Simon was deeply glad Ravenna had not accompanied him to the formal drawing room as he recognized the gentleman who turned to greet him. His mind returned to the vision of her lying vulnerable and tranquil in their bed. Let him be rid of this bastard before she awakened.

“Bruxton, this is a surprise.”

He could not force a single note of respect into his voice. He struggled to be polite. In light of how he despised the earl that had to suffice.

Bruxton disregarded the cold welcome. He took a chair while Simon stood, allowing the silence to mount.

A frown shadowed the earl’s face. “I should have sent word earlier, but this required an intimate meeting. I know you are still in the early days of marriage, and I hesitated to call. I regret I am again the bearer of bad news.”

Simon waited. He trusted that by now the under butler had alerted Timpkins as to the identity of their caller and that he would put the household on alert until the end of this interview. “I thought you’d left London. What is the news?”

“You remember my Irish groom?” Bruxton asked.

“Yes. I’ve met him a few times. He seems to be a capable young man.” Had Kieran been incapacitated in a race, or while training a stallion? How convenient that would be for the earl. Simon now believed that the groomsman held the key to the truth about Susannah. Yet not even Heath had been able to trace him.

Bruxton shook his head. His fair hair was wind-swept, his narrow face flushed from a presumably hard ride. “He’s gone missing with a stolen bridle and saddle from my stables. Some of my personal papers have been taken. A man on the run must be considered a dangerous individual.”

“Why would this concern me?”

“His disappearance is connected to Susannah. There’s no gentle way to disclose what I have to say. I would not do so at all unless I felt it imperative that you understand my side of the story.”

“Which is?” Simon asked in an impassive voice.

“Your sister was having an affair with her groom. I suspected it months before her death, but I held out hope that I was wrong. I didn’t want it to be true. I was mortified to think that the other servants knew.”

There was a ring of truth to Bruxton’s words that Simon could not deny, although his first impulse was to defend Susannah. Indeed, she was the last woman he would believe capable of immorality. “How did you find out?” he asked.

“Kieran confessed to me before he vanished.”

Simon stared at him in disdain. “And you think he would come to me for protection?”

“It’s no secret that you dislike me,” Bruxton said. “I’m afraid he might try to blackmail one of us. Your sister’s name must not be enmired in disgrace at all costs.”

“Nor yours, Bruxton?”

“It doesn’t cast any of us in a favorable light. Do you want your sister’s memory slurred?”

Simon paused to listen to the footsteps outside the room. Had Bruxton brought support, or was that Timpkins, waiting for Simon to call for help?

No one entered.

“This is an upsetting revelation,” he said. “But I have to ask again why you are concerned enough to have come here.”

Bruxton glanced at the door. “Do you think it is easy to admit I was cuckholded? To have to tell you that your sister gave herself to a servant? There is humiliation and dishonor in such an affair. I know you loved her. But what she did was a sin.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?”

“She isn’t here to deny your accusations. What do you expect me to say? I cannot speak against her without evidence. The shy sister I remember would not have deceived anyone on earth.”

“People do not remain the same,” the earl said.

“Nor do circumstances,” Simon replied. “Oftentimes we are forced into a position over which we have lost control. Our will is tested. And for some of us it is broken.”

“It is possible you didn’t know what was in her heart. She shocked me. You surprised me with your marriage. Susannah accused you of abandoning her.”

Simon stiffened. “I thought I had entrusted her to a husband who would cherish and protect her.”

“I could not protect her from herself. But let us stop this.”

“What do you want?”

“Kieran is a thief, in more ways than one,” Bruxton said bitterly. “I can’t make you trust me, Simon. When Susannah died, I mistook your animosity toward me as grief. I accepted this. I felt adrift for a year after she took her life. I wanted to blame someone, anyone, and I blamed myself. Now I see the truth. He is the one who led her astray.”

“Give me proof.”

“He witnessed her fall. He might have threatened to expose her for all I know. He might have taunted her to jump. You’ve read the coroner’s report of autopsy. Even now I struggle to accept that she chose to die.”

“What reason would she have for melancholy?”

“She had miscarried our child, and we wanted a family. We quarreled when I forbade her to ride in the woods. She defied the doctor’s wishes. I’d no idea that during those times she was intimate with our groom. It was an affront to me, to our marriage, and the child we’d lost.”

“I take it that you will pursue a case against Kieran?”

“Only if I must,” Bruxton said. “Any such action will not further my political aspirations.” He half turned toward the door, glancing at the salver of unopened letters on the table. “I’ve delivered the message I meant for you and your wife. I hope one day you and I shall be friends again. Until then we have no choice but to carry on with our lives.”

“I won’t be able to forget Susannah.”

“Nor will I. She is always with me. Still, mourning cannot last forever. One day I will have to remarry. Lest you hear it from another, I will confess now that I have taken a mistress.” He bowed. “I shall leave you to your own arrangements. I noticed the luggage in the hall. You know where to find me should you wish to restore our friendship. Until then, be advised to watch your back.”

The earl’s visit had disrupted Simon’s plans. Having lost the advantage of early travel, he took time to share his thoughts with Ravenna over a late luncheon of hot tea and roast-beef sandwiches in the small parlor. “I am vastly relieved that you stayed upstairs during Bruxton’s visit,” he said.

“Is there any chance he might be telling the truth?” she asked as they pushed aside their plates in silent accord and moved to a pair of armchairs by the fire.

“I don’t know,” he answered. He stared at her over the gaming table that sat between them, heaped with a small collection of books they had selected to take to the country.

“Perhaps, for your peace of mind, I should return with Aunt Glynnis to Wales.”

“I want you in my sight,” he said firmly. “London is a city of spies and intrigue. Caverley Hall was designed not only for elegant living but for protection. I lived there most of my life. I know the blueprint by heart. I’ll rest easier with all of us tucked within its walls. At least until I can decide the next move.”

“Or someone else does,” she said in worry. “You spent your childhood there with Susannah?”

“She went to finishing school. I attended university and traveled. My brother joined the Royal Navy. We saw each other infrequently as we grew older.”

She looked down at the table. “You don’t believe she could have been attracted to her groom?”

“She mentioned him in her letters. She was an avid horsewoman like you.”

Ravenna had not known Susannah well enough to understand her temperament. Nor, it appeared, had Simon. “It didn’t strike you as odd that she wrote of him?” she said.

“Not at the time. You speak fondly of Isolde. I often refer to Timpkins at the club, no matter what a young rascal he is. I thought she’d accepted her marriage. It’s obvious I deluded myself. Now I don’t know what to believe. I can’t stand Bruxton, fair or not. Have I been on a goose-chase to appease my conscience?”

She ached for him, at the guilt he carried. She could give him many things but not peace. “Did she have a lady’s maid like my Isolde?” she asked. “One close to her who would have known the intimate details of her day? It is difficult to hide a liaison from a confidante.”

His eyes glinted in appreciation. “I’ll remember to interrogate Isolde if I ever suspect you of having an affair.”

“Isolde would never betray me.” She slipped from her chair to kiss his marked cheek. “Nor would I you.”

He grasped her hand. “But if I gave you cause? If I harmed or frightened you, would you not be justified in taking steps to find a comforter, even if that comfort was another man?”

“We will never know, Simon,” she said. “Is there any stone you might have left unturned? Did your sister keep a journal? My cousin Charlotte revealed her scandalous desire for her husband in her diary.”

“What is wrong with that?” he asked in amusement. “A journal is meant to hold such thoughts, isn’t it?”

“They weren’t married at the time she wrote this shocking work. She admitted illicit longings for him. In quite explicit terms for a lady, or so I’ve heard.”

“And?”

She frowned. “Her diary fell into the hands of a blackmailer. It caused no small amount of grief for her and her husband Gideon. One could say she accidentally became his duchess. They chased all over London for that book. I believe at one point the duke was holding it in his hands in your favorite brothel.”

“I don’t have a favorite brothel,” he said with a calm smile.

“No matter. The diary appeared in the rookeries before it was returned to Charlotte. The thief turned out to be a friend of Harriet’s, a defiant young criminal who was dubbed the Duke of St. Giles to her street duchess. You are not the only person I know with a notorious nickname.”

“If Susannah kept a journal that implicated Bruxton in any abuse, he’d have destroyed it,” he said. “A blackmail attempt would have been made by now. Unless the Irishman is doing so in secret and that is why Bruxton came here in a panic.”

“Irish?” she said slowly.

“The groom. Kieran Healy. Is his name familiar?”

“Not at all.”

“He has a pleasing voice with a trace of an accent,” Simon went on. He stared at her intently. “Why?”

“The man at Grayson’s party,” she said. “He may have had an accent. Not English or Welsh. My ears were ringing. There was confusion everywhere, and now I might be influenced by what you’ve said. He mumbled only a few words.”

He disengaged his hand from hers and shoved back his chair. Ravenna hopped around the table in apprehension. “Kieran evidently knows his way around a stable as well as he does a lady’s bedchamber.”

She watched him with increasing concern. “Why would her groom want to kill you?”

“Perhaps he was afraid I would find something in her letters to incriminate him. God only knows. Bruxton mentioned a child. Susannah never told me of a pregnancy. Evidently all three of them were hiding secrets.”

“Where are you off to?” she asked, alarmed.

“My study. I’m going to send a message to Heath and read through her letters again.”

“I will help.” She rang for a servant to indicate they’d finished their luncheon. “I’ll order a pot of strong coffee.”

He waited for her at the door. “It doesn’t seem reasonable that Kieran would come here if he’s on the run. Not if he wanted a good chance to kill me.”

“If only we always acted on reason,” she said as she caught up with him. “Of course, if I had done so, we wouldn’t be married.”

“You regret the result?” he asked, catching her by the sash of her gown.

She swung back against him. “I shall not give you another iota of sympathy as long as you continue to doubt me. Unhand me. We have reading to do.”

Hours of reading, as it turned out. Ravenna quoted aloud the last of Susannah’s letters from her cramped position between Simon and his red leather writing box on the sofa.

“’We spent the afternoon in the woods again today,’” she read. “’Matthew has forbidden me to do so, but I no longer listen to him. He is to return tomorrow, and the estate is in chaos. Only last week he informed me of his plans for a house party and does not remember that Mrs. Littleton has broken her arm. When are you to visit us, Simon? You have been promising for months. I am in desperate need of my older brother’s shoulder.

However, I understand that you are busy in London. Perhaps one day when you are married, I will see you …’” Ravenna broke off. “Well.”

Simon opened his eyes. “And?”

“Nothing else. Nothing to incriminate anyone that I can perceive. She missed you. She missed your brother and his family, too. She defied her husband to ride. Who is Mrs. Littleton?”

“The housekeeper at Bruxton Manor. She was at home the day Susannah died and passed away herself a few months afterward. It wasn’t surprising. She was elderly and in frail health. She had served the earl’s family forever as I recall. I spoke to nearly everyone in the parish after my sister’s funeral. Several acquaintances promised to keep in touch with me. The general opinion is still that her death was a mishap.”

She refolded the letter, her brow creased in thought. “But you have to make certain.”

“She asked me to visit,” he said, his voice deep with self-recrimination. “I didn’t pay attention.”

“But you are now.”

He collected the letters and locked them back in the box. “No stone unturned,” he mused. “Have I missed one? Lend me your perspective. My brother wants to believe her death was a tragic accident.”

“I agree with you that her groom is the key.”

“Do I hunt him down?”

“Don’t you dare,” she said. “Bruxton is right about one thing. A man running for his life is a desperate creature.”

“I might never learn the truth without him. I know he wanted to tell me more than he did.”

She shook her head. “You might not return to me alive if you confront him,” she said. “You regret not listening to your sister. At least you can listen to your wife. Do not go after him, Simon. I am afraid to be left by myself. I have grown dependent on you.”

“Liar. You are afraid of no one.”

“But I do need you. That is the truth.”