by Zana Bell
‘Georgie, for God’s sake,’ swore Harry, pushing her out of the way with his sound arm.
But even as Tom cocked his pistol, another voice said, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
Everyone’s heads swung towards the door. There stood a man, looking remarkably like Harry, with a gun aimed at Tom’s head. Harry drew his breath in sharply. Sedgewick’s eyes widened, and for a minute Tom was completely thrown. The two armed men looked unwaveringly at each other then Tom lowered his gun and smiled. ‘You must be Phillip. You cannot think how long I have wanted to make your acquaintance, but my father always forbade it. Put the gun down – we are on the same side, you know.’
Phillip held his gun steady, however. ‘You have an advantage over me, I’m afraid. I do not think our paths have ever crossed.’
‘No, I was raised in the neighbouring county, but I’ve known all about you these past fifteen years.’
‘I don’t see why.’
‘You are my step-brother – though not perhaps officially, of course.’
‘What?’ Harry and Phillip spoke together then exchanged surprised looks.
‘I am Lord Walsingham’s son,’ said Tom, enjoying the stir he had caused. ‘Of course, I was not raised in the same manner as you were, but he provided for me and my mother over the years and visited frequently. He spoke of you so often – his step-son.’
Now the gun did waver and Tom saw it. ‘Come, we are almost family. I am here on your business, after all, securing your inheritance. I presume that is why you are here, too. Did your mother send you?’
Phillip shook his head. ‘My grandmother.’ His sudden rueful smile was disconcertingly like Harry’s. ‘I don’t know quite what is going on,’ he confessed. ‘I was away but received a distraught letter from my mother because a bas—’ he glanced at Harry and Georgiana and coughed—‘because an illegitimate child of my father’s – a sea captain bearing an uncanny resemblance to me – was out to make mischief and had murdered Iver. She thought I might be in danger. But at the same time I received a curious note from my grandmother telling me not to believe all I heard and imploring me to visit my father’s valet, a Malcolm Sedgewick in New Zealand, and learn the truth. She warned others may be searching for him too and that I should keep my head down. You sir,’ he said, turning to the elderly man making a little bow, ‘must be Mr Sedgewick. I believe you had been my father’s man?’
The older man nodded, his eyes on Phillip’s face.
‘How the hell did you come to be here right at this moment?’ demanded Harry, even whiter than before.
Still keeping his gun on Tom, Phillip moved deeper into the room. ‘I only arrived in town this morning – I’m a bit behind you all but have been dogging your footsteps all the way, as it turns out. In Christchurch, the man at Mr Sedgewick’s old house was mystified as to why I should be the third person in a week asking for him and I was surprised, too, until I learnt one of the men looked exactly like me.’ He gave Harry a quick glance, his expression unreadable. ‘In Oamaru, the plot thickened when several young men stopped me to demand to know where my beautiful young sister was. You, I assume?’
Georgiana cast her eyes down demurely and gave a modest nod.
Phillip continued, calm and conversational, though his finger remained on the trigger. ‘At Mr Sedgewick’s shop this afternoon, I knew the question to ask and discovered that yes, my brother had been there just days before with a young woman on his arm. When I was informed that Mr Sedgewick was still out of town I decided to while away the evening at the theatre. I’d heard there was a marvellous new actress.’ He inclined his head to Georgiana and said, ‘You were indeed wonderful.’
She blushed and couldn’t help feeling gratified, even though she still did not know on which side this man stood. Harry gave a little growl. Phillip shot him a half-amused, half-understanding glance. ‘Imagine my surprise when this same actress gave me a radiant smile as though she knew me. Suddenly I realised that my half-brother must be somewhere near.’ He looked at Georgiana. ‘I saw you coming out of the stage door and decided to follow you in case you led me to – to the man I’ve been seeking. And indeed my impulse proved correct for now I find you have brought me to both my brother and Mr Sedgewick.’
Tom spoke accusingly. ‘Were you listening at the door?’
‘Yes. It’s not something I normally do, but I heard Miss da Silva scream and thought it prudent to first see what was taking place inside.’
‘So you’ve heard enough to know. Your mother’s marriage was illegal,’ said Tom. ‘You, dear step-brother, are as much a bastard as I.’
There was savage satisfaction in Tom’s voice and suddenly Georgiana realised that he must have hated Phillip all these years – the privileged step-brother who had everything. Phillip drew his breath in. He looked over at Harry who, for a man with a bullet in his shoulder, still managed a good attempt at a shrug.
‘Is this what you killed Iver for?’ asked Phillip contemptuously. ‘Is this what you crossed the world for? The Elrington title?’
‘No!’ cried Georgiana. ‘Tom killed Iver, not Harry. He was framed by Walsingham.’
Phillip looked at Tom. ‘Is this true?’
‘Does it matter if it is? Of course I killed Iver. He was trying to destroy our father. He was planning to pull down the whole business – he had to be stopped.’
‘Your father, not mine.’
‘It would have destroyed your mother just as much.’
Phillip paused and Tom pressed home the advantage. ‘Think how much this’ll hurt your mother. She’ll be ridiculed. Trent here will cast her out – he said he would. She’s the victim here. She never knew of the marriage until Trent stuck his nose in. My father saw at a glance how to save everything. If Iver died and Trent was taken for his murder, all would be safe. All could continue as before.’
Tom’s voice was soft and urgent with persuasion, but Phillip shook his head. ‘What? Continue as a lie?’
‘No, as it should be. As it still can be. All we have to do is deliver up Trent to the law and—’
‘But I will testify for him,’ cried Georgiana. ‘I will tell the truth in court.’
‘Do you think they will believe a young woman – an actress, at that – in love with him?’ asked Tom.
‘They’d believe me,’ said Sedgewick, stepping forward.
‘An old man with a grudge against the family?’
‘They might believe me,’ said Phillip.
Tom stared at him, incredulous. ‘Would you throw it all away? All I’ve done for you? For what? A whim?’
‘A principle,’ said Phillip. ‘The truth.’
‘My father always had contempt for you,’ spat Tom. ‘That’s why I became his right-hand man. You weren’t up to it, he said. How right he was! Wouldn’t ever let me near you but he told me about you. Said how you were at heart the farmer, not me. You had no head for business. Where do you think all the money came from for your land and its projects? Your cottages for your workers? My efforts, my risks. It was I who helped my father build up the tea business from nothing, yet you profited from it, even though you didn’t know the half of how the money was made. He always protected you – I don’t know why. I was the son to him. You were nothing. I gave him my strength, my love, my support, but it was you who called him father.’
‘Not when I was older,’ said Phillip, white around his mouth. ‘Not when I came to know what sort of man he really was.’
With a howl of rage Tom launched himself at Phillip, knocking the gun from his grasp. The two men crashed over and rolled, locked in a death grip. Then Tom, the heavier, was on top and his large hands were around Phillip’s neck squeezing and squeezing as Phillip tore at the fingers. As Georgiana lunged for a fire poker, a shot rang out and Tom slumped forward.
‘Is he dead?’ cried Geor
giana, flinging the poker aside.
Phillip, breathing raggedly, rolled the man off his chest. ‘No, there’s a heartbeat.’ He looked up at Harry, who stood swaying in the corner where the gun had gone spinning in the fray. ‘Good shooting.’
Harry smiled grimly. ‘Not good enough. I meant to shoot the bastard through the heart.’
‘Lucky your aim was off, then,’ Phillip remarked as he rose and strode across the room just in time to catch Harry as he collapsed.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
When Georgiana finally fell into bed, she felt ragged with exhaustion. The night’s events replayed over and over in her head; a confusing blur of voices, actions, fear, hatred, relief. Now it was all over. Yet sleep evaded her. Instead she lay, staring into the blackness, her throat constricted, unshed tears burning behind her eyes. In her heart she felt a pain so acute it was as though a part of it had been ripped from her body.
‘Why?’ she admonished herself. ‘You should be rejoicing!’
Everything had finally fallen into place. Tom had been taken away to gaol and Phillip and Sedgewick had both assured her Harry’s wound was not too serious. Phillip had brought her back to the hotel, saying it was not appropriate for a young woman to be alone with so many men. He’d looked perplexed when she’d laughed. Charlie was due any day now. Just the thought of his happy-go-lucky grin was enough to make her heart skip. All in all, it looked like there were happy endings for everyone. Phillip was adamant that Harry was the rightful heir and must take his place as such. Harry hadn’t said a lot, struggling with pain, but as she was leaving he’d caught her hand and said in a low voice, ‘I can clear my name, now. Tomorrow we’ll talk.’
A lump had risen in her throat and she’d nodded, though she could not meet his eyes, vivid blue in his white, drawn face.
Harry was a free man – more than that, he had a brother, a grandmother and was an earl. He owned a manor and vast estates; it was the stuff of dreams. He loved her and tomorrow he would ask her to marry him. She could become Lady Elrington. It really had come to this, after all. She’d tried so hard not to think about it, quashing her fears, but now they had to be faced. This past week had changed things – or confirmed them. She wasn’t sure which. Yes, she could play the role of Lady Elrington, she knew she could. After all, it would be no harder than playing a cabin boy. But that was just it.
For the first time she could ever remember, she wanted nothing so much as to just be herself, Georgiana da Silva. The only roles she wanted to play now were on the stage. She loved New Zealand. Here she could breathe; here she was already loved and admired. It would be so hard to return to England with its dictates of how one should behave, how one should think.
She thought of Harry, remembering all the adventures they’d shared together. He would still be Harry, even if he were an earl. But it wouldn’t be the same. Their lives would be laid out, each day a repetition of the one before, the years layering upon each other. Balls, hunting parties, trips to London to see new plays, but never to act in them. Then she thought of how vividly alive she felt when she was with Harry, of the yearning that only he could quench, and she pressed her hands very hard over her face, nails digging into her scalp. Was she mad? She had promised just a week ago to love him forever. How could she even think of throwing away such love, such passion?
Now, staring into the black night, cold reality squeezed her heart. In the end, love simply wasn’t enough. How well she could understand the decision Harry’s mother had made to leave Henry. Harry’s grandparents had been right. A seamstress just wasn’t a suitable wife for an earl.
Nor was an actress.
She could play the part, but deep down she would always know that she was cast in the wrong role in the wrong play. Her true nature would come out, sooner or later. It had to. That is why her own mother had run away. Harry deserved so much better and, though he would not realise it now, in years to come he would learn to thank her.
The plain fact stared her in the face. In a flash she would have married a salt-stained sea captain of a leaky tub, but she couldn’t marry an earl. There would be no happy ending for her, after all. Tears welled and though she ground the heels of her hands into her eyes, they could not be contained.
Turning her face into the pillow, Georgiana abandoned herself to her grief, her body riven by wracking sobs. Harry had not died but she would lose him anyway, would send him away to his new life in which she could never play a part. She wept for all that had been, and what might have been, and for the death of all her dreams of love and laughter and life. Yet, even as her heart was cleft in two, her mind remained very clear that was the only decision she could make.
They were all finally together the following evening when they gathered for dinner at the hotel. Georgiana’s fans were disappointed as she would not be performing that night, but the story had already hit the headlines and it did her fame no harm at all.
Earl and Actress saved from Murderous Mayhem
It had been a hectic day, full of arrangements to be made. Tom was in custody and would be taken back to England to be tried for Iver’s murder. Phillip and Harry would travel back together to give evidence. Malcolm Sedgewick had given a signed statement, but was also prepared to travel back to England if need be. Walsingham’s days were numbered. Harry’s shoulder was bound tight, but the doctor said it would heal cleanly. Though Harry was still pale from blood loss, his eyes were as brilliant and clear as a midsummer’s sky and all three men were in very high spirits, a close bond having already formed between them. Georgiana put on a brave face so that no one would know how she ached just to look at Harry, how much she dreaded the moment when they would finally talk.
‘I have to tell you,’ Malcolm Sedgewick said, looking from Harry to Phillip, ‘that it’s typical of your father that I must still be embroiled in his escapades all these years later.’
The brothers laughed and clinked wine glasses. Now that they were seated together, the differences were more obvious. Phillip was tidier, his face milder, his chin more rounded. His hair was dark brown, his eyes hazel, but still the likeness was extraordinary.
Sedgewick shook his head. ‘Henry and Alexander reincarnated.’
Just then there was a cry across the dining room. ‘George!’
Her hand, in the process of reaching for her wine glass, stilled even as her heart leapt and she spun in her chair. ‘Charlie!’
She flew across the room and flung herself onto her brother’s chest, both of them laughing.
‘I can’t believe I’ve found you,’ she cried as he swept her off her feet in an enveloping hug.
‘I can’t believe you are here. What the hell is going on, George?’
‘I hardly know where to begin,’ she said. ‘Put me down and come and meet everyone.’
She dragged Charlie over to their table where the men had risen and all were grinning at the exuberant siblings. Introductions were made and an extra place was laid. Charles, in his usual way, seemed to take Georgiana’s arrival in his stride, though he did confess to being immensely surprised to discover not only was his sister in New Zealand, but that she was already famous and embroiled in the greatest scandal the little town had ever known.
‘That’s George,’ he said, laughing. ‘If you knew what she used to get up to when she was a child—’
‘Egged on – no, led by you,’ she retorted.
‘You never needed leading if trouble was nearby,’ Charlie said.
‘Never a truer word spoken,’ Harry added.
Charlie raised an eyebrow and shot Harry a querying look. Georgiana hastened to intervene before her irrepressible brother pursued this promising ground for future teasing. ‘So Charlie, are you really fabulously rich?’
He looked abashed as he shook out his napkin. ‘Ah, no. Mistake, as it turns out. Soon as I was better I went back and it turned out t
hat it was not a gold seam, after all. The merest thread, in fact.’
‘But Charlie, I’ve had two men wanting to marry me for my fortune if you died. Are you trying to tell me there was nothing after all?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing,’ he said mournfully, but his eyes danced. ‘They would have inherited a good deal of mud, however. I’d welcome any partners at this point. Interested, anyone?’ he asked, and looked hopefully at his new acquaintances.
The other diners in the restaurant turned around at the resounding laughter that erupted from the table.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Georgiana, wiping her eyes, her voice still unsteady. ‘If you only knew what a cycle of events you set in motion when you wrote such nonsense. And to think all those stupidly greedy men believed it.’
‘But Georgie, you still haven’t told me which men wanted to marry you,’ said Charlie. ‘There was no mention of that in the papers.’
They had not been completely forthcoming with all details to the newspaper. When the journalist had arrived, Harry had indicated to the others with narrowed eyes and a slight shake of his head that he did not want everything revealed until he’d had a chance to talk to Phillip alone. So Charlie was given the whole story, with Harry and Georgiana constantly interrupting each other, and with additions from Sedgewick and Phillip. He found the tale immensely entertaining although he was aggrieved when he was told how Tom had described him as a bit part.
‘I could have been the hero. Oh how I wish he had come after me. Then I would have been in the newspapers and not my sister. Georgie, you had no business getting involved.’
‘There’s gratitude after I risked life and limb to save you.’
‘And loved every minute of it, if I know you.’
‘There were some good parts,’ she admitted and gave Harry a smile.
‘And there will be even better,’ he said with such love in his eyes that her heart plummeted. ‘Which brings me to the next point.’