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She waited, hardly breathing. Finally he exhaled, a mournful, hopeless sound she felt down to her soul. He rose, made his slow way from the room, stopping when he reached the door.
“I’m so sorry, Margery,” he whispered. And then he was gone.
***
There was one thing abundantly clear to Daniel even as he lay awake that whole horrible night: for Margery’s sake, he had to leave Synne.
And so, before the sun could so much as peek over the horizon, he was up and packing. Was he a coward for leaving? Perhaps. But he didn’t give a damn. The only thing he could think of in that moment was the look on Margery’s face when he’d revealed to her the truth about his part in Aaron’s death, and that he could never, ever, cause her that pain again. He would not forget it for as long as he lived, the stunned disbelief quickly transforming into a dawning horror and bone-deep grief. He had done that, had put those devastating emotions in her heart. And he would never forgive himself.
By the time Wilkins arrived Daniel was ready to depart Synne for good.
The valet stopped in the doorway, taking in Daniel’s hastily patched outfit and the leather satchel on the mussed bed, confusion and uncertainty evident on his narrow face. “Your Grace, you’re leaving?”
He gave the man a quick glance before limping his way to retrieve his hairbrush from the washstand. “I’m sorry to spring this on you, Wilkins. But something has come up overnight that has made it imperative that I depart for London with all haste. I’ll be leaving immediately; I’ve already called for a carriage. If you would be so good as to stay behind to collect the rest of our things? You can meet me in the capital later. My mother will stay behind with Lady Tesh. I’ll visit with her before I leave, to apprise her of the change in plans.”
All the while as he babbled he moved about the room, grabbing things at random, tossing them into the open satchel. Suddenly Wilkins was there in front of him.
“What did he do?”
The man’s face was florid with his daring. But he stood planted in place, his small frame fairly quivering with anger.
Daniel, his quest to escape Seacliff as soon as humanly possible forgotten in the face of the man’s fury, gaped at him. “Who?”
“Mr. Hayle.”
The name escaped on a snarl that had Daniel blinking in shock. “He’s done nothing.”
The valet scoffed. “Please, Your Grace. There can be no coincidence that the man showed up last night for dinner and now you’re fleeing Synne.”
But Daniel’s shock was quickly transforming into anger of his own. Though whether it was directed to Wilkins or to himself was debatable. “You overstep yourself.”
“I have not overstepped enough,” the man spat, snatching the pair of gloves from Daniel’s hand and storming to the satchel to drop them in. “Perhaps if I had, you would not now be fleeing to London before dawn like a dog with its tail between its legs.”
Before Daniel could so much as react to that Wilkins stopped and let out a defeated sigh, his thin shoulders drooping. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. That was inexcusable of me. But I’ve stood by for so many years, while Mr. Hayle made your brother’s life hell. I cannot see the same thing happen to you.”
Daniel’s breath left him. “Nathaniel? What do you mean?” When Wilkins merely bit his lip, Daniel swept an arm out, indicating the chairs before the hearth. “Sit and tell me. Please.”
Releasing a shaky breath, the man did as he was bid. He perched on the edge of his seat, as if about to take flight, a look of acute discomfort on his face that had nothing at all to do with the conversation they were about to have. Daniel only recognized it because it mirrored the discomfort in himself. This was a foreign thing, facing one another like this with such familiarity. He had fought against the man’s efforts to befriend him for so long, had tried so hard to keep the line in the sand between them, that he felt himself instinctively rebelling now. But a stiff breeze had come in, obliterating that line. And he was too weary, too heartsick, to redraw it.
It took some minutes for Wilkins to begin, and when he finally did his voice was reed thin.
“You knew, of course, of your brother’s inability to hold his liquor.”
Daniel nodded, pressing his lips tight as pain flashed through him. It hadn’t been a well-known fact; Nathaniel had bluffed enough over the years that most people, even his closest friends, didn’t realize just how sick he became when drinking.
He shook off the flare of grief that was always there when he thought about his brother. Damnation, but he missed him, now more than ever. “But what does my cousin have to do with this?” he demanded.
Wilkins gave him a mournful look that chilled him to the bone. “You know your brother loved you and wanted to protect you. Just as you wanted to protect him. He knew you tried to hide Mr. Hayle’s harsher abuses. But what you may not know was that he was hiding things from you as well.”
Wilkins dragged in a shaky breath and ran trembling hands through his straw-colored hair. “Mr. Hayle taunted your brother in private for years about his inability to drink. And His Grace ignored it as best he could. But when they were in London together, Mr. Hayle’s taunting became public, and more than your brother could bear. He felt he needed to defend his honor, to prove himself. I begged him to ignore Mr. Hayle and the others. But your cousin, being the devil he is, had worked his evil. His Grace was so ill when he returned to the London townhouse that last night, and hardly able to stand, much less make it to his room—”
The man’s voice cut off. Daniel gaped at him. “Are you telling me Nathaniel had been drinking when he fell down those stairs?” At Wilkins’s nod Daniel slumped down in his seat. “I had no clue,” he said through stiff lips. “Why didn’t he tell me what Gregory was doing to him?”
Wilkins gave him a sad smile. “He loved you, and didn’t wish for you to worry.” Suddenly his expression shifted, anger taking over his thin features once more. “Mr. Hayle is as bad as they come. And while he didn’t directly cause your brother’s death and did not force the bottle to your brother’s lips, he was certainly indirectly responsible for bringing it about.”
Tears burned Daniel’s eyes. Damnation, he hadn’t known.
But Wilkins was looking at him with uncertainty. And no wonder, for Daniel had never allowed the man to cross into familiarity before.
