Then Comes Murder

Dancing with Devils (part one)

Each step closer to the Whitehill wedding, to the Ashurst country estate and his childhood home, filled Jacob with the impending sense that he neared the underworld.

Every maneuver he'd attempted in effort to avoid the return had burned to ashes.

Though he'd written to his captain, half-begging for an order to return to the ship, the terse man had only wished his congratulations to the soon-to-be newlyweds and noted that Jacob deserved some time with his family.

Lord have mercy.

His family.

He'd attempted to convince George that it'd be impossible to stay for the wedding, but his brother had barely heard his protests. If anything, said protests had only spurred George to include Jacob in more of the last moment wedding planning. Instead of returning to Portsmouth, Jacob had been roped into fittings at the tailor, choosing cigars and brandies to enjoy at the week long event, and drinking away afternoons in the London clubs.

Only George and Caroline, Jacob decided, would have a week-long wedding celebration flanked with hunting and dinners and dancing. Jacob, for the life of him, could not understand why anyone would want to prolong the torture. They might have found love, if George had anything to say for it, but the adamant assertions of true feeling certainly did not seem to make the wedding planning any easier.

For as much as he loathed the tasks George dragged him too, it seemed easier work than what Lady Caroline and her cousin had set for themselves. When their paths crossed, Caroline seemed the perfect bride-to-be: she laughed prettily and smiled with the half-crinkled eyes of a woman besotted. Still, there was a certain tension in her voice as she tried to persuade George to take more interest in things like flowers and decorations and seating arrangements.

"They're only coming for the food," he'd told her with a hearty laugh, "As long as they're fed, they'll be happy enough."

The still and silent, but no longer invisible, Lady Eleanor had tightened her pretty mouth at that. Their eyes had met, and Jacob was sure a wry comment would follow, but the woman only followed her cousin to the next appointment with the resigned air of someone who had already lost the argument of not going.

And if it was torturous to him—and presumably to Lady Eleanor—then it was Hell on earth for Charlie. His younger brother was trapped in a black misery. Though George invited their youngest brother to each and every of their outings, Charlie made poor excuses for each of them and filled his time with attempted drownings by gin.

Bathed in the stink of spirits and smoke and despair, night after night, Jacob dragged his brother from the public house to his bed with fast-withering patience. If Charlie had been more inclined to skip the wedding with him, Jacob might have tolerated the melancholy with a bit more sympathy, but his brother was determined to attend. The drunken, rambling logic made about as much sense as his brother's unrequited affection for Lady Caroline Howard.

"Love is love," Charlie had moaned, face smashed against the table. "I cannot remove it anymore than I can remove my own heart."

At that, Jacob had nearly drowned himself in gin.

He was no novice when it came to love. How could he be after nearly ten years on a ship? Jacob's induction into the navy had been at the height of military fervor: when even a burgeoning midshipman was akin to national hero. What did it matter that his ship had been running blockades during Trafalgar? Every step on shore had been half-met with offers to prove an intimate devotion to King and Country.

There had been a time he'd spouted the same sort of drivel his brother moaned into the table. Beautiful, kind, clever... Hell, there'd been plenty of women a younger-and-less-worldly-Jacob had fancied to the point of insanity. And there had been plenty of women who'd lost interest in a man who had refused a fortune for sake of pride. So from each of those patriotic liaisons, Jacob learned that love was easiest when it was only built on nights of warm embraces and promises unkept.