Silver Splendor (36 page)

Eyes of a familiar violet hue scrutinized her. In the ancient lines of his face she could see traces of rugged handsomeness, though now his cheeks were sunken and his skin puckered. A feeble echo of hurt and confusion curled inside her, the flashing ribbon of memory vanishing so swiftly she could not catch hold of it.

The tension seemed to reach from his chilly fingers. “Elizabeth,” he repeated hoarsely. “My little Sterling swan.”

She had but a moment to wonder at the watery sheen in his eyes before Gilbert Marsh hurried to take the duke’s arm. “Please, Your Grace, do sit down. You’re putting undue strain on yourself.”

“Oh, botheration.” The duke tried to shake off the doctor’s assisting hand. “I’m not an invalid.”

Unperturbed, Marsh firmly pressed his patient back into the chair. “There now. You’re still weary from our journey here. If you’re not careful, you’ll bring on another of your spells.”

“You’d like that, eh? Keeps you on the payroll.”

Lips tightening, the doctor plumped a few pillows behind the duke’s shriveled figure.

Hugh Sterling gestured at a frayed maroon couch. “Sit down, girl. No sense in hovering too. You, too, Hawkesford.”

Pushing aside an elaborately decorated sword sheath, Elizabeth sank onto the lumpy sofa. She couldn’t quite fathom this gruff man who had fathered her. When Nicholas’s hand sought hers on the cushion, she turned her palm up gratefully.

The duke pulled an old fashioned quizzing glass from his pocket and studied her. “By Jove, you’re the spitting image of Lucy. Though Lucy had green eyes… green as grass.” Turning to the doctor, who sat on the dressing table stool, the duke bellowed, “What do you think, Marsh? You were a youth back when Lucy was here. Don’t you find the resemblance amazing?”

“Resemblance?” The doctor seemed to hesitate. “Indeed, Your Grace. Though you, of course, knew Miss Templeton far better than I.”

“Ah, Lucy,” the duke said, his eyes gone misty soft. “Finest woman a man could ever hope to meet. Hard to believe she’s gone now.”

Elizabeth felt Nicholas’s fingers go rigid. “How did you know she’s dead?” he asked.

Hugh Sterling’s gaze turned to ice. “That Bible spouting Owen came to see me. Accused me of wanting to hurt Elizabeth. Hah! When I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her in twenty years!”

“He came here?” Elizabeth said faintly.

“No, no. Happened back in London. Weeks ago.” He brandished his cane angrily. “Damned upstart warned me to stay clear of his daughter. The nerve of him, when he stole you from me in the first place. I wanted to throttle him, but he got away. Even the footman couldn’t catch him.”

“I recall,” Gilbert Marsh chided, “you suffered quite the attack that day.”

Shock eddying through her, Elizabeth barely heard the doctor. She remembered the time she had seen Owen sneaking up the servant’s staircase at Hawkesford House, his clothing caked with mud and his walking stick gouged. He must have just come from the duke’s town house. Why had he never breathed a word to her, even when she had accused him of failing to protect her?

“I thought he’d only sent you a letter,” she said.

“Letter? I never received any letter. The wretch must be lying. Always pretended to be so pious, by Jove. Then he took Lucy and my daughter out from under my nose!”

Had someone intercepted that letter? Or was the duke lying? Elizabeth yearned to chip away at the fossilized marble and find the true man beneath. Surely even a curmudgeon like Hugh Sterling wasn’t capable of plotting the murder of his own daughter.

“Did you ever come looking for me?” she asked.

The duke spread his palms wide. “Didn’t know where to begin. Footman lost Owen in the alleyways off the Strand.”

“I meant before, when I disappeared as a child.”

Hugh Sterling’s gaze dropped to the top of his cane. When he lifted his eyes again, sadness haunted the violet depths. “I wanted to, by Jove. I swear, I did. But Lucy asked me not to.” Turning his head, he barked, “Fetch me that mother of pearl box, Marsh. There, on the dressing table.”

The doctor dutifully delivered the square container. Shooting Elizabeth an intense glance, as if he resented her upsetting his patient, he returned to his stool.

The lid gleamed dully as the duke rummaged inside the box. “Here, read this,” he said, holding out a bit of paper.

She unfolded the fragile note. Her eyes blurred as she recognized her mother’s handwriting. Blinking, she scanned the brief, faded message, then looked at the duke.

Emotion throbbed inside her. “She loved you, but she wanted me to have a real home. And so you never tried to trace us.”

“Yes.” The ill tempered spunk seemed to drain out of Hugh Sterling. He slumped over his cane and stared at her. “Did she ever mention me?”

Elizabeth slowly shook her head. “On her deathbed she made Owen promise to bring me back here, to visit you. I’m a sculptress, you see, and she wanted you to act as my patron.”

“An artist, you say?” Surprise and pride shone in his eyes. “Knew you’d make something of yourself, by Jove. Always were a spunky girl.”

Drawing the swan signet from her pocket, she knelt before him, holding out the ring in the palm of her hand. “When I turned thirteen, Mama gave me this.”

“The Sterling swan,” he muttered, rotating the ring in his knobby fingers. “That’s what I used to call you. A beautiful name for a beautiful child.” The duke dropped the ring back into her hand. “And now you’ve come back to me. Married to an earl, by Jove.” His eyes sharpened on Nicholas and he let out a cackle of laughter. “Makes you my son in law, eh, Hawkesford?”

Nicholas smiled. “It would seem so, Your Grace.”

“Fine piece of Persian armor I won off you, by Jove.”

“Is that it, over there?” Nicholas inclined his head toward the far wall, where a shiny suit of armor stood, the visor closed, the gauntleted hand clutching a pike.

“Got keen eyes,” the duke said, grinning. “That card game was no accident, eh? You knew I was Elizabeth’s father. Why didn’t you say something?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you sometime.”

“You’ll stay for a visit, then,” the duke said, thumping his cane for emphasis. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

Nicholas coolly inclined his head. “As you wish. Is that agreeable to you, love?”

Throat dry, Elizabeth nodded. An invitation was what they’d counted on, so why did she feel this sudden urge to refuse?

Hugh Sterling cocked his grizzled head at her. “You met the rest of the family yet? Wonder if Addie would recognize you.”

The wily expression in his eyes disturbed her. She straightened, pocketing the ring. “We had luncheon together. And yes, everyone knows who I am.”

“Wish I’d been there, by Jove! Wouldn’t miss dinner tonight for Henry V’s favorite suit of armor.”

“Then you must rest now, Your Grace.” Gilbert Marsh came to stand beside the duke’s chair.

“You fuss more than an old woman,” the duke grumbled. “Come to think of it, you ought to find yourself a woman. You’d make her a good wife.”

The doctor said nothing, his features scrubbed clean of emotion, except for a faint tightening of the lips.

Elizabeth felt a twinge of sympathy. How trying for Marsh to be cooped up here with such an ill tempered patient. But perhaps he had learned to take the duke’s disparaging comments in stride.

She and Nicholas went downstairs to find the luncheon party had dispersed. According to Mrs. Drabble, the duchess had gone to the stables, and Drew and his mother had withdrawn to Philippa’s rooms. The housekeeper dispatched a man to fetch the earl’s servants and luggage from the inn.

Nicholas touched Elizabeth’s cheek. “You look troubled, Countess. Let’s go out into the sunshine.”

The gloomy decor made her subdue a shiver. “Yes, I’d like that.”

As they walked down the front steps, he said gently, “Tell me what you’re thinking, love.”

Elizabeth tried to sort through the confusing mix of impressions. “The duke seemed to have truly loved me and my mother. And yet…”

“What?”

She bit her lip and said, “According to Owen, Hugh Sterling shunned me when his son was born.”

Their footsteps tapped over the stone path. “Perhaps there’s an element of truth in that,” Nicholas said. “It’s understandable that a man would dote on his heir. Yet the duke kept your mother’s letter all these years. That says something for the depth of his feelings.”

The thought cheered Elizabeth. Had the duke been the focus of Lucy’s youthful passion and Owen the recipient of her deep, abiding love? “My mother must have felt strongly for Hugh Sterling,” she said slowly. “I can’t imagine she would have betrayed her values for any other reason.”

Hand clasped in Nicholas’s, Elizabeth wandered toward an herb garden overrun with weeds. Hugh Sterling intrigued her; he had been alternately crotchety and kind, sly and sincere.

“Why do you suppose he’s let the place get so shabby?” she wondered aloud. “He must be wealthy if he spends so much on his collection.”

Nicholas shrugged. “He seems to relish annoying his nephew. At the same time, it’s hard to second guess Hugh Sterling.”

A chill slithered down her spine. “I’d best make sure everyone understands I’ve no interest in his money.”

His fingers tensed; Nicholas, too, must be recalling the attempts on her life. Her throat tightened at the memory of that villain choking her.

Was the person who wanted her dead exulting that she’d come here?

She’d come home.

With a hand that trembled in exultation, the figure at the window rubbed at the glass pane, the better to view her. Lithe and lovely, Elizabeth strolled the uncultivated gardens. Her hair was caught in a lustrous black chignon that enhanced her swanlike neck. When she tilted her head to smile up at the man beside her, her face shone as pure and radiant as the sunshine.

The clean fingers went rigid on the curtain. Elizabeth was married now. The shock of that disclosure throbbed like a raw wound. She had no right to look so happy.

Because she was the sin that tainted Lucy.

Reaching to a nearby bookshelf, the figure plucked out a sketchbook. A reverent hand opened the royal blue cover and traced a drawing of Lucy smiling. Just like her daughter, Lucy looked so alive…

Fate had brought her home to Yorkshire. Soon she would be chaste again, cured of the ugly blemish on her soul.

The fingers closed around the Moroccan pistol that lay atop the bookcase. The stock felt cool to the touch, inlaid with scrolls of silver wire. A worthy piece for a worthy purpose.

This time there would be no mistakes, no lost opportunities, no hireling to bumble matters.

This time Lucy would live again.

And Elizabeth would die.

“You aren’t really going to use that gun, are you?” Elizabeth grimaced at the derringer lying on the stone step, within easy reach of Nicholas.

“Only if I must.”

The chiseled hardness of his face belied his untroubled tone. Wrenching her gaze from the gun, she looked around. They were sitting on the crumbling steps of an open domed rotunda. A lake matted with lily pads glimmered in the afternoon sunlight. The shore was overgrown with oaks and sycamores, laurels and rhododendrons, brambles and blackberries. No scythe had touched the grasses in years, and the charming woodland setting was alive with the peaceful summer sounds of squirrels chattering, grasshoppers fiddling, and bees droning.

Out here, she could almost believe she was safe. Almost. Since their arrival the day before, she had observed everyone closely, yet she and Nicholas were no nearer to identifying the culprit.

“Do you suppose Philippa assigned us separate bedrooms on purpose?” she asked.

“Certainly.” Nicholas reached down to pluck a long stem of grass sprouting from a crack, then ran the blade along Elizabeth’s exposed ankle. “She can’t bear to see two people so in love.”

Her sketch pad slipped to the step as Elizabeth adjusted her hyacinth blue skirts to escape the tickling grass. “That’s not what I meant. Perhaps she’s the one. Perhaps she wanted us to sleep apart so that she could catch me unprotected.”

“Then she failed miserably. I won’t let you out of my sight.” He picked up the pad and chuckled at the drawing. “Philippa, the stork. Flighty as a bird, that woman is. You’ve captured her very soul, Countess.”

Elizabeth smiled at his effort to distract her. “We should be discussing motives.”

Slipping off her shoe, he began to massage her stockinged foot. “I’d rather discuss you,” he murmured. “Or rather, us.”

“But, Nicholas, I really think —”

“Don’t think.” He shifted his compelling hand to her ankle. “I just want to steal a few moments alone with my bride.”

The gleam in his eyes reminded her of the pleasure they’d shared last night. “Quinn looked positively scandalized when he found out we intended to share a room.”

“His opinion is of no consequence,” Nicholas said without a shred of sympathy.

“But it’s customary, isn’t it, for the gentry to keep separate rooms? So that husbands and wives can carry on discreet affairs.”

“I don’t intend to ever sleep in any bed other than yours.”