“In other words, in addition to turning her money over to him, she obligingly stayed out of his way. So why kill her after all those years?” Lucas asked.
“Perhaps he simply got tired of her,” Victoria said tightly. “Perhaps he got especially angry at her one day and lost his temper. He had a terrifying temper. When he lost it, he lost his self-control completely. He was like a madman.” Unlike Lucas, she thought fleetingly, who was always controlled, even when he was angry.
“Your mother died in a riding accident, I believe?”
“Yes. Near his house in the country She had gone there to entertain his friends that weekend. She had been staying with Aunt Cleo and me for several weeks prior to that, as usual, but Whitlock ordered her to return for a few days to do her duty as a wife, as he put it. My mother was very beautiful, very charming. An excellent hostess, in fact, and Whitlock often used her to impress his friends,” Victoria explained.
“A riding accident sounds more like a planned murder, not one done in the heat of anger.”
Victoria shrugged. “You may be right. I only know he did it.”
“How do you know that?”
Because he told me so, himself, she thought wildly. He told me even as he plunged forward to his death at the foot of those stairs.
But she could hardly tell Lucas why she was so certain of her stepfather’s guilt. Lucas was entirely too shrewd. Once he had that bit of information, he would probe for more and she had already learned she had a bad habit of becoming altogether too trusting and vulnerable in his arms.
Besides, she reminded herself grimly, while Lucas was a very unusual man in some respects, he was not likely to be so tolerant and understanding as to welcome the news that he was married to a murderess.
“I have no real proof, of course,” Victoria said cautiously. “But in my heart I am certain of his guilt.”
He let that go. “Riding accidents happen all the time, Vicky.”
“My mother was an excellent rider.” Victoria hoped this would close the matter, but Lucas, in his inimitable fashion, pushed on.
“Did you confront Whitlock?”
This was getting too close to dangerous territory. “He knew I had no proof. He laughed at me.”
Lucas’s hand tightened around her shoulders. “What did you do then?”
“There was nothing I could do. He died less than two months later and Aunt Cleo and I decided it was rough justice.”
“He was found at the foot of a staircase, I believe?”
She glanced up quickly. “Where did you hear that?”
Lucas’s mouth curved wryly. “Jessica Atherton.”
“You certainly obtained a great deal of information from Lady Atherton.”
“Let us not start that quarrel again. Did your stepfather die that way?”
“Yes.” Victoria picked her words carefully. “He had apparently been drinking very heavily that night, which was not unusual for him. He tripped and fell at the top of a long flight of stairs. That was the end of the matter.”
“Not quite.”
She started. “What do you mean by that?”
“Merely that you are still upset by the sight of his initial embroidered on someone else’s scarf or engraved on a strange snuffbox. What’s the matter, Vicky? Are you beginning to wonder if there really are such things as ghosts? Did you think Whitlock had come back to haunt you?”
“Do not say that.” She got control of herself instantly. “Of course I don’t believe in ghosts. What bothered me about the scarf and the snuffbox was that it appeared both had been left where I was the most likely one to find each.”
“The location of the scarf is particularly interesting, isn’t it? It implies someone knew you would be coming back into the house late via the conservatory door.”
“Yes, that is exactly it, Lucas. Looking back on it, it makes one wonder if someone was spying on us the whole time. That same someone apparently was watching so closely that he or she saw me leave the party that night and get into the carriage you had hired,” Victoria concluded.
“And followed us to the inn? Tis possible.”
“It could have been Jessica Atherton.”
Lucas’s tone lightened. “I cannot envision Lady Atherton climbing the garden wall at midnight.”
“You have a point. So that means the scarf and snuffbox were left by someone else. Unless …”
“Unless what?”
Victoria was struck by an idea. “Do you suppose she hired a Bow Street runner to follow us around?”
“You, of all people, my dear, would know how easy that is to do.”
There was an acute silence following that remark, a silence during which it occurred to Victoria that if she’d been thinking clearly, instead of following her heart, she might have had the good sense to hire a runner herself to obtain some information on the mysterious Lord Stonevale.
“I wondered, myself, how long it would take you to get around to doing just that,” Lucas said.
She frowned, afraid he had read her mind. “Doing what?”
His teeth flashed in a wicked grin. “Hiring a runner to have me investigated. It was one of the reasons I wanted to get the courtship over and done as quickly as possible.”
“You are perfectly despicable, Stonevale.”
“I am also perfectly content with our bargain, madam.” He paused outside the kitchen door to brush his mouth lightly over hers. His eyes gleamed. “And while I would not have wanted you put in the awkward position you were in that night at the inn, I cannot say I am particularly sorry things happened the way they did. All in all, considering the risks we were running, we got off lightly.”
“I do not see how we could have gotten off much worse.”
“Then you lack imagination, madam. I used to lie awake nights thinking about all that could go wrong during our midnight jaunts.” He tipped up her chin. “Are you really so unhappy with me, Vicky?”
She wanted to rail at him for not loving her as she loved him. She wanted to accuse him of having manipulated her into this marriage where her emotions threatened to tear her apart while his seemed under perfect control. She longed to bring him to a more forceful realization of his overwhelming guilt, to make him grovel for her forgiveness and proclaim his undying love and devotion.
In short, Victoria realized, she wanted some vengeance for the situation in which she found herself. However, she was realistic enough to know she would probably never get it.
But she had learned her lesson well, Victoria vowed silently. She would keep the secrets of her heart, just as she had learned to keep other, darker secrets. If the Earl of Stonevale was content with his marriage, she would strive to be satisfied also. But she would not give him any more than what he had set out to trap—an heiress who was obliged to accept the fact that she had been married for her money with relatively good grace.
“I believe,” Victoria said carefully, “that as husbands go, you are probably not such a bad one.”
“You damn me with faint praise, madam,” he complained softly. “Surely you can do better than that?”
She licked her lower lip as she looked up at him. He was a menacing figure by moonlight. Large and power-fill, he loomed over her. The stark lines of his face were etched with palest silver and deepest shadow. His eyes glittered with a sensual threat that made her recently sated senses flicker back to life. She ought to be afraid of him, she told herself. Instead, she always felt ridiculously safe in his presence. Damn the man.
Her instinct was to throw her arms around him and confess her love. But her sense of self-protection and her pride stepped in to cut off such a rash and useless course of action. She would not make herself totally vulnerable to Lucas ever again the way she had that fateful night at the inn.
“I believe, my lord, that I have already explained to you I will do my best to live up to my part of our bargain.”
Lucas shook his head ruefully and kissed the tip of her nose. “So proud. And so determine
d not to give an inch more than you must. How can you be so cruel, Vicky?”
“I hardly think ’tis being cruel to say I am willing to accept the situation in which I find myself. What more can you rightfully demand of me, Lucas?”
“Everything.”
“You sound as if you talk of my complete surrender, my lord.”
“Perhaps I do.”
“For that I vow you will have to wait until the world allows women to wear breeches in public,” she shot back tartly. “In other words, forever.”
“Perhaps not quite so long. But we will come back to the matter later. For now I will be content with the progress we have made tonight.” He took her hand and led her into the dark, slumbering house.
The vicar and his wife were nervous. It was painfully obvious they were not accustomed to taking tea in the great house of Stonevale. Victoria decided that if she were to hazard a guess, she would say they had never before been invited into the house for any reason at all, let alone a consultation about the charity needs of the district. That irritated her. It was further proof that the previous earl had not cared about the people who lived on and near his lands.
“I cannot tell you how very happy we are to have you and your lovely lady installed here at the house, Lord Stonevale.” The Reverend Worth, a ruddy-faced, solidly built man in his fifties, spoke very earnestly.
“Yes, indeed. We’re delighted to welcome you,” Mrs. Worth, a sweet-faced little wren of a woman who sat stiffly next to her husband, said tremulously. The teacup in her small hand trembled as she took a very tiny sip. Every now and then she would steal a quick, timid glance around the drawing room, as if she could not quite believe she was inside the great house.
“Thank you,” Victoria said gently, smiling at the uneasy woman. “It was very kind of you to arrange to be here on such short notice.”
“Not at all, not at all,” the woman sputtered, and nearly spilled her tea. “We are ever so grateful for your interest in local matters.”
The vicar made a valiant effort to meet his host’s eyes in a man-to-man look. “Hope you don’t mind my saying so, sir, but your family’s lands have been neglected entirely too long. I am delighted to say that I have already heard talk in the village of the improvements you have begun. ’Tis a great relief.”
“I am glad you are pleased, Reverend Worth. I couldn’t agree with you more about the status of the estate and the surrounding countryside.” Lucas put down his cup with a distinct snap that made Victoria hide a quick grin. Her husband was concealing his impatience well, but she knew for a fact that he would have much preferred to have been allowed to escape this particular social function.
He was, he had told her in no uncertain terms that morning, a busy man and he did not have time to waste taking tea with the vicar. Victoria had informed him that he was not going to be let off the hook and in the end she had won, much to the interested surprise of one or two of the new servants who had happened to overhear the discussion in the hall. It was not going unnoticed that the new Earl of Stonevale had a decided tendency to indulge his bride.
“There is a great deal to be done,” Worth noted. “The situation around here was getting desperate.”
“Your ladyship has made a wonderful impression on the local people,” Mrs. Worth said shyly. “When I went to visit Betsy Hawkins this morning to take her a petticoat for her daughter, she told me quite proudly she wouldn’t be needing any more charity. Her daughter had a job up here in the kitchens, she said, and her husband was going to start work in the stables. She was so happy, madam. You cannot imagine. That poor lady has had a hard time of it, as have many others.”
“We are grateful to have so many willing workers. We shall need a great many people to get this place in shape,” Victoria said, meaning every word. It had been a harrowing chore getting the drawing room in even halfway decent condition for today’s visit. She’d started the new staff cleaning it at dawn that morning.
“Well, I don’t mind telling you that thanks to a poacher’s ghost story, you are off to a fine start as far as folks around here are concerned.” The vicar chuckled and then caught himself as his wife threw him a horrified look. He hastily picked up his teacup and cleared his throat. “Beg pardon.”
But Lucas was not to be sidetracked. “What ghost story and what poacher, Reverend?”
The vicar’s initial uneasiness became visibly more noticeable. It was clear he felt he had already said too much. He coughed slightly. “I fear, sir, that a few of the local men are not above poaching in the woods, especially when times are hard, as they have been lately. Lord knows it’s sometimes worth life and limb to do it, what with the mantraps the previous earl set.”
“You needn’t worry, vicar. Having served in the army and thus been obliged to live off the land occasionally myself, I assure you I am inclined to ignore a little poaching. I have already made arrangements to destroy what mantraps the hunters have not already discovered.”
The vicar’s smile broke like sunshine on a cloudy day. “I am extremely happy to hear that. Your uncle, as you must know, had an entirely different attitude.”
“Now about this particular poacher’s ghost story,” Lucas prodded quietly.
The vicar exchanged a quick glance with his wife and then sighed heavily. “Yes, well, it was just an amusing tale I happened to overhear this morning. You know how country folk talk. It seems a certain intrepid hunter was taking a shortcut home last night when he caught a glimpse of the Amber Knight and his lady. You have heard the legend, of course?”
“I am aware of it.”
Victoria leaned forward intently. “The Amber Knight and his lady were seen in the district?”
The vicar’s wife laughed nervously. “Right here on the grounds of the estate, if you please. At least, according to the way the tale was being told this morning. It seems the knight and his lady were spotted walking home through the gardens sometime after midnight. Is that not a delightful notion?”
“Fascinating,” Victoria said as the truth began to crystallize in her head. She pictured how she and Lucas might have appeared to a startled poacher in the dead of night, her amber cloak swirling around her. “Walking home through the gardens, you say?” She felt Lucas’s quelling glance but chose to ignore him. This was far too amusing. “What would they have been doing running around at that time of night, do you suppose?”
Lucas cleared his throat. “Would you pour me another cup of tea, my dear? I seem to find myself rather thirsty.”
“Yes, of course.” Victoria laughed at him with her eyes as she dutifully poured the tea. He gave her a severe glare in return, which only inspired her to fresh mischief. “You were saying, Mrs. Worth?”
“Was I? About what they might have been doing running around at midnight? Oh, dear.” The good woman’s smile was tentative. “Well, they are ghosts, you know. I suppose that is the only time they are allowed to run around. And according to legend, the pair was very much prone to midnight trysts. It seems the two had a habit of riding the lands at night and returning to the house shortly before dawn.”
The vicar cleared his throat. “That’s quite enough speculation about ghosts, my dear. You’ll have Lord Stonevale and his lady thinking we deal in nothing but village gossip.”
“Never,” declared Victoria. “I find it all most interesting, don’t you, Stonevale?”
“I find it all a lot of nonsense,” Lucas said repressively.
“You must understand,” the vicar’s wife said hurriedly, “the villagers were thrilled to hear the story. They want to believe it because they want to believe that things really have begun to change for the better around here. According to the legend, Stonevale will prosper again only when the Amber Knight and his lady return. I pray you won’t begrudge the people their small tale of hope, my lord.”
“Yes.” Victoria smiled sweetly at her husband. “Pray, don’t be a killjoy, Stonevale.”
The vicar and his wife stared in shock at Victoria. Lu
cas merely gave his wife another quelling glance and drank his tea.
The vicar, apparently sensing that he and his wife had accidentally stumbled into a mild bit of marital teasing, turned a bit ruddier and plowed forth gamely with a change of topic. “Far rather see a couple of harmless ghosts than that highwayman who’s been plaguing the district for the past couple of months.”
“Highwayman?” Victoria’s attention was instantly riveted in a new direction. “What is this about a highwayman? Have you been robbed, Reverend?”
“Not I. And not any of the villagers that I know of. Daresay, none of them would be worth the fellow’s time. But there have been reports of a couple of coaches stopped. The villain’s a bit inept, I fear. On one occasion the driver of the coach pulled a pistol and sent the highwayman fleeing for the bushes. The second time the passengers fobbed him off with a few coins and a worthless ring.”
“Highwaymen usually have a lair in the locality where they conduct business,” Lucas observed thoughtfully. “Do you think this man might be a local resident?”
The vicar shook his head a bit too quickly, looking more uneasy than ever. “I daresay not. Probably just someone riding through. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fellow has quit the district by now. In his profession ’tis probably wise to keep shifting business locations.” Satisfied that he had salvaged the social situation, the vicar fell back on a safe subject. “I say, Stonevale. Don’t mean to be impertinent, but have you given much thought to the sort of crops you’ll want to plant? I’ve lived around here for a number of years now and I have some notion of what does well in this soil.”
Mrs. Worth was instantly alarmed. “Really, dear, I am certain his lordship will ask for advice if he requires it.”
“Of course, of course.” The vicar flushed a dark red. “Sorry about that. Horticulture is a hobby of mine. I fancy myself something of a student of the subject.”