“Charlotte.” Both men pushed through the front door and raced up the steps.
He heard a thud from above, then heard her cry out, followed by another thud.
Jacob ran up the rest of the steps, followed closely by O’Leary, pulling his pistol from his pocket as he ran. He burst through their bedroom door to find Charlotte racing toward him, but there was a man in the way. A rather large, tall man, swinging a knife toward Charlotte.
Edmund.
Jacob lifted the pistol and aimed, but he knew he didn’t have time to get off a shot, and it could possibly hit Charlotte instead of Edmund.
Jacob threw himself forward, pushing Charlotte out of the way as the knife arced down. He tried to twist out of the way, but the knife sliced through his new formalwear and ripped through his left side. Hot pain shot through him. As he fell he pushed Edmund with all of his might.
Edmund tumbled to the ground but was instantly lumbering to his feet as Jacob searched for the pistol he had dropped. His entire left side felt as if it was on fire, and he couldn’t move his arm or his leg. He tried to roll, to search for the pistol. Edmund was already on his feet, the knife still in his hands as he advanced on Charlotte.
Where the hell was O’Leary?
On hands and knees, Charlotte scrambled for the gun a few feet away. She picked it up, clutching it with both hands as she aimed at Edmund.
“Squeeze,” Jacob said. “The trigger. Squeeze.”
She closed her eyes, grit her teeth, and braced her body. The bang was loud. Edmund grunted, looked at Charlotte in surprise, and put a hand to the gaping hole in his chest before he sank slowly to his knees, listed to the side, and collapsed.
Charlotte dropped the pistol and crawled to Jacob.
O’Leary finally entered, his own pistol drawn, and he looked at the wreckage before him. Jacob realized that while it had seemed like long minutes from the time he entered the room, it had really only been seconds.
He was beginning to go numb on his left side and knew that couldn’t be good. Blood poured from a long gash across his torso, turning his once pristine white shirt a deep scarlet.
O’Leary checked Edmund’s chest for a beating heart and shook his head.
Edmund was staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
Jacob dropped his head to the ground, and the room spun. He could feel the warmth of his blood pooling beneath him and figured he didn’t have much time left before he lost consciousness.
“I’ll get help,” O’Leary said, and raced out of the room.
Charlotte lifted Jacob’s head and put it in her lap. “You’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s just a scratch.”
“Charlotte.” He tried to grab her hand, but his felt so heavy, and he could barely move it.
Charlotte grabbed it for him and held tight, but to his frustration his fingers wouldn’t wrap around hers. He wanted to hold her in his arms. He wanted to sleep next to her.
Damn it, this isn’t the way he wanted it to end.
“You stay with me. Don’t you dare leave me. Do you hear me, Jacob?”
“I’ll…try.”
He’d just begun to believe that he could be happy again, that there was life beyond the deep grief that he’d been living with for so long. To have it all end before it began angered him.
Charlotte didn’t deserve grief or loss. She’d had far too much in her life already. Damn it. He wanted to live. To create a life with Charlotte.
Charlotte trained her eyes on him, smoothing his hair back with her hand. She tried to smile, too, but it also failed. There was so much he wanted to say. A lifetime of words silenced too soon.
“O’Leary will get the doctor, and everything will be fine.”
“Charlotte. Listen…to me.”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t say it. I won’t lose you.”
He tried to tighten his hold on her hand but didn’t know if he succeeded. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore.
“I love…you.” He let out a half laugh that ended in a groan and licked dry lips. “I should have…said it sooner… Never thought…I’d love a lady…dressed as a lad.”
Tears were dripping from her eyes, making dark splotches on her blue gown. “You can’t leave me now. Not yet. We have a house to move into and…” She sobbed, her chin quivering. “And a whole life in front of us. I was a fool to think America would be better than you. Jacob, I love you so much.”
“Listen. Hear me. You can be the D-Dowager—”
“No.” She shook her head, letting loose more tears.
“Countess…of Ashland.”
“Stop it. Don’t even say it.”
“Use the title…to do good.”
Her body was shaking with sobs as she leaned over to press a kiss against his forehead. “I love you,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Charlotte?”
She looked up to see Armbruster taking a seat in the other straight-backed chair that Mrs. Smith had brought up from Jacob’s office. Here she was, still accepting callers on unacceptable furniture, but for once she didn’t care. What did it matter? And why had it mattered so much in the first place? She shouldn’t have berated Jacob for his lack of furniture. It all seemed so petty now.
Armbruster looked at Jacob, lying so still on the bed. The only thing moving was his chest.
“What did the doctor say today?” he asked.
“The same thing he said yesterday and the day before. He’s lost a lot of blood. Only time will tell.”
Armbruster had been here for the past three days, by her side, leaving only to conduct business and to meet with Detective O’Leary. He had been her rock to lean on and had shielded her from the curious callers and Scotland Yard while she sat vigil at Jacob’s bedside, watching him breathe, willing him to live.
Armbruster had told her that her aunt was dead and that they had found everything Charlotte had said they would. The cats. Heads buried in the garden.
“He didn’t have to step in front of that knife. If he hadn’t, he’d be here.”
“He had to protect you.”
She stroked Jacob’s hand, looking for any sign that he could hear her, a twitch of a finger, anything.
“He told me…” She drew a deep breath. It hurt too much to remember. “He told me that I was now the Dowager Countess of Ashland. I don’t want to be the Dowager Countess.”
Armbruster cleared his throat. “He spoke to me a few days before the attack. Told me if anything ever happened to him that I was to watch out for you. He wanted you to do good deeds with your power and position. He wanted lasting changes in the way London handled the downtrodden.”
“It’s a noble cause, but I’m not the one fit to execute it.”
“He seemed to think you are.”
She swiped at a tear that had rolled down her cheek. So many tears and not one had brought Jacob back to her.
“Is this what it was like with Cora? Was it this…” She waved a hand in the air. “Helpless. Just watching. Waiting.”
There was a long pause, and she thought he was probably wishing himself somewhere far away. Away from a weeping woman and a man fighting to live. Then she remembered that Jacob and Armbruster had been friends for much longer than Charlotte had known Jacob, and maybe he was hurting, too.
She looked at him to find that he was staring at Jacob with a look of sorrow.
“It was horrible,” he finally said. “She suffered much in the end and then the baby…” He shook his head and looked away, and Charlotte pictured Cora and the baby up in heaven, waiting for Jacob to join them. Was she being selfish, wanting him to stay with her?
“She would have liked you,” Armbruster said. “And she would have wanted Jacob to be happy and loved.”
Charlotte blinked, and more tears fell. “He is loved,” she whispered.
“I know.”
They sat in silence until Charlotte couldn’t take it anymore. In the silence she thought bad things, like being alone forev
er.
“Tell me about my aunt,” she said. “I want to know.”
His gaze bounced to her. “It’s all rather horrid. I’m not sure if it’s something you would want to hear.”
“I lived with Aunt Martha and Edmund for five years. I probably won’t be surprised.”
“She was stabbed several times with the same knife that stabbed Jacob. She was sitting at the dinner table, slumped over her dinner plate. He killed her while she was still chewing her food. O’Leary told me that they searched the house. There was a bag in Edmund’s room with a severed head in it. They believe it was his last victim.”
Charlotte let that information sink in. She still didn’t quite believe that they were both dead. She’d lived in fear of her aunt and cousin for so long that the thought of not living in fear was unreal to her.
“The heads…” Armbruster cleared his throat. This was even affecting him. “The heads were found buried in a row. Ironically enough, they were staring at the back of the house, toward Lady Morris’s rooms.”
How appropriate that Edmund would make his victims stare at his mother’s rooms.
“There is more,” Armbruster said. “O’Leary wanted me to tell you that they found Penny.”
Charlotte closed her eyes in anguish for the loss of one of the only people who had shown compassion toward her. “I had hoped that she had run off and was working somewhere that treated her better than Aunt Martha.”
“O’Leary didn’t tell me who she was to you.”
“A servant with a good heart who tried to help me.”
“They think she was the first victim.”
“And when there were no other opportunities in the house, Edmund went hunting elsewhere.”
“Or he knew that he needed to enlarge his hunting grounds so as not to be caught.”
“Such a pity that he wasn’t caught then. All those women would have been saved.”
“O’Leary also wanted me to tell you that they are looking into the death of your uncle, Lord Morris. The fact that he died so suddenly is now suspicious in light of Edmund’s activities.”
“Do they think Edmund killed him?” she asked.
“O’Leary isn’t certain but is leaning toward the belief that Lady Morris killed him. Her hatred of men was fierce. It wouldn’t be beyond comprehension. However, it was more than five years ago, so it might be difficult to prove.”
Charlotte stared down at Jacob. “It means little at this point who killed him.”
“True, but O’Leary would like to know. A family of killers is certainly an oddity.”
“Ah, yes. I come from a family of oddities.”
“How did you do it, Charlotte? How did you survive five years with them?”
She stroked Jacob’s hand and stared at his face. “I never gave up hope that there was something better out there for me.”
Charlotte fell asleep with her head on Jacob’s bed, her hand still holding his.
She dreamed of the Crystal Palace.
She and Jacob were strolling through the exhibits when they became separated. She ran through the palace, calling for him, but he was nowhere to be found, and there was no one to help. She was all alone.
All alone.
And Jacob was gone.
Tears seeped out of her eyes and made the mattress wet beneath her cheek. He had risked everything for her. Just like her mother had done for her father. Finally, she had the love that she’d always wanted, a love that transcended everything, and just like her parents, she might lose it all.
She felt a movement at her head and swatted it away.
Something ruffled her hair, and she swatted at it again, lifting her head and wiping her weeping eyes.
When she focused she found Jacob in the same position he’d been in for days, but his eyes were open, and he was looking at her.
“Jacob?” I’m not still dreaming, am I?
She touched his cheek and smiled through her tears. “You’re awake.”
He grasped her hand, and she openly cried. She had told Armbruster that she had never given up hope that there was a better life for her, but she hadn’t told him that the hope had slowly been seeping away.
“How long have I been asleep?” His voice was raspy, but to her it was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. He was awake. He was alive. She wanted to laugh, and cry, and hug him.
“Three days. I thought I lost you. I thought you were gone.”
He opened his arms. “Come here.”
Careful of the wound in his side, she climbed onto the bed and fit her body into his uninjured side. It felt so good to feel his arm around her, his warmth surrounding her.
“Is Edmund dead?” he asked.
“Yes. You stepped in front of the knife, Jacob. Why?”
“Because I love you, Charlotte, and I would risk anything to save you.”
She laid her head on his shoulder, and more tears came. An endless supply of tears lately, but these were tears of happiness and relief.
“I was so scared,” she whispered.
He hugged her tighter to him. “He’s gone now. You’ll never have to fear Edmund again.”
She straightened up so that she could face him. “I wasn’t scared of Edmund. I was scared of losing you. I was terrified. All of those years living with my aunt, I told myself that there was a purpose to my suffering, that something grand was waiting for me at the end. It was you, Jacob. It was you I was waiting for all along. Not some adventure to America or a new life somewhere else. But my life here. With you.”
“Ah, Charlotte. I love you so much. More than you can possibly know. You humble me in so many ways. Your suffering makes me want to fix all of the ills of the world and to make a life of peace and happiness with you.”
“Do you think we can have that?” She laughed. “Peace and happiness, after all of this fear and turmoil?”
He kissed her and laid his head back on the pillow. Their conversation had taken a lot of out him, and he looked drawn and tired. But he was awake, and he would heal, and together they would create a life better than her mother and father ever got to have. A life of love.
They were going to be fine, the two of them.
They were going to be just fine.
Epilogue
Jacob fidgeted with his coat sleeve. He was far more nervous than he thought he would be and wished he were back home, at their new home in Hyde Park, with Charlotte next to him.
“Here, let me fix that.” Charlotte adjusted his sleeve and patted it smooth.
His left side was still weak, but the knife wound was healing nicely, the doctor said. Jacob was frustrated, feeling he wasn’t progressing as quickly as he should, or rather as quickly as he would have liked. The doctor said to give it time.
Jacob didn’t want to miss one moment of time with Charlotte. He wanted this healing business over and done with.
And this ceremony, too. He wanted this ceremony done and over with.
Armbruster appeared at his side, dressed magnificently in a scarlet coat and black vest and trousers.
“Why, Armbruster, you are looking quite fetching.” Charlotte smiled up at his friend, and Jacob scowled. He didn’t know how Armbruster always seemed so put together.
He bowed to Charlotte. “Lady Ashland, you look magnificent, as always.”
Charlotte grinned and tugged at her hair. She wasn’t aware that she tugged when she was self-conscious, but Jacob was, and he loved that about her. It was the little things that he was just beginning to learn about her that he cherished the most.
“Are you ready?” Armbruster turned to Jacob.
“No.”
“Yes. He is.” Charlotte shot him a look that meant behave. He had to admit that since his injury, his patience had its limits, and he tended to be grumpy, and he was more than grumpy now.
“This is ridiculous. I don’t know why we have to do this.”
“Because the queen wants to meet you,” Charlotte said. “The queen, Jacob. You do
n’t say no to the queen.”
Her eyes were wide at the wonder of meeting Queen Victoria. The queen had heard of Jacob’s bravery in catching Edmund, although Jacob didn’t think himself brave at all. He’d done what he had to do to save Charlotte, and he would do it again. But good God, he hoped he would never have to. All he wanted was a calm, quiet life with his wife.
“Let’s go then.” Armbruster led the way. Apparently, he had met the queen quite a few times, so he knew what to do.
But just as they were about to enter the receiving room, Armbruster stopped. Jacob almost ran into him, and Charlotte looked at him curiously. They both followed his fixed gaze to a woman across the room. A beautiful woman whom Jacob had never seen before. She was tall and thin with piles and piles of black hair and dark flashing eyes. She was talking to someone, her delicate hands flitting through the air to make her point. She stopped and locked gazes with Armbruster, then pointedly turned her back on him.
As if shaken from a trance, Armbruster moved toward the receiving room.
“Who was that?” Jacob asked.
“No one,” Armbruster said, his voice flat.
And then they were announced: Lord and Lady Ashland.
Charlotte placed her hand on Jacob’s arm and smiled up at him. “Ready?” she asked.
“With you? Always.”
And they went to meet the queen.
Turn the page to start reading Deceiving an Earl by Sharon Cullen!
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Prologue
She was wearing peach, and it suited her so well.
She was speaking to the same group of girls she’d been talking to at the other ball, the night they’d first met, but as if she could feel his presence, her head turned, and their eyes met. She lowered her lids and turned back to her friends, and he headed toward her. Drawn as if someone was pulling a string straight to her.
“Miss Hillgrave.” He stopped in front of her, and it took everything inside him to not wind his arm around her, to not pull her to him, to not kiss her.
An Unwilling Earl Page 24