my wounds . . .” His mouth creased into a humorless smile. “When I saw him marching Helmswick down a trail with a gun pointed at his back, I decided I’d better follow.”
He’d stated it simply enough, but I understood the unspoken struggle he must have fought with himself. After all, Helmswick had betrayed the woman he loved, and unless Eleanor decided to make the earl’s crime of bigamy public, for all intents and purposes she would be forced to remain married to him. It must have been a great temptation to pretend he hadn’t seen Lord John, to allow him to carry through with his plans to kill him.
“Well, I’m grateful you did,” I told him earnestly, letting him know his quiet heroics had not gone unnoticed.
He nodded, flicking a glance sideways at Helmswick as the man carefully picked his way toward us over the worn boards. He tugged at his jacket and pushed a hand through his disheveled sandy brown locks.
However, just because Marsdale had decided not to allow his rival to be murdered, didn’t mean he wished him well. As the earl stepped behind him to pass us by, Marsdale flung his arm out, shoving him off the dock into the icy muck at the edge of the water. Helmswick howled in outrage.
I raised a hand to my mouth to stifle my shock, and then my laughter at the sight of the earl seated up to his rib cage in cold, slimy water. For the crimes he’d committed, and the pain he’d caused, I decided it was the least of what he deserved.
Marsdale’s eyes flashed with vicious enjoyment as he politely offered me his arm. “My lady.”
I accepted, and we strolled off toward the forest, for all the world like a couple embarking on a stroll through Hyde Park. Albeit with a percussion pistol clutched at my side.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Our return to the castle was greeted with even greater tumult than my last arrival, when we’d learned that Helmswick had been forced from his carriage. At the sight of me striding through the door whole and hearty, Gage hastened forward to pull me into his embrace, despite the onlookers. Such was his evident relief, that Marsdale couldn’t resist making a quip.
“Your wife is the one holding the weapon, Gage. I would think you would be more concerned about me.”
Gage’s cool gaze raked his features. “I trust she only used it out of necessity.”
“Stop it, you two,” I chastised as I passed Tait my cloak. “No one was shot.” I inhaled past the tightness that still lingered in my chest at the memory of what had almost happened. “Fortunately. But there are a number of matters still to be dealt with.”
Helmswick followed behind us, protesting loudly at his ill treatment as he dripped murky water across the floor. The duke flicked one derisive glance at him before ordering a footman to remove him from our sight, and lead him up to a bedchamber different from his usual room attached to Eleanor’s. The footman would see to his needs so that we could question Mr. Warren, who was likely to find himself unemployed in short order. But I trusted the duke to give him a reference. So long as he cooperated.
Meanwhile, Lord John was marched off to his room in the bachelors’ tower, where his brother, Lord Richard, agreed to remain with him until a decision could be made about what to do with him. But not before he answered my query about what he’d done with Renton’s possessions. As I’d suspected, he’d burned Renton’s greatcoat and the monk’s robe he’d worn to confront him, and then discarded Renton’s dented pocketwatch and leather purse in a lochan somewhere between the castle and Haddington.
The remainder of us gathered in the regency gallery, while Bree and Anderley disappeared belowstairs with the other servants to finish preparations for a rather informal dinner.
After briefly explaining the events of the afternoon, and the discoveries made over the course of our investigation, including Helmswick’s bigamy, we sat down to interview Mr. Warren. The duke continued to pace up and down the chamber, under the watchful eyes of the marble busts mounted on the pillars circling the room, still fuming about the earl’s deceit. His mother, the dowager duchess, perched on an armchair in the corner, harrumphing at each new infraction laid bare.
The duchess hastened over to the settee where her daughter sat, staring unseeing out one of the tall windows. She wrapped her arms around her,