was quite possible he did know, having the connections to find out about those sorts of things. Only that Pat had his secrets too, she was sure of it. The loving family image was simply a prudent façade for the church and the state. Pat was cold to her, hungry only for status and power. And it was that indifference that had caused her to break her vows to her husband and the church.

The servant in front of her stopped at a door and opened it, nodding at Betty to enter.

“You first,” Betty said.

The woman returned a salamander smile. “Very well,” she said, and entered.

Betty scanned the room, which looked like one she had seen recently in a living museum.

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