Murder at Almack's: A Regency Romantic Suspense Short Story Page 3
“You lie,” the Earl of Walson said. His sons shoved Eliza roughly aside and grabbed Derrick’s arms, the elder son reaching for the papers.
Derrick kicked him in the groin, sending him sprawling to the floor. Punched the younger son in the gut and shoved him down to his brother, the rage of years of prison, of the disgrace to his family, rushing through him. “The Duke of Belville sold information to the French. The deed he accused me of was at his own hand, never mine. These papers” —he waved them in the air again— “Prove what I say.”
The Earl of Walson moved forward. Pulled the knife from the duke’s back. Advanced on Derrick.
Derrick unsheathed the knife in his waistcoat.
Silence dropped over the ton.
“Concerned the duke might have made mention of you in his letter?” Derrick said in a low tone that nonetheless carried over the quiet ballroom.
“You lie,” the earl said, menace in his tone.
“Enough,” the Marquis of Eastbrooke said, stepping forward, two large men following behind him. “Take him,” he told the two men.
Eliza let out an anguished cry.
Derrick braced himself. The marquis was a man of honor, one who stood outside the Duke of Belville’s circle. Would he listen to the truth?
Would the agony of the past two years be in vain?
The men neared, the Earl of Walson smug with victory.
Eliza flung her arms around Derrick.
The men stopped beside the earl and wrested the knife from his hand.
Derrick’s gaze snapped to the Marquis of Eastbrooke.
Grim-faced, the marquis spoke. “I charge you with treason, Horace Smythe-Jones, Earl of Walson.”
“By what authority?” the earl said, haughty and enraged.
“By authority of the Prince Regent, who this day was told of your treachery.” The marquis looked down at the dead duke. “And of his.”
“You have no proof,” the earl shouted.
“I have proof,” Derrick shouted back, his rage, held so long, breaking free.
“As do we,” a familiar voice called out from the back of the crowd.
Derrick started. A voice that sounded like his childhood friend Ellingham.
But Ellingham was dead, along with their friend Trevor. The three of them had been captured two years ago by the French in the midst of an ill-fated battle and held in a French prison. Until the night three weeks ago when a French royalist spying for the British had come to their cell with two of the duke’s treasonous letters and the means for the men to escape, only Ellingham and Trevor making it out that night with one of the letters, escaping at Derrick’s insistence as he lay in a fevered state, Derrick to follow with the second letter when he’d recovered from the fever that had wracked his weakened body.
But Ellingham and Trevor had not made it to England. Both men, Derrick’s closest friends, were dead, Derrick had concluded upon his return to London. It was the only way the Duke of Belville could have still been at liberty to betray his country.
More deaths to avenge, Derrick had thought.
But like ghosts, solid, substantial ghosts full of blood and vigor, Ellingham and Trevor came forward through the crowd.
Derrick’s heart stopped for an instant. A moment later, joy swept through his veins.
“These men,” the marquis said, “came to me eight days ago with letters written by the duke—letters of treason—and intercepted by themselves and the Viscount Trulington.”
Viscount Trulington. Not Traitor Trulington. Derrick took a hopeful breath.
“And of course” —the marquis reached out and tugged a wax-sealed letter from the earl’s waistcoat— “there is this.”
The Earl of Walson flushed. “You cannot know what that letter says. You cannot know it has anything to do with the duke.”
“On the contrary,” the marquis said. “At the Prince Regent’s orders, I ensured the state secrets in this letter—false ones, I assure you—were made available to the Duke of Belville. Moments before the duke took the dance floor, he was observed handing you the letter.” With his foot, he shoved the duke’s body onto its back with disdain. “He, to his detriment, could not resist selling it to the French.”
***
Derrick sheathed his knife and pulled Eliza tight into his arms, his heartbeat racing. He was free. No longer dishonored.
Ellingham and Trevor came to his side.
With a shy smile, Eliza stepped away.
The men embraced.
“You live,” Derrick said.
“We all live,” Ellingham said, the exultation in his voice echoing the triumph Derrick felt in his soul.
Trevor clasped Derrick’s shoulder. “There has been many an hour I have regretted leaving you in that prison.”
“You left my son?” Derrick’s mother said from behind them, outraged.
“At my insistence, Mother,” Derrick said, turning to her. “The opportunity was too great. I was too fevered. They pledged to return. Someone had to carry the news of the duke’s treachery.”
Swift strides crossed the parquet. More rustles of satin. Ellingham’s and Trevor’s families, unsure until now of their sons’ fates, hurried to their sides.
Derrick’s family gathered at his. “It is over,” he said, more to himself than the others, his heart full.
“Yes, but who killed the duke?” Lady Goodfield said, staring down at the dead man with distaste.
Chapter Seven
“Indeed,” Lady Prysden said, standing across from Derrick on the other side of the duke’s body, the color high in her cheeks. “Is it not obvious?” She gazed pointedly at Derrick. “The Duke of Belville’s guilt does not assuage the Viscount Trulington’s own treason. The viscount kills to protect himself.”
“My son was condemned of treason at the duke’s own hand two years ago,” Derrick’s mother said. “The duke alone made the accusations, hours before my son’s reported death.”
“For what purpose but the truth?” said Lady Prysden, her voice hard.
Lady Trulington turned her gaze to Eliza. “Is it not obvious?”
Eliza gasped. Turned anguished eyes to Derrick.
“All the more reason to kill His Grace,” Lady Prysden said.
Men moved toward Derrick from the fringes of the crowd, all with the look of hardened, seasoned soldiers and led by the footman from the front door, and Derrick understood now the man’s military bearing, he was in the employ of His Majesty and commander of tonight’s plot to capture the duke. “Not the viscount,” the footman cum commander barked out to his men. “The woman.”
Derrick stepped between the men and Eliza. He would defend her with his li—
The soldiers gripped Lady Prysden’s arms.
“Unhand me,” she said, outraged.
“Your ladyship,” the commander said. “We’ve had a watch on His Grace the Duke of Belville all evening. We saw you stab him.”
Lady Prysden drew herself up full height, her auburn hair gleaming in the candlelight. “I am with child,” she said in an imperial tone. “The duke’s heir. I will have my child acknowledged.”
“That’s for the judge to decide,” the commander said and hauled her away.
***
Derrick kissed his mother’s tear-wet cheek. Pulled her and his sister Anne into a deep hug, then he turned to Lady Goodfield and her daughter.
Lady Goodfield held his gaze, her head high, a bright flicker in her beautiful blue eyes, one that matched the flicker in her daughter’s eyes.
He knew that flicker. He’d felt it in his own heart. Of triumph. Of justice served.
With a bow, Derrick saluted the two women. He held out one forearm to the mother, one to the daughter. “May my family and I escort you ladies home?”
Epilogue
Sixteen months later
Lady Eliza, Vicountess Trulington, stood on the cold quay in the near dawn, the clink of metal on the shifting docks, the water calm—a clear passage, the dockm
aster had said of The Triumph’s voyage—her heart soaring, her infant son in her arms, her eyes on the ship as it made its way to the dock.
Men lined the ship’s bow, men in uniform, some propped by others, but her eyes were on her husband, Derrick flanked by Ellingham and Trevor, Derrick’s gaze fierce on hers.
The terror she’d felt when he’d gone a second time to war had eased when she’d received his letter, the letter arriving three weeks after the Battle of Waterloo, telling her he still lived. But rumors had abounded, of whom had survived, whom had not, some men’s names whispered as both, and it wasn’t until now, holding his gaze, did she let her heart feel joy.
The man who’d saved her from a marriage worse than death.
The man she loved with all her heart.
She raised their swaddled son in the air for Derrick to see.
***
Derrick stood at the bow of the ship, his eyes devouring his wife, then son. Joy leaped in his heart, cracking through the hardness that had come with battle, his taut, ever-alert senses finding ease. He’d settled his score against the damage the Duke of Belville had done to his family and his nation. Now he’d settled his score against the French.
He strode weary down the gangplank, the ship that had brought him from Calais tossing gently on the water, Ellingham and Trevor coming along behind.
One thought, one thought alone, filled his mind.
Eliza.
As if in a dream, she stood before him on the quay, their babe wrapped in her arms. Tears shimmered in her eyes, the sun bright on his wife and child. “I named him after Papa,” she said, her voice breaking. “I hope you do not mind.”
He kissed her, the memory of her lips that had sustained him in battle now real against his.
She pulled back. “My love—”
Love, he thought. Good God, he was blessed.
“—your arm.”
“’Tis nothing. ’Twill mend in a month’s time.”
She placed the babe—his son—in the crook of his uninjured arm.
Pride swelled in his heart. Pride. Joy.
Love.
He bent his head and brushed his lips over his son’s tiny brow. New life. For him. For Eliza.
A new world for his son. He returned Frederick to Eliza’s arms and wrapped his own around her beloved waist. “Come,” he said. “Let us go home.”
Thank You
for reading Murder at Almack’s. I hope you enjoyed Eliza’s and Derrick’s story!
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Books By Sharon Louise
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Spy Babe
Spy Betrayed
The Spy Date Series:
Spy Date: The Full Collection (Dates One through Nine)
Spy Date: First Date
Spy Date: Second Date
Spy Date: Third Date
Spy Date: Fourth Date
Spy Date: Fifth Date
Spy Date: Sixth Date
Spy Date: Seventh Date
Spy Date: Eighth Date
Spy Date: Ninth Date (The Conclusion)
PARANORMAL ROMANCE
Hell on Saturday Night
Tempest in a Pear Tree: A Christmas Story
Copyright Information
MURDER AT ALMACK’S
Kindle Edition
Golden House Press
Copyright © 2013 by Sharon Louise
Cover design copyright © 2014 by Golden House Press
Cover photograph of man and woman copyright © Hot Damn Designs
Cover photograph of ballroom copyright © Dreef/iStockphoto
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be used or reproduced, scanned, transmitted or distributed in any manner, form, or by any means, including information storage and retrieval systems, whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
Thank You!
Books By Sharon Louise
Copyright Information