Escape with A Rogue (28 page)

 “I regret to say I’ve not thought of it. I am, after all, trying to unearth a murderer.”

Deverell’s face darkened. “Let this alone, Madeline, my dear. Make a future with me and you will never have anything to fear.”

Trust blindly? She was about to scoff—then realized that was exactly what she wanted to do with Jack. “I’d hoped you would go with me to the place where I was shot, as we discussed.”

“At some lookout in the woods, wasn’t it?” Deverell’s voice was a deep growl—rather like Jack’s. She remembered Jack’s story. Could he actually be the marquis’s half-brother?

Then she froze. Deverell had revealed he knew where she’d been shot. Her heart raced in excitement and fear, until he continued, “Your father told me.”

Father! She looked to him in astonishment. He industriously slurped oysters from their shells and avoided her eye. Her ploy to trick Deverell had been destroyed. Why on earth had Father chosen to discuss the shooting with Deverell?

She glanced around the table. Braxton sat across from Amelia. The Earl of Mayberry—blond, blue-eyed, slender, and polite—sat across from her, attending to his own oysters.

One of these men, friends, gentlemen, or not, must be a murderer. There were nine at the table. An uneven number was a faux pas, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. With her family sat her three suspects— Deverell, Braxton, and Mayberry. Catherine had come for dinner, and she sat beside Mayberry.

“A masquerade!” Catherine’s exaggerated voice suddenly rippled down the table, sultry and lush. “The gentlemen are arranging sporting competitions, so the ladies should arrange a masquerade. Something exotic, so we can forget past sorrows?”

Madeline gaped. Was Catherine
mad
? She could not concentrate on throwing a—

“Past sorrows?”

At her Mama’s soft echo, Madeline looked to her in panic. Her mother frowned, petulantly. “Oh, you mean Grace Highchurch. Grace’s
murder
. In the maze.”

Conversation stopped completely.

Madeline heard a guttural moan. It was Philip, who tossed back his full glass of wine in one swallow. His face was ashen.

An odd smile touched her mother’s lips. That smile made Mama, a woman of sixty, look almost childlike. “And your poor stepdaughter,” Mama went on, “I always did wonder—”

“Please, Mama, let’s carry on with dinner,” Madeline interjected.

But Catherine waved her hand. “We must look forward. A masquerade would be perfect. We must have a theme . . . perhaps mysteries of the sea.” Her forced silvery laughter filled the room.

“Mermaids?” Deverell smiled wolfishly at Catherine.

“There will be no ball—” Madeline began.

“With tails,” Deverell continued. “And nothing more than shells . . . where necessary.”

Mayberry sputtered and coughed as Madeline tried again. “There will not be tails and shells—”

“No shells,” Mama pronounced. “Mermaids wear nothing on their bosoms at all.”

Poor Mayberry spilled the rest of his wine onto his plate.

“I do not think we will have the ladies dress as mermaids,” Madeline declared. “As there will not be—”

“I agree. My idea was too restricting,” Catherine trilled. “I would not want to spend an evening with gentlemen dressed as fish. Perhaps literary characters instead. Or works of art. Surely there must be a potential David amongst the gentlemen.”

“Been told I cut a fine figure in a toga,” Braxton threw in. He glanced at Amelia, but she continued to stare down sadly, pushing her food around on her gold-rimmed plate.

Madeline let them talk around her. Catherine’s words rang in her head.
Do you not see you are a fool to tear your family apart for the sake of Jack Travers?
To Madeline, Jack was worth every risk she’d taken. But her family was obviously suffering.

What was she going to do?

At her side, Deverell was baldly flirting with Catherine, minutes after pursuing his proposal of marriage to her. Across the table, the vivid color in Mayberry’s cheeks was fading away.

Desperately, she turned to him. She couldn’t stop—she just had to end this hunt as quickly as she could. She could not question him here, at the dinner table. He was far too shy. He became tongue-tied just speaking of the weather.

She bestowed a glowing smile on him. “I was planning to ride up to the castle ruins tomorrow. Would you ride with me, Lord Mayberry?”

She could imagine Jack’s reaction. She must ensure he did not find out—though how she would do that when she went to fetch Penelope, she couldn’t guess.

“I will be delighted to, Lady Madeline.” The earl gave her an awkward smile. Was he pleased at the thought of a ride to the ancient site or at the chance to get her alone so he could shoot her?

Madeline downed her wine. She was going to go mad. She’d known Mayberry for ten years and he’d always been as gentle as a lamb. Tomorrow she would find out, one way or another, if that was still true. It was a nightmare to have no one to trust—

No, she did have one person. Jack.

* * *

The dice bounced along the floor of the stables.

“Crabs.” Ball, the footman who’d thrown the two, gave a desperate groan. He now owed Jack another five pounds. Sweat broke out on his brow.

Jack grinned. Having spent half of his life in gaming hells, he understood probability and knew how to make careful wagers.

Ball had not stood a chance. Jack had singled him out from the beginning of the game. The footman was filled with bravado, traded gossip with the maids to flirt with them, and had been in service at Eversleigh for three years. It was time to strike.

“I’d be willing to ignore the debt, if you’d tell me something I need to know,” he said. “About a woman who was the governess here. Miss Highchurch.”

Ball slumped against the wall, rubbing his shaking hand across his mouth. “Anything. I’m supposed to be saving my wages to propose marriage to Nan, one of the parlor maids.”

“Do you remember Grace, Lady Evershire’s companion?” Jack leaned back on his stool.

The footman gave a leering wink. “She was a lovely lass. Before I fell for Nan, I tried my luck with Grace, but she was too refined to even give me a second look. She hoped to catch a gentleman’s eye.” His lips cranked down. “She was murdered two years ago.” Of course, the footman thought Jack was Henry Roberts, who had only just joined the staff. Ball launched into a detailed tale of the house party and how Lady M. had found the bodies in the maze. “One of the grooms was blamed for the crime, but now it appears he was innocent.”

Jack ignored that. No point in drawing attention there. “Wasn’t Miss Highchurch having an affair with Lord Philip? I’d heard she got herself pregnant.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ball began, but Jack held up his vowels. So he shrugged. “Aye. She was besotted with his lordship.”

Jack began a tear in the paper. “What about any of the other gentlemen?”

“You mean, was she unfaithful to Lord Philip? Deverell tried to seduce her, but she wouldn’t have any of him. Viscount Braxton was always mooning over Lady Amelia and Lady Sarah Sutton—Lady Sarah was the one who died along with Miss Highchurch. As for the other gent, the Earl of Mayberry, I’d guess he prefers molly boys to women.” Ball paused with a wicked grin. “Mrs. Crayle, in the kitchen, thought there was someone else rogering the girl, too, but she wouldn’t say who.”

Jack remembered Mrs. Crayle, the cook, from two years before—an irascible woman who ruled her kitchen with an iron fist. Likely she did know all the gossip. “Grace’s death broke Lord Philip’s heart, didn’t it?”

“I think he was actually in love with her. Village people are gossiping that it was Lord Philip who killed her, thinking he seduced Grace and then didn’t want to marry her. But it wasn’t him. I saw him come back into the house that afternoon, just before Lady Madeline found the poor things.”

“You saw him?”

“I did. He looked happy. Said he was about to become a married man, even if the old man—his grandfather Knightly, I mean—disowned him for marrying the companion.” Ball stood and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve got to get to bed.”

Jack ripped up the vowels. Ball headed from the stables toward the house. Standing in the doorway, Jack gazed up at the bedchamber window he believed to be Madeline’s. It was dark, of course. Moonlight reflected on the glass panes.

He had a witness who verified Lord Philip’s claim he’d proposed marriage to Grace. The problem was, it still gave no proof as to his innocence—

Instinct told Jack he wasn’t alone. There was someone near the stables, standing quietly. Jack peered along the edge of the lawn, where the woods ended. Trees cast black wells of shadow, but a longer shadow detached itself. Someone stepped forward, about twenty yards from the stables. For a moment, a slant of moonlight touched the man’s face.

The figure retreated. But in those few seconds, Jack had got a fairly good look at the face. A beefy face and a beaked nose.

It had looked like Blenchley.

Jack’s heartbeat sped up, significantly faster than it had while he’d been gambling.

Blenchley was a soldier who knew him well—it made sense the Crown would send him here. Jack knew he’d changed his appearance a lot with his dyed and shorn hair. But if Blenchley recognized him, he would end up arrested again and hanged for escaping.

Or Blenchley might just shoot him dead on the spot.

“Who’s there?”

The demand came from one of Oberon’s soldiers, who had shouldered his rifle. Jack expected Blenchley to answer, but instead the guard moved back into the darkness of the forest—Jack heard the rustle of branches.

The young soldier must have heard it, too. He stalked across the lawn, his head moving like an owl’s as he tried to look all around him. The rifle shook in his hands.

Jack rolled his eyes. The soldier was just a nervous lad. Tall, skinny, the young militiaman stopped. “Must have been the horses I heard,” he muttered to himself. He gave one last glance around, then ran back toward the house as if he were afraid someone would chase him.

Jack shook his head. Apparently, he did not have much to fear from Oberon’s men. Blenchley was different. But he now knew the former guard did not want Oberon’s men to know he was here. Why?

Chapter Seventeen

The Earl of Mayberry gave a squeak of delight as they emerged from the woods into the clearing around ancient Evershire Castle. The sun rose above the trees and threw light over the ruins, turning the grey of the ancient stone to rose and gold.

Madeline slanted a glance to Mayberry. His cheeks had spots of pink, and his normally placid face glowed. Two years had changed him. He was now the earl, not just the heir. His blond hair had thinned and his hairline had retreated. His chin was fleshier, his stomach paunchy. His genuine excitement over antiquities made her smile. She simply could not imagine him murdering Grace Highchurch in a moment of passionate anger.

However, his social-climbing mother would be appalled if he’d impregnated a governess. Even the mildest man must be capable of murder to protect a secret.

Deep in her heart, she hoped he would prove to be innocent.

Which felt like a traitorous thought. She had to hope only that it wasn’t Philip. She couldn’t want them all to be innocent.

Madeline pushed down a spurt of guilt. Jack had been training Jupiter in one of the fields when she and Mayberry had collected their horses. He would be irate that she’d ignored him. But everyone at the house knew she was with Mayberry and where they planned to ride. She would be perfectly safe.

“It is positively breathtaking, Madeline,” Mayberry gasped.

“I’ve ensured it has been looked after.”

“Good for you, my dear.” He moved his mount close to her, his face growing redder. “I—I have come to admire your skills at managing the household,” he stuttered. “I—It’s what a gentleman needs. A wife to ensure all runs smoothly, to allow him to follow more erudite pursuits.” The look he gave to her lingered, as if seeing her managing his household. “I would have ample time to travel and indulge my interest in archeology.”

He gave a pleased nod of his head, though even his balding pate blushed now.

Apparently, his decision was made. He hummed to himself while she gaped at him. Now that he’d made up his mind, was he actually going to ask her? She couldn’t bluntly tell Mayberry he didn’t have a hope of winning her hand. She would embarrass him and then she wouldn’t learn anything.

Best, then, to hurry to questions. “You said you were here, at the castle, on the afternoon of the murders, Mayberry. I wondered if you might have seen anyone running away from the maze, when you were returning to the house. The path from here crosses the lawns behind the maze.”

He frowned. Obviously he hadn’t expected this, even though she had also written to him about Jack’s innocence and her need for his help.

“I did not,” he said, with surprising firmness for Mayberry. “I returned to the house at four-thirty. You had found the poor victims by then.”

It had been quarter after four. She would never forget that. “Are you certain it was half-past four? Could it have actually been earlier?”

“Who told you that?” he demanded, as he drew up his mount beside the spreading branches of an oak. “Was it that musician, Rhodes?”

He never spoke sharply. Madeline brought Penelope to a halt, facing Mayberry so she could watch his face. “I did correspond with Mr. Rhodes,” she began, hoping to lead him.

“I knew he would speak of it. I saw Rhodes when I was returning to the house. He took the path toward that lookout you often visited. I’d feared he was planning to—” He went scarlet. “To bother you, Madeline.”

“Bother me?” She frowned. “Peregrine Rhodes never bothered me.”

Mayberry turned a deep scarlet. “I thought he intended to court you and I—I thought his attentions would be unwelcome to you. So I changed direction and took the same path as Rhodes. I caught up to him. T—told him he had no right to pester you. I felt he was . . . was aspiring far above his station. He laughed at me.” Mayberry brushed his brow and she saw perspiration there, despite the coolness of the morning air. “I—I left him, rode directly for the stables, then walked to the terrace. It was definitely half-past four when I reached the house.”