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The diary lay at the bottom of the box. Nell stood, twisting her hands together for several minutes before she reached in and lifted it out. The red morocco cover was scuffed and dull and a brown pressed flower fell out and crumbled into brittle fragments as she opened it.
Resolutely Nell began to read, the earl’s big handkerchief tight in one hand.
An hour later she laid the book down, dry eyed and drained. In 1795, her father, William Wardale, Earl of Leybourne, had been convicted of the murder by stabbing of Christopher Hebden, Baron Framlingham, in the garden of the Carlow’s London house. He had been found, literally red-handed, by Lord Narborough. The woman he had been having an affair with had been Hebden’s wife, Amanda. And almost worse than anything, her mother had written on the tear-blotched pages that he had been suspected of spying for the French, although that had never been made known publicly.
Somehow that, and the name of his lover, had been kept a secret. He was stripped of his title and his lands by Act of Attainder, meaning her brother, Nathan, could never inherit. And so he was hanged.
Stunned and shaking, now she could see it all laid out so clearly, Nell put the diary back in the box and locked it. No, it was impossible that her unwitting involvement in this was coincidence. Someone had deliberately implicated her in their plot against the Carlows. But why? If her father had been guilty, then he had paid the terrible price for his crimes. His family had all paid it with him. Why should anyone seek to involve her now?
If her father had been innocent, then why not come to her, tell her? It was as though someone wanted revenge on both families.
The clocks began to strike. Midnight. Lord Narborough was often late to bed; she had heard his wife nagging him about it. He might still be awake, and if he was, then she was going to confront him, tell him who she was, demand to know the truth about what had happened.
Before her courage failed, Nell tied her wrapper, put on her slippers, picked up a chamberstick and let herself out into the dark corridor.
There was no light under his door, no sound from within. Frustrated, Nell leaned against the panels feeling absurdly let down. It was foolish to have this sort of conversation at this time of night in any case, shocking to visit a man’s bedchamber at any hour. Much better to speak to him in the morning, she told herself, shivering with cold and reaction.
As she straightened up, there was a sharp noise from the room, the sound of breaking glass. Then silence.
She stared at the door. Perhaps the earl had knocked over a water glass. Or perhaps he was ill, flailing out in the throes of a heart stroke. She could not simply ignore it. The doorknob turned silently under the pressure of her hand as she stepped inside. Nothing, just the sound of heavy breathing from the curtained bed. Then she felt the draft from the window, saw movement from the corner of her eye, spun round. Her candle blew out but there, silhouetted against the faint light, was a lithe figure. A figure she had seen before.
Nell grabbed for him, saw the flash of metal in the gloom and was thrown roughly to one side. She staggered, reached out, found nothing under her groping hands as she fell. She opened her mouth to scream as her head struck something hard and solid. The darkened room was spinning—or was it her? Everything went black.
Chapter Nine
‘Good night, Andrewes.’ Marcus left the night-duty footman to lock up behind him and go back to the hooded porter’s chair by the front door. As he strode down the Great Hall to the staircase the clocks chimed midnight from every corner of the rambling house.
A convivial evening with Sir James Wallace and his family had done little to help him decide how to approach Nell in the morning. It certainly had done nothing to quieten his conscience. He was not normally so unperceptive, he told himself, his boot heels clicking on the broad wooden treads as he climbed.
The truth, he thought, refusing to let himself off the hook, was that he had been attracted to Nell from the start and that had clouded his judgement. He looked at her, he wanted her and he knew he should not. So, he concluded with a wry smile, he had convinced himself she was not to be trusted in order to boost his flagging willpower. Not a very comfortable admission to have to make. And quite how he was going to put it to her when he apologised, he had no idea.
In London the night would be young, his mother and sisters out at parties, himself at one of his clubs. This evening it seemed everyone had decided on an ea
rly night. The house was silent and no light showed under his mother’s bedchamber door as he passed it. He walked softly on down the considerable stretch of corridor marked only by the doors into her sitting room and her dressing room, then round the corner.
Marcus stopped in his tracks. His father’s door was ajar onto darkness and from within came a low moan. He ran, shouldering the door wide. There was no sign of his father. The curtains billowed in the cold January air, the flame in the lamp he held guttered wildly and, on the floor huddled against the dresser, was Nell. As he stared at her, she closed her eyes as though to block him out.
He wrenched back the bed curtains in a rattle of rings and saw his father, night cap in place, snoring gently against his piled pillows. As Marcus looked down at him he shifted slightly, then the reassuring rhythm of snores resumed. Beside the bed was one of the medicine bottles from the still room. He picked it up and sniffed: Mama’s fennel infusion, the smell familiar from childhood fevers and toothaches.
Quietly he drew the curtains closed and walked back to Nell. Beside her hand was a snake-like coil. Another silken rope.
Something turned cold and hard inside him as he bent and dragged Nell to her feet. She came up limply, her arms lax as though passively resisting him.
‘I told myself to trust you,’ he snarled, shaking her. ‘And I find you letting in your bloody accomplice. Where is he?’
Her eyes opened slowly, as though she too had taken a sleeping draught. In the soft light of lamp the greenish hazel irises seemed black. ‘Why would I need to break the window?’ she asked, her faint voice full of dull anger. ‘Why upstairs?’
Marcus glanced at the casement, let her go, then went to pull the window closed. The small pane nearest the handle was broken. Glass crunched under his booted feet. It had been broken from the outside, he realized, leaning out. Below the window, the bare stems of the wisteria made a strong, twisted ladder, the topmost stem scarred with a fresh cut.
‘You would not,’ he began, sick with himself for his own suspicions. He turned back as Nell’s legs gave way and she began to slide inelegantly down the glossy front of the dresser, one hand to her head. Then he saw the blood. Her fingers where she had touched her head were red.
‘Oh God. Nell.’ He caught her under the arms and held her against his body. ‘Where are you hurt? Show me.’
‘Head, here,’ she murmured. He tipped her against his shoulder, his fingers searching in the mass of hair until they found the lump. She flinched against him as he touched it and his hand came away stained as hers was. But there was no ominous movement in her skull around the lump and she was still conscious.
Marcus scooped her up. He couldn’t be certain it was superficial, he needed better light to see by. His room was nearest, Allsop dozing in the armchair as Marcus swept in. The valet came to his feet in an instant. ‘My lord! Shall I send for the doctor?’
‘Miss Latham has suffered a blow to the head; I am not sure how serious it is. Bring the lamp and more candles over here, let me look at the wound.’ Nell was passive in his arms, whether from shock, weakness or loss of consciousness he was unsure. There was blood matting her hair on the right side over her ear and, as he parted it gently, he could see the raw skin, crowning a lump the size of a bantam’s egg.
