Patricia Rice (27 page)

“Do not
ever
plant that image in my head again,” Harry said firmly. “I will have nightmares enough as it is.” Carrying her, he stepped back through the wardrobe into the room.

Now that she could see again, Christina lifted her face from his collar to kiss his cheek. A hard object nudged her dangling foot, and she stopped to search for the cause. “What’s that beneath your coat, Harry?” She tilted her head to stare quizzically at the jeweled scabbard she remembered from the general’s portrait. It now hung beneath Harry’s elegant coattails.

“My coat?”

A smatter of clapping from the corridor distracted them. From her secure position in Harry’s strong arms, Christina peered over his shoulder.

Aidan and Drogo were hauling a wiry, balding man off the floor by his collar. Behind them, filling the corridor, must have stood half the household and their guests.

Embarrassed, Christina ducked her head back into Harry’s collar. All of London would hear of this escapade. She was used to being a laughingstock, but Harry would hate it above everything. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she whispered.

“About what? About being the most perceptive, most courageous, most beautiful woman in the world?” Striding toward the doorway, Harry faced their audience boldly. “Haul Jack downstairs. I’ll question him later. Ladies, if you would be so kind as to see to my wife’s comfort, I’ll take her to our chamber.”

“Harry, put me down.” Christina kicked her feet in an attempt to free herself from his grasp. “I want to hear this too.”

“You’ll have ghosts destroying what remains of the house,” he protested. “I’d rather see you safe and happy than stir the general to arms again.”

“You saw the general?” Pleased that Harry believed her, she quit kicking and let him carry her down the stairs. “Are you planning on doing something that will make him angry? If so, I wish to hear it.”

“Christina—” he said warningly. Then wincing at his tone, he abruptly shut up and gently set her on her feet again. Surprised, she looked up to meet his eyes. They blazed with an emotion she’d never seen there before, and his aura glowed golden instead of just yellow. Her breath caught, and she prayed she wasn’t reading what she wanted to see but what Harry really felt.

Recognizing the interest of all the people crowding the corridor, she resigned herself to waiting for the answer.

Harry offered his arm. “If you think you are well enough to come down to the drawing room, may I escort you?” he asked politely.

He had listened to her! Harry hadn’t laughed or scolded or ignored her wishes. He’d
listened
and was treating her as if she were as smart and knowledgeable as he was. It was a miracle.

“My gown is ruined, but I am very well indeed,” she informed him in her most courteous tones. “I told you I would fare better in breeches.”

He laughed joyously and hugged her. “I shall call my tailor in the morning to design breeches for a duchess.”

Ignoring the shock and laughter following his announcement, Harry let her lead the way, completely oblivious to the dashing sword protruding from beneath his coat.

“Papa, we did not know you were home!” Arriving in the manor’s drawing room after everyone else, Meg rushed into her father’s arms. “Oh, whatever happened to your poor face?” She touched his bleeding lip, then looked around for an explanation.

Christina squeezed Harry’s arm before setting him free to do his duty. While he strode over to his cousins, she whispered to her family, who immediately set about clearing the room of the audience gathered there. It would serve Harry’s scoundrel friends right to get their gossip secondhand.

While everyone else was efficiently ushered out, Hermione remained behind to cluck over Christina, forcing her to take a chair by the fire while a maid ran off to fetch tea and coffee. Drogo stayed as well, whether to lend support to another peer of the realm, as friend and family, or simply as a representative of the law, was impossible to tell from his impassive expression. The Earl of Ives and Wystan was not a demonstrative man.

Harry
was
a demonstrative man, fortunately for Christina, even though he tried hard not to be. She must teach him that even dukes were allowed to laugh, especially her duke. The darkness in his aura had disappeared earlier when he’d found her, and now that she knew her Harry still existed, she wanted that golden moment back.

She admired the sword at Harry’s side as he confronted his steward. She took the jeweled scabbard as a sign that the general approved of his heir. Gentlemen generally carried light rapiers these days, but the medieval sword had
presence.
Harry appeared as if he could lop off a head with a single stroke.

“Do you wish to explain to me, Jack, or shall I turn you over to the earl and the court so you may testify in public?” he asked coldly.

Both Meg and Peter stared at him, but Harry remained implacable, crossing his arms and confronting his steward as if he were judge and jury. As he was, Christina supposed. She would simply have to get used to the idea that her husband was a powerful duke, not the laughing courtier of her youth.

It was her duty to lighten some of his burden, but she didn’t think he needed her interference just yet. She was learning to think of others before she acted. If she wished to be given the freedom of a duchess, she must accept the responsibility that went with it, as Harry was doing.

“I’m only helping you, lad, as I helped your father afore you,” Jack replied mildly to Harry’s accusatory tone. “We didn’t always see eye to eye, but we worked things out, and the estate prospered. I can teach you the same as I taught him.”

“The estate hasn’t prospered,” Harry pointed out. “We’re in debt far beyond our means.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, you see. Might I have some water? It’s been uncomfortable living up there without none knowing.”

Meg turned to the tea tray to pour water for her father, and Christina studied the steward’s aura. It wasn’t healthy at all. Wisps of black curled through layers of brown without a single positive color shining through. Not necessarily colors of evil, but those of a very confused and discouraged man with tendencies toward negative attitudes. It was the aura of a man who never laughed.

And the aura was wispy, as if it were damaged or not quite complete. Puzzling over that, she almost missed the next part of the discussion.

“Your father wasn’t quite right in his brainbox and needed looking after,” Jack began. “Your brother was the one I trained to oversee the land, just as he ought, and he did a fine job of it. He would have carried on my teaching proudly, made a good husband for my Meg, raised good boys to keep the place into the next century.”

Christina watched as Meg blushed and handed a glass of water to her father. So it wasn’t just Meg’s idle dream when she’d said she and Edward had talked of marriage.

“If Edward was doing so damned fine a job, why didn’t he pay his debts?” Harry had apparently reached the limit of his patience. His question emerged as a low roar.

“Edward didn’t know nothing about the books.
I
didn’t pay the debts, lad,” Jack said, unfazed by the roar. “Couldn’t let your father ruin the place, you see. Only way to stop him was to persuade everyone to cut off his credit. So I entered the expenses, didn’t pay them, and moved the money elsewhere.”

That almost made sense, except Jack’s aura was wavering more than before. “You were saving the money for Edward and Meg, weren’t you?” Christina asked.

The old man glanced at her guiltily, then looked away. “The old duke, he wouldn’t stop tearing up the place. After the duchess found those old books describing how the rooms used to look, she wanted him to fix things so they were grand again. When she died, he vowed he’d carry out her wishes, but he went about it strange. And then he started into building hiding places so no one could find him.”

“Edward said there at the last, he thought his father believed he was talking to the spirit of your mother,” Meg whispered. “I couldn’t tell you that, Harry.”

The story almost made a certain lopsided sense, except a few vital pieces were still missing, Christina realized. She waited, and Harry pounced on the first of the holes, just as she’d known he would.

“Edward didn’t sign the entailment.” Harry kept his voice below a roar this time, but he still wasn’t happy. He paced up and down between Jack and the exit. Drogo leaned patiently against the doorjamb. Jack couldn’t escape past the two of them. “A man who wishes to be duke and loves the land does not mortgage his future to merchants and give up the protection of entailments.”

“Edward didn’t
understand
,” Jack complained. “I told him not to worry, that I was taking care of things, but he kept looking at the village and the tenant houses and muttering he couldn’t repair them in a thousand years. He even sold the silver to pay off some of the debts. The boy had no head for numbers, and he didn’t believe me when I said we’d be fine. I couldn’t tell him about the money, you see.”

Jack was becoming more disturbed as he spoke, his story a little less clear. Meg patted his arm and urged him toward a chair. Peter merely stood back and watched, his head pivoting back and forth to keep everyone in sight. He was frowning, and Christina could see a shade of doubt rising around him.

“Did you tell Edward not to sign the entailment?” Harry looked confused, as he had every right to be.

“No, of course not,” Jack protested. “This would all be Meg’s someday. And my son would take my place when the time came. I had it all planned. But the boy kept putting off signing the papers, listening to Carthage’s grand ideas, not trusting me to save the place like I told him.”

Peter’s eyebrows shot up, but his lips tightened, and he said nothing. Christina couldn’t see any guilt in him. She turned back to Jack, who was growing increasingly nervous.

Harry rubbed an ugly purple bruise on his brow and frowned. “Just tell me how Carthage ended up with a mortgage on our inheritance.”

“I didn’t know, but when everyone cut off his credit, your father started borrowing from Carthage. It musta been Carthage what had that mortgage paper drawn up after Edward talked to him about selling. It was all his fault that this happened.” Agitated, Jack started to stand, but Peter caught his father’s shoulder and held him in place. Jack glanced briefly at his son, then let his gaze wander the room as if trying to remember where he was.

That’s when Christina began to understand, and her heart tore in sorrow. Standing, she limped over to Harry and leaned her head against his shoulder. He circled her waist and held her close. She sighed in gratification that he could still be aware of her even in the face of these devastating discoveries.

“You found out about the mortgage and had to get rid of the duke before he ruined all your plans, didn’t you?” she asked quietly, as if agreeing his decision was the only one that could have been made.

Jack glanced up eagerly, saw her, and looked away again. “The duke was all the time walking up on them parapets, even in storms. Mad as a hatter, talking to your mother as if she were there. It was bound to happen, sooner or later.”

“You just arranged for it sooner,” she agreed gently. “Did you know Edward hadn’t signed the entailment?”

“He signed it! I saw it. I witnessed it, made certain of it myself so there’d be no mistake. But he and the old duke argued that night, and the next morning, they were both gone and no one knew where the paper was. I been looking for it. It’s bound to be about somewhere.” Jack looked hopeful.

Christina remembered the appalling disarray of the rooms when she’d first arrived. She’d thought the chaos a result of neglect. It could just as easily have been a result of Jack’s search. Only the duchess’s locked and bolted room had remained untouched…

Jack began to speak before she could carry that thought further.

“With all these people here, you could have a regular treasure hunt for them papers. That would put a stop to Carthage…” The steward’s voice meandered off again as his gaze fell on Christina.

Everyone in the room was watching her. Harry’s grip on her tightened, but he didn’t interfere. She could see the grief in his aura, the dawn of comprehension, and she wanted to comfort him. He hadn’t grasped it all yet, as she had. After all, he hadn’t been the one Jack had locked in a crumbling tower.

She should never have confronted the old man by herself, but she hadn’t known he was there. She’d only meant to search his room, look for clues, look for the door connecting to the castle that should have been at the end of the hall. But he’d stepped out of the wardrobe while she was looking around, and she’d been so startled that she’d allowed him to take the weapon she carried. She’d screamed, but she was too far away for anyone to hear.

For a thin man, Harry’s steward was strong. He’d tripped her, caught her arm when she stumbled on her weak leg, and shoved her backward into the gaping hole he’d stepped out of. She’d hit her head falling down the stairs, so it had taken her a little while to realize the full extent of her peril.

He would have left her in that locked tower, the one the old duke had evidently boarded off because it was unsafe. The wooden stairs had given way every time she’d tried to climb them. Only hearing Harry’s voice had supplied the daring to try one more time, to locate the sound treads and put her weight on them.

She might have died. As the duke had—by tumbling from the top of the tower just above Jack’s room.

“I take it words were said the night before the duke died that revealed the extent of your duplicity?” she asked without the same gentleness of earlier. “Did the duke learn you weren’t banking the rents you had him collect? Or was it Edward who figured it out?”

“Edward looked up to me!” Jack cried. “I was more father to him than the old man ever was. I never meant anything to happen to the boy. He wasn’t supposed to be up there. He never went out on those parapets. Only a madman would.”

“As you did,” Christina continued for him. “You went out on the parapet and loosened the stones, didn’t you, knowing the duke was the only man to walk there? It was the only way, actually. If the duke and his son began comparing notes, they’d know what you’d done. You couldn’t afford to have Edward turn against you. The duke was a bitter, crazy old man and didn’t trust you anymore. He was expendable.”

“He wouldn’t let Edward marry my Meg,” Jack shouted. “She’d ruined her life for his son, and he didn’t think she was good enough! Called her stupid and not fit to be a duchess. My Meg! Just because she didn’t look like the late duchess, didn’t hold her chin up high enough and lord it over people, she wasn’t fit?
He
was making a mockery of the name and title, and he thought my
Meg
wasn’t fit to be a duchess?”

Meg was crying quietly, Peter holding her shoulders and casting a helpless look to her and Harry. They hadn’t known of their father’s treachery. Christina was certain of it. She shivered and Harry hugged her tighter.

“Edward followed his father out on the parapets that morning to apologize for the argument, I imagine,” Christina murmured to Harry.

“I want to think they were friends at the end,” Harry murmured back. “I want to believe they’re happy with my mother now.”

“I haven’t seen their spirits here,” she reminded him. “If they were unhappy, if they had tales they wanted told, I think they would have stayed. Or come back. They’re at peace, trusting you to take care of everything.”

She thought she felt Harry shake with an unleashed sob and wished they could be alone so she could comfort him properly, but they weren’t done yet. He needed to know everything.

Drogo summarized concisely from his place in the shadowed doorway. “In effect, you’re saying you stole the estate money, arranged for the parapet to fall and kill the duke, so the heir could marry your daughter?”

“Only Edward died too,” Christina reminded him. “And the entailment agreement couldn’t be found. Carthage wanted a huge sum of money or the estate, but Harry was already betrothed to me, with no interest in Meg. Jack and his family would be left with nothing if he returned the estate money he’d stolen.”

“Which is why he persuaded me to marry you for your dowry,” Harry added, “so I could pay off Carthage, and he could keep the embezzled funds. I knew even my father couldn’t spend everything we earned. Where did you hide the money, Jack?”

“It belongs to Meg and Peter,” Jack said. “She’s supposed to be the duchess, and my son’s supposed to take care of things here, just as we have for centuries. Just as they would have once Harry had time to see things as he should.”

“So you tried to kill me too,” Christina finished his incomplete statement. “You wanted Meg to be duchess after I was gone, but I wouldn’t die.”

A ripple of shock traveled the room, but she continued relentlessly. “The lintel?” she asked.

Jack shrugged and stared at the rug. “It were loose anyways. I only hit it with one of them long swords on the wall and it fell. You didn’t need to be wandering about the house while I looked for the entailment. Figured Harry would keep you back.”

“And the laughter and the panels falling in the castle?”