by Jane Goodger
“How could you be so cruel? Isn’t it bad enough that you crushed poor Eleanor’s spirit and now are punishing us for her one small transgression?” Lady Hartwood had said, tears streaming down her face. The lady, no doubt, had been lamenting the fact that she would no longer spend luxurious vacations on the Continent due to a sudden lack of funds.
“I counted no less than five small transgressions,” Marcus had said, keeping his temper in line. It would never do to show emotion before these people. “And as Eleanor is no longer my wife, I am under no obligation to make good on our wedding contract.”
“Our daughter is dead, God rest her soul. And you, sir, are a cold bastard,” Lord Hartwood had said, staring daggers at him.
Marcus had simply looked from one to the other. “Yes, I am. Good day, sir, madam.”
He’d stood and made a proper bow before departing, leaving them both sputtering their indignation. Had they really thought he would continue to pay the stipend? Hell, the first time he’d discovered Eleanor in another man’s bed, she had broken the marriage contract and he would have been within his full rights to sever payments to her parents then and there. But he had been kind.
Now Eleanor was dead, having had the ill timing to smack her head fatally on her lover’s bedside table, no doubt during a particularly acrobatic lovemaking session. When Eleanor had been drunk, she had been an accommodating lover with everyone but her husband. When she’d been sober, which was rare toward the end, she had been life itself, charming and beloved by all. Even him—at least in the beginning. It was only after the wedding—actually their wedding night—when Eleanor had informed him she had been forced by her parents into a marriage that she had been vehemently opposed to. What a fine actress she’d been while he’d been courting her, for, until that moment, he’d thought she’d been in love with him.
Her parents blamed him for her death. They all did, pitying her for having married such a cold, unfeeling bastard. Simply because one did not express every emotion one experienced did not mean one did not feel it. He could not be like his brother Adam, who allowed every emotion he felt to show clearly in his animated face, who gushed poetic about how much he loved his wife. One look at Adam gazing adoringly at Georgette, and a person knew immediately he was in love. Marcus had always schooled his features, good practice when dealing with businessmen, peers, and cheating wives. No one looking at Marcus at that moment, as his carriage rattled through the barren landscape toward his home near Whitby, would know he was wishing he were the sort of man who could commit murder.
“She suffered,” Eleanor’s mother had said. “All she ever wanted was love, and you couldn’t even give her that.”
It was true, of course. He hadn’t loved her, at least not the way wives apparently wanted to be loved. But he’d always believed they were a good match, compatible, and that perhaps they would come to love one another in time. It did happen on occasion. When he was in a particularly foul mood, as he was now, he tortured himself with the thought that she’d never wanted to marry him, that the very idea had been abhorrent. She’d made him the object of ridicule and pity, and a man’s pride could only take so much before, well, before he hid himself away in some godforsaken, rundown estate.
Suddenly, his driver heaved back on the reins, and the carriage rocked and lurched to the left before coming to a stop, listing slightly to one side.
“My lord,” his driver called down. “I’ve struck a woman.”
A woman? Out here? There was no town nor house for miles. Marcus climbed down from the carriage and jumped to the spongy ground, taking care not to crush an early bell heather that lent a bright bit of color in this otherwise gray day. His driver stood looking down at an object lying in the road; from where he stood, it resembled a pile of clothing. Hell, he hoped they hadn’t killed whoever it was. That’s all he needed.
Marcus walked over and looked down to see a woman wearing a dark blue, mud-stained dress, her auburn hair a riot of tangled curls surrounding a pale face. She looked dead. Marcus nudged her a bit with his boot.
“Is she dead?” his driver asked fearfully.
Marcus watched as her chest rose and fell. “No. She’s breathing.” He let out a curse. Now that he gave it some thought, it would have been easier if she’d been dead. He could have heaved her body into the carriage and delivered her to the mortuary in Whitby and been done with it. As it was, he was now saddled with an injured woman, and he’d have to bring her to Merdunoir, as it was far closer than the township. Marcus got down on one knee, grimacing when the water-soaked ground immediately went through his trousers and dampened his skin, and examined the lady lying prone and unmoving on the rutted road. She was wearing an expensive dress, but she carried no reticule and wore no jewelry. She was pretty enough, he thought dispassionately, with fine features and full lips that seemed unnaturally pink against her pale face. She was thin, her cheekbones showing more than they ought. Her dress was loose and ragged despite its quality, and a small tear revealed a bit of her corset and the creamy top of one breast. Marcus looked pointedly away from that bit of flesh. It appeared the lady had been wandering the moors for quite some time, for the bottom half of her dress was completely caked with mud; her shoes, impractical things for a walk on the moor, were literally coming apart at the seams. He could see no damage to her person, and if not for the fact that she was lying still in the middle of the road, he would have said she was sleeping.
“Are you certain you struck her, Palmer? I see no injuries.”
“I’m not certain, my lord. When I came over the rise, she was there, beside the road, swaying like, and then she fell right in front of the team. I near fainted myself.”
Marcus tapped her on the cheeks, and her burnished lashes fluttered slightly. He struck her harder, the sound overloud in the quiet. She opened her eyes and Marcus reared back slightly, the air sucked from his lungs almost forcefully.
Palmer let out a low whistle. “Gor,” the driver muttered.
Indeed. The lady had the most remarkably colored eyes he’d ever seen, a brilliant aqua color that he’d only seen on the wings of the morpho butterfly on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
“Are you injured?” he asked, but the lady continued to stare at him as if she either was blind or didn’t understand God’s English. “Are you injured?” he repeated, louder this time.
“Help me.” He saw her lip movements more than heard the words, and then the lady closed her eyes, for which Marcus was quite grateful. He didn’t want to think she was lovely. Hell, he didn’t want to have to save her. Help me.
Bloody hell, he’d have to.
“Help me with her, will you Palmer? Into the carriage.”
Palmer wrinkled his nose in distaste at the thought of picking up the lady’s less attractive end, likely not wanting her muddied shoes and skirt to get on him. Marcus placed his gloved hands beneath her arms and they lifted the lady, who hung like a corpse between them. Marcus didn’t know what was wrong with her, but it didn’t seem as if she was long for this world, and he prayed he wasn’t signing his own death warrant by helping her. They placed her unceremoniously on the front-facing seat, ever the gentlemen, and arranged her the best they could so she wouldn’t tumble to the floor. Lifting his seat, Marcus brought out a blanket and covered her. She smelled of mud and moor, not an entirely unpleasant combination.
“Drive on, Palmer, and do try not to hit another pedestrian.”
Palmer looked momentarily horrified, until he realized his lordship was jesting. “Yes, sir.”
For the next hour, Marcus watched as the lady was jostled back and forth on the seat. At one point, he had to save her from falling to the floor by heaving her back up. One hand, pale and limp, dangled off the seat. Though her nails were dirty, she had the hands of a lady, smooth and fine, with no signs of labor. What the hell was she doing out here? Who were her people? And what would he do if she died before he got any answers from her? If he had Palmer bring her to
the nearest mortuary, she would be buried in a potter’s field, unnamed, unmourned. For some reason, that bothered him. Quite a bit more than he wanted it to.
When they reached his estate—a lofty word for this run-down manse that hadn’t many modern conveniences—she stirred, rubbing her eyes with one hand and letting out a small sound.
“Miss,” Marcus said, to give her forewarning that she was not alone. “We have reached Merdunoir.” Some clever ancestor had combined mer du noir—sea of black—as homage to the sea over which the home looked.
“No,” she said, her eyes opening wide as if in a panic.
“I assure you, yes.”
She looked momentarily confused as if trying to recall him and how she’d ended up inside a carriage. “Murder?”
Now, that was odd. “Mer-du-noir,” he said, enunciating each syllable. “My estate.”
The lady, who looked quite young now that her eyes were open and she was moving about, tried to sit up, then clutched her head as if the movement made her dizzy. “I feel rather ill,” she said, looking as if she might lose her accounts. She swallowed convulsively.
“If you don’t mind, may we do that outside my carriage?” Marcus asked calmly.
She looked at him as if he was exactly what he was: a cold bastard.
“Here,” he said, sighing. “Give me your hand. I shall help you.”
She did, with hesitation that was slightly annoying, allowing Marcus to touch a woman’s hand for the first time in more than a year. He didn’t like it, but gritted his teeth and allowed it, if only to keep his carriage clean. Thankfully, Palmer had dropped the stairs and was waiting for them to disembark. He handed the lady off to his driver/butler/groom/valet.
“Where am I?” she asked, looking around her.
“Merdunoir, miss,” Palmer said.
“No, I mean what county? What part of England?”
“York, near Whitby,” Marcus answered. “Are you injured? You fell in front of the carriage and we thought perhaps you’d gotten stomped on by one of my team.”
“I did?” She looked down at her ruined gown, swaying, as if she were atop a cliff and experiencing vertigo. “I don’t . . . I don’t recall.” And then she fainted dead away, back into the arms of Palmer, who caught her, then didn’t seem to know what to do with her.
“Pick her up, Palmer,” Marcus said, walking toward his front door, assuming Palmer could carry her. She was merely a slip of a girl and shouldn’t overburden his burly employee. “Put her in . . .” Damn, there were no rooms made up except for his. “. . . my room.” This last was said begrudgingly. He would have no place to sleep this night and he was bloody tired. But the sooner she was well enough to travel, the better. He didn’t want anyone in his home, and especially not in his bed, no matter how pretty her eyes. He wanted, above all things, to be alone.
“I’ll get Sadie, shall I, sir?”
Sadie was Marcus’s cook/housekeeper/maid and Palmer’s older widowed sister, a woman Marcus begrudgingly allowed to stay, mostly because she was a better cook than Palmer. “Fine idea, Palmer.”
Good. Between Palmer and Sadie, they could take care of the girl until she was gone. He wondered if he should send Palmer for a physician, then almost immediately rejected the idea. The closest physician was fifty miles away and was eighty-three. The man was a menace who clung to old ideas and probably killed more people than he saved. Sadie was good with medicinal concoctions, so whatever was ailing the girl, she’d be in better hands with Sadie than the doctor, at any rate. Also the doctor was a drunk, and Marcus found he had little tolerance for anyone who over-imbibed on a regular basis.
Alive or dead, Marcus wanted only for the girl to be out of his house as quickly as possible.
* * *
As had happened every time Lilian awakened since that terrible night two weeks prior, a heavy dread filled her. This time, it was worse, for she found herself in the dark, in a bed, with absolutely no idea where she was or how she’d gotten there. Think, Lilian. The last two weeks were a haze of hunger, thirst, and endless terror. She didn’t know where she was going, who could help her, and so she just walked as far and as fast as she could. Her money, just a tiny amount she’d been able to grab before running away, had gotten her as far as Harrogate and then she’d walked most of the way, thinking vaguely of going to Scotland, where her uncle now lived with his new wife. Uncle Stanley wasn’t even a true relation, but she had no one else, no aunts or uncles, no grandparents. Only her sister.
It was foolish to think she could walk to Scotland, but where else could she go? Everyone likely thought she was a murderer. Terrifying images crowded her mind, of Weston, bloody and still, of Theresa screaming at her. Did Theresa truly believe Lilian would murder Weston? It was beyond absurd. She couldn’t think about it all now, not when she didn’t even know where she was or whether she was in danger.
Lilian turned to her side, feeling weaker than she ever had in her life, trying to remember where she was and how she’d gotten here. She was in a bed; that was all the information she had. She reached out her arm to the right and didn’t touch the other edge or a wall. A large bed with well-laundered blankets that smelled and felt clean. Letting out a gasp, Lilian felt beneath the covers and sighed with relief to find she had on her shift and bloomers, though someone must have removed all her other layers. Surely she would have remembered getting undressed. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the last thing she recalled. A carriage, a man. No, men. Reaching out her left hand, she felt a side table and, thank the heavens, a glass, heavy with some liquid. She lifted the glass to her nose and sniffed, smelling nothing, then took a small sip. “Thank you,” she said, lifting the glass and taking a deep drink. Had any water ever tasted as sweet as this?
“You’re awake.”
Lilian screamed at the sound of a woman’s voice, for she’d thought herself quite alone, and started so much she lost most of the precious liquid in the glass.
“Definitely awake,” the woman said with a chuckle. She had a broad Yorkshire accent and sounded amused. “I’m Sadie Barnes. I’m housekeeper an’ cook here. Let me light a lamp so I can get a better look at ya and you can get a better look at me.”
Lilian shielded her eyes from the sudden bright light, then found herself looking at the smiling face of a woman who was perhaps twenty years her senior. Her face was shiny and smooth, as if she’d scrubbed it not long ago. The woman had the sort of smile that immediately put a person at ease, and Lilian, despite her situation, found herself relaxing slightly.
“We don’t have your name,” she said, “and we’re wondering if you might have people worried about you.”
Lilian shook her head, thinking it would be foolish to tell this woman her name, especially if she was wanted. Feeling a sense of inevitability, she said, “Lilian Martin,” holding her breath and waiting for Sadie to screech in recognition. In the silence, her stomach gave a loud grumble.
“Well, Miss Martin, how long has it been since you’ve had anything to eat?”
Lilian furrowed her brow. “I don’t know.” Days, it had been.
“Let’s get you fed, then. Here, I’ll leave the lamp with you and I’ll go fetch you something quick.”
After Sadie had gone, Lilian drank the rest of the water that hadn’t spilled, hoping the woman would bring more. Was this Sadie’s home? She raised the flame on the lamp so she could get a better look at her surroundings. The bed was large, with intricately carved posts that were thicker than her legs. Directly across from the bed was a large, cold fireplace, surrounded by white marble, with brass andirons that gleamed from a good polishing. The floor was covered with a thick carpet—Aubusson, she thought. This was a wealthy person’s home. But whose?
Sadie bustled into the room humming a tune Lilian didn’t recognize, carrying a tray piled with food, including a pot of tea and a pitcher of water. Oh, wonderful woman. Bread, cheese, a slab of cold ham. Lilian felt as if she were in heaven.
“Is this
your home?” she asked as Sadie positioned the tray on the side table.
“Goodness, no. This is Lord Granton’s home. Merdunoir.”
Lilian felt the blood drain from her head and she very nearly fainted. Again. She had never met Lord Granton, but she certainly knew of him. Over the years, she’d learned much about the man she’d so admired that day during the Barrington house party. Following the house party, her mother had fallen gravely ill and had been so relieved to see one of her daughters marry a duke, she’d never considered why Rose Dunford, Lord Granton’s sister, had chosen to run rather than marry the duke. Her mother had called Lady Rose foolish.
“But her loss is our gain, as they say.”
They had gained an immoral monster. Lilian was glad he was dead; she simply wished she was not the one everyone thought had murdered him. Just one night before he’d been shot, Theresa, her changeable sister, had come into her room crying. Weston had called for Theresa and she had found him in bed with two young maids. He’d wanted her to join in and had become exceedingly angry when she had not. Her sister sported a bruised cheek for her disobedience. Lilian hated Weston, yes, but so had a dozen other people.
And now she was in one of the homes of Weston’s neighbor, a man who most certainly would be keenly interested in His Grace’s murder. She was doomed.
“Lord Granton’s father is my sister’s neighbor, though I’ve never met his lordship,” Lilian said, deciding to be as honest as possible without divulging to this kind woman that she was wanted for murder. It wasn’t supposition; she’d used a bit of her dwindling funds to buy The Times. Reading those words in the newspaper that called her a murderess had made it seem so real; it was as if her mind hadn’t truly been able to believe what had happened that terrible night until she’d read an account of it in the newspaper.
