by Brianna York
He sidled up to Forrest and slipped behind him. Forrest crouched by the door handle, then glanced up at Matthew. Holding up four fingers of his free hand, he silently marked off three seconds, then turned the knob with swift surety and pulled the door open a crack. He made certain that Dartmoor still slept before pulling the door open the rest of the way.
Alex thought she must have drifted off to sleep because she was suddenly certain that she had heard the door open. She turned her head listlessly to verify that she had indeed dreamt the sound and nearly shouted aloud with relief when she saw Forrest and Matthew in the doorway. Forrest quickly raised a finger to his lips, imperatively ordering her to silence. She nodded tightly and obeyed, but her eyes glowed at him in the flickering light cast by the fire. Forrest fought not to be lost in her eyes and won, then turned toward the bed. He glanced behind him at Matthew and indicated that Matthew should cover Dartmoor. Matthew nodded in return and Forrest crept lithely into the room.
He slipped silently behind Alex and made quick work of the rope around her wrists. Alex’s arms had long since gone numb and she nearly cried with relief when they were freed. Forrest half rose and started to loosen the gag in her mouth. He had not, however, noted Dartmoor’s knife which Marcus had stuck into the wall earlier and he brushed up against it as he rose, causing it to clatter to the floor.
Dartmoor woke with a start. “What the devil?” he shouted, drawing his pistol and training it on Alex. “Well, well,” he snarled unpleasantly at Forrest. “Hello Baron. What a pleasure to have you here. Leave that gag in her mouth if you please and step away from her.”
Forrest considered his options for a moment and Dartmoor’s lip curled in ferocious smile. “I will shoot her before you have a chance to do anything foolhardy, Tyndale, and you know it.” Forrest did indeed and so he rose and backed away from Alex.
“Excellent,” Dartmoor said in syrupy tones. “Now set your gun on the floor and kick it away from you.” Regretfully, Forrest did as he was told. “Now step away from her toward the window,” he ordered Forrest.
Matthew knew that Dartmoor had not yet seen him, but he had been unable to get off a clear shot because Forrest was directly in his line of sight. Now that Forrest would be moving he might be able to prevent further harm from coming to his friends. He waited impatiently until Forrest was out of the way, then said authoritatively, “Drop your gun, Dartmoor.”
Dartmoor’s head swiveled toward the voice in the doorway, a frown on his face. Forrest seized the chance that Matthew had opened for him and sprung forward, wrapping his hand around Dartmoor’s pistol. With a growl, Dartmoor struggled to break Forrest’s grasp and succeeded in squeezing the trigger. Alex screamed at the sharp report of the gun, the sound only slightly muffled by the gag in her mouth.
“No!” Matthew shouted, rushing forward, his insides forming a tight knot of horror. He quickly ascertained that the shot had gone wide and that Forrest was unharmed as the two men’s struggle for the weapon continued.
Forrest had managed to drag Dartmoor to his feet and was hanging onto the pistol with all his might, but Dartmoor was stronger and larger and would no doubt gain advantage of his opponent given enough time. Matthew started forward to intervene if he could, when suddenly Tess swept into the room.
She had heard the gunshot as well as Alex’s scream and decided that Marcus could bugger himself. She had hit him on the head with the butt of her gun and charged into the melee next door.
She now watched her brother struggling to wrestle his gun away from Forrest, a cold clarity sharpening her vision to painful perceptiveness. As she watched, Dartmoor wrested the gun from Forrest’s grasp and gave him a hard shove that sent him sprawling against the wall. With an inhuman growl, her brother raised the pistol over his head and started to charge at Forrest.
She did not feel herself raise her arm, nor squeeze the trigger. Her first conscious sensation was the sound of the gun report and then she saw her brother stumble to a halt, his eyes wide and his hand going to his chest. He turned to the doorway and saw Tess standing with the pistol still trained on him and his eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“Tess?” he said wonderingly. He looked down at his hand which was covered in his own blood, then met her eyes again. “Tess, why?” he asked, his voice very loud in her ears.
“It is simple, brother,” she replied in a cold, carrying voice that sounded alien to her ears, “you do not deserve to live.”
He stared at her for another long moment as if in protest, then sank to the floor in a heap. She remained for another long moment with the gun trained on the spot where her brother had been standing, then she slowly lowered her arms. The gun slipped from her nerveless fingers and hit the floor with a loud clunk.
She watched numbly as Forrest bent over Dartmoor’s body and checked for a pulse. He glanced up at her and shook his head. She closed her eyes and felt the first tears sliding down her cheeks.
“Tess?” Matthew said gently, starting towards her rigidly composed back. Suddenly he heard a thunder of footsteps from next door. He whirled and ducked into the hallway, the wind clawing at his greatcoat and belling it around him.
“Marcus!” he shouted as his friend emerged from the room next door. The other man’s eyes widened in horror and he spun around and ran down the hallway. “Marcus!” Matthew shouted, taking off after the other man. “Stop, Marcus!” he called out.
He had started to gain on the other man when Marcus rounded the corner of the galleried hallway. With a startled cry, Marcus lost his footing on the rain-slick floor of the corridor. He fell with a crash and slid a few feet before coming up against the railing and halting.
“Marcus, it’s all over,” Matthew panted as he rounded the corner and stopped. He looked down at the man that he had called friend with a shadow of compassion in his eyes.
“Matthew I never meant for it to come to this,” Marcus said shakily, rising to one knee. “It was so damned hard always being compared to you. You understand, don’t you?” He rose with a wince to his feet. “You have always been perfect and had everything and I was always in your shadow.”
Matthew shook his head. “Marcus, that simply isn’t so.”
Marcus’s eyes glittered with suppressed anger and his lip curled into a snarl. “Isn’t it? When we learned to ride, or to shoot you always received all the praise and all the effort of our instructors. When we attended school together, you were assigned to be my tutor when I found a subject too difficult.”
Matthew shook his head. “That isn’t so, Marcus. You never cared much for riding in any case and we were often paired together in school because our teachers thought us to be friends.”
Marcus shut his eyes tightly, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “That is not the worst. The worst was losing the woman I loved to you only to have you ruin her in the eyes of society. If she had truly loved you, Matthew, she would not have acted as she did upon your wedding day. But you had to have her, didn’t you?” His voice was climbing to a shout now. “You had to have her and you had to ruin her so that no one else could have her either!”
Matthew’s eyes had grown wide at Marcus’s words. He had not known that his cousin had held tender feelings for his first fiancée. “Marcus, had I but known! Why did you not say something!”
“Hah!” Marcus barked out, his eyes like flint. “I should have revealed myself to be embarrassingly attached to your fiancée so that you could scorn me? I should have shown myself to be in second place once more, as always?” The pleading note left his voice and he roared, “It wasn’t fair! I was every bit as good as you! Every bit! And it was time that everyone knew it! You would never have been able to thwart me again, Matthew. I would have been just as good as you!” He pounded on the railing as he said each of the last four words of his sentence.
Although neither man knew it, the railing had been rotted through long before Marcus had crashed into it with his fall and his pounding served as its undoing. The sudden loud crack
startled both men, causing Matthew to draw away sharply and Marcus to stumble forward. As the railing took on Marcus’s extra weight, it began to give way and Matthew watched in horror as Marcus toppled forward with nothing to stop him from falling. His arms wind milled for a long moment in a last struggle to defy gravity and then he plunged with a loud scream to the cobbled courtyard below.
Matthew looked down for a moment, his stomach roiling in horror. He finally made himself walk to the edge of the balcony and look down.
His friend’s body lay in a pile of splintered wood on the rain-slick cobbles, limbs turned at impossible angles. Matthew turned away, sick at heart. He ignored the people that were starting to gather in the halls to see what had happened, brushing past them as he made his way back to the room where Tess had shot Dartmoor.
When he entered the room, he found Alex sitting on the bed beside Tess. Forrest was shutting Dartmoor’s eyes. Forrest glanced up when Matthew entered the room. Matthew shook his head slowly and Forrest nodded once in reply before closing his eyes and bowing his head. Matthew looked to his sister next, crossing the room to stand before her. “You are all right?” he asked her, his voice catching on the last word.
She nodded, tears puddling in her eyes. “I am.”
Matthew closed his eyes briefly, then reached out and cupped her cheek with his hand. “Thank God for that at least.” Alex smiled with a gallant effort, then her eyes returned to Tess who was frighteningly still and pale.
“Tess?” Matthew knelt before her, his eyes troubled. “It’s all over now.”
For a long moment he thought that she would not answer him, then she said in a trembling voice, “Is it really? I think that it may never be over.”
Matthew shook his head gently. “No. It’s over now. Your brother will never hurt you again. No one will ever hurt any of us again.”
Her lower lip trembled and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I never wanted to be an avenging angel,” she said chokingly before falling into his arms.
“None of us did, love,” Matthew whispered into her hair, holding her as tightly as he could without hurting her. “None of us did. But sometimes someone must be.”
Alex met his eyes over Tess’s shaking shoulders and she nodded at him with a weary smile. She rose to her feet, looking a bit lost. She rested a hand on Matthew’s shoulder for a moment, then stumbled a few steps to fall into Forrest’s eager embrace. Matthew spared them a momentary smile before turning back to scrutinize Tess’s face.
“Tess, I think you should rest, love.” He reached up to brush some loose hair out of her eyes but she barely stirred in response to his touch. He looked at her a moment longer, then sighed and pulled her into his arms. “I’m going to put her to bed. We all need some rest I think.” He rose lithely to his feet, arranging Tess’s slender form carefully in his arms before leaving the room.
The innkeeper was hovering in the hall, his expression hovering between anger and fear. “Your Grace, I really must know what to do about all this,” the man said, darting a glance at the broken railing.
Matthew sighed. “I shall take care of all of it. However, I must first settle Miss Dartmoor someplace safe where she can rest.”
The innkeeper looked like he wanted to protest, but one quelling look from Matthew convinced him to send one of his underlings to freshen a room. Matthew stumbled along behind the servant, so tired that he felt numb and a bit dislocated from his body.
“Will you be wanting anything else, Your Grace?” the servant inquired after he had opened the door to a new room.
“Nothing for now,” Matthew replied tersely, crossing the narrow room to lay Tess’s huddled form gently on the bed. He thought for a moment that she was already asleep, but then she rolled abruptly away from him to curl into a small ball, her eyes squeezed shut. “Sleep a bit now, love,” Matthew told her, stroking her hair. She didn’t react at all, just lay still with tears seeping from her eyes. Heaving a sigh, Matthew turned away to find the innkeeper and deal with the wreckage of the night.
Forty
T
he dawn was breaking as Matthew left the innkeeper. The doctor had been sent for and Forrest had helped Rob to a room where his ankle could be looked at. Alex and Tess had were settled in separate rooms to recover somewhat. Matthew intended that they should all stay long enough to get some sleep before they returned home. As he crossed the courtyard, he glanced at Marcus’s body which had been covered with a blanket until enough men could be gathered to remove it from the courtyard and carry it up to the room where Dartmoor lay. Matthew closed his eyes as a wave of regret washed over him. He hoped that in time he would be able to reconcile the man who had kidnaped Alex with the smiling boy he had grown up with.
He made his way to the room that he had taken Tess to earlier and stood for a long moment, unsure of whether or not to enter it. Finally he rapped lightly on the door and waited with one hand on the doorjamb to support himself.
Tess heard the knock as if from a very great distance. She felt wrung out and incapable of any emotion. She wondered if she would ever feel anything again. She rose in a stupor and walked to the door. She sighed and opened it listlessly, not really caring who was in the hall.
Matthew stared down at her wide eyes and pale face for a long moment in which he did not know quite what to do. He knew that she was tired, but he recognized that she was suffering from shock as well.
“Might I come in?” he suggested gently. She stared at him for a moment, then nodded dully. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him before turning to look at her again. He wished that she would cry again. “Do you want to talk?” he ventured, fighting off the exhaustion fogging his brain.
She drew a deep breath, then turned away from him to perch on the edge of the bed. “About what?” she asked in a flat voice. “He is dead and I killed him. What is there to discuss?”
Matthew was frightened by her lack of emotion and he crossed the room to sit on the bed beside her. He reached up to touch her face, but she drew sharply away from as if he would hurt her. Regretfully, he closed his hand and dropped it into his lap. “It is not that simple,” he told her. “It never is.”
She closed her eyes. “I suppose that is the truth.”
“So talk to me,” Matthew invited, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He felt an immense relief when she did not jerk away from his touch.
She held silent for a short span, as if gathering her strength, then, “I know that he was evil and that he should not have been allowed to kill Forrest or Alex.” She heaved a sigh and covered her eyes with her hands. Suddenly, she reared back to stare at him with furious eyes that were aglow with unshed tears. “I know all of that, but dammit, Matthew, it was not all his fault!”
Matthew drew her firmly into his arms, attempting to soothe the tension and the sadness from her by stroking her hair. “Shush now, love. Do not flay yourself so.”
Fresh tears slipped down her cheeks, pooling in the corners of her lush mouth and wetting Matthew’s shirt. “My father was a corrosive as a poison. Everything he touched turned to dust in one way or another. My brother was no different.” Her voice caught on a sob before she managed to choke out, “I am no different.”
“You were raised by the same man and you did not turn to dust,” he reminded her. “You are perfect in almost every way. I will not allow you to believe otherwise.”
Her voice caught on another sob. “If killing one’s brother in cold blood does not make one dust, then I do not know what else would,” she managed to say.
“Only if you had stood by and allowed Forrest to be killed would you be dust, love,” he argued as she sobbed noisily. “You did what you had to do and it was the right thing.”
“Then why does it feel so wrong?” she cried, a fresh spate of sobs racking her slender frame.
Matthew closed his eyes. “No one who loves their own life can bear the thought of taking away another person’s, Tess. The memories will fade and with them th
e pain and then you will see that I am right.”
“I hope so,” she sniffled, wrapping her arms around him as if she thought that he would disappear if she did not hold on to him tightly.
Matthew allowed her to cry for a few more minutes, then he set her away from him gently. “I must ask you something. Can you stop crying long enough to hear what I have to say to you?”
“I...I think so,” she sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
He smiled fondly at her. “That’s good enough,” he assured her. “I know that I have already done this once and I had a proper speech prepared the first time which is not the case now. However, I must have your answer. I am afraid that you will slip away from me again somehow.” He reached up to cup the side of her face with his hand. “I love you, Tess. I would have us spend the rest of our lives together. Will you marry me?”
She sniffed again, and bestowed a watery smile upon him. “You know I will, Matthew.”
He smiled. “Thank you, love,” he whispered. “The ring is at home I am afraid, but mayhap this will do,” he said, then raised her left hand and kissed her ring finger.
“If only I could wear the kiss always in place of the ring,” she murmured, kissing him softly in return.
∞∞∞
Forrest stayed with Rob after the doctor left to be certain that his friend was comfortable, then he rose and left his friend to sleep. He went to his room, his mind numb with exhaustion. His body seemed determined to remind him that he had been injured recently. He hoped that he would feel better after a few hours sleep. He pushed the door open to his room and stumbled inside. He shrugged out of his coat and decided that he was too tired to remove the rest of his clothes.
He turned toward the bed, then came to an abrupt halt. He chuckled under his breath at the sight of Alex curled up beneath the sheets of his bed. She awoke at the sound of his soft laugh and smiled dreamily at him.