The door had barely closed behind them when it was flung open again and two ladies rushed in, making a beeline for the chaise.
“Good God, Henrietta! Are you all right?”
“Mama’s note just said you’d been shot!”
A pair of near identical eyes, having taken in Henrietta’s relative health, swiveled to fix almost accusingly on Louise.
She flung up her hands, then opened her arms to her elder daughters. “I’m sorry, my dears, but I knew you would want to know immediately you reached town, and I was a little distracted.”
The twins, Amanda and Amelia, hugged their mother, then moved on to greet all the other family members. James found himself being hugged, his cheek kissed, then introduced to the twins’ husbands, Martin Fulbright and Luc Ashford, with both of whom he was passingly acquainted.
“This sounds like a bad business,” Martin said as the ladies moved on.
“You’ll need to fill us in,” Luc said. “We thought we were coming down for your engagement ball, only to discover we’ve landed in the middle of attempted murder. Why on earth would anyone want to shoot Henrietta?”
By the time James and the other males had answered Martin’s and Luc’s understandable questions, it was time for luncheon; the entire gathering transferred to the dining room, where a cold collation lay waiting.
Everyone took seats around the table, filled their plates, and were just settling to eat when the front doorbell pealed. Urgently. Everyone looked at each other, wondering . . . then swift footsteps were heard and the door opened and Angelica, Countess of Glencrae, and her husband, Dominic, swept in.
Greetings, exclamations, and explanations started all over again. Angelica’s older sisters, Heather and Eliza, and their husbands, had arrived with the earlier troops, but both ladies had left with the company that had gone forth to assess the ton’s knowledge of the latest incident, and their absences, too, had to be explained. . . .
James cast a long-suffering look at Devil, seated across the table. The Duke of St. Ives, a nobleman powerful enough to command instant obedience in many other spheres, merely shrugged and looked resigned.
Eventually, at last, everyone was seated, and eating, and the gathering finally quieted.
From the faint frowns in most eyes, the distracted expressions, while they ate most were thinking. Reviewing all they knew, and thinking of what next they might do—of how to identify the blackguard who had so nearly claimed one of their own.
James glanced at Henrietta, seated alongside him, then looked back at his plate. He had no difficulty comprehending, indeed, fully shared, the barely restrained aggression emanating from all the Cynster males; had the ball passed one inch to the right, Henrietta would have been dead.
He was, now, perfectly ready to do murder himself.
But first he—they—had to identify the madman.
Gradually, discussions started up, here and there down the long table. What if . . . ? Perhaps . . . ? Maybe if . . . ? The cold collation was whisked away and replaced with fruit, nuts, and cheeses, served with a fruity white wine. As the platters were passed along the table, the swell of speculation rose.
“It’s not going to be easy.” Henrietta glanced up and met James’s eyes. “Is it?”
He hesitated, then replied, “I can’t see any simple way to learn who he is.”
From across the table, Devil asked, “What did the grooms find? Anything?”
James shook his head. The two grooms had returned half an hour after he and Henrietta had reached the house. “They hunted high and low, but while they found the place where the man had been—in that dense stand of bushes about fifteen yards from the end of the tan—they didn’t see anyone about. They think he must have had a horse waiting.”
Devil grimaced. “At that hour, once he was away from the immediate area, there’d be no reason for anyone to pay any attention to him. He’d be just another gentleman out for an early morning ride.”
“True, but that wasn’t a bad shot.” Seated beside Devil, Vane Cynster said, “Think about it.” He met Henrietta’s eyes. “You must have been a good twenty yards away, and riding away from him.”
Henrietta thought back, then felt what little color she’d regained drain from her face. “I leaned forward just as he shot. . . .” She met Vane’s eyes, then glanced at James. “He wasn’t aiming for my head.”
Devil growled, “He was aiming for your heart.” Abruptly he reached out, seized a salt cellar, and rapped it like a gavel on the table. “Quiet!”
All the discussions cut off. Everyone looked at Devil.
Lips thin, he smiled, not humorously. “Let’s go back to the drawing room. We need to pool everything we know and decide what steps we’re going to take to bring this blackguard down.”
No one argued with either the directive or his tone. Everyone seemed in a belligerent mood as they found seats or took up positions around the drawing room.
Feeling a trifle unsteady emotionally as well as p