Anything but Love (The Putney Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Bramwell

  What if Harry had fallen unconscious again? What if they did not realise she was at the Folly?

  "Stupid girl, Marianne," she muttered to herself, using her anger to feed the ball of rage. "You should have left a trail for them, or some sort of clue from your reticule!"

  There was nothing that could be done now, and the raised voices from inside Fool's Errand drew her attention to them. The men were arguing heatedly.

  She took a deep breath before dashing across the clearing, crouching between the window and the still-open door.

  "I don't care if they all look the same to you, that's not the right girl!" the second man shouted, and Marianne pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from gasping allowed.

  "It's the girl who answered the note, wasn't it?" Blue Greatcoat replied.

  "I don't care if she answered the note, she's not my cousin, and my cousin is the one I need!" snapped the second man, leaving her in no doubt at all to his identity.

  Cuthbert Headley was indeed the one who had tried to abduct her.

  *

  It had been impossible to keep their guests from learning that Patience and Marianne were missing, for Mr Swancoat's panic spilt out of his control, and he'd screamed to the world that his daughter was in danger. Aunt Eustacia had managed to get him to a bedroom and to take some laudanum so that Ursula was now keeping a watchful, worrying eye on him.

  "We'll fan out through the whole area," the Earl of Powis had declared when Sir Joseph apprised him of the situation. "We cannot have ruffians wandering about our county, thinking they can abduct delicate young girls from their very homes."

  "Thank you, my Lord," Sir Joseph had said, but Charles had no such capacity to stay calm.

  It was all taking too long, and with another fifty men trying to light torches and grab weapons, the chaos in the garden seemed only to keep him away from Marianne rather than closer to her.

  John, it seemed, felt much the same way, and eventually came to grab Charles by his lapels and drag him over to the hothouses.

  Harry, his head freshly bandages, was waiting for them, with Phillips looking murderous at his side.

  "The Folly," said John, nodding to the tiny, half-hidden gate behind the Pinery Vinery. "There's no other reason for them to have come this way."

  "How would they know the gate was here?" asked Charles. "Damn it all, I'd practically forgotten it was here."

  "If they've been scouting the area it's likely they identified it as a weak point," said John, sounding more like a soldier than ever. "I should have thought of it myself, but the woods are so overgrown I didn't think..."

  "None of us thought," said Harry. "We need to get moving, for it's been too long already."

  On this point, they all agreed. Phillips took up the lead position, brandishing his torch high in one hand, a loaded pistol in the other. Charles came next, with John and Harry bringing up the rear. Even with the rain, their torches held, casting a dance of light and shadow through the trees that made him almost believe the fairy folk were hiding there.

  He forced the image of Marianne lying dead among the tree roots from his mind, refusing to accept that she could be hurt, let alone killed.

  "Don't worry, Master Charles," said Phillips gruffly. "Blessed by Gwynn Ap Nudd, is Miss Marianne. The Fairies will keep her safe, mark my words."

  "Thank you," he muttered, even though he wanted to scream at the old family servant not to be so stupid, for the fairies could not protect the love of his life any more than he could.

  He was supposed to have kept her safe. What kind of knight in shining armour allowed his queen to run off, all alone, into a stormy night to do some rescuing of her own?

  The thought struck him as funny, and he couldn't help the bark of bitter laughter that spilt from his mouth.

  "What's so amusing?" grunted Harry, carefully stepping over a thick tree root so that he did not do himself any further damage.

  "Marianne, playing knight in shining armour to Patience," he replied. "Here I've been trying to protect her since I first brought her home, refusing to let her leave our sight for fear that a gust of wind would break her, and then the first time someone else is in danger, the little wretch goes racing off into the darkness to save her friend without so much as a single thought for her own welfare."

  "She's made of stronger stuff than we realised," said John, grudgingly. "If she's kept Patience safe, I'll owe her everything."

  "Stronger stuff than you two realised," said Harry with he usual insolent grin. "I think you'll find that I have always known she was a tigress inside."

  John called his youngest brother a very creative swearword, which would have been deeply amusing under any other circumstances. They had been climbing only fifteen minutes when Phillips held out a hand and snapped at them all to fall silent.

  "Do you hear that, lads?" he asked,  jerking his head towards the path ahead. "The Folly is only a few yards ahead.

  "Arguing," said John, his expression dark. "Two men I'd say, but no one else."

  "Only two of them, you say?" replied Harry, his smile now a set of bared teeth. "We'd better hurry, Phillips, or Marianne will have finished them off before we get there."

  "Then I'll chop their corpses to pieces," growled Charles, his rage circling in his body and making him want to start running towards the fight. "If they've hurt a hair on my future wife's head, there won't be enough pieces of them left for the crows."

  *

  Marianne wrapped her fingers around the shaft of the walking stick. It was smooth from years of use and slippery from the rain, but the weighted brass head was a weapon she was not about to pass up. She started to rise slowly, and something stabbed her hard in the chest. She managed not to cry out, but she looked down to see the horseshoe broach with its wicked pin had worked loose, and a tiny dot of blood had pooled on her satin sash.

  "Granny Bellan," she murmured, pulling the broach free. It nestled perfectly in her hand, not even cutting into her flesh as she pressed it between her palm and the walking stick.

  "Kill her and be done with it," said Blue Greatcoat. "Is she's not the one you need, then there's no harm."

  "Good God, man! I'm not about to go about killing innocent girls!" Cuthbert exclaimed, but his partner seemed to find this amusing.

  "Just planning to have a nice chat with that cousin of yours, were you? Pass the time of the evening up here where her screams couldn't be heard?"

  Marianne tasted bile in the back of her mouth. She expected to shake, but her grip remained true as she crept around to the front of the door.

  "I only wanted to talk with her and make her see reason," muttered Cuthbert.

  "And when that didn't work? Were you going to send her off home for some honey cakes and tea? Or were you going to use that fancy blade of yours to cut her throat?"

  Her cousin didn't answer that, although Blue Greatcoat found his silence funny. Hatred; pure, undiluted hatred pumped into Marianne's veins, and she knew that her only option would be to act quickly.

  "Fine, kill the girl," said Cuthbert, "only make it fast."

  "It'll cost you extra," said Greatcoat. He was standing in the doorway, his back to Marianne. She could just make out Patience, still unconscious, splayed out upon the floor while Cuthbert stood over her.

  "It shouldn't cost me anything since you're the one who brought the wrong girl."

  Greatcoat sniffed, lifting his hand us as though to wipe away snot on the back of his filthy glove.

  "Perhaps I should take the girl as payment," he mused, and the words were all Marianne needed to bring the brass head of the walking stick down on his skull with a sickening crack.

  Greatcoat slumped to the floor without uttering a word, and Cuthbert spun to face her, his eyes full of terror.

  "What are you, a ghost?" he squealed, and she knew that in her bedraggled dress and likely with cosmetics streaking down her cheeks, she must look like something from his nightmares.

  "I'm a Gwyllion," she said,
still gripping hold of the walking stick. "You should run, Cuthbert Headley, or I can't be responsible for your death."

  "Marianne," he spat, his face twisting in rage. "Look what you've caused, you stupid girl! Mother is prone with hysterics, your friend is half-dead on the floor, and I, I had to pay this blundering idiot to bring you to me so that we can fix your horrible mess."

  "I didn't do anything but escape from you," she said, stepping into the Folly so that she could edge, slowly, towards Patience. "You're the one who stole everything from me."

  "It should have been mine by right!" roared Cuthbert. "If your brother had agreed to make you marry me before he left, then everything would have been fine! It's your fault, Marianne! Yours and Gordon's! If you weren't so damn selfish, none of this would have happened!"

  "I'll give you another chance to run, cousin," said Marianne, fear starting to seep into her bones as she recalled the extent of Cuthbert's rage in the past. "The Putney will be here shortly, and it would be better for you if you're gone before they arrive."

  "Never!" screeched her cousin, and he launched himself towards her, knocking the walking stick out of her grip.

  A matching shout went up from the darkness beyond the Folly, and Marianne could here Charlie shouting her name. Courage filled her at the sound, and as Cuthbert launched himself at her once again, she raised her fist, the pin of the horseshoe broach protruding from her fingers, and thrust it into his eye.

  *

  The scream was something from a nightmare, and all four of them broke into a run, dangers of the path be damned. They thundered into the clearing just in time to see Cuthbert Headley stagger out of the Folly, one hand clenched over his eye.

  He saw them coming, and without a word twisted away and sprinted into the darkness behind Fool's Errand.

  "I'll get him," grunted Phillips. "You go see to your women. Harry, with me!"

  As Phillips and Harry raced after Headley, John and Charles sprinted across the clearing towards the wooden door. A man in a blue greatcoat lay still on the cold floor, although the slightest movement of his chest let Charles know the scoundrel was alive.

  "Marianne!" he cried out.

  "Patience!" shouted John at the same moment.

  The two girls looked up at them from their space on the floor. Marianne, her dress ruined with blood and dirt, knelt on the hard floor, while Patience had her head nestled on her friend's lap.

  "Smelling salts," said Marianne as though nothing untoward had happened. "Godmama was right when she told me I should carry them."

  "God, Patience, I thought you were dead," croaked John, lifting their longtime friend from Marianne's lap and into his arms.

  "I might have been if it weren't for Marianne," whispered Patience. "John, please take me back to the house."

  "Immediately, dear heart. Are you injured? Is the blood yours?"

  "No, other than my ankle," said Patience, but her tone was irritable. "However there's a good chance I'll cast up my accounts if you keep swinging me about like that, for my head feels like there'a marching band inside. Please, get me home before I vomit!"

  Marianne hadn't moved from her spot on the floor. As soon as John and Patience were out of the Folly, Charles dropped to his knees in front of her, unsure as to what she needed him to do.

  "You came," she said quietly, their eyes locking.

  "As though I could bear to be apart from you," he replied. He brushed some dirt from her cheek, only to realise that it was the blackening from her lashes. He'd never seen her look such a disaster before, even as a child who liked to romp through the puddles, and yet he didn't think he had ever loved her quite so intensely as he did at that moment.

  "I saved myself," she said with a tiny smile. "If I'd known I just had to stab Cuthbert in the eyeball to get rid of him I should have done it a year ago. Godmama was right about that, too, you know. Some men just need to be stuck with pins."

  Charles very carefully removed the horseshoe broach from her fingers.

  "For all I wish I could take away the pain your cousin has caused you, I'm rather glad that you needed me to rescue you the first time," he said, then cupped her face in his hands. "Marianne Hillis, I am a ridiculous fool who has loved you your whole life, but I did not realise it until I was in danger of losing you for good."

  Her eyes filled with tears as she very gently placed her hands above his heart.

  "Is this what love feels like, then?" she asked. "Like I'm safer just because you're near me, or like I'm not quite whole when you're gone?"

  "That's how it feels for me," he said gruffly.

  "I've compared every man I've known against you, and found them all wanting," she explained, "but I did not think it was love because there were no bolts of lightning when I saw you, and no threat of falling into a decline when you were gone. I just ached inside, and it only went away when you came back to me."

  "I won't leave you again, my darling," he said, leaning in to kiss her lightly on the lips. "But you must promise to be my wife, Marianne, for I have the shocking suspicion that I will fall into a decline if you do not."

  She giggled, but his lips were firmly upon hers before she could speak, and he took her response to the kiss as agreement to their marriage.

  There was a loud thump behind them, and they jumped apart, Charles with his hand on his pistol in case the man in the greatcoat was about to attack them.

  His father and a large number of the male guests looked up from the prone body they were attempting to drag from the Folly.

  "Don't mind us, my boy," said his father, motioning at the unconscious ruffian with his free hand. "We were trying not to disturb you. Welcome to the family, Marianne. I hope that such dramatics as these prove rare once you're officially a Putney."

  "I hope so too, Sir Joseph," replied Marianne, before dissolving into a fit of the giggles.

  Chapter Fourteen

   Things returned to normal with a surprising amount of speed, with the ruffian that had abducted Patience - one Abraham Hakeswill - handed over to the authorities for his dastardly crimes. He tried to blame it all on Marianne's cousin, Cuthbert Headley, but his story was not believed.

  "I fear he might have done some damage to poor Headley," Sir Joseph told the magistrate with a sigh. "The boy owes money to all of London, from what I've heard, and hasn't a penny to cover his debts. Perhaps that's why Hakeswill tried to abduct Marianne."

  "As payment, you mean?" the magistrate had said, obviously horrified by the prospect.

  "Who knows if Headley is even alive," mourned Sir Joseph, careful not to overdo his concern, but happy that he'd planted enough seeds to bear the desired fruit.

  Eustacia Melthwaite had come to his aid where Headley was concerned, so at least he did not have to lie to Hester about whether he'd had a hand in the boy's disappearance.

  "He'll be cared for well enough by the crew until they're safely out at sea," was all Eustacia would tell him. "It's a long voyage to the Americas, so he'll have plenty of time to reflect on what he's done."

  The Swancoats had returned to their home, with both Patience and her father in good form, considering everything. For a brief moment, Sir Joseph had indulged the hope that two of his sons would be married before the month was out, but it was not to be.

  Patience and John were a problem for another day, he decided. For now, he was quietly working on the restoration of Marianne's fortune, although he did not wish to raise anyone's hopes at all.

  It was not until a week after the ball that Gordon Hillis finally showed his face. The boy stormed into the breakfast parlour looking as though he had not slept for days, his hair overgrown, his clothes loose on his body, and the distinct odour of the road clinging to his form.

  "Marianne!" he shouted, practically scrambling around the room to reach his sister.

  "Gordon!" she squealed with excitement. "Gordon, you finally made it!"

  "I raced here as soon as I got word from Sir Joseph that you were in trouble," he sa
id, throwing his arms about her. "I stopped in at Clun on my way here, and our Aunt is half-mad with hysterics, but Cuthbert has vanished from the face of the earth - some gibberish about him having been pressed - in Clun, of all places!"

  "Better late than never, old chap," said Charles as he got to his feet. "Good to see you, Gordon. You've missed all of the drama, you know."

  "This is my new Godson?" said Eustacia, sounding less than impressed. "We will have words, you and I."

  Gordon's eyes only got rounder, although Sir Joseph was pleased to see that he did not relinquish his grip on his sister. "Mrs Melthwaite! I have not seen you since my Eton days - how do you do?"

  "Told you that you knew him," said Harry from around a mouthful of toast.

  "Have a seat, old chap," said John, moving from his place beside Marianne to the next free seat along. "I daresay you're exhausted after all your travelling about. Where have you been?"

  "Everywhere, thanks to the dashed Orang Outang escaping," muttered Gordon. "I'd have got the messages sooner otherwise. But please, will one of you tell me what on earth is going on?"

  "Sit, Gordon," said Hester in her best mothering voice, and the poor boy complied before he had a chance to think about it. His hands still clutched Mariannes, however, and Sir Joseph decided to forgive Hillis for his mistakes. He likely just needed a reliable father figure to guide him, and if Marianne was going to become an official part of the family, he might as well adopt Gordon as well.

  Eustacia seemed to have done so, at least, for she was loudly demanding to know whether they lacked valets in China, for there was no other excuse for the state of the poor boy's hair.

  "I like it," said Marianne with an affectionate smile. "It makes you look quite dashing."

  "You've all gone crackers," said Gordon, slumping back in his seat.

  "Sorry, old boy," laughed Charles, "I suppose we have all got a bit carried away with the excitement. We'll tell you everything after you've had a chance to freshen up, but I want to be the one to tell you that Marianne and I love each other, and she has done me the honour of agreeing to become my wife."

  "I thought that was more or less an agreed thing before I left," said Hillis, looking puzzled.