He tried to shut out the sight of Julianne’s white face as the irons were placed over his wrists. He was boosted onto the back of the third horse, any chance at a proper good-bye or murmured reassurance yanked rudely from his grasp. Not that she would have likely permitted him such an indulgence, given the way things were being left between them.
As his captors mounted, he sought her attention, if only for the scant seconds he had left. “Wait here for MacKenzie to arrive, as we discussed, Julianne.”
She met his request with a mulish silence that made his lungs contract far more efficiently than any thought of what awaited him in gaol. Gemmy whined anxiously and circled his horse’s feet. The mare danced in agitation, and Lord Avery put a firm hand on the dog’s collar and dragged the terrier back toward the house. Patrick hoped the man intended to show the same degree of sense when it came to his daughter, because there was no way in hell Patrick was going to permit Julianne to visit him in a louse-infested gaol cell, especially not with Jonathon Blythe and his too-easily-cocked pistol standing guard.
“Do not let her come to see me,” he warned his father-in-law as his captors pulled his horse roughly into line behind them. “I do not want her involved.”
Lord Avery’s distant snort followed him down the drive. “You know as well as I that no one can bloody well force her to do anything, Haversham. You’ve made her a goddamned countess. There’ll be no stopping her now.”
Chapter 23
Julianne felt helpless as she strode back into Summersby’s grand foyer.
The gleaming marble tile and bright, hothouse flowers sitting on the center table seemed madly inappropriate for the turn the morning had taken. Had she once imagined herself here, a grand countess amid such beauty and wealth? The reality—and the responsibility—of it was something far more terrifying.
The desire to strike something, do something, fix something proved a roaring counterpoint to her initial blind frustration. He thought she hated him. She’d made him think she hated him, when the truth of her emotion was far less black and white. She’d been impetuous and rigid in her attack yesterday, stalking away like a child, believing he deserved a dose of his own poison. But now he was gone and she might never see him again.
A crowd of gawking guests had gathered in the foyer, their hair still mussed from sleep. “Is it true?” one gasped.
“ ’Tis utterly scandalous.”
Aunt Margaret stood at the foot of the stairs, her ridiculous turban left off for once to reveal a head full of gray hair. “I hear they suspect him of the earl’s murder too.”
That piece of it nearly made Julianne’s pulse stutter to a stop. By the stars. Could someone really believe that of him? Patrick had been in Scotland these past eleven months, nowhere close to Yorkshire. He couldn’t have killed his father.
But that did not mean others did not believe it, or that the motives people wished to pin on him were not shaped by a terrible logic.
“I ask that you all return to your rooms,” she said drawing her fury up tight. “Mr. Peters, I would like breakfast to be moved to eleven this morning. Given the unsettling events of the morning, I think a light repast will be more than sufficient.”
Peters inclined his head. “Of course, my lady. It shall be done.”
Her gaze moved next to Patrick’s mother. Julianne could not immediately tell if the woman’s white face was due to worry over Patrick, or fury over the way Julianne had just assumed control over the household. “You do not look well,” she said, reaching a hand out to squeeze Lady Haversham’s hand. The older woman’s skin was cool, clammy to the touch. In contrast, Julianne felt as though there was a fire kindling beneath her skin. “Is there something I can do for you?”
She half expected Patrick’s mother to scream that she had done enough. After all, this was all her fault, in so many ways. But instead, her mother-in-law’s brown eyes, so much like Patrick’s, rose to meet hers. “No. You have it all in hand, as should be. I know you care for my son, and he cares for you as well. I am grateful to you, for more than you can know. Just help us, please. Help him.”
Julianne felt humbled—and shocked—by Lady Haversham’s trust. Clearly, Patrick had not explained his motives in marrying her to his family, any more than he’d explained them to her. It was obvious he loved his family. Their safety and happiness was the most important thing to him. Indeed, he’d married her to save them. No matter how she felt about him, or how he felt about her, she would not rest until she saw the door slammed shut on this tragedy she had kicked open.
“I will,” she promised her mother-in-law. “I swear to you.”
One more face came into focus as Patrick’s mother made her way unsteadily up the stairs. Her father was standing near the front door, and for the first time Julianne realized he had been standing back, watching her bark orders. She flushed, imagining he must be about to chastise her in some way. Instead, he said, “What is your plan, Julianne?”
“My plan?” she echoed.
“I presume you and Patrick spoke of what might be needed in the event of his arrest?”
She hesitated, surprised her father had not inserted his usual authoritative opinion into this mix. She knew how to plan, even if doing so was not always her first inclination. She might have impulsively gone to Scotland to find Patrick on little more than a whim, but she’d also plotted for days how to procure that first initial waltz with him. She had an impulsive nature—a fact she refused to apologize for—but when her attentions and her inclinations were properly harnessed, she’d proven herself well.
She needed some of that same nerve at the moment.
“Aunt Margaret said Patrick was suspected in the earl’s recent death. Is it true?”
At her father’s nod, she swallowed the fear that wanted to sink its claws into her. “He couldn’t have done it, Father. Patrick has been in Scotland these past eleven months. He’s witnesses there who can prove it.”
“He’ll need them, I’m afraid.”
Julianne’s thoughts raced in time with her pulse. “James MacKenzie traveled on to London to take care of legal matters for Patrick. He will have need of his friend’s counsel, and MacKenzie can also serve as a witness. Now that Patrick has been arrested, there is no time to lose.”
“I suppose you think I should go to London to fetch him?” At Julianne’s nod, her father stroked his beard, thinking. “Haversham is important enough to you that you would send me away at a time like this?”
The memory of yesterday’s argument hung like a full moon in her mind. But even with all that had passed between them, the answer that came to her lips was still instantaneous, still sure. “He is.”
Her father nodded. “Then of course, I’ll go immediately.” He smiled grimly as he turned toward the stairs. “I confess, you seem well capable of managing affairs here without me.”
The praise slipped past her as her father left, a welcome surprise. She turned toward the study, determined to pen a letter for her father to carry to London in his quest to find James MacKenzie, only to pull up short when she realized she still had an audience of sorts.
George Willoughby leaned casually against the wall of the nearby hallway, looking as though he’d just been pulled from bed. She raised a startled hand to her chest. “Oh! Mr. Willoughby.” At his raised brow, she corrected herself. “That is, George. You startled me.”
He pushed off the wall with a lazy shoulder. “How are you managing, Julianne? I regret Haversham has put us all through this. And did I hear correctly that your father is leaving too? You’ve been abandoned, left here all alone.”
Julianne blinked. “I’m hardly alone. I’ve Mr. Peters and the dowager countess and family to think of, certainly.” She lifted a finger to one temple, wondering if she could rub him out of her way. “Truly, I am fine, George.”
His eyes swept her person, to the floor and back up, as if he did not believe her claim. “We’ve at least three hours until breakfast. I would spend them comforting
you.”
Julianne raised a brow. “Comforting me?”
He shrugged. “Offering my assistance. You must know I would do anything for you.”
Julianne swallowed her annoyance. Perhaps she could assign him some mindless task. Or demand he put on some clothes. But it occurred to her he would not be easily put off, and that moreover, with his easygoing smile and knowledge of Summersby, perhaps there was something useful he could do. “Can you ensure the needs of the guests are met?” She pulled a smile out of her arsenal. Knew it was working when he perked to attention. “Patrick wished them to be permitted to stay as long as they wished, and I confess I lack the capacity to play the doting hostess at the moment.”
“Of course, Julianne.” He breathed her name, almost reverently, and his straight white teeth flashed like a mirror in sunlight. “It is the very least I can do. I am completely at your disposal.”
A ruffle of unease shifted through her, like a change on the wind. She needed to focus on Patrick’s defense, not worry about how to deflect Willoughby’s panting adoration. But there was little she could do at the moment besides smile benignly and hope his “disposal” kept him well out of her path.
“Had enough yet, Haversham?”
Jonathon Blythe’s voice reached through the red-rimmed haze and yanked Patrick back to vivid consciousness.
His eyes slowly focused on the gaol’s damp stone walls. The smell of urine clung about the place, a testament to the gaol’s more common use as a place for Shippington’s less cautious souls to sleep off a bender. Hell, Patrick had spent his own sixteenth birthday in this very cell, urged to ill celebratory judgment by Eric and a barkeep who was far too deferential to refuse the earl’s sons anything. But today, the stone walls he remembered had been turned over to a more formidable use.
Patrick spit out a mouthful of blood onto the gaol’s dusty, disused floor, his ears still ringing from the last blow Blythe had delivered. He ought to feel helpless, tied to a wooden chair while his cousin used him as a punching bag. In a fair fight, Patrick could have acquitted himself well. He’d done more than just study at Cambridge.
This, however, was not Cambridge, and this was nothing close to a fair fight.
Still, Patrick did not regret turning himself over to this arrest. His relatively peaceful surrender had pulled his pistol-waving cousin away from Summersby. Patrick could do nothing more now except wait for MacKenzie and pray that Blythe did not become more unhinged.
And for every blow that fell, he’d be glad his cousin was here, swinging at him instead of Julianne.
Blythe circled to the left, and Patrick braced himself for the coming blow which—if he was to reach for any sort of a silver lining—came and went quickly, and ensured the unpleasant ringing in his right ear now had a matched partner in the left.
“Enough, Mr. Blythe.” The magistrate’s disapproval rang sharply throughout the cell. Farmington leaned closer, his face white around the edges. “The inquest has already determined the charge of murder. There is no need to continue in this vein.”
Blythe cracked his knuckles. “There is still the matter of the earl’s death to sort out.”
A denial set up in Patrick’s ears, even as he gingerly tested the movement of his jaw. “I did not kill my father or my brother, Blythe. A beating will not change that truth.”
“The truth?” Blythe barked. “What do you know of the truth? It’s as plain as Hades you’ve married the only witness to keep her from testifying, and orchestrated the whole thing to subvert justice. Thank goodness the coroner saw fit to see justice served.”
Patrick set his thankfully unbroken jaw against his cousin’s accusation. He might have started out with such an indelicate mission in mind, but so much had changed between Julianne and himself that he could scarcely identify his original reasons for marrying her.
Not that she seemed inclined to listen to him on that front.
“You always thought you were smarter than the lot of us,” his cousin went on, “but this time your bloody arrogance has caught up with you. Because the inquest didn’t need her testimony after all, did it? You murdered your brother, and then poisoned your father, all to acquire the title.” He drew in a ragged breath. “The title you never deserved.”
Anger welled up, hotter than blood. “By the balls, I didn’t kill my brother, or my father.”
“You certainly benefited from their deaths, though.” Jonathon Blythe’s voice shook, and for the first time Patrick caught a glimpse of the man’s motivation in moving these charges forward. Grief was etched there, in the lines around his eyes and the tremor of his hands.
“I had no hand in my father’s death, Blythe. I’ve been in Scotland the past eleven months, and have witnesses who can place me there.” Damn, but he needed MacKenzie right now. What in the devil was keeping the man so long?
Farmington leaned in, and Patrick could smell the man’s sour distaste for the proceedings roll off him. “Haversham, I do not like seeing you so ill-used, but Blythe raises a serious accusation. It will go better for you if you simply tell us the truth. Did you have a hand in your father’s death?”
Patrick leaned back, knowing the truth was not what they sought. He’d hoped to be able to reason with the magistrate, but with Blythe’s right hook flying so indiscriminately, it seemed that polite discourse was the furthest thing from either man’s agenda—unless the discourse involved confessing to a crime he hadn’t committed.
“This line of questioning is finished,” he told them, even as he braced himself for another blow. “I will speak no further without my counsel present.”
Chapter 24
Shippington was a town of two lazy streets and a few hundred people. Despite arriving in the middle of an apparent market day—complete with a parade of sheep through the middle of town—it took Julianne approximately three seconds to find the magistrate’s office. She headed toward the stone building with its blue-painted shutters. Her feet might be on a collision course with mayhem but her constitution was proving more reluctant. She’d felt nauseated most of the morning, but was it any wonder?
Patrick had spent last night in the town’s gaol, while she had laid her head on a pillow that seemed to gradually—maddeningly—lose his scent.
She leaned her hand against the door frame to Farmington’s office and breathed in deeply, trying to settle her faithless stomach. The door opened without warning. Scrambling back, she put a hand to her mouth—as much to cover her explanation of surprise as ensure nothing unforgivable came out of it.
Dr. Merial stepped out, pulling his hat down over his brow. He stopped when he saw her. “Good morning, Lady Haversham. Is anything amiss?”
Julianne shook her head. “I’ve come to ask Mr. Farmington for permission to visit the gaol.” She swallowed the bile still lingering in her throat. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, Dr. Merial, but my husband was arrested yesterday.” It made her feel ill just to utter the words. She’d scarcely ever given Britain’s prison system a moment’s thought beyond the fact it kept madmen and criminals from bothering innocent citizens, but everything she’d ever read in the Times came flooding back now.
The doctor’s face betrayed his prior knowledge. “I’ve heard,” he answered grimly. “Mr. Blythe was in the King’s Widge last night, sharing all the sordid details.” He eyed her speculatively. “Truly, you look terrible. Have you been sleeping?”
“It is just a little nausea. But why are you here?” Worry speared her, worry that she might have come all this way only to find Mr. Farmington discomposed. “Is the magistrate ill?”
“No, I was summoned for a different matter entirely.” He cocked his head, as if sorting out a puzzle. “Have you any fever?”
Julianne shook her head. “Truly, Dr. Merial. I’m already feeling much better.” She tried on a too-tight smile, the sort Patrick—but no one else—would have seen right through.
He smiled encouragingly. “Ah. Well then, nausea without fever is not a cause for ala
rm in a young married woman of otherwise good health. But, if I may offer a word of advice . . . I do not recommend using Shippington’s midwife on these matters. The woman is one hundred years old, if she’s a day.”
Julianne’s cheeks warmed. “I’ve been married but a few weeks, Dr. Merial. I assure you, it is premature for any discussion of that nature.”
“Of course.” His dark eyes flashed with humor. “But just in case, you might try eating something bland, such as dry toast, upon first rising. It . . . er . . . helps.”
Oh good heavens. It seemed Mr. Blythe had discussed more than just Patrick’s arrest at the King’s Widge last night. “That is not why I married my husband,” she insisted. Truly, it was for a far less palatable reason. She might have preferred the rumor as truth.
The doctor smiled, which had the grave misfortune of making him appear even more handsome. Julianne stared at his straight white teeth, mesmerized by the flash of them. Good gracious. No wonder the entire house had been atwitter during the dinner party.
She fished for a diversion, anything to draw his attention away from her and what might or might not have been the cause of her hasty marriage. “It is said you were of great comfort to the earl in the hours before he died. The family is grateful for your kindness.”
“I only wish I could have done more. His rapid decline surprised me greatly. He was, by all accounts, a man in excellent health, even a week before his death.”
Julianne’s stomach rolled precipitously. “Are you saying there is some truth to the rumors that the earl’s death might have been caused by something untoward?”
Merial’s hands tightened around the handle of his bag. “I am new from university, and have little enough experience in determining such things. But in truth, I am hard-pressed to deny his decline might have been assisted by something more mortal. I am afraid that is why I was summoned to the magistrate’s offices today. Mr. Farmington wanted to question me on the matter. I was asked here this morning to provide a statement under oath.”
Moonlight on My Mind Page 24
