So Enchanting

by Connie Brockway

  “You misunderstood.”

  Grey slowly released Hayden, but remained nearby. The lad looked on the brink of either crying or committing murder. It was a toss-up as to which one.

  They were never to find out, for at that moment, Amelie burst out onto the terrace, her red hair flying like a banner, gasping for breath, wide-eyed with fear, her dress stained with grass.

  “Bernard McGowan just tried to kill me!”

  Chapter 35

  Amelie whirled around, her gaze searching the frozen faces around her. Why was no one doing anything? Saying anything?

  “Did you not hear me? Bernard McGowan just shot at me! Twice! He could have killed me!”

  “Oh, Amelie,” Fanny whispered.

  No. Oh, no. They knew. Hayden’s face told the tale. She wheeled on Fanny. “You promised you wouldn’t tell them!”

  “She didn’t have to,” Hayden ground out before Fanny could answer, his voice hot with anger. “We overheard you plotting.”

  “Hayden, there was no plot!” She held out her hand to him. He spun away from her. Her panic fell before a new fear. “Hayden? Please. I need you. Bernard McGowan shot at me.”

  He made a sound of disgust, his back to her. She had to make them believe her. “I was by the river, and when I rose, I stumbled as I heard a shot, only I thought it was a breaking branch, and then I heard another shot and saw the muzzle blast and—”

  “Stop, Amelie,” Fanny said. “It won’t work.”

  “But it’s the truth.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “The shots were close together, and I knew it had to be Bernard because—”

  “Don’t!” The word was torn from Hayden.

  She stared at his profile, willing him to look at her, to see that she was telling the truth.

  He wouldn’t. He’d closed his eyes, the sight of her apparently as distasteful as the sound of her voice. “Please don’t. I thought if you had a chance to explain yourself, to tell me the truth, you would take it. But you won’t. You can’t.”

  She bit back a sob. “It is the truth.”

  “McGowan left Little Firkin this morning,” Lord Sheffield said. “I saw him onto the train myself and watched it pull away.”

  She didn’t understand. She couldn’t have been mistaken. “That’s not possible. He’s here, I tell you. He must have gotten off somehow.” She knew she sounded as if she were grasping at straws. She was.

  “Why would Bernard want to hurt you, Amelie?” It was Fanny.

  “I don’t know.”

  Oh, God. Even Fanny didn’t believe her, and if she’d lost Fanny’s trust, then she was truly lost. She had no one and nothing. She’d done this, she thought, looking at the closed, wretched faces surrounding her. She’d done this with her plans and her lies and—

  “It’s over, Amelie,” Fanny said.

  “Unless you’d care to try telling the truth,” Hayden said coldly. And now he did look at her, his eyes hot and his mouth a thin line.

  “That is the truth.”

  “Don’t make this any more painful than it already is,” Fanny whispered.

  “Yes. No.” She turned blindly and stumbled from the room.

  Lord Hayden Collier lay with his arms crossed behind his head, staring at the water stain on the ceiling above his bed. Over the course of the night it had variously taken on the shape of an angel, a demon, and a siren, but eventually every incarnation had evolved into Amelie’s face, wearing the same lost expression she’d worn when she’d fled Quod Lamia’s drawing room yesterday.

  He withdrew his hands from behind his head, clenched his fists, and pounded the mattress on either side. This act, too, had been repeated many times. As had the tossing down of too much whiskey, and staring for long moments at the same page in a book.

  He just had to get through the next few hours. Then dawn would come and he and Grey would leave. The tavern owner, Donnie MacKee, had agreed to transport them the thirty-five miles to Flood-on-Blot, where the train was due to arrive in the afternoon. Grey was certain that for the proper financial consideration the conductor could be convinced to accept two passengers.

  They had spoken little during the course of their dismal, cold supper. Images of Amelie kept appearing in Hayden’s mind. The thought of leaving her, rather than offering the hope of relief from this torment, only made him more miserable. Confused, Hayden had suggested that there was no need for such a hasty departure. He’d explained that he was not so overwrought that he could not bear to spend another day in the same town as Amelie and Mrs. Walcott.

  Grey had given him an unreadable expression and said, “Then you are a stronger man than I. We leave tomorrow.”

  His words had made no sense to Hayden, but nothing would dissuade Grey from his course. Consequently, their bags were duly packed and waiting in the front hall. The Twinningses would clean and close the lodge once they’d left and follow. Soon it would be as if they’d never been here.

  Except for the scars that would never heal.

  Hayden raked his hair back from his forehead. She’d looked so frightened. And she’d kept insisting that Bernard McGowan had shot at her. She must be a damn good actress. But what if she wasn’t? What if she was telling the truth?

  He groaned aloud, common sense warring with his heart and neither willing to cede ground.

  He rolled out of bed. He simply could not leave Little Firkin without talking to her one last time. He didn’t care that it was four o’clock in the morning.

  They’d planned to leave town with MacKee by eight o’clock in order to make it to Flood-on-Blot in time to arrange passage on the mail train. There was no time to waste.

  Hayden arrived at Quod Lamia and tried the front door, remembering how Grey had simply walked in the house yesterday. Today, however, it was locked, so he skirted around to the terrace. There he paused and studied the windows above for any clue as to which one was Amelie’s. All of the bedroom windows on the second floor had been left open, inviting in the unusually warm air. Except for one.

  On a soft spring evening, no one shuttered their bedroom window—unless they were afraid something would come in. Something dangerous. It had to be Amelie’s.

  Hayden scooped up some shards of flagstone from the terrace. Aiming carefully, he threw the small missiles at the shut window and waited. Nothing. He found another handful and repeated the process. Again he waited, and was about to try once more when he heard Amelie.

  “Who’s there?”

  Her voice did not come from behind the closed window, but from the dark rectangle of another window two down.

  “It’s Hayden.”

  A pale face appeared for just an instant in the window and, just as quickly, disappeared.

  “You shouldn’t be out there. It isn’t safe. He might be watching.” Her voice was a light, frantic whisper.

  “I have to talk to you.”

  “Go home. It isn’t safe.”

  “Not until I talk to you,” Hayden replied stubbornly.

  There was a long moment of silence. “Can you climb up onto the balcony? He might be watching the front.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll unlatch the door to the balcony, but for the love of heaven, be careful.”

  He didn’t waste any time in clambering up the thick vines coiling around the columns supporting the balcony and hefting himself over the rail. He had to wait a few moments before he saw her slipping carefully along the drawing room wall. She did not stand in front of the French doors, but to the side, reaching out to unlatch the lock. He stepped inside.

  Her eyes appeared huge in her pale face. Her hair hung in loose waves around her shoulders. She had not dressed for sleep, but still wore the clothing she’d had on that afternoon.

  For a second neither of them moved, and then he was sweeping her into his arms, holding her close, his lips against the silky crown of her head.

  “I’ve been so scared,” she said in a broken voice.

  “Don’t be. I’m here. I’
ll keep you safe.”

  “You think I’m lying.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “Yes. I do.” As soon as he spoke, he realized he did. The battle between heart and mind had been decided, and his heart had won. It didn’t matter what she’d done, of which sins she was guilty, whether her story made sense or was even possible. He believed her because she’d asked him to. He loved her.

  “But I did lie.” She was weeping softly into his shirt, her hands clutched in fists against his chest.

  “I know,” he said. “Mrs. Walcott influenced you.”

  She’d pushed away from his chest and was staring up at him, her brows drawn together in confusion. “Fanny? Fanny didn’t know anything about it.”

  Amelie was solely responsible? How was that possible? She was just a young girl. He looked for some way to shift the blame from his beloved’s delicate shoulders.

  “But the degree of planning, the machination… Surely she somehow inspired you…”

  His suggestion did not have the effect he sought. Amelie drew herself upright, and sparks flashed in her exceedingly gorgeous eyes. “You do not think I am intelligent enough to scheme? That I haven’t the wits necessary to machinate?”

  “No, that’s not it at all. I am sure you are capable of any number of nefarious intrigues. But you aren’t like that.”

  He thought he’d handled that rather well. Amelie apparently didn’t agree.

  “But…I am.”

  At this, Hayden’s mouth fell open, and seeing his flummoxed expression, Amelie’s own grew baffled.

  “Exactly what do you think I intrigued at?” she asked.

  This was rather awkward. The heat rose to his face, and he was glad of the darkness that would hide his blush. “Ah…well, you know. Me.”

  “You?” She sounded stunned.

  “Yes. My title. My inheritance. My…name.”

  A heartbeat. A second while his words penetrated. Then a volatile response. “You think I planned to trap you into marriage?”

  “Trap is such an ugly word.”

  She gasped. “You do!” she thundered accusingly.

  “Hush, hush.” He grabbed her arm, pulling her close. She was adorably angry. “You’ll wake the house.”

  “There is no one to wake. Violet is with Grammy. Ploddy is probably still sleeping it off in the carriage house, Miss Oglethorpe went to her brother, and Fanny’s room is on the other side of the house, and you”—she finally paused for breath—“you must be one of the most vain men in the world!”

  Despite her anger, she did not make any attempt to move away from Hayden. He decided to take this as a good sign as well as to take whatever umbrage she wanted to visit on his head. Apparently, he—persuaded by Grey, he thought darkly—had gotten it all wrong. He was delighted.

  “At least, I hope you are, because if you are an example of the young men the world has to offer, I may not want to leave Little Firkin after all. And that, by the way, is the reason I wrote your father and pretended to be threatened: to escape from Little Firkin. Not to marry you.” She looked at him with a touch of disgust. “The idea! I didn’t even know you.”

  “Well, we did think your original plan was only to escape here, but when that did not work and you met me, you went to an alternative plan.”

  “Because you are so irresistible?” Amelie said, her eyes blazing with indignation.

  “Not at all. Because if I proposed, you would leave here with me.”

  Her face twisted as though she’d tasted something sour and hadn’t decided whether to spit it out or not. Then the tension eased a bit from her shoulders and she sniffed. “Oh.”

  He released a thin, inaudible sigh of relief. “It was a frightfully clever plan.”

  “It was,” she said, cheering up. “The idea came to me soon after Fan and I became so sick and shortly after I fell into the river. Fan said that if anything more happened, she’d begin to suspect we were being targeted.”

  “Very clever,” Hayden repeated admiringly.

  “It was.” Her smile faded. “Except I didn’t think I would have to lie to you. I only wanted to leave here while I was still young.”

  “I understand.”

  “But then things started to go wrong. Instead of summoning us, your father sent Lord Sheffield here. And no one but Fanny seemed to take the threat seriously, and then Lord Sheffield decided to leave.” Her head bowed. “I couldn’t bear the thought that you would forget about me. So I fired my father’s gun out the window and screamed.”

  “I could never forget about you,” he averred. “I love you.”

  Her head shot up. “And I love you! I should have trusted our love, just like Fanny told me to.”

  “Fanny?”

  “She tumbled to the plan after I fired my father’s pistol. She smelled the gunpowder on me. She was so upset! But I made her promise not to tell you anyway.

  “I was so miserable, Hayden. I went down to the river to throw the pistol away, but I couldn’t stop crying and thinking that Fanny was right, and that if I loved you, I would trust you with the truth, and if you loved me, you would forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Hayden replied staunchly. “You are a creative, resourceful, and imaginative young woman who found herself in an unbearable situation and had the wherewithal and courage to do something about it,” he said, and he meant it. By God, she would be the making of him.

  He fell to his knees before her, startling her. “You must marry me. You have to marry me. My life will be meaningless if you are not by my side.”

  She gazed at him shyly, a dimple appearing in her cheek. “Of course I’ll marry you. I was only waiting for you to ask.”

  “I wanted to do it all properly, and ask my father’s permission first.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s how it’s done.”

  She laughed, a sweet, soft sound. “Oh, Hayden, I am afraid I have a lot to learn about how things are done. Just look at the mess I’ve made of our courtship! I manipulated, lied, staged an attempt…” Her voice petered out.

  “What?”

  “I was not lying about Bernard McGowan. He tried to kill me.”

  She held his gaze somberly, and his own did not waver. “Why do you think McGowan shot at you?”

  She nodded, appreciating the question. “I heard gunfire almost every day for the first ten years of my life. I know the sound of the different firearms: the pop of a pistol, the crack of a rifle, the sound of a carbine. I know how quickly various firearms can be reloaded.

  “The man firing at me shot twice in a matter of seconds from a rifle. Only a bolt-action rifle can fire that quickly, and that is a military-issued weapon. Almost all the rifles in Little Firkin are single-shot breechloaders passed down from father to son. I doubt there’s a bolt-action in town.

  “And one more thing,” she said quietly. “Bolt-action rifles are used primarily by sharpshooters. Bernard was a sharpshooter in India, and he has such a rifle. Both Fanny and I have seen it.”

  Gads. What a woman! “You pack. We have to get you out of here. Then we’ll rouse Grey and send for the constabulary and—”

  “Lord Sheffield won’t take me with you. Don’t you see? He won’t believe me. He’ll think it’s another ploy. He has no reason to trust me, and he’ll think I have simply…beguiled you.”

  She had a point. “Not if you tell him about the rifle.”

  “Why would he believe that? I could have just as easily made that up, too.” She gazed at him sadly. “No, I’m afraid my lies have caused me to forfeit the right to Lord Sheffield’s aid, unless I can prove to him Bernard’s involvement.”

  “What of Mrs. Walcott? Surely she will believe you?”

  “She might eventually. But she is hurt right now. You should see her, Hayden. Her eyes are empty, her face devoid of all animation.” The state of her companion obviously deeply affected her. “I tried to talk to her earlier, but she would n
ot come out of her room. She only responded, ‘Not now, Amelie. I am not angry, but not now.’

  “Besides,” she added, “Fanny can’t decide that I should go. As my guardian’s representative, only Lord Sheffield has the authority to do that.”

  “Then I’ll have to find some evidence to persuade him to take you with us,” Hayden said with determination.

  “But how?”

  “I’ll have to go to McGowan’s house. If he’s fabricated having gone away, he wouldn’t risk staying there and being seen. But he might have left some evidence behind. Some explanation might present itself as to why he wants you…”

  “Dead.”

  “Dead,” Hayden repeated soberly.

  She nodded. “Let’s go.”

  He took a deep breath. He’d expected this. “You aren’t coming along with me. You’ll wait here.”

  “No, I won’t,” she said.

  “It’s ridiculous for you even to think of coming,” he returned, growing a bit vexed.

  “It’s ridiculous,” she replied carefully, “for you even to think of going without me. Have you forgotten Caesar and Brutus?”

  In point of fact, Hayden had forgotten about the enormous, monstrous dogs. “Oh.”

  “Exactly. You need me. Caesar and Brutus won’t hurt me.”

  “There’s a great big difference between a mangy cat and two slavering, vicious dogs,” Hayden protested.

  She met his eye, absolutely certain of herself. “Hayden. You saw me with the carriage house tom. You saw the ravens in town. Our own horses were deemed unbreakable before Fanny brought them to Quod Lamia. Believe in me, Hayden. Trust me.”

  He already had, with his heart.

  Chapter 36

  Dawn was a pale thread on the horizon when they arrived at Bernard’s house. As Hayden had anticipated—he really was a genius—it stood dark and seemingly empty. But someone would eventually be by to feed Caesar and Brutus, if not Grammy Beadle, who had an unaccountable—and unrequited—fondness for the dogs, then someone else. They would have to work quickly.