by Shirl Henke
A shot rang out. “No pity at all,” she said coldly. Dropping the pistol Jeni had given her, she turned to calm the frightened horses and seize the reins of those loosed already. As soon as she secured them, she knelt to see if Francois was still alive. Feeling no pulse, she took his unfired weapon and mounted one of the calmer horses, leading the others toward the manor.
The fighting must be fierce. Please let Rob and Jeni and all the others be safe! She confined the horses in the small paddock at the back of the servants’ quarters, then ran inside the kitchen. Old memories clawed at her, filling her with terror, but she forced them aside. Steeling herself, she slipped down the hall.
From the shadows, Elvira Greevy lunged out and knocked the pistol from her hand with one bony fist. “Now I will deal with you,” she whispered, holding out a deadly-looking knife. “One tiny prick…” Her eyes glowed with insane glee.
Amber was certain the blade was poisoned. She backed into the kitchen. “I never harmed you, Mrs. Greevy,” she said soothingly, glancing around for anything to block the knife.
“He married you and you ran away to become a whore, you ungrateful little bitch! He took you to his bed, just as he did that next mewling little breeding sow. At least she gave him a son.” She sneered. “The master needed an heir, but I convinced him to send the boy to his milk-and-water brother in Newcastle.”
“All the better for the child, to escape this hellish place once his poor mother died bearing him,” Amber said, glancing around the room.
Elvira laughed. “She did not die in childbirth. I killed her as soon as she fulfilled her obligation to my master! Just as I’ll kill you and that Frenchie whore.”
“I do not think we are so easy to kill, oui?” Jenette said sharply.
Elvira whirled around, the blade flashing toward her new antagonist.
“It’s poisoned, Jeni!” Amber cried, reaching for a heavy wooden bowl on the kitchen table behind her. She raised it, but before she could strike the housekeeper, Jenette seized hold of the older woman’s wrist and twisted viciously with one hand while she drew her own blade across Elvira’s throat. For a moment suspended in time, the two women glared at each other. Then the glow of madness in the narrow gray eyes faded as the deadly weapon slipped from her fingers. She dropped to the floor, gurgling her last breath.
“I feared you would not wait outside,” Jenette said as Amber stepped into the hallway and retrieved the pistol.
“Hull killed Francois. I killed Hull,” she said succinctly. “I’m going to find Rob.”
Sighing, Jenette followed, muttering in French about idiots in love.
Furiously, Rob fought his way from room to room, searching for the vicious brute who had placed Amber in an iron maiden! This monster could hold her here, and there was no court in all of England that would stop him. She had spent ten years of her life in hiding, surrounded by guards, and still the bastard managed to have her kidnapped.
Rob entered the massive library. It had been ransacked, books pulled from their cases, desk drawers smashed open. But Eastham did not cower in the last hiding place on this floor. If he had gathered up some hidden cache of money to flee, surely he would have known where it was kept. No, someone else had done this mayhem. The earl ran into the front entry and looked up the wide stone stairway twisting in a semicircle to the second floor.
Taking no time to reload the spent pistols in his sash, he started to climb, clutching his saber in his fist. He reached the top and stared down the cavernous hall, ready to kick in every door until he found the craven animal. Like the main hall below it, this one also looked like a medieval armory, lined with antique suits of chain mail, lances, pikes, and battle-axes.
“Eastham, you cowardly bastard, do you hide under a bed now that you must fight a man instead of torture a woman?” he roared, kicking open the first door to a dark room with gargoyles carved on the huge four-poster bed. Ripping the heavy velvet draperies apart, he stepped back. Light poured in. He tried not to think of Amber as a young bride raped and brutalized on that ugly bed.
A door adjoining the next room stood ajar. After satisfying himself that the marquess was not hiding in the master suite, he entered the large dressing closet. Rob threw open trunks and overturned clotheshorses draped with velvet and ermine robes. Just as he turned to leave, he caught a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision—a large man stood in the doorway, raising a pistol.
“Your men have kept me from reaching your whore, but I have laid a trap for her whoremaster,” the madman purred. He squeezed the trigger just as Rob ducked.
The earl felt the burn of the bullet as it cut through his jacket and nicked the top of his shoulder. Wolverton threw the pistol at him but missed, then spun around with startling swiftness and slipped through the door to the hallway. Rob gave chase.
“There’s nowhere to run, Wolverton. Stand and fight,” he yelled as the marquess made for the stairs. Then he saw what his enemy was after—one of a pair of crossed battle-axes mounted on the wall. Eastham was as tall as Rob but heavier with a massive frame that still held considerable muscle on it. He reached the axe and ripped it from the pegs holding it in place, then turned with a feral grin, eyeing Rob’s saber, a flimsy defense against his new weapon.
“You and your whore will die today,” he snarled.
“You will die today, like the vicious cur you are,” Rob said, raising his blade, bracing for the marquess’s swing. The air hissed when the gleaming edge of the axe missed his head by inches as he danced back.
“I keep these weapons in perfect condition,” Wolverton said, swinging again, this time forcing Rob to use his blade to parry the blow. The saber snapped in two pieces, but Rob held on to it as the marquess grinned like the madman he was and raised the cumbersome weapon once more. The earl lunged beneath Eastham’s upraised arms and rammed his shoulder into the marquess’s stomach, knocking him back against the wall.
Jenette crested the stairs with Amber just behind her. Amber started to aim her pistol, but her friend quickly shoved it aside. “Non, you might hit the earl.”
Amber could see it was true. The two men spun around, each gripping the weapon hand of the other. Wolverton’s heavy axe fell from his grasp when Rob slammed his foe’s arm against the stone wall, but his own broken blade, still a lethal weapon, remained immobilized. The marquess’s huge hand encircled Rob’s wrist so tightly that his arm started to go numb. The earl twisted with all of his strength and wrenched free but dropped the saber in the process.
Without hesitation the two men dived at each other with fists. Eastham was heavier but Rob was lean and fast. He delivered several swift punches to his enemy’s beefy face and took a vicious blow to his stomach that sent him staggering backward toward the heavy stone railing overlooking the foyer below. Jenette tried for a shot, but the bellowing marquess was immediately upon the earl in a blur. With his hands grasping Rob’s throat, they rolled along the railing.
The earl punched the bigger man in the chest, the stomach, the ribs. Coughing, Eastham finally loosened his grip. Rob twisted around and head-butted his foe in the face. The women could hear the satisfying crunch when Wolverton’s nose broke, but still neither man released the other. They grabbed for purchase with their hands, ripping apart clothing, striking with fists and elbows.
“Your earl, he fights like un sauvage,” Jenette said with admiration, watching the contest as the men battered each other. Barrington had speed on his side while Eastham had brute strength. They were evenly matched.
Amber felt her hand tremble and gritted her teeth to steady her grip on the pistol. She might only have one chance before that madman killed Rob! After a hard, fast punch from Rob’s fist sent him back near the railing once more, Wolverton aimed a vicious kick at the earl’s groin. Twisting away at the last second, Rob grabbed the marquess’s raised leg and shoved him backward. Eastham hit the railing hard. The groan of ancient mortar giving way quickly turned to the screech of sliding stones.
F
eeling the railing crumple at his back, Wolverton seized hold of Rob’s torn jacket, trying to pull his enemy down with him. Amber steadied her arm to fire at the marquess’s arm, but his weight did the work without her. Rob’s jacket lapel ripped off as the earl stepped backward. Eastham fell in an avalanche of rock and mortar, screaming until he hit the stone floor fifty feet below.
Jenette peered down at the big man’s grotesquely twisted body lying half buried under a pile of masonry and murmured, “Hell has waited long enough to claim its own.”
Amber dropped her pistol and flew into Rob’s arms. He picked her up and swung her around, well back from the ugly scene. From below in typical sergeant-major fashion, Boxer barked orders to his men to stand back after he saw Jenette calmly walking down the stairs with an unfired pistol in her hand. “Tell what is left of this carrion’s men that they will not be paid, even if they fight to the death,” she said to him.
“Consider it done, m’lady,” he said with a satisfied grin.
As their footsteps faded, Rob and Amber stared at each other. “I beg your forgiveness for the way I behaved. I hope you can give it one day,” he said, caressing her face with his fingertips.
She took his hand in hers and kissed the bruised and bloodied knuckles. “There is nothing to forgive, m’lord. I deceived you and caused you great anguish. ′Tis I who should apologize.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, placing a kiss on her forehead as he cradled her head in his hand. “Now we must go.” He led her down the long winding staircase.
As she descended, Amber realized that this was the last time she would ever set foot inside Wolf’s Gate. When they reached the body of the marquess, she stopped and stared at the ruin. “I have lived with fear and guilt for so long,” she murmured.
“You have nothing to fear any longer and never had any reason for guilt. He was a monster. You were right to flee him.”
She looked up at him. “Did Grace tell you about him?”
Rob shook his head. “Only his name and that he was your husband. I once overheard my uncle Reginald and his friends discussing Eastham. He had been banished from polite society for such excesses that even the most hardened of the ton’s rakes were appalled. The gossips called him the mad marquess.”
She shivered in his arms as the old memories washed over her. “′Tis over at last. You have freed me.”
“If not for the kidnapping, Jenette would have done that without my help,” he said wryly. “I hope one day you will tell me about how the two of you met, but now we must leave before anyone from the village sees us. I doubt any will mourn Wolverton, but the death of a peer, even a degenerate such as this offal, will mean the local authorities must investigate.”
As he led her down the hall and out the back entrance, he murmured low, “When we return to London, we must discuss the future.”
She made no reply as they joined Jenette and the others. The group rode away from the hellish manor, taking a circuitous route, stopping to patch up those who had been wounded before rejoining the busy coach road.
We must discuss the future. Those words hung like a portent over Amber’s head as she lay soaking in a tub of warm, oil-scented water in her quarters. Grace fussed over her even more than Bonnie, and all of those who worked for the House of Dreams were overjoyed that she had returned safely. She was grateful to be home. This was her home now, and there was no more need to hide behind stifling black veils. She should be overjoyed to have the shadow of Eastham removed forever.
But Rob’s words troubled her. He had acted as if he hoped they could build some kind of future together. She could not allow him to jeopardize his career for her. Grace had agreed to his request for tea this afternoon without consulting her. She could not put off saying good-bye any longer, but this parting would be the most painful of all.
Now he knew who she was and still wanted to keep her in his life.
Amber climbed from the tub as Bonnie came in carrying a pile of bath linens and a robe. “I laid out two afternoon dresses so ye can choose, m’lady,” she said with a shy smile as she wrapped a towel around her mistress’s body.
Thanking her, Amber dried off and removed another towel from around her head, rubbing her long cherry hair vigorously as she strolled into her bedroom. She eyed the gowns and felt certain Grace and Jenette had made the selections, a brilliant peacock-blue silk and a rich golden mull. Both were of sheer fabrics and the necklines were cut low. Matching jewelry had been added as well, aquamarines to contrast with the deep blue and topazes to set off the gold…and match her eyes.
“It would serve the conspirators up properly if I were to dress in my widow’s weeds,” she muttered wryly. At last they were appropriate.
After short deliberation, she sighed and chose the gold. Bonnie was back in a trice with a heated curling iron and pins for her partially dry hair. She suffered the ministrations, saying, “One would think I was a girl preparing for her first season the way you’re fussing, Bonnie.”
“Perhaps you are,” Grace said from the doorway.
“Don’t be absurd. I never had a season and am too long of tooth by far now.”
“Barrington does not think you ‘long of tooth’ at all,” Grace replied with a chuckle.
Amber turned and stared at her with narrowed eyes. “What has the earl said to you—and you to him?” she asked suspiciously.
“What was sufficient,” the older woman replied serenely. “He awaits you in your office downstairs.”
Rob paced back and forth in the room where they had first met on a dark, foggy night. Today brilliant sunlight poured in the bow window facing the elaborate gardens at the back of the rambling house. He had been nervous, indeed frightened, about what he was going to say then. Now he was not nervous. He was terrified. How could he convince her? What could he say? How ironic for the most skilled debater in Lords to be at a loss for words yet again. He tried to gather his wits. When she entered the room silently, he knew even though his back was to her.
Turning, he said, “Attar of rose. It suits you.”
“I thought you preferred Gaby’s lilac,” she said nervously. She had hoped to study him for a moment before those brilliant green eyes swept over her.
He appeared to consider the merits of both perfumes, stroking his chin as he closed the distance between them. Amber remained near the door as if poised to flee. A soft smile curved his mouth. “Lilac is a soft and yielding essence, but the rose is bold and self-assured, the queen of flowers.”
“I pretended to be both when I was neither.”
He shook his head. “You are both, my love, and so much more to have survived Eastham and built a life here, helping others.”
“A life as a courtesan,” she said flatly, trying to remind him of who she was.
“Grace told me from the day you fled the marquess you allowed no man to touch you…until you came to me.”
“Are you gloating, m’lord?” she asked, trying to goad him to anger.
Instead, he reached up and touched her chin, lifting it as he smiled sadly. “I am honored, m’lady,” he said simply.
“I was your hired tutor for bed sport.”
“Was that why you had a messenger send back the initial money I gave you and destroyed the bank draft I wrote the day we parted? No, Amber, you did not come to me for money. Any more than I continued seeing Gaby for crass physical gratification—although,” he confessed wryly, “bed sport does provide unimaginable gratification…if two people are in love. I love you, Amber, and I believe you love me.”
How could she deny her own heart? This was not working the way it should. She had to make him accept that they could not have a life together. “What either or both of us may feel is not to the point,” she equivocated. “You are going to marry a noblewoman—”
“Correct! You are a marchioness, the daughter of a viscount,” he countered. “I see no impediment to our marriage.”
Amber felt her knees weaken and her heart sta
rt to pound. “Marriage! No impediment!” she cried out, shoving the door closed behind her as much to lean upon it as to keep anyone from overhearing. She had thought he wanted her to become his mistress. Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought that he would ask her to marry him!
Understanding softened his face as he took that final step toward her, leaving a scant inch between them. He inhaled her fragrance and felt his body respond as it always did. “Amber, Amber, how could you believe that I would dishonor you by asking you to be my mistress?” he asked gently, bending to kiss her lips.
She quickly turned her head away, trying desperately to stiffen her resolve. “I could not bear sharing you, no—but that does not mean that I expected marriage,” she hastily added.
“We are adults, both with terrible marriages behind us. We love each other. There is no reason we cannot wed. Only your trusted friends and servants know the identity of Fantasia. Eastham, Elvira Greevy, and Hull are dead. Clyde Dyer has even disposed of Alan Cresswel to avenge his cousin Clifton. No one alive will ever accuse you of being Lady Fantasia.”
She shook her head, trying to clear it. With him standing so near, towering over her, she could not think. All she wanted to do was lay her head against his chest and wrap her arms around his neck. “B-but I’m dead!” she said. “Eastham buried some poor village girl in the Wolverton family plot with my name on the headstone. If I return as Amber Leighigh Wolverton, that will disinherit his poor son, not to mention creating a perfectly horrid scandal if you had a wife who fled her first husband and vanished mysteriously for over a decade. Your career in Lords—all the good you can do—would end. I cannot allow any of that to happen.”