‘We?’
‘The Service. When Daniel was here he brought me a letter from Alan Wolfe that said Henrietta’s husband had been murdered. They found his body in a tavern near Oxford. Odds are it was Friar’s work for he has left his lodgings and disappeared.’
‘To go where?’
‘That’s what I plan to find out.’
‘I met him at an afternoon soirée in London just before we were married and he insinuated he knew about Kenneth Davis and the way he had attacked me. He wanted me to go with him as his wife back to the Americas, though it was my fortune he had his eye on. There is a side to him that he does not show often, a darker side.’
‘Is Davis in England, then?’ Gabriel tried to keep the fury from his tone.
‘No.’
God, could Friar come back here, then, to Ravenshill Manor where it had all started? Was he after some sort of twisted vengeance with Adelaide as the bait? He held his wife closer and kissed her hair, but the darkening sky outside looked more threatening than it had done before and the lack of manpower at Ravenshill needed redressing.
He did not want to worry her with this, but he needed to be ready just in case. Standing, he stretched, trying to look nonchalant, but he should have realised that Adelaide’s mind was turning as fast as his own.
‘Would he come here, do you think? Would he be after you next because of Henrietta Clements?’
He smiled. God, this is what it was to be married. You forgot about yourself and thought of the other person. The stakes heightened and a new fear rose. If anything ever happened to Adelaide he would not survive. He knew that with a certainty that took the breath from him.
‘We will be safe, sweetheart, I swear it.’
* * *
Gabriel sat at the window that night and looked across the land of Ravenshill before him. Bathed in the oncoming dusk he could see as far as the Barron Hills in one direction and the Scott River in the other. His land. Wesley land; land that had been in the family for generations and generations, wrought in pain and protected in blood.
He felt safe here, he thought, because he knew the lie of it, the hidden places and the valleys, the streams and the meadows. Oh, granted, Henrietta had surprised him once in the chapel with her madness and her delusions, but he was not the same man that he had been then. Now he had a purpose to live for, a reason for laying down his life and protecting his family.
Adelaide. They might never have children, but they would always have each other. His mind wandered to clever dark-haired little girls with smiles like their mother, but he shook the thought away. Even given his love for his wife his libido had not awakened. He swore beneath his breath, but softly, for Adelaide was asleep behind him, curled up in repose, and he did not wish to wake her.
‘Come on, you bastard,’ he whispered and his fingers curled around the barrel of his gun. ‘Show yourself to me so that we can meet honestly and finish this.’
But nothing moved as the sky lightened and the dawn broke pink over the lush green landscape that was Ravenshill.
Chapter Seventeen
Daniel, Amethyst and baby Robert Wylde came to the Manor the next morning, stopping in on their way back to Montcliffe.
‘Amethyst was fretting at Colton House and she wanted to be home, but we needed to tell you again, Adelaide, of how much we will always be in your debt. If there is ever any favour you wish from us...’ Daniel Wylde stopped and shook his head. ‘You would only need to ask and it shall be yours.’
‘I would like your friendship,’ she said and gave Amethyst a hug before taking the baby. He was small and beautiful with rosebud lips and a shock of dark hair. As unfocused blue eyes watched her own she smiled.
‘He is Robert after my father,’ Amethyst explained, her fingers stroking the downy head. When Adelaide looked up and saw her husband’s eyes on her holding little Robert she also saw what no one else ever would.
Loss.
It was scrawled across the gold with a flaring damage. Fleeting and then hidden.
Did he think it mattered so very much to her? Did he imagine he was less of a man only because he could not father a child? Crossing the room, she laid the baby in his arms, liking the way his bigness cradled the fragility. Their circle of progeny might be broken, but others could be formed. Others like this child, one small hand winding its way around her husband’s finger. Adelaide knew enough of life to understand the beauty of compromise.
‘We shall always be here for you, little one,’ she said softly. ‘In good times and in bad.’
‘Speaking of bad,’ Daniel suddenly said, ‘have you heard any more from the Service about Clements’s death, Gabe?’
‘I’m certain it was George Friar who killed him. Clement’s cousin,’ he clarified as Daniel looked puzzled. ‘He was the one who stood to inherit any money. Friar told Adelaide he needed cash to inject into a Baltimore project, and with Henrietta dead there was only Randolph in the way.’
‘But wouldn’t others suspect him?’
‘He set himself up an alibi with those who he’d been in cahoots with, men whose interest in politics did not quite reach to the shedding of blood for it. Friar undoubtedly was the one who did that and he chose his accomplices well.’
‘Do you have proof?’
‘Only the memory of Henrietta’s last words. She told me about Friar before she threw herself into the flames, but I had not remembered it until yesterday.’
‘A timely recollection, then. How dangerous is he, do you think?’
Gabriel ignored Daniel Wylde’s question and posed one of his own. ‘When you go back to Montcliffe, would you take my wife with you?’
‘No.’ Now Adelaide understood. ‘I am going nowhere without you, Gabriel. We could both leave and then Lucien and Francis could help you, too.’
‘Daniel will bring them back once he has seen you safe. Please, Adelaide. I can’t think of you and Friar both and I am well able to look after myself here.’
Adelaide thought wildly. She could not ask Daniel to stay and assist Gabriel because he would want to be sure to shepherd his wife and baby to safety. And there would be a gap of hours that Gabriel would be all alone. She thought of the servants and knew they would be some help, but against a trained killer...?
‘You would return to Ravenshill immediately?’ This question she asked of Daniel.
‘I would.’
‘Then I will do as you ask, Gabriel.’ She thought that her heart might just break there in that room with the jagged thought of leaving.
* * *
‘Gabriel is the happiest I have ever seen him look,’ Amethyst said as the carriage swept through the impressive lands of Ravenshill. ‘Daniel says we should take to the game of matchmaking with more alacrity as we are undoubtedly successful at it.’
‘Where is your husband?’ Laughing, Adelaide glanced outside to see if she could see Lord Montcliffe on the horse he had mounted as they left the house.
‘He’s scouting ahead probably. Just to be certain that it is safe and that all...’
Her words died on the sharp crack of a bullet and then a second and third one. Any hope that there was a hunter nearby died with the slowing of the coach.
‘My God, where is Daniel?’ Amethyst Wylde’s panicked voice rose above the silence and she tucked baby Robert into his tiny bed on the floor and draped her skirts across him.
Protection.
Adelaide saw the look of it in her eyes even as she swallowed back her own fright.
The carriage door opened a few seconds later and George Friar stood there, a different man from the way he had looked in London with a bloodied bandage around his hand and in clothes like those worn by the countryside peasants.
‘Get out.’ The gun he had was pointed straight at her and without thought she did as she was told, shutting the door behind her once she was through it and hoping it was only she that he was after.
Please, God, do not let the baby cry, she thought as she walked away with Friar towards his horse. And please do not let Daniel ride over that ridge unarmed.
So focused on trying to keep the Wyldes safe she had forgotten about her own well-being, and when Friar brought his hand up and slapped her with all the force he could muster, she fell at his feet. Would he kill her here before she had the chance to fight back? Dizziness made her feel sick.
‘Get up.’ His mouth was a hard slash as he hailed her to the horse. ‘That is for slapping me at the ball and this is from Kenneth Davis.’ This time he punched her in the stomach, a hard indifferent fist that jammed the air from her windpipe and made her shake violently.
‘Now keep quiet and you might live awhile longer. It’s your husband I want. He killed Henrietta and he needs to pay for it.’
‘No. She...killed...herself...’
‘Liar.’
He hit her again across the cheek before hauling her up on the horse. Adelaide knew it would only be a matter of hours before Gabriel came to find her and she prayed to God that the mad and dangerous George Friar had not killed the Earl of Montcliffe.
* * *
Red-hot anger filled Gabriel’s head, anger that would not help anything.
The bastard had his wife. He had dragged her off out of the carriage and hit her. Hard. Amethyst had said so.
Daniel lay on the sofa with a bullet through his side, the kneeling apothecary trying to staunch the bleeding.