C
HAPTER
28
G
areth didn’t want to open his eyes. Judging from the sharp aches throughout his body, he had rolled off his pallet and was on the hard ground again. He didn’t hear any soldiers stirring, couldn’t smell anything tempting from the campfire. His mouth tasted as if he’d licked the insole of his army-issued boots after a two day’s march.
What had he done last night? Something he was paying for today. It was damned cold on whatever hill he’d bivouacked on, and his uniform didn’t begin to keep the damp out. He needed to rise and see to his horse, see to his men. Find a bush to piss on in peace. He must have swallowed all the wine in Spain.
He went to brush the hair from his face with his left hand and felt nothing. The hair was still tangled in his eyelashes, tickling like a housefly.
He opened one eye. No blue sky above, just a blackened beam. Was he still in the taverna?
Oh Christ
.
Gareth sat up, his head breaking into too many pieces to count. He had fallen asleep in the kitchen of his boyhood home. His home now. All the dreams of oranges and dusky barmaids disappeared. What was left was ash-covered stone and cold hearth, and the still ferocious desire to urinate.
He tried to steady himself as he came up, putting down an arm that wasn’t there. It had been months since he’d forgotten it was missing. What else had he forgotten?
He finally stumbled up and went outside to relieve himself. The day was fair but bitterly cold. They’d been teased by signs of an early spring all week, but—
Where was Annie?
He bit back an oath, wishing he was still in Spain. Wishing he was anywhere else. Someone else. Someone who had not made a prize ass of himself and ruined his chances with the woman he loved.
He knew better than to call for her, knew his house was as empty as his hopes. She was gone, and he’d driven her away.
She’d told him last night she wanted to talk. He had nothing to say except he was sorrier than he’d ever been in his life. He’d broken his pledge to her, at first out of joy, and then out of a sense of mulish independence. He’d been goaded and tormented until he lost all good sense and drank at least a quart of gin.
Martin had been there celebrating with him and took him home. Annie had been disgusted, and rightfully so.
He needed to find her, tell her—what? That he was weak again, a drunkard? For he was. He hadn’t stopped when he should have, knew every time his lips touched the glass he was sentencing himself to hell. Hell without his Lady Anne.
He didn’t care about her money, but he’d said something about it last night. He’d marry her if she were as poor as he was, if she’d have him.
She must be at the church, waiting to talk. He couldn’t turn up like this. Tearing his stained and stinking clothes from his body, he ducked his head under the pump in the dooryard. Icy water sluiced down his body but he felt he’d earned the sting of it.
Somehow, he went upstairs and got dressed. He wished Annie was here to tie his cravat, but he managed. Job was gone—surely someone would recognize his horse and return him—and so were Penny and Martin again. He would walk to the village, clear his head.
The church door stood open in welcome, but the building was empty. Gareth sank to his knees on the family bench, wondering if he could conjure the words to finally ask for help. For forgiveness. He wanted it from Annie, but would take God’s mercy if offered to a lost soul such as he.
Gareth heard the footfalls in the empty church, each sound echoing in his aching head. Annie! He tried to rise but couldn’t muster the energy.
“Come on home, Major. She’s not coming. No one is. They’re all at the Silver Pony, having the party without you. Had to eat up all the wedding food before it went bad, didn’t they? No one wants to pass up Mrs. Chapman’s fare.”
It was Martin. He held a gloved hand out, and Gareth gratefully allowed himself to be pulled up to his seat in the man’s strong grasp. Martin was an old man—Gareth wasn’t sure how old—but right now Gareth felt even older.
“Did Annie send you?”
Martin shook his head. “Told everybody if you don’t behave she’s done with you, and that Evangeline somebody or other will get her another job.”
She was going to leave him
. It was no more than he deserved. He’d been a fool to come here, a fool to fall to his knees. It was too late for prayer. He couldn’t really remember exactly what he’d said to her last night, but he could remember the look she’d given him when he said it.
Martin slapped his shoulder. “I can fix it. I always do. We’ll be fine, like we were. She’s no good for you anyway. Like the other one. Sometimes I wonder how you managed to keep yourself alive all these years—when it comes to women, you haven’t the sense God gave you, lad. ‘Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.’ You’ve had your share, lately, just like Job. But fire cleanses.” The groom chuckled. “You’re a free man now. I’ve seen to it.”
Martin was talking—more than he had in years, replete with Bible quotations—as Gareth’s head spun and his stomach roiled.
“What do you mean?”
“You know, or should.” Martin looked down at him. With pity? And something else.
Was it satisfaction on that lined face?
“I don’t.” The only thing Gareth knew for sure was that his head felt close to exploding.
“I stopped you from making the biggest mistake of your life. A few dirty walls can be whitewashed. But to tie yourself to a jezebel for eternity . . . you should have learned your lesson after that Bronwen,” Martin spat. “She was a worthless whore. Just like this one—a lord’s daughter, running all over London naked. Getting her hooks into you before you discovered who she was. I read all about her in those old papers in your study, left out for anyone to see her shame. ‘Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?’ She would have brought you down, lad, and that’s a fact.”
Gareth felt his bruised heart race. What had Martin done? His worst thoughts couldn’t be true. Gareth needed him to say it. He’d trusted Martin with his life.
But it was Martin who’d pressed him to drink all that gin despite Mrs. Chapman’s disapproval so he could ruin everything when he got home.
No. He had been on the road to ruin long before Martin turned up at the Silver Pony. No one had made Gareth drink three glasses of rum punch and who knows how many tankards of ale. He had dug his own hole quite ably without any assistance from Martin. There was no need to see the ribald ribbing from the men he drank with as any sort of threat to his manhood. All the talk about being controlled by a mere slip of a girl—it was nothing but the usual good-natured teasing of a bridegroom.
But he’d taken it wrong. It set something dark off in him. Something he couldn’t even articulate, and certainly could not have explained last night.
“What do you mean?” Gareth repeated.
“I stopped the wedding, though I thought more to delay it.
She
took care of it better than I could,” he chuckled. “She’s quite the little shrew, ain’t she? You don’t need to marry her for her money anyhow, Major.”
Gareth startled. How did Martin know?
“I see you’re surprised. Aye, I know all about your bargain. I’m old but I’m not deaf. Heard a few things that got my curiosity up, and after reading all them papers—well, I put two and two together. But don’t worry. I got your mother’s jewelry back, y’see.”
Martin reached into his coat, held up a small leather sack and shook it. “I was saving it for when we really needed it. I reckon that’s about now. Once I collect the reward from the Earl of Egremont for finding his daughter, I’ll have more than I know what to do with, so it’s all yours.”
Gareth was dumbfounded. Martin had the jewelry he’d accused Rob Allen of taking. For one wild second Gareth pictured his mother’s emerald ring on Annie’s freckled hand.
But she wouldn’t want it now. He’d broken his promise to her.
He ignored the bag Martin tossed on the bench. “Keep the jewelry. It’s worth much more than the reward Egremont is offering.” At least he hoped it was. Gareth had no idea what “a very generous reward” might mean to Annie’s father. “Please don’t tell him where she is. Annie can’t go home. Her father is—he’s an evil man. Sinful.”
Martin clucked. “You don’t know that, only what she’s said. And she’s a little liar.”
“Ian knows. Talk to Ian. He has proof from a clergyman friend that she had reason to run away and lie.” It was he who was lying—there was no proof, just a weepy impression from a maid, but it was imperative that he convince Martin not to reveal Annie’s whereabouts.
Annie could have died yesterday if he hadn’t gotten to her in time. She’d been so pale lying on her bed, her room filling with smoke. He’d accused her of napping while she burnt his house down, but she was innocent.
As she’d said, over and over, and he’d been too arrogant to listen.
Martin was absolutely insane.
He’d
set the kitchen fire in a misguided attempt to save Gareth. What else had he done to “save” him?
Martin looked doubtful, but picked up the bag. “I’ll need a nest egg. I don’t suppose you’ll want me around anymore now, but getting rid of her was worth it. I didn’t mean for the fire to spread, and it didn’t. I was real careful. Kept it to the old stove, and you needed a new one anyways. And she’d almost burned the kitchen down before, didn’t she. It was where I got the idea.”
Gareth didn’t want to talk about the fire or the wedding anymore. There was something much, much worse to discuss. If Martin had the jewelry, that meant he had been to the dower house, maybe even saw the murderer.
Maybe even
was
the murderer.
Gareth couldn’t get his mind around it. Setting a fire was one thing. Murder was another. Martin had been his
friend
.
“Where did you find the jewels? We searched Bronwen’s house thoroughly.”
“Any fool could have found them. T’were with her fancy undergarments and handkerchiefs in a dresser drawer. I brought the bag home and hid it in the cellar afterward until that fancy London girl came around snooping. I should have taken care of her when she fell.”
Duw
. Gareth thought his brain had been hit with a lightning bolt. He tried to keep his face blank from the shock he felt.
“You were in the cellar that day? Annie said she’d heard something before she tumbled down the stairs.”
“Aye. Though she never saw me. Kept to the shadows, I did. Story of me life.” Martin chuckled, but Gareth saw no humor in any of this.
“And you just left her there when she fell.”
Martin shrugged. “She was breathing. I thought if she had a good scare she wouldn’t bother to come down again. But to be on the safe side, I brought up the jewelry and hid it in my room.”
The world shifted under Gareth’s feet. Months of agony. And it was his “friend” who was responsible for them.
“You murdered Bronwen. And—and took her against her will.”
“Aye.” Martin said it with no remorse. Said it with near-pride. “She needed killing after what she did to you, leaving you in your hour of need, taking the jewels from your old da and then spreading all those filthy rumors. The other—well, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about, didn’t I? Your cousin Ian, that Parry Lewys—they all dipped their wick in. Who knows who else. Why not me? She was a faithless bitch and loved every minute of it until I put my hand around her throat.”
Sweet Jesus. Gareth could see Bronwen desperate, pleading, agreeing to anything. Martin was wiry and fit. Strong. She’d had no chance against him.
And Gareth was the cause of it all. Martin’s loyalty to him had been perverted beyond reason. He may not have killed Bronwen, but he was responsible just the same.
Gareth didn’t think he had the physical strength or will to frog-march Martin to the village jail right now. Could justice ever be served anyway? Nothing would bring back Bronwen. Martin was unlikely to kill again, but he’d orphaned Bronwen’s two girls, and for that he should pay.
Martin shuffled his feet. “You’ll be all right?”
He sounded uncertain after his gruesome confession. No more so than Gareth. He couldn’t imagine ever being “all right” again. But he nodded, trying desperately to think what he must do next.
“I’ll leave you, then, Major.”
“No!”
Both men looked up as Ian Morgan emerged from the makeshift sacristy. His face was white, his eyes blazing. Ian was as anguished as the day he learned Bronwen was dead.
“I heard everything.
Everything
. You cannot just let him go, Gareth. He killed her.”
Gareth wasn’t going to let him go. He just hadn’t risen to his feet quite yet. He lurched up from his seat, but not before Ian had tackled the older man to the stone chapel floor. The bag of jewelry flew from Martin’s hand and skittered under a bench.
There was a sickening crack as Martin’s head hit the sharp-edged base of the lectern. Ian looked down with horror as blood pooled beneath them, irrevocably staining his house of worship. He scrambled up and backed away, turning to Gareth with bleak eyes.
“Is he dead?”
Gareth bent over Martin and pressed two fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse. How many times had he done this act after a battle? He did not know whether he should be relieved or not, but he felt faint and thready movement beneath Martin’s collar. But the bright blood continued to flow, seeping between the crevices of the rock tile underfoot.
“Not yet.” There was no doctor in Llanwyr. One of them would have to ride to Hay-on-Wye.
“I loved her, Gareth. I know she toyed with me, but it didn’t matter.”
Gently, Gareth turned Martin to the side to inspect the wound. Ian gasped and quickly looked away, realizing what he saw surely meant.