Page 29 of Weave me a Rope
The marquess managed to get one arm and his head out the window. Spen could see him sawing back and forth as he continued to speak. “Did you think I would not hear Milton has interfered with justice for that trespasser who was spying for your little slut?”
He snorted. “The magistrate had the nerve to tell me I could not have had him hanged or transported for his villainy, and my imprisonment of the man was punishment enough. My illegal imprisonment! Can you believe it? Who does the magistrate think he is? Ah.” A shriek from below, short and sharp, coincided with the marquess’s sigh of satisfaction.
He moved to the second rope, and Spen imagined Cordelia clinging to the rungs as the ladder collapsed with one of its uprights gone, twisted, and turned. “Don’t,” he moaned.
“What do I find when I stopped at the village inn on my way here,” the marquis went on, “but the magistrate with Milton’s solicitor, and both of them demanding to know what I have done with Milton’s niece. I told them I did not know what they were talking about. Now, of course, I do.”
He pulled back again to grin at Spen. “Three-quarters cut through. Let us leave the bitch’s destiny to fate, shall we? If the rope holds, she spins for a while until I feel like sending someone to retrieve her. If the rope breaks, she dies.”
Another scream came as he finished speaking. The marquess looked out of the window again. “Oops,” he said. His grin was wider as he turned back into the room. “Well, my son. It seems your impediment to the marriage I wish is no longer a problem.”
*
Spen faced hisfather with a facade of calm that ignored the storm of howling grief within him. “On the contrary, my lord. If you have killed the only wife I will ever have, the only woman onwhom I will ever sire children, then you have also ensured John and his children will eventually be the future of this line. For I shall never marry as you desire.”
“You shall, if I have to bind and gag you to get you to the altar,” snarled his father.
Spen shook his head. “If you can find some venal priest to pronounce the marriage valid, I shall never beget children upon whatever unfortunate female you force to accept a cold and sterile marriage.”
The marquis sneered. “My wife is in labor even as we speak, and if it is a son, you are of no further use to me,” he stated. He turned to his lackeys. “Take him and lock him in the cellars. Fielder! Collect your things and get out and be grateful I don’t have you beaten before you are thrown from the estate.”
*
It was darkwhen Cordelia woke with a terrible headache and a vague sense of loss. She must have been dreaming of Spen again. She sighed.
“Dee-Dee! Ye’re awake.” It was her uncle’s voice, from beside the bed, and his must be the hand that grasped one of hers and pulled it towards him to drop a tender kiss on her fingers. “How do you feel?”
“Uncle Josh? Why are you in my room? Can you light a lamp? I cannot see.”
“Dee,” her uncle replied, with a sob.
“Uncle, what is the matter?”
“Can’t ye see me, Dee-Dee?” her uncle begged. “My finger. Can ye see my finger?”
She felt his touch on her nose, but she could still see nothing.
“It is too dark, Uncle Josh,” she insisted.
“Fetch that doctor back,” Uncle Josh ordered. “Miss Cordelia can’t see.”
Cordelia squeezed her uncle’s hand in shock, fear almost choking her. “I am blind? What happened, Uncle Josh? Have I been sick?”
“Ye fell, darling girl. Don’t ye remember? Climbing down Spenhurst’s tower and falling?”
Cordelia started to shake her head, but the thunderous headache took sharp exception. She had to swallow nausea before she could say, “But Uncle Josh, Lord Spenhurst is at Deercroft. We are in London.”
But that, she found out, was not true. It wasn’t until the next day she managed to piece together the whole story. She had no memory of catching a mail coach with John or of bribing some of her uncle’s men to accompany her to the tower. Nor did she know what happened at the tower or how she came to fall.
John was able to give some details of the trip back to Crossings, and the servants who had accompanied her explained she had gone for a brief talk and taken the opportunity to climb the young earl’s rope ladder. She had been trapped there, apparently, for the whole day, with too many people walking near the tower for her to descend. Cordelia wished she could remember the day.
To Cordelia’s surprise, much of the rest came from Fielder. He had been present when the Marquess of Deerhaven had cut the ladder while Cordelia was on it—fortunately only a few feet above the ground. He was the one who had carried her home from the base of the tower.
John had told her the poor man had been dismissed without a reference, but Uncle Josh was going to employ him, so that was some recompense. John had also sent Fielder to talk to his former colleagues, to see if he could find out what had happenedto Spen. Also, to the marchioness, who was having her baby, which was the reason the marquess had returned to Deercroft.
Cordelia was fortunate, her uncle told her. Fielder had found out that she dropped five feet from the ladder, but landed awkwardly, stumbled, and hit her head on the stone wall of the tower. She had some bruises and scrapes, but the worst harm was the blow to the head. She had been unconscious for more than a day—long enough for an urgent message to reach Uncle Josh and for him to race to her side.
The doctor told her uncle her loss of memory was normal with such an injury. “It might return, or it might not, but at least she knows who she is, so she is a fortunate young lady.” As to her sight, the doctor had heard of a few rare cases of a sudden blow causing partial or complete blindness.
