Page 143 of A Portrait of Love

As for Bella? Well, she’d certainly been punished more than she deserved for her part in the indiscretion.

The more time Simon spent with her, the more he learned that her marriage to MacLeish had not held much pleasure.

Bella’s letter from all those years ago had mentioned a hefty dowery—which he now knew to be the courtesy of Wyndham’s guilty conscience.

Based on what Bella had said about her dead husband, Simon suspected the money might have been even more of a lure for the penniless Scotsman than a beautiful young wife, especially one who’d been pregnant with another man’s child.

It was all sordid and sad and desperate.

And it had nothing to do with his current life.

Simon sighed as a weight seemed to lift from his heart; he would confront Wyndham with the truth and he then would forgive him.

He looked up from his thoughts to see that the turnoff to Lindthorpe was just ahead; he’d certainly made excellent time.

The driveway to duke’s newest house was shaped like a horseshoe, with huge old oaks marching down both sides of the narrow drive. There were various hedges surrounding the house and grounds, giving one the feeling of entering a cave.

The Palladian-style house was of recent vintage—built sometime early in the last century—and a great deal smaller than Everley.

As he rode up to the entrance, Simon was surprised to see no sign of workmen or activity—not even a gardener.

He dismounted and tied off Bacchus before heading toward the entrance. Not until he was almost to the big, metal-strapped door did he notice that it was open a crack.

“Wyndham?” he called out.

He paused, but there was no answer.

As he reached for the doorhandle his gaze flickered to the light-colored flagstone at his feet. The hairs on the back of Simon’s neck stood on end and some primitive part of his brain identified what he was looking at before Simon even recognized the red smear as blood.

His body reacted without prodding from his mind and he shoved the door while flinging himself through the opening.

He landed with a bone-jarring thud just as a pistol shot rang out. Bits of plaster rained down on him and his body again acted on instinct, rolling to the side, out of the doorway opening

“Simon!” It was Wyndham’s voice and it came from the bowels of the house.

Simon scrambled clumsily for purchase on the bloodied, polished wooden floor, getting to his feet just as the sidelight next to the door shattered, sending splinters of glass glittering in the air around him.

He ran without a backward glance.

“Wyndham,” he shouted breathlessly, heading deeper into the house.

“Back here,” Wyndham yelled.

Simon followed the sound of his voice, turning down what he knew was a very short hall with only four or five rooms off it.

Long smears of blood on the wood floor led into the second room on the right.

Simon skidded to a halt in the open doorway.

His brother was opposite the door, lying on the floor next to the room’s only window.

“Watch out for the wind—”

Something flickered past the window just before chips of wooden doorframe exploded beside Simon’s head.

For the second time in less than a minute he dove, landing with a muffled grunt of pain

He crawled the rest of the way toward his brother, keeping clear of the window.