Light to Valhalla (27 page)

“This way, milord.
”
Mr. Reil
l
y dismounted, hitched his horse and
led the way into the house
.

Dim light
contrasted with t
he bright white of the outside
.
Alex blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust
, and followed the magistrate down a narrow, windowless hall
.
Mr. Reilly opened a scarred wooden door
and Alex strode past him into
the small bedroom
.
Light filtered through the wavy glass
considerably more luminous than
that in the rest of the house and there was no mistaking the man reclined on the bed, wrapped in a faded blue and red checkered quilt… John Halverson.

Beady gray eyes looked up as Alex moved deeper into the room
.
“Him,” Halverson cried
.
“That’s the sum bitch what shot me.
”
His eyes shifted from side to side
.
“Cold blooded I tell
ye
.”

“Is that so,
Mr.
Halverson?”

“Names not Halverson
.
It’s Jennings.”

Alex shook his head and turned to the magistrate
.
“This is one of the men who kidnapped my wife.”

“I suspected as much
.
Mr.
Jennings here wove quite the tale of being jumped by highwaymen.”

“I suppose he didn’t mention the part about being paid to abduct and murder a marchioness?”

Halverson gulped.

With measured menace Alex stalked forward, a predatory gaze fixed on the scalawag
.
He’d questioned hundreds of enemy prisoners over the
years,
this man was weak and would crumble in seconds
.
“Who hired you?”

Alex drew the field knife from his boot, tilting the blade so it caught the light and glared into Halverson’s eyes
.
“This is the last time I’ll ask nicely
.
Who—”

“I don’t know,” Halverson
blurted
.
“
Johnston
asked me to ‘
elp
him with a job
.
Said it’d pay
one-thousand
pounds and ‘
e’d
split it with me fifty-fifty.”

“I see.
”
Alex closed the distance and stood over the bed, turning the knife over in his hand
.
Halverson quaked, cringing into the wall at the far side of the bed
.

“Some
army gent
or maybe it was a
sailor hired ‘
im
, but I swear, milord,
I don’t know ‘is name
.
Never even laid eyes on ‘
im
.
”

Military
?
  Halverson’s testimony drove home
Alex’s belief that
Witherspoon hired
these men
to do his dirty work
.

“Where can I find,
Johnston
?”

The brigand’s Adam’s apple bobbed feverishly
.
“Mayhap Scotland, milord, but truthfully we planned to go our separate ways once we got paid.”

Alex knew with near dead accuracy when a man was lying and he’d bet his left thumb that Halverson told the truth
.
“Any chance
Johnston
will be back to try for his money again?”

“He’s a tenacious sort, milord, if the employer is still
willin
’ to pay I’d bet he’ll look to collect again.”

Eight

A
bsently
Charley
ran her finger around the white edge of the china teacup, mesmerized by
the glittering display of sunlight reflecting off the liquid
.

When
will
Alex return?

The
urge to look at the clock for the umpteenth time in the last hour was near impossible to resist
.
The
hands
hardly seemed to move
, and for the first time in years she was actually anxious to see her husband.

“
Charley
?
 
Charley
?
Have you heard a word I’ve said?”

“What?
”
Charley
s
n
apped her head up
.
“
Oh, sorry, Mama
.
Just wool gatherin
g I’m afraid
.
It’s been a
long
couple of
day
s
.
”
She shook her head
.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night
.
”
Or the one before that.

Evelyn reached across the tea table, affectionately squeezing her daughter’s hand
.
“I still c
an’t believe you were kidnapped
.
Really, dear, who would want to see you dead?”

“Other than Regina?”

“Oh,
Charley
,
you can’t really believe that?”

She sighed, glancing about the bright, cheery sitting room
.
Nothing in
Coverstone
House
ever seemed cheerful or sunny
.
“No, not really, but the woman hates me
.
Sometimes I truly think she would be relieved if I
fell off the ends of the earth
.
Perhaps I’d be happier if
she
fell off the ends of the earth.
”

“
Charlotte,” her mother scolded
.
“
I did not raise you to be so ungracious
.
Try to be more understanding
.
The last few years have been extremely trying for Regina
.
She lost her entire
family quite suddenly, and then had
to worry about Alex fighting on the continent.
”
Evelyn took a delicate sip of tea
.
“Tragic.”

Tragic or no
t
Charley
found
it increasing
ly
difficult to be tolerant of a woman who spent e
very waking moment
capitalizing on her every fault
.

Finally giving in to impulse
Charley
glanced at the clock
.
Eleven
thirty
.
Jittery fingers drummed her thigh beneath the table.

Was it possible
only
two days ago
at this time she’d had no matter more pressing than what to wear for Lady Carmichael’s dinner party?
 
Surely a week had blown past
.
But alas i
n the last
forty-eight hours
she’d been kidnapped, rescued, and Alex had kissed her…

No… he hadn’t kissed her
…
such a simple word could never
describe
the
ir heated embrace
s
.
Alex had
opened her eyes,
woken
her
soul
to the promise of passion and
her body to
the discontent of unfulfilled desire
s
.
Even now an image of his rugged frame washed in the moonlight, face obscured by shadows
, his eyes
glowing
an ethereal hue
, burned her mind
.
H
er mouth water
ed
, unexpected heat collected between her thighs
.
Her fingers itched
to graze the contours of his chest once more, feel the muscles quiver beneath her touch
.
Tingles budded in her lips, and
if she were to be painfully honest the mere memory of him left her
hot
everywhere
.

“
How was your night with Alex?”

Horrified that her mother had so accurately read her thoughts,
Charley
choked on a sip of tea
.

Evelyn hid an amused smile behind a muffin
.

For half a heartbeat Charley hesitated
.
“We had a bit of a fight,
”
she
confided
.
“
And then
I
found him
passed out drunk in
Papa’s study
this morning
.”

For a long moment her mother
remained
silent, delicately sipping her tea
.
“You know,” Evelyn said contemplatively, “I always thought you and Alex would suit very well.”

Charley
scoffed
, picturing
Alex
sprawled
across the chair
rather adorably snoring, an empty brandy
decanter
propped between
his elbow and thigh
.
“You’re jest
ing.”

“Nothing of the sort
.
For years I lamented
betrothing you to Richard because it was Alex you so seemed to fancy.
”
Evelyn s
igh
ed, settling her teacup in the matching white
saucer with a soft
clink
.
Once again
the lines around her face and eyes deepened
.
“
I had thought to petition your father and the late Lord
Coverstone
to release you from the contract
, but your father was becoming so eccentric
.
I feared the day he would be
come
an embarrassment and ruin y
our chances for a good match.”

Charley
’s mind spun, mulling over the information
.
Her mother
’s observations
proved dangerously perceptive and even more d
angerously close to the truth.

“Alex seems quite intent upon making amends,” her mother said softly.

“
Yesterday I learned that
Alex will be discharged from service if he does
not produce an heir,”
Charley
confided, stirring her tea with a
dried
cinnamon stick
.
“It seems he came home
to see the job done with all haste
so tha
t he can return to the peninsula
.
”
Valiantly she tried to keep her tone and expression passive, but from the concern reflected in her mother’s eyes it was obvious she’d failed miserably.

“
I see.
”
Evelyn gazed into her teacup as though divining answers from a wishing well
.
“
And that is what you argued about?”

“More or less.”

“
That certainly sounds like Alex,” she sighed
.
“But,
Charlotte, I really don’t see how his motivations change anything
.
If he didn’t come home now with the sole purpose of
procreating
, eventually he would come home and expect to share your bed.
”

Heat crept up her neck
.
“His motivations change
everything
.
You can’t expect me to surrender to a man
who has every intention
of leaving me?
  The whole business is cold hearted and makes me feel… dirty; like a prized broodmare.
”

“It is your duty as marchioness, Charlotte, regardless of your husband’s intentions.”

Duty
.
Duty
.
Duty
.
She was sick to death of duty
.
Charley
bristled
.
“Whose side are you on
?  You sound
exactly
like Regina.”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Evelyn said
, whisking
a silencing
finger
between them
.
“I’m not saying I agree with Alex’s behavior,
it’s certainly not the way to a woman’s heart,
but
when it all boils down
you have little choice in the matter
.
Ho
w you choose to respond to the situation is entirely in your hands.”

“How do you suggest I respond?”

“It seems to me,” Evelyn continued, a sly smile teasing her lips, “you can either be righteously outraged, shut your husband out and live miserably separate lives much like the majority of the aristocracy
,
or
…
you can win him.”

“
Win him?”

“Absolutely
.
It’s all about bringing him around to your way of thinking.”

“Please, Mother,
I hardly think Alex is t
he sort to be
manipulated.”

“Don’t be so sure, Charley, I’ve seen the way he looks at you.
”

“As though he’d rather be hundreds of miles away in France or Spain?
”
For a long moment their eyes locked and Charley finally had to look away from the intensity shining in her
mother’s
gaze
.
She fiddled with her cinnamon stick and took a sip of tea
,
suddenly
overwhelmed with the urge to cr
y
.

“As though he
loves you and just hasn’t realized it yet.”

Love?
  Surely not, but it didn’t keep her heart from leaping with hope
.

“
You could win him if you set your mind to it
.
I realize Alex has a reputation for being out for himself alone, but deep down he’s the type to be fai
thful
.
”
Evelyn
sipped her tea tho
ughtfully
.
“G
ive me an hour, maybe two
,
and your husband will be eating out of your hand by sunset.”

Sunse
t?
Charley’s
gulped
not entirely certain she was ready for such a prospect
.
But then
,
i
f anyone recognized the spark of attraction—even love—it was
her mother
.
Despite his faults
Alex
still held court in her heart
.
P
erhaps she was going about this in all the wrong way… Alex could hardly fall in love with a cold woman, intent upon pushing him away, but what of a wife willing to fight for him, to win him
as her mother suggested
?

Mentally Charley kicked herself for even entertaining the idea
.
She was only setting herself up for disappointment
.

Evelyn’s green eyes gazed back at her with
gentle
understanding
.
“Give Alex a chance
,
Charley
.
You
r first instinct is to push him
away
, and w
ith all that’s happened in the last few ye
ars I can’t say as I blame you
.
But… o
pen your heart
to him
.
I truly believe the two of you can be very happy.”