Eighteen
B efore the curricle Gilly had hired had even come to a stop, Phaedra gathered up her skirts, and leaped to the ground. She swayed slightly as her feet hit, but quickly regained her balance and rushed off into the darkness. With only the moon to light her way, she ran through the graveyard behind the small church. Behind her she heard Gilly utter an oath. He hissed her name while he strove to secure the horse’s lead reins to the cemetery’s iron gate.
But Phaedra was lost to everything except the sensations of shock and horror that rose up in her breast, threatening to suffocate her. With little thought for the sanctity of the dead, she stumbled across the mound of a new-laid grave and made wildly for that corner of the churchyard where Dr. Glencoe claimed he had seen James Lethington laid to rest.
She staggered to a halt and stood gasping several moments before she could focus on the weather-worn stones before her. In the moonlight she could just barely make out the simple carvings. A succession of unknown names passed before her eyes until she came to the last and smallest headstone.
JAMES LETHINGTON ... BELOVED SON OF MAIDA AND DANIEL LETHINGTON.
“There!” she cried. “It isn’t true. I knew it wasn’t.” Her voice broke as she relived again that chilling moment in the doctor’s cottage, hearing the old man identify the portrait of the man she loved as that of the murderer James Lethington. The doctor’s sight must be failing, his words must be false for here was James Lethington’s grave before her, the dust long settled over his tormented soul.
She heard Gilly’s footsteps as he came running up behind her. “Fae?—”
“Look for yourself,” she said shrilly. “James Lethington is buried beneath six feet of earth. Armande is not ...”
Gilly forced her around and held her close, as though the fierceness of his hug could still her shaking, hold at bay her fears and dispel the nightmare that descended upon her.
“The old man is mad.” She muffled the words against his cloak. “It is impossible.”
“I was as shocked as you, Fae. But as for being impossible, I am afraid it is not.”
“Then you are telling me I have fallen in love with a ghost.”
“No. James Lethington is very much alive.”
She drew away from Gilly, shaking her head. “Ewan saw him hang. Dr. Glencoe brought the body back here for burial.”
“Aye, but did you notice the good doctor’s reaction after he identified James? You turned white as bed linens. Then when I began to hint we thought we might have seen the man in the portrait, Glencoe hustled us out like we were carriers of the pox. I would wager my last shilling it was because the doctor knows James is not dead.”
“Then what did he do? Practice some magic arts upon the crowd so that they all simply thought they saw James hang?”
“What I’m thinking happened is a deal worse than that.” As the moonlight skimmed Gilly’s features, she realized her carefree cousin had never looked so grim. “You’ve never been to a hanging, Fae. You could not imagine how horrible it is. Very few snap their necks at once. Most die by slow strangulation.”
“I’ve been regaled with enough of my grandfather’s gruesome tales. I don’t need you to?—”
“I am only trying to explain to you that James would not be the first man to survive such an ordeal. I’ve heard of cases where doctors can detect signs of life in the condemned even after dangling for an hour. They can revive a hanged man.”
Phaedra turned away, but she could not shut out the sound of Gilly’s voice. “The procedure is known as a bronchotomy. The surgeon makes an incision in the base of the throat, which helps the man start to breathe again.”
Phaedra’s hands flew to her throat. But it was not her own flesh she was feeling, but rather the memory of Armande’s neck, of running her fingers over that tiny scar. A result of something a friend had done, he had told her.
Gilly continued, “Dr. Glencoe admits he was there at the hanging to recover the body. If James had been yet alive, he could have revived him and spirited him away, and buried anything in that grave, even a coffin weighted with rocks.”
Phaedra walked away from Gilly, toward the gravestone of James Lethington. She bent to trace the carved lines with her fingers as though somehow her touch could draw forth the secrets of the grave, raise up the spirit of a dead man to refute Gilly’s words. But she heard nothing but the wind whispering mournfully through the grass. The coldness of the stone seemed to seep through her like the chill of death itself.
Gilly settled her cloak more snugly about her, then wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her away from the headstone. “Come, Fae. Lingering here will change nothing. It is time I was taking you home.”
She said nothing, permitting Gilly to lead her back to the curricle. They rode away from Hampstead in silence, the sleepy village already lost in the hush of night. Gilly, ever alert to the dangers of traveling after dark, kept a brace of loaded pistols at the ready. Phaedra sat numbly beside him, with no fear of highwaymen. Her terrors were the conjurings of her own mind, phantom memories of a summer that would never come again, an illusion born of the heat and a too-bright sun. She had stripped away Armande’s mask at last, and found not love, but death.
The long, dreary ride back to Heath passed in a blur. The plan had been for her to slip back unseen from the day’s outing. Even now Lucy was covering for her, saying that her mistress was in bed, ill from her shock of Hester Searle’s death.
But such small deceptions did not seem to matter any longer. Wearily Phaedra directed Gilly to drive her up to the Heath’s main gates. The sleepy-eyed porter regarded her arrival with some surprise, then shuffled to swing wide the iron bars.
The curricle swept down the length of the gravel drive. Blackheath House was silent and dark at this late hour. The moonlight skating off the stark block of granite, unadorned except for the tall white Corinthian pillars, gave the mansion the look of a Greek temple-cold and forbidding, awaiting its sacrifice.
When Gilly drew the curricle to a halt, he twisted the leather of the reins between his hands, nervous and unsure about permitting her to alight. “I never counted on us returning so late. Perhaps I should come in with you. We could talk to your grandfather now?—”
“No!” Phaedra cried. “Grandfather is likely already in bed. Surely there is no need to disturb him tonight.”
Gilly placed his hand soothingly over hers, but his voice was firm as he said, “It is a different situation now, Fae. Your grandfather has a right to know he harbors a murderer under his roof.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Fae, you cannot still be denying?—”
“I’m not denying anything. I’m only asking you for a little more time to think matters through.” She clutched at her cousin’s fingers, pleading. “Give me just the one more night, Gilly. Then tomorrow, we can do whatever you think necessary.”
He held her hand for a long time, obviously uneasy at her proposal. Finally, with great reluctance, he agreed. “I suppose you have been through enough hell for one day. But you take great care. And for the love of God, stay away from de LeCroix.”
That was an easy pledge to make. Phaedra was afraid to face Armande, knowing what she did, terrified to look into his eyes, and see the eyes of James Lethington staring back at her. Yet she bridled. “He would never hurt me, Gilly.”
“Perhaps I don’t believe he would, either,” was her cousin’s last admonishment, “but all the same, you keep your door locked.”
Alighting from the curricle, he saw her safely back up the lane to the house, not parting from her until she slipped in through the front door.
Despite the fact that it was not yet midnight, the Heath seemed oppressively silent. None of the footmen were in attendance, nor did she see any of the other servants as she stepped into the front hall. Without Hester’s grim presence, the household had already grown a bit lax.
She supposed she should count herself fortunate that someone had remembered to leave an oil lamp burning upon the hall table. She found a candle end in one of the drawers and touched it to a lamp’s wick to light her way up to bed. She should have been grateful to find no one abroad, for her return would go unremarked. But the house’s relentless silence preyed upon nerves already stretched taut from the shock she had received at Glencoe’s cottage.
The candle trembled in her grasp as she glided through the hall. The stone walls loomed above her, the candle flame sparked glints of illumination upon the collection of medieval weaponry. She averted her eyes, trying to avoid the sight of wicked curving hooks and sharp blades.
She loathed the hall even in the daytime. Why now, of all nights, was she lingering here instead of bolting up to the security of her bedchamber? Perhaps she sought to prove to herself that she was not afraid. Sometime in the hours between now and dawn she would have to come to terms with the truth of Armande’s identity as James Lethington. Perhaps that was best done here in the hall, where it had all begun seven years ago-the chain of tragedy that reached out from the past to threaten her.
Drawing in a deep breath, she forced her feet past that one part of the hall she had always avoided. The suit of armor stood cloaked in shadow, the lifeless man of iron menacing her with the weapon in its upraised gauntlet. Mocking eyes seemed to regard her through the slits in the plumed helmet, the lower joining of the visor appearing curved into a taunting smile.
She attempted to confront the worst of her fears, picturing Armande’s face distorted with the fury to kill, his strong, supple fingers replacing that fist of tarnished iron, grasping the mace. Her heart rebelled, refusing to allow such an image to linger even in the darkest recesses of her thoughts.
“So you have returned at last.”
The familiar silken voice sliced at Phaedra out of the darkness, terrifying her with its sudden proximity. She cried out, whirling to look behind her, stumbling and clattering against the armor. The candle dropped from her hand and rolled across the floor, sending wild arcs of light through the chamber. She caught a glimpse of the hard angles of Armande’s face set beneath his thick mane of dark hair, his eyes like blue flame, his shadow falling across her as the candle spun away.
She cowered against the suit of armor, unable to speak. Miraculously the candle did not snuff itself out, but came to rest against the wall, dripping wax upon the stone floor.
Armande turned aside long enough to retrieve it. He held the taper so that the light fell fully across her face. She flung her hand before her eyes in a defensive gesture.
“I am sorry if I frightened you,” he said. “You needn’t tremble so. There are no windows here.”
His sarcastic reference to her suspicions regarding Hester’s death did nothing to calm Phaedra’s racing heart. Armande’s lips curved in a bitter half-smile, his frozen look not quite concealing some darker emotion that raged within him. His wintry eyes never left her face as he snuffed out the candle, the smoke curling in wisps between them, the hall entombed in darkness except for the glow of the oil lamp by the door.
Phaedra inched away from the lamplight toward the marble stairway, the concealing blackness of the landing above them. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be awake,” she said.
With one deft stride, Armande placed himself in front of her.
He made no move to touch her, but the breadth of his shoulders formed an impassable barrier between her and the stairs.
“I looked into your room this morning, but you were gone,” he said. “I have been watching for your return all day. I believe you have something that belongs to me.”
The accusation was couched in the softest of accents, yet Phaedra detected the anger beneath. Unable to meet his stare, she lowered her eyes to the cravat knotted with precision about his neck, the lace-trimmed linen concealing that familiar small scar.
She moistened her lips. “I-I don’t understand.”
He took a step closer, the movement rife with an impatience barely held in check. “The figurine is missing from the wooden chest in my room. It was taken either by your hand or your cousin’s. I don’t care who took it. I want it returned.”
Phaedra’s hands fluttered to the joining of her cloak, but she abandoned any further attempt to deceive him. Fumbling beneath the mantle’s dark folds, she produced the small parcel from one of the voluminous pockets. Silently she handed Armande the shepherd without unwrapping it. He pocketed it, his mouth pinching into a tight white line. After a moment’s hesitation, Phaedra drew forth the shepherdess. Slowly she peeled away the cotton batting. She raised the diminutive statue so that it was outlined by the lamp’s glow.
She heard the quick intake of Armande’s breath. He stared for a long moment. In a constricted tone he asked, “And how did you come by that?”
“I found it a long time ago in my garret. I didn’t know the significance of it until I saw yours.” Rather clumsily she held out the statue. “Take it. By rights it belongs to you.”
He made no move to accept it, his gaze raking her, the lean planes of his face flushing dark with suspicion and uncertainty.
She retreated a step, essaying a shaky laugh that was but a whisper away from a sob. “You were right about me all along. I never know when to stop asking questions. Today I asked one too many.” She swallowed. “I-I went to see a doctor named Glencoe.”
The name seemed to thud between them with all the force of a hammer’s blow. When she fell silent, Armande prodded harshly, “And? What then?”
“I know everything, Armande,” she said. “Or perhaps I should call you James.”
“You may call me anything you damn well please!”
The release of his anger caused Phaedra to shrink back further. Yet she pleaded, clinging desperately to one last hope. “If you told me that none of it was true, even now I would believe you.”
“Would you?” .He laughed savagely. “I won’t put your faith in me to such a strain.” He advanced upon her, his fine-chiseled features twisting into a sneer. “That is exactly who I am, my dear. Old Lethe, the legendary murderer of Blackheath Hall. A walking corpse with bloodstained hands. I wonder you dare to be down here alone with me.”
With each step he took, Phaedra stumbled backward until she was pinned against the cold, rough stone of the wall.
“Except that you don’t dare, do you?” he bit out. “You’ve been waiting for your chance to escape up those stairs, terrified that I mean to throttle you at any moment.”
She shook her head, her breath coming out in a frightened sob.
“Damn you, Phaedra. It is you who are killing me.” He yanked her into his arms, trapping her ruthlessly against the hardness of his body so that she could scarcely breathe or cry out. The shepherdess, still clutched in her hand, all but broke apart between her gripping fingers as she struggled to be free.
James pressed hot, savage kisses along the column of her throat, his words choked with the embittered fury of despair. “How oft have I held you in my arms, loved you in a way I never have loved any other, and still you could think that I would?—”
Scarcely thinking what she did, Phaedra drove her foot hard against his instep. In that brief second he relaxed his grip enough for her to claw her way out of his arms. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she backed away toward the stairs.
“Phaedra!” He raged her name, sending it echoing off the rafters. He stretched his hand toward her in a gesture that was half a demand, half a plea.
Looking into his tormented eyes, she could see how her fears tore him apart, and she hated herself. She sensed that he was deliberately seeking to terrorize her-daring her, begging her, to fight back, to do anything but shrink from him.
But she could not give him the reassurance he sought with such desperation. Instead of her hand, she placed the shepherdess in his open palm. “Please, Armande ... James. Let me go. Tomorrow when it is light, we can?—”
She broke off, flinching away from him as he uttered a vicious oath and hurled the figurine against the opposite wall. The sound of the delicate china shattering into a myriad of pieces destroyed what remained of Phaedra’s control.
She spun about and hurled herself up the darkness of the stairs, stumbling on the hem of her gown, nearly pitching forward onto her face. She expected at any moment to feel James’s hands close upon her, dragging her back.
She was halfway up the long, curving stair before she realized he was not coming after her. She slowed, taking one more uncertain step. The hall had resumed its unnatural silence, the only sound her ragged breathing.
Phaedra turned, risking one glance back at the chamber below her. By the spot where the figurine had shattered, James stood frozen, a lonely silhouette in the soft glow pooling from the lamp. She watched the last vestiges of anger drain from him. His hands balled into fists, and he buried his eyes against them, sinking down until he knelt amidst the glistening fragments of china.
Phaedra’s fear vanished, a dull ache settling over her heart. Cursing herself for a fool, she rushed back down the stairs and crossed the hall to his side. His powerful frame was wracked with such tremors that she hesitated to touch him. Such grief in a man of James’s iron control seemed too private a thing to be witnessed even by her eyes.
She caressed his bowed head, her fingers snagging in the strands of dark hair. She felt him stiffen, then he lowered his hands, to look up at her. He wrapped his arms about her waist, burying his face in the softness beneath her breasts. Phaedra clasped her hands behind his neck, her tears glistening upon his hair as she kissed the top of his head. She held him thus for a long time, offering him wordless comfort. When at last she could speak, the only words she could utter were “I’m sorry.” How foolish, how inadequate, that sounded in the face of all that he had suffered.
He pulled away from her. Resting one hand heavily upon her shoulder, he struggled to his feet, gathering his strength and pride as he rose.
“It is I who should apologize to you,” he said. “You have now seen the worst of James Lethington’s infamous temper. A condition I thought I had cured in myself long ago.”
Although he brushed aside the last traces of her tears, his eyes clouded with bitterness. “When I was young ...” He spoke as though that had been many, many ages ago. “I was nearly consumed with ambition. I was going to make my mark upon the world, leave behind a name to echo through time.”
He laughed softly, the sound lacking in all mirth. “Little did I realize the name of James Lethington would be used to terrify little girls.”
His fingers trailed along her skin, tracing the curve of her cheek, his gaze softened with tenderness. She caught his hand and pressed her lips against the warm hollow of his palm.
“This particular little girl is a fool,” she whispered. “Can you ever forgive me?” She tried to find the words to explain to him, that even loving him as she did, she could still be afraid. “It is only that I felt so stunned. In all my wildest imaginings about your past, I never thought that-that?—”
“The dead could return to walk the earth?” He meant the words to sound mocking, but his voice cracked.
“My feelings for Ewan betrayed me once, made me a victim,” she continued. “But what I felt for him was mere infatuation, not one particle of the love I bear for you. I have never been so vulnerable in my life as I have been with you. I think that is, more than anything, why I was so terrified of you. You have always been so strong, so self-contained. I daresay you do not understand what it is to be afraid.”
“Aye, but I do. There is one fear that is my constant torment. The dread of losing you.”
He gathered her up in his arms, straining her close. “Phaedra,” he murmured against her hair. “I should have told you the truth long ago, but that fear kept me silent. I was terrified that once you had heard my real name, once you knew I was a condemned murderer, that you would flee from me in horror. Is it too late for me to explain? Will you listen to me now?”
Before she had the chance to assent, they were both startled by the creak of a door, the sound of a footfall behind them. They drew quickly apart. Phaedra turned as the footman Peter straggled belatedly into the hall, bearing a candlestick in his upraised hand. Although he appeared somewhat surprised to see Phaedra and her houseguest standing alone in the dimly lit chamber, the young man appeared far more anxious to cover up his own dereliction of duty. His features flushed as he sought furtively to redo the uppermost button of his breeches.
“Lady Phaedra. My lord,” he stammered. “I am sorry. I was away from my post for but a moment. Then I thought I heard a noise.”
“I dropped a piece of china.” James’s voice was wooden as he described the destruction of a most cherished treasure. Whatever self-reproach he felt, he concealed it beneath a gruff command to Peter to see that the fragments were swept away. He took the candlestick from the footman, saying, “I will see her ladyship safely upstairs.”
Leaving the abashed footman still trying to offer excuses for his absence, Phaedra followed James silently up the stairs. At the second-floor landing, he turned to her, saying, “You never gave me your answer, my lady. May the accused be permitted to speak in his own defense?”
Although he attempted to make the question sound light, she sensed with what anxiety he awaited her answer. Silently, she slipped her hand into his.
James set the candlestick down upon the windowsill in his bedchamber, the flame reflected back in the night-darkened panes. The moon was hidden behind the clouds, rendering the sky a sea of blackness. It was the lonliest part of night, when darkness threatened to stretch on forever, the rose-gold of dawn never to come again.
While Phaedra settled herself into a stiff-backed chair, James paced before her, as though he were a prisoner in the dock preparing to mount one final, desperate defense for his life. The candle flickered, its illumination darting upward, casting James’s hard-sculpted features half in light, half in shadow. Watching him was like gazing upon the souls of two different men trapped within his frame.
It was Armande de LeCroix’s well-modulated voice that spoke to her, as icily controlled as ever; but the fire in the blue eyes and the angry set to the mouth were the features of James Lethington.
“It’s a long story, Phaedra, and not one I can easily bring again to life.”
Phaedra nodded and said gently, “I am ready to listen.”
His words came hesitantly at first, then more confidently as James delved deeper into his tale, weaving a spell about Phaedra until she felt carried back into the past, transported by the anguished recounting of his memories.
Through James’s eyes, she saw, in more detail, much of the story that had already become somewhat familiar to her-the restless young man longing for adventure, yearning to pursue some intangible dream far beyond the staid confines of his family’s china shop. Then came the death of his beloved father, forcing him to assume the responsibilities of the business as well as to look after his mother and sister and his quiet younger brother, Jason. Phaedra heard James’s bitterness at being entrapped in a role to which he was so ill-suited, his guilt and despair as the shop began to fail, his apprehension when he realized the growing attraction between Julianna and Ewan Grantham, his determination to keep his impressionable sister away from the weak man whom he held in contempt.
“You see, my dear, Ewan’s father had already begun arranging his marriage to a rich man’s granddaughter, the beautiful Miss Phaedra Weylin, yet residing in Ireland.” Here James paused to give Phaedra a rueful smile. The smile vanished as he continued, “Ewan had not the courage to defy his father openly, but he wanted Julianna to elope with him. My sister loved all of us far too well to deceive her family in such a manner. Before the elopement could take place, she confessed everything to us.”
James sighed. “I reacted too harshly. I cursed Ewan, forbade her to ever see him again. Julianna dissolved into tears and fled to her room. That was the last time I ever saw her. When I came upstairs from the shop for tea, I found her gone.
No,” he said as though anticipating the question Phaedra had been about to voice. “She hadn’t left to elope with Ewan. She had only gone, with my mother’s permission, to tell him goodbye. I was angry, and would have gone after her at once; but my mother said, ‘Let be, Jamey. She loves the lad, but Julianna is a sensible girl. She only wants to see him one last time, bid him farewell, and give him that little shepherdess she made. We can always design something else for the Emperor.”
James interlaced his hands, his fingers tightening. “I wasn’t concerned about the damned Emperor’s commission. I was worried about my sister, but I allowed my mother to dissuade me. I waited for her return until the sun went down. When I saw the darkness gathering outside and she still hadn’t come back, I went after Ewan Grantham.”
James’s eyes were twin flames as he rounded the darkest bend of this journey back into his past. “I tracked Ewan down to his lodgings, and we nigh had a set-to there and then. He was as furious as I, ranting that I had kept Julianna away from their rendezvous. That was when I realized he hadn’t seen my sister all day, either. A feeling of dread began to churn in my stomach. Then Ewan turned pale. He was obviously afraid. ‘If it was not you who detained Julianna,’ he said to me, ‘then it must have been father.
“Ewan didn’t want to explain any more than that, but he finally told me his father had made threats of what he would do to Julianna if Ewan did not give her up.”
“That sounds most likely,” Phaedra said. “From what I have heard, Carleton Grantham was badly in debt. He needed my grandfather’s money desperately, and his son’s marriage to me was the guarantee he would get it.”
James nodded. “And Lord Carleton was not the sort of man to hold any particular regard for human life. When I thought that Julianna might have been in his hands …” James shuddered. “I forced Ewan at once to tell me where his father was. He said that Lord Carleton had gone out to the Heath to go over marriage settlements with Sawyer Weylin. As usual, Ewan lacked the courage to confront his father himself. So I went alone.”
James’s voice dropped so low it was nearly inaudible. He closed his eyes. Phaedra reached out to him in a comforting gesture, but when he opened his eyes, she shrank back. His gaze fired with a hatred that seared her, although she knew his rage was not directed at her, but at some shadowy figure from the past only James could see.
He resumed. “I had no difficulty gaining entrance to the Heath. The place was strangely empty, not a servant in sight, no one except for him. Lord Carleton,” James spat the name with loathing. “When I confronted him, he, sneered at me, at first denying any knowledge of my sister. Then I saw Julianna’s cloak dropped in a heap by the stairs. It was torn as though in a struggle. Carleton- the cursed devil- just laughed in my face.
“He told me that he did now recall ‘entertaining’ my sister and could understand why his son Ewan found the pretty little whore so fascinating. I should have held my temper, should have found out exactly what he had done with Julianna, but something exploded inside me.” James clenched his fists. “I could have ripped him apart with my bare hands. I went for his throat, but he seized a pike from the wall and rushed me with it. I managed to deflect the tip and grappled with him, sending him flying back.”
Phaedra sat upon the very edge of her seat, gripping the arm rails while James paused to wipe at the perspiration beading his brow.
“Dear God, Phaedra, after all these years I am still not certain how it happened. That damned mace was set on the wall in those days. Perhaps when Carleton grabbed the pike, he somehow loosened the mountings. I only know that when he crashed back, the mace came down and ... He died almost instantly.”
Phaedra stirred uneasily. This was far different from any account of Carleton Grantham’s death she had ever heard before. With his uncanny perception, James sensed her feelings at once.
“Aye, you are right to look so doubting, my dear,” he said. “An accident so bizarre surpasses all belief. I realized that myself at once. But before I could react, your grandfather came upon the scene. He clubbed me over the head with his cane. Next morning, I awoke in Newgate. I tried to render my account of the death, but already it was too late. Ewan Grantham had sworn that he saw me murder his father in cold blood.”
Phaedra had dreaded to hear that it was her grandfather who had borne witness against James. Greatly astonished to hear that it had been Ewan, she protested, “But you said that Ewan was not even there. Why would he tell such lies?”
James raked his fingers through his dark hair, the gesture rife with frustration and helplessness. “To this day, I don’t know. Maybe he believed that I had killed his father and would come after him if given a chance. I probably would have, for at that point Julianna’s shoes had been found by the river and everyone was saying she had drowned herself. But Ewan seemed so frightened that I wondered if he had learned more about her death than he was telling.”
James’s shoulders sagged, a weary sigh escaping him. “Of course, no one believed my version of the event. Not even Dr. Glencoe, not even my own mother. My temper was legend, my account of the accident far too strange. Just as you don’t believe me now.”
Phaedra ached to assure him that she did, but the words that escaped her lips sounded faint even to her own ears. He looked quickly away from her.
“To make a tedious story short,” he continued dully, “I was convicted of murder and hanged. And that is probably the strangest part of my whole tale. You see, I had never been to a hanging. It was not a diversion my father ever felt suited for his family. If I had been a little more experienced in such matters I might not be here now.”
When Phaedra shot him a look of bewilderment, he explained, “If you want your neck to snap quickly, you have to take a small leap into the air as the flooring drops away. Otherwise you might just ... dangle.”
James’s hand moved involuntarily to his collar. “The rope tightened, digging into my flesh, pressing on my throat, cutting off my air.” His eyes glazed with the memory. Phaedra clutched her hands in her lap to still their trembling. She was so caught up in the pain and horror of what he described, it was as though she could feel the rope constricting about her own neck, tearing at her own life. She doubted James realized that his own breath now came faster, and his fingers unconsciously yanked at his cravat, ripping it away from his neck.
“I-I couldn’t breathe-couldn’t seem to die, either,” he rasped. “I don’t know how long I fought for my life. It felt like eternity. The crowd blurred before my eyes. The last thing I saw was Ewan’s face. My last thought was that, if I had to come back from hell itself, I would find a way to make him tell the truth.”
James massaged his neck. He drew in a steadying breath before he was able to speak calmly once more. “When I next regained consciousness, I was not in heaven or hell, but Dr. Glencoe’s cottage. My throat swathed in bandages, I felt like I had swallowed fire, but I was alive-if you want to call it that.
“As recompense for saving me, Glencoe insisted I take my mother and brother and go away. I was in no further danger from the law, because a man who survives hanging is generally pardoned. But the old man feared the vindictiveness of Ewan Grantham. Perhaps he feared my own black temper even more. I wanted to get at the truth of Julianna’s death, and if there were any besides Lord Carleton who had had a hand in it, I wanted them to pay. But for my mother’s sake, and for Jason’s, I was persuaded to go. We salvaged what few belongings we could from the shop, and set sail for Canada.
“My mother was a gentle woman, Phaedra, far too gentle. Losing Julianna, the grinding days of my trial, witnessing my execution and return from the dead, having to flee our home- it was all too much for her. She fell ill on the voyage. I believed she might have recovered if she had had the will. As it was, Jason and I could do nothing but watch her slip away.”
His words trailed to silence. James turned from Phaedra to stare out the window, his story done. Her heart weighted with the sharing of his grief, the horror he had survived, it was some moments before Phaedra could speak herself.
“But now, after seven years, you have come back,” she said.
He bowed his head in ironic acknowledgment.
“Why?” she breathed, knowing the answer to her question, hoping to hear she was wrong.
“I would have thought that would be patently obvious, my dear.” He swiveled to face her, his eyes narrowed to shards of ice. “I’ve come back to learn the truth of sister’s death and to crush those responsible for destroying my family.”
“Carleton Grantham is dead. So is Ewan.”
“Aye,” James said, his soft voice chilling her. “But Sawyer Weylin is very much alive.”