“Lady Daphne Webster, I presume?”
Stone nodded, warming his hands by the fire.
“What happened?”
“Firstly, you must know I gave Daphne my word not to tell anyone – that very first night before you came. I pleaded with her to release me from my promise so I could tell you, but she’s so scared.”
Lucas lowered himself gingerly into the small fireside chair and listened.
“The night before you arrived, I heard dogs in the woods. A long way off, but we’ve had problems with wild ones entering the stables and upsetting the horses, so I went to investigate. God, it was a foul night, the rain lashing down. I thought I heard someone cry out, but it was difficult to see anything with the weather. The rain abruptly stopped. It was so unusual: normally it continues drizzling after a heavy downpour, but it just stopped, and the woods were deadly quiet except for the sound of dogs, far off mind, and someone running.”
Stone rubbed his hand roughly over his eyes, as though he didn’t want to see the vision again. “I could clearly hear their light step. I followed the sound, and then saw… Christ, I thought she was the white woman of the woods, our local ghost, but she tripped over a root or some such and went flying. Never thought a ghost would be so clumsy so I went over. She raised her head and…bloody hell, I hardly recognised her. Her hair was sodden and blood ran down her face, over her eyes and everywhere.”
He turned away and took a deep breath. “But I would recognise my Daphne anywhere. She was hysterical about dogs being after her. I could hear distant voices so I carried her here, bringing Clary to look after her.”
“I presume it was Sir Hector that beat her.”
Stone landed his fist on the wall and brought his forehead to lean against it. “Bastard has hit her for years. I begged her to come to me. I’d make her safe but she had some ridiculous notion that the brute would find out and kill me. I had to stop going to the Webster house: I couldn’t bear to see any more bruises.”
A bottle of whisky on a narrow shelf caught Lucas’s eye, and he crossed to pour two generous glasses. Stone downed his in one, so he poured another.
“Has she told you what happened?”
“Hector felt she had embarrassed him at the Annual Hunt. She remonstrated about using one of the horses as it was recovering from an injury. The man felt hisstatuswas challenged and decided to teach her a lesson. I don’t think he would have cared if he had killed her: how useful, if there is another murderer to blame.”
“You don’t think Sir Hector could have killed the other women?” Lucas watched Stone’s lips tighten and then relax, his shoulders drooping.
“I don’t know. I would love to see him hang but in all honesty, I just don’t know. Miss Risley couldn’t stand the man, so why would she walk in the woods with him?”
“True enough, but at knife point, she may have been persuaded so I wouldn’t discount him. If he can beat a woman, he can also kill as far as I am concerned.”
Stone tapped his foot on the floor. “You won’t tell Sir Hector, will you? He has every right to take her back. She is his wife.”
Lucas eyed him steadily. “What do you think?”
“I don’t think you could bear to see a wild dog beaten, let alone a woman.”
“And you’d be right. He will not hear anything from me. Shall I take a look at her? The head wound looks nasty, and I don’t like the look of that shivering.”
Stone’s face was glum as he led him back to the other room.
It was Lucas’s turn to gulp the whisky after examining Lady Webster. He wanted to throttle and gut Sir Hector, slowly.
“She needs to be moved.”
“No.”
“It’s too cold and damp here. She’s wheezing and has a nasty cough. The bruises she will recover from, although the gash will cause a slight scar, but if fever sets in, you cannot look after her properly in here.”
Under the circumstances, he could understand Stone’s reticence, but the girl, for that’s all she seemed, was poorly. She also had various older scars on her body, which caused his clenched knuckles to whiten. He didn’t know her, but he would see Sir Hector in hell before he’d let him take her back.
“Could you not say that some cousin has come to stay but has a contagious illness? Put her in a separate wing and let only Clary and maybe your housekeeper know who it really is? We could move her at night.” Stone still looked stubborn. “If, and I doubt it, but if Rosalind is right about the snow–”
“Rosalind thinks there will be snow?”
“Yes, but it’s still November, I don’t think–”
“Rosalind always knows the weather. Did she warn you?”
