by Nicole Byrd
Maddie winced as the madman held her in front of him so that she shielded his body. He lifted his own gun to better position Adrian in his sights.
What would Adrian do—withdraw again?
Although her husband looked pale, he stood his ground, his expression resolute, and his pistol was steady.
She had to get out of the way. Francis’s grip on her arm still felt like an iron vice. But surely firing with one hand must be awkward, she thought, and holding her with one hand gave him little leverage. She would not be a party to murdering her own husband.
She sat down.
Dropping her full weight into the dust of the street, it was impossible for the madman to hold her. She simply allowed herself to fall, and when her body met the street, she kept on going, throwing her head down and covering it with her arms, holding her breath as gunfire exploded above her.
Two shots—the heavy thud of another body falling. She was afraid to look up, afraid to see who was still standing, or were both men dead?
Oh please, God, she prayed, please, not Adrian!
Then she heard rushing footsteps, and someone was lifting her.
“Madeline, are you hurt? Speak to me!” She knew that voice, the anxious tone.
With a cry of joy, Maddie lifted her head and threw her arms about her husband’s neck, weeping tears of joy on his shoulder.
“With all the dust in your face and hair, you are going to end up a quagmire, if you keep crying like that,” Adrian observed, his tone a bit gruff, “and you are breaking my heart in two, as well, so perhaps you could manage to stop?”
She lifted her face and smiled at him.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again.
“We are fine,” she told him. “But Adrian, there is blood on your coat!”
“Just a crease across the ribs,” he assured her. “We must get you home.”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “My sisters are here, or the twins at least. You can meet them finally.”
“I look forward to it,” he agreed. “But not as much as I do being alone with my wife again, and this time, with no one to shoot out our windows!”
She looked down at the body sprawled across the dusty street, and she shuddered. “Oh, Adrian, what a long and terrible road we have traveled!”
Nodding, he kissed the top of her head.
Someone had come up behind them, and Adrian turned. It was a stout little man, looking flustered but determined to be of help. “Are ye all right, me lord? Me lady? Such a terrible man, what was he about, trying to harm me lady like that?”
“He was an evil man, mad as a hatter,” Adrian agreed. “Lady Weller is unhurt, but she is obviously shaken. I am going to take her home. If you could see to the disposal of the—um—body, I will pay whatever the charges are, later.”
“Of course, of course,” the man said. “Pity the squire’s not at ’ome; ’e’s our magistrate, but we’ll see about what needs to be done.”
“Thank you,” Adrian said.
Madeline had just had a strange sort of flashback. The stout little man was the village baker, the same one who had come upon them in the gazebo, the first time Adrian and she had met under such improper and unpropitious circumstances. He had been rather less helpful then. She remembered his shocked and disapproving face.
“Adrian,” she whispered into his ear as her husband carried her easily off the street. “Do you realize who—”
“Yes.” He grinned at her as they shared the private joke. “An old friend of ours. And now it’s ‘my lord’ this and ‘my lady’ that, despite the fact that we are littering the village with corpses. Did I not promise you I would restore your reputation?”
She made a face at him, but when he paused to kiss her, forgot to be indignant. “So you did,” she said. “Oh, Adrian, I have missed you so!”
“Since you have filled my empty life with such love, I think I have had the best of the bargain,” he told her, his voice husky. “And now you have saved my life, so you must allow me to devote the rest of it to you, and our child—or, I hope—our children!”
That reminded her of the bullet fragment buried deep in his chest, and the wave of happiness that had warmed her suddenly checked. “Oh, but Adrian. What about the bullet? You must tell me the truth. How long did the doctor say you might expect?”
He lifted her to the horse that he had left tied to a small tree, then untied the reins. “Perhaps six, nine months.”
Such a little time? She gazed at him in horror. Would he not even see their child born? “But, Adrian, when did he make this forecast?”
His look was hard to read. “Close to two years ago.”
“What?” She almost fell off the horse. “Adrian! Have you not considered that the doctor may not know what he’s speaking of?”
“Most of them don’t, my darling,” he told her calmly. “I have stopped reflecting on it. But I did think, in fairness, I should tell you what he had opined before you married me.”
“So you don’t think it is an accurate prediction?” She could not quite put her fear away.
“Let us say,” he told her, meeting her gaze this time with serious eyes, “we all live with fear, with the specter of our life and our love being cut short, my dearest. But I hope not, because this time, I have so much that I wish to live for.”
Holding to the saddle, she leaned over, and he put one foot into the stirrup so he could rise up to give her a quick kiss.
“I expect to enjoy a lifetime with you, Madeline, my love,” he told her.
And this time, when he smiled, she could smile back with a light heart.
Author’s Note
The story of Ophelia and Cordelia Applegate’s shocking adventures may be found in A Lady of Scandal. Available from Berkley Sensation.