The Mystery of Miss Mason (The Lost Lords Book 5)

by Chasity Bowlin

  *

  Mary dreamed, by turns pleasant and horrific. Happy memories of her life in London with her brother and of her days at the school he’d worked so hard to send her to flitted through her mind. They were interspersed with nightmarish images of the viciousness of their childhood and of all that she’d endured in the last weeks. Occasionally, during the most horrific of those dreams, she heard a voice calling to her. Kind, gentle, concerned—it bore little similarity to all that she’d encountered as of late.

  When she finally managed to open her eyes again, bright sunlight was filtering through the rather faded curtains of the bed. Struggling a bit, she managed to sit up. Her head ached, but it wasn’t the same sort of splitting headache that had erupted upon her last waking. Her heart was thumping in her chest. Fear. It was an emotion she was all too familiar with. She had no notion of where she was or who it was that had brought her there. The vague memories from the woods provided little insight. Ambrose, he’d said earlier when she asked for his name. But he’d hesitated. Why would he lie unless he was also a villain who meant her harm? Other memories aside from those fleeting ones of her dreams stirred—memories of him holding a burning bowl to her mouth and forcing her to inhale the fumes from it, of weak tea and broth being spooned into her mouth. She’d seen him, opened her eyes enough in those moments of near consciousness to look at him fully. It had been he who had cared for her, and with more tenderness than she might have expected.

  Silent, not even daring to breathe, she surveyed her surroundings. The room was worn from time, in desperate need of a good cleaning. But it was easy to see that, at one point, it had been exquisite. Intricately-carved wood furnishings, gilt-trimmed moldings, and once-luxurious fabrics that were now moth-eaten, faded, and dusty hinted at some terrible reversal of fortune. Where in heaven’s name was she?

  As if in answer to her question, a door concealed in the paneled wall opened and a man stepped inside. His dark brown hair was damp and brushed back from a broad, strong forehead. Cleanly shaven, he wore only shirtsleeves and breeches and was in the process of donning his waistcoat. He paused mid-stride and met her gaze with a rather surprised expression crossing his rather rugged features. Immediately, he schooled his expression into one of cool unaffectedness.

  “Good afternoon,” he said.

  “Afternoon?” Mary repeated the word with a feeling of dread. “How long have I been unconscious?”

  “For nigh on two days,” he answered. “You struck your head, if you recall. But it was the fever and the lung ailment that nearly saw an end to you. I thought many times through yesterday and even into the night that you would breathe your last. But you have rallied and I am remarkably glad for it.”

  The bruised feeling in her ribs told the truth of it. It was not the first time in her life that she’d been wracked with such horrible coughing. The last time the doctor had given her an elixir of laudanum and other herbs. It had curbed the cough but at a high cost. Still, whatever he had done, she felt better. The tight feeling in her chest was far less severe that it normally was after such illnesses. “You fetched a doctor, then? And explained my presence in your home to him?”

  “No, I did not fetch the doctor and you should be glad enough of it. He’d have set the leeches to you and then wiped his hands of the entire situation. Worthless man,” he said.

  “But what were those herbs you were burning?” she asked. “How did you know the proper way to treat my ailment without the aid of a physician?”

  “I sought the aid of a natural healer, what the tenant farmers would refer to as a wise woman, who lives in this area. She provided some herbs that seem to have done wonders for you,” he explained. “Your fever burned and subsided by equal measure through the night, but I think it has broken for good this morning. I have to say, Miss Benedict, that you gave us all quite a fright.”

  His assertion that she’d lain senseless and entirely at his mercy for days was troubling on numerous levels. She had no real inkling as to his true character, despite whatever dreamlike memories she thought she had of his ministrations. The one thing she was entirely certain she did know of him was that he was a liar. But then she was, as well, so reviling him for that would have made her the worst sort of hypocrite.

  But you are weaker, at a disadvantage, and you have no one to protect you. Those words allowed her to stifle her conscience and to question him further without guilt. “You said your name was Ambrose.”

  “I did,” he said, inclining his head as he buttoned the last button on the waistcoat that fit his lean waist and broad shoulders to perfection. He moved deeper into the room and settled himself on a chair before the hearth. Retrieving the boots that were warming before the fire, he tugged them on.

  Mary looked away but then immediately forced herself to look back. She would not allow her discomfort to make her look weak or fearful. It wasn’t as if he was unclothed, after all. She had seen men in their shirtsleeves often enough. But not in a bedchamber. Not while she was wearing so very little herself. It seemed terribly intimate at the same time to be lying in a bed, in his presence, wearing only a borrowed nightrail and watching him dress. To ease her discomfort and, perhaps, to feel somewhat empowered in a situation in which she was distinctly aware of her vulnerability, Mary said, “What is your name, really? Because I know it isn’t Ambrose.”

  With one boot on and the other still held in what appeared to be strong and very capable hands, he arched one eyebrow at her. “How, precisely, did you reach such a conclusion, Miss Benedict?” He put a healthy emphasis on the last name she’d provided, like he knew it was false. He’d suspected as much already, and Mrs. Epson’s peculiar sister had all but confirmed it.

  “You hesitated,” she replied, calling on all the bravado she possessed as she attempted to ferret out what manner of man whose company she was in. She could not yet be certain if he was her savior or captor. Caring for her while she was ill did not offer any certainty that his motives would be pure when she was well. “When you told me your name, you had to search for it first… highly unlikely if it were truly yours.”

  “Are you so adept at identifying untruths?” His query was accompanied by a mocking expression and a cocked brow.

  “Quite so. My brother is an excellent card player and while I do not share his love of gaming, he felt that it was quite important that I should learn how to read people as if I were sitting across from them at a card table.” She paused then, allowing that information to sink in while she observed him carefully. “You were dishonest, but you have been kind to me and taken care of me when I was ill. I do not think you a bad man—quite the contrary. But there must be a reason!”

  “For my kindness or for my lie?” he asked.

  “Both,” she answered without hesitation. “Kindness is rarely ever meted out without expectation of reward and dishonesty is typically used to avoid a negative consequence for oneself or to create a negative consequence for others. I would know the truth of it, sir.”

  “Are you always so direct, Miss Benedict?”

  A guilty flush, in part because of her rudeness and in part because of her own subterfuge, pinkened her cheeks. “I try to be. I find that, barring a few exceptional circumstances, honesty is usually the best course of action. I pose no threat to you, but the same cannot be said of our situations in reverse. I have many reasons to fear you. That you feel the need to conceal your true identity is one of them.”

  He sat back in the chair, his wrists draped over heavily-muscled thighs encased in tight doeskin breeches. “My name would offer you little comfort. I do mean you no harm, Miss Benedict. I can attest to that! But there are scandals attached to my name that would make you question that statement, and that is why I concealed my identity. Given your injury and illness, I did not wish to overset you further.”

  “I am capable of judging for myself, I think,” she said firmly and insistently.

  “Very well,” he relented. “If you insist, then you must know that I am L
ord Alexander Carnahan, Earl of Wolverton… I daresay the knowledge has not increased your feelings of safety and security in my presence.”

  Mary went entirely still. She said nothing and dared not even breathe. Of course, she knew the name. Recalling the scandal sheets she’d pored over and that Benedict had teased her unmercifully about, she knew the story of The Murderous Earl, as the papers had dubbed him. The man had killed his wife in a mindless, jealous rage and lost everything for it. It was the scandal of the century. Nearly all of his holdings, or at least any that were not entailed, had been stripped from him by the courts. As an added punishment, the Lord High Steward had then granted those properties and all of the money to Wolverton’s late wife’s family.

  It was an unheard of ruling and sentencing, one that had shocked all of London, perhaps all of England. It was a rare thing for the nobility to react so forcefully to the misdeeds of one of their own, but the nature of the murder had warranted it. The manner of death had been particularly violent and gruesome. The woman had been bludgeoned to death, the newspapers had said, so much so that she had only been recognizable by her very distinctive wedding ring and the dark hair she’d been known for. The strangest of all was that he had not claimed privilege of peerage when it was within his rights to do so, and had instead taken the punishment. Most had seen that as an admission of guilt on his part and as, perhaps, his penance for his sins.

  “And we are at your family seat, I presume? In Somerset?” Mary asked. The question revealed much to him about her foreknowledge of his scandalous name, just as she had intended.

  His lips quirked upward at one corner in sardonic amusement. “I see you are well informed, Miss Benedict.”

  “How is that you were found guilty but did not hang?” she asked. Perhaps it was rude to put it so bluntly, but she needed to know and her memory on that score was failing her terribly.

  “I am a peer of the realm. It does come with some privileges. My assets were stripped from me in civil proceedings. But in the criminal case, my peers refused to convict me for lack of evidence. So I am labeled a murderer but have never been convicted as one, despite my current impoverishment for just that crime.” He paused. “Now, it is time for you to answer one of my questions… who were the men holding you captive in the woods near my land?”

  “How do you know I was a captive?” she challenged, wondering if, perhaps, he’d been involved from the start. Perhaps, she thought rather fearfully, he was not her savior at all.

  “Because I have seen the marks on your wrists and your ankles to know that very recently you have been bound. Because you were running as if you feared for your life and you refused—rather adamantly and with remarkably good aim—to go back from whence you’d come. So who was holding you against your will, Miss Benedict, and what was it you feared from them?”

  His reasonable assessment left her with no option but to answer. “I wish I had an answer for that… but I don’t know them. The man who held me there was not the same one who abducted me from the street. And I strongly doubt that either one of them was the mastermind of anything. They were lackeys at best.” It was the truth, but she didn’t mention where she’d been abducted from or that she’d been investigating what she believed to be her adopted brother’s true identity when she was taken. She had no notion as of yet whether Lord Wolverton could be trusted. While all the gossip and rumors she’d heard during the scandalous trial would point to the contrary, the man before her hardly seemed a cold-blooded killer. “What is your interest in these men? You have surely discharged any Christian duty you might have to an injured person. More to the point, what were you doing lurking in the woods in the dark of night?”

  He surveyed her intently, his gaze hard and his expression inscrutable. After a moment that grew uncomfortably taut, he finally said, “I believe that these men, or others like them in the employ of the same villain, are the ones truly responsible for the death of my wife… and the subsequent loss of everything that I owned of any value. In short, Miss Benedict, I seek them because they have aided in my ruination. I have spent every night since watching those woods, looking for anything out of the ordinary that might lead me to the proof I require to finally clear my family’s honored name of this very dark stain.”

  Mary’s eyebrows arched up in shock as a disbelieving laugh escaped her lips. “You deny that you killed your wife? The courts found you guilty! In a world where aristocrats and nobleman are rarely ever made to endure the very bitter justice of our society, you were found guilty of a heinous crime! And I should believe you, why?”

  He shrugged, but it wasn’t a careless gesture. As he lifted his broad shoulders and let them fall, it seemed to her as if the very weight of the world rested upon them.

  “The courts can be manipulated, Miss Benedict. Wealth, power, prestige—all those things can be utilized to influence the outcome to one’s own liking,” he offered dispassionately. “My name was a well-respected one, but my fortune was never such that I could hold sway in such exalted halls. I’ll remind you that I was found not guilty of murder by my peers. I understand your concern and because you find yourself here at my mercy, I am inclined to offer you the assurances I have never offered to anyone else who dared question me… I did not kill my wife. I did not employ anyone else to do so in my stead. While we were not a love match and, in truth, the union was entirely miserable, I was content to get my heir and allow my wife to live as she pleased with the understanding that I would do the same.”

  “You would turn a blind eye to affairs?”

  A sardonic smile curves his lips, but his eyes were completely cold when he replied, “I had been turning a blind eye to her affairs from the moment we wed. Three years in, it hardly warranted acknowledgement anymore.”

  For better or worse, she believed him. It wasn’t so much what he said or even the manner in which he offered it. It was the weariness she sensed in him, the bone-deep exhaustion of a man too tired to defend himself against sharp, well-aimed, and vicious gossip. The world believed the worst of him and he’d stopped trying to fight them. But for the benefit of her peace of mind, he once more took up the gauntlet. Thinking of the many young women she’d attended her very special school with, whose fathers ran the gamut from wrongly maligned to the truly wicked, and how those poor girls had been tainted by their fathers’ reputations, she knew it could be quite unfair. “I am very sorry then that you have been wrongly convicted both in court and in public opinion, Lord Wolverton. I understand how painful gossip can be and what it does to a person over time.”

  “Thank you for that, Miss Benedict,” he said as he finished tugging on his second boot. “I must go for a bit. I have to meet someone who may have information about the men I suspect are responsible for your abduction. I will be going to the inn in the village and will return with food that is more palatable than whatever putrid refuse my housekeeper will plop onto a tray.”

  Her stomach growled. But, thankfully, the noise was either too low for him to hear or he was enough of a gentleman to pretend it had not occurred. “Thank you. I am quite famished. If I may ask, Lord Wolverton, how far are we from Bath?” If she could get to Bath and reclaim her things at Mrs. Simms’ house, or beg the woman to send word to Benedict, she could return to London and put the horror of the last week behind her.

  “Nearly thirty miles, Miss Benedict. Is Bath where you reside?” The question was pointed, as he was clearly trying to discern more about her.

  Mary started to shake her head, but abruptly discontinued the gesture. Even that slight movement reminded her that she had struck her head rather hard. “I was visiting Bath when I was abducted from the streets.” The distance he’d named surprised her. She hadn’t thought they had traveled so far, but she’d been heavily drugged. The news was also disheartening. It was too far to travel on foot and certainly too far for her to travel in any manner given her current condition. For the time being, she was well and truly stuck.

  He arched one eyebrow, his expr
ession clearly indicating his suspicions. “Without a chaperone?”

  It would seem strange to most, she supposed. Her speech was that of a lady thanks to her time spent at the Darrow School for Young Ladies. Having begun her education there much later than many of the girls, Miss Euphemia Darrow had taken her under her wing and tutored her personally so that her manners, speech, and understanding of the rules of society would allow her to function in it as if she had truly been a gently-bred young miss. It was a far cry from what would normally be expected for a foundling child raised by people little better than vicious animals. Benedict was responsible for her current confusing status. He’d done everything he could to ensure she had a future that was far different from the manner in which they’d been raised, but there was no place in the world for a girl like her. She spoke like a lady but wasn’t one. She carried herself like a debutante but would never be permitted in society. And now, any chance of a respectable match had been thoroughly ruined by her abduction. No man would believe her chaste after what she’d been through, regardless of whether it was true or not.

  Realizing that she had been silent for too long, Mary blushed again. Perhaps it was the fact that he was rather handsome. Perhaps it was the fact that he stood before her fully clothed while she had only a thin nightrail and the bedclothes she currently clutched to her to shield her modesty. Either way, she was acutely aware of him and of the impropriety of their current situation. His question also raised her awareness of her own vulnerability. She was very much alone with him, in a bedchamber with only a deaf, old woman in the house to hear her scream, and no one knew where she was.