Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) (16 page)

“Yes, Amherst. Please? It can’t hurt to wait a bit before you explore the scene, can it?” 

Of course it could hurt—anybody with any sense would need only a few moments to destroy any evidence of their passing or to pry the spent bullet from the tree.

Trent wanted to stomp off that instant. His intentions were a palpable, angry thing writhing in his vitals, but Ellie held his gaze, her lovely eyes boring steadily into his, her hand patiently resting on his arm. 

“I will pen a note for the magistrate,” Trent said. “I’ll load my pistols and await Cato’s return.”

“Thank you.” Ellie looked like she wanted to say more, to kiss him, to at least whisper at him to be careful. 

Paula had never once looked at him like that.

Ellie’s concern steadied him and steadied his resolve, too. “I will see you safely to the stables, my lady, and ask that you say nothing of this to your staff.” 

Cato fell in on Trent’s other side and sucked in a breath. 

“You disapprove, Catullus?” 

“I hadn’t thought of it, is all. I’ll see if any of Rammel’s fowling pieces are missing while I’m at Deerhaven.” 

“This sounds serious,” Ellie said from her place between them. 

“It is,” Cato replied for them both, which was convenient, because Trent’s teeth 

were clenched. “Blessed, blasted serious.”

When Ellie had been handed up beside Cato into the dog cart, Trent brushed a kiss to her cheek, oblivious to the help trying to ignore such a display. 

“Don’t come through the woods alone, my lady. I’ll call on you later and let you know what we find.” 

“Don’t take stupid chances.” She kissed
his
cheek, and Cato signaled the horse to move off. 

Trent watched them go, not turning until the vehicle had rolled smartly through the gates at the foot of the drive. 

“Best not watch her like that where all can see, my lord,” Peak said. 

Oh, famous. Now the stable lads were dispensing unsolicited advice. Trent kicked a pebble hard enough to send it skittering into a weedy bed of hollyhocks.

“Lady Rammel was damned near killed on my land, Peak. It’s all I can do not to bundle her up to the house and lock her in a tower until hell freezes over.” 

“
You
were damned near killed on your own land.” 

The dog cart clattered around the bend, and Trent wanted to run after it, to keep it in sight the entire distance to Deerhaven. “Nonsense.” 

“Wait until Lord Heathgate gets here,” Peak said, whacking a dusty cap against his thigh. “You’ll see what manner of nonsense you’re dealing with. Old Delphey Soames is often in your woods with his fowling piece, and he takes a nip or two betimes. He might have an explanation.”

That was more sentences at one go than the young fellow strung together in most entire days. “Soames is poaching? Openly poaching?” 

“Nobody need poach. Heathgate opens up Willowdale on certain days for the locals to thin the herds and flocks, as he puts it. Greymoor does the same thing. My guess is several of the other gentry do as well. It isn’t like we’ve wolves to tend to it anymore, and Delphey likes to keep clear of his missus when she gets to drinking, which is to say, after sunrise.” 

An entire drama unfolded in Trent’s woods, if Peak were to be believed. “Soames is routinely strolling about on my land?” 

“You were never here.” Peak swiped a hand through unkempt dark hair that reached nearly to the lad’s shoulders, then tugged his cap back on with an air of pugnacity at variance with his delicate features. “Even when you popped out to check on things, you weren’t here.” 

“Insubordinate, young man. You’re taking on too many of Cato’s characteristics.” 

Peak strode off toward the stables. “Not insubordinate. Honest. A man needs honest help, especially when he’s not about.” 

Trent let him go, too angry and overwrought to do otherwise.

The intensity of the emotions was unfamiliar and inconvenient, though not entirely unwelcome. Because he’d given his word to Ellie, Trent did go to the house, dash off a note to the magistrate, then clean and load his favorite pistols. The decanter beckoned, but he hardly wanted the king’s man to find him drinking his temper into submission, so he started on notes to Darius and Nick as well.

Chapter Nine

At Lord Heathgate’s instruction, Trent and Cato took seats on the bench beside Ellie’s old straw hat. In the pretty sunshine, the hat was disquietingly innocent, given what might have happened.

“Gentlemen,” Heathgate called from the undergrowth several moments later, “you may join me, but please remain on my left as you approach.” 

The marquess was a tall, broad-shouldered man, his age somewhere north of thirty, his hair sable, his eyes a gimlet blue that likely scared confessions out of felons and small children alike. Trent didn’t know him well, though Heathgate was reportedly besotted with his marchioness and a genial host when she inspired him to it. 

“Tracks,” Heathgate said, hunkering in the undergrowth and pointing off to the right, “which, of course, come up from the stream, where we’ll no doubt lose them. A medium-sized fellow, or perhaps a smallish man with largish feet, but he chose this spot and knelt here,”—he sighted down the stock of his riding crop—“and aimed carefully. You must have tarried on that bench.” 

“We did, maybe fifteen minutes.” 

Heathgate rose and turned his scrutiny on Trent. “My guess is that you, Amherst, were the target, but as close as you were sitting to the lady, that is only a guess.” 

“Poachers?” Cato asked.

Heathgate swung his riding crop at some honeysuckle, sending leaves, blossoms, and fragrance cartwheeling through the summer air. 

“Poaching isn’t likely. For one thing, nobody needs to poach hereabouts, because none of the landowners are stingy with their game, and second, if you’re intent on poaching, you don’t do it within sight of a working stable where people are always on hand.” 

“So we’re back to motive,” Trent said.  
Cato bit off oaths in Gaelic. “Did you tell him about the stirrups? The ones that were cut, on both sides of your personal saddle?” 

“Come along.” Heathgate waved them away from the bench. “There’s apparently more to the tale than Amherst has had time to relate, and this heat makes a man thirsty.” 

When they reached the house, Trent canvassed his companions, and the choice of drink was lemonade, which came as a peculiar relief. In the course of the last few hours, Trent’s previous determination to drain the brandy decanter had become…distasteful, unseemly even. 

Had he been half-drunk when that gun had gone off, could he have shepherded Ellie to safety? Would his children have become orphans on this pretty, sunny day because their papa had stumbled in the grass? 

When Trent, Cato and the marquess were seated on the back terrace around a tray of sandwiches and a tall pitcher of cold lemonade, Heathgate picked up a sandwich and aimed his gaze at Trent. If the man thought it odd that Cato joined them, he had the good manners to say nothing to his host. 

“Tell me about the stirrups.”

Heathgate listened, blue eyes narrowing as his lordship put away food and downed lemonade at a great rate. 

“Our man Peak seems to be quite the busy fellow,” Heathgate said. “He was first to reach you and Lady Rammel today, and he noticed the stirrups.” 

“He’s the one who sent for me,” Trent said, the realization dawning only as he spoke. “Indirectly.” 

“I wrote the letter,” Cato said. “Peak merely grumbled about the food until I was more annoyed with his complaining than I was with Cook’s fare.” 

“That isn’t how you described it to me earlier, Catullus,” Trent said softly. 

Cato leaned back, as if entreating the oak limbs above them for patience with his betters. 

“You can’t suspect Peak of shooting at you when he was in the stables with me. He’s your best lad, and if he wanted to end your life—for motives we have not yet concocted—he could have put out your lights this morning when you both rode in on thoroughly lathered mounts.” 

“What Cato says is true,” Trent said, with no small relief. “I like Peak. Moreover, the horses like Peak, and at the inquest regarding Rammel’s death, Heathgate, you yourself found the man’s testimony sufficiently credible that Cato was exonerated of any wrongdoing.” 

Heathgate studied a sandwich of chicken with herbed butter and cheddar on white bread—Cook had apparently noted the rank of Trent’s guest.

“The only wrongdoing I found was by Rammel, who was too drunk, stupid and arrogant to pull his horse off a gate he never should have attempted. I asked Greymoor if he would have taken such a jump, and his response was not unless it was life or death, never when in his cups, and never on a borrowed mount, meaning no insult to your late horse, Spencer. My younger brother’s judgment in matters equestrian is nigh flawless.”

Cato rose without having touched the food. “A nasty damned pattern emerges here.” 

Heathgate flicked a cool, appraising gaze over the stable master. 

“You think somebody wants to make you look like a killer, Mr. Spencer? As you stated, the estimable Peak was in the stables with you, and both Amherst and Lady Rammel saw you and Peak approach the scene from the stables. Rather than circle uselessly around what little we know, I suggest somebody track down Delphey Soames. He considers himself the informal gamekeeper hereabouts and would know if we’ve had any strangers prowling our woods.” 

“Good idea,” Trent said, wanting Heathgate gone, for Cato would not eat as long as the magistrate was about. “Cato has a point as well. His letter to my brother, Darius, was the reason I repaired here for the summer, and Cato could be perceived as luring me to my demise. Moreover, Cato has access to my saddlery and to firearms.” 

Cato let loose with another Gaelic oath, or perhaps it was a prayer, him likely being Papist. “Are you accusing me, Amherst?” 

Heathgate’s dark eyebrow swooped up at the familiarity, but he merely waited for Trent’s reply. 

“I am not,” Trent said evenly. “Not in any regard, Cato. You have no motive for seeking my death, just as you would have had no motive for killing Rammel, but if we’re listing my enemies in a search for motive, we should be listing yours as well.” 

“Good point,” Heathgate said. “Sit down, Spencer, and eat something lest I spoil my luncheon entirely and earn a scolding from my marchioness. I’ll need to know exactly who works in the stables, who has access to guns, and where those people were earlier today.” 

While all Trent needed to know was that Ellie was safe and settled, and not suffering as a result of the day’s events. The worry—the anxiety—was roiling in his gut, a burden and a bother that would not go away. 

“I wasn’t aware Lady Rammel was a gardener,” Heathgate said nearly an hour later as they walked toward the stables. “Has she taken your roses in hand yet?” 

“You’d have to ask her.” She’d made short work of the daisies, though, of that Trent was certain.

Heathgate stopped near the pergola, halfway between the house and the stables. “I intend to question the lady, you know.” 

“About?” 

“This incident and whatever other factors I deem relevant.” 

That Heathgate could be delicate was something of a surprise, though the man was rumored to dote on his marchioness and children.

“It isn’t my child,” Trent said, because a man who doted on his marchioness was probably in that lady’s confidence, too. “If that’s what you’re asking. I didn’t know Rammel had died until I removed here, and the vicar started yapping about neighborly obligation and condolence calls.” 

“You made yours early.” 

“A little. Yours is overdue.” 

“Suppose it is.” Heathgate resumed walking. “I don’t deal well with all that funerary tripe. Never have. My marchioness is a blessing in this regard.” 

“One hears you and she are devoted.” 

“Go ahead and say it.” Heathgate’s smile was fleeting, self-deprecating, and charming. “Despite all reputation to the contrary, or my just deserts, my wife and I are smitten with each other.”

“I was thinking more that you might castigate me for making advances to a new widow,” Trent said slowly. Though in truth, the widow had made an advance or two toward Trent—a delightful realization. 

Heathgate’s smile became mocking. “As if my own brother didn’t marry his countess when she was less than six months into mourning her first spouse?” 

“I wasn’t aware of that.” Trent hadn’t been aware of
any
of the neighborhood gossip, though he’d no doubt Ellie could catch him up. 

Fifty yards away at the stables, Cato stood at the end of the shed row, his hand on Peak’s shoulder, his attitude toward the smaller man suggesting fraternal concern. 

“What do we know of your Mr. Spencer, Amherst?” Heathgate asked softly. 

“Not enough. The horses like him, too, and I haven’t had any complaints. If anything, he’s shown unusual loyalty.” 

“You pay fair wages, and Crossbridge is comfortable. In what regard has he shown this loyalty?” 

Trent gave up trying to elude Heathgate’s inquisition. “After my wife died, I was occupied with ensuring Wilton didn’t get his hands on her settlement trusts and in seeing to my sister’s welfare as best I could. My brother was also in some difficulties, so he became a frequent guest under my roof. I was kept busy with those concerns, until Bellefonte began courting Leah.”