The fighting was over in a matter of minutes. Outnumbered, the smugglers threw down their blades and pistols and allowed themselves to be marched out of the cave. Allegra found herself enveloped in Grey’s comforting arms.
“Thank God you’re safe,” he muttered, kissing her in a frenzy of relief. “The sheriff suspected this coast of harboring smugglers. He gave us half a dozen of his armed men for safety’s sake.”
“Why did you take so long?” Her body began to shake convulsively, giving in at last to the tension of the past hours. She clung to him for support.
“We had to sail along the coast. And wait for the wind. As luck would have it, Captain Smythe had put in at the first village I came to. But when we saw the smugglers’ ship at anchor, we waited until dark to make our own landing.” He clutched her to his breast and groaned. “My poor dear Allegra. I thought I’d die when I heard you scream. Are you hurt? Did they harm you?”
“No, but…Oh my God! Tom!” She threw herself out of Grey’s arms and looked wildly about.
Tom Wickham had dragged himself to a sheltered corner of the cave, and now lay gasping, his hand pressed to the spreading stain on his chest. He smiled faintly as Allegra and Grey knelt at his side. “My mother would be pleased. That I died defending a lady.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Allegra as brightly as she could. “We’ll bring you to a surgeon. Why, in no time at all…”
His eyes were suddenly solemn. “Don’t,” he said. “We have no time for lies.”
“But you can’t die!” She brushed at her tears.
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Lord, I feel as though I were filled with broken glass.” He managed another smile. “Don’t weep, Allegra. I’ faith, I’ve led a pleasant life. I can look back over twenty-five years with few regrets.” He reached out with his bloody fingers and grasped Grey’s wrist. “But there’s much to be told. Is Captain Smythe’s ship at anchor?”
“Yes.”
“Send for my sea chest. Then listen to me. I’ll want you to write it out, Grey, so I can sign it.” He coughed for a moment, then was still.
While Grey gave instructions to Baines to fetch Wickham’s sea chest, Allegra tore bandages from her petticoat and pressed them against Tom’s wound. She found a bottle of rum and a bowl of water, then bathed his face and gave him something to drink. The blood had long since dried on the handkerchief around his forehead; it was almost the same color as the stains from Papa’s blood.
“Don’t speak now, Tom,” she said. “Rest for a little while.”
“No. Listen to me. I must put things right before I go.” He sighed, then coughed softly. “How shall I begin? My parents lived apart much of the time. My father and I were…not on amicable terms. I lived away at school, or stayed with my mother and her family in Yarmouth. My father…he stayed in Shropshire with his own father, or came down to London to gamble. Perhaps I tell you this to explain my ignorance. My blind stupidity to what happened. I knew there was bad blood between my family and the Baniards. From the time of the civil wars. But all I ever heard from my father and grandfather was envy. That the Baniards had great lands and wealth whilst the Ellsmeres…the manor house at Holgate. That was all.”
Grey stared in surprise. “Sir Henry Crompton’s manor?”
“He bought it from my father, after we moved into Baniard Hall. At least I thought he did, at the time. He’d been my father’s friend and gambling companion in London.” Tom looked at Allegra, his face twisted with remorse. “I was with my father when he found the treasonous letters. God forgive me, it was what I testified in court. It seemed so accidental at the time—to come across a riderless horse in the woods. So haphazard that I could truthfully swear it hadn’t been all arranged. And of course the horse was traced to a known Jacobite who’d escaped to France.” He took a deep breath and winced.
“I think I was my father’s dupe in the matter. To seal his plot against your family. How damning it must have been at your father’s trial for a soft-faced youth to give his innocent testimony. And self-righteous, as only a boy can be. I was convinced, you see, that your father was a traitor.”
“Never!” cried Allegra.
He ran his tongue across his lips. “Let me go on. I know not how much time God has granted me.” He blinked as though he were fighting to focus his thoughts. “My mother died, and I went away to school again. When I returned to Baniard Hall, I found that my father had sold the house at Holgate to Crompton. But I never found any record of money changing hands. Not even in my father’s papers after he died.”
“What are you saying?” said Allegra.
“I think Crompton guessed what my father had done. And took the house at Holgate for his silence. The year before my father died, he gave part of the Baniard woods to Crompton as well.”
“Good God, man,” said Grey. “Can you prove this?”
“Not anymore. Five years ago, I found some letters and papers in my father’s desk. One of them was from an underling, detailing the expenses he would incur upon leaving the Baniard household and resettling in Virginia. He demanded recompense from my father. Another letter was from someone who had signed the name…” Wickham closed his eyes and groaned. “Oh, God, it hurts.”
Allegra choked back a sob. “Rest for a bit, Tom. Please.”
“No time. The letter. Yes. It was signed Tiberius.”
Grey frowned. “A secret name?”
“No doubt. The letter…this ‘Tiberius’…confirmed that my father had forged the papers that convicted your father, and asked for compensation in exchange for his silence. In the name of friendship.”
“Where are the letters now?”
“My father destroyed them. But not before I confronted him and forced him to tell me the truth. That it was so. He even bragged about it, once the secret was out. And told me how he’d bribed a Baniard servant to steal your father’s seal. It was how he authenticated the forged letters.”
“Dear heaven,” breathed Allegra. She felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“Do you remember the name of the Baniard servant?” asked Grey.
“Alas, no. But I feel sure that ‘Tiberius’ was Crompton, though ’tis only a supposition.” He clutched at Allegra’s fingers. “I tried to find out about the Baniards, truly I did! Hoping to undo some of my father’s wickedness. But the news from America…the whole family had died, they said. I left for the West Indies after that. There was nothing I could do to put things to rights. I never saw my father again. But I beg you, Allegra…” his blue eyes glistened with tears, “forgive me for the harm I’ve done you.”
She stroked his pale cheek. “Oh, Tom. You’ve been my friend today. My champion. God knows you have my forgiveness. And more.”
“And…” he grimaced in pain, “can you forgive my father for being venal and weak?”
She turned her head aside. He was asking too much. She was glad when one of the sailors appeared, carrying Tom’s sea chest.
“Good,” he murmured. “There’s paper and pen, Grey. Begin it: I, Thomas Wickham, fourth Baron Ellsmere, do freely confess the plot invented by my father, John Wickham, third Baron Ellsmere, to discredit and blacken the name of the Baniard family of Baniard Hall, Shropshire. And in particular Sir William Baniard, Baronet.” He closed his eyes. His upper lip was beginning to bead with sweat, and his voice had taken on a peculiar rasping quality.
“Peace,” said Grey. “Let me write it as you told it, and then I’ll read it back to you.”
While Grey wrote, Tom closed his eyes in sleep, a small frown marring the innocent youthfulness of his face. Allegra watched over him, her thoughts churning. At last Grey was finished writing. Tom seemed to sense the moment, even in sleep. He opened his eyes.
Grey had written a faithful account, only leaving out the name “Tiberius” and its possible connection to Crompton. What was important, he explained to Tom, was that the Baniard name should be cleared. An unproven conspirator, after the
fact, was of little matter. Tom nodded his agreement, managing to sit up with Allegra’s help. He took the pen from Grey and—in the presence of Captain Smythe as a disinterested witness—signed the paper.
He fell back to the ground, gasping. His face was gray and his body had begun to tremble. Allegra tried to urge him to rest, but he shook her off. “Grey…in the chest. All I own. The house and land in Whitby. The deed is there. Let me sign it over to…to Allegra.” He sighed in finality as he signed the deed and held it out to her.
She choked back her tears. “You don’t have to.”
“I do. An atonement, however small. The wrongs we’ve done you. ’Tis the least the Wickhams owe the Baniards.” He gazed at Allegra. There was a faraway shadow in his soft blue eyes. “We might have been friends and neighbors. Was I…was I your champion today?”
“The bravest in the land,” she whispered.
He smiled then, a smile of such sweetness that it broke her heart. “Your brave champion. ’Tis…’tis the best thing I ever did in my whole clumsy life…” He sighed again and closed his eyes and slipped away.
“Sir Greyston, the dawn is breaking.”
Grey struggled up from sleep and took the cup of coffee that Jagat Ram offered him. He looked around the cabin of Captain Smythe’s ship and noted that his chests were gone. “Have you transferred my conveniences to the prize ship?”
“All but your bed furnishings here.”
“And Mistress Mackworth’s? That is to say, Mistress Baniard’s?”
“She hasn’t yet asked me, Sir Greyston.”
He nodded. “I’ll go to her.” He frowned, wondering at Allegra’s mood this morning. She had been like a haunted wraith since Tom Wickham’s death last night, agreeing numbly as he brought her back to the ship, persuaded her to don fresh gown and shoes, urged her to take a bite of supper. She had fallen into an exhausted sleep at last.
It had taken most of the night for Captain Smythe’s people to return the contraband goods to the smugglers’ ship. Baines would captain the prize and bring both cargo and brigands to the authorities in London, while Captain Smythe continued on his voyage north. There would be a fine reward for everyone involved.
He was surprised not to find Allegra in her cabin. Even more surprised to learn from a seaman that she had asked to be brought ashore before first light.
After a worried search of the cave and the beach, he found her at last sitting on a jumble of rocks at some distance from the cavern. She was lost in thought, staring out at the rising sun. Her hair blew loosely around her head—a soft ebony halo—and her cheeks glowed pink from the brightness in the eastern sky. But the remote expression on her face gave Grey a chill of dread. “Sweet Allegra,” he said, sitting down beside her, “are you well?”
She lifted her head and stared at him. Her eyes were empty. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. Her voice was the high-pitched singsong of a lost and frightened child.
He smiled gently and tried to gather her into his arms. “’Tis simple enough. Marry me and come back to Baniard Hall.”
She flinched from his embrace. “I can’t. I have nothing to give you, Grey.”
“You have all your love, and all your sweetness.”
“No! Don’t you understand? All that time, all those years. I had only my hatred to sustain me. And now Tom is dead, and I have nothing. I never thought beyond killing the Wickhams. All those years. And now—nothing. No purpose in my life.”
“No purpose? There’s you and me! And our future. I love you!” He took her by the shoulders and pressed his mouth to hers. Her lips were cold and unresponsive.
She pushed him away and shook her head. “I think I must be as dead as poor Tom. I have no feeling, no joy. No sorrow, even. The world is an empty, hollow place, and I’m frightened. Don’t waste your time on me, Grey.”
He swore softly. “And what will you do?” he said, his lip curling in bitter sarcasm. “Spend the next two years in a bottle of gin?”
She groaned. “I don’t know. Go away. I don’t know.”
He felt helpless, frustrated, boiling with unreasoning fury as he watched her move farther away from him with each word. How could he reach her? “Damn it, I love you!” he repeated, his voice dropping to an angry growl. “You gave me a reason to live again. Why can’t I do the same for you?”
Her dark eyes were wide and blank. He had never seen such desolation in all his life. “Because I’m dead,” she whispered.
“You’re alive!” he bellowed, and slapped her across the face as hard as he could. And then a second time. He raised his hand to strike her again.
“Stop!” she cried, holding up her arms to ward off the blow. “That hurts!”
“Yes!” he said, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her with all his might. “Because you’re alive! So long as you can feel pain, you can feel joy! There’s time enough to join the Baniards in the cold emptiness of death.”
She was beginning to tremble violently, her mask of control crumbling. She tore at his hands on her shoulders. “Leave me alone.”
“How many more times must I strike you to bring you back to me? To bring you back to life? You said it to me once. Let the dead rest. You can’t atone for something that wasn’t your doing. You can’t bring them back by destroying your own life!”
She stared at him, wild-eyed. “I have no right to live!”
“They’re dead and you’re not. Accept it!” God forgive me, he thought, and struck her once again with the flat of his hand. She recoiled in pain, her hands going to her face, and collapsed into a fit of convulsive sobbing.
He pulled her into his arms and cradled her quaking form against his breast. He felt his own tension easing as she wept. Somehow he knew that the bitterness of the past was draining out of her with every burning tear she shed. The tears she had refused to shed for eight long years.
Her face was ravaged and swollen by the time she lifted her head from his chest. But there was a serenity in her eyes that he’d never seen before. He held her face in his hands and kissed her over and over again, tasting the salt of her tears. She needed him, and he felt humble and proud to serve this creature who had so completely stolen his heart.
“Lord Ridley, if we’re to catch the tide, you’d best come aboard now.”
He looked up. One of the sailors waited at a respectful distance, waving his arm in the direction of the ships. He stood up and helped Allegra to her feet. “Do you come with me, love? Baniard Hall needs the whisper of taffeta in its rooms.”
“Not yet,” she said. “Let me go away for a little while. To Whitby. To Tom’s house. My house. Just for a while.”
“Are you sure?”
“Let me bury the ghosts. And my hatred. Once for all.” She laughed sadly. “Who would have thought a Wickham could be so endearing? Why should I feel grief at his death?” She sighed. “Let me go to Yorkshire on Captain Smythe’s ship. You can return to London.” She must have seen his unease. “Don’t be afraid, my dearest Grey,” she added. “I’ll learn to live and laugh again. I promise you.” She reached up and stroked his cheek. “Do you mind?”
“I mind very much. But I love you. And I’ll wait.” He smiled warmly. “Better still, I’ll come for you. In a month’s time.” He felt his voice catch in his throat as he recalled all the dark and lonely days until this sweet woman had come into his life. “And then,” he said, feeling his heart swell with love and gratitude, “and then I’ll never let you go away again.”
Chapter Nineteen
I’m pleased with Mrs. Carey, the new housekeeper, Briggs.” Grey slipped into the coat that Jagat Ram held out to him, admired the cut in his dressing-room mirror, then turned and examined his steward. Jonathan Briggs looked positively miserable. Still pining for Dolly, that was clear. The bloody fool, he thought. To keep his silence. As though wealth, or the lack of it, had aught to do with matters of the heart! “The other servants are comfortable with her authority?” he went on.
“Y
es, milord. She has a natural air of command.”
“And a beautiful daughter as well,” he said with a sly smile.
Briggs looked shocked at his suggestive tone. “Milord?”
He laughed softly. “Do you really think, with Allegra waiting for me in Yorkshire, that I’d look at another woman? Even in the days when I was drunk, I wouldn’t have been that much of a fool. Now that I’m sober…”
Briggs shuffled the papers he held. He was too proud and honorable to show resentment, but he couldn’t completely hide his aching heart. “You’re very fortunate, milord. Allegra—Mistress Baniard, that is—showed herself from the first to be a fine woman. Though we knew nothing of her noble birth then. Very fortunate indeed.”
“Yes,” Grey agreed. “I only remarked on the housekeeper’s daughter because I was thinking of you.”
“I, milord?”
“Yes. Isn’t it time you yourself were getting married? I should like to see you settled. And the Carey girl is a handsome wench. She’d make a fine bride. I’d be more than willing to give her a small dowry, so you could set up your own household on the grounds. Come. What do you say?”
The mournful expression on Briggs’s face was slowly turning to one of horror. “Married?” His voice sounded choked.
Grey watched as his valet tied his lace cravat in neat folds, then gave it a final pat. “Yes, Ram. This will do very nicely to be married in. Have the tailor finish the breeches as we agreed.” He frowned at Briggs. “So silent? Well, perhaps the Carey girl isn’t to your liking. But one of the other girls here at the Hall? Barbara can sulk. And Margery whines. But Verity has her charms.”
Briggs’s face was turning red. “Milord!”
He shrugged. “Not interested? Perhaps it’s just as well. I need your services at the moment. And a sighing lover wouldn’t suit my purposes.” He raised a warning finger to Jagat Ram, who scarcely managed to hide his smirk. God knew how he himself had sighed for Allegra every minute of every hour since he’d returned to the Hall!
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