Page 46 of A Lady's Wicked Revenge
Sir James was already waving him away as he returned to his work and his muttering. “… Bloody wasting my time all these years. Not as though I’ve been teaching him for my own damned health, doesn’t he know that?”
Something foul tumbled and swirled in Colin’s stomach, and he felt himself sway unsteadily as he staggered out the study door and away down the corridor.
The man does not even make the pretence of caring for Diana’s happiness or the things to which she is entitled. He only cares about himself. How have I deluded myself otherwise for so long?
Colin blinked, regarding the massive portrait of his stepfather hanging from the wall.Sir James is a ruthless man. I have always known as much. In fact, I have admired it … and that admiration has blinded me to what that ruthlessness may have made him capable of.
He did not mention a thing about murder, though,Colin reasoned to himself. However, this was the only point he could count in his stepfather’s favour as he left the portrait, feeling its eyes follow him down the corridor. And as loud as his stepfather’s voice was in his ears, with criticisms real and imagined, there was another, louder voice that drowned this out. It spoke only of what must be done next if Colin was to have any hope of saving his own soul—only God could save Sir James Leeson.
* * *
The sight of the door to Diana’s room had once made Colin’s knees tremble with pleasant anticipation. Now, standing before that cold and aged wood, he felt like the basest worm on God’s earth. He lingered there for a long while, and as every inch of his resolve was occupied in keeping him from fleeing back to his own room, he found he had none remaining to actually knock on her door.
Just knock, for God’s sake,Colin snapped at himself, impatient with his own cowardice.Whatever else he may be, Sir James is right about many things. And if I have any pretentions of being a man and not a worm, it’s time for me to begin acting like it.
Colin licked his lips, glanced down the corridor to see if he was being watched, then softly brought his knuckles against the door. There was no answer.
Concerned, he knocked again, ever so slightly louder. This time he drew out a quiet response:
“Go away, Mister Mullens.”
“I must speak with you,” he whispered, his face nearly pressed against the rough grain of the oak.
Again he gained no reply. Not a creak of a distant bed, not footsteps approaching the door. Colin glanced around him nervously, certain someone would discover this illicit visit. Even a hate-filled invective from Diana would have been welcome at this point.
Desperately, he hissed at the door, “Damn it, Diana, there are ears in this house that must not hear what I have to say.”
“If you’re looking for a willing ear, there are none in this room.” Her voice was almost as soft as his and closer than before. Colin looked down and saw a dim shadow stretching out under the doorway towards him. He put his hand against the wood, and for a single heartbeat found himself comforted that no matter the malice she quite reasonably bore him, the woman he loved was so close to him after an eternal morning and afternoon apart.
“I don’t blame you for being angry with me,” Colin said, his head dipping with shame. “I am not asking for your forgiveness, as I am not deserving of such.” His forehead now sagging forward against the door, he breathed out in despair as he squeezed out the words. “For your own safety, though, I beg of you,please—”
There was aclick, and Colin saw the door swing open before him. He entered quickly, seeing that Diana was retreating into her room, and closed it behind him as quietly as possible. She took a seat on her sofa by the window, her golden hair catching the radiance of the afternoon sun in her curls, and Colin was so momentarily overwhelmed by the sight that he completely forgot why he had been invited in.
But then he saw the look of bitter scepticism on her face. Arms folded, Diana regarded him warily, her chin set in defiance. “Say what you have to say, sir,” she said, biting off the words between her teeth.
Colin struggled to force his heart to beat, his lungs to draw breath. Those pale blue eyes obliterated every thought in his head, and he scrambled to invent the proper words.
“I …” he began, then stopped. What was he doing? The room swirled about him; everything that had been certain in his life had now come unmoored.
Useless. Traitor. Disloyal. Ungrateful.
Colin blinked, recognising for good and all that the voice that had been speaking these calumnies in his mind was identical to his stepfather’s. He shook his head angrily, and even as Diana looked on with puzzlement, he drew in a long, deep breath before reaching out to take her hands. She recoiled at first, but Colin held fast, looking into her eyes with a sudden intensity. He sputtered, sure this conviction would fly away before long.
“I still do not think Sir James is capable of what you describe,” Colin said in one hasty breath. “But between what you overheard and what he has intimated to me, I concur that this affair requires further investigation. Right or wrong, the question demands an answer right away. I would have realised this much sooner if I had not been so damnably pig-headed.”
Diana sniffed away a tear, though a smile parted her beautiful rosy lips. “And closed-minded,” she added. “And arrogant, and—”
Colin hung his head and laughed with her, feeling the tears come to his own eyes in kind. “There will be time enough later to abuse me properly. Right now, we have more pressing matters to discuss.”
And that was just what the two of them did, as the afternoon began to grow late and the yellow sun was dimmed to burnished gold. Heedless of the sounds of household activity that clamoured down the hallway as the staff prepared for the famed Leeson autumn ball to happen that evening, Colin and Diana conjured a flicker of an idea that eventually caught the wind and grew into a shaky flame of a plan. By five o’clock, it was as ready as it would ever be, Colin declared, and at any rate, they were out of time if they were to put it into motion.
“Are you certain this will work?” Diana asked nervously, her fingers tugging at a loose thread at the edge of the sofa’s upholstery.
Colin shook his head with a reflexively wry smile, one that he swept from his face when he saw the deadly seriousness in her eyes. “Not as certain as I would like to be,” he said quietly. “If your Mister Arnold is not in attendance tonight, we will have to form another plan. And even if he is as kindly and well disposed towards you as you say, it could be that he will have no more desire to participate in this investigation than I had myself.”
Her eyes shimmered in the golden glow of the afternoon sun, and Colin felt himself crushed by a desire to hold her, to reassure her. Instead, he reached out and placed his hand atop hers. His voice grave, Colin spoke, “But whatever may come, Diana, we will find the truth, whatever it may be. I am not a man for oaths, but I swear to you, you will have me as your ally, no matter how terrible a truth we uncover.”
Tears scattered onto the carpet as the two embraced—Colin could no more be sure whether they were Diana’s or his own than he knew where her body ended and his began. All he knew was that their parting was finished, and as long as his body drew breath, he would not let her down ever again.
