Light to Valhalla (45 page)

“Christ, Charles
.
T
hat hurts.
”
He grasped her wrist, halting her nursing.

She quickly
freed herself
.
“Yes, well, it wouldn’t hurt if you hadn’t been cavorting about London
starting fights.”

“Didn’t start the fight,” he grumbled, sulking lower in his chair
.

She cocked a reproachful brow, turning back to her work
.
“Oh?”

“No
.
I was
leaving
White’s
,
minding my own damn business when
Witherspoon confronted me
.
”

“
The general
attacked you?”

“
Well, attacked may not be the right word
.
He flung a few insults and I may have hit him first
.
I can’t really remember,”
he mumbled
.
“It all happened to
o fast
.
He
clocked me good I tell you.
”

“
I see that
.
”
A niggle of unease having nothing to do with ill
egitimate children or other wome
n trickled down her spine
.

Alex sighed out the weight
of the world
.
“
I’m ruined
, Charley
.
Everyone in Town believes I’m a murdering
, philandering
scoundrel
.
”
Abruptly Alex looked up,
the contact of their eyes physical—like lightening
.
“Even you.
”
His bleary gazed wandered the length of her
.
“
Y
ou’re
so
beautiful,
”
he breathed so softl
y she could scarcely hear
.
T
he utter devastation in his
whisper
reached deep down inside
her
, knocking a piece of her discontent out of place
.
“To hell with what everyone else thinks
.
I can’t live without you, love
.
You must believe in me.”

Her anger—nay, her heart—
faltered
.
It was hard to remain angry at a man so
vulnerable
and completely broken before her
.
She wanted to protect him
.
Wrap her arms around
those
broad shoulders
and shield him from the disaster enveloping their lives
.

Shaken, s
he rinsed the cloth, and continued her work
.
The wound did not require much more cleaning,
but a part of her
,
that same fickle piece of her heart that would never let him go completely
, needed
to
be close to him; f
eel his heat and be enveloped in his
intoxicating
nearness
.
“Where have you been?”

“Went to see
Manscroft
.
Fat lot of good that did me
.
The bloody bastard.”

“What did he have to say about Jack?”

“He jumped all over the opportunity to dump the boy on another man’s stoop.
”
Alex stared straight ahead, eyes cold as ice, fingers drumming steadily on his thigh
.
“We’ll never know the truth.”

Charley swallowed around the lump perpetually lodged in her throat
.
The truth seemed painfully obvious to her
.
Jack was the spitting image of Alex from his blue eyes to his dimples to the secretive smile
he flashed whenever told to do something he didn’t want.

Alex’s head lolled back
against the chair cushion
.
“I love
you, Charley,
”
he murmured as his eyes drifted shut.

She stumbled backward
and out of the room
, needing as much distance from her husband as possible
.
The declaration
devastated her
.
B
rought nothing but pain on the wings of sorrow
.
Did she love Alex?  Always and forever, but her trust in him
was shattered
.
He wanted her to believe him faithful to her, but evidence to the contrary was overwhelming.

Could they overcome this
turmoil
and doubt
?

Only time would tell.

Fifteen

Tick
.
Tick
.
Tick
.

Alex slumped in the leather arm chair behind his desk, glaring
at the gilded clock face mocking him from the mantel
.
The seconds
ticked
with agonizing slowness into minutes before falling away to hours
.

He drummed his fingers across his thigh
.

Sooner or later those hours would collapse into yet another day…
and then another… until inevitably
those d
ays
, each more miserable than the last,
clinked
into weeks
.
Rumors of murder and impropriety swirled through London with devastating force
.
The brink of December loomed, and d
espite every effort
that
money and an intelligent mind could afford, Alex was no closer to unraveling the web of deceit
intricately draped around his life
than he had been near a month ago
.

He flicked an impatient gaze to the infamous letter clutched in his hand
.

Light would be cast on the subject soon however, a handwriting expert was en route from Sussex to decipher Bernadette’s letter
.
While Alex was very much
inclined to believe
Jack
was his own
—the resemblance was uncanny
, he had a sneaking suspicion someone other than the late Mrs. Barcelona
had
blown
the subject into the open
.
The handwriting in the letter bore striking resemblance to Veronica’s elegant script
.

He
tossed the letters awaiting the expert onto his desk and strode to the window
.
His mother’s declaration about Sidney’s true parentage still troubled Alex a great deal
.
He had no idea if Sid knew and was not about to broach the subject
.
For the moment he lived by the old adage,
Keep
your friends close and your enemies closer…
  The burning question
was,
which was Sidney? 
Friend or foe?
 
Cousin or brother?

H
e
tapped heavy knuckles against the
p
ane
, watching Charley and her maid
steer their
horses
around the corner of the house
.
In all h
e was glad to see his wife getting out for a bit of fresh air, she’d
grown increasingly withdrawn in the past few days
,
and had scarcely
left her room in the space of
a week
.

As he watched,
Charley
’s mount skittered to the side
.
She
wobbled in the
side
saddle
, and grabbed at a chunk of mane
.
Alex
could do nothing more than stare
on in abject horror as his wife continued to slide from the horse’s back
.
Her
terrified
cry pierced the air as she tumbled
from the back of her mount
,
saddle and all
.

“Charley!
”
Heart in hi
s throat Alex waited
for
his wife
to
climb to her feet and when she didn’t
he shoved the window open and climbed through into the snow
.
“Charley!
”
He charged through the lawn to her motionless form, lying pale in the snow
.
“What happened?” he barked to the maid
.

“Don’t rightly know, milord.
”
Trudy held the reins of both skittish horses
.
“Is she alright?”

Alex dropped to his knees, searching for any immediate injuries
.
“I’m not sure
.
We’ll send for my physician straight away.
”
Scooping Charley up into his arms, Alex cradled her against his chest, sick with the thought of any harm befalling her
.
She was so petite and fragile
.
He carried her back through the front door much to Hastings’s confusion.

“Hastings, see to it Dr. Carson is summoned immediately.”

“Certainly, milord.”

Alex took the stairs two at a time, willing Charley’s eyes to open
.
He strode to her room and set her gently, almost reverently on the mattress
.
She looked so beautiful in sleep, like the fairytale
damsels
she so loved to read of when they were ch
ildren
.
He sat on the edge of
the bed and smoothed
a hand over her hair
.
“You a
re my princess, love.
”
The garnet necklace winked from her throat
.
He brushed a finger over the stone
.
“So much for keeping you safe.”

The doctor arrived shortly thereafter and Alex was promptly shoed out of the room
.
He paced the front hall, awaiting the physician, hoping beyond hope Charley would allow him an audience when she awoke
.
If
she awoke…

Oh, God, no
.
He couldn’t think that way
.
His chest tightened
.
Air refused to enter his lungs
.
His head swam
.
He clutched the wall, flushing negative thoughts from his head
.
Charley would be fine
.
She must
.

“Excuse me, milord,” a male voice interrupted his thoughts.

Alex turned to
find
his Town stable manager
waiting expectantly behind him
.
“Not now, Jefferies.”

“With all due respect, my lord, this is of the utmost importance
.
It  concerns
Lady
Coverstone
.”

Charley
.
A vision of his wife pale and unmoving in the snow seared his mind
.
“Very well.
”
Alex waved Jefferies into
his study
.
“What is it?”

“This here is the strap from her ladyship’s saddle, and, if I’m not mistaken, it was deliberately cut.”

“Cut?
”
Ice trickled through Alex’s blood
.
The same heightened sense that tickled his nape before a battle
.
“Let me see that.
”
He took the leather strap from Jeffries’s hands and smoothed a thumb along the straight edge of the split fastening
.
“I’ll be damned.
”
His mind whirled
.
Could Johnston be back to claim his
1000 pound prize?
  Or had a new set of lackeys been hired?  “Have you seen anyone around the stables or the tack?”

“No, milord, but I’ll ask the boys if they’ve seen anything out of the ordinary.”

Alex nodded
.
He liked Jeffries
.
The
stocky
horseman originally hailed from the Americas and never failed to look Alex straight in the eye
when he spoke
.
“Thank you, Jefferies, you’re dismissed
.
I’ll follow up with you shortly.”

Once Doctor Carson left and Alex was assured of Charley’s sound health he’d pay a visit
to the stables himself
.
Alex had been watching Witherspoon
for
weeks and had uncovered nothing untoward in the general’s schedule
.
So much so that Alex was beginning to believe his suspicions were totally unfounded
.
But if not Witherspoon then who would have a vendetta against Alex or a reason to harm Charley?

Alex strode to his desk, pulling a sheet of paper from the top drawer and plucking a quill from his desktop
.
The time had c
ome to call in reinforcements
.
He hesitated for half a second before touching ink to paper and jotting a quick, informal note
.

             
             
Mr.
Sirius
Mott
,

Your immediate assistance is required at
Coverstone
House
.
The matter is most urgent
.
I will inform
you
of the details upon your immediate arrival
.

My thanks,

             
             
Lord
Coverstone

He folded the letter without a second glance at the wording and reached for his signet ring
.
Much as Alex
was
loathe
to recruit
anyone into his personal business he needed the full support and assistance of the law
.
Charley’s life was more important than his own stubborn pride
.

He glanced about for a plug of wax to seal the letter but was unable to locate any
.
All those official
letters for estate business
had
no doubt
depleted his supply
.
Alex shoved back his chair
and strode to the door
, carrying the letter and ring along with him
.
No matter he’d just pilfer some wax from his mother’
s private drawing room.

Once
in the hall, Alex’s eyes were drawn with magnetic force to the stairs
.
How much longer would the physician be?  His gut twisted in a combination of dread and anger
.
Quickly he shoved the unproductive emotions aside and set off to find his mother’s wax
.
Dwelling on the unknown would do him no good
.
He was a man of action and summoning
the magistrate
was an action he could accomplish with all haste
.
Once he found some wax that is
…

Alex found his mother’s drawing room completely empty and made a be
eline for her decorative cherry
wood desk.

Sealing wax was
not
in plain sight
upon the marbled desktop
.

“Bloody hell,” he mumbled, yanking open the top drawer
.
Nothing
.
“Does no one in this house have basic letter writing supplies?”

He rifled through
the second drawer and then the third
.
He yanked a sheaf of papers out and jammed a h
and even further back in the drawer, but stopped short when he caught a glimpse of the rumpled pages.

Abandoning his quest for wax, Alex
peered more closely a
t the missives
.
In total disbelief he stared down at the packet of letters clutched in his hand
.
His letters
.
All the letters he’d written to Charley after their wedding
.

The anger inside him
swelled,
grew taught, and
snapped
.
For one horrid moment Alex saw pure red
.
This was the final straw
.
The final act of betrayal
.
“Mother!
”
He stormed from the
drawing room
, letters wadded in his fist
.

“Alex?” Regina’s voice returned from the front hall
.
“What is this about?
”
She rushed around the corner, deep charcoal skirts swishing busily around her feet
.
“Hastings just informed me that there has been another accident
.
I—”