She gave him a wide berth as she passed him, keeping her hands fisted in the fabric of her dress lest he see her trembling, and led him toward the drawing room. “Where is my uncle?”
“He will be along shortly.” Cold metal touched her neck and then trailed down to her shoulder, sending a shiver the rest of the way down her spine. “You are looking lovelier than ever, Gwyneth. I hadn’t the chance to say so the other week.”
She stepped away from the gun barrel once she was inside the drawing room and closed the door behind them so Jack wouldn’t wander in. And she prayed her eyes shot fire enough to burn him. “It must be the glow of love.”
With the Lane musket slung over his shoulder by its strap, Sir Arthur grunted and held out a piece of paper. When she lifted her brows, he waved it. “The letter. I did not fabricate it, and I have no use for it. I took it for the sole purpose of giving it to you. I thought…I thought you would appreciate something your mother had written.”
His tone softened with that last part, but she had no intention of falling for that again. She snatched the letter from his hand without drawing any closer than she had to and nearly choked on a sob at Mama’s flowery, beautiful script. Hardly caring where Sir Arthur went, she moved to the chair at her secretaire and sank onto it as she flipped the page open. Mon amour…
“You see?” His voice came from just behind her, quiet and imploring. “My thought was only for you. For finding you and keeping you safe.”
No doubt it had been, and for that she was truly sorry. But still. She read through the letter, blinking back tears. And then she narrowed her eyes. The date. And the gap between notre and fille…
“You cannot know how I feared. Finding your father was terrible enough—”
“You found him?” That brought her gaze up and around.
He was looking at the ground as he nodded. “I feared you were next. I feared his murderer would be looking for you.”
“He was.” Hands strangely steady now, she opened the drawer and pulled out the keyhole drawing she had done for Mama. She set it down upon the letter. “And you brought him directly to me.”
Thirty-Three
Arthur frowned and gripped his pistol tighter, but her words still made no sense. “Pardon?”
She didn’t even look at him. Her focus remained on whatever she was doing with that letter, smoothing down the drawing overtop it. “Uncle Gates killed my father. I saw him do it. I was outside the study.” Finally she turned her eyes on him, and he wished she hadn’t. They were too bright, too intense. “Papa sent me here to escape him, and you brought him directly to my door.”
“Balderdash.” Much as he didn’t like Gates, he couldn’t believe the man murdered his own brother-in-law. Couldn’t. Because if it were true…nay, he wouldn’t even consider it. “It was an American spy who did it.”
When did she learn to give a look like that, one that said in a mere second that he was either a liar or a fool? “My uncle’s theory, I presume?”
Rather than need to answer, he peered over her shoulder at the letter. And frowned again. “What have you done there?”
“What my father did when Mama first sent it to him, I think. The dates match.” She adjusted the drawing slightly, so that the keyhole cut from the drawing revealed only certain words from the letter.
He moved to the side a step so that he could see both her profile and the page. So that he could watch her wash pale as she read, and then read himself to learn why. And mutter a curse. Both at the words and the tears that slipped onto her cheeks.
Gwyneth shook her head, sending a red-gold curl bouncing. “I suppose I had hoped that this never touched her, that she never realized what her brother had done, but it would seem she was the one who saw it first.”
It. That Gates was a criminal. One who had funded his son’s slave trade with goods siphoned from the spoils of war. Odd. Arthur had no trouble believing this part and found it changed very little his opinion of the man.
He shrugged and slid over to the window when commotion from the street came through on the breeze. Perhaps Gates had caught up with Scrubs and was returning. “I fail to see why your uncle’s behavior is so reprehensible. He is hardly the first man to take excess for himself and turn a profit from it. Rather ingenious, really.”
“Would you have done it?”
A different question entirely. “No, but…” What was that the people on the street were saying?
“…from my brother himself. Ross is dead, and the British on land are in confusion.”
The news shook Arthur far more than the next blast of a shell against the fort walls. Ross, dead? “No.”
Gwyneth sighed. “Perhaps there is hope for you yet, then.”
“What?” He snapped his head her way and realized she was still talking about her uncle. “Darling, it is best if you realize now that the world is an ugly place. Trying to fight it will bring you nothing but trouble.”