One Perfect Rose

by Mary Jo Putney

  Tiredly he turned his horse into the Three Crowns. Feeling a little guilty at how he was pushing a man who had not been hardened by years of campaigning, Michael said to his companion, “I’ll take the horses back. You go and order us something to eat.”

  Blackmer nodded gratefully, then dismounted and went inside. Michael led the horses into the stables. An ostler with a clay pipe was at work cleaning a harness.

  Michael was about to speak when the man glanced up, then smiled. “Good to see you again, sir. ’Tis a terrible day for travel and no mistake.”

  Michael became alert “You’ve the wrong man. I’ve never been here before, but has someone who resembles me?”

  The ostler squinted for a closer look, then made an apologetic gesture with his pipe. “Oh, yes indeed. You and your horse are very like a guest we had a few weeks back.”

  “Actually, I’m trying to locate my brother, who was riding a horse sired by the same stallion as this one.”

  The ostler gave a satisfied nod of his head. “Ah, so you’re another Mr. Ashe. That would explain it, for ’tis too strong a likeness to be chance. Will you be leaving your horses here for the night, sir?”

  Mr. Ashe? Stephen must be traveling incognito; it wasn’t likely that there were two men with Michael’s face and a similar horse roaming the Midlands.

  “My companion and I are stopping only to dine. I’d be grateful if you’ll take care of the beasts for an hour or so.” Michael took off his hat and ran a weary hand through his damp hair. “Do you happen to know where my brother was going from here?”

  The ostler frowned with concentration. “I believe the Fitzgerald Theater Troupe was heading toward Whitcombe next.”

  Michael’s brows drew together. “Theater troupe?”

  “Aye, your brother went off with ’em,” the ostler explained. “Saved Fitzgerald’s young son from drowning and got injured in the process. Quite the hero he was.”

  “Injured?” Michael asked swiftly.

  “Not badly,” the ostler assured him. “Mr. Ashe seemed in fine fettle by the time he left here. In fact, they say he acted in one of the plays.” The ostler winked. “Myself, I think he went with the troupe because of the actresses. Fitzgerald has several very pretty fillies, and—well, actresses, you know.”

  Michael listened with a combination of shock and hope. Would Stephen have really gone onstage with a company of strolling players? Granted, he’d always enjoyed the theater and had acted quite capably in amateur productions with friends, but that was a very different matter. And would he have a fling with a common actress? He’d always been a sober sort. But then, who the devil knew what a man would do when told his days were numbered? Stephen was no longer married, so there was no good reason not to indulge himself with a bit of muslin if he chose.

  If he was with this theater troupe, it should be easy to find him because actors must travel slowly, and they would leave a clear trail. Feeling elated, Michael thanked the ostler and went into the inn. Over a dinner of beef and boiled potatoes, he relayed what he’d heard. Blackmer seemed equally surprised to hear that the duke may have taken to the boards, but characteristically he didn’t comment. Instead, he silently got to his feet when the meal was done and prepared to continue on to Whitcombe.

  Outside, the temporary lull in the rain had been followed by ominous looking thunderclouds. As the two men stepped into the courtyard, there was a flash of lightning, quickly followed by a long, rumbling thunder roll. Rain began to fall hard.

  As more lightning flared across the sky, Blackmer said in a neutral voice, “Not the best travel conditions.”

  It was the closest the physician had come to asking for respite. Michael hesitated. The fact that he was an old campaigner didn’t mean he enjoyed being wet and cold and exhausted. Still, the new information from the ostler made him eager to press on. “Thunderstorms usually blow over quickly. We should be able to reach Whitcombe before dark.”

  Blackmer sighed faintly but did not protest.

  They were just outside the stables when an immense bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, filling the courtyard with searing blue-white light. The booming thunder-clap was instantaneous.

  Michael ducked reflexively, as if he were caught in a French artillery barrage. As he straightened, a long, echoing crash reverberated through the rain-filled air.

  “Good God, what was that?” Blackmer exclaimed.

  Michael swung around, trying to locate the source of the crash. “At a guess, that lightning bolt brought a tree down.”

  A woman’s piercing scream issued from nearby. Recognizing the sound of disaster, Michael pivoted, then ran across the courtyard and into the street. The cause of both crash and scream was instantly visible. A huge elm had been shattered by the lightning and crashed onto the cottage of the pretty dark-haired woman who had retrieved her small child from the road earlier. The timber-framed house was made of the woven lath and clay material called wattle and daub, and the elm had crushed it like an eggshell.

  Grimly Michael went to investigate. Smoke curled from the blackened wood of the elm, but at least the heavy rain was preventing a fire. When he reached the house, he found the dark-haired woman clawing at the wreckage.

  “Are you hurt?” Michael yelled over the sound of rain and storm.

  She swung around, water streaming down her face and her eyes glazed with shock. “I…I came outside to pick herbs for supper and wasn’t touched, b-but my husband and little girl are in there, in the back.” She caught Michael’s arm with trembling hands. “Please, help them!”

  His mouth tightened when he looked at the devastation. The chances were that anyone in the building was dead or severely injured.

  Blackmer arrived on the scene, panting from the run. “There are people in there?”

  “This woman’s husband and child.” Michael surveyed the crushed house with the experienced eyes of a mine owner. Clumsy rescue work could shift the cracked timbers and crumbling walls, dooming anyone inside who might still be alive. But at least this rescue was not taking place five hundred feet below the surface, as when his Welsh coal mine had exploded. “The best bet is to lift the tree straight upward to minimize further damage.”

  By this time a dozen neighbors had arrived. One of them cried, “Dear God, look at the Wyman house!” Another, probably the woman’s brother, based on the similarity of their features, gasped, “Emma, are Jack and Lissie inside?”

  When Emma nodded, shaking, he enfolded her in his arms, his face ashen.

  Michael had long since learned that it was better to concentrate on what needed to be done than to worry uselessly about the injured. Since no one else was taking charge, he began rattling off orders. Once an officer, always an officer, he thought dryly as he sent men running for lumber, block and tackle, and a team of oxen.

  Then a child’s cry came from the wreckage. Emma broke away from her brother and ran closer. “Lissie! Are you all right?”

  The child wailed, “Yes, b-but Papa’s bleeding, and I can’t wake him up.”

  Michael scanned the wreckage. The little girl was only a few feet away, apparently on the other side of what had been the wall of the kitchen. Perhaps it would be possible to free her before the tree was removed. He gripped a slab of wattle and daub and tried to shift it, working carefully so as not to precipitate a collapse.

  Blackmer took hold of the other end of the slab. It always surprised Michael when he noticed that he and the physician were the same size; the other man’s self-effacing personality made him seem smaller. Between them, they were able to move the crumbling material safely. A dark, irregular hole was revealed at ground level.

  Lissie called out excitedly, “I see light, Mama!”

  Emma wiped the rain from her tense face. “Can you crawl toward the light and come outside, sweeting?” she said with forced calm.

  There was a pause. Then Lissie quavered, “I can’t get there from here, Mama. Papa and pieces of house are in the way.”

&n
bsp; Blackmer examined the hole. “I’ll try to crawl in from this side. If Wyman is between here and the child, maybe I can help him.”

  “You can’t do that,” Michael said immediately.

  Blackmer looked at him with contempt. “If you’re in such a rush, go on to Whitcombe alone. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

  Usually the physician’s expression was an impervious mask, so Michael was startled to see a complex blend of emotions visible in the gray-green eyes. Resentment, certainly, and irritation.

  Irritated himself, Michael snapped, “Don’t be a damned fool. I’m concerned because of the danger. The rest of the house could come down at any time.”

  “I’m a doctor. I must try to help.” Blackmer lay down on the muddy ground and began inching into the hole while the onlookers held their breath. Michael tensed when there was a rattle inside the wreckage, but it stopped quickly.

  After a long two minutes, Blackmer called, “Wyman is alive. His heart is strong, but he’s unconscious and bleeding from a torn artery.”

  Emma said reverently, “God be thanked!”

  Knowing enough of wounds to understand the danger, Michael said, “Can you stop the bleeding with a tourniquet?”

  “No—there’s a blasted beam in the way,” the physician growled. “I can hold the wound for now, but get that damned tree out of here quickly.”

  The equipment had arrived, so Michael supervised the attachment of block and tackle. When they were ready to begin, he called, “Blackmer, we’re ready to lift. Better come out now.”

  “Can’t,” the physician said tersely. “Wyman’s lost quite enough blood.”

  An older man said urgently, “But the doctor will die if the walls collapse!”

  “He knows that.” Michael grimly gave the signal to begin.

  With a creaking of harness, the oxen began to move. The ropes squealed with protest at the weight. Michael held his breath as they stretched. If they broke, a slower, more dangerous rescue method would have to be attempted—assuming that a failure didn’t kill all three people within the structure.

  Cheers went up as the massive elm slowly rose from the ruined cottage. There was a rattle of shifting debris, but no major collapse. Eager hands helped swing the shattered tree to one side. Just as the trunk cleared the house, one of the ropes snapped. The other two followed immediately, and the trunk crashed with a force that caused the wet earth to shake. It barely missed an onlooker, but miraculously no one was hurt.

  As Michael had hoped, the removal of the tree revealed a gaping hole in the roof and made it possible to enter the house directly. Working with painstaking care, the rescuers soon reached the little girl. The first was Emma’s brother.

  Lissie cried, “Uncle John!”

  A moment later her uncle emerged from the wreckage with the child clinging to him. Emma swooped Lissie into her arms, holding her daughter as if she would never let go. Tears of thanks mingled with the raindrops on her face.

  Not wasting time on observing the reunion, Michael turned back to the wreckage. Working carefully, he and a burly, taciturn blacksmith were able to clear the way to the injured man. Wyman lay on his back, his shirt saturated with blood. Luckily the beam that had blocked access from the other side had also protected Wyman from more serious injury, except for the long gash in his arm.

  All that was visible of Blackmer were his right wrist and hand where they emerged from a hole in the rubble and clamped around Wyman’s upper arm. Working entirely by touch, the physician had located the wound and stopped the lethal bleeding.

  Michael pulled out his handkerchief and tied it tightly above the wound. “You can get out now, Blackmer. We’ll take him from this side.”

  Michael and the blacksmith lifted the injured man free and passed him to waiting hands outside the wreckage. As soon as Wyman was laid on the ground, Emma dropped to her knees beside him, one arm around her daughter and her other hand clasping her husband’s. “Thank God,” she whispered. “And thank you all.”

  Wearily Michael climbed from the wreckage. The older man who had spoken to him earlier said, “I’m William Johnson, mayor of Redminster. We’re all grateful for what you and your friend have done, especially you being strangers.”

  “I’ve owed my life to strangers,” Michael said with a faint smile, “and I always pay my debts.” Then he circled to the other side of the cottage to see if Blackmer needed help. The rain had stopped and it was nearly dark.

  The physician was backing out of the narrow tunnel. He was almost out when the wreckage began shifting with a horrific groan. Michael grabbed Blackmer around the waist and yanked him clear just as the tunnel collapsed. A fragment of hardened clay struck the physician’s cheek, but he was otherwise unhurt.

  Silently giving thanks that luck had been on their side, Michael helped the other man to his feet. “Wyman looks as if he’ll be all right. How are you?”

  Blackmer wiped at the scratch on his face, smearing blood across his cheek. “Uninjured. I guess divine retribution has other plans for me.”

  As the physician started to turn away, Michael stopped him with a hand on one arm. “That was well done,” he said soberly.

  Blackmer flinched, looking at Michael’s hand as if it were a scorpion before he said in his usual sardonic manner, “Does that mean it’s time to leave for Whitcombe?”

  Michael gave a lopsided smile. “I think we could both use a bath, a couple of glasses of brandy, and a good night’s sleep at the Three Crowns.”

  The physician expelled his breath in a ragged sigh as he let his fatigue show. “An excellent idea.” Then he went to check on Wyman.

  Michael watched him go. He still didn’t understand Blackmer-or particularly like him-but by God, the man had courage.

  Chapter 17

  “Hold still, Rose, or you’ll go to your wedding with half your hair down,” Jessica said in a threatening tone.

  Rosalind obediently settled onto her chair again and locked her hands in her lap. She hadn’t entirely adjusted to the shock of marrying so quickly. She didn’t know quite how he had managed it, but Stephen had procured a special license from London. Since the license specified that the ceremony could be held at any convenient time and place, Maria had suggested that as the weather was good, they could use a pretty woodland glade outside Bury St. James, the troupe’s latest stop.

  It was a crisply sunny autumn day, and in an hour Rosalind would be wed.

  Jessica pinned her sister’s tawny hair into an elaborate chignon, then carefully arranged small bronze chrysanthemums around it. “You look splendid. Can you stay out of trouble while I go and dress myself?”

  “I think I can manage,” Rosalind said with a wry smile. “I’ve been through this before, you know.”

  “Yes—but you didn’t look quite so dazed then,” Jessica said tartly before she left the room. Rosalind leaned back with a sigh, grateful for a few minutes of quiet. The fact that it was a second wedding did not mean that she was free of tension.

  How was this different from her first wedding?

  Then she had been full of dreams and excitement, driven more by youthful passions than love for Charles Jordan. She had been a girl. Now she was a woman, and what she felt for Stephen went far deeper than what she had been capable of feeling before.

  And this time she knew what awaited her in the marriage bed. Her face heated at the thought, but she could not stop from smiling with anticipation. There had been no opportunity to be alone together since that magic hour in the loft. Ridiculous how desperately she wanted Stephen when it had been only four days. Thank heaven that in a few hours they would be together. Legally.

  A knock sounded on the door. Then the voice of her betrothed called, “Will the heavens fall if I come in?”

  Rosalind rose and went to open the door with relief. “Am I glad to see you! We should have run off to Gretna Green. How can one mother and sister create so much chaos in four days?”

  With a laugh, Stephen set a medium
-size wooden box on the table and drew her into his arms. “I’m glad for it. You deserve to have a special day.” He stepped back, letting his hands rest on her shoulders. “You look truly beautiful, Rosalind,” he said quietly. “I’m a lucky, lucky man.”

  The Ophelia gown did look rather nice. Rosalind’s gaze traveled over her intended. He’d procured some new clothing—again, she had no idea how. Though he was a little thin, the excellent tailoring made the most of his tall, broad-shouldered figure. “You look so distinguished that I’m almost afraid to marry you,” she said, only partly joking.

  “There are good reasons not to marry me, but looking too distinguished isn’t one of them.” He hesitated before continuing, “I came to warn you so you won’t be surprised during the ceremony. My family name is actually Kenyon, not Ashe.”

  She blinked. “Why on earth did you use Ashe?”

  He smiled wryly. “You misunderstood what I said when half-conscious. Letting the error stand seemed a convenient way to lose myself for a few days.”

  She could understand that, but she asked warily, “Are you still Stephen? If not, we may have to call this off.”

  “Luckily I was christened Stephen Edward Kenyon.” He leaned forward and kissed her, his lips warm and firm.

  “Mrs. Stephen Kenyon. That will do very nicely.” She relaxed into his embrace with a sigh of pleasure. For today, at least, she would try to suppress the thought of how terribly little time they would have. Nonetheless, it was at the back of her mind. She tightened her arms instinctively.

  He stroked her neck beneath her upswept hair with a delicacy that sent tingles through her whole body. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

  She tilted her head and looked at him through lazy-lidded eyes. “You are full of surprises, Mr. Kenyon. Are you going to reveal that you’re a highwayman escaped from Newgate Prison?”

  He smiled faintly. “Almost as bad.”

  Before he could continue, a squeaky cry came from the box he had brought. Rosalind glanced over and saw that the box had a brass carrying handle and a number of holes drilled through the wood. “What on earth…?”