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She hadn’t surrendered his hand and her fingers felt like ice. ‘I ran back here as quickly as I could. The first person I saw was Isabella—she was up making sure the nurses had taken good care of Celia during the night—and when I told her…’ She shuddered. ‘I didn’t have the chance to send for you until just now. Isabella has taken leave of her senses, so the servants were coming to me for direction, and I had to send for the doctor and arrange for Anthony to be brought home…’

‘Shh. Shh. Slow down.’

Jacob pulled her towards him again. She sounded on the brink of tears and her shoulders shook as he encircled them, making him more concerned with her distress than working out the depth of his own.

Was he distressed? The news was far too fresh and baffling to have fully penetrated. One moment he’d been fast asleep and the next his valet had been waking him with a sorrowful whisper, clearly regretting having to explain that his brother was dead—

A sudden twinge lanced through him. Anthony might have been one of the worst people he’d ever met but they had still shared a bond of sorts, a blood tie no number of arguments could undo. Processing his passing would be complex and definitely not something Jacob could even think about beginning until he understood what had transpired while he’d slept.

Carefully he bent down to look directly into Meg’s eyes. ‘You did well. But can you tell me what happened before that? How…how did…?’

She didn’t try to escape his unswerving gaze, although she faltered slightly as she replied. ‘There was an accident. I didn’t see what caused it, but somehow the axle of his gig must have broken as he was taking that sharp bend in the road to Hayworth. I heard a crash and a shout, and when I got there he was lying on the ground. He’d hit his head as he landed, I suppose, and he just… I sat with him while he slipped away. He wasn’t on his own.’

‘I see.’

He passed a hand over his face. His imagination filled in the blanks, painting a terrible picture of what Anthony’s last moments had been like, and the twinge cut through him again more painfully than before. ‘Thank you for staying with him. It sounds as though, at the end, you treated him with far more compassion than he deserved.’

Meg pressed her lips together. It might have been to hide how they trembled but, despite wanting to spare her further anguish, Jacob couldn’t allow them to remain closed.

‘Why were you there in the first place, though?’ he asked quietly. ‘How is it you happened to be the one at his side?’

Something in Meg’s expression shifted slightly. It wasn’t furtive, exactly, but enough of a change to make him frown. ‘Oh. I remember now.’ He broke in again before she could answer. ‘Don’t I recall you going for a walk early this morning? Was that what caused you to cross paths?’

He’d thought he must have dreamed seeing her leaving their room at dawn, but apparently it had been real. She’d crept about as if trying her hardest not to wake him, and at the time he’d been dimly grateful, although now he had to wonder why she hadn’t wanted to be seen.

A discreet knock at the door, followed by Dr Pryce’s voice, took the place of her reply. ‘My lord, may I speak with you?’

He and Meg exchanged glances. It didn’t seem as though she wanted to speak to anyone else either but, as he was now apparently and abruptly the man of the house, he was left with little choice.

My lord? Unseen as he moved towards the door, Jacob grimaced. How can it be that I am now Viscount Fernley?

It hadn’t occurred to him before that moment, but it was the truth. With Anthony’s death the Wellbourne estate and everything in it passed to him, title included, and that was almost as stunning a realisation as knowing he’d never talk to his brother again. He had never expected to inherit the viscountcy, nor would he have sought it if given the opportunity, and that it had fallen into his lap regardless added another layer of bewilderment inside his already throbbing head.

Dr Pryce bowed when Jacob emerged into the hall. ‘Thank you for stepping out, my lord. It’s my sad duty to tell you that your brother’s body has been brought back to the house, and that my examination is complete. I conclude he suffered a blow to the back of the head and, regrettably, I have confirmed beyond any doubt that life is extinct.’

Jacob found he could summon nothing more than a blank nod. ‘Body’ was a dreadful word, far too a banal term for something so final, and ‘extinct’ was no better. Both lacked any kind of emotion and that was what had begun to rise within him, a multifaceted thing he would have been at a loss to describe.

‘Where is he? Where have they put…?’

‘In his rooms, my lord. I understand Mrs Fernley—I apologise; I should say, Viscountess Fernley—has already sent for the women to come and lay him out.’

‘Has she?’ Jacob nodded again, this time more slowly. ‘Good.’

He caught an uncertain movement on the very edge of his vision. He hadn’t closed the drawing room door behind him and Meg had drifted towards the threshold, now standing close enough that he could easily brush her sleeve with an outstretched finger. If the doctor hadn’t been watching, he would have gathered her to him, hoping she could help him navigate the strange feelings fighting beneath his ribs, but the sudden approach of an entirely different woman eclipsed that thought just as it arose.

‘It was her! She did it! That low, conniving little wretch killed my husband!’

Isabella’s cry was so shrill it could have shattered glass. She charged towards them, appearing in the hall like an avenging fury, and Jacob only just managed to fling himself in front of Meg before his sister-in-law took aim with a full-handed slap.

‘Isabella, no!’

He took hold of her, a firm hand on each shoulder. She thrashed and struggled but he held on, hoping Meg had the good sense to back out of arm’s reach. ‘That isn’t true,’ he told her sternly, glad that Dr Pryce had tactfully, and swiftly, taken his leave. ‘I know this has come as a terrible shock, but it wasn’t her fault. What possible reason—?’

‘She had every reason!’ Isabella shrieked, her green eyes shooting pure venom. ‘I heard them talking last night. I know what she really is. She’s a penniless drab from the village and after her shameful behaviour towards poor Anthony at dinner he’d been left with no choice but to ask her family to leave his land. That’s why she did it! That, and to become viscountess herself!’

She seethed over his shoulder at where he assumed Meg must be standing, although he couldn’t immediately turn to look himself. It took a moment for him to understand what Isabella had said, and then his dismay that their secret had been uncovered was matched by instant disbelief, compounded when he saw new dread in his wife’s face.

‘What? Anthony spoke to you last night?’