Chapter Twenty-Five
Two Days Later
From the window, Neil could see Jenny and Simon sitting together on a stone bench down in the courtyard.
Today was the first day the physician had allowed Jenny to remove the bandages wrapped around her head.
There was a thin scar along her forehead and would likely not go away anytime soon.
Not that it mattered. Neil had reassured himself that Jenny was safe and healthy, since her bravery had saved them all.
Simon appeared to be talking about something very serious, leaning forward and looking carefully into Jenny’s face.
Slowly, Jenny dragged her eyes up from her tangled fingers, meeting Simon’s gaze.
Simon said something else, and of course Neil was too far away to hear, but it must be good news, judging by the slow smile which spread over Jenny’s face.
Gingerly, Simon reached forward, placing his hand on Jenny’s, and their fingers entwined.
Sometimes, I’m very glad that Simon doesn’t listen to my advice, Neil thought, smiling wryly. Woken from his reverie, he glanced up at a knock on his study door.
“Enter.”
The door creaked open, and to his surprise, there stood Aunt Harriet.
“Oh, Aunt,” he remarked, leaning back in his seat. “I assumed it was Crawford, with more of that wretched paperwork. The authorities are determined to question me about every detail, it seems.”
“Details are important,” Aunt Harriet commented. “Lord Bramwell is facing the noose, after all. He will do his best to wriggle out of it.”
“He can’t. Not with the evidence we found in the Greenery, not with the testimony of his men, who all turned traitor as soon as they could. Not with Maggie’s testimony.”
His chest warmed at the thought of Maggie. Clearing his throat, he glanced away from his aunt’s sharp, thoughtful eyes.
“I came to tell you that Thomas Camden woke up from his fever today,” Aunt Harriet commented. “The physician believes he’ll make a full recovery.”
Neil let out a sigh of relief. It was only natural they had brought Maggie’s wounded father back to the house for proper care. During that first day, his death had seemed almost certain, yet the physician persevered, and so did Aunt Harriet, and slowly Thomas began to recover.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said at last. “The man is a coward, a deadly one, but he saved his daughter at the very last.”
“If Maggie intends to forgive him, then there’s nothing we ought to say about it,” Aunt Harriet agreed.
“She scarcely left his side, except to attend to Emma and, of course, to Jenny. Poor Miss Winter has barely slept.” She paused, considering.
“I suppose I might as well call her Miss Camden again.”
Neil cleared his throat, glancing away. “With Thomas Camden’s debts gone, I daresay he and his daughter can start life afresh. I don’t imagine that Maggie will want to stay here as a governess, not now.”
Aunt Harriet stared at him for a long moment, her brow furrowed.
“You haven’t spoken to her at all, have you?” she said at last.
Neil sighed, passing a hand over his hair. It was really getting too long and tangled these days. He would have to get it cut.
“I haven’t had time.”
Aunt Harriet clicked her tongue. “Well, you should.”
“I am busy, Aunt, and so is she. All of this,” he paused, gesturing vaguely to the house, to himself, to everything that had happened, “was never what she wanted. She’s free now, and I imagine she will be keen to leave this place behind.”
And me behind, he added, in his head.
After a long moment, his aunt gave a ragged sigh and came over to stand beside him at the window.
“I only tried to match you with Lady Constance because I thought it would be best for you, Neil. I know you don’t believe me—”
“I do believe you,” he cut in gently. “I know you had my best interests at heart, Aunt.”
She hesitated, as if expecting protest or reproach; Neil wondered whether she had braced for defiance. He had not the strength for anger now. Offering a tired, conciliatory smile, he added, “All is forgiven, in case you were looking for absolution.”
Lord and Lady Farendale had, by all accounts, packed up their things and climbed into their carriage shortly before Neil and the others returned from their hellish night at the Greenery.
They would have to read about had happened in the papers, and Neil allowed himself a small smile at the thought of Lord Farendale’s eyes popping out of his head as he read about the gossip he had only just missed.
Lady Constance had departed with them, of course.
Mrs Thornton had described her standing with one dainty foot on the carriage step, turning back toward the house with a touch of wistfulness before climbing in and being driven away.
Rumour already had it she was to be matched with a quiet, spectacled gentleman of her mother’s choosing. Neil smiled despite himself.
“Mr Camden is up in his room,” Aunt Harriet said, breaking the easy silence. “Miss Winter—Miss Camden, I should say—has been persuaded to take a little time for herself. She needs it sorely. She’s taking an airing in the garden, if you would care to find her.”
The remark seemed almost casual, yet when Aunt Harriet met his eyes, Neil felt the breath leave him for a moment.
“I see,” he said at last.
She inclined her head. “If you have a moment, of course. You two will doubtless have much to discuss.”
“Is that so?” he asked.
“It is.” Aunt Harriet’s expression softened. “I have spent a good deal of time with Miss Camden these past days, and I find her…” She paused, hunting for the word. “Remarkable,” she finished with a faint smile, then swept from the room with the brisk composure of a woman who had done her duty.
***
All the rain had done some good, at least. Maggie watched bright flower-heads bob among the grasses, shivering in a gentle breeze. She had chosen a neat stone bench close to the house; a trellis arched over it, heavy with lilac that filled the air with a sweet, heady scent.
It was a warm day, yet the cold from the Greenery seemed lodged in her bones. She had mentioned it to Lady Westbrook—Neil’s aunt—and found the lady unexpectedly sympathetic.
“It is not an ordinary cold,” Lady Westbrook had said when Maggie finished describing it. “It lives in the mind. It will recede, but it takes time. Think of Jenny’s scar, the cut at her hairline: it will fade, though slowly. All we can do in the meantime is wait.”
The notion was oddly comforting. Maggie leaned back, closed her eyes, and let the scent of wet earth and flowers fill her. For a few moments she could almost forget that Emma still woke screaming and that her own father lay pale and hollow upstairs.
All we can do is wait.
“There you are.”
She started and opened her eyes. Neil stood at the path, and a warmth she did not attempt to disguise flooded through her. She rose to her feet out of respect, but he caught her hand before she could make the small, formal gesture.
“I think we are past curtseys and bows,” he said with a faint smile. There was softness in his face—tiredness, perhaps, or the easing of some terrible weight. “May I sit?”
She nodded wordlessly, shifting up to make space beside her. He moved towards her, his footsteps crunching in the grass.
They sat in silence for a moment, both staring at the flowers.
“Have you seen Emma today?” Maggie said at last.
He nodded. “We ate luncheon together. You were with your father, I think. I’ve told Mrs Thornton that Emma and I should be eating at least one meal together a day. What about dinner?”
“I think that’s a fine idea. How did she seem to you?”
He sighed. “Pale, tired—still frightened. Jenny says the nightmares continue.”
“She will be better,” Maggie said. “Lady Westbrook thinks time will heal these things. Wounds take their own course, whether we see them or not.”
Neil turned toward her; she felt the intensity of his gaze as if it were a physical touch. Her heart sank a little. He wanted answers, she realised, and she—she had feared this moment. Gathering herself, she decided to be plain.
“You must think me a coward,” she said.
He started. “What?”
“I saw a man die,” she went on, her voice small. “I saw Lord Bramwell strike him. I ran home to tell my father. He fled—left me—and I ran here instead of to the authorities. I should have gone to them. I brought danger with me.”
There was a brief silence after she’d spoken. Maggie shot a quick, nervous glance over at Neil, who stared at nothing with a frown between his brows.
Say something, she thought desperately. Say anything.
“If you had gone to the authorities, you would have been delivered straight to Victor Bramwell,” Neil said at last. “He had spies everywhere, including the constabulary. Several men have been arrested, and we’re beginning to uncover the extent of the man’s network.
If you hadn’t run, he wouldn’t have been arrested in the end. ”
Maggie blinked, absorbing this. “Well, that is a surprise. But still—I ran for cowardly reasons.”
“You are no coward,” he said with a quick laugh. “You defended Emma. You faced him when others might have fled. You were put in an impossible position, and you did what you could.”
She chewed her lip, watching him. He waited, patient and a little weary. She felt the urge to confess everything, to lay bare what she had kept hidden. At last she spoke.
“I should have told you.”
He smiled a rueful, self-deprecating sort of smile. “And I should have told you. Let me tell you the whole story, Maggie.”
Her breath caught. The whole story of what? She turned to him; their eyes met, and the old familiar thrill passed down her spine.
“My brother-in-law was murdered by Victor Bramwell,” Neil said at last, simply.
Maggie sucked in a sharp, horrified breath, and he continued, ploughing on as if he were desperate to get to the end of the story.
“It was not a matter of debts or petty quarrels. Victor wanted to marry my sister Catherine; she refused and vowed to marry James instead. Not long after their wedding, James was found dead—presented as the work of highwaymen, but it was staged. I was certain of it. And I knew it was Victor.”
“How did you know?”
“I heard him,” Neil replied. “At a card-party—after most had grown merry—I chanced upon him on the terrace with a companion, a man of loose morals and a heavier hand to the bottle than sense. Bramwell was drunk and boastful; his words were slurred, but their meaning could not be mistaken. He spoke of what he had done and of how he had intended to ruin my sister for refusing him. It was not a clean confession in the manner of a beseeching sinner, but it was confession enough for me.”
He swallowed, the memory tightening his features.
“I was a young duke then, barely established, and who would have believed me against a man of Bramwell’s station and reputation?
I took Catherine away in secret, but she never recovered from the grief and the strain.
She died soon after childbirth. Emma’s birth kept her breathing for a while longer, but the strength she took from that miracle was not enough in the end. I was left to raise the child.”
A hard, quiet resolve settled in his tone.
“After that night, I set about to fashion a name—a certain fearsome reputation that might give men like Bramwell pause. I cultivated it deliberately: a gambler, a man who would not be trifled with. That evening, I struck at three of his associates by ruin rather than by law; let us say they found their credit and standing considerably diminished. It was never perfect justice, but it was a beginning. My purpose has always been the same: to bring Bramwell to account.”
“Do you think he’ll hang for the murder of your brother-in-law?”
“I doubt it. But he’ll hang for the murder of Lord Pemberton’s son, and that is good enough for me. It’s justice enough.”
He drew in a breath and faced her more directly.
“My point is that I already knew that Victor was searching for a Margaret Camden. Almost as soon as you arrived here, I knew your true identity. I knew you were hiding something, and perhaps if I’d talked to you, and let you know that I wanted to help you, things could have worked out differently. ”
Maggie stared. It was not wholly the revelation she had expected—nor wholly a surprise.
“Was that why you were kind to me?” she asked, voice catching.
Neil’s eyes widened. “No—no, Maggie. Not merely that. I did wrong by putting you at risk, but my feelings for you… They are honest.” He gave a short, embarrassed laugh.
“It sounds absurd to say it plainly, but I love you. I cannot say precisely when—only that the feeling took me unexpectedly and with conviction. And now I do not know what to do with myself.”
Maggie let the confession settle. He reached for her hand with a careful, tentative touch; the warmth of his fingers made the cold in her bones ease a fraction.
“I am asking you to marry me, Maggie,” he said, scarcely louder than a whisper.
She stared at him, astonishment and something like joy flickering across her face. “Me? Neil—I am a governess. A ruined man’s daughter at best. I have no fortune, and the scandal—”
“I care nothing for scandal,” he interrupted, earnest and plain. “I love you. If you choose to leave and forget this place, I shall not blame you. But I want you. Emma wants you with us. I cannot imagine a life without you.”
She reached out as if fearful he might withdraw and cupped his face. The rough scratch of his stubble against her palms made her smile.
“You love me,” she whispered. “I have no dowry, no standing. And I would be quite awkward as a duchess.”
“That would be all right,” he said with a crooked grin, taking her hand in both of his. “You would marry the worst duke in England.”
She gave a short laugh at this, leaning forward to press her forehead against his.
“Fortunately for me, I am in love with the worst duke in England. Some call him a Devil, you know, but I know now they simply do not understand him. My answer, then, is yes. Of course it’s yes.”
Neil barked a laugh of incredulity and swept her into his arms. He kissed her then, openly and without restraint. Maggie did not pull away; she kissed him back, with all the certainty a woman can give to a promise.