"Just wait a little while," he said.

"Oh, wait, wait, wait," she said impatiently. "Will you still be saying that on my eightieth birthday? Everything has become so stupid. No, there is to be no soiree, no ball, no tea, no anything. I wish we had never started this. I wish you had not come dashing into my inn room that night. I wish I had not been walking in Sydney Gardens that morning. I wish I had ignored those silly screams. I wish I had not danced with you at the assembly. I wish-"

"If you hit that ball," he warned, "it is going to go sailing over the end of the table and smash right through that window."

She slammed down the billiard cue.

"Josh," she said, "everyone is so happy for me. For us. I cannot stand it any longer."

"There are two courses open to us, then," he said. "You can quarrel with me and break off the engagement and send me away, or I can discover important business that necessitates my immediate return to Penhallow and leave here. I would suggest the second course since it need not involve an immediate ending of our betrothal and will leave you open to recall me if it becomes necessary to do so."

Devil take it, he thought, surprised, he did not want to leave just yet. But he had to admit that the situation had become intolerable and surely unnecessary. In retrospect he was not convinced that Bewcastle had been right to insist upon his coming here and keeping the betrothal alive this long.

"Do that, then," she said, frowning. "But how? What reason will you give?"

"My steward writes to me frequently," he told her. "He knows I am here. There is almost bound to be a letter from him within the next few days."

"It cannot come too soon for me," she said.

"Such warm, romantic words, sweetheart," he said, lifting one hand and flicking his forefinger across her chin.

She picked up the billiard cue, frowning, and bent over the table again.


CHAPTER XV


The letter came the next morning. It was waiting on the silver tray on the great hall table where the family's letters were always displayed, except for Bewcastle's, which were delivered separately to the library. They had all just returned from a ride, slightly damp, since a drizzling rain had started falling. Even the duke had come with them this morning. The children were already running upstairs to the nursery to change.

"Oh, Aidan, here is a letter from Thelma!" Eve exclaimed, sounding delighted. "And there is one for you underneath it, Joshua." She handed it to him with a smile.

His eyes met Freyja's-she had just picked up a letter of her own. It was a bleak moment. Here it was, then, his excuse to leave. He had already thought out what he would say after "reading" the letter, and indeed there would even be some truth in it-that with the harvest in and winter not far off there was an urgent need to begin some repairs and some rebuilding for his farm laborers, and that dreary as such business was, he really ought to be there to oversee the work, at least for a few weeks. During those weeks, of course, Freyja would learn the truth of her condition and either bring him back to arrange a hasty marriage or put an end to their betrothal. It would be up to her to think of a plausible reason for that.

He would leave tomorrow, he thought as he broke the seal of the letter. He would be a free man again-at least he would once he had heard from Freyja. He would be able to do whatever he wanted with the rest of his life. He could get back to enjoying himself in any way that presented itself.

Jim Saunders's letter was shorter than usual. Joshua read it quickly, and then read it again more slowly. Well, hell and damnation, he thought. He had crossed the woman's will, and now she would not be satisfied until she had destroyed him. She was prepared, it seemed, to go to extraordinary lengths to do just that.

"Is something wrong, Josh?" Freyja asked, her voice deliberately loud and concerned, and of course everyone looked at him, as she had intended they would.

"Actually there is," he said. "I am going to have to go to Penhallow without delay I'm afraid."

"Oh, what has happened?" Eve asked, all concern. "Nothing too dreadful, I hope?"

"Actually," he said, "I am about to be charged with murder."

"Murder?" Aidan spoke for all of them in a voice that must once upon a time have had a whole regiment of men jumping to instant attention. "Murder of whom?"

"My cousin," Joshua said, folding his letter into its original folds. "Five years ago. A witness has recently presented himself to my aunt, the Marchioness of Hallmere. He is prepared to swear that he saw me kill Albert."

"And did you?" Aidan asked, his face like granite, every inch the formidable colonel he had been.

"Actually, no," Joshua said, grinning. This was not funny, he knew-not by any means-but it was playing out like a typical melodrama, with all of them standing about the great hall like well-placed actors. "Though I was, apparently, the last to see him alive."

"Might I suggest," Bewcastle said, sounding perfectly cool, even bored, "that we remove this discussion to the breakfast parlor?"

For a few moments no one moved except Bewcastle himself. But then Freyja came hurrying forward to link her arm through Joshua's.

"I am hungry if no one else is," she said.

She marched him off with long strides, leaving everyone else behind.

"I might have known," she said, her voice low and furious, "that you would invent a perfectly ridiculous story like this. Do you seriously expect anyone to believe it?"

"I'll do my best to be convincing, sweetheart," he said, slipping Saunders's letter into the pocket of his riding coat. "At least you will have a reasonable excuse to end our betrothal in a few weeks' time if it turns out that I am a vicious felon, locked up in some damp, gloomy cell awaiting a hanging."

"Everything is a joke to you," she retorted.

There was no chance for further private conversation. Everyone came crowding after them, avid for more information. But Bewcastle talked languidly and determinedly about the weather until they had all filled their plates at the sideboard and the butler had poured their coffee and been dismissed.

"Now, perhaps, Hallmere," his grace said when the family was alone together, "you would care to enlighten us further on the nature of these accusations against you. Or perhaps not. Freyja has some right to know, I believe. The rest of us do not."

"Albert drowned," Joshua explained. "He and I were out in a boat together during a night that became more and more stormy. He jumped overboard to swim back to shore. He was not a strong swimmer, but he refused to get back into the boat. I rowed beside him until he was close enough to the beach to set his feet down on the sand-which he did-and then I took the boat out again for an hour or so longer. It was reckless of me under the circumstances, of course, but I had things on my mind. Besides, in those days I still considered myself invincible. The next morning I heard that he was missing. Later in the day his body was washed ashore with the incoming tide."

Eve had both hands over her mouth.

"He went swimming again after you had disappeared?" Alleyne said. "That was a dashed stupid thing to do on a stormy night, especially if he did not swim well. Or did he think himself invincible too?"

"The two of you had quarreled, I assume," Aidan said.

"Yes," Joshua admitted, "though I can no longer remember over what. We were always quarreling. We grew up together at Penhallow, but there was never any love lost between us."

"And yet," Bewcastle said, sipping his coffee and regarding Joshua with steady silver eyes, "you went out rowing with him at night."

"Yes."

"And now a witness has come forward," Morgan said scornfully. "Someone who was also rowing or swimming around in those stormy seas, I suppose. Yet you did not see him, Joshua? I daresay he is someone hoping to make his fortune with a little blackmail. Is your aunt likely to pay him? You must indeed return home and see to it that she does not."

"My aunt, you must understand," Joshua explained, "lost her only son that night. He was the heir to the title and all that went with it-including the house she still calls home. I was the one who benefited from his death-it made me the heir. Just recently I made it very clear that I would not marry my cousin, her eldest daughter. I was already . . . attached to Freyja."

"So she is willing to believe this witness?" Eve said, her eyes wide with distress. "Oh, poor Joshua. How are you to prove your innocence?"

"I really do not expect it to be difficult," he said. "However, I must go down there to sort the matter out. It would appear that another cousin, my heir presumptive, has been summoned, and there is bound to be a bit of a bother. For, of course, if the accusation could be made to stick, I would not have the protection of my rank. The death occurred long before I was Hallmere."

"Oh, poor Joshua," Eve said again. "What can we do to help?"

"I rather fancy the idea of interviewing this witness," Alleyne said. "It sounds a havey-cavey business to me."

Freyja had been sitting silently across the table all this while, watching Joshua with cold, hostile eyes. Suddenly she got to her feet, scraping back her chair with her knees as she did so, and came stalking around the table toward him. She reached into his pocket without a by-your-leave, pulled out Saunders's letter, unfolded it, and stood there reading it. Her lips were compressed into a hard line by the time she had finished. She folded the letter and set it down beside his plate.

"That woman is behind this," she said. "She needs to be taught a lesson she will never forget. We will leave today. An hour should be long enough in which to get ready. Wulf, have a carriage ready and waiting for us in an hour's time, if you please."