“I think perhaps it was too soon for her to be up and about,” Noah said. Yet therewasa pattern—he just hadn’t quite been able to pin it down.
Sander took up the poker and stirred the fire. “I suspect you couldn’t have kept her away with the entirety of the full British Fleet behind you.”
Noah grinned, a little of the euphoric feeling seeping back through him. Scotland was but miles away. He and Geneva could be married by week’s end.
After a bit, he took himself up to his chamber, forcing himself to steer free of the Blue Suite. God knew, he wouldn’t have the wherewithal to stay out of her bed. She needed her rest and he was determined she would get it. But, oh, how he wanted just one more taste of those delicious lips.
Chapter Thirty
“Blast it, Isabelle,it’s much too cold. And wet. Truly, dear, your parents will wish to do irreparable harm to someone, and that someone will be me.”
Geneva had slept like the dead. For the first time in years, there had been no great weight of worry on her shoulders… or so she’d thought. She had no desire to go up against Sander and Verda when it came to their precious—and she was precious—only child. After all, Geneva was trying to fit into the family, not undermine those whose acceptance she sought. “Have you forgotten the person who pushed me over the cliff has not been located? And that he could be akiller?”
“Oh, yes. I see what you mean.” The words were delivered earnestly enough, but it was the innocent blinking of her large, gray eyes that gave Geneva pause. She further threw Geneva off with a quick hug, enveloping her in her white, muslin dress, and went to the door. “Perhaps later, then. I’ll see you at luncheon.” She tossed a sweet smile over her shoulder then was gone. But the determined expression on her face was all too visible—Isabelle cared nothing of what anyone thought: she was going bug hunting.
Geneva glanced down at her wrap. She wasn’t even dressed.Blast.
By the time she was donned in one of her own sturdy frocks Pasha would shudder at and Abrahadshuddered at, Geneva ran for the stairs, but Isabelle was nowhere to be seen. Neitherwas Winfield. Frightfully vexing. There was no time to lose, and Geneva dashed out the front door.
Of course the headstrong child had disappeared. Logic told Geneva Isabelle would choose a place near the laboratory; then again, she would not do what was logical. Stretched before Geneva, past the sweep of the drive, was a line of tall oaks that looked as old as the land itself. Geneva started to turn, but a flash of white hit the corner of her eye from that line of trees.
“Isabelle.”
The response was a short, sharp scream.
Geneva ran, now thankful for her unfashionable yet comfortable boots and sturdy frock. She breached the woods and heard the low growl off to her right. The proverbial head-splitting axe pierced her skull. She fought through a vortex of blackness dotted with tingly spots that nearly felled her to her knees. The thrashing of leaves kept her on her feet. “Isabelle,” she called out in a breathless and desperate rush. She burst through a canopy of low-hanging limbs that tore her hair from its fastenings and tripped over an exposed tree root. Pieces of the damp earth filled her nostrils—so different from the debris that blew over Berwick Street. Thankfully. She spat out the dirt.
“Please.” Isabelle’s whisper sent a chill weaving its way up and around her spine, raising the hair at her nape.
The heavy strands of hair blinded her and she shoved them away, coming face to face with none other than… “Papa?” She hadn’t seen him in almost a decade.No. That wasn’t it at all.
Starting at the crown of her head, the pain, agonizing and unbearable pain, moved to her temples and pounded with that ghastly visage that turned the fresh turn of the earthy fragrance about her into an instrument of immense torture. Even the slight breeze hit her face like shards of piercing glass. The ability to form a coherent thought fled her usually pragmatic notions.
Her vision was limited to silhouettes within the dark shade of the trees.
Isabelle whimpered. “Geneva?”
“Ah, the prodigal daughter of a seaman and his lady lives to face her adorin’ papa,” her father said. His inked arm sported a snake and flexed. The wicked-looking knife he held to Isabelle’s delicate neck sent another wave of icy-black panic through Geneva. Sheer hatred permeated the forest and cleared some of the cobwebs—
Her eyes flicked to the chain around Isabelle’s neck, where a corner of the locket for which she’d been searching exposed a large, red ruby.
The stakes had just heightened to an alarming degree. The compounding danger cleared every fleeting thought in Geneva’s head. With a deep breath, she came slowly to her feet and met her father’s seething malevolence. “It was you who pushed me over the cliff.” That she was able to choke out the words was just as miraculous as her surviving the fall, along with the memories crashing through her. The battering rain, the shock of seeing that straggled hair, the outstretched, calloused and stained palm that had landed on her chest and pushed without the slightest hesitation. The actual fall and landing were still locked deeply away.
And Noah. His voice screaming her name over the pounding surf from below.
Geneva kept her eyes trained on her father, praying Isabelle would stuff the locket from sight, keep him from seeing it. Otherwise, they were both as good as dead. “Let her go, Papa. She’s a child,” she begged.
“I’ll let ’er go, once I got you in me ’ands. Got just the place to stash yer bloody remains when I’m through with ye.”
“Lord Chaston, the cave…” she whispered, edging within his reach. She had to save Isabelle. “Why, Papa? Why try to killme? Your own daughter.” She kept her tone low, placating.
“Yer no child of mine. She was done ruined when she married me.” The stench of gin reeked with his menacing cackle. “’Er family cast her aside. Found ’er blubberin’ like a squall at sea in one o’ them fancy parks she done grew up near.”
Geneva managed not to cast up her accounts. He shoved Isabelle aside too quickly for her to get her footing and she fell with a sharp cry.
Geneva stepped to the opposite side, drawing his entire focus on her. She had to keep him talking. But she couldn’t seem to grasp his words. Not clearly… “Chaston? Lord Chaston and Mama,” she said faintly, distractedly. He suddenly had a bruising grip on her arm as another, horrendous, thought penetrated. “You. It wasyouwho killed Lord Pender, wasn’t it?”
“That good-for-nothing dissolute had his way withmywife whilst I was at sea. She bore his bastard.”
