Distracted, Brindley jumped toward her. “Don’t!”
Sebastian started toward him.
Brindley steadied his aim toward Sebastian. “Nor you, either, lad.”
“It’s starting to rain.” Mary backed down the wall, careful to stay out of reach. “If I drop it now, it could be soaked by the time you get it. Useless. The ink running together.”
A fanatical expression hardened Brindley’s face. “Be a good lass and give that to me.”
“I won’t let you shoot Sebastian.”
“Very well.” He turned the pistol on her, and she saw his intention in the tensing of his face. “I’ll shoot you.”
Chapter 24
Wilda stood in the middle of the garden circle by the fountain. A thin veil covered her head. It blurred her features but allowed the Fairchild golden hair to shine through. From where Ian hid in the shrubs, he thought she looked like a sacrificial goat staked out to lure the predators. The blackmailing Johnny Bum had better show up soon, or Wilda would break and run.
“Ian.” Her voice quivered when she called him. “How much longer do I have to stand out here?”
“Not much longer.” He hoped. “He’s late already.”
From among the branches of the willow that overhung the fountain, Hadden said, “Be patient, Wilda.”
“But it’s starting to rain.” Wilda might have been dying of a lung infection, she sounded so pathetic.
“You won’t melt,” Ian said. “Now, would you please be quiet? You’re supposed to be alone here.”
“I’ll buy you a new pair of gloves if you’ll just be patient,” Hadden promised.
She threaded her fingers together. “I want a pair of silk stockings, too,” she announced finally.
“B’God, Wilda, you are—” Ian began.
“You’ll get them,” Hadden said in the voice he used to soothe a fractious horse.
She made a face in Ian’s direction, and unseen, he made a face back.
The waiting was getting to them.
Then a thin, tuneless whistling floated in on the breeze, and Wilda stiffened. “Try to be calm,” Ian whispered. “Remember, keep your head down and don’t let him see your face until he’s under the tree.”
She nodded.
As he came around the bend toward the fountain, Ian thought he recognized the man. A visiting servant—a valet, by his clothes and bearing. He walked casually, glancing from side to side, but as he neared Wilda his gaze fastened on her with ever-increasing intensity. She kept her shoulder half-turned, but she was visibly shaking, and Ian hoped the villain expected his victim to be nervous.
“Lady Whitfield. I knew you’d come.” The man was gloating, the halo around him dark and sinister. “Did you bring the money?”
He reached out and turned her toward him, and she threw back her veil at the same time. He recoiled in shock. “Damn your eyes!”
As he turned to run, Hadden dropped out of the tree onto him, throwing him into the gravel. He tried to fight, but Hadden knocked him witless with a fist to the chin.
Ian strolled out of the hedge with the ropes. Wilda jumped up and down and squealed. As Hadden tied his hands and feet, the valet began to struggle, first weakly, then with increasing vigor.
“Let me go,” the valet murmured. Then more loudly. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
“You’re going to pay for your sins now.” Hadden tightened the knots. “This is justice, be assured.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve done no wrong.”
The valet sounded so earnest, Wilda stopped squealing and started listening. “Should you let him go?” she asked timidly.
Hadden looked up, and Ian was shocked by his cousin’s transformation. Every bit of kindness had been wiped clean of Hadden’s countenance, and only fury and disgust remained. “I promise you, Wilda, he’s a bad man.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the valet repeated.
Hadden looked down at him. “Yes, you do. You see, I recognize you.”
The valet stilled, and stared.
“But you don’t recognize me, do you?” Hadden smiled such a terrible smile, even Ian flinched at the sight. “The last time you saw me, I was nine years old, and you had let your master into my bedchamber.”
The color drained from the valet’s face.
“I see you remember.” Hadden nodded. “I’m glad. I would hate to think I was only one in a long line of evil deeds you have done.” He hauled the valet up by the ropes around his wrists. “Now you’ll get a taste of your own treatment. My new brother-in-law has many merchant ships, you see, and you have a reservation on one as a crewman.”
“No.” The valet tried to drop to his knees, but Hadden jerked him erect. “I beg you.”
“It’ll be a new start for you.” Hadden signaled to Ian, and he picked up the valet’s feet. Hadden took his shoulders, and together they started toward the waiting carriage. “Who knows? Maybe after thirty years or so, you’ll find you like a seaman’s life.”
The pistol roared. Mary jumped aside, but not fast enough. Pain exploded into her side. As she fell, another, more human roar sounded. Sebastian brought Brindley down as a wolf would bring down a rat, and Mary knew this time Brindley had no chance. She’d seen the look on Sebastian’s face when Brindley fired. She thought Brindley had seen it, too. It was the end of hope for Brindley, for his cause.
Wincing, she touched her side. It burned like fire, and when she brought her hand back, she saw blood. Blood on her fingers. Just like the last time. Just like when she’d killed Besseborough.
Black dots swam before her eyes.
When she revived, she saw Sebastian standing above the fallen Mr. Brindley. He clutched the unfired pistol in his hand.
He was going to kill Brindley. And Mary couldn’t allow that. “No.” She tried to shout, but the word came out in a whimper.
Sebastian turned to her at once. “Mary? Are you…?”
“I’m fine.” An exaggeration, but surely a forgivable one.
Brindley stirred. “See? She’s not dead. I didn’t aim for her heart.”
Mary knew that to be a lie. She’d saved herself by jumping aside.
“Brindley, you shot my wife.” Sebastian’s voice was cold, his intention plain. “And I’m going to kill you.”
“No.” This time, Mary knew, the word came out stronger. “For the love of God, Sebastian, don’t shoot him. Don’t kill him.”
Sebastian ignored her. She might have thought he hadn’t heard her, except for the tightening of his jaw.
Mary wanted to sob with frustration. Slowly, working around the pain, she pulled herself up. “You don’t want this on your conscience. Sebastian, please, for my sake. I beg you.”
“Listen to her.” Brindley scooted backward on his rear. “She’s right. You don’t want me on yer conscience.”
“To hell with my conscience!” Sebastian said.
“He’s not worth it.” Mary leaned against the wall. “He’ll have to leave England anyway, or be imprisoned. Isn’t that punishment enough?”
“I thought he had killed you.” Sebastian’s voice cracked.
“I’m fine.” Mary thought she truly must be. It hurt to draw a breath; the bullet must have struck a rib. Her flesh burned, and she didn’t look forward to letting someone clean the injury. She didn’t look forward to letting someone bind her ribs or bandage the lacerations. But she would survive. “Please, Sebastian, trust me. Killing a man, even a man who deserves to die…” She shook her head as her eyes filled with tears.
Sebastian glanced at her. “If I let him go, Mary—”
“Aye, lad!”
“You have to do something for me.”
“A pox on me!” Brindley exclaimed.
“I hope so,” Sebastian answered.
Mary’s head felt slightly fuzzy. “A favor?”
“You have to forgive me.”
Mary might have suspected Sebastian of trying
to torment Brindley, but he sounded so earnest. She blinked, trying to change the scene, but it remained the same. Sebastian still stood over the cowering Brindley. He still held a pistol. He still gave the appearance of a man determined to exact his revenge. “Forgive you? For what?”
His mouth crooked in one of those mocking smiles. “For everything. For bringing you here, for exploiting your relationship with the Fairchilds, for doubting you, for forcing you to wed me, for promising to allow you freedom to use your fortune as you wish and then rescinding on that promise.” He looked at her out of the corners of his eyes. “For trying to make you choose between your family and me, and when you rightly refused, for using what I know of your past to hurt you.”
As apologies went, it seemed somehow lacking. “You’re going to shoot him if I don’t forgive you?”
“With greatest pleasure.”
“Miss Fairchild, I was nice to ye. I taught ye to dance.” Brindley was babbling.
Mary ignored him. “But if I don’t want you to shoot him, then I have no choice.”
“Hurry up, woman,” Brindley injected. “Before he changes his bloody mind.”
“You shut your maw,” Sebastian commanded him. “The lady can have as long as she likes.”
Mary wanted to laugh, but her side hurt too badly. From the first moment she’d met Sebastian, he’d been demanding, rude, uncaring of the niceties of life. He wanted his own way, any way he could get it, and if it wasn’t fair—well, the end justified the means in his opinion. Marriage to him might be occasionally painful, and often infuriating, but always a challenge for a lady-turned-housekeeper. Primly she recited one of her rules. “A housekeeper never allows a shooting. It makes a mess to clean up.”
“You’re not a housekeeper,” Sebastian said firmly. “You’re my wife.”
“Wives don’t like messes, either.”
“Does that mean you forgive me?” Sebastian pressed.
“Yes. I forgive you.”
Sebastian waved the pistol at Brindley. “What are you waiting for? Get out of here.”
Brindley crawled the first few yards, his gaze fixed on Sebastian as if he expected to be shot in the back. When Sebastian pocketed the pistol, Brindley clambered to his feet and ran to the door.
“Do you think he’ll lock it?” Mary asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” Sebastian knelt in front of her. “You can pick the lock. Tell me truly—how badly are you hurt?” Without waiting for her answer, he lifted her arm and looked, then probed the wound carefully.
She winced and looked away as he wiped his bloody fingers on his handkerchief. She still had blood on her fingers, too. It had grown sticky. “It’s difficult to wash blood away once it stains.”
Deliberately he misunderstood her. “To hell with the handkerchief,” he said, and wiped her hand. “You have a flesh wound. The blood has clotted already. Come on, I’ll carry you downstairs.”
She caught his arm before he could move. “Not yet. I wanted to say…I wanted to ask you…”
He took her hand, pressed it between his two palms, and answered the question she was too humiliated to ask. “I recognized you as soon as I saw you at Lady Valéry’s.”
She moaned. The blush that ignited her skin was almost as painful as the wound.
“I didn’t ever intend to hurt you with my knowledge.” He sat next to her, back against the wall, on her good side. Moving with exaggerated caution, he put his arm around her. “I knew what Besseborough was. When I heard about his murder, when I heard the governess who ran away had a little brother, I knew why you killed him.”
“I thought he was coming to the nursery to see me.” She could scarcely speak, she was so numb with remembered misery. “I was so miserable, caring for those horrible children, I wanted any escape, and I thought Besseborough was the prince Papa promised would come. I flirted and he played along.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” He hugged her tighter. “I really do understand.”
She scarcely heard. “One night after I put the children to sleep, I came back to our chamber and found him…His pants were down and he was trying to get Hadden to…I was so angry. I was so angry. I thought…I don’t even know what I thought. I just picked up a fireplace poker and smashed Besseborough’s skull.” She could see the scene again, hear Hadden’s screams, smell the death. “Blood spurted into the air. He twitched, so I hit him again.”
“That’s it.” Sebastian scooted one arm under her knees, one around her back, and lifted her onto his lap.
Pain shot through her, but whether from her wound or her recollections, she couldn’t say. He settled her against his chest, arched over her as if he could protect her with his body.
The march of memories was relentless. “I had to touch Besseborough, pull him off of my little brother, comfort Hadden. I couldn’t drag that weight alone, so I had to use Hadden. I had no choice. I swear I had no choice.”
“I believe you,” he said softly.
“We wrapped the body in a rug, got it down the stairs and outside to bury it. It took us hours, looking over our shoulders all the while. We had separated to sneak into the house when you saw me.” She shuddered repeatedly. “I’ve always known I deserved to hang.”
“You arrived in time,” he said matter-of-factly. “You saved Hadden.”
He sounded sincere. She stared at him. He didn’t seem repulsed. With a catch in her voice, she said, “Someone’s blackmailing me.”
He stroked her hair off her face. “I’ll take care of it. Mary, I’ll take care of you.”
Overwhelmed with a sense of relief and absolution, she turned her head in to his chest, dug her fingers into his waistcoat, and cried softly into his shirt. He didn’t say anything, he just held her, stroked her, cradled her.
Finally, when the worst of the weeping had diminished, he said, “When I heard the authorities were looking for the governess because they thought her guilty of the crime, I told them I had seen someone in the stable yard.”
She stiffened in his arms.
“I told them I’d seen a strong, young man with a scar on his face dragging a heavy sack behind him. I said I’d spoken to him, and he’d seemed defiant and angry, and he had a foreign accent. I said I now realized the marks on him weren’t dirt, but blood. I laughed when they said they were looking for you. Shamed them for thinking a small woman could kill and bury a man the size of Besseborough. So you see, even then I didn’t think you deserved to hang.”
“I…Really? You did that?” She stared up at him, her eyes wide, and it was like looking on the slightly battered and still bruised face of love. This harsh man, this believer in vengeance, wasn’t judging her. They were speaking of the murder she committed, and he seemed more concerned with her comfort than her guilt. “I was stupid. Impulsive.”
“You were Guinevere Fairchild.”
“Yes!” He did understand. “Where Guinevere reigns, chaos results.”
“Sometimes chaos is good. It creates change. Guinevere has certainly changed me. Where’s your handkerchief?”
“My…?”
“Your handkerchief.”
Moving with care, she dug out the handkerchief.
He tilted her face up, wiping it tenderly. Her skin was blotchy from crying, her eyes red-rimmed, and her hair slid around her face as the rain dampened it. He thought he’d never seen anyone so beautiful. “That side of you called Guinevere took over that morning in your bedchamber, and I loved the result.”
She took the handkerchief away from him and blew her nose. “Loved being forced to marry me?”
“I might have been smart enough to do it on my own, but it would have taken much longer before I admitted how much…how very much…” He almost couldn’t say it, but he took a breath and brought the long-lost words to his lips. “I love you, Guinevere Mary Fairchild Durant.”
He’d seen that expression on someone else’s face not long ago. He tried to remember who, and then it struck him. When he held the pistol on B
rindley and offered to spare his life only if Mary forgave him, Brindley had looked like that. Frightened, appalled, affronted…hopeful.
Mary seemed hopeful. She hoped his declaration of love was truthful, and he relaxed just a little. Perhaps Lady Valéry had spoken the truth.
But the frightened part of Mary spoke. “You don’t love Guinevere. No one could love Guinevere. She’s wild, undisciplined, foolish beyond belief.”
“She, you, were just young. The young are all those things.” She made him so impatient! Why couldn’t she see…? “Guinevere Mary Fairchild is who you are. All the parts of you. All of your past formed you. That’s the person I love—and respect.”
She sniffed.
“Really, Guinevere Mary, think about this. Have you been moved to murder since that long-ago night?”
She seemed to be thinking as she studied the chimneys and the smoke that curled out of them. Finally she looked back at him. “Only yours.”
He laughed. God, how he loved her! She answered him back without fear. She put him in his place smartly. She brought him to life after too many years in the shadows. He owed it to her to return the boon. “Today you saved my life. Brindley would have shot me if not for you waving that damned diary over the wall.”
She shivered. “I know.”
He wrapped the edges of his coat around her. “You took a life once, but today you saved one.”
She contemplated that silently. Finally she tilted her head back. “That’s true.”
“So you’ll forgive yourself.” He didn’t ask her, he told her. “You’ll decide saving the life of your beloved is apt compensation for taking the life of a monster.”
“Yes.” She stroked his cheek. “Are you my beloved?”
“Lady Valéry says I am.”
“Did she say anything else?”
He flinched at the memory of Lady Valéry’s tongue-lashing. “Nothing of importance. Only that you loved me and I loved you, and you know we dare not think her wrong.”
“No.” She stretched up and kissed him softly, savoring his lips as if they were dusted with cinnamon and flavored with honey. “She’s not wrong. The reality of you is better than any prince I ever dared to dream.”