Honour's Redemption

by Joan Vincent

  Lucian caught hold of her arm and stopped her just inside the kitchen door. “You cannot leave it at this.”

  “I know too little about you. Nothing of your past.” The alteration in Lucian was immediate. She knew it even before his fingers tightened painfully around her arm.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The drink. It is not a new fault. What drives you to it?” Ruth asked softly.

  Lucian tightened his hold and then released her arm. “What has that to do with marrying me?”

  “I will not know until you tell me.”

  “So you can judge me?” Lucian asked acidly. “I offer to save you and your father and sister. Is not my solution an answer to your prayers?”

  His earnestness galvanised Ruth’s pride. “I will know when God answers my prayers. Only he can do that. I have faith he knows what is best for me.”

  “A parish in ruins in Whitby is his reply to your faith?”

  The anger in his voice rent Ruth’s heart. “I do not know,” she whispered. “It may be. I believe he will show the way.”

  “Faith,” Lucian spat. “Your God shattered my faith when he helped my father kill Jasmine Randolph.”

  Ruth longed to gather Lucian in her arms and soothe the wound still so sharp and deep. “What happened?” she whispered.

  Lucian loomed over her, but the dark shielded her thoughts from him. “You want to know?” he growled the threat.

  His need enabled Ruth to bear her fear and look past the wrath that gripped him. “Yes.”

  Grabbing her arm Lucian thrust her onto one of the kitchen chairs. He stalked from one end of the kitchen to the other twice and then sat in a chair on the other side of the table.

  Fury, long unvoiced, made his voice harsh and icy as he began. Halfway through Lucian wished he had never begun but it was too late to stay the words. On he ploughed, refusing to leave out his debaucheries, his foul deeds. With each one he knew he earned ever deeper disgust.

  Then Lucian turned to Spain. His voice thickened, wavered as he told of Magelhaes but steadied when he told how he had killed the man who murdered the boy.

  “I was forced to resign my commission. They had had their fill of me. I returned to London and set about forgetting it by drinking to the bottom of as many bottles of port as I could. I hoped one would surely be my last, but here I am in Whitby and none the wiser as to why.” Spent, Lucian sagged back in his chair, tired beyond belief.

  He waited and when Ruth did not reject him out of hand, Lucian gathered the courage to reach across the table towards her. “Marry me.” When she remained silent he added, “I have not drunk away everything I have. I can provide your father the best of care.”

  Ruth resisted the urge to rise, go around the table, and throw her arms about his neck. His pain had shaken her to the core. Can I help him face all this after we wed? Would he permit it?

  He speaks not a word of love, Ruth’s rational side argued despite the great temptation to do as he asked. He is not heart whole; not able to love as you wish. As you need.

  Ruth clasped her arms tightly about her and considered all he had said about Jasmine Randolph. The young woman’s greed had stolen much from Lucian and cost Jasmine her life. Did he truly not understand what had happened?

  It would cost Lucian’s life if he could not be made to see the truth. Nothing less would give them a chance for happiness. Ruth grasped at straws and came up with Sir Brandon Thornley. Perhaps unwittingly, he could provide the means to save Lucian.

  “What did Sir Thornley mean when he said you were a murderer?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ruth steeled against the pain she had to cause him. “You almost killed Sir Brandon,” she accused.

  Lucian surged out of the chair and slammed his hands palm down on the table. “He could have killed both of us. I didn’t have the luxury of asking his intent,” he said tightly.

  “Would he accuse you without reason?” Ruth asked very quietly.

  “I have killed men on the battlefield and a few off but none without cause and never without honour.”

  “Honour?” Ruth said and looked at him quizzically. What about Eugenio Hernandez whom he claimed to have shot like an animal without remorse?

  “Honour,” she said again. “If you could but have seen your face when you tore Sir Thornley from the saddle. I thought—”

  “Think what you will,” Lucian said tersely and saw fear in her eyes. Misreading its cause, desperation drove Lucian hard. He searched for some means to sway her. “This place is far too dangerous. You can’t be safe. You can’t keep your father from harm here,” Lucian sniped.

  “I cannot keep him safe anywhere,” Ruth said hollowly.

  “Then don’t be a fool about this. Your God won’t protect you either.”

  Ruth leaned back as if struck. She swallowed and looked anywhere but at Lucian. Her gaze lit on the bottle of sherry. Striding to it Ruth jerked it off the cabinet and in two more strides slammed it down on the table in front of him.

  “Do not speak to me of God while you seek yours in a bottle of spirits.”

  “Mine does not give false hope,” he threw back.

  “Nor does mine,” Ruth said confidently. “If you had opened your heart and mind to the truth of what happened instead of to port you would not be the bitter drunkard you have become.

  “Thornley thought you meant me deadly harm,” Ruth continued. “We both know you intended the very opposite.” She drew a breath and gathered her courage.

  “Why do you refuse to believe you could be wrong about your father and Miss Randolph?” she demanded and tried to hold his gaze. When he refused to meet it she turned and ran from the kitchen.

  Lucian began to tremble from head to toe. Who was she to challenge what he believed?

  Bitter drunkard? He picked up the bottle of sherry and uncorked it. It was to his lips the next moment but then Lucian thrust it away. He set it down with a sloshing thump.

  I’ll not prove her right.

  Leave her, that’s what she wants, his demon taunted. That’s what you do.

  I’ll get as far away from Whitby as I can, Lucian agreed but his feet refused to turn towards the door. He stood stock still for several moments. He could not go. His heart, Lucian realized, had fallen over the brink even as he jerked Ruth to safety.

  Instead he sought his bed and stared into the darkness, overcome with a pain he did not understand. Lucian’s eyes eventually grew too heavy. He drifted into sleep to Sampson and Ruth’s counterpoint.

  Why didn’t you ask your father what happened?

  Open your heart and mind to the truth of what happened.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Wise Owl

  “The goods are late. They’ll be here in two hours,” hissed Luke Walton as his eyes flicked across the customers in the tavern. “I say we—”

  “You have little say,” Peace Jenkinson cut off the man with dead calm. He didn’t fear her but he did the apparition Hobbleday and knew about the token that was clearly a warning given just days ago. She opened her hand so he could see the token—a strangely set short length of coal black hair which had tied about it three tiny feathers and a shrunken berry—and she stared him down. “Everything will be alright if you keep your head,” she said. The thing in her hand was a Yorkshire folklore that would rile the owlers for it warned of death for death. More worrisome at the moment was Geary’s reaction to the delay in the shipment’s arrival. He had set something afoot this eve to draw Merristorm away from the vicarage for the delivery and would not be pleased if the timing failed.

  “It’s you as should be thinkin’ on that,” Luke returned but low enough for no one else to hear. “Ye be sure of Geary?”

  “You saw the letter that Geary brought from Seth,” Peace explained though she too was uneasy over the preventive man’s claimed acquaintance with her husband. Still it was a measure Seth might well have taken. Certain he had not trusted her with everything he had arra
nged, Peace worried only about that which she had been given responsibility. “He did well by us on that run a month past and only just arrived.”

  “Aye, but this be bigger fish and an age in the plannin’.” Luke swung his gaze around the room and stiffened. “Bloody hell.”

  Peace already knew Geary had entered the tavern. Anticipation fluttered in her belly as if she were still that silly young aristocrat in the salons of Paris. But she was not and had yet to think of an explanation for the Hobbleday’s warning token. Who and what were the forces at work?

  “Good eve, Mrs. Jenkinson. Walton.” Geary waited, as he always did, for Peace to indicate he should take a seat.

  His fine manners troubled her more than the cold cunning intelligence she caught glimpses of in his eyes at odd moments. “Has Mr. Clayton been found?” she asked with a wave at the chair across from Luke.

  “Safely so,” Geary answered as he sat. “A friend of Mr. Merristorm has arrived in Whitby.”

  Walton stiffened. “I told ye that’ un’d be trouble,” he told Peace and then looked to Geary. “Do they ken what’s up?”

  “I doubt it,” Geary said and accepted the glass of wine Peace had signalled to be brought to him. He breathed in its bouquet and raised it to her.

  “Thank you.” The Preventive Officer drank and then set the glass down. “The new arrival gent, Sir Brandon Thornley, hates Merristorm. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took care of that particular problem.”

  “We should put a knife in both of ’em,” Walton urged.

  “You are too eager, Mr. Walton,” Geary said before Peace could speak. “They shall distract one another. ‘Haps Thornley has already put a ball in Merristorm’s brain.”

  “What did you do?” Peace demanded.

  “Just a diversion as I said.”

  “How’re we ta get the cargo into the tunnel then?”

  Geary looked from Peace to Walton. “It hasn’t come?”

  “Delayed. Less’n two hours ‘til it does.”

  Geary drained his glass. He slowly traced the rim, angered that the need to meet with Damler to finalize details of the run had kept him from tracking the pair along the quay. “Merristorm is either dead or back at the vicarage. They are exhausted after the past day and will sleep soundly. Especially Merristorm who’ll likely take to his bottle.”

  “How do ye know that?” Walton asked belligerently.

  “I know about matters that may affect my success,” Geary said very quietly.

  The words a threat, Peace flashed a warning glance at Luke. “If that is so we can still use the south entrance to the tunnel.”

  Geary considered it and then nodded. “They saw the monster come from the north. Yes, a slight risk, I think.” He looked at Walton and warned, “Take extra care for silence.”

  Luke scooted back his chair.

  “Kill no one,” Peace warned.

  “Or what?” he asked on a cold laugh.

  Peace turned her palm upward. “You know what this means. You’ll be the next.”

  Walton’s nostrils flared at the short length of coal black hair with its three tiny feathers and a shrunken berry. The center feather was blood smeared. He rose and strode away taking six of the men at various tables with him, emptying the tavern.

  Geary studied Peace as she watched them go. He warmed at the memory of the first night he had come into the Wise Owl. The spark she had lit within him had proven stubbornly resistance. Especially now that they were alone. Donatien put a finger to her lips. “Rest easy.”

  After a long pause, Peace kissed his finger and then clasped that hand. “It is many years since I have trusted anyone. Dare I trust you?”

  Never, thought Geary. The impulse to say it aloud threatened his iron will.

  “You do not trust easily either,” she murmured.

  The concern, the care he saw in her eyes almost undid Geary. He thought of the many women he had wooed to bend to his devices and betrayed without a second thought. There would be too many thoughts about this woman.

  “Peace, I—” Geary halted when Peace leaned into him. He sucked in a sharp breathe as her lips feathered against his. The bolt of lightning their movement sent through his veins pierced his heart. With a groan he moved his lips over hers; trailed kisses along her jaw.

  Her sigh pushed him to the edge of surrender. Geary cupped her chin.

  Peace smiled serenely, the decision she had wrestled made.

  Geary made himself think of the French ship that would await his signal in a very short time. Only a day or two more with Vianne. And nights. He tilted her chin up and kissed the tip of her nose. “Are you certain?” he asked with uncharacteristic care.

  “Why are you not?”

  “It is impossible for us to marry.” Geary saw regret, then acceptance flicker in her eyes. He was not surprised when she did not ask why, but a pain deep inside his heart crept free. This was a bitter trap of his making. If he made love to her now, she would hate him when his success delivered the truth. It presented a dilemma he had not faced since a young child. The Frenchman tried to shrug away the prickle of conscience. He sat back, easing Peace away and fingered a strand of the hair in the object she held. As he hoped this altered Peace. She turned grim and clutched the warning from Hobbleday.

  “I have had too much of death,” she whispered. “No more.”

  “The past is the past. Over and done.” Geary took the length of hair from her hand and turned it over. “We shall all come to death.”

  “It is living that I oft fear,” Peace said.

  Despair filled her voice. It brushed the Frenchman’s heart like none ever had. He laid the token on the table and gently traced the calluses that marred her once beautiful hands. But for the tragedies of the past they would have never met.

  “What is it?” Peace whispered. “You look— It is very strange.”

  “I was thinking of what could be,” he said and met her gaze. What he saw in her eyes made him quake. He trembled. The past as well as the present was there to tell him how foolish it was to think life would be any different than it was. Could he abduct her and carry her to France?

  “You will keep Merristorm from harm?”

  Geary noticed the movement of her hand toward the token. He fingered the strange hank of hair. “You believe that is a warning not to harm him?”

  With a nod she clenched her fingers about it.

  “Why is his life important to you?”

  Peace wondered again at the strained undertone that appeared at any mention of Merristorm. She clutched Hobbleday’s warning. Did it foretell Geary’s death? She fluttered a hand. “The man means nothing to me. That is not why I wish him to live.” She leaned close. “Hobbleday will set a curse on the one who kills him.”

  Geary began to smile but she grabbed his hand. “Everything Hobbleday foretells comes to pass. I shall pay a forfeit if Merristorm dies.”

  “Who is Hobbleday?” Geary asked impatiently.

  “’Tis our lives if I tell you. You must make certain Merristorm is not harmed.”

  Geary damned the superstition but pretended agreement. He gave a slow nod.

  “And you must not harm him,” Peace whispered insistently.

  Geary bristled. Not at the order, but at the impulse to do as she asked. Merristorm will have to die, he immediately pledged but nodded again. It was but another falsehood and she no different from all the women he had lied to across the years.

  “Kill him and you damn us both.”

  “Perhaps,” he said curtly as the future sank into the past.

  Peace looked to object but grimaced and withdrew her hand. “With this shipment the list of goods is complete. When will the ship arrive?”

  Geary raised an eyebrow. “Soon,” he said. “I shall be there when it does. All shall go well.”

  “Walton grows arrogant. I fear he may try to make his own bargain.”

  “Then he will have to deal with me,” Geary said coolly. “Unlike your Hobbleday
I do not rely on curses.”

  “It is not wise to jest.”

  For the first time Geary suspected Peace might not be Hobbleday. If the apparition was not her, everything became more uncertain. He stilled his inner turmoil. Peace had shown an uncanny ability to read him.

  Geary took her hand and kissed it. Her flinch did not come as a surprise. She had grown more skittish every day since he had kissed her but he could not regret doing so. Raising his gaze to the troubled blue eyes and fear-filled features an uncommon twinge occurred in the area of his heart.

  Remember that she plans something she does not tell you, Geary reminded himself. But in his heart he damned having ever met her.

  * * *

  St Cedds Vicarage Early Hours of October 22nd

  Lucian turned over and ploughed a fist into the coverlet. Women. He sighed.

  Ruth.

  But now the pleasure of Ruth in his arms, her lips on his, her body pressed against his rocked him.

  Her words taunted Lucian. You think I would wed you for convenience?

  Damme her, he thought as he wrestled the covers and turned onto his back once again. Lucian stared into the darkness. Who was she to tell him to face the truth? he asked with rising belligerence.

  See things how they are, should I? Damme her. Lucian heaved out of the bed and tossed the blanket to the floor. He snagged his jacket which he had cast across the table by the bed and found his Hessians at the foot. Out in the hallway he glared into the darkness toward her door.

  I should go in there and bring her to her senses. If Marietta wasn’t in that room— Lucian’s thought stuttered.

  He stalked in the direction of the stairs but stopped short when a couple of his stocking-clad toes collided with the base of the top newel post.

  Biting back a choice epithet he gingerly put his throbbing foot down and fumbled for the railing. By the time Lucian reached the bottom of the stairs he wondered why he had bothered to come down at all. Thrusting arms into his jacket he sat on the second step and rubbed his sore toes.