Frances screamed. “Henry, no! He has a wife and son!”
“Which is exactly why he should have known better,” Henry retorted, as he raised his fist to strike again.
Before it could land, the butler came running in. “There are men here! They appear to be?—”
The constables, five of them, pushed past him, their surprised eyes surveying the scene before them: Henry with his fist raised, James with his nose pouring blood, Walter blocking the garden doors, Frances howling.
“I sent for you,” Walter said, waving. “The one with the bleeding nose is the would-be killer. The other one is the man whose wife was almost killed. Thrice. So, do not mind the violence; it is justified.”
The constables lurched into action again, one firmly pulling Henry aside, while the other four descended on James. The wretched man writhed and flailed and fought, but it was an embarrassingly short time before James was restrained, the constables wrangling him out of the drawing room.
“Remember, James, I will take care of your son,” Henry called, as his cousin passed across the threshold.
Out in the entrance hall, a raging roar echoed back. As satisfying a sound as any Henry had heard, a punishment far greater than any the magistrates could deliver. From hereon in, James would have to live with the knowledge that his son would never be heir to Holdridge, and likely would not be heir to Weverton either.
The estate and title had been gifted by Henry’s father, passing his secondary title into his brother’s hands. It could just as easily be restored to Henry, with a few letters to friends in important places.
But why punish the boy?Henry would have to think about it some more but, for now, he had something else to contend with.
“Frances, I suggest you leave the country at the earliest convenience,” he said, his mood dark. “I do not care where you go, but if I find you are still upon our shores by the end of the week, I will have no choice but to hand you over to the magistrates too. This is your one opportunity to take my generosity. It will not be repeated.”
His cousin nodded effusively, as she hurried along the gap between the wall and the settee, skirting around Henry. “I will go,” she promised. “For what I have done, I will go. I promise.”
She darted out, presumably before Henry could change his mind.
“What did you do that for?” Walter asked, once she was gone. “Did you not hear her confess that she put poison in Thalia’s tea?”
Henry nodded. “I did, but… I believe her. I do not think she knew what the poison would do. This is not her revenge, after all.” He shrugged. “A magistrate would be lenient to a woman like her anyway. It is better this way.”
“So, you donotthink she killed her husband with poison?” Walter asked with a pointed look.
Henry laughed stiffly. “No, though I think she probably wanted to, when she found out where he had died and how.” He walked to his brother and, probably for the first time in his life, pulled Walter in for a hug. “Thank you, Walt. Thank you.”
Walter hugged him tighter. “That is what brothers are for.” He pulled back, flashing a grin. “Now, if I am not mistaken, you have a wife to return to. A wife who needs you. So, you had better hurry along before she wakes up and realizes you have left her again.”
“What of you?” Henry asked. “Will you stay?”
A sadness fell across Walter’s face as he shook his head. “Not for long. I will stay a few more weeks, and then I must return to where I belong.” He clapped his brother on the arm. “But I promise you this; I will visit more often.”
“I shall hold you to that.” Henry smiled, his knuckles still throbbing.
Chuckling, Walter turned him around. “Go on, away with you.”
Henry did not need to be told thrice, even if hewasafraid of what he might find when he reached home.
CHAPTER 34
Thalia stirred to sunlight in her eyes, the nightmarish dream of being thrown upside down in a carriage still pulsing in her mind. With it, the frightening echo of walking up some steps in the gloom of meager candlelight, and suddenly feeling a tug… and the sensation of falling through the air.
She gasped, her hand flying to her hammering heart. Her throat was too dry to call out for help, her eyes stinging, her mind seemingly fragmented, as if it did not quite know which reality she was in.
“Thalia?” Henry’s soothing voice washed over her, turning her startled attention toward a chair beside her bed.
There he sat; the man she loved. The man she knew to be the fulfillment of her mother’s wish.
But there was no smile upon his face as she looked to him: his skin pale, his eyes shadowed with dark crescents, his knuckles bruised, a red mark streaking his cheek, half-dressed in just a shirt and trousers. Nor did he move to hold her, his posture so rigid she wondered if he had turned to stone.
His throat bobbed. “Do you remember me?”
