Page 42 of A Widow for the Earl (The Gentlemen’s Club #5)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
B eatrice’s eyes fluttered awake to the cheery babble of fast-moving water and the gentle hum of someone singing. Her nose caught the mouthwatering scent of something cooking, but no sooner had she sniffed than her stomach lurched, nauseated.
A moment later, as the rest of her awakened, she was hit with every ache and pain at once.
Her head throbbed violently, her vision blurring as she attempted to take a look at her surroundings.
She saw rafters and the scaffold of a four-poster bed without a canopy, felt the softness of pillows underneath her tender skull.
But there was no real comfort from the feather-stuffed mattress she lay on, her ribs pulsing as if her heartbeat was leaking through the gaps.
What happened to me?
Wincing, and squeezing her eyes shut against the cresting wave of pain that assaulted her eye sockets, she heaved herself up into a sitting position.
Immediate regret followed, as a rush of nausea rose up her throat. With it, a torrent of memories, reminding her of what had happened.
I tried to fight him, but he stole me away.
Was this his lair? She might have expected a dungeon or a crypt or an attic somewhere, where no one would be able to find her, but there was bright morning light coming through a window somewhere. And there was, of course, the comfortable bed she now sat upon.
“Trixie!” a familiar voice gasped. “Thank goodness, you are awake.”
She squinted at the figure who appeared at her side, instantly relieved.
“Freddie…” she croaked, mustering a weak smile.
He must have saved her from her attacker. Everything in her memory was black after she had been unceremoniously thrown onto a horse—which went some way toward explaining her bruised ribs—so it stood to reason that she could not remember a rescue.
But this is not Wycliffe.
Maybe, it had not been safe to return there. If her attacker had been one of her deceased husbands’ family members, maybe someone had decided—Frederick, most likely—that it would be for the best if she was taken care of in an unaffiliated residence.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, touching a gentle hand to her brow.
“As if I got smacked in the head with something,” she replied, with a wry laugh that immediately made her grimace.
Her hand moved to her sore ribs, her chin dipping to her chest as she waited for the latest surge of pain to ebb.
“I am sorry about that,” Frederick said with a sigh. “I did not want to hurt you but, if it is any consolation, I have not left your side. I did my best to bandage your head, but, you understand, I could not summon a physician.”
Her head lifted, her eyes blinking to clear the blur and the confusion that swirled in her mind. Surely, she had misheard him. Surely, he meant that he had not want to hurt her more while tending to her injuries.
“I… do not understand,” she rasped. “Where am I?”
He gestured to the door of a small, quaint bedchamber.
“You are at the hunting lodge on my brother’s estate.
Well, what will soon be my estate.” He grinned, his smile so wide that it did something strange to his eyes, widening them in a way that made him appear quite mad for a moment.
“Do not worry, you are perfectly safe. You are precisely where you should be.”
She stared at him, willing her dazed mind to make sense of this. “I should like to go home now,” she said thickly. “And I should like to see a physician.”
“You will be home soon,” he insisted with that same, twisted grin.
“In a few hours, we will be husband and wife at last, and though we will have to make do with my brother’s secondary residence for a while, we will be the Marquess and Marchioness of Merricold by next year.
Just in time for summer, I should think. ”
A prickly chill began to slither through her veins, numbing her pain temporarily as fear took over. “Is this a joke, Freddie? If it is, I am not finding it very funny.”
“It is no joke,” he said, his tone losing some of its strange kindness. “I have attained a special license. It is rather easy to do when the bride is so infamous.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she searched the room for anything she might use to defend herself. “I am not marrying you, Freddie. This is ridiculous. Come on, enough of this; I do not like this jape.”
Finding nothing that resembled a weapon, she began shuffling toward the opposite side of the bed.
“Take me home to Wycliffe, Freddie, and we shall say nothing more of this. Evidently, you thought you would play a trick, but it has gone too far. I will forgive you if you just… put me back where I belong.”
He appeared in front of her, eyes flaring. “When I am Marquess, I can buy Wycliffe. This is no game, Trixie.” He seized hold of her hands. “By noon, you will be my wife.”
“But… I do not want a husband,” she floundered, still unable to believe this was happening. That her dear friend had attacked her, and now seemed to be holding her prisoner.
Frederick sneered, tightening his grip on her hands until she thought he might crush her fingers. “That is not what you said to your cousin.”
Her heart jolted, her stomach dropping like a stone. “You eavesdropped on us?”
A hard look darkened his eyes. “How fickle you are, suddenly deciding you might like to wed a wealthy earl, because he gave you a manor. Yet, I have been at your side for all these years, waiting for you to choose me. I am done waiting, Trixie.”
“What?” She swallowed. “We… have always been friends , Freddie. You have never shown any romantic inclination toward me, as I have shown none to you.”
“Is that what you think?” he scoffed. “I have loved you with my actions, Trixie. I am the one who deserves you, for all I have done for you. I might not have a manor to give you yet, but I have kept you safe. I am the one who saved you from those awful marriages, those awful men who would have pawed at you and made you miserable, caging you. I want nothing more than for you to be free, with me.”
Beatrice faltered, her breath lodging in her throat as she stared up into those mad eyes. She could not understand what she was hearing. It made no sense. He had always been so sweet and generous, someone she could rely on without any fear of him wanting something in return.
It has all been a game of patience. He has always thought he would be the victor, winning me; I just did not know it.
“What do you mean?” she rasped, though she feared she already knew the answer.
Frederick smiled. “The moment I heard that your father was forcing you into marriage with Lord Albany, I came to your aid.” His grip on her loosened slightly.
“I could not stop the wedding, that would have been too suspicious, but I could stop the wedding night. I had the means. A poison unknown to England’s oblivious physicians.
It was not cheap, but it worked better than I could have expected.
It acts slowly, making it seem as if a man has merely suffered an apoplexy after retiring to his study for a drink. ”
“No…”
“Lord Brinkley was more difficult. Not a drinker,” Frederick continued.
“I had to sneak into his chambers and force it down his throat. He struggled, but I knew he would not get far. Rather poetic, that he tried to reach you before it claimed him. As for Lord Wycliffe, I just dropped a very special sugar cube into his nightly sweetened tea. Creatures of habit make for very easy prey.”
Beatrice dropped her chin to her chest, feeling sick all over again. Her head pounded, her throat dried up, the whole world spinning. She had trusted this man, she had defended their friendship, and he had… ruined her life for his own ends.
“I knew society would turn on you, and I knew I would be there to hold you up,” he said with eerie softness.
“It pained me to see you spoken of so unkindly, and to see you suffering, but you could not be left entirely unpunished. After all, if you had just married me, I would not have had do such things on your behalf. So, although I did the killing, they are dead because of you.”
“What?” she hissed, snapping her head up to glare at him.
“How can any of this be my fault? I did not realize that I was friends with a madman! I did not know that I had been lied to all these years, thinking you were my friend, when really you were just biding your time. Indeed, you are a second son—my father would never have accepted a proposal from you!”
Frederick’s lip curled. “He has no choice in the matter now. And I will be a marquess. I have already begun the scheme, poisoning my brother very slowly, bit by bit, so everyone assumes it is just a tragic ailment that will, eventually, claim his life.”
“You were never in the Highlands,” she gasped, realization dawning. “You were hunting at Wycliffe instead.”
“No, I was in the Highlands, but after your third wedding,” he replied with a shrug. “I could not be seen to be near the manor then, now could I? And I did not want to intrude on your mourning period.”
Her eyes flared with anger and dismay. “Am I supposed to be impressed by this confession? What makes you think, after hearing all of this, that I would ever marry you? You are insane, Freddie! Quite insane.” She squinted as a splintering pain shot through her skull.
“Indeed, why do any of this at all? Why did you not just ask for my hand?”
“As you said, I was a second son,” he said curtly. “I needed your father to cast you aside first. As for why I think you will marry me now, it is very simple: you do it, or Vincent meets the same fate as your three husbands.”
Beatrice choked on the horror of his threat, her body trembling from head to toe as she met her captor’s cold, dead eyes. He was a stranger to her, devoid of the false warmth and merriment she had grown accustomed to. Here was the real Frederick, seen for the very first time.
She wanted to fight him, scream at him, defy his demands with everything she possessed.
But he had already murdered three men and was slowly murdering his own brother; he would not hesitate to carry out his threat toward Vincent.
Indeed, Beatrice suspected he would relish it and was merely waiting for the excuse.
For a moment, she was back in the drawing room at Fetterton over a year ago, hearing the hoofbeats of his father’s friends arriving to ensure she did as she was told. Frederick, like her father, had set a trap and she had seen it too late.
Now, she was cornered.
“Why do you think I care what happens to Vincent?” she said, forcing her tone into indifference. “He left me. He does not care about me. Why would I care about him?”
Frederick chuckled darkly. “Because I heard you, Trixie. You are not listening. Just because he left does not mean you do not love him still, but we shall remedy that. You will soon love me instead, as more than a friend.”
She cursed herself for being so foolish as to reveal her feelings about Vincent in her cousin’s hallway. She should have made sure they were alone first. She should have been more cautious. Then again, she had not known there was a madman among them.
“How do I know you will not kill him anyway?” she hissed, her heart splintering all over again.
“Because I will not need to,” he replied. “I will have everything I want. And, I suppose, it will be useful to have the option, to ensure you behave and say nothing of what I have done. Indeed, if you deny me anything, I will have that option.”
With his hands gripping hers so viciously, alone with him in a hunting lodge where no one would find her, she knew she had no choice.
He had planned it too well. Even if Vincent did care for her, he would not reach her in time, for he was all the way at Grayling House.
And who would think to inform him, anyway?
The staff at Wycliffe would summon the constables, not him.
“So, my darling Trixie, will you be my wife?” he whispered, his very voice turning her stomach.
“Yes,” she croaked in reply. “Yes, I will.”