The Earl's Wallflower Bride (26 page)

Even without knowing all the details, Iris
sensed the girl’s fear and given what little she did know, she
suspected Opal had a right to be frightened. “All right. Yes. I
understand. I’ll keep your secret.”

“Thank you. I also need something else from
you. Will you plead on my behalf when Warren comes? Please ask him
to take me to London when you leave. I don’t know if I can wait
until I have a Season to get out of here.”

“I’m not even sure Warren will come.”

“Sure, he will. I was there when Byron told
Mother about you. Byron said it was obvious Warren’s in love with
you. He said you’re exactly the kind of lady Warren’s always been
looking for. So, if Byron says Warren’s coming for you, then he
is.”

Iris didn’t know how else to get it through
to the girl that she could be wrong—that Byron could be wrong. But
at the moment, it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting out of
here.

“Maybe we can get out of here without
Warren,” Iris told her. “Maybe we can leave right now.” When Opal
bit her lower lip, she quickly assured her, “I’ll speak up on your
behalf when we see Warren.” Whenever that was. “You’ll be having a
Season in a couple years, so really, it won’t be long before you
secure a husband. But we have to get out of here in order to do
that.”

“But what if Warren does come? He’ll be
worried if you’re not here.”

Iris was ready to groan in frustration then
she came up with a counterargument and smiled. “We can meet him on
the way. There’s only one path that will take us out of here and
toward London. If he’s on his way, he’ll be on it, and we’ll see
each other then.”

Opal thought over Iris’ words for a moment
then nodded. “You’re right. And if we do that, then he won’t have
to talk to Byron or Mother at all. He’d be relieved to know
that.”

Not that Warren was likely to talk to them
anyway, but why bring that up? Opal was agreeing to help her
escape, and that was more than she thought she’d accomplish
tonight.

Opal hurried back to the door and cracked it
open.

Curious, Iris came up behind her and listened
for any evidence of the commotion Opal had mentioned, but it seemed
quiet.

Opal stuck her head out in the hallway and
glanced in both directions before she slipped out of the room.
Turning back to Iris, she waved for her to follow.

Iris hesitated. What if Opal really was
mentally unstable? What if she’d told her she faked a lack of
intelligence because she was playing a game with her? But then,
this was the first time Iris was able to leave the room, and if she
could leave the room, maybe she could get out of this place and go
back to London.

She didn’t need a carriage. She could take a
horse and get out of here. But she needed some form of protection
along the way. With a quick glance around the room, she spotted a
letter opener on the desk next to the quill and inkwell.

After she grabbed it, she hid it in her
pocket and followed Opal down the hall, being quiet as they made
their way to the stairs. The closer they got to the steps, the
easier it was to hear a series of anxious whispers coming from the
drawing room. So Opal had been right. Something was going on down
there.

She stopped Opal and whispered, “If everyone
is in the drawing room, can they see us if we go out the front
door?”

Opal shook her head. “The drawing room is too
far down the hall.”

Well, then all the panic going on in the
drawing room might be the distraction they needed. The two hurried
down the stairs, tiptoeing the entire way.

Iris thought she heard someone in the drawing
whisper something about Byron and poison, but she paid it no mind.
She had to get out of here. Whatever was going on didn’t concern
her.

They made it to the entryway, and just as
Opal reached for the doorknob, it turned and someone threw the door
open. Opal let out a shriek and jumped back, bumping into Iris as
she did so. Iris quickly regained her balance. She took a moment to
see who had opened the door, fully expecting it to be Byron who had
come to stop them.

Instead, however, it was Warren. He looked as
if he hadn’t slept or changed clothes in days. And he looked angry.
He had his mouth open as if he was ready to yell, but then his gaze
went to her and his expression softened.

“Iris,” he said, rushing over to her and
taking her in his arms.

This time, he whispered her name and buried
his face in the nape of her neck. He held onto her, his tight
embrace telling her much more than words ever could. And in that
moment, she knew he loved her. Really loved her.

Tears in her eyes, she returned his embrace.
Truly, she’d never been happier to see anyone in her entire
life.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Y
ou couldn’t have come at a better time, my lord,” the butler
told Warren, visibly shaking from the evening’s events. “First your
stepmother, and now your half-brother. We don’t know what to make
of it.”

The footman, a couple maids, the cook, and
the gardener had all gathered into the drawing room. Byron was
lying on the couch, his skin already taking on the pale color of
death. Warren had his arm around Iris’ waist, and Opal stood to the
side of the room, taking everything in at a distance.

Warren had expected tonight to be unpleasant,
but he hadn’t once considered the possibility he’d be coming back
to his estate to find two people dead.

“What would you like us to do with the
bodies?” the butler asked.

After a long sigh, Warren said, “Prepare them
for burial in the family cemetery. Let me know when the bodies are
ready, and we’ll have a quiet ceremony.”

The staff seemed relieved to have something
to do, so the footman and gardener carried Byron’s body out of the
room, followed by the others, leaving the butler.

The butler came up to him and lowered his
voice so Opal couldn’t hear him. “My lord, I’m having trouble
reconciling everything that’s happened here tonight. Your mother
tripped on Opal’s slippers. It seemed like an accident. We all
assumed she left them on the stairs without meaning to. She’s
misplaced things before. Given her condition, we believed no ill
will was involved in regards to your mother’s death. But in light
of what happened with your half-brother, I don’t know what to
think.”

“It’s no secret my stepmother and Byron
didn’t agree on a lot of matters. It’s also no secret the two had
their…indiscretions. I think it’s best to go with the most likely
conclusion. Byron set the slippers on the stairs to make it look
like an accident, and my mother poisoned him.”

The butler’s face fell, as if he’d been
hoping for a better resolution to the dilemma.

“I know it’s not pleasant,” Warren said. “But
there is no other possibility I can see to explain all of this.”
And knowing them the way he did, it was sad to say he wasn’t the
least bit surprised they ended up killing each other.

The butler sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t,
either.” After he took a moment to regroup, he asked, “Shall I get
your old bedchamber ready for you?”

“No,” Warren replied. “I’d like one of the
guest rooms.” He wasn’t ready to go back to his old room that
reminded him of all the lonely and depressing years he’d spent in
this place after his mother died. “My wife will be joining me, so
when our things get here tomorrow, take the valise to that
room.”

“
Yes, my lord.”

The butler left the room, and Warren went to
the doors and shut them. His gaze went to Opal who had remained
quiet this entire time. He hadn’t seen her in six years. It was
hard to believe she was so grown up now. When he left, she was ten.
He didn’t remember much about her, except that she liked to ride
horses. And right now, she looked scared and alone.

“I can’t keep you here by yourself,” Warren
finally said as he went over to her. He took her by the arm and
encouraged her to sit in a chair. “You’ll have to go to London with
me and Iris. I don’t know the severity of your condition, but you
probably need more attention than the servants can give you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Opal
replied, her voice quiet. “I only pretended there was because I was
afraid to be here.”

“It’s true,” Iris spoke up. “We talked, and I
can assure you she’s as intelligent as anyone else her age. Maybe
even more so, given the fact that she came up with the ruse when
she was only thirteen.”

Warren glanced from Iris to Opal, his eyes
wide. “I don’t understand. Opal, why didn’t you write to me and
tell me you were afraid? I would have taken you to London.”

“I did write,” she said. “I wrote when I was
thirteen, before I started the pretense. Mother was always angry
with Father because of his mistresses, and she’d take her anger out
on me. After I was born, he became unfaithful to her. She said
since I was a girl, I was a disappointment to him. She said the
only child that had any value was a boy because boys could inherit
titles.”

Warren pulled up a chair and sat next to her.
“What do you mean when you said she took her anger out on you?”

“When she got drunk, she’d hit me or lock me
in a room. One time she left me there for two whole days before one
of the maids broke the lock to get me out. That was when I wrote to
you and told you what she was doing, but Father found the missive
as the maid was giving it to the stable boy to take to London.”

“And what happened after that?”

“I don’t know exactly what he did to Mother,
but I overheard one of the maids tell another one that she was in
too much pain to get out of bed. I didn’t see her for an entire
week. When I did, she had some bruises on her face. I knew she’d
wait until Father went off to a mistress before repaying me for
what he did to her, so I rode the horse and jumped off. I was
hoping I wouldn’t live through it, but all I got were some broken
bones. When the stable boy found me and brought me to the house,
Mother was so overcome with guilt, she was nice to me. I realized
that if I seemed like I was incompetent, she wouldn’t hurt me. So I
pretended I was like a little child, and it worked. She was no
longer mean to me.”

“Oh, Opal,” Iris cried, rushing over to her
and kneeling in front of her, taking her hands in hers. “That’s
awful.”

Warren swallowed the lump in his throat. “I
had no idea any of this was going on.”

“Father didn’t seek out mistresses until you
were gone,” Opal said. “None of the horrible things started until
then.”

“Opal,” he began, “if I had gotten your
letter, I would have come for you. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to
live that way.”

How he wished he’d been able to get that
missive she’d written. It might not have prevented a lot of the
pain in this family, but things might not have gotten to this
point.

“
Unfortunately, I can’t undo
anything that’s happened,” he continued. “But I can guarantee I’ll
do everything in my power to protect you from this moment
on.”

Opal offered a grateful smile and hugged him.
Feeling a connection to his past he hadn’t experienced since his
mother died, Warren hugged her in return.

***

The mood was somber after everyone went to
bed. Iris used to think the worst thing that could happen to
someone was being a wallflower. But after everything she’d learned
from being out here at this estate, she would rather put up with
ridicule from Miss Barlow and her friends.

For the longest time, she lay awake in
Warren’s arms. They were both naked, more from the need to get out
of the clothes they’d been wearing for days on end than from any
thought to being intimate. And the nice thing was that this room
had clean sheets and had been dusted.

She suspected the reason Warren’s old
bedchamber had been neglected was because his stepmother despised
him. He was, after all, the child from a previous marriage. She
wasn’t sure if she should tell him about the very real possibility
his stepmother had poisoned his mother, but after debating it for
half the night, she finally decided against it.

What was the point? It wouldn’t change
anything. Warren already knew what his stepmother was like, and it
didn’t seem like his father was much better. Maybe the best thing
was to leave the past behind them and make a new start. Opal would
be going to London with them. It might be years before they
returned here, and when they did, the ghosts from the past would be
long gone.

Yes, it was best to just move on. They
couldn’t do anything about the past, but they could do something
about the future. Warren loved her, and she loved him. They would
see to it that Opal was never placed in a situation where she felt
unsafe again. History would not repeat itself.

Iris noticed the first traces of dawn on the
horizon right before she drifted off to sleep. When she stirred
from sleep, the sun had risen in the sky, and she guessed it was
mid-morning. She noticed she was alone in the bed. She sat up to
scan the room, the blanket falling to her waist, exposing her
breasts to the cool air.