Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ROWEN
Their guests had gone to bed. Rowen smoked a pipe with his cousin in his study, and the two of them enjoyed the silence of the house but for the flames crackling in the hearth.
Horses’ hooves beat over the drive, and the hairs on the back of Rowen’s neck stood to attention.
He listened to the familiar sounds of a servant retrieving a letter from the doorway and their hurried footsteps to his door.
He exhaled a thick plume of smoke and closed his eyes. The knock came. The door opened.
“Your Grace…”
Rowen held out his hand, and Morgan brought him the letter. He waited as the Duke unsealed the missive and read.
The gentleman was seen in Weymouth with a foreigner. Arrived by ship from Jersey. Have secured passage to London. Travelling together.
Enggers had returned and had brought Alastair with him.
And undoubtedly Alastair would shortly make himself known.
His timing, as ever, damnably well chosen.
Rowen clenched his jaw. His heavy gaze met Morgan’s, and he lifted his chin.
Understanding his charge, Morgan bowed his head and left the study.
“Shall I leave you to it?” Edmund put his empty brandy glass on the table.
“No, stay.” Rowen folded up the letter and crossed to the hearth, where he tossed it in the fire. A gust of wind howled through the chimney, pressured the window glass.
Rowen poured himself another brandy and refilled Edmund’s glass.
“Hopefully this weather shall pass by morning, eh?” Edmund stretching his legs by the fire. “It’s a short walk to the chapel, but I wouldn’t want the child to catch cold.”
Rowen crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain a few inches.
As he drank, a glow in the distance caught his eye.
More lanterns than usual were positioned at specific points on the property.
Morgan’s trained men were all over the estate.
Extra men at the drive approach, the doors, the servants’ entrance.
The chapel. Hawk’s Crown. A changing patrol along the borders.
Iron in the shadows, he thought. He turned back to his cousin. “All will be well, Edmund.”
Edmund rose. “I shall retire. Tomorrow will be a full day.”
“Quite right.” Rowen drained his glass and, grabbing a taper, led his cousin through the hall and up the staircase to their bedchambers.
“Good night, cousin.” Edmund entered his room.
“Good night.” Rowen proceeded down the hallway, and a bell tolled in the distance, stopping him in his tracks. The chapel bell in the wind. He hadn’t heard it in years, or more likely, he hadn’t heeded it.
The chapel had been unlocked, cleaned, and decorated for the rite, and now, in the great gust of stormy winds, its bell rang free. Summoning and calling. Marking. His pulse quickened in his veins. An invocation.
He went into the nursery. The child’s gentle breaths filled Rowen’s ears.
The dim glow of his candle illuminated the christening clothes his aunt and wife had lain out for the baby.
When they’d uncovered them earlier in the week, the delight on both their faces, the excitement in their voices, had been exuberant.
Rowen’s hand stroked the fine cloth that had been embroidered with gold thread generations ago.
Tiny gold oak leaves trimmed the front of the gown.
He had worn it for his christening, as had his father, his grandfather, and many Oakleys before him.
The garment had endured more than the men who’d been privileged to wear it.
Tonight, it awaited a different beginning.
The bell rang out again. Low, measured.
Unyielding.