Before she could decide if it was worth the risk, she heard a faint scraping sound. She thought it was Fothergill in the priest hole, but then it came again—she looked at the main door.
Nicholas had locked it, yet now it slowly, very slowly inched open.
She knew who stood in the shadows beyond even though, with the sun slanting in through the windows, with her eyes still watering with pain, she could only make him out as a vague shape.
Hope leapt and flooded through her. Her brain started to race. Opening her eyes wide, she frantically signaled to the open priest hole beside her. Not knowing where Fothergill was, she didn’t dare move her head, but he couldn’t see her eyes.
Slowly, clearly, Charles nodded, then silently closed the door.
Penny stared at the panel. What was he up to? Her head throbbed. She heard Fothergill’s footsteps on the priest hole’s stone floor; he was no longer slinking silently as he returned. Lowering her lids, she stayed slumped against the post, feigning unconsciousness.
Fothergill strode out of the hole; he marched straight past her to the side of the bed. She heard the tinkle of metal, then other, softer sounds…after a moment, she understood. He’d made his selection from her father’s collection and was stripping off a pillowcase to use to carry them.
He was loading the pillboxes into the case when the knob of the main door rattled.
“My lady?” Norris’s voice floated through the door. “Are you in there, my lady?”
Fothergill froze. Penny knew the door was unlocked; Fothergill didn’t.
In the next breath he was at her side, his knife in his hand, his gaze on the door. Then his eyes cut sideways—and caught the glint of her eyes before she shut them.
He moved so fast she had no chance to make a sound; he whipped a kerchief from his pocket, forced her jaw down, and poked the material deep into her mouth. She choked. It took a few seconds of wheezing before she could even breathe—screaming was out of the question. She couldn’t get enough breath even to make loud noises.
Satisfied he’d gagged her, Fothergill left her; silently crossing the room, eyes on the door, he went to the double windows, looked out, all around, then unlatched the windows and set them wide.
His escape route?
Turning, he looked at Nicholas, still slumped unmoving on the floor. Silently, he walked over, then hunkered down at Nicholas’s side. After a moment, Fothergill lifted his head and looked at her. Then he reached for Nicholas, hauling his unconscious form around so he half sat, slumped before Fothergill. Facing Penny.
Balancing Nicholas against his knees, Fothergill looked again at Penny. His knife flashed in his right hand as he raised it. A smile of inestimable cruelty curved his lips.
He was going to slit Nicholas’s throat while she watched.
Her mouth went dry. She stared.
And felt a cool draft drift across her ankles.
It could only come from the priest hole.
She screamed against the gag, flung herself against her bonds, stamped her feet—made as much noise as she could to cover any sound Charles might make.
Fothergill only grinned more evilly. He reached for Nicholas’s chin, drew it up.
His gaze deflected, going past her. His smile froze.
Charles appeared—was simply suddenly there—beside her.
“I think she means don’t do it.” He moved farther into the room, away from her. “Wise advice.”
He held a dagger, a much more wicked-looking weapon than the one Fothergill had; he turned it in his fingers, his dexterity screaming long and intimate acquaintance with the blade.
Fothergill saw. Understood. They each had a knife. If he threw his and missed killing Charles…
Quick as a flash, Fothergill threw his knife at Charles.
Charles dived, rolling back toward Penny. Fothergill’s knife hit the wall and bounced off, spun away, landing closer to Charles. Charles surged to his feet between Penny and Fothergill. He’d expected Fothergill to go after Penny, the best hostage, or if not that, the door, behind which half the household staff waited.
He’d forgotten the old rapier that hung on the wall above the mantelpiece. Fothergill flung himself at it, yanked it from the fixed scabbard. It came free with a deadly hiss.