The Star-Crossed Bride (28 page)

But the countess cut him off sharply. "I have received information that will shed light on this heinous crime." She studied the crowd, scrutinizing every face. Several people shifted their feet guiltily at the accusation in her bulldog features, but her gaze passed over their faces and settled on one in particular. "I see the information was accurate." She pointed out the footman who had been serving in her household for weeks without notice. "Valentine Fenster has passed himself off as a servant in my very household."

Those standing around the suddenly no longer anonymous footman shrank back as if he were now revealed to be carrying the plague.

Emily made a wordless cry and would have run to him, if Miranda had not put his hand on her shoulder to prevent her from joining her husband.

Valentine met the countess's gaze steadily "I have only done what I needed to protect Emily."

The countess's eyes narrowed. "Lady Emily to you."

He bowed at the waist. "Lady Emily, then, if you wish it, my lady."

Emily had never been so proud of him as she was at that moment. Where another man might have cringed in humiliation, he stood tall. It warmed her heart to see that he was not ashamed of doing what he needed for the woman he loved. For her.

The countess leaned over the banister, her gaze for Valentine and no other. "Tell my guests, Fenster. Did you, or did you not approach me less than a month ago in an attempt to encourage me to break the engagement of my daughter to the marquess of Granbury?"

"I did."

"And you were hired — through your own deceit — that same day?"

His lips tightened. "The next day."

The countess's expression of dismay was pretense. Emily had often seen her mother question a young matron in just such a way when she had an ugly secret to spring. She knew the question her mother would ask before she did so. "And where did you spend the night before you presumed upon my household's good nature?"

"Under a bed." His lips turned up in the smile she loved so much as he looked directly at her mother. "And I must compliment you on your staff's excellent housekeeping, my lady. There was practically no dust at all to disturb my rest." Several of the onlookers laughed at the compliment to the countess's attention to detail in her household.

The countess was not pleased at how skillfully he'd evaded the true answer to her question. But she did not pursue the matter. Emily barely had time to be relieved that those present would not learn that Valentine had spent the night under her bed, when her mother turned her attention back to the guests in general. "I suggest that we have here a prime candidate for the murderer of my daughter's intended groom."

There was a low murmur of surprise. Emily waited for someone to object, but everyone watched her mother expectantly for her next pronouncement. The countess, enjoying her captive audience, went on. "He is a man who, when he could not convince me to break the engagement dishonorably, lied and misrepresented himself as a servant to worm his way into my daughter's heart and turn her against me."

Melodramatically, she placed her hand on her heart. "I fear he has succeeded in both his tasks — to turn my daughter from her mother's wise teaching, and to break the engagement — by murdering the marquess of Granbury!"

The thunderous silence at her pronouncement held the heavy weight of shock.

Valentine's face was pale and it took him a moment before he broke the silence. "I did not murder the marquess, my lady," Valentine replied firmly, adding, "if he was indeed murdered at all."

Emily could see the truth in his expression and found that she wanted to weep in relief.

"If!" The countess shook with outrage. "How can you doubt it?"

"I can doubt it because I know what kind of man the marquess is. As you would, my lady, if you had read the letter I brought to you." Valentine stood proud, despite the dark looks that he was being thrown by the crowd.

Emily couldn't stand to see him unjustly accused any longer. She shook off Miranda's warning hand and hurried to stand beside her husband. If he was not ashamed, she would not be.

She ignored his unhappy look as she turned to face her mother. "Valentine has protected me as you would not, Mother." She turned to him and grasped his hand in her own.

"Emily — " he began warningly, but she ignored him.

"Mother, be careful of who you accuse of murder. It is my husband you say committed this crime. Valentine and I are married." She had hoped the first time she gave that news to her mother, she would feel satisfaction and triumph. But in the silence of the marble hallway, the words seemed thin and childishly spiteful.

That statement at least had the effect of bringing a genuine expression of shock to the countess's features. "Impossible!"

"It is true, I'm afraid." Valentine nodded. "We eloped over a week ago. I assure you, my lady that the elopement was a necessary precaution to protect Emily from the marquess."

Emily's mother was not swayed by his heroic deed. "Cad! Why would my daughter need protection from the man who asked for her hand honorably?"

Again, Emily felt the need to defend him against her mother's unjust accusations. "He would have preferred to marry me openly and honestly Mother, you know that. But since you refused to welcome his suit, we were forced to this. I told you I would not marry Lord Granbury and you refused to listen."

The countess's fury was truly awesome to view. "This is how you repay all that I have done for you? Ungrateful child. I told you he would not make a good husband, but you would not listen. Let us see how you like being married to a murderer!"

"Valentine is not — "

"Well, someone has killed the marquess. I believe it is clear the man with the most motive must certainly be the one who masqueraded as a footman in the household. The man who deceived me under my own roof with my own daughter. The man who has so few scruples that he dared to elope with a woman who was a week away from becoming a bride to another man."

Emily could see that the crowd of guests agreed with her mother — slowly they were moving back, leaving Valentine and Emily in a large empty circle of floor.

She looked to her cousins, her friends, trying to meet eyes which would not meet hers. "But he did not do it."

The countess replied scornfully, "So you say. But can we trust you to know this man?"

"Of course I know him!" Emily protested. "He is gentle and kind and — and he would do anything to protect me."

"Anything? Even kill your rightful fiance so that there would be no impediment to revealing your elopement?"

"No!"

The countess's eyes blazed with anger. "You have proven yourself weak-willed enough to have eloped with him — not just once, girl!" Her gaze bored into Emily, and she fed off the scandalized gasp that came from the gathered crowd. "

I love him!"

With a smile of triumph, the countess snapped, "Love! Twice now you have let him talk you out of behaving with common sense, decency, and the good morals that your father and I taught you." The countess lifted a lace handkerchief to her trembling lips. "I am only grateful that my poor dear husband is not here to see how you have betrayed your family." Though her mother dabbed at her eyes with the lace as well, Emily was all too certain they were dry.

Her mother had at last gotten the revenge she had always wished for on the child who had dared to be born a daughter instead of a son. And Emily had helped her convict Valentine in the court of popular opinion. She could see what she had done at last. Now that it was too late.

Valentine saw the realization sink in. Emily's expressive face reflected her despair without muting it. But what her face showed him was nothing to his own agony. He had done this to her. Despite his intentions, despite his promises, he had just destroyed the woman he loved.

Ignoring the eyes upon them, he embraced her tightly. "I'm sorry Emily, so very sorry," he whispered. "You should have had so much better than what I have given you."

"I know you didn't kill the marquess. I don't even believe he is truly dead. I will convince — "

"No." He did not want her to put herself in any more danger. "If I am accused — "

"I will not let them — "

He kissed her gently to silence her fierce defense. "You must go with the duke and Miranda, you and Nan. They will keep you safe, if Granbury is still alive."

And if Valentine ended up hanging for the crime in the end. He thought of his sisters. Thank God he knew that the duke would care for them as if they were his own.

She hissed, "He is. No doubt he is somewhere laughing at the trouble he has caused us."

"Take him upstairs and lock him in!" the countess ordered.

Two of his fellow footmen looked at him apologetically as they approached. He did not fight them. What good would it do? Everyone was already sure of what had happened. He could feel the condemnation like a leaden cloak around him as they led him away.

Emily's sobs of dismay tore at him, but he did not look back. He had failed her. He had ruined her. And now she had to live with the distinct possibility of being the widow of a convicted — if innocent — murderer.

He thought he had failed her. She had seen that clearly in his eyes as he was led away to be confined upstairs. But in truth it was she who had failed him. If she had said nothing of the elopement, her mother would not have — But it was much too late for recriminations. If only the men who sat contentedly discussing the latest scandal would listen to her.

"They will hang him, you know. A peer cannot commit such a bloody crime upon another peer without expecting the most severe punishment possible."

"But they cannot, Harold." Emily looked at the man who had inherited her father's title, the newly made earl. The earnest look on his face told her that he thought his words offered some comfort but she could not understand how he could possibly think so.

"What choice have they?" he asked. "We must send a strong message that this sort of thing is frowned upon. Who else will set the example for the lower classes?"

She repeated the same words she had been saying for some time. "He is innocent."

The doubt on his face was unmistakable, but he patted her hand and said kindly, "Then someone will prove it, I am sure, my dear."

"How? Everyone believes him guilty!" It was true enough. Except for the duke, Miranda, Nancy, and Emily herself, everyone seemed quite content to believe that Valentine had murdered the marquess of Granbury. The purported motives ran from a fairly honorable duel called by the marquess when he discovered the elopement, all the way to a desperate, murderous bid on Valentine's part to get his rival out of the way.

All versions agreed that after the murder he had then tidily disposed of the man's body in the waters of the loch. The fact that his tidiness had not extended to those bloody items which now condemned him bothered no one at all.

Her cousin thought about her question seriously for some time. And then he answered solemnly, "I cannot say how you might prove him innocent, my dear. I suppose it has been done before, but not often." Portentously he added, "It is a hard task I know, my dear. But you must do it soon. Matters as serious as this are dealt with swiftly. It would not do to have the common man believe his betters are afraid to do their duty when a criminal appears among their own ranks."

Emily threw her hands up in exasperation. "Of course not. And the criminal himself need not even be guilty for the appeasement of the masses, need he?"

Harold beamed at her, as if he were a teacher whose pupil had just mastered a particularly difficult lesson. "That is the way of the law, my lady. A man must stand up for the crime he appears to have committed, unless another culprit can be found."

She muttered, as her cousin moved away obviously satisfied that his duty was well done, "Granbury was right — people do refuse to see what they find unpleasant or unacceptable."

There was no other answer that she could see but to solve the crime herself. "I will find the culprit, then. I will find the true murderer." Or would she find Granbury himself, alive and well?

She knew she could expect help from Miranda, Valentine's own twin. But would the duke help? Or had he, like all the other titled ninnies staying at the castle, decided that since Valentine's motive was the clearest that perhaps he had committed the crime?

She decided to approach Miranda and see if the duke had been honest with her about his belief in Valentine's innocence. She could not bear to talk to him if he did not believe her husband innocent. But as she looked for Miranda, she found Valentine's sister waving at her in an urgent signal.

Miranda's expression was grave as she led the way into a private parlor and Emily felt her heart catch. "What is the matter?"

Her voice low, so as to avoid being overheard, Miranda murmured, "Nan is missing."

"What?" What else could go wrong? Valentine accused of murder. Nancy missing. "Are you certain?"

"I've looked everywhere."

"Do you suppose —"

"What else is there to suppose?" Miranda was pale and there were tears standing in her eyes. "Granbury has her. We can only hope he has not already finished the job he tried to do by the pond that day."

Emily tried to find something reassuring about the situation. The best she could think of to offer Miranda some consolation was, "His preference in the past has been a more lingering death for the servants he killed." Was it better to hope that Nancy had been swiftly and mercifully strangled, or that the terrified maid waited imprisoned somewhere, with time to wonder what her fate would be? With time to suffer.

Feeling as if everyone in the castle was her enemy made Emily cautious. She whispered, "Have you told the duke?"

"Yes. He has gone in to speak to Valentine — " Miranda grimaced in dismay. "My brother is well guarded. Your mother must think he is capable of magic, she has put so many safeguards in place."

"Has she?" Emily had not been allowed near her husband, at the direct instructions of her mother and her cousin Harold.