by Rue Allyn
Dr. Logan appeared at once concerned. “Of course.”
“Have you ruled out the possibility that Lord Kingsley has been poisoned?”
“Poisoned?” echoed Weathersby.
Dr. Logan appeared equally aghast. “Sir?”
Thayne watched his reaction closely. “Something that could have been administered over a period of time to make it appear he was ill of natural causes?”
The doctor’s brows furrowed together, his mouth parted. He looked at Guilford with what appeared heavy concern.
“Arsenic,” he answered, his voice monotone. “It would be nearly undetectable. Lord Brighton,” he glared at him, “what exactly are you suggesting?”
“A very serious allegation against Lydia Kingsley, Desmond Kingsley, and her cousin, Mr. Pierson, Doctor. Miss Braden and I are, in fact, witnesses to a conversation between two of them on this very subject.”
Weathersby’s mouth opened as if to gasp, but no sound was heard. Dr. Logan rushed to Guilford’s side and examined him.
“It would explain his symptoms,” the doctor said, his voice hurried, panicked.
“Dr. Logan,” Rhianna asked, hesitantly, “if such is the case, could he be saved?”
Her eyes were wide, pleading. For a moment, she forgot he did not know he was her father.
Dr. Logan seemed to consider the likelihood. “It is possible,” he told her, cautiously. Then he shook his head. “Could Lady Kingsley be capable of this?”
The room fell silent.
“Rhianna, may I speak with you outside?” Thayne asked. She silently agreed. “I will return, gentlemen.”
They seemed not even to hear him and he exited with Rhianna.
In the hallway, Thayne’s hands enclosed her face, his hold gentle yet tense. “I want you and Audra to leave this place. It is not safe.”
“Where shall we … ?”
“Ravensleigh.”
Rhianna’s eyes turned toward Lord Kingsley’s bedroom door. Thayne was not unaware of her concern and his thumbs softly stroked her cheeks.
“There is nothing you can do here, Rhianna,” he told her delicately.
“What will you do?”
“I will call on some friends. Some live close and can be here in a matter of hours. In the meantime, I will personally watch over Lord Kingsley. The guilty parties are not aware of our knowledge. It will buy us some time.” She allowed him to accept her silence as agreement. “Let us speak with Henry. I will have him call my carriage and we will get you a change of clothes.”
• • •
Thayne carried a sleepy Audra to the carriage in front of Kingsley Manor, seeing for the first time the sisterly resemblances between her and Rhianna in their pale skin and large eyes. His driver, Barton, stood at the ready.
“But I don’t want to leave …” The emotional exhaustion had taken its toll on Audra; her words were mumbled and weak, her eyes closing.
“It is only for a little while. I will watch over your father while you keep my mum and Crispin company. Crispin is already waiting for you.”
She sighed, surrendering to the physical limits of her body. Thayne gently placed her down beside the maid and manservant Lady Brighton had sent to accompany them on their short journey to Ravensleigh. They tossed a blanket over her as Thayne tipped his hat to them both.
Rhianna was speaking with Henry at the front door, each nodding to the other, when Thayne turned to her. Then, she made her way toward her fiancé. Despite the circumstances, Thayne allowed himself a moment to admire the woman he adored, her red hair as it sparkled in the mid-afternoon sun, her green, almond-shaped eyes that lit up when they met his, and even her long, hooded cloak as it twisted around her in the wind. He cherished the moment, knowing the time to appreciate it was now, for who could say how the hours ahead would pass?
Her gloved hands reached out to his.
“I do not know how soon it will be before we are together again,” Thayne told her.
There was so much more to say, but he hesitated. Thayne’s intention had been to prepare Rhianna for a long absence, but as those few words passed his lips he realized himself what that would mean — a pain acute and severe. Instantly recalling the snowstorm that had all too recently kept them apart, this too would keep them at a distance for an unknown, excruciating period.
But there was no time to consider that. Besides, there was no alternative. At least this time he could remind himself she was promised to him.
“I love you,” he concluded.
Her worried expression softened, and her cheeks grew rosy with her faint smile. “I love you, Thayne Brighton.”
He allowed the sound of his name from her lips to echo in his ears.
“Whatever damage has been done,” he at last promised her, “I will not let any further harm come to Lord Kingsley.”
She nodded. “I know. Please be careful.”
He promised with an abrupt kiss and assisted her into the carriage. They exchanged anxious glances before the door closed between them.
“Barton,” Thayne instructed, “go directly to Ravensleigh. Stop for no one, do you understand?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Thayne knocked his hand against the side of the carriage as Barton lifted himself up to the driver’s seat and urged the horses forward. He watched for a moment as the coach carried his beloved toward safety, and then reentered Kingsley Manor.
• • •
They had not traveled far down the approach when Rhianna watched Thayne enter the manor. Then, as instructed, Henry gave her the signal she was hoping for: the coast was clear.
“Mr. Barton! Mr. Barton!” she cried to the coachman. “Please stop the coach!”
“I beg your pardon?” he called, slowing the horses.
“Please stop!” she called again.
Rhianna was on her feet, her hands on the door. She leaned over to give Audra a kiss on the forehead.
“Where are you going?” she asked Rhianna, groggily.
“I promise I’ll meet you at Ravensleigh in no time at all.”
“Miss Braden,” Mr. Barton called, “Lord Brighton instructed me not to stop.”
“Yes, absolutely, once you are on your way you must not stop for anything at all,” she agreed. “Only, we have not yet left Kingsley Manor and I really must go back.” The coach came to a halt and Rhianna helped herself down. “Thank you, Mr. Barton. Please continue without me. Miss Kingsley must be at Ravensleigh as soon as possible.”
Barton appeared very confused as she secured the door, and then shrugged before continuing on.
She nearly ran back to the manor. She had always liked Henry, and he had always liked her. She knew she could ask him the favor of providing her a horse. A servant was already bringing it around.
“Thank you, Henry,” she said, out of breath and smiling. “He would have never let me go.”
“Keep a sharp eye out, miss,” he told Rhianna. “There are some unsavory characters in our midst.”
“Yes.” The stable boy handed her the reins of her favorite steed. “I will, Henry. Thank you again.”
She galloped down the Kingsley approach, gone as quickly as she had escaped the Brighton carriage that traveled yet within sight before her.
• • •
Thayne’s elbow rested in his hand, his fist supporting his chin, as he stood beside the window of Guilford’s room, his back to the scene outside. Dr. Logan leaned over Guilford with his stethoscope, the latter having awoken since Thayne’s return. Weathersby continued to stand gravely in the corner, pacing occasionally.
Servants had been sent out to various households, bearing Thayne’s handwritten notes to each male of age, requesting they come at once to Kingsley Manor. He expected they all would come. He expected three to arrive relatively quickly.
“Gentlemen, may I have a word with Lord Kingsley?” he requested, suddenly.
Each was happy to oblige. Time was passing slowly as they waited and a change of scenery w
as welcome. Dr. Logan rose from beside the bed and followed Weathersby quietly into the hall.
Thayne took a seat beside Guilford and smiled. “I want to thank you, Lord Kingsley.”
Guilford examined him curiously. “Ought not I be thanking you, who willingly remains in such circumstances, away from his family, under this disgraceful roof?”
Thayne shook his head. “No. It is a small thing compared with what you have done for me.”
“Pray, tell.”
Thayne drew a deep breath and smiled. “You have given me a family. A future. Happiness that I never imagined possible,” he told him. “And I hope you will forgive me, for had I known sooner, I would have asked your permission for her hand before she said yes.”
His face smoothed, his brows raised, his lips spread wide across his face. “Indeed!” Through all the illness and exhaustion, energy issued from his core. “Rhianna? The future Mistress of Ravensleigh?”
“Yes.” He grinned at the merriment in his voice. “And I can only hope you will still give your blessing.”
“Thayne,” he called him, tenderly, “you are one of the most honorable men I have ever known. It is exactly the happiness that I wish for you both. Nothing should please me more.”
Thayne took his hand in a firm grip, grinning from ear to ear. “I will always take care of her. You don’t have to worry.”
Guilford struggled to place one of his hands over Thayne’s arm. “You have given me peace that I never imagined. Thank you.” Then he jested, “Well, it looks like my good friend Bridgeford is still going to need a governess.”
Thayne looked at him curiously, but Guilford had no time to explain. There was a quick rap at the door and Henry entered.
“I beg your pardon,” Henry breathed, as if he had run up the two flights of stairs from his post. “Miss Braden …”
It was if he could hardly get the words out for lack of air. At the name, adrenaline shot through both men. Thayne jumped to his feet.
“Henry, speak!”
“She took a horse,” he hurried. “She said she was going to visit a friend …”
“Miss Braden left in a carriage to Ravensleigh,” Thayne told him tensely. “I watched her drive off with my own eyes.”
“That you did, sir. But after you returned to the manor, she exited the coach and took a horse. I’m so sorry to have helped her. I should be relieved of my duties at once. But Mr. Pierson and Lord Desmond Kingsley also happened to be on horseback and, at once appearing from the side of the manor, followed after her!”
“Henry, is this true?” Guilford asked him.
“My lord,” he bowed quickly.
Thayne rushed at the window and saw the distant outline of two riders on horseback, both of them men. “Good God — we never closed the door!”
“Thayne?”
In this one word, Guilford’s voice held all the strength of the previous words spoken together.
“We never closed the door to Catherine’s bedroom,” he told him. “They must know.” He turned to Henry. “Where did you say she was going?”
“A friend’s house, sir. It is all she told me.”
“Lord Kingsley? Can you have any idea?”
“Yes.” His voice was confident. “There is only one place it could be.”
“There is more thing, my lord,” Henry added, uneasily. “One of the stable boys claims to have seen something dreadful. It was after Miss Braden’s horse accident … Forgive me, Lord Kingsley, but he alleges he saw Lord Desmond Kingsley remove a dart from the leg of her horse.”
“Why did he not say so before?” cried Guilford.
“My lord, he tells me that Lord Desmond Kingsley saw him. That he threatened his position if he ever spoke a word of the matter. The boy was apparently afraid.”
Thayne addressed Henry again. “My horse — quickly! I leave at once.”
• • •
The trip to Mauvreen’s felt elongated, nearly unending, and Rhianna knew it was not because it had been several weeks since she had been there. Her heart raced well ahead of her and she felt as if she could not catch up to it. One central thought consumed her, namely, if she could not be beside her father as he lay dying, she could at least be beside her mother. Not only, but Mauvreen was at last free to tell her everything and Rhianna’s thoughts flew as she considered all the details she could provide, from what her mother was like as a child, to her relationship with Guilford Kingsley, to her final hours.
If only this trail would end!
The air was cold, but she hardly felt it. The woods seemed to watch her more closely than usual, but it did not frighten her. Even her horse seemed agitated, but it gave her no cause for concern. Rhianna’s mind had so overtaken her that she noticed little of the physical world around her.
At last, the lodge came into view. She tied her horse and knocked earnestly on the wood door. Mauvreen answered almost immediately, as if she had been expecting her.
And with just one look, Mauvreen knew that Rhianna knew the truth.
Mauvreen smiled, her wrinkles setting deeply into the curvatures of her face. “Well! I suppose you are not here to see me,” she said, her eyes sparkling.
“I am here to see both of you,” Rhianna said, confirming her presumption.
“That’s more than your father would say.” Rhianna stepped forward and Mauvreen took her in her arms. “Come inside.”
As Rhianna entered, there was something different about the lodge. It felt familial, homey.
“This lodge holds so many memories,” recalled Mauvreen, as if she could look about the rooms and see the past as clearly as the present. “All the years I’ve imagined this moment, having wanted for so long to share my memories with you,” she told her, “and I still do not know where to begin.”
Rhianna agreed. “There is so much I want to know and I don’t know what to ask.”
Mauvreen raised her hand, as if she suddenly knew exactly which direction to take. “There is something I want you to see.”
Rhianna followed her upstairs, where she was led to a bedroom at the end of the hall. Mauvreen allowed her a moment to silently examine it. It was a modest room, plainly decorated, with a window to the garden in the back. She looked down at the roses and the white fence, but the gravestone itself was not within view. Rhianna returned her attention to the room and wondered who in times past had come and gone from it.
“This is where you were born,” Mauvreen explained. “It was in this bed that you spent your one and only day with your mother.”
Her eyes fell upon the bed. Rhianna made her way to it and laid her hand upon the sheets. If only she could remember. Kneeling beside the mattress, she closed her eyes and almost imagined she could.
“When you first looked up into her eyes, Guilford was exactly where you are now. ‘I have a name for her,’ she said to him. ‘She must be called Rhianna.’ I’ll never forget how she looked at you.”
The scene played out in her mind. She imagined her mother, worn out from childbirth, using all her strength just to hold her, at once knowing her intimately and bonding with her for all eternity.
“Her heart,” Mauvreen told her, “was yours and no one else’s, from the first moment she saw you, to its last beat.”
Searching her soul for what she most wanted to know, Rhianna discovered that if nothing was answered but one question, she could be at peace.
She examined the bedsheets as she spoke. “Was my mother happy, Mauvreen?”
“My child?”
“It just seems that life was not very fair to her,” she confessed. “I cannot help but wonder if, in the end, could she have been content, so secluded from society, her family, her prospects, her hopes all gone …”
Mauvreen took a seat on the bed beside Rhianna. Holding one hand in her own and patting it tenderly, Mauvreen smiled broadly, her glassy eyes distant with pleasant memories.
“By no means was she unhappy, Rhianna,” she assured her. “I can promise you. In fact,
she was quite the contrary — especially those last five months of her pregnancy. Though she was so secluded from the rest of the world, I daresay those were the happiest days of Hallie’s life. She was madly in love with your father. He was all she needed in the world. And then she had you.”
“Did Lord Kingsley truly love her, as he told me?”
She nodded. “He adored her the way she adored him. You can see in the devotion he displays to this day, visiting her regularly these twenty some years later, how he loved her then, and loves her still.”
“I wish I could have seen them together,” she mused.
“You have seen the way he smiled at her,” Mauvreen told her. “It is the same way he smiles at you.”
She envisioned it, but the image was fleeting. Rhianna’s thoughts quickly reverted back to present day and she rose.
“My father is dying, Mauvreen. Lydia has poisoned him.”
“I should have known!” declared Mauvreen. “She has been a frantic woman since Pierson was threatened with prison. I did not expect that she would go to such lengths to get Guilford’s money.”
“Except Lord Kingsley has left all his unentailed property to Audra and me. If she succeeds in killing him, it will be all for naught.”
“I doubt she will stop there. You must prove she was behind the poisoning or she will surely come after you both.”
As she was speaking, Mauvreen seemed detached. Her expression was concerned, her eyes squinting and her head tilted. She appeared to focus on a distant sound.
“Do you hear that?”
Rhianna felt inclined to listen. As the room around them fell silent, both clearly heard the sound of horse hooves beating against the ground.
Mauvreen’s eyes bulged and she squeezed Rhianna’s hand tighter than before. “Can Lydia have any idea of what you have just told me?”
Rhianna was shaking her head no when she recalled her hasty exit from Catherine Kingsley’s room. Had she and Thayne locked the door behind them? Had they even closed it?
“Is it possible that someone has followed you here?” Mauvreen added.
“I was supposed to go to Ravensleigh,” Rhianna confessed, her thoughts racing. “Thayne did not think it was safe for me and Audra to remain at Kingsley Manor. If anyone were to follow me … if Thayne had any idea …”