by Micki Miller
Ashton gave her a broad smile and another hug, cheering as he lifted her and spun her around before setting her back on her feet. Just as they parted, the loud report of a pistol rent the air. Rose’s scream followed the deadly blast.
Chapter 7
Burke sat back in his tufted, wine-colored chair at one of the gaming tables of White’s Gentleman’s Club. As he waited for the dealer to shuffle the cards, he tapped a long finger on one of the half dozen stacks of chips before him.
To his right at the horseshoe table sat his one true friend, Lord Andrew Worthington, Drew to his friends. Drew had several respectable towers of his own chips. An earnest opponent in cards, as well as in the boxing ropes, as they were of equal size, and close to equal in skill. They both enjoyed getting their exercise testing each other’s pugilistic abilities. And, Drew was one of the very few people Burke trusted.
Lord Foxboro, a lean man with a seemly face and ears protruding beyond his thinning, mud-colored hair, sat on the other side of Drew, glaring at the one short stack of chips remaining in front of him. The man possessed no skill at all in the realm of gambling. To his detriment, Foxboro believed he did.
As the dealer sent cards sliding across the baize table, Foxboro grabbed for his as if they were driftwood, and he was drowning in a turbulent sea.
Lord Snively, a portly baron in the habit of dressing in the most foppish of fashions, approached the table as the first cards of the new hand were dealt, and wiggled himself into the seat to Burke’s left. Today, as he so often did, Lord Snively appeared quite the peacock with an orange jacket over a yellow waistcoat and pea-green breeches. Burke gave him a brief nod before returning his attention to the game.
“Quite the news going about town,” Lord Snively said, taking in the three other men at the table.
His plump fingers danced upon the baize, while his wide stare bounced about the room in a forged, nonchalant manner. A quick poke of his tongue wet his lips. The dealer paused to see if Lord Snively would join the game by making a bet, but Snively ignored him. The dealer continued his distribution of cards.
Knowing the man as he did, Burke would have bet every stack of chips before him Lord Snively had not come in to play cards, or any other game of chance or skill, but to partake in his preferred entertainment. The man had entered the establishment with gossip he was anxious to share.
“Haven’t you heard?” Snively asked when no one took his bait.
Burke glanced at his friend.
“Don’t look at me,” Drew said. He shifted sideways in a casual lean. “I’ve been in this gilded pit all day. It could be raining elephants, for all I know.”
Burke grinned at the truth of his friend’s humor. If Drew wasn’t gambling, drinking, or chasing skirts, he was making those around him laugh. What most didn’t know about Drew, was beneath the abundance of wayward behavior and indulgences, beat the heart of a good man. Burke hoped Drew would calm his ways before they landed him in trouble too big to traverse.
“What’s happened?” Lord Foxboro asked in a distracted tone as he awaited his next card. Perspiration glistened along his hairline and over his lip. “None of us have heard a thing.”
“Truly, none of you have heard?” Snively asked.
“Oh, good god, man. Enough with the dramatic preamble,” Drew said. “Out with it.”
Snively huffed, feigned his leave with a shift of his soft shoulders. When no one begged his news, he gave in and told them what he’d come in to say.
“There’s been a shooting,” Snively said, wide eyes full of histrionics. The men at the table gave him their attention, but it flitted away when offered no details to support the dire account. So, he added, “Quite a bloody mess, too, from what I’ve heard.”
After a quick, disgusted peek at what the dealer had given him, Lord Foxboro flipped his cards face down on the table and said, “And just who was shot?”
“I don’t precisely know. But it happened right in the Sennett’s dooryard, so I assume it’s the lord or lady of the house.”
Burke swung his head around with a glare so fierce Lord Snively cringed. The earl was on his feet in an instant, his cards fluttering the short distance before landing about his stack of chips.
Chapter 8
The butler forbade him entrance.
Burke didn’t give a damn what the priggish, over-starched man deemed to allow or not allow. He’d only made the polite request to see Lord or Lady Sennett out of civility. Two words into the butler’s second refusal, Burke barged through the front door.
Upon striding in to the Sennett’s front parlor from whence came murmured voices, the first thing Burke saw was a bucket of bloody bandages. Sick dread bloomed in his stomach. In a quick assessment, he took in the rest of the scene.
Wearing a bloodstained shirt, Ashton paced before the sofa where the doctor sat wrapping Lewis’s arm in a stark white bandage. Rose sat on Lewis’s other side, holding his hand. Burke scrutinized her head to shoe, twice, before her apparent state of wellness permitted him a full breath.
Lewis, on the other hand, was pale much beyond his normal fairness. The man sweated to dampen his white shirt, with the left sleeve cut off, against his body. Rose had a cloth in her free hand and used it to dab at his brow. She spared Burke a bare glance, as all her attention was on Lewis. The fear and worry in her eyes made Burke want to kill whoever had inflicted such pain into this home.
“My lord,” the butler said in a huff as he stomped into the room. “I informed this, this man it was not the proper time for a visit. He shoved his way in.”
“Burke,” Ashton said upon seeing him. “It’s all right, Stefon. Thank you. You may go.”
The butler lifted his chin, blew air through his nose, spun away, and marched from the room.
Burke crossed the floor. “Who did this?”
“None of us saw,” Ashton said, his voice tight with the same raw emotions haunting Rose’s eyes. “The three of us were standing outside. I can’t even say from which direction the shot came. There are abundant shrubs in which the scoundrel could have hidden. The sound echoed all around us, and then Rose was screaming, Lewis was on the ground, bleeding.” The man closed his eyes, as if seeing the horror again.
Burke glanced at Lewis, slumped back on the sofa, appearing on the verge of a faint, Rose speaking to him in a calm voice. Her composed demeanor belied the terror and the tears she held back in valiant form.
To Ashton, Burke said, “Have you received any threats?”
“No,” Ashton answered before flicking his head, signaling Burke to follow him to the far side of the room. In a low voice, he said, “There are some people who…have suspicions of what they consider impropriety.”
The man did not lower his eyes in shame, but rather, held Burke’s gaze in a hard one of his own, as if itching for an excuse to use his fists on someone.
“Make a list of anyone you even suspect,” Burke said. “I’ll take it to Bow Street myself.”
For a moment, Ashton’s expression did not change. Burke waited through the next half minute or so as the man absorbed everything encompassed in the statement; the acceptance, the kindness, the utter lack of condemnation.
The doctor closed his black bag with a snap, clasped it, and stood. “Well, my work here is done,” he said.
Gray hair hung limp an inch or so over his bushy, gray brows. His rumpled clothing gave him an overall disheveled appearance. His blue eyes, however, showed every bit of his sharp intelligence.
“Will he be all right?” Ashton asked as he approached the man. His concern flickered to Lewis, and then back to the doctor.
“The ball passed clean through his arm and missed the bone. Barring any complications, Lord Da Ville should recover quite nicely. See he gets plenty of rest and hearty, vegetable broth. I’ve left laudanum for the pain and instructions with Lady Sennett on how to use it. Tomorrow I’ll return to check on him.”
Rose walked the doctor to the door and Ashton took her place on
the sofa beside Lewis. Their butler glided into the room and said, “I’ve turned down the bed and laid out a fresh sleeping gown.”
“Thank you, Stefon,” Ashton said. “Come now, Lewis. You must rest.”
Before Burke could cross the room and assist, the butler brushed passed him to help Lewis up to bed. Burke stood alone for no more than a moment or two before Rose returned.
The raspberry color of her gown helped mask the sight of blood, but the stains still drew her eyes until she dragged them away. Only Rose could manage to look both strong and fragile at the same time. He took a step toward her, but she paced to the sideboard, wiping her eyes as she did.
“May I offer you a cup of tea, or would you prefer a brandy?” she said.
“No, but I think you should have one, a brandy, that is.”
With a slight shake of her head, Rose said, “I’ve never had a drink in my life.”
“Never? Not even so much as a glass of wine?”
“No. My…I’ve seen what overindulgence can do to a person. And I prefer keeping my wits about me.” Staring past him toward the window, beyond which dusk was darkening into night, she said, “I could do with some fresh air, though. I believe a walk is in order.”
“No,” Burke said with all finality.
Rose shot him a hard glance. For the first time since he walked through the door, Burke had her full attention. “I was not asking your permission,” she said.
Burke almost laughed through his irritation at her insolence. Perhaps it was the trauma of the day, but at the moment, the woman had more backbone than sense.
“It’s not a good idea,” Burke told her. “The shooter is still out there.”
Her eyes shifted from him to the window, and then back to him again. “But they were after Lewis,” she said.
“Perhaps.”
“He was the one shot.” She glanced at the bloodstains on her bodice before raising her eyes back to Burke. “We were all three out there.”
“Were you all standing close together?”
“Yes.”
“There was enough wind this afternoon to affect the ball’s trajectory. Or, the shooter’s aim could have been poor. Perhaps one of you moved at just the right time. The fact is, Rose, any one of you may have been the target. Do you know someone who might want to harm any of the three of you?”
She cast her eyes downward before shaking her head. Maybe he saw denial. Or it could have been deceit.
“No,” Rose said in a quiet voice, still looking at the floor. “I…don’t know anyone who would have done such a thing.”
Burke saw the lie, heard it in her halted response. There was no mistaking it. Why wouldn’t she want the killer caught? Was she protecting someone? That she might have had a hand in the shooting seemed unlikely. Or was it? He wondered as his thoughts turned dark.
His mother could lie through an innocent smile or false tears and be quite convincing. Burke bought every lie she sold until their ruthless pounding quashed the trust of his childhood. His father pretended belief until his third or fourth drink, when rage wielded its brawn and held his face to the truth. Burke had been a fool for having ever trusted in either one of his parents.
He directed a contemplative eye to Rose.
Desperation can be a driving force, capable of the highest deceit. Rose’s fretting might well be a facade. Examining her circumstance from a particular perspective, one could even say she had motive.
If the gunman had killed her husband, she would inherit everything. She wouldn’t be the first person to arrange a spouse’s murder. Rose had fled an untenable situation and married Ashton for protection, when in fact all she required was his money.
Burke’s eyes followed her as she paced before the low-burning hearth. Occasionally she slowed for a long glance out the window where night was quick to descend. Her hand drifted to the demure neckline of her gown, fingertips giving a subtle tug. Was she afraid for her life, for the lives of her companions? Or was she imagining the hangman’s noose tightening around her slender throat?
Burke shoved at the darkness. He was too much the cynic, too ready to believe the worst in people. That he was often right in thinking so didn’t suit this time. Rose was not a killer.
She nearly killed her brother-in-law.
The lecher got what he deserved. She defended herself with admirable resolve.
“Change your gown and get your wrap,” Burke told her. “I know a place where we can walk without concern.”
****
“Where are we going?” Rose asked once they’d settled into the lush cushions of Burke’s carriage.
“My gardens.”
At his words, Rose clasped her hands in her lap and stared out the window, seeing nothing but a looming scandal. This was beyond improper. Then again, if Society knew the truth of her life, well, it was all a looming scandal. Lewis’s words ran through her head. If she is causing no harm, then there is no harm. It was just a walk, after all.
A walk alone with a man she found exceedingly attractive, and had already shared a brief indiscretion.
Burke Darington was also the man with whom her husband had encouraged her to have an affair. After much hinting around, Ashton had said so straight out upon leaving the Darington estate the night of the opera. Rose almost laughed at the grand degree of impropriety in her life.
Such close proximity to Burke, to his exuding masculinity, drew her mind to the night of her first kiss, the taste of passion she’d experienced with the man sitting beside her.
And here she was again, alone in a carriage with him.
On their way to his home.
“Lewis’s injury will heal in quick time,” Burke said. “Fret not. You will all be hosting parties again before you know it.”
Relieved he thought her quiet contemplations were for the day’s horrid event, and not what this evening might yet hold, Rose responded to what he said, instead of what she was thinking. “I’m concerned for Lewis, of course. But I don’t much care for parties.”
“No? It’s been my experience most women adore social gatherings, soirees, balls, even a costume.”
“I gravitate toward more tranquil endeavors. Reading, afternoon tea with loved ones, walks out of doors. I adore walking outside. I enjoy doing so in all of the seasons. Ashton and Lewis have been very accommodating, strolling with me in all manner of weather. I find it quite pleasant.”
“More so than donning an expensive gown and dancing through the night?”
“Yes, very much so. All I want from life at this point is to be left in peace.”
Burke kept a thoughtful gaze on her for a long time before shifting to stare out the window.
The carriage made a right turn into a curving, torch-lit drive. As the house came into view, Rose caught her breath at the stateliness. The last time she was here, she’d been engrossed in her efforts to convince Ashton to make theirs a short visit, and had not so much as peeked out the window of their carriage. She took it all in now.
Lord Darington’s home had to be three times the size of the house she shared with Ashton and Lewis, and she considered their home grand. Three floors of white stone, a center-gabled roof, and each end capped with corbelled corner turrets with pointed tops.
Light burned a glowing welcome from each of several tall, arched windows along the ground floor. Between those windows, box hedges, waist-high and thick as the length of a tub, lined the wall of the house. Marble pillars supported a grand porte-cochere of pale gray stone on the right side of the mansion. The driver pulled to a stop underneath.
After exiting the carriage, Burke escorted Rose to the gardens by going around the house, rather than through it. Relief eased her mind a bit. The thought of being alone with him inside his home had her already unsettled nerves frayed. With that concern removed, Rose could better take in her surroundings.
The full moon was a great lamp hung centered in the sky, casting a mystical, soothing light. Their feet sounded on the paving stones as t
hey passed through a vine-covered archway broad enough to accommodate them both side by side.
Hedgerows made solid walls for about the first ten or fifteen feet. After which, chest-high shrubbery cut into a neat triangle split the path in two directions. Burke guided her to the right where rows of red and yellow tulips a dozen deep lined both sides of the walking path.
“Is this where you grew up?” she asked.
“It is,” he said, taking a scan of the moonlit gardens.
Rose followed his line of sight.
The foliage stretched farther than she could see, even with the generous light of the moon. She tried picturing him as a little boy, romping about with a stick as a sword, playing pirate or soldier or knight in battle armor. It was difficult to imagine him ever being so lighthearted. Aside from a couple of inappropriate grins, his manner, his bearing, even his countenance, almost always bore a staid veil.
“This must have been a wonderful place to be a child,” Rose said, urging him to talk, as she’d become curious about his past.
A few more steps carried them through a pause quiet of all but their shoes on the paving stones. When Burke finally spoke, he did not respond to her comment.
“Does Lord Da Ville share a residence with you and your husband?”
Rose cast a small but wry smile his way. “You’re not up on the more faint of rumors, are you?”
“I’m not up on any rumors, if I can help it,” he said with a touch of disdain. Then his tone turned candid. “I’m not passing judgment, Rose. I only want to find who is responsible for shooting Lewis.”
As they passed a long line of topiary carved in curves and waves, intermingled with perfectly round balls of designed growth in varying sizes, Rose slanted him a long glance.
She’d never told a soul of the arrangement in which she lived. If Burke was telling the truth, however, and she sensed he was, trusting him might well serve the greater good. Besides, she was sure he already knew, and had asked the question as a fit opening.
