by Nicole Byrd
“So it was not your fault, not really, that he died,” Madeline said, as if trying to reassure him.
“Ah, but his brother now blames me and has announced his intention to see me dead in revenge for his brother’s demise.”
“But you said—he is now the heir. It was to his advantage that his brother was drunk and fired against the rules.” She stopped as if trying to puzzle out the connections.
Adrian nodded. “Yes, there has been gossip enough about that. Perhaps Francis planned to be next in line to my wealth and title. If we had both died, he would have been in prime shape, would he not? The gossip has not helped his temper, I must say. And since he is now my heir, you must see why I would be most happy to have a child to inherit, an heir of my blood.”
“Surely the law will not allow him to inherit your property if he murders you!” she exclaimed, putting one hand to her face in horror.
“It would be a nice tangle for the solicitors,” he agreed, knowing his tone was dry. “But keep in mind, they would have to prove that he is the one who had killed me. If we meet in a dark alley or on a distant moor, only the two of us, who will be left to give evidence?”
“But you must not be alone! And for goodness’ sake, you must inform the courts of his evil plans, tell someone! You must not allow him to do this!”
Madeline looked deeply distressed. He wished he could simply kiss her again and forget this wretched story.
“I have hired Bow Street Runners,” he told her. “They have eaten me out of house and home, annoyed my servants, and arrested my tradesmen. In the meantime, they have never been able to put hands on my cousin. Francis continues to dog my steps and has twice put a bullet much too close, once ruining a brand new hat, and another time creasing my side and breaking a rib. It hurt like the devil until it healed, not to mention destroying an almost new coat. I really should send him my tailor’s bills.”
“It is not a matter to laugh about!” she snapped, and to Adrian’s surprise, he saw that her lashes had dampened.
“My dear Madeline,” he said more gently. “I must laugh—otherwise, it is too depressing a tale.”
“Then hire private guards,” she suggested. “If you have the funds…”
He could not simply give in to this bloodthirsty relative, Maddie told herself. It was too unfair to allow such an evil man, with murder in his heart, to succeed.
She saw his lips tighten, but it was a moment before he answered. “I have tried that, too,” he said, his voice low. “A servant of mine, a very good fellow who went through the whole war with me with only a few scars to show for it, the most loyal man you could ask for. He had taken to sleeping beside my bed, and when Francis bribed an innkeeper for the key to my room, John was there to intercept my cousin’s knife. He saved my life, but he paid the price with his own.”
Maddie gasped.
“Unhappily, Francis got away in the confusion as I tried to stop the bleeding from John’s wound. Furthermore, he bribed his servant to say that he was elsewhere at the time, and we could not make the murder charge stick.”
A crow called from across the garden, and a cloud slid across the sun. She shivered as the hitherto sunny day felt suddenly colder. Adrian looked up at her, and his handsome face seemed bleaker, his expression more austere. “I will allow no other man to die for me,” he told her, his voice quiet. “I ordered enough men to their deaths during the war, Madeline. I cannot do it any longer. The next time I face my cousin, no innocent people must suffer. It has to be only him and me who face each other. That is why I can stay here long enough to have the banns read, to marry properly and legally, but then I must leave to keep you from harm. I dare not risk your safety.”
Thinking of his lonely days and nights with an enemy always a few steps behind him, she swallowed. He took both of her hands in his. “Will you marry me, Madeline? For your sake, at least, if not mine.”
His words hung in the golden air for a moment.
Her answer sounded husky. “Yes, I will.”
Maddie reached to grip his forearms, as if she could hold him in place, keep him from confronting such an intractable enemy. “But there must be some way for you to stay. Your cousin is mad,” she muttered. “Surely he is.”
“Perhaps,” Adrian agreed. “I think it quite likely. I have tried to simply stay out of his way, but he has a nose for my presence like some demented bloodhound, always sniffing out where I am.”
He grinned at her, and despite herself, she laughed, although a moment later, thinking of someone lying in wait for Adrian, she had to blink against betraying tears. A man wanted to kill him, and he made silly jests. How could he?
But then, perhaps he was right; what else could he do? Moan and feel sorry for himself? Adrian would never do that, she knew it instinctively. He was too proud, too fierce to wallow in self-pity.
She wanted to hug him to her, cradle his head against her breast in sympathy. The thought of his face against her breast made her whole body tingle, and she blushed as her thoughts turned in a quite different direction.
He gazed at her, and his knowing expression made her glance away. He wanted an heir, she remembered suddenly. He wanted a baby. That meant a real marriage, in every respect. She blushed again, and remembered how it had felt to lean against him, pressing her whole body into his. She’d never expected to have that kind of pleasure, the unknown joys of the marriage bed.
Now she wished she had quizzed her married sisters in more detail. Why did they all have to be out of the country or in faraway London when she needed advice? She knew nothing at all about what role a wife should play when the wedding guests had made their good-byes and the servants had snuffed out the candles. What if she couldn’t please him?
He was watching her with an uncanny glint in his eye. He couldn’t discern what she was thinking—could he?
His deep brown eyes seemed much too knowing.
She had a sudden image of the two of them in bed, of Adrian pulling her gown over her head and seeing her naked once more.
Maddie felt her cheeks burn; she couldn’t seem to stop blushing. “I’d better go back—that is—my father might think—I mean—I’d better—”
Losing her nerve entirely, she turned and fled back toward the house.
Once inside, she hurried up the staircase to her bedroom. She pulled paper and ink out of her bureau and curled up on her bed with a lap desk to write another letter. She’d sent the others out, but now she had pressing concerns to express.
Her widowed sister Lauryn was the one who had been married first, perhaps she was the most promising person to ask.
Maddie dipped her quill into the ink and wrote:
Dear Sister,
I know this will be an unexpected question, but many things in my situation have changed rapidly. In my last letter, I told you about the sad experience with my headache and how I was caught in the woods, and how the viscount tried to help…
It was still hard to work up to the questions she wanted to ask. Maddie stopped and frowned at the ragged end of the quill. She dipped the nib into the ink and tried again.
If we go through with the marriage, I fear I will not be…I don’t know if I will know enough…
Oh, dear. She couldn’t even write out her anxious feelings. This didn’t bode well for her marriage night. If she couldn’t even speak about her worries to her trusted sister, how could she expect to face a husband whom she had acquired in such an unorthodox manner? And how could she hope to satisfy him as a good wife should?
Felicity Barlow walked briskly down the lane, wishing for the hundredth time that the cottage she let was not quite so isolated. But she had got it for a paltry lease, and given her small income, that was essential. She was lucky to have found it at all. It was, mind you, drafty and cramped. Some daft artist chap, as the locals described him, had had it built. A wooden frame cottage with a thatched roof, it was much more practical for the south of England than cold, damp Yorkshire.
When he h
ad tired of it and returned south, it had remained empty for some time until she had arrived in the village. The rent was very cheap, and she had enough space for a small garden, so it suited her fine. Miss Applegate had been very generous about giving her extra eggs and milk from their animals as well, even though the Applegates had little extra to spare.
She was lucky to have found a friend who was so generous of heart, Felicity thought, sighing as she stepped around a bramble bush that had grown across the path. It was not easy for a woman alone. The rest of the gentry were suspicious of her, as no one knew her well enough in the shire to vouch for her background.
She brushed at her rusty, well-worn black skirts and shook them free of the other weeds that clung to them. No need to fret over things she could not change. It was a nice day, Miss Applegate was on the mend, and she herself had had a nice walk. She would have the last egg for tea and warm up the bit of soup that was left from the morning.
A blur of movement caught her eye, and Felicity turned her head sharply. But nothing was there, except a sparrow, which, startled by her movement, took flight suddenly from the hedgerow. She was being silly, she told herself. She drew a deep breath and walked on. She would not panic; it was just such a lonely path. Her steps were quicker now, but she controlled herself and would not break into a run. One had to have some measure of dignity. Her cottage was just ahead, and she had locked the door—she always locked the door—and her ancient key was on her belt as it always was. She gripped the large copper key with its reassuring weight and kept moving.
Trying not to look back over her shoulder, but unable to keep herself from taking one more quick glance, which showed her nothing but an empty path, Felicity pushed the key into the lock and let herself in, then quickly slammed the heavy oak door and turned the lock again. The heavy silence of the empty cottage—she could afford no help, of course—settled around her like an old if capricious friend.
It was all right, just her nervous fancies. The cottage was just as she had left it, neat if rather plain of furnishing. She had enough wood inside and enough water. She would not have to go out again today. The thought was reassuring. She walked across to the hearth and added a small length of wood to the banked fire, using the poker to stir the coals and coax the flames back to life, then warmed her hands, which were colder than the day seemed to warrant. Her unsteady nerves, no doubt.
She was glad that her younger friend had never seen her like this. But then, Miss Applegate had no idea that there were parts of her friend’s background that haunted her with fears unnamed. Felicity folded her best shawl and put it into the chest by the wall, found a plainer one to throw about her shoulders as she prepared a simple meal for the evening, and then sat down in an oak rocker close to the hearth to eat. A small gray cat came out of the shadows to wind about her feet and purr and push its head against her ankles.
“Yes,” Felicity told the animal. “You know about being homeless and friendless, little one, do you not?” She rubbed the cat behind the ears and fed it a few bites of her meager dinner before finishing it quickly and putting her plate aside. The cat jumped to her lap, curled up, and purred itself to sleep. Felicity stared into the fire for a long while as if she saw more there than the jumping flames, but whatever scenes were painted in the glowing embers of scarlet and gold did not bring her comfort.
Maddie wrote two letters, one to Lauryn and one to Juliana , though she did not know if either would make it to her sisters and back before the wedding. She considered whether she should write to the twins, too. Both were just married, and deliriously happy, they often said, but they were the youngest of the Applegate sisters, and it was hard to contemplate asking them for advice, married or not.
She would, of course, invite them all, and their husbands, to the ceremony, but again, she wasn’t sure if any would be able to travel to Yorkshire in time. Juliana and her baronet husband were usually in foreign climes searching for yet another wild beast for his collection. Lauryn, who had been recently widowed, was still with her father-in-law, feeling bound to him in his grief and loneliness.
As for the twins, they hadn’t even returned from their own bridal trips. Cordelia’s wedding had been the talk of the shire. Maddie smiled, remembering the dark-haired groom who had so obviously captured her younger sister’s affections.
At any rate, all of her sisters, except for Lauryn, made single again by a cruel fate, had found their mates despite having no dowries, which no one in the neighborhood had expected. Certainly, the local gossips had been all agog. Even Maddie herself had been surprised. She’d always expected to have one, if not more, of her sisters left to share the house while she tended to their father as he aged.
Not that it would have changed her plans if she had known differently, she assured herself, remembering the pledge she had given her dying mother. And now—to be married herself—even briefly—no, she must not think like this. She couldn’t assume that Lord Weller would not live long, just because an insane man intent on revenge was determined to kill him.
The viscount was intelligent, vigilant, prepared. But was he prepared enough, the other part of her mind argued, remembering the close calls he had barely survived.
The man must be captured, she raged silently. There must be something they could do. She closed her fingers into a fist and found that she had snapped her quill into three pieces. Sighing, she threw it into the fireplace and got up to change her dress for dinner.
Having a visitor in the house made even their simple evening meal seem like a party. When she came down to the dining room, she found her father and the viscount waiting. Lord Weller held out his arm to escort her in to the room and seated her at the table as if she were a great lady. She tried not to look self-conscious.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Her father rolled his wheeled chair to the head of the table, and their guest sat across from her. The cock-a-leekie soup was good as usual, a tribute to Bess’s talents with the bare minimum of ingredients in the kitchen.
The viscount swallowed a spoonful and praised the cook’s skill.
Bess, who was also serving the table, turned bright red. “Thank’ee, sir, I mean, me lord,” she said. “Good plain cookin’ is always the best, me lady always said so.”
Then, perhaps remembering that she wasn’t supposed to speak, she dropped a curtsy and, looking flustered, hurried back out only to return momentarily carrying a plate of warm, fragrant bread.
Maddie pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t laugh at their servant’s unaccustomed confusion. She saw her father raise a brow.
“She is indeed a very good cook, in the plain style, of course,” he agreed, his tone grave.
The viscount nodded. “I never complain about the style of my food as long as the taste is pleasing,” he noted.
“That is the mark of a wise man,” Mr. Applegate said. The two men exchanged smiles.
The rest of the dinner was also simple but succulent, rabbit stew, a side of venison sent over by a neighbor who enjoyed shooting, several vegetable dishes supplied by their garden, and a gooseberry fool that her father was fond of, made from berries off their own vines. The wine was the best of her father’s remaining bottles; she only hoped his supply held out for the duration of the viscount’s visit.
The thought made her pause, fork in midair.
The thought of Lord Weller leaving—and yes, he planned to leave—sent a pang all the way through her.
You’re being foolish, Maddie scolded herself. You heard what he said. Are you hoping for a miracle?
Better not to answer that question.
The men’s conversation had flowed from topics as varied as their chess games, about which the viscount gave polite answers, to politics and history and literature, when the exchanges became more animated. Maddie found that Lord Weller could hold his own with her erudite father, and she admired him for it.
Not many visitors could match John Applegate for scholarship or wit, and she could see h
ow much her father was enjoying the companionship of another gentleman possessing both intelligence and education. She and her father often enjoyed conversations about history, philosophy, or politics, but a new voice with new opinions to debate was always stimulating, and she could only be glad to see her father so animated.
“Where did you go to school?” she asked their visitor quietly, as her father took a bite of dessert.
“Eton, and then Oxford,” he told her.
“You seem not to have wasted your time,” she said, then afraid she had sounded wistful, looked down at her dish of dessert. “My sisters and I were tutored at home by our father.”
“Judging by your contributions to the conversations, your time was also not wasted,” he pointed out, dipping a spoon into his serving of gooseberry fool. “This is excellent, by the way. Your maid may be a woman ready to speak her mind—and I respect her for it—but she is also a good cook.”
“A good plain cook,” Maddie murmured. Bess had left the room to fetch a dish of nuts, but still, Maddie didn’t wish the servant to overhear stray words that might wound her.
“And nothing wrong with that,” he told her, his lips lifting just slightly at the corners.
“Of course not,” she agreed, smiling, too.
“Yorkshire fare can be just as pleasing as French cuisine, or London dinners, for that matter,” he assured her.
“No doubt,” she said, not sure that she believed it. What was he trying to tell her? She wasn’t sure, although she suspected there was more at the heart of this conversation than mere styles of cookery.
There was a slight pause, then her father broke the silence.
“So, has it been decided—are we going to have the banns read on Sunday?”
The viscount looked quizzical, but turned to Madeline and left it to her to answer. And oh, dear, she was blushing again!
Madeline licked the end of her spoon with careful deliberation; her mouth seemed enormously dry. She had to take a sip of her wine before she could answer.