Richard had grabbed a flaming piece of debris and tossed it into the tar-soaked boat. The smugglers dived into the water. Yet Garthwood stood and raised his pistol—no doubt the only gun left that was still primed, loaded, and ready to fire.
Harry determinedly dragged Helena away and hauled her back up to the house. She fought back sheer panic. Dear God, dear God, pray that Richard survive this night!
They reached the door to the study and stumbled inside before Harry released Helena’s hand. She collapsed shaking into a chair.
“Richard can take care of himself,” he said with absolute conviction. “Especially now you’re not there to worry about. Here, drink this!”
She took the small flask he offered, then choked over a fiery swallow of brandy.
“He won’t die,” Harry added earnestly. “Believe me! You mustn’t give way now. Talk to me, Helena!”
Richard was right all along about his brother. How can I ever make it up to them—if Richard lives, if he only lives!
She smiled and gave the flask back to Harry. The brandy burned down her throat, leaving a trail of comforting heat.
“How did you even know we were here?” she asked, amazed that her voice sounded so calm.
Harry dropped into the chair opposite hers. “Dickon left instructions in his room at Acton Mead. We arranged it beforehand. I followed Garthwood up to London and saw him safely settled in—or so I thought. When I realized he’d given me the slip and left town, I went straight to Acton Mead and climbed the ivy. Didn’t hit Sir Lionel this time, you’ll be glad to know. Richard’s note said you’d come down here to check up on our hunch about the brandy. I got here as fast as possible. You have to admit it was splendid timing.”
“I’d rather you didn’t cut it so close next time, Harry.”
“Well, I was expecting things to happen right after Christmas, when I first followed your nasty cousin to London. He left a man to watch Acton Mead. He’d had a man watching me in Oxford before, as well. Richard knew that. But we supposed he wouldn’t move until he got a message that you and Dickon had crept away in the night.”
“You mean Richard knew that Garthwood would follow us here? He walked openly into a trap?”
“He knew it was a possibility. But if Garthwood had waited in London for a message from Acton Mead, as we expected, you’d have had a couple of days’ lead. As it was, I suppose Garthwood got impatient and was already at your doorstep, then came down here on your heels. Richard knew it might happen. But my brother is a man who loves risk, Helena dear. Why else did he marry a lady he’d known for only two days? Though I don’t imagine he thought for a moment that Garthwood would harm you, or he’d never have brought you here.”
Has Garthwood found his target? Is Richard already gone?
“We couldn’t come any sooner. There was poison in the port you gave Richard for a present.”
Harry listened in silence as Helena described how John and Williams had been taken ill.
“The man is a devil,” he said fiercely. “I already know to my cost he has some depraved knowledge about drugs. I believe he slipped something into my drink the day I first met him, so that I would talk. No doubt I was garrulous enough, then I was sick as a dog.”
“When you first climbed the ivy? I thought you were drunk.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be too out of character, but actually I was just ill. Richard nursed me most of that night. I’m sorry, Helena, but I’m going to have to leave you here and go back to dispatch your cousin—with the butt of my pistol, if necessary.”
There was a small noise behind them. Helena whirled around.
“No need, sir,” a familiar voice said gaily. “His Majesty’s representatives have done it for us. It’s over.”
Richard!
He stepped into the study and smiled. His breathing was slightly disordered and his coat seemed to be torn, but he was otherwise perfectly calm.
Helena flung herself into his arms. “Thank God! You’re not hurt?”
“Might I take it that you’re really as pleased as you seem, sweet wife?”
He tilted her face up to his and kissed her without mercy.
Harry moved away to stare hard at the painting above the fireplace.
“Garthwood’s dead?” he asked after a discreet interval.
Richard pulled away from his wife and grinned at his brother. “He put himself in the way of an officer’s sword—though not the one I was using, unfortunately—before he could get off his last shot and put a bullet in my back, after all. I’m damned sorry, in truth, because now we’re never going to understand this insane coil.”
“What’s left to understand?” Harry asked.
“What Helena’s role is in all this, of course,” Richard replied.
Chapter Twenty
“No,” Harry said. “First you must tell us what happened after we left the cave.”
“Simple,” Richard replied. “We won. The surviving smugglers were taken out through the tunnel to the beach and hauled away in chains. Garthwood and the other victims were trussed in canvas and carried out with them. Meanwhile, I have given the commanding revenue officer all the records that proved Garthwood’s history of smuggling brandy.”
“And the records about the girls?” Harry asked.
“Are not relevant to customs officers’ concerns.”
Helena watched him, his bright hair, his confidence and strength. Garthwood was dead. Yet neither Richard nor Harry had killed him directly, and she was glad of that. He had been her cousin, after all, and in spite of everything she now knew about him, he had been generous enough to her when he first inherited Friarswell and Trethaerin from Edward.
Harry dropped back into a chair. “So what now?”
Richard guided Helena to a seat and smiled down at her. “We still don’t know,” he said slowly, “why Garthwood so wished for my untimely demise, except that it would appear to have been something to do with you, my dear.”
“You surely don’t suspect Helena, do you?” Harry said indignantly.
“No, Harry,” Helena said instantly. “Of course I wasn’t involved in any of it, but don’t you see? We have cleared up nothing really. Mr. Garthwood said he wanted Richard dead so he could marry me, but that’s absurd. There was certainly no insane passion there. My cousin was as cold as a fish. What could he possibly hope to gain? He didn’t even know that Acton Mead would be mine. In fact, he was counting on my being penniless and turning to him for help. And then he implied that if he had succeeded in murdering Richard, but I had turned down his suit, he would have had no compunction in dispatching me, too.”
“If I had known that, I would never have brought you,” Richard said. “You will believe that, won’t you?”
“Then why?” Harry asked.
“He seemed to think that I knew something,” Richard said. “Something more than about Madame Relet or about the brandy smuggling. Something to do with Helena or Trethaerin. What is it? The answer to that question is the crux of the whole issue.”
“Helena doesn’t know,” Harry said firmly.
“Yes, Garthwood made that clear.” Richard gave Helena a smile that threatened to break her heart. “But he thought I did. What knowledge could I have about Trethaerin that Helena would not?” He began to pace the room. “Nothing in Paris or in England. Before that, then? Something he believed Edward might have told me, perhaps?”
“And what did Edward say?” Harry asked.
Helena realized that Richard must have told his brother about Sir Edward Blake long before.
Richard took a chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “That’s just it. Nothing at all! I thought he was trying to tell me something when he died, but all he said was Helena’s name.”
“How would Garthwood know about anything between you and Sir Edward Blake?” Harry asked.
“Edward wrote to me,” Helena said suddenly. “He sent a letter before he died, but Garthwood kept it. I found it in his desk.”<
br />
She felt in her pocket and took out the stained sheet.
“The devil! He opened it?” Harry said.
“My dear Helena,” Richard said softly. “If you could bear to read it now? Only Edward, it would seem, can cast any light upon all this.”
Helena unfolded the crabbed writing that had been so familiar from Edward’s Peninsular letters.
“It’s mostly just ordinary news,” she said after a while. “No! Oh, Richard, listen to this!”
She began to read aloud. “I wonder sometimes if I shall ever see dear old Cornwall again. Although we all believe the war is nearly over and Boney stares defeat in the face, there are too many mishaps here waiting to trap a fellow. If anything should happen to me, dear cousin, I surely shouldn’t want old Garthwood to get his hands on Friarswell. So I am taking the precaution of seeing that he doesn’t. I have written a will leaving everything to you. I had a couple of the fellows witness it. I thought I’d give the document to Richard Acton for safekeeping. You know what I think of him. If he were here right now, I’d have asked him to be a witness, but he’s off on one of his clandestine adventures, as usual. Until he gets back I’m putting the papers in the safest place I can think of—stitched inside the cover of my brandy flask. I’m a dab hand now with a needle, you know—”
She stopped and looked up at them. “I don’t think I can go on.”
Helena laid down the letter and burst into tears.
Richard sat as if frozen, his head buried in both hands.
“Don’t cry,” Harry said gently. “Are you all right?”
“Of course.” Helena smiled bravely and wiped at her eyes. “I’m fine. Dear Edward!”
“Where is this brandy flask?” Harry asked after a moment. “Buried in France?”
“Not at all,” Richard looked up into Helena’s eyes. “It’s at my father’s house where I left it. Helena, I’m so very sorry.”
“For what?”
“For everything,” Richard said. “We had better get to King’s Acton right away, I suppose, and see if this thing is legal.”
“And if it is?” Harry asked.
“Then Helena is mistress of Friarswell and Trethaerin in her own right. Which means, incidentally, that she had no need at all to marry me.”
What did it matter if she had been rightful owner of her old home all along if Richard didn’t need her?
“Well, you always were a gallant fool, Dickon,” Harry said. “So that’s what Garthwood was trying to get out of me—the whereabouts of the brandy flask. He searched for it at Acton Mead. Then when he failed, he followed me to the inn with the excellent oysters. He must have been in an agony over when you might reveal that you had it. No wonder he thought you’d be better off dead.”
“He would have assumed it was why Richard married me,” Helena said.
“But I was as ignorant of the will’s existence as you were. Unfortunately, Garthwood didn’t know my peculiar character. I suppose to the greedy, everyone is assumed to have the same motivation. If I had known of the will, of course, my reaction would have been the opposite of his. I wouldn’t have married you. I’d have given the document directly into your hands and all of this could have been avoided.”
“Why,” Helena said, choking back her reaction to that, “did he not just murder me when he found out about the will?”
“Because he thought that I knew about it and was intending—as he said—to ‘make my claim.’ Otherwise, he might have wanted to kill both of us, hoping that the will would never come to light—or failing that, he’d marry you and thus secure his future, should the will ever turn up. Without Trethaerin, all of his operations would have been impossible. The man must have been in the most dreadful suspense, ever since the day he read Edward’s letter. When he couldn’t find the brandy flask, what more straightforward act to a creature of his type than to see that I met with an accident?” Richard gave a wry smile. “I suppose I must be grateful that he was not more practiced in assassination.”
“And not a decent shot,” Harry said. “Nor familiar with your embarrassing prowess with horses and elephants.” He stood up and yawned. “Do you dear creatures perceive that it’s almost dawn?”
Richard rang the bell. A bleary-eyed servant eventually appeared.
Helena realized that the household staff had managed to sleep through the entire night’s occurrences. Not a sound from the cave would have reached the house, and they had been quiet enough in the study.
“I want my chaise and four brought up from the Anchor in Blacksands,” Richard said, ignoring the man’s dropped jaw at the sight of strangers in the master’s study. “You may tell the innkeeper that the request comes from Viscount Lenwood. I shall trust him to pack for us, and give him this.”
He tossed a purse toward the startled man.
The servant looked past him at Helena. “Is that really you, Miss Trethaerin?”
“That’s right, Purdy, it’s me. You won’t see Mr. Garthwood again, I’m afraid.”
“Then I’m heartily glad to hear you say so, ma’am. There’s been the most fearful goings-on here since you left.”
Helena looked down at her hands, thinking of poor Penny and the other girls, then she raised her head and smiled.
“That’s all over now, Purdy. Please send for the carriage as the viscount asked.”
* * *
The journey to King’s Acton went by in a blur. Helena slept for much of the way. She had not expected to feel so tired, but then, she had never experienced these various adventures before, including the secret that she still kept from Richard.
As before, they didn’t stop very often or very long. When she awoke one time, it was to hear Harry telling Richard about the dramatic cold weather that had seized London before he left.
Helena heard Harry’s account with indifference. Mixed with an enormous relief that Richard was now safe, there was still a dreadful apprehension. She, ordinary Helena Trethaerin, had an estate of her own, after all. Richard had never needed to marry her.
Would he now live to regret his generosity? Would he leave directly from his father’s house for Marie’s company in London? Her mistrust of Harry had helped to turn Richard against her, but that misjudgment had grown only because Richard had never trusted or confided in her.
She remembered what Charles de Dagonet had said: Be patient with him.
But if Richard left her alone again at Acton Mead, she would never get the chance to redeem herself, and then Richard was as lost to her as if Garthwood had succeeded. The thought chilled her more than the cold of the ice-bound roads.
* * *
The Countess of Acton came out to meet them in the hall. A moment later the earl appeared behind her and scowled at his sons.
“What on earth are you doing abroad in this horrid weather, children?” the countess said with her beautiful smile. “I thought I would be turned into an icicle on our own trip back from London, and apart from my little room, this place is as cold as the grave. Richard, did Harry give you that appalling bruise?”
“You must believe that I ran into a door,” Richard said, kissing his mother, then turning to his father. “Your servant, my lord. I trust I find you in good health?”
Harry in turn kissed his mother on the cheek, but the Countess of Acton was gazing at Helena.
“How can you drag your wife about the country in her interesting condition, Richard?” the countess said. “Really, you men are about as sensitive as oxen. Come in and get warm, my dear, and have some food and something hot to drink. How long have you known?”
“Known what?” Richard said.
“Why, that your pauper wife is planning to present us with the next generation of heirs to Acton, of course. I have not borne six children only to be incapable of recognizing when a lady is enceinte.”
At which Richard went quite white, as his father flushed a deep shade of crimson.
“Is this true?” he said to Helena at last.
She could n
ot avoid his eyes. “Yes. I wasn’t sure until recently, but yes, there’ll be a new Acton in the spring. I meant to tell you, but there never seemed to be the opportunity. Are you pleased?”
Richard looked blankly at her. “Helena, for God’s sake! You mean to tell me that you went all the way to Cornwall while carrying our child? And all those boisterous Christmas games at Acton Mead? How dare you risk yourself? Are you deranged?”
“Of course she’s not,” Harry said quickly. “Congratulations, Richard and Helena! You do realize”—he gave Helena a friendly wink—“that this puts me out of the running for the earldom on a permanent basis, for which I’m very glad. And she’s no longer a pauper, Mother. Tell them why we came, Dickon, because Father’s long silence means he’s about to have apoplexy.”
Richard had taken Helena firmly by the hand. His grasp threatened to crush hers. She could feel the pulse racing through his fingers.
“My lord,” he said calmly to his father. “It may please you to hear that we believe my wife to be the rightful owner of considerable property in Cornwall. If I might fetch the brandy flask that I left here after our last visit? Then there are some other papers I wish you to see, which do not involve the ladies.”
“Damn you, sir, for an irresponsible lout,” the earl spluttered. “She’s carrying the heir to my name, and you have been dragging her about the countryside like a farm girl. Damn the property! I don’t care if she has a penny to bless herself with or not, she’s carrying the Fourth Earl of Acton. Lady Acton, please see to this child!”
“I am in no danger, my lord,” Helena said firmly. “I am young and as healthy, I trust, as any poor girl on a farm. It will be some time before my condition requires that I take any special precautions. I would very much like to see the brandy flask, too, if you would be kind enough to allow Richard to fetch it.”
“There is really no reason why this interesting object cannot be examined in my own drawing room over tea, though, is there?” the countess said. “Before we all freeze to death in the hall?”
Richard was forced to release his wife’s fingers and allow his mother to lead Helena into the comfort of a private room with a blazing fire and elegant spindle-legged chairs.
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