Prince of Ravenscar

by Catherine Coulter

  She smelled jasmine, the hint of sweet lilies.

  Lilies. She shuddered.

  She walked past him onto well-trodden cobblestones that wound whimsically through the small garden, creating little curves and hideaways. It was natural, all the flowers spilling over one another, different scents mingling together. It was perfect.

  He said in an expressionless voice, “This was Lily’s favorite place when she was a child. She created this garden herself when she was eight years old, she tended it, no one else was allowed to—even after we were married she still spent most of her time here. I see her father has maintained it well in the three years she’s been dead.”

  Sophie slowly turned to face him. “Why did she not build a garden like this at Ravenscar?”

  “She said this small garden was part of her, that she never wanted to duplicate it, even at Ravenscar.”

  “But she was your wife. When she married you, Ravenscar became her home.”

  “Yes.”

  “Vicky told me when Lily was in her traveling gown, ready for your wedding trip, she whirled around and around and whispered ‘I’m free, I’m free.’ Can you tell me from what she was now free? From whom?”

  “Vicky never told me that. I wonder if she’s told anyone but you. I wonder if it is even the truth, or something she merely imagined or something she made up. One must always consider all possibilities when Vicky says something provocative. Do I know why Lily whispered that, if indeed she did? No, I do not. Let’s assume Lily did say that. Then that would mean Vicky picked you to tell because she had a reason to. What the reason could be, I have no idea.”

  “But those simple words of Lily’s raise frightening questions, Julian.”

  He shrugged. “I have never been able to tell what Vicky is thinking, and I have known her all her life. She lurks about, always watching and listening. I imagine she knows every secret in Hardcross Manor. She has never said anything to me for or against my marrying again. She doesn’t spend much time with anyone; she doesn’t converse like regular people do.” He wondered if she’d been hiding in her father’s library when he’d arrived yesterday, hiding, listening, watching. He wouldn’t be at all surprised.

  “She intimated Lily had a lover, but she said she never saw him. Did the servants, she wondered. She also told me she didn’t think you shot Lily in the heart, because you were too shocked when you found her. Was there a lover, Julian?” Sophie whirled about, horror in her eyes at what she’d said. The words tasted rancid. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that is none of my business. It’s just that I want you to resolve this mess, and—”

  Julian ran his fingers through his dark hair, making it stand on end. “No, I’m quite sure there was no lover. I’ve had to face it, Sophie, for there is no other conclusion—she shot herself through the heart. Why? I have no idea.” He hit one fist against the other, then gave a brutal smile. “Or I killed her, one or the other. Both Richard and his father believe I did. I don’t know about you.”

  She grabbed his jacket and shook him. “I have already told you I didn’t for an instant believe you guilty of murder. And of murdering your own wife?” She shook him again. “What is wrong with you? Do you think I have rocks for brains? Stop that nonsense. Are you certain there is no one else who could have killed her?”

  He smiled down at her. “I haven’t known you very long, Sophie, yet you believe me innocent without knowing all the facts?”

  “Of course, you moron.”

  “Thank you.” He studied her face. “I wonder, would you defend me to the death, Sophie?”

  “Probably. Listen to me, I happen to care about you. I don’t want to see you hurt any more than you have already been. I drives me quite mad to think of Richard Langworth threatening you. And he honestly believes you killed your own wife, and he’s known you all your life.”

  She looked at him, straight on. “It’s time you told me exactly what happened. Can you do that, Julian? Can you confide in me?”

  He said nothing for several moments, then, in an emotionless voice, “I have never told anyone exactly what I saw, what I did, but yes, I will tell you.” He drew a deep breath. “I came here to Hardcross Manor that day to tell Lily I had to go to London on business, because I didn’t wish to write her a letter. I heard a gunshot. She was lying over there, her skirts fanned out around her, and there was a large bloodstain covering her chest. So much blood. I remember I couldn’t accept it, simply couldn’t. She still held a pistol in her outstretched hand. Her beautiful hair was loose around her head, black as night her hair, and I wondered why it was down. She never wore her hair loose during the day.” He paused for a moment. “I felt as though I’d walked into a nightmare. Nothing made any sense, yet I knew it didn’t matter what I thought or what I did, because everything was over.”

  “Did you see anyone? This so-called lover?”

  “No, no one was here, but Richard came a few moments later. He’d heard the shot and saw me on my knees beside her. He believed I’d shot her. Actually, I was trying to make her breathe, make her open her eyes, but she didn’t.”

  “You said the gun was in her hand.”

  “Yes. Richard believed I’d placed it there. He believed she wanted to leave me, perhaps with a lover, and so I shot her.” He touched his fingertips to her mouth. “Yes, you want to say Richard is quite mad to believe me guilty, but you see, there had to be a reason he could grasp. It had to be something shattering, and a lover was the only reason he could latch on to. He was wild with grief, whereas I was cold and stiff, my brain and my body frozen. Richard threw himself on her, tried to get her to breathe, just as I had, but she didn’t. He was sobbing and cursing, beside himself, yet I—I rose and stood over both of them, apart from all of it, and I felt the wet of her blood soaked through my shirt. I remember I looked at my hands. They were covered with her blood from when I’d pounded on her chest, trying to make her breathe.”

  “Don’t try to make it some sort of condemnation of yourself. You were shocked insensible. Surely when Richard recovered a bit, he knew you could never harm a woman, even one he believed had betrayed you. And Lily was his sister—how could he have thought so little of her he’d believe she’d take a lover after being married to you for six months?”

  “I don’t believe he really thought there was a lover, he simply had to have a reason he could understand. I was the only one here when he burst into the garden. I hadn’t seen either Richard or Lily when I arrived. I simply came to where I knew Lily was likely to be.”

  Sophie said, “All right, if she didn’t kill herself, if someone did kill her, then this person could have easily escaped, could he not? I mean, you didn’t immediately go searching, and neither did Richard.”

  “No, not immediately.”

  “Let’s consider this lover possibility for a moment. Can you think of any man who perhaps admired her overmuch?”

  “Believe me, I’ve thought a great deal about that. I don’t want to believe she killed herself—wouldn’t that mean that I’d driven her to it?” He slashed his hand through the air. “But is the other preferable? God only knows. There was no other man. Perhaps Richard and the baron tried to believe it, but I know they couldn’t. Lily wasn’t that kind of woman.”

  “So if both the baron and Richard believed there was no lover, and they couldn’t consider that she shot herself, then it makes sense they would think you killed her, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes. I couldn’t bear to tell them it had to be suicide, I simply couldn’t. In fact, I only told my mother that Lily had killed herself, that nothing else made any sense. I remember she said only, ‘I don’t know why she killed herself, Julian, but I do know something was different about her. I suspect you knew it, too.’”

  Julian stopped, walked away from her again to open the back gate. She walked through the gate to find herself on the edge of a scythed lawn, and beyond the lawn was the wood. She was surprised. “I hadn’t realized where we were.”

&n
bsp; “It surprised me the first time I saw it as well.” He added, “Of course, I was only four years old at the time.”

  She lightly laid her hand on his forearm. The dark brown wool of his sleeve was soft against her fingers. “Tell me, did you ever suspect her brother, sister, or father?”

  28

  He walked past her to a bank of yew bushes into a small gated garden closed in by trellises and boxwood. To Sophie’s surprise, it held a score of different rock formations, each artfully crafted, some large, some small, all fashioned in geometrical shapes. He walked to a bench and motioned for her to sit, then stood in front of her, looking around. He said, “Nothing has changed since the last time I was here. The baron likes to have rocks brought in and fashioned into different groupings. He fancies himself a mathematician, thus all the shapes.” He paused a moment, then, “Could any of them have shot her? Yes, but why? They were her family.”

  “You were as well.”

  “I remember after we were only three weeks in Genoa on our wedding trip, she begged me to come back to England. What I didn’t understand was that she wanted to come home—not to Ravenscar but here to Hardcross Manor.

  “Every single day she came here. If she didn’t miss them terribly, why did she spend so much time here? Whenever I asked her about it, she simply said she loved her home. Never would she say more, and finally, I simply gave up and let her do as she wished. My mother continued to manage Ravenscar, and I was very busy at the time with my shipping interests, no excuse, but there it is. I am not proud that I spent so much time away from her, but I will admit it was easier to work, to travel to Portsmouth or to London, than watch my wife pull completely away from me. So, yes, my mother was right. There was something different about Lily, but neither of us ever knew what it was. I still don’t know.

  “Was I blind? Was it possible Lily did come here to meet a man? Here amongst the rock formations? You see how private a place it is. No one comes here.”

  “Julian, let me ask you a question.” At his slow nod, she said, “Have you changed? Or are you now like you were when you were married to Lily?”

  He frowned at her, cocked his head to one side. “Changed? I don’t believe so. Why?”

  “Because, you simpleton, how could Lily have taken a lover when you were her husband? That is impossible to believe. I mean, look at you, you are beautiful. You are smart. You make me laugh. You are—thoughtful, yes, that is it, you think things through. You are good, Julian. There isn’t a mean-spirited bone in you, though I will admit you can be a superb autocrat. I know that once you make up your mind, no one can budge you—it is many times provoking, but there it is, it is simply part of what and who you are.

  “I cannot imagine you did not please Lily, that you could not please any woman, particularly if you loved her enough to marry her.”

  He stared at her. Finally, he managed, “I’m beautiful?”

  “Ah, of all the things I said about you, you picked out that one. So you’re vain, as well. Yes, you are beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome; it’s nothing but the truth. Is there more?”

  Julian shook his head. “I don’t know. I only remember I stared at Richard, shaking my head while he hurled accusations at me. Truth is, I felt nothing at all. Lily lay there dead, yet Richard was shaking, screaming that I was a murderer. I picked her up and carried her through the house, people crowding around me, yelling, crying, trying to talk to me, but I said nothing to anyone. No one tried to stop me, even Richard. I rode back to Ravenscar with my dead wife in my arms.”

  Sophie was shaking. She whispered, “I am so very sorry, Julian.”

  He nodded. “It happened three years ago this month, actually. I left after I buried her in our cemetery. It was not well done of me, but at the time I simply couldn’t deal with the awful grief, and yes, the guilt. Guilt over what? Because I’d left her alone so much? Because I hadn’t convinced her to tell me what was happening with her? I suppose so. I left my poor mother to deal with the rumors and gossip, Richard’s threats and accusations. The baron shut himself in his library, she wrote me, and didn’t come out for months. What Richard did, I don’t know.

  “When I came back last month, my mother told me everyone accepted that Lily had shot herself, everyone except the baron and Richard. She said everyone believed she’d had a lover and he had left her and she couldn’t bear it, and that the guilt and shame led her to kill herself.”

  He paused. “I must say it is possible.”

  “You will listen to me, Julian. Believe me, no woman would take a lover when you were her husband.” Sophie shook his arms as hard as she could. “It is impossible.”

  He lightly touched his fingers to her cheek. He even managed a smile. “Such faith in me, little one.” He studied that beautiful pure face, the shining eyes, filled with the truth of his innocence, her truth. He said slowly, “You are very young, Sophie.”

  She reared back and punched him hard in the belly, never looking away from his face. “Yes, but I am not stupid.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I have a special gift, I suppose you’d call it. My mother pointed it out to me when I was only sixteen. I have the ability to see things as they really are, she told me. So I will tell you now, something had obviously happened to Lily, but it had nothing to do with a lover or with some mad stranger or a disappointed suitor who happened to walk into the garden to shoot her. I don’t know what worried her, but it was something profound. Did she kill herself? I don’t know, I can’t quite grasp it.”

  “Something profound? I don’t think I will ever know the truth now. It’s been three years. If there are answers lurking about, they are now so deeply buried, how will I ever discover them?”

  “I don’t suppose you, Richard, and the baron could all discuss this? Rationally?”

  “Very probably not.”

  “Do you mind if I speak to Roxanne? She has a fine brain, and she will look at everything with a fresh eye. However, I will not say anything to anyone if you don’t wish me to.”

  “A fine brain, you say?”

  “One of the finest. Julian, you have suffered from this long enough. I will use my gift to see my way through this to the truth.”

  Sophie thought she saw a movement from the corner of her eye and whipped about. A shadow, she thought, something. She called out, “Who is there?”

  Julian was whirled about. Sophie put her fingers to her lips.

  “Who is there?”

  There wasn’t a sound.

  But Sophie knew she hadn’t imagined the movement. She saw Julian’s eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them before. She smiled up at him—not all that far up—and said, “Do you know, my lord, I quite like that I am going to be your champion.”

  29

  Sophie went on a search for Roxanne, but neither she nor Devlin was to be found. Where had they gone? It was a fine sunny day. Had Roxanne finally managed to talk Devlin out into the sunshine?

  Sophie paused, hearing humming. It was the baron, and he was humming under his breath, head down. When he saw her standing in the entrance hall, the front door open, he politely asked after her health, gave her an absent smile, and excused himself.

  She didn’t have long to think about speaking to Roxanne, because at that moment, a carriage pulled up in front of the steps. From the carriage emerged her aunt Leah, all smiles and laughter. Richard Langworth came from around the side of the manor and started at the sight of Leah, then strode forward to welcome her.

  Sophie watched Leah demurely present her gloved hand to Richard, watched him gently fold down her glove so he could lightly brush his lips over her bare wrist. He gave her an intimate smile.

  “What a lovely surprise,” he said. Did he really think it lovely? Sophie wondered.

  Leah nearly danced, she was so excited to see him. “I simply could not bear being in London without you, Richard. Ah, what a lovely home you have. I hope you do not mind I cam
e without inquiring as to your wishes?”

  Richard was many things, but foremost, Sophie realized now, he was a gentleman. He said, “I should be an ungrateful sot if I objected to seeing you, my pet,” and kissed her wrist again. Sophie was impressed. He continued to speak quietly to Leah, then gave her his arm, and together, Elvira trailing behind, he assisted her up the steps into the manor. Her maid wasn’t smiling, Sophie wondered if she’d be smiling if she’d had to sit next to Leah for three days straight. No, Sophie would probably have strangled her, and buried her body behind an ancient Druid oak tree.

  She had some more questions for Julian, but she’d seen him go into the library to speak to his former father-in-law, and how very odd that seemed. Had the two men reached some sort of accord? Would the baron try to dissuade his son from trying to cut Julian’s throat?

  So many undercurrents in this house, she thought, walking to the nether reaches of the house to see if Cook had the teakettle boiling. There were shadows and secrets. Where were Roxanne and Devlin?

  This is quite the oddest place I have ever seen,” Roxanne said over her shoulder, and walked up to a grouping of six big rocks, each carefully carved down to sharp edges and straight lines.

  “It’s a hexagon,” Devlin said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Thank you, my lord, for continuing my education. Look, there’s moss growing on the rocks, so all these groupings have been here for some time.”

  Devlin said, “True. Now, my girl, turn around and face me.”

  “Girl? Me? We are the same age, Devlin, and I shouldn’t dare call you a boy.” But she slowly turned to see him take off his hat and lay it carefully on a stone bench. He gave her a wicked smile as he eased out of his riding coat. She said not a word as he dropped the coat to the ground and pulled off his cravat. Indeed, she stared at him, mesmerized.