The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection Volume 2

by MacMurrough, Sorcha

  But still it made her very nervous. He was certain his wife and her lover were dead. How could he be so sure?

  Because he was involved with their deaths, came the terrible thought.

  Or the French had killed them during the war? Or someone else? His sons were dead too. That suggested their home had been attacked, and he had survived somehow.

  "Are you all right?" she asked softly, when he continued to sit there with his head hanging low between his shoulders.

  "It was so powerful, like a bolt of lightning though my brain."

  "Did you recall it all?"

  "No. There are still some things in the shadows. But, well, for a moment, I thought I could see you."

  "What do you mean?" She knelt down in front of him to look into his eyes, but they seemed the same to her.

  "I saw you standing in the hall at home, at the vicarage. There was a storm, pounding, something breaking. You had something shiny in your hand. Then there was blood and I heard a scream."

  "It couldn't be me. It was something you remembered."

  "No. Marielle was fair-haired. You're dark, like a raven's wing. It was you I saw, Sarah."

  She tried to keep her tone patient. "But Alexander, you can't even see the hall. How would you know it was ours?"

  "Please, just trust me," he begged, gripping her hand hard. "It was you. You need to be careful." He clutched her to his chest convulsively.

  "I will be," she promised, stroking his cheek and leaning into his embrace. "But you have to take care too. All of these memories gushing out. It isn't good for you. I nearly lost you the other night when you were so ill."

  "What do you mean?" he asked in horror. He gripped her shoulders hard. "What do you mean?" he asked again in a more urgent tone, shaking her lightly

  She could have kicked herself for blurting it out. She had sworn she would not tell him...

  "Are you well enough to walk, or would you like me to fetch a conveyance from Brimley to take us home?"

  "I can walk now," he said, though he didn't look it.

  Hut he got to his feet. She gathered their scattered parcels quickly, took his arm, and helped him along. As they walked, she told him the story of what had happened in the wee dawn hours on May Day.

  "I don't want to sound like a superstitious fool. But I'm sure you were dead, just as Jonathan was sure his friends were. I don't know what I have that could possibly bargain away, other than my life.

  "Now I'm terrified of losing you. Each of these headaches of yours, I'm sure they can't be good for you. I don't care, I don't want you to remember any more, Alexander. I want us to just assume Marielle is dead, get married, and move on."

  "But don't you see, I need to know why they wanted me dead! We might never be safe otherwise."

  "Because you were an enemy of France, helping your family, helping the aristocrats," she said impatiently.

  He looked doubtful, the frown creasing his brow once more.

  "Think about it, Alexander. It makes perfect sense. They wanted to leave France, take their wealth with them. Maybe you were helping Army deserters. You speak Spanish and Portuguese as well as French and English. You could have helped the partisans, told them of the troop movements, I don't know. All I do know is you have no love for Bonaparte."

  "Do you think your brother knew somehow?"

  She nodded. "I think he must have. You would have needed someone to help get those people to safety. Who better than an old friend from school? At some point you must have given it up though, or been discovered, for otherwise you would never have dared have the tattoo of George and the Dragon put on your chest."

  He looked grim at this.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "I get the awful feeling that I've put you in danger, you and your family. I was a spy, wasn't I. Not in the Army at all, at least not until the end. Someone betrayed me, wanted me dead."

  "True, they might have found out. Or you just decided you would be more useful in the Army, hence the commission papers. I'm guessing that you bought Jonathan's rank after Badajoz, when he gave up the service to take his orders. You were probably injured there."

  He shook his head. "I don't know--"

  "We'll be fine, Alexander. There's really no need to panic," she said in her most reassuring tone, while all the time her mind was swirling with a million questions. "No one from your past could know you're here. You were traveling under the name Jonathan Deveril, remember?"

  "Is there anyone in the road now?" he demanded suddenly.

  She looked around. "No. Why?" she asked, puzzled.

  He threw his arms around Sarah, clinging to her as though he would never let her go.

  She could only hold him close and rub his back. "You're going to be fine, darling, I promise. It will be all right, Alexander. Nothing is going to happen to you. I give you my word. I should never have told you about the other night."

  "No, I'm glad you did," he said, bestowing a tender kiss upon her lips. "It puts a whole new perspective on things. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to keep you safe."

  "The same is true for me where you're concerned, my darling."

  "I know."

  "Come, let's get you home. You must be exhausted."

  He took some of the parcels from her hands, and walked on. "I do feel drained, I have to admit. This is just so much to take in."

  "Let's not talk now. Just rest your mind for a while. Try not to think or worry."

  "I only wish I could."

  "You'll be fine. Come." She re-adjusted the parcels she was carrying, and they pressed on.

  When they reached the cottage, she led him into the small parlor and insisted he stretched out on the day bed for a rest.

  "All right, I agree. But you have to promise me that after supper you'll give me a shooting lesson, and help me with my fencing skills."

  She gaped. "But Alexander, you can't-"

  "I can try," he said in a firm tone that brooked no refusal. "All I have to be able to do is shoot at a noise."

  "And what if it's an innocent person? Think for a moment!"

  "I am thinking," he maintained. "We need to be safe."

  She sat down beside him and placed her palms against his cheeks. "This is some morbid fancy brought about by--"

  "I know what I see in my mind's eye. It's not my imagination, some horrid nightmare. It was real, Sarah, all of it. I saw my wife killed in cold blood. My sons too. I've lost far too much, and brought danger with me. I watched three people I cared about die. I will not let it happen to the woman I love more than my own life. Do you understand?"

  Sarah stared. "Are you sure? Are you sure she was killed?"

  Alexander shook his head. "Not exactly, but almost. Please, my love, just believe in me?"

  "I do, darling, truly I do. All right, if you really want to practice, I'll think of something."

  "Thank you, Sarah."

  "Come now, rest. And I'll see you later."

  She tucked him in, kissed his lips tenderly, and held his hand until he fell into a fitful doze.

  Then she headed to the top of the house, her eyes and throat scratchy with suppressed tears. Lord, what was she to do now? He swore his family was gone, but she could tell he wasn't sure. And his sense of danger might be just some morbid notion, but she felt nervous all the same.

  She climbed into the attic and took down the launcher for clay pigeons which her brother had trained with as a young man. Every gentleman was expected to have good shooting skills, but eventually her brother and the Rakehells had come to disapproving of killing anything that would not then be eaten.

  She found a good supply of the clay discs, and several of Jonathan's old fowling pieces and some ammunition. Then she took out his old Army swords, brutal straight-edged weapons used for hacking people to pieces on the battlefield.

  They were not exactly the weapons of a gentleman, let alone a lady, but Jonathan secretly had allowed her to make a fourth in his dueling practice with his friends. "Fathe
r would have been livid," she murmured. "As it was, Mother forbid me to spend time alone with the lads without one or the other of my sisters when she found out."

  But it had been fun, and she had been good. Very good, or so her brother and the Duke had said. She sighed. Those days had seemed so simple, so uncomplicated...

  She brought the items down into the garden, and went back up to change into her riding breeches and a shirt.

  "Good lord, if anyone in the village sees me, they'll think I've gone mad," she muttered to herself as she stood in front of the hall mirror and flicked a sword to and fro.

  She brought the things to the back of the barn. She was sure they would not be spotted there if anyone came up the road. "I am bloody mad. He can't see," she said with a shake of her head.

  But if it made Alexander happy, she would gladly do it.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Alexander got up an hour later, Sarah led him to the secluded spot behind the barn where she had set up all their things for battle practice. She tested the launcher, and watched the clay pigeon fly.

  He stripped off his jacket and waistcoat, and came up behind her. He put his hands over hers and followed the movement as she traced the arc of the skeet flying through the air.

  "I ought to be able to hear the whistling sound as well."

  "Right. I'll be your launcher. But first you have to load the weapons yourself. Everything you need is right there."

  He sniffed and felt them. "They're pretty well-cared for."

  "Caleb tends them every so often. We had a good spring clean a couple of weeks ago. We can tell him to keep them well-oiled and loaded. You can come practice any time with him if you like."

  "That sounds like a good plan."

  He spent a half an hour firing at the pigeons, until his shoulder was sore from the kick of the musket. He had hit only about forty percent of them. But for a blind man it was pretty remarkable, and she told him so.

  He ignored her praise. "Let's see what I can do with a sword."

  "They are only his old Army blades, I'm afraid."

  "They'll do," he said, weighing the weapon in his hand with an ease which betokened great familiarity with such a weapon. "Come at me, hard, and see if I can parry."

  "I don't want to hurt you."

  "You won't."

  His assurance made her feel sorely tempted to show off. She made sure the weapons were corked at the tip, and handed him one. He held it out in front of him, and she locked swords with him for a moment, before swinging her weapon with full force against his abdomen. A whoosh of air flew out of his lungs.

  "If that had been the sharp edge, your guts would be decorating my garden now. You're just going to have to face the fact that there are some things your physical condition will not allow to you to do."

  "I don't accept that!"

  "Perhaps you'll just have to."

  "Well, I don't," he said with an angry scowl.

  She gave a short laugh. "Fine, let's see YOU get pregnant and have a baby."

  He managed to smile at her joke. "All right. I give in. There are some things in life I willl never be able to do myself. But practice can make perfect in other areas. Just give me some practice with my arms."

  "What, both of them?"

  He flipped the sword between his hands easily, and now began to fight with his left.

  "An interesting trick."

  "My father let me learn with both when I was young. even though the monks would beat me for writing with my left hand. The left is sinister. Evil."

  "Latin as well. I don't suppose you would care to introduce yourself and tell me your real name so I can stop calling you Alexander," she said boldly.

  His formerly cheerful expression grew somber. "I'm Alexander Deveril," he said in a firm tone. "I don't want to be anyone else."

  "But you are," she reminded him softly.

  "I'm the man who loves you, Sarah Deveril. The name makes no difference," he insisted.

  "All right then, Alexander Deveril. En garde."

  She did not have his strength, but she had speed, and agility on her feet. And her eyesight, of course. He conceded defeat after a short time, but had her practice all of the different defensive positions with him.

  "Very good," she praised.

  "You too. Especially for a vicar's sister."

  She giggled. "I told you, Jonathan wasn't always a vicar. He was a rather boisterous and jolly young man, actually, though not rakish or wicked in any way. Just full of youthful high spirits and zest. Very talented, very popular with both men and women, which is a rare thing in my experience."

  "Like you, you mean."

  "Oh, no, not at all. He was much more glamorous, the difference between the male peacock and his drab peahen. Which was fine. I hated fancy feathers anyway. I was a terrible hoyden, always wanting to follow he and his Rakehell friends around. To do all the same things they did.

  "I can assure you, many's the time they had to stop me from cutting my hair, putting on a uniform and going after him to Portugal and Spain."

  He laughed indulgently, for he couldn't imagine anyone less boyish than his ladylove. "I can well believe it, with your gritty determination. But his friends. I mean, you and they never..."

  "Never. Not so much as a bit of handholding. I promise. No one, until you."

  He bent to kiss her. "Lucky me."

  "And me."

  "Supper and bed?" he proposed in a sultry undertone.

  She stroked his chest boldly. "Bath first?"

  "Yes, please. And speaking of, I've decided. I want to go to Bath."

  "Really?" she gasped in delight.

  "Yes."

  "What made you change your mind?" she asked softly, hoping he wasn't simply doing it to mollify her.

  He gave a lift of his chin. "Because we can't hide from the world forever. It would only make you unhappy."

  "Sometimes I'm sick of the world," she sighed.

  "But there's so much out there to see and do."

  She hugged him. "Everything I need or want is right here."

  He stroked her cheek tenderly. "You say that now, love, but you may change your mind in a few months."

  "No, I won't. You're my life now, Alexander. The truth is I was feeling awfully sorry for myself until you arrived. With so many of the Rakehells finding their own happiness, I was waiting and hoping for love to come into my life too. I didn't really believe it would ever happen.

  "Then you arrived on my doorstep. I opened the door and looked at you, and it was like glimpsing my whole future in a split second. Opening the portal to a whole new life. In an instant I knew. We belong together, Alexander, for all time. You don't have to go to Bath just to prove something to me."

  "Maybe I have to prove it to myself, Sarah. I really do want to get better."

  She kissed him on the lips tenderly. "So long as you're doing it for yourself, not me."

  "I want to do it for both of us," he said, wrapping his arms around her as though he would never let her go.

  "Very well, I will write and tell the Duke's servants to expect us at the townhouse a week from Friday. Now let's go get that food and bath."

  "And bed?"

  She laughed lightly. "Especially bed. Even if it's only to cuddle and rest."

  "It sounds sublime," he purred, drawing closer.

  "It will be, for both of us, I promise."

  "I know it will be. So long as it is for you as well."

  "More than you can ever guess," Sarah said with a happy sigh.

  "Then tell me, my love."

  "Can you tell me?" she countered.

  His fierce kiss contained a thousand words, a paean of love and longing, and a promise to fulfill every desire and need. He took her hand gently, and led her back to the house.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The ensuing ten days seemed to just fly by for Sarah and Alexander. She performed her parish duties with a new enthusiasm and understanding. She was in love and blissfully happy,
and her life seemed as if it couldn't be more perfect.

  But of course there were larger forces at work which she had no control over, and perfection was too much to hope for. And happiness, as she had realized, came at a price.

  While there were no more huge revelations of Alexander's past, neither did he have any more of his painful episodes. She could not tell if he was deliberately not remembering, or did remember but was not talking about it with her. She had promised not to probe, and she was fairly certain he had done nothing wrong other than help family and friends.