Blythe’s suspicious gaze swept the length of her skirts before coming back to probe her face. “Perhaps he disapproves of your refusal to mourn the earl’s death properly?”
A rush of heat claimed Julianne’s cheeks. After the destruction of her gray silk in her argument with the butcher’s barrel, she’d faced a near impossible task of selecting a gown for tonight’s dinner from her remaining wardrobe. The gown she wore had a modest neckline, at least, but it far more befitted a London ballroom than a quiet family dinner. “I have not yet had time to acquire a wardrobe appropriate for bereavement, Mr. Blythe,” she replied stiffly.
“A natural consequence of such an . . . unexpected marriage, I would think.”
Julianne’s brow shot up. “Do you have a point you wish to make?” she asked. “Because, truly, I cannot see how my marriage is any sort of concern for you.”
“And yet, I admit to being concerned. Truly, in the matter of your decision to marry my cousin, I cannot decide if you are an idiot or an actress, Lady Haversham.”
After a moment of cold appraisal, she decided to indulge him. After all, the entire purpose of this dinner was to acquire information, and at the moment she held his undivided attention. “I promise you, I am neither.” She angled her body closer, daring him to continue down this ill-advised path. “But feel free to enlighten me, Mr. Blythe. Why might I be an idiot, when I’ve merely married the man my conscience bade me?”
“Your conscience?” His gaze dropped suggestively lower. “Or your circumstances? You see, I know my cousin well. A consequence of so much time spent here at Summersby, I suppose. He is a man who has always weighed his options carefully before acting, sometimes to the point of paralysis. It would take a powerful motivation to convince a man like that to marry in such haste.” Blythe leaned in, until he was so close she could see the uneven slant of his front teeth. “It is entertaining to watch, as marriages of convenience so frequently are. But is it even Haversham’s?”
Julianne had expected it, of course. There could be little other interpretation, and Mr. Blythe was proving himself a rather gauche communicator. Still, it made her gasp to hear him say it out loud. “Is what Haversham’s?” she clipped out.
“Come now,” he chided, shaking his head. “The scandal sheets have painted quite the picture of you these past few years. You are, of course, widely praised for your beauty and wit, but not widely known for your propriety.”
The audacity of the man near left her breathless. “I assure you, Mr. Blythe, that the only thing you ought to be worrying about in that regard is that it is none of your business.”
“Perhaps I have spoken out of turn.” His eyes remained narrowed. “But I do have some vested interest in ensuring a direct bloodline to the title. I have a great deal of respect for this family, and I would not like to think an injustice was being perpetrated on them.”
Julianne struggled to keep a rein on her temper, though his thinking was logical, if a bit boorish. “Patrick is part of the family you claim to love,” she reminded him. “Why do you hate him so much?”
“I do not hate him.” Blythe’s eyes flickered in hesitation. “But I admit a certain . . . distrust, if you will. He always looked down his nose at those of us who spent time actually preparing for the possibility of inheriting the title.”
“Far less a possibility for you than him, I should think,” Julianne pointed out, against better sense.
“All the more reason he should have taken that duty seriously. His father, certainly, tried to groom him in that regard. But Patrick always refused to pay court. When he tucked himself off for four years on the continent, it came close to breaking his father’s heart. If my mother looked on me with even half the pride the old earl showered on his sons, I assure you, I would not ever take it for granted. But your husband has proven himself unworthy at the end, as he was always bound to do.”
“Your argument lacks logic.” Julianne knew she shouldn’t vigorously engage a man as potentially dangerous as Blythe, but her ire was too high to leave off. “If my husband was so reluctant to prepare himself for the possibility of the title, wouldn’t that suggest he had no desire to be earl? And therefore had no reason to kill his brother?”
Blythe’s dark brows pulled down. He stared at her a long, searching moment, and while his eyes stayed wide open, she could have sworn he was blinking on the inside. Finally, he gathered himself. “Perhaps he changed his mind.”
“Perhaps you should change yours, Mr. Blythe. It is clear you have leaped to judgment based on old grudges, rather than any clear examination of the facts.”
She gathered her skirts in one hand, preparing to turn away, but found herself hanging on the second half of the man’s original, impudent question. “At the risk of very much proving myself an idiot, why, if I might dare to ask, did you suggest earlier I was an actress?”
He looked down at her, and she could see a disarming resemblance to Patrick in the line of his jaw and the slope of his nose. “You are putting on a good show, I’ll give you that. Some of the guests are even making wagers on the outcome, though the discussion trends toward when the blessed event will occur, rather than if it will. But if we’re not bound to be toasting your good fortune in an indecently short amount of time, it seems clear you and my cousin have orchestrated this sham of a marriage simply to prevent your testimony.”
Julianne reared back, her composure dangerously close to shattered. “No.” However she’d expected this conversation to go, this went very far afield. Blythe was wrong. Patrick had never demanded her silence, though she’d been all too happy to offer it. “No,” she repeated again, her voice firmer now.
“Have you asked him?” came the man’s well-oiled reply.
“I don’t have to ask him, Mr. Blythe.” Her knees felt close to buckling. “You are tilting at windmills. My marriage is a happy one.”
Now the man’s smile turned positively feral, and it made the fine hairs on her arms prick to attention. “Then perhaps that makes you an idiot after all, Lady Haversham.”
Patrick hated events like this. Stilted, polite conversation. Food he knew had been prepared to perfection, but which might as well have been made from sawdust for all that he was enjoying it. Julianne was seated next to him throughout the interminable course of the meal, a tempting distraction to the forced pleasantries. But her nearness and falsely bright smile could not remove the fact that the eyes of every soul at the table were focused squarely on him.
At least with Blythe and Willoughby, a man knew where he stood. But Mr. Farmington was holding his cards quite close to his chest tonight. Although he had been a good friend of Patrick’s father and had sat down for a dozen meals at this very table, the expression on the magistrate’s face was indecipherable.
It went little better after dinner, when the ladies had left for the drawing room and the men were poured a glass of port. Through the open door, he could hear the appealing pitch of Julianne’s laughter down the hallway. Patrick wanted to be there with her, the expectations of Society be damned. But this bit of masculine banality was expected by the guests, and he was forced by his new position to play host to the lot of them.
Willoughby, damn his imprudent tongue, tumbled into dangerous territory after only a half a glass of port. “How goes the inquest, Mr. Farmington?”
The room stilled, and all eyes turned toward the magistrate, who looked discomfited by the attention. “The coroner’s report will be returned, soon enough,” came the man’s uneasy answer.
“I am sure we can all speculate how it’s going, now that the only witness has cried off.” Blythe lifted his glass to his lips and swallowed before adding, “Awfully convenient, that. A rather brilliant means to get away with murder.”
Patrick’s fingers tightened around the cool edge of his crystal. “I did not murder my brother, Blythe.”
“You’ll forgive me if I retain some doubt. Everyone knows you hated your brother. You argued with him all the time.”
&
nbsp; Patrick’s pulse jumped angrily beneath his skin. It seemed Blythe was looking for a confession tonight, but he would not find one here. “I did not hate Eric,” Patrick growled, though he could not deny their relationship had been tumultuous those last months. “Certainly not more than I hate you, and yet you are still standing before us.”
“Perhaps you ran out of bullets,” Blythe sneered. “Or perhaps you ran out of nerve.”
“Gentlemen, enough.” Farmington placed his own nearly full glass down on the table. “It is pointless to speculate, and ridiculous to argue. The only thing that matters in this moment is whether the coroner will determine there is enough evidence to commend Haversham to trial, and that is quite out of our hands now. We should speak of other things.”
Patrick seethed with anger. It was a bloody nightmare that would not end, and the port was loosening whatever bit of judiciousness he’d once possessed. “I did not kill my brother. But someone did. And you should be trying to find him, Farmington, instead of chasing me.”
A moment of awkward silence descended over the room. “You are changing your story now?” Farmington’s gray eyes flickered warily.
A steady hand settled on his shoulder. “You’ve already admitted the shot was yours, Haversham,” Lord Avery said quietly. “Have a care where you are going with this, son.”
Patrick could hear the echoing undercurrent of dissension spreading throughout the room. The urge to mention the second witness sat like a barbed hook on his tongue, but he was not so naïve—or inebriated—to think that would go well in this crowd, especially without the witness in hand. Damn his questionable judgment. He’d spoken out of turn, without consulting MacKenzie first. Had he just irrevocably altered his defense? Or planted a seed of truth that would encourage Mr. Farmington to look farther afield for his brother’s murderer?
“You provided a statement that your brother had also taken a shot that day,” Farmington pointed out.
Patrick gritted his teeth. “Aye. I remember.”
“The subsequent investigation showed your brother’s gun was never fired.” Farmington shook his head. “You can be sure the coroner’s report has already focused on those irregularities in your statement. I would discourage you from adding more. Such inconsistencies in your story will not help your cause, Haversham.”
While the aftermath of his brother’s shooting was a clipped series of images, hazy and panicked, those moments before his death remained as clear as glass in Patrick’s mind. “But . . . there was a second gunshot.” His voice felt charred, but his memory swam drunkenly. “Did you not think to question anyone else about what they may have heard?”
“Are you telling the magistrate how to do his job, Haversham?” Blythe snarled. “Christ, you are an arrogant sod. Always thinking you are smarter than the rest of us. I was there, if you remember. And I only heard one shot.”
“You were on the west bank of the lake that day, not the east, where Eric and I were hunting.” Patrick ignored his cousin, focusing instead on the magistrate’s reddening face. “I heard two shots, close in time but distinct. Julianne heard two shots as well,” he urged. “Ask her, Farmington. She will tell you.”
The lines of tension about Farmington’s eyes reminded Patrick that the events of eleven months ago had affected him too. He’d seemed as stunned as anyone over Eric’s death, but in the aftermath, he’d had the unenviable job of methodically sorting through the additional evidence.
Evidence that Patrick had not heretofore considered.
“Ah, but your new wife has recused herself from all involvement in this nasty business of testifying, hasn’t she?” Farmington shook his head sadly. “She cannot have it both ways, Haversham. And neither can you.”
Chapter 21
The weather in Yorkshire could be uncertain in October, but as if mocking Julianne’s own darkening mood, morning brought clear skies and an unseasonably mild temperature that invited a family excursion down to the lake.
Julianne sat on a blanket, her feet tucked up under her and the remnants of a picnic luncheon scattered about. A slight wind had picked up from the west, and it rattled the dying leaves in overhead branches and knocked against the worry brewing inside her. Patrick was bent over Eleanor’s head, patiently working his fingers over some knot in his sister’s fishing line, even as he explained the mechanics of tossing out a proper cast to Mary.
A muffled curse came from her right, and she turned her head to see George Willoughby tugging his line from an overhead branch. He smiled ruefully in her direction as he lowered his arms. “Never was one for fishing. Perhaps I should join you and stop mauling the poor trees?”
Julianne smiled and patted the blanket. “Come and sit then, Mr. Willoughby. Leave the fishing to the experts. Perhaps we can both learn something from watching Patrick and Eleanor.”
Willoughby settled beside her, stretching out his long, trouser-clad legs. “Surely by this point there is no need for such formality. I think given names are a must, now that you know how terrible I am at fishing.”
She could see nothing immediately improper in the suggestion. He was family, after all. “Not so bad as that, George.”
“I am a terrible marksman as well. They only invite me along with a goal of improving my aim. But all told, I believe any man would prefer the pleasure of your company to the hunt.” He shifted closer. “I think today I will count myself fortunate to be such a poor sportsman.”
“Er . . . thank you.” Once upon a time, this was precisely the sort of attention Julianne would have wanted, a gentleman focused on her instead of the usual country pursuits. But today, it felt wrong. He was so close she could smell his hair pomade, some sickening scent of cloves. For a moment she considered lengthening the inches that separated them into ten.
But then Patrick glanced over his shoulder, disapproval clear in the slant of his brow. Julianne dug her fingers into the blanket, meeting her husband’s gaze with the challenge in her own. Making Patrick jealous served no one’s best interests, least of all Willoughby’s. But George was harmless, and Patrick’s bristling animosity was the closest she’d come to attention from her husband since their encounter at dinner last evening.
“You seem unusually quiet today.” George leaned back on one elbow. “I remember following you about last November, listening to your banter. It was wicked good fun. Never knew what you might say.”
Julianne frowned, a bit nonplussed by the man’s admission. “I am just . . . preoccupied, I suppose. Mr. Blythe was bothersome last night.” Indeed, she could not stop thinking of their conversation, though it was foolhardy to give the man any credence. “I had hoped this outing to the lake would take my mind from it,” she admitted, “but instead I find myself with too much time for reflection.”
Willoughby clucked sympathetically. “I would have spared you if I had known. Did my cousin discuss his theories on Haversham’s guilt to you, as well? He was most vocal about it after dinner.”
Julianne sighed. George Willoughby was not the man she should be discussing this with, and she already regretted traipsing down this path with him. But the facts contributing to her poor mood lay like a black pool of oil on the surface of the day, and they wanted expunging. “No. He questioned the reasons behind my marriage.”
Willoughby’s hand came up to pat her own. “You should pay my cousin no heed,” he advised. “He has never been one to properly guard his words.”
“I am less concerned about what Mr. Blythe is saying than others. He implied there was talk among the guests.” She swallowed, knowing that if nothing else, George Willoughby was someone who would at least speak truthfully of these matters. “Wagers, as to my . . . condition. Are others truly saying such things?”
He hesitated a fraction too long. “Some are. I have defended you against such vile talk, of course, and encouraged those who might repeat it to leave.” He glanced toward Patrick and his expression darkened. “And regardless, they should not blame you for any of it, Julianne.”
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She tugged her fingers out of the young man’s grasp. “I did not have to marry my husband, George. I am enormously fond of him. That is all that should be said about any of it.” And it was true, however hollow the sentiment sounded. Somewhere along the way, affection had indeed found her. Bound her tight. But now it was shaking her with great, bared teeth as it laughed at her predicament.
Willoughby tugged at his waistcoat, which had ridden up to reveal the beginnings of what Julianne had not previously realized was a middle that would soon lean toward a decided paunch. He flashed her a hopeful smile. “Still, if there is any truth to it, I hope you would tell me. I believe those wagers must be laid before the end of the month.”
For the first time in all of her twenty years, Julianne found herself utterly without words. Good heavens. He not only believed the rumors, he wanted to profit from them?
An awkward silence descended, punctuated only by the rustle of leaves and the smooth encouragement Patrick was offering his sisters. Willoughby closed his eyes and soon began to snore, thank goodness. But though the sun was warm on her face, Julianne found herself too keyed up to do anything so restful. Another time, another day, she might have enjoyed the experience of watching Patrick with his sisters, the sunlight glinting off the sandy slope of his hair. But it hurt, watching Patrick engage in such a personal, tactile interaction with people he loved. Because she couldn’t help but think that perhaps she didn’t receive such public attentions because she didn’t merit them. Not that he was a man inclined to public tomfoolery, but once upon a time, he had kissed her, nearly in public, there in Summersby’s foyer.
Why the change, now that he was legally entitled to do so?
All morning—and arguably, since dinner last night—he’d been aloof, as though that moment when her world had ground to a stop and he had stood before her in the drawing room, spit-polished and shining like a new penny, had never happened.
Moonlight on My Mind Page 22
