The Light in the Darkness (31 page)

It was on the tip of her tongue to say so, but Jennifer had already left the room in search of her husband.

She found Grey in the study, slumped in his chair with his habitual glass of Madeira on the desk beside him. “Grey?” she said softly.

Grey sat up abruptly and stared at her. Since he had presented her with William, there had been an uneasy truce between them. They had continued to ride together each morning, but their conversations had become more and more stilted. Of late they seemed to have nothing to say to each other at all. He wondered if she had forgiven him for his callously heartless words the morning after they had made love … or if she ever could.

And yet, for the first time since they had made love, she had sought him out in his study. For some reason his pulse beat faster. He had been lonelier than ever the last two months. “Yes?”

Jennifer noticed that his expression was not quite as black as usual, and she took it as a good sign. “I have some news,” she began hesitantly. She could have sworn she saw hope in his eyes. Ridiculous, she chided herself, and added, “Rather good news, in fact. I’m—I’m going to have a baby.”

Grey stood up slowly and looked across the room at her. A thousand emotions warred in his mind. A baby. A daughter as beautiful as she was, a girl he could indulge
and lavish with dolls and clothes. Or a son, a boy he could teach to ride and hunt—

Then he looked down at the goblet of Madeira, and a wave of self-disgust shook him. He was not fit to be a father. He was dissolute and self-absorbed and his children would grow to hate him as he had hated his own father.

He crossed the yards of Oriental carpet that separated them and looked down into her hopeful, beautiful, upturned face. “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” she whispered, unable to read the expression on his shuttered features. “I think so.”

“Indeed,” Grey said, the mockingly sardonic grin he all too often wore crossing his face. “And who, may I ask, is the father?” His voice was coldly and deliberately insulting. Jennifer stared at him in horrified shock, appalled by the unexpectedly ugly words.

“What?”

“Am I the father,” Grey clarified, “or is some other man?”

He had intended to infuriate her, to drive her further away from him, but he was unprepared for the violence of her response. The palm of her hand struck him across his cheek with all the force she could muster, snapping his head to the side. Staggering slightly, he turned back to her and stared at her with a surprised expression that, under other circumstances, would have been comical.

“You bastard,” she said in a low, savage voice. “You know there hasn’t been another man. I wish there had been. I wish I could say my baby had been conceived in an act of love, rather than in a meaningless, sordid act with a hateful drunkard. But I can’t.”

Her words were even harder and more cruel than his had been, and they slashed through the layers of callousness that surrounded his heart and lacerated his emotions like knives. “Jennifer—” he protested softly, half extending his hand to her. It pained him to hear their night together described as sordid. It hadn’t been sordid, but exquisite beyond imagining. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. “You are a disgusting, dissolute degenerate, and I despise you. I wish to God I’d never spent the night with you, but I felt so sorry for you.…”

The realization that she found him pitiful was almost too painful to bear. Grey flinched, turning pale underneath his tanned skin, and she saw his reaction and went on viciously, “That’s right. I
pitied
you. And fool that I was, I thought perhaps I could help you somehow. I swear to you that I didn’t enjoy it. It was meaningless and dull.”

“I don’t believe you,” Grey said in a strangled voice. “You enjoyed it. I know you did.” That night had meant everything to him. He had to believe it had meant a great deal to her as well. He had to believe it, or he would go mad. “Jennifer, please—” He stepped forward, reaching for her as if to embrace her, and she pulled away, her eyes blazing.

“Don’t touch me,” she warned again. “Or I’ll strike you again. I mean it.”

She could not let him touch her, or he would realize instantly that she was lying. She knew all too clearly she had made love to him that night because she loved him and because she found him irresistibly attractive, not because she pitied him. But he had hurt her when he mocked her for her lack of experience, and again when he cast doubt on her baby’s parentage, and she was bitterly determined to exact revenge. The wounded, defenseless expression on his face told her she had been successful. He stepped back, obviously confused and hurt, and did not try to touch her again.

“Please tell me you don’t pity me,” he said softly.

“I do pity you,” she said in a clear voice. “And when your child is old enough to understand you, he will pity you as well. You’re a drunken fool, and I despise you more than you can imagine.”

Casting a last scornful glance in his direction, she turned and strode from the study, her head held regally high. Grey stared after her for a long time. The thought of having a
child frightened him, and he had foolishly allowed his fear to drive yet another wedge between himself and his wife. He realized that her opinion meant a great deal to him, more so than he had realized. When he had first met her, he had thought she was pitiful. But now he realized with painful clarity that she was strong and intelligent and courageous. Jennifer was right. He was the pitiful one. Absently, he picked up his glass of Madeira and drained it.

“I cannot believe you said that to him, Jen,” Catherine said anxiously when Jennifer furiously related the story to her that afternoon. Her ivory skin seemed paler than usual, and Jennifer looked at her in surprised annoyance.

“I would have said a great deal more,” she retorted sharply, “had I not been almost too infuriated to speak. How dare he accuse me of—he deserved everything I said to him! Everything!”

“Perhaps he did. But Jen, you mustn’t make him angry. You don’t—you don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“Of course I know what he’s capable of,” Jennifer snapped acidly. “He tore me away from everything that I was familiar with, mocked and humiliated me for being myself, took advantage of me, and now he has the gall to accuse me of adultery! Believe me, I
know
what he’s capable of.”

“No. You don’t.” Catherine lowered her voice and spoke with deliberate calm. “Jennifer, I must tell you something. I should have told you before, but I had this foolish idea that you might … change Grey, somehow. But it’s obvious Grey will never change, and you have the right to know. You need to know, under the circumstances. But please don’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. Not for Grey’s sake, but for your child’s sake.”

She took a deep breath. “When you first came here,” she began hesitantly, “I told you that no one knew who murdered Diana. I lied.

“Grey killed Diana.”

“
I
don’t believe it,” Jennifer said, her eyes wide with shock. More forcefully, she repeated, “I
don’t
believe it. Grey is capable of many things, but murder is not among them.”

“We’ve both seen Grey become utterly irrational when he drinks,” Catherine retorted. “Do you really believe there is
anything
he is incapable of?”

It was a telling point, and Jennifer was silent. She, of all people, knew just how irrational Grey could be. Suddenly she heard Carey’s voice.
He’s a murderer. Don’t marry him, Jenny.

“I am not telling you rumor or innuendo,” Catherine went on heavily. “I was there. I know what happened. Everyone on this plantation knows they had a violent quarrel that afternoon. I don’t know what they were arguing about, but everyone in the house could hear them screaming at each other in the parlor. It was a disgraceful display, especially since we happened to have company, Kayne and Sapphira O’Neill and their children. Kayne was Diana’s uncle,” she added informatively but unnecessarily.

That explained why Carey had been so certain that Grey was the murderer, Jennifer realized dully. He had been a witness. Fear began to seep through her, the appalling, sickening fear that she had fallen in love with a killer. Grey had admitted to her that he and Diana had quarreled that day. Could it be true?

She had read his letters to Diana; she had seen his soul. How on earth could she have misjudged him so badly?

“Diana stalked upstairs in high dudgeon” Catherine went on, haltingly, “and Grey went to his study and—”

“And got drunk,” Jennifer finished bitterly.

“It was the first time. He’d never drunk before, at least not heavily. Just the occasional glass of ale with friends. He never drank as much as most gentlemen do. You see, our father and our grandfather drank to excess. Grey had a terror of ending up like them. He was always careful to maintain iron control of himself … until that night.”

She paused. It was evident that the memories were cutting her like knives. “I happened to be in the parlor and saw Diana go out of the house a few hours later. Grey saw her go too. By that time he was as foxed as a man can be and still be on his feet. He lurched out the door after her, but I don’t think she knew he was following her.

“That was the last time I saw Diana alive.”

“That’s hardly proof that he killed her.”

“I’m not finished. In the morning, when they were both discovered to be missing, we all set out to find them. Everyone searched for them—myself, the slaves, and the O’Neills, excepting Sapphira, who is blind. Thank God I found them first.

“I found Diana in the woods near the river. There was blood everywhere, covering the pine needles she lay upon. She had been beaten badly, and her throat had been slashed. I found Grey not ten yards away, lying on the ground in a drunken stupor. He had obviously staggered away after he killed her but then collapsed before he got very far. There were bruises and scrapes over one side of his face. It was obvious that Diana had fought him, but she was not strong enough to save herself. Grey is a very powerful man, even when he is inebriated.

“When I found Grey I was terrified. I slapped his face until he woke up. When his eyes opened he stood up and
staggered over to where Diana’s mutilated body lay. He knelt beside her on the ground and cried, and I’ll never forget his words. Over and over again, he sobbed, ‘I’ve killed her. It’s all my fault. Oh, God, I’ve killed her.’ ”

Catherine paused to draw a deep breath. Glancing up, she found Jennifer watching her with an intent, horrified expression.

“There isn’t much else to tell,” she went on wearily. “I managed to tear Grey away from her body before anyone else got there. I took him back to the house, washed his scratches, and tried to get him sobered up. When the others got back—Carey O’Neill found Diana’s body—I swore that I’d found Grey collapsed in the stable, and that he had obviously been there all night.”

With a jolt, Jennifer remembered the contemptuous words Trev had spoken as she stood in front of Grey, protecting him from the other man’s fists.
Hiding behind children again, I see, Greyson.

Trev, she realized, had known that the sixteen-year-old Catherine had lied to protect her brother.

“What about the bruises?” she asked in a trembling voice.

“I said that he’d fallen from his horse while riding the previous afternoon. Fortunately, no one had seen him that afternoon except a few of the slaves. The slaves had loved Diana, but they were more loyal to Grey, so they confirmed my story—though a slave’s testimony is inadmissible in court anyway.” She paused. “If I hadn’t lied to protect him, Grey would have been sent to gaol—and hanged.”

Jennifer thought of the gaol in Williamsburg, and a shudder ran through her at the thought of Grey locked up in a dark, dank cell, awaiting a trial, and being hanged. “Why did you decide to protect him?”

“I had to,” Catherine said simply. “I was only sixteen at the time. Since my parents died, he had been my only guardian. Even before my parents died he was like a father to me, far more so than my real father ever was. We were
always very close. I couldn’t let him go to gaol. I couldn’t let him die.”

“And Grey let you lie for him?”

“I think Grey was in shock. He told me later that he has no memory of that evening, and I believe him. Alcohol frequently has that effect, you know. When he sobered up he couldn’t even remember that he had killed Diana. He could remember nothing at all about that night. So he let me lie to protect him. But for the last eight years he has punished himself for killing Diana, and he’s punished himself for not going to gaol. In effect, he’s created his own gaol. That study is his prison, and alcohol is the bars that keep him inside.”

Jennifer shuddered. “I wish you hadn’t told me all this.”

“I had no choice. I’m afraid that it’s all happening again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Catherine said levelly, “I’m afraid Grey may kill you. And I can’t let it happen to you. You’re my friend.”

Jennifer stared in blank horror. “Why would Grey kill me?”

“Think, Jennifer. The situation is virtually the same. Grey is obsessed with you, and you and he have had a very ugly argument.”

“We’ve argued before,” Jennifer said tiredly, “more times than I could count. Besides, Grey is not obsessed with me. He hates me!”

“He
is
obsessed with you,” Catherine insisted. “You may not be aware of it, but it is true. Trust me. Perhaps he doesn’t love you, but he watches you constantly. It’s painfully obvious that he is attracted to you. I noticed it the first night you came to Greyhaven. I’m afraid that somehow he may confuse you with Diana and make you pay for her imagined sins. I still have no idea what they fought over, but he must have been utterly infuriated with her, or he wouldn’t have killed her. And is it so hard to believe he might make you pay for whatever she did? After all, he did attack you,
accuse you of infidelity, simply because you’re pregnant. You did nothing to deserve it. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, but—” Jennifer broke off. She could hardly tell Catherine that Grey had confused her with Diana once before. She had never told Catherine the full story about the terrible night she had lost her virginity, and she certainly could not tell her now. It would only worry her friend further.