by Sara Bennett
But Marissa had been on too many expeditions with her parents to believe such things were necessarily romantic. Could she really endure journeys to uncomfortable and far-flung places for the sake of being the wife of this admirable man? Marriage would be a fine balance, between pleasing herself and pleasing her husband, but as long as she didn’t begin to resent the latter it might work.
When Marissa began her husband hunting she’d imagined finding herself marrying George, but it had all turned out differently. Anyway, she would have been miserable with George. In nearly all ways, Valentine was her perfect mate, and if she refused him then she would be miserable for the rest of her life. She must take that leap…or regret it forever.
It was time to say a long and lingering yes.
Reaching out her hand, she expected to touch his warm flesh, and to draw herself closer to him.
He wasn’t there.
Her first thought was he must have risen for some reason and would be back soon, but when the moments ticked by and nothing happened, she began to worry. She sat up, pushing her hair out of her eyes and looking about her. The room was empty. Dark and cold and empty. Even his side of the bed felt chilled, as if he’d been gone for a long time.
“Valentine?” she called softly, knowing even as she did so that he wouldn’t answer. She would have felt his presence if he was close by, and she did not.
Tossing back the covers, she slid from the bed to the floor, shivering. The blind was slightly disarranged and she went to the window to look through the small, smeared panes.
The yard was empty.
Something was stirring in her, a whisper of fear, and she stilled to listen to it. Where could he be? Had George sent for him? Or had he gone to George to check how he was doing? It seemed unlikely, and surely he would have said something to her if the explanation was that simple. Instead he’d crept out of the bedchamber, silent as a ghost, not wanting her to wake and…
She frowned. Not wanting her to ask questions and perhaps argue with his choices?
Of course!
He’d gone to find Augustus Von Hautt and he didn’t want Marissa to come with him.
Feverishly she began to pull on her clothing, the hand-me-down dress over the top of her underwear and stockings. She would need her boots and a cloak or some thick outer garment to keep her warm. And a horse, too. She couldn’t follow Valentine without a horse.
He’d gone back to Beauchamp Place, she knew it, the knowledge solid and sure within her. He believed the baron had returned there after they left and he was going to capture him and…But what else he meant to do Marissa wasn’t sure. That was another reason she really needed to find him and make certain nothing desperate happened between the two of them, more especially to Valentine.
Very worried now, she went to find the chamber belonging to the innkeeper and tapped on the door. She had to knock louder and repeatedly before it was finally opened. The man looked grumpy and didn’t try to hide it behind any false politeness.
“I need a horse and a cloak and my boots,” she informed him in a firm voice, before he could begin to complain. “Lord Kent has set off alone into danger and he needs me.”
He wanted to argue. She could see it in his eyes and his impatient shuffling, but he must have seen something in her face that persuaded him he would be wasting his time. Eventually he shrugged and sent her to the parlor while he dealt with her requests.
Marissa paced back and forth in front of the dying fire, the moments stretching out while she imagined all sorts of horrid things happening to Valentine, but it really wasn’t very long before the innkeeper returned with her dried boots and an old musty cloak that swallowed her up, and told her he would be saddling a horse for her with his own hands.
After he’d gone his wife crept into the room, her plump face creased with worry.
“You’ll take care now, miss?” she said, eyes anxious beneath the frill on her nightcap. “A young lady like yourself shouldn’t be riding alone in the dark, you know.”
“I will be careful,” Marissa replied, lacing up her boots, “but I must go. I can’t sit here and wait and wonder what is happening.”
The woman nodded as if she understood. She glanced at the doorway, and then stepped closer and pressed something into Marissa’s hands. Her voice was a whisper. “I’ve had this since we was robbed five year ago. It is clean and working, so don’t fear it will explode in your face. If you need to use it, aim a little to the right of your target, as it don’t fire exactly straight.”
Marissa looked down. She was holding a silver pistol with a pearl handle, small enough to be concealed in her hand. When she looked up questioningly at the woman, she found her blushing.
“A gentleman give it to me,” she said, eyes flickering sideways. “My husband don’t know, so please don’t tell him, miss.”
Ah, a lover, perhaps? Someone who’d cared enough about her to ensure her safety? Marissa smiled and reached to touch her hand reassuringly. “Thank you,” she said. “You are very kind. I will only use it if I must, and it will remain a secret between the two of us.”
“Well,” the woman blushed, “I’m glad. T’ain’t every day we get to have a lord stay at the Fox and Hounds.”
“Aye, just as well,” her husband muttered behind her, making her jump guiltily. “Been run off our feet with all his orders we have.”
Marissa slipped the pistol into her pocket, out of sight. The pair of them accompanied her to the stable and watched her ride out into the yard, the horse’s hooves clattering loudly on the cobbles. She thanked them again and kicked the beast into a canter, and then a gallop, her borrowed cloak flapping about her.
She remembered the way but even so everything looked different at night. There were odd shadows and shapes, as if what was ordinary by day had suddenly become threatening and extraordinary.
“You’re being silly,” she told herself firmly, as the miles to her destination shortened. “Valentine needs you. Just keep remembering that. He needs you…”
Valentine had left his horse hidden at the edge of the garden and made his way through narrow paths and overgrown tunnels toward the front door. He planned to test it first and if it was locked then he would try the back door that led to the servants’ stairs.
The light was still plainly visible, a soft glow through the broken shutters in one of the upper windows. Possibly Von Hautt didn’t realize the lamp was showing or that the shutter was broken, but Valentine thought it more likely that the man was so arrogant he did not consider the necessity for circumspection.
He reached the front door and stood a moment, listening, but there was nothing more than the soft patter of rain and the creaking of the crickets from the garden. Resting his hand on the damp-warped paneling, he gave the door a push. It remained shut. Next he rested his shoulder against the paneling and pushed harder. This time the door moved, slightly, inward, but it was as if something was preventing it from opening fully.
Setting his boots at an angle against the surface of the porch, he gathered his strength and shoved the paneling, hard. This time it moved further but there was a tremendous groaning, grating sound that echoed through the entire house.
Valentine froze.
He knew, with a sense of grim acceptance, that the baron must have heard it. Even if he was sleeping such a hideous noise would wake him at once. His plan to catch his enemy unawares was now impossible. He could abandon it and return to the inn or carry on regardless.
Making up his mind swiftly, he peered through the gap in the door. There was a dresser that had been set against it and had now moved enough to allow him to squeeze in. Valentine paused a moment, holding his breath, but there was no sound or movement from the stairs, and he quickly crept across the entrance to one of the doors and slipped inside, pressing himself to the wall behind it.
Just in time.
The stair treads groaned as someone descended. Valentine set his eye against the crack in the half-open door. At first he could
only see a shadow, but as the figure moved closer he was able to make out Augustus Von Hautt, his gray hair silver in the faint moonlight from the high windows, wearing the same long jacket over his riding clothes. It was only as he turned to look about him that Valentine saw the pistol in his hand.
For what seemed a long time the baron peered into the shadows, rather like a hunting animal seeking its prey, and then he moved toward the rooms on the other side of the hall and began, systematically, to search them.
It would only be a matter of time until he found Valentine.
There was a chance, however, he could get away while the baron was in one of the other rooms. Valentine waited until he was out of sight, and quickly came through the door, meaning to make his way into the shadows farther down the hall. He’d only taken a couple of strides when the worst happened.
“Halt!”
Slowly he turned to face his enemy.
Von Hautt was standing, booted legs apart, the pistol trained on him, a smile on his youthful face. “Ah, Valentine,” he said, with deep satisfaction. “I hoped it might be you.”
Valentine found himself rigid with tension and he forced his muscles to relax. He needed to get the baron off his guard.
“I saw your footprints in the dust,” the baron went on, waving the barrel of his pistol in the direction of the floor. “But I thought it best to play a game with you, let you think you could escape. You are behaving a little like a rat in a trap, Valentine. I had thought better of you. Why did you not call out. Face me man-to-man.”
Valentine gestured at the pistol. “For the very reason I see before me now. You are armed, Von Hautt, and I am not. I do not trust you.”
Von Hautt looked insulted. “You do not trust me?” he said haughtily. “That is ironic, my friend, considering how your family has treated mine in the past.”
Valentine tried to understand what he meant but could not. His bafflement must have been obvious, and it made Von Hautt angry.
“Do not pretend you do not understand!” he shouted. “I know you are well aware of what your father did, and the consequences for me. Do you think I would allow you to escape the punishment you deserve? Do you?”
And he raised the pistol until the barrel was aimed at Valentine’s heart, his finger tightening on the trigger. Valentine felt light-headed, and yet he could not run. He could not move. Marissa, he thought, with an ache of longing. The life he’d dreamed of, the happy future he’d imagined with her, would never now come to pass.
Chapter 31
Marissa saw the house at last. It really did look like a dark bird of prey against the sky. The moon had slipped beneath the clouds and the rain had returned, just lightly, but enough to cause the cloak to become damp and her face damper as she struggled to see ahead. Now she turned the horse up the narrow lane to the gate where she had been earlier today, and saw that Valentine had left his own mount hidden by the overgrown garden.
Seeing it there was comforting. He was here after all. It was only as she glanced up at the manor house that she saw the wedge of light coming through the shutters in the upper window, and her heart sank again.
Augustus Von Hautt was here as well.
Quickly she climbed over the gate, jumping down onto the muddy ground, and began to make her way toward the house. As she drew closer to the portico she saw that the front door was ajar, leaving a black and sinister gap. She hesitated, uncertain whether to approach any closer in case someone was waiting for her on the other side, but then she heard the voices.
Two voices. Although she could not make out what they were saying she recognized one of them instantly as Valentine’s, and the other she was almost certain was the baron’s.
They were inside the house, beyond the narrow opening in the door. Marissa crept closer, onto the portico, and edged toward the voices.
“Why should I believe you?” the baron shouted suddenly, making her jump. Valentine replied, sounding calm and unflustered, and she knew he was trying to defuse the dangerous situation.
She peeped through the gap and into the house only to pull back almost immediately with shock. But she’d seen enough.
Valentine was seated on the stairs, hands clasped loosely between his knees, head tipped to the side as though considering what he’d been told. Von Hautt was standing before him, his back to Marissa, but she could see he was holding a pistol pointed in Valentine’s direction.
Her own hand slid into her pocket and closed around the petite weapon the innkeeper’s wife had given her. Peering at it in the faint moonlight, she managed to cock the firing mechanism. It was just possible that she may be able to slip through the gap in the door and creep in behind the baron, taking him by surprise, forcing him to surrender his pistol.
And if he refused to surrender? Or threatened her?
Marissa knew she would have to shoot him.
“Your father seduced my mother and abandoned her,” the baron was saying bitterly. “When I was born she died, leaving me to the scorn of my relatives. My father hated me, too, because I was not his. But I am your brother, Valentine. You cannot deny me that, at least.”
His words were wild, bizarre, and as far as Marissa knew completely untrue. Where could he have got such a story? From the expression on Valentine’s face he was wondering the same thing.
“Did you know my father was also a seeker after the Crusader’s Rose?” the baron went on. “He had heard the legend from my mother’s family, that one of her distant ancestors helped to bring the rose back to England after the Crusades, and he wanted to find it. He was told of your father, Valentine, and that he, too, was on the quest.”
“I didn’t know,” Valentine said with feeling. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because I hate you,” Von Hautt spat. “You would take everything from me, if you could. It is I who should be Lord Kent. I am the eldest born son. But how to prove it? How to satisfy your English blue bloods that I am as good as them.”
“I assure you, Von Hautt, my father is not yours. It simply cannot be. My father was never in Prussia in his life.”
“Because he told you so?” Von Hautt mocked. “You are a fool. Of course it is true. My grandmother told me the truth when I was a boy. She said my father was a wealthy and aristocratic gentleman, a lord, and that he lived close by Bentley Green in an old manor house and that he also had an interest in roses. Who could it be but your father?”
Valentine looked away, as if considering the question, but he was clearly finding it difficult to answer without antagonizing the baron.
Marissa moved into the gap, careful not to let her cloak brush against the warped wood. At first she was half hidden by the dresser that seemed to have been used to bulwark the door, but she knew she couldn’t stay there indefinitely.
“I wanted to find the rose before you, to prove to you I was the better of the two of us. I wanted to be like one of the knights of old, honorable and good. You believed that, too, didn’t you?”
“When I was a boy, yes, I did feel like that,” Valentine said, sounding as if his throat was dry. “But now I see there are other things more important.”
“You are wrong. You don’t deserve to find it.”
“At least I didn’t cheat and steal.”
Von Hautt went white.
“You have a spy in my house! Tell me who it is?” Valentine roared, rising up from the stairs.
Von Hautt’s grip on his pistol tightened and he took up a firing stance. “Sit down!” he shouted.
Marissa’s heart was thudding. The two men were yelling at each other, their voices echoing up into the dusty heights of the old house. The tension grew unbearable. There was no time to wait; it must be now. She came around the dresser toward them, knowing they wouldn’t hear her anyway with the noise, but she’d reckoned without the moonlight.
She hadn’t realized the clouds had cleared away and the moon had come out, bright and beaming, and was shining through the gap in the door behind her. As she mov
ed her shadow stretched across the floor and fell upon the men.
Von Hautt spun around, eyes wide, the pistol wavering as he saw her. There was a moment, just a moment, when she read the shock and fury in his gaze, and then Valentine called her name and was running toward her and she knew if she didn’t fire now then one or other of them would die.
She pressed the trigger.
The retort wasn’t very loud. Von Hautt had not fired and she saw that he was still upright, still standing facing her and Valentine, who by now had reached her.
Von Hautt looked down at his torso. “You shot me, Miss Rotherhild,” he said in wonderment. There was a hole on the left side, but very small, and although blood was beginning to seep onto his clothes it was very little. He put his hand over the wound and actually laughed. “Next time you play the heroine, you must use a real gun and not a toy,” he teased.
“Put your pistol down, Von Hautt,” Valentine said firmly. “It is over.”
The baron tipped his head to the side. “What is over, brother? The quest for the rose? Maybe. But I am determined your family will recognize me for who I am.”
Marissa’s hand had stolen into Valentine’s and she felt his fingers squeeze hers. For comfort or for warning? She glanced up at him and couldn’t decide.
“I wish I could recognize you, Von Hautt. I will need to investigate the matter further. But I swear to you I have never before heard of the things you are telling me.”
The bitterness in Von Hautt’s smile made him almost ugly. His strange cold eyes slid to Marissa and narrowed.
“But you see, brother, that isn’t good enough. My mother should have had justice, but she died with the condemnations of her family and her husband ringing in her ears, the same sneers and jibes I have heard all my life. I do not forgive. I want justice. An eye for an eye.”
Valentine seemed to know what was coming. Marissa felt his body stiffen, felt the surge of energy within him. His hand on hers tightened painfully. “No,” he said.