by Liz Carlyle
“I have you, love, I have you.” He buried his face against her but an instant.
“Adrian!” she cried. “Oh, thank God.”
“I have you,” he rasped. “I will never let go. Don’t even ask it of me.”
Blinking back tears, Grace drew back, still shaking. “Fenella?” she whispered.
Adrian craned his neck over what was left of the balcony. “Napier,” he said over the edge, “is she…?”
But Royden Napier had already knelt in the middle of the white marble floor, two fingers beneath Fenella’s ear. Her arms were spread high, like an angel unfurling her wings, her rich red hair fanned out between them.
Together they hastened down the stairs. Blood glistened like gemstones in a crescent-shaped spatter, one droplet running down Napier’s cheek. He looked up as they approached, his eyes bleak and knowing.
“She is gone,” he said.
Without releasing Grace’s hand, Ruthveyn bent to one knee and felt Fenella’s wrist for a long, uncertain moment. Then he let it go. The back of the hand bounced a little as it struck the marble, the fingers splaying open to reveal a knot of Grace’s hair.
“Snow, Napier,” said Adrian hollowly, staring down at the white, blood-spattered marble. “White, white snow. And rubies glistening all around.”
EPILOGUE
The Wedding Gift
Lord Ruthveyn suffered the interminable months until his wedding day with his usual burning impatience, even as he appeared as outwardly calm and unruffled as ever. At his intended’s insistence, nothing was said of their betrothal to the greater world, while amongst friends and family, the ceremony was tentatively set for “sometime in the spring,” ostensibly to allow the worst of the weather to clear—even as one or two less charitable people maintained it would likely take that long for his bride to reconcile herself to her fate.
Grace, however, had already embraced her fate, and perhaps a little too exuberantly, for as March edged toward April, and that dreaded window to the soul remained blessedly shut, she clambered hastily from bed one morning to be greeted by the sight of her chamber pot—the bottom of it, specifically—and to the vision of her morning chocolate coming up again.
She sat back down on the edge of her bed, clammy, colly-wobbled, and almost deliriously happy. Grace might manage to be patient, but the heir to the marquessate of Ruthveyn clearly could not. Lady Anisha—already on record as having predicted a son born hale and healthy in the autumn—chortled with glee upon being summoned to her brother’s study to consult the charts at last in order to choose the most auspicious wedding date.
As soon as the door shut after his sister, Ruthveyn helped Grace gingerly to her feet and pulled her into his arms as if she were made of spun glass. “Grace,” he whispered. “Oh, my love. The die is cast.”
Grace merely laughed and kissed him hard.
“I hope, Adrian, that you don’t mean to pack me in cotton wool for the next few months,” she said long moments later, “for I had other—far more exuberant—notions.”
But his solemnity did not lift even as he brushed his lips lightly over her cheek. “You have made me,” he said, “the happiest man on earth—and a fortnight hence, I shall be twice as happy as that.”
At that, a mood of seriousness fell across them both. “Alors, you are resolved, then?” she asked, a ghost of a smile passing over her face. “You are not afraid?”
“I have been resolved, I think, since almost the moment we met,” he said, staring down into her eyes. “Whatever happens, Grace, wherever life takes us, we were meant to be. We simply were. Because this is fate.”
And so it was that on a sunny, mid-April morning, the newly minted Marchioness of Ruthveyn found herself caught in one embrace after another as the wedding guests flooded up the steps of her husband’s Mayfair mansion, where the wedding breakfast was to be held.
The last to arrive was Royden Napier, who came a little sheepishly up the stairs, his dark brows in a knot. Lady Ruthveyn received his felicitations with all the grace she could muster, then politely excused herself to attend to two of her most important guests.
“Well, Ruthveyn, you have done it,” said Napier, as they made their way toward the grand ballroom, which had been set with tables and festooned with flowers for the occasion. “My heartiest congratulations.”
“Don’t look so solemn, old chap,” said Ruthveyn evenly. “The honeymoon phase never lasts long, does it? There is yet hope, I daresay, that she will stab me in my sleep and make all your dreams come true.”
“I rather doubt it,” said Napier glumly. “She looks radiantly happy.”
Together they watched as Grace, still in her wedding finery, knelt to kiss Anne and Eliza on their cheeks while Mrs. Lester stood smilingly, if a little stiffly, in the background.
“She is reconciled with the family, then?” Napier murmured. “I confess I am relieved. They made a pretty pair of angels, those two, tossing their rose petals up the aisle at St. George’s.”
“It was Grace’s dearest wish to have them in attendance,” said Ruthveyn solemnly. “Not that she isn’t fond of Tom and Teddy, mind. But angelic they will never be.”
Just then, Lord Bessett approached, a glass of champagne already in hand, a lovely blonde on his arm. “Afternoon, Napier,” he said coolly. “I think you’ve not met my mother, Lady Madeleine MacLachlan.”
The introductions were swiftly made, with Napier bowing politely over Lady Madeleine’s hand. Geoff was polite but stiffly formal, Ruthveyn noted, with all the cold hauteur a wealthy young nobleman could muster. He still mistrusted Napier, as did Ruthveyn himself. Still, there was yet something of the diplomat left in Ruthveyn, and he knew no better balm to Grace’s reputation than to have the assistant police commissioner on the guest list at her wedding.
“So is it true, Mr. Napier, that Josiah Crane has returned from the Mediterranean?” asked Lady Madeleine, as if to fill the awkward silence. “What a fright that poor man has had.”
“Indeed, he returned just this week, ma’am, his health much recovered by warmer climes,” said Napier. “It seems the small doses of arsenic his cousin was using to debilitate him have done no permanent damage. I beg your pardon, Ruthveyn. I have not had an opportunity to mention his return to your bride. I should hate her to meet him unawares.”
“You needn’t worry about it in the least,” said the marquess. “Grace has always liked and trusted Crane. Only my sister—misguidedly, as it happens—was able to convince her he might be a cold-blooded killer.”
“Perhaps Lady Ruthveyn did not believe it of him,” said Napier charitably. “But she did not believe it of Fenella Crane, either—nor did I, come to that.”
“Ah, well.” Ruthveyn kept his voice equivocal. “Grace has a gift for judging men’s characters. With women, she is less certain.”
“Aren’t we all,” muttered Napier under his breath.
Geoff, whose gaze had been scanning the crowd, seemed to return himself to the present. “That reminds me, Ruthveyn,” he said. “I was supposed to tell you that Sutherland wishes to speak with you and Grace if you have a moment before the meal and the toasting begin? Something important, I believe. You will find him near the dais.”
“Thank you,” said Ruthveyn smoothly. “Lady Madeleine. Gentlemen. If you will excuse me.”
He bowed and took his leave of them, suddenly anxious to return to his bride. He found Grace by the head table with Anisha, who was helping Safiyah Belkadi shore up a floral arrangement that was listing starboard and threatening to topple into an ocean of table linen.
He slid a hand beneath Grace’s elbow. “Let Nish deal with that,” he said under his breath. “Sutherland wishes to speak with us.”
“Yes, of course.”
Grace went willingly across the ballroom with him, her hand warm and secure upon his arm. He knew, even if she did not, that they were soul mates. That they had been destined for this, and that nothing, not even the Gift, would ever come between them. Still, he wished he
could have proven it to Grace—or at least have proven to her that it did not matter to him what their future held. They were as one, and this was their destiny.
“Ah, there you are!” The Reverend Mr. Sutherland beamed at them in what could only be called avuncular joy. “May I offer again my felicitations, and my best wishes for a long, happy, and fruitful union.”
“I am sure it will be,” said Ruthveyn, clasping the Preost’s hand in his. “Thank you, sir, for all your help and encouragement.”
“Dear me, that sounds rather fainthearted, Ruthveyn! I intend you to have something more enduring than encouragement.” He held a roll-shaped parcel wrapped in colorful paper behind his back. “So, you sail soon for Calcutta! You will be going home at last.”
“Yes, for a time,” said Ruthveyn, casting an affectionate glance down at Grace. “My bride—in collusion with my sister—insists we leave straightaway.”
Grace wished to leave at once, he knew, before she was too far gone with child to go at all. And though Ruthveyn scarcely shared his sister’s certainty that in India he would find the sort of guidance that would enable him to control the Gift, he was more than willing to try it. He was also oddly pleased to know his son and heir would be born there, in the same house in which he’d grown up.
“Well, I wished you both to have this before you left England,” said Sutherland, presenting the roll to Grace with a dramatic flourish. “It will make, I daresay, for some interesting conversation during the long weeks at sea. And I believe you will take much comfort in it, too, Ruthveyn. I finished it just yesterday.”
“You finished it?” said Grace, smiling at him. “But this looks like a print. Or a rolled drawing. Have you some artistic bent, Mr. Sutherland, that you have been hiding from us?”
“No, indeed!” Sutherland’s eyes twinkled. “No talent at all, save for persistence and keen eyesight! Now, I know it is a little odd—and it isn’t properly framed as yet—but I wish you to go ahead and open it.”
“Why not?” Grace cast an uncertain look at her husband. “My love, will you do the honors?”
A few amongst the chattering throng turned at the sound of the paper tearing. Paying them no heed, Ruthveyn laid it on the nearest table and gingerly rolled out a thick sheet of parchment.
“My God,” he said, his eyes trailing over the branches and columns of neatly etched names. “It is…why, it is a family tree.”
“Look, Adrian!” said Grace, setting her finger down upon their linked names. “It’s our family tree! Here we are—and forevermore shall be.”
“Yes, but here is perhaps the second-most-interesting marriage on the page, my dears.” Mr. Sutherland leaned across the table and pointed at a set of lines near the top.
“The devil!” said Ruthveyn. “Why, it is Sir Angus Muirhead.”
“Just so!” Sutherland paused to beam at them both. “And it shows us where, in 1660, Sir Angus married one Anne Forsythe—and it shows that they, too, were distant cousins.”
Grace’s eyes widened. “Mon Dieu, you found him!” she said. “You finally found him!”
“Indeed, but more importantly, if you trace this line back—” Here, his index finger did precisely that, following the names almost all the way back to the top, “—then you will see that both Anne and Angus were descended from the same line as was Lady Jane McKenzie.”
“Lady Jane McKenzie?” Grace had narrowed her gaze, trying to follow the small print up the document.
“Sibylla’s mother,” he clarified. “You can see all just here.”
It took Grace a moment to digest everything, her wide blue gaze locked with Ruthveyn’s. “Mon Dieu, we are cousins!” she said, grabbing both her husband’s hands.
“Well, perhaps eighth cousins three times removed,” Sutherland clarified. “I’m not at all sure that constitutes kinship in any real sense.”
But when the happy couple did not break their locked gazes, he cleared his throat sharply. “Well, I see Bessett motioning for me,” he murmured. “I know you will wish a moment to yourselves before the festivities begin.”
Grace snapped from the trance first. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Sutherland!” she cried, turning to plant a firm kiss on his cheek. “Oh, I could not have—indeed, we could not have—” She halted, set a hand to her belly, and blinked back tears, “—we none of us could have had a better, more meaningful wedding gift than this.”
As Ruthveyn cleared the strange knot from his throat, Sutherland looked suddenly awkward, his gaze going back and forth between them. “I knew you were both fretting over it,” he confessed. “And finally—with a big magnifying glass and a long night—I found him.”
“But where?” asked Ruthveyn.
He knew Sutherland had searched high and low for the records of Sir Angus and traveled twice back to Scotland in his efforts—once in the dead of winter, which was madness. He had pieced together much of Grace’s family history over the months, both French and Scottish, but the final link had eluded him.
“I finally found his name written in the margin of one of the old Forsythe family Bibles, on a page with its corner turned back such that it looked like Angus Muir,” said Sutherland. “And he hadn’t a title then, so it was easy to miss. But when I turned the corner up, there was the rest of it. It seems that after the bridge collapse, he healed, returned briefly to Scotland to marry, and must then have been knighted later. It isn’t at all clear.”
“But it is he?” Grace whispered. “You are sure? It is certain?”
“Aye, it’s he, my lady,” said Mr. Sutherland. “And he was your great-grandfather many times over. Once I had the name right, everything else fell into place. We had most of it—just not in pieces we could put together.”
At that, Ruthveyn snatched up the drawing and took Grace by the hand. “Sutherland, you are a prince among men,” he said, setting off toward the ballroom doors.
Grace cast an eye over her shoulders at the guests, who seemed already to be enjoying themselves. “Wait, where are we slipping off to?” she asked.
“To the conservatory for a moment,” said Ruthveyn fervently, relief and joy flooding through him. “I want to look at this in a good light.”
Once inside the glass walls, Ruthveyn spread the parchment back out on the tea table near Milo’s cage. The parakeet toddled back and forth on his perch, cocking his head to survey the document with one beady eye.
They sat down together, tucked snugly on the rattan chaise, their eyes reading up and down the columns and branches of impossibly small names, many of whom were as familiar to Ruthveyn as his own. It looked right to him. It looked perfect. And now it was clear to see just how Grace’s family branched off, with Sir Angus and Lady Anne the last Scots above a long line of French descendants.
At last, Ruthveyn turned to her, happier in that moment than he had ever been in the whole of his life. “Do you realize what this means, my Grace?”
Her eyes danced. “Yes,” she said, her mouth curling into that slow smile he loved so well. “It means you can never, ever be perfectly sure what I am thinking. Or what I’m about to do next.”
“Oh, I know what you are going to do next,” he said, his voice low.
“Indeed?” She crooked one eyebrow. “And what would that be?”
“You are going to throw me down on this chaise,” he said, “and have your wicked way with me.” And then Ruthveyn caught her in his embrace and fell into the softness of the cushions, tumbling her over him, wedding finery and all.
Laughing, Grace caught herself on her elbows as she fell. “Ah!” she said, her eyes going soft with desire. “Until now, I wondered if it mightn’t all be a parlor trick—but you really are psychic.”
And then she kissed him, slowly and thoroughly.
“Pawwwk!” said Milo. “British prisoner! Help, help, help!”
About the Author
A lifelong Anglophile, LIZ CARLYLE cut her teeth reading gothic novels under the bedcovers by flashlight. She is the author of sixtee
n historical romances, including several New York Times bestsellers. Liz travels incessantly, ever in search of the perfect setting for her next book. Along with her genuine romance-hero husband and four very fine felines, she makes her home in North Carolina. You can contact her via her website at www.lizcarlyle.com.
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By Liz Carlyle
ONE TOUCH OF SCANDAL
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ONE WICKED GLANCE
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ONE TOUCH OF SCANDAL. Copyright © 2010 by Susan Woodhouse. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Avon Books paperback printing: October 2010
Epub Edition © August 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-201401-6
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