An Heir of Uncertainty (21 page)

“You don’t have to say it. I already told you I knew Mr. Channing was wrong in his opinion of you, and the same goes for Sir John. I realize this isn’t something you take lightly.”

In the afterglow of their lovemaking, she felt warm and buoyed by euphoria. Up until now, Lina had never really understood her mother, or the choices she’d made. Now she understood. Perhaps physical attraction was akin to a chemical reaction, like the influence of the hydrocyanic acid Dr. Strickland had talked about. When it was weak, its effects were slight and easily overcome—but when it was strong, there was nothing anyone could do to stop it, and its power quite took one’s breath away.

She hugged her hands to her chest, more out of suppressed joy than because the night air had left her chilled. She’d passed the day in a state of mild dread, knowing she’d be dining with Mr. Niven, Mr. Channing and Sir John. Even so, she’d never expected an outright tragedy like Mr. Niven’s poisoning. Most of the evening had been a succession of disasters.

Yet at that moment, she suspected that whenever she looked back on this night, it wouldn’t be those calamities she’d recall most vividly, but the cartwheeling happiness of making love in the moonlit woods, and walking home to the dower house with Win.

* * *

He wished he had something to present to her, some concrete gift he could hand her right now to show her how profoundly grateful and happy he was. Nothing so mercenary as jewels, but flowers or a slice of cake or
something.
Unfortunately, with his arm still in a sling he wasn’t even wearing a greatcoat, and if he’d had one to offer her it would have been ten times too large anyway.

At least he could kiss her goodnight. He looked forward to doing it properly, once they reached her front door—a slow, heartfelt, devoutly respectful
au revoir
, one that would show her he felt far more than mere selfish lust.

But when they reached the dower house door, she turned to him with an oddly tentative air, her hands clasped before her.

“Win, I—do you recall asking me to help you find a governess for Julia? I have a suggestion to make.” She raised her eyes to his and smiled uncertainly. “I’d like to be considered for the position.”

“As governess?” It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. He stared down at her, confused. “You don’t mean that seriously, do you? You’re the Countess of Radbourne. Besides, you’ll have a child of your own to raise before the year is out.”

She bit her bottom lip and nodded quickly. “Yes, I know, and Cassie can’t live unchaperoned at the dower house. But there is a way we could both stay under your roof, and I could take care of Julia, at least until my baby arrives.”

Was she suggesting what he thought? He blinked at her. “Are you talking about marriage?”

She gave a nervous laugh. “You want me to spell it out? Yes, if we marry, it would scarcely matter whether—”

“No.” He shook his head. “We can’t. I can’t.”

She swallowed, and a sick look came over her face. It clearly wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting. “But you said—I thought—” She broke off, shaking her head as she took a step backward. “Oh, God. I feel like a fool.”

Damn. Even if she’d suggested it for purely practical reasons, to help him with Julia and perhaps to safeguard her child’s future should she have a girl, she was going to hate him for refusing, and he didn’t blame her one bit. She wasn’t quick to bestow her trust, yet she’d worked up the nerve to propose marriage, a woman asking a man. And what had he done? He’d turned her down flat—turned her down just minutes after spilling his seed into her.

He wished she’d asked him anything but that.

Her took her hand. “Lina, I’d like to promise to marry you but I can’t. Not yet.”

Her eyes shimmered in the moonlight. “‘Not yet’? What does that mean?”

“We can’t marry now.” His fingers tightened on hers. “Not before you’ve had your baby.”

“I see.” She pulled her hand from his and set it on her abdomen. “It won’t be long before I start showing, and then it will be hard to look at me, knowing I’m going to have another man’s child.” Her tone was cold. “A child that might well disinherit you.”

Her manner had switched so quickly from anxious appeal to chilly hauteur it took him aback, though not half so much as her words. He frowned sharply. “You think that’s why I haven’t spoken—because I don’t want you? Because that’s not my baby you’re carrying?”

She glared at him, though he couldn’t tell whether the expression on her face was hurt or defiance. “Isn’t it?”

Win blew his breath out in a huff of frustration. “No, damn it. That’s not the reason. I’d be proud to raise your child as my own, and I’ll find you every bit as desirable when you’re round with child.
More
desirable, I expect. But how can I consider marrying you until I know that your baby is a girl and the inheritance belongs to me?”

“The inheritance?” She gaped at him. “That’s all that matters to you—the title and the money?”

“No, not the money. Not exactly—”

“I can’t believe...” The color had drained from her face. “I ask you to marry me, and you not only turn me down, but you have the gall to admit it’s because my son might take your inheritance. Somehow you didn’t seem to mind that so much when you were having your way with me back in the woods!”

He flinched. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I want to marry you. If you have a daughter, I’d be honored to be a father to her, if you’ll allow me.” His jaw clenched. “But if you have a boy and he inherits—damn it, how can I marry you then? Everyone will say I did it for the fortune, that I’m a fortune hunter. Worse, they’ll say they
knew
I was a fortune hunter, that’s it’s been obvious from the moment I offered for Julia’s mother.”

She fixed a blank, incredulous stare on him. “So this is about your pride? You’d really throw away the chance for us to be together merely because of what people might say?”

“It’s not pride, it’s...” He couldn’t think of a way to finish the sentence. In frustration, he demanded, “If it were, could you really blame me? What do I have to point to, to prove them wrong? I went into the army as a lieutenant only because my grandmother purchased my commission. Since the day I sold out, everything I’ve turned my hand to has been a failure. My marriage was a failure, I’ve been a failure at looking after Julia and Freddie, even my estate in Hampshire is failing.”

Her hauteur thawed slightly as her brow knit. “In what way have you been a failure at looking after Julia and Freddie? Your daughter is a credit to you, and no one could be more protective of your brother than you are.”

“I had to pull him out of Cambridge because I couldn’t pay his shot,” Win said bitterly.

“And he still has decent clothes on his back and plenty of food on his table.” Her hands clenched at her sides. “You don’t know what it’s like to be truly poor. That’s your problem. If you did, you’d never have the nerve to stand there and tell me you hope I have a girl.”

“And your problem is that you’re confusing your own childhood with your baby’s.” He did his best to speak with some degree of patience. “I realize your father abandoned your mother and left you with nothing. I know that hurt you, and I can only imagine how difficult it was to grow up in such a painful and precarious position. I’m sorry you had to go through it. But if your baby is a girl, her life will be completely different. She’ll be a titled lady, the only daughter of the seventh Earl of Radbourne. We can marry and she’ll grow up at Belryth Abbey. She’ll have everything she was meant to have.”

“We can marry
if
I have a girl.” Lina gave him an angry, mutinous stare. “But only then.”

Didn’t she understand? He couldn’t marry her when he had nothing of any worth to offer. “Yes. If I’m the next Earl of Radbourne.”

“So that’s your idea of marriage? You get everything—the title and the fortune and domestic life on your own terms. You needn’t sacrifice your pride one whit. And I get whatever you choose to bestow on me,
if
you still feel so inclined once Edward’s fortune and dignities come to you.”

“If?” His eyes narrowed. “Do you still trust me so little?”

“And do you still care for me so little, that you expect me to sit by, hoping I can pass your test—a test over which I have no control, a test I’m sure to fail unless my child ends up with nothing?”

He raked a hand through his hair in exasperation. The way she put it made him sound capricious and unfeeling, when he was only determined not to make the same mistakes with her he’d made with Harriet. If Lina’s son was the next earl, he didn’t want anyone looking at her and supposing he’d married her for her money. He couldn’t very well live as her kept inamorato at the abbey, and he refused to ask her to live in privation and obscurity at Hamble Grange. She meant too much to him.

“Your child would hardly end up with nothing, and it’s not a test. I care about you. I’ll care no matter where I go or what I do.” He drew a deep breath and spoke with all the firmness he could muster. “But if you have a boy, I can’t marry you. He’ll belong here, and so will you, while I’ll belong back in Hampshire, trying to make what I can of my life there.”

She drew herself up, her green eyes flashing. “Strange how you didn’t think to tell me any of this
before
you used me, back there in the woods.”

And there it was, the same reaction he’d brought out in Harriet—the resentment, the unhappiness, the kind of accusation that stung precisely because it held a kernel of truth. However unintentionally he’d wounded her, he could have warned her their time together might be short-lived. “Is that how it seemed to you? That I was using you?”

“That’s what men do, isn’t it?” Her eyes held a suspicious gleam, and her voice throbbed with suppressed emotion. “They tell a woman what she wants to hear, they take what they want from her, and then they move on.”

It was hard to believe matters could go so quickly from blissful to rancorous. Yes, this was beginning to feel like his marriage all over again, those times when Harriet would declare a truce and invite him to her bed again, only to go back to resenting him with the sunrise. Except with Harriet he’d bent over backwards trying to please her, while he couldn’t give Lina the only thing she’d ever asked of him.

“That might be what your father did to your mother, but that’s not what men do, not if they have any sense of honor.” His mouth turned down grimly. “But neither do they live on a rich woman’s charity.” Especially when that charity meant gaining access to the very property everyone knew he’d come pelting to Yorkshire to claim.

“I see. How very honorable you are, seducing a lady you don’t plan to marry.”

“I didn’t seduce you, I—”

He faltered. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d done, if he was honest with himself? He’d urged her to trust him. He’d told her they shared a connection, kissed her, and then backed her up against a tree and buried himself in her. He’d started something, knowing full well he might be unable to finish it. And he’d raised her hopes, only to reject and disappoint her.

Deliberately or not, he’d just confirmed every mistrustful notion she’d ever had about men.

“I’m sorry.” He swallowed. “It wasn’t my intention to mislead you.”

“Get off my land.” Her voice shook. “And don’t tell me this is your land, because I’m quite sure the dower house doorstep, at least, is my lawful property.”

“Lina—”

“I can’t believe I let you touch me. I feel so
stupid.
” She opened the front door and stepped inside. “Don’t ever call me Lina again. It’s Lady Radbourne to you. And if you so much as look at me too familiarly in the future, I’ll scream.”

“Calm down. It’s months yet before I—”

She slammed the door in his face.

Chapter Fifteen

Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.

—Laurence Sterne

Win was on his way back to the dower house, furious with both himself and Lina, when the crunch of dry leaves on the ground nearby made him stop in his tracks.

The footfalls were too loud and heavy to be an animal. Someone was in the woods just ahead of him.

“Who’s there?” He set a hand on his pistol. He had only one shot, and his broken arm complicated matters, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to fight at a disadvantage. He’d got the better of the French soldier who’d bayonetted him, and that time he’d been injured on his dominant side.

Mr. Channing stepped out of the shadows. “Relax, Colonel. It’s only me, on my way home.”

A little of Win’s tension eased, though the anger and regret of his encounter with Lina lingered. His hand dropped to his side. “I take it the coroner arrived to inspect Mr. Niven’s body?”

“Aye, he came a few minutes after you left with Lady Radbourne.” Mr. Channing’s eyes slid suspiciously over Win. “You took a considerable time just to walk back and forth between the abbey and the dower house. I trust if I were to check on Lady Radbourne, she’d be all right?”

Win stiffened. “Lady Radbourne is quite well.”

Channing took note of his indignation with a nod. “She seems to trust you, right enough.”

Of all the things Channing could have said...Lina
had
trusted him. Now, Win couldn’t bring himself to utter an agreement. “Whatever the timing of these crimes, Mr. Channing, I’m not responsible for them.”

“I’d begun to wonder if you might be, I confess, but lately I’m persuaded someone else must be to blame.”

Was that why the man’s attitude toward him had changed so dramatically? “And do you have a new suspect?”

“I’m not sure,” Channing said, rubbing his chin. “Your brother is a strange one...”

Win tensed. “My brother has his fair share of eccentricities, but there’s nothing the least bit dangerous or malicious about him, I assure you.”

“That’s as may be, but he’d be next in line for the earldom if you were out of the way, and it did look as if Niven was pointing to him before he died.”

“But why was Mr. Niven pointing, and was he even in his right mind at the time? We can’t be sure he knew who his killer was, only that he knew who his accomplice in the embezzlement was. And my brother couldn’t possibly have been his accomplice. Freddie hasn’t been here any longer than I have.”

“I have to agree with you there,” Channing said with a grudging inclination of his head. “But only on that last point. Any other suspects, Colonel Vaughan?”

“I did wonder whether you might be responsible.”

“Whether
I
might be?” Channing scowled and puffed out his chest. “I’m magistrate here. And why should I wish to harm Lady Radbourne?”

Win shrugged. “There was the matter of the missing funds from the abbey accounts, and you’re a trustee of the estate. I considered the possibility the threats to her were somehow tied up with an attempt to conceal the theft. Mr. Baillie informed me tonight that the bank deposit receipts went to Sir John while the late earl was alive. If you were behind the embezzlement, you could have reasoned that if Lady Radbourne’s son were to become the new earl, she’d likely be too observant.”

“I hope there’s a ‘but’ coming, Colonel.”

Win shrugged. “There was nothing in Niven’s manner before he died to suggest you were his confederate. Besides, I don’t see you as the stealthy, poisoning kind.”

“Nor I you, on both counts. That’s why I told Strickland tonight I believe he’s mistaken about you.”

Win flushed. “Dr. Strickland believes I’m responsible?”

“Now don’t go flying into the boughs. He didn’t accuse you, just came to me after the trouble with Lady Radbourne’s tea and asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“And that’s why you’ve been meeting with him?”

“Aye, he was particularly concerned after that incident with the Royal Mail in Malton. And you’ll admit he has just cause to wonder. You’re new here, and if the countess were to lose her baby, you’d become Earl of Radbourne overnight.”

“I would never harm Lady Radbourne or her baby.” An image of her pale face, unshed tears shimmering beneath her lashes, lent the denial an edge of bitterness.

“I suspect someone else is using your arrival here as a convenient cover for his own plotting, and I told Strickland as much. Certainly Lady Radbourne believes in you, and you did save her life in Malton.”

He didn’t want to reflect on whether Lina still believed in him. “Which puts us right back where we were before—with no real answers.”

Channing broke into a sly smile. “At least we’ve ruled each other out as suspects, Colonel Vaughan.”

“So we have.” Win bowed stiffly. “Good night to you, Mr. Channing.”

“Good night, Colonel.”

Win continued to the abbey, his temper still on edge. Yes, he’d ruled out the magistrate, as well as some possible heir further down the line of succession. But what about Dr. Strickland?

The doctor clearly took a keen interest in the ladies of the dower house, and he knew a great deal about poisons.

* * *

At three-thirty in the morning, Lina was sleeping fitfully when her sister slipped into her room and shook her awake with a hand on her shoulder.

Lina sat up, instantly alert.

“Can’t breathe,” Cassie wheezed.

Lina reached for her wrapper. “I’ll send Jem for the doctor.”

She dosed Cassie with paregoric and pulled up a chair beside her bed. The wait for Dr. Strickland seemed interminable, as it always did when Cassie suffered an attack, though in truth he never failed to rush to her side. In the ninety-odd minutes before his arrival, Lina sat in the flickering candlelight, waiting for Cassie’s labored breathing to ease and trying to keep a host of unwelcome thoughts from crowding her head.

Someone had killed Mr. Niven. She ought to be most troubled by that, and frightened that the sinister occurrences swirling around her had escalated still further. Logically, she knew it was the most awful of the night’s events. So why was the one thought she couldn’t face that she’d given herself to Win, only to be rejected?

Perhaps because she’d brought it on herself. She’d always thought of herself as levelheaded. How could she have been shameless enough and foolish enough to let Win have his way with her? And not even decently in a bed, long after her husband’s death, but out in the woods, a scarce two months after losing Edward.

She blamed herself, but she blamed Win even more. Instead of deceiving her with melting looks and impassioned kisses, he could have told her his affections came with conditions, and that he had every intention of leaving unless he received the title and fortune he’d been promised. He could have shown her what kind of man he really was, instead of pretending she could trust him.

Except she’d already known what he was. He was a man—just like her father, just like the series of scoundrels who had duped and abandoned her poor mother. Even if she had a daughter and Win became the next earl, why should she expect him to feel the so-called connection he’d talked about before he’d stuck his hand up her skirts? Now he’d made a conquest of her. Once he had the peerage and the abbey and the income, why should he spare her a second thought?

Ugh.
She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to picture herself panting like a wanton in his arms and even urging him not to hold back.

A knock sounded on the front door. Relieved, Lina reached for the candle and rose to admit Dr. Strickland.

A sharp, fleeting pain in her lower back made her wince. It wasn’t a cramp exactly, but more like a twinge on the left side. Still another reason to regret having behaved like a lightskirt with Win, her shoulders against the chestnut tree, one leg hiked up high.

She opened the door downstairs to greet Dr. Strickland with an apology. “I’m sorry to drag you from your bed, Doctor. You can’t have managed much sleep, given that you were still at Belryth when I left at a quarter past midnight.”

He shrugged. “I had almost two hours—though I’m afraid that when Jem knocked, I was so deep asleep it took some time for him to rouse me.”

“Only two hours of sleep? Oh, dear.”

He smiled with drowsy forbearance. “If I was determined to sleep through the night, I’d have chosen some other profession than medicine.”

He started up the stairs to Cassie’s room. Lina was following him, candle in hand, when the same painful twinge struck a second time.

She pressed a hand to her back, telling herself it was probably nothing. Still, hadn’t Dr. Strickland asked her on the night they discovered the pennyroyal tea whether she’d been experiencing back pain or spasms? And with Mr. Niven’s death and all the talk of poisoning that had followed, any little change was enough to make her question the cause.

Lina massaged the small of her back. If the twinge troubled her just once more before Dr. Strickland left, she would mention it to him.

* * *

The paregoric was taking effect. “You’re very good to me, Doctor,” Cassie said wearily, closing her eyes.

He was better than Cassie knew. Lina still hadn’t paid the doctor for his previous calls. With Mr. Niven dead, she wondered whom she ought to approach about receiving an advance on her quarterly jointure payment. She had the uncomfortable feeling it was probably Win. Twenty-four hours earlier, she would’ve welcomed the prospect of trading Mr. Niven for Win Vaughan, but now...

When Cassie drifted off to sleep and Dr. Strickland picked up his medical bag, Lina rose with him. In the same instant, the twinge in her back struck again, making her breath catch.

Dr. Strickland saw the flash of pain cross her face. “What is it?”

“Probably nothing. But since you asked...” She let herself out of Cassie’s room and led him toward the stairs. “I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but after what happened to Mr. Niven, I can’t help wondering—if one really were to ingest a slow-acting poison of the sort Mr. Vaughan mentioned tonight, what symptoms would it bring on? It wouldn’t cause one to feel pains in one’s lower back, would it?”

“Not that I’m aware. In the stomach and bowel, in all probability, but not localized to the back.” He paused at the foot of the stairs and gave her a measuring look. “Now, labor pains can sometimes present as cramping in the lower back, but you have some months yet before that should be a concern.”

Though she knew he didn’t mean to frighten her, his words sent a chill scuttling up her spine. A sudden and alarming possibility occurred to her. The pains might have nothing to do with poison, but what if she’d harmed her baby, carrying on with Win out in the woods? If labor could cause back pain, what if she was in the early stages of miscarriage? “This isn’t cramping, exactly,” she said on a note of worry. “More like a recurring twinge.”

His eyes narrowed. “Recurring how often? These pains aren’t getting stronger or closer together, I trust?”

“I don’t believe so. I had two close together, and then another just now when I got up from the chair in Cassie’s room, but nearly an hour passed in between.”

“Is the feeling momentary or does it last several seconds?”

“Only momentary. It’s almost a shooting pain, really.”

“So the sensation doesn’t remind you of when you had your courses?”

“It’s nothing like that.” At least, it hadn’t seemed so to her. But what kind of similarity was she supposed to be watching for? She’d never carried a child before, never gone into labor. She had nothing to compare it to.

He looked mildly reassured. “No other symptoms? No bleeding?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

Dr. Strickland gave her an encouraging smile. “In that case, chances are it’s simply a muscle spasm.”

It made sense after what she’d done with Win—balancing on one foot, braced against a tree, rocking her hips up to meet his—but even so, she couldn’t help worrying. She’d had three pains since the doctor’s arrival. Or was it four? What if the twinge had come back while she was sitting in Cassie’s room, but she’d been too preoccupied to notice? What if the pains
were
getting stronger, and she was simply a poor judge of such things? She’d been completely heedless of her pregnancy, straining up against Win, urging him on...

“Is there any risk to an unborn child if a person—an expectant mother—has been...” She groped for the proper word, some way to express what she needed to say without making herself sound reckless, fast and disloyal to Edward’s memory. “That is, if she were with a man, and they had...physical congress. Could that bring on—”

Despite his usual professional manner, the doctor blushed. “I think I take your meaning, Lady Radbourne. You’re asking if conjugal relations pose a risk during pregnancy?”

She stood up straighter, trying to look dignified and merely curious instead of guilty and worried. “That’s right.”

She was afraid she’d shocked him, but he answered plainly enough, “Assuming the course of the pregnancy is otherwise unremarkable, the risk is minimal. Certainly no cause for worry in and of itself.”

“Ah. That’s good to know.” Lina drew a deep breath. She’d already put the cat among the pigeons. She might as well settle her doubts once and for all. “And you’re quite sure? Even if the act was—were to be—slightly outside the ordinary?”

Dr. Strickland seemed to deliberate a moment. “Er...outside the ordinary in what way?”

Lina’s cheeks heated, but she strove to match the doctor’s tone of medical detachment. “If they were standing up, for example, and the man was, um, rather forceful.”

Dr. Strickland paled, and his eyes went wide. “Lady Radbourne, if he overpowered you, I beg you to—”

“No, nothing like that!” she said quickly. “It wasn’t against my will.”

“Ah.” The doctor’s rigid posture relaxed. “I see.”

“He didn’t force me.” It was clear enough to both of them who
he
was. She was horrified Dr. Strickland knew everything now, but even more horrified he’d supposed she’d been attacked. “He would never do that.”

“Then forgive me for assuming the worst.” Now the poor man really was blushing. He couldn’t meet her eyes, though he reverted in every other respect to his customary bedside manner. “In that case, I doubt there’s any cause for worry. Unborn babies are hardier than one might suppose, or there would be a great many fewer of them born every day. And activity of that nature could bring on a muscle spasm of the kind you described.”