The newswoman inspected her greedily. “Aren’t you a charming couple? And both dressed like you stepped out of the past. Love that loose white shirt, Mr. Wentworth. So cavalier. And this lovely young lady in that flowing gown. Perfect. Bob! Get the camera over here! Tell me about her,” Miss Bauer gushed.
“Julia Morrow is from Great Britain,” Will said, keeping a protective arm around her.
Betty Bauer lit up like a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s annual give away show. “Isn’t Julia the name of the English woman Cole and that Scottish fellow, Cameron, quarreled over?”
“Yeah,” Lyle muttered. “The bloody same, and you’ll be overjoyed to know it’s him we’ve dug up in the garden.”
The anchorwoman pounced on Lyle and thrust a microphone in his face. “Who are you, sir?”
“Lyle Cameron McChesney, the bloke’s descendent.” He glowered at Will. “Some Wentworth, or his mate, did him in.”
Will frowned at the Aussie. “If they did, it was only after Cameron stabbed Cole in cold blood.”
“Unless it was someone else,” Julia said shakily.
Betty Bauer practically fell over the cord in her scramble to get to Julia. “Do you have any ideas along that line, Miss Morrow?”
“Only speculation. Likely it was Cameron, though he may have had help.”
Will noticed Julia pointedly kept her eyes from Paul. Just as well, he didn’t need that addled youth broadcast on the news.
“This is wonderful!” Betty beamed as if they’d shared the gold of the ancient Incas with her. “Now, if you’ll show us the famous portrait. Mr. Wentworth, we need you posed beside it. And you as well, Mr. McChesney, back in the very room where your ancestor felled the illustrious Cole Wentworth.”
“We don’t know for sure he did,” Lyle argued.
“Stuff,” Nora said shortly. “Everyone knows he did. After me, please Miss Bauer.” Clearly, she was warming to the publicity. “You’ll be interested to know we’re performing scenes from Hamlet at Midsummer’s Eve. William plays Prince Hamlet, of course, and Mr. McChesney does credible work as Laertes. They had quite a duel going this evening.”
“Really?” A speculative gleam lit Betty’s too blue eyes, as though not certain they should be entrusted with swords.
She and the cameraman nudged Lyle grudgingly after Nora. Will fell into his usual role as keeper of the sacred Cole shrine, and followed behind.
“We’ll want you as well, Miss Morrow!” the anchorwoman summoned.
There was no escape for Julia either.
“And of course, we’ll need the skeleton and the weapons he was found with.”
“Just one,” Will said. “A rusted sword.”
“I understood he had a pistol on him too?” Betty tossed back. “And a knife in his boot.”
“His boots were deteriorated,” Will amended. “No knife there.” They’d have Cameron in a suit of armor, next.
Julia spoke in a tone only Will could hear. “He should have had a silver-mounted dagger with an emerald in the hilt on him. I saw it when Cameron slashed Cole’s arm.”
Here they went again with her memories. But strangely, the jeweled blade glinted faintly in Will’s mind; it did seem as though Cameron should have had it.
****
The news crew and everyone else had gone, at least as far as Julia knew. Finally, she and Will were alone. She sat beside him on the stone bench beneath the fragrant magnolia sharing a late supper. The almost full moon poured a milky stream over the garden and the ground lights lent added illumination to their picnic.
Julia chewed pensively on her bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. A shadow had been growing in her mind all day, and was getting darker. She swallowed, gazing up at Will. His partially lit face tilted toward her, and she thought as she had a thousand times before how handsome he was. Somehow, she had to convince him of the impending disaster she sensed in her very bones.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked in that wonderfully familiar voice, carrying her back two centuries.
She sipped her lemonade as if to gain courage. The exchange between them last evening hadn’t gone at all well, but this was a matter of life and death. She mustered the nerve to speak her heart. “I know you’ve pushed the past back deep inside you.”
The corners of his eyes and mouth creased in a grimace.
She forged ahead. “And I know why. But if ever there were a time to remember, it’s now. We are both in grave danger. Don’t you see? Don’t you feel it like an ill wind?”
Heart fluttering, she waited for his reply.
Night breezes ruffled his hair as he considered. An owl hooted from high in the oak trees, but he didn’t stiffen in evident offense or turn away. Rather, he trailed his finger slowly across her cheek and traced it over her mouth.
“Yes, sweetheart. I feel it too.”
Breath rushed from her in a flood of relief. The battle was half won. She clutched his hand, pressing it to her lips. “The time is near. Midsummer’s Eve.”
He sighed heavily, and then drew her into his arms. His strength enveloped her. “Ah, Jules.”
A thrill ran through her at the beloved name he hadn’t even been conscious of using. Slowly, slowly, Cole was returning to her. Even in the midst of such dire circumstances, being with him like this was heavenly.
She circled her arms around his neck. “Think back, darling. Try.”
Will buried his face in her hair. “Some things are too painful to dredge up,” he whispered. “Like losing you.”
“You haven’t. I’m here.”
“You weren’t when I lay dying. Leaving you ate at me more than that stabbing wound.”
A near electric charge ripped through Julia, flashing down her spine to her toes. “You do remember.”
“More all the time,” he conceded, “especially after finding Cameron’s skeleton. Though still not like you do.”
She could scarcely utter a sound.
He spoke softly. “Images scatter in my mind like startled birds. Makes it hard to trap them, particularly when I don’t want to.”
“But you could if you tried very hard?”
“I recall being in my chamber that fatal night.”
“Oh,” was all she managed.
He continued in hushed accents. “I remember the ache in my arm, and something more, a strange lethargy coming over me and trembling.”
Julia drew back and locked her eyes on his. “Poison?”
“Maybe. But how?”
“How, indeed? The only thing you had was the wine your mother administered by her own hand. She later said.”
The effort showed in Will’s eyes as he struggled to recollect the unthinkable. “There came a knock at my door and a summons. ‘Cameron’s returned,’” someone said.
“A man or woman?”
Twilight shadowed Will’s intent gaze, and the darkness of the past. “A man. I don’t know who.”
“So you pulled on your coat, thinking to go and fight,” she prompted.
“Crossing the room took all my strength.”
She keenly felt, as well as saw, his struggles in her mind. “You weren’t in any shape to fight.”
“No. The wound to my arm must’ve taken far more from me than I realized.”
She sensed it went well beyond that, but wasn’t certain. Nothing in all of these fragments from the past was certain. “Then what?” she pressed, afraid to ask, but driven to know as much as she could.
“I opened the door. That silver dagger you described came at me out of the dark. The emerald on the hilt shone for an instant in the light of my bedside candle. Then the blade sank deep.”
She choked at the horrible image. Both of them were silent for a shaky minute, and then she said, “You had no chance.”
“None. I slammed the door and held it shut with one hand, clutching my chest with the other.”
“The mark in the wood?”
“From the furious attacker. Whoever it was must have given up a
nd left.”
“And you staggered to your desk to write that note before you fell,” she finished, hardly able to absorb what he’d said. “I read it just before sinking unconscious beside you. When I awakened, I was back in my chamber and the note was gone.”
Emotion thickened his voice. “You came to me?”
“Early in the morning before the household had stirred. I was the first to find you,” she squeezed out.
“Poor, poor, Jules.”
“I wanted you too much to wait another moment for us to be together.”
“So you came to give yourself to me and found me lying there instead...” his voice trailed off in the overwhelming realization that had seized them both.
Indescribable pain choked her. “Please God. I don’t want to find you like that again. Let’s leave. Let’s run away.”
“Where, my love?”
“Anywhere,” she implored him.
He held her to him. “I fear events would follow us wherever we went. We have to see this matter through.”
“What if it sees us through?”
“Have a little faith. We’ve been given this second chance for a reason.”
“You mean to continue with the play, even knowing what you do about Cameron and Lyle?”
Will answered in a husky tone. “As much as I dislike Lyle, and he fully returns my sentiments, I don’t believe he would run me through in front of a crowd of onlookers.”
“What about Paul?” She wasn’t satisfied he was completely innocent.
“Paul has never challenged me in all his time at Foxleigh, past or present, let alone has the skill or wherewithal to fight me.”
“He’s sneaky.”
“Because he likes pretty things and sometimes takes them. He’s at least smart enough to know he might get caught.”
Julia shook her head in frustration. “But you’re ruling them both out.”
“No. Just considering any means that might be used against me.”
“Us, Will. I sense this danger also targets me.”
“How, except in distress for my safety? Lyle’s highly protective when it comes to you. Damn possessive too, but he’d never harm you. Of that, I’m certain. And Paul worships the very ground you tread. Lyle’s in greater danger from him than you, though I can’t see Paul standing up to the Aussie.”
“There’s still something we’re missing. Something we’ve overlooked,” she pleaded, in rising desperation.
“Shhhh...I’m not finished sorting this out. I’ve only just begun.”
She heaved a shuddering sigh. “At last.”
He circled his hand at her cheek. “Sorry it took me so long. But I know who I am now, a mystical union of Cole and Will. These two formidable Wentworths are a force to be reckoned with.”
Julia agreed with all her heart, but she couldn’t speak.
Softly, softly, Will closed his lips over her tremulous mouth. Even with all the apprehension gripping her, she slowly relaxed and leaned into his kiss. Circling his arms around her back, he pulled her to him harder...sliding his mouth over hers. The force of his passion swept through her, lifting her above the haunting fear.
“Cole never did that, but he would have given anything to,” Will whispered against her mouth.
“I know. But thank you for telling me.”
A scuffling behind them in the boxwood jarred her. She darted her head around. “What was that?”
He frowned. “A rabbit, or someone spying on us. We may be featured in the papers lip-locked.”
Julia suspected something more sinister. “Will, if anything happens to you, I’ll die.”
He touched the gold heart at her throat. “Take heart, Jules. You and I are an even more powerful combination than Cole and Will alone.”
“Praemonitus Praemunitus,” she said, using the Latin for the saying, ‘Forewarned is forearmed.’
“Exactly,” Will concurred.
But had they sufficiently heeded the warning?
Chapter 20
Will took Julia firmly by the hand. “Come with me and greet the guests.”
“I thought I was the help and only here to serve,” she reminded him, overwhelmed at the thought of meeting so many people.
His eyes twinkled at her. “We’ll just see about that, my girl,” he said, mimicking Nora. “Now, mind your manners.”
He was too breathtakingly gorgeous to refuse. The velvety green coat, fitted sable breeches, and black boots, set off his decadently rich brown eyes and hair, and muscular figure to its best possible advantage. What little resistance Julia had crumbled.
Will led her to the front entrance and planted her at his left. Nora, regal in purple silk, stood at his right, her head erect, like a queen about to receive courtiers. Only the cane detracted from her otherwise proud posture.
Julia wet her lips, dewy with gloss, and smoothed the curling tendrils at her temple. Charlotte had woven strings of seed pearls into her long braid and wound it on her head. The magnificent violet gown Julia wore plunged lower in front than she was accustomed to, but was the fashion for the early nineteenth century, the period Nora had decreed for the ball.
Will’s appreciative gaze dipped to her chest and lifted to her eyes with a wink. “Does the help sleep with the lord of the manner at his bidding?” he whispered in her ear.
Julia stifled a gasp. Nora was only a few feet away.
He blew lightly in her ear. “Tonight. My chamber.”
She had no opportunity to reply to his heart-swelling summons, this was it. They were coming.
Everyone who was anyone would be here, Nora had said, and they were. Julia had never seen so many splendidly attired people, at least not in this lifetime. If the glorious hues of sunset and rich depth of twilight could be captured in ladies’ gowns and gentlemen’s coats, then Foxleigh was aglow with the celestial palette.
Will had ordered valet parking for the many invited guests. Attendants were kept busy and a steady stream of visitors passed before Julia’s dazed eyes. She nodded politely and shook endless hands, offering interminable ‘how do you dos,’ and, ‘I’m so glad you could comes.’
Most faces were unfamiliar with titles like mayor, judge, reverend, rabbi, prominent businessmen and women, professors, lawyers...people of every profession and many from the upper social strata. Julia willed herself to attach a name to them for later reference. So distracted was she by all of the guests, her mounting angst for the fateful night momentarily diminished. But fear was ever present in the back of her mind.
A familiar face surfaced in the continual flow. Douglas, florid and perspiring as usual, was accompanied by his ingratiating wife and high society daughter. Nelle had forgone period costume as Nora stipulated and poured her bountiful curves into a little black dress. She smiled at Will with open, even eager, invitation in her feline eyes.
“Good evening, Mrs. Wentworth, Will,” she purred. “I see you’re still here,” she added dismissively to Julia. “How’s the guide trade?”
“Just fine,” Will answered for her. “Though Miss Morrow has many hidden talents.”
“I’ll just bet,” Nelle said dryly.
“I was referring to her acting prowess, for one.”
Nelle arched a cynical penciled brow. “Ah. And will Miss Morrow be returning to England to finish out high school, or whatever it is she does, at summer’s end?”
The jab was so biting Julia simply stared at her.
Not Will. His aplomb intact, he hurled the gauntlet, raising his voice for all to hear. “Now you mention it, this is an excellent time to announce that I’ve found none to equal sweet Julia in any way and have asked her to be my wife. She has accepted and will be staying on at Foxleigh.”
Julia’s jaw dropped. She had to remember to close her mouth and not stand gaping like a stranded fish.
He grinned at her, turning her knees to jelly. That was all right because he closed an arm around her waist.
Nora swiveled her head at him. An uneasy hush
fell over every guest within shouting distance of Will. Clearly, these people were aware of his grandmother’s marital preferences. The dignified old lady swept a critical eye over Julia and then Nelle. In her unpredictable and imperious manner, she seemed to arrive at a decision.
“Miss Patterson, I see you’ve had difficulty deciphering our invitation as to proper dress. I should have thought it within the scope of a lawyer. Good evening,” she said, and waved Nelle on with an imperious gloved hand.
Nelle stalked away like an offended feline, and her red-faced mother fled. Douglas offered an apologetic smile then bolted after them. How that nice man had gotten saddled with those two predatory females, Julia couldn’t imagine, except that he lacked a single backbone.
Nora considered Julia a moment longer. “I shall require you by William’s and my side again at supper. I have some particular friends I wish you to meet.”
“I’d be honored, Ma’am.” With that, Julia sensed she was in. Apparently, Nora wouldn’t hold a trifle like possible madness against her. Now, for her father awaiting her return to England, and getting through the remainder of this troubling eve unscathed.
****
“‘Come, Hamlet!’” King Douglas beckoned from his throne, his rotund figure draped in red silk. Queen Nora sat next to him, resplendent in her purple gown and yellow robe.
Folding chairs lined the walls of the hall right up to the edge of the wooden platform erected against a backdrop of red and gold banners. Visitors even sat along the steps of the staircase and spilled over into the adjoining parlor. If the fire warden were present, he’d have a fit.
A suspenseful hush fell over the audience as Will stepped onto the stage for the final act of the play. Final according to his grandmother, anyway. Shakespeare’s work had already been so mangled, what difference did it make? Besides, the assembly paid eager attention.
As in the Bard’s day, everyone from beggars to nobility wanted to see the performance. The press of people tonight was no exception, especially with Foxleigh’s recent notoriety. Will yearned for the excitement to dissipate so he could regain some normalcy and marry Julia. Staying apart from her for even one more night was unendurable.
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