A Matter of Grave Concern

by Novak, Brenda

  Setting his quill in its brass and marble holder, Truman flexed his fingers and stretched his neck. He was exhausted but he fought the weariness that threatened to overtake him. Sleep had become his own personal hell, fraught with memories and contortions of events he would rather not revisit.

  Almost involuntarily, his gaze strayed to the painting of Katherine hanging on the wall in front of him. It was one of the few pieces of art, of anything, the villagers had salvaged from the cinders of Blackmoor Hall and, ironically, the only item that hadn’t sustained considerable damage. The blaze that had claimed Katherine’s life had left her portrait untouched to haunt him in its perfect likeness—as if he could ever forget her. And he was just stubborn enough to hang her picture where he would see it most, an unspoken challenge to unmask her murderer, even if the face behind that mask turned out to be his own.

  He pulled his gaze away from her beauty and forced his mind back to the colliery accounts. Another twenty minutes passed before he finished checking his bookkeeper’s work. Then, shoving the heavy ledger away, he stared into the small flame that danced atop the candle on his desk. What other business awaited his attention?

  The grandfather clock in the hall beyond his closed door chimed one thirty. He scrubbed his face with his hand. Nothing remained pressing enough to keep sleep at bay for long, he feared, riffling through the papers at his elbow.

  The engraved, mahogany box sitting on the corner of the desk sheltered his personal correspondence. He opened it and set aside the ugly, accusatory letters from Katherine’s parents. The Abbotts were growing angrier as time passed. At first he’d questioned whether the fire could have happened accidentally. But with all the servants at church and the fires well banked, there was little chance of that. The fire had broken out in the empty room next to the library, a room that was hardly ever used and hadn’t seen a fire in the grate for months. The timing worked against him too, considering that he’d just learned of her infidelity. The Abbotts pointed to all these things, over and over, but he wouldn’t deal with his in-laws now, not until he could say with some certainty how their daughter had lost her life.

  Tonight he craved a simpler diversion, like sorting through the myriad social invitations he had failed to answer over the previous months.

  The first of the rose-scented cards received his attention, but his chin soon bumped his chest.

  Sliding his chair back so he could lay his head on his arms, he decided to let himself rest for a few moments. But as soon as his eyelids closed, he was riding through the streets of Creswell when an old woman harangued his coach, sounding as though she stood at his side. “Murderer!”

  He twitched but couldn’t wake as her rotten apple thumped his coach, followed by another and another until the sky seemed to be raining refuse. Calling to his driver to stop, he got out and opened his mouth to deny her words. But the instant he laid eyes on the old lady, her straggly hair turned into bright, golden tresses, her eyes into icy, blue pools and her rotting teeth into Katherine’s accusing lips.

  “Murderer!” Her fingers grabbed for him, clawing the air in desperation—and suddenly they were in the library together at Blackmoor Hall, surrounded by fire.

  Smoke filled Truman’s vision and burned his nose and throat. Despite the pain that seared his left hand as if he had thrust it into a cauldron of boiling water, he could think of nothing besides Katherine’s betrayal. The baby. Someone else’s child.

  I’ll kill her for this. He uttered the words over and over until they sounded like an incantation. Katherine screamed, as if in answer, and Truman jerked again. She wasn’t far; he could hear her panicked movements not two feet away.

  Strangely, her suffering brought him no pleasure. He reached out, but whether to pull her to him or push her away, he didn’t know. Before he could touch her, everything went black and he didn’t come to until his cousin Wythe hefted him over one shoulder.

  “M’lord?”

  With a start, Truman raised his head and blinked at the wood paneling of his study, the dying embers of the fire and, finally, the small pointy face of Susanna, one of his maids.

  Shaking his head to clear his mind of the sounds that echoed there, he forced himself to return to the present. It had only been a dream, a slight variation of the nightmare that constantly plagued him. No doubt the storm raging outside, making the trees knock against the windows at his back, had been the apples that thundered upon his carriage.

  If only that knowledge could ease the torment inside him.

  “Can I bring ye anythin’ before I retire, m’lord?” the maid asked, bobbing in a curtsy.

  Truman took a deep, cleansing breath. “You’re still up, Susanna?”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  “I told Mrs. Poulson not to have anyone wait up for me. I certainly cannot expect my servants to keep such hours.”

  “She didn’t charge me ter wait, m’lord. I”—Susanna glanced at her feet—“well, ye seem a bit troubled of late. An’ I thought per’aps ye might ’ave need of”—her gaze lifted, then darted away the moment her eyes met his—“some female companionship, m’lord.”

  Was this shy, young maid offering herself to him for the night? He had taken no one to his bed since Katherine. For all his wife’s accusations, he had remained loyal to her for fidelity’s sake alone. Since her death, the fear that he would wake in a cold sweat, as he had just done, kept him from letting anyone get too close—that and the doubt he saw in so many women’s eyes, the doubt that mirrored his own.

  But this girl seemed so unassuming, so eager and so safe he was almost tempted.

  “Master Wythe says I can ease a man like no other,” she added.

  Her words were meant to entice, but they doused any desire her initial offer had kindled.

  “He would know.”

  “Beg yer pardon, m’lord?”

  “Nothing.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Thank you for your kind offer, Susanna. Please forgive me if I say I am too tired . . . tonight,” he added to soften his refusal.

  Looking like a child whose bedtime kiss had been rejected by a parent, she nodded and turned to go.

  “Susanna?”

  “Aye, m’lord?”

  “For your own sake, I would let Wythe ease himself somewhere else. A babe is no small burden for a woman alone.”

  “Aye, m’lord.” She flushed to the roots of her dark hair and quietly shut the door.

  When she was gone, Truman dropped his head into his hands. He had to speak to Wythe about dabbling with the servants. But with his cousin still out he couldn’t do it now.

  It wasn’t long before his mind returned, inevitably, to his most recent dream. Why couldn’t he remember what happened the day Katherine died? He could recall, in minute detail, the events leading up to the fire: Katherine’s letter informing him of the babe she carried, his mad dash from London, the frightened look on his wife’s face when he confronted her in his anger.

  But what, exactly, had followed their first heated words?

  Closing his eyes, he grappled with the remaining wisps of his dream, opening himself up to all sensation, anything that might have made an imprint on his brain, both real and imagined. And suddenly, almost too simply, too easily, it was there: a slight but important detail he had never noticed before.

  The realization of what his discovery could mean brought him to his feet. “My God! Could it be true?”

  He rounded his desk to pace in front of the fire, examining the vision in his head until he felt quite certain of it. Then he penned a letter to an acquaintance in London.

  When he finished, he looked at Katherine’s portrait again, only this time he smiled. He wouldn’t let her win. In life, she had tried to destroy him, had hated him for knowing the leprous character beneath her pretty face. In death, she was more vengeful still. But he would persist, and when he could eventually see through the smoke that clouded the truth, he would know, at last, whether his soul had been worth the fight.
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br />   How would you choose between duty and love? Let Lieutenant Treynor sweep you away in Brenda Novak’s Honor Bound. Enjoy Chapter 1:

  Chapter 1

  Cornwall, England

  February 1794

  The Baron St. Ives was an ugly little man.

  Jeannette Boucher could hardly pull her gaze away. Standing next to her, perched on skinny, shapeless legs, arms behind his back, abdomen swelling in front of him, he reminded her of a pelican. Three reddish chins hung low over the top of his collar while powder from a ringletted wig dusted the shoulders of his lavish gold-embroidered coat. Despite Jeannette’s own diminutive size, he barely cleared the top of her head.

  “. . . into which holy state these two persons present come now to be joined . . .”

  God, help me, Jeannette prayed as beads of nervous sweat trickled down her back. Her wedding dress was laced too tight. Dizziness almost overwhelmed her as she eyed her future husband again.

  At least forty years beyond her own eighteen, Lord St. Ives looked back at her through heavy-lidded, lashless eyes. White flakes congealed in the creases of his face, contrasting with the purplish veins that burst like blossoms on his cheeks. Something occasionally twisted his lips into what a less perceptive soul might have interpreted as a smile. But not Jeannette. She was too young to be so fooled, too acquainted with happiness. She could not mistake Percival Borden for anything other than what he was: a sick old man, as unfamiliar with gaiety as she was with its opposite.

  Until the Revolution, of course. The Revolution had changed everything.

  Wetting her lips, Jeannette tried to draw air into her lungs. She didn’t want to swoon, dared not give away her desperation. She and her family had barely escaped war-torn France with their lives. Her parents and younger brother deserved a reprieve from the terrible hardships they had suffered. Jeannette was determined to give them that.

  But she had never expected her heart to fight so tenaciously against the tether of her will. Even now, hemmed in by innumerable bodies, she was tempted to flee, to part the nuptial witnesses like the Red Sea and run for her life.

  “Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband . . .”

  The words of the ceremony slipped in and out of her consciousness. It wasn’t until a hush fell over the church as those crowded inside strained to hear her response that she knew the vicar had asked the question that would make her the wife of a man she did not love.

  For an awkward moment she could not speak. Throat dry, voice gone, she glanced at the twinkling prism created by an errant ray of sunshine that had penetrated the cloudy sky outside to filter through the stained-glass window. Dust motes danced like fairies in that light, twirling, shimmering in vibrant array. To be so free . . .

  Lord St. Ives’s hand tightened on hers, and Jeannette forced her gaze back to the tall, gaunt vicar. But it wasn’t until she pictured her parents’ worried expressions that she managed a weak, “I will.”

  Minutes later, it was over. The baron kissed her with slack lips, clasped her fingers in his small, manicured hand, and, turning her to face the rows of pews behind them, presented his new bride to the congregation.

  Faces beamed at Jeannette—strangers all, except her parents and brother, who nodded their approval while standing to watch the new couple parade down the aisle.

  Jeannette heard many murmur of her youth and beauty as she passed, but more spoke of the ball awaiting them that evening at Hawthorne House. Her new husband was no small man among those in the county, his wedding no obscure event in Cornwall.

  “What a joy to see you properly wed!” her mother gushed as soon as St. Ives turned away to accept the felicitations of his friends.

  Jeannette was glad to stand in the warmth of the sun. At least it felt familiar, despite the intermittent rain. The church interior, beautiful in its way, with an abundance of marble and stained glass, had been so cold.

  Unable to think of an appropriate response to her mother’s fabricated brightness, Jeannette turned to her father.

  “I am proud of you,” he whispered in their native French. “You have chosen well. Lord St. Ives may not look the handsome gallant, but he comes from some of the finest blood in all of England. Our cousin Lord Darby has assured me of that, no? And he is rich as a king. You will always be well cared for.”

  Jeannette struggled to swallow the lump that swelled in her throat. “Yes, Papa.”

  Her thirteen-year-old brother, Henri, stood watching them with a gentle, pained expression. She managed a smile when she caught his eye, but before she could speak to him, her new husband drew her toward a fancy, gilt-edged coach waiting at the head of a line of lesser conveyances. A team of four huge horses pranced while their driver, dressed in burgundy livery, held the matched beasts in check, and several footmen stood at attention.

  “Thank God that is over with,” St. Ives muttered.

  As one of the footmen helped her inside, Jeannette wondered if her husband expected some kind of response, but she had no idea what to say to such a rude remark.

  The baron climbed in behind her and took the opposite seat. “But a man must marry, eh?” He reached out and squeezed her knee, his grin a picture of eager anticipation.

  Trying not to notice how his dull gray eyes measured every detail of her body, Jeannette quelled the urge to shrink from his touch and stared out at the many guests who would soon be joining them again.

  “Will you miss France overmuch?” he asked.

  The carriage lurched forward, forcing her to brace herself with a hand on one side. Rain over the past several days had left the streets full of ruts and mud, making the coach sway dramatically as they began their journey.

  For politeness’s sake, she wanted to say that she wouldn’t, but knew her husband would interpret it for the lie that it was. “Oui,” she admitted at last.

  “France’s loss is my gain.” His lips curved into another of his odd smiles, revealing teeth yellowed with age and tobacco.

  Jeannette’s stomach tightened into a hard knot. For a moment she wished her governess had not taught her such excellent English—she understood him only too well. Fearing she might disgrace her family yet, she made no reply.

  Thankfully, her new husband said nothing more, and they rode in silence the three miles to Hawthorne House.

  Lieutenant Crawford Treynor stiffened as his mother welcomed him with a kiss. Her smile looked contrived amid the elegant features of her face, an expression Treynor didn’t recognize. But then, he’d seen little of Lady Bedford over his lifetime—and wished to see even less.

  Her slender fingers plucked at the braid on his uniform. “You grow more handsome every year.” Reseating herself, she picked up a gold-handled letter opener and an ivory envelope from a pile of correspondence on the table next to her. “Come, sit down.”

  The drawing room where his mother received him was only half as luxurious as her husband’s home in Devonshire. Even so, it lacked little by way of creature comforts. Compared to the poverty Treynor had known as a child, this cottage, with its ornate cornices, carved mantel and fine furniture, looked like a castle.

  He followed her to the settee but remained standing, his hands clasped behind his back. He planned to stay no more than a quarter of an hour, just long enough to fulfill his duty toward the woman who had given him birth.

  “How did you know I was in Plymouth?” he asked, using polite conversation to fill the abyss between them.

  “Certainly not from your infrequent letters.” She placed the letter opener on top of her papers and arranged her expensive, stylish gown before looking up at him. “You send me little more than the weather or general war information. Nothing I can’t learn from reading the Times.”

  “My apologies. Perhaps I shall do better in future,” he said, but his sense of obligation did not extend that far. Although he sometimes wished he could put the pas
t aside, he knew he could not. The ill treatment he had received at the hands of the brawny farmer she’d paid to raise him had left too many scars.

  His mother grimaced. “Forever the gentleman, aren’t you? Tell me, has anyone the power to penetrate that cool reserve?”

  “You already know the answer to that.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “So you still blame me. Tell me, what else could a woman in my position have done with a bastard son? Have you forgotten that my first duty is to my husband?”

  Treynor shrugged. She’d managed to take excellent care of herself along the way, but he wasn’t willing to argue. “Certainly you didn’t ask me here to dredge up the past.”

  “No.” Her pale blue eyes held a cynical gleam that seemed to pierce right through him. “But that is why you finally came, is it not? Hoping I would do just that?”

  Tensing, Treynor studied the delicate clutter that surrounded them. He wanted to appear aloof and unconcerned, as if his manner could deny the hammering of his heart. “You’ve kept your secret for twenty-eight years. I would not expect you to part with it now.”

  “How thoughtful.”

  He ignored the icy undercurrent, refused to let her bait him as she had in years past. “What brings you to Plymouth?” he asked, idly stroking the wing of a porcelain bird sitting on a table nearby.

  The verbal feint made her laugh. “A wedding.” She stood and glided to the bell pull. “Lord Percival Borden, the Baron St. Ives, married this afternoon.”

  “Did he now?”