‘I’ll allow whomever I wish to reside here for any length of time.’ He stopped on the landing and levelled a pointed look at his cousin. ‘As I’ve allowed you to reside here and manage the estate in my absence.’
She pursed her lips in indignation. ‘Then I cannot continue to remain here, risking my reputation to lend some thin veneer of credibility to hers.’
Conrad glared at her as he would a sailor who dared to question his orders. ‘Careful, Matilda, how you speak of the woman who is to be my wife.’
‘Don’t think to cow me into withholding my opinion of your connection to a woman of no standing who can bring nothing to your family.’
‘She’s the granddaughter of a baronet.’
‘And the daughter of a disgraced woman who didn’t have the foresight to think of her family, her name, her ancestry before running off with some poor country doctor. No wonder Miss Vickers behaved the way she did after you left. You have no idea what they’re saying about her in London.’
‘You’re right, nor do I want to know,’ Conrad tossed over his shoulder as he made for the entrance hall.
‘But you must.’ Matilda followed him. ‘They say she and certain members of the Naturalist Society were more than professional acquaintances.’
Conrad paused in the centre of the room, tightening his fist at his side before releasing his fingers one by one. Matilda’s revelation added to the unease already created by the scene with Katie and Mr Prevett on the road. Whatever had happened while Conrad was gone, the gravity of it was beginning to settle over him like a storm in the North Atlantic. Only tonight he had no time for it, or his cousin. The woman wasn’t above exaggeration, she excelled in it. He brushed her and his suspicions aside as he made for his study. ‘No doubt the stories are in existence because of my uncle.’
‘There’s no reason for an august man like Lord Helton to dirty his hands with a woman like Miss Vickers,’ Matilda countered as she followed after him. She was the only one who’d ever venerated his uncle. Her slight connection to the marquis through Conrad gave her the single edge of superiority over her small group of friends and she cherished it. ‘She isn’t suitable to be a marchioness.’
Conrad stopped and whirled around to face her. ‘What are you talking about? I’m not Lord Helton’s heir.’
‘You mean you haven’t heard?’ Her dull-brown eyes sparkled with the delight of knowing something Conrad didn’t. ‘Your cousin Preston is dead. You are Lord Helton’s heir now.’
* * *
Conrad shoved open the study door and it banged against the plaster wall. The breeze of it disturbed the blue-and-gold flag from the ship of his first command hanging from the timbered rafters. The stench of stale air hit him as he made for the sideboard and the decanter of brandy sitting on top.
What the hell happened while I was gone? It was as if he’d sailed away from one world and returned to find another, more contemptible one had taken its place.
He flipped back the silver stopper and raised the crystal to his lips, ready to drown himself and all his shattered plans in the liquor. Nothing had gone as he’d intended, not his expedition or his homecoming.
Over the top of the glittering decanter, he caught sight of his father’s portrait hanging over the mantel. Conrad lowered the decanter. This had once been his father’s domain and he’d filled the shelves with his collection of beetles, the research of which had garnered him the presidency of the Naturalist Society. Later, his study of the insects had provided a refuge from the nightmares of the hell his own brother, the Marquis of Helton, had consigned him to for daring to defy him, the one which had ruined his health and broken his spirit.
Conrad followed the stare of his father’s painted brown eyes across the room to where the spoils of Conrad’s expeditions now adorned his father’s precious bookcases—Inuit spears, beaverskin moccasins, wood totems and the fossil remains of animals both known and unknown. They were a silent catalogue of all his past successes and triumphs. Taking it in, his gut sank like it had the morning he’d watched Gorgon break apart and slip beneath the icy water, leaving them trapped. It was his blood trapping him now, the legacy his father and mother had spent years struggling to escape, the one ruled by the iron fist of Lord Helton.
Conrad took another long drink and silently cursed his uncle. Lord Helton cared for nothing except power and using it to make men in government and society bow and scrape before him. After Conrad’s father’s early death had put him beyond his brother’s reach, it’d been a struggle for Conrad and his mother to escape Lord Helton’s grasping control. If it hadn’t been for Heims Hall and his mother’s brother, Jack, they might never have known peace, or the security of a home and an income not encumbered by the Helton legacy.
Conrad smiled at the memory of his mother standing in the grand entrance hall at Helton Manor after his father’s funeral, breaking Lord Helton’s walking stick over her knee after he’d dared to strike Conrad with it for mourning his father. She’d pelted the man with the broken bits and a barrage of insults, stunning Lord Helton into silence for the first time in his life.
Conrad’s smile faded. Afterwards, Lord Helton’s methods had become more subtle and he’d resorted to lies and rumours to attack her instead of confrontation. When she’d passed, Lord Helton then turned his vengeance against Conrad, using his influence in government to make sure every ship Conrad received after becoming captain was more worm-eaten than the last. Yet Conrad had accepted each doomed command and made a stunning success of them all, securing his reputation as a first-rate officer and diluting Lord Helton’s influence. After Napoleon’s defeat left Conrad without a ship and on half-pay, he’d volunteered for the Discovery Service and built a name for himself as an explorer, one of Mr Barrow’s favourites, a man who always succeeded.
Except this time.
Conrad took another deep drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He should have turned Gorgon for home before the short Arctic summer had ended. Instead, he’d pushed north and others had paid the price for his mistake, sacrificing fingers, toes and even a life to Conrad’s desire to accomplish his mission.
He gripped the decanter tight against his chest, hanging on with both hands to keep it from slipping out of his grasp. At times, he’d barely been able to hold his pen on the voyage home, the weakness nearly crippling him as he’d reread his journal and relived the horrors of his experience to write his report. In the cold north he’d thought it would ease once he reached warmer climes, but as time passed it was becoming apparent the weakness was driven not by cold but by memories, especially those of Aaron’s hopeless eyes meeting his before he’d slipped out of the tent door and into oblivion.
Eyes as vacant as those of the skeleton of the tiger-like creature perched in front of the window.
Conrad rocked a little as he approached the animal, coming face-to-face with the long jaw and the two curving canine teeth protruding from the mouth. He slid his hand over the top of the skull, feeling the slight pits and crevices of the bones. It was an exquisite specimen, one he’d purchased from an Inuit trader in Greenland at the end of his first voyage to the Arctic three years ago. The same man had sold Conrad the skeleton that was even now in one of the many crates making their way to Heims Hall, the likes of which he’d never seen in any book or collection.
He ran his fingers over the tiger’s long nose and down the back edge of one curved and serrated fang. He’d spent hours watching Katie and her father meticulously clean and piece this animal together. Katie would do the same with the creature in the crate, making sense of the jumble of bones in a way he could never understand. Her face would light up in excitement when she did, just as it had when she’d attached this skull to the vertebrae.
He flicked the pointed end of the fang with his fingernail. A dead animal would receive a warmer welcome than he had.
He backhanded the skull, knocking it free of its neck and sending it flying across the room. It thudded