“I should hope so,” Helen said, mock-imperious. “You have neglected your work long enough, Nora. Really, Mr. Tompkins, we don’t pay our people to have tea with callers.”
The man sputtered, “I-I’m not...”
“Sorry, Miss Upchurch.” Margaret dipped a quick curtsy, flashed a look of gratitude at Helen, and scurried from the room.
Nathaniel watched the exchange with interest, and then said, “This is my sister, Miss Helen Upchurch. I brought her in...” He hesitated. He couldn’t say,“as an excuse to see what you were up to with Margaret.”So instead he said, “To ask her to verify my whereabouts the morning Lewis was shot.”
Tompkins raised one brow, barely glancing at Helen. “How... convenient. But I already told you how little I value the word of sisters and servants.”
Nathaniel seethed. “If you dare question my sister’s honesty, her honor, I shall—”
The runner lifted a hand. “Ah! The famous Upchurch temper raises its fierce head once again. I wonder your brother survived as many years as he did.”
Nathaniel clenched his fist and prepared to charge.
Helen laid a staying hand on his arm and said almost sweetly, “If you do not leave this very moment, Mr. Tompkins, I fear it is you who will not survive much longer.”
Bonnet was a sugar planter who knew nothing
about sailing. He started his piracies by buying an
armed sloop on Barbados and recruiting a
pirate crew, possibly to escape from his wife.
—The Pirate Encyclopedia
Chapter 29
Margaret retreated belowstairs, her pulse still tripping at an alarming rate after her disconcerting interview with Mr. Tompkins. Did he leave satisfied, believing she was Nora Garret, or would he be back? Margaret wondered if she should tell Helen or even Nathaniel about the strange interview. If he had been there to discover Lewis’s assailant, why did he carry her portrait?
Pondering all of this, Margaret arranged the flowers in a vase with trembling fingers, then carried them up to the sickroom. She entered quietly, expecting Helen and perhaps Nathaniel to be inside, but the room was empty except for Lewis Upchurch. Approaching the bed, she reached out to set the vase on the bedside table and nearly dropped it.
Lewis’s eyes were open.
“Margaret...?” he breathed, hoarse and confused. His eyes drifted closed once more.
“Thank God,” Margaret whispered.
Interview forgotten, she ran from the room to find Helen and Nathaniel.
Pacing the arcade, Nathaniel replayed the scenes with Tompkins in his mind—the unexpected questions the man had asked, the expected questions he’d failed to ask. The hints and taunts abouthimbeing the man who shot Lewis. But they were taunts without substance, without judgment, as though he didn’t really believe it. It was almost as if he had merely tried to provoke him.
Nathaniel wanted to speak with Margaret. Assure himself she was all right. Find out what the man had asked her and why she looked so shaken when he and Helen had interrupted their meeting.
He found Margaret where he’d feared he would. Just leaving Lewis’s room. She had said she no longer held romantic notions about Lewis. Had that been Nora speaking or Margaret? He hoped it was true for them both.
“I was just coming to find you.” She beamed up at him. “Lewis opened his eyes just now.”
Energy surged through his body; the stranglehold around his neck and chest loosened. “Thank God.”
Other thoughts fleeing, he strode past her into the sickroom. Margaret followed but stayed in the background as he approached the bed and gently grasped his brother’s arm.
“Lewis? Lewis, it’s Nate. Can you hear me?”
Lewis’s eyes fluttered opened, then closed once more.
“Lewis?”
