Angel In My Bed (14 page)

“I'm not sayin' the shot didn't come from the church, Mr. Rockwell. I'm sayin' if someone was in that belfry, he did not leave by way of any door or window.”

“We're not dealing with ghosts,” David said from the doorway, despite Mr. Doyle's claim that spirits haunted the church. “There is another way inside this structure.”

Eight men stood in the rubble. David looked at each of them before turning his focus on the mountain of a man standing amidst the group. Ralph Blakely, a longtime Glenealy,
Ireland resident, was David's sometime bodyguard, hailing from the days David first went to work in the shantytowns near Dublin's ports seven years ago. Blakely was one of the few men he'd ever met who was as tall as he was.

David moved away from the stone wall and shifted his focus. This church looked to have been built around Cromwell's era—a time of great political upheaval. Any priest knew a room such as this held a passage that would take him to safety in case of incursions, and he should have considered that possibility weeks ago when he'd realized the extent of the lucrative smuggling commerce that fed too many of the people around here.

He looked at Blakely. “Find the vicar who used to work and live on these grounds.”

“Did Doyle have anything to say?” Rockwell asked.

“Whoever he's been watching in this church has been here for weeks.”

“Weeks?”

“Two of Sheriff Stillings's men were found dead two weeks ago near the old drover's trail. Go down there and look around.”

David stayed another hour before mounting Old Boy and taking the back trail to Rose Briar. After his initial visit to Meg yesterday, he'd remained at Doyle's cottage. Now with another night upon him, he had not found a single piece of evidence that could point to a particular shooter. That, and the fact that someone would intentionally shoot Meg, who might or might not be the key to locating a stolen treasure, made no sense. The only thing that bothered him more was the fact that she had been wearing
his
cloak.

In addition, everything about his current state of emotions vexed him as he continued to refine his feelings toward his
wife. No longer abstract, they had formed a permanent concrete seal in his thoughts, preventing reason from finding its way back into his head. He was no longer coming at the case as an investigator but as a husband—an impossible circumstance, he realized, especially when he was detailed with the job of turning her over to Kinley.

Snowflakes floated through the amber light cast by the lantern behind him as he rode into the stable and paddock. He did not intend to keep this property, but he had ensured the sanctity of his agreement with Meg by purchasing Rose Briar himself and putting everything in his name. But as David handed Old Boy's reins to the groom, he turned up the collar on his coat and looked toward the house, a proprietary sense of ownership touching him. Meg's bedroom faced the orangery. He could not see her window, but he felt her presence and recognized that he was thinking about more than just the land and this house. Everything from here to Alfriston belonged to him—including Meg.

How did a man throw something like that away?

Twice.

A young chambermaid had just shut the door to Meg's room when he appeared. David recognized her as one of the girls Blakely brought with him from Ireland. She held a wicker tray topped with blood-soaked rags. “My lord. I didn't see you.”

His gaze on the door, David removed his gloves and stuffed them in his coat pocket. “Is she conscious?”

“Oh, yes. Sir Henry asked me to bring her tea.” The chambermaid hurried away.

Sir Henry stepped out of the bedchamber, closing the door behind him as he saw David. “You're back,” he said and, without preamble or temperance, handed David the spot of
lead in his hand. “I forgot to give this to you yesterday. Whoever shot her was not hunting game, unless one uses an Enfield rifle,” Sir Henry said. “Old issue.”

His heart turning over in his chest, David closed his fist over the mini ball and considered the implication that a military-trained sharpshooter or assassin had fired the shot that took Meg down.

“Do you know anything about caves in this bluff?” he asked.

“They've been sealed for fifty years. Before I came to Rose Briar. I couldn't begin to tell you what manner of fool would go inside the caverns as dangerous as they are.”

“Someone must know something. Someone familiar with this area.”

“Then maybe you know more than I do and can explain who would shoot Victoria,” Sir Henry said as David stepped around him to enter the room.

Remembering her brazen confrontation with Stillings, David used all his self-control to keep from naming off the first dozen names that popped to mind. “This place isn't exactly a haven of morality, Sir Henry.”

“I'm not obtuse. I know the manner of men who ride these roads.” Sir Henry set his leather physician's bag on the curiosity table beside the door and clipped shut the lock. “They are a useless lot. But Victoria has gone in the middle of the night to sew up their wounds. She has helped birth babies those men have fathered. Nursed their sick wives and sisters. No man-jack in this area would shoot her down as if she were an animal. Now she's worried that whoever did this will go after her son.”

David let his hand slide from the door latch. “What are you talking about?”

“You tell me, Chadwick. At first, I thought you were here
because you were related to her and genuinely wanted to help. But there is more to you than meets the eye. More to the both of you. A blind man would see it, it's that glaring.”

“You need to speak about this to her—”

“I
have
been speaking to her. For two nights, young man. Morphine is an unwelcome bedfellow for those with secrets. She knew you in Calcutta, which explains a lot. She was in trouble there.”

Sir Henry pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his upper lip. “Victoria has worked hard to teach Nathanial values and to respect the land he was supposed to have one day inherited. She sent him to Bethany's cousins so he can take part in the hops harvesting. But this year she kept him from returning home. I thought at first it was because of Nellis. I am now prone to believe that it is for an entirely different reason. Why is she so afraid of you? Why has she been waking up to nightmares for weeks? Now this.”

“Hell, I don't know,” David said, wary of Sir Henry's observations. “Why don't you tell me?”

“Because you are connected to the same people she fears will go after her son.”

Before David could respond, a noise in the corridor dragged his gaze toward the stairway. Rockwell appeared on the landing, his cloak sweeping around him as he stopped, his presence snapping the tension like a tautly wound string.

No longer chafing beneath the older man's verbal flagellation, David shoved his hand into his coat pocket and felt the photograph he had put there when at the cottage.

“I take it that man is no ordinary servant, either?” Sir Henry said, coughing into his handkerchief.

“He works for me,” David said.

“I see.” Glancing between David and Ian, Sir Henry took a step backward, almost self-consciously as he stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Then if you'll excuse me, I will leave the two of you alone with your business.”

“Sir Henry?” David stopped the older man. “How old is Nathanial?”

Sir Henry stopped in his tracks. And turned. “Why don't you ask her?”

A momentous silence rocked David.

Mumbling something about having tea brought up, Sir Henry whirled on his heel. Rockwell stood aside as the man hurried past him in the corridor. When David still had not moved, Rockwell gave him his full attention.

“What just happened?”

David swept past him. “I'm not sure.”

Descending the stairs, he led Rockwell to the bookroom, as far away as he could go from Meg's chambers. He didn't light any lamps.

“How is Lady Munro?” Rockwell asked.

“Alive.”

Without removing his coat, David walked to the window. He had not shaved in two days, and his reflection bore the hint of a man who had not slept.

Rockwell's voice hesitated. “How alive?”

David met the younger man's gaze in the glass. “Thank you for that bit of confidence. I haven't murdered her if that is what concerns you, though I don't know why it should. Did you find anything on the drover's trail?”

“No one has been on that trail for days.”

“Then why aren't you at the cottage?”

“Pamela wasn't at the town house last night. I'm concerned. I should try to find her.”

David shook his head. “Her absence isn't abnormal.”

“Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean—”

“Dammit, Rockwell.” David said flatly, then cut off the rest of the sentence. “You knew what your job would be like before you married her. She would not appreciate your interference in whatever she is currently doing. Would she?”

Rockwell's jaw tightened, but he said no more. The very mercenary trait that had once made David faultless at his job made Pamela a valuable commodity in the realm of British espionage. He recognized the attribute and, as he looked out onto an ice-encrusted, picture-perfect world, he knew a part of that man still thrived inside him—he felt it now—its dark presence lurking like a shadow just beneath the surface.

After a moment, he looked away from the window, knowing he had no right to lose his temper with Rockwell. “I'll find Pamela tonight myself and have her send a message to Kinley. I'll check on her,” he said.

“Is there anything else before I go, sir?”

If there had been, David had forgotten and, for a long time after Rockwell left, he stood at the window. The snow had stopped and moonlight fell in a crisscross pattern over the polished floor.

Finally, he withdrew the photograph.

Moving the image into the narrow beam of light, he studied the impression, peering at the child's face.

His jaw clenched, and it was a labor to remember to breathe as he moved the image back and forth in the light. If Scott Munro had died in India, the child was too young to be Meg's stepson.

The chambermaid he'd met upstairs appeared in the doorway. “My lord, I can light a fire. This room is chilled.”

David looked dispassionately at the fireplace, the rich pan
eled walls and ornate bookcases, and felt only the heat of a fast-growing anger. “No thank you,” he replied after a moment. “If I want a fire, I'll build one myself.”

“Yes, my lord.”

His gaze paused on a rostrum. David had seen the Bible on that stand the first day upon his arrival. The Munro family Bible.

The one Meg didn't want to place her hand upon and swear an oath of honesty to him.

He found a tinderbox in the desk drawer and lit the oil lamp beside the globe. David brought the book to the desk. He flipped the ornate cover open and peeled back page after page until he found the birth listings. He ran his finger down the long list of names and stopped when he recognized Meg's handwriting.

Nathanial's date of birth was the last entry. Born May 14, 1864, five months after Meg disappeared from Calcutta.

David's body went icy cold.

Five months.

Bracing both palms on the desk, he closed his eyes.

Five bloody months. While he'd mourned her.

And returned to Ireland to take up the cloth, she'd given birth to his son.

He'd been a father for nine years.

“A man would have to be blind not to see the resemblance between you and my grandson,” Sir Henry said from the darkness behind him. “I thought you knew.”

His palms still braced on the stand, David glared at the ceiling and mentally cursed Meg's lying, treacherous heart. Anger began to roll off him in a crescendo of comprehension. She would have let him leave here never knowing the truth.

“Victoria was just a lass, not even twenty when she showed up on my doorstep heavy with child and nothing but a gangly cat to her name,” Sir Henry said.

In no mood for benevolence, he faced Sir Henry. “As much as I'm sure this story—”

“That woman upstairs is a daughter to me. If my son married her for whatever reason…then he must have loved her very much.”

“Don't count on that.”

“Victoria is the only mother Bethany has ever known,” Sir Henry said from the shadows behind the settee. “I love her as if she were my own blood. I love that boy. If they are in trouble—”

“Trouble?” David spoke, furious.

Sir Henry moved nearer, an old man hunched with age and, for just a moment, David felt sorry for him. “Whatever she's done in the past, she's made a good life for herself and her son.”

“She has no bloody life,” David said, his growing wrath unchecked, even when he saw the man flinch. “And she's in trouble. Buried in it up to her neck.”

Unable to stomach his own emotions, David stepped around the settee, his long stride carrying him toward the door.

“I don't know who you are, Chadwick,” Sir Henry said from the darkness behind him, “if that is really your name. But whatever happened to her…whatever she was running from all those years ago, Nathanial was born a Munro. He legally belongs to my family.”

“You're mistaken, Sir Henry. He belongs to me.”

W
hen David stepped into Meg's room, he knew immediately that she had fled. He stood in the doorway, staring at the bed frame and the rumpled feather tick. He strode to the dressing room. Her nightgown lay crumpled on the floor. The clothes he'd brought for her and his heavy cloak were gone.

“Little fool!” he mumbled.

He left the room and collided with the chambermaid carrying an armful of linens. “When was the last time someone checked on Lady Munro?” he asked her.

“An hour ago, my lord.” She dipped her head. “I brought her tea and biscuits at Sir Henry's request.”

“Was she in bed?”

“Yes, my lord. She told me she wanted to sleep.”

David descended the stairs three at a time. How far could she go in her condition? The chilly night air was as brisk as a slap to his face and stopped him on the stone steps outside.
Retrieving his gloves from his pocket, he looked toward the drive. The snow had stopped, and the moon was a bright orb in the sky, clinging to the naked treetops and reflecting across the landscape like fine crystal. At first, he saw no tracks in the snow small enough to belong to Meg. Then some sixth sense made him walk up the drive. His boots squeaked in the hushed silence. Finally, he stopped, tamped down a grip of fear, and let his anger rule him instead. Switching directions, he returned to the stable and his horse.

Once mounted, David picked up her trail in the woods just off the drive. Her prints continued north toward the church. Twisting around in the saddle to look at the house, he frowned over his shoulder. She must have gone through the servants' passageways and left from the back of the house to have escaped unnoticed.

David nudged the horse off the drive and followed the lone set of tracks, bending low as he weaved through the trees. Something kept niggling at his thoughts.

Remembering the other female prints he'd seen a few weeks back, he finally slid from the horse and squatted beside the path. Meg's footprints had not been those in the clearing he'd seen after the storm—that much was patent by the length of these prints and width of her stride. Meg was taller.

Bracing an elbow on one knee, David looked down the path at her footprints in the snow. A frown touching his brow, he realized she was heading to the cemetery.

 

Her cloak spilling around her, Victoria scraped the snow from beneath the tall granite stone belonging to Sir Scott Munro, Sir Henry's beloved son. She clawed at the frozen earth until, frustrated, she sat back on her ankles, and waited
for the wound in her side to quit burning. Being here felt sacrilegious. Wrong. She had never been afraid of this place, but as she looked upon the lifeless burned-out church, she felt fear.

Victoria picked up a rock and began chipping away at the space of hardened earth where she knelt. Tears filled her eyes. Her father would never have tried to shoot her. Not when there was something valuable he wanted—that he knew she had. Not when vengeance could be exacted in so many other ways.

Somewhere, a horse whickered. Heart racing, she froze and listened to the night. She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek and startled.

A fierce figure in black stood a few feet from where she sat. David. His horse was tied to the iron rail that caged the cemetery. In a night so quiet she could hear the hush of snow falling from trees, she didn't know how had he had entered the cemetery and come upon her.

“Go ahead, Meg. Dig.”

She stared at him with something of her old defiance. “I had hoped to be back before you found me. This isn't what you think.”

“Tell me what I should bloody think. When everything between us has always been a lie.”

Movement behind him grabbed her attention. A bear of a man ambled beneath the iron archway leading into the cemetery. She looked back at David who didn't seem concerned. He peered into her face. “Tell me, Meg.”

He might be an adherent of moral right, but in this, they were on the same side. Forcing away her dizziness and her uncertainty, she returned her attention to the headstone. She leaned forward and wiped the last of the wet leaves and snow
from the base of the stone. The effort was stealing her strength. The morphine Sir Henry had given her might have dulled the pain, but it did not shield her from exhaustion or the frigid cold. Worse, it did not protect her from David's furious presence.

She slid aside the marble piece that usually held flowers. Beneath the stone lay a rusted tin she'd placed there almost a decade ago. The one that held her half of the pair of earrings that had been recovered from a London pawnbroker.

“It's still here,” she whispered, so sure it would be gone. She removed the tin. For a moment, all she could do was stare in disbelief. “I thought…”

David took the metal box and withdrew the velvet pouch.

“I buried it years ago.” She drew in a breath and winced at the pain. “I needed to know if the earring in your possession had really come from my father, and that someone hadn't found this one. I needed to know for sure if my father was dead or alive.”

“This proves nothing in that regard,” he said.

With effort, Victoria looked up at him. David's eyes held an icy chill she had not recognized before. “This is what you were after that night I found you?” He stood beside the mound tall and angry, his eyes challenging. Something else was wrong with him, she realized. Something terrible.

He hunkered down beside her as she returned the marble to its proper place in front of the headstone. His heavy coat spilled around his boots and his eyes even with hers seemed capable of piercing her innermost secrets. “This is valuable enough to have paid more than the taxes on Rose Briar for years. Why didn't you use it?”

She bowed her head, realizing he thought she was saving it for a night like tonight, for a time when she needed to run. He
would never understand that in her mind as long as that earring remained hidden, she remained free.

“You were wearing my cloak,” he said. “Have you considered that whoever fired that rifle may not have been shooting at you? That maybe I was the intended target?”

She raised her fist to her chest. “You?”

“Why wasn't Sir Scott's body on the same steamer out of Bombay as you were?”

“I stayed behind another week because his wife became ill. The captain would not allow her to board.”

“You took a chance on capture.”

Pressing her palms on her thighs, she started to shiver. The hood shielded her face. “We'd ridden the train together from Calcutta. She knew I was…not well, and had been kind. I couldn't abandon her when she later became sick.”

“But then playing lady's maid was just another convenient role for you.”

Knowing he was right, for that was exactly what she'd done, she met his gaze with determination. “There
is
no treasure hidden here. That treasure left India long before I did.”

His heavily lashed lids narrowed slightly. “You're bleeding, Meg,” he said abruptly, but not harshly.

She was not frozen by his tone, but by his lack of emotion. She looked down at her side and saw blood had seeped through the bandage and stained her bodice. She could barely walk before. She knew she would not be able to stand without help now.

David was suddenly pulling her to her feet before she felt herself lifted into his arms. If it meant she had abandoned all pride, she didn't care. Too weak to argue, she laid her head against his shoulder and listened as he spoke to the man waiting for him at the gate.

“Your guard?” she asked when David put her on his horse.

He stepped into the stirrup and settled behind her. His horse breathed a cloud of steam. Reaching around her, David gathered the reins with one gloved hand and wrapped his other arm protectively around her, careful to avoid her waist. Heat from his body wrapped her in warmth. “His name is Ralph Blakely,” he said, turning the horse toward the path. “He doesn't answer to anyone but me.”

Clenching her jaw against Old Boy's jerky movements, she didn't understand David's quiet fury. David slowed the horse to a more bearable pace. “This ride isn't going to be comfortable no matter what,” he said.

“I'm all right, David.”

“Of course you are. The blood on your bodice is a prime example of your sterling health. And the brain in your head your wit. You could have waited until tomorrow to come here.”

“Do you really think that you may have been the target?” she asked, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“At this point, I believe anything is possible. You yourself have proven that.”

They rode in silence to the cottage.

“Why are you bringing me back here?”

Without answering, David slid to the ground and helped her down. One lamp burned in the kitchen, which meant Rockwell was making his perimeter check around the property before retiring to the cot in the pantry. She stumbled and, without breaking pace, David lifted her into his arms, conveying her up the stairs with a sure and steady grace that spoke of his strength. She raised her arms to loop around his neck.

David shouldered open the door to her room. With three long strides, he set her on her feet beside her bed and unfas
tened her cloak. Bright moonlight spilled through the parted curtains and washed his face in shadows.

“Where will you be staying tonight?” she asked.

He removed her cloak and tucked it beneath his arm. “I assure you it won't be here.”

Her mind in confusion, her reserve fled. “David—?”

“Keep the earring.” Something plopped against the comforter. He'd thrown the velvet pouch on her bed. “You've earned it for being the preeminent liar of my lifetime.”

Still carrying the cloak, he strode across the room, his footsteps soundless on the red rope carpet. He'd reached the doorway before Victoria finally regained her voice.

“What is wrong with you? I've done nothing wrong here.”

He turned and found her shivering where he'd left her standing. “Sir Henry knows, Meg.”

“He knows what?” she asked, her voice quiet in the hushed silence of the house.

“That Nathanial is my son.”

Her hand went to the polished iron bedstead. “Wait.”

But he had already stepped out of her room. She stumbled to the hallway and saw David open Nathanial's door. Her heart raced, and she suddenly felt sick.

David knew.

Somehow, he'd learned the truth.

“I would have told you,” she whispered.

His head came around. He walked back to her and, despite her desire to stand tall in the face of his accusing eyes, she could not. “You kept him from me. I will never forgive you for that. Ever. You want to chafe against caring for your own health or run away so badly, go ahead. Ye can go to hell, Meg, and I won't lift another bloody finger to stop you.”

“You don't understand.” She braced a hand against the
wall. “How could you after everything you did?”

“Everything I did?” He raised his voice. “What part of your life in Calcutta do you not remember? You were a thief stealing gold and jewels as easily as you stole state secrets. A member of the Circle of Nine—”

“We were married for three months. What did you think could happen? Yet, in your mind, I was still expendable.” Tears burned her eyes. “How dare you think you have any rights at all.”

“How dare I?” He advanced on her, a dark menacing figure in black. “I have a son, Meg.”

“What are you going to do?” She lifted her chin, and the seedling of rage inside took root as he walked past her.

“I'm going after my son.”

“You can't…He doesn't know who you are.”

David turned on his heel and backtracked three furious steps until he stood toe to toe with her. “Of course he doesn't know me. You made sure of that, didn't you? But he has a right to know that he has a father. A real living, breathing father, not some fooking lie that you invented to save your own bloody skin—”

“You hypocrite!” She shoved him with more strength than she thought possible and, caught by the force, he stumbled backward. Nine years ago, she had learned why he had married her. All those nights she'd spent in his arms laughing and dreaming of a future that would never be hers, believing he'd loved her. She had been nothing but a job to him.

“Whose lie was worse? Mine because I chose to fight for my life and that of the child I carried, or yours because you surrendered your soul to queen and country, like some scheming Lothario knowing that everything you did with me was a sham. Do not preach to me about lies, when you com
mitted the worst lie of all.” She slammed her fists against his chest, but he caught and held her hands immobile. “If there's any forgiveness to be had between us, you should be on your knees seeking mine. You have no heart!”

She felt the hard muscles of his body tense against hers. “Do not believe you ever knew my heart.”

But she was finished with civility. Finished blaming herself for all the mistakes in her past. For falling in love with a bastard using some higher agenda as an excuse to bed her. “Your precious superiors condemned me to the gallows ere there was a tribunal. My father set his cronies on my trail for betraying him. I did the only thing I could. I ran. I survived. I made a life for my son and myself.”

“You're tearing your wound.”

He let her go and she stumbled backward, gasping for breath. “I could have killed you that day. But I didn't!”

His eyes blazing, he suddenly turned his head. Victoria faltered. He was looking at Bethany standing in the hallway, her hand clutched to her wrapper, tears shining in her eyes. “Victoria?” the girl whispered, her pale hair visible in the darkness.

“Go back to bed, Bethany.” David bent and retrieved the cloak he'd dropped. “It's all right.”

Tears in her eyes, Victoria turned the force of her attention back to her husband. Of course, it wasn't all right. But Bethany obeyed, and Victoria heard the door click shut. “Don't presume that your high-handed orders carry any authority in this house, David.”