The Sins of Lord Lockwood

by Meredith Duran

  Professor Arbuthnot had not kept Stephen on. Liam still remembered his cousin’s rage at being transferred to a different tutor. “Oh, but you had your revenge there,” he said. “You had me framed as an arsonist and expelled from university. And I never breathed a bloody word of it.”

  Stephen kicked one of the desks, toppling it with a crash. “Another of your favors, eh? All the Bodleian could have burned, and the trustees still would have begged you back, if only your father made the request! But, no, Liam—you could not be bothered. For you were grateful at being tossed out. You knew that you would never top me; there would be no double first for you. So you withdrew before I could have my triumph. You fled like a coward—”

  “Christ above!” Liam took a hard breath. “Stephen, every sin you lodge against me was done as a kindness.”

  “I never wanted kindness from you!”

  In the ensuing silence, Liam heard his cousin’s rasping breath, watched him struggle to compose himself.

  “I never wanted kindness,” Stephen said more softly. “I wanted justice.”

  A peculiar calm settled over Liam. He would never doubt his own sanity again. This was madness, here in front of him, raving. “Justice—by murdering me.”

  Abruptly Stephen laughed. “Justice, yes. Even the word sounds foreign from your mouth.” He paused, looking around again. “Do you know, I applaud your choice of setting. This room—an inspired choice. It was here, you know, that I first noticed it—that difference in our stations, that gap that I could not leap no matter how superior I proved.” A muscle ticked in his jaw as he met Liam’s eyes again. “And I proved it. In every way, I was your better. Intellect, aptitude, character—all of it went to me. But after we left this room, none of that mattered. Only a trick of birth—that was all you had over me, but it was everything. So—yes, this was the last fair playing field on which we ever met.” Stephen took a deep breath, squared his shoulders. “Let us end it here, then.” He lifted his firearm once more.

  Liam opened his arms wide.

  For the first time, a trace of uncertainty disrupted his cousin’s countenance. “What—what are you about?”

  “End it,” Liam said. “You’re done anyway. The evidence against you ensures it.”

  Stephen squinted. “You’ve got no evidence.”

  If he had believed that, he would not have come today. “Then shoot,” Liam said. “If you feel so certain.”

  Stephen’s finger twitched over the trigger. “I suppose you mean that bloody notice in the papers? I don’t care what you’ve manufactured. There’s no proof to be had.”

  Liam shrugged.

  “If there were proof—” His cousin’s laughter sounded a little ragged now. “It wouldn’t concern me. I had nothing to do with Sadler. That was all Davin’s doing. The fool bragged about it.”

  “Davin was a fine man. A far better man than you.”

  Stephen reddened. “Davin, you fool, was the middleman—the one who introduced me to Marlowe. Bragged about how Marlowe had helped him with Sadler! He thought they were friends—another fine brain, almost a match for yours. But Marlowe was a man of business. He was glad to dispatch Davin, for a price. And that was my test, you see. I watched how it worked. And no, coz—he left behind no proof whatsoever.” He took a large breath. “No, you’re bluffing. Davin disappeared cleanly. And so did you.”

  Liam smiled. “If there’s no proof, coz, why on earth would I have risked this meeting? Besides, you’re about to commit murder—in front of witnesses. That will trump all the rest I have to say.”

  Stephen cast a startled glance behind him. “You’re a lunatic,” he said as he faced Liam again. “There’s no one—”

  “There are witnesses,” Liam said calmly. “They are hidden in the walls.”

  At last, at last, Stephen remembered the apartment above. The spy holes. His gaze flicked upward, and a sharp knock came through the ceiling, causing him to jump.

  For the first time, Liam saw fear in him.

  “I’m sorry to say, you will not become the next Earl of Lockwood,” Liam went on gently. “Instead, you will be hanged—for murdering me, or for your confession to murdering Davin. Regardless, your companies and wealth will be confiscated, your wife and children made outcast. Your name will be disgraced, your legacy ruined.”

  “Hogwash,” Stephen bit out, but his voice was now shaking. “Your bloody—”

  “Transported convicts are soon forgotten—but your hanging will fill every newspaper. I wonder how your parish will feel, when their churchwarden is hanged as a killer? You’ll die infamous, but not celebrated. This will, after all, look like a very stupid way to murder someone—in front of witnesses, staring down from above.”

  “Shut your lying mouth,” Stephen yelled. “Where is your weapon? Pull out your weapon, you coward!”

  Some commotion came from outside—shouts in the distance. It caused Stephen to startle and tighten his grip on the gun. “It will be worth it,” he said through his teeth. “To see you dead.”

  “Ask why I didn’t kill you,” Liam murmured. “This entire year, I could have done it. A superior man would have resisted murder—but as you say, I am not superior.”

  A line formed between Stephen’s brows. “Why?” he whispered at last. “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “The perfect revenge would have been to bury you in the hole at Elland. But Elland is no more. So I settled for what remained: your honor. Your fortune. Your legacy. Your wife’s happiness. Your children’s futures. All finished, coz. Your sons will watch you be hanged for your crimes—and they will realize, in the hisses and sneers of their former friends, that it was you who destroyed their lives. You who murdered their futures. Their father was not a superior man, after all—but a miserable criminal.”

  Stephen stared blankly, his lips moving but failing to voice a syllable.

  “Or you can kill yourself,” Liam added casually. “Here and now. And it will be known as an accident rather than a suicide. That would be the superior man’s course. To save his family, he would shoot himself quickly—for the magistrate is already en route.”

  He saw Stephen’s hesitation, the indecision that contorted his face and caused his trigger finger to twitch. He wanted to shoot Liam first.

  “My friend upstairs has a weapon trained on you,” Liam said. “But if you manage to shoot me, he will make certain you survive to be tried and strung up by the neck.” He came off the wall, continuing in a low, easy voice: “So, decide: are you honorable? Or are you a coward? I give you the choice. Be hanged later, and rot as your family scrabbles to escape the stain of your name. Or die now by your own hand, and be honorably mourned. Your children and wife will remember you fondly. Or they will be reduced to paupers, and they will spit on your grave as they slink past to the workhouse.”

  Stephen looked very pale now. His gaze broke free, roving once more over the room, the ceiling.

  “Make your choice,” Liam bit out.

  Stephen’s gaze dropped, fixing on the chalkboard. “Bis vincit qui se vincit in victoria,” he whispered.

  The gunfire left Liam’s ears ringing. Blood spattered the chalkboard and walls as the body thumped to the ground.

  A mild surprise gripped him, though he was not sure why. He’d seen a great deal of violent death, thanks to the man now lying there dead.

  The trapdoor swung open, and Julian dropped onto the floor, landing lightly a few paces from the body. “I nearly shot him.” Jules looked tense as he clawed a hand through his thick black hair. “When he lifted that gun again—I felt certain he’d take aim at you. Christ, this was a lunatic plan! I never thought he’d make the choice.”

  “Nor did I.” There was the cause of his surprise: in the end, Stephen had not been a coward.

  “Well, bully for you,” Liam said softly to his cousin. He did not add, Rest in peace. He doubted Stephen would have wished for his benediction—and anyway, he was not saintlike enough to mean it.

  But he wo
uld keep his word. Stephen’s death would be known to the world as an accident.

  “Bit of a pity,” he said to Julian as he pushed open the door and stepped into the bright warmth of late spring. “I’d rather wanted to see him hang.”

  • • •

  The gunshot rang out just as Anna caught sight of the schoolhouse. Her heart in her throat, she raced forward—and then cried out in relief as Liam and the Duke of Auburn emerged into the sunlight, intact and unbloodied and hale.

  Spotting them, Liam looked profoundly displeased. His scowl was apparent from fifty yards, and as he stalked toward them, he distributed his wrath in pointed glares at his men. “You brought along my wife? What in God’s name—”

  Anna interrupted this nonsensical complaint by pushing past the duke and reaching for him. Liam caught her by the waist and pulled her into his chest, and for a moment, as his hard arms closed around her, she felt reassured by how solid he felt, how steady and strong on his feet.

  Then she pulled back, gripping his face. A streak of dust marred his beautiful brow, which she wiped away. “You are an idiot,” she said. “The men did not bring me. I brought them.”

  “And a fine thing she did,” Henneage growled. “For I’ve a mind to have a taste—”

  “Hold,” Liam called over her head, causing Henneage to abort his rapid advance on the schoolhouse. “No need. He’s done.”

  Henneage pivoted, red-faced. “You might’ve let us help!”

  “Aye,” said Danvers, “wasn’t very sporting of you.”

  “Why did you do it without us?” Wilkins cried.

  Anna, standing within the circle of Liam’s arms, watched his smile grow as he looked over the group of ill-tempered former convicts, all of them scowling at him.

  “Because I had to do it myself,” he said. “But if I ever require an army—God save the enemy. I could not ask for better friends than you all.”

  • • •

  “Wake up, Liam.”

  A gentle nudge startled him out of slumber. He opened his eyes to a chill salted breeze, and found his wife’s arms around him, his head having fallen to rest atop hers, as she nestled into the crook of his shoulder.

  “The sun’s coming up,” she whispered.

  “So it is.” The light rose over the ridge behind them, spilling all at once across the pale sands. Grain by grain the glimmer rose, until the long rays of light touched the dark waters washing up on the beach. The ocean shushed and sighed, pulling back toward the lingering dark, then charging ahead again toward the light, which began to turn the charcoal waves to a deep and shimmering green.

  “You fell asleep,” she murmured.

  “Only for a moment.”

  That won him a snort. “You were snoring for over an hour.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  “Louder than old Murray, in fact.”

  He laughed, then cast about for the discarded bottle of champagne. “Lies,” he said as he wrested the bottle from its sandy berth. “Scottish slander.”

  The champagne bore the cool chill of the fading night, and washed away the taste of sand in his mouth. When he lowered the bottle, she was watching him, the strengthening light illuminating the shadows beneath her eyes, the fine lines that fanned from the corners. One day they would deepen and crease the tops of her cheeks as well.

  Those faint lines struck him suddenly—sank hooks into his chest. He reached out to trace them very lightly with his fingertip. He would be blessed and fortunate to watch them deepen. To know a time when no angle of light would be required to see their shape. To see her aged and weathered, not merely ragged from lack of sleep.

  She caught his hand, kissed his fingers. “I’m glad one of us got some rest. I feel dizzy.”

  This bottle had been three-quarters full, last he’d checked. “The champagne likely didn’t help with that.”

  She grinned, cheeky and unashamed. “I had so much to toast. Not my fault you fell asleep in the middle.”

  She had such smiles. They took over her entire face, lifting and rounding her cheeks, crinkling her eyes and deepening those lines of fatigue, testaments to how hard and long they’d traveled. They had not gone back to town from Lawdon, accepting Julian’s offer to handle the mess.

  It had taken thirty-six hours to reach Rawsey. But it felt as though it should have taken longer. He felt as though he were in some new world, unreachable to what had come before.

  He was staring too intently, perhaps. She lowered her face, brushed at her hair. “I must look a mess,” she said. “I think I fell asleep, too, for a bit.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  She flashed him a mocking look. “Did I say I wasn’t? Only that I’m tired.”

  His laughter felt slurred, giddy. He lay back, the thin blanket doing little to cushion the effect of the small coarse rocks that assembled this beach. More rubble than beach, really. But to his bruised body, the small nudges and pokes felt oddly pleasant.

  “I look forward,” he said toward the sky, “to loving you when you’re old.”

  She lay down beside him, her hair brushing his cheek. “Love me now,” she said softly. “Don’t wait.”

  He rolled onto his side to face her. She had been with him through all of it—the interview with the magistrate; the arrangements to transport Stephen’s body to London in the false trappings of dignity and honor; the confusion and clamor of his men from Elland, who had wanted to understand better what role Davin had played in the plot—for they had mourned him after his death, and felt confused and betrayed by news of his association with Marlowe.

  All the while, through these tumultuous hours of unpleasant business, Anna had stood by him, occasionally taking his hand.

  And then the train north—they had slept awhile, and paused at Leeds to dine, adjourning to a room above the tavern for another brief rest, and a strange swift consummation that had had less to do with love than with an animal confirmation of survival.

  In silence they had boarded the next train, then the hired carriage to Clachaig. She must have sent news ahead to expect them, for there’d been a boat anchored, awaiting them. But he could not remember their passage over the water, much less how they’d found the champagne.

  The stars, though—he remembered how they had dazzled him. In the camp, parched and starving, stars had looked to him like bars in a prison cell, their bright clear numberless abundance and strange orientations announcing how far he was from home, and how alone, and how forgotten.

  Here, though, the constellations knew him. He recognized their shapes. And she had lain beside him and they had named those constellations, and he had felt bathed in their light, held in it, and somehow known. And then . . .

  “I can’t believe I fell asleep.” Suddenly it seemed very funny. He began to laugh, though he could not say why the amusement felt abruptly overwhelming. His laughter racked him, and after a moment, she clung on to him and laughed, too, so their exhausted laughter combined in the stillness of the early morning, punctuated only by the steady crash of waves against the sand.

  She pushed her face into his throat and he gripped her head, holding her against him as slowly he calmed. Great deep breaths of salt air—the occasional fleck of ocean spray, carried by the light breeze—the warmth and fullness of her body wrapped around his, and the hard discomfort of the grainy sand beneath them; he felt so full of sensation he was not sure what to do with himself. Sleep, a minute ago so seductive, now felt impossible.

  “I think I’m with child,” she whispered.

  His hand clenched on her hair. It understood before he did.

  He exhaled slowly. “You . . .” His mind clicked into gear, and he pulled away from her, sitting up. “And you came to Lawdon?”

  She pushed herself upright, already frowning. “Yes, and I came to Lawdon.”

  He opened his mouth, then bit down on the urge to speak. Instead he rose, dusting off the sand, and stared down at her, wrestling with emotions too mixed and violent to
parse.

  She blew out a breath. “It does happen, you know, when a man and a woman lie together. Even if blindfolds are used.”

  If that did not invite a curse in reply, then nothing did.

  Instead, with remarkably commendable calm, he said, “You went to Lawdon, knowing what would happen there, knowing you might carry our child—”

  “Knowing our child’s father was risking his life.” She stomped to her feet. “Risking his life with extreme recklessness, without having bothered even to tell me so, and without regard for my welfare or for this child’s. And knowing myself your equal, regardless of whether I am a mother as well. Or does my life mean more, suddenly—or my mind and my will mean less—now that I carry your child?”

  “No.” This he spoke instantly. “No, your life is . . .” He cleared his throat. “Immeasurably precious, Anna. Nothing changes that. Or alters it by a whit.”

  “Well, good, then.” But then she bit her lip, seeming somewhat at a loss, hunting in her skirts for pockets that did not apparently exist, for her palms then fell to hang by her sides, her fingers flexing on air. “I am glad to hear it,” she said, turning to look over the water. “But I . . . I confess I did not even think on it. If I had a babe in arms, I would not have brought her with me.”

  Her. Amazement leapt through him. A child, a new life, both of them combined. He stepped closer. “You have a feeling? A feeling it will be a daughter?”

  She slanted him an impatient look. “One of them will be, surely. We can try again if it doesn’t work out this time.”

  Now he laughed again, from sheer amazement. The thought of a daughter like her—burnished hair, and a spiked tongue—but their daughter would never want for a steady home. Nor for a father.

  The thought chilled him a little. This strange endless day, now forty or fifty hours old, had left him somehow drunk, perhaps too optimistic. Stephen was finished, all the mysteries solved, but his own brain could not be fixed so easily.

  “I will be a good father,” he said slowly, to himself as much as to her. “No matter what goes on inside my head, I will never show her—”