Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

I t was a deuced unpleasant thing for a man to wake after a pleasant evening with his wife, the first pleasant evening of hopefully many to come and find her no longer at his side. Stephen had woken slowly, reaching with one hand for the warmth and softness of Elizabeth and his mood had soured as he felt nothing but an empty and cold bed.

Where had she gotten to? Stephen stretched and winced. The exertion of the previous night right after having woken from his illness had left him with sore muscles and feeling tired, but neither had ever stopped him before.

It was a pity he had no clothes in her room, as he had to gather up the clothes from the previous day and put those on, crumpled though they were, before he could go in search of his wayward wife and bring her back to bed where she belonged at least until breakfasting time and perhaps a good while after.

Was this why so many young couples went on a honeymoon after they were wed? All his thoughts were turned upon her, upon how she felt in his arms and how she tasted, how she sounded when he made her feel wild and uncontrolled. How was he meant to deal with his peers or run the estate when she was seared into his mind?

A young woman, Elizabeth’s maid, hurried by and Stephen called to her. “Daisy.”

She paused, her round face anxious and drawn. No doubt the past few days had been hard on the young woman if his brother had considered Elizabeth responsible. “Yes, Your Grace, sir?”

“Where is my wife?”

She glanced over her shoulder, tense with some fear or anxiety that he couldn’t understand. Who was she afraid of here in his house? “I - I don’t -”

“Daisy.”

She blinked up at him and her shoulders slumped a little. “She’s with my sister, Your Grace. She’s in the music room that Miss Diana uses to dance in.”

Stephen frowned. “Why is she in there?”

“She didn’t say, but it seems something terribly serious, sir. I’m really worried. And after everything that happened when you got sick, Your Grace, sir. I don’t think she can be hurt again, begging your pardon. You have to take care of her.”

That said, in a rush that Stephen was a little surprised the frightened girl managed, she squeaked in alarm, glanced around again, curtseyed three times and bolted down the hall.

Whatever was going on?

He could not hear any voices and the door was closed, but something, some old instinct pushed him to open the door silently and step into the doorway. Stephen knew that whatever his wife was discussing with the impertinent, spirited child who had demanded to be allowed to stay at his house, he wanted to hear it and he didn’t want them to know that he was listening.

“I love you,” Elizabeth was saying, her voice strangled as though she was trying to keep it level through threatening tears. “I will protect you, Annie. But I cannot let you stay here, not after everything that has happened.”

“I didn’t -” the child wailed, sobbing into her hands. “I didn’t -”

“I am sure that you were mistaken and that you didn’t mean any harm,” Elizabeth said slowly, her face twisted in grief and pain. “But I cannot do anything more for you. You will have to go home to the Rosenburg Estate as soon as you can get away.”

The crying grew louder, the child almost bent double, arms wrapped around her middle now as though she were trying to hold herself together.

“What is happening?” Stephen asked. It was strange to see his wife who had always been kind and generous to those around her and treated the sisters as though they were more like her family than servants from where she had grown up standing still and stiff while the girl sobbed. “Elizabeth, what is going on?”

Elizabeth turned to him quickly, her face whitening further until her eyes were stark and huge in her small pale face. “Nothing. I want Annie to return to the Rosenburg Estate, to take news to my sister. That’s all.”

It was a choppy, stilted explanation and not one that Stephen believed for a moment. However he would never have called his wife’s honesty into question in front of servants, not even servants that she knew well.

He did not, however, have to pretend to believe Elizabeth as the girl, still crying, with her cheeks wet and her eyes red, stepped forwards.

“I did it, sir. I did it. They said Her Grace did it, but I did it. I poisoned you.”

There was a small cold silence.

Stephen stared at the child, then turned to stare at Elizabeth in turn, taking in the pallor of her skin and the nervous twisting of her hands in her skirts. She was wearing her old gown, not one of the dresses that he had bought her and she looked so miserable that he couldn’t bring his heart to be angry that she was trying to hide this from him.

“It won’t have been her fault, Your Grace,” she said quietly, a note of pleading in her voice. “She is a good girl, a kind girl. I am certain my father - someone must have threatened her. Please do not hurt her, let me send her away. She cannot stay with us, but I could not stand it if she were to be killed, please Stephen.”

His mouth thinned a little and he looked back at the girl who was standing very still, her eyes on the ground.

“I want to talk to her alone. Please leave us.”

“No! No, please Stephen,” Elizabeth grabbed his arm with both hands, naked terror in her face. “Please do not be angry with her, she is only a pawn in my family’s games. It’s not her fault. Please.”

“Elizabeth,” he said gently, taking her chin between two fingers and pressing a soft kiss on her cheek. “Have faith in me, sweetheart. I will just talk with the girl. I mean her no harm.”

He could not even be angry that she would think such a thing of him as he saw her shiver and lean into his caress. Who knew what kind of world she had grown up with under Albert Barnes’ roof? Who knew what they might do to a servant that betrayed them. It was not her fault that she was so protective, any more than it was her fault that she had been born into that family.

“Go,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I will tell you all after we have spoken.”

She nodded, wordless and wan, and left the room.

The girl, red eyed and still crying, tried to meet his gaze. She was a stoic little thing, her arms still wrapped around herself as though she might burst apart in a moment, but her chin set as she faced him, her lips pressed into a white line and misery painting her face.

“Are y’gonna kill me?” she asked, hiccupping a little on a sob. “I don’t want my mama to know. She’ll die of a broken heart, she will, sir. I don’t want Daisy to know neither.” Tears brimmed and fell down her cheeks but she didn’t look away from him.

“I don’t make a habit of slaughtering children,” Stephen said dryly, gesturing at a chair. “Sit down, girl. I won’t harm you, I don’t lie.”

She hesitated, but she was trembling too hard to keep standing, so she eventually slid over to the chair and settled on it, looking between him and her knees. She was still crying but trying not to be loud about it, like she felt she didn’t deserve to weep. Perhaps she did not in front of the man she had nearly killed, but Stephen would see. He always wanted all the facts before making a decision.

“Why did you come here, Miss Adams?” he asked, stalking to stand in front of her, hands behind his back.

She wriggled a little and hiccupped. “Was sent with a message, sir. And - “ she glanced up at him, a quick searching look. It was cunning but the kind of cunning of a trapped fox kit trying to survive. “I don’t know how to say it, sir.”

“Start at the beginning.”

The girl rubbed at her face and he sighed and passed her his handkerchief. He could be just while not being unkind. “Come on now. Start with why you were sent to me. Who sent you?”

She blew her nose and was silent.

“Was it the Duke?”

A head shake, she glanced at him again and there was fear in her gaze. Not fear of him. Fear of something else.

“Was it the Duchess?” It was not the Duchess. Stephen already knew that. Duchess Rosenburg was not one to meddle in the matters between the two families, and she would have known enough to send a proper messenger, not a slip of a child. It had seemed strange at the time, but Stephen had assumed that the Duke was trying to insult him.

She shook her head again, harder this time.

“It was Lord Barnes, wasn’t it, Annie?” Stephen said, gentling his voice a little. “Dudley Barnes sent you to me. He wanted you to hurt me?”

Annie shuddered all over and ducked her head into her hands, a fresh bout of sobs shaking her. “No,” she wailed. “He didn’t want me to hurt you, sir. He didn’t want me to hurt you .”

A cold hard horror settled in Stephen’s stomach and he stepped back, sharply. “What do you mean?” His voice was flat, harsh in his own ears.

She raised her face, tears pouring down her cheeks. “It was Lady Elizabeth, sir,” she whispered. “He wanted me to hurt Lady Elizabeth.”

A rush of fury so hot that it left him unable to speak consumed him.

The girl kept talking, now she had said the most horrible thing it seemed to have opened the floodgates. “Lord Barnes, sir. He told me if I didn’t do what he said he would kill my mother, that he could do it easy sir, just go in her room and slit her throat while she sleeps and blame a robber. I know he’s a bad man, and I know he’d do it and I didn’t want my mother to die,” she sobbed, raw and desperate. “He told me I had to come here and stay long enough to get some stuff into Lady Elizabeth’s food, that it would make her sick and then his dad would be able to bring her back home and start war with you again. I know she’s happy here and I didn’t want to ruin it for her but I’m so scared all the time at home and I miss my Daisy and Lady Elizabeth and he swore me it wouldn’t do her lasting harm, sir, I promise he did!”

Stephen clenched his fists tightly enough to feel his nails cut into his skin and took a deep breath. Every fiber of his being was aflame with fury. Barnes had tried to murder his wife, his Elizabeth, with poison in the hands of a terrified girl. He would have had this child responsible for a death and Stephen’s family blamed, for who would believe that a little girl would murder someone?

It was a cruel plan, one that hurt so many innocents. God only knew what impact unknowingly murdering a lady she clearly held dear to her heart would have on the child, let alone her family, and then the death would ruin his entire household if the Duke decided to get revenge.

“He told you that it would not kill her,” he said in a dangerous voice, forcing himself not to move as in the fierce fire of his rage he could not be certain he would not do something that would terrorize the girl. “Did he tell you what the poison was?”

Annie shook her head mutely.

“It was arsenic. I only ate a little and I am a large man. I was fine. She would have died.”

Annie crammed her hands over her mouth, her eyes overflowing again.

“He wanted you to kill her so that he could use her death to destroy me and my family,” Stephen continued, the truth ruthless on his tongue. “He would have made you a murderess.”

“Please don’t tell her, sir,” Annie said, so softly he had to strain to hear it. “Please don’t tell her the truth.”

He took a deep breath and unclenched his fists, thinking of Elizabeth, her smile when she first saw the girl, her kindness to the family, how she clearly loved the Adams sisters as if they were her own. “I shall not. It would break her heart to know what you nearly did to her,” he felt a little twinge at the wail the girl let out at that, wounded and forlorn. While he might be angry with her, furious at how near a thing it was, and while he might believe her to be impulsive and foolish to not have entrusted at least Elizabeth with the truth as soon as she was safe enough to do so, it was not this girl that was to blame. “You cannot stay here in the meantime, Miss Adams. I will ensure that you face no consequences for your actions, but you will be sent to my estate in Somerset in the meantime to keep you away from the remaining danger until the matter is settled.”

The girl nodded, her hands over her face now to try to hide her weeping. “Will I ever come back?”

“When it is safe,” Stephen said firmly. “I will be having a talk with my brother-in-law. He is to visit soon and I really must ensure that no one further suffers for his obsession with violence.”

Annie shivered a little. “Are you going to kill him, sir?”

“I will make sure he is no longer a danger,” Stephen said, his tone dark with violent promise. “To mine or to anyone else.”