One certainly hoped heaven looked better than Cross’s manor, filled with decadent orgy participants.
She tried to roll over and discovered that she’d been cut in half. Well, not precisely, but it certainly felt like it. She pushed back to covers to see her waist where the comte had stabbed her was now neatly bandaged. However, that previous mysterious lack of pain was definitely gone. She felt as if she’d been torn apart and sewn back together by clumsy blacksmiths.
It certainly seemed like she was going to live after all.
The door opened, admitting Garrett with a tray. He brightened to see her awake. “How lovely. Now I needn’t pour soup into your open mouth. It was becoming tedious.”
“I’m glad I can oblige,” Alicia said tartly, before she saw the sheen of unshed tears in Garrett’s eyes. She put her hand over his on the tray. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
He shrugged off her hand with a small smile. “Oh, I’ve had a bit of help. I must say, I’ve never kept such high company. You don’t count, being notorious and all.” He leaned close with a conspiratorial grin. “I made the Sirens do all the unpleasant things.”
The door opened again to let Willa and Olivia in. They looked radiant as usual. Alicia wondered how horridly her own looks were was doing.
“Oh, wonderful! You’re awake!”
Alicia smiled. “So I’m told.” She held out her hands and each woman took one. They sat on either side of the mattress, making Alicia feel as though she truly belonged there.
Then she remembered, sitting up straight. “Forsythe! Oh . . . ow.” The pain took her breath away and she sagged back against the pillows.
Willa smiled. “Don’t worry, we found him straightaway. It was easy once someone spotted the trail of your blood.”
Olivia grimaced. “Don’t talk about blood. Please.”
Willa shook her head at her friend. “Well, it’s her blood. Why don’t you let her decide if we can talk about it?”
Alicia laughed, then gasped slightly. “Oh . . . ow. Please, don’t make me laugh.”
Olivia sent Willa a superior look. “I won’t make you laugh.”
Alicia laughed again. “Oh, bother. This is going to be difficult.”
Willa nodded. “The Chimera really injured you. The surgeon said that if you had walked much farther, you wouldn’t have had enough blood in you to survive.”
Alicia looked down. “I killed him.”
“Of course, you did,” Olivia said stoutly. “He deserved it!”
Willa seemed to understand. “But Alicia didn’t deserve to be the one who had to do it.”
Alicia shrugged. “Why not me? I am not so special that I should never be asked to do anything difficult.” She bit her lip. “Julia knows, I suppose.”
Olivia nodded. “She does. She will come soon and you two can talk about it. Don’t worry, Alicia. She isn’t going to be angry that you killed her father.”
Willa shook her head. “Unless it’s that you did it before she managed to.”
Alicia looked up, horrified. “Oh, no. I would rather it be me than Julia be forced to take her own father’s life! Think of the pain and confusion that would cause her!”
“Well, thank you, then,” came Julia’s voice from the doorway. She came forward. Olivia stepped aside so that she could take Alicia’s hand. Willa stepped away as well.
Alicia took a breath. “I’m sorry I killed your father.”
Julia nodded. “I know, and I’m glad that you’re sorry. It means that you have a heart. Killing shouldn’t be easy. I am mostly sorry, however, that he was my father, so I forgive you readily. Of course, you saved Marcus, so I’d forgive you anything.” She took a breath. “Do you forgive me for not believing you?”
Alicia shook her head. “It never crossed my mind not to. You must be very careful who you trust, in your position— and in Wyndham’s.” She looked away, then gazed down at her hands, then looked up to meet Julia’s gaze. “Is Wyndham coming to see me?”
Julia glanced at Willa, who shook her head. “He isn’t here. He took the Chimera’s body back to London. There are many men who will not believe in that monster’s death until they’ve seen it with their own eyes. He was a bad fellow and he hurt many of our people.”
Alicia hid her disappointment, although not very well judging by the sympathetic expressions on her friends’ faces. “He has important work. I know that.” She sighed, then smiled. “So, do I win?”
Julia looked confused, but Olivia grinned. “Well, I was shot and left to die . . .”
Willa tapped her chin. “I was hunted . . .”
Julia slid a sardonic glance at her friends. “I was throttled . . .”
Olivia tilted her head. “But only Alicia came out better than the Chimera, so I say she wins.”
Alicia smiled, but it wasn’t her side that kept her from laughing.
Stanton hadn’t come to say goodbye.
The next time Alicia awoke, the room was dark but for the glow of the coals in the hearth. She stretched experimentally, halting with a hiss when she felt her wound pull.
“You’re awake.”
The deep voice came from the chair facing the fire. Wyndham stood and came to sit on the edge of the bed. He looked wonderful, but tired and oddly ill at ease.
Her throat tightened at the look in his eyes. Something unpleasant was in the offing, she could feel it. “Are you unwell? Did you suffer any more ill effects from your opium poisoning?”
He clenched his jaw. “No, I am quite well now.”
What was wrong with him? Alicia was becoming more and more alarmed. “Is it one of the other gentlemen? Is everyone well? Is it Mr. Forsythe? I thought he might recover from broken legs, but he is so old—”
He shook his head. “Everyone is quite well. You saved us all most thoroughly.”
Then what was so horrible that he couldn’t bear to speak of it? “Did something happen in London?”
“My journey to London was uneventful. The comte’s body made a gratifying display for some of our more bloodthirsty associates.” A thin smile crossed his lips. “The Prime Minister thought that leaving the knife in his heart for eternity was most appropriate.”
Alicia looked down at her hands. “Your villain was an excellent teacher.”
She looked up to see him gazing at her at last. “Yes,” he said. “We all learned a great deal from him.”
She took a breath. “Wyndham, if you don’t tell me why you look so grim and unpleasant, I am going to lock you back in that castle.”
He smiled thinly. “I am not grim.”
She sighed. “You look like you’ve come to tell me you have an incurable disease and only three months to live.”
“Actually, I came to ask you to marry me.”
She drew back, alarmed. He couldn’t mean it, not with that look of bleak determination on his face.
Was this because she had saved his life and he felt obligated? Well, she would rescue them both from his twisted concept of nobility.
“No!”
35
Stanton felt his chilled gut grow colder. He had thought about making a pretty speech, but why concoct a grand passion when cool thinking would do? “I do not understand your objection. I owe you a great deal. Wedding me would make your previous reputation very nearly disappear. Your family would benefit greatly by the connection and . . . we already know we are compatible in the bedchamber.”
She was gazing at him as if he was proposing to dice up baby lizards and feed them to her. He leaned forward. He must make her see this was necessary.
“I honestly believe you would benefit from some stability and respectability, Alicia. You are too wild, too inclined to take on Society’s disapproval and grind it under your heel. I could help you with that.”
She let out a small bark of horrified laughter. “I’m sure you could.”
She took a deep breath and gazed at him with something altogether new in her eyes—something that warmed him and hurt h
im at once. “Stanton, I love you. It astounds me how much I love you.” She watched him for a long moment. He held her gaze, but he would not be making the response she awaited. His feelings had interfered with this entire matter from the first moment he’d met her. She’d nearly died because he’d been too absorbed with feelings to think logically about any of it. His dependence on his mysterious sense and his dismay at being without it had prevented him from thinking at all, it seemed.
She sighed. “All I have ever wanted is to laugh and live, to be allowed to be myself. So to be Lady Wyndham—to be expected to be your marchioness, to feel watched over and disapproved of, to spend the rest of my life stepping softly, fighting my own nature, tiptoeing through the rest of my days listening for endless, unanswerable, relentless disapproval— no, that I could not bear.”
She leaned forward, disregarding her pain.
“One of us will always be wrong—don’t you see that? And I fear that I am only too likely to believe it is me. Either you would destroy me or I would destroy myself for you.”
“Every marriage must make compromises.” Stanton would not—could not—relent. She must wed him. It would solve everything.
“Compromises. What a benign word for such devastation. And what will you compromise, Wyndham? Will you give up the wall around your heart for me?”
She dared too far. “My heart has nothing to do with you.”
She jerked back as if struck. Then her lips thinned and her cheeks flared in her ashen face. “Then I release you from any further obligation to me. We made our deal and I caught your traitor. We need have nothing more to do with each other. Please leave.”
“Alicia, I’m trying to make things right.” Cool control slipped away from him. “You are the most bloody-minded, uncompromising—”
She whirled on him. “Why shouldn’t I be? What has compromising ever brought me but misery? When my parents lied about my inheritance and pressed me to let Almont—”
She halted breathlessly, her expression closing as he watched.
Stanton went cold, thinking back to his first encounter with Lord and Lady Sutherland. “They made you do it—and then they threw you out.”
She looked away, but her lip curled slightly. “Almont was too clever to be caught, you see. When I confessed my lack of inheritance, just afterward—he kissed me, told me it didn’t matter and to go to sleep. When I awoke, he’d arranged it so that no one would ever believe a word I might say.”
Almont had used her and disposed of her. As had her parents. There was a great deal of that going about. The world had refused to believe her. That seemed to be contagious as well.
Stanton was experiencing a taste of that frustration now.
She turned away and pulled the covers high.
He growled. “Alicia—”
“I believe my lady told you to leave.”
Stanton looked up to see Garrett in the doorway with one of his eternal trays of tea in his hands and danger in his blue eyes. Garrett might be a bit of a Nancy, but Stanton had no doubt the lady’s maid would fight to the death to keep Alicia safe.
It only bothered him that he might be considered a threat.
He stood and walked to the door. Garrett moved aside but seemed perfectly ready to defend his lady with nothing more than hot tea and biscuit missiles.
“Garrett, speak to her. Make her see reason—”
The door slammed on his words—not that he knew what to say to her. What did she expect, that he would tell her all his secrets in pretty poetry and open his heart for her perusal?
He had proposed a perfectly logical plan that would guarantee the two of them some measure of future satisfaction.
What was so wrong with that?
A bit like a horse-trade, wouldn’t you say?
He ran both hands over his face, trying to scrub away the madness that always threatened in the presence of Alicia’s particular brand of logic. She was being unreasonable and unrealistic. All he asked was that she rein in her outrageous nature—and add a few inches to the bodices of her gowns— and perhaps do something a bit more elegant and restrained with her hair—
The woman he pictured in his mind was lovely and elegant, demure and very nearly of royal demeanor.
She also bore no resemblance to Lady Alicia Lawrence. He didn’t like her at all.
Well, hell.
36
The Prince Regent offered Alicia a ride back to London in his carriage. She accepted because Forsythe would be joining them and because the springs on the Royal Conveyance might be good enough that the journey wouldn’t be too agonizing in her wounded state.
Unfortunately, Mr. Forsythe fell into a laudenum-induced sleep shortly after leaving Cross’s estate, leaving Alicia uncomfortably alone with the royal cheek she had slapped in front of a hundred spectators.
Fortunately, George had an answer for everything. “I, of course, will claim very loudly and repeatedly that nothing happened between you and I on the journey—which will ensure that everyone thinks otherwise, making your reputation and salvaging mine, thank you.” He rubbed his face ruefully. “I think being slapped by a furious lover makes for better gossip than ‘Don’t be such an infant,’ don’t you?”
Alicia leaned carefully back onto the plush, soft cushions and closed her eyes. “Again, your highness, my deepest apologies—”
George shrugged. “You saved my best and most honest subjects. I cannot complain. You might have pulled your strike a bit, but such force was understandable in the heat of the moment.”
“I am so sorry, your highness.” Alicia could tell she was going to be saying it a great deal over the next several hours.
“You must stay with me at Carlton House,” George said. “I shall throw a reception for you that will forever cement your place in Society. When people speak of Lady Alicia Lawrence in the future, it will be to wonder if they’ve earned an invitation into your inner circle of friends.”
Alicia shook her head. “Really, your highness, that isn’t necessary.”
George opened his hands expansively. “But of course it is! Think of your dear sisters, my lady. If you are a reigning queen of Society, who would dare malign your lovely sisters?” He patted his chin thoughtfully. “Lady Alberta is rather nice, isn’t she? Do you think—?” He caught the expression on her face. His hand went tenderly to his own left cheek. “Ah, perhaps not.”
He recovered quickly, however. “Perhaps I should give you a medal, but how to honor you when the deed is a secret of national security? The Chimera’s death will get back to Napoleon eventually, but we would like him to believe we had time to squeeze a few secrets from the bastard.”
Alicia clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no.” She put her hand down but her eyes spoke volumes. “I should have—I shouldn’t have killed him! I should have realized that you would have questions for him—oh, dear—”
He stared at her quizzically. “Lady Alicia, are you apologizing for not dragging back a living spy—the most dangerous and deadly spy in the history of England, mind you—to deposit at my feet the way a hardworking tabby cat might bring me a mouse?”
She frowned. “Er—yes?” She wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound quite right, does it?”
George’s laughter threatened to wake Forsythe. Alicia smiled, but inside she only wished that the journey was over. The sooner she could pack up Millie and Garrett and leave London, the sooner she could be sure she would never see Stanton again.
Carlton House was lovely of course, being the royal residence, and George’s staff was impeccably kind and attentive. Garrett was in heaven and Millie, who George had already transported back for Alicia, was in ecstasy. Alicia was served, pampered and visited by George’s own personal physician.
A letter arrived from Alberta announcing her grand passion for Lord Farrington and her upcoming marriage to him. Antonia wrote as well, a stiff but pleasant letter that contained neither blame nor apology. Their parents were well, Father would soon be h
itting Farrington up for a loan, etc.
All was well. Her wound was healing beautifully. Everything that had gone wrong five years ago was being made right. Alicia ought to have been happy.
Unfortunately, her heart seemed to have been left in Sussex, for she surely could feel no sign of it now. She went through the next few days in a numbed state of obedient indifference. On the night of George’s party for her, Alicia allowed Garrett to dress her and let him and Millie argue for ten minutes on the best way to do her hair before she thought to intervene.
She walked into the party feeling as if she were watching from a distance. George and his current mistress, a large, bosomy woman who welcomed Alicia with a large, bosomy hug, sat her between them at dinner. Alicia was distantly conscious of the honor and behaved herself beautifully—for what did it matter if the gentleman across from her was an idiot, or that his companion was catty and unkind? Alicia simply had no claws left in her spirit nor interest left in her heart. She smiled, she nodded, she made perfectly pointless conversation.
Such irony, that when she had left Stanton behind, she had become the perfect doll-like Marchioness after all.
After the meal was served, the Prince Regent cleared his throat.
“I have in my possession a letter, written by a gentleman to the lady of his heart. He has asked me to read it to her, in public, so that all might know how he cares for her.”
“To Lady Alicia—”
Alicia blinked. Oh, no. It wasn’t one of those fawning swains from Cross’s party, was it? How absurd. She sighed, prepared to listen with a non-committal half-smile and make polite noises after. Then she could excuse herself from this painful farce on the grounds of her “illness.”
George continued.
“To Lady Alicia,
“From your first letter, I was captivated by your quick mind and your ready wit. From our first meeting, I was haunted by your lovely eyes and your subtle grace. From the first day, hour, moment—I have been bombarded with firsts. The first time I heard you laugh. The first time I made you weep. The first taste of your lips. The first caress of your skin. The first warming of a heart held too long in the cold and the dark.
Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 04] Page 28