Chapter 13
Arabella’s nerves increased as the day progressed. She had received a note from Thomas, via his footman, that she should meet Alexander at the folly at midnight, and her mind danced with the varied potential scenarios that could play out.
Perhaps he would regretfully report that the investigation had drawn to an unfortunate close, and he would have to return to Scotland, never to see her again.
She hoped, however, that he would task her with some contribution; some way in which she could be of help.
The waiting made her jittery and anxious, and so she was relieved when the maid announced a visitor.
Lord Thomas Carrington entered the drawing room, and Charlotte enthusiastically greeted him.
“I am indeed here to walk with you, Miss Charlotte,” he said, smiling gallantly. “However, I have something for your sister!”
Arabella stood alert as Thomas stepped forward, offering a book.
“This book we discussed at dinner the other evening.” He widened his eyes to emphasize the profundity. “Please do borrow it. May I suggest a particularly fascinating paragraph on page sixty-seven and another on page ninety-eight?”
Arabella accepted the ruse gleefully. “Oh, wonderful! Thank you, Lord Carrington. I shall read this afternoon!”
“What book is it?” Charlotte peered over at the cover, which was fortunately bound only in black leather and had no embossed words on the cover.
“It is a story of a fugitive, a captain, and the journey to emancipation!” Thomas announced with vigour.
“Oh.” Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “It doesn’t sound like my sort of thing at all. But you’ll enjoy it, sister!”
“Indeed, I shall. Thank you, Lord Carrington.”
As soon as the couple left the room, Arabella found page sixty-seven, where Thomas had underlined two sections in the text. The first was simply the word ‘garden’, and the second was ‘not safe’.
Arabella frowned, hoping this did not mean she could no longer meet with Alexander, and she hurriedly turned to page ninety-eight, where he had underlined ‘old chapel’ and scribbled next to it the number twelve.
Arabella intimated that Thomas no longer considered the garden a safe place for them to meet, and she thought of the abandoned chapel on the outskirts of the town; she supposed she should go there at midnight.
A shiver ran through her, which was partially fear and in equal parts, thrill.
***
As Arabella flung herself through the heavy oak doors, she was relieved no longer to be walking out in the silent, pitch darkness and even more relieved to find that Alexander was already standing inside the chapel, waiting for her.
The comfort of seeing him made her want to fling herself into his arms, so to ensure her body did not act without her mind’s consent, she bristled instead, tensing her shoulders and composing her face as a woman who was in control, the opposite of how she was feeling.
“Arabella!” Alexander breathed, and in his greeting, she identified a warmth that spoke less of relief and more of joy.
“Good evening, Alexander,” she replied curtly.
“You were not followed?”
Arabella’s eyes glinted green and pink in the rainbow moonlight that shone through the stained-glass windows, and she asked in alarm.
“Is it likely I should be followed?” Certainly, she had been fearful of it but had assured herself it was the fascinations of an imaginative mind.
“It is possible, I regret to report. I am relieved you are safe.”
Arabella lifted the black velvet hood that covered her head and thought, obscurely, how she had hoped to be lifting a veil from her face in a chapel, standing opposite Alexander and not a black hood, on a dark night, in hiding.
“Before we discuss the developments, Arabella, I must warn you that the situation has escalated quite significantly, and I would appeal to you—please—not to ask me the details but to gracefully bow out so you cannot be implicated-”
“I am already an accomplice. And I will continue to be so, Alexander. So, please, explain to me how the situation has developed.”
Alexander shook his head, standing firm.
“I do so wish you would not involve yourself further. The more you know, the more vulnerable you are to the malicious intent of whoever this perpetrator may be. Please, I implore you, walk away now and do not ask any more questions–”
“It is my right to be involved, Alexander. Whoever killed your father set a trajectory of events that changed my entire life. I cannot be expected to let it lie.”
“Then, I refuse to tell you any of the developments. That way, you cannot participate.”
Arabella stamped her foot with impatience. “If you do so, Alexander, I shall simply launch my own investigation!”
“You are quite impossible!” Alexander muttered in frustration.
Arabella tilted her chin upwards in defiance.
Alexander sighed and ran a hand through his hair, pacing a few steps away. Arabella watched him, repressing the feeling of wanting him to stay close, whilst noting with gratitude that he was respecting her request for distance.
“The captain has identified that the poison used on Edmund was an expensive, continental toxin, which places the murderer as a person of great wealth and with a strategic brain.”
A frown bothered Arabella’s brow as she listened.
“I have received several more playing cards. Which is not only disconcerting, but fully alarming as I change my address every night, yet still they find me and deliver …”
Now, Arabella’s mouth fell open at the proximity of the threat.
“Thomas’s house is being watched—he has observed activity that never usually plays out on his street. And it stands to reason that if Thomas’s townhouse is under scrutiny, the Wellwood estate will be too.”
He paused and turned, fixing her with a serious look.
“Now do you understand why I am pleading with you to walk away?”
“I understand. But I remain.”
Alexander dropped his head in exasperation. Arabella felt flurries in her chest at the enormity of this commitment. There was no possibility she was going to abandon Alexander, but she also felt overwhelmed at the prospect of such heightened danger.
“Very well, Arabella. I can see I will not be able to deter you.” Alexander looked up at her through his eyelashes. “You always were tenacious.”
Arabella noticed the familiar sparkle in his eye as he said it. She did not respond.
“I missed you so much, Arabella–” he began, but she cut him off.
“This is not about us, Alexander. This is about justice and—presently—it seems this must be mostly about survival.”
He dropped his eyes to the cold, dusty floor and nodded sadly.
“It seems that all hope is dashed. My father, cousin Edmund, us …” he faded off there, recognizing it was a prohibited topic. “And now I believe it will be impossible for us to continue this mission–”
“Whatever do you mean?” Arabella gushed.
“That proving my innocence and exposing the real perpetrator is insurmountable under the current circumstances.”
“No! We cannot abandon the investigation!”
“We may have no choice, Arabella. I have yet to discuss this with Captain Morrison and Thomas. But I feel that the situation is placing too many people in danger.”
Arabella stepped towards him, unexpectedly closing the gap between them.
“Please! Please keep trying!”
“I am afraid for you. For my brother, my mother, and for Thomas …” Alexander fixed her with an intense, pained expression. “You have not told your sister of my reappearance?”
“Of course not. Although I confess it is an almost impossible task. You know that Charlotte and I share everything. She must believe I am going mad, so fractious is my behaviour.”
“It would be dangerous for her to know. I beseech you to continue with the secrecy.”
“I will, certainly. I do not wish my sister to be in harm’s way.”
“I do not wish any of you to be in harm’s way. Which is why I suggest we should abandon the investigation.”
“Why do you believe we are all on board and willing to fight this injustice, Alexander?”
He shrugged, humbly.
“For you! Because when you left, there was a void in our lives that was only filled with a swell of undesirable grief. If there is an opportunity to regain some semblance of normality, to have you rejoin us, it would make our reality much less bleak. We do not fight this fight through some sense of altruism. Allow us to be selfish because we all wish to have you back here with us!”
“You do?” Alexander’s eyes regarded her sadly.
“Of course I do, you oaf!” she teased lightly. “You ruined my life, and I still wish you to feature in it! I am a fool!”
Suddenly, there was a sound from outside. Footsteps approaching.
They both gasped as they turned to face the door, and Alexander grabbed Arabella by the tops of her arms and pushed her behind him. His hands went immediately to the knife at his belt, and he stood, poised to deal with a potential attack.
Arabella was small behind Alexander, feeling sheltered and protected, despite the precarious nature of the situation. She tried to calm her breathing but could tell by the frantic rise and fall of Alexander’s shoulders that he, too, was distressed and striving to cope with the stress of the moment.
They stood completely still as they listened to the footsteps, which passed the door and continued down the path outside.
When, after a few moments, they had not returned and they could hear only silence from outside, they both released ragged breaths and Alexander turned to Arabella, his eyes wide and panicked.
Arabella straightened the shawl that covered her trembling frame, and Alexander flexed his jaw muscles, betraying the tension he was experiencing.
“You see how dangerous this has become?”
Arabella nodded frantically, barely trusting herself to speak.
“We should leave now in case they return,” Alexander asserted.
“I need to know how I can help!” Arabella pleaded in a whispered voice.
“Do you still insist upon participation?”
“I certainly do!”
“Then meet with me again tomorrow night?”
Arabella blinked up at him, wondering if he willed the hours away until they were together again, in the way she knew she did. She could not ask him that, so she simply nodded that she would meet him, throwing him a sad smile, before lifting the hood back over her head and turning to leave.
As she went to go, Alexander suddenly reached out and clutched her wrist, turning her to him. The contact sent a shock of buzzing adrenaline through her body.
“Please—I’d like you to take this …” Alexander reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver chain, which glinted in the moonlight.
Arabella held out her hand, intrigued as to what it might be, and Alexander delicately trailed it down into her palm.
As the locket fell into her hand, she recognized it.
“Oh! But this is the locket I gave you as an engagement gift!”
Alexander smiled slightly and nodded, looking down at the locket and then back into her eyes.
“Why don’t you open it up?”
Swallowing hard, Arabella fiddled with the intricate latch on the side of the locket, and it gave easily beneath her fingers, opening up to reveal a lock of dark hair on one side, which was the perfect match for Alexander’s, and on the other side, a miniature painting of him.
It must have been curated before his years in exile, for his face in the painting was paler and slightly fuller. His work on the land had left him with a chiselled jaw and tan complexion. But she knew that beautiful face anywhere.
Arabella was struck completely still as she processed what this meant—he had ensured the locket travelled with him when he escaped Wellwood on that fateful night, even though he had not even taken a spare change of clothes.
He had kept it all these years, through exile, through danger, and through unimaginable loneliness. He had carried that gift from Arabella as though he were carrying a part of her with him.
Arabella looked up into his hopeful face, and before she could consider what she was doing, she stood on her tiptoes and raised her lips to his cheek.
She delivered the softest, most gentle, briefest kiss on his tan skin and turned to go before her resolve crumbled entirely.
But as she turned to leave, she saw that he had closed his eyes in a moment of pure elation.