by Mary Balogh
"Just wait a little while," he said.
"Oh, wait, wait, wait," she said impatiently. "Will you still be saying that on my eightieth birthday? Everything has become so stupid. No, there is to be no soiree, no ball, no tea, no anything. I wish we had never started this. I wish you had not come dashing into my inn room that night. I wish I had not been walking in Sydney Gardens that morning. I wish I had ignored those silly screams. I wish I had not danced with you at the assembly. I wish-"
"If you hit that ball," he warned, "it is going to go sailing over the end of the table and smash right through that window."
She slammed down the billiard cue.
"Josh," she said, "everyone is so happy for me. For us. I cannot stand it any longer."
"There are two courses open to us, then," he said. "You can quarrel with me and break off the engagement and send me away, or I can discover important business that necessitates my immediate return to Penhallow and leave here. I would suggest the second course since it need not involve an immediate ending of our betrothal and will leave you open to recall me if it becomes necessary to do so."
Devil take it, he thought, surprised, he did not want to leave just yet. But he had to admit that the situation had become intolerable and surely unnecessary. In retrospect he was not convinced that Bewcastle had been right to insist upon his coming here and keeping the betrothal alive this long.
"Do that, then," she said, frowning. "But how? What reason will you give?"
"My steward writes to me frequently," he told her. "He knows I am here. There is almost bound to be a letter from him within the next few days."
"It cannot come too soon for me," she said.
"Such warm, romantic words, sweetheart," he said, lifting one hand and flicking his forefinger across her chin.
She picked up the billiard cue, frowning, and bent over the table again.
CHAPTER XV
The letter came the next morning. It was waiting on the silver tray on the great hall table where the family's letters were always displayed, except for Bewcastle's, which were delivered separately to the library. They had all just returned from a ride, slightly damp, since a drizzling rain had started falling. Even the duke had come with them this morning. The children were already running upstairs to the nursery to change.
"Oh, Aidan, here is a letter from Thelma!" Eve exclaimed, sounding delighted. "And there is one for you underneath it, Joshua." She handed it to him with a smile.
His eyes met Freyja's-she had just picked up a letter of her own. It was a bleak moment. Here it was, then, his excuse to leave. He had already thought out what he would say after "reading" the letter, and indeed there would even be some truth in it-that with the harvest in and winter not far off there was an urgent need to begin some repairs and some rebuilding for his farm laborers, and that dreary as such business was, he really ought to be there to oversee the work, at least for a few weeks. During those weeks, of course, Freyja would learn the truth of her condition and either bring him back to arrange a hasty marriage or put an end to their betrothal. It would be up to her to think of a plausible reason for that.
He would leave tomorrow, he thought as he broke the seal of the letter. He would be a free man again-at least he would once he had heard from Freyja. He would be able to do whatever he wanted with the rest of his life. He could get back to enjoying himself in any way that presented itself.
Jim Saunders's letter was shorter than usual. Joshua read it quickly, and then read it again more slowly. Well, hell and damnation, he thought. He had crossed the woman's will, and now she would not be satisfied until she had destroyed him. She was prepared, it seemed, to go to extraordinary lengths to do just that.
"Is something wrong, Josh?" Freyja asked, her voice deliberately loud and concerned, and of course everyone looked at him, as she had intended they would.
"Actually there is," he said. "I am going to have to go to Penhallow without delay I'm afraid."
"Oh, what has happened?" Eve asked, all concern. "Nothing too dreadful, I hope?"
"Actually," he said, "I am about to be charged with murder."
"Murder?" Aidan spoke for all of them in a voice that must once upon a time have had a whole regiment of men jumping to instant attention. "Murder of whom?"
"My cousin," Joshua said, folding his letter into its original folds. "Five years ago. A witness has recently presented himself to my aunt, the Marchioness of Hallmere. He is prepared to swear that he saw me kill Albert."
"And did you?" Aidan asked, his face like granite, every inch the formidable colonel he had been.
"Actually, no," Joshua said, grinning. This was not funny, he knew-not by any means-but it was playing out like a typical melodrama, with all of them standing about the great hall like well-placed actors. "Though I was, apparently, the last to see him alive."
"Might I suggest," Bewcastle said, sounding perfectly cool, even bored, "that we remove this discussion to the breakfast parlor?"
For a few moments no one moved except Bewcastle himself. But then Freyja came hurrying forward to link her arm through Joshua's.
"I am hungry if no one else is," she said.
She marched him off with long strides, leaving everyone else behind.
"I might have known," she said, her voice low and furious, "that you would invent a perfectly ridiculous story like this. Do you seriously expect anyone to believe it?"
"I'll do my best to be convincing, sweetheart," he said, slipping Saunders's letter into the pocket of his riding coat. "At least you will have a reasonable excuse to end our betrothal in a few weeks' time if it turns out that I am a vicious felon, locked up in some damp, gloomy cell awaiting a hanging."
"Everything is a joke to you," she retorted.
There was no chance for further private conversation. Everyone came crowding after them, avid for more information. But Bewcastle talked languidly and determinedly about the weather until they had all filled their plates at the sideboard and the butler had poured their coffee and been dismissed.
"Now, perhaps, Hallmere," his grace said when the family was alone together, "you would care to enlighten us further on the nature of these accusations against you. Or perhaps not. Freyja has some right to know, I believe. The rest of us do not."
"Albert drowned," Joshua explained. "He and I were out in a boat together during a night that became more and more stormy. He jumped overboard to swim back to shore. He was not a strong swimmer, but he refused to get back into the boat. I rowed beside him until he was close enough to the beach to set his feet down on the sand-which he did-and then I took the boat out again for an hour or so longer. It was reckless of me under the circumstances, of course, but I had things on my mind. Besides, in those days I still considered myself invincible. The next morning I heard that he was missing. Later in the day his body was washed ashore with the incoming tide."
Eve had both hands over her mouth.
"He went swimming again after you had disappeared?" Alleyne said. "That was a dashed stupid thing to do on a stormy night, especially if he did not swim well. Or did he think himself invincible too?"
"The two of you had quarreled, I assume," Aidan said.
"Yes," Joshua admitted, "though I can no longer remember over what. We were always quarreling. We grew up together at Penhallow, but there was never any love lost between us."
"And yet," Bewcastle said, sipping his coffee and regarding Joshua with steady silver eyes, "you went out rowing with him at night."
"Yes."
"And now a witness has come forward," Morgan said scornfully. "Someone who was also rowing or swimming around in those stormy seas, I suppose. Yet you did not see him, Joshua? I daresay he is someone hoping to make his fortune with a little blackmail. Is your aunt likely to pay him? You must indeed return home and see to it that she does not."
"My aunt, you must understand," Joshua explained, "lost her only son that night. He was the heir to the title and all that went with it-including the house she
still calls home. I was the one who benefited from his death-it made me the heir. Just recently I made it very clear that I would not marry my cousin, her eldest daughter. I was already . . . attached to Freyja."
"So she is willing to believe this witness?" Eve said, her eyes wide with distress. "Oh, poor Joshua. How are you to prove your innocence?"
"I really do not expect it to be difficult," he said. "However, I must go down there to sort the matter out. It would appear that another cousin, my heir presumptive, has been summoned, and there is bound to be a bit of a bother. For, of course, if the accusation could be made to stick, I would not have the protection of my rank. The death occurred long before I was Hallmere."
"Oh, poor Joshua," Eve said again. "What can we do to help?"
"I rather fancy the idea of interviewing this witness," Alleyne said. "It sounds a havey-cavey business to me."
Freyja had been sitting silently across the table all this while, watching Joshua with cold, hostile eyes. Suddenly she got to her feet, scraping back her chair with her knees as she did so, and came stalking around the table toward him. She reached into his pocket without a by-your-leave, pulled out Saunders's letter, unfolded it, and stood there reading it. Her lips were compressed into a hard line by the time she had finished. She folded the letter and set it down beside his plate.
"That woman is behind this," she said. "She needs to be taught a lesson she will never forget. We will leave today. An hour should be long enough in which to get ready. Wulf, have a carriage ready and waiting for us in an hour's time, if you please."
"We?" Joshua said. "Us?"
"You do not think I am going to let you go and face this alone, do you?" she asked haughtily. "I am your betrothed. I am going too."
"Oh, yes, Freyja," Eve said. "I really believe you ought."
"There is, of course," Bewcastle said, "the small matter of propriety. You are not yet married to Hallmere, Freyja."
She clucked her tongue impatiently, but Alleyne spoke up.
"I'll be your chaperone, Free," he said. "I'll come with the two of you. Actually I would not miss this for worlds."
"And I too," Morgan said firmly. "No, there is no point in grasping your quizzing glass, Wulf. It will not deter me. I am eighteen years old, and it is perfectly proper for me to go visiting my future brother-in-law with my sister and brother. Indeed, it is only right that Freyja have female companionship. I do not like the sound of the Marchioness of Hallmere. I want to see her for myself. And I believe she should be given the opportunity to discover that the family into which Joshua is about to marry can be a powerful enemy."
"Oh, bravo, Morgan," Eve said. "Though we do not know yet if the marchioness has had anything to do with producing this sudden witness. However, I do like the notion of her finding herself confronted by all the considerable power of the Bedwyns. Of course, Aidan is the most ferocious-looking one of you all. Aidan?" She looked inquiringly at him.
He returned her look with a blank stare for a few moments before raising his eyebrows and shaking his head slightly.
"We have been planning a sort of belated wedding trip after leaving here," he said, "with the children, of course. Their governess has recently married and we have not yet replaced her. We did think of the Lake District as a possible destination, but I daresay Cornwall would serve just as well-if we are invited, that is. Hallmere?"
A house party of Bedwyns determined to be formidable, even ferocious. An iron-willed aunt bent upon a revenge so ruthless that his very life would be snuffed out if she had her way. Accusations of murder rattling around the neighborhood and a mysterious witness and some sort of official investigation pending. Cousin Calvin Moore, the pious heir, riding with furious haste to claim his inheritance from the man who had got it by committing murder most foul. And a fake betrothal that was to be given yet another extension.
What red-blooded, sporting gentleman could possibly resist?
"Certainly you are all invited," Joshua said, "if you care for a little wild excitement rather than more conventional entertainment, that is."
"We are Bedwyns," Alleyne said with a grin.
Bewcastle merely raised his eyebrows and resumed his breakfast.
"But we are wasting time while we sit here talking," Freyja said impatiently. "We can be many miles on our way by nightfall if we leave this morning."
The prospect of a long, unexpected journey to Cornwall, beginning on a gloomy day complete with drizzle and a light fog and ending with a potentially nasty murder investigation starring their future brother-in-law as chief and sole suspect appeared to have cheered up the Bedwyns no end. They were all talking at once and pushing away their breakfast dishes as Joshua left the room with Freyja.
"Sweetheart," he said as soon as they were out of earshot, "I presented you with the perfect chance to be rid of me today and the perfect excuse for ridding yourself of me permanently as soon as you are sure circumstances will allow it. Yet you insist upon coming with me?"
"That woman has gone too far this time," she said, her chin and her nose in the air, a martial gleam in her eyes. "It will give me the greatest pleasure to demonstrate that fact to her."
He chuckled softly. "You may never be rid of me," he said.
"Nonsense," she said briskly. "It will be for just a short while longer. What man in his normal mind would sit alone out on the ocean in his boat during a stormy night just on the chance that someone might row by, not notice him, and then tip his cousin overboard and leave him to drown? And what normal man would not make a great deal of noise and fuss if it did happen and at least attempt to rescue the drowning man? What man would keep his mouth shut about the whole thing for five years and then open it at just the moment when the victim's mother happened to be in a royal rage because her hopes of wedding the murderer to her daughter had been foiled? I would like to have a word or two with such a man."
"Lord help him," Joshua said. "You and Alleyne both. And Aidan and Morgan too, I daresay. Not to mention Eve. Do you not realize, my charmer, that we are getting into a deeper and deeper scrape with every passing day?"
"Nonsense," she said again. "And you need not fear that there is going to have to be anything permanent about our connection, Josh. I discovered last night that we have both been spared that fate. That was a relief at least."
He stared at her. She was not with child? And yet she had just quite deliberately missed her chance to be rid of him permanently within the next few hours? And then he chuckled.
"It is your move next, sweetheart," he said. "You are going to have to find a way out of this betrothal. I am quite resigned to being an engaged man until my ninetieth year."
"One hour," she said firmly as they arrived outside the door of her room. "I expect everyone to be ready and downstairs in the hall not one minute later than that."
"Yes, ma'am," Joshua said, grinning at her as she whisked herself inside the room and shut the door firmly in his face.
But his grin faded and his stomach performed an uncomfortable flip-flop as soon as he was alone. He was going to have to go back to Penhallow after all, then, was he?
It was a grim prospect.
The journey was a long and tedious one. Conversation in the carriage and at the various inns where they stopped for meals and accommodation centered about neutral topics that were probably of no great interest to any of them. Certainly they were not to Freyja.
She could not believe this was happening. During the silences that a long journey inevitably brought and even during some of the conversations, she tried to trace back every stage of her relationship with Joshua to understand how she had got herself into this deep scrape, as he called it. How had she got from waking up in the middle of one night to find him invading her room to this moment of riding toward his home in Cornwall with him as his betrothed, half her family with them? Her involvement had all started, she supposed, when she had harbored him in her wardrobe without betraying his presence there to that horrid gray-haired old man, who had not
even waited for her to answer his knock on the door.
What would have happened if she had betrayed him? Would the whole of her life now be different?
She supposed it would.
So would his.
They arrived at Penhallow late one afternoon, having driven almost all day along the coast road, admiring the views. It was not a brilliantly sunny day. Neither was it entirely cloudy. At one moment the sea below the high cliffs would be steely gray and rather forbidding, and the next it would be a brilliant blue and sparkling in the sunshine. More often its surface was a mixture of the two extremes.
"I would like to paint the sea," Morgan said. "It would be a marvelous challenge, would it not? I suppose most of us usually imagine that it is one color, or at least one color at any particular moment of any particular day. But it is not. One would need a whole palette of colors to paint it well, and even then . . ."
"And yet if you were to wade into the sea and let a handful of the water trickle through your fingers," Joshua said, "you would see that it is colorless."
"The color is projected onto it from something else," Morgan said.
"The sky?" Alleyne suggested.
"But if you climb a high mountain," Morgan said, "you find that the sky-the air-is also colorless. What gives the sky color? What gives the water color? If we could get inside a blade of grass, as we can get inside water and air, would we find that it too is without color?" Her eyes were shining with the intensity of the puzzle.
"And how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Alleyne said with a chuckle. "Even if I could count them, Morg, I would wonder what was the point."
"Color, interpretation, come from our minds," Freyja said. She held up a staying hand when Morgan drew breath to speak again. "But what gives our minds that capacity, I do not know. Perhaps there is something beyond our minds-something of which we are unaware."
"Awareness itself?" Morgan said.
She was a strange girl, Freyja mused. Beautiful, accomplished, daring, as proud and haughty as any of them, as boldly contemptuous as Freyja herself of some of the starchier rules and conventions of society, she nevertheless had intellectual depths and this almost mystical awareness of the mysteries of existence that most people did not bother to question even if they noticed them.