Page 49 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapel Holm

F ollowing Hartley, Dora pushed her way through the undergrowth to the ruins at the centre of the little island.

It wasn’t a new path. There were signs that others had come this way before, though not very often.

The nettles had sprung up, deterring all but the most determined.

The stings poked through her stockings, making her regret the decision to leave behind her skirt.

Hartley stopped at a mound of fallen stones.

‘This is what’s left of the outer wall.’ He boosted himself up on top. ‘Oh, someone’s camping in there.’

Dora scrambled up beside him, Derwent on their heels.

A little tent, the kind used by the military on manoeuvres, had been pitched on the grass of what had once been the chapel interior.

The blackened circle of a campfire a few paces from the entrance still smoked, a kettle placed on a stone to one side. Someone was in occupation.

‘Do you think Mr Knotte has come back and is in there now?’ whispered Derwent.

Dora realised that the boys might have witnessed Knotte doing nothing more suspicious than taking supplies to his own camp. ‘Only one way to find out.’

She jumped down and picked up a stout branch, a makeshift weapon should she need to keep him at a distance. Startling him would not be a good idea. It would be better to allow him to pretend nothing was the matter and that they had called in as friends.

‘Mr Knotte, are you prepared for visitors? The boys and I are exploring.’

No reply.

‘I don’t think he’s here– wait!’ She held up a hand as she could hear a faint groaning. It sounded like it was coming from inside the tent.

Derwent rushed forward. ‘There’s someone in there!’

Before she could stop him, he pushed the flap aside. ‘Mr Barton!’

Dora dropped the stick and hurried past the boy. Her missing client was lying on a bedding roll, dressed only in a nightshirt. The tartan blanket that should’ve been his covering he’d tossed aside. His face was deadly pale and his hair slick with sweat.

She kneeled beside him and felt his forehead.

‘He’s got a fever.’ Glancing around, she saw a basin with a rag beside him, half-filled with water.

She dampened the rag and mopped his forehead.

His eyes were moving rapidly under his eyelids, a sign that he was caught in fever dreams. He let out a groan and knocked her hand away.

‘Hush now, Mr Barton. It’s me, Dora, and the boys. We’ve come to rescue you.’

Would this be a rescue? She didn’t understand what was going on here. Somehow Barton had got from Esthwaite Water to Chapel Holm.

Unless…

A pile of clothes was just a pile of clothes. He might never have been to the lake at all. If Knotte had trapped him on this island, he could’ve taken the clothes to Esthwaite to put everyone off the scent.

But why? It made no sense.

‘How close is Esthwaite Water?’ asked Dora, thinking of the long miles from the top of the lake to Hawkshead.

‘Not far,’ said Hartley. ‘You can cross the lake here and walk to Near Sawrey in less than an hour.’

She had forgotten Windermere as a route for someone with a boat.

That meant Knotte could have brought Barton to Chapel Holm on the night he vanished and quickly planted the evidence that his friend had gone for a fateful swim over at Esthwaite.

He could still have made it to the fishing party if he’d then sailed back to the cottage and joined the others at Rydal the next morning.

‘What’s wrong with Mr Barton?’ asked Derwent plaintively.

The boy was right. That was the most urgent problem to solve. She didn’t like Barton’s pallor. If he’d been ill since he went missing that made nearly a week of fever. It should’ve broken by now.

‘I need you both to fetch Dr Sandys. He might be at Elleray with his brother– do you know the house?

‘Yes– it’s Mr Wilson’s summer home,’ confirmed Hartley.

‘Or he will be on his way back to Loughrigg Tarn. Tell him what we found and that he must bring what he has on hand to treat a fever. More men with a stretcher will also be necessary if Dr Sandys thinks it is safe to move him.’ Looking up at the tent, she noted that it was in good condition and the nights had been warm.

At least his accommodation hadn’t done any grievous injury to him.

‘But we can’t leave you, miss!’ protested Hartley.

‘And I certainly can’t send you alone. One of us must stay with Mr Barton and that has to be me.

’ She backed out of the tent to retrieve her stick.

‘See, I’m armed. If you’re quick, you can find help before Mr Knotte comes back.

Even if you don’t find Dr Sandys at Elleray, you can ask them to send someone to help me while you hunt the doctor down. ’

Hartley still looked undecided. Dora shooed him away.

‘Go! You know you can’t be in two places at once and you need both of you to sail the skiff.’

Accepting the truth of that, the boys gave her a nod and hurried back to the shore.

Dora returned to Barton’s side and continued bathing his skin to bring down his temperature.

For someone who had been sick for days, he was clean and his bedding fresh– a suggestion for what might have been in Knotte’s bundle.

His captor had been tending his prisoner.

‘Come now, Mr Barton, you’ve survived this long. You can surely hold on for another hour until help arrives?’

Only fifteen minutes had passed when she heard someone pushing their way through the undergrowth.

If it were the boys, they had been quicker than she expected but her heart told her she wouldn’t be so lucky.

She held the stick by her side and went out to guard the entrance to the tent.

No way would she allow anyone past her to finish off the patient.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’ asked Knotte in astonishment as he jumped down off the wall, his fair hair gleaming in the sunshine, his squirrel-bright eyes alert. She noticed, as she had before, that he avoided eye contact, his gaze moving to her and then quickly past.

Dora couldn’t think of a decent excuse so went with a version of the truth.

‘You were seen coming to the island, so I came to have a look at what you were doing here.’ He took a step towards her and she raised the stick.

‘Don’t come any closer. Help is on the way– and a doctor. Whatever is going on here, it’s over.’

Knotte blinked at her like an owl in daylight, evidently not following what she was saying.

There was something about the young man, a social awkwardness that made him hard to read.

Did he have a divided personality, or just a very odd one?

‘I can’t see why I’m not allowed to carry on nursing him while we wait.

I’ve been giving him willow bark tea and it’s been doing him good because he’s not as ill as he was at first. I was hoping he’d be well enough to move in a day or so.

’ He held out a package. ‘See– I fetched some more powder from Bowness.’

Dora recalled the kettle and the signs that someone had been brewing hot drinks for their patient. ‘Why not bring a doctor here? Or put Mr Barton in a proper bed in his own cottage? Why keep the fact that he survived a secret?’

Ignoring her stick, Knotte kneeled at the campfire to rekindle the flames. ‘I’m keeping him safe. I thought you understood.’

‘Keeping who safe?’

‘Barton, of course. After what then happened to Wright, I was sure my earlier decision to hide him here was correct.’

‘And what happened to Wright?’ she asked carefully.

‘He bashed him with a skate– I thought that was obvious.’

‘And who is “he”, Mr Knotte?’

He shot her a sly look. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t guessed?’

She shook her head. Was he really so far gone in his mania? How was she going to extricate herself from this situation? He could turn on a sixpence into someone else.

Unless…

The medicine– and the seemingly genuine desire to protect his friends. Was that action aimed against himself or someone else?

Before she could decide, potential rescue arrived in the shape of a man who jumped up on top of the wall to look down at them, rifle aimed at Knotte. Langhorne. How did he come to be there?

‘Hands up!’

‘There’s no need for a gun,’ said Dora, taking a half step towards him.

Knotte gave a shout of alarm. ‘Get away from him, Miss Fitz-Pennington!’

Langhorne gestured with the rifle barrel. ‘Move back, miss. Knotte is dangerous– far more dangerous than I realised. Imprisoning Barton– drowning, poisoning him– taking potshots at nobility. Who knows the full extent of his wickedness?’

Dora stiffened, caught between them. Who should she believe?

‘What do you mean, sir?’ she temporised.

‘He told me he killed his mentor in London, but I didn’t believe him, but now we find him with Barton– and then there’s poor Wright, head bashed in and left for dead. I very much fear we are dealing with a lunatic.’

‘I didn’t… that was you!’ Knotte’s eyes bulged with panic. Panic that he’d been caught, or indignation that he was being falsely accused?

‘Give it over, Knotte, the game’s finished and it’s time you handed yourself into the authorities. Come along now.’ Langhorne gestured with his rifle. ‘On your knees, hands behind your head.’

‘No!’ Knotte lunged towards him in a clumsy attempt to disarm him. The rifle fired and the bullet hit Knotte full in the face. He fell backwards without even a cry of pain– so sudden, so final. Dora screamed, then covered her mouth to stop her whimpers.

‘Damn,’ said Langhorne. ‘I was hoping to take him in alive. There’s a reward for his capture.’

‘You shot him,’ she said in a choked voice. She kneeled to feel for a pulse but knew it was too late for the shepherd poet.

‘I fear he was beyond saving. This is kinder than a lunatic asylum.’ Langhorne flashed her a sardonic smile.

Dora’s mind was whirling. ‘How did you know to come here?’