Jo Goodman (55 page)

Mrs. Hennepin twisted the corner of her apron. "Pardon me, sir, but how can you be so certain he
didn't
take her to his London house?"

Colin ran one hand through his hair. The truth was, he didn't know. He still had the addresses given to him by the housekeeper at Rosefield. He could dispatch Aubrey in that direction, but he was strangely reluctant to go there himself. Lines creased the corners of his eyes and there was a tightness along his jaw. "I have to trust Mercedes," he said finally. "I don't believe she would have agreed to go that far with him. Not alone. Not even to see his father. And she would have wanted to be here for Sylvia. If I leave for London, and she's not there, I won't be back before nightfall." His voice dropped. He looked away from them all. "There's no time to do the wrong thing."

Chloe edged closer to her sister and slipped her hand under Sylvia's. Her lips moved in a silent prayer.

Mrs. Hennepin continued to wring the corner of her starched white apron. Her husband turned his hat in his hand as he considered the problem. He cleared his throat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"What is it, Mr. Hennepin?" Brendan asked.

Britton chimed in. "Do you know something?"

Mr. Hennepin's shoulders drew in defensively as everyone looked at him. The hope in their eyes was a terrible burden on account of a little throat clearing. "Well," he said slowly. "There's the hunting lodge at Rosefield."

The twins squeezed out of their chair and leapt to their feet. "The hunting lodge!" They were fairly dancing. "Of course! That's
just
where he would go!"

Sylvia didn't try to restrain them. She caught their excitement instead and hope soared. "Tell us why."

Britton stopped wiggling first. "He takes his lovebirds there," he said in very adult tones.

"Britton!" Chloe admonished.

"It's true." Brendan defended his brother even though it meant admitting to eavesdropping. "But it doesn't mean we think Mercedes is his doxy." He made a face to show what he thought of that. "And our father used to stay there sometimes." He went on helpfully. "Though I don't know if he had a mistress with him."

Chloe started to scold him but thought better of it. Reaching for him instead, she kissed him on the head.

Brendan blushed and pulled away. He rubbed his hair to slough off the kiss. "I say, Chloe. You had no call to do that."

Colin felt the first faint stirrings of a smile. "If she hadn't, I would have," he said. His eyes turned grave. They lifted above the twins' bright heads and rested on Mr. Hennepin. "Tell me how to find this lodge."

* * *

Mercedes stared at Ponty Pine blankly. "You sought out my uncle?" she asked after a moment. Could that much be true? she wondered. The pickpocket's expression hadn't changed in the least, yet Mercedes felt he was willing her to believe him.

"That's right," he said. "When I heard what he was looking for I realized I could help. No one else was coming forward. I thought we Englishmen should stick together."

"So, after going to so much trouble to get to Boston, you simply decided to come back."

Ponty shrugged. "As his lordship noted, the city did not have much to recommend it. I find I prefer London."

Mercedes's head swiveled toward Severn. "This is what you wanted me to hear? Do you think I'd believe this man over my husband? Mr. Epine's tale may be enough to discredit Colin with those who don't know him, but I assure you, it means nothing to me."

Weybourne lifted his glass again in mock salute to his niece. "I told you she could be stubborn, Marcus. No matter. You can always beat it out of her."

"Shut up," Severn said lowly. He did not take his eyes from Mercedes. "Mr. Epine's story changes everything. You must be able to see that. Weybourne Park hasn't been lost in the wager. It's been won. Captain Thorne owes your uncle a great deal of money; therefore, his debts will be cleared. It's the captain who will be shamed and penniless."

Mercedes would have covered her ears if not for the silken bindings. It was an effort not to flinch from Severn's words. "You're wrong."

"I'm right. That's why you're frightened. And you
are
frightened, Mercedes. I can see it. The captain is facing ruin." His smile was meant to calm her fears even as his words evoked the opposite. "You can separate yourself from it," he told her. "You can denounce him. Leave him. You can come to me."

It was what she expected to hear but she wasn't prepared for her own response. She heard the laughter before she realized it was coming from her.

Severn's features became rigid. He flushed and his fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. It would have taken little effort on his part to pull himself out of his seat and push Mercedes more firmly into hers.

Ponty Pine uncrossed his legs. The movement was casual. His posture remained relaxed, his demeanor unconcerned. His eyes didn't dart between Mercedes and Severn, and he didn't break the tense silence with his own voice, yet he was ready to stop Severn if he had to. It only concerned him that he would have to play his hand too soon. He might be able to hold his own against Severn alone, but not if Weybourne joined the fray. The earl's untimely arrival in the wood had stopped him once. He did not want to be stopped again. There would be no help for Mercedes then.

Severn demonstrated remarkable restraint by remaining as he was. His voice took on a gravel roughness. "Perhaps you need time to think it over, Mercedes. Weybourne, show your niece to her room. She may remain there until the captain arrives."

Mercedes stood without assistance from the earl, and she coolly shrugged off the hand he placed near her elbow. "Colin doesn't know this place," she said. "Why would he come here?"

"Why is it I'm more confident of his ability to find you than you are? You really need to have more faith in the man. The one thing I've never done is underestimate him."

Mercedes was careful to step around Severn as she made her way to the staircase. She half expected him to grab a handful of her dress and hold her back. She doubted she could have borne his hands on her just then.

The room her uncle showed her faced the rear of the lodge. Looking out the sole window, she could see only the wood. The road, and therefore the approach that Colin would take, was not in her view. There was no balcony, no roof that would give her an escape route from the window. The trees had been cleared for twenty feet beyond the lodge so there were no branches she might use to lower herself to the ground.

She turned to face her uncle. Her smile was grim. "It appears Severn has thought of everything."

"He is thorough."

Mercedes was silent as she studied her uncle. In her eyes he was remarkably unchanged by the passage of time. He looked the same to her now as he had when she was sixteen or twelve or nine... or four.

She actually stepped backward as a powerful sense of déjà vu assailed her. This meeting had taken place before, not at Rosefield but at Weybourne Park. The north turret suddenly came to her mind and Mercedes was rocked again by the warring sensations of distance and familiarity.

The Earl of Weybourne became her point of reference as Mercedes's surroundings began to shift. There was no longer a single window at her back. Instead she was surrounded by them. Even the carpet beneath her feet faded and was replaced by the intricately patterned Oriental one she remembered from childhood. Her dolls were arranged in a protective phalanx against intruders to the north turret, but on this occasion they were useless. Her uncle was unaware or uncaring of them. He stood over her in the middle of the tower room, his shadow swallowing her tiny form.

Mercedes blinked. She did not have to see any more. She remembered everything.

Weybourne watched as a measure of color returned to Mercedes's complexion. He had thought she was going to faint, much as she had almost done downstairs, but then, as on that occasion, she seemed to find some focus and bring herself back. He had no patience for these fits. To his way of thinking they were merely a variation on her long practiced withdrawal. He had never had any patience for that, either.

He flinched a little at the way she was looking at him. There was too much clarity in her gray eyes, too much knowing. He had only seen that expression one other time. It unnerved him now as it had a score of years ago.

Weybourne lifted his drinking hand only to realize he had left his glass belowstairs.

Mercedes observed the motion of her uncle's arm and knew what he had been hoping to find at the end of his hand. Her smile was pitying. "It's not so easy without a drink, is it?"

"What isn't easy?" he asked impatiently. "Speak plainly."

"Looking at me," she said. "I remind you of her." She did not have to elaborate. She saw by her uncle's reaction that he knew she was speaking of her mother. "And perhaps a little of him. My father. Your brother."

"You're speaking nonsense."

She ignored that. "This is the moment you've been preparing for, isn't it? The moment when I would finally remember. And here you are without a glass in your hand. One would think twenty years of drinking would have numbed you, but I wonder if that's entirely true." Mercedes thought he might leave, but he seemed incapable of taking any action save to let his arm fall to his side. It had only been a few days ago that she had told Colin she was no longer afraid. If further proof was required she showed it now. "If you loved my mother so much, how could you plan her murder?"

Weybourne's eyes narrowed but he said nothing.

"It's all right," Mercedes said. "You don't have to admit to it. I was there. I saw you. You stayed back from the others when they took my father's money and my mother's jewels, but I recognized you. I called to you, didn't I? I suppose in my mind I thought you were there to help us. I called you uncle. Only that. Only once. The pistols fired immediately afterward, but I like to think you heard me. Did you, Uncle? Did you hear me?"

Weybourne took a step forward. In the past it might have made Mercedes think better of her next words, but now she went on relentlessly. There was nothing he could do to her that hadn't already been done.

"I got out of the carriage and I ran. You must remember that. The others, those thieves you hired, they started to come after me, but you stopped them. You let me go, then, with all the compassion of a hunter for the fox, you ran me to ground on your horse. It almost trampled me before you got it under control, and I'll never believe it wasn't on purpose. I think you might have killed me if I hadn't been mute with terror. The fact that I was suddenly insensible to what was happening, or what had already happened, saved my life. You plucked me off the ground and set me on your mount." Mercedes felt her skin prickle as the long-buried memory came to her conscious mind. "And you led me back to the carriage and put me inside. I was still there when the next travelers passed.

"You must have wondered if you'd done the right thing by letting me live. Was it relief you felt when you realized I was incapable of speaking a word against you? Or guilt? Or a mixture of both?"

"You credit me with too many finer feelings, Mercedes," said Weybourne. "I felt nothing."

Mercedes shook her head. "I don't believe it. Don't misunderstand, Uncle. I
choose
not to believe. I want to know that you have suffered every day since then. I want to know that it was fear and self-loathing that took you to the north tower room almost a year after the murders. I hadn't spoken in all that time, and yet you felt my very presence as an accusation. Do you remember what you did that night?" It was so clear to Mercedes now that she wondered how she had ever forgotten.

"I believe I demonstrated how easily dolls can be broken," he said without remorse. "Is that how you recall it?"

It was as if the earl's cool, measured words had created a shift in the room's very air. Mercedes wanted to cross her arms to counter the chill and could not. "You broke one of my dolls," she said. Her voice surprised her. It sounded breathless and childish and hurt.

"You were like a doll," he said. "Pale porcelain features. Expressionless. Vacant eyes. There was no life in you. That's what I gave you back that night, Mercedes. I showed you what you could expect if you said the wrong things, but I freed you to say
something.
You came out of that tower room more like the little girl everyone remembered." He paused a beat. "I could have broken more than your doll. I could have broken you."

It was the threat that he had held over her head all these years. It was the reason she had never fully challenged him, the reason she gave in when she wanted to resist. He had given her back her voice that night but taken away the things she might say. He had not broken her body as he had her doll's, but he had broken her spirit.

Mercedes asked quietly, "Are you going to challenge Colin? Is there to be a duel after all?"

Weybourne was thoughtful a moment. Finally he nodded. "You don't disappoint, Mercedes. I knew you would come upon the purpose of this confrontation."

It was true that she was no longer afraid of him. It was also true that she no longer had any defenses. The return of the memories made her feel less liberated and more vulnerable. "I'm surprised you've agreed to it," she said. "Colin will kill you, you know."

The earl's smile was unconcerned. "You can't be right about everything." Without any further explanation he backed out of the room, closed the door, and locked it. He stood in the hallway a moment, quite surprised to hear the sound of weeping.