Page 101 of The Mistletoe Countess
Frederick’s eyes closed. What had his wife done?
He peered out of his office door. The two women made their way up the stairs, and Mother began a detailed history of the portrait of Charles Percy. It looked as though his lovely bride had somehow convinced his mother to venture out of her rooms for an ancestry lesson.
He glanced toward the south wing. If his mother explained each portrait housed in the Great Hall, Frederick would have plenty of time to search her rooms. Nothing lengthy or too intrusive, but a cursory inquiry to help with the investigation.
Mother’s back was turned, and Grace’s profile stood in perfect view as she stared dutifully at the teacher. With a deep breath, he walked toward the stairs, glancing up to check if his mother had shifted her attention toward him.
Grace caught his movements and with beautiful synchrony, winked then turned her attention to the painting. “Did you say he was the one who married the blacksmith’s daughter?”
“Truly girl! Are your ears full of cotton? A baron’s daughter!”
Frederick covered his grin as he slipped through the entrance to the south wing.
His wife!
He’d never known such a force as this desire to protect her, this need to cherish who she was to him. Yet here he was, drawing her into an enigma of murder plots, poisonous plants, and a mother who haunted an abandoned wing of the house. But his bride didn’t seem to mind at all. Rather, from the glint in her eyes, she was doing exactly as she wished— helping him, loving him, and using her unique set of resources to do so.
He’d never known love until her. He’d been a man as untouched in his heart as Grace’s lips had been with a kiss.
Frederick silently slid into his mother’s chambers and closed the door behind him, breathing in the scent of rosewater and honey, his mother’s lotions. The overcast sky gave little assistance to light the dim room, but a faint glow from his mother’s lanterns led his way.
This was ridiculous. Utterly. Yet he moved across the carpet with soundless steps, slipping through the door into his mother’s bedroom.
The room’s decor gave nothing suspicious away. A four-poster bed. Dresser. Ornate side table. A wardrobe. And her desk.
He peeked into her curio cabinet, examining a few of the trinkets, and scanned the spines of the books on a shelf nearby. A hush fell over the room, her crackling fire his only companion. Where would his mother hide something precious to her?
He walked to her bedside table, her sleeping draught readied for the evening. Nothing suspicious. Then he approached her desk. Stationery waited in an unused stack to one side, and two books sat propped against an ornate wooden box. Ah! He brought the shoe-sized box into his hands and unclipped the lid. A whiff of strong perfume hit his nostrils before he noticed the twine-bound letters. A dozen of them, at least. With a careful hand, he picked up the parcel and examined it.
His mother’s handwriting. Air whooshed from his lungs. The letters she’d written his father during courtship? He squinted. No, it wasn’t his father’s name on the letters, but another man’s. Rupert? He carefully peeled open one of the pages in search of a date, and air stilled in his throat. Did he read 1880? Two years after his parents were married?
What did this mean?
He shook his head and carefully returned the letters to the box, but as he placed it back in its spot, one of the books fell, landing with a thud on the floor and sending loose pages in various directions. Frederick scanned the expanse, as if someone heard his trespass, but no one appeared. With a deep breath, he knelt to collect the age-stained papers but paused, the hair at the nape of his neck rising. From within the slips of a folded sheet, the faded petals of a dried white-clustered flower emerged.
He lifted the paper from the ground, pinching the pages around the plant and then carefully opened the note to expose the entire flower.
Hemlock. Dried.
His throat closed around his anger.No.
But the handwriting on the page wasn’t his mother’s:“A reminder of your silence.”
A threat? He fished through the other papers and came upon a letter with the same handwriting. A familiar style.
“You understand the heavy hand of vengeance—the desperate actions one must take in order to assuage the thirst for justice. I assisted you, and now you will assist me. You shall pay your penance through silence, and I will be free.”
Frederick gripped the page between his fingers. He knew that handwriting. Celia.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Thank you for meeting with us, Brandon.” Frederick nodded, gesturing the man toward a chair. “Please, sit down.”
Brandon paused, glancing around the private sitting room before taking a seat in the proffered wingback. It was as uncommon for him to sit in this intimate room shared by only Grace and his lord as it was for Frederick to ask him to enter, but no other room, apart from their bedrooms, provided as much privacy from eavesdroppers.
“As you are well aware, we have recently become concerned about the events surrounding my brother’s death. No one is as intimately acquainted with the workings of this house. Would you give a thorough recounting of the last day of my brother’s life? Was there anything unusual?”
Brandon sent a glance to Grace.
