One Whisper Away (36 page)

She said nothing, simply smoothed her skirts and hesitated because the tension in the room was palpable.

“William,” her grandmother said in a chilly voice by way of greeting, “saw the man who attacked Lord Augustine. He heard the gunfire and he followed the culprit.”

“Thought he was a poacher,” William muttered, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “He had all the signs. Several guns, blood on his boots; what else was I to think, I ask you. A nuisance, the lot of them. So I shot the bugger.” Immediately he directed a guilty look at her grandmother for his language. “My apologies, Your Grace.”

Cecily’s elation over Jonathan’s move toward recovery and their tender words vanished, replaced by confusion. William was one of the nicest, most gentle men she knew. “You’d never—” she began to say.

“He did.” Her father cut her off, his expression rigid. Elegant as usual in his severe formal dress, he stood stiff-backed by a settee, his features cold and his hands laced behind his back.

“He did,” James Bourne agreed, his expression neutral. “Drury and I have been trying to piece together what happened for the past few days, and we found a shallow grave on a remote part of the estate. The man buried there is named Josiah Browne. He used to be an estate manager for our family, until we discovered he was embezzling funds and terminated his employment. I suspect he was behind several suspicious accidents that have happened lately, such as tampering with the wheel of my carriage and an attack I thought was merely an attempt to steal my purse. He definitely had a grudge against both me and Jonathan. He must have followed us here.”

The broken wheel was certainly an event she’d never forget, but still, William would never deliberately kill someone.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

William’s jaw jutted out at a stubborn angle. “Just a poacher.”

“When Elijah told me where they found the grave,” Eleanor said quietly, “I thought maybe they should talk to William. Very little happens on the grounds that he doesn’t know about.”

Elijah? The first-name usage was encouraging, but Cecily was still so bewildered by this turn of events that she only barely registered it.

Her father said grimly, “I came from London to deal with this, as the Shakes family has worked for ours for generations. As your grandmother just said, William has admitted to killing the man and burying the body. Our problem now is what to do about this. A magistrate might hang him.”

For all his austere ways, her father was a kindhearted person. It didn’t surprise Cecily that he would travel for hours for the gamekeeper on one of his estates.

“’Twas for no reason other than what I said.” William refused to back down, but his face took on a dusky hue. “Let them hang me.”

“Everyone leave us, please, so I can have a word with William alone.” When her father spoke in that autocratic tone, no one argued, not even her grandmother. He turned to Cecily. “As this directly concerns your fiancé, you stay.”

“As far as I am concerned, Shakes did us a favor,” James said as he rose to leave the room, his eyes somber. “Whatever happened to Browne was no less than he deserved.”

Once the room was cleared and the door closed, her father nodded at her. “Cecily, sit down.”

She sank obediently into a silk-covered chair while William still stood with a hint of defiance that she didn’t at all understand, the two men facing each other, lord and servant, but also of an age, and though her father was duke and William a mere gamekeeper, they’d been raised on the estate at the same time. Her father rubbed his jaw and said with weary familiarity, “Will, please, for the love of God, will you simply tell me the truth? When a man is nearly killed, and another found buried on my property, I am ultimately responsible. We need a better story than you thought he was a poacher. You’ve caught many a poacher before without killing them, much less not bothering to inform anyone of the not-so-insignificant event of a man’s death.”

“The likes of him won’t be missed.”

“No, I am guessing you are correct in that assumption, but for the sake of my personal edification, I would like to know what happened. If I must explain this event—and enough people know that I must, not to mention he should be buried properly—I don’t want to sound like a fool who employs a murderous gamekeeper. There must have been just cause or you would not have taken such a drastic course. Just tell me.”

With obvious reluctance William said, “I heard shots. Saw him riding away. So I stopped him and told him he was going straight to the authorities for trespassing on the property of the Duke of Eddington. He was a nasty fellow. As I said, he had a gun and there was the blood. One thing led to another.”

“It was self-defense?”

Had at that moment William not glanced at her for the first time, his already ruddy skin taking on a deeper color, Cecily would not have made the connection.

Nasty fellow
.

Oh, God
. The world stopped. She suddenly saw in her memory the slow-moving beauty of the river, the water sliding past, her and Jonathan shedding their clothes, frantic for each other, him sweeping her into his arms . . . and then they’d made love.

She’d not thought about anyone seeing them in that remote corner, but that was possible if what James claimed was true and this Josiah Browne had followed them to the estate from London and was prowling the grounds. . . .

The words came involuntarily from her mouth. “What did he say? Oh, God in heaven, William . . . he saw us, didn’t he? If you took him to the magistrate he would tell the court everything. . . . You were trying to protect me, weren’t you?” It was so mortifying, yet she was sure she was right.

“I’ve no idea what you are talking about, milady. I saw him riding about in the early hours and I shot him. That’s the extent of it.” William’s rough voice was bereft of excuse. “I had no idea his lordship was what he was hunting, but I figure that’s worse than any hart or hare anyway. Did the world a favor, I did.”

Her father muttered something she didn’t catch.

It was a bit difficult to reconcile that maybe they’d been watched during the magical interlude in the river, and that the murderous Browne would have used that to try to escape penance for his attack on Jonathan, but cool logic told her that was what had happened.

Despite the audience of her now frigidly disapproving father, Cecily rose and went over and took William’s rough hand in hers. “You tried to protect me, and as he shot Jonathan in a very cowardly way, I believe you are right, he was a very nasty fellow. Now, let my father help you.”

William looked at her for a moment, and then nodded once. “He was a murdering swine, not to mention a trespasser. I’d kill him again, I would.”

“So you had a murderous confrontation with a poacher,” her father interjected into the conversation, his voice cool. “Is that correct, Shakes?”

“That’s right, Your Grace.”

“I believe I understand now what happened. You are dismissed. Do not worry—I think I can ensure that no charges will be taken to the local court. Go back to your duties.”

William awkwardly tipped his hat and left.

When she turned around, Cecily found she was grateful for not having a larger audience, for truly, the glare of the patrician disapproval of her father was unnerving enough.

Her feelings at this point were divided, Cecily decided, flushed but her stance erect. She wasn’t inclined to apologize for the interlude in the river—because it would no doubt always be one of the most cherished afternoons of her life, and while Jonathan had lain there between life and death, she had consoled herself with the knowledge that she would always hold those tender moments in her heart.

Still, it was all rather mortifying.

“And here I thought Eleanor was the daughter that would give me the most sleepless nights.” Her father sighed. “At least no one is any longer trying to murder the man you apparently need to marry with all due speed. I wish you joy of each other, for you seem well suited if mutual recklessness is a measure of compatibility.”

“This is my fault.”

“No, my dear, it isn’t.” Her father’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “I forbid you to feel that way.”

When she started to say more, he held up a hand, palm outward, to stop her. “Did you invite the odious man to the estate and ask him to shoot Lord Augustine from the cover of the bushes and then do his best to beat him to death? No, of course you didn’t. Nor was Augustine unjustified in letting go a man who was openly stealing from him, according to James Bourne, so there you have it. Perhaps more discretion would be wise, but that is hardly a crime.

“There’s no question that this Browne was a villain who deserved what form of rustic justice was bestowed upon him. William is not by nature a violent man, so the provocation must have been extreme. Besides, we know Browne was armed and willing to use his weapon, so perhaps it is just as well that we will never know exactly what happened. I am certain enough justice prevailed, with or without the due process of our tedious legal avenues, that my conscience does not bother me. It sounds to me as though I might have been moved to violence myself.”

Cecily faced her father, a bit bemused by his attitude. “So that is the end of it?”

“No.”

“No?”

He smiled. It was slight, but definitely there. “I think you have a wedding to plan for when Augustine can stand upright long enough to recite his vows.”

She could have sworn that when she nodded and went to leave the room, her father added under his breath, “Which had better be soon.”

She couldn’t have agreed more.

 

“Papa!”

His daughter threw her arms around him with such enthusiasm that he stifled a flinch, but Jonathan pulled her close and dropped a kiss on the top of her shining head, pressing his cheek against her silky hair. With a great deal of effort and some help from James, he’d managed to don a pair of breeches and halfway put on a shirt, though one arm was in a sling to keep him from using his shoulder and so the latter garment was not buttoned enough to conceal the bandages, not to mention that the bruises on his face were not something he could hide.

“You’ve been sleeping,” Addie said accusingly as he lifted her onto his lap with his good arm despite his cracked ribs. The pain was acute, but the reward worth it. She snuggled against his chest. “For ever so long.”

“I was tired.” He’d tried to come up with an excuse a five-year-old would accept, but he wasn’t exactly brilliant at the moment, so he’d decided to just tell as much of the truth as possible. “I had an accident. Like when you slipped on the stairs and broke your arm.”

“It hurt,” she acknowledged, her small face drawn into a frown.

“Yes,” he agreed wryly.
Like hell
, an inner voice added.

“Aunt Lily said you fell from your horse, but I said no. You never fall.”

Good for Lily. The aunt in question stood nearby in the doorway of the small sitting room off his bedroom, a slight smile on her face. “I did this time,” Jonathan said, catching his sister’s eye and hopefully conveying an unspoken thank-you. “It hurt too.”

“Did you cry like me?”

He wasn’t sure how to answer that earnest question, so instead he stroked Adela’s cheek with a fingertip. “Can I tell you a secret?”

His daughter’s small face lit with delight and she sat up. “Yes! I love secrets!”

“I’m going to marry Lady Cecily.”

Whatever he expected, it wasn’t the scornful female look he received. “
That’s
not a secret, Papa,” Adela informed him, slipping off his lap with childish impatience. “Nanny told me. Cook told me. Aunt Betsy and Aunt Carole told me. Cousin James—”

Apparently he was related to a multitude of conspirators. With a suppressed laugh, Jonathan interrupted her. “I apologize, then. I’ll try for a better secret next time.”

“Treasure?”

“What?”

“Buried treasure. With curses on it.”

He glanced sharply at his sister, who shrugged, but her lips compressed in undisguised mirth. “We’ve been reading together. She has an adventurous spirit.”

“Now, that’s a surprise,” he murmured. To Addie he said, “You do like Lady Cecily, don’t you?”

His daughter nodded, and said ingenuously, “She’s nice. And pretty. And her eyes are magic.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

At that moment, he noticed something else. A slender form in the doorway, familiar, evocative of delicious memories even in his weakened state. Lily noticed Cecily’s arrival also, for she promptly took Adela’s hand and said, “Perhaps we should go looking for treasure along the river.”

When they left, Cecily chose a nearby chair, her smile warming the room. “You look better.”

“James just told me less than an hour ago I look like hell.”

“But as I said, better than the past few days. Has no one ever told you that cursing in front of a lady is rude?” She lifted a brow.

He attempted to shrug, but it was a poor idea with his injured shoulder. “I do think I have been lectured before on the subject. I must not have been listening.”

Cecily laughed, the musical sound spontaneous. Then his wife-to-be, lovely in a simple white muslin gown, with a ribbon holding her pale hair back, gazed at him and said, “My eyes are magic? What does that mean?”

“Come kiss me and I’ll explain.”

“You are hardly in any condition, my lord, for—”

“Kissing? I assure you my lips are completely uninjured.”

Though he was fairly sure she called him intractable so quietly he barely caught it, Cecily did come forward and placed a chaste, cool kiss on his mouth.

“A real kiss, if you please.” His grin was teasing. Yes, he ached, and the pain was distracting, but not nearly as distracting as the lovely young woman bent over him, her hands braced on the arms of his chair, those magical eyes so close.