He pulled his pistol from his pocket and handed it to Deborah. Then he strode over to the window and yanked at one of the boards covering the glass. It fell away beneath his hands, letting a stream of sunlight into the room. He gripped the board tightly. A meagre weapon, but it would have to do.
Deborah held the pistol out to him. “I want you to take this,” she said, her hand trembling slightly. “If it comes to it, I’m not sure I’d have it in me to pull the trigger.”
Leonard nodded acceptingly. A part of him feared he would not have it in him to pull the trigger, either.
Could I truly fire my pistol and force the lady I love to watch her father die?
But he said nothing, took the pistol from her hands, and held out the plank of wood. “Take this,” he told her huskily. “Just in case.”
He gripped her hand tightly and stepped out into the passage. In the kitchen, Stevens still stood with his pistol trained on the Viscount’s footman.
There must be more men. Where are they?
And where was Phineas?
“Your uncle has gone searching for your mother,” Stevens told him. “She’s not in any of the rooms downstairs.” His eyes moved upwards. “Lord Chilson’s study is up there. Perhaps he’s keeping her close.”
Leonard nodded silently, his stomach turning over. His hand tightened around Deborah’s. Slowly, they continued along the passage until they came to a narrow wooden staircase. Several boards were missing, and Leonard felt certain it would crumble the moment they stepped upon it. Still, he had no choice.
The pistol held out in front of him, he lowered his weight onto the first step. It creaked loudly beneath him. Up he went, one step, then another, then another. He could hear the soft patter of Deborah’s footsteps as she followed close behind.
At the top was a second narrow corridor with doors on either side. Leonard’s uncle stood in front of one, his face contorted grimly. One of the Viscount’s footman stood with his arm clamped around Phineas’s neck.
Leonard walked slowly toward them, his pistol held out in front of him.
“Don’t do anything foolish, Your Grace,” the footman grunted.
Phineas caught Leonard’s eyes, a trickle of sweat running down the side of his face. “I’ve found your mother,” he said, his voice low.
Leonard’s eyes darted to the closed door behind the footman. “She’s in there?”
Phineas nodded. “She’s alive,” he said.
Leonard let out his breath in relief.
His uncle gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head as he said, “She’s with the Viscount.”
Lord Chilson could hear them murmuring outside the door.
The fools. Did they truly think they had crept into this place unnoticed?
He had heard the shattering of glass downstairs. Had heard the thunder of his footman’s footsteps on the stairs.
“They’ve found us, My Lord. The Duke and his uncle…”
William had thrown down his pipe in anger. How had they been found? This place was so well-hidden, even he struggled to find it at times. They must have had inside knowledge. One of his men must have betrayed him.
He had just one man guarding the ground floor. Foolish, William saw that now. That foolhardy Duke would likely go after Deborah. He’d heard that love had the ability to take away all reason.
And so William had gone for the Dowager Duchess. Burst into the room at the end of the passage and yanked her to her feet. Imprisoned her in his study. Perhaps the Duke would find Deborah, but he would not leave this place without his mother.
Now the Dowager Duchess was standing opposite him, glaring with eyes he assumed were supposed to be fierce, but carried far too much fear to elicit anything other than a mild pity. Though he had untied the rope from around her ankles, she stood before him with her wrists still bound, her fine woolen gown streaked with dust and grime.
They could hear murmuring outside the door. The Dowager Duchess’s eyes flickered toward the sound.
“You’ll never get away with this,” she hissed. “My son is here. And so is my brother. They’ll see you brought to justice.”
William chuckled. He didn’t fear the Duke, or his graying, overweight uncle. They were no match for the ruthless men he had groomed and trained over the past decades.
“We all know the kind of person you are,” the Dowager Duchess hissed. “What will you do? Kill us all?”
William supposed he had to admire this attempt at bravery. There was fight in her words, despite the violent trembling of her voice. He pulled out his pistol and held it close to her face.
“Yes,” he said. “You do know the kind of person I am. You’re right. So I suppose I do have no choice but to kill you all.”
The Dowager Duchess swallowed. “You would murder your own child?” she hissed. “What kind of monster are you?”
William shrugged. “Deborah ought to have known better than to go prying into things that didn’t concern her. Sometimes we have no choice but to do what is necessary.”
Something passed over the Dowager Duchess’s eyes. And in that moment, the fear seemed to vanish. Her dark eyes were fiery.
The sight of them caught William off guard. His experience of the Dowager Duchess was that she was always afraid. Always nervous of her secrets being revealed, of the world coming to know the kind of harlot she truly was. Convincing her to go along with his wishes had been far too easy.
But perhaps she had moved past fear.
“You can kill me,” she said, her voice more steely and self-assured than William had ever heard it, “but first you will tell me who my son is.”
William raised his gray eyebrows.
Is she making demands of me? Does she not realize I am the one with the pistol in my hand?
The fool.
He chuckled thinly. “And why should I do that?”
“Because I know it will bring you satisfaction to give me this knowledge and then take my life, denying me the chance to ever speak with him. Denying me the chance to ever know him.”
William smiled to himself. There would be a certain satisfaction to it, he had to admit. A far greater satisfaction than the Dowager Duchess could have imagined. The knowledge of who her son was would break her heart. She would crumble before him. Yes, he realized, it would certainly be worth it.
The discovery had been entirely unexpected. William had gone to the home of Lord Averton to threaten him against calling on Edith. And yet he had gotten so much more out of the visit than he had planned.
Averton had been sickeningly eager to please. At the Viscount’s unexpected appearance, he had bustled around his miserably empty house in search of wine to serve his guest.
William had chuckled to himself. To think a gentleman who could not even afford staff had the nerve to call on his daughter. But he had sat through Averton’s pathetic attempts to endear himself, sipping cheap wine out of a glass that looked as though it had not been cleaned since the middle of last century.
Averton had rambled on about the sorry circumstances of his life; his father’s failed businesses and his own lack of prowess for numbers, for socializing, and as evidenced by the filthy wine glasses, maintaining any sort of order within the peeling walls of his family’s manor.
“Sometimes I can’t help but think I was doomed to fail,” he said, his nerves causing words to spill out of his mouth seemingly unbridled. “After all, I’m rather certain I don’t even have noble blood in me.”
This piqued William’s attention.
“The former Baron and his wife were unable to have children,” he blathered. “They were not my true parents, but they loved me as though I were their own flesh and blood.” He put down his glass and rubbed his eyes. “Forgive me, My Lord. I’ve said far too much. I shouldn’t have…”
William smiled to himself.
Not at all. You’ve said just enough…
He’d heard the rumors about the Dowager Duchess of Chilson, of course, just like everyone else. A bastard ch
ild given away at birth. He tried to gauge Averton’s age. No more than five-and-twenty, surely. The dates matched. As did the circumstances. And Lord Averton had much of his mother in him. William saw the Dowager Duchess in his thick dark hair, his narrow face, his slate-colored eyes.
He took a triumphant swig of the ghastly wine. And his thoughts began to race, piecing together a plan for a far better marriage for Edith than this miserable excuse for a man. A marriage that would see his family rise to the heights of society that they deserved.
The threats to the Baron were made—call on my daughter and come to regret it—along with the confrontation of the Dowager Duchess at the garden party the following week.
“I’m sure you don’t want those terrible rumors to find their way back into society again…”
William cocked and uncocked the trigger of his pistol, watching the Dowager Duchess’s jaw tense with the sound. He smiled thinly at her. She exhibited a great likeness to each of her children—the Duke and his young sister, that miserable Lord Averton. Her path must have crossed the Baron’s many a time in this small town. It was a wonder she hadn’t seen herself in him as they had passed each other in the street.
“Your son is dead,” he told her, a thin smile turning the corners of his lips. “Murdered. He was foolish enough to try and run away with my daughter.”
The Dowager Duchess stared at him, her eyes hard and unflinching. Trying to determine if he was lying, perhaps.
She said nothing. Just choked down a sudden cry and turned away.
Outside the room, Deborah’s hand tightened around Leonard’s. Through the closed door, her father’s words had been sickeningly clear.
Lord Averton, the Dowager Duchess’s son? Had Leonard had any idea of this? The wideness of his eyes, his parted lips, seemed to suggest otherwise.
How could he marry me, knowing who my father is? How can he love me, knowing the Viscount of Chilson’s blood is coursing through my veins?
He squeezed her fingers wordlessly in a gesture of solidarity.
Deborah eyed the footman who stood with his arm clamped around Lord Terrich’s neck. He was watching Leonard. Watching the Earl.
He was not watching her.
In a sudden movement, she lurched forward, swinging the broken shard of wood into the back of his legs. He cried out and stumbled forward, allowing the Earl to break free of his grip. Leonard swung a fierce blow into the side of the footman’s head, sending him tumbling to the floor. The three of them charged into the room.
Her father stood with his pistol aimed at the Dowager Duchess. He whirled around wildly. Leonard and his uncle trained their weapons on him.
“Please don’t kill him,” Deborah heard herself say, the words spilling out her mouth without thought. She knew she had no right to ask. After all her father had done, he deserved to die. And she knew she could not ask Leonard to put his own mother’s life in danger in order to save her monster of a father. But his eyes caught hers for a moment, and he gave her the faintest of nods.
“Let my mother go,” Leonard said darkly.
Her father shook his head. “I can’t let any of you go. You all know far too much.”
Deborah’s throat tightened. “Please, Father. Don’t do this.” She swallowed heavily. “You’re outnumbered. What do you imagine will happen if you kill any of us?”
Her father’s eyes fixed on her as though she were the only person in the room. And for a strange second, she saw behind the iciness of his eyes. Saw the father she had sat beside in the parlor, listening to him read. Saw the father who had chased her and Edith across the garden. The father who had scolded her when he had found her in the kitchen.
He took slow, steady steps toward her. Leonard grabbed his mother’s arm and guided her behind him.
The Viscount stood close to Deborah and brought a hand to her cheek. She flinched at his touch.
“My dear,” he said, his voice low. “Why did you have to go looking? Why couldn’t you just have left things as they were? Your sister is gone. Nothing you do will bring her back.”
Deborah clenched her teeth, swallowing down a sudden rush of tears.
A part of me wishes I had never gone looking, either. A part of me wishes I had never learned the truth of who my father is…
Heavy footsteps behind them made Deborah whirl around. The footman Leonard had knocked down was charging through the door, eyes flashing. Leonard threw himself at the man, the two of them clattering into the wall.
The Viscount shoved Deborah aside. She fell heavily to her knees, pain jolting through her. A sudden pistol shot echoed across the room, bringing a scream from the Dowager Duchess.
Her father’s pistol, Deborah realized. It was quickly followed by a second shot, this time from the Earl of Terrich’s weapon. The ball flew into the wall above her father’s shoulder, sending shards of wood flying.
In a sudden flash of movement, her father slammed his empty pistol into the window behind him. He flung himself through it without even a sound.
Deborah cried out and raced to the window. They were high on the second floor. Surely she would find her father’s motionless body beneath the sill. But no. A narrow awning stood just a few feet below the window. She glimpsed her father scrambling from it and disappearing between the trees.
As Leonard and the footman fought, the footman’s pistol skidded across the room. Deborah lurched forward and snatched it hurriedly. She handed it to Lord Terrich. He held the weapon aimed at the footman.
“Leave us,” he said darkly.
The footman gave him a fierce glare before disappearing out of the room and down the creaking staircase.
Leonard gulped down his breath and rushed toward his mother. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Did the shot hit you?”
The Dowager Duchess flung her arms around her son. “No,” she breathed. “No, it didn’t hit me.” She looked up at Leonard with watery eyes. “Are we safe?”
Leonard gave his mother a faint smile, then moved across the room and pulled Deborah close. She could feel his heart thundering against his ribs. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, we’re safe now.”
Deborah slid her arms around Leonard’s waist and held tightly. Through the shattered window, she could see the dark copse of trees into which her father had disappeared.
Surely the Viscount would not dare return. Not now, when they all knew the truth. She closed her eyes against Leonard’s chest. Felt his warmth surrounding her.
Chapter 39
Leonard knocked gently on the door of the Dowager Duchess’s bedchamber. “Mother? May I come in?”
“Of course, my dear.”
It was a bright, blue-skied morning. Sun was streaming through the gap in the curtains. The Dowager Duchess was sitting up in bed, her gray-streaked dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders. When they had returned home after their ordeal with the Viscount the previous day, the Dowager Duchess had taken to her bed at once. Leonard was unsure whether it was due to exhaustion and stress, or her inability to face her family, after all that had been uncovered.
Perhaps a little of both.
This morning, the color had begun to return to her cheeks and the shadows were gone from beneath her eyes. Nonetheless, Leonard could see a wariness in her gaze as he made his way toward her.
He perched on the edge of the bed and took his mother’s hand in both of his, an attempt to show her that all was well. “How do you feel this morning? Will you come downstairs for breakfast?”
The Dowager Duchess managed a small smile. “I think I’d rather rest up here a while.”
Leonard nodded. “I’ll have some food brought up for you.”
He held the silence for a moment. Though he longed to question his mother about the things he had learned that day, he knew how difficult the ordeal had been for her. Knew she would speak of it when she was ready.
Finally, she drew in her breath. “You must be so ashamed of me.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
Leonard frowned. “Ashamed? No, Mother. I’m not ashamed.”
She sniffed. “How can you not be? And how can you not be angry with me for keeping this from you?”
Leonard didn’t speak at once. “I understand why you didn’t tell me.”
A tear slid down his mother’s cheek. “I wanted to,” she admitted. “I wanted to tell you so many times. I wanted to tell you that you had a brother out there.”
Leonard lowered his eyes, feeling a faint ache in his chest.
A brother I will never know. A brother so cruelly taken from us…
Guilty Pleasures of a Bluestocking: A Steamy Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 26
