Читать книгу The Complete Regency Season Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 79

Chapter Eighteen

Will looked content, Julia decided, watching him over the breakfast table the next morning. She felt wonderful, strong enough to keep the key turned in the lock of that dark little cupboard buried deep inside her, the one where the memory of Jonathan’s death lurked along with the new acceptance that she loved a man who, however fond he was, did not love her.

We are content, that is enough.

‘Excuse me, my lord, only there’s a message from the desk downstairs: there are visitors asking for you.’ Nancy closed the door on the uniformed page who waited on the landing.

‘What name?’ Will folded his paper with a sigh and slapped it down beside his plate. ‘This is very early to be calling. I suppose it might be about an investment I was particularly concerned about. Hapgood must have thought I was impatient for news of it after our discussion yesterday. I will come down.’

‘No, don’t do that.’ Julia laid her napkin aside. ‘We have finished our breakfast. If it is Mr Hapgood and he wishes to talk business you can give him a cup of coffee and I will go into the bedroom. I have lots of things to sort out.’

‘Very well.’ Will looked resigned to business. ‘I will not take long, I promise, then we can resume our interrupted sightseeing. Ask them to come up, if you please, Nancy.’

It would be the banker, or perhaps the lawyer, Julia thought, finding a clean cup and saucer from the tray for the visitor. After all, they knew no one else in town.

The door opened as she bent over the coffee jug to make sure there was enough. ‘Mr and Mrs Prior,’ Nancy announced.

For a moment she thought she was imagining things. Julia looked up and found herself staring into the face of Cousin Arthur and, beside him, smiling smugly, Cousin Jane.

She was going mad, seeing visions. Julia clutched the edge of the table and was dimly aware of the sound of falling china.

‘Good morning, Cousin Julia,’ Arthur said. ‘What a relief to find you well and safe. You can imagine the worry we have been in, you wicked girl. What a terrible, terrible thing to have done! And now what are we to do?’

‘And who the blazes are you?’ Will demanded as Julia’s knees gave way and she fell back onto her chair.

It had not been an hallucination yesterday. She had seen them and they had seen her and somehow discovered where she was.

‘Lord Dereham, I presume?’ Arthur advanced with an outstretched hand that Will completely ignored. ‘I must make allowances for your natural agitation, I can tell. I am Arthur Prior, Julia’s cousin, and this is my wife, Mrs Prior. I cannot begin to describe to you the anguish we have experienced since Julia ran away three years ago! To see her yesterday from the window of our lodgings was such a shock I hardly know how we had the presence of mind to send the lad to follow the hackney carriage and establish where she had gone.’

Will turned on his heel to face her. ‘Is this the cousin who inherited your father’s estate? The one who laid violent hands upon you?’

‘Yes, he is my father’s heir. But he never—’

‘Violence! Is that what the wicked girl is saying?’ Jane reeled back into the nearest chair and fanned herself with a napkin. ‘Nothing but kindness she received from our hands. And how did she repay us? By running off with my uncle’s stepson, despite being told what a wicked rake he was. The poor, poor boy.’ She glowered at Julia who stared back, unable to form a coherent sentence.

‘But it seems as though she’s fallen on her feet here, has she not, Mrs Prior?’ Arthur demanded with a rhetorical flourish.

‘Before you go any further,’ Will said in a voice that somehow managed to convey a threat of violence under a coating of ice, ‘I should tell you that I am perfectly aware of my wife’s elopement and of the reasons behind it. I can see no purpose in this call—she most certainly does not wish to receive you, now or in the future. Good day to you.’

‘Not so fast, my lord.’ To do him credit, Cousin Arthur was standing his ground against a man who Julia hardly recognised. Will looked bigger, angrier and more frightening than she had ever imagined he might. She struggled to find words, but she had no idea what to say, what to do in the face of this utter disaster. ‘We have been to a lot of trouble and expense trying to find Julia and I consider you would be doing only the right thing if you were to recompense us for that. And our silence of course.’

‘Your silence?’ Will enquired dangerously. ‘About what, exactly?’

‘I cannot imagine you would want the truth about Lady Dereham to become common knowledge, would you? You might be able to gloss over the elopement, I suppose. But the violence?’ He smiled slyly. ‘I’ll not pretend Jonathan Dalfield was anything but a sinner, but did he deserve such treatment? His poor head...’

Julia found her voice and the strength to stand. ‘I never meant to kill him,’ she said. ‘Never. He was trying to rape me. It was an accident. I did not realise the poker was in my hand.’

The room went utterly quiet. Will turned slowly to face her, his eyes wide and dark with shock. ‘You killed a man?’

‘You did not know, my lord?’ Arthur interjected. He was white and flustered, but he gabbled on. ‘Of course, I should have realised you’d never keep such a thing quiet, not a gentleman like you. But it won’t look good for you if it all comes out, now will it, my lord? Many will not believe you. And it puts us at great risk, always has. But you could be assured of our silence, my lord. We would be very reasonable. Five thousand pounds and no one would ever know and you would never hear from us again.’

Without taking his eyes from her face, Will said, ‘You despicable, blackmailing worm.’

‘Hard words don’t break my bones, my lord.’ Arthur had recovered some of his poise. ‘But a hempen noose will snap your wife’s neck if we aren’t all very careful. And it wouldn’t look good for you, would it? Accessory after the fact, they call it. I’m no lawyer, but I think that’s a capital offence as well, my lord.’

‘Julia, go to the other room,’ Will said, his voice as soft as if he invited her to sleep with him. Beneath it she could hear the anger beating like a tocsin, his eyes blazed gold, and the skin was tight over his cheekbones as though he was a wolf with its hackles laid back.

Without a word she got up and went into the bedchamber. Now the worst had happened she felt strangely calm. It was shock—she recognised it from when she had killed Jonathan and it was strange to be able to diagnose it now as though she was an observer examining herself at arm’s length.

What would Will do? Pay what Arthur demanded? But they would never be safe either from betrayal or from more and more bloodsucking demands. Will was a law-abiding English gentleman: his duty was to hand her over to the authorities, whatever the damage to himself. It was not even as though he loved her, she thought bleakly, sinking on to the edge of the bed to await his judgement. She should not put him in this position, make him decide what to do. She should walk out of here, surrender herself.

There was a door in the far corner of the dressing room concealed by a screen. It gave on to the service stairs and Nancy used it to bring hot water and to take away the slops. She could use that route, ask at the desk for the nearest magistrates’ court and be there before Will realised what she was doing.

It all seemed very simple and easy now there was no choice. The important thing was not to think about what would happen afterwards.

The sound of voices from next door ceased. The outer door closed. Silence. Julia got to her feet and found her reticule. Her cloak and bonnet were on the chair. She should just—

The bedchamber door opened and Will stood there, framed in the opening. He looked, she realised with a twisting pang of guilt and shame, as though someone had dealt him a mortal blow and he had not yet realised it. ‘I knew you were keeping a secret from me,’ he said, his voice as steady as a judge. ‘I should have listened to my instincts.’

‘I could not tell you.’ She found she was on her feet. ‘It would have put you in an impossible position.’

‘Not unlike the one I am in now?’ he enquired and walked into the room, pulling the door to behind him with a savage slam that was like a gunshot, terrifying in contrast to his utter calm. ‘I was happy last night, this morning. Pathetic, is it not? I thought we could be content together, I believed my wife loved me.’

‘I do!’

‘But instead,’ he went on as though she had not spoken, ‘she tells me of her love, so sweetly, so innocently, because she has seen her relatives and knows what will happen when they find her. Did you really think that telling me you loved me would stop me doing the right thing?’

‘No,’ Julia protested. ‘Of course not! That is not why I told you. I said it because it was true. I saw them yesterday, I admit it, but I thought I was seeing things in my panic, that they were not real. I always expect to see people accusing me, pointing me out, calling the constables. That is why I am so afraid of crowds.’ The tears welled up and she fought them back with savage resolve. She had to make him believe that she would not use those words to him so cynically. ‘I would not lie to you, Will. Not about that.’

‘No? Just about the important things, then? The fact you killed a man?’

‘Love is the important thing! Will, I had discovered Jonathan had deceived me. I was in shock, he tried to drag me back to the bed. I refused, but he did not care, he was going to rape me. He dragged me by my wrist and I fell into the hearth amongst all the fire irons. He bent to pull me to my feet and I hit out to stop him. I did not realise the poker was in my hand until it struck him.

‘There was so much blood. So much. On my hands, on my body. I screamed. Then I had to wash it off. All that blood. There was a screen half-hidden in the corner concealing the wash stand and water, my clothes. I washed my hands and dressed. I could not bear to be dragged away like that.

‘They all came pouring in—the inn guests from the bedchambers, the maids, the innkeeper, everyone. I heard them, but they didn’t seem to notice the screen, or if they did, to realise someone was behind it. And then...’

‘Then?’ Will demanded as she faltered to a halt. ‘You tell me no-one saw you at all?’

‘They were all crowded round the...body. And a woman had fainted and it was chaos. I came out in my cloak and bonnet and no one looked at me. I moved into the room and became just one of the crowd. Then I slipped downstairs and hid in a cart and escaped. It is the truth,’ she added flatly.

Will did not comment on that. She noticed and it cut like a knife through her shocked numbness. He did not believe her at all. He thought she had meant to kill Jonathan, perhaps in revenge at his betrayal.

‘There was no identification?’ he said. She realised he had been analysing her story.

‘I took it all. I burned his cards.’

‘Very cool and calm. One could almost say professional. You were certainly composed enough when I found you. I must have seemed like a godsend. I have never considered myself a flat before, an easy mark. It seems I was wrong.’

‘If taking pity on someone who needed help and offering them food and shelter makes you a flat, then that is what you were. All I knew was that I was exhausted, frightened, utterly adrift. You offered me respite, a chance to regain a little strength and calm. And then you made me that offer...’

Will sat down on the nearest chair as though standing was no longer an option. He passed one hand over his face, rubbed his eyes and answered with the weariness of a man who had fought to a standstill but must keep battling on. ‘I made you an offer you could not have dreamt of. You must have been beside yourself with delight.’

‘Yes,’ Julia agreed. ‘I was so relieved. I saw some hope. And I knew I could do what you needed in return. Do not pretend I did not,’ she threw at him, some spirit flaring deep inside her. ‘I looked after King’s Acre with devotion. I did my best to help Henry become a worthy heir for you.’

‘It would hardly have been safe if you’d been arrested for murder.’ Will pronounced murder as if the word hurt him to utter.

‘I considered the odds as best I could. My first name is one no one even thinks of me by. My surname is commonplace. I was hundreds of miles from home. Because of your situation the marriage was not reported outside the neighbourhood. I thought it safe and, if it were not, the authorities would believe I had deceived you.’

‘The poor dying man deceived by the wicked murderess?’ Will’s mouth twisted into an ugly smile. ‘And when I returned you were terrified that I might seek an annulment. Of course—that would have made a scandal indeed and it was not my good name you were worried about. How you must have quaked until I consummated the marriage and you were safe. And to think that the worst I considered was that I had been cuckolded in my absence.’

‘Yes, I was fearful of a scandal. I will not lie to you. I knew I could not tell you.’ His face darkened. ‘Will, if I had not married you then you would be dead now. Henry, with no guidance, would be ruining King’s Acre.’

‘So dragging my name and honour in the gutter was actually a favour to me?’ He looked down at his clasped hands. ‘Finding that the woman I was becoming...attached to had killed and lied and deceived me was not supposed to hurt?’

‘You never truly trusted me, did you? Julia said. He had become attached to her. ‘Thank God you never grew to love me.’

‘Thank God, indeed.’ He stood up and went to the door. ‘You will stay here.’

She would not beg him to save her. How could he, even if he wanted to? And besides, she had deceived him and, perhaps, brought him to ruin. ‘I did not think it would come to this. I thought that if I was discovered it would be by the authorities and I would have some warning to be able to vanish before they could catch me and hurt you. What are you going to do?’

Will looked back at her and suddenly she saw him as he had been when she first met him, when she had thought him an old man. The skin was tight over those strong bones, the colour had left his face, his eyes were stark and full of anger. ‘I have no idea. Think, I suppose. I have promised those bloodsucking relatives of yours that I will write to them by the end of tomorrow with my decision.’

This time he closed the door slowly, quietly, behind him. The key turned. He thought he had imprisoned her.

Think. She must think, too, and not give way to the tears or the paralysis of fear. Jonathan was dead. Nothing she could do would bring him back. He had no family in need to whom she could make some restitution. She would be hanged, of course, but the person who would have to live with this was Will.

The only question that mattered was how to inflict the least damage and pain on Will. Once she put it like that, then the answer seemed clear: not to drag his name through a public trial, an even more public hanging. She must vanish. But to do that she must silence the Priors and the only way she could think of was to hold over them the threat that they, too, would appear as accessories.

She would tell them that, rather than let Will pay blackmail money for the rest of his days she would surrender herself and then she would have killed their golden goose for them. If they did not believe her, called her bluff, then she would have to decide what to do—give up and surrender or run and try to hide. But she would deal with that if she had to.

Will would go to the authorities himself, of course, but then he would be seen as someone deceived, someone doing the right thing as soon as he found out the truth. His pride would be hurt, but that was better than the alternatives.

But she needed time to compose herself and think this through, to make certain Will did not try to find her. There was one certain way of doing that, she supposed. If she could make Will believe that she had taken her own life he would not search for her. But she would not lie to him. Never again, even in this.

Julia went to the desk, pulled a sheet of paper towards her and dipped the pen in the inkwell. She wrote:

Dearest Will,

When you read this I will be beyond the reach of the law and beyond the capacity to cause you any more pain or scandal. I am too much of a coward to take poison. I have heard that the river is the last resort for many of London’s despairing souls.

There is nothing to say except that I am sorry and that I never meant to hurt you. You will go to the authorities with this letter—I know that you are too honourable to break the law over such a matter. I will not write anything to embarrass you more, except that I love you. Believe that if you believe nothing else.

Julia.

There was a small portmanteau that she had pushed into the bottom of a larger one, anticipating having to pack more clothing on their return than she had when they arrived. He would not notice that it had gone. Julia changed from the smart morning gown into a plain walking dress, put on strong half-boots and packed a change of undergarments that hopefully Nancy would not notice were missing. A handkerchief, a comb, her reticule. She must take nothing that would be missed or, if it was, be unlikely that a woman going to drown herself might take out of habit.

Money she would need. She doubted Will had counted the notes he had given her the day before, or, after all that had passed, even recalled doing so. Julia unfolded it: twenty-five pounds, a year’s wages for many people. She put it in the reticule, then checked every pocket, all her other bags, and found another two pounds in small coin and a crumpled five-pound note. She had enough to get a long way away.

‘I love you,’ she murmured, one hand flat on the door panels, as close to him as she would ever be again. ‘Goodbye, Will.’ Halfway to the service door she turned back and took another two handkerchiefs from the drawer. She would need them.

Then, feeling as shocked and desperate as she had when she had stepped out from behind the screen in that inn room, she slipped into the dressing room, went behind the screen in the corner, eased the door open and tiptoed down the back stairs.