Page 58 of Betrayal from Beyond
Niall exchanged glances with Kara. “Was the urchin you knew called Pip?”
Hawkins’s brows rose in surprise. “Yes! You know him, then?”
“Thatishim. Harold was called Pip in those days.”
“Those days? But…that’s the same boy?” Hawkins seemed to struggle to believe them.
Kara nodded.
“And you’ve taken him in? Why?”
Niall was growing impatient. “Because Harold has a good heart and a quick mind. Because he told the truth when he didn’t have to—and when it would have been safer for him not to. Because he helped to clear my wife’s name of a misguided accusation—”
“Because he needed us and we needed him,” Kara interrupted.
Hawkins stared, as if trying to judge the truth of her words. “Well. Well, then.”
He turned around completely, to face the room—and noted Turner standing near the door. He flushed red. Ducking his head, he went to sit next to Preston.
At least he had the grace to feel ashamed.
Hawkins glanced quickly around the room, then hung his head again. “I suppose I owe you all an apology.”
“You owe Prudence an apology,” Kara said darkly. “You owe Turner a pound of flesh.”
“True enough.” Breathing deeply, Hawkins raised his head. “I do apologize, Mr. Turner. Not to excuse myself, but I was meant to shoot you. But you were kind to me when I came for that interview, and I heard many good things about you at Wood Rose Abbey. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“I suppose I must thank you for your restraint,” Turner said wryly.
“I decided to spook the horse instead. Let me tell you, I was on pins and needles while you were so ill. I worried it might have had the same effect, in any case. If it makes you feel any better, Petra knocked me about the head when I told her I’d missed you.”
“She did far worse tonight,” Gyda said coldly. “She meant to kill Kara. She succeeded in murdering my…” She stopped and swallowed. When she spoke again, both her rage and her grief sounded clear. “She killed a man that meant very much to me. She shot him in cold blood.”
Hawkins paled. “I’m sorry to hear it, miss.” Clearing his throat, he looked up and met each of their gazes directly, one by one. “She won’t stop there. I spent days with her, and she did go on about you all. She means to see each of you dead. And that won’t be the end of it. She means to bring down the royal family, half of Parliament, and England itself, should she find a way to manage it.”
Preston made a distressed sound. “And with you as her accomplice, Tom? Youknowwhat she is. I don’t understand how you could have gone along with her.”
“Well, I didn’t know at first, did I? She first come ’round just asking for a place to stay while she looked for William.”
“William Barnstaple? Did she find him?” asked Niall. Stayme would be interested. As would Wooten.
“Nary a hint of him. And that lit a fuse to her temper, didn’t it? Then she heard the fuss about your homecoming. And that dredged up the news of your wedding beforehand. Didn’t that enrage her?” Hawkins sighed. “I believed it also worried her. You’d mucked up her works once before, hadn’t you? She started to plot against the lot of you. In the way of passing time between drafting her bigger plans.”
“And you just came down here to do her bidding? To frighten and harm these people, who had never lifted a finger against you?” Preston asked, incredulous.
“I did,” Hawkins admitted quietly. “It got me away from her.”
“And your creditors,” Preston said savagely.
“Well, yes. They were getting insistent. But I thought I had better remove myself from her vicinity, mostly. You know how she is when her temper is riled, Rob! And it just seemed never to pull back from a boil. Do you know, she even tore off my St. Simeon medal? You know what it meant to me. So did Petra. But she ripped it off, raging over Clémence’s death. She flung it somewhere and I never did find it.”
“I found it in the wreck of your rooms. I have it back at my place.” Preston’s tone grew rough. “Petra killed her, Tom. She killed Clémence in the midst of one of her fits.”
“I feared as much. There was something in the way she spoke of it. I could hear it in her voice. And she saw that I suspected. I know it.” Hawkins hung his head. “We’ve all seen it. The look in her eye when someone ceases to be of use to her and she starts to turn on them. To be honest, I feared I might go the same way as Clémence. I figured I had better do something to get back in her good graces. So I came down here and left her to stay in my rooms. At first, it was just pranks. The biscuits. The notes. But then she bade me to kill Mr. Turner. Well, I figured I could bumble my way through a couple of her orders without suffering too much. It would be no more than she expected of me. I thought I would stretch it out, this time here, while I worked out a place to run to.”
“And Petra showed up here at times?” asked Niall. “To give you orders? To hear reports?”
“Yes. She would come to the village on the train.”
