Echoes in Stone (39 page)

“Winston? Can you hear me? It’s Dash. I’ve come to see what sort of trouble you’ve gotten into this time.”

The figure on the bed turned to look at him, moaning with the effort.

“No, stay still,” Dash said, shifting swiftly to halt Winston’s tortured movement.

Winston shook his head, grimacing in his effort to speak. The right side of his face was utterly ruined, a grotesque mask of swollen, twisted flesh. The golden hair he’d been so proud of had been singed to his scalp in places, leaving patches of  skin raw and oozing. Another man who would forever bear the mark of Lily’s dark legacy.

The left side of his face, though streaked and scorched, was comparatively untouched. A gimlet blue eye peered at Dash. Winston ran his tongue over burned lips, then gestured to the glass of water on the bedside table. Dash gently lifted Winston’s head, dribbling water into the ragged gash of his mouth.

“Dash.” The croak was barely recognizable as speech. “My dearest friend. I’ve wronged you so.”

Dash shook his head in denial, but Winston’s waving hand stopped him again.

“Finish,” he said. “Must let me finish. I knew. Lily. I knew she wasn’t dead. I helped her, Dash. I hid her. How could I not help her, Dash, when I loved her so?” A single tear hovered on Winston’s lashes, then ran down his cheek.

“Holly. She’s mine, Dash. Lily’s and mine. When we knew—when we realized Lily was pregnant— I was so happy. But Lily—Lily refused to marry a pauper—a servant. So I helped her. I helped her fool you.”

Winston coughed, the sound weak, tortured. “You courted her once. She was obsessed with you. So I helped her drug you. Helped her marry you. Made you believe the child was yours. It was the only way I could think of to keep her close. To keep Holly— Oh God, forgive me, Dash!” Winston held out his bandaged hand with a groan of anguish.

Dash didn’t hesitate to take the offered hand. “Stop your worrying, Winston. I’ve suspected, almost from the beginning she couldn’t be mine. She has your eyes. Your coloring. And yet, I’ve always loved her. Nothing you say now can change that.”

Jessa’s hand tightened on Dash’s shoulder, but she said nothing. He’d dreaded this moment ever since her arrival. He had no right to claim Holly. And now Jessa had the final weapon she’d need to use against him, to take Holly from him.

Later. He’d deal with her questions later.

Winston tried to smile. The effect was lost in the ravaged flesh of his burned face. “You’re her father, in every way that matters. She would’ve died at birth if not for you. You gave her life, Dash. You breathed your breath into her. There’s no man I trust more to keep my child safe.”

Dash made no effort to wipe away the tears flowing down his cheeks. He clung to the hand of the man in the bed. Winston. His cousin. His best friend.

Winston turned his one good eye up to Jessa. “Trust him, Jessa. Help him through these next days. He’ll need you. You already love him. I see it in your face. Give him your heart. He deserves that.”

Winston coughed again, deep, hacking. Tremors racked his body, but he didn’t lose his grip on Dash’s hand. “When Holly’s grown—when she’s old enough—tell her about me. But don’t tell her everything. Tell her I was a good man—most of the time. Tell her I loved her. Tell her I loved her mother with all my heart. Will you do that for me, Dash?”

“You’ll tell her yourself, Winston. If you think I’ll let you go this easily—”

“Look at me, Dash.” Winston pointed to his face, but didn’t touch the seared skin. “The pain—my face—”

Dash smiled at him. “A very wise woman just informed me it doesn’t matter what a man’s face looks like, it’s what’s in his heart. You have more heart than anyone I know.”

Winston closed his eyes, turning away from them with an anguished groan. His breathing was shallow, each breath more harshly drawn than the previous one. He was fading away from them.

Jessa stepped forward to kneel at the bedside, smiling, though tears flowed unheeded down her face. “Stay with us, Winston. I’m going to need all the advice I can get if I’m to learn how to deal with Dashiell Tremayne. Please. I’ve already lost so much today— I can’t—I couldn’t bear it if—” She hunched by the bed, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs.

Winston lifted his bandaged hand, hesitating, then laid it on her head. “Go now, Jessa.” His voice was no more than a whisper, the sound of dry leaves rattling in the wind. “Let me—you have to— Take Dash. Let me go.” He tried to move, but cried out, anguished. “Dear God, please. Let me go.”

The door opened, admitting Mrs. Penrose and Luther. Luther moved to Jessa’s side, pulled her to her feet, wrapped her in his arms. “Come away now, child. There’s nothing more you can do here.”

“But—”

“No,” Luther said, walking her to the door, his arm tight around her shoulder. “You, too, Tremayne. Come away. Mrs. Penrose and I will stay with him.”

Dash surged to his feet, spinning towards Luther.

“Stop,” Luther said. “This is no place for an argument. There are others who need you now. Come, Dash. It’s time to go. Let your friend find his peace. Let him rest.”

Dash glanced once more at Winston. The sheets barely rose with his breaths. His eyes were closed, lost to them. “Stay with us, Winston,” he whispered. “Please. Stay.” With a resigned sigh, he followed Jessa from the room.

50.

…to rest at last…

“WHAT THE DEVIL do you mean, you’ve always known Holly wasn’t your daughter?”

Jessa vibrated with fury. She’d waited only long enough for Dash to check on Holly and the staff before she’d dragged him into the study, slamming the door with enough force to rattle the paintings on the wall.

It had all been too much. The night had worn on too long. Holly in such terrible danger. Lily alive, then lost again in a hellish nightmare. Lily had murdered Papa. Marguerite—Mother—grief slammed through her with gale force, came screaming from her battered heart in the guise of uncontrolled, towering rage.

She’d trusted Dash. She’d given him her love. Thank God she’d never told him. Dammit. Damn
him
. Look what passion had done to Lily. And Marguerite. Papa. Winston. And now her.

She sobbed, the anguish unbearable. The fires of love that had burned in her heart now incinerated it. Ashes. Nothing but bitter, cold ashes were left behind.

“Damn you, Dashiell Tremayne! Damn you to hell!”

DASH STOOD, hands clenched behind his back, waiting for Jessa to burn off the first wave of her delayed reaction to a night that had been too long, too fraught with emotion. Her fear and rage and grief would destroy her if she didn’t find a way to release it.

At last she sputtered to a halt. Her fists clenched her grimy skirt, wet from the buckets of water they’d carried to put out the fire. Her hair hung in dirty wet clumps down her back. Her face was streaked with soot. She reeked of lamp oil and smoke.

She’d never looked more beautiful. Or more furious.

“Jessa. Jessa mine. I thought if you knew— If you discovered Holly wasn’t my daughter— I thought you’d—”

“That I’d what, Dash? Rip her from your arms and run off with her?”

In spite of his best intentions, Dash’s fury ignited, rising to meet hers. “Yes, dammit, that’s exactly what I thought. Isn’t that why you came here? To take Holly away from me?”

“That was before, Dash. Before I knew—before I realized—”

“I know I don’t have a legal leg to stand on. That I have no right to keep Holly.” Dash slammed his fist on the chimneypiece, oversetting a china figurine, sending it smashing on the hearth. What did it matter, when this woman was about to smash up his whole world? Dammit! This was why a man guarded his heart. Because it hurt too much when someone ripped it from his chest “
Your
blood runs in her veins. Not mine. But I’m begging you, Jessa. Please. I love Holly.”

“Damn you, Dash.” The hiss of her words flayed him. “How could you think I’d take Holly from you now? Now, when she’ll need you most? Now, when I’ve seen how you care for her, how you’ve
always
cared for her?” She stamped her foot.

He’d come to love that stupid gesture. Just as he’d come to love her smile, her temper, the way she nibbled her lips. He loved everything about her.

He loved her.

Revelation struck him the same way the lightning had struck the first instant he’d seen her. He loved her. And he’d nearly lost her tonight. If Jessa hadn’t kept her head, hadn’t protected Holly—

“Do you still not trust me, Dash? After all this? Why would I hurt you, when I love you so much?”

Dash closed the gap between them, yanking Jessa into his arms. She struggled, but he grasped her chin, forcing her to look up at him. Tears glittered in her eyes, coursed down her cheeks, leaving tracks in the ashes and dirt.

“Say that again, Jessa.”

She shook her head, stubborn to the end.

“Say it Jessa mine. Tell me again you love me. Because I love you. And I will die if I don’t hear those words from you again.”

“Dash?”

He answered her with a kiss. Jessa—with her kindness, her generosity, her open heart—had swept away the past.

Together. They’d confront whatever life brought them, together.

The taste of her mouth still sent fire roaring through his blood. These were not the kind of flames that would destroy him—that would leave him with nothing more than a pocketful of ashes. This new fire would be the kind that warmed him all the days of his life.

THE VILLAGE DOCTOR, quack that he was, had pronounced the servant girl’s death an accidental poisoning, likely from some unsafe food. He agreed Marguerite had died in an accidental fire, ignited while exploring an unsafe tower.

No one mentioned Lily to him.

Winston languished in his rooms, hovering in a twilight world. After that first night, he’d refused to see Dash or Jessa, allowing only Mrs. Penrose or Luther to tend him. Dash had wanted to ignore Winston’s request to be left alone, but Jessa had stopped him.

“Let him be, love. He’s gravely ill. You being belligerent won’t help.”

“But he needs me—needs to know—it doesn’t matter—”

“Think how patient he was with you.” Jessa’s hand on his arm comforted him. “Think how long it took you to come to terms with your face. Think how much worse it is for him. Let him be, Dash. He knows you’ll be there when he’s ready. Just give him time.”

DASH AND JESSA, Luther and Stan gathered in the study, along with Mrs. Penrose. It had been left to her to fill in the gaps that would allow them to put Lily to rest at last.

“‘Twas not Lily you heard that night, your lordship. It was poor Katie Cardell, the little maid you thought ran off to London. Oh, Captain, it was wrong of us. I told him. I told her. But neither would listen to me.” She stood before the fireplace, twisting her handkerchief.

“Mr. Evers—he begged me to help him. Poor Lady Tremayne. I thought—that day I’d seen her, running from your room—all that blood. I thought—” She drew a shuddered breath. “I lived in fear of what would happen if she stayed. I’ve known you since you were a boy, Captain, knew you to be a good man, but that woman—” Mrs. Penrose swallowed hard.