Page 39 of An Earl’s Sacrifice (The Clandestine Sapphire Society #3)

L ucius gripped Docia’s hands and disengaged them from behind his neck. “Docia!” he barked. “Please. This is unseemly.”

Time seemed to move in a vat of molasses. A second later, she jerked away from him, her expression stung with rejection. “So, Rathbourne was right. She is with child.”

“No,” he said startled. He’d forgotten Rathbourne’s lying announcement to all and sundry. “But…” Lucius passed his palm over his face. “Things have… have changed.”

“Changed how?” she demanded.

He had no words.

Slowly, realization seemed to take hold and her eyes filled with tears. “But, us,” she whispered.

“There can be no us. Not any longer. I’m sorry, darling.

I should have written you.” Turning to the windows, Lucius was surprised to find the rain had stopped, if only momentarily.

He pushed his hand through his hair, staring out at the lush landscape due to all the moisture.

“Hell, the first day I arrived, I found Meredith in the mud.”

“The mud!”

“There’d been a cave-in at the mines. She’d dashed in with no thought to her own safety and carried a small child from the rubble. Then Rathbourne appeared, up to no good from what I can gather. Then the shooting—”

“Someone shot you?” Her eyes flew to his arm folded against his body. “I didn’t shoot you.” Her voice touched the C on the soprano end of a pianoforte.

Resisting the urge to cover his ears and another to run from the room, he recognized the importance of the moment, surprising even himself.

“Calm down, Docia. I’m not suggesting anything of the sort.

I’m trying to tell you… I’m married. I should have owned up to the fact three years ago whatever the circumstances. ”

“Calm down. Calm down .”

“All right,” he snapped. “Don’t calm down. Weren’t you to marry my brother?”

“Yes, but he married my sister instead,” she shouted. Docia paced the length of the library like a caged tiger, nostrils flaring in her uniquely feminine features.

Lucius’s mouth opened then shut. Opened again. Shut. He swallowed. “Sister? What sister?”

Pulling to an abrupt stop, she glared at him. Then, all the air deflated from her body where she seemed to fold in on herself. “I guess you hadn’t heard. Since your departure from Stonemare, I’ve acquired a sister. One Geneva Wimbley, now Oshea.”

Shock pierced with regret pricked his chest. “Noah… Miss Wimbley… My brother’s married?” He couldn’t fathom what had brought that about. “But… how is Miss Wimbley your sister?”

She lifted one shoulder. “My father, her mother. How else? As I understand it, she’s one of your wife’s closest friends.”

A pattern began to converge in his head. One suspiciously related to the Clandestine Sapphire Society pamphlets. Lucius went to the corner cabinet and poured out two brandies, strolled back over, and held one out to her—a peace offering of sorts.

Docia accepted the glass and stared down into the amber contents. After a long moment, she raised her eyes. The blue depths held resignation, not vengefulness or hate. His heart softened.

“You are welcome to stay at Perlsea in light of the horrible weather, but we’ve enough trouble with Rathbourne in house, so you’ll mind your manners. Respect my wishes. More importantly, you’ll respect my wife.”

“Thank you. I would… like that,” she said on a sigh. “What is there to do in the wilds of Cornwall?”

“Not much,” he conceded with a small smile.

“Is the Green Room the best I can hope for?” she asked with a narrowing of her eyes.

He gave her a small smile. “I’m afraid so. Lady Pender had not been expecting any of us.”

“The library is quite nice,” she conceded.

Lucius nodded and took his leave of Docia, anxious to let Meredith know she had nothing to fear from their new guest but she wasn’t in her chamber.

The bed was nicely made. No clothes were strewn about.

The pitcher held fresh water. Even the sun looked to be fighting its way through a haze of thinning clouds.

Disappointment flitted through him, and he ducked through her sitting room and the bathing chamber to his own bedroom. Graham stood beside the bed holding a document, familiar by its creases alone.

Lucius pulled up, unease trickling through him. “Did my wife leave a note?”

“Not exactly.” His perfectly formed brows furrowed. “’Tis more like the dropping of a boulder.” He held out the offending document. “I found it in the center of the bed.”

Signifying unwelcome news Lucius wagered.

Hesitating for a second only, he reached for the papers as if they were doused with poison.

His imagination had truly run amok. He snatched them from his valet.

The first thing that jumped out was the huge black smear of ink near the bottom.

The second, was Meredith’s harsh, angry signature.

His arm fell to his side, his gut coiling with something indefinable. Fury? Fear? The easing storm outside had migrated inside, to just below his skin in a mix of raw uncertainty and relentless anguish. His gaze floated about his chamber. But everything appeared normal.

Normal. What an odd, unassuming word. It may have looked normal, but it felt anything but… until his eyes came to rest on the bedside table.

The journal was missing. Damn it. Damn her! He’d told her that hidden chamber was dangerous. He tossed the annulment agreement into the fire then slammed out of his chamber and crossed the portrait gallery to the tower then took the stairs up by two.

*

Meredith’s fury—no, her hurt —took her straight back to her chamber, and swiping the tears from her face. She entered her sitting room quickly only to find Agnes sitting in her usual spot reading.

She jumped to her feet. “Oh, milady. I didn’t expect you back so soon. Is aught amiss?”

“Everything is fine, dear. Why don’t you take the day to visit your mother. It appears the sun is attempting to break through the clouds for the first time in days.”

Her smile grew brighter than the sun. “Oh, thank you, ma’am. I should love that.”

“Of course. Have Bartlett drive you. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Aye, thank you, ma’am.” She hurried out of the sitting room, leaving Meredith alone and at a loss.

Minutes later, she took to the unused portion of the castle.

But she found no comfort in going to her hidden library.

It would be the first place Lucius would think to look for her, should he bother.

In any event, she wasn’t up to facing him.

Hearing whatever excuses, or fabrications, he thought she’d swallow.

Still, the unused tower was the quietest part of the castle. Something of which she was in desperate need of at the moment.

Donning an apron to cover her day dress, she stuffed the journal into a deep pocket, took up a warm shawl and an oil lamp, and made her way to the remotest portion she could find. Anything to overtake the image of her husband kissing Docia Hale.

She blinked back more tears as she wandered the ruin.

The quiet was unnerving without the rain pounding against panes and rattling them from their frames.

The long hallway was lined by tall windows that let in natural light.

She followed one corridor to an old sitting chamber.

Portraits and landscape paintings still hung on faded papered walls of an indiscriminate color.

There were bookcases here, too, but the shelves appeared intact.

Most of the furnishings were sturdy—French—if she were to guess.

A good polishing of the wood and perhaps updated upholstery and the pieces would fit right in with her plans—

Plans. She might not last the summer in Penhalwick. All her work… the Literary Society, the women who needed and respected her business sense. The children’s school. None of that would survive her desertion. But how could she bear to stay if Lucius remained?

Meredith set her lamp on a low table next to the settee, spun about, and plopped down, stirring up a cloud of dust, and sneezed.

Thus was her life, she thought with a not so normal bleakness.

She tugged the journal from her pocket, determined to lose herself in the mysterious past she was certain had much to do with the present.