Rosenleigh was unchanged. Fog weaved along the grey-stoned house, and pale moonlight reflected off the dark glass windows. He strained his eyes to see if a shadow awaited him behind one of the panes. One with a continental hat.
And a gun.
Be hanged if he cared, at this point. All he wanted to do was take care of his horse, find his own chamber, and fall into bed. He likely would not awake even if someone did creep in to murder him.
With weariness dogging his steps, William went through the motions of brushing down Duke in the stables and feeding the animal in his stall. Then he hurried for the house, entering quietly enough that even Mr. Pugh, the footman, would probably not hear in his nightly guard of the family silver.
The stairs whined with every step. William’s skin pebbled as he glanced behind him, then around him, before starting down the hall. Why did the house stir such a sense of unwelcome inside him?
How he had missed this place. Not for the memories, or for the people who inhabited it—but because it was the one thing in the world that belonged to him.
Yet even that felt changed.
With a chill sweeping through him, he creaked open his bedchamber door and stepped into the dark room.
Relief chipped away at his tension. The bed was waiting, unrumpled, just as he’d left it the night he fled. Tossing his hat to the rug, William sat on the edge of the bed and yanked off his boots. He drew back the bed linens—
“Well, well, well.”
William jerked toward the voice, chest hitching.
A pair of luminous eyes met his from the other side of the room. Heavy breathing filled the air. The shadowy chair creaked under the change of weight as the black figure rose and staggered. “The long-lost cousin is home.”
CHAPTER 9
What are you doing in here?” William stepped away from the bed, hands pulling into fists.
Horace lit a candle. Light flittered across the room and revealed the wreckage—stained goblets on the Axminster rug, crumpled clothes strewn across the floor, empty decanters missing stoppers. What in the name of heaven?
“With you dead, the master bedchamber belongs to me. But you’re not dead.” Liquor dribbled down his chin. “I should have bloody known.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” William bent down and yanked two shirtsleeves and a foul-smelling tailcoat from the floor. “I see nothing has changed in my absence. No maid?”
“I don’t bloody need a maid.”
William threw the clothes over the back of a chair. “Never mind. We shall talk in the morning. I shall occupy one of the guest chambers—”
Horace flung himself in front of the door, arms flattened, eyes wild. “They said you were dead.” Lucidity altered his expression, as if he were not so drunk as William imagined. “They said you were—”
“I’m not.”
“How?”
“You must have wanted Rosenleigh very much. More than I realized.” William ground his teeth. “Out of my way, Horace.”
“Then it is true.” A laugh came out. Brittle, hysterical—then tears flooded his face. “I lied to myself so many times I believed it was not so.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You.” Vulnerability quivered the face. “Leaving that way, dying that way. This room.” He swung an arm. “I knew all along it wasn’t mine, but I listened to her anyway.”
Stonelike pressure lodged itself in William’s chest. “Aunt?”
“Yes. Who else?” Horace stumbled away from the door and fell into the chair. He leaned forward, face in his hands. “I knew she wanted Rosenleigh. She loves this place more than she ever loved … me. But I didn’t bloody-well know she’d kill you for it.”
“Well, she has not killed me yet.” William opened the door but hesitated.
His cousin’s form was hunched, shoulders racking, in a way that reminded William of the little cousin he once knew. Not the one who stuck out his tongue, or threw a punch, or ran tattling to his mother.
