Violet Fire Page 39

  “But you said nothing.”

  “I couldn’t. Not to anyone. There was no proof, and there was always the possibility that Sir James and I were wrong. All I could do was to be cautious and act as if my suppositions were fact. I was afraid for you to leave and equally afraid for you to stay. Finally I decided that you must remain at the folly, that I could only protect you if you were under this roof. Do you remember the night I chased the wolf?”

  “Yes.”

  “I almost told you then. It was no wolf in the woods that evening, and I didn’t fall. I was struck down by the person I was chasing.”

  Shannon blinked, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “But who?”

  Brandon shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Parker?”

  “I truly don’t know,” he repeated, pushing away from the wall. “But there is little doubt in my mind that we were being spied upon.” He watched Shannon’s eyes drop away from his as she recalled that they had almost made love on that occasion. Her natural embarrassment at the memory twisted his gut, and he wished he could have avoided telling her. “On the heels of that incident came the poisoning, and I began to doubt the conclusions I had reached. It did not seem possible that Aurora would go to such lengths to make people believe she was the intended victim. That evening she nearly was the victim.” He shook his head in disgust. “Yet who was I to suspect? Cody? You? The Whittakers? You will agree that made no sense either.”

  “Nothing makes any sense. There is too much we don’t know and so much we are only guessing at.”

  Brandon pursued another tack. “Tell me what happened in the wood today.”

  Shannon worried her lower lip, trying to recall the events before the shooting. “Aurora was asking about you. Actually, she was asking about our meeting at Glen Eden.” She looked at Brandon suddenly, realization clearing the vagueness from her eyes. “You never told her about Glen Eden, did you?”

  “No,” he said simply, leaving her to reach her own conclusions.

  “Cody knew.”

  “Do you believe he would have told her?”

  She shook her head. “That evening by the willow…we were overheard, weren’t we? That is how Aurora came to know of it.”

  “It would appear so. What did you say to Rory?”

  “I told her how we met. All during the ride she was rather contemplative and curious, wanting to know what I would do if I were in her place. It struck me as odd even then, how insistent she was that I tell her everything I thought about you. Aurora wanted me to be jealous of her, Brandon. When I told her I wasn’t, that she had nothing I wanted, she became so quiet for a while that I thought she was done with her questioning. Then quite suddenly she brought up my arrival at the folly. She would not let the matter rest until I told her when I had fallen in love with you.”

  Shannon absently fingered the edge of the coverlet. “I shall never forget how she looked at me then. Amused and sad at the same time. I didn’t understand it; I’m not sure I do even now. While she was looking at me a branch caught her unawares and knocked the riding hat from her head. She caught it before it fell, and she stared at it for a long time, then she halted Pilgrim and held it out to me when I came abreast of her. At first I didn’t want to accept it.” Shannon closed her eyes. “Then she said a strange thing. ‘One of us should be happy,’ she said. ‘I’ve never felt about anyone the way you do him. Not even Parker.’ She seemed surprised by her confession and immediately thrust the hat in my hand; then she said we were going to return to the folly.”

  “You were on your way back when she was shot?”

  Shannon rubbed her eyes and fixed her attention on a point past Brandon’s shoulder. “No. The trail was so narrow there and the forest so thick that we rode ahead to a small clearing. We had only just reached the edge of it when the shot was fired. Aurora fell immediately. I screamed and lost control of Anthem. She bolted and I was thrown. I went to Aurora, but she was scarcely breathing when I reached her.” A tear slipped out of the corner of Shannon’s eye, and she wiped it away impatiently. “‘I thought we could get back,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sorry.’” Shannon met Brandon’s dark glance. “She was smiling, Brandon. I’d never seen her smile that way before. She looked like Mama then, the hint of some secret happiness in her eyes.”

  Brandon sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Shannon into his arms. “Have you listened to what you’ve told me?” he asked. “Have you heard yourself? Can you doubt that she knew what was going to happen?”

  “N-no,” she sobbed, burying her face against his shoulder. “I suppose not. But it makes it all the worse, you see. She knew and she chose to take my place.”

  Brandon saw no point in reminding Shannon that Aurora had coldly planned the entire thing, calmly leading her sister into a trap. It was not important against the uncharacteristic, impulsive moment when Aurora, for whatever reason, decided she could not go through with it. “We’ll find the person responsible for Rory’s death, Shannon. You must believe that it is not finished here.” It couldn’t be, he told himself. If Aurora’s death was in reality an accident, if she had sacrificed herself for Shannon, then Shannon’s life could still be in danger. He did not have to give his thoughts a voice. The shudder that rippled through Shannon warned him that she understood the truth well enough.

  Chapter 15

  “Rory!”

  Normally Annie Jones would have made an objection if one of her lover’s called her by another woman’s name, yet this time, in deference to Parker’s grief as well as his anger, she said nothing. Where was the harm? she thought idly as Parker lifted his weight from her unaroused body. He was paying her well enough. She supposed it gave him the right to call her anything he wished, and certainly others had called her worse. Annie turned on her side and lightly touched Parker’s shoulder. Her fingertips slid easily across his smooth, glistening flesh. His breathing steadied, but he remained so quiet that Annie wondered if he expected her to comment on his savage performance.

  He was not usually so rough with her. She glanced down at her breasts, where his fingers had pressed with a mixture of cruelty and raw despair, and knew she would be bruised on the morrow. Annie doubted he would care if she pointed that out. Tonight he had been singularly interested in his own pleasure, not unlike most of the other men she lay with, but a new experience for her with Parker. He had never had the gentleness of Brandon or the wild exuberance of Cody, but neither had he treated her like a whore. His loving was always practiced, slightly detached and calculated, and he invariably forced her to admit that he was a better lover than Brandon. Annie had never balked at telling him, though in truth it had been so long since she had lain with Brandon Fleming that she had only a vague sweet memory of their coupling.

  He never asked if Cody pleased her, and Annie never offered the information. She thought about Cody now, the way he made love with laughter and unabashed enthusiasm, and the unfulfilled ache in her loins grew. She was going to miss him coming to Redheart’s. What would Parker think if he knew she had suffered his brutality tonight by withdrawing into herself and remembering the deliciousness of making love to his younger brother?

  Parker shook off Annie’s touch, and she withdrew her hand. Falling on her back again, she pulled the sheet over her small white breasts and combed the tangle of her honey-colored hair with her fingers. She watched Parker sit up, throwing his long legs over the side of the bed. Annie restrained the urge to stroke the length of his spine and palm the curve of his taut buttocks.

  Parker’s elbows rested on his knees, his head in his hands. “Damn,” he swore softly, “it’s only been three weeks since she was murdered. How could they marry so quickly?”

  Annie wondered if he expected her to answer. “I told you,” she reminded him. “Cody is leaving tomorrow for Philadelphia. He wanted to see them wed before he left.” She recalled how stunned Parker had been by the news, ordering more tankards of ale at his table than was his usual desire. Annie didn’t
regret telling him about the wedding, which had been celebrated at the folly earlier in the day. Nearly all of the Tidewater was enthralled by the scandal of the marriage, coming as it did on the heels of Aurora Fleming’s death. If Parker hadn’t learned it from her, someone else would have mentioned it. In truth, she had thought it was news of Bran’s marriage that had brought Parker to Redheart’s in the first place. “Why do you say Aurora was murdered?” she asked. “Cody told me Sir James found no evidence to suggest it was anything but an accident.”

  Parker rubbed his temples with his forefingers, regretting the slip of his tongue. He had made too many mistakes thus far and was determined to make no more. He knew the story that was being circulated about Aurora’s death, but he didn’t believe it was what Brandon or Sir James Harrity really thought. If it was the accident they said it was, why had Sir James traveled to Belletraine to ask him where he had been the day Aurora was killed? The visit had taken Parker by surprise, but he knew he hadn’t given himself away, not even when he learned for the first time from Sir James that it had been Aurora who died, and not Shannon Kilmartin. It had been the damn hat, he thought bitterly. Aurora had given her sister the hat and made herself the target. Why? Why had she betrayed him?

  He could not help but consider what else she had done to bring suspicion on his head. Had she mentioned his name before she died? No, if she had, he would have been arrested. Had anyone seen her come to the cabin? That did not seem likely either, and he had taken the precaution of cleaning out his belongings shortly after Sir James came to Belletraine. There was nothing to suggest he had ever spent any time at the folly, and his slaves had convincingly backed his story that he was seldom gone from his plantation; certainly he had been there on the date in question.

  Parker stood and began to dress in the swift, economic motions so characteristic of everything he did. Sir James and Brandon were merely armed with suspicions, lacking proof of any sort, and he intended it should remain that way.

  “Did you hear me, Parker?” asked Annie, her mouth pouting prettily as she thought she was being ignored. “I wondered why you spoke of murder?”

  “It should be clear enough. Or have you forgotten the earlier attempts on her life?”

  “I hadn’t forgotten.” She sighed, remembering Cody’s despair when he told her what was happening at the folly. “Poor Cody. He was so certain he or Brandon would bear the blame. I begged him not to worry. Thank God he and Bran had Davey French with them when the accident happened. That was a lucky thing.”

  “Yes,” Parker said dryly. “Wasn’t it though?” How could he have known about Davey French? He never would have fired if he had realized Bran and Cody had met up with their neighbor. All his plans had come to nothing because of French’s interference. In his mind it made Aurora’s betrayal doubly hard to forgive because ultimately it had been for nothing. He regretted killing her less than he regretted the fact that neither Cody nor Brandon could be held accountable for her death. And now Brandon’s remarriage increased the difficulty of gaining the folly. He hadn’t anticipated his brother would move so quickly in that direction, subjecting himself to scandal by ignoring the rites of mourning. “Tell me, when was Cody last here?”

  “Only a few days ago,” she answered wistfully. Annie sat up in bed, tossing her hair over her shoulders. “I confess I’m going to miss that boy.”

  Parker felt precisely the same way, though he kept his silence. Cody and Annie had been useful to him, and both were entirely unaware of the fact. Sometimes he wished he had told Aurora how he had known so much of what was happening at the folly, yet it pleased him to provoke her with his secrets. It occurred to him that she may have been more provoked to know that Cody engaged Annie’s company frequently while shunning her own. Still, she would have been delighted to learn that young Cody, naive and sated with the pleasure of loving, had few confidences in the bedroom, and Parker had gleaned every bit of information from Annie in turn. Cody, who would never consider betraying Brandon with an affair with Aurora, had ultimately betrayed his brother in another bedchamber. The irony amused Parker, and when he turned on Annie, he was smiling.

  Thinking he was laughing at her, Annie twisted the sheet between her breasts nervously.

  Parker leaned over the bed and pressed a kiss to Annie’s petulant mouth. “You said he sails tomorrow?”

  “Yes. He’s going to the Marchands.”

  “Aurora’s parents,” he said, straightening.

  Annie saw Parker’s brilliant green eyes narrow for a moment, and she was struck by the hint of frustration and anger she saw there. “You’ve never given up hope that she would return to you, have you?”

  Parker blinked, pulling himself to the present. What was Annie talking about? Oh, yes. The story he had given her. “No, I never did. I thought when Bran made it clear that he would divorce her, Rory would come back to Belletraine.”

  A vague frown clouded Annie’s features. “Cody said that you threw her out.”

  Parker waved that aside. “Rory’s way of garnering sympathy. She left me.”

  “I thought as much.” She nodded thoughtfully, her suspicions confirmed. “I almost told Cody it had to be so.”

  Parker paused in adjusting his waistcoat and stared sharply at Annie. “Almost? Or did you say something?”

  “I never said a word,” she denied, shivering slightly under Parker’s icy regard. “Same as I never told him you were seeing me. I kept my promise, Parker.” She did not add that she had kept it because Cody would have ceased his visits if he had learned that Parker was one of her lovers. She felt a little sorry for Parker, being the outsider at the folly, though she dared not say so to him. His pride was too great for him to accept that admission, and she considered her pity ill placed. After all, Parker had Belletraine. Annie told him what she could about the folly because she thought his initial interest was prompted by a desire not to be excluded from his brother’s lives, and later because he missed Aurora so badly that he craved even the simplest information about her, even information that was secondhand from Cody.

  Parker tugged on his waistcoat, examining the fit in the cracked glass at the far side of the room. “It’s just as well you said nothing. I wouldn’t be at all pleased if you had.” He withdrew a few coins from the pocket of his jacket and laid them on the table beside Annie’s bed, then slipped on his coat.

  Annie wrapped the sheet around her and got out of bed, going to Parker’s side. “Will I see you again?”

  “Not for a while.” There were other matters that required his attention, and now that Brandon had married, other plans to be made. Without Cody, there was no place for Annie in his life. He cupped her face in one hand, recalling that she had served him well enough. There were worse ways to spend his time than immersed in Annie’s musky scent. “Perhaps later, sweetings.” He kissed her thickly lashed eyes and took his leave, exiting as he always did by the tavern’s rear door.

  * * *

  Brandon encouraged his guests to continue their revelry after bidding them good night. Their ribald suggestions that he was anxious to be with his waiting bride were naught but the truth, and he made no effort to deny them. Pausing on the stairs as his friends returned to the dining room, Brandon counted himself a fortunate man to have so many supporters. He was flying in the face of every social convention by marrying Shannon so soon after Aurora had been killed, yet those whom he counted among his friends had rallied to support him. He detected Sir James Harrity’s fine hand in the matter, lending his countenance and influence to squash rumors that Brandon was responsible for his wife’s death. Thomas Maine had done his part also, and Davey French as well.

  Aurora’s death had shocked a great many people who knew precious little of what was happening at the folly and chose to create their own conclusions. The funeral service had been brief, and because it was impossible for the Marchands to arrive quickly, it was useless to delay the burial. The hasty service led to the commonly held belief that the master of
the folly had something to hide. Without the assistance of his friends, Brandon knew he would have always been regarded with suspicion.

  Brandon’s allies all expressed concern when he announced his intention to marry Shannon, but no one discouraged him. Persuaded by his reasoning that there would be scandal no matter when he wed Shannon, equally certain of his innocence, they insisted that his marriage should not be the quiet affair he had planned.

  Brandon turned on the stairs and resumed mounting them, agreeing that on this occasion his friends had been correct. Shannon had been forced to confront in a single day every fear that she had regarding her introduction to Tidewater society. Without exception, she was able to lay every one of them to rest.

  “You were a success,” Brandon said as he came to stand behind Shannon. She was sitting at the window in his chamber, gazing at her reflection in the glass as she idly brushed her hair. He took the brush from her hand, laid it to one side, and lifted her heavy mane of hair. His mouth nuzzled the bare softness of her neck.

  Shannon’s eyes closed as delicious warmth spread through her. “Was I?” she asked.

  “Mm.”

  She smiled when his teeth caught her earlobe and tugged gently. “It was because of your friends. They were very kind. They didn’t seem to resent me at all.”

  Brandon eased himself down on the padded seat behind her, making a space for Shannon between his thighs. His palms massaged her arms in a comforting gesture as she leaned against his chest, welcoming the shelter of his embrace. “There was never any reason they should resent you,” he said, resting his chin against her hair.