My Lord Murderer (31 page)

Authors: Elizabeth Mansfield

When Drew arrived, Gwen had already been shown into Hetty’s Egyptian drawing room. The butler, following Hetty’s elaborate instructions, closed the door quickly behind Drew as soon as he’d stepped over the threshold. Gwen saw him first. “Drew!” she gasped, caught unaware.

“Good Lord!” Drew stared at her, too astonished to be angry. He could not help noting that she looked more drawn and tired than she’d ever seemed before. But her hair still glowed with that suppressed vibrancy that had so attracted him when he’d first seen her, and her eyes, so surprisingly dark, still had the power to stir him profoundly. There was something new in her eyes as she stared at him now, he noticed. They were less guarded, more … what was it? he asked himself, and a word popped into his mind …
vulnerable
.

But none of this was of concern to him. He had no intention of remaining in the same room with her. What was his sister thinking of to do such a thing to him? Where
was
Hetty? He quickly scanned the room.

“Your sister hasn’t come down yet, Lord Jamison,” Gwen told him.

“So I see. Good afternoon, Lady Rowle. Do you really think our Hetty will appear?”

“Well, I—Oh!” Gwen breathed, a blush suffusing her cheeks.

“Exactly so,” said Drew in disgust. “I’m very much afraid my incorrigible sister has tricked us again. I … I’m sorry, Lady Rowle, I don’t know what to say … except to express my regret that I’m related to such a meddling ninnyhammer. There seems to be no way to control her machinations short of strangling her.” He gave Gwen a small smile and bowed stiffly. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go to find her right now and do that very thing. My fingers itch to wring her neck.”

Gwen, scarcely aware of what she was doing, held out a hand to him. “No, please,” she said, “don’t go—”

Drew paused at the door and turned to her with a quizzical look. “My dear Lady Rowle, surely you have not taken me literally. You need have no concern. Monster I may be, but I draw the line at murdering my own sister.”

Gwen reddened to the roots of her hair. “Drew! I didn’t mean—! Surely you don’t think I could ever believe—!”

Drew laughed shortly. “No, of course not. I couldn’t resist the jest, but it wasn’t a very kind one. I apologize. I’d better go, before I say … that is, I … Good day, ma’am.”

“Dr—Lord Jamison, could you not spare me a moment? Since fate—or rather, your sister—has seen fit to throw us together like this, it seems a good opportunity for me to say something I’ve wanted to say for many weeks.”

Drew hesitated. “I think I know what you want to say and, believe me, Lady Rowle, it is not necessary.”

“Not to you, perhaps, but very necessary to me.”

Drew shrugged. “Very well then, ma’am. I am at your disposal.”

“Won’t you sit down?” Gwen urged, patting a place beside her on the graceful white sofa.

“No, thank you,” Drew answered, unyielding. “I’ll stand here, with your permission.”

Gwen glanced up at him briefly, then lowered her eyes to the hands clasped in her lap. “Lord Jamison, I have become painfully aware of late that what you said about me that day at the Rose and Crown was true.”

“What I said about you? I’m sorry, but my recollections of that night are quite hazy. I don’t seem to recall—”

“You said that I make great errors in my judgment of the character of the men in my life. You were quite right. I learned that night how very great those errors were.”

“There is no need to dwell on past mistakes. No great harm has come to you, after all.”

“Hasn’t it?” She glanced up at him, but he quickly looked away. This conversation was making him feel uncomfortable. He edged toward the door. She saw the movement and tried again to hold him there. “I don’t want to make those errors again. Lord Jamison, can you forgive me for—?”

“Lady Rowle, please! You’ve already apologized for the events of that day.”

“And for all the rest? May I do so for all the rest?”

He sighed. “There’s no purpose in pursuing all this.”

“Is there no purpose in my telling you that I now understand that you intended Sir George no real harm that day?”

“No, ma’am. No purpose at all.”

“And no purpose in my saying that I now realize that you were not responsible for Tom’s accident, either?”

“It is not necessary to tell me that either, Lady Rowle.”

“Or in saying that my assessment of your character—what I thought of as your propensity for violence—was in error from the very beginning?”

“I see nothing to be gained by any of this,” he insisted.

She stood up and took a step toward him. “Then let me at least say that I must have been blind not to have seen all along that you could never have murdered Edward in cold blood.”

Drew looked at her sharply. “My sister has
indeed
been busy in my affairs,” he muttered in annoyance. “When did she reveal the details of the duel to you? During your stay at the Rose and Crown?”

“Those questions are not pertinent to this conversation,” Gwen said primly.

“I wish I could determine just what
is
pertinent to this conversation,” he said irritably. “See here, Gwen, I want you to cease this uncharacteristic humility. There’s no purpose in going over all this!”

“Isn’t there?” she asked with a slight smile. “At least you’ve stopped calling me ‘Lady Rowle’ in that odious way.”

Drew could feel himself being pulled back into her web. “What are you up to, Gwen? I warn you—I swore I wouldn’t permit myself to become entangled with you again!”

“But I’m only trying to apologize to you … to clear my conscience,” she said innocently.

He raised an eyebrow and scanned her face with a doubting look. “Very well. But if we’re to continue with this fruitless conversation, please go back to the sofa and sit down. I want to keep a safe distance between us.”

Gwen’s smile became teasing. “That doesn’t seem at all necessary, if our conversation is as
fruitless
as you claim.”

“If you mean by that remark that you believe I am at all affected by your meaningless apologies, you’re very much mistaken, my girl,” he declared defensively.

Gwen knew she was not mistaken—he
was
affected. If not by what she said, he was affected by the sudden awareness that she was no longer hostile to him. And her instincts told her that he still cared. Her skin tingled and her pulse raced with an excited anticipation. He was being stubborn. He was defending his pledge to himself. But hadn’t she heard that love was like war? If one side was on the defensive, then the other should attack.

She lowered her eyes shyly. “I’m sorry my apologies are meaningless, sir. Would it be more meaningful if I said that, although I believed you to be a murderer, I have … I have loved you … in spite of it?”

He eyed her skeptically. “Well, I suppose … Yes. Yes, I would say that those words are … more meaningful,” he said carefully. “But I wish you would return to the sofa. We are somehow moving rather too close together.”

“Nonsense,” Gwen said, her smile widening. “There’s half a room between us … almost…”

But Drew now wanted to return to the subject. “Is there … anything else … meaningful … you want to say to me?”

“Yes, Drew, there is,” she said, suddenly serious. “You once said that you wanted me to love you enough to believe you innocent even though—as you put it—you came to me with hands dripping with blood. In that I failed you. But when you did appear before me with bloody hands, I loved you believing you
guilty
. Oh, Drew, is
that
love meaningless?”

Drew’s eyes, incredulous, searched her face. “Did you
indeed
love me then?” he asked softly.

“Yes, oh yes!” she said breathlessly, crossing with two quick steps the space that still lay between them. “I wanted so much to take your bloodstained hand to my face, like this … and offer my lips for you to kiss…”

“Oh, Gwen!” he said with a groan and pulled her into his arms.

Half-an-hour later, Hetty tiptoed down the hall. She paused at the drawing room door. It was tightly closed, just as she had ordered. There was no sound. She looked up and down the corridor, but no one was in sight. She put her ear to the door but heard nothing. One more glance down the corridor, and she knelt and peered into the keyhole. She could see nothing. She stood up and, with the greatest care and delicacy, she turned the knob. There was no sound. She pushed open the door only an inch and peeped in. Standing in the middle of the room were Gwen and Drew, locked in an embrace. She could not see Drew’s face, for it was buried in Gwen’s hair. But Gwen’s head, nestled in Drew’s shoulder, was turned toward the door. Her eyes were closed, but her face had a look of such radiance that Hetty felt her throat constrict. Silently, she pulled the door closed and carefully released the latch. She backed away on tiptoe. Just then the front door opened and Selby entered. “Hetty, what are you doing?” he asked suspiciously.

“Sssh!” she hissed. Tiptoeing to him she put her hand on his mouth. “Don’t say a word,” she whispered. “They’re in the drawing room.”

“Who?” he managed to say through his wife’s fingers.

“Gwen and Drew.”

Selby’s eyes flashed and he pulled her hand from his mouth. “You devil! Have you been meddling again when I expressly forbade—!”

“Selby, hush!” she pleaded. “Don’t scold. I’ve
done
it, you see! It worked!”

“Couldn’t have,” Selby said stubbornly. “I told you it was a corkbrained scheme. It
couldn’t
have worked.”

“But it did. Go and see for yourself!”

Selby marched firmly across the hall, his wife at his heels. He pushed open the drawing room door unceremoniously and stared. The lovers stood just as they were when Hetty had seen them. Selby gaped, swallowed, and started to back out of the room when Drew’s voice stopped him.

“Go away, Hetty,” Drew said without lifting his head. “I’ll see to
you
later!”

Gwen smiled, but she neither moved nor opened her eyes. Selby tiptoed out and closed the door. Hetty was beaming at him. “See? I
did
it!” she chortled jubilantly.

Selby was forced to smile. “Well, well, whoever would have guessed—?”

“
I
guessed!” Hetty bragged. “
I
! Not so corkbrained after all, am I?”

He put a plump arm around her and they strolled together down the hall. “Corkbrained? Not at all, my dear,” he said. “You’re a clever little minx. Very clever. Haven’t I always said so?”

About the Author

Elizabeth Mansfield is a pseudonym of Paula Schwartz, which she used for more than two dozen Regency romances. Schwartz also wrote an American immigrant family saga,
A Morning Moon
, as Paula Reibel, and two American history romances—
To Spite the Devil
, as Paula Jonas, and
Rachel’s Passage
, as Paula Reid.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-4976-9773-7

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com