The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(38)

Jared lowered the window and leaned out as far as he was able with his arms around Guinevere. ‘Keep driving, round the parks, anywhere. I’ll tell you when to come back.’

There was a grunt of acknowledgement from the driver and Jared pulled the window up again, then unwound Guinevere’s arms from around his neck, gave her a shake and tipped up her face so they were almost nose to nose. ‘You are Not. Going. To. Hang.’

She took a huge, shuddering breath and her eyes lost the blank look that had so worried him. ‘No?’

‘No. And we will find out who did this and they will face justice.’

‘I was so sure they would think it was me. So sure. I owe the Fates, you see,’ she added, her voice still unsteady.

‘Nonsense.’ What the devil was she talking about? ‘You did not kill your husband, you owe the Fates nothing. Do you suppose that some cosmic force will demand repayment for a marriage above your station, a few years of comfort, a title?’

‘I am sorry.’ Guinevere pulled back from him and he released her, the loss of contact as tangible as the sensation when he put down a sword after a fight. ‘I am overwrought, I think. Talking nonsense. I haven’t been sleeping. I miss him so much and I am so angry – how could anyone do that to him?’ She searched in her reticule and came up with a black-bordered handkerchief, blew her nose briskly, even though she had not been crying. ‘What do we do?’

‘I go to Yorkshire. That is where it started, is it not?’

‘I suppose it did. Somehow I never saw it like that, but that was because nothing had been ordinary and calm for so long – meeting Francis, eloping, his death and everything that happened after it. I had been married to Augustus for just over eighteen months and I had only just become used to marriage, to feeling safe, when those strange attacks began.’

She had felt safe when she married. It was a strange word to use, as though she had felt unsafe before then. Jared tucked it away in his mind along with all the other strange happenings and inconsistencies of this problem.

‘Tell me more about Theo Quenten. Was he telling the truth just now?’

‘You noticed that? No, of course not. He had come to ask my husband to pay his debts again, even though he had refused him the week before. I expect Augustus would have relented in the end. He would not have wanted his brother finding out that Theo had got himself in trouble again.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Cards, women, horses. Theo isn’t vicious, I am certain, just young and spoiled. He needs to grow up fast, because he will find himself the Viscount before long, but he’s a good young man at heart.’

‘He would not be desperate enough to try and hasten the process of inheritance along?’

‘No! No… I think he is too intelligent for that. And too fond of Augustus – genuinely, not only as an indulgent uncle who pays the bills. And surely he would have had no opportunity to add those poisoned marchpane sweetmeats to the box?’

He might if he knew about the regular delivery, Jared thought. And he was shifty about staying in the library that day. I wonder just how tame he ran in that household. Guin seemed to like him and trust him, which was a point in his favour. Unless she has other feelings for him entirely. He’s a good-looking young man and her own age. No, he had believed her when she had told him she had been faithful to her husband. But he would set Dover to investigating the young man, even so.

Jared dropped the window again and called up to the driver to go to Clarges Street.

‘Make up your mind, guv’nor,’ the man retorted. ‘Still, it’s your money.’ He cracked the whip and the hackney turned left.

‘I will come in with you, if I may, get as many details as possible and a note from you to the housekeeper, or whoever is in charge at Allerton Grange, to cooperate with me, answer questions.’

‘That will not be necessary.’ Guinevere seemed to be changing before his eyes, her shoulders were back, her chin was up, her voice calm. ‘I will come with you.’

‘That would not be a good idea.’ However much I wish you would.

‘Jared, I find, more than anything, that I am angry. More than angry. Furious. I am not going to sit at home, draping myself in widow’s weeds and wringing my hands while you hunt this… this… Oh, I do not know a bad enough word for them!’

Jared was not going to supply one for her, although he could think of several. He wondered why he had no trouble at all asserting himself with men and yet one word from him was enough, apparently, to set Guinevere off in exactly the opposite direction to the one he wanted her to take.

‘Your reputation – ’

‘To the blazes with my reputation. Just so long as no-one decides to hang me for it, I no longer care,’ she snapped. ‘That was hellish at the inquest – and without the support of you and Sophie and the Duke, and the staff being so loyal and sensible, it would have been even more of a nightmare. It is time I fought back. I am going to get justice for Augustus and I am going to punish whoever has been torturing us for weeks.’

‘Very well.’ She was an adult, she appeared to have recovered from the shock of the murder, even though she was still grieving and distressed. If she wanted to go to Yorkshire, then he could hardly stop her. Jared took a sideways look at his own conscience. Had he just decided that because he wanted to be with her? No. Probably not. He hoped not. As for the attraction that had flared between them in his apartment, well, that was doubtless the result of how disorientated and upset Guinevere had been. It had not been real on her part and she was certain to be hoping and praying that he had forgotten all about it.