“Indeed, a lovely ideal. But perhaps such quaint romances only exist in the pages of your books. I am speaking of real lfe here, my dear.”
“So am I,” Gwyneth said more strongly than she intended. He was wrong for her. He’d always been wrong for her. “If you can forgive me, I plan to change and go downstairs and clear up this confusion with my aunt.”
He opened his mouth to argue more, but Gwyneth shook her head and quickly slipped into her bedchamber, closing the door behind her.
She was relieved to find Violet waiting for her.
“I told him no,” Gwyneth whispered, feeling almost giddy. “I can feel the weight lifting off my shoulders.”
Violet shook her head and quickly latched the door. “This is far from being over Gwyneth. I think you might be in genuine danger.”
*****
The events of the morning Emma died were once again sharp in David’s memory. Pierce had seen the bodies first on the edge of the river. Walter was the person who had climbed down the rocks with him. The two men were responsible for bringing up Lyon’s broken body…and then Emma’s lifeless one.
Walter had been there on the cliffs about the same time as Pierce—perhaps even before him. He may have seen Emma fall. He may have been responsible for it. David did not care about any reckoning, if Walter pushed her. What mattered most was knowing the truth. David knew that the only way was to confront Walter directly.
His cousin was not to be found at Baronsford. In the stables, David was told that how Walter had gone to the village.
There should have been no urgency in talking to him—in settling what he suspected to be the truth—but David wanted to finish the matter. He wanted to clear a path to the future, a future with Gwyneth beside him. The spirit of Emma had to be put to rest. Her mystery needed to be solved, her ghost exorcised forever.
He rode toward the village like a man possessed. He finally found Truscott outside the rectory staring pensively at the small kirk.
The rain had finally stopped, and small wisps of mist were swirling around the stones in the old kirkyard. Truscott moved to the low stone pillars leading to the kirkyard, staring at the stone building. An adjoining crypt had been added to the ancient building for the masters of Baronsford and their families. Emma had been laid to rest there. David dismounted and was only a dozen paces from his cousin before Walter noticed him.
Though he was always one to keep his own counsel, Walter had been a friend to David for all their years of growing up. It was the kind of relationship forged in kinship and tempered in shared experience. He had been more than a cousin. Walter Truscott was as loyal to each brother as they had been to each other. He was solid as the stone walls of Baronsford itself. He was the only one of them who had remained by Lyon’s side after Emma’s death.
Emma!
Memories from so many years ago swam in his mind. He recalled a number of times Emma using Walter’s name, or relating something that he had done to make David jealous. But he was the only one who didn’t fall at her feet. Or did he?
“’Tis a dismal place on a morning like this,” David said, reaching him.
There was a bittersweet smile on Walter’s lips when he glanced over his shoulder at him. “We shall see if we can find a bright, sunny day when she sees it.”
“Who?”
“Violet,” he replied quietly. “Her one wish is for her daughter to be buried in consecrated grounds. Not so much to ask for, I’d say. That and a bright day to say goodbye.”
David recalled what he knew of the Violet. Her bairn had been buried by one of the crofters without ceremony and without a blessing.
“I just spoke to the rector about it, and he’s agreed.” Truscott stared at the crypt beside the kirk again. “She’ll be safe here. Looked after.”
The sense of peace surrounding the other man knocked some of the wind out of David. What did it matter what happened that day on the cliffs? Why was it so important that they know who was responsible? Would Gwyneth love him less if they never knew for certain? David loved her, and he was loved in return. Nothing of this mattered in his relationship with his brothers. No, he could walk away and not look back.
Truscott turned and looked at him with a frown. “What brings you here?”
David let out a resigned breath. It mattered. It was important.
“Gwyneth and I took refuge in your tower house this morning. ‘Twas raining hard, and we needed a private place where we could talk.”
Truscott’s gaze moved again to the crypt where Emma lay. “You went inside?”
“The heather and bracken are taking over the place,” he said, once again undecided whether to confront him. “The work you’ve done on it over the years is holding up.”
“I stopped going to the tower house when Emma began to spend time there.”
A sense of relief flooded through David. Of course! Truscott would have nothing to do with her. There was no point in pressing this. He looked up at the sky, and it seemed to be brightening. A glance at his cousin, though, curtailed his sense of well-being. Walter’s distress was impossible to ignore.
“You have no need to talk about any of it, Walter.”
“I know, but ’tis crushing me. I have to talk about it.” He looked at David, and there was pain in his expression. “And I want you to know the worst of it, rather than make a wrong assumption.”
David understood what he meant. Making wrong assumptions had driven a wedge between Lyon and himself. Walter had to speak to free himself of whatever was eating at him. Running away or hiding his feelings only made things worse.
“She was not who you think she was,” Walter said, his voice thick with emotion. “For years, Emma played you along. She never felt for you what you felt for her.”
David’s gaze met his cousin’s solemn one. “I know.”
“I don’t know when it started…when she changed…but ‘twas not your fault.”
“I know that, too.”
Truscott’s hand fisted and gently struck the stone pillar beside him. “She was never hy, and that unhappiness grew with every passing year. She despised what she had. She quickly bored of what she achieved. She desired anything she thought she could not have.”
“Only to grow tired of it once she had it.” David put in. “I saw that in her. I saw in the way she tired of Lyon…and Baronsford.”
Truscott nodded slowly, but none of the pain in his expression seemed to go away. “There was…there was a vicious game that she played with me all her life.”
“You never seemed to fall for her the way the rest of us did.” David commented. “Perhaps that made her more determined to chase after you.”
“’Twas more than that. She was drawn to me by something inside of her—something that drove her, I think. She came after me from the time we were too young to understand it.” His eyes were burning when they turned to him. “What I tell you now, I am telling as a friend, as blood kin, as someone who was used by Emma the same way as you were. If you wish to tell any of this to Lyon, I leave that decision to you. I will tell you, though, that he was the one who would have been hurt the most if she had lived.”
The swirling now surrounded them, cutting them off from the village and the rest of the living world. David stood with Walter and looked at the crypt and the kirkyard. It was as if the world no longer existed. There was only the two of them…and their memories…and the ghosts of those trapped between the two worlds.
“I do not really know where to start. How can a man explain an eternal damnation that begins during this life? Know this, David…I was truly damned when she was finished with me.”
David said nothing, but nodded for him to continue.
“Until last year, I never knew it…but Emma and I shared the same father.”
“Lord Cavers?”
“Lord Cavers was not her father. Sir William—your mother’s half-brother—fathered Emma and me both.”
“But Augusta was married to Lord Cavers for severa
l years before Emma was born.”
“True. And his lordship knew Emma was not his. Emma knew that, too, long before she knew who her real father was. She told me herself that was Lord Cavers’s reason for bringing Gwyneth to Greenbrae Hall. That was the reason why so much was left to her.”
Suddenly, David understood why Gwyneth’s inheritance was tied to the issue of remaining free of scandal. It was Lord Cavers’s final slap at an unfaithful wife.
“There is more,” Truscott said.
David had a hundred questions, but he wanted to let his cousin say his peace.
“Emma came to me after my…our father’s death.” He looked David steadily in the eye. “I was the father of the bairn that died with her when she went off the cliff that day.”
*****
Violet pulled her away from the door. Her voice was low and guarded as she explained.
“I heard a couple of the maids whispering in the kitchen this morning. One of them saw Sir Allan leaving Lady Cavers’s bedchamber around dawn. The girl said that when he saw her in the hallway, Sir Allan gave her some money and told her to forget what she saw. He told her he could be a good friend to her.”
A month ago, Gwyneth’s immediate reaction would have been to try to find a reasonable and innocent explanation for the incident. Today, however, she found herself pausing and thinking hard about it. Violet was simply reporting what she had heard. There was no reason for any of the servants to make up such a tale.
“Do you think my aunt and Sir Allan are having an affair?”
Violet shrugged.
“She is a widow and he is unmarried.”
“Gwyneth, I care not what they have between them. But if that is so, then why was your aunt trying to talk you into marrying the baronet last night? You told me yourself that she was against it in London.” Violet took hold of Gwyneth’s hand. “What will happen to Lady Cavers after you wed? What type of a financial arrangement is she left with?”
“Well, I am to inherit most of my uncle’s estate, but everyone knows she has a fine settlement. Moreover, she knows I have no intention of stripping her of anything she has and enjoys now,” Gwyneth reasoned. “She would not notice any difference in her situation after I am married…no matter who I marry.”
“These are your words of assurance for her. But put yourself in her position. Why should she leave the future to chance?”
Though she didn’t even want to think it, never mind admit it to Violet, during the last year or so, Gwyneth had heard her aunt complain a hundred times how she would be ruined once Gwyneth was married—that Lord Cavers would burn in hell for leaving his estate to a niece. Still, to think that her aunt would attempt anything so devious as to marry her off to a man who was her own lover.
“My aunt is not so malicious. If anything she may just want me to settle with someone whom she knows and trusts.” Even as she said it, Gwyneth realized how foolish that sounded.
“Someone whom she knows and trusts…and is carrying on an affair with?” Violet asked bluntly. “Begging you pardon, Gwyneth, but—”
“No,” she said gently to her friend. “This is exactly what I need—to be slapped when my daydreaming keeps me from seeing the obvious.”
Gwyneth looked in the direction of the bed and the dry clothing Violet had laid out for her. “I know how to put an end to it, though. I have already spoken to Sir Allan. I shall change into those dry clothes and go and explain my plans to my aunt. That way, there is no confusion and no hard feelings. I shall also make my aunt understand that in marrying David Pennington, I shall do nothing to injure her in any way.” Gwyneth began stripping off her wet clothing. “Everything will be well once I have spoken to her.”
*****
David’s head reeled with everything Truscott told him as they walhrough the kirkyard. A window onto Emma’s life was opened that David never saw before. David knew his cousin was holding nothing back. Some of it was so sordid and miserable that only a desperate attempt to clear one’s conscience would motivate anyone to confess such things.
After hearing Walter, David realized that how Emma’s treatment of him had been almost kind. Lyon and Walter had both suffered bitterly at her hands. They had both been driven almost to the edge of insanity because of her.
“She made certain that you knew that she carried your child, and she intended to hold that information over you. She could have ruined you…or worse,” David said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I would have done were I in your situation. But then, you have always been so much more in control. I have to ask this question, Walter. Did you hate her enough to kill her?”
The muscles in his cousin’s jaws flexed. They were standing by the crypt. Her body lay just on the other side of the ivy-covered stones.
“Did I hate her? Yes, I hated her. Did I think about killing her? Yes, more times than I can say. Would I have done it if she continued to push me? Perhaps! But did I kill her that day?” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, David, I did not kill her.”
“Other than Pierce, you were the only one out on the cliffs that morning. You were the one who helped him bring Lyon and Emma up from the river.”
“We were not the only ones on the path. Lady Cavers was there on the cliffs that morning, as well.”
*****
She shivered once.
The dry undergarments and dress were slow to warm Gwyneth’s insides, but she ran her hands up and down her arms. As she left her room with Violet, Gwyneth knew the chill inside of her was not because of the cold or the rain of the morning, but the dread of what lay ahead of her.
She had always been afraid of her aunt, from the time she had arrived at Greenbrae Hall as a mere child. Even now, years later, the discomfort still lingered.
“Are you certain you want to do this right now?” Violet asked quietly as they headed toward the back stairwell.
Lady Cavers had sent one of the servants up, informing Gwyneth that she was going out for a walk by the loch. It was a favorite walk for her aunt, with lovely views where the waters tumbled down to the river Tweed. On a good day, one could continue on from there to the cliff walk leading past Baronsford. Gwyneth was directed to join her, since the younger woman was well enough to have already left the Hall once this morning.
“You can always give some excuse and wait to speak to her when she comes back.”
Gwyneth shook her head. “I need to resolve this. I need to tell her everything and make sure she is prepared for David’s visit. I do not want any confusion when he arrives.”
At the end of the hallway, one of the smaller windows looked out along a patch of grassy meadow between the house and the stables. Slowing to look out at the sky for rain, she stopped at seeing a group of four men standing and talking. Sir Allan stood at the center of them, speaking. Smaller than the others, he was wearing the same brocade coat he had on earlier. His lace-edged tricorn hat and his wig were bobbing vigorously as he made his point. Her brow furrowed as she stared at the three strangers.
“Who are those men with Sir Allan?” Violet asked, following the direction of Gwyneth’s gaze.
“I don’t know them. But I feel as if I have seen them before.” Worry pitted in her stomach. They could be the three men she had seen in the fog this morning. She knew them from somewhere else. Gretna Green! When she’d gone to the livery stable to get a horse before she’d left. One of them had been watching her. The thought occurred to her that these might have been the same men who had been lying in wait along the road. The baronet turned to point at the manor house, and Gwyneth stepped back abruptly from the window.
“You look pale. Are you sure you are well enough to go out?”
“I shall be with my aunt. I shan’t go far,” she replied.
She needed to speak to Augusta. She could not bear the thought of David arriving and the older woman rejecting him out of hand. At the same time, looking at the men move toward the stables, a sense of foreboding began to gnaw at her stomach. She shiv
ered again.
“Violet, I need to ask you a great favor.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“I want you to go after David. He was planning to come back this afternoon, but I think he should come now.”
“I…I shall ask old Robert to send someone. Any one of them would be faster than I am.”
“That would be fine.” Gwyneth nodded and pressed her fist against her belly.
“I shall be right back,” Violet said before disappearing down the steps.
*****
They had been preparing for this party for days. Most of the guests had already arrived. Every corner of Baronsford was being inhabited and explored by the invading visitors. The hour was late, though, and even the most dedicated revelers had gone off to their beds.
Walter Truscott could not recall the last time that he’d felt so tired, in body and mind. The grand celebration dinner was still to take place tomorrow night. After making one last trip to the stables to make sure the visitor’s carriages and horses were secure and settled, he started back to the house.
Following a garden path beneath a stone-railed terrace, he paused for a moment and looked up at the looming castle walls. How long had this place been his home? He wished there were a way where he could disappear—or just sleep and awaken to find that all of the events of these recent months were just a horrible dream.
“You have been avoiding me all day.”
Emma’s voice startled him, but he did not turn to her. There was no escape…no end…to this nightmare.
“I need tord waslk to you.” She hurried out of the darkness.
“No.” Walter turned, but did not look at her. “Lyon has arrived. He wants to see me in the library.”
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