Should he charge into the house after her? Was Thomson inside? Randolph still didn’t know. Did it make any difference? She was there. Ruth was there. Two out of three. When he was finished with them he wouldn’t have any trouble finding the elusive Dr. Thomson. In fact, the doc would be looking for him, which was fine.
He was about to cross the street and ring the doorbell when he heard the hoof beats of an approaching rider. He darted back into his hiding place. A dappled gray stallion trotted to the Greenwald house and the rider dismounted. Randolph examined him carefully. Tall and slender, lithe on his feet, and broad shouldered. He carried himself with the aristocratic arrogance of someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth. This had to be Buck Thomson, medical doctor and lecher.
Even before the plantation owner’s son reached the front door, it flew open and Sarah smiled in welcome, took his hand and led him inside. The door closed discreetly.
Randolph tamped down the flare of temper that threatened to expose him. It was time for what the army called reconnaissance. Looking both ways down the tree-lined street, and seeing his path clear, he rapidly crossed over to the corner of the house. Skulking down the length of it, he peered through the ground-floor windows. Every room he viewed was empty of people—until he reached the one at the end. He couldn’t be sure he heard voices, but the possibility that he had made him more circumspect. He inched up to the sill and peeked inside.
The man who’d arrived a few minutes ago was sitting on the foot of a narrow bed, changing the dressing on a man’s leg, or more precisely the stump of his leg. Sarah was standing at the head of the bed, pulling the cork from a blue bottle. Probably laudanum, Randolph concluded. Well, Mr. One-Leg wasn’t going to be any trouble at all.
He felt that thrill of anticipation. They were all here. Dr. Thomson. Sweet Sarah and her bitch of a mother. The old bat probably didn’t consider it ladylike to see a man’s stump. He watched her leave the room. A moment later, through the open door to the hall, he caught a glimpse of her black dress ascending the staircase. Randolph snickered. She probably had her own stash of laudanum in her bedroom to calm her delicate nerves. Delicate, my foot. He looked at the man in the bed and almost laughed out loud.
He took another gulp from his bottle. Time to claim what was his.
#
“Excuse me, Miz Sarah,” the butler said from the doorway, “but there’s a man outside sneaking through the bushes around the house and peeping in the windows.”
Buck’s head shot up. That could mean only one person. Randolph had found them. The shock on Sarah’s face was unmistakable. What concerned Buck even more was the flash of fear he caught in her eyes.
“Sarah, go upstairs immediately and stay with your mother. Don’t come down till I tell you it’s safe.”
“But—” she seemed momentarily paralyzed “—but what about Rex’s laudanum?”
“Please don’t argue. There’s no time to lose.”
“You think it’s Randolph?” She knew it was.
“We can’t take any chances. Now please go. I’ll stay here with Rex.” He turned to the butler. “Make sure the doors and windows are all locked and the shades drawn. Hurry.”
“Yessir.” Duncan didn’t ask the questions Buck could see on his face. He turned back into the hall. Sarah was right behind him. Buck was about to start rewrapping Rex’s stump when there was a crash and the sound of shattering glass exploding from the rear of the house.
“Don’t move,” a man’s gruff voice ordered. “Anybody who twitches gets shot.”
Sarah glanced at Buck through the doorway. Her eyes were wide and said it all. It’s him. It’s Randolph. You were right.
Small consolation. Buck reached for the Colt in his coat pocket.
“Thomson,” the intruder shouted defiantly. “Get out here with your hands up or I’ll shoot her.”
Buck weighed his options. There weren’t many. He quickly leaned over Rex, slipped his hand under the covers and whispered a few hasty words. Whether Rex understood what he said wasn’t clear. Buck was about to ask him when Randolph bellowed out a new command.
“You got three seconds, doc. One. Two—”
“Coming!” Buck bolted to the doorway and out into the hall with his hands raised. He positioned himself at Sarah’s side.
Duncan had backed into a corner by the staircase, his hands extended high over his head.
“How many servants you got here?” Randolph asked, his gun still pointed directly at Sarah.
“Just me and the cook, massa.”
“Call her.”
“Rosie? Rosie, come here.” His voice was unsteady.
A woman’s gray-haired head appeared from the kitchen door at the other end of the dining room.
“Tell her to get out here,” Randolph repeated harshly.
“Rosie.” Duncan’s voice trembled.
The black woman, who wasn’t up to the butler’s shoulder in height, approached with hands wrapped in her apron.
“Where does that lead to?” Randolph nodded to the small portal under the stairs.
“To the cellar, sir,” Duncan replied.
“Both of you, go down there and be quiet. Understand?”
“Yessir,” he said. The woman shied like a whipped dog as she circled toward it. Seconds later their feet could be heard clattering down the wooden steps.
Randolph moved over to the portal door and slammed it, then shot the outside bolt. His focus on Sarah hadn’t wavered. “Now, my dear adulterous wife, it’s time for you—”
“You know, Randolph, I liked you a lot better when you were dead.”
“Sarah,” Buck cautioned under his breath, but she wasn’t listening. He saw Randolph raise his gun and take a step back as his finger tightened on the trigger.
Suddenly there was an explosion at his feet.
Randolph stared down at a shattered flowerpot but quickly regained his composure before glancing up to the landing above. “Come on down here, Ruth. Damn you.”
No sound.
“If you don’t come down in the next five seconds, I’ll shoot your daughter. Maybe kill her or just let her suffer. One. Two—”
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” Ruth protested.
She descended the regal staircase slowly, arthritically, one painful step at a time. Buck understood what she was doing, stalling, no doubt in the hope that the distraction would give him an opportunity to draw his pistol.
“Stand over there with your daughter and her boyfriend,” Randolph ordered her when she finally reached the bottom of the stairs.
Ruth clung to Sarah’s waist.
“My, what a cozy little family y’all make.”
“Help me, damn it,” Rex shouted angrily. Everybody’s eyes turned toward the sickroom. “My leg’s bleeding. Bad.”
Was it? Buck wondered. It hadn’t been a minute ago.
“The pain,” Rex cried out. “It’s killing me. I need laudanum.”
“But—” Sarah started to say before she caught herself.
“Help me. God, I’m bleeding bad.”
“You’ve got to let Dr. Thomson help the poor man,” Ruth pleaded. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“Somebody . . . you got to stop the bleeding. I don’t want to die. Please, somebody help me. Buck, please.”
“Randolph, really,” Ruth said, as if speaking to a child. “He’s innocent. The poor man’s—”
“God damn it,” Rex cursed in exasperation. “First you cut off my leg and now you’re letting me bleed to death. Oh God, why? What did I ever do to you?”