Author: Wendy Soliman
Category: Historical
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‘You think he might be responsible for killing off my family members, and has me in his sights now?’ Ezra nodded in response to his own question. ‘The same possibility had occurred to me. It’s just the sort of cowardly behaviour he would engage in, but I cannot think of any reason why he would take such a chance. Killing off dukes tends to be frowned upon, and is likely to draw attention to said duke’s enemies.’
Godfrey rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. ‘Everyone has their price. Salford came without a servant, which implies that he does indeed have pockets to let, so you could well be right about the reasons for his interest in your Miss Benton. Besides, you are his sworn enemy, given that you spoke out against his behaviour on the peninsular, damaging his reputation and his standing in the major general’s eyes.’
‘Even so, killing Richard, who was the duke at the time, and then targeting me,’ Ezra shook his head. ‘That takes courage that no amount of blunt can manufacture, and you and I both know that Salford is basically a coward.’
‘Personally, I still think that snake Silas is responsible for the deaths in your family,’ Godfrey remarked. ‘He comes across as weak and feeble because he is, at least physically. But he has more motivation than anyone to see the male line of the family die out.’
‘Because my dear mother depends upon him? He has made himself indispensable to her. He flatters and clucks around her like a mother hen and she laps it up.’
‘My point precisely.’
‘True, but don’t forget her lover, Brennan. Mother would have no need to hide their relationship if I ceased breathing. Not that she hides it especially well now, but with me out of the way I could see him moving into Wickham Hall before I’m cold in my grave.’
‘Blimey!’ Godfrey blinked. ‘You think Brennan might be wiping you out one by one to get control of the Wickham fortune.’
‘Men have killed for considerably less,’ Ezra replied, pulling his shirt over his head and shrugging out of it. ‘The title would die out, and I assume the crown would reclaim all lands attaching to it, but there would still be a lot left for a profligate like Brennan to squander.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘I don’t care about him one way or the other. I don’t have anything to do with him, but if he keeps the mater satisfied…’ Ezra sighed. ‘If however I discover that he is behind these unexplained deaths—’
‘Including your father’s? I know you were highly suspicious of his sudden illness.’
‘As were his doctors. He was as healthy as a horse before he got struck down by some mysterious ailment. Most likely poison, although I cannot get them to admit it.’
‘Poison is a woman’s preferred method.’
‘Well, I don’t think mother killed him, although God alone knows he gave her enough reason to. She never showed us boys much affection, nor did she take any interest in our achievements. She is, however, very conscious of her position, which she enjoys. She is cold but not heartless and wouldn’t kill off her sons, thereby bringing it all crashing down. My mother always puts her own comforts first, as well you know.’
‘You’re missing the point. Brennan might have made her promises about the glittering life they could lead together if she was free to take it up. Women can be impressionable, even those who are old enough to know better.’
Ezra shrugged. ‘I had Brennan and Silas in my sights. Now we must add Salford to the mix.’
Godfrey chuckled. ‘Which will give you an excuse to also keep Miss Benton in those sights.’
‘The chit has spirit and interests me for that reason. All the others are deadly dull and predictable, but she bucks the trend. For one so young, it’s refreshing. She knows how to conduct an intelligent conversation as well, which is considerably more than can be said for her admittedly pretty cousin. But she is also almost half my age. I mustn’t lose sight of that fact.’
‘Heaven forbid!’
Ezra sent his man a darkling glance.
‘I got the impression from a few snippets her maid let slip that she’s been left to her own devices with just a governess for company for more or less all of her life. Her father had little time for a daughter. When he wasn’t soldiering, he was busy managing his investments, but at least he left his child well provided for. Did more for her in death than he ever did in life, according to the obliging Daisy, whose lips were loosened after a few glasses of porter.’
‘As long as that’s all you loosened.’
Godfrey gave a belly laugh. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘Not especially, no. Just don’t forget what you are supposed to be finding out below stairs. Your primary purpose is to keep me alive, not chase after the maids.’
‘I shall endeavour to oblige.’
Ezra laughed as he climbed between the sheets. ‘Get out of here!’ he said.
Merlin abandoned the open window, jumped onto the bed beside Ezra and fell asleep in seconds, his gentle snores reverberating through his body. But Ezra, his mind overflowing, knew that for him sleep would be longer in coming.
Chapter Six
An exhilarating, flat-out gallop soon cleared the cobwebs from Clio’s head. She drew rein when she reached a rise in the ground and pushed the tangle of hair away from her eyes. Her ribbon had slipped and Daisy would complain about having to get rid of all the knots in the tresses that fell to her waist in an unruly jumble. Clio patted Raven’s sweaty neck beneath the thick mane that reached his shoulder and gloried in the magnificent vista that had opened up in front of her—a view of which she would never tire.
‘It puts it all in proportion, don’t you think?’ she asked Raven, who seemed more interested in dropping his head and cropping at the grass than he did in the natural beauty of his surroundings. ‘We are all of us so small and inconsequential in comparison to this.’ She waved one arm in a wide arc. ‘We did right to accept my aunt’s offer to stay with her. I was worried that I might cause an upheaval, but unlike my Welsh relations Aunt Fletcher has shown me nothing but kindness. And Adele is the sister I never had. Things have a way of working themselves out and I would have nothing to worry about were it not for Captain Salford and his ridiculous expectations. I wish my aunt had asked me before inviting him, but I expect she thought she was doing me a kindness and that I would enjoy the surprise.’
Clio pushed Raven forward into a trot as she continued on the track to the old priory, a relic from the Tudor age when Henry VIII sacked the monasteries and stripped them of their valuables. Clio had been told that it was haunted, but she had seen no evidence of the ghosts of any discontented monks. Instead she found the ruined cloisters restful. They gave her sanctuary when she required solitude.
Accustomed to their routine, Raven seemed content when she tied his reins to a low branch and left him to crop at the grass once more. It was a fine morning and so Clio stripped off her gloves and threw back her head to embrace the day as she clambered over the buried remains of old walls to reach her perch in the cloister. She seated herself on a worn stone and enjoyed the view, emptying her mind and allowing the peace of her surroundings to envelop her. She was assured of privacy since no one else ever came up here.
Except that today, it seemed, they did.
The sound of a horse being ridden fast reached her ears and she sighed, hoping that Captain Salford had not somehow managed to follow her to this secluded spot with the intention of bullying her into acquiescence. She tapped her riding crop aggressively against the adjoining rock.
‘Let him try it!’ she muttered.
She realised her mistake when the horse drew nearer and an involuntary gasp slipped past her guard. The duke, in shirtsleeves, sat astride the magnificent black stallion she had noticed in the stables that morning, his long hair flying out behind him. He and the spirited horse made a magnificent sight, especially with his dog loping along beside them. What were the chances of him taking the same route as her by accident, she wondered? Next to none, she decided. He must have deliberat
ely followed her, but for what purpose?
‘What is he doing here?’ she asked aloud, ignoring the fact that her heart rate had accelerated and her cheeks felt unnaturally warm. The prospect of being alone with the duke filled her with a very different emotion to that engendered by the possibility of Salford’s presence. He was one of the few people who could invade her favourite spot without Clio raising objections.
He reined his stallion in, tied him to a branch a safe distance away from Raven, shaded his eyes against the sun and smiled up at her.
‘May I join you?’ he asked.
‘Do I have a choice in the matter?’ she replied ungraciously, wondering why her instinct was to be short with him. Perhaps, she decided, because no one else tended to be. Besides, he had sought her out. It wasn’t as though she had somehow enticed him here.
‘Apparently not,’ the duke said, as Merlin scampered up to her, demanding attention. She smiled at him as she obliged, pointedly ignoring the duke while she waited for her erratic heartbeat to settle into a more natural rhythm. She glanced at him as he stretched his long legs and easily covered the distance between them without stumbling over the rugged ground. ‘May I?’ he asked, indicating the rock beside hers.
‘I believe that seat is free.’
‘I saw you from the window and followed you, in case you are wondering,’ he admitted, glancing at her profile. ‘I hope you do not mind.’
‘This is a favourite destination for Raven and me,’ she replied. ‘It is so peaceful. I feel that I can breathe up here.’ She threw back her head and closed her eyes as she filled her lungs with sweet, fresh air. ‘No one else ever comes this way.’
‘Then I am disturbing your reverie,’ he said, making to stand.
‘You are disturbing me, but it doesn’t follow that the disturbance is unwelcome, and there is no need for you to leave. I don’t know why I am being such a crosspatch.’ She plucked at a blade of grass, unable to meet the penetrating gaze that she felt burning into her profile. ‘Take no notice of me. I am not myself.’
‘Because of Salford?’
‘Yes, in part.’ Merlin had run off to investigate but returned with his tongue hanging out and flopped down beside her. She tugged at his ears. ‘I wish I knew why he had come and what he expects from me, since I do not believe he feels any particular affection for me. Nor is he fulfilling my father’s wishes, as he is trying to make me believe. Anyway, whatever it is, I sense that he will not give up easily.’
‘I concur. I believe he intended to follow you upstairs when you left the party, which implies a degree of urgency on his part. I made sure that you were not inconvenienced.’
‘Thank you.’ Clio ran her lower lip through her teeth, contemplating this revelation. ‘His desperation concerns me, I won’t deny it.’
‘The man is not to be trusted.’
‘Really?’ She sent him a sweetly sarcastic smile. ‘I appreciate that I am a feeble female, incapable of rational thought, but even I had managed to reach that conclusion.’
The duke chuckled. ‘There is nothing feeble about you.’
They fell into momentary silence, the dog’s panting and the bits jangling in the horses’ mouths the only disturbance. In the distance a crow cawed and then took flight with a loud clatter of wings. The distant village clock struck the quarter and one of the horses snorted.
‘A former monastery, one assumes,’ the duke said, glancing around at the crumbling cloisters. ‘Is it part of Lady Fletcher’s estate?’
‘No, I believe it was at one time but parts of the land have been sold off over the centuries. Death duties and what have you, so I have been told.’
‘Very likely. It is a common problem.’ He smiled at her. ‘There’s something you want to ask me.’
It wasn’t a question, and Clio was irrationally annoyed because he appeared capable of reading her mind. Surely she wasn’t that transparent? ‘What are you now?’ she snapped. ‘Clairvoyant?’
He chuckled. ‘You are very bad at disguising your emotions.’
‘I have never had reason to do so before now, not really. Besides, I believe in plain speaking. There is less chance of being misunderstood if one speaks one’s mind.’
‘I almost feel sorry for poor Captain Salford.’ The duke’s smile broadened and Clio felt at ease with him, convinced that he was at least trustworthy. She found him compelling – along with just about every female under the age of ninety who crossed his path, she surmised with a wry smile. The fact that he had deliberately followed her to this deserted spot implied that he genuinely desired her company. It was an honour that the majority of young women who were still asleep in the house would have given ten years of their lives to secure. Did he feel it unnecessary to worry about the proprieties insofar as she was concerned, or did he harbour more sinister motives?
Clio upbraided herself for being so foolish. The Duke of Wickham did not, she was absolutely sure, need to resort to seducing innocent young women if it was the pleasures of the flesh that he desired. There were several older and not unattractive chaperones in attendance who would doubtless be pleased to oblige him in that respect. She had noticed one in particular making her availability plainly apparent the previous evening with small gestures, a touch of his forearm, a flirtatious smile.
He still appeared to be waiting for her to ask her question. But would he give her an honest answer, or fob her off with half-truths? Clio abandoned her annoying habit of analysing everything to death and decided to ask him anyway.
‘Tell me to mind my own business, if you like,’ she said, fixing him with a direct look for the first time since he had joined her, ‘but I would dearly love to know why you and Mr Godfrey found it necessary to discuss murder in my aunt Fletcher’s tack room.’
The sight of Clio, with her flowing tangle of hair, sitting in a distracted state among the ruins of a centuries-old monastery had taken Ezra’s breath away. From a distance she had looked ethereal, unapproachable, and Ezra knew he was intruding on a personal moment. She had a right to privacy and he might have found the strength to turn away—anything was possible—but for the fact that Merlin felt no such qualms about respecting her solitude and went bounding up to her, his tail spiralling. Besides, she had already seen him, so her peace would have been disturbed anyway. She might think he was cutting her deliberately if he turned away again, and nothing could be further from the truth.
Her remote greeting made it apparent that the intrusion was not especially welcome, a situation so unprecedented for a man in his position that it was refreshing. She didn’t go so far as to ask him to leave and so Ezra sat beside her, content to bide his time.
‘It’s peaceful here,’ he remarked.
‘It’s a favourite haunt of mine.’
‘I can quite understand why.’ Ezra smiled at her but she was staring straight ahead and the gesture was wasted. ‘Is it actually haunted?’
She laughed and this time she did spare him a fleeting glance. ‘What a strange question.’
‘Not so very strange if you believe that there is a life after this one and that wronged souls occupy the site of the wrongdoing in question. This is obviously an ancient monastery, so it’s easy to imagine all manner of evil deeds taking place here. As to who committed them…well, that’s another matter entirely.’
‘You do not have a high opinion of religion?’
‘I think it has a lot to answer for, certainly. As to a life hereafter, personally I think it arrogant to assume that anyone can know for a certainty what comes next unless they have experienced it first hand—which given their safe and comfortable lives tends to exclude the clergy.’
‘And yet one hears stories of people recognising places they have never set foot in before, or finding themselves able to speak fluently in a foreign tongue they have never been taught.’ She sent him a curious look. ‘How do you explain such things?’
Ezra shook his head. ‘I cannot.’
‘You do not believe that we are born
again in different guises?’
‘I would like to think so, obviously, but I have an enquiring mind that raises objections on the grounds of hearsay and so I cannot take anyone’s word as gospel without corroborating proof.’
‘Not even that of the clergy?’
He smiled. ‘Especially not theirs.’
‘If we live by God’s tenets then we are assured eternal life in heaven. Surely that is why we attend church so regularly.’ Clio smiled. ‘Are you sure you want to risk eternal damnation?’
‘It must be getting a mite crowded up there, don’t you think?’
She laughed. ‘Perhaps.’
‘A life hereafter is what the church wants us to believe in and, as you say, it guarantees regular Sunday worship and a steady income. That way, the clergy are able to occupy the moral high ground and look down upon us lesser mortals, while simultaneously doing exactly as they please, all in the name of God, naturally.’
‘I am sure you are being sacrilegious.’ Clio threw back her head and closed her eyes for an expressive moment. ‘And in such a place, too. However, you have more reason than most. I expect you are thinking of your dead brothers and hoping that they will have a better time of it if they are reincarnated, which is understandable. As is your cynicism regarding the church, given that your family has suffered so many tragedies.’ When she opened her eyes again her gaze had been softened by compassion. ‘I am very sorry about that. Life is seldom fair but if one seeks explanations for its random acts of unkindness then one is likely to lose one’s senses.’
‘Thank you. Not many people dare to broach that particular subject, or stop to consider my feelings on the matter.’
She grinned. ‘I try never to be predictable—and besides, it is the most natural thing in the world to express sympathy for a situation that was not of your making. I am sure you didn’t expect to become duke, and even if you enjoy your elevated status I doubt whether you would have wished to assume it at the cost of your brothers’ lives.’