by Cheryl Bolen
One would think her husband might have figured that out by now.
If he thought she’d just accept his decision and meekly go to sleep, he’d best think again.
She rose and washed up, then wiggled back into the lavender nightgown, in case she had to resort to seducing him to get him to talk. A few more kisses wouldn’t be unwelcome, either, come to think of it. But business would have to come first.
After covering the nightgown with a very modest wrapper, she brushed her tangled hair and pinned the front off her face, then made her way from the room.
No sooner had she opened the door than Rex came trotting up and followed her down the corridor to the Queen’s Bedchamber.
She knocked briskly on the queen’s fancy gilded door. “Tris?”
Rex barked.
“I’m sleeping,” Tris said.
Alexandra rolled her eyes. She knew he was lying—because if he were sleeping, he wouldn’t have answered her, would he? Besides, he obviously wasn’t in bed. She could hear him quite clearly, as though he were right on the other side of the door.
“I want to talk to you,” she said.
“We’ll talk in the morning.”
She wondered whether he was sitting or standing. Whether he was upright or leaning against the door. “I want to talk now.”
Rex barked again, adding his own demand.
But Tris was having none of it. His heavy sigh emanated from the room. “The door is locked, and only Vincent has the key.”
“I’ll get it from him, then. I want to talk. And I want you to come back to bed.” She imagined him lying beneath the turquoise and gold canopy with the absurd ostrich-feather poufs at its four corners. “You hate this room.”
“I’d hate hurting you even more. Vincent has gone to sleep—you’re not to bother him. Go to bed, Alexandra.”
“No,” she said. She needed the door opened in order to entice him with the wicked nightgown. But she wouldn’t bother Vincent. For one thing, she hadn’t the slightest idea where the man slept. She needed to schedule another appointment with Mrs. Oliver to beg a tour of the servants’ quarters.
In the meantime, she pulled a pin from her hair and stuck it into the lock, poking it around.
“What are you doing?” Tris asked after a moment.
“Picking the lock.” She’d seen Griffin do this more than once, and she’d read of many a protagonist doing it in books. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult. But despite the fact that she heard many clicks, nothing seemed to actually move.
Rex barked his encouragement, slapping the wall with his tail for good measure.
“Are you giving up yet?” Tris asked, sounding amused.
“No.” She dropped to her knees in order to get a better angle.
“Now?”
“No.” Clenching her teeth, she rooted around harder.
“Now?”
“Drat,” she gritted out. This wasn’t going to work. She plopped to sit on the floor and leaned sideways against the door. “This is ridiculous, Tris. You belong in our bed.”
“It’s only one night. A few hours. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night, sweet wife.”
“Good night, dear husband,” she returned, but she didn’t move. After a moment, she added, “And how many more nights will you abandon me in the name of ‘protection?’”
Tris remained silent.
Rex gave her a pitying look and padded away, his huge paws thudding on the wood floor.
“The dog gave up,” Tris said. “It’s time you did, too.”
She never gave up. Perhaps that was a character flaw rather than a trait to be admired, but regardless, there it was. If she couldn’t tempt him back into their bed—or at least into more kisses—perhaps she could get some answers.
“Are you doing this because you’re angry with me?” she asked.
”I’m doing it to protect you.”
“Are you certain? Because I know you’re unhappy that I won’t give up the investigation.”
“That’s nothing to do with this,” he insisted—rather patiently, she had to admit. “Except in a peripheral way. If you’d stop your investigation, perhaps I’d stop sleepwalking, in which case I might not fear doing you harm in the night. But it isn’t anger driving me to do this. It’s concern and sheer terror. Can’t you understand that?”
She could, although she wouldn’t admit it. That might encourage him.
She knew she shouldn’t have allowed her hurt to get the better of her, but couldn’t he understand the difficulty of her position? He’d convinced himself he was dangerous, and unless she proved otherwise, he would stay convinced. But he didn’t want her to prove otherwise.
What an impossible mess.
But she did understand him. And she also understood that, in his own twisted way, he was doing this because he loved her, whether he knew it or not.
“I love you,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
She shifted to sit with her back against the door and drew her knees up toward her chest. She wrapped her arms around them. “You’re acting like your father,” she said.
That elicited a response. “What on earth do you mean by that?” A rather hostile response. “A single glass of port hardly makes me a drunk, and I rarely gamble.”
“You said he was so convinced love would never happen for him again that he never bothered trying to find it.”
“I also said I don’t believe each one of us has a perfect person.”
“You didn’t mean that.”
“I most certainly did. We’re not all of us destined for bliss, Alexandra. The sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be.”
“Like you’re happy?” she countered softly.
He was silent so long, she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. But then he shifted against the door, and she knew he hadn’t.
She’d have to give him more time. Three girls he’d loved had left him. No, make that five—his mother and his sister had left him, too.
The women he’d loved had been leaving him since he was seven years old.
She laid her head on her bent knees, hugging herself. “I’m not going leave you, Tris. No matter what I do or don’t learn tomorrow, I’m not going to leave you. Ever. Not next week or next month or next year. You married me, and you’re stuck with me. If you open the door, I’ll be right here. Always.”
As it turned out, that wasn’t true in the strictest sense. As the tall-case clock in the round gallery struck four in the morning, she woke, stiff and sore, and took herself back to bed.
Chapter 50
“Good morning, my lady.” Peggy bustled into the bedroom and threw open the drapes. “It’s nine o’clock, and I brought your breakfast.” She placed a tray on the bed. “Shall I have the carriage brought round for your visit today?”
Nine o’clock? Alexandra blinked in the harsh light, wondering where the night had gone while at the same time happy those long, uncomfortable, restless hours were over. Sitting up against the pillows, she took a slow, bracing sip of hot tea. “I wish to ride again today. The sooner I complete this final interview, the happier my husband will be.”
“I’ve been thinking, my lady. Perhaps, since you enjoy riding, it may be time for me to learn.”
“That’s a fine idea.” Alexandra spread jam on her toast, checking first to make certain it was cherry. “We shall arrange for a groom to give you lessons.”
“I meant today. I believe I should start riding with you today.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Picturing middle-aged Peggy mounting a horse for the first time, Alexandra hid a smile behind her teacup. “I shall be in quite a hurry today, and you’ll need a few lessons before you go galloping off. I believe I shall just take Ernest with me and get this done.”
She’d quite enjoyed riding with Ernest yesterday. Unlike Peggy, who talked her ear off, Ernest was quiet. He never asked to come in during her interviews, nor did he ask what happened afterward. He allowed her time
to think.
Peggy scowled, clearly unhappy that she would be left behind again. As she helped her mistress into a riding habit, Alexandra did her best to disregard the maid’s bad mood. Peggy had been so pleasant and accommodating for the most part—even going to the trouble of making the list—and it was good of her to want to learn to ride.
When Alexandra was dressed and coiffed, she handed Peggy her gorgeous new silver basket, waiting for a reaction.
There was none. “Yes, my lady?”
“Please ask Mrs. Pawley to fill this with the rest of my sugar cakes. I shall meet you in the main parlor.”
“As you wish,” Peggy said coldly and took herself off.
Alexandra heaved a sigh as she started downstairs. If the woman was going to sulk whenever things failed to go her way, perhaps she’d be happier with a different lady’s maid, after all.
When she entered the main parlor—or rather, tried to—her mouth dropped open. “What’s this?”
Two muscular strangers were blocking the door as they maneuvered a large object through it.
An excessively large object.
“A pianoforte,” one of them said in answer to her question.
“I can see that.” She hurried around to the front and read the name above the keyboard. “Erard,” she breathed in wonder, running her hand over the shining, dark mahogany. Sebastien Erard was known to build the very best pianofortes—why, it was said that Beethoven himself owned one. “And it’s six octaves.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but we need you to move.”
“Right. Of course.” She looked toward three footmen who were inside the room rearranging the furniture. “Might any of you know where Lord Hawkridge is at the moment?”
“The vineyard, I believe.” One of the Johns hefted a small table onto his shoulder. “Or so I heard him tell his valet before he left this morning.”
“Thank you,” she said and turned away—then turned back. “Um…where is the vineyard?” Hopefully it wasn’t as far from the house as Griffin’s. “Will I need a horse?”
“Not at all.” The man set down the table. “Just walk across the west courtyard, past the icehouse and through the hornbeam arch. You cannot miss it.”
It was a pleasant walk. The icehouse was brick with a domed roof, and she found the long hornbeam arch to be delightfully shady. At the far end of the leafy tunnel, she exited to find sloping land covered with rows and rows of staked vines, the spaces between them only wide enough to walk single file. Spotting Tris in the middle, speaking with a man, she hurried toward him, her skirts brushing the vines on either side.
“Excuse me,” she heard him say as she came up. “I’d like a moment with my wife.” The man tipped his cap and walked a decent distance away, bending to tend to a vine.
“A pianoforte?” Alexandra said the moment he was out of earshot. “An Erard pianoforte?”
Tris’s eyes looked silver in the sunshine. She thought perhaps she saw an apology in them, mixed with excitement at surprising her. “I did say another parcel would arrive today.”
“That’s quite a parcel,” she said, determined to forget last night. Or the last part of last night, in any case. “Thank you. Thank you ever so much.”
She threw her arms around him, relieved when he wrapped his arms around her, too.
“I hope you’ll enjoy it,” he said into her hair.
“Oh, I will. I was so keen to try it, the parcel delivery men were forced to eject me from the parlor.”
The world seemed brighter this morning, as though the Queen’s Bedchamber last night had been no more than a bad dream. She breathed deep of the fragrant air, reaching to touch a bunch of grapes. “How fat they look!”
“In a month, they’ll be ready for harvest.”
She began walking along the row, touching a plant here and there. “The vines seem so sturdy. Their trunks are so wide.”
“Compared to Griffin’s vines, you mean?” Sounding amused, he followed behind. “A hundred years from now, their trunks will be wide as well.”
“If he can make his vineyard pay well enough to keep it.”
“He can make it pay. With the duties raised during wartime to nearly twenty shillings a gallon, French wine is no longer affordable on a moderate income. People will be happy enough to stock their cellars with what Griffin produces.”
“If it tastes as good as yours does, they will.” She paused to pluck a grape and sniff it. “Is this a certain kind of grape?”
“Doubtless, although I confess I don’t know the variety. In the old records they’re noted only as English sweet-water grapes.”
“Well, they make truly wonderful wine,” she said, popping the fruit into her mouth.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said and added teasingly, “as long as you drink only half a glass at a time.” He shot a glance to the other man. “I’m afraid I’m not finished here.”
Swallowing the sweet flesh, she nodded. “I must leave, anyway. Ernest will be waiting with our horses. We’re going to visit with the final former servant. Lizzy, her name is.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” A hawk wheeled overhead, and a sudden breeze kicked up, making the vines rustle around them. She saw something twitch in Tris’s jaw. “I sleepwalked again last night.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. He looked haunted. “Have you suffered these incidents so closely together in the past?”
“Never. It’s always been weeks—if not months or years—between episodes. But this morning, after locking myself in that room, I woke to find the window wide open.” He sounded totally disgusted that his plan hadn’t worked. “The lock kept me from sleepwalking around the house, so I sleepwalked outside instead.”
“Did you wake up outside?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t go out. In the past, I’ve often ambled around and ended up back in my bed.”
“But the Queen’s Bedchamber is upstairs. You would have injured yourself climbing out that window. I’m sure you simply opened it for fresh air.” When she saw that he was going to argue, she put a hand on his arm. “Let me go see Lizzy. And then this might be over, and maybe you’ll be able to sleep.”
He just looked at her for a while. Just looked. And it made something tighten in her chest, because every time she thought they were making progress, stepping forward together, it seemed they took two steps back.
But she had to go see Lizzy. Her sisters were being ostracized already, and this was her last chance to discover information that might lead to a solution for them all. Her last chance to prove to Tris that he wasn’t dangerous.
“You may not be happy with what you learn from Lizzy,” he finally said, the warning sounding bitter on his tongue. “And it’s not going to change anything.” Then he turned and left her, his shoulders looking tense beneath his dark blue coat as he strode away.
The hornbeam arch didn’t seem nearly as delightful when she traversed it in the opposite direction. And at the other end, Vincent, Hastings, and Mrs. Oliver all stood waiting for her.
“May I help you?” she asked, puzzled.
Hastings glanced at the other two and then spoke for all three. “May we have a word with you, Lady Hawkridge?”
“Of course.”
“Lady Hawkridge,” Hastings repeated, then stopped.
“Yes?”
“We’re concerned,” Mrs. Oliver continued. Her kindly chocolate eyes did look concerned. “These mishaps that keep occurring…”
“We fear that if someone did indeed murder the last Lord Hawkridge,” Vincent hurriedly finished for her, “he may be trying to kill you now to stop you from finding him.”
Alexandra blinked, taken aback by the mere idea. It hadn’t, of course, occurred to them that Tris might be causing the mishaps while sleepwalking, since other than Vincent—and she was certain he’d keep Tris’s secret—they probably had no knowledge of his night wanderings. But it had never occurred to her that it could be anyone else.
For a moment, her heart raced.
Then she told herself not to be ridiculous. “I appreciate your concern,” she said carefully, “but I truly believe both incidents were accidents.”
“But what if they weren’t?” Hastings asked.
“Everyone has assured me the marquess’s death was natural,” she reminded him.
“But what if it wasn’t?” Mrs. Oliver blurted. “What if there’s a murderer among us? Should you continue your investigation, even worse could happen.”
It was obvious that recent events had them nervous and suspicious. Even of each other. Mrs. Oliver was looking at Hastings. Hastings was looking at Mrs. Oliver.
And they were both looking at Vincent.
“We brought this up for your own good,” Vincent said now, his gaze steadfast. He had too much dignity to shrivel under their scrutiny. “We worry for you. If you would quit—”
“I cannot,” she interrupted firmly. “You’re all dears to worry for my safety, but I will not stop asking questions until every avenue has been exhausted.”
The three of them exchanged glances and subtle sighs.
“Do please be careful, then,” Hastings finally said.
“I will, I assure you. Thank you for coming to me with your concerns. I consider myself very lucky to be surrounded by such caring people.”
She watched them walk off, praying that she was right and they were wrong. She felt a little shaky. The thought of Tris attacking her was one thing—it was too ludicrous to believe. But the thought of someone else…
She didn’t believe that, either, she decided firmly.
And if it turned out to be true…well, that possibility had its advantages.
Chapter 51
The quiet ride with Ernest had done little to calm Alexandra’s nerves.
She was still shaking when she dismounted in front of Lizzy’s small cottage. For the second day in a row, Hawkridge’s villagers had stared at her as she rode through. Between that, defying Tris, and learning she might be the target of a murder plot, she felt like a wreck.
