Heavily, Mrs. Manley said, “But she died before she could tell you any of it….”
“Yes,” John said miserably, “and she hid the evidence where my father found it after all these years and used it to blackmail Ormsby.”
Mrs. Manley leaned forward and said urgently, “Do not judge your father, John. He was taking the proof to London and you must believe that he would have done the right thing in the end.”
Asher nodded, his face kind as he looked at his half brother. “You bear no blame for what Denning did. And grandmother is right: in the end, he would have done the right thing—he even says so in his letter.”
“Perhaps…it is just so…incredible—all of it.” John sighed. “But at least we now know the truth.”
“But not all of it,” Asher muttered. Fixing a grim look on his grandmother, he said, “Isn’t there something you’d like to add? Something you’ve known all along?”
Their eyes locked. “Was it such a terrible crime?” she asked quietly. “Who did it hurt?”
“What are you talking about?” John demanded with a frown, glancing from his grandmother to Asher.
“That there never was a Lieutenant Cordell,” Asher said bluntly.
Juliana’s eyes widened and John stared.
Mrs. Manley sighed and looked away. “Well, actually there was a Lieutenant Cordell and everything you ever heard about him was perfectly true…except for the fact that your mother married him. We made that up.” Her eyes came back to Asher. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” Her gaze dropped and, looking every one of her seventy-five years, she said sadly, “I couldn’t believe it. My sweet, respectable daughter. Pregnant and unmarried and no husband in sight and she stubbornly refused to name the father.” Her expression thoughtful, she continued, “She’d always been such a biddable child and while she had been popular amongst the young gentlemen in the neighborhood, it never crossed my mind that there had been anything between her and Vincent—or that they planned a secret marriage. I realize now that their very avoidance of each other was a definite sign that something was going on between them.” She half smiled and glanced at Juliana. “I racked my brains trying to figure out who the father of her child was—I even wondered briefly if your father wasn’t the culprit. There had been a time when he paid her a great deal of attention. But then your mother swam into his orbit and his heart was lost.”
“Well, thank goodness for that!” Juliana said. Interjecting a light note, she glanced impishly at Asher. “I would not like you as a brother at all.” Her gaze went back to Mrs. Manley. “But what did you do,” she asked, “once she told you she was pregnant?”
Mrs. Manley gave a shamed little laugh. “I’m embarrassed to admit that I berated her like the commonest fishwife! I was furious and for the only time in my life, I threw a most unseemly fit. And then I calmed down and thought about the best way to protect her and the child. The only solution was to find her a husband—not a real one.” She shrugged. “She would not name the father and she was equally adamant that she would not countenance a hastily arranged marriage with some impecunious gentlemen who, for a price, was willing to overlook his bride’s expanding belly. And since she would not identify the father, my hands were tied.” She sighed. “We argued—horrible, hurtful arguments. But eventually I agreed with her that the less people who knew the truth, the less likely any story we put forth would unravel. A fictitious husband was the only solution.” A faraway look in her eyes, she went on, “Once that was decided, I immediately packed us off to East Riding, to Hornsea, a small village on the coast. I deliberately picked a place where we didn’t know a soul in the area and I rented us a secluded property not far from Hornsea. I felt that hidden away there she could have the baby in secret. And then I set about finding a husband to give her child a name…and respectability.”
“How did you find Cordell?” Asher asked.
Her fingers gently caressing Jane’s letter, Mrs. Manley answered, “I don’t remember exactly how I learned about him, but we had not been in East Riding more than a few days, when on a trip to the village, I heard his name and learned of his recent death. Some discreet inquiries gave me all I needed to know about the poor young man. He had been gone for years and was the last of his family. The Cordells had been a member of the gentry, a respectable family but with no lands or fortune or estate to complicate things.” She took a deep breath. “Having chosen Cordell, I wrote right away to several friends and neighbors that Jane, after a whirlwind courtship, had married a lieutenant in the Navy and that I intended to remain in Cornwall with her until her husband returned from sea. Later I wrote that Jane was thrilled to find she was with child and then later that my poor daughter had been widowed.” She smiled. “When Asher arrived, only Jane and I knew that he was full term and not the seven months’ child we claimed.” She made a face. “If anyone had bothered to check dates or places or had looked for proof that a marriage had actually taken place, our little charade would have come tumbling down around our ears. But there was no reason for anyone to question the story we put forth…and we never set foot in East Riding again.”
“You took a risk,” Asher said slowly.
“I didn’t have a choice! I wasn’t about to have my daughter branded a harlot and a slut—or have my grandson labeled a bastard,” Mrs. Manley said fiercely. “What we did hurt no one.”
Across the table from him, Juliana reached for one of his hands. Softly, she said, “She’s right, you know.”
His lips twisted. “Do you know, I suspected that there was something smoky about mother’s marriage to Cordell? And I was fairly certain that I was illegitimate.”
His grandmother nodded. “I worried that you might. You always were an astute child.”
Looking stunned, John said, “I can hardly take it all in. You are the Marquis of Ormsby! And Ormsby…” His gaze flew to Asher and apologetically, he said, “I’m sorry I cannot think of him as anything else.”
“I think it will take time for all of us to become accustomed to the changes,” Asher murmured, not certain how he felt about becoming Lord Ormsby himself—and all that it entailed. He glanced around the pleasant garden, the sturdy farmhouse that was his home and thought of the grandeur of Ormsby Place and for a moment he knew precisely how Juliana had felt about leaving Rosevale.
“But what are we to do now?” John asked, interrupting Asher’s thoughts. “We have not only uncovered evidence that Ormsby murdered his brother…your father, but he murdered my father as well. We may not have an eyewitness to my father’s murder, but from everything we have before us, including my father’s own letter, there is no question of Ormsby’s guilt in both deaths.” John ran an agitated hand through his thick hair. “And there’s the title…you are the rightful heir to the title and all that goes with it.”
Asher nodded thoughtfully. “Establishing my right to the title will have to be placed before the courts in London, but as for Ormsby…” Something moved behind his eyes that made his wife and grandmother look anxiously at each other.
Oblivious to the undercurrents, John said, “Well, I think we should tell the squire and the vicar and the constable right away. This matter has been kept secret long enough.” His mouth tightened and he said harshly, “There is good reason to move swiftly—if my father had spoken out, he would still be alive today. Ormsby knows that the evidence exists and until his perfidious acts become known, Asher you are in danger.” John’s hand clenched into a fist. “Before he can harm anyone else, I want that scoundrel punished. It’s time, nay past time, that he was held up for all to see as the reprehensible murderer he is. Let us ride right now, before another moment is lost, to the squire’s and tell him everything.”
John’s words pulled Asher from the cold, dark place where he had retreated. Forcing himself to concentrate on the matter at hand, Asher agreed. “Yes,” he said. “That sounds like an excellent start.” A hard smile curled his lips. “It is indeed time for…my uncle to reap what he has
sown.”
The two men arose and prepared to leave. Mrs. Manley and Juliana exchanged a helpless glance and, fearful of what Asher might do when left to his own devices, Juliana leaped to her feet and cried, “Wait!”
Both men looked at her. Her jaw set determinedly, her eyes fixed on Asher, Juliana demanded, “I want to know what you intend to do to Ormsby.”
Asher smiled innocently. “Why, nothing at all.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Juliana fairly shouted. “You have been acting strange ever since your stepfather was murdered.” She looked to Mrs. Manley, seeking support.
Wearily, Mrs. Manley said, “Juliana and I have discussed your manner of late—we are convinced that you are planning revenge against Ormsby.”
The shake of his head didn’t surprise them—they expected him to deny it. And his calm, “I had been planning to murder him,” confirmed every fear they held. “But those plans were made,” he added softly, “when I thought that Denning’s murder was the only one to lay at his door….” An odd expression crossed his face. “Now I discover that he also murdered my father,” he said quietly, “and that has changed my mind about killing him.”
Confused, Juliana sank to her chair. “What do mean? I would think that your father’s murder would have made your desire to kill him even stronger.”
“I cannot believe my ears!” John declared, clearly taken aback. “You were planning on killing Ormsby?”
Asher nodded. “Yes, I did indeed plan to kill him.” Casually, he confessed, “In fact, I’d planned to do it tonight. Shoot the bastard right between the eyes.”
“But you’re not, er, planning to do that now?” John inquired with fascinated horror.
“No. Killing him is too easy.”
His grandmother studied him with narrowed eyes. “But you’re not going to simply let matters take their course, are you?”
“Oh, but I am,” Asher answered without hesitation, almost as surprised as everyone else by that decision.
At Mrs. Manley’s and Juliana’s disbelieving expressions, he said, “He is going to die anyway—whether by my hand or hanged at Newgate for the murder of Denning, as well as that of my father. I find the notion of him swinging from the scaffold at Newgate before a jeering crowd very, very appealing.”
“And you will be satisfied with that?” Mrs. Manley asked, skepticism apparent in her voice and her face.
Asher took a deep breath. “Would I prefer to be the one who ends his life? Yes, I would, but I want you to stop and consider as I have the man we know as the Marquis of Ormsby. Consider the great wealth at his fingertips, his colossal pride and his vaulted position amongst the ton. He possesses all of those things simply because he is the Marquis of Ormsby.” A tiger’s lethal smile crossed his face. “Now think of him with all of that stripped away. Picture him standing before all those lofty members of the ton…with each and every one of them knowing him for the murderer and usurper he is….” The cobalt blue eyes bright and hard, he added, “Shorn of everything that ever meant anything to him, he will be humiliated and shamed before the world.” He leaned forward, his expression intent. “Think about it—everything he ever wanted, everything that ever mattered to him vanished. All of it, the title, his position in society, the wealth he coveted long before he killed my father, all will have been stripped from his grasping hands and given to…me.” The tiger’s smile widened. “Yes, I could kill him and his life would end in an instant, but contemplate what happens if I hold my hand…. If I forsake the quick pleasure of killing him, the rest of his days, right up until the moment he is hanged, will be tormenting hour after hour of shame and disgrace. Former friends and acquaintances will look at him with scorn and contempt, he will become a creature held in aversion and viewed with revulsion by everyone.”
A hushed silence fell when Asher stopped speaking, his spellbound listeners seeing vividly in their own minds, the fitting and ignominious fate Bertram would suffer for his crimes—if Asher did not kill him. And slowly, one by one, they began to nod.
Asher straightened and took a deep breath. “And now,” he said with remarkable coolness, “I think that John and I should call upon the squire.”
It was late when Asher returned to Fox Hollow, but he wasn’t surprised to see either the lights of the house gleaming through the darkness or his grandmother sitting on a russet and green sofa beside Juliana in the front parlor. They looked, he thought, as tired and drained as he felt.
Smiling faintly at the pair of them, he said, “Brace yourself for the devilish firestorm that is about to break over our heads.”
Taking a heavy overstuffed chair across from them, he said, “The vicar was visiting when we arrived at the squire’s, and so Birrel was there when John and I showed Ripley the ring and mother’s letter and Denning’s as well.” Asher made a face. “There was an unholy uproar when they realized what they were reading and nothing would do but that the constable and oh, Christ, a half dozen other people”—he glanced at Juliana—“including your father and Caswell be sent for and told the truth.” He ran his hand wearily over his face. “John and I plan to ride to London tomorrow and lay the evidence before the courts. As for the other—even as I sit here before you, accompanied by the squire and a few other gentlemen, the constable is on his way to arrest Bertram for the murder of Denning and my father.” His jaw clenched. “Bertram’s descent into hell has begun.”
The moment Baker announced to Ormsby that the constable and the squire and several gentlemen were standing in his entryway demanding to see him, he’d known the reason for their unexpected visit. Carefully he put down the book he’d been reading in his study and, his face expressionless, he said, “Show them in.”
The days since he’d killed Denning had slid by uneventfully for Ormsby. When he’d first returned from shooting Denning, he’d considered running, packing his bags and taking what gold and valuables he could lay his hands on before anyone knew what he was about. Despite the war, he knew he could make it to the continent and once there disappear into the tumultuous upheaval Napoleon had created in Europe. Who knew? He might even prosper.
But in the end, even though he was signing his death warrant, he could not bring himself to leave behind all the glory that was Ormsby Place. He was Ormsby and by God, he would die Ormsby!
He’d expected the constable’s visit several days ago, but as time had passed, the faintest flicker of hope had bloomed in his breast. Jane’s damning letter had remained hidden, a secret for thirty years. What was to say that Denning hadn’t hidden it and the ring somewhere where they wouldn’t be found for another thirty years? It was obvious that there had been nothing on Denning to incriminate him, else the constable would have appeared at Ormsby Place within hours of Denning’s death. Only Jane’s letter or something from Denning connected him to the murders and unless they were discovered, he had no fear of being exposed. As time passed, he wondered if it was possible that he had been incredibly lucky and had gotten away with murder a second time. The news that the constable was here told him that his luck had just run out….
Getting up from where he had been sitting, he walked over to the massive gilt and walnut desk and sat down behind it. He looked around the elegant room, pride washing through him. Ruin faced him, but he had no regrets. No, he had no regrets, he thought ruthlessly, and if he had a second chance, he’d kill Vincent again in an instant…. His lips tightened. And find that bitch, Jane, and strangle her.
I should have, he realized bitterly, killed Asher instead of going after Denning. Denning would have guessed who killed his stepson, but money would have kept him quiet…at least for a while. With Asher dead and Denning kept in check for the moment, he’d have had time to find the letter and the ring. Once those were in his possession, Denning would die and he would be safe. But no, I killed the wrong man first, he thought, angry and disgusted with himself. And now I have to pay for that mistake. An ugly expression contorted his face. And Vincent’s brat will reap the rewards. Like aci
d that knowledge ate at him. If only I could have killed Asher, he thought venomously, and made certain that he never lived long enough to dare call himself the Marquis of Ormsby….
Hearing the sounds of approaching footsteps, Bertram stiffened. Time had run out and he opened the middle drawer of the desk. His gaze ran lovingly over the superb silver engraved dueling pistol lying there.
Baker tapped on the door, and picking up the pistol, Ormsby said calmly, “Come in.”
Epilogue
“I don’t have to go with her to Sherbrook Hall, you know,” Asher said casually to Juliana one hot August morning almost a year to the day that Bertram had killed himself. “John could act as her escort. It doesn’t have to be me.” When Juliana looked unimpressed, he added almost desperately, “I don’t think I should leave you and Vincent alone.”
Almost as one, Juliana and Asher looked down at the sleeping infant lying in her arms. Ignoring the actions of most ladies of her station, Juliana had eschewed a wet nurse and had just finished nursing Vincent herself. Her son, she was convinced, was undoubtedly the most beautiful baby in all of England and Asher heartily agreed.
At nearly three months of age, Vincent, named for his paternal grandfather, was clearly Asher’s son. He had inherited his father’s black hair and olive skin and though the color of his eyes was not yet definite, odds were they’d be the same cobalt blue of Asher’s. Vincent had been a big baby at birth and it was obvious he would grow into a tall man, his height coming from both parents. There were some hints of Juliana in her son’s features; something about the shape of the face and the nose reminded Asher besottedly of his wife.
Passion Becomes Her Page 32
