The retching continued as each and every man came to stand around the freshly dug hole. They all removed hats and caps and dropped their chins to their chests. Harold couldn’t see anything more so he climbed a few branches of the tree behind which he’d hid. Once a bit higher, once the men moved around a bit, Harold could just make out the body they dragged from the shallow hole.
“One in the brain, here, Cap’n, just as the boy said.”
“So he did,” came a reply. Harold could recognise his brother’s voice now and strained to hear what was said next. “I do wonder, though, just how does a man manage to shoot himself in the heart and in the head? At the same time? Or did he misjudge the first and then reload and aim again?”
The Penfold lad stammered for a bit and then grew quiet. “I don’t know.”
“But you were there?” Darius asked the boy, standing directly in front of the lad.
“No, Eliza was the first to reach him, Gabriella next. By the time I came along, he was covered in a blanket. I only saw the half of his…head…”
“So you saw nothing? Only heard the shot?”
“Shots. I did hear two shots. I think. I don’t know. It all happened so fast and there was so much blood and brains and Gabriella was screaming, Eliza sobbing and retching on the rug… It all happened so fast.”
“All right lad, it’s all right. We’ll burn the body now and worry about all that later.”
Harold almost gave a triumphant shout. The Duke of Penfold was cold in the ground. He’d known it. Damn, but he’d known it. His elation was very short-lived as he shimmied down the tree and crept back to his horse.
There was no way he would stay to watch the old duke burn, just the thought of scorched flesh was enough to turn his stomach so it threatened to rebel. He needed to get back to his father and share with him the news that they would have to run, run far and run fast. After this there was no way he was hanging about in London waiting for the day he was set on fire and left for dead on the street.
*
“Why does this always happen to me?” Darius muttered to himself as he found the bottle of brandy from his wedding night in his chambers, uncorked it with his teeth and swigged straight from the bottle. Even after bathing, he could still smell burnt flesh and timber smoke on his skin and in his hair. He hadn’t dressed yet; only a long heavy robe covered his body. Liquor was the most important thing on his mind. He had to numb the images, erase the smell and forget the events of the day.
Hell, he might even drink enough to forget the events of the past few days.
Sinking to the padded bench at the end of his big, empty bed, he took another long drink and then put his head in his other hand, the bottle swinging between his knees. The liquid tumbled like the ocean did right before a storm. Like his stomach contents had the moment he’d seen the Duke of Penfold unearthed from his shallow grave. Nathanial had been the only man there to actually vomit but he knew the rest of them had been close. It took very little work after that to carry the stinking body and hoist it into the flames.
It had taken more effort to carry the dry wood to the clearing than it did time for the body to turn to ash and bone. Nathanial would feel his exertions come tomorrow. Darius probably shouldn’t have made the boy dig the body up on his own. But then again, who else would have volunteered? None of his men.
They would return on the morrow to ensure the bones fully disintegrated and then the ashes and anything else left over would be spread out beneath the pines. In twenty-four hours there would be no evidence that the duke had died and the children had covered it up. Gone would be the evidence that one of the Penfold five had murdered their father.
Nathanial might not have known it—although Darius began to consider all five children highly skilled actors—he may even now not have drawn the dots together to make a full picture if he was lied to by his sister, but Darius had. And he didn’t like the final portrait.
Eliza had told him she’d done things she wasn’t proud of. Was murder one of them? He would hear her out first; perhaps the circumstances had been extenuating? Perhaps her reasoning had been sound. But had her mind been sound? Had she known what she was doing when she’d shot her father once in the heart and then again in the head? Or was it the other way around? Damn it, he was in a hell of a mess. He kept thinking her naïve and innocent and without fault but was it an act? Had she duped him into a union to save her own hide? Had everything so far been a setup? Her words all lies?
He swigged three more mouthfuls from the bottle.
Darius had met the Duke of Penfold several times as a young lad and had continuously come off second best with the bigger, stronger man, always puffed up with far too much self-importance and bluster. He did remember that he had fists of steel to a child. The first time he’d been cuffed by the duke had been over his mount not being readied in time. Only Darius’s grandfather’s intervention on another occasion had halted Penfold when he’d made to strike Darius with his riding crop after already punching him in the side of the
