The Bridegroom

by Joan Johnston

  “I cannot choose between the two of you,” she said. “Please stay and make peace with my father.”

  “He does not want peace!” Carlisle snapped.

  “Papa, tell him you are willing to forgive and forget—”

  “I have done nothing for which I must be forgiven,” Carlisle interrupted angrily. He turned to Blackthorne. “And I will never forget the harm you have done me and mine.”

  “Then why did you marry my daughter?” the duke demanded.

  “To destroy the thing you loved most,” Carlisle raged back.

  Reggie felt as though she had been stabbed in the heart. “Clay, please—”

  “Your father can have you,” Carlisle said, shoving her toward the duke. “I will come for my child when it is born.” He strode to his horse, mounted, and rode away without another word.

  Reggie felt the sting in her nose and blinked hard to clear her blurring vision.

  She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. “Go after him, child. I would rather you stay with him than have your child torn from your arms. That is a wound no parent should have to bear.”

  Reggie hugged her father as much to comfort him as to comfort herself. “If he cannot forgive you, he does not truly love me,” she said. “But there is something I must do before I leave him.”

  “What is that?” her father asked.

  “Let in some light,” she said. “To chase away the shadows.”

  Her father had ridden halfway home with her before they encountered MacTavish, who escorted her the rest of the way. Reggie was starving by the time she arrived back at the castle. She did not search for Carlisle. She did not wish to see him. She stuffed down one of Cook’s cherry tarts on her way through the kitchen, where she collected George and Terrence.

  “We will need that ladder you used to hang the Countess of Carlisle’s picture in the library, Terrence,” she said. “Would you get it please, and bring it outside.”

  “Yes, milady,” Terrence said.

  “What do you think would be best to use to cut that ivy away from the windows?” she asked George as she headed out the kitchen door with him.

  “A pair of garden shears, milady.”

  “Do we have such a thing?”

  George scratched his head. “I saw a small shed near the barn. Perhaps I might find something there.”

  “Will you please go look now?”

  Within an hour of Carlisle’s ultimatum to Reggie, Terrence was holding the ladder braced against the outside of the castle near the ivy that covered Carlisle’s bedroom window, while George clung to the third rung from the top, pruning away the thick ivy in a neat square.

  Reggie was standing nearby, watching the sun sparkle off a speck of newly revealed windowpane, when a boy of nine or ten appeared at her side.

  He glanced up, shading his eyes with his hand. “Is that my papa?”

  “Who is your papa?” Reggie asked.

  “George Dunswell, milady.”

  “Then that is your papa,” Reggie confirmed.

  “Ma says he’s to come right away,” the boy said. “She’s havin’ the baby, but it isna comin’ right, and she needs the doctor.”

  “Terrence, would you please call George down and tell him it is his wife’s time, and she needs him to go for the doctor?”

  Reggie wondered if she should go with the boy and see if she could help Mrs. Dunswell. She knew nothing about childbirth, but she could at least entertain the other children and keep them out of the way.

  Moments later, George was on the ground. He was so excited he handed Reggie the shears and said, “Dinna fash yerself, milady. Sadie says it isna comin’ right every time, and every time, out pops another bairn, as easy as ye please.”

  Reggie was flustered by his frank talk, but relieved that Mrs. Dunswell was apparently in no real danger. “Would you like me to come—”

  She had no trouble reading George’s face, though he had more difficulty explaining in words, stopping and starting and stuttering, that a great lady in the house would only make his wife anxious, and besides, her sister was staying with them and could manage the children.

  “Very well, George. I will remain here,” she said at last, to cut him off.

  When George and his son were gone, she was disappointed to realize it would not be possible after all to clear the windows of ivy this afternoon. But she could not spend another day at Castle Carlisle.

  She opened and closed the shears once. That was not so hard. She looked up at the window, judging the distance. She had climbed trees taller than that. And she and Becky had not once, but twice, tied sheets together and descended from a window at least that high.

  “Will you hold the ladder for me, Terrence,” she said.

  “You are not going up there, are you, milady?” Terrence said.

  “Why not?” Reggie said. “Everyone else is busy with another chore, and I cannot bear to leave the house in gloom another day. I want Lord Carlisle to see the sun rise tomorrow morning.”

  “Why not let me—”

  “I would be little help if the ladder began to tip under you, Terrence. While you will be here to catch me if I fall.”

  Terrence gave her a dubious look. “Perhaps Lord Carlisle—”

  Reggie gave Terrence her most charming smile. If he went to Carlisle, she would never be allowed to finish what George had started. “Lord Carlisle will be grateful to see the work is done.” Or maybe not. But by then it would be too late. She started up the ladder, afraid that if she waited, Terrence might betray her as MacTavish had and search out Carlisle after all.

  It was not until Reggie had reached the third rung from the top, where she had seen George stand, that she realized the difference between standing on the solid branch of an oak and standing on the narrow rung of a rickety ladder. It was necessary to use both hands to manipulate the shears, and every time she leaned over, the ladder swayed beneath her weight.

  “Hold tight, Terrence,” she called down to him.

  “I will, milady,” Terrence promised.

  It was harder work than Reggie had thought it would be. The awkward way she was forced to bend made her shoulders ache. And her hands began to blister under George’s too-large leather gloves. A large horsefly kept buzzing around her head. She had swiped at it often enough to know it was not going to leave her alone, so she was trying to ignore it.

  Reggie had almost the entire window cleared and was working on the farthest corner, stretching her whole body across the window to reach the last of the ivy, when the horsefly settled on her nose.

  And bit her.

  She yelped and jerked upright. At the same time, the ladder seemed to rock beneath her feet. She struggled to retain her perch but was overbalanced by the heavy shears, which not only pulled her body forward, but also occupied both hands, making it impossible for her to grab on to the ladder. She finally dropped the shears and reached for the ladder, but it was too late.

  Reggie’s arms flailed in vain, as she felt herself plummeting toward the ground.

  Chapter 20

  Reggie s terror was so great, it stopped her breath in her chest, so she could not even scream. She fell silently, arms and legs scrabbling for purchase in the insubstantial air. Until today, she had never imagined what it might be like to die, that prospect had seemed so far in the future. In the few seconds Reggie had left, she thought of Clay, wishing she did not have to leave him so wounded. And of Becky, who was the other half of her. And of Papa—

  She got no further than picturing him in her mind before she struck something solid. If Reggie had thought at all of the pain she would have to endure when she landed, it had been to have a brief hope that she would die instantly. It was immediately apparent that her wish was not to be granted. On the other hand, her landing was much less violent than she had anticipated.

  She had forgotten entirely about the unkempt boxwood hedge that surrounded the castle. Because the hedge was so high, she had not plunged the entire way
to the ground. The soft leaves and new growth gave way, breaking her fall, but she quickly encountered more substantial limbs that gouged her back and buttocks. Those same boxwood limbs crackled and popped and finally broke away under her weight. And she found herself once again diving through the air.

  The second drop was much shorter, and Reggie managed at the last second to stick out her right hand to keep her head from hitting the ground first. Her hand eventually collapsed under the weight of her body, and her right shoulder bore the brunt of her tumbling fall. What little air was left in her lungs was crushed out by the force of her landing.

  She lay dazed, breathless, feeling the sting of the salty sea air on dozens of cuts and pricks made in her flesh by hardy Scottish thistles, but very grateful to be alive.

  “Reggie?”

  Reggie recognized Carlisle’s voice, but it took too much effort to open her eyes. There was no air in her lungs to speak, and breathing, she realized when she tried it, hurt. In fact, moving at all was out of the question.

  “You little fool,” she heard him mutter, though he sounded more tender than irate. Of course, the hope that he would not be angry with her did not last long.

  “Damned stubborn, willful woman!” he swore. And then, “Bloody, bloody hell!”

  By then she had taken a few careful, shallow breaths, so there was enough air in her lungs to cry out in agony when he tried to lift her.

  “I’m sorry, love,” he murmured in her ear, as he gently slid his hands under her, curled her body against his own, and stood up. “Those cuts need to be tended, and lord knows whether you have any broken bones.”

  She bit back a moan as he shifted her in his arms and started walking. Her right wrist and shoulder hurt worst, but her back and buttocks ached, and it seemed that every place her skin came in contact with his, he rubbed against a tear in her flesh.

  “Terrence says you hit the hedge first, or you would not be alive to hurt so much,” he said. “Wake up, Reggie,” he ordered in a voice that demanded obedience. And then, more urgently but more quietly, “Open your eyes, Reggie, please.”

  Her eyelashes flickered open, but the sun was too bright, and she closed them again. “Clay,” she murmured.

  “Yes, love,” he said.

  “My shoulder hurts.”

  “I suspect it does. What were you doing up on a ladder, Reggie? Don’t waste the breath to answer. I can see for myself my bedroom window is clear of ivy. But we have servants to do that sort of work.”

  “The baby,” she murmured.

  “You should have thought of the baby sooner. I cannot believe you were climbing a ladder in your condition! Are you mad, woman?”

  She was trying to tell him that George’s wife was having a baby, and that was why she had gone up the ladder herself. But she was so cold and so very tired, and it took entirely too much effort to explain. And he was right. She should have been more careful. But it had been so important to let in the light. More important than anything.…

  He started walking faster, jostling her, making everything hurt more.

  She gave a sharp cry when he stumbled once and jarred her shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he bit out. “I will try to be more careful. Terrence has been sent to find a doctor. With God’s help, he will be back before you suffer much more.”

  Tears seeped from beneath her eyelids, but she endured the excruciating pain without further complaint.

  “Don’t give up now, Reggie. Keep fighting, love. We have a great many years ahead of us together.”

  That was the last thing Reggie heard before she sank into a blackness that summoned her with soft whispers that promised surcease from the pain.

  Clay paced anxiously outside Reggie’s bedroom door. Dr. Wren had been inside for nearly half an hour without offering a word of information on Reggie’s condition. Clay knew she was alive, but she had lost consciousness soon after he laid her down, and she had not regained it before the doctor arrived several hours later. He was frightened.

  What if she never woke up? What if he never had a chance to say he was sorry? What if she never had a chance to see Castle Carlisle with all its windows open to the sunlight?

  Suddenly, Reggie screamed.

  Clay’s heart skipped a beat. Dear God! What had happened now? He burst into the room, saw the doctor bent over her, and shouted, “What are you doing to her!”

  “I have just reset her dislocated shoulder,” the doctor said calmly. “Now, if you will please wait outside, your lordship, I can finish my work.”

  Clay stood staring, unable to move. Reggie’s right shoulder was horribly bruised, and her right wrist was swollen nearly double its size. He was appalled at the enormous number of cuts and smaller bruises he could see on her face and arms despite the sheet that was drawn up to protect her modesty. Her face was wan, her eyes closed.

  But if she had screamed, she was obviously no longer unconscious. Surely that was a good sign. “Will she be all right?” he asked.

  “I will know more when I have completed my examination,” the doctor said. He turned to the plump, white-haired—and white-faced—housekeeper and said, “Mrs. Stephens, will you please take his lordship downstairs and get him some brandy.”

  “I can see myself out, Mrs. Stephens,” Clay said, backing out of the room. “You stay and assist the doctor.”

  He headed downstairs to the drawing room and found Pegg there before him. The big man was sitting in the single wing chair that occupied the room, leaving Clay with a choice between the stool at the pianoforte or the Grecian sofa, with its flaking gilded arms. The rotted red velvet that had once covered the sofa had been replaced with a piece of bottle-green brocade drapery salvaged from an upstairs bedroom window.

  Clay could not bear to look at the sofa. It reminded him too much of Reggie. He marched to the rolling cart in the corner, poured himself a glass of brandy—both the chipped crystal goblets and the slightly cracked decanter having been scavenged by Reggie from the attic—and swallowed it in one reckless gulp.

  The heady fumes made his eyes water, but did nothing to ease his fear. He was tempted to pour himself another but realized it would take the whole bottle to drown his dread. He set the glass down and began to pace again.

  “Sit down, lad. Ye’re makin’ me nervous,” Pegg said.

  “If she dies—”

  “ ’Twill serve ye right if she dies,” Pegg interrupted, lurching out of the chair to confront Clay. “Ye never valued the lass, and look what’s happened. Are ye ready now to give up this foolishness?”

  “Are you suggesting I forgive her father because she fell off a ladder doing something I never asked, never intended, never even wanted her to do?”

  “If ye love the lass, why not?” Pegg retorted.

  Clay ignored the first half of Pegg’s statement to focus on the question he had asked. “Do you really think Blackthorne has suffered enough? He endured a slight financial setback when he tried to sell his wheat crop this year, but he has made arrangements to keep that from happening again.

  “I have bankrupted his son-in-law, but Blackthorne merely welcomed his daughter home with open arms. And I have taken his other daughter to wife, forcing her to live apart from her father for—is it three months now or four that we have been in Scotland?” Clay asked sarcastically.

  “Where have I done Blackthorne any harm that can equal the harm he has done me? Where are we even? Whatever my personal feelings for his daughter, the duke must not be allowed to escape unpunished. I made a vow to God, to my wife and son, and to myself, that if I lived to return to England, I would do my best to repay the duke by making as thorough a ruin of his life as he made of mine. I have not yet begun to repay that debt!”

  Clay marched out of the room without allowing Pegg to speak. There was nothing his friend could say to him that would change his mind.

  But his feet took him back up the stairs, where he paced outside Reggie’s door as nervously and anxiously as any new bridegroom threate
ned with the loss of a beloved wife.

  “Milorrrd? I must speak with ye.”

  Clay turned to find Cam MacTavish standing before him. The gatekeeper had no business in the house and none at all upstairs where the family lived. “What are you doing here, MacTavish?” Clay asked irritably. “If you have come to ask about my wife’s condition, I have nothing to report.”

  “I havena come for that. I’ve come to tell ye ’Twas no accident yerrr wife fell. ’Twas done on purrrpose by the scarrrred man holding the ladderrr. He meant for herrr to fall. He meant to kill herrr if he could.”

  Clay’s breath was caught in his chest. He had already interrogated Terrence about how the accident had happened. The man had not acted like a murderer. He had been in tears.

  “She was swatting at a horsefly, my lord,” Terrence had said, his voice breaking, “and lost her balance.”

  “What was she doing up there in the first place?” he had asked.

  “When George was called away, Lady Carlisle insisted on climbing the ladder herself to finish what he had started. She said I could hold the ladder for her, but she would not be able to hold it for me.”

  He remembered thanking Terrence for coming to find him so quickly and Terrence apologizing for how long it had taken to locate the doctor.

  If what MacTavish said was true, it was entirely possible Terrence had delayed finding the doctor on purpose.

  “How do you know Terrence is guilty?” Clay asked. Having been a victim of false accusations himself, he was not ready to accept MacTavish’s word without some further evidence.

  “I was therrre, milorrrd, watchin’ overrr herrr like I was ordered to do and saw the whole thing. Yerrr wife did lose herrr balance, but she wouldna have fallen if that blackguarrrd hadna tipped the ladderrr.”

  “Who ordered you to watch over my wife?” Clay asked in a silky voice.

  “I was sent by the Lairrrd of Clan MacKinnon.”

  It took Clay a moment to decipher the meaning of MacTavish’s words. The Laird of Clan MacKinnon, by virtue of his marriage to Katherine MacKinnon, was Reggie’s father, the Duke of Blackthorne.