Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed (33 page)

Sidonie wrenched herself from shocked paralysis to realize her sister was shaking like a sapling in a high wind and just might throw herself after William. “No, Roberta,” she gasped, darting forward and gripping her sister’s arms from behind.

“What have I done?” Roberta turned to stare helplessly at Sidonie. “Oh, dear Lord, what have I done?”

All trace had vanished of the harpy who flung herself at her tormentor. She looked lost, small, and vulnerable. Tears flooded her large blue eyes as she trusted in Sidonie to solve this dilemma as she’d solved so many before.

Jonas ascended the steps toward the two women. “We have to make it look like an accident or, at worst, suicide.”

“But William—” Sidonie began.

Jonas’s mouth curved in a grim smile. “Was too egotistical to do away with himself? Hopefully the world didn’t know him as we did. We must divert all suspicion from Lady Hillbrook.”

Again, Sidonie’s heart surged with admiration. A lesser man would gloat at his enemy’s demise, but Jonas’s sole concern was Roberta’s well-being.

Roberta collapsed sobbing against Sidonie, hiding from the sight of William’s body. Sidonie’s arms encircled her sister as she glanced at Jonas. What on earth could they do to save Roberta? She didn’t deserve to hang for putting an end to the man who had abused her.

“Roberta,” Sidonie said, fear sharpening her tone. “Stand up straight and think. Unless you want to face a murder charge.” Even if Roberta claimed her life was at
risk, chances were a legal system unsympathetic to rebellious wives would hound her.

The word “murder” made Roberta stiffen and pull away slightly. “He was a brute,” she said shakily.

“Undoubtedly.” Jonas looked stern and purposeful. “But hardly the point. Where are the servants?”

Roberta sucked in a breath and the blankness faded from her eyes. Her voice emerged high and thready. “I sent them to the fair in the next village.”

“They’re coming back tonight?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“They’ll return soon.” With difficulty, Sidonie untangled herself from Roberta and nervously checked the window at the top of the stairs. The drive, thank heaven, remained empty in spite of the lengthening shadows. “Jonas, you must go. If anyone discovers you were here, it will be disastrous. Suspicion will immediately fall on you.”

“I know. My feud with William is too infamous for my presence to be construed as innocent. But I hate to leave you alone to deal with this shambles.”

Sidonie was so used to managing on her own, struggling to chart a course through impossible situations. This time she could rely on Jonas. She’d already trusted him with her body. But now she trusted him with her life. More, she trusted him with her sister’s life.

An extraordinary moment to realize how profoundly she’d fallen in love with him.

For days she’d struggled against this revelation. Now that she at last acknowledged the truth, deep peace settled in her heart. She’d resisted falling in love with Jonas, terrified he’d turn her into a weakling, incapable of living without him. But as she accepted what she felt, what she’d
felt almost from the start, strength and power filled her. It was as though she tapped into some mysterious source of energy pulsing through the world.

I love Jonas. I love Jonas.

“Does Lady Hillbrook take laudanum?” he asked.

Her sister never traveled without a supply of the drug. There were days when laudanum offered Roberta her only escape from horror. Roberta shot Jonas a frightened glance. “You’re not suggesting I kill myself, are you?”

Jonas’s lips quirked at her dramatic tone. “No.”

“Then what?”

“Take a dose and go to bed.”

“I couldn’t sleep. Not after this.” Her sister’s gaze slid from Jonas’s face as though his scars offended her. Even here where he did his best to save her, Roberta couldn’t look him in the face and say thank you.

Oh, my love, no wonder you’ve learned to mistrust the world
.

“Listen to him, Roberta,” Sidonie said urgently. “He’s your only hope of avoiding the noose.”

Roberta’s eyes widened in fear. “Surely it won’t come to that.”

“Surely it will.” Sidonie tried to shock her into understanding their dire situation. She looked at Jonas. “What do you want us to do?”

His gaze met hers. The panic thundering in her chest quieted under the glow of approval in his gray eyes.

“Lady Hillbrook, I want you to take enough laudanum to put you to sleep. When the servants return, they’ll discover you unconscious in your room. If anyone asks, you slept all afternoon and had no idea your husband arrived. His death comes as unexpected news.”

“Yes.” Roberta sounded stronger. “Yes, I can do that.”

“Sidonie, we need to clean up the nursery then you need to leave the house until the servants return. You’ll walk back across the park and enter the house to discover William’s body. When the authorities arrive, you’ll say you came down from London with Roberta, then took a stroll while your sister recovered from the journey. We need to establish that the house contained only two people, a sleeping Roberta and William who faced irretrievable financial ruin. He either fell or in a fit of despair threw himself down the stairs.”

Frail hope stirred. “You know, it just might work.”

Roberta shot Jonas a suspicious glance. “You’re very cozy with my sister, Mr. Merrick.”

Jonas’s mouth flattened with impatience. “We’ll talk about that when you’re not facing arrest for murder, Lady Hillbrook. Now we must act.”

Roberta frowned, but even she realized there was no time for an inquisition. “If I must.”

Sidonie released a relieved sigh. “Roberta, go and lie down. I’ll help Jonas then come and mix your laudanum.”

Roberta clasped Sidonie’s forearm with a shaking hand. “I can’t believe it’s come to this.”

“Courage.” She embraced Roberta.

Roberta drew away and nodded slowly. She turned toward her room but hesitated and her voice rose with hysteria. “I… I can’t. I can’t walk away when he’s lying there dead. It’s too horrid.”

“Shut your eyes, Lady Hillbrook.” Jonas stepped closer and swung Roberta into his arms. Roberta squeaked with shock, but after a delay that pierced Sidonie’s heart, she twined her arms around Jonas’s powerful neck.

“I assume she uses the viscountess’s apartments,” he said over his shoulder to Sidonie.

“Yes. They’re along—”

“I know.”

Of course he knew. He’d grown up in this house.

Left alone, Sidonie’s strongest instinct was to avoid looking at William, but macabre curiosity won out. In death her brother-in-law seemed shrunken, the shock and rage of his last moments distorting his face. His dull eyes glared past her and his body twisted grotesquely against the flagstones. The effects of his fight with Jonas were obvious. She hoped to heaven nobody attributed the bruises and abrasions to anything except the fall.

She still didn’t feel anything. Relief or grief or regret. It disturbed her to be so cold. She should feel something when a man whose life she’d shared for six years, however unwillingly, lay dead in front of her. Her only real reaction was a vengeful wish that William roasted in hell for eternity.

When Jonas approached, she glanced up. He’d retrieved a bottle of brandy from Roberta’s supply for mixing with her laudanum. Sidonie’s expression must have betrayed her troubled thoughts because he sent her a reassuring smile. “We’ll come through this,
tesoro
. Have faith.”

She believed him. Such power he held over her. With a naturalness she thought abandoned in Devon, she reached for him. “Thank you.”

He caught her against him for a brief kiss. She shut her eyes as his lips moved against hers. The sweet contact ended too soon.

Jonas drew away to uncork the brandy and splash it across William’s body. The scent of liquor sharpened the
air. Then with sudden violence he flung the bottle onto the flagstones to shatter.

“That was clever.” She reached for his hand. “I still don’t understand why you came here this afternoon.”

“I wanted to make sure you got home safely. I meant only to watch you go inside, but the house looked deserted.”

“I’m so glad you checked. William was ready to kill Roberta.”

“Now he’ll never threaten her again.”

Sidonie shivered as if William’s ghost breathed cold air against her nape. “I’ll clean up the nursery and look after Roberta. You must go, Jonas.”

She tasted his reluctance to abandon her in his swift kiss. As she watched him stride away with his usual purpose, she blinked back tears. It seemed wrong that they should be apart. Such a difference a week had made to proud, solitary Sidonie Forsythe.

Jonas’s plan to save Roberta worked more smoothly than Sidonie could have expected, even in her most optimistic moments.

She entered the house from the terrace just as the aged butler, who to her knowledge hadn’t been paid in six months, started lighting the lamps. Thus he discovered William’s body and fetched Sidonie from the terrace. After the wrench of parting from Jonas, she didn’t need to feign distress. Recovering from a hefty dose of laudanum, Roberta was quiet and dozy and hardly aware of events when she woke to news of her husband’s demise.

Sir John Phillips, the local magistrate, arrived that night to complete the formalities. He accepted Sidonie’s
tale of being away from the house all afternoon. During a short interview, Sidonie hinted at William’s financial woes and his increasing reliance on alcohol. Sir John, an elderly gentleman of sedentary habits, showed no interest in pursuing William’s death as other than accidental. To Sidonie’s relief, Jonas’s name was never mentioned.

Beneath her surface calmness, Sidonie was worried sick about Roberta. She couldn’t forget that terrifying instant when her sister seemed likely to throw herself after her foul husband.

The next morning, she carried a breakfast tray up to Roberta’s room. After depositing the tray on a table, she pushed the curtains apart and opened the window so fresh air dissipated the sickly scent of laudanum and the heavy perfumes Roberta favored. Roberta’s only response to these activities was a pained groan. “For pity’s sake, Sidonie, my head aches like the devil.”

Well, that answered any questions about how Roberta was feeling. Sidonie took pity on her sister to pull the curtains half closed so brightness filtered into the untidy, overcrowded chamber. “Sir John is content to rule William’s death an accident.”

“Good.” With another groan, Roberta pushed herself up in the bed, slumping against the headboard. In the daylight, she looked ten years older than she was. Sidonie’s rankling irritation with her sister for continuing to gamble drowned under a wave of helpless love. When they were small, Roberta had seemed so strong and clever. Now she was lost and defenseless, a mirror image of their sweet, sad, ineffectual mother.

Forcing the painful memories away, Sidonie poured Roberta a cup of tea. “We’re lucky he’s so lazy.”

Roberta grunted as she sipped her tea. Weariness, distress and the after-effects of the drug shadowed her blue eyes. Sidonie began to tidy the room, collecting scattered clothes and shoes and jewelry. Silence reigned until suddenly Roberta started to shake so violently that the cup rattled against its saucer.

“Sidonie, what are we to do?” Tears poured down Roberta’s cheeks and a strangled sob escaped her.

“Oh, darling. Roberta…” Sidonie dropped the handful of silk scarves she collected and rushed to rescue the cup. She sat on the edge of the bed and curled her arms around her distraught sister. “It’s all right. Don’t cry. You’re free. He’ll never hit you again.”

“William’s gone. I can hardly believe it.” She buried her head in Sidonie’s shoulder until finally broken howls subsided to soft mewling. Finally she drew away to wipe her eyes and sniff. “I hardly know what to think.”

“We’ll come through this, Roberta.” Sidonie echoed Jonas’s words from yesterday as she reached into the nightstand drawer for a handkerchief.

Roberta wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I loathe how we had to rely on that odious man.” Roberta’s eyes sharpened and with a sinking feeling, Sidonie realized her sister’s immediate concern had shifted from her husband’s death. “What happened in Devon? You and that Merrick creature seemed great chums yesterday. I imagined after your ordeal that you’d abhor the very mention of his name.”

God give her strength. Sidonie wasn’t sure she was up to this discussion, although she’d known it was inevitable. She still wasn’t sure what she wanted to tell Roberta. Not the full story, that was for sure. “He was kind to me.”

“That doesn’t sound like the ruthless devil I know. Merciful heavens, Sidonie, the scoundrel compelled you into his bed. He’s little better than a thug.” The opium’s effects well and truly ebbed. Roberta’s gaze focused in a way Sidonie found discomfiting. “Or did you somehow talk him into letting you keep your maidenhead?”

“I told you yesterday that he didn’t hurt me.” If she blushed any hotter, she’d self-combust.

Sidonie dreaded more questions, but even worse than an inquisition was the way Roberta’s face tightened with remorse. Roberta grabbed Sidonie’s hands, wringing them in her distress. “Oh, my dear sister, I’m so sorry. You’ve gone and fallen in love with the villain. I thought you’d be safe. He’s so hideous and rough. But of course, you’re so inexperienced with men. I should never have let you go. How can I forgive myself?”

Sidonie tore free of Roberta’s clinging hold and rose to stand trembling by the bed. “He didn’t force me although he could have. I thought you’d be pleased about that.”

“Except the cur was too clever for both of us. He was wicked enough to seduce you into cooperating in your ruin and now you’ll break your heart over him.” Roberta scowled at her. “It’s part of his revenge on our family. He hates me. You know that.”

“He hated William.”

“Any strike at me was a strike at William. And he struck at me through you.”

Sidonie stepped back to distance herself from Roberta’s horrible, maniac insinuations. Nobody could be so Machiavellian as Roberta painted Jonas. “He helped you yesterday.”

“Only because he’s plotting something. You’ll see.”
Roberta rose on shaky legs, clinging to a bedpost for balance. Her cream lace nightdress flowed around her, adding to the dramatic effect. “Wake up, girl. He’s over at that ridiculous house right now, sniggering at your foolishness.”