by Louise Allen
‘Cruel,’ Marcus countered. ‘As good as saying he was potent and any lack of children was his wife’s fault.’
‘Poor little boy,’ Nell said, moved. ‘Just a pawn in his father’s games.’
‘Not at first. Lady Framlingham came to love the child, reared it as her own. And, as so often happens, once there was a baby in the house, she too began to increase. She had a daughter and a son and was expecting again when her husband was murdered. She lost that baby, and her own son shortly afterwards.’
‘The love child must have been a comfort,’ Nell said hopefully, remembering that Amanda Hebden, Lady Framlingham, had been her own father’s mistress. What a hideous muddle.
‘Not for long. After the murder, Amanda was in no fit state to dress herself, let alone look after children. Her family descended, took over—and sent the boy away.’
‘Back to his Gypsy mother?’
‘No, off to some foundling hospital up in the North. Yorkshire Moors, I think.’
‘But how terrible,’ Nell murmured.
‘They were scandalised that Hebden had imposed the child on her and refused to take her own protests that she loved him into account. Then his true mother came. Her lover was dead, her child gone. She cursed us all—the Hebdens for betraying her, the Wardales for her lover’s death, me for failing to stop it, for being part of, as she saw it, the conspiracy.’ The earl sipped his port. ‘Beautiful creature. Wild, exotic—and completely unhinged with grief.’
‘What happened to her?’ Nell asked.
‘She killed herself, sealing the curse with her own blood. It made it more potent, so the Romany believe.’
‘That is why Mama was wary of Gypsies,’ Nell realized. ‘She would cross the street rather than pass a harmless peg seller, or an old dame with heather to sell.’
‘But the woman is dead, and Gypsies have been in these woods for ever, without doing us any harm,’ Hal protested.
‘But the child?’ Marcus said. ‘What about the child?’
‘Veryan may know.’ Lord Narborough filled his glass and pushed the decanter towards his elder son. ‘I had a letter this morning—took two days; the mail is in a dreadful state with this weather. He is coming over tomorrow, bringing the papers from the old case.’ Nell was not aware of moving or speaking, but he glanced sharply at her. ‘I am sorry, my dear. This must all be very painful.’
‘I just want to know the truth and for this persecution to stop,’ she said, swallowing the last of the port in her glass. It sent a warm, rich glow through her, attacking the chill of what they were talking about. ‘It seems tragedy heaps upon tragedy—that poor woman, her child.’ She shivered, trying to imagine the depths of despair of Hebden’s Gypsy lover.
‘We will know more tomorrow,’ Marcus said. ‘Let us rejoin the others and speak of happier matters.’
But Marcus’s optimism proved false. Lord Keddinton, stamping snow from his boots and moving gratefully to the heat of the fire in the study, could offer little except to slam the door on their latest theory.
‘You think the Gypsy brat is behind this?’ He curled his elegant fingers round the heat of a glass of punch and shook his head. ‘Dead. I made it my business to find out what happened to him. They sent him to some place up in Yorkshire. A year later, there was a fire, the child perished in that. Imogen Hebden is the only offspring of Framlingham’s still alive. A charming young woman, friend of my daughters. She isn’t behind this, you may be sure of that.
‘The Rom might be acting as agents for whoever it is, of course,’ he added with a shrug.
‘And the files, sir?’ Hal asked.
‘Here you are.’ He handed a slim folder to the earl. ‘I’ve looked at it and young Gregson hunted down every scrap he could find—getting quite obsessed with the case, poor devil.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Marcus caught the fleeting expression of pain that crossed Veryan’s face.
‘Dead. Hit by a vehicle it seems, on his way home a week ago.’
‘I am sorry to hear that.’ The earl looked up from the file. ‘A promising young man, I thought.’
‘He was. I had high hopes of him.’
‘Just coincidence that he was reviewing this case?’ Marcus asked. Cold fingers were trailing up his spine. He told himself he was being fanciful, but the news made him uneasy.
‘So I had believed,’ Veryan said slowly. ‘Now, I wonder.’ He left them soon afterwards. Marcus returned from the hall, having waved him off on his cold journey home, to find his brother and father in fruitless speculation.
Marcus pulled the door to and began to pace. ‘Never mind who he is or why he is doing this,’ he said after a while. ‘We need to get our hands on him.’
‘Set a trap, you mean?’
At the sound of the earl’s voice, Nell stopped in her tracks as she passed the study door. It was just ajar. With a guilty glance around, she tiptoed closer and gave it a slight push so the gap widened to an inch. She should not be eavesdropping, but if Marcus was planning something dangerous, she wanted to know.
‘Yes.’ Marcus sounded as though he were thinking aloud. ‘We need to get him inside. There’s too much space out there; he will always have the advantage.’
‘We’ll need to pull the patrols back,’ Hal said. ‘Concentrate them on, say, the stable block as though we were expecting an attack that way. It’s an easier target, all that inflammable material, it would be logical if we thought it was a threat.’
‘I bow to your military tactical experience,’ Marcus said sardonically. ‘Then we patrol inside, taking care not to be seen?’
‘It’s a big house,’ the earl observed. ‘Rambling, several wings.’
‘We would need to direct him somehow,’ Marcus mused. ‘But he’s no fool; he’ll suspect an open window.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Lord Narborough said finally. ‘Not with the women here.’
‘One of you could take them up to town?’ Hal suggested.
‘We need the three of us here. No, Father is right, it is too risky.’
Nell moved softly away. With the men so protective of the women, the dark man had them just where he wanted them. Someone needed to carry the fight to him, confront him, discover whether there was some purpose behind this persecution or simply the vicious spite of a madman.
She had brought the first rope, her father was the man accused of treason and murder. She was at the heart of this, so she must do something. He would be watching; she was certain of that. Nell began to hurry. Down at the end of this corridor was the gun room and the men were occupied, if her luck held, until luncheon.
As she hoped, one of the baize-lined drawers held a number of handguns. Nell cautiously lifted the smallest out, not troubling to search for bullets. She had no idea how to load the thing and the thought of shooting anyone again—even the sinister Mr Salterton—turned her stomach. But he was not to know that.
With the weapon held under her heavy cloak, Nell walked boldly out of the front door, then took the path that led to the edge of the woods. It was only a few hundred yards to the paling fence that acted as a barrier to the deer. Beyond it the woods were deep and seemingly endless, the grey trunks of the beeches rising straight, their roots tucked into a thick quilt of golden leaves.
Nell began to stroll along the boundary path, trying to look like a woman taking a walk, interested only in the vivid flash of a jay overhead, peering into the woods in the hope of seeing a deer.
After fifteen minutes of toe-numbing dawdling through the snow, Nell was convinced she was alone. A dog-fox trotted out of cover, saw her, froze, then slid back into the brambles. Behind her was the flutter of wings as the pigeons she had disturbed returned to their roosts. She was the only human to alarm the wildlife.
With a sigh, she turned her back on the woods and leaned against the fence.
‘Looking for me, Helena?’ a soft, lilting voice said, just behind her.
Nell closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer that she had
some support; without the fence, she would have slid to the ground in shock.
‘Yes, Mr Salterton,’ she said, turning slowly to give herself time to compose her face.
And then it hit her: he had called her Helena. Not Nell, not Miss Latham, but Helena. He knows who I am.
The lithe figure stood a few feet back from the fence, poised like the fox between cover and the open, and something in his alertness, the fluid lines of his body, reminded her of the animal.
He wore a loose coat with a blue shirt under it, a black-and-white spotted kerchief tied around his neck, breeches and boots. Good boots, she noticed. But his collar was turned up and the brim of his slouch hat down, and all she could see of his face was dark eyes in the shadow and the curve of a sensuous, mocking smile.
‘A little rash of you, venturing out here alone,’ he remarked. Nell stared at him, intent on gathering every detail. Black hair, olive skin, the flash of gold from one ear lobe, ungloved hands with long fingers.
‘I think not,’ she said, producing the pistol and pointing it at him.
‘You can use that?’ He seemed amused, the flexible, musical voice sending an answering quiver through her, as though in response to a plucked string.
‘Of course. Lord Narborough insists all the ladies carry a pistol and we have been shown how to use them,’ she lied. ‘Why are you here? Why are you persecuting us?’
‘Persecuting?’ He was smiling, but his voice was suddenly colder than the air around her. ‘What do you know of persecution?’
‘A good deal,’ Nell retorted tartly. ‘Well? Have you a reason, or are you merely insane?’
‘Oh, yes, murderer’s daughter, I have a reason. I might even tell you about it. But not here, not with their lordships and that rake in uniform so close. You do not want them hurt, do you?’
‘No. No, I do not want anyone hurt. Where? When?’
‘You will know when. Come to the folly where your lover took you.’
Nell felt her face flame. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘I go where I like, I see what I like.’ There was a flash of white teeth as he smiled. ‘You have more passion than he deserves.’
‘You…Peeping Tom!’ Nell tried to recall how clear the glass had been in the window, feeling the blush flood from her toes to her hairline.
The dark man reached out and twitched the pistol from her lax grasp before she could react. ‘I do not need to watch others in order to get my pleasure,’ he observed calmly, checking the weapon and handing it back. ‘Is your lord’s weapon equally lacking in shot?’
Nell snatched it before their fingers could touch, wondering whether the snow was actually melting around her feet. ‘I will be at the folly.’
‘Of course you will,’ he said, with a flash of those very white teeth. ‘Kay zhala i suv shay zhala wi o thav.’
‘What does that mean?’ Nell demanded. And what language had it been? But he had vanished back into the shadows, leaving only his footprints on the edge of the wood to show he had been there.
She walked back to the house, shivering a little with reaction and, she had to admit to herself, a little from the impact of Salterton’s personality at close quarters.
He was dangerous to life and limb, she knew that. He was also dangerous to women; she was in love with Marcus, and yet something sensual and primal in that amused, lilting voice and the movement of the fit, sensuous body called to her.
By the time she had returned the pistol and was peeling off scarves and gloves in the hall, her cheeks were pink with confusion, cold and guilt and her pulse was hammering.
‘Nell?’
‘Ah!’ She dropped her gloves and spun round. ‘Marcus. Oh, Marcus.’ And then she was in his arms in the middle of the mercifully empty Great Hall, clinging as she might to a rescuer.
Oh, yes, this was who she wanted; this was the man she loved and desired. The dark man wove spells with his voice, but the magic vanished at the touch of reality. And Marcus was the reality and would be, she knew now, for the whole of her life.
‘Nell? What is wrong?’ His hand cupped her cheek, his eyes were dark as he looked down at her, and the warmth she saw in his expression was both sensual and gentle.
‘I missed you,’ she said without thinking, then realized it was the truth. ‘I went out for a walk alone, and I missed you.’
‘Why on earth did you go alone? It isn’t safe out there, Nell.’
With a sickening swoop in her stomach, she realized she was going to have to lie to him. She had been angry because he had not trusted her and now, when he gave that trust, she was going to betray it. But if she told him, they would set a trap and someone was going to get hurt—and it could be Marcus.
‘I needed to go out.’ Not a lie, she consoled herself. ‘I was in sight of the house all the time.’ But her conscience could not be quiet.
‘The man has a rifle.’ Marcus pulled her tight to his body. ‘I dare not risk losing you, Nell.’
But you will, and I will lose you. She clung without speaking, feeling the strength of him seep into her bones, sinking into the embrace. Safe and loved, all she had ever wanted, all she must give up.
‘Marcus,’ she said into the folds of his neckcloth, inhaling the scent of warm man and clean linen, a faint touch of cologne, a trace of wood smoke. ‘Marcus.’
‘Mmm?’ he murmured into her hair.
‘Will you come to my room tonight?’
‘Why?’
She tipped her head back so she could look up at him and managed to smile at the expression on his face. Desire, affection, love, purely masculine bafflement.
‘Because, just once, I want to know what it is to be loved by a man. I want to be with you. Just once.’
‘Nell.’ He set her back from him as though his touch would influence her. ‘I should say no.’ She held his gaze, her own steady until he smiled. ‘But I cannot. Are you sure?’
‘I have never been more sure of anything in my life,’ she said, feeling the calm certainty flood through her. ‘At midnight.’
Chapter Eighteen
As the clocks began to chime, Marcus stood outside Nell’s chamber door, his palms flat on the panels, trying to think with his head, not his heart.
He loved her. She did not love him and perhaps what had happened to her had convinced her that she never could love. Her belief in her parents’ happy marriage had been shaken by the discovery of her father’s infidelity. Her first experience of sex had been ugly, brutal and forced. And he had thrown his declaration at her in anger, mired in mistrust.
She desired him; that was a start, surely? But if she returned his love, what then? He could not ask her to become his mistress. One day he must marry; it was his duty. Could he abandon Nell then? Of course not—nor could he betray the wife he must take. Bad enough that he would come to her without love to offer.
Marriage. Marcus took a long, shuddering breath. Marriage and scandal, just when his sisters were making their come-outs. Scandal thrown in his father’s face every time anyone recalled who his daughter-in-law was. And Nell would fight every step of the way.
The door opened so suddenly that he had to throw up his hands and grip the door frame to stop himself falling. Nell stood on the other side, looking up at him quizzically.
‘Are you going to stand there all night?’ Her hair was down, her feet were bare and she was dressed only in a long, white nightgown, innocent of so much as a scrap of lace.
Marcus found his voice from wherever it had fled to. ‘Possibly,’ he said warily. ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘I could feel you thinking,’ she said simply, as she turned and walked into the room. She stopped at the foot of the bed and faced him. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
‘I should,’ he confessed, holding on to the wooden uprights as though to a lifeline. ‘But I do not think I can.’
‘Good,’ she said and unfastened the three buttons at the neck of her nightgown.
‘Nell!’ Marcus
almost threw himself through the doorway and shut the door behind him. ‘We should talk about this first.’
‘Why?’ She stooped and took hold of the hem, lifting it as she straightened.
Marcus tore his eyes away from the sight of her slim ankles, the curve of her calves, fought the memory of how her skin had felt under his hands. ‘Nell, I want you to marry me.’
She dropped the handful of cotton and gasped. ‘Impossible.’
‘Why is it?’
‘Leaving aside any other considerations, the scandal makes it impossible. You must see that.’
‘I see only a problem that I have not yet found the solution to,’ he said, suddenly certain that this was right. Impossibly difficult, but right.
‘You can make me love you?’ she questioned, the smile on her lips denied by the sparkle of tears in her eyes.
‘I can have a damn good try.’ Marcus heeled off his evening pumps and began to take off his coat. ‘And if I cannot do that, I will make you so dizzy with desire you will say yes anyway.’
Nell found she was smiling. There was something so recklessly confident about the way that Marcus spoke, something so far at odds with his usual thoughtful demeanour that she found herself believing him. It could be all right…somehow.
‘Before, in the folly, you stopped. What will be different now?’ she asked, watching in fascination as his waistcoat joined the coat on the floor and his neckcloth fell in a creased tangle on top.
‘Before, I was not determined to marry you. I thought I could make you my mistress and then I realized I could not, in all conscience.’
She shook her head, afraid to believe it might be possible, that he really meant it.
Marcus stopped, his fingers halfway down the fastenings of his shirt. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? Well, let me be sensible, prosaic even. I will take care not to get you with child tonight and if, when, this is all over, you still will not have me, then you will have a respectable trade, a shop of your own. I will not be making a fallen woman out of you.’ He broke off as she laughed. ‘Now what have I said?’