“Perhaps it is, but I am fed up with this fruitless search, Annabelle. You cannot imagine how many times I have imagined killing Greywood, and every time I had to remind myself that his death was contrary to my ultimate goal.”
“Why did you not do it?” The raising and lowering of his chest was perfectly steady.
“I don’t like to own up to it, but had he been the sole responsible for Matilda’s atrocious death, I would have gladly choked the life out of him. There were moments when I was unable to breathe in my hatred for him, Annabelle.”
There was something else in his voice that caused her discomfort, but she could not name it. What was it that he still hid from her?
“But I quickly realized that Greywood was just a stooge of someone pulling the strings in the background. Every time I thought I spotted him, he withdrew from me. I had to keep Greywood alive, at least until he led me to the man in the shadows.”
“Now the viscount is dead, and you still don’t know who the mysterious man is.” The moment Annabelle uttered those words, several more puzzle pieces fell into place – Marcus’s rather strong distrust of her after the viscount had appeared with her father and Warrington just when she and he were in a compromising situation. His harsh dismissals. The physical exertion, fighting the faceless dummy up in the attic. All this made sense in the light of his past.
Marcus St. John, the Earl of Grandover, only knew one purpose in his life: revenge.
“And then you came along,” Marcus continued, following seamlessly her own thoughts to the point that it was almost uncanny. “I was firmly convinced that you were in cahoots with him.” There was nothing she could possibly say about that. Sometimes it was better to remain silent. After all, he had said the words in the past tense. Perhaps, that meant he believed her. Of course, she chided herself. She was in his private chambers, by his side, in his arms!
It was terrifying just how happy she felt right now. Despite the gloomy story he had confided to her, Annabelle felt that this moment was a new beginning for both of them.
“I still do not understand why you want me to leave,” Annabelle returned to the point that worried her.
“The viscount is dead. I am not going to lie and pretend that his untimely death has affected me in a negative way,” she continued. “I still don’t know what he did to my sister. It is beyond doubt that he harmed her, but now I dare to hope that Felicity will be able to recover. What is it?” She sat up, slowly, trying not to hurt him. Marcus’s body had stiffened at her last words. Had she not been so close to him, she would not have noticed the tensing of his muscles.
“Greywood was just a pawn, Annabelle. Now that he is gone, I expect his tasker to drop his guard. I will not allow you to end up in his hands.”
“But,” Annabelle objected, but Marcus interrupted her.
“No,” he said with a voice that echoed the strength of his will. “You will do what I ask of you. I won’t tolerate any dissent.”
“And I won’t tolerate that you treat me like a child,” Annabelle flared indignantly. “You are my husband, whether you like it or not. I am staying with you.”
“Do not force me to put you into the carriage and send you back to your parents,” he warned her, also sitting up. Despite the pain he undoubtedly felt, Marcus moved surprisingly quickly. He bent over her and pulled the cord for his bell so fiercely that she feared the cord would snap. Then he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her close.
“As soon as all of this is over,” he whispered, “you will come back to me.”
“Do you promise me that?” She cried openly, not caring if he saw her tears.
“I promise,” he confirmed softly.
At this, she laid her head against him and allowed her tears to flow freely. Annabelle wanted to memorise this moment of closeness, the soft silk of his dressing gown, his unique masculine scent, the slight scratching of his chin on her skin.
“Will you keep me informed?” she begged. “Only then will I be able to leave with some reassurance. Please tell me that I am allowed to write you.”
“I’d rather you not,” he objected. “It is better for the world to believe that we are divided.”
It broke her heart. Up until this moment, she had not known what love was. To find love to lose it again was bitter and painful.
“Go now,” he ordered.
And Annabelle left.
Marcus lay on his bed, staring up into the canopy that was draped between the heavy oak posts. Anything would be better than just lying here, knowing right now he could do nothing to keep her by his side. The only good thing about their separation was that he could be sure nothing would happen to her.
He felt that he was about to reveal the identity of his enemy. The second assassination attempt had been a clear sign that he was losing his nerve. Marcus smiled, but it did not reach his eyes as he pictured the unrest that must have gripped the man when Greywood disappeared. Nobody, apart from himself and Finch, knew what led exactly to the death of Greywood. He seriously doubted that Lady Felicity was aware of the consequences of her actions.
That was yet another reason why it was beneficial that Annabelle was no longer near him, but with her sister. The anger he had felt towards his wife’s impulsive younger sister had long fizzled out. He wondered if she even knew that the viscount was dead, and what the man had done to her for her to resort to such desperate measures. If Finch had not followed the man on the same evening and watched Lady Felicity enter the same drinking hole in Whitechapel, who knows what would have happened?
It was not difficult for Marcus to reconstruct the events of that night. More complicated had been to remove the corpse without attracting too much attention. He – or, more precisely, Lady Felicity – had benefited from the indifference of the slum inhabitants, who had learned to look the other way and to worry about their own problems. At least the young woman had been intelligent enough to not wear a bold dress, which would have identified her as the daughter of a nobleman from any distance. She was only one year younger than Annabelle, but she did not have his wife’s foresight.
A little while later, when Marcus heard his carriage pull up, he could not any longer stay in bed. He got up and peered through the curtains. Wickham oversaw the servant stowing Annabelle’s trunk on the back of the carriage. She had not taken much, and the young boy carrying her other luggage moved swiftly. She had not had a lot of time since he had sent her from his room.
To his immense surprise he saw Clarice, her maid, following Annabelle with hesitant steps to the vehicle waiting on the side of the road. His wife turned around, noticed Clarice, and seemed to ask her something. The maid nodded, looked questioningly over at Wickham, and then she hurried back into the house. When Annabelle stepped into the carriage without turning around one last time, Marcus backed away from the curtains.
Silently, he swore that he would get his wife back – even if it was the last thing he did.
Chapter 15
“Papa, please calm down,” Annabelle implored her father. “St. John did not throw me out. I am the one who left him.”
“And I’m ordering you to return to him at once!” Her father exhaled with a thunderous voice and hammered his fist onto the table so strenuously that the crystal glasses clinked. “If you are lucky, he will take you back before anybody notices.”
Her mother gave Annabelle an inquiring look, before she put her hand on her husband’s fist. “I could imagine,” she said softly, and avoided, all too clearly, looking at her eldest daughter, “that Annabelle, in her delicate condition, is a little bit sensitive. Why don’t you write a letter to your son-in-law and tell him that we will take care of our daughter until she gets used to the changes she is currently experiencing?”
Annabelle barely managed to keep her head from jerking upward when she heard her mother’s insinuation. If she was not mistaken, her mother was offering her an escape from her father’s dander. The only problem was that she and Marcus had never consummated their
marriage. If her belly were still as flat as a pancake in a few months, her father would figure out the white lie. She sincerely hoped that by then Marcus had managed to locate his enemy.
“I am to be a… grandfather?” Her father sounded aghast and elated at the same time – indeed, her mother’s little plan had achieved the desired effect.
“Of course, you will name the boy after the men in our descending line,” he continued in a normal tone, while Annabelle scooped another spoonful of soup into her mouth, pretending not to notice the rising heat in her cheeks. “However, if the child is a girl, you may inform your husband that I would be willing to consider a baptism in accordance with the Catholic rituals, should he agree with your wishes.”
The child was not even born yet, let alone conceived, and the Duke of Evesham had already planned everything. Wonderful. Annabelle sighed silently and pushed her plate aside. Her appetite had left her. “If you would excuse me? I need to go and rest.” Yet rest was the very last thing she wanted. But anything was better than seeing the glow in her father’s eyes, knowing that his expectations would not come true. Not for a bit anyway, maybe never!
Her stomach cramped when she thought about Marcus. What had he been doing? Had Finch gotten rid of Greywood’s body? She wondered where he had taken the man’s remains and sincerely hoped that the sin of murder did not bring about the irreverent treatment of the dead. She no longer believed that either Marcus or his servant had murdered Viscount Greywood, but Marcus certainly knew who had done it. He had evaded her question, she surely had not failed to notice, but she had let it pass in the face of his injury. She pushed open the door to her old room and threw herself onto the bed, just as she was.
Clarice had already hung up her dresses in the wardrobe and placed her books on the secretary. The three porcelain figurines, which she had brought into her new home, came to mind. Annabelle had left them on the mantelpiece in her bedroom. She would return to St. John’s house. Already now, after a few weeks as his wife and all that had happened, she felt a tad bit out of place in her parents’ house.
Rose had gone to spend a couple of weeks with Lord and Lady Scuffold to get “the finishing touches,” as Mama had put it. Annabelle suspected that her mother was less concerned with social etiquette than with “sweeping away her youngest daughter’s overly romantic notions”. How Rose should come to her senses in the company of the most enamoured couple Annabelle had ever known, was a mystery to her. Not too long ago, when the duke had not been a widower yet, Annabelle would have unconditionally agreed with her mother that he indeed was a paragon of what was right by society’s rules. After the unfortunate death of his first wife, the Duke of Scuffold had turned into a bitter man who hardly smiled and withdrew himself. Her father had hoped that his eldest daughter and his good friend would one day enter in the bond of marriage, but fate had bestowed other plans. At first, Annabelle had been a little sad when the duke invited her family to his second wedding. At the time, she had had a secret soft spot for the man, who was one of the few noblemen who did not talk in platitudes – and she still cared for him, although in an innocent and girlish way. But as soon as she met his new young wife, her quiet envy had moved aside to allow a friendship with Minerva.
Maybe she should ask her mother if she could not follow Rose. She would travel together with Felicity to Scuffold Manor, and there, in the remoteness of rural life, she could wait for Marcus to fetch her back.
The thought did not give her comfort. She would have loved to imitate her father and hit her fist against something. She was Marcus’s wife! Yes, of course, she could understand that he was worried about her, and if she was honest, his concern filled her with a bewildering mixture of pride and downright exuberant joy. But there was also a reluctance in her that did not agree with just being sent away to wait like a good little girl. Was there nothing she could do? She was a woman, after all. Women healed wounds, looked after their husbands and children, and took care of the wellbeing of others entrusted to their care.
The more Annabelle thought about it all, the less she liked this role. Granted, she was hardly able to fight as Marcus could. Just the idea of kicking her legs and swinging her arms, as she had watched him do, against an opponent while wearing a tightly laced bodice was utterly absurd. She did not have enough strength to defend herself against a physical attack. Marcus was trained – his body supple and equipped with hard muscles. Everything about her was soft and yielding.
For goodness sake. She got up from her bed and began pacing restlessly up and down the room. She had to get away or she would lose her nerve. No. Leaving London now and running away would not help her situation either. Quite the opposite, the distance from Marcus and the uncertainty about their fate would be even harder to bear.
However, there was one thing she could tackle, something that she had been putting off for far too long. It was time to confront Felicity and ask her what had happened that night between her and the viscount. Her sisterly feelings would not stop her from pushing her sister for answers. This time, she would not tolerate excuses. Nothing would get in the way of the truth. Enough was enough!
As soon as she pushed open the door of her sister’s room and saw what Felicity was doing, her anger dissipated into nothing.
Her sister lay motionless on her bed. Her face was as white as chalk, and she did not even blink. Annabelle’s heart skipped a beat. She rushed to the bed and grabbed Felicity’s hand. She still had a pulse! The relief she felt made her knees go weak. Now she also saw that her sister’s chest was rising and falling underneath the thin fabric. Annabelle sat down on the bed right next to her, without letting go of her hand.
“Feli,” Annabelle said softly, purposefully calling her by the nickname she had used when they had been younger. “This cannot continue. You must tell me what troubles you.”
There was no reaction.
“Is it because of Rupert?” She carefully tested the waters. It was strange to call Viscount Greywood by his first name, however, she decided that this informal address seemed to be a good way to elicit a reaction from her sister. Intently, she searched her sister’s face for a sign of… emotion, something, be it sorrow or rage. Anything was better than this blank stare. “I can understand that you miss him,” she dug a little further and was rewarded with a squeezing of her lips. “You must miss him very much.” She did not really believe that, but somehow, she had to try and bring about a response from her. “His death was certainly a great shock to you,” she went on.
Felicity shot to an upright position so quickly that Annabelle drew back from the bed, startled.
“What are you saying?” Felicity whispered with wild eyes. “Rupert is dead?” She started to laugh, quietly at first, then more violently, until her thin body shook from her emotions.
“You did not know?” Annabelle asked. The answer to the question was obvious, but she wanted to force her sister to stop with the terrible, unnatural laugh.
“No,” Felicity replied, “and I am glad he is dead!” She clenched her fists, then released them and ran her fingers through her hair. Annabelle saw that her sister was beginning to tug at the dense reddish-brown strands, as if to rip out the beautiful curls. Gently, but emphatically, she released her sister’s clenched fingers from her hair.
“Tell me what happened,” she asked Felicity once more and handed her a glass of water from the bedside table. She noticed that her own hands were shaking. Marcus’s evasive answer came to her mind when she had asked him how he had learned about Gray’s death.
“I cannot do that,” Felicity replied. The paleness in her face was now replaced by an ugly, patchy redness, and she stared down at her blanket.
“Oh yes, you can,” Annabelle said firmly. “Believe me, I have learned a great deal about Rupert Greywood over these past few days, and I cannot say that these things made him near and dear to me. You can hardly shock me, Feli, and you will feel a lot better afterwards.”
The question was how she herself would
feel after that. It was becoming more and more certain that Felicity had something to do with Greywood’s death. What would Annabelle do if her sister confessed to murdering him? Marcus had tried to spare me the truth, Annabelle thought, feeling a wild, invincible wave of affection for him.
“Do you promise?” Her sister’s voice was as small and thin as that of a mewling kitten, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I promise. Perhaps not straightaway, but soon.” At least that is what she hoped. They sat in silence for a while, until Felicity’s tears had subsided. Annabelle bit her lip to keep from shouting out her impatience.
“How do you know that Rupert has passed away? Do you know how he died?”
Annabelle managed to suppress a sound of astonishment. The surprise disappeared within seconds and made way for a wave of relief since her sister’s question could only mean one thing: she had nothing to do with Greywood’s death.
“I overheard St. John talking to someone about it,” she improvised, as Felicity looked at her questioningly. She took the glass from her sister’s hand, just to somehow keep her hands busy and distract Felicity from her husky voice. “You know that my husband,” the term passed smoothly over her lips, “and the viscount did not like each other much. He said something to that effect, and that he had heard it from an acquaintance.” It was rather vague and evasive, but it did not strike her sister.
“Has someone murdered him? Did your husband kill him? Is that why you are here?”
Annabelle flinched in the face of the harsh words. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“Rupert was a bad man,” her sister declared. And then, as if a dam had broken, the words just kept pouring out of her. “If that is the reason you came here, then I can assure you that you can return to your husband safely, Bella.” Somewhat relieved, Annabelle noted both the use of her childhood nickname as well as the fire burning in her sister’s eyes. “He did what was right. Rupert…”
The Three Evesham Daughters: Books 1-3: A Regency Romance Trilogy Page 14
