A cozy home of her own. Occasional visits with Jane and Lucy. She wouldn’t need much.
Privacy and solitude…and ample food. She could raise a pig or two. Ham. Bacon. Kippers whenever she wanted. The gnawing ache in her stomach intensified and she quickly released the fantasy. For it was no more than that. A fantasy. An illusion. She would still be wed. Would still possess a rascal of a husband leading a secret life somewhere far away.
Walking stiffly to the dresser, she set the ring down with a clink that resounded in the room. “I don’t think so. I cannot live the rest of my life under such a lie.” I live under dark enough clouds as it is. “And I don’t see how you can either. Bertram, someone alerted me to the fact that you were here pretending to be this Sir Powell. You can’t think to get away with such a foul deed.
I’m not the only one—”
“Who?” he demanded, scowling. “What busybody came prattling to you?”
Astrid shook her head. “I don’t know. I received an anonymous letter.”
“Then I doubt anything will come of it.” He shook his head stubbornly, blue eyes hard and defiant. Desperate. “If this individual wanted to cause trouble for me, they already would have done so.”
“They did,” Astrid reminded, pressing a hand to her chest. “I am here.”
Mirth entered his eyes. “You’re hardly the trouble I mean, Astrid. I’m referring to people that actually might do something to see the Duke of Derring hang for forging bank notes. You may never have held any particular affection for me, but I don’t think you wish me dead. You’re softer than you let on.”
She shook her head firmly. “I won’t let you do this.” _Not again. Not to another woman. _ If she only did one decent thing in her life, it would be saving an innocent female from Bertram. Astrid swallowed and lifted her chin. “Don’t force my hand on the matter, Bertram. You cannot succeed in impersonating this Powell fellow.”
“Yes. I can.”
The hairs on her neck tingled at the absolute certainty in which he spoke.
“Sir Powell is dead,” Bertram continued in a chillingly even voice.
“How do you know this?”
“I know. Trust me. The man is dead. And no one knows. No one has seen him in years. Of this, I am certain.”
She edged back a step, not liking his cool, calculated expression…or the dark weight of suspicion that settled in her stomach.
A knock sounded at the door just then, so sharp and firm it sent a jolt through her, shaking her from her unsettling fears.
Bertram lurched to his feet, color bleeding from his face. His eyes dilated, the dark centers nearly blacking out the blue as he looked wildly about the room. Motioning for her to remain silent, he indicated she should hide beneath the bed.
“What?” she hissed, shaking her head.
His fingers closed around her arm in a fierce vise, his hushed voice desperate in a way that made her heart race harder. “Only for a moment, Astrid. I’ll get rid of whomever it is and we can discuss this further.” His eyes drilled into her. “I vow we will reach an agreement on the matter that you will find satisfactory.”
Astrid hesitated, doubting that he would bend enough to grant her the outcome she sought. Still, she relented with a brisk nod and eased herself under the bed.
Who else could be calling on Bertram at this late hour? A chill feathered her skin at the prospect of coming face-to-face with his fiancée. The unfortunate female likely believed herself in love with the wretch. True, Astrid intended to stop their farcical wedding from ever occurring, but there were better ways to end the relationship than breaking some woman’s heart with the appalling truth—with the direct evidence of Bertram’s forgotten wife.
Under the bed, she tried not to think about creatures of an eight-legged variety that might be occupying the same space. Listening closely, she took shallow sips of air, not breathing too deeply of the dust and cobwebs surrounding her.
“Good evening,” she heard Bertram say, his voice overly cheerful. She winced, hoping only she detected the edge of nervousness to his crisp accents. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Come in, come in.”
“Hope you don’t mind,” a man’s voice, thick with a Scottish burr replied. “I noticed your light.”
“Not at all, not at all,” Bertram replied, his voice effusive, and Astrid couldn’t help wondering if he intended to repeat everything he said.
As they chatted, she fought to hold back a sneeze. Terribly sensitive to dust, she pinched her nose while her gaze followed a pair of dark booted feet. They circled Bertram, each footfall a heavy thud that vibrated against the floorboards.
At the stranger’s next words, her blood turned to ice.
“I understand an Englishwoman arrived in the village this morning.”
Silence filled the room, interrupted only by her quick intake of breath. She buried her face in her hands, dread heavy in her chest that the stranger had heard her.
“Indeed,” Bertram finally responded, his voice small, a quivering thread on the air. “I hadn’t known.”
“I thought you might have had occasion to speak with her.”
“And why would you think that?”
Her scalp tingled with warning.
“Aside of being a fellow countrywoman…she is your wife, your grace.” The stranger’s rough Scottish burr stressed the formal address, rolling the syllables for emphasis.
Astrid felt her eyes grow large. Her fingers tightened against her face, digging into the soft flesh of her cheeks as if she could stifle any sound from escaping.
“Wife?” Bertram laughed, the sound brittle. “I’m not married.” His laughter stretched thin. “Not yet any rate.”
“Cease your lies. My man’s been watching your room all night. I told him to come for me should she call on you. And she did. That’s all the proof I need. That and the fear I see in your eyes now.”
Astrid bit her knuckle, bewildered at the identity of this man, at how he had come to find out Bertram’s true identity…and hers. Could he be the one who lured her to Scotland with the letter?
“No, you don’t understand,” Bertram argued. “Let me explain!”
Astrid watched the stranger’s boots slide to a stop directly in front of Bertram’s satin slippers.
“Did you think to keep such a thing from me?”
Bertram protested, his words garbled and choked.
“I warned you when we first met that I’m not a man to trifle with.”
“Of course,” Bertram babbled, “I would never—no!”
Astrid jerked at Bertram’s panicked cry. A fist tightened around her heart at the sound of bone crunching bone, no doubt a fist meeting with Bertram’s face.
“Taste justice,” the stranger growled.
A heavy whack filled her ears. Bertram’s feet staggered several steps.
She flattened her palms over the grimy floor, the tips of her fingers numb as they tunneled into the floor.
She watched in silence as two sets of feet danced and strained toward each other in struggle.
Another whack shook the air, followed by Bertram’s pained grunt. Suddenly he fell back, his dressing gown flying at his bare ankles.
And then there was another sound.
Goose bumps feathered her flesh as a deep crack rent the air, like a melon splitting in half.
A thick, choking silence followed.
Bertram dropped with a loud thud to the floor, the sound like that of a sack of grain falling to the ground. Not a body. Not a man. Not a life.
Her husband lay inches away at the foot of the hearth, lips parted as though on the verge of speech, so close she could see the faint spittle on his lip.
Breathing hard, she squeezed her eyes shut as if she could escape the horrid reality of it all. She pressed her hands deeper against the floor to still their trembling but it was useless. Reopening her eyes, she stared, mouth widening on a silent scream.
Horrified, she stared into his eyes, watching the blue darken to night, watching the life ebb away and vanish to nothing.
Blood trickled from a deep gash along his temple, the wound telling its tale. Either deliberately or accidentally, he was dead, his head crushed.
Chapter 7
A hand filled Astrid’s line of vision, broad and masculine, sprinkled with black hairs. She jerked, almost as if she feared it would swoop beneath the bed and snatch her from her hiding place.
Instead of reaching for her, the hand brushed the side of Bertram’s neck. After several moments, a soft grunt drifted down to where she huddled beneath the bed.
The room’s other occupant moved away. Her eyes remained fixed on the blood marring the pale skin of Bertram’s face, so dark, nearly black. Its copper scent reached out to her, filling her nostrils.
Her gaze followed the boots as they moved about the room, stopping briefly before the dresser.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and she issued a silent prayer that the thunderous sound reached only her ears.
He turned from the dresser, the toes of his boots facing forward, in the direction of the bed. For a panicked moment, she feared she had somehow given herself away. Made a noise.
Then those dark boots turned and exited the room, his footfalls hard and sure on the wood floor.
No remorse. No regret for the life taken.
She remained where she was for a long moment, her breath coming fast and ragged as she stared at Bertram, blood seeping profusely from his head, running to the floor in a dark river, silent as the flow of wind outside the window. The blood seemed a living thing, sweeping toward her.
With a strangled cry, she slid out from beneath the opposite side of the bed and rose to her feet, wiping her grimy hands on her skirt. She came around and crouched over the body of the man she had sought, the man that she had, in the darkest shame of her soul, wished dead on more than one occasion.
She reached out a trembling hand and touched his neck as his killer had done.
Nothing. No steady thrum of life, not even the barest thread. Dropping her hand as though burned, she rose, freezing when she caught sight of the blood staining the hem of her gown. She grabbed fistfuls of her skirt and shook fiercely as if she could shake off the stain like so many crawling spiders.
With her hands fisted in her skirts, her gaze drifted down again. To Bertram. Her husband. Dead.
Alive only moments ago and bartering for the chance to continue his dastardly ways without interference from her.
She could not look away from the vacant pull of his gaze. Could not stop the deep pang of remorse in her chest. Child or not. Selfish, neglectful…even criminal, he did not deserve such an end.
And yet somehow she had brought about that very thing. She felt responsibility for his death as keenly as the prick of a blade to her flesh.
His murderer had used her to confirm his suspicions about Bertram. How he knew her identity—
or Bertram’s—she hadn’t a clue. Perhaps he had been the one to send the anonymous note to her? She shook her spinning head, not understanding any of it. Only that Bertram was dead. And she was a widow. But without the sense of freedom she had thought such status would carry.
Pressing a palm to her cold cheek, she drew a deep breath into her lungs.
The whirling in her head did not cease. She moved on legs heavy as lead to the door. A dull roar grew in her ears, filling her head. Stopping, remembering, she turned. Her gaze flew to the dresser, to the spot where she had set Bertram’s ducal signet ring, the proof, he had said, to offer as evidence of his death.
It was gone. The dresser’s surface gleamed bare in the firelight. She would not even have that item to offer his sister and grandmother.
Eager to leave, to flee the coppery tang of blood that seemed to color the air, to chase her, she turned, easing open the door and peeking her head out to survey the corridor. Finding it empty, she stepped out and quietly closed the door.