“How dare you bring such shame and scandal down upon my dear Ellie,” Izzy scolded. “Killing your mistress while forcing Ellie to rusticate in the country!”
“Murderer!” cried Criseyde.
“Swine!” Corliss hurled simultaneously.
Oh dear.This was not at all the manner in which she had supposed her family would come to London offering their support.
Elysande rushed forward, placing herself between Hudson and her family, palms raised in supplication. “Please, do not rush to judgment!”
Her entreaty was ignored.
“Scoundrel!” one of the twins hollered.
To her shame, Elysande could not discern which of the two it had been.
“You bastard,” her brother was saying, moving forward, fists clenched.
In a sense, seeing Royston so protective of her filled Elysande’s heart with warmth. She had not known he had it in him. However, his ire was misguided. Quite thoroughly.
Mama was chirping like a sparrow, Papa was sputtering, and Hudson was stoic and silent behind her, absorbing all their insults as if they were deserved.
“Enough!” she said, the violence of her outburst surprising even Elysande. The room fell silent, the eyes of her sisters, brother, and parents wide and glued upon her. “Clearly, you mistook my telegram. I asked you for help because my husband is innocent of the crime, not because he is guilty. Mrs. Ainsley was not his mistress. Nor was she anything more than an old acquaintance. Hudson was not even at his rooms when the murder occurred. He has many good friends to attest to his whereabouts on the evening in question. He returned home to find Mrs. Ainsley’s body, and now a Scotland Yard detective is determined to see him imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.”
The silence in the room was almost deafening after so much noise as she completed her impassioned speech. Her breast was heaving, heart pounding fast. She wondered if she appeared as mad as she felt. Likely, she did, for her family continued to stare at her as if she had professed a fervent desire to sprout wings and fly to the sun in Icarian fashion.
Suddenly, there was a reassuring hand at the small of her back. Then the warmth of Hudson’s arm around her waist as he stepped forward, at her side.
“Ellie,” he said softly, the words meant for her alone, “you need not defend me.”
“I will defend you with my dying breath,” she countered, furious at her family for attacking him and more furious with herself for not foreseeing the way they would interpret her telegram. “You are innocent of this crime, and I will not stand idly by while you are accused and sent away to prison when the true monster responsible is permitted to roam free to kill again.”
His expression was solely for her. Filled with so much tenderness, she ached. The bond they had developed in the past few days was undeniable. Not just physical, but emotional as well. There was no doubt in her heart that he was incapable of committing any crime at all, let alone one so heinous as the violent murder of a woman he had shared dinner with earlier that night.
“I deserve their doubt,” he said quietly.
“No,” she said fervently, “you do not.”
“Perhaps an explanation is in order,” Papa said then, his voice stern.
Still the leader of the family, although Elysande had been the first to stray from the flock and begin her own life. What an odd thought to entertain. For so much of her life, she had been a daughter and a sister. Now she was a wife. She had started her own family and a new life with Hudson, and she had no intention of surrendering it or him to Scotland Yard.
“We need your aid, Papa,” she told her father. “Hudson and I shall explain everything.”
She sent her husband an entreating gaze, hoping he would not consider this a betrayal but rather see the intent with which she had contacted her family. He gave her a curt nod, his only concession.
* * *
What a curious lotElysande’s family was.
One would have presumed an earl and countess and their offspring would not be so intrigued by the investigation of a murder.
However, one would have been wrong.
Hours after their unexpected interruption of dinner, and they were all still ensconced in the shabby drawing room, chattering like a flock of birds in migration. They were giving Hudson a bloody headache, though he knew that was not their intention. No, they meant well enough, just as Elysande had in summoning them. However, he was not prepared for a house of guests, which was what they had. Leydon’s town house had yet to be prepared since the family had not been scheduled to return to London just yet and had fled Buckinghamshire on a telegram and a whim.
The efficient butler and housekeeper had scurried into action, overseeing the preparation of rooms and a great lot of other tasks Hudson knew precious little about. Like everything else about suddenly being saddled with the weight of a dukedom, hosting guests and the running of a home filled with servants was new to him.
Leydon was examining the pictures Hudson had received earlier that afternoon from the photographer he had commissioned. “There appears to be a quite solid print of a hand here on the headboard.”
