Page 51 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Elleray

S atisfied that his brother’s pulse was steady, Jacob tucked the viscount’s hand under the cover.

‘I’ve got to go, Arthur. There’s a manhunt underway and I need to redirect it to the right person.’

‘You don’t need to fuss about me,’ grumbled Arthur.

Lying in bed, his hair mussed and wearing only a nightshirt, his oldest brother looked like the boy of Jacob’s earliest memories.

He should never forget that beneath the bluster of the new viscount was that stubborn Arthur who both infuriated and protected him in equal measure as they grew up.

The events of the past few days had proved that they needed a new way to communicate if Arthur’s managing ways were not to break their bond.

But this day was not the ideal one to thrash this out with Arthur.

‘I’m not fussing. I’m tending to your medical needs,’ Jacob said evenly.

‘I don’t need any of this,’ Arthur waved at the medicine and the bedpan.

‘My sickroom, my rules.’

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘Believe me, I am not. I consider it damned inconvenient of you to play the hero today of all days and get yourself shot.’ Worry nibbled at him.

The shooter had not been apprehended– Langhorne, he was almost sure of it.

They had taken a wrong turn considering Luke Knotte’s odd manners as sign of his guilt; the young poet was strange, but that wasn’t a crime.

What was criminal was to try to murder the person standing in the way of your desired match.

If Langhorne could do that, would he stop solving other obstacles in his path with violence– friends who told him ‘no’, magistrates who stood for law and order?

Jacob feared not. He should send Dora a message to stay strictly indoors and not approach the man under any circumstances.

‘I suppose I should apologise.’ The tone was pure Arthur: resentful, though it was he offering the olive branch. The sprig he was offering was a little frost-bitten.

‘Apologise for what?’

‘For not sending word to you sooner when Father was dying.’

They were going to talk about that, were they?

Jacob took a seat at his brother’s bedside.

‘You…’ he was about to say ‘hurt me’ but stopped.

He and his brother didn’t speak frankly to each other about feelings.

It had been trained out of them. English gentlemen were little islands of self-control. ‘I thought it bad form.’

Arthur grimaced. ‘Looking back, I suppose it was. My excuse is that I wasn’t thinking clearly. There was a tidal wave of responsibilities about to crash down on me and I could not bring a stranger into the family, nor bear the thought of arguing with you as I had to turn your companion away.’

How could his brother be such a blockhead?

‘I don’t understand how you thought I would do such a thing.

I care too much for Dora, and for you all, to force a meeting on such terms. That would make me a cad of the worst sort, either setting her up for humiliation or adding to everyone’s upset while our father was dying.

Don’t you know me even a little, Arthur? ’

His brother didn’t reply. His gaze went to the window, to the sunshine and racing clouds.

In the silence, Jacob realised something about him: Arthur had made a mistake.

He hadn’t intentionally been spiteful or jealous despite what feelings were rumbling away beneath his actions; he had simply panicked.

Arthur, Viscount Sandys, had panicked at the thought of a confrontation with him, his younger brother!

When had Jacob grown in his brother’s eyes to be such a fearsome opponent?

When Arthur did speak, he didn’t answer the question but took the conversation in an unexpected direction.

‘Do you know something? I envy what you have with Miss Fitz-Pennington– that closeness and ease.’

‘Dora is not easy. She keeps me on my toes.’

Arthur chuckled, winced and touched his bandage. ‘I suppose so. But she is warm, and I would go as far as to say she is your friend, if friendship between the sexes is possible.’ His dubious expression suggested he thought that unlikely. ‘Diana and I—’ He cut himself off.

Poor Arthur. He really knew nothing about women.

Jacob felt the gulf stretch between them.

They had known each other as boys but the distance had grown as their lives went in different directions.

Both had of late formed opinions of the other based on their worst moments, not their best. He certainly had no idea what went on in his brother’s marriage, not being in his confidence.

Arthur was usually a Trappist on his personal life with his wife.

However, his brother had made his choice years ago, choosing duty, so had to make the best of it. Besides, Jacob liked his sister-in-law.

‘Diana will be a fine viscountess.’

‘Yes, she will. I won’t hear a word against her.’ His expression turned wistful. ‘But I sometimes long for something other than mutual respect.’ Only the shock of nearly losing his life could have prompted such a confession from Arthur.

‘And yet a dutiful marriage was the sort you tried to engineer for me?’

‘Only because I think it best in the long run. Keep the warmth and friendship for your mistress, away from the gaze of those that pry. Weakness, softness, love– your enemies will attack you for it. You might not think it now, but you will need a Diana to take your place in society alongside me.’

‘Then perhaps I do not want to join you there.’

Alex came into the sickroom without knocking. Jacob cursed him under his breath– such moments came so rarely with Arthur that he feared he would never get another chance to resolve their issues.

‘Apologies, my lord,’ said Alex.

Arthur scowled but didn’t push his luck by objecting to Alex’s presence.

‘Trouble?’ Jacob asked.

‘Isn’t there always? You’re needed at Chapel Holm.’

Jacob reached for his jacket. ‘Explain.’

‘I was at Waterhead with the searchers when a couple of lads– the Coleridge boys, according to the men I was with– sailed up in a lather. They told us they’d spotted Knotte earlier in the day going to Chapel Holm. They’d persuaded Dora to take them?—’

‘What!’

‘Yes, I know, but this is Dora, not a milksop. The three of them discovered your client, Barton, lying in a tent with a fever.’

‘He’s alive?’ That was a surprise.

‘Yes– he needs your aid.’

‘What about Knotte?’ What part had the young man played in getting Barton to the island?

‘No one’s seen him.’

Jacob grabbed the medical kit he’d put together from the household stores and stuffed them in a satchel. ‘Stay in bed, Arthur.’

His brother grabbed his wrist. ‘Don’t do anything foolish.’

‘What? Like throw myself in front of a bullet?’ He squeezed his brother’s hand, then disengaged. ‘Let’s go, Alex.’

They hurried out of the house, Alex grabbing a telescope from its stand overlooking the lake.

‘Mr Wilson has a boat we can borrow. I ordered some of the staff to make it ready,’ said Alex, leading the way through the gardens to the boathouse on the lakeside.

‘Don’t be too alarmed. Dora isn’t on her own.

I sent one of the men to back her up and I dispatched the boys with Moss.

I asked the boys to keep Ruby company so they are out of harm’s way. ’

Jacob faltered. ‘Who did you send to the island, Alex?’

‘A chap called Langhorne. He said he was a local friend of yours.’

‘He’s no friend of mine.’ Jacob started to run.

* * *

Alex apologised repeatedly half the way to the island– and then subsided and simply looked sick.

‘I can’t believe I did that,’ he said. ‘I thought it was Knotte that we were looking for. Langhorne joined the search for him.’

‘You’re not wrong: we did suspect Knotte, but, dwelling on recent events, it struck me that Langhorne was the one who had most reason to try to kill Furness.

He wanted to marry Lady Alice but her father wouldn’t hear of it.

Langhorne strikes me as the true revolutionary in the circle.

I’m sure he would feel little regret in killing a blueblood. ’

‘So why marry one?’

‘I’d hazard that the combination of beauty and wealth was the lure.

And I don’t like that Langhorne insinuated himself into the search.

How did he hear of the hunt if he wasn’t on hand, aiming a rifle from the bushes?

’ Jacob shifted to let the boom swing to the other side.

Fortunately, he knew how to handle a boat even when the wind wasn’t in their favour.

The wind was fretful, as was he. ‘Could he have joined the search to disguise the fact that he was the one we were looking for?’

‘That would be bold in the extreme.’

‘Our killer is extreme– he shoved a shepherd’s crook down a man’s throat– that takes a vicious temperament. We have to recalibrate what we expect from him. It still might be Knotte but I’m coming around to thinking it’s the other man.’

On Jacob’s instruction, Alex lassoed a branch and pulled them into the island so they could use a branch to scramble ashore. He’d barely tied up when Jacob clambered past him, making the boat rock violently.

‘I can’t see Langhorne’s boat,’ said Alex.

‘No.’ And that didn’t comfort him. ‘I think that one belongs to Barton– it’s from the cottage. I guess Knotte is here too.’ Which meant Dora was outnumbered.

They pushed through the beaten path to the centre of the island and found?—

‘My God,’ said Alex.

Knotte lay dead and a quick look in the tent told Jacob Barton was at death’s door. There was no Dora and no Langhorne. Jacob wanted to rail at the heavens for the horrible choices before him.

‘This is Luke Knotte?’ asked Alex.

‘It is.’ Jacob felt for a pulse in the neck but he knew the man was gone. His body held a little warmth. It was a recent wound, right between the eyes, had made a terrible mess of his face. At least death would’ve been instant.

‘Did he shoot himself?’ Alex picked up the rifle. ‘It’s been fired.’

‘That’s what the killer wants you to think.

You can’t shoot yourself between the eyes with a rifle like that.

How would you reach the trigger? Under the chin, I might believe it– this high at that angle, no.

’ Rifles could kill with a misfire, but they were not the choice of a suicide– far too awkward to manage.

Jacob moved to the sick man. He was barely breathing but he did not appear to be in immediate danger. He had shelter, a blanket, he wasn’t being abducted by a murderer– he could wait.

‘We’re going after Dora,’ said Jacob. ‘Back to the boat.’

Alex didn’t protest. He too understood that Dora was their most pressing concern.

‘Why did she break her promise and come here?’ said Jacob, more to give vent to his fear than because he expected an answer.

‘We’ll tell her off when we rescue her, but I’m guessing it was something the boys told her, some belief that she had to go without waiting for you. She’s not the sort to wait for a man to solve her problems.’

‘No, she damn well isn’t.’

Alex pushed the boat off the shore from the branch. ‘Where do you think he’s taking her?’

‘If he thinks we’ll buy his cock-and-bull story of that campfire and not be suspicious of him, I think he’s taking her out there.

’ Jacob nodded to the lake. ‘He has to get rid of his witness. He’ll sail back saying he didn’t find her at the camp, so went in search of her on the water, and found nothing.

He’ll blame everything on Knotte. We won’t believe him but can we prove he is lying? ’

Alex swore. ‘It’s the biggest lake in England.’

‘I am aware. But the wind is from the north-east. It’s easiest to run south. He can’t risk one of the ferries or a pleasure boat seeing that he has a prisoner, so he’ll be keeping away from the most frequented parts. He’ll sail until no one is within sight, then…’

‘Throw her over?’ Alex gulped. ‘Can she swim?’

Jacob gave a bitter laugh. ‘Barely. Lean out over the side to compensate for the tilt. Let’s make as much speed as this boat will allow.’