She shrugged sadly. “There have been too many accidents of late… Beatrice nearly drowning, someone shooting at you—and it was foolish of you to think you could hide such a thing from me in this house! I understand that Edmund and Christopher are the most likely suspects as they are the two people with the most to lose upon your return. But I cannot allow myself to think so badly of them. They are difficult, to be sure, but they are not evil. I cannot allow myself to think so”
Graham thought about the letter recovered from Eaves yesterday. He would not burden her with that just yet. Until she was stronger and until he could ascertain beyond any reasonable doubt that Edmund was the culprit, he would keep that unfortunate truth to himself.
“I will continue to look into things. Crenshaw is having her aunt fetched from the village to aid in your care as you recuperate… in the meantime, Edmund, Christopher and Eloise will not be permitted to enter this chamber. Only Beatrice, Dr. Warner, your maids and me will be able to see you. I fear we are at a point where it would be dangerous and foolhardy to trust anyone else.”
Lady Agatha sighed sadly and placed her hand over his. “You should not have returned to such an inhospitable welcome. We should all be rejoicing to have you safely amongst us again and yet it is nothing but plots and machinations! And here I lay, useless… nothing more than another burden for you to bear!”
Graham shook his head. “You are not a burden to me. I have spent almost the last two decades roaming this world without any inkling of where I belonged. Even now, I am between two worlds—too finely mannered to be a sailor and not yet fine enough to be the gentleman I claim. Acceptance from you means the world to me. And even if Edmund should succeed with his petition to the House of Lords, I will not abandon you here.”
“And Beatrice?” she asked pointedly. “What will become of her?”
Graham met her far too perceptive gaze. He’d made his decision. He’d made it long before the innocent temptress turned shrew had lured him into her bed. “Beatrice will be my wife, whether I am Lord Blakemore or not. She could accept me more easily if I am not, to be honest. This notion she has that the estate is in peril and I must wed an heiress… where has that come from?”
“Edmund is always going on and on about the estate operating at a loss. He insists we are hovering on the very precipice of poverty, though I cannot fathom why,” Lady Agatha replied. “I should have looked into things more closely, but I lacked the strength or the will to do so. If we are on the verge of being paupered, I am at fault for not taking a more active role in maintaining your legacy.”
“You take too much upon yourself. Your oldest son was missing and presumed dead for nearly two decades, your husband had just perished… it is only natural that you would look to people you trusted, to family, to help you in such dire times. But that is neither here nor there. My concern now is how? If we are bleeding money, how and where is it going?”
A pensive expression twisted her features as she considered that question. “Little has changed in the way the estate functions since your father’s passing. Which means that it must be in how the finances are managed that we have a problem.”
“Mismanaged,” Graham corrected. “From what I have learned from Beatrice, I think it is safe to assume that a good portion of the revenue produced by the estate is being utilized to see to the care and comfort of Sir Godfrey.”
Lady Agatha made a sound of disgust. “I never could abide him. How he and my dear Nicholas could be siblings when they are so different of character and quality is beyond me!”
“Are Christopher and I not so different then?” he asked. It was telling that she immediately looked away, a guilty flush coloring her face. The suspicion had been there, hovering in the periphery of his mind after their previous conversation. All her talk of not being a good wife and of Lord Blakemore’s mercy and forgiveness had fed that ugly seed of doubt. “He is not Lord Blakemore’s son, is he?”
Lady Agatha closed her eyes as a single tear escaped and rolled unchecked over her cheek. “He does not know my greatest shame and I beg of you not to tell him.”
“I see no reason to if it can be avoided. But I need to understand who the players in this very dangerous game are. Tell me what you can.”
She was silent for a long moment, collecting her thoughts and her courage. With a heavy sigh, she began. “It was while I was in France with your father. You were just a boy… ten when we first arrived there and twelve when we returned to England on that ill-fated ship.”
When she paused again and drew in a shuddering breath, he took her hand. “I know this is difficult for you to discuss. I wouldn’t press you if I didn’t feel the information were vital!”
“How can anything so ancient as this be vital?” she queried.
It was a question he was asking himself. “I cannot say. Perhaps it was because my memory was so lacking that I learned to trust something far more indistinct and difficult to fathom. For almost two decades I have lived primarily by instinct alone and it has not failed me. My instinct now tells me that this is important even if I cannot say how.”
Their gazes locked and after a long moment of silence, she said softly, “The first year was misery. Nicholas was always gone. You were a terror then. But you were a boy with no playmates, no friends, in a country you despised and that honestly despised us for being English! It’s little wonder you were difficult. I hated being trapped in that house and would take every opportunity to escape it.”
“And the second year?” he asked.
“I met a man while I was out shopping… a Frenchman named Etienne La Chance. Needless to say, that was false.” She grew silent again and her pain was evident, written clearly on her features. “Even now, I cannot be certain if anything he said to me was based in truth. I was lonely, terribly homesick and filled with a kind of ennui that I hope you never know. In short, I was easy prey for him. He seduced me to gain access to your father’s papers. If your father had not been such a kind man, such a forgiving one, I could very well have gone to the noose for treason.”
Graham sat back in the chair and contemplated his answer very carefully. “He loved you,” he finally said. “More than honor, more than country.”
She ducked her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. “You must despise me!”
He shook his head. “You are human, as we all are. At one time or another, we are all guilty of trusting the wrong person. I cannot imagine what it was like to learn the truth… and in such troubled times.”
“Are you certain this is important?” she demanded. “I have tried so very hard to forget those awful times. I thought losing you was my punishment! I’m still not certain that it wasn’t.”
“That is not how the world works,” he reproofed. “I’ve little enough acquaintance with religion, but I do believe that God exists and I doubt that He would let me suffer what I did for your sins, if you committed any.”
“Adultery is sin enough,” she scoffed.
“And if it were a divinely punished offense, more than half the ton would be in constant peril.”
She shook her head, but a slight smile curved her lips. “I do not for one moment believe that we are dissecting my checkered past for the sake of idle curiosity! I may be trapped in this bed by my weakened body but my mind, at least, is sound. Tell me why you need to know this.”
Graham ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “I cannot say. I’m not even entirely certain that I do. In the meantime, remain in your room and far from both Christopher and Edmund… and Eloise.”
“Very well… Crenshaw and her aunt will keep me well guarded. Between the two of them, they could raise enough noise to bring this whole castle down around our ears if the need should arise. And you will guard Beatrice carefully? She is not my child but, in many ways, she is the daughter I always wanted. Heaven knows I could never have been blessed with one better.”
“I will keep her safe,” he vowed. “I will keep both of you safe
.”
Graham rose, the weight of that promise pressing heavily upon him as he left the room. He needed to find Dr. Warner. If Mesmer’s techniques could unlock his fragmented memory, he’d gladly look like a fool during the process.
Chapter Eighteen
Eloise slipped from her chamber and headed for the tower. It was more difficult to get there during the day when the maids were all about. But in the past six months, she’d become intimately acquainted with the floor plan of Castle Black. There wasn’t a room she did not know.
Ducking into an alcove as one of the maids emerged with an armload of dirty linens, she waited until the girl had passed before continuing on along the corridor. She didn’t even know if he was there, but nothing ventured was nothing gained. She needed to see him. It had been days. Dallying with a footman eased the physical ache of not having a man in her bed. Heaven knew her husband had never offered her any fulfillment in that area. But nothing compared to what she felt when she was with him.
At the end of the corridor, she removed the ribbon tied around her neck that held the key and unlocked the door to the tower. She climbed the stairs with her heart pounding in anticipation. As she neared the top, she heard the sound of footsteps and sighed in relief.
Entering the chamber, she leaned back against the door and took in the length of his perfect form. Broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, blond and perfect—she could not have ordered a better specimen.
“My darling… you have been gone too long,” she said.
“I may yet be gone for good!” he snapped. “You were supposed to reel in your husband. He very nearly ruined everything!”
“Edmund will do nothing,” she said. “He is not well liked enough by anyone with a title to be able to get a petition through the House of Lords. His pleas will fall on deaf ears and your plan will continue as always. There will simply be one more body to contend with than initially believed.”
“Two,” he corrected. “As for your husband, he has already been taken care of. His fat, bloated corpse will be found in a thicket near the road.”
“You should have told me!” she snapped. “We were not ready for that yet!”
“We’re ready when I say we are!” he shouted back at her. “We’ve dawdled long enough. We’ll eliminate the others and when Christopher assumes the title, we’ll eliminate him. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of hiding in this goddamn tower while you fuck every man in this house!”
Eloise stepped back. His jealousy was becoming a problem but, for the moment, she still needed him. “Lady Agatha will be easy enough to explain away. As for Beatrice, there will be no one to raise a fuss or request an inquest. Graham can assume the title and then die of an unfortunate accident. He admitted himself that he is a poor horseman, did he not? It all sounds perfect, but I worry that so many deaths, even with reasonable explanations will raise questions.” She stepped forward, loosening the ties of her gown so that it fell to her feet revealing that she was nude beneath it save for intricately embroidered stays and silk stockings tied with black ribbon garters. She noted how his eyes darkened as they roved over her form. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you, my love.”
He didn’t touch her, but allowed her to run her hands over his body. “You left out Christopher… or have your feelings for him gotten in the way of your ultimate plan?” Eloise was an insatiable creature and while he had no qualms about her taking every footman in the house to her bed, her dalliance with Christopher stirred his envy. It wasn’t about her, but about his resentment of his half-brother, the English bastard who’d had everything while he’d eked out a meager existence in the infantry.
“No,” she stated firmly. “I will be Lady Blakemore and you will take his place with no one the wiser. Just as we’ve always planned. I would never have married into this dismal family otherwise. Edmund is a plodding fool and Christopher… well, we had to establish a history between us so that when we become engaged after Edmund’s death, no one will question it.”
“Are you certain you do not prefer him? The gently-reared bastard over the coarse and impoverished one?”
“Thanks to my father-in-law’s excessive spending and my now late husband’s inability to say no, you’re both more impoverished than I like.”
He grinned at her, tugging her close. “Edmund has been stopped… Sir Godfrey will have to take his chances with the money lenders. And in a few short months, you and I will rule this house together.”
“We’ll dismiss the servants and hire an entirely new staff who will never suspect a thing! And in a few years, when Christopher is a dim memory to those he knew at school, we can leave this dismal spot and go to London. Lights and parties and the theater… and we can indulge our every desire no matter how wicked it is.”
He smiled, but there was a hint of cruelty in his gaze. “Did you not enjoy fucking that footman last night? Was his cock not enough for you?”
Eloise pressed herself against him, hoping to entice his appetite enough to lighten his decidedly sour mood. She adored him, but she had learned that his moods could be capricious and often vicious. “I only did it because you told me to! You are the only one that I want, Alain… and I want you right now. Take me.”
“I’ll give you what you want… but you have to do something for me first,” he said, his hand coming up to tug her hair from its chignon. When the mass of it was wrapped tightly in his fist, her head pulled back with the kind of violence that she both craved and feared, he kissed her neck. “Say yes, Eloise.”
“Yes! Yes to anything!”
“Find a way to get to Lady Agatha… the foxglove has been too slow. Give her more of it and let us at least end one part of this farce.”
There was no hesitation, no doubt as she uttered her agreement. “Anything, my darling. Anything for you.”
He bit her neck, his teeth sinking in hard enough to form a bruise there. “For us. For our future.”
“Yes… for us,” she whispered as his fingers dug into her hips. “For us.”
*
“Just braid it and pin it up, Betsy. Let’s make this quick before I shout the house down,” Beatrice said, rubbing her tender scalp. They’d been fussing with her hair for what felt like hours.
Betsy huffed and murmured something under her breath.
“Do not think to take me to task,” Beatrice snapped. “Certainly not after all your talk of inevitability. You are as much to blame for my fall from grace as I am!”
Betsy did roll her eyes then. “Hardly that, Miss. And it isn’t your fall from grace that’s such a burden. It’s the knots in your hair! Tell him next time that he can put his hands anywhere but near your hair or so help me, lord or not, I’ll take a chunk of his hide for it!”
“Really? Should I go tell him this now?”
Betsy blanched. “No! I’m only talking! But do have a care. You might find it tiresome to have me brushing your hair for hours. But think about what man will still have me when I’ve got muscles in my arms to rival the blacksmith!”
Beatrice blinked for a moment and then, despite her best intentions, a giggle escaped her.
“I didn’t say such to be funny!” Betsy protested. “It’s true!”
After a moment’s struggle, Beatrice regained her composure. “You are absolutely correct. It is not funny. It’s ludicrous.”
Betsy grinned. “But it got you out of your mood, didn’t it? How you could spend a night with a man like that and still be a grump the next day is beyond me! He wasn’t a total oaf in bed was he? Sometimes it doesn’t matter how they’re put together if they don’t know how to use it!”
Beatrice blushed furiously. “That is not an appropriate question!”
“Did you enjoy it? How’s that for appropriate?” Betsy asked, jabbing more pins into the braided chignon.
“I did and that is all I intend to say on the matter. He is your employer.”
“If you want this to be a proper house where servants know their place, you’ll h
ave to sack the lot of us and start fresh,” Betsy said. “We’ve grown too used to being able to carry on without appropriate supervision!”
Beatrice paused. She couldn’t put her finger on it but there was something in what Betsy said that had given her pause. “Betsy, if someone were to assume the role of Lord Blakemore and send all the servants away, and assuming there was no one left in the family to properly identify him, who would gainsay him?”
Betsy shrugged. “No one, I suppose. The servants let go would most likely be too terrified of being turned out without a reference to make much of a fuss about anything. And when you’re new in a house, you won’t risk losing a position by poking into much of anything if you’re smart.” She stepped back, cocking her head as she surveyed the chignon and then sighed as she reached for more pins. “Why would you ask such a thing? You’re not thinking that his lordship isn’t his lordship, are you? Surely not after last night!”
“No. Not in the least,” Beatrice said. It was true. She believed it and it broke her heart. If he weren’t the Lord of Castle Black, she could be with him forever. Pushing that thought aside, she added, “I’m fully convinced beyond the shadow of any doubt that he is Lord Graham Blakemore. But there was an odd thing that happened yesterday and it sounds positively mad to say it, but have you ever noticed that Christopher seems to be in two places at once in this house?”
The maid stopped, growing unnaturally still. “I just always assumed he was using the tunnels or that I’d lost track of time from one sighting to the next. But it wasn’t even two days past that I saw him up here in the corridor heading toward his chamber as I went to the laundry… and then I saw him outside through the kitchen window heading toward the beach. Even with the tunnels, there’d be no way for him to get that far that quickly. That’s not the first time I’ve seen the like, either.”
Did Christopher have a double? Was such a thing even possible? And if so, who had brought him to Castle Black? Was it Christopher at the root of all the plots and schemes or was it Edmund? The more she learned, the less things made sense!
Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection Page 90