“I saw it coming, or at least I ought to have done. Their pretenses of indifference grew steadily less believable. But an elopement?” Xavier cried, reluctantly releasing Genevieve’s hand. “Manning!” the growled word promised trouble. “That night in Lichfield when they disappeared. I thought they were saying good-bye, but they were further plotting this. The fools. How will they live? Kenneth scarce has a ha’penny in his purse.”
He stepped back, a determined look coming over his face. “No, I must stop them. They are hardly gone. I can catch them easily, on horseback, before the deed is done.” He started to move from the room, then stopped, looking back at Genevieve. “In the morning. We will talk in the morning,” he said, willing her to respond positively, to take no offense that now his duty lay elsewhere.
“Let me go with you,” she offered at once. As he started to shake his head, she went on. “Penelope may need me.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “You may be correct. Or, even perhaps, she will listen to you where she won’t listen to me. Come, change as quickly as you may to a habit, and fetch a cloak. I’ll ready the horses and try to leave the servants out of this tangle. Meet me in the courtyard in ten minutes, no more.”
Genevieve flew to her room, Laura in her wake. She put the other girl to work, helping her out of one set of clothes and into the other.
“Perhaps I should wake the others?” Laura suggested. “We could form a search party.”
Genevieve shook her head. “No, better to bring Penelope and Kenneth back quietly, with no one…knowing…the better…” Her voice trailed away as she stared at Laura, her hands slowing where they buttoned the decorative coat of her riding habit. “Or,” she asked tentatively, “should we? Bring them back? I mean to say, it’s very clear they’ve decided this is what they wish. Xavier is right to be concerned about their futures, for even though Penelope is the daughter of an earl, even for someone so well-born it’s a scandal to elope. She’ll not be all that is acceptable anymore. And to say nothing about the fact they might well starve. Yet, I cannot help but wonder…” Who am I, to stand in the way of a love that is fighting to exist?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Laura said. “Of course they must be stopped. Are you going to go with Xavier or not?”
Genevieve stared at her, then rallied herself and pulled her bonnet over her dark hair, securing the ribbon under her chin. “Yes, yes, of course I’m going to go with him. Come, help me with these half-boots.”
She was in the courtyard a minute later, Laura at her side despite the fact she was dressed only in her nightwear. Xavier waited with two horses and, alas, a couple of curious stable hands.
“Damn! You need a chaperone,” Xavier said in a low voice near Genevieve’s ear as he helped her to mount. “Laura—?” he started to turn to where that lady shuffled from one slippered foot to the other, shivering more from alarm than from any chill, but Genevieve put out her hand to him.
“Never mind about that,” she whispered back. “It would put us that much farther behind. Any small scandal concerning me will go no further than Brockmore, which we both know is nowhere near London.”
Laura reluctantly nodded, and Xavier didn’t argue, dismissing the lads before swinging up into the saddle of the other horse.
“I feel sure we’ll come upon the two of them very soon anyway. Ready?” he asked. When Genevieve nodded, he said, “I’m all but certain they’ll have a lighted lantern with them. That will give us something to watch sharp for.” As it had always been in Kenneth’s mind to enact this elopement, it was no small wonder he’d purchased the lantern—some sign to his lady love that their plans were still forthcoming?—and had had it readied against their departure. Looking back on it, their scheme seemed so obvious, Xavier marveled he’d not taken better steps to make it impossible for them to flee together.
They put their heels to the horses, bounding into the night. A bit too late, Laura thought to call out. “Did you bring a pistol? The roads could well be dangerous.”
She received no response beyond the sound of the galloping hooves. “Oh, pray do take care!” she called even though she knew they’d not hear.
Chapter 23
Love conquers all things: let us too give in to Love.
—Virgil,
Eclogue
Genevieve urged her horse to catch up with Xavier’s. He was a good two lengths ahead of her, protecting her well-being by finding the safest path and letting her follow. There was a goodly amount of moonlight, but the road was rough and their pace was dangerously swift. She tried calling to him, now that they were well beyond Laura’s hearing, but her voice didn’t carry forward to his ears. She urged the horse even more, leaning forward into the wind. She concentrated so on coming alongside of Xavier, that she missed the fact there were other hoof beats that had joined theirs.
“Stand! Stand and deliver!” a voice shouted as a mounted shape came alongside her horse. She looked over, seeing the outline of a man. When she saw the moonlit glint from the pistol in his hand, she had the chilling realization that one of the threatened footpads rode beside her.
She stared dumbly for a moment, but that was a moment too long for his taste, for he reached out and grasped her mount’s rein. A hard jerk set the horse to dancing sideways at too great a pace. Her mount collided with the footpad’s horse, veered sharply to the left, and must have caught a hoof in a hole for suddenly his head went crashing toward the earth, and Genevieve went tumbling over his head, sprawling upon the ground in a bone-jarring and abrupt halt.
She was yet numb for a minute, the wind knocked out of her. The only thing she was sure of, gratefully, was that she wasn’t trapped under her horse.
Everything happened very fast then, nearly too fast for comprehension. She became aware the glinting pistol was pointed down at her, that the man—now she could see he was yet mounted and was masked with a dark kerchief—was demanding goods from her. She’d no breath to tell him she’d nothing to give him, but it didn’t matter, for suddenly the pistol swung up and away. A second later there was a retort and then a mass of horseflesh passed very near her, looking like one gigantic creature with a multitude of legs. She sucked air somehow into her lungs, and rolled away from the flailing hooves, scrambling to her knees. Her bonnet was gone, and her hair fell in her eyes. She dashed the hair back and struggled again for breath; it was growing just a little easier to do so.
Then she heard an animal scream, and saw Xavier had ridden his horse directly into that of the footpad, The two men grappled for possession of the pistol, looking in the dark like a two-headed satyr battling itself. Another retort sounded, the footpad uttered a string of curses, and one of the horses screamed again in fear.
Suddenly the two sprang apart, the footpad’s horse backing away only to have its head cruelly wrenched to one side and a set of heels fiercely dug into its sides. The horse leaped, kicking then plunging away from the scene of the battle. Amidst the thundering of its hooves as the footpad made his escape, she heard Xavier cry out her name. “Genevieve!”
He slid from his horse, the pistol dropping from his hands as he slid to his knees and rushed to pull her into his arms, only to thrust her at arm’s length and visually inspect her. “Are you hurt?” he demanded, his hands and eye searching her hair, neck, her length for any sign of injury.
“No,” she croaked out, taking another, deeper breath that steadied her a little. “Just winded.”
“Thank God!”
“Are you well?”
“Yes, I’m fine. The shots went wild, I believe.”
“Will he be back?”
“Possibly, though I took his pistol. I don’t know. Probably not, if he knows what’s good for him.” He managed a weak smile, then held her tightly to him again. “I would never have forgiven myself—”
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” she murmured, finding the wondrous air that now filled her lungs not near so sweet as the feel of his arms around her. She knew. She knew that he’
d no love for Summer, his love was all for her. It was in his embrace, in the timbre of his voice, in the way his face had paled even in the dim moonlight when he’d thought she might be harmed.
He put her from him again, looking down into her face, and then lowered his mouth to hers. It was a scared, hungry, proprietary kiss, which she returned without restraint, clinging to his shoulders where he knelt cradling her.
Finally he pulled his mouth away. “I’m being a fool,” he said shakily. “That robber could return any moment, perhaps with a gang to back him up. We must be going.” He stood, pulling her up with him. As he straightened, suddenly he could see a dark spot on the front of his white shirt. His fingers went to the spot. It was not wet, not blood, but a small bit of soft fabric that met his fingers.
His fingers closed around it as he gasped, suddenly recognizing it as the eye patch, knowing that nothing covered his marred eye any longer. His vision flew back to hers in habitual horror as his other hand left where it grasped her arm, leaping automatically to cover the scarred and ruined left side of his face.
They stood frozen thus, he knowing she’d seen it already, had seen it and kissed his mouth all the same.
His hand jerked, as he tried to be valiant and take away his shielding hand, that she might see him finally as he was—though it only slid down an inch. The tips of his fingers yet hid the worst of his injury from her.
He clawed deep into his consciousness, reaching for nerve and bravery and trust, and his fingers slid another half inch, but stopped again, heedless of his silent, trembling commands.
He desperately watched her face, seeing everything she thought as he struggled. Shock, yes. His sunken eye and ragged scar were no pretty things, even the partial sight she must be able to see, had seen before he’d realized he’d been exposed.
Then came her curiosity, for one must look when exposed to the worst of another.
This was followed by sympathy, for she could hardly miss his struggle to overcome his most terrified self. She saw him fight to be intrepid, and she saw him fail.
Then a soft, sad smile formed on her lips, a bittersweet smile that embraced the wounded boy and called to the struggling man. She took a step closer, to stand right before him. Her hands came up, closing around his fingers, his wrist, and she gently pulled his hand downward.
And at last he had the strength to release his bound muscles, to let her guide the moment of his utmost nakedness.
When it was lowered to his side, she let his arm go. Her hands rose again. They closed on either side of his head, and she pulled his mouth down to hers once more.
His arms hung limp at his sides as he quaked under her caress. It was too soon that she pulled her mouth from his. It felt like an ending, and his heart plummeted, leaving him weak, touched by a dawning devastation. A farewell kiss, this then, or a thank you for having saved her, maybe.
Only, it was not so, for instead of releasing him, she bent his head further down, so that now she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to the scar below, the scar above, and the flaccid lid of the wounded eye itself.
He groaned, but it was only a moment more before he clasped her tightly to his length. He held her, gasping, shivering, incapable of words. His heart rose and soared, laughing at him for ever doubting her. As she loved him, clearly she loved him, eye or no, and he’d never had anything he must show her other than his own love in return.
After a long time, she unwrapped her arms from around his neck. “Xavier? Must we go after Penelope and Kenneth?” she said softly. “Do they not deserve this as well?”
“Of course they do,” he answered simply just before he kissed her again, the eye patch yet dangling from his hand.
Chapter 24
Haply I think on thee,
—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
—Shakespeare,
Sonnets
“It’s not too late,” Michael said to Summer three days later where she sat next to him on the box. “It would only take us about an hour to arrive at Gretna Green and have our nuptial day behind us.”
“I shall be married at St. George’s in London,” she told him. “Not in some little Scottish village, over an anvil.”
“Ah well, my love. I suppose I don’t care, just so it’s me you marry, wherever. Will that be soon, do you think? Our banns are already posted—”
“We’re no longer affianced, if you will recall,” Summer replied crisply, a slight smile hovering near her mouth.
“Ah, yes. I believe I’ve neglected to ask you today if you’ll marry me. Will you?”
“No.”
“Well, if not today, then how about tomorrow?”
Summer giggled, and Penelope and Genevieve exchanged glances as the former picked up a roll of wide, white ribbon.
“Come stroll with me, my dear, and we’ll leave the old married people to do the work,” Michael said, seizing up Summer’s hand and pulling her away from the carriage. She squealed in surprise but otherwise scarcely offered a protest as she was taken away to the gardens.
“It will not be long before we attend a wedding in St. George’s, I think,” Penelope said, fixing the end of the ribbon to the side of the carriage. She stepped back to observe the effect, then turned the roll in her hand, creating a twist. She handed the roll to Genevieve, who continued the twist as she stepped around the carriage to secure the opposite end on the other side.
“I don’t know,” she said, leaning to one side so her voice might carry to Penelope. “Sometimes I believe they enjoy taunting each other too much to actually marry. It may well be the longest courtship ever,” Genevieve said with a smile. She pretended to pout. “And whatever is wrong with being married over an anvil?”
“I found it quite to my liking,” Xavier said from the top of the carriage, where he was hanging wired bunches of ribbons and lilies. He leaned over the edge to grin at his bride of three days.
She smiled back. “So did I,” she said on a happy sigh.
“Let us hope our papas and Sir Roger find it’s harder to condemn two over-the-anvil marriages than one.”
“I pray so,” Genevieve said, shaking her head a little in continued concern.
Xavier jumped down from the carriage top.
“Oh, Xavier, mind the dust,” Penelope scolded.
“But I was only interested in being married,” he ignored his sister in favor of coming up behind his wife, slipping his arms around her to mold her back to his length. “To this lady.” Genevieve colored at the public display, but didn’t bid him stop, instead lifting her hand to reach back and cup his cheek.
“That became obvious,” Penelope said dryly, but with a happy twist to her lips.
“Obvious, you say? At what point?”
“All along, I daresay. But it began to become most clear the night Kenneth and I tried to steal five minutes alone together in Lichfield.”
“I, for one, am grateful you did,” Xavier said sincerely.
Genevieve twisted her head to look up at his face above hers, exchanging a soft smile with him. The eye patch was back in place, of course, but it served now only as a barrier to the curious, not as a shield against emotions, emotions forever set free the night they each said I do.
She leaned into him.“What opinion do you have about our not-so-joyful pair? Do you think Summer will ever relent and have Michael?”
“Yes, later than sooner, perhaps. But love will win out, you know.”
“I know,” she said, and smiled up at him again.
“Our wedding coach is nearly ready to go,” he noted, bending his neck to kiss her on the nose.
She looked at the coach, hung with ribbons and flowers meant to declare to anyone who cared to see that a wedding party was passing by, and squeezed his arms wher
e they wrapped around her waist.
“Bachelor Haddy has said he refuses to drive it thusly decorated. I think we may persuade Michael to do the honors.” Genevieve dimpled. “Do you think Haddy and Laura will ever fall in love?”
“When chickens give milk.”
She laughed, and turned in his arms, and kissed him full on the mouth, ignoring her sister-in-law’s presence.
When Penelope made a point of stepping to the other side of the carriage to give them some privacy, it resulted in making them laugh before they fell to kissing again.
Her mouth finally free from its favorite activity of late, Genevieve turned serious for a moment. “Do you think Lord Fenworth,” her currently unwitting papa-in-law, “might truly cast Nellie off without so much as a feather to serve as her dowry?”
“It matters not.” Xavier shrugged. “I’ve my own income from my maternal grandpapa and some long-standing investments, so I’ve assured them they’ll never starve. And Kenneth is clever. He never had much capital to work with, but I’ve come to learn he was putting aside what he could toward this day. The sneaky scoundrel. If he invests properly, they should come out all right. He means to go to Sir Roger without apologies, which I think is the best way to handle the man’s bluster. We’ll see what occurs in that quarter. But, no, I don’t think Papa will cut Nellie off. He’s always had a rather soft spot for the girl. And besides, his heir followed his daughter’s scandalous example.” Xavier grinned. “Perhaps we’ll convince him it’s all the crack to elope. One cannot punish one’s children for being fashionable, can one?”
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