A Brush with Shadows

by Anna Lee Huber

  Gage gently shook his head. “I don’t think knowing whether Hammett was your bastard brother or not would have made a difference. In fact, it might have only made you even blinder to the possibility he could commit such horrible acts.” He paused. “But it does give us some insight into why he was so recklessly determined to enforce what he saw as the family’s will. Why he became obsessed with enforcing the ‘curse.’”

  Whether or not Hammett had been the natural son of the previous viscount, after being in his position for so many years he must have felt part of the family, while knowing he was not truly one of them. To see those who had the full privilege of being a Trevelyan then squander it must have infuriated him, and so he had fallen back on what he’d witnessed the previous viscount do to his own daughter with those poisoned apples.

  “Yes, well, my illness certainly didn’t help matters.” The viscount coughed. “Had I not been bedridden, had I not been so weak, I might have realized what he was doing.”

  “You can’t know that,” Gage protested. “Perhaps your illness precipitated matters, forcing him to act more quickly than he might have otherwise. If Alfred inherited the viscountcy, as well as the ability to do as he wished, he could wed Lorna Galloway or dismiss Hammett from his position. But you cannot blame yourself for that. All of the culpability falls squarely on Hammett himself.”

  “I wish I could believe that, Sebastian.” His eyes glinted with remorse. “But I know the truth. And I shall have to take that guilt, that knowledge that I’ve been a blind fool to my grave.”

  Gage gazed back at his grandfather, his face a mask of pain and uncertainty. He was struggling with what to do, what to say to ease some of his grandfather’s agony. When he finally spoke, his grandfather had already closed his eyes, though I knew not whether he slept or merely rested them. “Well, I do not blame you,” he murmured.

  Such was the power of his simple statement that I felt an answering swell of emotion just to hear it, just to see the peace it gave my husband to utter it. And when I glanced at Lord Tavistock, I spied the tears glistening at the corners of his eyes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Two days later, the family laid Rory to rest in St. Peter’s Churchyard, not far from the site of Gage’s mother’s grave. And sadly, Lord Tavistock joined him a week later. The pain and shock had simply been too much, and he’d succumbed to his illness and his advanced age.

  The entire family—in fact, the entire household and surrounding communities—mourned his passing greatly. But it was not as distressing as it could have been had the viscount not made strides toward reconciliation with all his family members as best he could with such limited time left. Gage and the Dowager Lady Langstone had each spent an hour or more alone in his company during the days before he passed. And even Alfred had been well enough to be helped up to his grandfather’s bedchamber two days before the viscount died.

  The effects of these reconciliations were felt all through the house as Gage, his aunt, and his cousin each became more civil with one another than I suspected they’d been their entire lives. I still doubted they would ever be close, just as I questioned whether Gage and Alfred would ever consider one another as friends, but at least their sharp tongues had been blunted and their cold glares had thawed.

  So when it came time for me and Gage to set off for London about a week after his grandfather’s funeral, we departed with some sadness. I was sorry to say goodbye to Lorna, who I’d begun to consider a friend, and even Alfred, whose irreverent sense of humor reminded me of a marquess I was unaccountably fond of.

  There was also the matter of those hours we’d spent alone with Rory’s body in the cave below Vixen Tor. That incident had forged a sort of bond between us. One I wasn’t sure would ever fade.

  Perhaps most surprising, I was even reluctant to say goodbye to the dowager, for she had proven to be more intelligent, more thoughtful than her previously frosty demeanor revealed.

  As we turned from the manor’s long lane onto the road that would carry us east, I settled back against the plush cushions of the Tavistock carriage Alfred had allowed us to borrow for our journey and sighed. Gage glanced over from the window he’d been staring pensively out of and reached for my hand. His thumb brushed against my skin.

  “It’s many miles to Exeter if you wish to take a nap,” he told me as the carriage jolted over a rut in the road. Anderley and Bree had gone ahead of us to secure rooms for the night in another carriage laden down with some of Gage’s mother’s belongings he’d never claimed.

  “Not yet,” I replied, anxious to relay something I’d not yet revealed. Something I’d felt I owed his Aunt Vanessa my silence on until we’d left the manor. “I was pleased to see your cousin and your aunt embrace you so warmly before we departed.”

  “Yes.” He inhaled past a tightness in his chest. “I’m not sure I would have ever believed such a thing could be possible, but I’m glad, too.”

  I squeezed his hand, smiling in empathy. “Perhaps they’ll call on us the next time they’re in London. I would like to see Lorna again. And I intend to introduce your aunt to the Duke of Norwich.”

  Gage coughed, choking on his own astonishment. “Marsdale’s father?”

  “Yes. She’s already accustomed to impertinent sons. And as Marsdale has led me to understand, the duke is quite lonely. If he’s even half the doctrinaire his son claims, he and your aunt should fare well together. So long as he’s kind,” I added at the end. After so many years of unhappiness, even partially of her own making, the dowager deserved some contentment.

  His brow lowered, and I knew his thoughts had turned to the very subject I wished to broach.

  I reached for his hand, threading my fingers through his. “Darling, your father was not having an affaire de coeur with your aunt.”

  A flicker of hope sparked in his eyes. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I spoke to her about it, though you can never tell her I revealed such a thing to you.”

  He scowled and opened his mouth to argue, but I hurried on before he could speak.

  “She said your father indulged in a flirtation with her and wrote her letters, making her believe such a thing. But when she finally agreed to meet with him, in the emerald chamber that night you followed your father, he threw the entire liaison in her face. He’d only feigned interest in her to avenge her treatment of your mother, and to prove her a hypocrite.”

  Gage’s face was slack with shock. “You’re certain?”

  I arched my eyebrows. “Why would she lie about such a humiliating experience?”

  He continued to search my face, and then exhaled in acceptance. “You’re right. She wouldn’t. I just never could have imagined that was the truth.” He grimaced. “How cruel. Unnecessarily so. Why didn’t Father simply defend Mother like he should have? Or move us somewhere different.”

  “Perhaps your mother wouldn’t go.”

  His mouth flattened in displeasure, but he nodded in agreement.

  “Whatever faults we can lay at his door, I don’t think failure to love your mother is one of them,” I said softly, resting my head against the side of his shoulder. It felt strange to defend his father after all the awful things he’d done, but in this case I knew it was right.

  He didn’t speak for a long time, and rather than pry, I closed my eyes and let my thoughts drift. That morning and several before it had not begun in the most pleasant of manners, and I still felt somewhat drawn. However, the rustle of a paper brought my eyes open.

  “What’s that?”

  Gage stiffened, and I wondered if he’d presumed I was asleep. “Something Alfred gave me. He said Grandfather made him promise to give it to me after he passed.” He stared down at the letter almost as if it were a wild animal that might bite him.

  “Are you going to open it?”

  He didn’t reply, and I began to wonder if he
was afraid to.

  “Would you like me to open it?”

  “No. It’s just . . .” He shook his head. “I thought we’d said everything we’d needed to say . . .” His voice trailed away.

  “And you’re worried this will reveal something that will change that, something you don’t wish to know.”

  He smiled grimly. “Yes.”

  When he still didn’t move to break the seal, I gently prodded him. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  His finger slid beneath the folded paper and paused for a second before tugging upward, breaking the seal. I sat upright, affording him the privacy to read his correspondence without my interfering unless he wished me to. But I couldn’t stop myself from observing his reactions.

  At first his expression was stony, braced for unpleasant news. But it quickly transformed into disbelief and then amazement. Although the further he read, the darker his countenance became, until I wished I’d never suggested he read the note. It might have been better if he’d simply ripped it up.

  “Grandfather has left me three of his mines,” Gage suddenly declared without preamble. “As well as any artwork of your choosing.” His eyes glimmered at me with affection. “He says that you would value and appreciate it more than any Trevelyan, heathens that we are.”

  “That’s generous,” I stammered, touched beyond measure that he’d thought of me, and slightly overawed by the prospect of selecting from Langstone Manor’s impressive collection of artwork.

  “He also says he wants you to honor your agreement to paint a portrait of me to be hung in the gallery alongside my mother.” His eyebrows arched in question.

  I cleared my throat. “I may have failed to mention that. But in my defense, I thought it was something your grandfather should tell you.” My eyes flicked down toward the letter. “I suppose this is his way of doing so,” I remarked wryly.

  Gage’s mouth curled in an attempt at a smile.

  I waved my hand. “Does all this mean we’ll be returning?” But when Gage failed to respond or elaborate, I began to reconsider. “Or am I presuming too much?”

  After all, there was no guarantee Alfred would honor his grandfather’s wishes in regard to my preferences in the artwork, and I hadn’t the slightest notion how time-consuming or profitable the mines Gage had been given were.

  “It is generous. And I don’t believe my cousin or aunt will begrudge us any of it. Not when Grandfather still left the bulk of his estate to Alfred,” he replied.

  “Then what has brought that thunderous expression to your face?”

  He lowered the letter to meet my bemused gaze. “He also says he wrote to the king and asked him to consider granting me a title for my services to the nobility and the Crown.”

  I blinked wide eyes. “Well, that hardly seems something to become angry over.”

  He held up his hand to forestall me. “There’s more. He also says he wrote to Father to ask if he would do the same, or at least consider doing so.”

  This must have been what that letter Rory had referred to had been about, the one from Lord Gage he’d seen on his grandfather’s nightstand. As far as I knew, Lord Tavistock had never explained it. “And?”

  His pale eyes gleamed with fresh hurt. “Father told him to mind his own business. That he had no concept of what he was speaking of.”

  I gasped in outrage.

  “Grandfather thought I should know. He thought it was important that I be aware of . . . of . . .”

  “Of what a cad your father is,” I declared furiously. “Of all the nasty, dirty, despicable . . .”

  Gage reached out to clasp my arm. “Don’t get worked up, Kiera. I appreciate your indignation on my behalf, but it’s doubtful the king would ever give me a title of my own, even if I had earned it. Which I’m not sure I have. Not when I’ll eventually inherit Father’s.”

  “Yes, but your father could at least lend his support!”

  “Perhaps.” He sighed. “But you know him. Are you honestly surprised by this information?”

  “Yes. I understood he was eager for you to rise in rank. I thought that was his main objection to our marriage. Or is he keen for that to happen so long as it doesn’t take you completely out from under his thumb or overshadow him?” I sneered.

  “I’m sure that’s part of it,” he murmured wearily.

  I looped my arm through his, my temper abating at the sight of his evident distress. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. That’s rotten.”

  He frowned. “Yes, well, I’ve suffered worse insults when it comes to my father. I’m simply glad my inheritance from my mother allows me the freedom to ignore him when I choose.”

  “Perhaps you should choose to do so more often,” I retorted.

  He nodded, his gaze straying toward the window. “Perhaps.”

  I sank my head against his shoulder, wishing there was some way I could ease this hurt. But short of miraculously transforming his father into a better man, there was little I could do.

  “Kiera, perhaps you should lie down.”

  I glowered up at him. “Why do you keep insisting that? I’m not some fragile doll. I recovered from my ordeal in that cave weeks ago. Unless . . .” I gazed up into his soft, expectant eyes and felt my cheeks grow warm at the implication that he knew, or at least he suspected. I recognized I needed to say something, but my tongue stuck against the roof of my mouth, making speech impossible. Coherent speech, in any case.

  “Kiera,” he murmured, cupping my face between his hands. “I had no intention of forcing the issue, but you do realize I’m an observant person.”

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “Then, unless you’re suffering from some sort of ailment or lingering effects of the poison, I can only assume your recent illness in the morning and uncharacteristic lethargy is from something else. Perhaps something happier?”

  I swallowed again, feeling tears begin to well in my eyes, though I didn’t know why. “I . . . I think,” I whispered. “But I don’t know. Not for certain. I haven’t . . .”

  He smothered the rest of my words with his lips, kissing me once, twice, three times, as his face broke into a wide grin that fairly made my heart burst from the joy it contained. I was glad I’d been forced to tell him, no matter my conflicting emotions over the discovery, for it had all but erased the pain of his father’s disloyalty from his eyes.

  “But this is wonderful!” He stroked his thumbs over my cheeks, wiping the tears from my face. “Kiera, love, why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know,” I blubbered. “But Alana used to do the same thing when she was with child.”

  He laughed, lifting me unceremoniously up from the seat and onto his lap in order to hold me closer. I started to object, and then subsided, nestling into his shoulder. After all, in his arms was exactly where I wanted to be, propriety be dashed.

  I wished I could say that the months that followed in London were as peaceful and uneventful as any expectant mother might wish, but that was not to be. Both our public and private lives would be shaken by turmoil, and before the end of the year we would face our most fraught inquiry yet. Gage and I had both worked hard to lay our shadows to rest. If only they would stay buried.

  Photo by Shanon Aycock

  Anna Lee Huber is the Daphne award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries and the Verity Kent Mysteries. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in music and minored in psychology. She currently resides in Indiana with her family and is hard at work on her next novel. You can visit her online at annaleehuber.com.

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