That was exactly how she had left, as it turned out. No sooner had they all finished luncheon than Wenzel and his sister were announced.
“We have just returned from a short journey,” Wenzel explained after some opening greetings and a smile for his betrothed, “and thought it best to come straight here. Tilly and I arrived home from the ball last night to discover Lady Barclay sitting on our doorstep—she did not want to wake the servants by knocking on the door. She had hoped to wait at the inn for the stagecoach, but all the doors there were locked for the night. She asked if she might stay with us until the early coach was due. I did not think it appropriate for her to travel on the common stage, and Tilly backed me up when I told her so.”
“We offered to take her to Penderris Hall,” Miss Wenzel said, “or at least to send her in our carriage, but she would not hear of putting us to so much inconvenience. The best we could do was to persuade her to travel post and then take her to the posting house in Meirion. We did that this morning and have just returned from seeing her on her way. She will be quite safe, Lady Lavinia, though she flatly refused to take my maid with her. And she has only one small bag of belongings.”
“I will see that a trunk is sent after her,” Percy said, and found Miss Wenzel’s eyes resting thoughtfully upon him.
“I daresay,” she said, “you may know what this is all about, my lord. Imogen was not saying.”
It was what everyone was thinking, of course, and had been thinking ever since he walked back into that infernal ballroom alone last night. Everyone’s attention was suddenly riveted upon him. The air fairly pulsed with expectant silence.
But it was not the time for charm or easy social converse. Or lies. Or the truth.
Percy turned and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
I killed him! Do you understand now? I killed my husband. I took a gun and I shot him between the eyes. It was quite deliberate.
And the devil of it was, he believed her.
And in doing so, he had plunged deep into the very heart of darkness with her—a place he had been at great pains all his life to avoid.
I killed him.
*
Imogen arrived two days early at Penderris, and she had come by post chaise, alone, with only one small bag. Nevertheless, George, Duke of Stanbrook, did not bat an eyelash. He must have seen the chaise coming and was out on the terrace waiting to hand her down.
“Imogen, my dear,” he said. “How delightful!”
But then he took a penetrating look at her and drew her all the way into his arms and held her tightly.
She did not know how long they stood like that or what happened to the chaise. The tension gradually eased out of her body as she breathed in the scent of him and of home—or what had been a safe haven of a home for three years and was still her refuge and strength.
He took her hand on his arm when she finally stepped back and led her inside, talking easily to her just as if her early arrival and the manner of it were not quite untoward. He talked to her in a similar manner for the rest of the day and all of the next, until Hugo and Lady Trentham arrived halfway through the afternoon, also early. They had set off from home a day before they needed to, Gwen, Lady Trentham, explained, all smiles and cheerfulness, because they thought perhaps they would need to travel by easier stages than usual with the baby. They had been wrong, however, and here they were.
Hugo, large and imposing and as severe looking as ever with his close-cropped hair and tendency to frown, slapped George on the shoulder and pumped his hand while declaring that he was now the slave of two females. “A more than willing slave, though, I make haste to add,” he said as he turned. “You have arrived even earlier than us, Imogen? That makes me feel better.”
And he beamed at her and opened his arms and then stopped and frowned and tilted his head to one side. “Come and be hugged, then, lass,” he said more gently, and once more she was enfolded in safety.
But there was Gwen to be hugged too and Baby Melody Emes to be admired—her nurse was just carrying her inside and Hugo was taking her between his huge hands, fairly bursting with pride.
The others arrived the following day. Ben and Samantha, Lady Harper, came first, from Wales. Ben walked into the house and up the stairs with his two canes, but he propelled himself about much of the time after that in a wheeled chair, having decided that it was not an admission of defeat but rather a moving forward into a new, differently active phase of his life.