“No, Owen, don’t hit him again,” Caroline said. “He will, you know, Bennett, and so will I if you don’t tell us what you were doing here. You and I made a bargain. You got money and I was free of you, forever, as were all my friends. Now here you are again, skulking around at Mount Hawke very late at night. I would say that you’re extremely lucky that North isn’t here. He would kill you.”
“I knew he wasn’t here,” Bennett said behind the cloth, now dotted liberally with his blood. “I’m not stupid.”
“Ah, so you thought that since it would just be Caroline, you damned bugger, you could do whatever you wanted.”
Caroline wondered at that moment what Owen was doing here. Well, at least his purpose wouldn’t be of a nefarious sort. “Why, Bennett?”
“You damned hound, you weren’t coming after Alice again, were you?” It was close but Caroline managed to hold Owen’s hands down until he calmed sufficiently.
“Good God, no,” Bennett said. “Keep him away from me, Caroline, or I might be forced to hurt him. I wasn’t after Alice. That little slut is probably so fat and ugly now I would puke to look at her. No, I lost the money. It wasn’t my fault. This fellow cheated me out of it, the bastard.”
“You lost the money gambling?”
Bennett nodded.
“You came here to steal something?”
“Well, not really, perhaps something small and not cumbersome, maybe Lord Chilton’s strongbox from his estate room if I could have found it. But I didn’t even find the estate room because this fool caught me by surprise.”
“I find that remarkably interesting.”
The three of them turned to see North standing in the kitchen door, leaning negligently against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest. “You are the most miserable worm I have ever known in my life,” he continued to Bennett in an utterly dispassionate voice. “Caroline, my dear, I trust the worm hasn’t overset your nerves?”
“Yes, he did with his yelling. I fell off the settee in the library. You see, North, I’d fallen asleep waiting for you. I ran out like a demented dervish to see Owen sitting on Bennett’s chest in the entrance hall. He was bashing his head quite nicely against the marble. I moved Bennett here when I realized his nose was bleeding. I didn’t want him ruining that beautiful marble.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” North said, still not moving. He looked very dangerous in that moment, and Caroline shivered. It was his stillness that was so frightening, that outward calm that wouldn’t give an enemy a clue that he was ready to kill.
“I shouldn’t have stopped,” Owen said, looking at North. “He’s always going to be a problem, North. At least my father has settled things.”
“Yes, he did, didn’t he, and we never expected him to do it.”
“If your father told the truth in his letter,” Caroline said. “Mr. Ffalkes is a cunning fellow. I’m sorry, Owen, but it’s true.”
“I know from painful experience that you’re right,” Owen said. “But this time I believe him. He will marry Mrs. Tailstrop but I do think he’ll snag her pug Lucy and drop the animal in a ditch. He quite hates it, you know.”
“I’ve written to Mrs. Tailstrop,” North said. “We’ll see what she has to say.”
“I didn’t know you’d done that,” Caroline said. “That was very smart of you, North, not that it surprises me.” She sighed then, eyeing Bennett, who was suspiciously quiet, just dabbing his nose.
“What will we do with him?”
“Let me beat him to a pulp,” Owen said, and massaged his knuckles vigorously.
“We could hang him with the three male martinets,” Caroline said hopefully. “He could rot and fall to the ground with the rest of them and the apples we don’t end up picking.”
North just shook his head at them. “A nice thought, but not enough finesse, Caroline. It’s such a pity we’re certain he didn’t kill your aunt or the other two women. That, I admit, does depress me.” He paused a long moment, giving Bennett a very thorough look. Finally, he said, “Why not send him to your father, Owen?”
Owen gave a bark of laughter and Caroline grinned. “Oh goodness, he’d whip Bennett into shape, North—that or he’d kill him. What do you think, Caroline?”
“Hmmm, Bennett could work for your father, couldn’t he, Owen? Either that or North could see that he was transported to the Colonies.”
“It’s either going to Honeymead Manor or starving,” North said. “You don’t have a sou, do you, Penrose?”
Bennett, still blotting at his nose, shook his head.
“Nor do you have my strongbox.”
Again, Bennett, shuddering only slightly, shook his head.