Page 52 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Chapter Thirty

Middle of Windermere

‘C ongratulations: you’ve worked it out,’ said Langhorne, adjusting course away from the nearest pleasure trippers to strike out for the lonely middle of the lake.

‘Fair play to you,’ said Dora adopting a nonchalant tone. ‘You fell out with your pals and you’ve been sorting out your disagreements. Nothing to do with me.’

He gave her a questioning look.

‘I’m an actress, guv,’ she said, dropping into her cockney accent. ‘The doings of you toffs ain’t my affair. I was just wondering how you did it– I’m curious like. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. You can just drop me off at the nearest coaching inn and I’ll make myself scarce.’

He smoothed his top lip thoughtfully.

‘Really, I don’t give a damn– I just want to get clear of this. You spin what story you like. All the same to me.’ She shrugged.

He smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant expression. It told her that he’d not changed his mind about killing her but had decided to talk, to impress her with his cleverness. He liked dominating people, especially women, she guessed.

‘I don’t know if you have ever experienced the excitement of finding a group of people for the first time who think like you, and see the world the way you see it?’

She nodded. ‘I do– me pals in the theatre.’

‘That’s what we were like at the beginning. We talked about changing the world. We planned to usher in an era of justice and equality. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive…”’

‘“But to be young was very heaven”,’ she completed the line.

He looked at her with approval. ‘You know it too?’

‘It’s from that poem, ain’t it?’

‘Yes. One of Wordsworth’s better efforts.

He shared some of it with Knotte and me– but he lent the whole manuscript to Barton.

’ Langhorne gave a nasty chuckle. ‘Knotte was insanely jealous, of course, especially when I pointed out Barton hadn’t even bothered to read it, stuffed it in his valise and thought it well hidden.

So we read it, when Barton wasn’t looking.

Full of ideas that poem, but sadly lacking in action.

Wordsworth is as bad as the rest of them. ’

That was how it had become so well known to a select audience– and Barton had thought he was being so secretive! He’d over-estimated their adherence to a gentlemanly code.

‘But you put the manuscript back?’

‘Once Barton disappeared, naturally I did. Couldn’t be caught with that and I thought either Wordsworth or his shrew of a sister might come looking for it.’

‘Where did you hide it?’

‘At Wright’s cottage. He didn’t know what was on his bookshelf, the fool.’ He frowned at the rudder and picked off a strand of weed.

That must have been when he attacked Wright. Had he been caught taking the notebooks back and Wright had come out of his alcoholic daze enough to understand the significance? He was an admirer of Wordsworth too…

‘You’ve been doing all this to… what? To punish your friends? What had they done to deserve it?’

‘It’s what they hadn’t done. Lily-livered fucking imbeciles! What clearer call could there have been than when Perceval was assassinated. It was time to stop talking and act.’

‘So you did– with Sir Richard Leyburn. Very clever. One less beak in the world– you did us all a favour.’ Perhaps she could flatter him to think better of her?

‘That’s what I think, but they thought it was just talk– a way of shaking their fists at those in power. Posturing. They never expected me to throw a punch.’

‘It was more than a punch.’

‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it?’ He smiled, taking pleasure from the thought.

‘It was child’s play. Knotte and I were both in London trying our luck with the book trade.

That night, I pretended to be Knotte. He’d taken his father’s crook to show the publishers his rural origins– so bloody proud of it. I used it to kill his patron.’

That explained quite neatly the strange choice of weapon and the fact that it had been left at the scene of the crime.

‘Leyburn deserved what he got for encouraging Knotte. The fool paid for his education and told everyone he was the most talented poet in our generation to come out of Cumberland. And do you know what?’

‘Nope– I’m all ears.’

‘I told Knotte what I’d done on the way home and he thought I was joking even when I explained how I’d lured Sir Richard out by pretending to be him.

I’d sent word that he’d decided to emigrate to try his fortune abroad and begged Sr Richard to see him off, hinting he would appreciate a parting gift in farewell. ’

‘So that’s why Sir Richard went to the river at that hour.’

‘Like a lamb to the slaughter.’

That wasn’t funny but she forced a smile. That explained how Sir Richard had fallen into this man’s murderous hands.

‘How did Mr Barton get onto the island, do you know?’

‘Knotte must’ve fished him out of the lake. Ah– we’d better avoid the ferry.’ He tacked to the western shore where the woods were thickest.

‘And who put him in?’

‘ Ding dong bell, Barton’s in the well .

I suppose there’s no harm telling you? The night before the fishing party, Knotte had finally realised I’d told him the truth.

He went to Barton and said that I had done something terrible in London.

Barton didn’t want to believe him so got in his boat and sailed across to Waterhead to have it out with me.

’ He grimaced. ‘Barton likes to think the best of people and it was easy to persuade him that poor Knotte had finally cracked and should be incarcerated for his own good. We sailed back together to take him to a local asylum.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘What I had to. If Barton started wondering, then he might cause me real difficulties, so halfway across to his cottage, I threw him overboard and held him under until he stopped moving.’ He frowned.

‘I’ve no idea how he ended up in that tent.

I guess Knotte must’ve been watching and pulled him out.

I didn’t see that because I’d already decided to stage Barton’s suicide as another incident from the poem. ’

‘You think Knotte swam out to save him?’

‘He must’ve done. He was proud of his lifesaving skills– he’d taught himself after his father’s drowning. Bored us all rigid with showing off his strokes at the tarn. I should’ve thought that he might be watching what we did.’

That meant while Knotte had rescued Barton and made plans to hide him from further attempts by Langhorne, the killer had been sailing south to make the short journey to Esthwaite Water and leave evidence on Elter Holme.

She and Jacob had completely misunderstood the shy young man– Knotte was, in fact, a hero.

He’d probably been hoping that Barton would recover from his near-drowning and back up his story.

Instead, he’d succumbed to pneumonic fever and was fortunate to have survived thus far.

That left Knotte having to pretend to believe Barton had either killed himself or run off, all the while knowing Langhorne had attempted to silence him.

It had to have been terrifying, hiding from a murderer when he knew what else Langhorne had done.

He could probably see Langhorne was weaving a net of lies and thought he was going to be caught in it somehow unless his ally woke up to defend him.

If he did recover, Barton would surely remember it was Langhorne who tried to drown him, not Knotte. Once Langhorne had finished with her, what were the odds he’d go back to make sure the fever patient died before he regained his full wits? She had to get the upper hand somehow.

Dora searched the horizon for anyone within hail, but Langhorne kept changing course to avoid crossing paths with another vessel. He gave her a vicious little smile every time he noted her disappointment that another chance of rescue had been foiled.

Dora decided she hated this lake. It was too bloody big.

But she knew her man now. Her mind had been speeding through her options and come to a realisation.

The only way to stop him thinking of murder was to appeal to his desire to bed every woman.

That was his biggest weakness. He was one of those men who could be led by their cock.

She’d known his type before. She was going to have to try it, wasn’t she, no matter how distasteful the prospect was?

Now or never. She assumed her role and gave him a come-hither smile.

‘Mr Langhorne, I must say I’m impressed.’

‘Impressed?’ He set the rudder for another tack away from the ferry heading up the lake.

‘There’s nothing more alluring than a man who knows what he wants and takes the necessary steps to get it. I’m the same. I’ll do everything necessary to get what I want.’

He was amused, cruel lips quirked in a sardonic smile. ‘Miss Fitz-Pennington, Dora, don’t tell me you are considering sacrificing your virtue to save your life?’

Dora silently wished that he be the one sacrificed, preferably slowly, with a rusty blade.

‘That’s sweet of you but I don’t consider I have any virtue to sacrifice.

I consider it a trade.’ She parted her breech-clad legs in a not-so-subtle invitation.

Anything to get off this lake. On land, she’d have a better chance of escape.

‘Every woman has her price,’ he mocked.

That reminded her of the blasted viscount. It seemed someone thought they had found hers. ‘I’d call it a fair exchange, sir. I want to live. You want to get away Scot free and carry on tupping every woman you can. I’m offering you both those things. You get what you want. I get what I want.’

‘And then?’ He narrowed his eyes as if considering it. Was he? Or was the cruel bastard just toying with her?

‘Then I disappear– you never see me again. It’s not hard for someone like me to vanish– I change my name, go abroad. Who would care?’

‘What’s to stop you going back to your doctor lover and telling him exactly what bargain we struck?’