Cast in Ruin

by Laura Landon

  But before Rachael could feel a sense of security, Her Grace lifted her arm again and pointed the pistol at Rachael and Claire.

  “No!” Ben yelled. He spun around and raced toward Rachael.

  A gunshot echoed, and everything moved in slow motion.

  Ben reached her in a few strides and wrapped his arms around her. They were near enough to a large oak that he pulled her with him until they were hidden behind the tree.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered, running his hands over her arms and her back.

  “Yes, I’m unharmed.”

  “And Claire?”

  “She’s unharmed, too.”

  The gunshot had frightened Claire and she was crying, but her loud screams weren’t those of pain. She only needed to be calmed and comforted.

  “Don’t move,” Ben ordered, then stepped out from behind the tree. He returned a few seconds later. “I don’t see her. But she’s got to be here somewhere. She couldn’t have just disappeared.”

  “She did,” Rachael answered. “There are hidden escape routes through the hedges. That’s how she got in.”

  Claire had calmed a bit, but she was still upset. Rachael needed to get her inside. But she needed to be with her husband, too.

  “Let’s get you and Claire inside, then I’ll send for Father. And Gideon. They need to know that Mother was here. They need to know how ill she is.”

  Ben wrapped his arm around her waist and took her inside. Rachael didn’t look forward to the conversation Ben would have with his father. She didn’t look forward to him having to tell his father how ill the duchess really was.

  Or how dangerous.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Rachael sat on the sofa beside Ben. The Duke of Townsend paced the length of the room over and over.

  Ben’s half-brother, Gideon Waverley, Marquess of Sheffield, sat on a sofa facing them and his wife, Eve, sat beside him. The only ones missing were Ben’s sisters.

  “Are there guards protecting your sons?” Ben asked his brother.

  “A dozen surrounding each of them. There’s hardly room for their nurses to move in the room.”

  Ben nodded as if he was satisfied with his brother’s response. He’d sent an urgent message and they’d come immediately.

  Rachael was glad. Her husband was understandably upset. He’d seen firsthand his mother’s mental state. And what he’d seen left no doubt as to how dangerous she was. Not only to Gideon, but to anyone she considered her enemy.

  “I should have told Anne,” His Grace said. “If I had, she possibly would have come to me when she heard from her mother, and I could have seen this coming.”

  “You’re not to blame, Your Grace,” Rachael said. “After talking to Her Grace, I doubt this could have been avoided. The duchess is a desperate woman. She’s determined to retake her place in Society. I’m certain she would have found a way to get here even without Anne’s help. And she would have been more desperate than she is now.”

  A frown deepened across the Duke of Townsend’s forehead. “What did she say to you before Benjamin arrived?”

  “She wanted me to go for Ben. She wanted his help to convince you to allow her to return. She said that she refused to allow you to throw her out like an old pair of shoes.”

  Rachael turned her head and met Ben’s gaze. He nodded for her to continue.

  “She believes that you loved her before you met Lord Sheffield’s mother. That she stole you away from her.”

  His Grace stopped in front of them. “No, that’s not true,” he argued.

  “But in her mind she believes it is. She considers your marriage to another woman a betrayal. By marrying your first wife, you made her look a fool. She believes her peers pitied her, and laughed behind her back because she’d lost her chance to be a duchess and would have to settle for a lesser title.”

  “Heaven help me,” the duke said under his breath. “I played right into Ernesta’s hands when I asked her to come to stay with Rebecca.”

  “That’s when she plotted a way to kill your first wife and take her place.”

  “Didn’t she realize what she was doing? Even back then?”

  “I don’t think she considered that she was doing anything wrong,” Gideon added. “In her mind, she justified every action she took. Including killing my mother, and Doctor Milton.”

  The Duke of Townsend turned away from them and walked to the other side of the room. His strides were long, angry, filled with pent-up fury.

  He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his feet braced wide. He kept his eyes focused ahead of him at the view of the garden out the window. But Rachael doubted he saw any of the flowers in bloom, or the cobbled paths the led to the small pond in the center.

  “What else did she say?” he asked without turning.

  Rachael considered her next words carefully. She’d seen the wild look in the duchess’s eyes, heard the shrill tone in her voice. It was important the duke realize what a threat his wife was to him and to his family. Yet, it wasn’t her place to say it. This was something she should tell Ben, and let him decide how to proceed. Except the time to reveal what she saw and heard was now.

  Rachael took a deep breath, then continued. “I didn’t know Her Grace before just a few hours ago, so I’m not qualified to judge, but…”

  “But?” Lord Sheffield urged.

  “I believe Her Grace is more dangerous than any of us imagine.” Rachael twined her fingers with Ben’s. He kept her hands securely in his grasp and she was thankful. She needed his strength right now to give her the courage to continue. “I believe that Her Grace is a danger to anyone she believes will stand in her way of getting what she wants. Especially you, Eve. She blames you for revealing her.”

  Ben’s brother reached for his wife’s hand. A desperate look of concern covered his face.

  His Grace braced his arm against the window’s wooden frame. Much of the color was gone from his face, and what little strength she’d heard in his voice earlier was absent.

  “I think this because the duchess doesn’t regret the lives she took. She doesn’t consider what she did murder. She has convinced herself that Lord Sheffield’s mother deserved to die. She believes she was always supposed to be your duchess, and Benjamin was supposed to be your heir. In her mind, she’s convinced herself that everything she did was justified. Her only regret is that she was unable to eliminate Lord Sheffield.”

  When Rachael finished, Ben wrapped his arm around her shoulder and brought her next to him. She sagged against him, thankful for his support. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I know that wasn’t easy to hear.”

  His Grace lowered his head and swallowed several times. When he raised his gaze, his eyes swam with tears. “I can’t believe that I lived with a woman capable of such cruelty. I can’t believe I was blind to everything she’d done. Our marriage hadn’t been close for years, but it pains me to know that I had become so complacent that I didn’t truly realize the kind of person Ernesta was until now.”

  “None of us saw it, Father,” Ben said. “Even if we had, I doubt any of us would have believed it. She played the role of devoted wife and mother perfectly. You were not the only one who missed seeing what kind of person she was.”

  The Duke of Townsend’s hands curled to fists at his sides. “What kind of woman would do what she did? Would take the lives of innocent people?”

  “A woman who wasn’t in control of her senses,” Lord Sheffield’s wife, Eve, answered. “The mind is a wonderful thing. It stores and keeps our memories as well as the most special events from our past. Its purpose is to guard and protect our innermost thoughts and dreams. But it can also be our deadliest enemy. When it turns against us, the evil it can unleash is horrific. That is what happened to Her Grace. A cancer ate away at her until she convinced herself that anything she chose to do to become your duchess was acceptable.”

  A consuming silence engulfed the room. Lord Sheffield was the one who took charge when
no one else seemed able to. “The question is what are we going to do now?”

  His Grace seemed to regain his composure. “First, I am going to send for Mack Wallace and his Bedford Street Brigadesmen. We need their help with this. Then, we are going to find out how Ernesta managed to get into the garden. There are no gates to the back that I know of.”

  “Yes, there are,” Rachael interrupted. “Her Grace said that there are several hidden entrances through the hedges along the wall. That they’d been there for centuries, from a time when certain Townsend ancestors had to flee the king’s soldiers.”

  “How did she know that?” Lord Sheffield asked.

  “A groundskeeper told her. She said that years ago she would come here with His Grace. While he was taking care of business, she would investigate the grounds. The groundskeeper told her several interesting stories about Meadowmont.”

  His Grace returned to his chair and sat. “I’ll send an army of men to stand guard, both inside the wall and out. She may have gotten in once, but she won’t get in a second time.”

  “I’ll assign every servant to watch, too,” Ben said.

  “Then I have to take care of one detail I would give all the riches I possess not to have to do,” the Duke of Townsend said.

  Everyone knew to what he was referring, but he said the words anyway.

  “I have to tell Anne about her mother. She needs to know. She can’t be allowed to do anything else to help Ernesta.”

  The expression on His Grace’s face was filled with regret. The fact that he wanted to spare his daughter from the truth about her mother was evidence of how much he loved his children.

  “Will our presence help?” Eve asked. “Gideon and I can be with you.”

  “Thank you, yes,” the duke answered. “Anne will need a feminine shoulder to lean on.”

  But Rachael knew that even a feminine shoulder wouldn’t take away the hurt and the pain of losing her mother. Anne and Winnie were both expected to pretend that their mother was dead. But Rachael knew that wasn’t possible.

  And as long as Ben’s mother was alive, she would be a threat to everyone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Rachael came down to breakfast the next morning to find Ben dressed for travel. “Are you going out?” she asked sitting down beside him.

  “I’m going to see Father. The man he hired to find Mother is coming today to give a report of what, if anything, he’s discovered.”

  “Your father spoke of him. Who is he?”

  “The man is Mack Wallace. His men are the Bedford Street Brigade—private investigators, security, that sort of thing. If anyone can locate Mother, it will be Mr. Wallace’s brigadesmen.”

  Rachael took a close look at her husband while he talked and noticed the dark smudges beneath his eyes. She knew he hadn’t slept well the night before. The trouble with his mother was wearing on him. She didn’t want him to be alone.

  “May I go with you?”

  He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Of course you may. I’d enjoy your company, and I’m sure Eve and my sisters would enjoy seeing you. Should we take Claire?”

  Rachael thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Although she’d undoubtedly enjoy herself, I don’t know how long we might be. Besides, she’s safer here. There are men guarding the grounds.”

  “Finish your breakfast, then. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”

  Rachael watched Ben leave the room and finished her toast and tea. She was as anxious to hear what the man His Grace had hired to find Her Grace had discovered. She knew that no one would be safe until she was found and was no longer a threat.

  When she finished eating, she met Ben at the door and they walked to their waiting carriage.

  The day was perfect for a drive to Townsend Manor. Rachael sat beside Ben as the open carriage made its way toward the estate where her husband grew up. She hadn’t been there yet and was anxious to see Townsend Manor for the first time.

  Although not a great distance separated the two estates, the trip there took long enough that she and Ben had the opportunity to discuss the things that were most on his mine. Rachael was only too glad to listen to him.

  She let him talk about what his life had been like growing up with a brother who suffered from seizures. He talked about how devastating it had been for his father to take Gideon to Shadowdown to live because he didn’t think it was safe for his son to be around Winnie and Anne.

  “How old did you say he was when your father took him to Shadowdown?”

  Ben’s expression sobered. He didn’t answer at first. When he did his voice was heavy with regret. “He was eighteen.”

  “That means he didn’t have a youth,” she said, suddenly realizing how much Ben’s brother had lost because of his stepmother.

  “No. She stole years from him. She robbed him of the experiences he should have had in London with Father. She deprived him of the friendships he would have made at school, the experiences he would have had going to balls and the opera and the theater. Belonging to a club, taking his rightful place in Society.”

  He turned his head and faced her. His eyes glared with hatred. “She deserves to pay for what she did to him,” he said with more bitterness than she’d ever heard in his voice. “Father shouldn’t have sent Mother to an estate to live. She should have been put someplace where she could have been better guarded.”

  “But no one realized how ill she was. Even your father.”

  “No,” he said. “Even I didn’t see it. And I’ll never forgive myself for being so absorbed in living my life that I didn’t pay closer attention to what was happening with my family.”

  “You’re not to blame,” Rachael said. “None of you are.” Rachael gently touched his arm. “Has your father said what he intends to do when they find her? He can’t take the risk that she’ll get free again.”

  Ben didn’t speak for several long seconds. “My hope is that after what she did, he’ll realize that she’s incapable of being on her own.”

  “I’m sure he will,” Rachael said. “Knowing she was desperate enough to return, and that she’s a threat to us all affected him more than you realize.”

  “I knew it had, but Father isn’t a vengeful person. He and Gideon are much alike in that regard.”

  “Are you saying that you are?”

  Ben reached for her hand and held it. “I might be,” he answered. “I was the one Father worried would never mature. Would never see life as something other than a party to be enjoyed. But I understand something neither Father nor Gideon will ever truly comprehend.”

  Rachael experienced an icy shiver that chilled her blood. There was a new expression on Ben’s face. A more lethal look in his eyes. And she saw a new depth to him, a level far deeper than he’d ever revealed before. And it frightened her.

  “Aren’t you going to ask what it is that I comprehend that Father doesn’t?”

  “I’m not sure I’m brave enough,” she answered honestly.

  Ben squeezed her fingers. “My amazing wife. You were courageous enough to travel halfway across England to have our babe alone, yet you’re not brave enough to hear what I understand about Mother that even Father and Gideon don’t understand. Your wisdom astounds me.”

  “Do you blame me?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered on a sigh. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to face it either, but someone has to.” He took a deep breath. “There are only two of us who are capable of truly understanding how Mother’s mind works. And how her illness has clouded her thinking.”

  Rachael was confused. “Who? Who else understands the true depth of your mother’s illness?”

  He smiled. “Winnie. Have you not noticed that she’s the only other one of us who truly sees what Mother is really like? Who understands how ill she truly is?”

  Rachael considered what Ben said and realized how accurate his assessment was. Winnie’s quiet demeanor should have made that plain, but Rachael had never looked beyond the su
rface.

  “What is it that you and Winnie see?” she asked.

  “We see the true evil that has eaten away at Mother’s soul. We understand how her mind works, and what drives her need to destroy anything and anyone who gets in her way.”

  “What do you think she wants most?” Rachael asked.

  Ben hesitated. “Power,” he finally answered. “The power that comes from being Father’s wife. The power her title gives her.”

  “Do you think she loves your father?”

  Ben shook his head. “I’m not sure Mother’s capable of love. I’m not sure she ever loved Father, or any of us.”

  Rachael realized how sad that was. She couldn’t imagine not loving Claire with every fiber of her being. Just as Rachael knew her mother loved her. There had never been any doubt. She couldn’t imagine what kind of mother didn’t love her children.

  The carriage turned and Rachael leaned closer to look out the carriage window. "Have we arrived?"

  "Yes. This is Townsend Manor. It's the family seat. It's where I grew up.”

  Rachael looked out the window and her breath caught. The manor house was magnificent. It was mammoth, with gardens and parterres surrounding the front and sides. "It's beautiful," she whispered.

  "Yes, it is."

  She tipped her head and looked at her husband. "But I like Meadowmont better."

  "You do?"

  "Of course I do. Meadowmont is our home. It’s where we will live and raise our family."

  Ben smiled at her, and the warmth in his eyes wrapped around her like a thick blanket. "I'm not sure how it happened, but I believe I must be the luckiest man in the world."

  Rachael sat forward when the carriage stopped. "Just be sure to always remember that," she said as the footman opened the carriage door.

  Ben laughed as he dismounted, then turned to help her to the ground.

  "Are you nervous?" she asked.

  "About seeing Anne?" He nodded. "I haven't heard how she took the news. I don't want her to feel such guilt that she avoids me. It's not her fault she was sympathetic towards Mother."