To Have and to Hold (5 page)

If only he had
known, what he knew now, Dominic thought bitterly as he blinked back the
stinging in his eyes.
  
He should have
thrown himself upon his knees and begged for her mercy.
 
He should have sought her acceptance of his
proposal before leaving her.
 
Instead of
following the dictates of his mission for the Prince Regent he should have
waited even a couple of days and rushed through a hasty marriage before leaving
her within the safe confines of
Tavistock
Hall under
the protection of his staff.
 
If he had
she would most certainly be alive now and would not have spent the last weeks
of her life at the hands of her merciless, despot Uncle.

With a cruel
twist of irony, the certain knowledge that if they had only been a few weeks
earlier, she would have been alive laid like a heavy weight in his heart.
 
Had things gone to plan they would have
returned a month earlier, and she would have been protected.
 
She would not have been driven to run for her
life into the darkness of the night to face God knows what!

As he sat
helplessly beside the grave of the woman who owned his soul, Dominic cursed
fate and Rupert Davenport for the cruel grief they had played upon him.
 

“You have to get
on with your life Dominic,” Peter muttered, swiping at the mixture of tears and
raindrops upon his own face.
 
“You cannot
allow this to make you bitter.”

Dominic looked
askance at his friend and shook his head regretfully.
 
“My life now, such as it is, is with
her.”
 
He nodded towards the darkened
earth at his feet.
 
“Rupert cannot and
will not get away with this.
 
Not while I
have breath in my body Peter.
 
I have to
have vengeance.”
 

Grief settled
its deathly cloak around his shoulders as he stood beside the simple grave in
the quiet of the rural graveyard.
 
Silence settled between them as his tears mingled with the gentle
pattering of icy raindrops as he gave in to the bleakest emotions of bitterness
and regret he had ever experienced.
 
The
devastation threatened to suck him under.
 
Struggling to draw a breath against the tightening around his heart, he
longed to roar out his denial of losing her.

“I should never
have left her the way I did.”
 
Dominic
bit out as he tilted his head back to look at the darkened clouds ahead.
 
The swirling myriad of cold greys matched the
icy bleakness in his heart.
 

He was vaguely
aware of Peter rising to his feet to stand beside him.
 
Almost of equal height, both men stood
shoulder to shoulder beside the newly dug earth for several moments, each lost
to their own reflections.
 

“Do you know
where he has gone?”
 
Dominic
murmured.
 
His voice shook with barely
concealed emotion.
 

“No, but we will
find out,” Peter replied softly lost in his own quiet contemplation.

“She needs a
proper gravestone.”
 
Dominic dropped to
one knee and slowly trailed a gentle finger around one arm of the roughly
carved cross.
 
“Why did they bury her so
quickly?”

“I don’t know
but I have sent word for the Magistrate to meet us here.
 
I want answers.
 
She cannot stay here in such a desolate
place.
 
This isn’t where she belongs. She
needs to go back to
Willowbrook
Hall and be
interred in the family crypt with father and mother.”
 
Peter replied staring sightlessly at the
ground at his feet.

As soon as
events in Norfolk had been tied up and both men had been free to leave, they
had immediately set out for
Willowbrook
only to find
Aunt Elspeth in great distress and the house staff in terrified confusion.
 
Some weeks earlier Isobel had been removed
from Aunt Elspeth’s care by her uncle Rupert, who had claimed the guardianship
by issuing threats and insults.
 
Aunt
Elspeth hadn’t been certain as to their destination but had been subjected to
having her objections soundly squashed by a condescending Rupert, who had
threatened her with outright violence should she take any steps necessary to
block the removal of Isobel from the house.
 

The last Elspeth
had seen of Isobel had been a brief tearful good-bye before Isobel had been
bundled into an unmarked carriage and quickly driven off.
  
Nobody heard anything from her since
then.
 
Espeth’s
clear distress had been heightened by the arrival of Peter, whom Elspeth had
believed to have been murdered by the lawless smugglers he had gone to help
capture.
 
Shock had quickly turned to
outrage at Rupert’s callous duplicity and the weight of lies he had clearly
told everyone to secure her compliance in her own kidnap.

Dominic could
only wonder what Rupert had led Isobel to believe about him.
 
After all, the staff at
Willowbrook
had been adamant that Isobel had been betrothed to Bertram
DeLisle
just prior to her disappearance.
 
The
thought made Dominic’s stomach churn with building rage.
  

It had been
Kitty, who had bravely come forward and after many reassurances had revealed
Isobel’s ultimate destination.
 
Kitty had
herself escaped the house used as Isobel’s prison the day after Isobel herself
had disappeared.
 
As soon as Rupert had
discovered her flight, he along with his henchman had left the house in search
of her. This had given Kitty the time she needed to escape.
 
Unsure herself what to do and with no funds,
she had eventually found her way back to
Willowbrook
,
whereupon she had resumed a rather nervous position among the house staff.
 
Luckily, Rupert didn’t consider her useful
enough to follow her.

Having garnered
as much information as they needed Dominic, Peter along with several of the
remaining staff began an exhaustive search.
 
For days, they questioned locals in towns and villages and combed fields
all to no avail.
 
Slowly, they moved
north without any sign or trace of her until Peter had overheard conversation
in the village pub just outside of Peterborough.
 
A beautiful young woman, a stranger to the
area, was found dead on the outskirts of the town wearing nothing but a
necklace.
 
Careful questioning of the
locals and the farmer who had discovered the body had led them to learn of her
final resting place in this small, rural graveyard.
 

Having had no
identification upon her, she hadn’t even given the dignity of being buried
among any of her ancestors in the family crypt.
 
Instead, she had been quickly buried in a simple pauper’s grave in a
village she hadn’t even resided in with nothing to mark her presence there but
a plain wooden cross.
 
If it hadn’t been
for the villager’s shock and sympathy for her plight, she wouldn’t even have
had the cross.
 

Anger began to
bloom inside the empty aching void that was Dominic’s heart.
  
Taking a deep breath, he slowly pushed to
his feet feeling aged far beyond his four and thirty years.
 

“What I don’t
understand,” Dominic shifted against the cold that had begun to seep into his
bones.
 
He didn’t think he would ever be
warm again.
 
“Why didn’t she come to
Tavistock
?
 
I told
her the day I left that if she needed anything, she was to contact
Tavistock
Hall.
 
She
promised to do so.
 
My man of business
was under strict instructions to assist her in every way should she approach
him for help. He assures me he has never received any such communication from
her.”

“We know Rupert
kept her locked in her room.
 
The few
staff there were paid by Rupert and under orders to keep her isolated.
 
Her only contact with the outside world was
through Kitty, and Kitty was watched closely.”
 
Peter cursed roundly and turned away from the
graveside abruptly.
 
“She wouldn’t have
been given the opportunity to contact
Tavistock
Hall.
 
Even if she did write Rupert would
have made sure her letter went nowhere.”

Dominic sucked
in a frustrated breath and in a desperate bid to seek relief from the clawing
pain that gripped him focused on the details of Isobel’s final weeks.
 
“I know but we also know that she left the
house at some point and disappeared.
 
Rupert went after her.
 
We don’t
know at the moment where she went and where he finally caught up with her, but
it must have been somewhere around here.
 
Someone must know something!”
 

Peter paused and
looked back towards the dark soil that entombed his sister’s final resting
place before turning towards his best friend.
 
He had fought in hellish conditions with Dominic Carpenter, Lord
Tavistock
by his side and would trust the man with his
life.
 
Certainly, with his sister’s life
and he knew Dominic well enough now to know the man was deeply in love with
Isobel.
 
Sheer grief had turned his
handsome features grey and with the deep lines that now married his classic
features bore testament to how devastated he was by the news of her brutal
murder.

“We know the
Rector was contacted by the Magistrate who having no idea of her identity
ordered a pauper’s funeral.”
  
Dominic’s
breath fogged in the cold autumn air as mist settled around them giving the
graveyard a pervading sense of eerie gloom.
 
“We also know
that
she was found by the track somewhere near here.”
 
His voice quavered as the vivid image of his
beautiful sister, cold and lifeless lying in the mud rose in his mind.
 
Anger and grief surged through him as he
abruptly fell silent and attempted to control his emotions.

Neither man
could bring themselves to mention the word ‘murder’, but both know they were
thinking the same thing.
   

Any question as
to the validity of her identity had been soundly quashed when the farmer had
described the only item to be found upon her body as that of a single
necklace.
 
 
The detailing of which was instantly
recognisable to both men.
 
A solitary
small stone set in a star shaped to mount on a thin chain had been given to her
by her father upon her tenth and last birthday she shared with him.
 
Although the small item of jewellery was of
little financial significance, it had held great sentimental value to her.
 
After his death, Isobel had refused to remove
it and worn it everywhere.
 
Both men knew
that she would never have parted with it.

Both men turned
at the sound of clopping hooves and watched as a tall, gaunt man disembarked
from a small curricle and picked his way through the tombstones towards them.

“Good evening
gentlemen.”
 
He eyed the slightly
menacing men warily before introducing himself with a small
bow
.
 
“Sir Hubert Williams, Magistrate at your
service.”