Chapter 25 #2
“So where was my pistol again?” Richard asked.
“Strapped to my thigh,” she said haughtily. “You told me to find somewhere to put it.”
Charles was led away, already trying to explain his actions.
Constable Leighton looked at Richard. “We’ll need to ask you more questions, Mr. O’Neill.”
“Anytime, Constable. But might I get my nephew into bed tonight? It’s a very trying time for him. Please ask Sir Charles where we can find the duke’s body.”
The constable looked sober. “I will. So you’re certain that the duke is dead?”
“Sir Charles told me he was. He held hostage my brother’s terrified valet, who verified that my brother was dead. That man still hasn’t been set free.”
“We’ll look for him. I’ll speak with you in the morning.”
Richard put Stephen up on his shoulders, and then he and Meriel followed the constables through the woods.
By the time they got back to the house, Stephen was drooping forward with exhaustion.
Guests were still milling about the grounds, and they stopped to watch the parade of constables and their prisoner.
When Richard, Meriel, and Stephen brought up the rear, they received shocked stares.
Meriel leaned toward him. “They act like they already know who you are,” she whispered.
“Maybe they do. One constable came back before the others. All he would have had to do was tell one person and then—”
“An explosion of gossip.”
As they left the constables and headed back indoors, whispers and stares followed them. Meriel wanted to feel vindicated, but all she felt was exhausted and sad for Stephen, who had lost a father and now a cousin.
Mrs. Theobald met them in the conservatory, staring wide-eyed until she saw Stephen. She promptly burst into tears and grabbed the little boy. He sagged against her, blinking drowsily, and she allowed Richard to take him from her. Stephen cuddled against his uncle and closed his eyes.
Meriel put her arm around the woman and whispered, “I told the constables that Richard’s masquerade as the duke was all my idea to protect Stephen until we could find his father.”
Mrs. Theobald glanced at her shrewdly, then nodded with obvious relief. “You are good to Mr. O’Neill.” She lowered her voice. “But then, you love him.”
“Yes.” Meriel felt like a silly girl tonight as tears welled in her eyes.
They both turned to look at Richard, who cradled Stephen and watched him sleep.
“Meriel!” cried a voice.
She looked up to see Renee striding quickly through the turning paths, pushing aside ferns. “I heard the most dreadful rumor,” she said. “It certainly can’t be true that Cecil is—”
She came up short as she saw Richard’s face. He looked at her with such sorrow, such resignation.
Her eyes widened and flooded with tears. “Oh dear, you’re Richard, aren’t you?”
He nodded. Her shoulders slumped and she looked bewildered as Meriel put her arm around her.
“I should have known,” Renee said to Richard. “You seemed different, but I thought you—he had finally grown up.” Her voice trailed away, and when she spoke again, it was husky with strain. “Is it true what that constable said? Is Cecil…dead?”
Richard nodded. Meriel took Stephen from him and watched with sorrow as he went to Renee. Renee didn’t seem to know what to do, but then she began to sob, and he put his arms around her.
“How horrible it must have been,” she said, hiccupping with each unsteady breath, “to die like that.”
“We don’t know how he died yet, Renee,” Richard said gently. “Consumption might very well have taken him.”
“But you don’t believe that,” she said.
“No.”
Meriel watched his face as he spoke about his brother. There was pain and heartache and a terrible knowledge. She hadn’t heard everything Charles had said, but he’d implied that Cecil had betrayed Richard.
How would Richard, who had so few good memories of his childhood, ever forget this?
Within the hour, the guests were all gone, Stephen was in bed, and Meriel was alone in her room, hurriedly removing her costume. When she wore her dressing gown, she rushed down the private staircase and knocked softly on Richard’s door.
There was such a long pause that she began to think he wasn’t there. Then he called for her to come in.
She opened the door and saw him slumped tiredly in a chair near his writing desk.
He was still wearing some of his evening clothes, although his coat and waistcoat were tossed on a nearby chair.
A dark bruise had blossomed on his cheek.
There was a small bloodstain on his upper sleeve, and she wanted to tend to the wound beneath.
But he was staring at a piece of paper in his hand.
She slowly walked toward him, and he looked up with an exhaustion that made her want to cradle him in her arms and never let go.
“Hargraves just brought this,” he said.
“What is it?”
“A letter from Cecil.”
She would only have sat near him, but he pulled her onto his lap and rested his cheek against her shoulder.
“It just arrived today?” she asked.
“Several days ago. Cecil wrote that Hargraves should give it to me when everything was over.”