Jerome turned away in disgust from the sight of Emily on the bed and started down the hall. He thought pityingly of her betrothed. Poor Sir Henry. Not even wed yet, and already he had been betrayed by his intended.
If Jerome had not seen Emily with his own eyes, he doubted he would have believed she was capable of such dishonourable behaviour. Of all the women he had ever met, he had thought the pious Emily the one most certain to be faithful.
Was there no woman who could be trusted, he wondered in bitter disillusionment.
As he made his way down the hall, it occurred to him that Bill Taggart and the other people of the neighbourhood had been far more astute at seeing Emily for what she really was than he had ever been.
Jerome had reached the front door when Denton, still fastening his breeches, caught up with him,
“Before I left London,” Jerome told him, “I had a visit from one of your footmen, Leonard Tarbock.”
Denton looked puzzled. “I have no footman by that name. For that matter, I have no servants at all. They all left weeks ago because I was so far behind in paying their wages. I am one step away from debtors’ prison.”
Jerome’s anger gave way to the smallest glimmering of hope. Could it be Rachel was telling the truth? He remembered her agonized face. “I swear to God that I did not write these letters. I have never set eyes on them before.”
The glimmer grew stronger as he recalled that the former captain of The Betsy also denied writing the letter that had misled everyone into thinking that Stephen had disappeared in France instead of England. Could there be a connection?
Denton’s mouth twisted in bitter self-contempt. “Believe me, I would not be here if I were not desperate.”
“So Emily was the woman who was the object of Birkhall’s wager?”
Denton nodded in confirmation. “Do you think I enjoyed seducing that unpleasant shrew? I agreed to the wager only because it was my last hope of pulling myself from the River Tick.”
“And now you have three witnesses to confirm you won it,” Jerome remarked.
“Would... would it be too much to ask you not to tell your wife about this incident?”
“Why would you care?”
“I hate to have her think worse of me than she already does. Rachel is the only woman I ever loved.” Denton’s voice took on a self-mocking edge. “And the one woman who has never had any interest in me.”
Jerome stared at him.
“Did you know that I offered for her several months ago, but her damned aunt would not hear of it. If only Stephen had not disappeared. I am certain I could have gotten him to agree to my marrying her.”
Lucky for Rachel that Stephen had vanished. But was it? What had marriage to Jerome brought her? Pain and misery thanks to his inability to trust her. The terrible look on his wife’s face when he had denied their child’s paternity tormented him.
He asked Denton, “Why did you pick my Dower House?”
“It was Emily’s idea. She said it was never used, and no one would know.”
“She was wrong.” And so had Jerome been to think Rachel had betrayed him. She had not done so.
But he had betrayed her. His refusal to believe her, to trust her had been every bit as much a betrayal as if he had been physically unfaithful. Hellsfire, but he was guilty of so much.
Jerome went outside to his horse. All he wanted was to get home to his wife and beg her forgiveness for ever having doubted her.
As he and his two companions rode away from the Dower House, Morgan said dryly, “Well, Jerome, you might have married Emily and been bored, miserable, and cuckolded.”
Yes, he would have been, fool that he was, had Rachel not abducted him and saved him from his own stupidity. Rachel is as beautiful within as she is without. Hell and damnation, why can you not see that?
Jerome hated himself for his blindness and distrust, but most of all for how terribly he had hurt his wife. He did not know who had written those letters, but it had not been Rachel, no matter how much the writing looked like hers.
They were a quarter mile from Royal Elms when a man on horseback came up behind them at a gallop. As he reached them, he slowed his lathered horse to their pace.
The bright moonlight illuminated his face, and Jerome saw that he was a young, dark-haired man, lean and handsome.
“Where are you headed?” Jerome asked.
“Royal Elms.”
“What business have you there?”
“I am chasing the Duke of Westleigh. Talk about wretched luck, I arrived at his London house today, three hours after he had left for his country seat.”
“Who are you, and why are you so anxious to see me?”
The man’s face tightened. “So you are Westleigh. I am George Wingate.”
Jerome was so startled that he could only stare at the stranger for a moment. The last person he expected to show himself at Royal Elms was the man he feared was behind the attempts on Rachel’s life.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I have come for an explanation of why you wrote me that hectoring letter full of nonsense about my brother being missing and—”
“What do you mean nonsense?” Jerome interrupted. “Stephen has been missing for more than a year now.”
“Are you mad? I have had regular letters from him. Why, in the very mail that brought me your letter I had one from Stephen.”
“Written when and from where?” Jerome asked. “From Wingate Hall and written only the day before yours. Stephen assured me that he was coming to enjoy Yorkshire and life in the country. I own I would not have believed him had I not also had a letter from Rachel, telling me how happy she was that he had come home and settled down at last.”
Suddenly all that had been happening made terrible sense to Jerome. “We had better stop here for a few minutes.”
When they had done so, he said, “Stephen has not been near Wingate Hall in more than a year and a half.”
“But that is impossible.” George’s voice rose in indignant protest. “He has written me from there, and Rachel, in her letters, has talked about all that he is doing.”
Jerome said, “The only letters Rachel wrote you of late begged you to come home and take charge of Wingate Hall before Sophia destroyed it. Rachel could not have written you the letters you received. Neither could Stephen.”
George looked utterly bewildered. “But I tell you I know my own brother’s and sister’s handwriting.”
Just as Jerome had thought he had known Rachel’s.
“Have you noticed, Jerome,” Morgan interjected, “all the letters floating around from Rachel that she did not write.”
“Aye.” Jerome remembered with a grim curl of his lips how insistent Sophia Wingate had been that she alone handle all the mail going in and out of Wingate Hall.
“Rachel’s hand is very distinctive,” George was saying.
“Yes, I know,” Jerome said. I could not tell it from my own. No wonder Rachel had looked so confused and stricken when he had shown her the letters he had gotten from the bogus footman. “Your brother was seized and sold to a press gang when he returned to England from the Continent more than a year ago.”
George reeled back in his saddle. “My God, I cannot believe it! Where is he now?”
“He tried to escape by jumping from the ship when it was several miles off the coast of America. Apparently, he mistook the lights of a passing ship for land.”
“Did he...” George’s voice, no more than croak, failed him entirely.
“I am afraid not,” Jerome said gently. “I am sorry.” In the moonlight, tears glistened on George’s cheeks.
“Any letters you received from him must have been forged.”
George looked grief-stricken and bewildered. “Who would go to all that trouble and why?”
“Someone who wanted to keep you from returning to England to claim Wingate Hall after Stephen disappeared,” Jerome said.
“But who?”
&n
bsp; “Sophia Wingate.” Jerome was certain of this now. “Your brother purportedly left a document placing your Uncle Alfred in charge of his estate should anything happen to him and—”
“Stephen would never have done that!” George interrupted. “He thought my uncle a hopeless fool.”
“After what you have told us, I am certain that document is a forgery too,” Jerome said. “The letters you received were undoubtedly designed to keep you from suspecting anything was wrong. Did you bring them with you?”
George tapped his coat. “Yes, I have them here.”
“Good, I would like to compare them to two letters that I have at Royal Elms.”
Jerome urged Lightning to a gallop, and the other riders fell in behind him. Within a few minutes, they were striding into Royal Elms’s great marble hall.
They were met by the housekeeper, glaring at Jerome with more disfavour than he could ever remember, but he had too much on his mind to pay any heed to her moods.
“Mrs. Needham, tell my wife I wish to see her in the drawing room at once.”
The housekeeper’s look grew even darker. “Nay, I shall not,” she said defiantly. “She was ill tonight and went to bed early. She is asleep now, poor dear, and I’ll not wake her.”
Alarmed, Jerome started for the steps to go to Rachel.
Mrs. Needham, her voice as sharp as broken glass, said, “Sleep is the best thing for the poor thing in her condition. If you have any consideration for her, Your Grace, you will not disturb her before she wakes.”
That stopped him dead. In her condition—pregnant with his child that he had cruelly told her could not be his. He felt like the world’s greatest scoundrel.
He remembered how exhausted—and devastated— Rachel had looked. Mrs. Needham was right. Rachel needed sleep. Much as he longed to go to her immediately to try to repair the damage he had done to their marriage, better for her to rest undisturbed and wake naturally. For her sake, he would curb his impatience.
Jerome would do anything for Rachel.
He turned away from the stairs and went into the drawing room. “Your sister will be delighted to see you,” he said to George who had followed him.
“Not as delighted as I shall be to see her. The irony of all this is that if Stephen is dead, Wingate Hall is Rachel’s, not mine, although she does not know that.”
Jerome and Morgan exchanged a meaningful look. “How is that?” Jerome asked casually.
“I promised my father that if anything happened to Stephen, I would either resign my commission, which I have no intention of doing, or Wingate Hall would go to Rachel. She will be a far better steward of it than either Stephen or I.”
Morgan looked at George with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “Then why were you so angry when your father insisted you sign that agreement?”
Clearly stunned, George blurted, “How do you know about that?”
“I have sources,” Morgan said vaguely. “Are you going to answer my question?”
“I was furious—and insulted—that my father would not accept my word I would do as I promised but thought it necessary to draw up a formal agreement. My word is my bond, and I would not have gone back on it.”
Jerome eyed George with approval. “In light of the other letters you had received, you must have been astonished to get mine.”
“To tell you the truth, I was already uneasy, although I could not tell you precisely why. I think it must have been Stephen’s letters. They sounded so unlike him. As soon as I got yours, I asked for immediate leave and sailed for home.”
A horrified look crossed George’s face. “My God, do you think that Sophia or whoever forged the letters could have been responsible for Stephen’s disappearance?”
“I think it is extremely likely,” Jerome said. “There were also two unsuccessful attempts on your sister’s life before she left Wingate Hall.”
The colour retreated from George’s face, leaving it ashen. “Before she left Wingate Hall? Where the devil is she now? Is she safe?”
“Very safe. She is upstairs asleep. I would awaken her, but as you heard my housekeeper say she needs her sleep. It is early days yet, but we are in the process of making you an uncle.”
George sank down into a chair. “She is your wife?”
Jerome nodded.
“If you have any more surprises for me, pray wait until morning. I do not think I can take them.”
When Jerome went up to bed that night, he crossed his chamber to the connecting door to his wife’s room. He gently turned the knob, only to find that it was locked against him.
Jerome’s heart sank, and his pain was all the greater because he knew that he deserved to have her bar her door to him.
Pulling on his robe, he went into the hall and tried that entry to Rachel’s room, but it, too, was locked. With his ear pressed to the door, he knocked softly and called her name. He heard no stirring from her.
Remembering his housekeeper’s warnings and Rachel’s exhaustion, he hated to wake her. If he told her all that he had to tell her, she would get no more sleep tonight. After all he had put her through, the least he could do was let her get a decent night’s sleep.
He went back to his room and climbed into his own lonely bed, reminding himself it would only be for tonight.
Secure in the knowledge that his wife was faithful to him and that she was lying in the next room, safe from the evil of Wingate Hall, he fell into the first good sleep he had had in days.
Chapter 31
It was nearly noon when Jerome awoke the next day. He jumped out of bed and went immediately to the connecting door to his wife’s chamber.
The door was still locked against him. He swallowed hard in disappointment, then knocked hard and called loudly to Rachel, but there was no answer. Pressing his ear to the door, he could hear nothing.
She had probably been up for hours, he thought with chagrin as he rang for his valet. He would have missed her happy reunion with George.
When Peters came in, he said, “A Mr. Griffin arrived from London a few minutes ago. He said it is most urgent that he see you immediately, Your Grace.”
Jerome knew that it must be very urgent indeed for Griffin himself to have come all the way from London. Jerome could think of only one thing that it could be. Stephen Wingate must have been found alive. If he could give Rachel that news... He anticipated his wife’s joy. “Send him up to me.”
When Griffin appeared, Jerome said, “You must have news on Lord Arlington.”
Griffin looked surprised. “Yes, I do, although that is not why I came. A sailor who saw him jump from The Sea Falcon confided to one of my investigators that he is certain the ship Lord Arlington mistook for land fished him out of the water and took him aboard. The sailor said nothing earlier because he feared the authorities would try to run the escapee down as a deserter. He thought it was better if The Sea Falcon’s officers thought the man dead.”
“Then Arlington may well be alive!”
“Aye, but unfortunately the sailor could not tell us what ship picked him up, only that it flew a British flag.”
“Not much help,” Jerome observed. “So if that was not the news that you brought here, what was?”
“I have finally discovered Sophia Wingate’s history. It is so shocking that I had to tell you in person at once. I rode most of the night to get here. As you suspected, she is no lady. Her real name was Sophia Tarbock.”
“Hellsfire, does she have a brother named Leonard?” Now Jerome knew why the ersatz footman had looked familiar.
“Yes, how did you know? They are the illegitimate offspring of a baronet and a chambermaid. Sophia’s father secured her a position as a lady’s maid when she was still in her teen years. She was eventually dismissed without a character for stealing from her employer, but by that time she had learned to act the part of a lady.”
“And decided to pass herself off as one?”
“Not immediately. There was an interim step. She became the mistre
ss of a master forger, who taught her the trade. She apparently was even more talented at it than he. She was said to be the best in the business.”
Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place for Jerome. “I can testify to that.” He thought ruefully of the havoc Sophia’s handiwork had wrought in his and his wife’s lives.
“What comes next is even more shocking. Alfred Wingate is not her second husband, but her fourth. Shortly after marrying her, each of the first two, both well-to-do merchants, one in Gravesend and the other in Bristol, died of the same mysterious symptoms that claimed her third spouse, Sir John Creswell. It is my strong suspicion, Your Grace, that all three were poisoned. I believe that Alfred Wingate is in great danger.”
No doubt he was. And if Jerome had not dragged Rachel from Wingate Hall, she would almost certainly be dead. Thank God, he had carried her away, and she was safe now at Royal Elms.
Jerome longed to take her in his arms and hold her. He ached to comfort and reassure her and beg her forgiveness for having doubted her.
As Griffin started out the door, Mrs. Needham brushed past him into Jerome’s room. “I am very worried about her grace. She has not left her room, and she does not answer my knock.”
Fear clutched at Jerome’s heart. He was across the room to the connecting door in an instant, pounding on it and yelling at Rachel to open it.
Only silence answered him.
With all his strength, he threw himself against the door. It groaned beneath his onslaught, but did not give way. He tried again, and this time, amid the sound of splintering wood, it did.
He ran into the room. There was no sign of his wife, only a note lying on the pillow, addressed to him.
Hastily, he opened it:
Jerome,
I have left Royal Elms. I shall never subject you to my unwelcome presence again. I ask only one thing of you: Do not attempt to find me for I shall never return to you.
I would rather be dead than to live again with a husband who could not believe he is the father of our child. Our baby deserves better than that, and so do I.
Rachel
***
Yes, by God, she did deserve better. Jerome felt as though a knife had pierced his heart, and the wound was all the more painful because he knew he had brought it on himself by his own blindness, his own lack of trust. Love is trust, Rachel had said, and she was right.
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