The Specter of Seduction by Carolyn Haines

Author:Carolyn Haines [Haines, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: KaliOka Press

Chapter 17

I raced against the clock as I ran back toward Waverley Mansion. Surely the young man was not dead. He had to be alive. Maybe the young woman was hysterical and her boyfriend hadn’t suffered such a severe gunshot.

The image that stayed with me as I dashed blindly through the woods was the bubbling of blood on his lips. Punctured lung. One of Alex’s soldier friends had died in his arms from a gunshot into his lungs. Alex had held him, unable to stop the inevitable. He’d written in great detail how helpless he felt. That frothy blood was a sign of imminent death. Penelope had to be wrong about what she’d seen. Royal was an angry and erratic man. And he’d been drinking heavily. But he would not have shot an unarmed college student no matter how mad he was. It simply could not be true.

I ran hard, pushed by my thoughts, until I burst into the front lawn of Waverley. Amanda was sitting on the front steps, singing softly to herself. I recognized the song, “Buffalo Gals.” As she sang, Amanda began to dance across the porch. Fury propelled me toward her.

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“I know.” She shrugged one shoulder and sat down. “Here I am.”

I grabbed her arm and fought back the desire to shake some sense into her. “Your actions have consequences, Amanda. Serious ones. Get inside that house right now.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.” Her face held all the defiance of a young woman.

“Oh, I can and I will.” I pulled her up. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you, but I will find out. And I will stop this. Because if I don’t, you’re going to find yourself in extremely unpleasant circumstances. If Nan is influencing you, you’d best tell her to back off because you are one step from being sent away to boarding school.” I meant to frighten her. And Nan. Or whoever was influencing her. “The step after that is an institution. I’ve seen what that’s like and you don’t want to end up there.”

She bit her bottom lip, and tears formed in her eyes but didn’t fall. I’d finally gotten her attention. “Go sit with your mother,” I said. “She isn’t well and she needs attention. Do not leave that room, do you hear me? There’s someone in the woods with a gun, and a man has been wounded.”

“Is it Newly?” She was at least concerned.

“No, someone else. If you father comes in, try to get him to stay with you and Anne.”

“Where’s Reginald? And Constance?” For the first time since I’d come to Waverley, I heard her sounding and behaving like a child.

“She’s helping a young woman we found in the woods.”

“Penelope?” she asked.

“How do you know her?” I couldn’t believe Amanda knew all of this and had never spoken of it to her parents.

“I saw her on the lawn earlier in the evening. That’s why I went outside. She and her boyfriend were sneaking around the property.

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