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He made no move to sit down. ‘I believe you said that you wished to return to Grillon’s by midnight, Miss Frost. If you have finished your supper, perhaps you would allow me to escort you?’
She had said no such thing, she was sure of it. Gray, she supposed, had decided he must get to the bottom of Norwood’s murder sooner rather than later. Murder. Gaby had never thought of it like that. It had been self-defence, Norwood had been the aggressor.
‘Of course, how thoughtful.’ She managed to get some warmth into her tone, despite the cold finger of apprehension trailing down her spine. ‘Thank you, gentlemen, I look forward to being able to invite you all to dinner.’
If I am still in the country and not fleeing back to Portugal...
Gray maintained a flow of easy conversation as they walked back through the reception room. He stopped and introduced her to several of his acquaintances and behaved as though he had nothing more on his mind than making a leisurely departure from the party. By the time she had retrieved her cloak and he had sent a footman for his carriage, Gaby was ready to scream.
He said something to the driver that she did not catch. It might
have been an instruction to drive to Bow Street, it might have been an order to drive round and round in a circle until she confessed. Gaby made herself put her fan and reticule beside her on the seat rather than clutch them as an illusory safety barrier and leaned back, trying to appear merely slightly weary and ready for her bed.
‘Well?’ he said as the carriage moved off. ‘Are you going to tell me about Norwood?’ Gray had settled on the opposite seat, his back to the horses, even though there was room next to her.
All the better to interrogate me, I suppose.
‘I did not kill him, if that is what you mean.’
‘So who did?’ Still the same even tone without either sympathy or accusation. Gaby found she had no idea whether Gray believed her or not.
Chapter Twelve
‘Laurent killed Major Norwood. Must I tell you everything? It still makes me feel sick.’ The moment she had spoken, she despised herself for sounding feeble, but everything about it was appalling, from the realisation that Norwood would stop at nothing, including rape, to marry her and secure the wealth that Thomas’s death had left entirely in her hands, to the splash as two bodies had hit the fast-flowing river.
‘I think it would be as well, don’t you?’ She could not see his face, but his voice was that of a doctor telling the patient that a painful procedure was entirely for their own good. There was no reassurance that it would not be agonising. Nor was she under any illusion that she could bluff her way out of this. She might find Gray deeply attractive, he might feel the same about her, but that was not going to stop him finding out the truth, whatever it took.
‘Very well.’ Gaby took a moment, organising her words to get it over with as quickly as possible. ‘I was in the garden. I had just left Thomas’s grave where I had been planting flowers and dusk was falling. It was almost time to go in to wash and change for dinner. Norwood found me there and proposed marriage.
‘At first I thought it was genuine. He said all the right things, went down on one knee, even. He had always been attentive, rather more than was comfortable, but I had not thought him dangerous, merely insensitive. And of course I blamed him for encouraging Thomas to join the guerrilheiros. I refused him, politely, but he persisted. He got up off his knees, tried to kiss me, but I sensed this was a pretext, a display of affectionate ardour. When I moved from hinting to outright rejection to no effect it began to dawn on me that he wanted the quinta, the Frost Fire jewels he had seen at a dinner party, everything.’
Gray muttered something under his breath, a quick curse, perhaps, but she could not see his face very clearly.
‘The more I refused, the angrier he became. He let something slip about Thomas and I realised that it might have been he who betrayed him, simply to leave me the sole heir. I threw that at him and he laughed. I had the soil from my brother’s grave on my hands and he laughed. I told him he was despicable, that I would write to Wellington, and he grabbed me, started to pull at my clothing, force me to the ground. I don’t know whether he was simply too angry to control himself or whether he thought that if he ravished me I would have no choice but to marry him.’ Gray made another sound and she broke off. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing. I think I was grinding my teeth. Go on. You had your knife.’
‘No, only a hand fork and that was blunt. I tried to stab him with it, but he twisted it out of my hand, threw it away and I screamed, even though I knew all the staff were at the back of the house, preparing for dinner. Then, suddenly, he was dragged off me. Laurent was there, dressed like one of the local farmers. Norwood drew a knife, went for him. They fought, right on the riverbank, and then they went in, both of them.’
She sometimes woke out of a nightmare with the sound of that splash in her head, scrabbling at the bedclothes as she had scrabbled at the ground, trying to get to her feet, trying to reach Laurent. After a moment she managed to continue.
‘There was this huge splash, then silence, nothing but the sound of the river, and it was getting darker. I was going to run back to the house, get someone to help me launch the skiff, then Laurent came out of the bushes further down. He was cut, on his arm, his shoulder, his face, but he was alive.’
‘And Norwood?’
‘Laurent said they had been washed into a fallen tree only a short way downstream. He managed to keep hold of a main branch but the one Norwood grabbed was thinner and broke off. Laurent lost sight of him, but he knew he had got at least one serious blow home. That must have been the knife wound they found in his side.’
‘Did no one know Norwood was at the quinta? How did he get there?’
‘He rode and Laurent took his horse with him when he left. And, yes, I did check the saddlebags before I let him take it, so do not accuse me of being careless with secrets.’
Gray merely grunted, which she supposed might have been a denial he had thought that.
‘No one came and enquired after him. But then, I doubt he went around announcing that he was setting out to try and entrap an heiress into marriage by whatever means.’
‘Taken at the worst you could be accused of being an accessory after a murder and of aiding and abetting a spy,’ Gray said.
‘Laurent was not a spy and I did nothing to aid the French cause unless you count perhaps improving the morale of one young officer,’ she said sharply. ‘And just what do you intend doing about it now you have me convicted?’
