by Sophia James
‘So our parents are talking with the Winburys again?’ Sephora asked this because last she had heard they were not on speaking terms.
‘Indeed they are. Josephine is at our house every second day because she is not happy with Richard’s choice of bride-to-be and rues your loss.’
‘His loss and my gain.’ Francis came to stand next to Sephora and took her hand in his. Unexpectedly Maria blushed and began to mention the ball that was to be held the following evening.
‘Richard and his newly betrothed will attend. Mama and Papa are going too.’
Sephora’s heart sank at that information, but perhaps a ball might afford another opportunity.
‘Are Richard’s cousin Terence Cummings and his wife likely to be there?’
Maria laughed. ‘I suppose if Richard is there then they will be too. I never liked him much and I thought Sally Cummings always seemed browbeaten. Perhaps being domineering and arrogant is a Winbury family trait? Why do you ask?’
‘Cummings was there on the day Anna was snatched and I wanted to enquire if he saw anything we’d missed.’ Not quite a lie, but not the truth either.
‘You ought to be careful with him for I don’t trust him at all and Adam almost came to fisticuffs with the man a week or so ago.’
‘Why?’ Francis asked this and Maria grimaced.
‘He said something derogatory about you and Adam took umbrage. Cummings actually tried to get Adam to come into a business he’d invested in, something with liquor, I think, and he said he was doing very well in it. Their heated words put an end to that.’
When Maria was gone on the promise of seeing them tomorrow at the Clarkes’ ball, Francis pulled Sephora over to the window and brought his arms about her. His embrace felt warm and comforting.
‘Everything that’s said of Cummings draws the noose tighter in about him. Daniel let me know that he was seen in Hastings on the night that Clive Sherborne died.’
‘But it will be safe? You will be safe?’
‘I will be and in public it might be easier to get to him. He won’t have the opportunity of refusal to see me, though with your parents in attendance I’ll understand if you want to wait...’
‘No.’ Her answer was certain. ‘I want this finished with and Anna safe.’
He tipped her chin up and covered her lips with his own, a quiet languid kiss that turned suddenly into more. The quick streak of want made her breathless.
‘If anything were to happen to you because of this...’
‘It won’t.’
Her finger drew a line down the edge of his cheek and settled on the scar. ‘Amethyst said that you were decorated for bravery? Where are your medals?’
‘In a drawer somewhere. There were a lot of other braver men who died doing the same thing as I did.’
‘What was it you did to receive such an honour?’
He brought her closer so that she could feel the breath of him across her hair as he spoke.
‘Our regiment was used to cover the movements of Moore’s retreating army and to do that we were engaged in all the rearguard clashes. Between Lugos and Betanzos we lost more troops over a week than we did in the whole of the expedition altogether. It was the snow and the freezing rain—the mountain passes were slippery with ice and by that time discipline in the rank and file had broken down completely.’
‘So it was every man for himself?’
‘Well, it was and it wasn’t. The French were close behind, you see, and the action at the back was causing as many deaths as the freezing temperatures further up. So I positioned myself on a hill overlooking the valley and picked the French off as I saw them, and little by little our troops got through.’
‘And your cheek?’
‘You can’t stay unseen forever, or protected, as gunshot is easily traceable. A group of men came at me from behind and a sabre caught my face. If I hadn’t turned when I did though it would have sliced off my head and I saved myself by falling down the ravine behind me, grabbing at rocks as I went to slow my descent.’
‘Then you followed the others towards Corunna.’
‘No. By then I’d lost a lot of blood and so I made for the closer port of Vigo. I travelled north-west at night mostly and found a ship home. The transports had left by the time I made it there, but a Spanish sea captain took pity on me and transported me to England. His wife fixed my face.’
‘She sewed it up?’
‘She couldn’t do that because by then it was too inflamed. She poured hot water over the wound and made a poultice of bread and milk. Whatever paste she concocted to draw out the badness worked. The scar just reminds me of how lucky I was to survive.’
‘But you don’t value your medals?’
‘War makes you realise heroism is a changing thing. One moment this and the next one that. I took my orders and did my duty like a hundred other officers in the continent and a lot of them died without recognition or praise.’ He raised his hands up in front of him and looked down. ‘Before that war I was a different man. I thought less about death and more of life.’
Sephora closed her own fingers about his. ‘I was the same. When I fell into the water from that bridge there was a part of me that thought it might have been easier if it just ended then. But I’ve changed now...’
‘...and we are both made whole.’ He finished the sentiment for her.
Different words from the ones Richard had constantly bombarded her with. Not I love you, but much, much more. The truth had her reaching for him.
‘Love me, Francis,’ she said as he nuzzled into her throat.
‘I will.’
* * *
She dressed carefully for the Clarkes’ ball in a gown that she had always thought looked well upon her. It was made of heavy silk with a woven pattern of blue leaves in flossed satin around the bodice and hem. The light had a trick of catching the silk and satin in a way that made the fabric almost live. Teamed with long gloves and a velvet pelisse mirroring the shades of the dress she felt...braver. She smiled at the thought, but it was true.
If she was going into battle she needed to be looking her best. She’d not had one outbreak of hives since becoming Francis’s wife.
Francis wore his usual black, stark and sombre, the cloth and cut of breeches and jacket a classical one. He’d queued his hair tonight in a way that was not as severe as he usually wore it, and it suited him. His one nod to the more decorative came in the wearing of his ruby ring. Sephora thought he had never looked more beautiful or more dangerous.
‘If Cummings attacks, you need to leave immediately. Do you promise me this, Sephora? Should I have to worry about you, too, I will be distracted and if you were to be hurt...’ He stopped and swallowed.
‘What if Terence is armed?’
He lifted the left opening of his jacket and she saw the heft of a knife beneath and was glad for it.
‘But could there be others with him, do you think? Others in the ton?’
‘Anything is possible, I suppose, but I have a feeling he acts alone. Anna saw only him in the warehouse and you said he was leaving the country with his wife at the end of the month, so he is probably not the sort to want to share his spoils. Ralph Kennings was the same.’
‘He was a loner?’
‘He was a man who wanted to have it all and he did not care whom he trampled on to make it happen. I’d known him in the Continent before I left for the Americas.’
This was new. He’d never offered information like this unbidden before. She stayed quiet hoping he might say more.
‘We were in Spain together. On the hills above the pass where I had dug in to try to help the soldiers from the regiment below and I saw Kennings turn and shoot a British officer. Later I found out it was his wife’s brother he had killed and later still I discovered the woman herself had disappeared. Putting two and two together I think he got rid of them both because she was a wealthy heiress and he wanted the money. How wealthy is Sally Cummings?’
Sephora
simply stared at him. ‘Very. Her father protected her assets in a document that said she would not inherit anything until she had been married for ten years. He never liked Cummings, you see, but apart from limiting the access to her funds there was not much more he could do about it.’
‘And how long has she been married now?’
‘It must almost be that number. You think he would murder her?’
‘Killing is easy after you have done it once.’ The hard tone he used made Sephora frown. ‘I barely blinked an eye when I shot Kennings. It was only afterwards that...’
He stopped.
‘That you regretted it?’
‘Yes.’ This time the hazel in his eyes was glazed in pain and torment.
‘I love you, Francis.’ The words came without thought, and they came from her heart, body and soul. ‘I have loved you from the first moment you gave me your breath beneath the water and every second since.’
Unexpectedly he laughed. ‘I take you to my bed and love you in every way I have ever learnt with care and attention and fortitude and you do not say anything. Then when I confess that I have killed a murderer in cold blood and am sorry for it, you tell me this. Is there some law of logic that exists only in women, some way of tangling a man’s thoughts until they do not have a mind of their own, until there is no certainty of anything any more? Save that of knowing I love you too.’
‘You do?’ She could barely utter the words with the thickness in her throat.
‘When you fell off that bridge with your riding habit a living emerald in the sunshine and your tiny hat spiralling through the air behind, I thought... I thought if I could not find you beneath the water then I should die with the trying before I gave you up.’
Sephora smiled at such a truth. ‘Was it preordained do you think, a bee sting at that exact moment and a horse that would react so violentl? One moment later and it would not have happened as it did or a moment sooner and you may have missed me altogether.’
‘Love can be a powerful thing,’ he whispered and reached for her hand. ‘“Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.” With me it will be always and forever, Sephora.’
She felt the tears pool in her eyes. ‘When this is over I want you to take me home, Francis, and I want for us to have babies. Lots of them, as many as we can fill Colmeade House with for I am done with the ton and London town. All I need is you.’
* * *
The large ballroom at the Clarkes’ town house was full and busy when they arrived and found their places with Gabriel and Adelaide Hughes, Daniel and Amethyst Wylde and Lucien, Alejandra and Christine Howard.
Sephora was glad Francis would not be alone in this quest and glad, too, that her parents were nowhere at all in sight. Despite the fighting words of a half an hour ago she felt nervous and worried though her elation with the proclamations that they had given each other also lingered.
She’d known she loved Francis for a long time and had felt the same regard back from him, but the words she had once censored were now valued and dear, no longer the oft repeated worthless and unimportant sentiments that they had been with Richard.
When a waltz struck up he leaned over and asked her to partner him. ‘It will give us a better view of the room and those within it,’ he said quietly as they took their place on the floor.
With his arms about her and the chandeliers above, Sephora simply leaned into his chest and felt, this moment, this second, with a husband who was good and strong and true. And beautiful, she added. So beautiful she could see a myriad women watching them, watching him. Her fingers tightened about his.
‘Winbury is at the far end of the room, Sephora, but I can see no sign of Terence Cummings.’
She smiled, her musings so different from his alert watchfulness. Gabriel and Adelaide danced nearby and the Earl of Wesley’s eyes scanned the room with the same purpose as Francis did.
Then Sally Cummings came into view, standing alone beside one of the large windows and looking upset. A sense of foreboding filled Sephora. How easily she could have been a woman exactly like her in ten years or so if she had married Richard, for the uncertain nervous expression was familiar; she had seen it so many times on her own face in the mirror.
When the waltz finished Francis led her from the floor towards her parents, who had now arrived and were standing on one side waiting for them.
‘I hope you are well.’ This greeting was given by her mother with some coldness though her father was a little more effusive.
‘It is good to see you again, Sephora. I have missed you, but you look happy.’
‘Is Maria here tonight?’ She glanced around for her sister.
‘Not yet. I think she will no doubt make an appearance a little later. Aunt Susan is with her.’
Her father turned then to Francis. ‘I hope your ward is recovered after her fright in London, St Cartmail, and if there is anything I can do to help you find the culprits please do ask.’
‘Thank you, Lord Aldford, but it is all in hand and the man responsible for the kidnapping should soon be facing the law.’ Francis was polite but distant and Sephora thought at this rate the two men should never know each other well enough to be friends. She was glad when Lucien Howard greeted Francis from behind and her parents moved on.
‘Cummings is here. He was in the card room, but he has gone outside now for some air. He’s been drinking heavily so you might want to be careful. I’ll give you a few moments to sound him out.’
Thanking Lucien, Francis took her arm.
‘I would ask you to go and stand with your parents, Sephora, but I can see it in your eyes that you will not go.’
Despite the situation his voice sounded relaxed, but then he had been in difficulties many times in his life before by all accounts and was probably well able to disguise any misgivings. Her own heartbeat pounded in her ears.
* * *
Francis scanned the space around them as they walked through the wide French doors. Two men at the far end of the terrace were engaged in conversation and at the other end a couple lingered.
Winbury’s cousin was drinking, for two empty glasses sat on a marbled table near him and he held another one. A dash of anger crossed his face as they joined him.
‘I did not think you were back in London, Lady Sephora. All my sources said that you were ensconced most happily at the Douglas family estate in the middle of Kent.’
‘Indeed we were until this morning, but business has called us to the city.’
There was a look in Cummings’s eyes that began to worry Francis and turning to Sephora he spoke quietly. ‘Could you go inside and get me a drink? I find I am suddenly thirsty.’
He wanted his wife away from here and from undercurrents he could not quite understand for there was some wrongness in this situation that played about the edge of his caution. Sephora did not turn away though and as the two from further along the terrace moved closer he saw their faces for the first time. It was the men who had tried to take Anna in London though they were dressed far differently today. Cummings had known them after all, just as Sephora had said he did.
Pushing Sephora behind him he did not wait for them to attack. His first punch brought down the heavier man and he lay there motionless though the younger man had brought out a knife and was circling him with it.
Without hesitation Francis took his own blade from the strap at his breast and crouched, a flash of steel against the darkness as he moderated his breathing, slowing it down and steadying it before moving forward.
His opponent was good but Francis was better and within a few moments he was able to strike the weapon from the other’s fist and bring his blade down into the soft flesh of the man’s arm. He couldn’t kill him, not here a few yards from a ball in progress and a room containing a hundred women who would be horrified by such violence.
Using the heavy handle he slammed down hard across the other man’s head as the fellow ran at him and he too, fell to the floor.
&nb
sp; Then things took an unexpected turn as Cummings lunged for Sephora and his grip was tight around her neck.
‘Drop the knife, Douglas, or I will kill her.’ The words were snarled and furious as Francis raised his hands. Sephora’s face was deathly pale and her eyes were wide. As Cummings’s fingers pressed deeper, Francis did exactly what he asked, laying the knife to one side of him and speaking quietly.
‘It is over, Cummings. I know what you have done. You can only make it worse for yourself by harming an innocent.’
He moved sideways slowly as he spoke, the anger in him blood red and boiling. One second was all it would take to get to Cummings, but it had to be the right second. A neck could be broken easily with enough pressure and Sephora’s was slender and small. He could do nothing at this moment but wait. The first man at his feet was recovering and he saw Cummings’s eye flicker at the movement.
‘Clive Sherborne was a colleague of yours, was he not?’ Francis asked the question because in an impasse of this sort it was good to engage the participants in dialogue in order to buy time. He knew from experience that the longer these standoffs went on for the less likely someone would be hurt.
The man was arrogant enough to think he could still get away with murder, but Francis could see Lucien’s outline against the doors.
‘Clive Sherborne was an impediment. But why hurt Anna? What had the child done to harm you?’
‘She was never a child, don’t you see. She was his snitch, the one with the eyes and the brain. Without her that coward and thief would have never risen as he did through the ranks of the smugglers. Without her he’d have been dead long before he was.’
‘My cousin saw you kill her father. She was hiding under the straw in the corner of the warehouse. She can identify you, Cummings, and she has.’
The older of the two men Francis had knocked down now sat up, a quiet movement that took Cummings’s attention, and he loosened his grip.
It was enough.
Francis flung himself at Winbury’s cousin knocking both him and Sephora over, coming up across Cummings quickly and punching him hard as his wife scrambled away. With his free foot he kicked the recovering miscreant in the head, pleased at the cracking sound of a skull hitting stone.