The Truth about Love

to draw the younger girls to their table, they endeavored to hold Eleanor at bay.

Temporarily defeated, she joined Jordan’s circle, but she paid scant attention to her brother’s discourse. Her eyes remained fixed on Gerrard, occasionally sliding to Barnaby, but returning, always, to Gerrard. Jordan’s gaze also frequently came his way.

Inwardly, Gerrard swore and remained on guard.

Just as well; as they all left, going down the front steps in a gay, noisy group, exchanging promises and challenges for when they met again that evening, Eleanor maneuvered to come up beside him. He led Jacqueline to his curricle. His grays stamped, unimpressed by the high-pitched voices; a groom held on to their bits, reverently crooning.

Barnaby had gone to the other side of the curricle; it was just roomy enough to accommodate three.

Alongside, Jordan’s curricle stood waiting with a pair of showy bays between the shafts.

“I wonder, Mr. Debbington…” Boldly, Eleanor gripped his arm, forcing him to halt and face her. She smiled. “I wonder if I might suggest Jacqueline and I swap places, at least until the turnoff to the manor.” She let her gaze sweep his horses, then turned her eyes on him. “I’ve a great penchant for powerful beasts. I find them quite fascinating.”

Gerrard resisted the urge to roll his eyes; even more smoothly than she, he replied, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. We’ve arranged to take an alternative route.”

“Oh?” Eleanor’s gaze and tone sharpened. “To where?”

In a different direction to the one she was heading in; beyond that, Gerrard had no clue. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would so impertinently question him.

Before he could utter the annihilating setdown spontaneously forming on his tongue, Jacqueline’s fingers tightened on his sleeve; leaning forward, she spoke across him. “Mr. Debbington expressed an interest in viewing the church at Trewithian. With luck, we’ll just have time to head that way, then return to the Hall.”

Eleanor deflated. “Oh. I see.”

Jacqueline smiled lightly; reaching out, she lifted Eleanor’s hand from Gerrard’s other sleeve, squeezed it in farewell and released it. “We’ll see you tonight.”

Eleanor nodded, disappointed, but amiable enough. “Yes, of course.”

Gerrard blinked, and hurriedly added an abbreviated farewell; Barnaby, already in the curricle, waved. With not the slightest sign she understood that she’d just been put in her place, Eleanor inclined her head, and turned away.

For one instant, Gerrard stared. Then he inwardly shook himself, turned and helped Jacqueline into his curricle, followed, gathered the reins, sat, and set his horses trotting.

“Phew!” Barnaby leaned back as the wheels rolled smoothly down the drive. “That was a near-run thing.” He glanced at Jacqueline. “Quick thinking, too. You have my heartfelt gratitude for saving us, m’dear.”

“Indeed.” Gerrard glanced at Jacqueline, and caught her eyes; they were lightly dancing. “Should I really turn east?”

She looked at the gates, rapidly approaching. “I think we’d better. But it’s a pleasant drive and not that much further. Especially with such”-she gestured to his grays-“powerful beasts.”

Gerrard laughed; so did Barnaby.

Her smile deepening, Jacqueline looked ahead.

Despite the roundabout route, they returned to Hellebore Hall in good time. Gerrard drove straight to the stables, then he, Jacqueline and Barnaby walked across the field toward the house. Pegasus watched over them; Jacqueline smiled as they passed the statue.

Over her head, Gerrard glanced at Barnaby. “Did you learn anything?”

Barnaby had intended subtly sounding out the younger generation over the source of the whispers. He’d questioned Lord Tregonning; thinking back, all his lordship could recall was that after he’d emerged from his grief over his wife’s death, Sir Godfrey and Lord Fritham had both behaved as if everyone knew that Jacqueline had been responsible. Everyone had behaved in that way, avoiding speaking of the incident, and if they couldn’t, referring to it as an accident. Lord Tregonning had accepted the unspoken verdict; his grief had left him unable to question it, and without detailed knowledge to challenge it.

Only later, when the pall of grief had fully lifted, had he come to find that unspoken verdict hard to swallow.

Barnaby had been hunting, bloodhoundlike trying to track the whispers to their source. Gerrard wasn’t sure it would prove possible, but he was grateful Barnaby was so tirelessly investigating every possible avenue.

Hands in his pockets, Barnaby grimaced. “Only that the whispers have been spread over a long time-no one remembers from whom they first heard the suggestion that Jacqueline was responsible for her mother’s death. The association with Thomas’s death is an extension of that.” After a moment, he went on, “Jordan and Eleanor are the most open in their support.” He glanced at Jacqueline. “I gathered they’ve always been quick to take your part.”

She shrugged. “We’re next to siblings-they’re my closest friends.”

Barnaby nodded. “So we’re no further ahead on that front, but the older generation might remember more. Until now, the younger ones haven’t spent much time thinking of the deaths. They weren’t that important to them.”

Wise to his friend’s phrasing, Gerrard asked, “What other snippets have you gleaned?”

Barnaby’s grin flashed. “Not so much gleaned as thought through. I’ve been wrestling with the motive for Lady Tregonning’s murder.” He met Jacqueline’s gaze. “At present, we don’t have one, which is in large part the reason it was so easy to cast suspicion on you-you were the only one with any whiff of a cause, no matter how unlikely.”

Looking ahead, he continued, “If we accept that the same person killed Thomas and Miribelle, and that the reason Thomas was killed was because he was about to become engaged to Jacqueline, then isn’t it likely Miribelle was killed for a similar reason?”

“Such as?” Gerrard prompted.

“What if some gentleman had had his eye on Jacqueline all along, and had approached Miribelle to gain her support for his suit?”

Gerrard turned the notion over in his mind. “The relative timing’s always bothered me, but that…it fits.”

Barnaby nodded. “When Thomas disappeared, you”-with his head he indicated Jacqueline-“went into half- mourning. That stymied the killer for a while, but then, when you were accepting callers again, what more natural than that he should seek your mother’s support?”

Jacqueline briefly glanced at Gerrard, then turned to Barnaby. “You’re suggesting she refused her support, and because of that, he killed her?”

Barnaby pursed his lips, then shook his head. “I think it would have to be more than that-I think she must have flatly rejected the proposal, refused to countenance it, and said so. Declared she would forever oppose the match. That, I think, would have been enough to make someone who’d already committed murder to secure your hand resort to murder again.”

Continuing toward the Garden of Hercules and the house, they reviewed old points from that new perspective.

“Murdering your mother meant you went into mourning for a year,” Gerrard said, “but time passing doesn’t seem to worry this villain.”

Jacqueline nodded. “But now I’m out of mourning again, by a few months.” They were still in the sunshine, yet she shivered.

He caught her hand, engulfed it in his, lightly squeezed. “No one’s asked for your hand lately, have they?”

Without looking at him, she shook her head. “I’m sure Papa would have told me if they had. Other than Thomas, and that hadn’t been done formally, no one has ever asked permission to marry me.”

The Garden of Hercules loomed ahead. Shadows engulfed them as they descended toward the terrace. When they reached the steps, Gerrard stood back to let Jacqueline precede him, but as she took the first step, her hand still in his, he halted her and drew her to face him.

He met her eyes. “If any gentleman should ask for your hand, you will remember to mention it, won’t you?”