“Come on.” He lifted the signals from her, took her arm. “Let’s go home.”
He meant the Abbey, and she was glad of it. Wallingham Hall was her home, yet her thoughts of her father and Granville were presently so disturbing she doubted she’d find any peace there.
Reaching the horses, Charles tied the signals to his saddle, tossed her up to hers, then mounted and led the way, not back but on. A little farther along, the river path connected with another wider track leading back to the Lostwithiel road.
They clattered into the Abbey stable yard in the small hours. Again Charles waved his stableman back to his bed. Catching the mare’s reins, he led both horses in and turned them into their stalls.
Penny went to unsaddle, only then realized she was shaking. It was, apparently, one thing to speculate and wonder, even to acknowledge and investigate, but quite another to find a recently murdered henchman along with indisputable proof of her father and brother’s complicity in treason.
Her mind felt battered, oddly detached. Dragging in a breath, she held it, and forced her hands to work, to unsaddle the mare and rub her down.
Charles glanced her way, but said nothing.
When he finished with his horse, he came to help her, without a word taking over rubbing the mare down. She relinquished the task, checked the feed and water, then leaned against the side of the stall and waited.
He’d left the tangle of signal flags on top of the stall wall. From amid the jumble, the Selborne crest mocked her. She turned away.
Charles came out of the stall, shut the door, picked up the flags, with his other hand took hers. They walked up to the house and entered through the garden door; in the front hall, he tugged her away from the stairs. “Come into the library.”
She went, too exhausted even to wonder why. He towed her across the room, paused beside his desk to thrust the signal flags into a drawer, then towed her farther—to the tantalus.
Releasing her, he poured two glasses of brandy. Catching one of her hands, he lifted it and pressed one glass into it. “Drink.”
She stared at the glass. “I don’t drink brandy.”
He sipped his own drink, met her gaze. “Would you prefer I tip it down your throat?”
She stared at him through the shadows, wondered if he was bluffing…realized, rather dizzyingly, that he wasn’t. She sipped. Pulled a face. “It’s ghastly.”
Nose wrinkling, she held the glass away.
He shifted nearer.
Eyes flaring, she whipped the glass back to her lips, and sipped.
He stood there, a foot away, sipping his own drink, watching her until she’d drained the glass.
“Good.” He took it from her, put both glasses down, then took her hand again.
She was getting rather tired of being towed, but on the other hand, it meant she didn’t have to
think.
Her acquiescence worried Charles. He knew what she believed, knew it was eating at her. He didn’t like seeing her in this state; she seemed so internally fragile, as if something inside might shatter at any moment. He’d always seen her as someone he should protect; for that very reason, he couldn’t utter the platitudes he might have used to calm another. He couldn’t offer her false hope.
He would send a rider to London tomorrow; although there shouldn’t have been any contact with the French that Dalziel hadn’t known about, hadn’t, indeed, been in charge of, it was possible there had been something going on that Dalziel hadn’t got wind of.
A long shot, but a possibility, one he needed checked.
Meanwhile, Penny’s state of mind was only one of his worries, and potentially the easiest to address.
His state of mind was even more uncertain.
He pulled her to a halt in the gallery, in front of a window so the moonlight, now fading, spilled in and lit her face. He studied it as, surprised, she blinked up at him.
Foreseeing the battle looming, he hissed out a frustrated breath. Releasing her, he raked a hand through his hair. “I’m no longer sure it’s a wise idea for you to go back to Wallingham Hall.”
Her attention abruptly refocused; she frowned as she followed his train of thought. “You mean because Gimby was murdered?” Her frown grew more definite. “You think Nicholas did it.”