“As many as it takes, I hope.” He paused. “Marianne, Grace isn’t angry at you. Lucky for us both, we’re dealing with a preacher’s daughter.”
“Montgomery! There you are!” George rushed through the door at that moment. “Are you all right?” he asked, crossing the room to them.
“No worries. You did well tonight,” he encouraged the shaken young man. “Thanks for getting Grace out of harm’s way for me.”
“Thanks for saving my life!” he countered. “She’s outside, by the way—staying put, just where Parker told her.”
Trevor smiled wistfully. “Good girl.”
George turned to Marianne and took her hands in his own with a pained look. “I am so sorry—”
“Rubbish, I’m the one responsible for all this—”
“That’s not what I mean,” he interrupted. “I . . . I’m sorry that I treated you like a whore, Marianne.”
She blinked. “I am a whore, George,” she said.
“No, you’re not. I mean, you’re so much more than that! You should give yourself more credit. Look at you! You nearly gave your life to save mine. And I can guess why Lynch beat you—to make you tell where I had gone.”
She lowered her head. “I tried not to break.”
Trevor took a deep breath and looked away, fighting the dire temptation to go outside behind the house and join Parker’s men in punishing the bastard, or better yet, finishing him off entirely like his fiercer instincts still longed to do.
“I’m all right,” Marianne assured them, gathering herself and lifting her head again. “I’ve had worse.”
George looked at her admiringly for a moment, then reached into his pocket and took out his billfold. “Here. Lynch stole this out of my pocket earlier, but Parker got it back for me. It’s yours.” He took the whole thick wad of folded paper bills and pressed it into her hand. “Take this and start a new life for yourself.”
“George! This is a lot of money.”
“It’s the least I can do after what Lynch did to you on account of me. Please—I won’t accept it back!”
“There’s three thousand pounds here!” she said in shock.
“I know. I thought I’d have to hide out, you know, go incognito for a while with that barbaric tribe out for my blood. But I don’t need it now. Take it, please, I’ll only gamble it away. I want you to have it instead.”
“It’s too much. I could buy the pub with this much money!”
“Why don’t you?” Trevor replied, arching a brow. “With the way you’ve charmed Parker’s men, I know you’d have at least a dozen loyal customers, and believe me, the boys know how to run up a tab.”
“Buy the Goose?” she echoed. “That’s an interestin’ idea. At least I could keep the books since I can read now.” She tilted her head, warming to the notion. “Aye, maybe I could.”
Trevor smiled fondly.
“Just one problem,” Marianne said with a sigh after a moment. “Nobody wants me in Thistleton. Especially now.”
“Yes, we do,” a familiar voice said from the doorway.
George turned in amazement. “Callie!”
Calpurnia Windlesham stood in the doorway with her fists balled at her sides, her golden curls run riot, her heart-shaped face stained with tears. “I’m glad all three of you are here.”
She glanced from George to Trevor to the ex-harlot. “I know I’ve been horrible to everyone lately, but I want you all to be my witness. Marianne, if you want to stay in Thistleton, I won’t let Mama make your life miserable anymore, and I won’t, either. We might never be friends, but I heard how you saved George’s life. You’re a very brave person, and I-I wanted to thank you for helping him a-and to apologize for being mean to you.”
George stared at her in shock.
Even Trevor was impressed.
Both men glanced at Marianne, who looked like a feather might have knocked her over. “Well, of course,” she blurted out, but beyond that, she appeared too dumbfounded by the belle’s contrition to say another word.
“Callie, what are you doing here?” George burst out in a wondering tone, taking a few steps toward her.
“I just arrived with Pastor Kenwood,” she explained, glancing over her shoulder toward the drive. “He was obviously distraught over their taking his daughter, so we followed Sergeant Parker’s riders at a safe distance to find out what was happening . . . and if you all were still alive.” She swallowed hard, clearly still shaken up by the night’s events. “My parents tried to make me stay behind with them, but I had to see you for myself.
“Oh, George, if anything had happened to you—!” she burst out. “I mean, it’s one thing for me to torture you, but no one else is allowed to do it! When I saw them point a gun at you—” Her words broke off in a sob, and she ran to him as tears flooded her eyes, launching herself into the astonished fellow’s arms.
Marianne looked askance at Trevor, who watched in mystified amusement as Callie covered George’s face in adoring, girlish pecks. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore! Haven’t you figured it out yet, you blockhead? I’m in love with you and always have been.”
“Oh, Callie . . .”
Trevor and Marianne exchanged a smile of furtive humor as they turned away to give the couple their privacy.
“It would seem all is forgiven,” he remarked to her under his breath, as they stepped out into the night.
“Not everyone,” Marianne murmured, narrowing her eyes in the direction from which Lynch’s occasional shouts of pain were coming. “My dear Lord Trevor, would you think ill of me if I took this opportunity to tell Mr. Lynch what I really think of him?”
“Tell him?” Trevor frowned. “I always feel that actions speak louder than words.”
“Hmm,” she agreed, slanting him a sly look. “I like the way you think, sir.”
“Enjoy it. And don’t worry, he’s going to jail for a long time.”
“In that case . . .” She sauntered off around the back of the building to revel in watching the soldiers trashing her tormentor. At their invitation, she did not pass up the chance to knee him in the groin. And when he cursed her for it, called her a whore, her soldier friends took umbrage, and poor Jimmy Lynch only made it worse for himself.
Meanwhile, Trevor walked across the open field near the edge of the woods at the drive, where Grace was trying to comfort her weeping father. “Honestly, I’m all right, Papa, I promise. I’m quite unscathed.”
“Oh, my dearest child.” He hugged her harder. “If I have to lose you, let it be for the sake of your happiness, not the violence of murderous brigands!”
“You’re not going to lose me, Papa! I’ll just be next door, I’ll see you every day. You know I’ll never abandon you. Look,” she interrupted him, “here comes my fiancé.”
Trevor smiled and did his future father-in-law the courtesy of ignoring his distraught paternal tears. “I thought being a country constable was supposed to be a quiet duty. Don’t worry, they said. Nothing ever happens.”
“Well, it didn’t—until you came along.” The Reverend extended his hand to Trevor, and when he took it, the old man pulled him in for a fatherly hug. “Thank you for saving my daughter,” he whispered, seeming near tears again. “If there’s anything I could possibly do to repay you.”
“Nonsense. I’m just sorry you both had to go through all that.”
“Thank God, it’s over now. Sweet heaven, I never prayed so h
ard in my life,” the pastor said.
Marianne walked toward them through the darkness, having enjoyed her taste of revenge. “Oh, you come with me, Reverend!” she called, taking his arm as she joined them. “You look like you could use a drink.”
He let out a wordless exclamation of agreement, then polished the tears off his spectacles.
“Come on, you. Let’s leave these two alone.” Marianne chuckled and led him toward the carriage.
At last, Grace and Trevor turned to face each other and were promptly lost in each other’s gaze.
Trevor rested his forearms on her shoulders and smoothed her hair gently behind her ears. God help him, he wasn’t sure where to start. He was wary, his defenses already braced against the pain of judgment, rejection. He’d already lost one fiancée, after all, because of his dealings with the Order. If he lost Grace, too, he did not know where he’d go, what he would do, or if he would ever find the courage, or even the ability, to love again. Please don’t turn me away.
After all the chaos of this night, the last thing he wanted to do was call attention to the savage side she’d seen tonight. No doubt the details of it were emblazoned in her mind, but now that they came down to it, he did not know what to say for himself.
He shook his head. “You never pressed about my secrets,” he forced out. “Now you know.”
“Dearest,” she breathed, laying her hand on his chest. Her blue eyes searched his face, caked with dried sweat and streaked with blood.
He looked away and dropped his gaze. “I had to protect you,” he answered barely audibly.
“And you did,” she choked out, suddenly stepping into his arms. She threw her own around him and held him tightly, pressing her cheek to his chest. “You nearly gave your life for me.”
He could feel her shaking as he wrapped his arms around her.
“God, Trevor, I’m so ashamed of myself that I ever judged you,” she whispered in a voice half-strangled with emotion. “I realize now I’ve never even seen the kind of evil you’ve been fighting all your life.”
“I don’t ever want you to see it. You shouldn’t have to. That’s the whole point of what I do. Used to do,” he corrected himself in a low tone, still amazed at her reaction.
She pulled back to fix him with an earnest, artless gaze. “You are a hero, Trevor, whether you like the term or not.”
He stared at her. “If you say so.” Then he hesitated. The answer to his only question seemed obvious, but he had to hear it out loud for himself. “You can . . . accept me, then?”
“I adore you!” she answered vehemently. Then she reached up and cupped his cheek with anguished tenderness. “Oh, my love, thank you for all you’ve done. Not just for me, tonight. But for all of us.”
That simple whisper coming from her meant more to him than all the pomp and circumstance the Regent had forced on the Order at Westminster Abbey a few months ago.
Here and now, it all meant something, finally. With Grace in his arms.
She wiped a fleck of dried blood off his face with the pad of her thumb. “You can rest now, my warrior,” she whispered. “You’ve done your duty. Now let me take you home.”
His eyes misted at the beauty of those words. He shut them and held her closer. Did she have any idea, he wondered, how much he needed her?
For the first time since the war’s end, he began to think that maybe he wouldn’t have to hide at all. At least not with her. He cupped her sweet head against his chest, still marveling that she didn’t run from him after all she’d seen him do. When she sighed with contentment in his embrace, nestling against him, he held on to her a little more tightly, rather like a shipwrecked man clinging to a solid rock in a cold, stormy sea.
It was so strange after the savagery of this night to be flooded with tenderness. From love to hate and back again, from darkness into light.
“You’re a beacon in the night to me, Grace,” he whispered. “Never change. You’ve given me more than you will ever know.”
A place to belong.
“I’ll always be here for you, Trevor. I love you.” She glanced up and met his gaze in artless honesty. “With all my heart, I love you,” she repeated, as if she knew how much his scarred soul needed to hear it.
Trevor held his breath, then he said the words he had never thought he’d be able to say, because he wouldn’t lie. “I love you, Grace. So very much, my darling.” He bowed his head to claim her lips and kissed her with a tenderness that blazed in him in equal measure as his fury did when it came to protecting what he loved.
This woman most of all. His woman. All he wanted as her lips yielded beneath his kiss was to take her home and lay her down.
She must have sensed the onslaught of the passion gathering in his blood, for she ended the kiss and pulled back with a knowing little smile. Flirtation sparkled in her eyes. “Ahem.” She cleared her throat and glanced around at the soldiers milling about, minding their prisoners.
“So I trust you’ve got this spot of bother sorted out, then?” she asked in a businesslike tone, smoothing his lapels.
“I have,” he answered in wary amusement, vastly reassured by the arch humor in her voice.
“Well done, then. In truth, I expected no less,” she said with a brisk nod. “That’s our Lord Trevor. Do something well and thoroughly or not at all.”
Trevor was bemused. He furrowed his brow and shook his head, studying her. No tears? No fainting? So soon she found the ability to joke with him? He really was impressed. “You handled yourself well back there.”
“Only because you were beside me.” She shrugged. “I knew you’d rescue us. It’s what you do.”
He stared at her. “Grace, that’s the biggest compliment you could ever pay me. Thank you. I mean it.”
“Well, it’s true. You’re like a great stone pillar that holds up the sky, Lord Trevor Montgomery. You and your fellow agents. Strong. Solid,” she added, giving his biceps a playful squeeze. “I’m proud to call such a man my own. Shocked about it, really. Wallflower like me.”
“Wallflower?” he exclaimed, finally relaxing enough to tease her back. “From what I hear, you are the new scarlet woman of the village.”
“Yes, but only for you.”
“Ow,” he said when she pressed up onto tiptoes and kissed him on the jaw where he had been punched several times earlier this evening.
“Oh, you poor thing! Come with me,” she ordered. “Time to clean up all your mean old bumps and bruises.” She took his hand, tugging him along as if he were one of the Nelcott children with a scraped knee. “I trust Sergeant Parker can manage things from here.”
“Grace, you don’t have to baby me.”
“Excuse me, you’re mine, and I can do whatever I please with you,” she shot back, casting him a deliciously wicked half smile over her shoulder.
It startled him. “Well!” he said, pleasantly surprised. “If you put it that way.” And he went with her most willingly. “Parker!” he called. “You’re in charge here! I’ve got to, er, take care of something at home.”
“If we make it that far,” she whispered under her breath.
Parker sent him an amiable wave. Lord knew the man had plenty of experience in sweeping up the aftermath of the Order agents’ many dangerous quests.
Frankly, they couldn’t do it without him. But Trevor put all the bloody business of this night out of his mind, focusing his attention on the alluring prospect of spend
ing the hours until dawn with his fiancée. He yelled to Parker that he was taking one of the horses, then he helped Grace mount up and swung into the saddle behind her.
As he took the reins, steadying her against his body, he had visions of tumbling the luscious creature straight into his bed. One place where he would quite enjoy receiving a hero’s welcome.
Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to get home.
“Ready?” he murmured, sliding one arm around her waist.
“For anything,” she vowed. “As long as we’re together.”
“That, my love, is a given,” he whispered at her ear. She laid her head back happily on his shoulder. Then Trevor urged the horse into motion, and they went cantering off together down the moonlight-silvered road.
Epilogue
Six Weeks Later
“Grace, hurry up, we need to go! Darling, I know you’re feeling queasy, but you’re going to miss the biggest wedding Thistleton’s ever seen. Come on, sweeting. Callie will be a wreck without you.”
“You did this to me,” she replied as she stepped out from behind the corner screen after being sick again, as she did most mornings these days.
Not that she minded one bit, in truth.
If marrying Trevor had been a dream come true, then having his baby, a child of her own to love at last, was worlds beyond any joy she ever could have envisioned.
Let the morning sickness come.
But today, she really wanted to feel at least somewhat human, so she accepted the tepid ginger tea he’d brought her and took a sip. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and felt her forehead to see if she was feverish though, of course, she wasn’t.
“All right. I’m ready to go.”
“That’s my girl. I love you,” he added, bending to give her a boyish kiss on her cheek.
“In sickness and in health, eh?”
“Always.” He kissed her hand, then tugged her along. “Hurry. You look beautiful,” he added when she lingered before the mirror.
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