Chapter 18 - The Herald of Spite
Alister was across the terrace and down the spiral stone stairs before Higgins could dismount in the courtyard. Abigail followed close behind, her silk skirts gathered in one hand, her face pale but her expression cast in unyielding granite.
"Report!" Alister barked as he entered the inner bailey, where eight of his veterans were already lining the parapets with loaded carbines, their matches smoldering in the mist.
"It is not an assault force, Your Grace," Higgins said, gasping for breath as he patted his lathered mount. "It is a flag of truce. An open carriage under a white lantern, escorted by six outriders in Chiverton livery. But the woman inside... it is her."
"Beatrice," Abigail whispered.
"She has the audacity to present herself at our gates?" Alister’s voice was dangerously low, a lethal quietness that made the soldiers around him stiffen to attention. "She is a fugitive from Chancery warrant."
"She carries papers, Your Grace," Higgins warned. "Her escorts claim they bear a writ from the Scottish Privy Council and an order of diplomatic immunity granted under Lord Chiverton’s seal."
"Chiverton’s influence does not cross the border without the Lord President’s assent," Alister said, his teeth grinding. "Lower the portcullis to half-height. Allow her carriage onto the causeway, but not a single horseman beyond the outer barbican. If any man reaches for steel, put a ball through his chest."
Five minutes later, the iron wheels of a sleek, black town carriage crunched over the wet gravel of the outer gatehouse. The outriders halted fifty yards back, their carbines pointed at the ground under the watchful eyes of Alister's snipers.
The carriage door opened. A footman in lavender livery set down a velvet-cushioned step, and Lady Beatrice Hadlington emerged into the torchlight.
She was dressed not as a fugitive, but as an empress. A cloak of midnight-blue velvet trimmed with silver fox fur was draped over a gown of dark silk. Her blonde hair was piled high under a bonnet adorned with ostrich plumes, and her face, though sharpened by rage and long days of travel, was painted to porcelain perfection.
Yet when her venomous, pale blue eyes locked onto Abigail standing beside Alister, the polite veneer shattered like thin ice.
"How touching," Beatrice sneered, her voice carrying clear above the roar of the breakers below. "The fallen governess playing lady of the keep, draped in the Duke’s charity."
"You are trespassing on Strathmore land, Lady Beatrice," Abigail said, taking two deliberate steps forward, her chin lifted high, the sapphire necklace glittering boldly in the torchlight. "And you stand within range of twenty rifles. Choose your next words with care."
Beatrice’s eyes dropped to the sapphires, and a spasm of pure, unadulterated hatred twisted her features. "The Strathmore jewels. You truly believe you have won, don't you, Miss Trent? You think a scrap of parchment burned in Edinburgh erases what you are—a bankrupt traitor’s brat who scrubbed porridge from my gown!"
"Silence!" Alister’s command struck the courtyard like a clap of thunder. He stepped in front of Abigail, his tall, broad frame radiating pure ducal wrath. "You are an escaped prisoner of the Crown, Beatrice. You broke house arrest in London, poisoned King's officers, and fled under the protection of a conspirator. I could have you hanged from the battlements of this castle before the tide turns, and no court in Britain would question the judgment."
Beatrice let out a high, brittle laugh that had the ragged edge of madness. "You cannot touch me, Alister! Lord Chiverton has filed an appeal of high jurisdiction before the House of Lords. Until the peers sit in November, my father’s status and mine are protected under royal petition! But I did not come here to plead for your mercy."
She reached into her muff and drew forth a folded document sealed with heavy black wax.
"What poison do you peddle now?" Alister demanded.
"Not poison, my dear former fiancé. Truth," Beatrice spat, her eyes glittering with manic triumph. "You spent three years mourning Duchess Eleanor, didn't you? You built an altar to her memory in Ashbourne Manor. You let Clara weep for her dead mother every night."
Alister went rigid, his face draining of all color. "Do not speak Eleanor’s name. You are not fit to breathe the air she walked upon."
"Am I not?" Beatrice stepped forward, holding the black-sealed paper toward the torchlight. "Did you ever wonder why Eleanor fell ill so suddenly at our family’s country estate three years ago? Did you ever question why she took to her bed within hours of sharing an evening cordial with Lord Cavendish and my dear father?"
A terrible, suffocating silence descended over the bailey. Even the wind seemed to die, leaving only the sickening thud of the waves against the cliff face.
Abigail felt a cold dread clutch at her throat. She looked at Alister; the Duke looked as though he had been struck with an iron bar.
"What are you saying?" Alister whispered, each syllable trembling with lethal force.
"Eleanor was not taken by a fever, Alister," Beatrice hissed, a smile of absolute malice curling her red lips. "She had discovered the northern land schemes two years before your little governess ever did. She was going to tell you. She was going to bring down the Hadlington house before I could even make my debut."
Beatrice tossed the black-sealed paper onto the gravel at Alister’s feet.
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"She died because she was inconvenient," Beatrice whispered, leaning forward, her eyes wide and burning with triumphant cruelty. "And the apothecary who prepared the draught still lives in Aberdeen, under Lord Chiverton's payroll. You didn't lose a wife to God's will, Alister. You sat by her bedside and watched my family murder her."
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