Chapter 11
“I told Sir Percy that you and I were together for the whole of this morning.”
Devil eyed Alys warily as she stood in the center of the bedchamber he occupied at Newcomb Manor. “Why would you tell him something that is not true? Moreover, something which puts into question your own reputation?” he added with a scowl.
“In light of our hurried wedding later today, I believe my reputation is beyond saving,” she dismissed. “And I told Sir Percy you were with me so you would have an alibi for when Teddy was shot, of course,” she snapped her impatience.
Devil had returned from a successful visit with the vicar to learn from Carlton that Sir Percy Renshaw, the local magistrate, had arrived in his absence to investigate this morning’s shooting. Devil had immediately sought out Alys, only to learn she was already talking to Sir Percy in Newcomb’s study.
So instead, Devil had gone to his bedchamber to ensure Riley was dealing with his packing. More for something to keep himself occupied than any real doubt his valet was being his usual efficient self. Alys had knocked on his bedchamber door several minutes ago, her interview with the magistrate obviously over.
She was very pale, and her eyes seemed huge and deeply blue against that pallor.
Devil looked at her searchingly. “But we were not together this morning.”
“Does it matter?” She began to pace the room, her movements agitated. “While you were down in the village, the Earl of Carlton explained to me you were out walking, alone, when my brother was shot.”
His shoulders tensed. “Maxim asked you to lie—”
“He did nothing of the sort,” Alys reproved. “He merely thought I should be aware of that fact before speaking with Sir Percy.”
“So that you would lie to him.”
“The earl did not ask me to do so.”
“He implied it.”
“Not in the least,” Alys insisted. “It was my own decision.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because I know you did not shoot Teddy!” Her eyes glittered with anger rather than tears as she stopped her pacing to glare at him. “I do not know who did, but it certainly was not you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Her lips thinned. “Because I am.”
“I shall have to tell Sir Percy the truth when he asks to speak with me,” he insisted.
She snorted her impatience. “And get yourself arrested for something you did not do, and perjure me in the process?”
“Alys—”
“I saw the truth in Teddy eyes earlier,” she stated flatly. “I am certain, with the help of his accomplice, he engineered the shooting himself.”
It was one thing for Devil to suspect that might be the case, and for Carlton to agree with him, quite another to hear Alys stating it as fact. “Did he tell you that?”
Alys shook her head. The memory of that look of malice, almost triumph in her brother’s eyes, when he had believed she was about to call off her wedding to Sebastian had told Alys all that she needed to know about who had shot Teddy. “Do we have to talk about this anymore just now?” She looked at Devil in appeal. “Is it not enough that I now know my brother to be a thief and a liar?”
“A thief?”
“He might as well have stolen that twenty thousand pounds from you for all the truth there was in his accusations against you,” she snapped in disgust. “Now he is attempting to implicate you in his having been shot. I could not allow him to do that.”
Once she had reached her bedchamber earlier, Alys had been able to think past the immediacy and shock of learning her brother had been shot. To consider the implications of that shooting, and who might benefit from it.
No one did.
Except Teddy himself.
For reasons Alys did not comprehend, her brother had not wanted her to marry Sebastian. To blackmail the other man out of a great deal of money, yes, but not for him to marry Alys.
Once she realized that, it had not taken her long to know that if Teddy could convince the authorities and her that Sebastian was responsible for shooting him, then the wedding would not take place. With that in mind, once she returned downstairs, Alys had deliberately tailored her questions to Teddy to give her the answers she needed to confirm her suspicions.
It had been too easy to draw Teddy out enough to incriminate himself.
He had willingly stated he was now of the opinion Sebastian had killed their father after all, and that he had now shot him too. Her brother’s reaction when he thought she was about to break off her betrothal to Sebastian had also been telling.
“For reasons of his own, I now believe Teddy does not wish our wedding to take place,” she stated with certainty.
Devil had that same impression five days ago, and, like Alys, he wondered why that was. Alys would become a marchioness on their marriage. Newcomb would be the brother-in-law of one of the wealthiest men in England. The possibilities for Newcomb to extort more money from him were endless.
“I should like to ensure that it does,” Alys continued briskly. “We can investigate Teddy’s reasons for attempting to incriminate you and, by doing so, ensuring our wedding does not take place, once we are safely married and have left Newcomb Manor.”
Devil still fought an inner battle with himself regarding blatantly lying to the local magistrate. Despite knowing he was innocent of shooting Teddy Newcomb, it did not sit well with Devil’s other, clandestine but necessary work for the Crown, to actually lie to Sir Percy.
But Devil believed he might manage to ignore his scruples if it meant his marriage to Alys would take place, and that afterwards he could remove her from Newcomb Manor and her treacherous brother…
Devil felt no inclination to reopen the subject and so cause a return of friction during their carriage ride into Herefordshire later that afternoon.
The wedding, brought forward two hours with the vicar’s agreement, had gone off without a hitch. Mainly because the only people attending were Alys and Devil, Carlton, the vicar’s wife, and a handful of the household staff from Newcomb Manor who had asked if they might attend.
Riley had managed to learn from the gossip in the kitchen that Teddy Newcomb was in his bedchamber sleeping when they all left for the church, leaving the other man in total ignorance of the wedding about to take place. Nor was Newcomb’s name mentioned by any of the guests, before or after the service. As evidence of how shabbily Newcomb was known to treat his sister? Devil believe that might be the case.
He had made enquiries after the doctor left his patient. As Devil had suspected, Newcomb’s wound was not life-threatening, although it would need careful watching to avoid any infection.
Devil’s own interview with Sir Percy had gone well. How could it not when Alys had supplied him with an unbreakable alibi for the time the shooting took place. One that was all the more convincing because it shed a bad light on Alys’s own reputation and morals.
Devil had been slightly taken aback at the church when Alys removed her cloak to reveal she wore a red silk gown beneath it. Admittedly, she looked beautiful in the gown, and brides often wore rich and lush-colored silk gowns to be married in. But the defiant tilt of Alys’s chin said she had worn the red silk for another reason entirely.
“You look very beautiful today,” Devil told her gruffly as she sat across the carriage from him.
He knew Alys’s maid had agreed to accompany her to Herefordshire but had gone to visit with relatives first and would join them in a few days’ time. Devil’s valet was traveling in the coach carrying their luggage. Carlton had left in his own carriage after the wedding to return to London and report back to Stonewell.
Alys gave a graceful inclination of her head. “Thank you.”
He sighed at her formality, knowing the subject of Teddy Newcomb still stood between the two of them like an ominous specter. “Did you see you brother before you left?” He was not aware of her having done so.
Her mouth tightened. “No.”
“You did not feel the need?”
“No.”
“What do you think he will do when he learns you are no longer at Newcomb Manor and have now become my wife?”
“Does it matter?” she said dully.
“Not to me, no,” Devil confirmed. But he seriously doubted Newcomb would sit meekly back and accept the fait accompli. “Do you think he will follow you?”
“Why would he?”
Why, indeed. But Devil did not believe he had seen the last of his brother-in-law. That either of them had.
But if the other man attempted to harm Alys in any way again, verbally or physically, Devil would feel no hesitation in exerting some retribution of his own in defense of his wife.
Newcomb would do well to think long and hard before he touched anything Devil considered his. And Alys was his now. His wife. His to protect.
Alys had known Sebastian would have more questions about her actions today, but she had hoped he would not feel the need to broach the subject until they had reached his home—now their home—in Herefordshire. “I wish only to talk about pleasant things on our wedding day.” And the subject of Teddy was not a pleasant one.
To be frank, with herself at least, Alys’s thoughts about Teddy after the events of today were decidedly unpleasant. Some of them very unpleasant indeed. So much so, Alys was having a problem quite believing the extent of the possibilities of where those thoughts had taken her.
But until she felt surer of her suspicions, something she intended doing as quickly as possible, she would prefer not to discuss the full extent of them with anyone. Even Sebastian.
He seemed to accept her avoidance of the subject as he straightened. “May I sit next to you?”
“If that is what you wish,” she invited almost shyly.
His grin was almost boyish as he crossed the carriage to sit beside her and take one of her gloved hands in both of his. “I can hardly believe we are married, can you?”
It was reassuring to know Sebastian found the situation as surreal as she did. “It is certainly strange to think I am no longer Miss Alys Newcomb but Lady Alys Trentham, Marchioness of Deveril.”
He gave her fingers a squeeze. “My wife.”
“As you are my husband.”
He nodded. “I know the circumstances were not ideal, but I will do my best to be a good husband to you, Alys.”
“I know.”
“I also want you to know that…whatever transpires, my loyalty now lies first with you and our marriage.”
“As mine does with you.” She frowned slightly, not sure what Sebastian was referring to by that remark. Unless he had come to the same conclusions she had in regard to Teddy?
Sebastian’s fingers tightened about her more slender ones. “You should also know that you may tell me anything and I will not judge. I will only try to help.”
Alys shook her head. “There is nothing for me to tell you right now.” Nothing of certainty, at least.
Sebastian studied her face. “But you will tell me when you are ready to do so?”
“If it becomes necessary, yes.” Her reply was guarded. “I have some enquiries I need to make before I can talk on the subject further.”
The answers to those question lay in London, Alys believed. To that end, she had told Devil her maid was spending time with relatives before joining them in Herefordshire, when in reality, Alys had given Meg enough money to take a public coach to the capitol so that she might make the necessary enquiries in Alys’s stead. She had also written a letter for Meg to take with her to help facilitate those enquiries.
Meg had no idea what that letter contained, only to whom it was to be delivered. Alys trusted Meg implicitly, that young lady having been her maid for the past four years and having proven her loyalty again and again when she bearded some of Teddy’s more cruel actions toward Alys. But she did not think it fair to place Meg in a position where Teddy might hear of her involvement.
It would not be too long, Alys hoped, before Meg joined them in Herefordshire with the answers she required, before Alys would then be able to confront Teddy with what she now believed to be the truth.
Devil had no choice but to accept Alys’s words as final. Instead of pushing her further on the subject, he glanced out the window of the carriage just in time to see they were now turning into the long driveway of Deveril Park. “Your new home,” he told Alys with a hint of pride for his well-managed estate.
She sat forward so that she could see out of the window. “Herefordshire is far more beautiful than I had imagined.”
“I am very fond of it, I must admit.”
Alys could see that Herefordshire, and the numerous members of household staff she was introduced to a few minutes later, were in turn very fond of the master of Deveril Park.
There was such a different feel about this estate than her own childhood home. It was a far bigger and grander house, of course, but the mainly cream-and-gold décor gave it a warm and even airier ambience.
Alys thought she could be very happy here.
Very happy indeed.
“Whatever you need, ma’am, you have only to ask.” Mrs. Milton, the housekeeper at Deveril Park, beamed at Alys warmly, having personally escorted Alys to her bedchamber. “We have all waited a long time for the day Master Sebastian would bring home his bride. And a beautiful one at that.”
Alys’s face blushed with pleasure at this unconditional welcome from the gray-haired lady Sebastian had told her had been in charge of the household at Deveril Park for many years.
At Alys’s request, during their journey into Herefordshire, Sebastian had told her the names and duties of all the people living and working on the estate. She might not have known for very long that she was to be mistress here, but she did not intend to hurt or slight a single member of Sebastian’s household by not knowing who they were.
“You are very kind.” She smiled at the older lady, having already heaped deserved praise on the other woman for the comfort of the feminine bedchamber in which she now found herself. The décor was all shades of lilac and cream, the furniture a delicate white, even the four-poster bed, with its gauzy cream curtains and satin-and-silk-covered pillows.
It was a beautiful room, facing south, and Alys already knew she was going to be very comfortable here.
“Not at all. I mean every word of it.” Mrs. Milton’s smile became rueful. “I have known Master Sebastian since he was in the nursery. He was even-tempered as a child, and he is fair and generous as a master.”
The housekeeper was not telling Alys anything she had not already surmised for herself. She had no doubt Sebastian was all those things and more.
Her father had always taught her that it was how one was perceived by others that was the true measure of a person’s nature.
Sebastian was beloved and respected for the fair and generous man, friend, and employer he was.
Teddy was not liked or respected within Society or by the servants at Newcomb Manor. Apart from Holmes, of course. Her brother also surrounded himself with hangers-on or men who were as much wastrels as he was.
Alys had no doubt she had chosen wisely when she decided to continue with her plans to marry Sebastian and come away to Herefordshire with him.
She smiled shyly at the housekeeper. “I hope you will find me to be as fair and generous as my husband.”
Her husband.
Sebastian was now her husband, as she was his wife.
From the little of Deveril Park she had seen so far, Alys believed her life was going to be a much happier one here than the uncertainty she had known living on her brother’s precarious charity since her father died.
“I’m sure I shall.” The housekeeper assured her warmly. “Cook is preparing a sumptuous dinner for you both, but is there anything I might get you before I go?”
“Nothing at all, thank you, Mrs. Milton.” Alys already felt lighter of heart for not having the constant fear of offending her brother to contend with. Sebastian was not half so mercurial in his moods.
She waited until the housekeeper had departed to check on the progress of dinner before taking off her bonnet, throwing it up into the air, and then falling back onto the bed, her arms thrown out to her sides as she gave a loud and happy cry of “Whee!”
“I am not sure a marchioness should behave with quite such…abandon as that.”
Alys turned her head to look at Sebastian, but made no more effort to move than that as she observed him leaning against the doorframe of the doorway adjoining their two bedchambers. He had discarded his hat in the hallway downstairs earlier, and had now removed his jacket, waistcoat, and neck cloth too. His shirt was unfastened at the throat, revealing the start of a dusting of dark hair on his chest.
He strode forward into the room until he stood beside the bed, looking down at her. “Unless she is behaving that way with me,” he added huskily.
“I am just so happy to be here,” she admitted.
“I believe Deveril Park is happy to have you here.” He nodded. “I have a very large bath in my bedchamber being filled with hot water. Would you care to join me?”
How strange, Alys mused, that the two of them had said a few words in front of a vicar earlier today, signed an official piece of paper that made them husband and wife in the eyes of the law, and now it was perfectly acceptable for the two of them to be alone together as often as they pleased.
To take a bath together, if they wished.