“Only for a moment.” He scooped her up and put her into the carriage. “Go to Warwick. Nowhere else. Once I’m done, I’m heading straight to your arms.”
Cilia clasped his hand, kissed the red marks on the back of his wrist. Then let go.
The door closed and soon the carriage headed up the path. They wouldn’t be seen by his uncles.
Felton had to force a frown and feign grief for a terrible man who deserved to die. With his hand wrapped on the cold barrel of Old Brown, he needed to understand where the final shot had come from.
It didn’t come from Helena’s gun.
That mystery would be solved later, once he survived an inquest for a man falling off the cliffs of Ballard with multiple gunshot wounds.
Shouldn’t be too hard. This was Tramel’s Isle of Purbeck, after all.
CHAPTER60
CECILIA ANDFELTON—THETHINGABOUTJAGUARS
Warwick was awash in noises. Crying. Servants’ heels clomping. Moving of things and trunks. Mourners coming in and out. Tramel might be good at secrets but not all the uncles and aunts who’d come to pay respects to the duke were.
Closing my studio door did little to keep it out. The sorrow leaked into my safe place.
Yet, I wouldn’t feel like all was well, not until Felton returned to us.
Quiet.
Lady Jane had at last stopped wailing. Maybe she did love Gladstone. Or maybe she liked the attention that she garnered as if she were his widow.
It mattered not. I felt for her. Despite everything, she was a woman seeking her place in the world. Someday she’d know that she didn’t have to fight other women to be afforded hers.
“Stop pacing, Chari.”
Those were the first words Helena had uttered since I brought her to my studio.
“I’m glad Gladstone is dead.”
“Well, you pulled the trigger.”
“The gun didn’t feel like it shot, but I’m glad he’s gone.”
Old Brown didn’t kick back, not the way Felton had shown me, but the bullet that struck Gladstone’s chest, the noise of his fall—none of it was muffled by the sea.
“I don’t want Lord Gantry troubled. Chari, I certainly don’t want you to be blamed for what I’ve done. I should go down and give myself to the authorities.”
Her face, bronzed and tired, lowered. “I wanted him to fear me.”
She moved off my chaise and sat with her legs folded on the floor and fingered the painting of us three sisters, her and Patience and me under a canopy of jacarandas.
“You know those flowers stink when theylaten vallen, drop. People slip and fall on them too.”
“Yes, Helena, but these are still thriving, like us sisters.”
As commotion raged outside, my room grew quiet again. The youngest of the Thomas girls was alive. We would all survive and continue to blossom.
Setting the painting aside, she looked up at me. “He’s dead.” Her voice was low and changed. The sweetest girl in the world had learned to hate.
That had to be the saddest testament, how a heart that had been willing to love was trampled by a man and a system and a government.
“My prayer for you is to heal, Helena. You’re here. You’ll be restored.”
