She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and gave his arm a little squeeze. I could give you so much emotion you would not know what had hit you, she thought grimly. I love you, you wretched man, and you can’t see it and I dare not tell you, because what if you are appalled, what if you have to pretend out of pity? What if we have to start lying to each other? I do not think I can do this any more, she thought.
Chapter Twenty Three - Where The Duke Makes a Confession
I must tell him I want to end the engagement. It is the only honourable thing to do, I cannot keep pretending this is all about desire and friendship and a suitable marriage for both of us.
‘Cal,’ Sophie said when they were inside the house, standing at the foot of the great sweep of staircase. ‘What are you going to do? Talk to Lord Peter?’ The whole household needed to be warned about the water sooner or later, but she supposed, knowing him, that his conscience would drive him to seek out his uncle at once.
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sp; ‘Now? I do not think I can bear to face him, not yet, not with this… revelation about just how wrong I have been about him all these years. I need time, Sophie, time to do it right. Time to decide whether to tell him what I had suspected. Or not.’ He looked down at his hands, still smeared with blue dye, crushed grass and earth. ‘I need to wash and change. And think. I will see you at dinner.’
She watched him climb the stairs, aching for him, and turned away. The peace of the rose garden beckoned. Perhaps sitting there in the scented peace would help her clear her mind.
Ten minutes later Sophie got to her feet, squared her shoulders and walked back to the house. She had never lied to Cal and she was not going to start now. She would tell him that she could not marry him and she would tell him why. She would beg him, on his honour, not to lie to her about his own feelings and make him see how impossible it would be for them to marry now. How miserable it would make them both. How she was going to explain to Isobel she wasn’t sure, but, hurt as the child might be, it was better than her growing up at the heart of an unhappy marriage.
The climb upstairs seemed mountainous, the corridor to the Duke’s wing, endless, like a passageway in a nightmare where, however fast you ran, you never got anywhere. Then the handle to his bedchamber door was under her hand and she opened it without knocking and went in, closed it behind her without taking her eyes from the man in the middle of the room.
Cal, stripped to the waist, stood quite still facing her and she felt dizzy for a moment, remembering the feel of that body under her hands, its weight over her, the heat of his desire. She had to speak now, otherwise she would be in his arms, kissing him, and she would lose her nerve and never do what was right.
He looked grim, as though she had already told him. His eyes darkened as he looked at her, then, when he spoke, his voice was harsh. ‘Sophie, leave at once. You know you should not be in here. Go.’
That was certainly enough to knock any erotic thoughts from her head. His severity made it easier. ‘Cal, I came to tell you that I cannot marry you – ’ Then she realised that his attention was not really on her at all, but on something over her shoulder, and she turned, slowly, sick with apprehension.
‘Oh, Ralph. You startled me…’
Ralph Thorne was white to the lips but his hand holding the long-barrelled pistol was quite steady, pointing squarely at Cal’s chest. ‘Can’t you ever behave conventionally, Sophie?’ he demanded, sounding ludicrously like an irritable chaperon.
Strangely, she felt no desire to laugh. ‘Ralph, what are you doing in here, with that? Put it down before someone gets hurt.’
‘That, I believe, is the intention,’ Cal said. ‘My cousin is here to protect his father. It seems he overheard something.’
He was wearing riding clothes and she realised what had happened. ‘In the stables – that was your grey in the next box, wasn’t it? Or were you somewhere in the hall when we came in?’
‘Both,’ Ralph said tightly. ‘I cannot live with this any longer, with the suspicion. I heard you say the water that Ransome drank was poisoned, that it was meant for you. And then in the hall…’ His face was ashen.
‘Hell.’ Cal made as though to scrub his hand over his face, then let it drop when Ralph jerked the pistol. ‘I haven’t time for this now – Sophie, why can’t you marry me?’
She had forgotten all about that. Incredible how looking at the sinister gleam of a gun barrel is enough to drive the most important things out of one’s head. ‘I – ’
‘Never mind your damned love life. What do you intend to do about Father?’ Ralph shifted the pistol and Sophie realised that there were things more mesmerising than a gun barrel – the little black eye in its end, for one.
‘You have suspected him of trying to murder me all along, haven’t you?’ Cal said with the air of a man who has finally had a puzzle solved. From the corner of her eye, when she could drag her fascinated gaze from the pistol, she was aware of Cal shifting his weight in subtle increments. She hoped to Heaven that he was not about to try something heroic, like throwing himself in front of the gun.
‘And he suspects you,’ he went on. ‘I couldn’t make out the looks I kept intercepting between you, but that is it, isn’t it?’
‘Why did you have to come back?’ Ralph demanded. ‘I thought you were safe out there, away from us.’
‘Because it was my duty to come back. Because I am the duke and because I could not live with suspecting two people I loved like a father and a brother of trying to kill me. I needed to become Duke of Calderbrook, I needed to find a wife and I needed, above all, to solve this mystery and get some peace.’ He moved away from Sophie slightly and the gun barrel followed him.
Sophie let her own weight shift, opening the gap just a little wider. Ralph was a very good shot, she had heard of him winning wagers at target shooting before now. If they could keep him off-balance, surely Flynn would come soon? ‘We thought it might be either of you, or both,’ she said.
‘But it wasn’t,’ Cal added, bringing Ralph’s head round to him again. ‘It was accident, pure and simple. A stream diverted and made foul by industry and a village’s waste, a youth made clumsy because he was weakened by the poisoned water and all the accidents that befall adolescent boys. That was all. No villains, Ralph, no blame.’
‘You are not thinking, Ralph.’ The gun barrel swung round to Sophie again. ‘This achieves nothing. You heard Cal, he does not believe it was foul play by anyone. It would break your father’s heart if you shoot Cal. You would hang and for nothing. It would kill Lord Peter – ’
The door opened and Flynn strode in, half-obscured behind a pile of folded shirts. Ralph started, his hand jerked, even as Cal launched himself sideways, crashing into Sophie, bringing her down to the ground as the gunshot roared in her ears along with Flynn’s yell and the impact of their landing.
Someone was sobbing, ‘Oh, God, oh, God,’ over and over, Flynn was swearing, then there was the sound of knuckles hitting flesh and a thud. Her heart was beating like a hammer and she couldn’t see and Cal’s weight was pinning her down. His dead weight.