Another terse note, but very Felton. He wasn’t poetry and stars. He was steady and prone to take action. Thinking Gladstone had hurt me pushed him over the edge.
And Tramel, who knew the truth, let Felton stew in a dangerous lie. He wanted his son to kill for me.
“Jane, do you know where your brother has gone?”
“Shooting with the men.”
Shooting. The memory of the noise of the practice shots at Stonehenge trembled through me. Felton would do it and not get caught.
I left the parlor. I had to get to Watson. Someone needed to take me to my husband before it was too late.
Horses sounded outside. Was it done? Had Felton killed Gladstone for the wrong reason? If what Lady Jane said about the fiend assaulting me got out, my husband would be the prime suspect.
“Excellent.” A deep voice bellowed down.
“Tramel?”
The duke was dressed in his typical elegant manner, jade waistcoat, beech-colored breeches and ebony tailcoat that held a shine. He was still pale, but he seemed to have strength. “Had to see your face when my surprise comes.”
Surprises? Felton killing Gladstone then being taken away for murder?
“No, Tramel. No more gifts. I only want my husband. His love and safety are all that matters.”
He clutched the rail. His balance seemed shaky. “Some gifts are not returnable.”
I ran past Tramel and went to the studio. Felton’s gun case was open. He’d taken the larger one but Old Brown, the blunderbuss, was there. I scooped it up along with bullet packets and wrapped it in my shawl.
Tramel caught my arm as I tried to run back down the stairs. “You can’t go out there. What’s set in motion—”
“I have to try. I can’t let things happen this way.”
He pulled me against him while I cried, but it didn’t feel the same. And I saw in his face the manipulative influence Felton had always warned me about.
“Did you think that killing Gladstone would make me turn to you? And what if Felton is rusty? What if he is hurt?”
My gaze sought the truth, but the openness I believed I’d always seen was masked. I ran from this man.
The grand doors of Warwick started to tremble. The trim, the fretwork, the gold, shook. I wanted my husband to come back through this wooden henge, alive, not under any suspicion but as much in love with me as I was with him.
* * *
“The surprise is here.” Tramel’s baritone lost power. “It is for you.”
My eyes almost closed but I had to hope it was Felton.
The scuffle of slippers.
My lungs quit completely.
In the doorway was my sister, my precious sister.
Helena entered Warwick. Walking stick in hand, she stood in the hall, alive, maybe even whole.
Charging her, I almost dropped the gun, but I hugged her until I felt her heart beating hard against mine. “You were dead. You weren’t breathing. Quamina, he was to bury you.”
“I might’ve died but then I was renewed. Quamina and his wife tended to me until the duke’s smugglers returned.”
Clapping came from above.
