Page 56 of Nature of the Crime
“Mr. Leeds, we have a target!” Hugh shouted back to the helm.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Her whole body quaked, though Audrey did not think it was just from the relentless cold. The situation was spiraling out of control, and all her confidence of being able to extricate herself from it had begun to spin away from her too.
After she’d smashed the lantern against him, St. John furiously dragged her down the treacherous rocks to the where the skiff bobbed. He’d thrown her into the boat, unraveled the knot around the mooring spike, and then guided the skiff away from the rocks with a long push pole. If he was not going to leave her to the mercy of what he’d calleddoxy traders, as he was Becky, then what did he plan to do? There was nothing around them but open water. With slowly creeping dread, she began to comprehend.
“Are you so incapable of starting over?” she asked as he rowed in silence. He had not spoken in several minutes. In fact, he would not even look at her.
The skiff’s lantern remained dark, even as dusk thickened. They would not be visible to any other vessels nearby. A danger, no doubt, but worth the risk if St. John wished to remainundetected. Smugglers would, after all, require total invisibility. And he would be accustomed to this mode of transportation, considering what he’d become.
“You could have chosen any new life after London,” she went on when he remained quiet. “And yet, this is what you selected? Vengeance, bitterness, and murder. You truly do take after your father?—”
“Shut up!”
“It is only the truth, whether you like to hear it or not,” she pressed, needing more time.
Her eyes skipped to the push pole he’d used to move them away from shallows at the cave. If he could not see her well, she might be able to reach for it. It wasn’t sharp, but it was made of metal.
“Do not speak to me oftruth,” he sneered. “What blatant hypocrisy, sermonizing on truth when you and Philip are lying to everyone.”
She bit her tongue against denying it. “You are right. We are lying. But it is not out of malice or revenge or hatred. Philip wanted the chance to be happy?—”
St. John barked mean laughter. “Happy. Why should he be given that choice? What makes him so bloody superior?”
How to respond eluded her. St. John nearly soundedenviousof Philip. Was that the reason he was so determined to destroy them?
“I see now. Philip got the chance for a new life, as you did. But he has not squandered it as you have yours.” She no longer cared that she might upset him. Playing nice would not advance her cause, as he had no intention of allowing her to live. “That is why you’re so furious. Because he has the life he always wanted, while you have become…this.”
St. John had tucked his blade away, into a sheath at his hip, to be able to use both hands to row, but at her cutting remark, hedropped both oars in their brackets and palmed the blade again. He held it with the tip pointing directly at her. “Don’t tempt me to slit your throat.”
“I don’t think you could,” she said, measuring the space between herself and the metal pole, which looked to be at least four feet in length.
She trembled violently, a spike of nausea in the center of her sternum. There would be no Sir or Carrigan riding up on a horse to rescue her as they had last August from Mr. Henley. No Hugh to pull her from this water, as he had from the Thames after she’d been shot. If she wanted to live, she had to rely upon herself. And her ability to outwit the madman sitting opposite her.
“You don’t want to get your hands bloody, do you? It’s why you poisoned Mr. Vaillancourt. All you had to do was slip the powder into his tea or his food. Then, you could walk away. You wouldn’t have to watch.”
The skiff listed upon the waves now that St. John had quit rowing. He laughed at her speculation, though it sounded forced and bitter.
“And pushing Lord Burton over the bluff gave you another chance to look away, didn’t it?”
“How clever you are, duchess. You’re quite right in that I abhor the sight of blood. However, in our tussle on the cliff, Burton fell and hit his head on a rock, so…convenient for me, that. I had time to affix your hair comb to his sleeve.”
His lack of remorse was sickening. “And what of Grayson? Did you kill him as well?”
The valet had suffered a great fall like the baron, and curiously, right after traveling with St. John to Dover.
“I cannot take full responsibility for that fool,” he scoffed. “He was all too willing to imbibe to excess and run his mouth about Philip. Burton saw an opportunity as well as I.”
“You both led him to the top of the Grand Shaft,” she said, horrified by such cruel cunning.
“Does it truly matter to you? I find that hard to believe.”
“Only because you don’t have the capacity to care about anyone but yourself. If someone stands in the way of what you want, you push them down and to hell with them, isn’t that right?”
He grunted a laugh but didn’t respond. And now, she knew for certain what he planned for her. He was going to push her out of the way too.
