Sweet Deception (39 page)

“Life is too short not to be with the one you love,” Moreau said. Derick’s body went very still. Would he risk his life in a country he was warned never to enter again, just to be near Emma?
Hell, yes.
So why wouldn’t he stay in England to be with her?

Moreau started talking again. “But Vivienne begged me to hold on. Scarsdale was so much older than she. I’m sure you know, her family had negotiated an extremely generous widow’s portion for her. She promised that when Scarsdale died, we would use it to purchase a small château near the sea where we could live out the rest of our lives together. I loved her so much, I couldn’t have denied her. So we waited. And waited. Twenty-three years, we waited.”

What hell that must have been. He couldn’t imagine
one
year without Emma. Hell, not one
week
.

“And finally, I received her letter that Scarsdale was dead. Ah, that letter.” The Frenchman’s eyes closed slowly, as if in remembered bliss. “So full of joy and excitement and promise. Vivienne bade me to come to England and join her here, be with her until the estate was settled and her portion under her own control, and then we would leave England together, just as we had arrived together so many years ago.”

What a fool he was being. He wasn’t going to be like his parents. He wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way of his and Emma’s love. If she wouldn’t come to America, then he would have to stay here. He could do nothing else.

“But then, only two days after I received that letter, another came, telling me to stay where I am. Vivienne said that she was in trouble and that I was to expect her imminently.”

Derick’s attention jerked fully back to Moreau. “She was planning to come to you?” That explained her hastily packed valuables. So what happened between her dashing off a letter to Moreau and her jumping off a cliff? Had Farnsworth caught up to her? Had she realized there was no escape from justice?

“Yes, but she never arrived. So after several days’ wait, I came here…only to find her dead. I will never believe that when we were so close to finally being together Vivienne would take her life.
Non
.”

Moreau’s story was worrying, on many levels. Derick chose to focus only on the part that pertained to his mission. His instincts told him to believe Moreau’s tale, so he decided to be honest with the man in return. He stood to face him.

“Mother
was
in trouble, which is
why
she killed herself, rather than be arrested.” Derick briefly outlined his own version of events—noticing how Moreau flinched when Derick mentioned her long-running affair with George Wallingford—and ending with her taking her own life to avoid being captured as a traitor.

Moreau’s ruddy complexion reddened with rising emotion during the telling. “How could you believe such a thing of your mother?”

“Well, in addition to mountains of circumstantial evidence, my mother was a liar and a deceiver, who felt nothing for anyone but herself,” he said. Although in light of what he’d just learned, “And perhaps you,” he allowed.

“That is not true! She loved
you
. You were her son!”

“She hated me!” Derick shot back, old hurts and fresh anger boiling up.

“No, Derick. You must remember how your mother doted on you.”

Flashes of memory, of her perfumed arms cuddling him close, her lilting voice singing lullabies in French, of kisses and hugs, assaulted him, twisting him with an old longing. He’d loved Maman so much, and had known,
with a little boy’s certainty, that she loved him, too. Which is why her sudden coldness had wounded him so grievously. “She loved me until you were gone. Then she hated me.”

Moreau’s eyes filled with sadness. “She never hated you. When Scarsdale sent me away, your mother clung to you—not only as her child but as the only part of me she had left. When Scarsdale became aware of what you meant to her, in that way, he took you from her, too. He told her you were
his
heir—the only one he was going to get, at any rate—and that you would be raised by an Englishman, not some French whore. That’s when he sent her here.”

Derick stared at Moreau, stunned.

“I know, from Vivienne’s letters, that she did not treat you well when you came to visit her. You must understand, Derick…You were a source of both joy and misery to her, a reminder of everything she couldn’t have. Me. You. Love. She believed Scarsdale only sent you to torture her. She never meant to hurt you…She just wasn’t capable of anything else at the time.”

Derick closed his eyes, shutting out Moreau’s entreating, sympathetic gaze. Could it be that Vivienne Aveline was not as heartless as she’d seemed?

“And you’re wrong about her. When you left for France, Vivienne did her best to keep track of you. She poured out her worry for you in her letters to me. In time, she came to suspect what role you played in the war. We both did. She would never have betrayed England, never have done anything to put you in danger.”

If not her, then who?

“Vivienne’s letter said she’d seen something she shouldn’t have. Now you say there is a traitor here. Maybe she saw something that got her killed.”

Derick’s eyes flew open. “Wait—she said she
saw
something she shouldn’t have?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say what?”

“
Non
. The letter was very short, rushed, her handwriting hurried and scribbled, agitated.”

Damnation. This could change everything. “Do you have it?”

“
Non.
I left it safe in France, with all of her other letters to me. But I tell you, it said only that I should stay in France, that she’d seen something she shouldn’t have, that she didn’t feel safe here any longer, and that she was coming to me immediately.”

Derick scrambled to reevaluate everything he’d thought he knew. But first he needed everything Moreau knew. “So when you got here, you learned that Mother was dead. Then what did you do?”

“I could not believe it, so I decided I must stay until I learned what truly befell my Vivienne, and avenged her. I didn’t have much money, not enough to stay at an inn for long, so I decided to conserve my coin for food and find a place in the woods to stay. I found this place and then started investigating.”

“
You
were the man asking questions in town about her,” Derick realized.

“Yes, as discreetly as I could. But I learned nothing that I didn’t already know…except that the Wallingford man had been Vivienne’s lover for many years before his accident.” A look of jealous distaste crossed Moreau’s features, followed by resignation. “She never shared that with me. Alas, I cannot fault her. It’s not as if I’ve been a monk all this time. And your mother was a woman of strong passions. But I know her heart belonged to me, as mine does to her.”

Derick had no wish to think about his mother and her passions. “Then what did you do?”

“I tried to retrace Vivienne’s steps, to discover what she may have seen. I learned from one of your maids that the day news arrived of Scarsdale’s death, Vivienne went to Wallingford Manor, presumably to share the
wonderful news with her…
friend
. It is unknown whether she ever made it that far because when she came back, she was very upset, but wouldn’t tell the maid anything. Two days later, Vivienne was dead.”

What the hell had happened between the castle and the manor?

“When you arrived, I thought about reaching out to you for help, but I could not bring myself to do it. Yet I cannot bring myself to leave, either, not knowing what happened to your mother.” The Frenchman let out a growl of frustration. “So I find myself watching Wallingford Manor more often than not, since that was the last place she was known to have gone. I can think of nothing else to do.”

“You’ve been watching Wallingford Manor?”

“As much as I am able without rousing suspicion.”

“Were you there last night?”

Moreau nodded.

“Was it you who snuck into the house?”

But Moreau gave a quick shake of his head. “
Non.
It was another man.”

“You saw him?”

“
Oui
. He caught my attention because of how he crept through the shadows, sticking very close to the house, as if he didn’t wish to be seen. It seemed very suspicious. When he reached the house, he stopped, very sudden like, and then dashed in through an open set of French doors.”

“What did he look like?”

Moreau tipped his head back and forth. “It was dark, so I couldn’t see much. He was of average height and build.”

Harding was average, but that didn’t help much. “Did you see which direction he went when he left? Was it toward town or into the woods—”

“He didn’t leave. Moments after he snuck in, the parlor lit up and Wallingford’s sister appeared to pull the doors closed.”

That made no sense. Moreau must have his timing off.

“Not long after, I saw
you
sneaking up to the house, also, but like I said—I never saw anyone leave.”

Impossible. Derick, Perkins and the rest of the staff had thoroughly searched the house. No one had been there. “When you say moments later, how long do you truly mean?”

Moreau pushed his lips out, thinking. “Less than a minute, I’d say.”

Then Emma should have seen him, but the only person inside the parlor with her when she lit the lamps was…No. It couldn’t be. “You’re certain, absolutely certain, you saw no one leaving the manor between the time you saw the man enter and when you saw me?”

Moreau narrowed his gaze on Derick, very alertly. “You know who killed my Vivienne…”

It wasn’t a question, but Derick shook his head nonetheless. “No.” It was impossible. Yet…what better way to hide in plain sight than to pretend a debilitating infirmity. It was diabolical, but not impossible.

Christ. How could he have missed such a thing?

Because he’d been so wrapped up in Emma, that’s how.

Emma.
Thank God she was safely tucked away at the castle. If her brother had been the traitor all along…it would devastate her.

There had to be another explanation.

“Do you think you could recognize the man you saw?” he asked Moreau.

The Frenchman’s nose scrunched. “I might be able to.”

Derick scrutinized the man’s expression. He couldn’t tell whether Moreau was telling the truth or just overpromising so as not to be left behind now that he suspected that Derick knew something about “his Vivienne’s” death. “Fine. Come with me, if you wish.”

Moreau gave a hasty nod and scrambled to put out
the cook fire. The two men journeyed to Aveline Castle at a pace that discouraged conversation.

“Emma?” Derick called out as he entered his study, with Moreau fast on his heels.

But only her faint lavender scent lingered in the room. Derick looked around. A frame leaned empty against the wall—she’d pulled out the Burnett map once again. Why? He strode over to the desk, where it lay spread across the top.

What he saw chilled his blood.

Emma had marked where his mother had been found, as if she, like Moreau, suspected she’d been murdered. A piece of paper filled with Emma’s mathematical scribblings told him she’d worked her equation again, and this time Wallingford Manor was circled several times. A note, in Emma’s efficient handwriting, rested atop his mother’s journals.

Derick’s heart started pounding hard in his chest. What if it was Emma who needed protection
from
George? What if she shared her theory with her brother, and he panicked, thinking they were too close for comfort, even if they’d had it all wrong? If he’d been willing to kill to protect his secret, what would he be willing to do to maintain it—even to his own sister?

“Come,” he barked to Moreau, not bothering to see if the Frenchman followed.

He had to get to Emma before it was too late.

“W
hy have you posted two footmen at my door?”

Emma glanced up from the tea service, where she’d been absentmindedly pouring cups for herself and George as they sat near the fire in the downstairs parlor. She didn’t even want tea, really. It was just the quintessential English way of occupying herself while she waited, she supposed. Waited for Derick to bring news of his search for Harding. Waited for Harding to make a move against George, if he would.

The footman-cum-traitor might not ever come back, she knew. He may already be far gone from here, deciding it was best to get out of Derbyshire while he could. Still, she touched the burled wood handle of one of her father’s old pistols, which she’d carefully loaded and then tucked discreetly onto the tea tray within easy reach, just in case she needed it to defend her brother.

She pasted a reassuring smile on her face for George’s benefit. What should she say? “Just as a precaution,” she demurred, hoping he would be pacified with that. It depended on his mood.

George frowned as he pulled his lap blanket more snugly around him. “Is this because of last night?
Because you found me asleep alone in the dark?” His frown deepened. “Did you reprimand Perkins? I told you to leave well enough alone. I don’t need to be watched every second of the day.”

“No, no, George,” she rushed to assure him, setting his tea on the table where he could reach it easily. “It’s nothing to do with last night.”

“Emma…” George’s tone said he knew she was lying.

“Well,” she hedged, interlacing her fingers as she wrung her hands together, “that’s not entirely true.” She sighed, debating how much to tell him. She’d promised to keep Derick’s secret, but surely George needed to be aware of the danger. Maybe she could relay only part of the story? “It does have to do with last night, only not in the way you think.”

George quirked a woolly brow.

“You see, last night Thomas Harding ran off. We believe he may have killed the maid from Aveline Castle, and were holding him until we could prove it. He is dangerous. Until he is captured again, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”