"They are lying, Newton, all of them," Hugh Garnett said, still holding his ground, though his face had turned somewhat more purple in hue. The marchioness was swaying on her feet, but no one was rushing toward her. "They are willing to defend a murderer because he has put a fancy ball on for them tonight. He is not the rightful marquess here. He should have hanged long ago. The Reverend Calvin Moore is the rightful marquess."

"You!" Isaac Perrie pointed a large, blunt finger in the direction of the squat, ruffianly individual. "I thought you were told six years ago to take yourself off from here with these fellow rogues of yours. You were told we did not need your bullying, smuggling ways around here. You were warned that if you showed your miserable hides here ever again you would be dragged off to the magistrate and left to your fate-a hanging or transportation most like. Yet you sneaked back one year after that to sail out on the sea with Hugh Garnett here, your former boss, did you, to witness a murder and not lift a finger to help the dying man or to apprehend his dastardly killer? A likely story indeed."

There was a gust of laughter and a smattering of cheers at his words and then rumblings of something uglier.

Sir Rees Newton raised both hands and everyone fell silent.

"I do not know what is at the bottom of all this," he said, "but it all sounds like a piece of malicious nonsense to me. You should be ashamed of yourself, Garnett. And if I discover one trace of your five fellow witnesses within my jurisdiction tomorrow, they are all going to be spending tomorrow night in my jail awaiting my pleasure-or my displeasure. As for all you witnesses for the defense, you might want to say an extra prayer for the salvation of your souls in church next Sunday. Lady Hallmere, ma'am, I apologize for the pain this foolishness has caused you. And, my lord." He bowed stiffly in Joshua's direction. "I have always believed your account of what happened that night, and I daresay I always will. You were known as a truthful, reliable boy and I saw no reason to doubt you. I would suggest that you give the word for the ball to resume if you feel the night has not been ruined."

"Not at all," Joshua said, as Hugh Garnett stalked out and his five accomplices slinked after him. "Indeed, I believe it is time for supper in the state dining room, though there will not be seats for everyone in there. Perhaps everyone would fill a plate and find a seat somewhere, and Lady Freyja Bedwyn and I will come around and speak with you all. This ball is partly in celebration of our betrothal, after all."

But just before everyone could rush gratefully into sound and movement, the Reverend Calvin Moore cleared his throat and spoke up unexpectedly, using his pulpit voice, though it shook with indignation.

"This has been a dastardly show of spite," he said, "occasioned, I do not doubt, by some trouble over smuggling in the past in which Joshua took the side of law and peace. I will have it known that I came here to deal as best I could with the understandable distress this looming crisis had caused my cousin, the marchioness. I did not come because I coveted the title myself. I did not and I do not. I am a man of the cloth and perfectly happy with my lot in life."

There was another smattering of applause, but most people by now were eager for their supper and the chance to astonish one another by repeating every word they had just heard as if they hoped to discover someone who had slept through it all.

Freyja raised her eyebrows as Joshua approached her, his eyes alight with laughter.

"You see, sweetheart?" he said. "Sometimes it is better to keep one's mouth shut and allow one's opponent to ram his foot in his own mouth."

"As I did in the Pump Room?" she said.

He reached out with both hands and circled her wrists with a thumb and forefinger.

"Now, you cannot expect a gentleman to agree with that," he said. "But if the shoe fits . . ."

"This, I suppose," she said, "is what Mr. Perrie meant that morning when he told you to leave everything to him."

He smiled at her.

"You see," he said, "my aunt and Hugh Garnett are not even worthy foes. It was all somewhat anticlimactic, was it not?"

"It will feed gossip hereabouts for the next fifty years," she said. "It will descend into folklore for generations to come."

He chuckled.

He had asked none of them to do it, not even Perrie. They had done it for him anyway, in an act of blind faith. Because they had known him and had known Albert, they had not doubted him for one moment. And there was not a one of them who had ever believed that he was the father of Anne Jewell's son, even though he had never denied it and even though it had taken some of them a while to accept her in the village. They had believed in him.

It was hard to believe that he had left such friends behind him and had wanted never to come back.

He spent suppertime circulating among the guests with Freyja, as promised. The only thing that weighed heavily on his heart was the one deception he had perpetrated against everyone. He had even just repeated it-tonight, he had told his friends, was a celebration of his betrothal. But they were not betrothed. Not unless he could persuade her to change her mind about him.

Yet that seemed hardly fair.

Chastity touched his arm just as the people crowded into the dining room were beginning to spill back into the ballroom. She looked ghastly pale. She looked as if she were holding herself upright by sheer willpower.

"Joshua," she said, "will you come to the library? I have asked Mama and Constance and Cousin Calvin and Sir Rees Newton to come too. And Miss Jewell. Freyja, will you come too, please?"

But Joshua grasped her hand and squeezed tightly. "No, Chass!" he said. "No! Don't do this. It is not necessary."

"Yes." She looked dully into his eyes as she withdrew her hand and turned away. "It is."

He closed his eyes briefly and admitted to himself with a deep inward sigh that she was probably right. There was no stopping her now anyway.

"Are we about to find out," Freyja asked quietly, "what did happen that night?"

"Let us go and see, shall we?" he asked, offering her his arm.


CHAPTER XXII


No one told the truth in the ballroom earlier," Chastity said. She had invited them all to be seated and all of them complied except Joshua, who stood close to the window, his back to it, and Chastity herself, who clung to the end of the desk as if for support. "No one."

"I realized that, Lady Chastity," Sir Rees Newton said. "I beg you not to distress yourself. Hugh Garnett can be a nasty piece of work when he sets his mind to mischief, and the men who spoke up with him are a pack of unsavory rascals. Do not think I was unaware of their smuggling antics years ago even though I said nothing at the time. As for those who spoke up for Lord Hallmere, well, they perjured themselves as surely as I am sitting here, but they know him and trust his word and had clearly decided that there are several kinds of truth. I am quite prepared to pretend I did nothing but dance and feast and enjoy the company of my neighbors here this evening."

"Perhaps that is the trouble," the marchioness said, her voice bitter. For once her mask of gentle sweetness was down. "Everyone has always loved Joshua. Everyone has always believed every word he spoke. No one-not even my husband-would press for a further investigation into what happened that night. Albert went to confront Joshua over his blatant immorality and corruption of our servants, and Albert died. Joshua was the last to see him alive. Is that not suspicious enough to put doubt into anyone's mind?"

"I know everyone was lying," Chastity said, raising her voice and speaking very distinctly even though her eyes were directed at the floor, "because there was no one out that night, either on water or on land, to witness what happened-no one except Joshua and Albert. And me."

Good Lord! Joshua fixed his startled attention on her, as did everyone else. What was this?

"I saw what happened," Chastity said. "Only me."

"And me too, Chastity," Anne Jewell said quietly. "I was with you."

What the devil?

Chastity frowned at her but did not contradict her.

"I walked to the village," Chastity said. "I knew Albert was going to talk to Joshua, and I followed. I went to Miss Jewell's house first, and then the two of us went to Joshua's. But we discovered that they had taken a boat out. We went down onto the harbor to wait for them to return. Clouds had already covered the sky and the wind was getting up. There was no one else about. I had a gun with me."

"What?"

The marchioness fell back in her chair, but no one paid her any attention and so she appeared to decide against swooning.

"We were sheltering from the wind beside one of the boats when we saw Joshua coming back," Chastity said. "He was rowing. At first we thought that Albert was not with him, but then we could see him swimming beside the boat. When they were close to shore, Joshua rowed away again and Albert waded toward the harbor."

"Thank you, Chass," Joshua said firmly, taking a step forward. "That is all that needs to be said. It confirms what I have said all along. Shall we-"

Freyja had got up from her chair and come close enough to set a hand on his sleeve.

"We need to know what happened to Albert, then," Calvin said, "if indeed he came safely to shore at that point."

"I confronted him," Chastity said. "With the gun. I pointed it at him and would not let him out of the water. I told him he could stay there and freeze until he had promised to go to Papa and confess and until he had promised to leave Penhallow and never return."

"Oh, Chass," Constance said. She gazed at Anne Jewell, a look of pain on her face. "It was Albert who fathered your son, was it not? I suppose I have always known it. I just did not want to know it, though I never believed it was Joshua."

"Wicked girl!" the marchioness exclaimed, glaring at Chastity. "I will never believe it. Never! And if this-this whore says it is so, she is a liar. And so is Joshua. But even if it were so, would you threaten your own brother, your own flesh and blood, with death or banishment merely because he had taken his pleasure with a woman who was asking for it, always making sheep's eyes at him and tempting him away from the nursery to see something in the schoolroom. Oh, yes, miss. Do not think I did not notice."

"There was no bullet hole in the body," Sir Rees said. "Your brother drowned, Lady Chastity."

"He laughed at me," she said. "He said he did not need to come ashore, that he intended to swim some more because it was such a lovely night. He waded back into the water and swam away." She covered her face with both hands. "If anyone killed him, I did."

Constance leaped to her feet and hurried across the room to draw her sister into her arms. Chastity sagged against her for a moment, but then she pushed her gently away.

"It was not just because of Miss Jewell," she said, "though that was bad enough. But Miss Jewell fell prey to Albert only because she deliberately drew him away from the nursery to the schoolroom."

"Ha!" the marchioness said, describing a large arc with one arm.

"Chastity," Anne Jewell warned. "Please, my dear."

"Chass," Joshua said. "Leave it there. Enough has been said now. Leave it."

"I was glad when I found out he was dead," Chastity said. "I was glad. God help me, I am still glad. Prue was thirteen years old. Thirteen! And his own sister. But he thought that because she had a child's mind and a child's willingness to please and to do whatever she was told, he could get away with doing anything he wished with her. I am . . . I am almost sorry that he did not give me good cause to shoot him."

The marchioness shrieked and fell back in her chair, and this time Constance took notice of her and hurried toward her to take one of her hands in both her own. Chastity sagged against the desk. Calvin cleared his throat.

"I am sorry too, Chastity," Freyja said. "I honor you."

"For what my word is worth," Anne Jewell said, "I corroborate everything Lady Chastity has said."

Sir Rees Newton rose to his feet. "I have heard enough," he said. "I thank you for inviting me here, Lady Chastity, to hear these dreadful family secrets. I did not doubt Lord Hallmere's story, but your account of what happened has banished any shred of doubt that may have lingered. You are not responsible for your brother's death. As a magistrate I absolve you of all blame. As for the pain surrounding the whole tragedy and its revelation tonight to those who did not know before, well, that is none of my concern. I will leave you all and return to my good wife in the ballroom."