Light to Valhalla

by Melissa Lynne Blue

  “Coverstone.” The earl ground to a halt.

  “Perhaps we could have a word outside.”

  Mancroft flicked a gaze upward, and Alex was absurdly disappointed to see the man had brown eyes. “I have nothing to say on the subject you wish to discuss. If you’ll excuse me I must be on my way.”

  Alex tightened his iron grip until Mancroft winced. “Not so fast. Where is Bernadette?”

  “Dead by all accounts.” The earl tugged and writhed against Alex’s hold. “Release me.”

  “Not until yo—”

  “Is everything alright, Lord Mancroft?” General Witherspoon approached the men with dangerous intent.

  Alex met him with a level gaze. “This is none of your concern, sir. I’ll ask you to stand aside.”

  At that moment Mancroft wiggled free of Alex’s grasp and bolted through the door.

  Ignoring the general, Alex dashed after Mancroft only to have Witherspoon intercept him bodily.

  “Unhand me,” Alex barked, hurling the older man aside.

  Freed, Alex weaved through the tables and chairs, nearly toppling the doorman taking the coat of yet another gentleman venturing in from the cold. Alex slipped through the door only to find Mancroft had disappeared into the snowy night.

  “Damn,” he swore under his breath, pumping a fist into the night. By all appearances Alex had fallen onto an unprecedented streak of miserable luck. His mind whirled around the inevitable question… was this bad luck or something more sinister? Everything had happened at once, one powerful hit after the next as though an orchestrator sat above the stage tugging at puppet strings.

  Rumors… Accusations… Jack…

  Events of the last few weeks swished and swirled through his head like the snowflakes whipping on the wind.

  “Heard about your bastard,” a familiar voice sounded from behind.

  “Not now, Witherspoon,” Alex growled warily, turning to face the general.

  “Then when?” The man more than likely responsible for his ruin ambled a half circle around Alex, putting a lit cheroot in his mouth. “I’ve been waiting to get you alone since returning to London.”

  Alex rolled his head on his shoulders. “What do you want, sir? To kill me? Fine.” He spread his arms wide. “Shoot me. Even the score.” At this moment he’d welcome death. To hell with second chances. Doing the right thing caused nothing but pain and heartache.

  “I don’t want to shoot you,” Witherspoon snarled. “I want you to suffer as I’ve suffered. As my wife has suffered. I want you to know the pain I experienced when you sent my son to his death.”

  A cold chill swept down Alex’s spine. “I didn’t kill your son, sir. He disobeyed my direct orders and got himself killed.”

  “A likely story.” Witherspoon rolled the cheroot with his tongue. “Make this easy on yourself and confess, Coverstone. No need for things to get… ugly.”

  Pure red flashed through Alex’s vision. “Leave my wife alone you son of a bitch.” He lunged at the other man. “I am not responsible for your son’s death but I’ll sure as hell murder you.”

  * * *

  A loud clunk jarred Charley from the dregs of fitful sleep. She blinked against the darkness, tuning her ears to the shuffle of feet outside the door. Disoriented it took her a moment to remember reading in the library after tucking Jack into bed. She must have dozed off. Across the hall feet shuffled and hinges groaned. Alex? Foolishly her heart leapt. She stuffed it back down, a fresh wave of pain flaying the last of her nerves. She scooted out of the oversize chair, crept to the door and peered around the corner.

  Alex trudged across the white marble floor into the study across the hall, shoulders slumped and his bad leg all but dragging with each step. A flicker of empathy softened her rage for half a heartbeat. Without closing the door he moved into the study, dropping his brown jacket right onto the floor and discarding his cravat and waist coat not far behind. He stopped before the cabinet he’d broken his first day back home. It seemed an eternity… an entire lifetime had passed.

  Alex stepped to the side of the cabinet, away from the door and ran his hands along the back and side. A vision of splintering wood the day he arrived home swept through her mind.

  Puzzled, she left the parlor and tiptoed silently across the hall, peering covertly through the half opened door. Alex staggered back a step, flailing one arm out as though for balance. She snatched back to prevent being spotted, but not before she caught a good glimpse of his face. Dark unruly curls lay in sweaty clumps across his forehead and more than a dusting of whiskers coated his jaw—which really was something because truthfully she could not remember the last time she’d seen him unshaven—deep black circles marked the underside of his eyes, and the lines around his mouth cut deep into his face. In short, he looked like hell.

  He shook the cabinet. “Open damn it. I know you’re in there.”

  What was it with that cabinet? A secret compartment perhaps? An intriguing thought… Charley’s nose tickled. She rubbed it to keep the urge to sneeze at bay. The tickle ebbed and—

  “Aaachhooo!” Without warning the sneeze erupted from her.

  Alex swiveled his head, blinked, and waved a sloppy arm in her direction. “Who’s there?”

  She cringed back away from the door, out of his line of site.

  “Charley?” his tone was wistful. The uneven tread of his boots trod across the carpeted floor. “I’m sorry, love. So sorry.”

  Resigned she sighed. Best just to face him now, she’d never run to the stairs in time and then he’d know she’d fled from him. Believe her a coward. On knees of half melted butter she stepped into the doorway.”

  Alex’s eyes widened, obviously surprised to see her. “You’re still awake.” The mantle clock showed the hour past midnight.

  “You’re drunk,” she stated darkly, keeping herself safely outside the room, the doorjamb served as both a physical and mental barrier from Alex’s overwhelming presence. If she ventured too close no doubt her wall of courage would crumble and she’d fall sobbing into his arms.

  He waggled a finger in her direction. “Nothing escapes you, love. Nothing at all.” He staggered toward her into the glow of the light from the hall.

  Instinctively she stepped back, needing distance to protect herself, but stopped short. “Heavens, Alex, you’re bleeding!” Soft yellow light illuminated the huge gash splitting his left eyebrow.

  He reached up to touch the wound and grimaced. “Oh, yes, that. Had a bit of a run in with General Witherspoon.”

  A bit of a run in? Blood trickled down his cheek and around his eye. Charley released a disparaging sigh and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. This only gets better and better. “Sit,” she commanded, crossing her protective threshold. She crossed the study to a porcelain water pitcher and basin.

  Alex stumbled backward and fell into a wing-backed chair. “Thank Christ Sidney showed up when he did. Pulled me off that sum bitch b’fore I beat the bloody piss ou’ of him.”

  “Sidney loves you very much.”

  “No.” Alex shook his head, looking up to her with broken eyes. “He loves you.”

  Uncomfortable, she cleared her throat and carried the bowl to Alex, setting it on an oak side table. “That is nothing but foolishness and rot.”

  “Is it?” He fixed her with a surprisingly sober stare, longing shown deep in his eyes.

  Charley opened her mouth to respond, but no words came. Finally at a loss she dripped the white linen cloth into the water and dabbed away the blood marring her husband’s drawn face. The sheer force of being near him unsettled her to the very core, she hated to see him hurting or wounded in any way. Steeling her nerves against the softening of emotion undoubtedly on her horizon, first she washed his cheek, and then around his eye, slowly working her way to the gash. It was not as big as it seemed at first glance though a physician may need to be summoned to place a stitch or two.

  “Christ, Charles. That hurts.” He grasped her wrist, halting h
er nursing.

  She quickly freed herself. “Yes, well, it wouldn’t hurt if you hadn’t been cavorting about London starting fights.”

  “Didn’t start the fight,” he grumbled, sulking lower in his chair.

  She cocked a reproachful brow, turning back to her work. “Oh?”

  “No. I was leaving White’s, minding my own damn business when Witherspoon confronted me.”

  “The general attacked you?”

  “Well, attacked may not be the right word. He flung a few insults and I may have hit him first. I can’t really remember,” he mumbled. “It all happened too fast. He clocked me good I tell you.”

  “I see that.” A niggle of unease having nothing to do with illegitimate children or other women trickled down her spine.

  Alex sighed out the weight of the world. “I’m ruined, Charley. Everyone in Town believes I’m a murdering, philandering scoundrel.” Abruptly Alex looked up, the contact of their eyes physical—like lightening. “Even you.” His bleary gazed wandered the length of her. “You’re so beautiful,” he breathed so softly she could scarcely hear. The utter devastation in his whisper reached deep down inside her, knocking a piece of her discontent out of place. “To hell with what everyone else thinks. I can’t live without you, love. You must believe in me.”

  Her anger—nay, her heart—faltered. It was hard to remain angry at a man so vulnerable and completely broken before her. She wanted to protect him. Wrap her arms around those broad shoulders and shield him from the disaster enveloping their lives.

  Shaken, she rinsed the cloth, and continued her work. The wound did not require much more cleaning, but a part of her, that same fickle piece of her heart that would never let him go completely, needed to be close to him; feel his heat and be enveloped in his intoxicating nearness. “Where have you been?”

  “Went to see Manscroft. Fat lot of good that did me. The bloody bastard.”

  “What did he have to say about Jack?”

  “He jumped all over the opportunity to dump the boy on another man’s stoop.” Alex stared straight ahead, eyes cold as ice, fingers drumming steadily on his thigh. “We’ll never know the truth.”

  Charley swallowed around the lump perpetually lodged in her throat. The truth seemed painfully obvious to her. Jack was the spitting image of Alex from his blue eyes to his dimples to the secretive smile he flashed whenever told to do something he didn’t want.

  Alex’s head lolled back against the chair cushion. “I love you, Charley,” he murmured as his eyes drifted shut.

  She stumbled backward and out of the room, needing as much distance from her husband as possible. The declaration devastated her. Brought nothing but pain on the wings of sorrow. Did she love Alex? Always and forever, but her trust in him was shattered. He wanted her to believe him faithful to her, but evidence to the contrary was overwhelming.

  Could they overcome this turmoil and doubt?

  Only time would tell.

  Fifteen

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Alex slumped in the leather arm chair behind his desk, glaring at the gilded clock face mocking him from the mantel. The seconds ticked with agonizing slowness into minutes before falling away to hours.

  He drummed his fingers across his thigh.

  Sooner or later those hours would collapse into yet another day… and then another… until inevitably those days, each more miserable than the last, clinked into weeks. Rumors of murder and impropriety swirled through London with devastating force. The brink of December loomed, and despite every effort that money and an intelligent mind could afford, Alex was no closer to unraveling the web of deceit intricately draped around his life than he had been near a month ago.

  He flicked an impatient gaze to the infamous letter clutched in his hand.

  Light would be cast on the subject soon however, a handwriting expert was en route from Sussex to decipher Bernadette’s letter. While Alex was very much inclined to believe Jack was his own—the resemblance was uncanny, he had a sneaking suspicion someone other than the late Mrs. Barcelona had blown the subject into the open. The handwriting in the letter bore striking resemblance to Veronica’s elegant script.

  He tossed the letters awaiting the expert onto his desk and strode to the window. His mother’s declaration about Sidney’s true parentage still troubled Alex a great deal. He had no idea if Sid knew and was not about to broach the subject. For the moment he lived by the old adage, Keep your friends close and your enemies closer… The burning question was, which was Sidney? Friend or foe? Cousin or brother?

  He tapped heavy knuckles against the pane, watching Charley and her maid steer their horses around the corner of the house. In all he was glad to see his wife getting out for a bit of fresh air, she’d grown increasingly withdrawn in the past few days, and had scarcely left her room in the space of a week.

  As he watched, Charley’s mount skittered to the side. She wobbled in the sidesaddle, and grabbed at a chunk of mane. Alex could do nothing more than stare on in abject horror as his wife continued to slide from the horse’s back. Her terrified cry pierced the air as she tumbled from the back of her mount, saddle and all.

  “Charley!” Heart in his throat Alex waited for his wife to climb to her feet and when she didn’t he shoved the window open and climbed through into the snow. “Charley!” He charged through the lawn to her motionless form, lying pale in the snow. “What happened?” he barked to the maid.

  “Don’t rightly know, milord.” Trudy held the reins of both skittish horses. “Is she alright?”

  Alex dropped to his knees, searching for any immediate injuries. “I’m not sure. We’ll send for my physician straight away.” Scooping Charley up into his arms, Alex cradled her against his chest, sick with the thought of any harm befalling her. She was so petite and fragile. He carried her back through the front door much to Hastings’s confusion.

  “Hastings, see to it Dr. Carson is summoned immediately.”

  “Certainly, milord.”

  Alex took the stairs two at a time, willing Charley’s eyes to open. He strode to her room and set her gently, almost reverently on the mattress. She looked so beautiful in sleep, like the fairytale damsels she so loved to read of when they were children. He sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed a hand over her hair. “You are my princess, love.” The garnet necklace winked from her throat. He brushed a finger over the stone. “So much for keeping you safe.”

  The doctor arrived shortly thereafter and Alex was promptly shoed out of the room. He paced the front hall, awaiting the physician, hoping beyond hope Charley would allow him an audience when she awoke. If she awoke…

  Oh, God, no. He couldn’t think that way. His chest tightened. Air refused to enter his lungs. His head swam. He clutched the wall, flushing negative thoughts from his head. Charley would be fine. She must.

  “Excuse me, milord,” a male voice interrupted his thoughts.

  Alex turned to find his Town stable manager waiting expectantly behind him. “Not now, Jefferies.”

  “With all due respect, my lord, this is of the utmost importance. It concerns Lady Coverstone.”

  Charley. A vision of his wife pale and unmoving in the snow seared his mind. “Very well.” Alex waved Jefferies into his study. “What is it?”

  “This here is the strap from her ladyship’s saddle, and, if I’m not mistaken, it was deliberately cut.”

  “Cut?” Ice trickled through Alex’s blood. The same heightened sense that tickled his nape before a battle. “Let me see that.” He took the leather strap from Jeffries’s hands and smoothed a thumb along the straight edge of the split fastening. “I’ll be damned.” His mind whirled. Could Johnston be back to claim his 1000 pound prize? Or had a new set of lackeys been hired? “Have you seen anyone around the stables or the tack?”

  “No, milord, but I’ll ask the boys if they’ve seen anything out of the ordinary.”

  Alex nodded. He liked Jeffries. The stocky horseman originally hailed from t
he Americas and never failed to look Alex straight in the eye when he spoke. “Thank you, Jefferies, you’re dismissed. I’ll follow up with you shortly.”

  Once Doctor Carson left and Alex was assured of Charley’s sound health he’d pay a visit to the stables himself. Alex had been watching Witherspoon for weeks and had uncovered nothing untoward in the general’s schedule. So much so that Alex was beginning to believe his suspicions were totally unfounded. But if not Witherspoon then who would have a vendetta against Alex or a reason to harm Charley?

  Alex strode to his desk, pulling a sheet of paper from the top drawer and plucking a quill from his desktop. The time had come to call in reinforcements. He hesitated for half a second before touching ink to paper and jotting a quick, informal note.

  Mr. Sirius Mott,

  Your immediate assistance is required at Coverstone House. The matter is most urgent. I will inform you of the details upon your immediate arrival.

  My thanks,

  Lord Coverstone

  He folded the letter without a second glance at the wording and reached for his signet ring. Much as Alex was loathe to recruit anyone into his personal business he needed the full support and assistance of the law. Charley’s life was more important than his own stubborn pride.

  He glanced about for a plug of wax to seal the letter but was unable to locate any. All those official letters for estate business had no doubt depleted his supply. Alex shoved back his chair and strode to the door, carrying the letter and ring along with him. No matter he’d just pilfer some wax from his mother’s private drawing room.

  Once in the hall, Alex’s eyes were drawn with magnetic force to the stairs. How much longer would the physician be? His gut twisted in a combination of dread and anger. Quickly he shoved the unproductive emotions aside and set off to find his mother’s wax. Dwelling on the unknown would do him no good. He was a man of action and summoning the magistrate was an action he could accomplish with all haste. Once he found some wax that is…

  Alex found his mother’s drawing room completely empty and made a beeline for her decorative cherry wood desk.