Leslie LaFoy (50 page)

“If I might offer you a word of advice, Madam Rivard?” Graves said, abruptly rising from his chair. He didn't wait for her assent, but took a cringing Cornelia by the elbow and all but hauled her to her feet while saying, “You would be wise to keep your rabid colonial sympathies to yourself. In the coming days, they will not be at all popular among your fellow citizens.”

“Thank you. I'll bear that in mind,” she replied, rising to follow them into the main room. She opened the door and held it for them, waiting until they were down the steps and moving along the walk before she called out, “Oh, and Reverend?” He turned back, his eyes blazing. She smiled. “I won't be in church on Sunday.”

She didn't wait to see them the rest of the way down the walk and into their carriage. Wrapped in an abiding sense of satisfaction, she stepped back and smartly closed the door. “No one tells me where to be and when,” she declared, striding into the dining room to snatch up plates of half-eaten food. “No one tells me what to think and what I can say. I've earned the right to make those decisions for myself. It might well be that nothing around here has changed in almost five years, but I certainly have and—”

Claire slowed and then stopped, stunned by the quiet potency of realization. She
had
changed. She wasn't the same Claire Curran who had grown up in this house. Crossbridge was beautiful and held precious
memories, but it was the home of someone else, someone who didn't exist anymore. That's why all the weeks of housekeeping and homemaking hadn't given her the sense of peace and happiness she'd hoped to find. And, oddly enough, the fact that she'd tried made her angry. Truly angry.

EVON STOOD AT THE WINDOW
and looked out into the night. From the second floor, he could see only so far, but it was far enough to know that London was a sprawling giant and the largest city he would see in his life. It only slumbered through the night, never really sleeping. On the streets below, lamplit carriages rolled by, and people, bundled against the damp chill, made their way along the walks. By light of day the city bustled, its streets and walks clogged to the point of near impassability. It was an interesting place, full of sights and sounds and smells. He could see how some would be drawn to it, wanting to immerse themselves in the hectic pace of the life it offered. He couldn't, though.

He'd been here for a week, moving through and around the city and yet constantly finding himself gazing off to the west and north, in the direction the maps said Herefordshire lay. Roughly two hundred miles if the maps were accurate. Five days of hard riding. Maybe
four if the roads were as good as people said they were. Not that he had any reason to travel them. He'd just been making conversation.

“Well, here's an interesting bit of news,” Edmund called out from his seat beside the hearth. He folded his newspaper and angled it into the firelight. “Lady Darice Lytton, late of the British American colony of Virginia, has been arrested and charged with the murder of one Sir William Grayson, Earl of Something-shire, Lord of Something-wick, and a distant cousin of the King. According to Grayson's closest relatives—presumably
not
the King—Grayson and ol' Darice were having an affair and had differing views on the appropriate way to end it.”

Devon smiled wryly, thinking that Darice had apparently won the contest. “Does it say how she killed him?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.

Edmund read a bit, then pursed his lips and cast a quick glance in his direction. Devon recognized the hesitancy and had seen it often enough in the last few months to know the cause. Everyone at Rosewind had developed the habit of censoring their conversation. And no one mentioned Claire at all. They were very, very careful about that.

“Given the look on your face,” he said, turning to look out the window again, “I'd guess it was by poison. Am I right?”

“You'd think that people could be just a bit more creative with mayhem,” Edmund observed. “Just a little more original. Do you think they'd be interested in knowing your suspicions about how Robert Lytton died?”

Devon shrugged. “I don't know. And I don't know if it'd make any difference in the end. They can only hang her once. Does it say where they're holding her?”

“Newgate Prison.”

Devon nodded. There were some aspects of the British legal and penal system of which he didn't approve, but their willingness to toss Darice into the pits of hell was something he couldn't help but appreciate. He'd thought she'd been the one trying to kill Claire, but it was the only sin of which she was innocent. All things considered, Newgate was where Darice belonged. “Does it say anything about dear Aunt Elsbeth?”

Edmund rustled through his paper, supplying, “Nothing beyond the fact that she's apparently living in Charleston these days.” There was a long pause and then Edmund mused aloud, “Wouldn't it be ironic if we ended up in chains beside Darice?”

Devon snorted and, watching a carriage roll past, replied, “I'm just a businessman here to discuss the ramifications of war with my British counterparts. You're my legal advisor. Unless we rob or murder one of them, we're not going to land in Newgate.”
And once we rebel, they won't bother with hauling us across to prison. They'll just hang us from the nearest tree
.

“It's gratifying to know that your counterparts are hearing what we're saying,” Edmund observed, frustration creeping into his voice. “And that they can see the consequences just as clearly as we can. But I doubt that the King and his ministers will be any more willing to hear their own merchants' protests than they've been willing to hear ours. We've wasted the trip, the whole effort, you know. All of us.”

“We've tried to make peace, Edmund. From every direction possible. Our conscience is clear. When we take up arms, they won't be able to say that we didn't tell them that we would and why. They won't be able to say that we didn't give them a chance to choose another way.”

There was a quiet knock at the door, and Edmund
threw his paper aside, saying, “Maybe that's the King,” and heading off to see.

Or maybe Claire
, Devon thought before he could censor hope. He scowled out at the darkness, reminding himself that she didn't know he was in England and didn't know to come looking for him. Of course, it was best if she didn't, and he should damn well stop scanning the faces in crowds, looking for her.

“Ephram! Damn, it's good to see you! Come in, come in. How are you?”

His heart suddenly racing, Devon turned away from the window to see Edmund furiously pumping Ephram's hand and dragging the man across the threshold.

“Just fine, sir,” Ephram was saying. “And you?”

“Well, I'm here with Devon,” he replied, freeing his hand to gesture in his direction. “Need I say more?”

Ephram's gaze met his and Devon advanced, smiling, his hand out. “Freedom seems to agree with you. You look good, Ephram.”

“I wish I could honestly say the same thing about you, sir. You look… tired.”

No, he looked beaten and he knew it. Shaking his half brother's hand and clapping him on the shoulder, he changed the subject. “It's Devon, not ‘sir.’ Not anymore. It never felt right, anyway.”

“How's my mother?”

“Fine,” Devon replied, stepping away. “As strong and opinionated as ever. She sent along some things for you on the chance that we'd be able to find each other. Let me get the package for you.”

He was moving to his trunk in the corner when Edmund asked, “How's Claire? Did the Crown grant her petition for Crossbridge?”

Devon's step faltered and his heart lurched, but he quickly resumed his track, determined that no one know how deep the pain still went.

“Yes, sir, they did,” Ephram answered as Devon snagged the string-wrapped bundle. “It's a very nice house by British standards, and I saw her settled in before I came back to London.”

Edmund was nodding and looking acutely regretful that he had brought up the subject of Claire. Devon felt sorry for him. Asking about her was a natural thing to do, since Ephram had been the last of them to see her. Handing the bundle to his half brother, Devon asked as casually as he could, “Is she happy?”

“No.”

A flat statement of certain fact. Having a knife thrust into his heart would have hurt far less. Devon dredged up a smile and admitted what truth he could. “That's not what I wanted to hear.”

“I know,” Ephram countered with a dismissive shrug. “But I'm a free man now and I don't have to worry about what you want to hear and what you don't.”

He knew what was coming; he could feel it in the air. “Have you ever worried about my opinion?” he asked, forcing a chuckle and moving back to the window.

“Not really.” There was a momentary pause, followed by a deep breath. Devon braced himself to endure the criticism from without and the heartache from within, and then Ephram began, “I came here this evening because I have to say what I think about all this. Lady Claire has been at Crossbridge spending every minute of her days and most of her nights putting things back to the way she remembers them. But her heart's not in it. The light in her eyes went out the minute you walked away from her on the James City dock.”

Oh, God. He didn't have to sleep to have that moment torment his mind. The nightmare was with him constantly, ever twisting his heart. Time hadn't
blurred the image or dulled the pain one little bit. “And you think I ought to go to Crossbridge, get her, and take her home with me,” he said, moving to the inevitable conclusion in the desperate hope of getting the conversation done before he had to actually fight back the tears.

“She's not at Crossbridge at the moment. She's been summoned back to London for the trial that begins in two days. She arrived yesterday evening.”

His heart jolted and the blood shot through his veins. Claire was in London?

“How do you know that?” he heard Edmund ask.

“She came by my office to say hello this afternoon when she finished her meetings with the barristers.”

“Did you tell her Devon was here?”

His heart twisted with fear even as his breath caught hard on a wild, foolish hope.

“There was no need to,” Ephram answered. “She's read the newspapers. She knows you're both here and why.”

His heart was going to explode. Just after his knees gave out.

“Did she say anything about trying to find him?” Edmund went on.

“Why would she need or want to?” Devon asked, desperately gazing out the window and trying to sound as though he were unaffected by the conversation. “We're no longer bound to each other.”

Ephram cleared his throat. “Which brings me to the other reason I've come to see you this evening. You need to know that Lady Claire hasn't petitioned for a divorce and has absolutely no intention of doing so.”

Pain fled in the face of shock and concern. Devon stepped away from the window, abandoning the pretense of nonchalance. “She promised me that she would.”

“No, she didn't,” he countered. “I was standing right there and she didn't promise you anything of the sort.”