The Bridegroom and the Baby

by Marcy Stewart

  “The heiress you adore, you mean,” Ethan said.

  “Make no mistake; the money is only a pleasant addendum. I would do anything for Alice—certainly more than you or your brother would have.”

  “You’re a fool. My brother loved her enough to plan marriage.”

  “Yes, he would have married her, but not for love. Surely as his twin you realize that. Even I, a lowly servant as you would call me, saw it.”

  Ethan struggled to raise himself on one elbow. Was the tutor merely raving about what he hoped to be true, or did he know something Ethan did not?

  Listen to him, Lucan whispered. Learn the truth, and give us both rest.

  “My brother would never seduce a woman he didn’t love.”

  “You’re very idealistic.”

  Moving abruptly, the tutor circled Ethan, intent on dragging him into the water, he knew. The viscount set his teeth and rolled to the side, rising to his knees.

  “There’s no point in this, MacAllister. Even if I’m dead, Alice won’t accept you.”

  “She will learn to love me in time,” he said angrily, and moved forward.

  Ethan weaved to his feet and stepped back, the world spinning slowly around. “What good will that do if you hang?”

  With a condescending smile, MacAllister gestured expansively. “Why would I hang for your accidental drowning?”

  “No one will believe this is an accident.”

  “When I scatter a few bottles on the shore, they will. And even without such evidence, everyone will account it to the Ambrose Curse.” His eyes gleamed, and he lunged forward, his words nearly buried in movement. “It offered the perfect cover for your brother’s demise, did it not?”

  Stunned, Ethan, who had braced himself for the onslaught he knew was coming, dropped to the ground, and MacAllister fell with him. Crazed by fury, the viscount used their momentum to roll on top of him.

  “Did you kill Lucan?” he shouted, his hands at the tutor’s throat. “Did you kill my brother?”

  MacAllister was a large, solidly built man, and a strong one. He clawed the viscount’s hands away and scurried to his feet. Ethan quickly scrambled upward. The tutor had time to bare his teeth angrily and say, “How easy it was. He made a far better target than those ridiculous birds!” before the viscount barreled into him, landing them both in the shallows.

  It was now Ethan’s turn to punish.

  He felt no pain. His body was a machine with no sensations at all saving the white heat of his rage, his arm an avenging hammer as he pounded and pounded at MacAllister’s face. The murderer’s ineffectual, defensive blows phased him no more than the water splashing his cheeks. Finally, MacAllister made a desperate lunge, and both men rolled deeper into the river, their fists slowing with the weight of water. The viscount scrabbled his fingers around the tutor’s throat and began to squeeze. MacAllister’s eyes bulged as he fought, but nothing he did could stop him, nothing.

  Ethan, he heard a voice saying. I don’t want this.

  “I do!” he cried to Lucan aloud. “This is justice!”

  No, my brother.

  He shook his head rebelliously and continued. He did not hear Madeleine screaming his name until she plowed into the water beside him and pulled at his arm.

  “No, Ethan, stop! What are you doing?”

  He came close to turning his anger on her, so complete was his fury. When she flinched backward he knew a moment’s regret, but a moment only. He did not wonder how she came to be here, nor why. “He killed my brother!” he threw in, without relenting his hold on the tutor.

  “Oh, dear God!” Madeleine’s fingers covered her mouth, and she turned to Brandt, who was circling to the viscount’s other side. Their eyes locked, and she saw all color had leached from the steward’s skin. “Don’t do this, Ethan—the law will deal with him!” When he paid her no heed, she begged, “Stop him, Scott!”

  With hollow eyes, Scott clutched the viscount’s shoulder with an iron hand. “Leave go, Ethan,” he said close to the viscount’s ear. “You’ll break the heart of the woman you love if you kill him. Stop, now. He’ll be punished.”

  Slowly, very slowly, Ethan relaxed his hold on the tutor’s neck. MacAllister heaved a deep, agonized breath and caught his balance weakly, his eyes ravaged as he watched Ethan turn to trudge toward the shore.

  Madeleine grasped his arm, evidently thinking he needed support, and he supposed he did. Now that it was over, his body began to betray him, his pain returning tenfold. He shivered like a new colt. They waded to the bank, and he sank to the earth, incapable of going further. Madeleine sat beside him, her eyes like two luminous moons in the darkness. Tentatively, she reached out and ran her hands along his arms to warm him. Her concern restored a touch of humanity to his bestial emotions, but he was not himself; not yet.

  “He killed my brother,” he said.

  “I know, Ethan,” she murmured.

  “He killed Lucan.”

  “Hush, dearest.” She moved closer and drew him to her, cradling his head on her shoulder, and he was lost. He wept without shame while she held him, murmuring comforts and stroking his hair as if he were a child.

  Sometime later, he became aware of Scott wading toward them. Ethan dashed the tears from his eyes, then looked to either side of the steward, his heart seizing with panic.

  “Where’s MacAllister?” he demanded.

  Brandt’s colorless mouth barely moved as he said, “Gone.” Before Ethan could misunderstand, he added, “The river took him.”

  As Madeleine gasped, Ethan’s lips parted. “The river—” Using Brandt as a prop, he struggled to his feet and scanned the dark water. “Scott?”

  “You didn’t do it,” Brandt said woodenly. “The river did.” He glanced briefly at Madeleine, then away. “It was an accident.”

  Madeleine, lowering her lashes, stood and leaned against Ethan, linking her arm through his. With his free hand, the viscount clasped Scott’s fingers.

  “An accident,” he confirmed, his eyes blazing with gratitude.

  Chapter 18

  When they returned to Westhall, the time was nearing four in the morning. Madeleine could not believe it was not four in the afternoon; she had lived a lifetime during a single night.

  She had lived a lifetime, and the tutor had lost his.

  As the house gradually stirred to life at their arrival, she tried not to think of what Scott had done and what Ethan would have, had she not been present at the river. But perhaps she was wrong about the viscount; he might have returned to his senses in time. She clung to that hope.

  She understood the power of the gentlemen’s emotions, for she had longed to see Bettina’s seducer destroyed; if not by death, at least by reputation. But nothing could bring her sister back, just as nothing would ever return Lucan to Ethan. She was only happy he would not have to live with the guilt of Jarrod MacAllister’s death.

  The question that troubled her mind most was, why? Why had the tutor hated the Ambrose brothers so much? Ethan, winded and emotionally spent, had promised to explain everything when they reached Westhall, and she was on pins and needles waiting.

  Fresh from his half day off, Burns responded first to the summoning of the bell, although he did so clothed in an opulent brocade robe. When he spied the wet and bedraggled threesome in the library, he blanched.

  Ethan, reclining on the settee with his head propped by cushions, commanded him to fetch hot water for baths and fresh towels. “Awaken Betsy and Cook,” he added. “Betsy can assist me with my scratches, and we need sandwiches and hot tea.”

  “Make mine brandy,” Scott said.

  Burns, his face a study in refined curiosity, looked a question at the viscount.

  “Only tea for me,” he said, and glanced at Madeleine and smiled, then winced as the cut on his lip widened.

  Madeleine scarcely noticed his restraint from strong spirits. “And send Rathbone or Lindon for the physician,” she ordered the butler. When Ethan began a protest
, she reminded him he’d required Scott’s assistance to mount Jarrod MacAllister’s horse, that he’d lapsed into a stupor for most of the journey home and had needed both their shoulders to climb the stairs into his house. “And it hurts me every time I look at you,” she added, viewing his badly bruised face with a frown.

  Ethan feigned an offended expression. “I promise I’ll never say the same to you.” He waved the butler on to his duties, then looked from Madeleine to Scott and back again. “One thing puzzles me; how did you manage to find me at the river?”

  Scott explained how they had gone to Brillham and turned back to seek help. “About a half mile from Westhall, we saw MacAllister guiding his horse into the wood.”

  “Naturally, we didn’t know it was he, not then,” Madeleine added. “We couldn’t see from that distance.”

  “To my eyes, MacAllister appeared to be an anonymous man on a horse with something draped over the saddle. I assumed he was a poacher who’d bagged a deer.” Scott slouched lower in the leather chair, stretching his legs. “On a normal evening, I would have followed him as a matter of course. Tonight, I felt returning to Westhall was the most important thing. Madeleine disagreed. Had it not been for her intuition, I would have kept going.”

  “A deer, you say? My antlers gave me away, I suppose.” The camaraderie of Ethan’s tone removed any sting from the words. “Thank God for Madeleine.”

  “Thank God,” Scott agreed.

  Madeleine felt a current of warmth flowing between the two men, and her heart lightened to sense their rift mending.

  “As for Madeleine,” Ethan added with a look that made her shiver with pleasure, “I think we’d both do well to heed her advice. Have I mentioned how grateful I am, my dear, for what you’ve done this night?”

  “At least a hundred times,” she said in a gentle voice. Were it not for the steward’s presence, she would have the viscount’s head nestled on her lap instead of those stiff-looking needlepoint pillows. For the time being, she had drawn a chair close to his knees, so she could comfortably hold his hand.

  “Good.” Ethan cut narrowed eyes to Brandt. “Then I can safely tell Scott that I’ll slice off his legs if he ever puts you in jeopardy again.”

  “I would have gone by myself if he hadn’t permitted me to go with him,” Madeleine said instantly.

  The viscount stared. “Would you? Yes, I can see you mean it. My pardon, Scott. I believe we’ve met our match in Miss Murrow.”

  “She’s a brave lady,” Scott affirmed, causing Madeleine to glow.

  “And why is that?” asked her father from the doorway. Like Burns, he wore a brocade dressing gown tied with a tasseled belt over his nightshift, only the butler’s robe had appeared newer. “Madeleine? What goes on here?”

  Coloring, the young lady started to rise, but the strong tug on her hand reminded her of a new allegiance. Her father dragged a chair near hers as she related the part of the night’s adventure she had experienced. With anxiety, she watched his face move expressively as she spoke.

  His scowl deepening, he directed a glare at Ethan. “I blame you for this.”

  Ethan started to speak, but his gaze moved suddenly to the doorway as Antonia entered, looking soft and frail in her emerald silk negligee.

  “I don’t understand why you blame him,” she said. “I’ve been listening behind the wall, I’m ashamed to say, but I didn’t want to interrupt our daughter’s story. Nothing Ethan did was worthy of blame, Thomas; he was only trying to discover the baby’s mother—for our sakes, I’ll remind.”

  “Antonia, you shouldn’t be up!” Thomas said, standing.

  “I heard the commotion and couldn’t rest.” She walked gracefully to sit in the chair her husband immediately vacated, Thomas assisting her as if she were made of glass. “Besides, I’m feeling much better.” As he drew another seat into the circle, she added, “Or I was until hearing this. Madeleine, you should not have taken such a risk, my child.”

  Ethan nodded. “Exactly what I told her.”

  Clearing his throat, Burns entered carrying a tray of tea and a platter stacked with sandwiches. Seeing more members had been added to the group, he glided regally from the room to bring additional cups and saucers.

  “If those were your sentiments, you should have done better in keeping Madeleine home,” Thomas said, causing Madeleine to squirm at his lack of logic. “Now my daughter has been witness to something she’s too sensitive to forget: a murder.”

  “It was an accident,” Ethan, Madeleine, and Scott said all at once.

  Thomas looked from one face to another. “Why?” he asked simply, voicing the question burning uppermost in Madeleine’s mind. “Why did the tutor do these reprehensible acts? Was he mad?”

  Ethan moved slowly to a sitting position, and all eyes centered on him. Burns reentered with the additional tea accoutrements, then exited swiftly, the heavy silence speeding him along. Madeleine began to pour tea into white china cups so thin they were almost transparent. The viscount accepted his cup, drank deeply, and set it on the table beside the settee.

  “He was jealous,” Ethan said. “MacAllister aspired to marry Alice Redding. In the beginning, he saw Lucan as his sole obstacle. Perhaps he was mad.”

  “He wanted to marry Alice?” Scott exploded.

  Ethan briefly lowered his lids. “What I’m going to say must remain within the walls of this room, as it would damage the reputation of a lady should it become widely known.” He scanned the faces watching him. Seeming satisfied with what he observed in their expressions, he continued, “MacAllister thought if Lucan was removed, Alice would grow to love him. But when it became apparent she was with child—”

  Madeleine’s jaw dropped. Thomas jerked forward, as if intending to refute milord’s statement, and Brandt shouted, “What?” and leapt from his chair, the cup and saucer balanced on his knee falling heedlessly to the floor. Fortunately, the porcelain did not break, but tea stains darkened his pantaloons and seeped into the carpet.

  “I know it’s unbelievable, the manner in which she kept her condition hidden from us,” Ethan continued. “There was only one person she didn’t deceive: Jarrod MacAllister. He thought she would rely on him when her infant was born, but instead, she turned to me. That’s why he decided to kill me.” Ethan directed a weighty look at Thomas. “Dorrie is Alice’s child.”

  Aghast, Madeleine gazed at her father. He appeared as stunned as she, and for once, he remained speechless.

  “I had wondered,” Antonia said musingly. “There was an unusual spark in her eye when she looked upon the infant, the kind of prideful glow a first-time mother gets before she understands her child is a separate being from herself and not her own creation.”

  “I wish you had said!” Madeleine declared with feeling.

  “Oh, no one listens to me,” Antonia answered lightly, her eyes resting sweetly on her husband.

  Thomas finally came to life. “And who do you claim is the father? Certainly not yourself. I know you will say you’re innocent.”

  Ethan remained silent for a long moment. “I don’t claim anything. MacAllister accused my brother.” Madeleine, comprehending his distress, stroked his hand consolingly. “From Alice’s behavior, I would have to say he was correct.”

  “No,” said Brandt in a strange voice. “No, he wasn’t.”

  All eyes now turned to Scott, who had gone to stand beside the fireplace. He rippled a hand through his hair and patted his neckcloth distractedly. Madeleine thought she had never seen anyone appear so uncomfortable with himself.

  “I—I’m the father,” he said at last.

  This brought the viscount to his feet. “And you have kept silent?” he lashed.

  Madeleine, who in the past seconds had come to think she would never be surprised by anything again, grew weak with shock and sank back in her chair.

  Brandt, rubbing his chin and gazing incredulously into the distance, appeared more struck than any of them. “I didn’t know Dorrie was A
lice’s baby, Ethan. I never knew she was going to have a child—she never told me.” He pressed his hands over his face in a washing motion. “This is like her—so like her to deceive everyone, probably even herself. Lucan, always Lucan. Oh, dear God.”

  The viscount limped to stand beside Scott, and Madeleine was relieved to see he no longer appeared angry, only eager. “Slow down, Scott. Speak so that we can understand you.”

  Brandt’s eyes skimmed over the inhabitants of the room. “I don’t know ... ladies present ...”

  “These ladies are hardier than they appear.” Ethan raised an ironic brow. “Or do I speak out of turn, Madeleine, Mrs. Murrow? Should the gentlemen leave you to finish this?”

  “I’ll have a relapse if you do,” Antonia warned.

  “And I shall die,” Madeleine asserted.

  Thomas looked disapprovingly from one to the other of them but remained silent.

  Scott, casting an anxious look at Ethan, said, “I’ll try to explain. I’ve loved Alice for years, but it was Lucan who held her heart. Yet Lucan ... there was something that made it difficult for him to love a particular woman, and he had no interest in marriage or children. Please don’t misunderstand; this was not a failing in him as it might be in some men. It was as though he ... flew above the rest of us, dwelt somewhere higher. He loved everyone equally and would have given his last shirt if someone needed it, but he was ... how can I explain this? There was an impersonal aspect to his caring. After five minutes with him, you felt as if he’d known you forever and was your best friend. But it might take years to realize you knew very little about him. I think I was closest to him save for his brother, yet I never really understood Lucan.”

  Madeleine looked to Ethan for confirmation, and his expression was so drawn with sorrow that she averted her eyes.