Summerton (Lady Eleanor Mysteries Book 1)

by Becca St. John

  She pointed at her uncle. “That’s why you forced me to marry the duke?”

  Forced me to marry the duke. She couldn’t even say his name. The duke. Not Summerton, not my husband, but the duke.

  He stepped back, leaving niece and uncle to discuss the unpardonable sin of forcing her to marry someone she did not want. An old story, old argument that meant nothing now.

  “He’s a duke. Look at this place. They may call it a hall, but it’s closer to a castle. Places like this can be fortified. But you weren’t supposed to need that. He was supposed to take you to safety! Why the hell didn’t you?” Robert’s brash scold reverberated through the stable yard. “What, did you want her dead? You have her money and now you want her dead?”

  “Stop,” Caroline croaked, her throat too raw to shout, sobering with anger. “People have been murdered! Summerton is not the sort to abandon his people at such a time. He’s not about to run off and leave them to die.”

  “Well, he should have! He should have run off to ensure your safety!” Robert turned in a circle, like a ringmaster to his audience. “He means to do her in, doesn’t he?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Sir Michael stepped in. “Utter rubbish.” He took the other man’s arm. “About time we move this discussion indoors.”

  “I don’t know if it’s safe in there,” Robert bellowed, stomping toward her. “I think you should come with me, Caroline. Get clear of this place.”

  “You said I was in danger,” she told her uncle. “Well, that danger was Roger Little. Not the duke. I brought the danger with me.”

  Her uncle stopped in his tracks, stunned. “Impossible. Roger Little is dead.”

  “He can’t be.” Caroline shook her head, side-stepping, as if his news were a physical blow.

  “Died when he was twenty. No more.”

  “Caroline,” Summerton had enough. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Roger Little is not dead,” she murmured, though she sounded a mite unsure now. “And I will not have you saying anything against the duke.” She wouldn’t look at him, even as she defended his honor. “He’s a good man.” She stepped backward, toward the house. “Good and kind and fair, which is more than I have been.”

  “Enough, Caroline.” Summerton reached for her, but she brushed him away.

  “Uncle Robert offered you a fraudulent deal. He didn’t tell you your life would be at stake, that I was a pariah, bringing death. Misery…” She stood with the exaggerated stiff posture of a drunk pretending to be sober. “The duke deserves better than the drama we have offered.” She lifted her chin imperiously. “Let him have the money you promised him, and then you can take me home.”

  Drunk talk. That’s all that was. Talking through Old Ned’s elixir.

  She turned, with extra care, and headed for the house. They all watched her weave her way, none daring to challenge her pride.

  Don’t go. Be my husband.

  Words he’d walked away from only hours before. He’d meant to be fair. To give her time to heal aches and pains. Time for her heart to recognize, without trauma, without force, that it wanted him.

  He’d been a fool.

  CHAPTER 25 ~ Vandals

  Eleanor and Sir Michael eyed each other as Summerton followed Caroline into her chamber. Having seen the damage first, Eleanor stopped Caroline from going to her chambers until the two men could join them.

  Summerton walked by Caroline’s side, but neither of the young people spoke to the other.

  “I didn’t do this,” Caroline blustered, though no one had suggested otherwise.

  “She was too foxed to have done it,” Summerton told the others.

  “I’m not foxed.” Caroline hiccupped and skirted around bed linens and broken vases, stooping down every so often to pick something up. An embroidered handkerchief, a miniature of her mother.

  “If you would look in the dressing room,” Eleanor suggested, “to see if anything is missing.”

  Caroline sat on the bench at the end of the bed, not going anywhere. “Alice would have known.”

  Summerton stifled a curse, and went to stand in the open doors to the balcony.

  “This is not my fault,” Caroline buried her face in her hands.

  “You say a ‘Roger’ did this to your neck?” Sir Michael hesitated as he moved closer, her neck exposed by her bent head. “Like the others, only she survived,” he said to Eleanor.

  Eleanor leaned over her as well. Caroline started to raise her head, but Eleanor stopped her. “Just a moment, this is important. The swelling is going down.” She pushed at Caroline’s throat. Caroline pulled away.

  “Please, Caroline, we need to look at this.” Eleanor pulled a small magnifying glass with an inlaid wood handle out of her pocket. “The bruise is coming out. Do you see this, Sir Michael?” She outlined a band of blue going to purple. “Narrow fingers, narrow hands, and no ring? There’s no widening, and the imprint is darker here.” She traced the bruise.

  Sir Michael leaned in close. “He may have taken it off?”

  “No, very different.” She straightened, only to catch Summerton scowling at her.

  “She is not one of your corpses, Aunt.”

  “No, I didn’t think she was. My apologies if I offended you, Caroline.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Caroline walked unsteadily to her dressing room. “I’ll have Bitsy pack as she straightens up.” Dazed, she looked about. “He must have pulled everything out of the trunks. Most of my things were in trunks.”

  “Caroline,” Summerton said.

  She did not respond to him, but turned in the doorway to ask, “Why did he do this? Why would anyone…” No one could answer.

  She left them for the dressing room.

  “She intends to leave with her uncle,” Summerton informed the empty doorway. “She might just do it, if he leaves too soon. Can we forbid him to leave?”

  “Don’t be foolish. He won’t go before tomorrow,” Eleanor said. “A decent meal and a good sleep, she will see sense.”

  “This whole business is enough to send anyone running,” he argued.

  Eleanor raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “Don’t be a fool, Summerton. It doesn’t suit you.”

  Sir Michael was surveying the damage. “This was done in anger,” he said. “Do you think whoever tried to strangle her came to finish what he started?”

  “That makes sense,” Eleanor told him. “He would be furious to find she wasn’t here. But how did he get in? With all the men we have walking the grounds and the hallways, you would think this could have been avoided.”

  “That’s just it,” the duke told them. “We’ve pulled in men from three counties. Too many strangers, no doubt easy for the murderer to move about…” Summerton surveyed the chaos. “Maybe she should go with her uncle. She’ll be better off away from here.”

  “Except she’s the draw, Summerton. She’s the one the killer is after,” Eleanor reminded him.

  A low guttural noise filled his throat, like that of a wounded animal. He was not an animal; he was a man, who needed a solution.

  “What do I do, Aunt?” he asked, running a hand through his hair. “How do I keep her safe?”

  “I may have an answer for that, Summerton, and a plan.”

  Both men looked at her, but she wasn’t quite ready to divulge her growing suspicions.

  “First, you will have to convince Caroline to stay.”

  ***

  “Oh, your grace, look at this.” Bitsy held up a delicate muslin sleeve, savagely ripped in two. “And your blue evening dress!” Tears bloomed in her eyes. “If only I hadn’t unpacked your things, they might have been spared, but now…” She shook her head. “Ruined, miss, just ruined. I hardly know where to start.”

  “One thing at a time, Bitsy, that is all you can do.”

  This had to be Roger. It had the feel of him. The sooner it was set to rights, the sooner she’d feel safe.

  “Over there,” she pointed, “start a pil
e of anything you deem impossible to mend. And here,” Caroline stood near the washstand, “whatever might be salvageable. Anything he didn’t touch, pack.” She doubted she could wear anything he’d touched.

  “Serviceable dresses are the most important.” She lifted one. “It looks like he ignored them.”

  “But your evening gowns, and all this…”

  “I won’t be needing them. Not straight away. Not in Manchester.”

  “Manchester?” Bitsy asked.

  Caroline lifted a mangled bonnet. “Yes, I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

  “Another trip? Like the last one?”

  Poor Bitsy. A temporary trip to the continent discomfited her. She’d never be happy with a permanent move to Manchester.

  “You needn’t join me. I can hire someone else up there.”

  “Will the duke be going?”

  Caroline admired the girl’s intelligence. If the duke went, they would be returning. “No, the duke will not be going.” She picked up what was left of a silver silk dress, sliding it through her fingers.

  “If the duke fails to convince her grace to stay,” Summerton said from the doorway, “then he will most certainly be joining her.”

  She didn’t dare look at him. “You can’t,” she said.

  “Ah, but I can, and I will.” He raised an eyebrow at the maid, who scurried from the room.

  “Caroline,” he prodded her. She wouldn’t respond. Hard enough to go without him nudging at her.

  “Caroline,” he tried again. “Don’t leave me.”

  His words slipped inside her as gracefully as the silk slid over her hand. He’d convince her to stay with one look, one touch, and then someone else would die.

  She dropped the silver silk in the impossible-to-mend pile and picked up a delicate chemise, folded it over her arm. She lifted one white stocking with purple and gold clockwork. The other hung lazily from the fire grill. “Could you pass that to me, please.”

  He did, making her smile. She doubted he’d ever picked up after himself, let alone someone else.

  “Caroline?” Soft as kid leather, his voice lured her. She ignored it, ignored him, and grabbed a blue muslin dress from the floor.

  Summerton took it from her, held it up, revealing huge tears in the delicate fabric. “Thank God you weren’t here when he arrived.”

  “If I leave, he will leave.”

  Like a cat on a window sill, waiting to pounce, he watched her.

  “He won’t get to you, if you stay close to me. Sleep in my chamber tonight. I’ll watch over you.”

  “No.”

  She wanted him to leave, to stop asking her for the impossible. She was poison, anyone with her risked death.

  But he tempted, just being close, he tempted. She could only be so strong.

  “I want you here with me, Caroline.”

  Did his words cause it, or perhaps the book she picked up with all the pages ripped out; she didn’t know, but one moment she’d been fighting the chaos and the next she was on her knees, curled around the tiny volume of poetry she’d yet to read. Insanely, she tried to piece together the ragged, scattered pages, growing frantic in her desperation before she hurled it across the room.

  “Why did he do this?” She gestured to the destroyed room.

  “Because he failed.”

  “This is his failure?” She sniffled. “Ha. And I don’t care what my uncle says, he is not dead!”

  “You haven’t seen him in years. That’s what you told us. Looks can change.”

  “But I know him.”

  Summerton crouched beside her.

  “No two men could have that same cruel look.”

  “One would hope not, my love. One would hope not.” He pulled her into his arms.

  She should have fought him off. Kept her independence, but he stroked her back, offered comfort and strength. Exactly what she needed to fight growing fear.

  “You need to rest.”

  “I have to set this to rights.” She dabbed at her running nose with a scrap of fabric. Looked about at all that needed doing. “Where did Bitsy go?” And remembered the look he had given her maid. “You sent her away.”

  “She’ll take care of this better without you getting in the way.”

  “I still have decisions to make,” she argued.

  “Later,” he stood, helping her rise. “Now, you need to rest. You can use my rooms.”

  She shouldn’t.

  She wanted to.

  She needed to leave.

  She did not want to go.

  “I can’t think.”

  “No, not now. Quite rightly. Come with me. You can sleep and I will watch over you.”

  “You are awful.” She pushed away. He pulled her back.

  “How am I awful?”

  “I shouldn’t even like you.” She slapped his shoulder, not so hard as to create separation, but enough to lodge complaint. “You were arrogant and dismissive and greedy. You didn’t even choose me.”

  “You didn’t choose me either. Do you still feel that way?”

  She turned away.

  “Well? Would you?”

  He held her by her shoulders. “Caroline, I’ve not held to any of the conditions of the marriage settlement. Legally, I’m in forfeit. But as long as I have you, I don’t care. We’ll find a way, some way, together.”

  “I did choose you,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “I chose you, but you only wanted me for my money.” She bit her lip, to stop it from trembling.

  They weren’t walking any more, just standing there, her eyes on the floor.

  “I didn’t know,” he whispered.

  “I’ve my pride,” she grumbled. “When you married me, I promised I’d not love you.” Irretrievable words. So much for pride.

  “Did you succeed?”

  She rolled her eyes. Foolish man.

  “Because I’ve been in love with you from the moment I tackled you on our wedding night. I was jealous of Baver, licking you, when all I could do was sit back, knowing you didn’t want me.”

  “Ha!” she snorted.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You are a foolish man,” she told him. “Foolish, foolish man.”

  “Will you stay with me? Work through this together?”

  There, before them, a door to a sitting room and beyond that…there would be no turning back if they crossed that threshold.

  He pulled her up against him, his lips pressed against her head, smiling. She could tell without seeing them. She knew even before the whisper of his words washed through her. “It doesn’t seem fair that I should love you so desperately while you are trying not to love me.”

  She tried to hit him. He chuckled.

  “Do you really?” She didn’t mean to sound so timid.

  “Caroline, have you ever known me to lie?”

  “I think you did, when you invited me to sleep just now.”

  His laughter reverberated against her, teasing her. “You can sleep if you wish.”

  “You’d not try and seduce me?”

  He didn’t laugh any more, but turned her into his arms, tilted her face, to look into her eyes. “It’s time, my love. Past time for us to love each other.”

  Why had she fought this? Why had she thought she should go away?

  “I want you safe,” she told him.

  “Ah, my fierce little protector,”

  She nodded, and he lifted her into his arms. “Broken glass on the floor. You’re shoeless,” he explained.

  “Let me worry about protecting you.” He carried her away from the chaos.

  ***

  Eleanor sat upon the worn velvet of a straight-backed winged chair hidden from the door. Her presence, against the wall, concealed her in plain sight. She waited.

  Robert Howlett did not disappoint, entering the room with keen interest, never once looking back over his shoulder, seeing her.

  He studied the undersides of figurines
and vases, hefted the weight of pieces made of precious metal. She couldn’t fault that.

  St. Martins may have been ignored by its owners, but even with the threat of impoverishment, they had not sold off generations worth of valuable objects. Perhaps Robert thought to change that.

  She was impressed he had the knowledge to discern what was valuable.

  She waited until he put down a delicate piece of china. “Mr. Howlett.”

  He jerked upright, tugged at the hem of his immaculate jacket, and smoothed the front.

  “You startled me.” He chuckled and stuck his thumbs in the pockets of his vest, patting his thickening belly with his fingers. “Thought I was the only one down here. Not used to waiting for gongs and such.”

  She’d asked Hitches to withhold her presence. He’d threatened his niece. It didn’t matter that the girl’s menagerie of animals lived, or that the old mill worker had been sent into retirement rather than let go from his job. That didn’t forgive the pressure he forced his niece to face.

  She was very close to understanding just what was happening, but she wanted to be certain. She’d only met him once or twice, years ago, and paid scant attention.

  “Mr. Little arrived below stairs early, as well. I take it dining practices are different in Manchester.”

  “Yes, absolutely. We are, after all, progeny of working folks. Used to having dinner on the table when we get home after a long hard day.” He flipped his tails and took a seat opposite Eleanor.

  Mr. Little had not looked at figurines or studied the artwork. He’d shifted curtains, peered out windows, and twitched with every sound. Truly afraid.

  That was the day after the first murder.

  “I couldn’t help noticing that you like attractive things, Mr. Howlett,” she said. “That was a very handsome vest you had on earlier. Very handsome. What shade do they call that?”

  “Canary yellow.” He puffed up. “Rather fond of it. Tailor told me that the color is quite the thing. Caught your eye, and all.”

  “Oh, yes, very handsome. Original, too. And your cravat pin? Quite striking.”

  “Not another gem like it in all of England.” Howlett looked down at the ruby. “Except for my ring.” He held out his hand so she could admire the large gem. “A pair, they are. Rare.”