Page 104 of The Enigmatic Governess of Buford Manor
Rose exhaled.
“I must tell you all I know about Captain Balfour,” she told him earnestly. “Tis much worse than you can imagine.”
“I need not know more than I already do,” Nicholas insisted and he meant it. Seeing Rose locked inside the cupboard, her slender figure quivering and terrified was enough.
“Please, Your Grace,” she moaned. “You must listen.”
He turned his emerald eyes upon her, seeing the agony in her face and nodded slowly.
“Of course, you may tell me anything, Rose,” he murmured tenderly. “Up until I saw you in that closet, my mother and Balfour led me to believe you had succumbed to your illness.”
Aghast, Rose’s mouth parted.
“They told you I had died?” she choked but Nicholas shook his head.
“At first, I believed that was what they meant but my mother explained that Balfour had sent you to a hospital for long-term care although he flatly refused to tell me where. He promised when I was free of fever, he would bring me to you. He did not wish to risk my health any further.”
He eyed her.
“You must know I would have come sooner if I had any idea what he had done.”
Rose shook her tangled blonde head and studied her dirty hands, woe in her eyes. There was so much to tell him and yet they did not have time to discuss it all.
I will tell him the main points but then we must find Balfour and stop him.
“We were not ill with fever,” she whispered and he frowned.
“What was it? I daresay, I have never felt so miserable in all my days.”
Rose slid the arms of her white nightgown up to show him a series of markings on her skin.
“I believe you and the children have the same pips upon your arms,” she told him. “See for yourself.”
With a sinking sensation in his gut, Nicholas examined his arms and found that his matched hers.
“He poisoned us?” he gasped. “What fashion of monster – “
“It is worse,” Rose mumbled, unable to meet his eyes. “He is a murderer, I am certain.”
Blood rushed over his face and suddenly he did not wish to hear anymore.
“Rose – “
“Please, allow me to finish,” she rushed on, rubbing her hands over the flimsy material of her nightclothes as if she was consumed with cold. “I should have told you this long ago.”
Nicholas pursed his lips together, knowing that whatever she was about to say was only going to confirm what he had already suspected about the slippery captain.
“Captain Balfour is a bookmaker,” Rose began. “I suspect that my late husband was in debt to him while in the navy. I believe that was what got him murdered.”
Nicholas was stunned as it was not what he had expected to hear. If the situation was not so bizarre, he might have laughed. After all, Balfour was a respected naval captain, not a slum rat, reeking of scotch and parlaying among the lower classes. He did not release a dry chuckle. Instead, he urged her to tell him more.
“Why do you say so?”
Rose paused as if collecting her thoughts.
“Philip had an affinity toward gambling and…” she seemed unable to finish her thoughts, emotion filling her voice as she stared at him with devastated cerulean irises.
“Please, Rose,” Nicholas encouraged tenderly. “You must tell me what you know, what you suspect.”
