“As you see,” continued Purceville, “I have ways of arranging circumstances to meet my own ends. And I have no qualms at all about eliminating women who oppose me. I can think of at least a dozen pretexts to end your life right now. Would you like to hear them?”
“I have told you already,” said the woman, vainly trying to suppress the image of her sister engulfed in flames. “I have told you that my niece is not here, that she left me a week ago. Your son himself can attest to that..... I do not know where she is.”
“That is the second time today you have referred me to my son. The truth is, dead woman, that I have no strong inclination to believe him. I don’t know what it is about the MacCain girl that causes those around her to feel so protective---the illusion of innocence, no doubt---but it seems I must accept the fact. My own son has lied to me about the ‘cousin’ who saved her from assault, neglecting to mention that the man was also a Jacobite, and one of the fugitives we sought. Fortunately, as you saw, I take nothing for granted. I found it out for myself, and now have the evidence I need to hang her, if I so desire.”
“On what charge?”
“Harboring a fugitive!” he bellowed. “And conspiracy to murder soldiers of the crown! One of my men was killed in this alleged ‘assault’, and another has disappeared entirely. All serious crimes, punishable by death.” He paused, letting this new threat sink in. “Now do you have anything to say to me, to save the girl’s life, as well as your own?”
The widow glanced quickly at the son, wondering when, if not now, he intended to come to her aid. But he only turned away, and she surrendered all hope of it. Looking back at the father, who had stopped twirling the knife, and only stared back at her with cold murder in his eyes, she could not help but feel that the end had truly come.
She had been prepared for the worst, and ready to sacrifice all. Because of this, and because of the skilled aggression of the Lord Purceville, everything she saw and heard only worked to confirm her darkest imaginings. Her heart went cold inside her as he rose to his feet, the knife clenched firmly in his hand. Her eyes misted and her limbs trembled; but she never once thought of betraying her son. She hung her head and was silent, waiting for death.
She waited in vain.
Stephen Purceville did not intervene, among other considerations, because he knew that his father was bluffing. Even a Governor could not kill a woman without cause, and Stephen was astute enough to know it. The political winds, to which his father was not immune, were shifting. A move toward reconciliation had begun, and such acts of wanton violence, as well as the men who employed them, were rapidly losing favor in the eyes of the Court. Also, his father had made many enemies in his rise to power, men who would use such a thing against him, as they had tried to use the escaped prisoners. To burn a corpse as a scare tactic was one thing. To murder a woman in cold blood was quite another. Not that the younger man put it to himself in this way. He did not have to. He knew the realities, and he knew the man. His father was bluffing.
The woman was startled out of her black study by the last sound on earth she expected. Rather than the slow, sinister footsteps she had tried to anticipate, she was called back instead by the sound, infinitely more mocking than laughter, of strong male hands striking together. She looked up, and he was clapping!