Chapter Thirteen
She’d fallen out of the horse chestnut tree. Again. Rhiannon’s head throbbed like the very devil. This time she’d fallen on the front of her head rather than the back. She reached up to find a small pad tied to her forehead by a strip of linen around her entire head. She managed to open one eye and immediately closed it against the glare of her bedchamber suffused in light. Voices, male voices, rumbled a few feet away.
No, these were young men. In her bedchamber. Eyes still clenched tightly shut, she ran her hands over the counterpane. It was rich and thick and not at all like the one on her bed at home. And there were entirely too many pillows on this bed. A scent caught her attention. She pulled one of the larger pillows to her face and inhaled.
She wasn’t a little girl in the country home her father had bought from an impoverished lord. She was the Duchess of Pendeen in the duchess’s bedchamber. In the duchess’s bed, which she’d shared with Endymion against her every sensible instinct. Then they’d driven to…
The Mermaid’s Tale and the room where Eliza Bryant de Waryn had died.
“I don’t understand any of this. Least of all, how my wife may be the only person who knows what happened that night. You let me believe you were dead for seventeen years, and she knew.” Endymion was pacing and ranting. Even with her eyes closed she recognized his infuriated footsteps. “How am I to have any hope of sorting this out if you won’t tell me?”
“She has only known these last ten years. As for the rest…what happened that night is not my story to tell.”
Rhiannon did not know how or why Endymion’s brother came to be at Gorffwys Ddraig, but she knew what it meant. It was time. Time to destroy the burgeoning bond between her and her distrustful husband. Time to end any hope of a real marriage with the boy she’d married, the man she now loved even more than she ever thought possible.
“Dammit, I am tired of the secrets, and the lies, and every man in Cornwall attempting to kill my wife,” Endymion roared. “I need to know the truth.”
“You need to stop swearing at your brother,” Rhiannon said as she opened her eyes and gingerly, in broken stages, pushed herself into a sitting position on the pillows mounded against the headboard. Her head pounded with every beat of her heart and it took a moment for her blurred vision to clear. “And not every man in Cornwall is trying to kill me. Yet.”
Achilles chuckled and touched two fingers to his head in silent salute.
Endymion took a step toward the bed and then stopped. He clasped his hands behind his back and pinned her with a stoic, unreadable gaze. “You should have stayed in the coach. You are fortunate the shot only grazed you. Dr. Douglas has ordered you to remain in bed for at least a week.”
“No wonder she wouldn’t come to you in London,” Achilles said as he settled onto the arm of one of the fireside chairs. “Does he always sound so much like our father’s arse of a father?”
“Not always,” Rhiannon replied. Her entire life might be about to crumble around her, but Endymion had his brother back. She’d try to hold on to that much, at least.
“Leave us,” Endymion ordered. “I want to speak with my wife.”
“You want to browbeat her into answering all of your questions whether she knows the truth or not. You had ten years to ask our grandfather those questions. Why didn’t you?”
“He can stay, Dymi. Let him stay, and I will tell you what you want to know.”
“Very well.” Endymion stood, unbending, as if questioning a disobedient servant.
“Sit down,” she said, her voice weary and thin to her own ears. “My head hurts and I will not do this with you looming over me, forcing me to crane my neck. Your grandfather tried it with me the night you and I were married. It didn’t work then either.”
His mouth quirked the tiniest bit. He dragged the chair opposite his brother to her bedside and subsided into it, his arms braced on the chair’s arms in what looked to be a completely uncomfortable pose. “Achilles says you were at the ruins the night we were captured. I thought I remembered your voice, but I wasn’t certain. Why didn’t you tell me that when we—”
“When we visited the ruins last week?” She took a deep breath, like a swimmer about to dive into an icy lake. “I did not want you to know I was there that night. I did not want you to know I was the one who led the duke’s men to you.”
“You what?” his words came out on a harsh whisper. He glanced back at his brother, who merely shrugged. “You hid us, and then you betrayed us?”
“The duke promised you would not be harmed. I came to Gorffwys Ddraig to find out the truth of his intentions. Men were scouring the county for you. The militia had killed your mother, and some of them were involved in the search. I came here that night, and I heard some men talking. They’d sent the militia to kill all of you, your mother and brothers and you. With your mother dead, they planned to find you and kill you. The duke wanted you alive.” It hurt so much to watch his face as confusion, disbelief, and betrayal chased across his features.
“I thought my brothers were dead. You betrayed us and put us through that nightmare to keep me safe?”
“Not entirely,” she said and clutched handfuls of the counterpane in her fists.
“Rhiannon,” Achilles warned. She looked at her husband’s brother, smiled bitterly, and shook her head.
“He needs to know it all,” she said, her voice shaking. “I did it to secure your hand in marriage. My father did not trust the duke to keep his word even with the dowry he offered him. Papa did not broach the subject with your grandfather until he had more incentives to offer His Grace than my dowry. Your location, your safe return, was one of them.”
She’d been shot. She’d fallen from trees in her youth, from her horse only a few months ago. Had a calciner nearly bury her. The pain of those injuries paled next to the pain in her breast as she revealed the desperation of the girl she’d been to have him for her own. A stupid, foolish girl manipulated by her father and a monster who’d used her to capture the grandson he wanted only because he had no one else left.
“It is nice to know my hand was worth more than mere money,” Endymion snapped and pushed himself out of the chair. “You were willing to sacrifice my brothers’ lives to become a duchess. No wonder my grandfather agreed to the marriage. I am certain he believed a woman like you would breed him ruthless grandsons to carry on the family name.”
“She didn’t sacrifice our lives, Dymi,” Achilles said as he, too, rose from his chair. “She is the reason we escaped. She led the duke’s men into the dungeon whilst we hid in the priest’s hole.”
“It doesn’t matter, Achilles,” Rhiannon said wearily. Endymion’s face, his posture—stiff with anger and hurt—told her so. Nothing mattered now.
“She sent the tavern master from Zennor with horses, money, and food the next morning. We escaped.”
“Where is Hector?” Endymion demanded.
“I don’t know. Once we reached Portsmouth, we separated in case we were followed. I went to sea. He went to London. He may well be dead, but if he is, it is not Rhiannon’s fault.”
“And had been riding the roads of the county robbing the coaches of the wealthy with us for over a year. He was a better shot and a bolder rider than either of us,” Achilles’s voice never rose above his normal, quiet tone.
They were quarreling, and she had no right to interfere. Dammit.
“You put him in danger,” Achilles said. “I put him in danger. Rhiannon did the best she could to look out for him. If he is dead, whose fault is it, Dymi?”
“Enough,” Rhiannon cried and held her head.
Endymion stepped to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. He pushed her hands away and lifted the bandage enough to check her wound. “You should rest,” he said. He seemed almost embarrassed by his concern.
“I have hired a series of Runners since Achilles’s return,” Rhiannon said. She stared at Endymion’s hand resting on the counterpane next to hers. “In ten years, they have found no sign of Hector in London, but they will continue to search so long as I pay them.”
“You hired Runners in London, but did not pen a single word to let me know my brother was alive.” Endymion stood and began to pace the room again.
“Had I done so, would you have even known, Your Grace? How many people read your correspondence before you deign to waste your time with it? I wrote letters in the beginning. They were answered by your uncle or not at all.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Achilles interrupted. “I made her swear not to tell you.”
A sharp, distinct knock at the door produced a sudden silence. Achilles pulled a pistol from the waist of his black breeches. Endymion went to the nightstand and retrieved the pistol Rhiannon kept there. When she raised an inquiring eyebrow, he shrugged and placed himself between her and the door.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” she muttered. “Come in, Bea.”
The maid opened the door just enough to slip inside, a torn, wrinkled piece of parchment in her hand. She gave both men a curious look and curtsied. “Your Graces. My lord.”
Bea crossed the carpets to Rhiannon’s bedside. Endymion stepped aside when it appeared the woman intended to walk over him. She handed Rhiannon the parchment. “Tall William had this from his cousin. A boy brought it to the kitchens door.”
“What is it?” Endymion demanded.
“A message for Her Grace,” Bea replied curtly.
Achilles laughed, which drew a fulminating glare from his brother.
Rhiannon hid a painful smile. They could afford to tease Endymion. She could not. He was withdrawing from her, the rending tear of it as painful as any wound. Every word, every gesture, drew him farther away from her and back into the role he’d played all these years. She turned her attention to the message.
Robert Wilson met two men after you left.
One was a well-dressed gentleman I do not know.
The other was Captain Randolph.
She handed the note to her husband, who read it and handed it to his brother.
“Is that why you came back?” Endymion asked Achilles. “Did you suspect he was—”
“Involved in our mother’s murder?” Achilles replied with a shrug. “I did. I hoped he would lead us to the other two, but he is far more sly than I ever credited.”
“You suspected him, and you allowed him to—”
“I did,” Rhiannon declared. “I was not convinced he was responsible for the accidents, but I suspected him of plundering the estate’s coffers. I decided it was wise to keep my enemy close.”
“Of course, you did.” Endymion scrubbed his hands over his face. “Is he one of the men you heard that night, Rhee?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I thought I’d never forget those voices, but there was the storm, and when I heard them, all I thought to do was run to Papa. I became lost. Your grandfather never allowed lamps in the corridors at night. When I finally found Papa, he persuaded me to—”
“Betray me and help deliver me to the parson’s noose like the fatted calf. I remember that part.” He walked across the room to the fireplace and turned to face her, his expression austere to the point of coldness.
“You made a bad bargain of it, Rhee,” Achilles offered. “Pity it is too late to renege on the deal.”
“None of this is amusing,” Endymion snapped. “This is my life you are toying with, dammit.”
“What life, Dymi?” his brother asked. “She may have delivered you into the duke’s hands, but you stayed there quite comfortably these seventeen years. You’ve been living the life he told you to live. When will you start living for yourself?”
“You have been riding the roads as a highwayman and hiding your existence from me, from your own brother. Whose life are you living?”
“I hid my existence from you because I did not trust you, Dymi. From all accounts, you have become our grandfather’s creature. And our grandfather may well have been behind all of this—our mother’s murder, the attempt to kill us, the attempts on Rhiannon’s life.” Achilles folded his arms in a typical give-no-quarter pose too similar to his brother to be denied.
“Our grandfather is dead.”
“And has a long damned reach, even from the grave,” Achilles affirmed. “He continues to dictate your actions.”
“Now you sound like my wife,” Endymion replied, each word laced with icy disdain. “Neither of you knew him the way I did. He—”
“He threw us from the house the day our father died,” Achilles shouted. “It is his fault our mother was forced to work as a tavern maid. It was his fault we were forced to take to robbery to feed ourselves. It is his fault the militia came after us. The militia led by Captain Randolph. The militia that killed our mother. How can I trust you when I never, ever trusted him?”
Silence settled over the room like a shroud.
Beatrice crept quietly to the door into Rhiannon’s dressing room. Rhiannon wished she might join her there. It was bad enough Endymion despised her. What would he have left if he and Achilles broke with each other just as they were reunited?
The two men stared at each other—Achilles arrogant and defiant, Endymion cold and austere, as she had made him with her confession.
“There is nothing we can do about the past,” Endymion finally said. “If the message from Zennor is true, a man in one of this estate’s most trusted positions has plotted with others to murder my duchess. I am going to set safeguards in place here at Gorffwys Ddraig, and then Lord Voil and I will go in search of Robert Wilson and his master. Will you ride with me?” he asked his brother.
Endymion turned to Rhiannon, his hands once more clasped tightly behind his back. He appeared more reserved and distant than the day he’d arrived in Cornwall. Had it been less than three weeks ago?
“You will do me the favor of keeping to your chambers until this man is found. I cannot afford to risk the lives of the household running after you.”
“As you wish, Your Grace. Are you certain you would not prefer to lock me in the cellar?” She had lied to him, true, but she’d not live the rest of her life as the duke’s cowed and subservient wife. She’d worked too hard to become a woman worthy of the title her father had bought for her.
“I would if I thought it might hold you. We will discuss this day’s revelations further once this business of your safety is done.” He gave her one of the constrained bows she so despised and marched to the door.
“To what end, Your Grace? I am already tried and convicted. What is left to discuss?”
He hesitated, his hand flat against the door. Then he squared his shoulders and left.
Rhiannon collapsed against the pillows. Tears, unshed over years of loneliness and shame, clogged the back of her throat. Her eyes burned as if forced open against a salty wind. “You must stay, Achilles. You must stay with him. He will never forgive me, and he will need you.”
Her highwayman brother-in-law strolled to her bedside, sat down, and took her hand. “He came back for you, Rhee. Against all the ghosts and pain and guilt, he came back for you.”
“He came back for an heir, an heir to your damned grandfather’s title. Nothing more.”
“Tell yourself that if it helps. I can tell you from experience, lying to yourself may help for a while, but it will not help forever.” He kissed her hand, rose, and walked to where Beatrice held his plumed hat in her hand. “You will look after her, Miss Smith?”
“Of course, sir.” Beatrice curtsied, then handed him his hat. Her eyes followed him as he crossed the room and went out the door.
“The duke isn’t the only de Waryn brother who is criminal handsome, is he, my friend?” Amidst the rubble of her breaking heart, Rhiannon held hope her wounded friend and her rogue of a brother-in-law might become more than friends.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Beatrice replied, her face still flushed. “You told him. His Grace, I mean. He knows it all now.”
“Not quite all,” Rhiannon said.
“No,” Beatrice agreed. “Not quite all. What do you intend to do?”
“I don’t think he will ever forgive me, Bea. What can I do?”