“No’ exactly.”
Gage arched an imperious eyebrow, telling him to hurry his tale along.
He blanched. “He said he needed to get into the castle wi’oot bein’ seen. That if he could speak wi’ the countess, then he could warn her.”
Warn her of what? That her husband was a lying bigamist, or that if she didn’t pay him what he wanted, he’d tell the world about it.
Colum’s chin sank to his chest. “So I told him aboot the crypt, and the tunnel leadin’ into the castle.”
“How did you know about it?” Gage demanded to know.
He scoffed. “We all ken aboot it. I dinna ken why their lordships think it’s so verra great a secret.”
Gage and I shared a look of reluctant acknowledgment. He had a point.
“But then I started to wonder if I’d done wrong.” Colum stared at the worn woven rug on the floor in front of him, his face tight with concern. “What if he meant her ladyship harm? So the next mornin’ I waited ootside the stables. I ken some o’ the duke’s sons like to ride at dawn. I see ’em gallopin’ across the fields when I’m on my way to the brewery.”
Gage widened his stance. “And did you speak with one of them?”
He nodded. “Aye. The fair one. Lord John. Said no’ to worry. He’d take care o’ it.”
My stomach dipped.
“But he didna seem to take the matter serious. And when I asked the other lads aboot it at the brewery, they said he was a bookish sort. No’ likely to lift his finger ’less he had to.”
“So you went to the abbey that night and followed Renton yourself?” I guessed as I fit the pieces together with what I’d already deduced. The full horror of Colum’s situation began to become clear.
He swallowed and nodded. “But no’ too close. I didna want him to ken I was there. ’Twasn’t hard wi’ his carryin’ a lantern.”
“What did you see?” Gage prodded.
His face turned pale, and his next words tumbled out in a jumble. “I-I didna see it happen, but I saw a man in a monk’s robe standin’ over Renton’s body. I started to back away, but then he turned. ’Twas Lord John, and his eyes were . . . were wild, and there was blood splattered across his cheek. He seemed to look straight at me.” He swallowed. “I . . . I thought he was gonna come for me next. So when he bent over the body, I turned and ran as fast as I could in all that darkness.” He leaned forward, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I suppose he thought I’d keep quiet, or else he could find me later. But I wasna gonna give him the chance.”
I thought it more likely that Lord John’s eyes had been blinded by the lantern Renton had carried, and unable to see far enough into the dark tunnel to spy Colum watching him. He’d probably never even known he was there.
“And that’s why you hid,” Gage finished, his voice stilted as he grappled with the same ramifications I did.
Lord John—the Duke of Bowmont’s son—had killed Renton. Perhaps Colum hadn’t seen the actual attack, but the implication was clear. The only question that remained was whether Lord John had gone down there intending to kill him, or whether there had been another purpose for the mace and the monk robe.
We had to find Lord John. With any luck, Trevor or Bree had already located him, but somehow I didn’t think it would be so simple.
“What are ye plannin’ to do wi’ me?” Colum asked, his chin arching upward in bravado, though his voice shook.
“Nothing for the moment,” Gage replied. “So long as you don’t flee Selkirkshire. I suggest you go home to your mother. Though you should probably steer clear of Lord Helmswick when he returns.”
“Nay. I saw his carriage pass by no’ more than half an hour ago, and I’m no’ takin’ the chance o’ runnin’ into him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I stiffened in shock, leaping to my feet as Gage rounded on Colum. “You saw Helmswick’s carriage go by on its way to the castle?!”
He shrank backward. “Aye.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“I thought ye already ken. It went by aboot a quarter o’ an hour afore ye came bargin’ through the door.”
Except we’d come across the gun terrace, not through the grand portico.
Gage grabbed my hand and hurried me toward the door, pausing only long enough to yell back at Colum, “Stay here!” Then we set off up the drive as quickly as I could manage.
We’d nearly reached the portico when the sound of cantering hooves fast approaching behind us made Gage draw me toward the side of the lane. I pressed a hand to my side, panting as we watched the gentleman approach. I squinted as he drew nearer and then exclaimed in delight as I recognized him. “Anderley!”
He reined in at the sight of us. “Well, I never expected such a welcome as this,” he quipped, before flashing us a grin. His teeth shone white against his dirt-flecked, olive-hued skin.
“Am I ever glad to see you,” Gage declared as Anderley dismounted, offering him his hand in a hearty shake.
I lurched forward to hug him, heedless of the impropriety and the mud splattering his attire. I was simply that relieved he was safe.
Clearly shocked by my embrace, he awkwardly accepted my display of affection. “I’m pleased to see you as well, my lady.”
I sniffed back a sudden wave of emotion as I stepped back to gaze up at the bemused expressions on both of their faces. “Oh, just blame it on my being in the family way,” I retorted, dashing wetness from the corners of my eyes. “Aren’t women supposed to be maudlin in such a condition?”
Gage’s face softened with affection and he pressed his arm to my lower back in support.
“Is your condition also to be blamed for this?” Anderley asked, his brow scored with concern as he gestured to my sling.
“No,” I replied, my voice tight with the awareness that Lord John may also have been the one to push me down the ballroom stairs.
Anderley looked to Gage for an explanation.
He shook his head as we resumed our steps toward the portico. “Later. Tell us first, is it true? Was Miss Renton Lord Helmswick’s lawful wife?”
“You received my last letter, then.” He nodded, leading his horse. “I’m afraid so. Though I had to use some strong persuasion to convince the local vicar to finally admit to it.”
The two men shared a significant look, letting me know I didn’t want to ask too many questions about what that method of persuasion might have been. I trusted Anderley hadn’t done real harm. Gage would never have stood for such tactics.
“Apparently it took place some years ago when Helmswick’s parents were still alive. They didn’t approve of the match, and so Helmswick persuaded the vicar to wed them in secret. It seemed he loved her, at least for a time. The only witnesses were Renton and Mr. Warren, Helmswick’s valet.”
“Then you found the marriage record?” Gage asked.
“Not exactly,” Anderley demurred. “The vicar told me that Renton had stolen that parish register some years before, for safekeeping, he said.”
“I suppose that makes sense if he intended to carry through on his blackmail scheme,” I ruminated out loud, lifting my skirts as we stepped over a suspicious patch in the dirt.
“Yes.” His eyebrows lifted. “And I wasn’t the only one who’d paid the vicar a visit recently to ask about the register.”
Gage’s eyes met mine. “Lord John Kerr.”
Anderley seemed disgruntled to have his thunder stolen. “Yes. And when I visited Renton’s cottage, it appeared he’d gotten there before me as well, for the leather binding of the register was in the hearth, its pages burned to ash.”
“He was destroying the evidence of Helmswick’s first marriage,” I surmised. Evidence that Lady Helmswick wished to have, if her outburst to Lord John had been any indication. For Lord John had not only destroyed the evidence of the
earl’s bigamy, but also the proof she needed to coerce him into allowing her to live separately.
We passed beneath the stone portico, and a footman stepped out from the passage, his posture straightening at the sight of us, before he ducked back inside. When he reemerged, he hastened forth to take the reins of Anderley’s horse. “Mr. and Mrs. Gage, the duke is asking for you.”
Gage clasped his hand over mine in solidarity where it rested on his arm, no doubt anticipating, as I was, that Helmswick was stirring up some sort of hornet’s nest over having been misidentified as a corpse. But when we reached the guardroom, we were not met with an angry duke and earl, but a cacophony of anxious voices.
“Thank heavens,” my brother cried as he caught sight of us. “When we couldn’t find you, I feared the worst.”
“Trevor, what is all this?” I gasped. “We heard that Helmswick’s carriage was seen on the drive to the castle.”
Anderley’s head reared back as he turned to us in surprise, and I realized we hadn’t had time to inform him the corpse was not Helmswick.
“It was. But the valet is saying that Lord John stopped it on the drive a short distance from the castle and forced Helmswick to accompany him into the woods.”
My eyes widened. “Forced him?”
The valet—the much discussed Mr. Warren—stood but a short distance away, and turned to answer this question himself. “Yes! He told him he knew about Renton, that he had proof, and demanded that he come with him or . . . or he would publish it all in the Times,” he gasped, his voice an affected upper class tone.
“Proof of what?” the duke demanded to know.
“Did he have a pistol or some other weapon?” Gage asked Mr. Warren.
“I don’t know.”
“But he wasn’t brandishing one?” Gage pressed.
“No,” he replied uncertainly.
“Then Helmswick left the carriage of his own volition.” Not that that precluded Lord John from harboring the intention to use violence later. But he was smart enough not to reveal his hand, even when panicked.
“Of course not,” Mr. Warren retorted. “Didn’t you hear me? He threatened him.”
“Now, see here . . .” the duke tried to interrupt again.
“With blackmail,” Gage continued calmly. “Which, if I know Helmswick, he mocked and derided, and otherwise taunted Lord John with the fact that he wouldn’t go through with it.”
The valet’s flushed countenance confirmed he was correct. If Helmswick had climbed out of his carriage and gone with Lord John, then it was only for the opportunity to heap more scorn upon his head. But that didn’t mean Lord John couldn’t be goaded past his point of endurance. After all, if he’d killed once, he could do so again.
“Which way did they go?”
“To the south. Into the trees,” Mr. Warren replied meekly.
Gage turned to look for someone who might have some sense of where they were going, and his gaze fell on Henry, who had stepped forward. My pulse throbbed anxiously in my neck at the sight of them standing next to each other.
“There’s a trail that cuts through those woods and across some stepping-stones over the burn to the abbey ruins,” Henry explained.
Gage nodded once in thanks. “Then that may be where they’re going. I need whatever men can be spared to search the woods, the grounds around the abbey, and the lower level of the castle into the tunnel and crypt.” He glanced at the duke, who had fallen into stunned silence, seeming to grasp the implications of what was happening even if he didn’t know everything we did. When he didn’t object, Gage continued issuing directives.
Trevor and Traquair volunteered to lead a group to search the abbey grounds, while Gage, Lord Edward, and Lord Richard would take another contingent down into the doom. Lord Henry agreed to guide a few men, including Anderley, into the woods where Lord John had coerced Helmswick into coming with him.
Gage gripped my left arm. “Kiera, I need you to stay here.”
“Of course,” I replied, knowing when it was best not to interfere, especially in my current condition.
He smiled down at me with the same concern he always exhibited whenever one of us was about to embark on a potentially dangerous engagement, and then pressed a swift kiss to my temple.
As the men gathered to set off, Bree emerged from the small door to the left of the great hearth. “M’lady,” she puffed, but her words faltered as she caught sight of something beyond my shoulder. Or rather someone. Her eyes glinted with elation and relief, and she took an uncertain step forward before stumbling to a stop.
I turned to follow her gaze, discovering she was looking at Anderley, who stood halfway across the room absorbed in earnest conversation with Henry.
Perhaps recognizing how much she’d exposed, she inhaled a swift breath, pressing her hands together at her waist. “I’m thankful to see he doesna appear to have suffered from his journey.”
“I am, as well,” I replied, not wanting her to feel discomfited. “And he confirmed what Renton’s neighbor claimed.”
Anderley looked up at that moment, as if sensing we were discussing him, and his eyes riveted on Bree. Though he gazed at her for only a moment, and nodded his head but once in acknowledgment, I could tell he was far from indifferent to the sight of her.
She turned her head to the side, as if to compose herself, and then swiveled to face me again. “I found Lady Helmswick.”
I straightened. “You did? Where?”
“She’s in the chapel.”
Why this should surprise me given the circumstances, I didn’t know, but I was momentarily robbed of speech. “Show me the way,” I finally managed to request.
Bree led me through the side door into the servants’ domain, and through a series of turns to a small staircase which fed almost directly into the chapel. I had yet to enter this sanctuary, so I had not been awed by the vaulted ceiling which rose three stories to the full height of the castle. Muted, almost hallowed light filtered down from the windows set high in the rafters of the northern wall, tempered by the lattice of circular muntins separating the panes of glass. With its white walls and black marble floor, the chamber seemed stark and unforgiving. Even the stone coffins that lined the floor along one wall, the effigies of their inhabitants resting atop them with their hands clasped in prayer, seemed more of a mortal accusation than a divine comfort. I realized then that Lady Helmswick had not gone there to seek refuge, but rebuke.
I spied her through the archway leading into the inner chapel, on her knees on the cold floor in the large open area before the spare altar. I lifted my hand, urging Bree to allow me to go to her alone. A heavy stillness filled the air, the sound of my footsteps swallowed by the enormous tapestries of scenes from the Bible that covered the lower walls. The scent of must, wax, and recently extinguished candles tickled my nostrils.
When I reached her side, I could hear that she was quietly sobbing, her shoulders heaving with each breath. I was helpless not to feel compassion for her. So although it was not the most comfortable position for a woman heavy with child to be in, I knelt down on the cool marble beside her and gently touched her shoulder. She glanced up at me with tear-stained cheeks and I pulled her into my embrace. Too weak to resist, she began to weep into the sable fabric of her own cloak that I still wore.
I didn’t try to speak. I simply held her as she poured out her pain, and then I prayed. Prayed for safety for the men, that they might be fleet of foot. Prayed for peace for John, and for the Lord to stay his hand. Prayed for comfort for Eleanor, and wisdom for myself to know what to say.
When her sobs lessened, and her breaths came more evenly, she pulled back, sniffling as she searched the folds of her blush pink gown for the handkerchief she’d dropped. “I’m sorry,” she hiccupped, dabbing at her nose. “I shouldn’t have unraveled like that.”
“There’s no need to
apologize,” I told her, still keeping a firm grip on her elbow. “Besides, I’m the one who intruded on your privacy, not the other way around.”
She offered me a weak smile. “Thank you. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Don’t you?” I replied, not ungently.
Her lip began to wobble, but she inhaled a swift breath, forcing the sob back down. She pushed to her feet, while I still clung to her arm.
“Would you mind . . . ?” I began.
She gasped in realization. “Of course.”
I grunted as she helped me to my feet, guiding me toward a bench to the side of the chapel. “There.” I exhaled. “Much better.” My back and knees aching, I glanced about me. “This drafty place was meant for penance, wasn’t it?”
She gave a strangled laugh. “Yes, well, I suppose the Kerr family has had more than its fair share of sinners.” At this she shook her head, dabbing at the tears starting to overflow her eyes.
“I know about Helmswick’s first wife.”
Her breath hitched scornfully. “And that she died just a few short months ago?”
“Yes. I also know that Lord John killed his first wife’s brother, a Mr. Renton, when he tried to blackmail you. That his is the corpse we found in the catacombs.”
Her eyes squeezed shut as I continued.
“And that he destroyed the parish marriage record, thinking to protect you.”
Her hands clenched into fists in her lap, as she struggled to restrain all the hurt and anger inside her. “Why? Why did he do that? Why couldn’t he have left the matter alone?” She turned to me. “I didn’t ask him to interfere. I found out about Helmswick’s bigamy months ago.”
“Did you tell your brother?”
“No! I didn’t know he knew about it until this morning.” When she’d raged at him.
“He told you what he’d done.”
She nodded.
“What about your mother?” I asked, curious how much the duchess had known. “Was she aware of Helmswick’s bigamy?”
A Stroke of Malice Page 32
