Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
ROWEN
Francis lay at the bottom of the stairs, twisted at an angle no living body should hold. His eyes were open, staring.
Rowen raced down the steps, dropped to his knees, and pressed his fingers to the boy’s throat.
Nothing.
“Sir?” Morgan said behind him.
Rowen closed the boy’s eyelids. “We must be rid of him.”
“We will bury him in the forest,” Morgan said.
Rowen only nodded.
Rowen glanced at Cassandra, who stood at the top of the stairs, her hand at her mouth. “We will say His Grace told him of his plans to marry. That Francis was enraged and quit Tidesfar before dawn.” His voice did not sound like his own.
“He would have killed you. I could not let him,” Cassandra said hoarsely. “I would do it again.” She darted down the stairs to him and clutched at his hand, kissing it fervently as if he were a Latin priest and he alone could absolve her from what she had unleashed.
“You have done no wrong. Never think otherwise,” he breathed. He pulled her close, his forehead touching hers. “I’ve wanted him dead since the moment he was born. This shall rest on me.”
A tear slid down her pale cheek, and he wiped it away. “Go to my father. We have but little time before the servants awaken. Attend to His Grace, and Morgan and I—”
She swallowed hard, her spine straight. “Yes.”
Rowen and Morgan buried the body in the forest before the sun had fully risen. He marked the place in his mind. He would need to remember it. They returned to the house as the sun began to ripen the sky with a peach hue.
He washed, changed his clothes, and went to his father’s bedchamber. Cassandra had fallen asleep at the foot of the bed. The dutiful attendant. The devoted fiancée. Rowen fastened his hair in its tie.
“Pardon, sir? May I…”
He turned. It was a housemaid, come to refresh the fire. “Go on.”
She darted to the hearth and refurbished the fire.
“Sanders, prepare a room for Lady Cassandra. She has been at His Grace’s bedside all night, tending to him. Now she must rest or she too will fall ill.”
“Yes, my lord.” Sanders bowed her head and quickly quit the room. Within moments, she returned. “My lord, the room is ready. Shall I—”
“Which is it? I shall take her myself.”
“The clementine room, sir.”
He swept Cassandra up in his arms, and her body fell against his.
A sliver of a girl, in his arms, he felt the weight of his responsibility for this most vulnerable and most stalwart creature.
His fingers dug into her soft flesh, and his chest ached.
She was now his to protect, and yet she had protected him.
The door to the clementine bedchamber was open, and he brought her inside, and carefully laid her on the bed. On some kind of instinct, he bent over her and kissed her temple. He removed her shoes, slid his hands up her legs, and tugged down her stockings.
She moaned softly, twisting under his touch. His fingers lingered, his breathing deepening as his fingertips grazed over the wound his father had inflicted on her flesh this evening. His pulse thudded in his neck as he brought the thick coverlet over her.
Rowen returned to his father. He expected Francis’s mother, Mrs. Bellamy would be here soon, as would his cousin, Arthur.
The great longcase clock in the central hall struck seven, its chimes echoing through the house, and his father’s eyelids jerked open. Wincing, the Duke grunted at the sight of his firstborn son.
“Good morning, Father.”
“Fra…Fran…cis,” twisted from his twisted lips.
“He was most upset with you and your plan to marry the girl. He thought you were going to give her to him along with Redthorne. He could not bear the truth. Thought himself cast off,” Rowen said quietly. “I’m afraid he couldn’t quite understand your wit.”
“Fraaancissss…”
“He took off in a rage. I expect he’s gone to warn his mother.
” Rowen clasped his hands together. “It’s done now.
A clean break as you wished. I know you relished the thought of a confrontation with Mrs. Bellamy yourself.
However, in your present state…” Rowen let out a heavy breath.
“Sleep, Father, you need rest. Dr. Clive will return soon.”
His father sank back onto the bed and heaved for air, moaning all the while. For himself or his bastard?
Rowen got up from the chair. He needed fresh air. He needed—
A figure stood in the open doorway.
“What the devil are you doing here?”