“I would have preferred you not to get shot. But heaven knows what might have happened if we’d all ridden into a trap. Ivo had an arsenal up there.”
“I’d like to know what was behind it all.” Raymond yawned. “But I expect you have Greta to deal with.” He grimaced. “I didn’t do what she accused me of, but I’m still heartily ashamed.”
“Let’s leave it in the past, Ray. I don’t want the baroness to come between us.”
A smile lit Raymond’s eyes, but it wasn’t long before he drifted off to sleep.
Andrew returned to the library, wondering what Castlereagh was dealing with in London. He could offer nothing to help him. Ivo’s attempt to kill him and William seemed unconnected to the other two murders, for nothing the mad German did made sense. Unless Jenny knew something that would help fill in the pieces of the puzzle when he was able to see her. The doctor had dosed her with laudanum and kept her asleep for most of yesterday and he’d had had to curb his impatience. He just needed to see her, for his world had turned upside down when he feared she wouldn’t be in it.
“Miss Harrismith has woken, Your Grace.” George stood before the library desk some hours later, where Andrew sorted through some pressing matters with Bishop, before he took Greta to London. “She has asked to see you before you leave.”
“Have the children been in to see her?”
“Yes, a few moments ago.”
Andrew finished a letter and put down his pen. He stood. “The rest can wait, Anthony. I’ll leave those other matters in your care.” He donned his coat and headed for the stairs. The children had driven him mad demanding to know why they couldn’t visit Jenny. They’d not warmed to their new nurse. Well, it was early days yet. No one could doubt Miss Green’s efficiency. But her manner did seem a little unbending. It might not do the children much harm to be in the care of a disciplinarian, with Jenny there to make sure they didn’t want for affection.
As he reached the northern wing where the guest bedchambers were situated, he relived the crippling anxiety of carrying her in his arms, unconscious, with the fear that he’d lost her, and the guilt sour in his mouth that he hadn’t done enough to protect her.
At her bedchamber door, his breath caught in his throat as he knocked, fearing to find her unwell.
At her faint reply, he entered to a charming tableau: his children lying beside Jenny on the bed, as she read to them from a book.
William sat up. “Jenny is better, Father.”
“She hasn’t finished the story, yet,” Barbara grumbled.
“I promise to finish it later, poppet.” Her cheeks flushed, Jenny put down the book and drew the sheet up over her chest.
“Yes, later children, your nurse will be here in a moment. It’s time for luncheon,” he said his gaze sweeping over her to reassure himself she was well. The dark bruise on her chin was the only sign that she’d been hurt, as her lovely eyes gazed into his, full of life and unquenchable warmth. “And I must talk to Miss Harrismith.”
After the children were collected by the nurse, Andrew took the brooch from his pocket and came to hand it to Jenny. “The catch will need to be mended.”
“Oh, you found it!” She smiled and took it, gazing down at it fondly. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
He drew up an impractical gilt framed chair beside the bed and squeezed himself into it. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better. I hoped you’d come, I must tell you what Von Bremen said. Has he been arrested?”
“No, Ivo is dead,” Andrew said. “The Marquess of Strathairn joined me in the pursuit. He climbed to the top of the cliff and had no option but to shoot Von Bremen.”
“I think Von Bremen knew he must die,” she said thoughtfully, “But he would never have given up.”
Andrew sat back and allowed himself the pleasure of just looking at her. Jenny’s skin was naturally fair and there were now a sprinkling of faint but appealing freckles on her nose. Her hair was drawn back into a long braid baring the slender column of her neck which appeared tender and vulnerable. She’d forgotten the sheet. It had dropped to reveal the desirable shape of her full breasts beneath the thin lawn nightgown. He suffered a strong desire to join her in the warm bed and hold her, to kiss the soft skin of her throat. His lips twitched with faint amusement. He was hardly a rowdy schoolboy. Jenny was eminently desirable, and he suspected his relief to find her relatively unhurt had slightly unhinged him. He cleared his throat and rested his booted foot on his knee. “Please go on.”
But as Jenny began to reveal how Ivo had accosted her on the stairs and how he’d threatened her, Andrew found himself edging forward in the chair, his hands gripping his knees. When she reached the point where she’d screamed, and Ivo had knocked her unconscious, it was all he could do not to go to her and hold her. Her voice had begun to tremble. “He talked quite madly about the men he knew in London. They were murdering lords and placing white lilies on their bodies. He said he hadn’t been part of it, and I believe he was telling the truth, but he did plan to join them. He said they used a tavern in Seven Dials as a base.”
“Seven Dials, eh? That is of great use to us, Miss Harrismith. Once I reach London, I will pass it on, but if Ivo wasn’t a member of this band of murderers, I fail to understand why he wished to hurt William.”
She gazed down at her hands. “Von Bremen thought you weren’t going to marry the baroness. In his troubled mind he believed if you lost William, his sister would be there to comfort you with the hope of an heir. Your marriage would put an end to his troubles. He controlled her money, you see. And he’d lost most of it.”
“I only wish you hadn’t been dragged into it,” he growled.
She rubbed her temples.
“Are you in pain? Shall I leave you to rest?”
“It’s merely a slight headache. I must tell you the rest. Once his attacks on William had failed, Von Bremen decided to gain respect from his cohorts by killing you, so he planned to ambush you. There were several guns hidden among the rocks. He’d placed his rifle there the day I met him returning from Spender’s Bluff, the same day he’d tried to shoot William at the river. The rest he’d brought from Oxford.
