Page 44 of Snowbound Surrender

The silence stretched uncomfortably as Lushington seemed to struggle for an answer. Finally he said with false bonhomie, “I would indeed be in your debt if you could pass on my concerns should Lady Lushington return.” He rose. “However, I amanxious to be on my way while the weather is clear. And it is close to the dinner hour?—”

“And you must be our guest, Lord Lushington!” Lady Quamby cried, her eyes dancing as she looked at her sister. “Fanny, won’t you ring and tell Mary that we have an extra guest this evening? For it is too late for you to consider progressing your journey this evening.”

But Lushington politely declined. “I am anxious to be on my way, though I thank you, Lady Quamby, for your offer of hospitality.”

CHAPTER 10

It wasstrange to wake as a guest in the grand manor where she had spent nearly five years as its mistress.

Five long, difficult years during which Arabella had had many occasions to question whether she’d made the right decision regarding the actions she’d taken on her brother’s behalf.

She could still see James as clearly as if it were yesterday—bursting into her chamber a few nights before her wedding to Nicholas, his face white with terror and desperation. She had been in her nightgown, her wedding dress hanging ghostlike in the corner, when he had fallen to his knees beside her bed and confessed everything.

“Arabella, I’ve done something terrible,” he’d whispered, his voice breaking. “I borrowed money from the regiment’s funds. Just temporarily, I swear it. I had such a sure thing at the races, and I thought I could replace it before anyone noticed. But the horse didn’t come in, and now they’re doing an inspection tomorrow. If they find the shortfall...” His voice had cracked entirely. “It’s a hanging offense, Bella. They’ll court-martial me and then they’ll hang me.”

James was her younger brother, and she would never let him down. He was good and honest, and if he had borrowed money, then of course he’d intended to return it. But if court martial was the consequence unless she helped him come up with the funds, then she would sell her soul. What good sister wouldn’t?

But there was a fine line between doing right and doing wrong for the right reasons. And this was what she had wondered about many times in the dark hours of her marriage.

James had had no compunction in accepting the money that she had given him after she’d sold her jewellery in desperate haste. And when she’d testified that James was with her on a number of occasions when she knew he was not—when she had sworn under oath that he was too ill with fever to leave his bed during the crucial days when the money went missing—was she therefore as culpable as James in wrongdoing?

She’d forged her father’s signature on bank documents to access family funds. She’d created false receipts to account for money that didn’t exist. She’d lied to investigators, to magistrates, to anyone who would listen. All to save her brother from the gallows.

Now the documents that pointed to these crimes were all that stood between comfort and happiness in Nicholas’s arms... and transportation to the colonies, if she was fortunate. The hangman’s noose, if she was not.

The case was being revisited because James—who had escaped penalty through her lies—was back in England. And while he might just as easily have slid into quiet obscurity, he was determined to clear his name of even the minor charge that he felt discredited him. Did he not know that to digging up the episode would incriminate his sister? She, who had sacrificed her integrity and so much more in order to see him escape what was possibly the noose?

She had sacrificed so much more because Lord Lushington, who had connections to the same regiment, had discovered Arabella’s crimes. The forged papers, the perjured testimony, the falsified documents—he had evidence of it all. And he had used that evidence like a sword at her throat, forcing her to break her engagement to Nicholas and marry him instead.

So now here she was in the wine cellar of Lushington Hall, her single candle casting eerie shadows on the stone walls as she knelt before the loose stone where she had hidden her shame. The air was thick and musty, heavy with the scent of aged wine and something darker—the weight of secrets that had festered here for years.

Her fingers scraped against rough stone as she pried at the hiding place, her heart sinking with each passing moment. The cavity beneath the stone was empty. Completely empty.

“No,” she whispered, her voice echoing hollowly in the confined space. “No, no, no...”

She thrust her hand deeper into the space, feeling frantically for any trace of the documents that should have been there. But there was nothing. Where was the letter her late husband had forced her to write, confessing everything? He’d kept it locked in his desk drawer, always as leverage, together with the practice sheets he’d found and which she’d used to perfect her father’s handwriting. She’d only needed to withdraw a small amount, which she’d subsequently repaid without him having known.

But Thomas Beecham had never had patience or kindness to his only son James. He’d have seen James swing before helping him. Arabella was sure of it.

And Lushington, an acquaintance of her father’s, had capitalised on everything.

The moment he’d breathed his last, Arabella had flown to the library, found the key to his desk and snatched theincriminating letter and documents, which she’d then hidden beneath the loose stone in the cellar.

She’d been wise to have acted with such caution, for she had indeed, been searched by Lushington’s bailiff before she’d left, according to the terms of her late husband’s will.

Now, as she scraped her fingers over the damp earth, horror and near hysteria threatened to undo her.

Someone had found the letter that could send her to the gallows.

But who?

The soft sound of footsteps on the stone stairs made her freeze, her blood turning to ice in her veins. Someone was coming down to the cellars.

“My dear Arabella,” came a cultured voice from the darkness beyond her candle’s reach. “How lovely to find you here. Though I confess, I’m curious about what could have brought you to such an... unusual location for a morning visit.”

Algernon stepped into the circle of candlelight, his handsome face wearing an expression of mild interest that didn’t quite reach his calculating eyes. He was impeccably dressed despite the early hour, and there was something in his smile that made her skin crawl—the same predatory quality that had always made her uncomfortable in his presence.

“Algernon,” she managed, struggling to her feet and brushing dust from her skirts. “I... I didn’t know you were here. I thought you weren’t arriving until tomorrow.”