Sir Henry sighed again. “You would have to ask him,” he said. “Though it was not retirement. Alice dismissed him.”
“Why?” Ashley frowned.
“I believe,” Sir Henry said, “that she did not realize he owned his cottage. Sir Alexander had made it over to him after a number of years of good service. I suppose Alice thought dismissing him would be a good way of ridding herself permanently of Katherine. There—I have answered your question after all.”
“Yes,” Ashley said curtly. “Yes, I see now.” And he did, too. Alice had been in love with Verney and he, unable to win Katherine Binchley’s affections, had taken advantage of Alice’s devotion and had lain with her. That fact had caused a quarrel and a deep rift between her brother and her lover. And then, after all, Verney had abandoned her for Katherine. Had Katherine Binchley teased him—held back from him one moment, encouraged him the next? Alice’s brother had died—perhaps at Verney’s hands—Verney had abandoned her, and Katherine was still at the cottage with her father, the steward at Penshurst. And so Alice had tried to get rid of them, and failing at that, had gone to India to join her father. It was little wonder that she had been emotionally scarred for life.
“I have comforted myself with the thought that they are both now at peace,” Sir Henry said. “Alice and Greg, I mean. The thought would not bring you so much comfort, of course. You did not even know him, and Alice was your wife. And, of course, there was the child, your son. I am sorry. I wish you would believe that. But I understand that you blame me for some things and can never be disposed toward me in any friendly manner. I am sorry for that too. Can we agree at least to be civil?”
“Yes,” Ashley said curtly. It was all they could do. And he knew he must let the matter drop now. He had the truth, or as much of it as he would ever have. He had to learn to live with past unhappiness, past guilt. Somehow he had to live on and find some new meaning in life. He thought of Emily. She deserved better. She deserved light and wholeness. He had so little that was of any value to offer her. Even the gift of freedom he had given her less than a week ago had turned sour. There had been their night of intimacy, a night during which he had bound her to him bodily over and over again. He had to offer her once more the protection of his name. And of a love that weighed heavily upon him because there was no real honor to offer with it. He had lost his honor during a certain night in India.
Sir Henry Verney was holding out his right hand. Ashley had been looking at it, unseeing—until almost too late.
“No,” he said sharply as he watched the hand close upon itself and begin to drop to Sir Henry’s side. “Please.” He extended his own hand and they shook. “The past is, as you say, past.”
He was on his way back to Penshurst a few minutes later, not sure if anything had been accomplished. Of one thing he felt sure, though—perhaps foolishly. It was not Verney who had caused Emmy’s fear. Someone else had done that.
22
“HENRY?”Barbara Verney stepped out onto the terrace as Ashley rode away from the stables. She looked at her brother with some concern.
“I walked into a tree,” he said ruefully, touching his jaw.
“I suppose his fist met the same fate,” she said. “What happened? He was so very pleasant with Mama and me, but I could not fail to notice the way the two of you glowered at each other.”
“I could cheerfully run him through with my sword,” Sir Henry said, “and yet I cannot help feeling pity for him, Barbara. He has come here a year after Alice’s death to try to fit the pieces together, to make sense out of them. It was, perhaps, a difficult marriage. One does not know exactly what she told him—what truths she withheld, what lies she might have told. He asked me if I had killed Greg.”
“Ah,” she said, grimacing.
“I had to choose my words with great care,” he said. “I am not at all certain that he understands the central truth.”
“Ah,” she said again. “Perhaps he merely suspects, Henry. Perhaps he finds it difficult, if not impossible, to ask the question outright. Perhaps that is why there is a look of tension about him. He must need to know. Perhaps you should have told him.”
“How?” he said, blowing out his breath from puffed cheeks. “We cannot even be quite certain ourselves. And ’tis not something you should even know is possible, Barbara. You are a lady.”
“And should delicately swoon at far less,” she said. “Nonsense. But there is an unaskable question...” She took his arm and walked away from the house with him. “I have never been able to ask you. But I have always wondered. And now the question has been raised in a different form by Lord Ashley. Do you believeshekilled him?” She bit her lip now that the question was asked.
“Egad!” he said. “I have no proof. I am not sure I would want proof. ’Tis unthinkable—though I did accuse her of it in the first flush of shock.”
“Or suicide,” she said. “Murder was spoken of, though never with Alice as a possible suspect. Suicide was whispered of at first as a possibility, but no one could think of a motive. There was a powerful one, of course.”
“’Tis best not spoken of, Barbara,” he said. “’Tis best forgotten about. They are both dead.”
“But poor Lord Ashley is alive and troubled,” she said. “Perhaps you should not have chosen your words with such care, Henry. Which ones did you choose more rashly? The ones you spoke just before colliding with a tree?”
Her brother thought for a moment. “I believe I said something about her having felt guilty,” he said. “I said that if she was unhappy in India, perhaps ’twas guilt that made her so.”
“Ah,” his sister said sadly, “then he does suspect, Henry. Poor man.”
“We must keep out of it,” he advised. “’Twere well to keep quiet, Barbara. ’Tis none of our concern after all. It never was.”
“Except that Gregory was your friend,” she said, “and you loved Katherine.”
“’Twere best to leave the past in the past,” he said.
She examined his jaw closely. “I wonder if Mama will believe the story about the tree,” she said.
“She will when I tell her I was chasing the dogs,” he told her.
