“Every other man I thought I loved ended up being something awful,” Honore said. “And when you would not wed me because of my reputation, I thought perhaps you wanted to ensure respectability.”
“I did, but that wasn’t the way to go about it, denying that I loved you, making poor excuses like needing to feed my family. That’s why I came back. If I am arrested, I will stand trial knowing I did not run away from the risk, nor from you.” He held her gaze again. “I love you, Honore Bainbridge. Please trust me.”
“You came back for me. That is all I need.”
Except for him to get her free.
Despite the gun pointed at her middle, her eyes glowed like a sunlit sky. If only she understood the double meaning of his message regarding trusting him. If she panicked, all would be lost—such as her life.
“You got away last night, Tuckfield. So why did you come back?” Meric asked.
Tuckfield jabbed the pistol into Honore’s middle. “To get rid of her. I thought she might have recognized me. She’s known me all her life.”
“Because my family kept you employed all my life and more.” Honore stomped her booted foot onto Tuckfield’s instep. He grunted and shoved the gun harder into her middle. “Do not do that again.” He called her a vulgar name. “I should have killed her last night, but could not with all those Frenchmen about and the excise men expected. Had to get away so they could catch you with the French.”
“But you failed.” Meric let himself gloat. “I presume you failed at killing me with the carriage accident as well.”
Tuckfield scowled. “That man was incompetent all around. I should have found a way to do it myself.”
“But you didn’t do it yourself and failed in your choice of assassins.” Meric shook his head. “I didn’t get caught. I even found your secret passageway into the dower house.”
“Secret passageway?” Honore’s eyes and mouth rounded. “Truly? And I did not get to see it?”
“Behind a pile of coal, my dear. I’ll show it to you when we get home.”
Tuckfield snorted. “Unless you are strong swimmers, you won’t get home.”
Strong swimmers indeed. The sea rolled in five-foot swells beneath the lugger’s keel. No one was that strong a swimmer, especially not a small female and a wounded man.
But those swells could be used to their advantage aboard the vessel. Tuckfield had his back propped against the side rail, but he still needed to brace his legs to hold his balance and hold on to Honore at the same time.
Meric merely balanced with his legs—legs wobbly from the wound weakness, unstable from the pitch of the lugger. On the next swell, he addressed Tuckfield.
“How did you survive that sea last night with no sail?”
The lugger climbed the wave up, up, up to the crest, hovered for a moment as though reluctant for the drop.
“These fellows were—”
The boat plunged into the trough. Meric “lost” his balance and lunged forward. His right hand sent the knife flying past Tuckfield’s eyes, the blade glinting in the lantern light. Tuckfield flinched back, free arm flailing at air.
“Honore, drop!” Meric shouted.
She dropped. At the same time, Meric’s left shoulder struck up the pistol barrel. The gun fired into the air, then spun out of Tuckfield’s hand and into the sea.
Tuckfield bellowed and lunged for Honore. Blood seeping through his bandages, Meric kicked Tuckfield. His boot heel caught the other man beneath the chin. He landed on the deck hard enough to shake the craft.
So did Meric. He sprawled unheroically at Honore’s knees. “So—so sorry, my beloved.”
Laughing, Honore grasped the rail and stood on Tuckfield’s chest. “I will not let him go anywhere.”
Tuckfield could have thrown her off with one heave, probably knocked her into the sea. But he lay still enough to be dead. Meric checked for a heartbeat. Without Tuckfield, he could not prove his innocence.
His heart beat strongly. He was simply unconscious, a bruise rising on his jaw.
“Nice kick.” Honore grinned. “Now to get these men to turn their loyalty to us.”
“Just a minor detail.”
Meric levered himself upright and called to the man who had let him aboard. “Why did you work for this man?”
The skipper shuffled forward, eyes narrowed. “Loyal to him.”
“Why?”
Tuckfield groaned. Honore stepped on his middle. “Do not move.”
Tuckfield gasped for air. “Do . . . not help . . . them, Rogers.”
“Why not?” the skipper asked. “Seems like they got you cornered.”
“I . . . can still talk.” Though the swelling of his jaw was slurring his speech. “You know . . . what I know . . .”
“Unless it’s murder,” Meric said, “I will see you get either a pardon for your past or enough money to start a new life, if you take us back to England.”
“I will hunt you down, Rogers,” Tuckfield declared.
“Not if you’re swinging from a gibbet.” Rogers nodded. “Got your word, milord?”
“My word.” Meric held out his hand.
The men shook, and Rogers turned away to give orders.
Tuckfield began to curse. Honore pulled her sash from her gown. “I think we should tie him up.”
“If you have a handkerchief,” Meric said, “we should gag him too. You shouldn’t hear that kind of language.”
She smiled at him. “I keep repeating you calling me your beloved and do not hear a word he says.”
“My dearest beloved.” Heart melting inside him, Meric used the satin ribbon to tie Tuckfield’s hands, then stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth. He didn’t have a way to affix that, but it would take Tuckfield awhile to work it loose, with his inability to move his jaw properly.
“As long as he can talk enough to confess,” Meric said.
“Do you think he will?” Honore knelt beside Meric.
“He might, for transportation over hanging. But it doesn’t matter. With us bringing him back this way, the riding officers will look for evidence pointing to him and find more than enough. It’s there, especially since you worked out who was guilty.”
“I should have told you, but I thought he surely died at sea last night. And I thought I would see you again.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Why did you run away without me?”
“I didn’t. That’s why I came back.” He wrapped his arm around her and tilted her face up to his. “Do you forgive me for not marrying you when I should have?”
“I do. I understand why, and I love you for it.” She laid her hand against his cheek. “I was not ready to truly love someone anyway until now when you came back, and—mmm.”
He kissed her. Two of the crew cheered.
Laughing, Meric lifted his head. “Let us go home so we can get married and I can do more of that in private, my Honore.”
Epilogue
Honore had always expected an elopement for her nuptials. Instead, she stood in her bedchamber at Number Sixteen Cavendish Square on a shockingly cold February day three months after Ashmoor’s proposal. Everyone wanted to see her married and braved the cold and snow that seemed ever present that winter to attend the affair.
“Everyone” included Lady John Dunbar, Beau’s mother-in-law. Now that Honore was to become a countess, she thought her respectable enough to join the family.
“I shall be the picture of propriety from now on.” Honore made the pronouncement to the room at large.
The company included Lydia and Cassandra, both with their sons in their arms more than with the nursemaids; Deborah, already looking matronly after a mere month of marriage; and Miss Morrow, whose own wedding would take place in Clovelly in a month, after she and Chilcott returned to Devon and the banns were read. All four ladies swarmed around Honore, tucking in a curl, adjusting her hat, plucking off one pair of earrings and exchanging them for another, as though she were a fashion doll. Not one of them commented on her claim for future
respectability.
She frowned at them in the dressing table mirror. “You do not believe I can be respectable?”
“My dear,” Cassandra declared, “now that you are a countess, nearly everything is considered respectable. No one is the least scandalized by me flying in a balloon except for Geoffrey himself.”
“You should not have gone up when you were nearly at your confinement,” Lydia scolded. “If you had crashed, you would have done in the heir as well as yourself.”
“But I did not crash.” Cassandra stroked the chubby cheek of her infant son. “I rather wanted to ensure that he would inherit my passion for flight instead of his father’s fear of heights.”
“And everyone thinks Lisette’s penchant for cooking is merely because she is French and therefore a little mad.” Lydia smiled when speaking of her sister-in-law. “Of course, we should know anyone who willingly separates herself from the ground to fly is a touch eccentric.”
Miss Morrow heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I expect I will have to live a staid and sober life.”
Everyone laughed, for no one expected anything else from Miss Morrow and Nigel Chilcott. Only a few of them knew that Miss Morrow had enjoyed enough adventure for her life.
Deborah said nothing. Her life was already sober and staid as Beau’s wife. Her gentle smile and calm eyes suggested she liked things that way.
Honore glanced from her sisters to her companion to her sister-in-law and shook her head. “I think I will leave spies and traitors to themselves from now on. Ashmoor and I shall drive off to his house in Surrey and enjoy the quiet until spring. Then we shall return to Devon to see what we can do about making Ashmoor more habitable. It is terribly drafty and uncomfortable. And, of course, as soon as the war is over, he wants to bring his mother and siblings back here, if they will come.”
“So sad you could not have waited to marry until they could be here,” Deborah said.
Honore and her sisters stared at their brother’s wife as though she had grown an extra head.
“Perish the thought of waiting,” Cassandra murmured. She smiled down at her son.
Honore’s cheeks grew warm.
Before she could say anything, though, the clock chimed the half hour. Eleven thirty. Marry on a rising clock hand to satisfy tradition. Marry before noon to satisfy the law. The drive down to Surrey could not come fast enough for her.
She started for the door. Cassandra and Lydia grasped her arms.
Cassandra squeezed her hand. “I know you are anxious, but you must not be unseemly about it.” Her eyes twinkled.
Honore laughed. “You are telling me not to be unseemly when you and Whittaker . . .”
“Yes, well—” Cassandra blushed. “We are respectable now, except for my ballooning, that is.”
“And Whittaker chasing Luddites,” Honore added.
Cassandra shuddered. “The rebellion is over. At least Whittaker’s role is done once and for all. I suppose some unrest will continue for a while yet. But that is too sober a thought for this day.”
“Tuck in your lace.” Lydia adjusted the white lace fichu set into the neckline of Honore’s silk gown, the same blue as her eyes. “There now. We shall go seat ourselves and you will follow.”
Someone knocked on the door. Lydia opened it. “Ah, Beau, here you are.”
He looked past her to his bride. “Everyone ready?”
“Three months ago,” Honore muttered.
Laughing, the Bainbridge daughters descended to the drawing room, where the chairs had been arranged to accommodate two score guests. Ashmoor had paid for a special license to enjoy the ceremony in the privacy of the house with only family and close friends present. Though Tuckfield’s arrest and conviction of murder and treason had cleared any scandal from the Poole family, Society tended to ask rude questions and likely would until another sensation stole the public’s attention.
Ashmoor stood at Honore’s entrance. Their gazes met and locked across the width of the chamber. His sparkled with golden lights and held so much warmth and love that Honore’s knees weakened and she stumbled.
In a few strides, he reached her side and gave her his arm. “Do I need to carry you?”
“You need not continue to pick me up, my lord.”
“I intend to continue picking you up for the rest of our lives.”
Laughing, Honore reached the vicar while clinging to Ashmoor’s arm and, still glowing from within, made her wedding vows in a clear, strong voice.
The vicar closed The Book of Common Prayer to indicate the end of the ceremony. Honore gazed at Ashmoor in wonder that she was finally his wife.
“I think we are supposed to lead the guests into the dining room,” Ashmoor said.
“I would rather set out on our journey.”
Ashmoor kissed her lightly, much to the delight of the guests, and shook his head. “I, for one, am starving.”
They led the guests into the dining room for the wedding breakfast. Honore sliced up the rich, fruity bride cake with its marzipan and sugar icings so each guest could have a piece and the single females could take theirs home to slip under their pillows.
“I never did anything so silly,” she told Ashmoor. “It is good I did not. I never would have dreamed of someone like you.”
He wiped a bit of marzipan off her lower lip with his fingertip and tasted it. “You mean an uncouth, American-raised rascal?”
“I mean honest and faithful and true to his faith.”
“All those things were badly tested, but God showed me the right way in the end.” He rose. “Madame de Meuse says we can go now.”
Honore leaped from her chair and spun toward the door. “Blessings to all of you!” She blew a kiss to the room at large, then fairly skipped from the chamber, leaving ripples of mirth in her wake.
“I think,” Ashmoor said, laughing, “your eagerness has amused half your guests and scandalized the other half.”
“Is it wrong of me not to be a shy, shrinking bride?”
“Never.” He started to draw her close, but suddenly all the Bainbridges and their spouses surrounded them with embraces and kisses and advice for Honore to act like a countess.
“I will. I will,” she promised. She just wanted to be gone.
She and Ashmoor ran from the house and through the bitter cold to the carriage warmed with hot bricks. Once inside, Honore huddled in her fur-lined cloak. This was the first time she had been alone with Ashmoor since the night they caught the traitor, and her tongue suddenly wouldn’t work. Ashmoor settled beside her, and he too said nothing. In silence, they watched Cavendish Square roll away while heading for London Bridge and the countryside beyond. Ashmoor’s hand closed around hers, and still neither of them spoke. They glanced at one another, then quickly away.
Finally, Ashmoor turned to her and tilted up her chin. “What’s wrong, my dear?”
“Nothing.” Oh, the look in his eyes made her breathless. “That is, I am not certain I know how to be a countess.”
“More than I know how to be an earl.” He kissed her. “But I do know how to love you.”
She closed her eyes and melted against him, expecting more caresses. But he was staring out of the window and all of a sudden reached up to knock on the roof. “Stop, coachman.”
“Why? Whatever is wrong?”
“Nothing. There’s a frost fair on the river.”
“Is there?” Honore leaned toward the window and gazed with racing heart at the revelries spread out on the frozen Thames. She opened her mouth to ask if they could stop for just a moment, but closed it again.
“Have you ever danced on the ice?” Ashmoor asked close to her ear.
Honore shook her head. “I do not think countesses dance on the ice.”
“Ha! Mine does.” And he lifted her from the carriage.
Acknowledgments
These last three years have probably been the craziest years of my life. Thanks to the calls, emails, texts, and Facebook messages of a whole lot
of supporters, I have come through them a stronger and, I hope, better person. The list is long, so I’ll highlight a few especially special ones—Debbie Lynne with her little gifts, and Marylu, Louise, Ramona, and Patty with their prayers, advice, and willingness to set me straight with loving honesty. Deb K. and Pam M. for their warm welcome in Chicago; Pam B. at the Laredo Public Library; and all the staff of the Laredo Books-a-Million for their tremendous support of my books. Thank you, June and Billy, for your hospitality in Dallas.
I must not forget to mention my agent, Tamela Murray of the Steve Laube Agency, for calming my hysterics, and the patience and tact of my editors at Revell. Last but definitely not least, my husband, for getting me new cats when the others had to be left behind (in a good home) and putting up with frozen dinners way too often while I traveled and met deadlines.
Laurie Alice Eakes used to lie in bed as a child telling herself stories so she didn’t wake anyone else up. Sometimes she shared her stories with others, so when she decided to be a writer, she surprised no one. Family Guardian, her first book, won the National Readers Choice Award for Best Regency in 2007. Since then, she has sold over a dozen books and novellas, six of them set in the Regency era, to publishers such as Revell, Zondervan, Barbour, and Harlequin Love Inspired.
Eight of her books have been picked up by Thorndike Press for large-print publication, and Lady in the Mist, her first book with Revell, was chosen for hardcover publication by Crossings Book Club.
Laurie Alice teaches online writing courses and enjoys a speaking ministry that takes her from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast. She has recently relocated to Houston, Texas, with her husband and pets and is learning how to live in a big city again.
Books by Laurie Alice Eakes
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THE MIDWIVES
Lady in the Mist
Heart’s Safe Passage
Choices of the Heart
THE DAUGHTERS OF BAINBRIDGE HOUSE
A Necessary Deception
A Flight of Fancy
A Reluctant Courtship
A Reluctant Courtship Page 30