“But,” she continued, “If you are pressing forward because you wish to save me from my father, or from the men of London, or from anything else, I must tell you that it is not necessary. I do not need saving.”
“Oh, I know that,” Andrew said, perhaps a little dismissively. “I know that you are the mistress of your own destiny and always have been. But in this case, Becca, I can help you. Please do not be too proud to accept what I am offering.”
“I would certainly accept if you were offering only your love and devotion,” Rebecca replied. There was a great terror in speaking those words aloud, but nonetheless, her heart soared with the liberation that it brought. “But those are the only reasons that I would have you ask me for my hand, and none other…”
She trailed off. Over Andrew’s shoulder, she could see four figures striding toward them in the distance.
The first was easily recognizable as her father. The second was a tall, stooping, rather elegant figure that she knew at once to be Lord Peregrine, though his bearing was far less familiar to her. The plodding gaits of the constable and his deputy accompanied the two noble men, walking swiftly as if doing their best to keep up.
“Andrew,” she returned her eyes to his, this time speaking with a new urgency. “Andrew, I believe that something has happened. I believe that they are coming for me.”
“Then they shall have to go through me,” Andrew said, making as if to block their path to her.
“Do not be foolish, Andrew,” she replied. “You may prevent them now, but rest assured that they will try again later. I am not afraid. The truth will come out in a court of law, and my innocence will speak for itself.”
“Rebecca, do not…”
“And before anything happens,” she continued, “I wish to speak plainly to you, and from my heart. I wish to tell you…”
“Your Grace!” The voice of the constable hailed, cutting off Rebecca’s speech.
“Good evening, Mr. Langham,” Andrew replied hastily, before turning back to Rebecca in agitation. “What was it that you were going to say?”
“Your Grace!” Mr. Langham said again. “Please do not move from where you currently stand!”
Andrew turned back to the constable. This time, a frown was marring his features.
“What exactly is it that you mean, Mr. Langham?” he said shortly. “And furthermore, what business do you have giving me orders?”
Mr. Langham had reached the two of them and laid a hand on Andrew’s arm.
“Now, Your Grace, it is much better to come quietly.” Rebecca realized that the constable’s face was milk-white. He looked like a man entirely out of his depth. “Perhaps the matter may yet be cleared up, but when we go before the Justice, it will be far better if I can attest to your cooperation.”
“What is it that you mean?” Rebecca burst out, no longer able to contain the physical sense of fear that was building in her chest. “What has happened?”
Lord Peregrine stepped forward and bowed very deeply to Rebecca. “Our first apology must go to you, Lady Rebecca,” he said in his most honeyed tones. “Proof has come to light that you were indeed falsely accused.”
“Proof?” Rebecca repeated blankly. “What proof can there possibly be?”
From the pocket of his waistcoat, the constable withdrew a folded piece of paper that Rebecca dimly recognized.
“One of the servants supplied us with this just now,” he said triumphantly. He unfolded the note and held it out for Andrew’s inspection.
“Your Grace, could you kindly verify that this is your hand?”
“It is,” Andrew replied, his voice a little dazed but still angry. “And what of it?”
Intuiting that this matter was far too important to stand upon ceremony, Rebecca stepped forward and took the piece of paper from the constable.
And after all, why should she not? The note was addressed to her.
Forgive me, Becca - A.G.
“A servant recovered this from your room, Lady Rebecca,” the constable said, bowing to her. “I understand that the girl found it the morning that the late Duke was first taken ill. I understand, furthermore,” he added, his hand still gripping Andrew’s forearm, “That you left for London soon after.”
“Yes, that is correct,” Andrew said distractedly. “My brother sent me away on business for him.”
“There is no need to provide an alibi now, sir,” the constable said briskly. “The matter is for the Justice of the Peace, not for me. But I believe that this note represents evidence not just of a guilty conscience, but of an inappropriately intimate relationship between yourself and your brother’s fiancée.”
“Inappropriately intimate?” Andrew looked entirely blank. “I do not know what you mean to imply by that, constable, but Lady Rebecca and I have known one another for the entire course of our lives.”
“And by all accounts, you share an affection of more than the common kind,” the constable said. “That much has been clear even to me in my time here, Your Grace. When combined with the obvious appeals of assuming the dukedom and all the associated assets on your brother’s death, I believe that you had every reason to wish him harm.”
“Assuming the dukedom?” Andrew’s blank tone was now tinged with pure anger. “Now look here, my good man, you do not have the least idea what you’re talking about. I never coveted the dukedom in all my life. In fact, I reveled in the comparative level of self-determination I had! I am still reluctant to assume the dukedom!”
“Come now,” Lord Peregrine suddenly interrupted, “The act of innocence is a convincing one, nephew, but I fear that you have gone too far here. Who will believe that you did not covet your brother his lands, his wealth, his influence? Not to mention,” his eyes gleamed in the dying light as he turned to look at Rebecca, “his pretty and wealthy young fiancée.”
Andrew fell silent. He had gone quite pale, and even though Rebecca knew that Lord Peregrine was largely speaking pure nonsense, there was something in his words that had struck a nerve with Andrew.
He looked his uncle straight in the eye.
“Since I am perfectly certain that I am not being arrested on my grandmother’s authority,” he said, his face composed, his tone steel-clad, “I assume that you have had a hand in this, Uncle.”
“I am an impartial party,” Lord Peregrine said. “I merely used my connections with the servants and my intelligence to help the constable in his independent inquiries. You are not being arrested in my name, nephew, but in the name of the law.”
"Very impartial," Andrew responded with a snort. “You do not need to deceive me, Uncle. It is quite clear that this is your doing.”
“I think it unwise, nephew,” Lord Peregrine responded, his voice cold and distant, “To blame others for your deeds. I do not expect that the Justice of the Peace will take kindly to that sort of rhetoric.”
Rebecca saw the light abruptly drain from Andrew’s eyes, and knew that she was witnessing in real time his realization that this was really happening, that he was, in fact, trapped.
Chapter 30
Grandmamma Horatia had never experienced anything like this in her long and respectable life.
She did not know which element she should be most distressed by — the fact that her one grandson was dead, or the fact that the other had been unceremoniously dragged off to gaol for the former’s murder? Lord Peregrine had accompanied Andrew and the constable thence and sent word that Andrew would be brought before the Justice of the Peace the following morning.
How in heaven’s name did it come to this?
It was quite evident to her that Lord Peregrine had been the cause of Andrew’s arrest. By her assessment, the constable, Mr. Langham, was far too spineless and in awe of his betters to consider the possibility that a duke might have been responsible. Her son-in-law’s brother had always been a manipulative character, and Grandmamma was quite certain that he had engineered Andrew’s arrest.
How he stood to gain was obvious.
With no other male heirs, if Andrew was hanged — may the lord forbid — for the murder of his brother, then the dukedom would certainly go to Lord Peregrine. It had been quite obvious from the envy in his eyes, from the incredulity in his voice when Andrew had stated his indifference to the title, that he had always wanted it for himself.
The question that was currently troubling Grandmamma Horatia, as she lay in bed gazing at the velvet canopy of her four-poster, was the question of whether Lord Peregrine had wanted the title enough to murder Charles himself and then to engineer the situation so that the blame fell upon Andrew.
It was highly unlikely, she knew, but it was not entirely impossible. Her long life had taught her that it was unwise to ever underestimate the greed and duplicity of men who longed for wealth and power.
She had hoped that by engaging the services of the parish constable herself, she might have been able to avoid the scramble for power that was so often the consequence of the death of a duke when he departed without an heir. But she could see now, with her grandson in gaol, that her plan had failed.
Since she could not sleep, she decided to go down into the kitchen and warm a little milk for herself. There was no sense in waking one of the servants to do it, after the strain that had been placed on the whole household over the last few days. And besides, she needed a task to occupy herself.
Wrapping a soft cream shawl over her nightdress, she made her way slowly down into the kitchen. A single lamp was burning, and when she set it down in the middle of the table, she nearly had the fright of her life, for Rebecca was also sitting in the darkness.
“Oh, my dear!” Grandmamma Horatia clutched reflexively at her bosom, but after a moment managed to catch her breath. “I was not expecting to find you here.”
“Forgive me, Grandmamma Horatia,” Rebecca said, giving a sad little smile. “When I couldn’t sleep as a little girl, I would always go down into the kitchen and the cook would make something warm and sweet to send me back to sleep.” She sighed. “I suppose I was seeking out a little of that comfort now.”
“I do not blame you, Rebecca,” Grandmamma Horatia said, offering a sad smile of her own. We all have good reason to seek comfort tonight, she thought.
There was a pause, and Grandmamma Horatia busied herself with fetching a small copper pan and setting it above the dying embers of the kitchen fire. She detected that the younger woman wanted to say something, but could not quite bring herself to do so at present.
“The Justice of the Peace will not believe that Andrew was responsible,” Rebecca said, apparently mostly to herself. “No one could believe that of him, much less a man of honor.”
“Then let us hope that the Justice is a man of honor,” Grandmamma Horatia replied, before sighing heavily. “I fear that there are not as many men of honor in positions of power as there ought to be.” She paused for a moment. “That is why I have always been so proud of Andrew.”
“Andrew is a man of honor,” Rebecca agreed softly. “That will shine through, and the Justice will see it. I know that he will.”
She paused again and then began to speak, very slowly and seemingly with a great deal of difficulty as if she were trying to disentangle her own thoughts.
“Grandmamma Horatia… may I still call you Grandmamma?”
“Of course, my dear!” Grandmamma Horatia replied, with genuine surprise. “Have you not always done so?”
“Indeed,” Rebecca replied quietly. “But now it occurs to me that now Charles is dead you will not be my grandmother by law, and therefore I wondered if you would prefer for me to alter my language.”
“Not at all, Rebecca,” Grandmamma Horatia replied firmly. At the back of her mind she thought, I still hope that I may be your grandmother by law yet, but she had far too much good sense to speak these words aloud.
“Grandmamma Horatia,” Rebecca continued, “I have a confession to make.”
For a moment Grandmamma Horatia’s heart leapt with a sudden fear, but she pushed it down. She knew Rebecca far too well to think the worst of her. “A confession of deeds, my dear, or of thoughts?”
“Just thoughts,” Rebecca responded. “I have not done anything of which I am ashamed, but I must confess to having thought something which I now feel to have been very wicked, and I feel that I must say it aloud in order to confess.”
“What is it dear?” Grandmamma Horatia asked gently, removing the pan of milk from the fire and pouring it into two cups.
“After they took Andrew away…” Rebecca paused to take a breath, her beautiful features looking troubled in the low lamp light, “After they took him away and I remembered that note that he sent me the night that he left, I did find myself wondering, if only for a second, whether he might have been responsible for Charles’ death after all.”
Grandmamma Horatia did not speak. It is best to let Rebecca finish this thought, she knew. Whatever it might prove to be.
“And do you know how I felt?” Rebecca said slowly. “I did not feel horrified, or shocked, or angry. On the contrary, I merely felt grateful.”
Grandmamma Horatia could not have said that she did not find these words hurtful, but that did not mean that she could not sympathize with Rebecca’s situation.
“You have been spared an unsuitable and likely very unhappy marriage, my dear,” she said. “It is not surprising that you are glad of that.”
“But there was a terrible cost to my being spared,” Rebecca said, her voice thick with misery. “And it did make me think, that if Charles really was poisoned, then maybe the person who did it did it for me.” She took a sip of her milk. “And I thought that perhaps it could have been Andrew after all. That thought made me love him all the more.”
She said the last part dreamily as if she was not entirely aware that she was speaking aloud. Grandmamma Horatia did her best not to look up too sharply. Instead, she replied very slowly and judiciously.
“Andrew is capable of doing a great many things, and I know that he would do anything for you,” she said.
“He has said that to you?” Rebecca asked, her eagerness betrayed by the little catch in her voice.
“He does not need to,” Grandmamma Horatia replied. “I see it in his every interaction with you, in the way that he looks at you when you are not looking at him. He has adored you since he was a young boy, and that adoration has matured into a love that is very strong and would go to very great lengths.”
She paused again. “I do believe that Andrew would do almost anything for you, my dear Rebecca,” she said, slowly and deliberately. “I even believe that he might kill for you.” She reached out and took Rebecca’s hand. “But I know that Andrew is not capable of killing his brother. He would rather die than bring harm to anyone he loves.”
“I know,” Rebecca replied. Her voice was a little husky as if she was trying to hold back tears. “I know that. But still, I was alarmed by my own thoughts, Grandmamma. Because it made me realize that I would love Andrew even if he had committed a crime of the worst kind, and that frightened me very deeply.”
“Love can be very frightening,” Grandmamma Horatia replied. It occurred to her that now she was not talking to Rebecca as a grandmotherly figure, but as one woman to another. “The kind of love in which you realize that all the things you thought you believed before have all been changed.”
She smiled at Rebecca. It was not a smile to express kindliness or happiness, but to recognize the force of what Rebecca was experiencing. “Despite everything else that has happened, I am very glad for you that you have had an opportunity to experience that kind of love.”
“I am too,” Rebecca said. Her voice was slight but strong. “I am glad that now I understand myself better, and know what it is that I really feel.” A long pause. “I just wish that the price had not been so high.”
“Of course,” Grandmamma Horatia replied, finishing her warm milk and rising to her feet. “It is true that love rarely reveals itself to us in the most convenient moment. But non
etheless, I wish that it had not come to you at a time when I find myself forced to bury a grandson.”
Perhaps two, she thought, but could not bear to say. Instead, she drew in a deep breath and returned to her most grandmotherly tone.
“And now it is time for the both of us to return to bed. The fight begins tomorrow, my dear.”
Chapter 31
Thus far, Andrew mused to himself, I have not found the gaol environment to be conducive to a good night’s sleep.
He had lain on the hard wooden bench, which was furnished with a single flattened square that it would have been a pure falsehood to call a pillow, and listened to the drunken yells of the beggars and vagrants in the other cells.
In the first moments after his arrest, his primary response had been one of anger.
The Obscure Duchess of Godwin Hall: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 18
