Читать книгу Heiress On The Run - Laura Martin - Страница 13

Chapter Four

Amelia sank back into the comfortable, worn armchair and closed her eyes for a few seconds. She felt exhausted, even though it wasn’t yet midday. For the duration of the trip out to the village she had been petrified, in a state of high alert, seeing danger where there was none and ready to flee at the slightest provocation.

When she’d leaped into the bushes at the side of the road, taking Edward with her, she really had thought someone was looking for her. A tall, serious man with an official-looking uniform had started walking down the lane towards them and Amelia had been convinced this man had tracked her across the South Downs and was here to take her away to face justice. When she’d pointed him out to Edward on their return dash through the village he’d actually laughed before telling her he was the local postman.

After her confession Edward had gone quiet, studied her for some time, then started to lead her back through the village.

‘We’ll talk back at the house,’ he’d said and hardly uttered a word after that.

Amelia wondered if she should be scared. He might be summoning the local magistrate right now, eager to hand over the murderer sitting in his cosy armchair and be done with the drama she had brought into his life. Although she hardly knew the man, Amelia couldn’t find it in herself to be overly worried. He seemed fair and honourable, and she thought he would at least give her the chance to explain the circumstances before deciding what to do with her.

‘Whisky,’ Edward said as he entered the room, ‘and biscuits, it’s been quite a morning.’

Amelia watched as he poured out two glasses of whisky and handed her one. Cautiously she sniffed the rich, caramel-coloured liquid before taking a gulp.

‘Careful,’ he cautioned.

She felt the wonderful burn in her throat followed by a warm sensation in her stomach and felt herself relax a little.

‘Not the first time you’ve had whisky?’

She shook her head. ‘Back home in India the soldiers were always happy to share.’

‘So you actually did grow up in India?’

‘I’ve lived there my whole life. Until I disembarked the ship a week ago I’d never been to England before.’

‘I think you should start at the beginning,’ Edward said quietly. ‘Tell me everything and then we will decide what is to be done.’

Amelia felt herself complying with his order and bristled. She didn’t like being told what to do and especially not by a man who she barely knew, but there was something authoritative about his tone, something that promised to sort things out, that made her relax back into the chair and do as he suggested.

She wasn’t quite sure where the beginning was. In all honesty she probably would have to start far back in her childhood to make complete sense, but she felt Edward might lose patience if she began recalling the details of her mother’s death and the emptiness that followed. He wasn’t a man to hide his irritation.

‘Two years ago I met a man out in India. My father is a retired colonel and he still has much to do with the army and the officers stationed in India. He hosted a ball and it was there I met Captain McNair.’

Amelia didn’t confess how she’d been swept off her feet immediately by his easygoing manner and charming façade. She had been bored, tired of the same routine day in and day out, and she’d been ripe for a seduction.

‘We met in secret, in the months following the ball, and after a few meetings McNair professed his love for me.’

‘Why the secrecy?’ Edward asked, getting to the point in that calm, shrewd, way of his.

Amelia felt her cheeks start to colour with the shame of her naivety. At the time she’d believed McNair’s wishy-washy excuses to keep their relationship a secret; his desire to gain a promotion before approaching her father, not wanting to conduct their courtship under his commanding officer’s watchful eye. Amelia had believed him because she’d wanted to believe him. At first she’d even kept the relationship secret from her cousin Lizzie, her closest confidant.

‘I was young and naive and I thought he wanted to marry me,’ Amelia said simply.

He had wanted to marry her, of course—most men in India did when they discovered she was the wealthiest heiress in the subcontinent.

‘We courted in secret for almost eight months, snatching precious moments whenever we could, and then suddenly he disappeared. I waited for him, searched for him and eventually found out he had been sent back to England. I even wrote to his commanding officer for information, but his reply was a curt note telling me to forget about Captain McNair.’

Amelia glanced at Edward sitting across from her. It felt strange to be admitting all this to a virtual stranger, especially when she hadn’t even told her nearest and dearest the truth.

‘Can I surmise you didn’t take the commanding officer’s advice?’

Amelia shook her head. ‘I couldn’t forget about him. I thought we were meant to be together.’

It was galling, really, when she thought of how much time and energy she had wasted trying to track McNair down.

‘My behaviour became a little...erratic, and after some time my father decided to send me to England to stay with my aunt and have a London Season.’

And find a respectable husband. The words had never been explicitly said by her father, but he’d made it quite clear he wanted her happy and settled, and that he expected a good match from her. Edward leaned back in his chair and watched her intently as she told her story. There was something searching and assessing in his gaze, and she had the impression he was committing her to memory, maybe for one of his sketches he seemed so fond of.

‘When I got to England I persuaded my cousin Lizzie to assume my identity for a few weeks whilst I slipped away. I’d found McNair’s address and was determined for us to be reunited.’

Amelia didn’t recount the dizzy anticipation she’d felt on her journey to Brighton. Her thoughts had been full of breathless reunions, impassioned kisses and romantic vows never to be apart. The reality had been so much different.

‘When I got to his address McNair was more than a little shocked to see me, but he recovered quickly.’

She closed her eyes as she remembered the honeyed words he’d used to placate her after his first expression had not been of complete pleasure. He’d led her into his rooms, entwining his fingers with hers and had whispered all manner of scandalous endearments in her ear. Amelia had fallen for him all over again, her infatuation deepening every minute she was in his company.

Amelia glanced at Edward, unsure how much to say. He seemed to pick up on her hesitation and wordlessly stood, crossed the short distance between them and refilled her glass with whisky. Amelia took a fortifying sip as she remembered McNair’s kiss, the way his lips had trailed over her skin, the light dance of his fingertips over her back and the warmth of his body pressed close to hers.

She would have given herself to him, completely and utterly. It was only pure luck that she had not fallen into bed with the man she’d thought she loved.

‘We were disturbed and McNair left the room for some moments. Whilst he was gone I wandered around, looking at this and that. Then I saw the will on his desk.’

She’d stared at it for a whole minute, uncomprehending. Reading the letters, but their meaning not fully sinking in.

‘It was his wife’s will. It transpires that she had become unwell just over a year ago, coinciding with McNair’s return to England. She had passed away at the end of last month.’

‘You didn’t know he was married?’

Amelia shook her head. She’d stared at the piece of paper detailing McNair’s wife’s bequests to certain charitable organisations and she’d felt as though her heart was actually ripping in two. Years of flirtation and infatuation had immediately soured and as McNair had walked back into the room she’d finally seen him for what he was: a trickster, an adulterer. She’d hated him in an instant, but more than that, she had felt all of her self-confidence and trust in her own judgement destroyed in one fell swoop. She’d allowed herself to be taken in by this villain and that hurt almost as much as the scoundrel’s betrayal.

‘I confronted him when he returned and at first he tried to deny it. I became a little hysterical and suddenly he turned nasty.’

He’d shown his true colours then. Gone was the man who had whispered his desire to spend eternity in her arms and the real McNair replaced him. This McNair snapped and snarled like a wounded animal and let her know it was just her father’s substantial fortune he was interested in.

‘He admitted his plan had been to seduce me, entice me to run away with him, then extort money from my father for my safe and scandal-free return.’

It had been the ultimate humiliation. Just one more man who wanted her for her money.

‘What a bastard,’ Edward said, not apologising for his language. Amelia felt her spirits buoy a little as she continued. It was the most animated she’d seen him.

‘I threatened to expose him as a scoundrel and a liar, empty words, but I think he had a new scheme afoot, some new girl he was trying to con, for he became enraged.’

Amelia raised a hand to her cheek where McNair had left his mark.

‘He hit you?’

She nodded. ‘He punched me, right on the cheek. He was livid, like a wild beast.’

It was no excuse, not for what she’d done, but Amelia truly had been afraid for her life.

‘There was a fancy letter opener on his desk and I grabbed it, thinking to brandish it and warn him away, but he just laughed at my efforts and came at me again.’

She closed her eyes as she relived the moment the blade had sunk into McNair’s flesh, the soft resistance, the warm trickle of blood that had flowed over her hand, McNair’s surprised exhalation before he collapsed on to the ground.

‘I stabbed him,’ she said so quietly she wasn’t sure Edward would hear her words.

She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t bear to see what another person thought of her taking a man’s life and all because of a seduction gone wrong.

‘I stabbed him and I killed him.’

Some men would come and take her hand, try to comfort her despite there being nothing that could change the fact she was a killer. Some men would chastise and condemn her, even restrain her until they could summon a magistrate. Edward did neither. He sat in the chair across from her in silence, giving her time to collect herself, to steady her nerves and to continue.

‘I fled, I ran as far as I could as fast as I could, then when I couldn’t run any more I kept walking.’

‘And that’s how you came to be here, on the night of the storm.’

Amelia looked up at him, trying to read his expression, to garner exactly what he thought of her.

‘How long was this letter opener?’ he asked, taking her by surprise.

She measured out a few inches with her fingers, trying to recall the look of the blade before it had been covered in blood.

‘And where did you stab him?’

‘What does it matter?’ she asked, feeling sick.

‘The blade was small. Unless you hit a vital organ I think it unlikely you killed the man.’

She shook her head. She’d killed him. No one could bleed that much and not be dead.

‘He collapsed to the floor...there was blood everywhere.’

‘Did you check to see if he was breathing? If he had a pulse?’

She hadn’t. In fact, she hadn’t been able to look at his body at all once the blood had started seeping from the wound around her fingers.

‘There was too much blood,’ she repeated.

Edward fell silent, seeming to realise if he pushed her much further Amelia wouldn’t be able to keep her tenuous grip on her composure.

‘What do you want to happen now, Amelia?’ Edward asked.

‘I don’t want to hang.’

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Amelia watched as Edward fought it and returned his expression to the more familiar frown.

‘An admirable ambition. I don’t think any judge would hang you.’

Amelia wasn’t sure. And even if she wasn’t sentenced to death, a long spell in one of the country’s notorious prisons was just about as bad as the noose.

‘It was self-defence. You’re a young woman of a good family and by all accounts McNair seems to be a known scoundrel.’

It sounded as though Edward was justifying handing her over to the magistrate to face the penalty for what she’d done.

‘It’s up to you, of course, but if you run then you will spend your entire life looking over your shoulder, wondering whether this crime will catch up with you.’

Amelia hadn’t thought of that. She’d been so preoccupied with the here and now, avoiding being apprehended for murder and getting as far away from the scene as possible, she hadn’t thought what her life would be like with this always hanging over her. She would always be a murderer. Even if she returned to India, to her father’s protection, she would never be able to undo what she had done.

‘I want to go home,’ Amelia said in a small voice.

She wanted her father, with his gruff voice and stiff embraces. She wanted the rolling hills of Bombay with the humid heat and monsoon rains.

‘To India?’

She nodded. He looked thoughtful.

‘You can stay a couple of days,’ he said eventually. ‘I will summon my steward and instruct him to make discreet enquiries, see what the state of affairs is with this McNair. We will make a further decision when we have all the facts.’

She didn’t know how he could reduce her momentous revelation to such a cool, calculating plan, but as his words sunk in Amelia felt a surge of hope blossom inside her. He was going to help her and, more importantly, he was going to let her stay.

With a yelp of relief Amelia sprang from her chair and launched herself across the room at Edward. He was stiff under her embrace and momentarily Amelia remembered how his body had moulded to hers the night before as she lay in bed shivering from the cold. He was capable of warmth and closeness, but he wasn’t comfortable with it.

‘There are conditions,’ Edward said quickly. ‘I don’t like to be disturbed. We shall take dinner together and nothing more. The rest of the time you may do as you please, but you will not venture into the East Wing. Is that clear?’

Amelia nodded, willing to agree to anything if it meant she could stay. For a while at least she was safe. She would remain hidden in this strange, half-empty house until they could be sure exactly what the situation was with McNair’s death. It was a reprieve, the sanctuary she had hoped for during her mad dash over the Downs. Of course it wouldn’t bring McNair back to life, wouldn’t change the fact that she was a murderer, but for now she would have to be content with safety over absolution for her crime.

Amelia pulled away, pausing as she got to arm’s length. Something made her stop, to hesitate. Her eyes met Edward’s and for a second there was a spark, a flare, between them. Amelia felt skin begin to tingle and her blood rushing around her body. She was aware of every tiny movement, every breath, every muscle. There was something captivating about this gruff, generous man, something not obvious at first glance, but hidden beneath his cool exterior.

Then Edward shifted and the moment was lost. Amelia stood, turning away to cover her confusion. She wasn’t sure what had just passed between them, but she did know she had no right to experience whatever it was. Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile to her lips before turning back to face Edward.