Will frowned. “You would.”
“I thought, perhaps, with Miss Morrow’s expertise in heirloom plants.”
Julia widened her eyes at him incredulously.
Will thumped his fist on the table. “Stop right there! Miss Morrow would never poison my grandmother. If this is where your line of reasoning leads you might as well end your investigation right now and let us fend for ourselves.”
Detective Williams spoke with the patience of a man accustomed to handling resistance. “We can’t rule anyone out yet, Mr. Wentworth, until we’ve definitely ruled someone in.”
“You can damn well rule her out. All of my staff knows which plants in the garden are poisonous. The one you’re seeking is likely monkshood, also called wolfsbane. Since ancient times, it’s been used as a weapon. Hunters coated arrowheads with its poison to kill wolves. It works fast,” Will said, then clamped his lips together.
The detective tilted his head to the side and considered Julia. “I see. Well, we should have results back from the lab soon. That will tell us more about the poison and who may have distilled it. I’d like to take some scrapings from under the fingernails of the staff and anyone involved with the play, also swabs from their nostrils. Whoever did this may have inhaled some of the powder as they ground the herbs.”
“Fine,” Will grunted. “Whatever you need to do.”
The detective set his black briefcase on the table. “Beginning with you two.”
Charlotte entered the room with a muffled sniffle. Julia could tell from a glance at her tearful countenance that the news wasn’t good.
“The hospital called. Nora’s gone.”
Will covered his face with his hand and sagged back in the chair. “That’s it, then.”
“May the Lord have mercy on her soul,” Charlotte said quaveringly. “She was a hard task master, but a good sort at heart.”
Julia reached her arms around Will’s neck. “I’m so sorry, Will.”
“I know,” he whispered, as if he couldn’t trust himself to speak.
“My condolences, Mr. Wentworth. I’m afraid it’s murder in the first degree now.” Detective Williams motioned at Julia. “Could I see your fingernails please, Miss Morrow?”
Will jerked upright and stuck out his hands. “No,” he growled. “Begin with me.”
Chapter 22
Julia huddled in Will’s bed under the silk sheets left from his grandmother. Yet another reminder. “What if someone framed me for her death?” she asked in a voice somewhere between a whisper and a sob.
Fresh pain rifled through Will. It was bad enough losing Nora to some vengeful sadist and the overwhelming prospect of funeral arrangements looming over him, without having Julia scared out of her mind.
She curled up like a frightened child, pulling the mauve comforter up around her chin.
When Will thought back to the start of the evening and what he’d longed to be doing with her, the wound bit even sharper. Now, the most he could hope for was to comfort her.
“Shhhh...” he soothed, sliding beneath the pile of blankets in his boxers. “They’d never get away with it. Besides, who would suspect you?”
“Detective Williams, for one,” she sniffed.
Will drew her against him. “It’s his job to suspect everyone.”
She burrowed nearer in the borrowed T-shirt, enormous on her. If the air conditioner weren’t humming away they couldn’t have stood so many covers. With the air turned down, it was cozy, and fitting somehow that they clung together in his grandmother’s bed, considering it was her death that drove them to this state.
“But I don’t like the way he looks at me. Like I’m hiding something.”
Neither did Will. “If by some bizarre circumstance worst comes to worst, I’ll defend you. I didn’t ace the bar for nothing. But it won’t come to that. You’ll see.”
“I’m scared,” she whispered. “I told you this night would snare us both.”
“We’re not snared yet, just grieved and shaken,” he reassured her, but his thoughts ran elsewhere.
He envisioned Julia shut away in prison. He’d rather die and would do anything to defend her, sell Foxleigh, hire a team of top lawyers, apply all his legal skills, anything. Surely, Williams could see the evidence pointed to Lyle? Unless for some perverted reason Lyle had set a trap for Julia. But why would he do that? Nothing made any sense.
Will stroked her loose spill of scented hair. “It’ll be all right,” he repeated, determined to make it so. God give him strength, wisdom, help. He couldn’t lose her to some insane irony. Not now. Not ever.
He’d need that strength. Heaviness weighed him, and he was only partly aware of Julia as she relaxed in his hold and uncurled from her tight ball. Her head nodded against his chest and her breathing eased.
Satisfied that he’d soothed her, Will drifted asleep...down, down he spiraled, tumbling further and further into the dream realm until this present-day room faded and he was back in Cole’s chamber.
No. His. On that fateful night in 1806.
Will reached deep within himself to those long guarded memories he hadn’t wanted to relive, ever. But he must. He knew that now, to save Julia. For her sake, he immersed himself in the painful past.
Again, he felt the gnawing ache in his arm where Cameron had slashed him in a drunken rage. No matter. The physician would stitch him in the morning. He’d had wounds before and could manage until then with the poultice.
He turned his thoughts to Julia, fairest Julia. Everything in him longed for her…to the center of his being. He yearned to kiss her alluring lips, finish painting her portrait, and make slow sweet love to her.
Gradually, it came to him that something was very wrong. He hadn’t the vigor to make love to Julia even if she were here. An insidious lethargy and numbness was creeping over him like an evil tide. His stomach cramped, his heart raced, and he began to shake. He’d been violently stricken with illness, or else—
Had he been poisoned? That seemed unlikely, even impossible. How could he have imbibed the poison?
Not the wine from his mother’s hand, or the cake he’d shared with Julia. He’d eaten nothing apart from the others.
The heaviness grew and his strength dwindled. It might be wise to send for a doctor after all.
A rapping sounded on his chamber door. “Cameron’s come, sir,” a muffled voice informed him.
“Does he mean to fight?” Will asked.
“Yes,” the man said.
Will still couldn’t be sure who’d spoken. It was almost as if the fellow didn’t want to be identified.
Nonsense. He just hadn’t heard him properly.
Dragging himself to his feet, he lifted his coat from where he’d draped it over a chair and laboriously pushed his arms through the sleeves, wincing at the pain. His arm was bulky with the poultice, but a gentleman met his callers properly attired, even for a duel. Perhaps he could plead illness and put Cameron off until he’d recovered. Besides, they each required a second to oversee the affair.
He struggled across the room. His chamber seemed as long as the great hall now and rose before him as if on an incline. He panted in short gasps and his heart raced madly.
The clock struck three as he opened the door. The silver-handled dagger was there to greet him. Its emerald jewel caught the light. And something more. Just before the blade pieced his chest, Will looked into a pair of yellowish-brown eyes. Fox eyes.
And then, he knew. The poison was in the poultice. Instead of healing woundwort alone, the young groom had mixed in wolfsbane. The foul root lay on him like a dank smell. But it was too late. Peter might be a worm, but he possessed enough rage to drive the blade deep into Will’s—Cole’s—chest.
Will woke with a start. His heart thudded as if he’d been poisoned again and a choking sense of doom enveloped him like smoke. Danger was thick in the air and chill with the breath of a malignant soul. An ancient cursed tomb had opened. He felt it, smelled it dank stench.
>
Before he opened his eyes, he knew. Paul was there.
Somehow, he’d evaded the police and slipped past the news crews. More afraid of what awaited him now than he’d ever been in his life, Will cracked his eyes.
Horror surged in him. It was all he could do not to scream and sucked in a hissing breath.
Paul sat in a chair only a few feet away from the side of the bed. Moonlight poured through the window over his narrow face. The centuries’ old dagger lay in his lap, the hideous instrument of death. He fingered it like an old friend. And he wore a triumphant smile.
That weasel had slipped in here while Will slept. Had Paul first drugged the brandy? Will had slept awfully hard and his lips were unnaturally thick.
Any lingering grogginess fled in the rush of terror. All this, Will observed in an instant and it came to him that his wrists were bound overhead and his ankles tied to the baseboard. He was strung up in his boxers like a pig roasting over the flames.
Julia! Agonizing fear ratcheted through Will at the all-consuming thought of her.
He flashed his eyes to the side.
Her terrified gaze met his frantic scrutiny. Both arms were bound over her head to one of the bed posts and her legs tied like his. Worse. He couldn’t believe what he saw.
Ragged lengths curled around her chin, all that remained of her beautiful hair. What defilement, like shearing off an angel’s wings. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t make a sound. She couldn’t. Her mouth was gagged.
Paul hadn’t made it that far with Will yet, and he made good use of his voice. “You damn worm! What in hell are you doing?”
“KKK—Keeping ppp—pretty Julia.”
“How? By tying her up? Cutting her hair!”
“PPP—Police will come. Find mmm—me. I kkk—keep her ppp—pretty hair.”
Paul held up a plastic bag. The reddish glow of shorn curls glinted in the white light washing the room. Along with the mass of hair, was the gold heart he’d taken from her throat. He gestured to Julia’s portrait propped along the wall by the door. “KKK—Keep her picture.”
Then the terrible realization cane to Will. Paul didn’t actually intend to keep Julia herself. He was gathering up his pretties to remember her by.
Think, Will ordered himself, fighting to be calm.
Paul rose on his haunches like the fox that he was. Every muscle was taut in his skinny frame, honed from all the garden work. He raised the age-old knife.
Will couldn’t tear free from the bed fast enough to stop him before he drove that blade home. And he knew Paul could and would. He had no conscience. Will knew that now. Was he always to learn things too late?
It was Paul who’d poisoned the cup with the pearl, Paul who’d substituted poison for the dye on the sword. He’d framed Lyle and plotted Will’s death. He must have had a grudge against Grandmother Nora for scolding him, so he’d finished her off too. But his scheme was backfiring. The detective was too clever. And Will was remembering the past along with Julia now.
Paul slunk to Julia, his hackles rising, psyching himself up for the kill. It ate into Will’s innermost being to see her begging him for help with her eyes.
He jerked wildly at his bonds. “Get away from her you godless bastard!”
Paul lifted the dagger over Julia. “I kkk—killed Cameron. KKK—Killed Cole. PPP—Pretty Julia sailed back to England. I can’t kkk—keep her.”
Will reasoned in a wild battle of words. “You think you can keep her in death?”
Paul fired him a look of pure hate. “You can’t.”
“What have I ever done to deserve this?”
Flying the blade back and forth like a toy plane, Paul said, “YYY—You wanted to thrash me.”
“For locking Julia in the attic!”
“CCC—Couldn’t keep her there,” Paul said in disgust.
That must have been a trial run to see if he could pull it off and lock her away like one of his treasures.
“LLL—Lyle shook me. He’s in jail now,” Paul crowed.
“Where you’ll land if you harm her. Let us go and I’ll tell the policemen not to be too hard on you.”
Paul shook his lank hair. “YYY—You know what I did. I mmm—must run away.”
“Then run. Leave us.”
“YYY—You not kkk—keep Julia.”
Will cried out from his very soul as Paul slid the tip of the blade down over Julia’s perfect cheek, leaving a thin red trail. “For the love of God! Stop!”
Gripping the vile silver handle, Paul raised the blade above her. His eyes took on the yellowish cast Will remembered in his worst nightmares.
This was it. Paul was intent on driving it deep. He’d make Will watch and then stab him.
Will twisted furiously at his cords. In a few seconds he’d have his hands free. But a few seconds would be too late. He needed more time.
Wait. He wasn’t a lawyer for nothing. He’d battle with words.
“Hey loser! Come after me. You puny little coward.”
Paul hesitated at his challenge and swung his head at Will like a baited bear. “NNN—Not call me ttt—that.”
Will egged him on. “I’ll call you what I like. You worthless piece of shit. Fight like a man!”
Will had almost wrangled one knot free.
The dagger came at him now. And the tawny eyes.
“Three o’ clock,” Paul said, in the steady voice Peter had used at the end. “You’ll die at the very hour Cole did.”
****
At that moment Julia thought of Cameron. Suddenly, it was clear to her. Cameron was the presence in the house. She’d felt his troubled spirit like a primal force. Angry, chilled. The disturbance heightened. Paul disturbed him. Paul who’d knifed him in the back as Peter the groom.
Cameron! He’d adored Julia once. She willed him to come and help her now. To help them both. Cameron! I need you!
She sensed him gliding up the stairs…felt him coming, closer, closer, entering the room like mist. The mist she’d detected before, only thicker now. Though she couldn’t see his form, she knew he was here.
Her breath frosted the air as if on a cold night. So did Will’s, even Paul’s, at his coming.
Cameron stop him! she silently pleaded. Paul—Peter—killed you!
For the first time since Julia had awakened to this nightmare, Paul appeared genuinely frightened. He goggled at the hazy presence. Maybe he even saw more than she did. Maybe he saw the vengeful face of his murdered victim.
The knife that had once belonged to the Scotsman poised in mid-air as if Paul struggled against an unseen foe. His eyes bulged and his mouth twisted in a fierce line.
“GGG—Go!” Paul yelled, grappling with the blade.
Again, he tried to force the knife at Will and again he was stayed by the vaporous phantom. Frothy bubbles oozed from Paul’s lips, like a mad wolf’s, as he struggled with the invisible hand.
Will had undone the last of the knots at his wrists. He started to lunge at Paul then held back.
The icy presence seemed angrier now. The cold biting. Paul’s hand wasn’t his own. He gave the distorted impression of a frenzied man battling himself.
Julia smelled Paul’s fear. He churned like a man in quicksand. Death was a stroke away for someone, like a fatal clock about to chime the inevitable hour.
Bong! Bong! Bong!
It was the grandfather’s clock downstairs.
At that very stroke, the blade intended for her and Will turned on Paul. She gaped at him as it sliced across his throat, as if in some bizarre suicide.
Blood ran down Paul’s neck and his dull eyes dropped to Julia’s. The dagger clattered to the floor. Clutching at his neck, Paul toppled after it. He hit the floor with a thud.
Will stared down at him, and then lifted his eyes to hers. “Holy Mother of God.”
She stared back into his astonished gaze, too overcome to utter a sound even if she hadn’t been gagged.
Whether truly audible or on
ly in her mind, she heard Cameron release a gusting sigh of satisfaction.
His spirit slipped over her in farewell and vanished, not only for now, but for good...his revenge taken, honor fulfilled, and aid given to the two he’d wronged. They’d also wronged him and would clear his name and Lyle’s.
No more evil lurked in the room.
Gone! Paul was gone! Cameron must have hurled Paul’s blackened soul out of Foxleigh.
Then Will was ripping away her gag.
“Will!” she cried, repeating his name over and over as he unknotted the ropes from her chafed wrists.
Together they attacked the bonds at their ankles. He helped Julia unknot hers. The instant she was free, Will crushed her in his arms as if he would never let her go. And she knew he wouldn’t.
Cole never had.
Epilogue
Timeless, handsome, the portrait of Cole Wentworth hung in a place of prominence in the great hall. The beautifully completed likeness of Julia Maury graced the wall beside him. Beneath these two star-crossed lovers, their namesakes played. A dark eyed boy of three and his coppery-haired little sister ran and toddled through the elegant old room that had seen so much history...love, joy, and darkest tragedy for well over two hundred years.
Charlotte watched the children as a motley assembly of players gathered to rehearse for the annual Nora Wentworth Midsummer’s Eve Festival. This year, they were performing Romeo and Juliet.
Will gazed at his lovely wife, Julia, her green eyes bright, hair spilling around her, so radiant. The lines came easily to his lips. “‘But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’”
Julia smiled in return.
The End~
Look for the other stories in my Somewhere in Time series.
From the Author
I conceived the idea for my Somewhere in Time series about 8 years ago while watching one of my favorite British mysteries, Midsomer Murders. I enjoy the historic setting of these modern day mysteries, but especially when the story flashes back to an earlier time period in an old manor house to get to the root of the mystery. So I thought, why not incorporate that with my love of romance and history.
9 Ways to Fall in Love Page 207
