The Gatehouse: Lady Eleanor Mysteries, #2

By Becca St. John

A deaf aristocrat fights to protect the woman he loves from a killer he cannot hear ~

Found standing over the lifeless body of his twin, the Earl of Longford, Christopher knows what everyone will think. That he killed his brother in a beastly rage. For Christopher is deaf in a society that condemns the silent as half-wits, quite capable of murder. Especially when he loves his brother's bride. Beyond caring what the world thinks, Christopher searches for a killer he cannot hear as he fights a love he believes he is unworthy of.

Left a spinster at the altar, her groom murdered, Helen has no time to mourn. Her best friend, and confidant, Christopher, is in danger and so, it appears, is she.  Born to marry the Earl of Longford, whoever that may be, Helen ignores her own risks and crosses into the line of fire to protect the only man ever to hold her heart.

Lady Eleanor solved crimes as a young child, and never stopped. This one is personal. Condemned without evidence, her godson, Christopher, is threatened with the barbaric asylum that destroyed his youth. She must act quickly before unjust convictions steal him away and cruel deception shatters a love, hidden and denied for far too long.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Winterbourne Farm Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Jan 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9780997890242

Becca St. John

Writing was a tool, not a toy, until a stay in a haunted hotel and a bookcase full of dog-eared romances. Hooked, Becca read old romances, new romances, both sexy and sweet, until her own tales begged to be written. Living in Florida, Becca divides her time between dreaming up stories, diving deep into history, kayaking, and swimming. Her husband gives her the space she needs by fishing in the mangroves and waterways or watching football (the English sort) with his British buddies. Becca and her hubby break the routine with adventure travel; though, at heart, Becca is a homebody believing there is no greater playground than inside the mind.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1 ~ DEATH

Late Summer ~ 1816

He couldn’t breathe . Rage billowed, clouding his judgement, threatening to unleash a fury he’d tamed in youth.

A worthless, feral reaction. Always too late. Far too late.

It would not help now.

Trembling, Christopher Sterry looked down at the lifeless body of his twin. High cheekbones, dark unruly hair, replicas of his own. Except Thomas’ dark-eyed stare was cloudy and blank. Splayed out on his stomach, his neck twisted unnaturally, face tilted, as if to look over his shoulder, inspect the wounds on his back. Neat, tidy slashes sticky with blood. Refined injuries, vastly different than the bludgeoned gash to his head and the dark crimson pool feathering out on the silk Aubusson carpet beneath him.

Christopher refused to accept what couldn’t be true. Skidded along the surface of shock, unable to dive into reality. Thomas shouldn’t be in the folly, couldn’t have fallen victim to... murder?

Murder at Athwart?

Unfathomable.

His brother should be in the chapel, standing at the altar, waiting for his bride to walk down the aisle. Only he wasn’t, which was why Christopher had gone looking for him. Until a toppled chair drew him to the temple folly.

Shifting the wedding breakfast from Athwart’s opulent dining room to the Grecian temple had been a whimsical impulse. Light and airy, made for dining alfresco, it was the perfect antidote to a notoriously grey summer.

The entire household, caught in the joy of it, hurried to change venues. The Aubusson carpet, damask-covered table now framed within Doric columns. Mythical creatures danced along the friezes, ready to witness laughter and thinly-veiled teasing of guests seated before gold cutlery, crystal champagne flutes and fine bone china.

Everything from the dining room, now perfectly in place in the folly. He’d inspected it himself, assured Thomas. The presentation was immaculate, ready.

Except a chair had toppled, distracting Christopher’s mission to find the errant groom.

The groom no longer missing but in that gay folly, brutally murdered.

It was to be a perfect day. A beautiful day.

Christopher swallowed against rising reality, fought to steady himself with practical considerations. Why was Thomas here? How had this happened?

They’d both been in the chapel, guests were gathering, when Thomas suddenly left. Why?

Others would be here soon, one maybe two, to see what caused the delay.

Were they here now?

He should have thought, spun around and froze. Not one or two, but a stream of people running across the lawn toward the folly.

Had he screamed? Is that what drew them all? His throat was raw with suppressed emotion, so overwhelming something could have escaped. It did when he slept, nightmare-induced wails that drew servants from all quarters of the manor. Keening, Thomas had called it, like a trapped and wounded beast.

He felt trapped now, a stunned beast caught standing over his brother’s body.

No question what others thought, Edmund the prime example. His youngest brother charging toward him, lunging up the marble steps, stopping one riser shy of the folly floor. Whatever he saw in Christopher’s eyes held him back, his hands braced against the nearest column, as if he could shove it out of the way.

Livid, accusing eyes, blaming Christopher.

They all would.

He didn’t need to hear to know. Horror, accusation, shared in gazes met amongst themselves, shifting quickly past him, avoiding meeting his eyes directly.

Blaming, because he was deaf, didn’t speak. No matter the well fitted Weston tailcoat, or the hideously expensive ruby stud pin sparkling against his cravat. They still considered him a barbaric heathen. As if hearing determined the quality of a man’s heart, his ability to reason.

Thomas was his flesh and blood, his twin. He would never harm him.

But he would protect him, even now, when it was too late.

Grabbing the fallen chair, one of their late mother’s prized Chippendales, Christopher held it in front of him like an animal trainer thrusting at beasts, to keep them at bay. He had to stop them from destroying any sign of who had done this. He needed time to find reason, to settle the frenzied fury rising inside. To think it through.

Until then he would refuse anyone access to Thomas, even Edmund.

Alarm, fear, so many words written in their faces—Edmund the worst of them. Tears streaming down his cheeks, spittle spewing from his lips, as he yelled at Christopher.

And then she was there. Soft. Gentle. Sure.

Helen. His friend, Thomas’s intended bride, made her way through the crowd. Stopping at the column Edmund clung to. Her sapphire eyes wide, cheeks as icy pale as her wedding dress.

They should have stopped her. Protected her from this. No woman should be subjected to the sight of her husband-to-be lying in a pool of blood on a dining room carpet. 

Muscles tight, unyielding, Christopher held his ground as others tried to pull his younger brother away. Edmund shrugged them off, dared to take the last step up, heading straight for Christopher and Thomas.

With his only weapon, a chair meant to seat guests for the wedding breakfast, Christopher thrashed down, hard. The ball and claw foot hit Edmund’s wrist sending him back. He cradled his wound, ignoring Helen who reached for him, crying, pleading.

An upset in the gathering drew Edmund’s eyes. People making way as a tall, regal figure moved toward them with enough presence, even the men stepped aside. Mulish, Edmund watched Lady Eleanor’s approach, even as he kept tabs on Christopher.

She stopped briefly to speak with Helen then stepped right up into the circle of conflict.

Still holding his ground, Christopher eased. She was the reason he’d done what he’d done.  Lady Eleanor knew about murder, how to solve them, had done so with her magistrate father and his successor, her late husband. She’d proven her mettle, tracking the guilty, bringing them to justice, for more than three decades, possibly four. She’d been at her father’s side solving crimes since she was a child.

Just last spring, she’d solved a horrendous series of murders for her nephew, the Duke of Summerton, and his new wife.

More importantly, Lady Eleanor understood him, Christopher.

She spoke with Edmund, back and forth, his brow furrowed, her eyes stern. If anyone could bring reason, it was Lady Eleanor.  

Edmund never knew Christopher before meningitis had stolen his hearing. Eleanor had, not that it would have mattered to her.  She accepted him as he was. They corresponded, regularly. She knew him. There’d be no scurrilous assumptions from her.

He watched her lips, too frantic to focus and find meaning. He judged her words on her stance, on the way Edmund shook his head, vehement in his objection. Eleanor, his mother’s closest confidant and his own godmother, would not let him take blame without reason.

Nostrils flared, Edmund glared at Christopher, but stepped back, once, twice, cautious. With a flick of her wrist, Eleanor shooed him farther away before turning to her godson. She focused on him, not the chair with its artfully arched legs. He started to lower it as she approached, but something moved on his other side. A flicker of color.

He whipped around and sent the chair careening toward a footman who dared climb the stairs on the far side of the table. Just as quickly, he grabbed another Chippendale, primed, ready to damage any who dared get near his brother.

Lady Eleanor reached his side and touched his arm. He’d allow that—he trusted her, but none of the others, who looked poised to spring at him if he hurt her.

Fools.

With one hand on his arm, she motioned for everyone else to leave.

Face crimson, veins like ropes rising along his neck, Edmund’s mouth opened wide, hateful. Christopher didn’t dare take his eyes from him, not even to see what his godmother was doing. Whatever he wanted to say, Edmund’s mouth closed, lips pressed tight, and he shook his head.

Once again, someone tugged at the youngest Sterry’s shoulder. This time he retreated, but not before his gaze darted to the only thing that could have pulled Thomas into the folly.

On the bride’s plate, at the head of the table, sat a box and a card. Christopher knew exactly what was in that box, what had been written on the note. It hadn’t been there earlier, but it should have been. A broach, passed down the line of Longford countesses. The note said, A piece of history in honor of our tomorrows.

He knew, for he’d written the note. Prompted the gifting.

Under the guise of setting a chair to rights, Eleanor unknowingly shielded him from view. Christopher gathered up both gift and card, slipping them into a hidden pocket of his coat.

As Lady Eleanor commanded, the onlookers all stepped back, gathering in small clusters. A cluck of women urged Helen away. Of all of them, only she met Christopher’s eyes, straight on, sorrowful for both of them.

He could have wept.

This was the day Helen was to become one of them. A Sterry. A part of his family forever.

It had all gone so wrong.

THOUGH MISGUIDED IN his methods, Christopher was right to keep everyone away from his brother, the Earl of Longford. Not an easy task. Shock prompted the guests to the folly floor, to better see the unbelievable. The Earl, a man who loved life, lived it by the full measure, dead.

Lady Eleanor could scarce believe it herself, and she’d seen enough of death to know Old Mr. Grim reaped young and old, rich and poor, wedding day or not.

She would mourn this young man, his charm, his wit, but first she needed to help the living.

Eleanor looked over at Christopher, her godson, next in line to be the Earl, unless she failed to prove his innocence. Edmund wasn’t the only one to misunderstand Christopher’s attempt to keep everyone at bay.

He was not a murderer, but he knew better than to allow access to a murder victim. She’d complained often enough of the havoc gossip mongers created at crime scenes, making it impossible to differentiate between clues left behind by the assailant and damage done by some nosy pest.

Things would have been far more difficult if the whole wedding party had trampled about the place. Very difficult to find answers around a disturbed corpse.

Christopher’s guttural growl warned her that Edmund was trying to get near again.

Really, Edmund, she snapped, without bothering to look, you should be calming everyone, not infighting.

Poor Christopher. The shock of finding his brother, like this, followed by a barrage of people, all speaking at once, accusing, blaming. It would be impossible for him to focus, read lips. He had no way of knowing their intentions.

She shook her head and offered him a weary smile of encouragement. He vibrated with tension, ruthlessly shoved a jumble of curls off his forehead. His valet must have cut his hair for the occasion, for though the stubborn dark locks immediately sprang back, they were not long enough to hide the wildness in his eyes.

Those dark, glittering eyes would add fuel to Edmund’s fire. He’d see his elder brother’s rage—but not the tears in his eyes.

Edmund had always treated Christopher as a tainted family secret, a barbaric half-wit incapable of reason.

Christopher deserved better, especially with all he’d done for the Earls of Longford. Not that Edmund would know any of that, keeping his distance from the ancestral home. Instead, he cast blame so hard and fast he left no room for doubt.

Eleanor would have to fight to prove him wrong when it was right there, before them.

Christopher’s clothes had no blood on them. The murderer wouldn’t necessarily be bloody but only one of the weapons was present, which meant the murderer took the other.

The pool of red flowed after Thomas’s fall—from, she suspected, a severe blow to the head. The candelabra, lying a few feet away, most likely the weapon. But Thomas had also been stabbed, in his back, after he went down.  The wounds were there, but not the blade.

Premeditated? One doesn’t plan to kill with a vessel for holding candles. One grabs and uses such a thing, in a moment of passion...

This wouldn’t help Christopher. Unless he had witnessed the murder.

She looked up, only to find him leaning over her, face intent. The restless, reckless seed of a boy he’d been had grown into an inquisitive, thoughtful man, and a rather tall one at that.

Did you see what happened? she asked slowly, noting his eyes on her lips. Still, she gestured, pointing to Thomas before pointing to Christopher, shielding her eyes as if looking, seeing.

He gave a sharp jerk of his head no, stiff with repressed emotion. She sighed. That would have been too easy. Besides, she had already suspected the answer. Christopher would not be here, if he’d seen. He’d be chasing the killer, and if he had caught him, well, there would be two deaths to investigate.

Christopher would not be worried about pleas to control himself, not in that situation.

She crouched down, careful not to stain the silk of her dress and shoes.

He did it, Edmund shouted. Didn’t he?

Christopher had crouched beside her, oblivious to his brother’s accusations. She didn’t bother to turn when she called out, Absolutely not. You can put that thought to rest.

Lady Eleanor. It was Helen, Miss Grove, the intended bride. Do you need assistance?

Grateful for the offer—and for Miss Grove’s guileless tone—Eleanor looked at her. Edmund and Miss Grove’s entourage were trying to urge the young woman away.

You shouldn’t be here, Helen. The girl’s ethereal step-mother plucked at her sleeve, as if it could pluck her away. They were of an age, and barely knew each other. It’s not right.

Near tears, a Grove cousin tugged at her, shooting fearful glances at Christopher. Please, come away from there.

Jaw set, eyes on Eleanor, Helen resisted them all. She would have been good for poor Thomas. A steadying force. Thomas could have used some steadying.

Lady Eleanor stood. Leave her be, she told everyone, she’s been through enough.

The other ladies stilled. Perhaps they’d expected her support in shooing the intended bride away, but Helen had seen enough of death in the past few years. She knew the practical demands of it.  

Yes, please, Miss Grove.  If you could send for my abigail, Jenny. She will know what is needed. And ask Higgins, the butler, to send the carriage for Sir Michael.

I’ve already done that, Edmund said. Sir Michael is the magistrate, after all.  Bereft, helplessly, he asked, How, how did this happen? Why? He made to turn away but swung back. Really, Lady Eleanor, you should wait for Sir Michael.

Eleanor held his gaze, shaming him.

My apologies. His scowl gave way to chagrin. He managed a bow.

He knew better than to say such things. His mother had been Eleanor’s dearest friend from the cradle. Her penchant for solving crimes well known within the Sterry household.

Most young girls fell in love with horses or muscular farm hands. She had become infatuated with a microscope and all things biological. Her late husband, a man far older than she, had chosen her—and she him—for shared interest and her exceptional skills. Like her father, he had been a magistrate in need of an assistant.

Sir Michael will want my information when he arrives. In the meantime, take these people away?

I daren’t risk you with him! He pointed at Christopher, now sitting in a chair, head bowed, gaze on Thomas—until Edmund moved. There was no mistaking the implication in Edmund’s jabbing finger, the narrowed eyes, pinched anger.

The two stared at each other—Edmund bristling, Christopher stoic.

Edmund charged.

Good lord! Eleanor shouted. Don’t be so childish!

Too late. Fed on impetuous fury, Edmund attacked his brother without thought. Christopher’s chair careened as he shot up, braced for the blow, stunning his attacker when he moved sideways at the last moment, catching Edmund with a neat blow to the gut.

Edmund collapsed, gasping.

Fool. Christopher stunned everyone, voice too loud, words enunciated as though he spoke an awkward, foreign language, but they had been spoken. Not mute at all.

He stalked away, out into the gardens, his shoulders heaving. Crying, she knew, for she’d seen the sheen of tears in his eyes earlier— indeed, she caught a glimpse of a tear on his cheek when he took a quick look over his shoulder, assuring himself Edmund hadn’t followed.

He’d cry for Thomas, but she didn’t doubt he also wept for a brother who did not trust him. Who believed him capable of murder.

She would have to solve this one quickly, before the remainder of this family shattered.

CHAPTER 2 ~ PROMISED TO AN EARL

M y daughter was promised an earl in exchange for those lands. No earl, no lands.

Miss Helen Grove sat at the pianoforte, fingers flowing over the keys despite the rise and fall of her father’s complaints. As if this murder had been orchestrated to steal the earldom from the Grove family.

She’d returned home from her own, interrupted, wedding with her father and a few of their guests. Only a few, for most had stayed behind at Athwart Manor. Death or not, a feast had been prepared and people needed to eat.

The few who did return to Grove House, recognized and honored Helen’s need to be alone. Leaving her to the solitude of the music room where she could work through the jumble of emotions battering her heart.

Of course, her father would stride in and rip up her peace. As if someone had not been killed in a horrendous manner, and everyone thought his twin guilty... a tremor rippled, her fingers fell awry, missing the intended keys. Both her father and her step-mother, who was trying to calm him, turned at the dissonance. Helen never missed a chord.

Stunned herself, she held back, hands hovering, ready to play. Ridiculous. She took a breath and started again, from the beginning. Perhaps she’d done it on purpose. It had certainly stilled her father’s rant.

If only it could still her mind.

Christopher. That’s all she could see. Shattered, broken by his brother’s death.

Thomas was gone.

Christopher couldn’t be responsible, but silent waters ran so deep... and he had a temper that flared often enough. Never so powerfully he would hurt someone, not like in his youth. Then he’d been tormented and ferocious. He’d learned how to tame those passions, except for once, after his parents’ accident.

Heartbreak. That was what caused a disruption to his humors. Heartbreak. This outburst was the result of Thomas’s death, not the cause. Never the cause.

She missed another chord. Lifted her trembling fingers from the keyboard and rested them in her lap. It was not worth trying again. Her calm had been shattered by dark memories.

Longford, her Thomas, on the floor of the folly in a halo of blood.

Christopher taut and trembling as a plucked piano wire.

Edmund casting blame.

And now, her father was snagged on what he considered an injustice. God help her, he would marry her off to the first bidder. Her stomach plummeted.

Too many interruptions to the wedding. Thomas’s Grand Tour extended for three whole years beyond the two he’d planned to be away with Christopher. He’d finally returned, only for tragedy to strike twice—her beloved mother died and then his parents, killed in a carriage accident. So much death, so much sorrow. She wanted the joy, needed the happiness.

Instead, she’d become a spinster. Only worth her bargaining power.

But you know what must be done, her father announced.

She laid her head on the pianoforte, afraid that he’d read her thoughts.

We needn’t tarry. You will marry Edmund. He’s a free man, probably already considering it. The Sterrys have wanted our lands for centuries. They’ll not relinquish this opportunity.

Of course. Only one solution. Can’t have the land without the daughter. Can’t have the earldom without the earl.

Tears lodged, a hard mass, waiting to crack and pour out in a torrent.

No care for her fresh loss. No consulting her, his only child. His grandson, for he’d allow nothing else, would have a handsome title. Progeny mattered.

The Longfords would get the land and its income. Nothing had been provisioned for a Grove heir. Everything would go to the future earl. Poor Kitty must feel slighted. If she was smart enough to feel slighted.

More money than the nobility, her grandfather used to say. Proud of it. Didn’t need a title. Had power without it. Helen’s father was not so sanguine. Having everything money could buy, he did not have what he most wanted. Nobility. To be an aristocrat. An unquenchable need.

Athwart Park abutted the Grove estate. The Sterrys had coveted it for generations—just as much as her father longed for his family to be titled. It wouldn’t matter if the title holder was thirty years her senior or she thirty years his.

Why couldn’t he put the pressure on his new wife? Will her to breed another daughter or, better yet, a son to marry into nobility? But no, he’d merely changed the settlement upon his marriage, promising a home and generous allowance for his new bride and any offspring. He was an old man, after all.

Helen’s feelings about the matter were inconsequential.  

As would be the feelings of the next earl.

Except Edmund would not be the next earl.

She rose from the piano seat. If you will excuse me. No point in staying to hear the details. She kept her gaze down, preferring the twining vines of the carpet to seeing her father’s ill-timed satisfaction. Both families had striven for an alliance for years. Her father would see it through. But not now and surely not Edmund.

Yes, my dear— her father gloated over his own cunning, as if his hastily made plan could not be thwarted, —you must rest. It’s been a trying day. You will want to feel your best tomorrow. No need to waste the time and the trouble of all those preparations, the guests who have traveled. You can wed on the morrow, the next to that at most. I’ll have Edmund set off for a special license.

Her head jerked up. Don’t be ridiculous, father. There has to be a mourning...

He brushed her concerns aside. There’s been too much mourning between our families over the past years. Matters of estate, my dear. We’ve waited long enough. You wouldn’t understand. But we can’t waste time.

"I will waste time," she challenged, foolishly. Never a good thing to confront her father. It only fueled his fire; the thump of his cane bore testimony to that.

Bushy white eyebrows raised, head tilted back, he looked down his nose at her. As I said, you do not understand such things.

Oh, but she did. Wasn’t she the one now sitting on the shelf? Her marriage already delayed five years. What was one more?

She lifted her chin, narrowed her eyes. We shall see, she told him and walked out. Unfortunately, not quick enough to miss his murmured, She will be a damned fine countess.

Undoubtedly. She’d been training since birth. This arrangement between their families understood since then. And she was enough of a countess to know that you did not get married on the evening after your betrothed’s death. That idea was positively medieval.

No, she would not marry another Sterry tomorrow. Possibly not ever. And surely not Edmund. Edmund was the younger son. Christopher was the next in line for the title. He would be the next earl. Wouldn’t he?

The idea shivered through her, a shock of lightning in the darkest of nights.

Christopher. Was he the earl already, his brother’s body still warm?

How did a title transfer? Would they have to petition the king? She should know this, but who would have expected the issue to arise so soon? She started to laugh, a silent, staccato breath of a laugh as emotions rose up, a torrent of them, immediate, overwhelming. Tears slid down her cheeks despite the upturn of her quivering lips.  

Oh, Thomas, how could this happen? Who could murder such a vibrant man? Thomas was capricious and fun, if not a bit cynical. He flirted with people, all people—male, female, young, old, superior, inferior. He flirted with life.

And Christopher, what will happen to you? What an impossible task to thrust at you. How could a deaf man sit in the House Lords to hear arguments? Not that he lacked the intelligence for it, but the logistics seemed insurmountable despite his having run Athwart secretly for years now.

But that was the problem. No one knew how instrumental Christopher was to the smooth running of the family holdings. Least of all, Edmund.

She stumbled up the back stairs, not wanting to run into any of the guests who were busy with the back and forth of leaving.

Miss Grove? a soft voice called from behind her.

Molly. Helen brushed tears from her cheeks as she turned.

Look at you, still in your wedding clothes. Her maid frowned. Let’s get you settled in your room. I’ll ring for tea.

I just need a moment alone, Helen said with a sniffle, too overwrought to fight her maid’s tow.

Of course. Molly bustled them into the bedchamber, pulling the covers back on the bed. I’ll get you out of your finery, then you can lay down and rest.

Helen looked at the bed she’d left, just that morning, a maiden about to marry.

Now, here she was, returned, a twenty-four-year-old spinster. The bed mocking her.

No, she stepped back, I don’t want to lie down, let me...

Of course, you sit, Molly allowed. I’ll just get a warm bath prepared for you.

Ridiculous effort when she’d