Jo Goodman (40 page)

Colin's eyebrows lifted slightly. His tone was dry and faintly challenging. "Entertain me."

Mercedes's chin came up. "You're assuming Mr. Thayer was the last one to have the flask because I told you I gave it to him. The person I gave it to was my uncle. He waylaid me on the way to the Thayers' cottage and made short work of the flask's contents. You were correct that he wanted money. He had every intention of leaving the country. Only I know my uncle. He would be back to cause problems when his funds ran low. It occurred to me that with his penchant for gambling he might not make it to his next port with money in his pocket. That would land him back at Weybourne Park wanting more." Her voice took on a bitter, resigned quality. "Always wanting more."

Now Mercedes crossed her arms in front of her. It was a protective gesture, not defensive. "I agreed to meet his price of two thousand pounds. You know how I did that and what it's cost me. I showed him the draft before I killed him. He was so taken with his success that he didn't see the pistol. It was over rather quickly, I'm afraid. I had imagined making him suffer, but in the end I had no stomach for it. I hid the body. I wasn't prepared for it to be discovered just yet."

"The will," Colin said.

She nodded, pleased he understood. "Exactly. It was much easier than you might suppose. Mr. Gordon would be surprised to know that the signature he verified as my uncle's was done by my hand. It's a skill I had to perfect in order to manage Weybourne Park in my uncle's absence. It proved more valuable than I could have ever expected."

"And Ashbrook and Deakins?"

"They're exactly who Mr. Gordon supposes them to be, though perhaps less reliable and honest than appearances would suggest. My uncle owed them both money, Mr. Ashbrook for his lodgings and Mr. Deakins for his passage. Neither man balked at signing the document I drew up when I offered them such handsome interest on the amounts they were owed."

"But they're located in London. How did you—" He stopped because he realized the answer on his own.

"Tattersall's," he said softly. "You left with Severn."

"I couldn't very well drive myself."

"So Severn knows."

"Hardly. He wouldn't have approved at all. He wanted the title, remember?"

"Then how did you manage it with him in tow?"

Mercedes gave Colin a steady look. "I'm finding when a man is sniffing after my skirts he's not looking where he's going."

Colin smiled narrowly but his dark glance was cold.

Mercedes's own icy anger was a match for his. It drove her to finish her tale. "Once I had the will signed and witnessed it only remained for me to allow the body to be discovered. I didn't think it could be accomplished so quickly but you presented me with the opportunity that very night. I've noticed you're not so light a sleeper after you've pleasured yourself." She was satisfied to see Colin's head jerk slightly at this observation, confirming what she knew to be true. "I slipped out of the manor, moved my uncle's body to the cottage, and started the fire. I hadn't considered that his body might be burned beyond recognition. The flask provided an answer to that. It would have ruined everything if I couldn't have convinced Patterson that the murdered man was the Earl of Weybourne."

Mercedes waited a moment, collecting her thoughts and watching Colin take it all in. "Now Britton has the title and you'll have the estate. I will advise him not to fight you for it. I'll be able to continue to manage Weybourne Park without fearing my uncle's interference. I think it's been concluded satisfactorily. We've all gotten what we wanted. I believe I was successful in turning suspicion away from you this afternoon, so you'll be quite free to enjoy the spoils of my success."

Mercedes extended her right hand and indicated the expanse of Weybourne Park with an unconsciously graceful gesture. "It's all yours," she said softly. Her hand dropped to her side and she stood before him without defenses, her posture somehow suggestive of an offering. "All of it."

There was no mistaking what she was giving him. Colin's dark eyes shifted to the moonlit grounds of Weybourne Park then back to the wash of blue and silver light on Mercedes's face. He could have both. They were his.

He shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't want any of it." He saw her stiffen as if he'd struck her. "It's yours if you want it. The price you paid is too steep for me."

"What price?" she asked. "My uncle's life?" Her short laughter held no humor. "You were quite willing to kill him."

"I was challenged," he said.

"Are you reminding
me
about proper form?"

"No," he said tiredly. "I wouldn't presume to do that." Colin raked his hair back in an absent gesture. "I really did want to be convinced of another explanation," he said at last. "This isn't the one I wanted to hear."

"Even when it confirmed everything you've been thinking these last few days?" she demanded. "Especially since you heard the revelations of this afternoon. Don't you take any pleasure in being right?"

"Not this time."

At her side Mercedes's hands clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists. "You can't know how much I despise you," she said coldly. Turning sharply on her heel, Mercedes started down the steps.

Colin crossed to the top of the stairs and made a grab to stop her. She ducked to avoid his hand and vaulted the next three steps by bracing herself between the walls and jumping. She stumbled a bit on the landing, righted herself, then launched herself again. Mercedes reached the door well ahead of Colin and yanked on the handle.

It didn't budge. Cornered, she turned on him just as he cleared the last step. "Unlock it," she said sharply. "Unlock it or I swear I'll start screaming."

"As if that would help," he said under his breath. He put out his hand and watched her jump out of the way. "I'm trying to get to the door, not touch you." He rattled the handle and pulled. Nothing happened.

"Use the key."

This time Colin gave her a quelling look. Its impact was minimal in the stairwell where the moonlight couldn't reach. "I don't have the key," he said. "I didn't lock the door."

Mercedes pushed his hand aside and tried again. "It's stuck," she said. "It must be." She thrust her shoulder into the door. Her effort bruised her but it didn't budge the door.

Colin picked Mercedes up by the waist and put her on the step behind him. "Stay there," he said. "And let me try. If you move I swear I'll use you as a battering ram."

Because his threat sounded reasonably sincere, Mercedes remained still as stone. Colin pushed and pulled at the door. Neither action was effective. "It's not stuck," he told her. "It's locked."

"How could you?" Her tone was both accusing and forlorn. Mercedes dropped to sit on the stairs under her.

Colin glanced over his shoulder. "I didn't do this. Why would I?"

"To torment me."

"A minute ago you were offering yourself to me. The only one likely to be tormented by this situation is me."

Mercedes was glad for the shadows in the narrow stairwell. She didn't want him to know how cleanly he had found his mark. "What do we do now?"

"Screaming might help."

She gave him a sour look. "No one can hear."

"So it was an idle threat."

"Not entirely," she said sweetly. "It would have tormented you." Without waiting for his reply, Mercedes came to her feet and went up the steps. There was nothing for it but to claim space on the floor and wait to be rescued. She heard Colin follow but she didn't glance in his direction. "If this is the work of one or both of the twins, then they're bound to feel guilty before too long and let us out."

"My thought also."

Mercedes nodded. Her head jerked up as she was struck by a possibility she hadn't considered before now. "What do you think they might have overheard?"

Eavesdropping had already occurred to Colin. "Everything. Any part of it. Or nothing."

"Well, thank you. That's reassuring." She sighed. "Do you think I was believed?"

"It was a convincing confession."

"But
you
know it's not true."

"I do now."

Mercedes said nothing for a moment. She regarded him frankly and said exactly what she was thinking. "You found it very easy to believe the worst of me."

"You told a good story."

"No. I merely told you what you expected to hear." She sighed. "You may not have wanted to hear it, but it didn't stop you from believing it."

"You're right, it didn't." Sitting opposite her, much the way he had with Aubrey when he and his second in command had been trapped in the very same room, Colin drew up his legs to his chest. "It's difficult to mount a defense for myself," he said. "The only thing I can tell you is that I knew I didn't kill anyone. And if I didn't..."

"Of course I must have."

"I presented Mr. Thayer as a possible suspect," he reminded her.

"That must have stretched your powers of deduction," she said smartly. "Especially when I was so clearly your first choice as the murderer."

Colin refused to be engaged. "If I can't end this with an apology, perhaps you can end it with the truth."

"I haven't heard an apology," she said. Silence followed. Mercedes felt it as a pressure in her chest. She struggled not to fill it with the sound of her own voice. Clearly Colin was not used to having anything to apologize for.

"I shouldn't have provoked you," he said at last. "When I asked you to entertain me, you took that as a challenge and proceeded, in your own way, to do just that. I deeply regret pushing you to that pass. As for believing what I did, there's nothing I can say. I didn't judge you harshly for what I thought you'd done. I even understood it. Your confession couldn't have been safer if you had told it to a priest."

"You refused the Park," she said. "And you refused me."

"Because the offer was for my silence," he said. "You were trying to buy me off. And you were hoping I would accept the offer so you could throw it all back in my face."

She shook her head. "I was spinning out the tale as it occurred to me. I hardly knew what I was saying."

"You knew."

Mercedes found she could no longer hold his darkly mirrored gaze. He had hit upon the truth so accurately that it was she who felt the need to apologize. It had been calculating
and
petty. "You're right," she said. "I'm sorry."

He smiled a little at that. Her head was still turned away. Her fingers were absently smoothing the material of her robe over her knees. One of her slippered feet was nudging the other. The hastily braided rope of hair was hanging over her left shoulder and the thick lock at the end curled at her breast. "Mercedes?"

Her eyes shifted in his direction. "Yes?"

"I love you."

She simply stared at him.

"Did you hear me?"

She nodded.

"Did you understand?"

She nodded again.

"All right." Colin had no expectations. He cocked his head in the direction of the stairwell. It did not appear that rescue was imminent. "I'd like to hear the truth now, if you please. Not what you think I believe or what you think I want to hear. Just the truth as you know it."

It took Mercedes a moment to clear her thoughts. At first she thought he wanted the truth about her feelings toward him. When she realized he was only asking about the events surrounding the earl's death, she was visibly relieved. As if he could guess the nature of her thoughts, Mercedes saw one corner of his mouth rise in a slim, amused smile.

"What I know will hardly satisfy you," she said. "My uncle did indeed cross my path on my way to the Thayers. He took the flask from the things I was carrying and never returned it. He asked for money which I promised to provide. He was the one who suggested Ashbrook and Deakins. I really thought those were names pulled out of thin air. I had no idea these men might exist. I did ask him to consider recognizing the twins as his heirs, but I recall that he struck me for my impertinence."

Colin heard no self-pity or bitterness in Mercedes's tone. It was stated simply as fact.

"That same night I was able to return to the cottage with the draft you signed for me."

Thinking back, Colin remembered waking and discovering she was missing. He had found her in her own room, soaking in the tub. "Was your uncle there when you went back?"

"No. I never saw him again. As far as I knew his plans were to leave the country. He wouldn't tell me where he was going. He had some idea that you might follow, and he had no desire to live his life looking over his shoulder." Although Colin made no comment, his expression led Mercedes to believe he and the earl were finally of one mind. "The first I knew that there had been any foul play was when I was presented with the evidence by Mr. Patterson."

"Then you believe your uncle is dead?"

"Yes." His question surprised her. "Of course. He had the flask."

"He may have simply left it behind. It doesn't conclusively identify him."

"In my mind it does. The flask wasn't there when I returned to the cottage. I looked for it because I wanted to refill it and present it to Mr. Thayer. I suspected that someday you might ask him if he enjoyed his brandy."