Authors: Beth Trissel
“The hospital
called.
Nora’s
gone.”
Will covered his face with his hand
and sagged
back in the chair.
“
That’s it
,
then.
”
“May the Lord have mercy on her soul
,” Charlotte said quaveringly.
“She was a hard task master, but a good sort at heart.”
J
ulia reached her arms around Will’s
neck.
“I’m so sorry
, Will
.”
“I know,” he whispered, as if he couldn’t trust himself to speak.
“
My condolences,
Mr.
Wentworth
.
I’m afraid it’s m
urder
in the first degree now
.
”
Detective
Williams motioned at Julia
.
“Could I see your fingernails
please, Miss Morrow?”
Will
jerked upright
and stuck out
his hands. “No,” he growled.
“Begin with me.”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Julia huddled in
Will’s bed under the
silk
sheets
left from his grandmother—yet another reminder
.
“What if someone fr
amed me for her
death?” she
asked in a voice somewhere between a whisper and a sob.
Fresh
pain rifled through Will
.
It was b
ad enough losing Nora
to some vengeful sadist
and the
overwhelming
prospect of funeral arrangements looming over him,
without having Julia scared
out of her mind.
She curled
up like a frightened child, pulling
the mauve comforter up around her chin.
When Will
thought back to the start of the evening and what he’d longed to be doing with her, the w
ound bit even sharper
.
Now
, the most he could hope for was to comfort her.
“Shhhh...” he soothed, sliding beneath the pile of blankets in his boxers. “
They’d never get away with it.
Besides, who would suspect you?”
“Detective Williams, for one,” she sniffed.
Will
drew her
a
gainst him.
“It’s his
job to suspect everyone.”
She burrowed nearer
in the
borrowed
T-shirt, enormous on her.
If the air condition
er weren’t humming
away they
couldn’t have stood so
many covers.
W
ith the air turned down, it was cozy, and
fitting somehow that they clung
together
in his grandmother’s bed
, considering it was her death that drove them to this state
.
“But I don’t like the way he looks at me.
Like I’m hiding something.
”
Neither did Will.
“
If by some bizarre circumstance
worst comes to worst
, I’ll defend you.
I didn’t ace the bar for nothing.
But it won’t come to that.
You’ll see.
”
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“
I told you this night would
snare us both.”
“We’re not snar
ed yet, just grieved and shaken,
”
he reassured her, but his thoughts ran elsewhere.
He
envisioned Julia
shut away in prison.
H
e’d rather die and would do anything to defend her
––
sell Foxleigh,
hire a team of top lawy
e
rs, apply all his legal skills,
anything.
Surely, Williams could see the evidence pointed to Lyle?
Unless for some perverted reason L
yle had set a trap for Julia. B
ut why would he do that?
Nothing made any sense.
Will stroked
her
loose spill of
scented
hair
.
“It’ll be all right,” he repea
ted, determined to make it so.
God give him
strength, wisdom
, help
.
He couldn’t lose her to
some insane irony.
N
ot now.
Not ever.
He’d need that strength.
Heaviness weighed him, and he was only partly aware
of Julia
as she
relax
ed
in his
hold and
uncurl
ed
from her tight ball.
H
er hea
d nodded against his chest
and her
breathing eased
.
Satisfied that he’
d so
othed her
, Will drifted asleep
...
down, down he spiraled,
tumbling
further
and further
into the dream
realm until
this
present-day
room
faded
and
he was
back in Cole’s chamber.
No
––
his
––
on that fateful night in 1806.
Will reached de
ep within himself to those long
guarded
me
mories he hadn’t wanted to reli
ve
,
ever
.
But he must
––
he knew that now
––
to save Julia.
For her sake, he immersed himself in the pain
ful past
.
Again, he felt the gnawing ache in his arm where Cameron ha
d
slashed him in a drunken rage. No matter.
The physician wo
uld stitch him
in the morning.
He’d had wounds
before and could manage
until then with the
poultice.
He turned
his thoughts to Julia, fairest
Julia.
Everything in him long
ed for her…to the center of
his being.
H
e yearned to kiss her alluring
lips, finish painting her portrait, and make slow sweet love to her.
Gradually, it came to him that s
omething was very wrong
.
He hadn’t the vigor
to make love to Julia even if she were here.
An insidious
lethargy and numbness
was creeping
over him
like an evil tide
.
His stomach
cramped
,
his
hear
t raced, a
nd he
began to shake
.
He’d been
violently
stricken
with
ill
ness
, or
else
––
Had he been poisoned
?
That seemed unlikely, even impossible. How could he have imbibed the poison?
Not
the wine from his mother’s hand
, or
the cake he’d shared with Julia. He’d eaten nothing apart from the others.
The heaviness grew and his strength dwindled.
It might be wise to
send for a doctor after all.
A rapping sounded
on his chamber door.
“Cameron’s come, sir,”
a muffled
voice informed him.
“Does he mean to fight?”
Will asked.
“
Yes,
”
the man said.
Will
still
couldn’t be sure who’
d
spoken
.
It was almost as if the fellow
didn’t want to be identified.
N
onsense.
He just hadn’t heard him properly.
Dragging himself to his feet, h
e
lifted
his
coat
from where he’d draped it over a chair and
laboriously pushed his arms through the
sle
eves, wincing at the pain.
His arm was bulky with the poultice, b
ut
a gentleman met
his callers prop
erly attired, even for a duel.
Pe
rhaps he cou
ld plead illness and
put Cameron off until he’d recovered
.
Besides, they each required a second to oversee the affair.
He str
uggled across the room.
Hi
s
chamber seemed as long as
the great hall
now
and rose before him as if on an incline
.
He
panted in short gasps
and
his heart raced
madly
.
The clock struck three as he opened
the door
.
The silver-handled dagger was there to greet him
.
I
ts eme
rald
jewel
caught
the light
.
A
nd something more. Just before the blade pieced his chest, Will looked into a pair
of yellowish-brown eyes
––
f
ox
eyes.
And t
he
n
,
he knew.
The
poison
was
in
the poultice
.
Instead of
healing
woundwort
alone
, the young groom
had mixe
d in wolf
s
bane
.
The foul root
lay on him like a dank smell. But it was too late.
Peter might
be a wo
rm, but he possessed enough rage
to drive the blade
deep
into Will
––
Cole’s
––
chest
.
Will woke with a start. H
is
heart thudded
as if he’d
been poisoned again and a
choking sense of doom
enveloped him like smoke.
Danger was thick
in the air
and
chill
with the breath of a malignant soul
.
A
n ancient cursed tomb
had opened
.
He felt it, smelled it dank stench
.
B
efore he
opened his eyes
, he knew
––
Paul was there
.
Somehow, he’d
evaded the police and slipped past the news crew
s
.
More afraid of what awaited him
now
than he’d ever been in his life, Will cracked his eyes.
Horror surged
in him
.
It was all he could do not to scream
and
sucked in a h
issing breath.
Paul sat
in a chair only a few feet away
from the side of the bed
.
Moonlight
poured
through the window
over his narrow
face.
The centuries’
old dagger lay in his lap, the h
ideous instrument of death
.
He
fingered it li
ke an old friend.
A
nd he wore a
triumphant
smile
.
That
weasel
had sli
pped in here while Will slept.
Had Paul
first
drugged the bra
ndy?
Will had
slept
awfully hard and his
lips were
unnaturally
thick.