Moonlight on My Mind

by Jennifer McQuiston

  Because the woman he’d married in order to silence her testimony had—innocently or not—gone and found someone else to do the job.

  Rage boiled through him, hot and in need of an outlet. “Why is she afraid, when it’s my neck on the line?”

  Julianne hesitated. “She feels very sure Eric was murdered. That his death was not an accident.”

  “Of course she does,” he snarled. “She told you as much eleven months ago.”

  “She never named you in November. She only described what she had seen, and I filled in the pieces with my understanding of events. But today she told me she saw the man who killed Eric. Recently.” She swallowed. “At your father’s funeral.”

  Disbelief had a way of unmanning a man, making him impotent. Rendering him mute. Patrick struggled through that now, knowing he needed to speak clearly this time. “I did not attend my father’s funeral,” he somehow managed to get out.

  “I know, Patrick.” Her affirmation fell softly. “I was there.” Her lips formed an apologetic frown. “But she is quite sure of what she saw that day, even if she is not precisely sure whom she saw. Which begs the question: who wanted your brother dead?”

  Patrick suffered through the question, so painfully constructed it seemed impossible to contemplate. He’d spent the months since his brother’s death in purgatory, almost paralyzed from the guilt. Such a burden was not easily lifted, not even for such a sinister possibility as acknowledging that Eric may have been murdered. “She seemed sure?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Prudence did not know the man’s name. And bitterly few details to describe him. But yes, she is utterly convinced she saw the killer at your father’s funeral. Think on it. It makes sense. You claim you swung your rifle away from your target at the last minute, but how far would you have had to swing the barrel for that bullet to strike your brother, who was standing behind you? And do not forget I was there that morning. I saw someone running from the scene, and Prudence was quite insistent, even from the start, that she saw a man aim a rifle directly at Eric.”

  Patrick’s mind raced back to that day. He was tired of reliving it, and yet he could never forget. He could still smell the ever present decay of dead leaf litter stirred up by his feet, the pungent smoke from his fired rifle. He’d imagined that day was the dawning of his own personal hell. But now, for the first time since this nightmare began, he turned himself over to a different thought.

  A black but welcome rage rolled over him as he contemplated this new facet to his brother’s death, his anger pointed at a nameless, faceless enemy. Was this the answer to his dilemma? Or, was he fooling himself, reaching for the explanation he wanted, instead of the one that made sense? What proof did he really have of his own innocence, beyond Julianne’s white-faced insistence the maid had seen someone else?

  And how could they convince someone to believe them? He wasn’t sure he believed it. He’d heard two rifle retorts that day, and he’d always presumed one of them had been Eric’s. The thought that there could have been a third party made his chest tighten in anger and hope.

  “Surely we have enough to go to the magistrate now and stop this senseless inquest,” Julianne pressed.

  Patrick wanted to believe it. Oh, God, he wanted to think he hadn’t killed his brother. But the sinister possibility that Eric had been murdered was simply too fantastical to accept without further proof. He reluctantly shook his head. “We’ve a phantom witness that you failed to identify eleven months ago, and who has now disappeared. If we raise the suspicion of murder, who is to say the deed won’t be pinned on me? Continuing to claim that Eric was killed by an accidental gunshot, at least, provides an opportunity to argue a charge of manslaughter, instead of murder.” He hesitated, sorting through options, discarding some, reconsidering others. “I think we need to wait and consult with MacKenzie when he returns.”

  “Someone killed your brother, Patrick. The killer was here, at Summersby, during the November house party, and he was here during your father’s funeral as well. He could kill again.” Her voice choked on the shimmer of a sob. “He could kill you.”

  “If someone killed Eric, that does not mean they would come after me. Eric had any number of friends in London. It stands to reason he might have acquired some enemies there too, particularly in his last months. He’d run up quite some debt, and had come home to ask Father for more funds. Perhaps someone got tired of waiting.”

  “That is one possible explanation.” She shook her head. “But it is not the only one.”

  Patrick hesitated. He didn’t just want to trust Julianne. He needed to, with an intensity that almost frightened him. “You are really worried about me?” he asked, more gently now.

  “How could I not worry? Even if I sometimes want to kick you for your idiocy, I do not want to see anything happen to you.”

  He folded his arms around her, the sorry state of her person be damned. “Other than a bruised shin, that is?”

  She breathed heavily against his shirt, and he could feel the warmth of her breath through the thin cotton. “I would aim my boot a little higher,” she said, her voice muffled.

  “I do not recall that a kick to the cods was part of the vows you took,” he said over her head, even as his thoughts struggled to coalesce into a plan of action. The key, he knew, was speaking with Miss Smith, wherever she was. He struggled—and failed—to bring the maid’s face to mind, knowing he must have seen her at some point during the November house party.

  Or perhaps not. After all, he’d spent most of his time sulking in the stables that week.

  “Don’t make light of this, Patrick.” She sniffed against his chest. “How can you hold me like this? I . . . I smell.”

  “Aye. That you do.”

  She stiffened in his arms. The feel of her helped calm the vicious pattern of his pulse, though the smell of her was indeed ripe enough to turn his stomach. But he had come home nearly as filthy on any number of days when he had served as Moraig’s veterinarian, and he tightened his arms around her. “Didn’t you know?” he added. “The blacksmith made me promise to honor you, no matter the stench.”

  “He did no such thing,” she protested, her voice muffled.

  “You are fortunate I am not a squeamish sort.” Now that the first fear of betrayal had settled, he was a little in awe of what she had gotten herself into, all on his account. He would not be surprised if the day’s disgrace had caused permanent damage to his fastidious wife’s psyche. That she had come to speak with him first, shrugging off the need for an immediate bath, told him her state of mind far more eloquently than any strategized confession.

  He thought better of the instinct to place a kiss to the top of her hair, which was in want of some good lye soap. Instead, he whispered into her ear. “I am sure you never thought to hear these words from my mouth, but you desperately need a bath.”

  She shook, as if fighting off a laugh, then pulled back. Her red-rimmed eyes met his. “I think it is foolhardy to wait for Mr. MacKenzie’s return before speaking with the magistrate. Such a man has the power to help us. It’s his job to sort out these facts, after all.”

  For a moment, Patrick considered it. Could he trust her to remain steadfast in an interview with Mr. Farmington, Shippington’s longtime magistrate?

  And moreover, could he forgive her if she did not?

  He knew her body now, and how it fit in his palms. Knew her sharp mind and her sharper tongue, and the way she said things that made his blood run too hot for comfort. But her words were every bit as ill-tamed as her hair. He had no way to predict what she might say if given an audience with the magistrate. MacKenzie had been quite clear in explaining this part of it: a wife could not be compelled to testify against her husband. But Julianne taking the matter into her own hands—even accidentally—was a different dilemma entirely.

  He shook his head. “It is too early, Julianne. But do not mistake my desire to wait for any sort of apathy. We’ve at least two things to keep us occupied whi
le we await MacKenzie’s counsel.”

  “We have?” she asked carefully.

  He nodded slowly. As if he could keep her tethered.

  Hadn’t she just proven herself incapable of leaving well enough alone? The idea that she might yet prove his downfall would not quite leave him, and that, quite ironically, made him feel like a bounder all over again. He had treated her poorly to have judged her so quickly when she had first staggered into the study and announced she had seen Prudence. Keeping her close, and knowing what she was thinking and doing, would perhaps grant him a small—if unpredictable—measure of control. And he owed her this, even if his instincts told him to bundle her up and lock her in their room for her own safety.

  “First, we need to try to find Prudence, sort out what she truly knows, and convince her to go to the magistrate. He will not be swayed by anything but the maid’s own free testimony.”

  Julianne nodded her approval with the plan he laid out. “And the other?”

  “We need to discover who might have wanted to kill my brother.”

  Chapter 20

  Julianne looked out over the crowd and wondered which of Summersby’s dinner guests might be a murderer.

  It was a muted gathering, as befitted the family’s circumstances, but that did not mean it was a drab affair. The drawing room was filled to the brim with family and friends, milling about, offering their condolences as they waited to be called into dinner. Despite the preponderance of black clothing—except, unfortunately, on her—there was a hum of anticipation in the room, and overhead, the beeswax candles burned brightly, adding light and warmth to what could have been a dark mood.

  She wished Patrick was here with her, but he’d come in straight from the barn. She’d taken one look at him sent him back above stairs, declaring him in desperate need of a valet and a haircut. Now, as she waited for him to return in which she hoped was a more presentable state, she circulated among the guests, smiling here, listening there.

  Mr. Farmington, the gray-haired magistrate who had questioned her so unerringly in the hours following Eric’s murder, stood sentry next to her father. Aunt Margaret stood beside them, nodding agreeably at something the magistrate was saying. The woman was still clinging to Summersby with the persistence of a barnacle, but at least her perpetually sour expression had softened tonight with the arrival of her son among the guests.

  Farmington’s eyes shrewdly followed Julianne’s progress through the crowd. He’d struck her as a fair man in November, offering his handkerchief when her tears had flowed during that first regrettable interview, but he seemed harder tonight. More the magistrate, less the sympathetic ear. She kept her distance, moving on after a few mild words of welcome.

  Patrick had decided to trust her. To include her, confiding in her and discussing a plan of attack, as if her ideas had merit. It was a heady feeling, and it sent a bright bulb of happiness blooming in her chest. She would not squander that trust now by lingering overlong with the one man in the room who would certainly have more questions for her than answers.

  Two dozen guests fanned out around her, and she considered each one’s potential. She dismissed a group of people clustered around the dowager countess in one corner of the room. They appeared to be local gentry, and while she remembered their faces from the earl’s funeral, she did not recall seeing those extraneous souls last November at the house party.

  Instead, she focused on the gentlemen she remembered attending both the house party and the funeral. One of the men who fit the bill was the darkly handsome Dr. Merial, who was standing near the windows and listening politely to something George Willoughby was saying. She supposed she needed to keep Willoughby on her list of potential suspects too, but he appeared so young and earnest tonight, she felt an instinctive twitch of remorse at her duplicity.

  In contrast, she didn’t know much about Dr. Merial. She was inclined to dismiss Shippington’s doctor as a suspect, even though he’d attended both events. It was not only because he was quite young to hold such an important position, or because he had the sort of face that made women stop and stare in stupefied wonder. It was because the doctor had purportedly attended the earl in his final hours, and labored mightily to save his life. She’d heard of his heroics from her maid, who had ended the story on a dreamy sigh. Not that Julianne blamed the girl. Once upon a time, she might have sighed a little herself.

  Mr. Blythe, who had also attended both events, was standing by himself near the mantel, watching the crowd in much the same manner Julianne was. That held her attention a long moment. Was he a guest who felt only barely welcomed?

  Or a killer searching for a new target?

  The covert inquiries she had pressed around the room so far had come largely to naught, and only the hot-blooded Blythe seemed capable of something more nefarious than ill-spirited gossip. She moved toward him, her mind sifting through the possibilities

  Blythe inclined his head at her approach. “Ah, the indomitable Lady Haversham has come down from her new pedestal. I understand I have you to thank for my belated invitation. I admit I was surprised to receive it.”

  Somehow, Julianne found a smile. Blythe’s vocal efforts to discredit Patrick in Shippington had ensured—to her own mind, at least—that he was now a prime suspect, and she’d known of no better way to ascertain Mr. Blythe’s potential involvement than seeing him interact with the family. “Consider it an olive branch,” she told him. “Patrick feels it is important to respect his father’s memory by honoring those guests he always welcomed in life. No matter our inauspicious start, you are always welcome here at Summersby, Mr. Blythe.”

  His face darkened, but before he could respond a murmur went up among the guests. Julianne turned away from his glower, seeking the source of so much distraction. Her gaze swept the swirl of indistinct faces, and she leaned in, depending on her ears to sort out what had stirred the crowd from its otherwise polite stupor. A shiver traversed her spine as she caught the low baritone of Patrick’s voice, perfectly tuned to tug a reaction from her body.

  And then her husband stepped into focus, and she had to look twice.

  Gone was the scruffy veterinarian, with a face in need of shaving and hands in need of washing. He was clad in a splendid black evening jacket—a bit loose in the chest now, thanks to his leaner existence in Moraig, but the very sort of jacket he should have been wearing during that memorable dance so many months ago, and which she had begun to doubt he owned. His hair had not been trimmed, as she had ordered, but it was combed into respectability. Her fingers itched to touch the rakishly long edges, there over his ears, and a selfish part of her soul was glad to see it had not been shorn after all.

  His eyes met hers, warm and frankly appreciative. While manners demanded he ought to stop and greet the guests who were parting before him, he headed toward her with singular purpose. The murmured voices hushed, and she knew everyone in the room was watching his progress with wide eyes and busy minds. But she could not bring herself to care. The moment slowed, pulsing with some elemental rush of emotion that—despite three Seasons of searching—she had only ever experienced with Patrick.

  Attraction. Desire. Want.

  Would it always be like this, her feet pointing themselves toward him, divining her way as if she had been fashioned to some degree for this man, and this moment? She felt spun back in time, to this same house and this same man, asking for a waltz and ending with a kiss. She knew there was a proper plan to follow, a need to smile politely and take his arm as they moved into the game of stealth that awaited them tonight. But that plan withered beneath an overwhelming urge to go up to their room and see where this look—this feeling—might lead.

  He stopped in front of her. “Do I pass muster now?”

  Her eyes cataloged the changes a half hour had wrought. Now that he was closer, she could see there was a small nick on the left side of his lower jaw. Infuriating man, shaving himself. She might have known he’d refuse her order to use a valet, much as he�
�d refused to cut his hair. Despite the obvious risk to life and limb, her eyes approved of this new version of her husband. Even her nose approved, the scent of him familiar but laced with the new fragrance of soap.

  But most compelling of all, under the new layer of polish, he was still Patrick. Handsome. Deliciously disreputable, as if any moment he could toss off the yoke of convention and snub the entire room in favor of saving an animal’s life.

  “You’ll do,” she told him, then added, “You’ve always done.”

  His smile was slow in dawning, almost sheepish. “Why, Lady Haversham. Are you telling me you like the unkempt version of your husband?”

  “I like both versions of my husband.” She laughed. Although truly, there were more than two versions. She might like the man he presented to the world, but she treasured the man he became behind their bedroom door. Her cheeks warmed even now as she considered what he might yet do tonight, when their guests had gone home and they fell into bed.

  And then Mr. Blythe cleared his throat.

  Patrick’s eyes lifted from her face. A sudden frown claimed the smile that had just stretched across his face.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you’d deign to notice your guests, Haversham,” Blythe drawled.

  Patrick nodded curtly. “My apologies, Blythe. You are of course correct. I must offer my greetings to the crowd.” He offered Julianne a thin smile. “I shall return to escort you in to dinner.”

  Julianne stared after her retreating husband. Her heart tugged to follow him, but pride kept her slippers sewn firmly to the floor. She turned back to the man who so paled in comparison to her husband’s magnetic pull. She supposed she ought to speak more with the loathsome Mr. Blythe. After all, it was the express purpose of inviting him here.

  “Your husband seems anxious to be away,” Blythe observed.

  Julianne was not the least bit embarassed to have been caught ogling her husband, but unfortunately, Patrick appeared to harbor some misgivings. “He has a responsibility to his guests,” she replied coolly.