Margaret set down the tea tray and quietly departed.
“Lewis would nev—” Helen stopped abruptly, chuckling without mirth. “I was about to say Lewis would never do such a thing, but of course I know better. Still it shames me to say so while he lies so near death.” She choked back a sob. “How I love him.”
“Of course you do. And so do I. That needn’t mean we are blind to his faults, nor take no recourse against his assailant.”
“But if it was a duel, fought honorably, a jury isn’t likely to convict the gentleman.”
“Duels are illegal, and more than one man has hanged for killing another, duel or no.” Nathaniel added, “There’s something else. I spoke with the groom. He mentioned that Saxby called for his horse just after Lewis left that morning.”
Helen stared at him. “Are you saying you think Mr. Saxby shot Lewis?”
“No . . . I don’t know. He said he tried to follow Lewis but couldn’t find him so instead rode to Hunton.”
Nathaniel ran a hand over his face. “The valet says the man wore a mask, dressed like a gentleman, and spoke in a pompous accent. So I suppose it might have been Saxby, but I find myself wondering whether the man who robbed the Ecclesia might have shot Lewis.”
Helen’s eyes widened. “No.”
Nathaniel shrugged. “He did threaten to come here and ‘rend the place asunder.’ ”
“The duel was held only a few hours after our masquerade ball, remember,” Helen said. “Any number of gentlemen might have worn a mask.”
“I know.”
“Why would that Preston fellow shoot Lewis? And if he did, why bother with a mask?”
“I don’t know,” Nathaniel repeated, exasperated. He expelled a deep breath. “I don’t know what to think.”
Helen said gently, “Until we know more, please don’t report Lewis’s part in this. I don’t want him to face prosecution if . . .” Her voice broke. “Oh, God, I pray he lives.”
Nathaniel squeezed her hand. “Eventually I shall have to report this to someone in authority, as will Dr. Drummond, most likely. But I shall be careful.”
If only Lewis would wake up. He could name the man and save them all the trouble. If only Lewis would live, this suffocating dread might lift and Nathaniel could breathe easily again. Dear Lord, please let him live.
Mrs. Budgeon had assigned Nora the added duty of attending the sickroom, keeping it tidy, serving meals to the chamber nurse, and delivering trays to the family, who now spent so much time there.
That night, Margaret reached her bedchamber in the attic before she realized she had forgotten to collect the tea things she had delivered to the sickroom a few hours before. She sighed wearily and made her way back downstairs.
On the ground floor, she quietly tiptoed from the stairwell. When she reached the hall, she glanced across it to the library-turned-sickroom. The door was closed. She wondered if Helen and Nathaniel still kept their vigil or if the chamber nurse, Mrs. Welch, had arrived to relieve them. The door opened, and Margaret paused, stepping back into the shadows behind the grand staircase to let the family pass.
A man stepped out and closed the door quietly behind him. In a shaft of moonlight, Margaret saw that it was only Connor, Lewis’s valet, toilet case in hand. Her heart squeezed to see the young man tending his master.
When she stepped into the hall, Connor flinched. “Nora. You startled me.”
“Sorry.” She smiled apologetically, then whispered, “How is he?”
He shook his head. “Still hasn’t woken.”
She pressed his forearm. “You are kind to check on him.”
“That nurse is in there as well. You needn’t bother.”
“I forgot to collect the tea things earlier.”
“Oh.” He nodded his understanding. “I should have done that for you.”
“Isn’t your job. Now get some sleep.”
“I’ll try. Good night, Nora.”
“Good night.”
She quietly unlatched the door. She was no longer shocked to be entering the room where Lewis Upchurch slept—only shocked that it was now a sickroom.
The elderly chamber nurse looked up at her entrance and smiled. Mrs. Welch had a kind, wrinkled face framed by a floppy mobcap.
“How is he?” Nora whispered.
“The same, my dear. No better, no worse.”
Margaret picked up the tray. “May I bring you anything before I go to bed?”
“How kind you are to offer, but I have everything I need.”
“Good night, then.” She paused a moment, looking down at Lewis. She hated to see him so pale and still.
She recalled what she’d overheard Helen and Nathaniel discussing earlier when she’d delivered the tray. Nathaniel apparently thought Mr. Saxby might have challenged Lewis to a duel over Miss Lyons. But Miss Lyons had told her friend that Mr. Saxby had broken things off with her before the ball. Should she tell Nathaniel? She hated the thought of him falsely accusing Lewis’s friend.
After she returned the tray to the kitchen, Margaret went upstairs to the balcony. She hoped to see Mr. Upchurch, to offer her condolences, and perhaps mention what she knew about Mr. Saxby and Miss Lyons.
Instead, she stared at the North Star alone. Still, she somehow felt closer to Nathaniel on the balcony, empty though it was. There, she prayed for Lewis to live. She prayed for peace for Helen and Nathaniel. She prayed for safety for her family—her mother, sister, and brother.
She found herself remembering her father’s final hours. The Reverend Mr. Macy had been struck by a runaway coach-and-four when he’d stopped to help a fellow traveler on the road. The surgeon had been summoned, but there was little he could do for such severe internal injuries. Her father lingered a few hours, insensible, before slipping into eternity. Knowing him, he had been ready to meet his Maker. But she had not been ready to lose him.
“I miss you, Papa,” she whispered, blinking back tears anew.
A Briton knows . . .
That souls have no discriminating hue,
Alike important in their Maker’s view;
That none are free from blemish since the fall,
And love divine has paid one price for all.
—William Cowper, “Charity,” 1782
Chapter 27
Here it is, sir. That’s all of it.”
Nathaniel had asked Connor to go through all the pockets of Lewis’s many coats as well as his other belongings, looking for more clues for the identity of the man, or the woman, behind the duel. After morning prayers the next day, the valet delivered the things he’d found. Nathaniel thanked the young man and dismissed him.
Sitting at the small morning room table, Nathaniel fingered through the pile of club receipts, opera ticket stubs, and one of Lewis’s own calling cards bearing a “kiss”—the imprint of full lips in red rouge.
What was he to do with that? Take it about the county and ask all the women he met to pucker until he found a match? Useless.
He unfolded a piece of paper, a small sheet of stationery, and read.
Ye cruel, vain, blasted louse
Detested by all in my house
How dare ye set yer hands upon her
Such a sweet innocent girl
Go somewhere else to seek yer pleasure
With some other poor pearl.
Light flashed behind his eyes. His stomach clenched. He wanted to tear the paper to shreds as though the author himself. What shoddy rhyme. What a shoddy waste of paper and ink.
He read the note again. The words spoke of heartfelt injury. Yet he doubted this “poet” had a heart. One phrase snagged his attention: “a sweet innocent girl . . .” Could it be—had Lewis met and seduced one of Preston’s daughters when he lived in Barbados? Nathaniel shook his head. It didn’t make sense. Lewis had left Barbados more than two years ago. Why now? Yet here was proof before his eyes, if proof it was. He squeezed them shut. He had lost all objectivity in his determination to identify the man who shot Lewis. He hated feeling helpless, unable to do even this for his poor brother.
He decided he would show the poem to Helen. Perhaps she could make sense of it.
Someone scratched at the morning room door. He looked up as it inched open and Margaret’s face appeared.
“Pardon me, Mr. Upchurch?”
His pulse quickened. “Yes, Nora?”
She swallowed. “May I speak with you a moment?”
He hesitated, conflicting emotions coursing through him. His determination to keep his distance warring against the irrational longing to be near her. “Very well. Come in.”
She shut the door behind her and stepped forward. “Please excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing a little of your conversation with your sister last night. About Mr. Saxby.”
He stared at her. Realized she had forgotten to use her accent.
“I felt I should say something.” She clasped her hands before her. “While I cannot speak to his character, I think you are wrong to accuse him of challenging your brother to a duel over Miss Lyons.”
“Oh? Why?”
“I happen to know Mr. Saxby broke things off with Miss Lyons before the . . . incident.”
“And how would you know that?”
She swallowed. “I overheard her tell a friend he had done so.”
“When was this?”
“The evening of the masquerade ball. In the ladies’ dressing room.”