Always Forever (Emerson Book 5)

by Maureen Driscoll

  He heard the door to the stairwell creak open behind him. He wondered which of his enemies it would be.

  “I thought I might find you up here.”

  Ah. It was his greatest enemy. Bancroft turned to find his duchess facing him, a pistol aimed at his heart.

  “You have been busy, Mirabelle. For quite some time, I believe.”

  “Longer than you suspect, I imagine. I always wondered why you did not question how I had become such a young widow.”

  “An oversight, perhaps. I never truly trusted you, though I did not realize your perfidy would extend to trying to murder me. I thought you would simply spend my money and take the occasional lover.”

  “I am afraid there have already been more than a few,” said Mirabelle as a cold wind blew past them. “If it’s any consolation, at first I tried to only have relations with men who had a passing resemblance to you, so as not to shame you too much. But now that the process is dragging onward, I do not much care.”

  “Is there a chance you may even now be carrying my child?”

  “Alas, no. I was dissuaded of that three days ago when my courses came. The reasonable thing would be to keep you alive until I conceive, therefore maximizing my widow’s portion. But Canning told me the Home Office is close to proving you guilty of treason, which would make all of this wonderful wealth revert to the Crown. What a waste that would be.”

  “And Grayson?”

  “Dead by your hand, I believe. Well, not by your actual hand. But your men Mortimer and Jones. Mrs. Lyons herself told me all three men are dead in the cellar.”

  “And Lady Grayson?”

  “Canning took care of that.”

  “Just as you shall take care of Canning.”

  “He is obviously a crazed Bedlamite who killed the poor, defenseless Lady Grayson. I will have no choice but to kill him in self-defense.”

  “Then the estate will be yours.” The wind was beginning to whip about them.

  “The estate already is mine.”

  “How will you explain my death?”

  “You are quite ill, Bancroft.” At his look of surprise, she added, “You do not think I looked into everything about you before I agreed to marry such a disagreeable old man? You are not long for this world. You were overcome with melancholia and took your own life, though I do not know if it will be by shooting yourself or jumping. Do you have a preference?”

  “A death while in the throes of passion in my bedchamber springs to mind.”

  “Unfortunately, that simply will not happen.” The cold air made her cross her arms for warmth, while she still kept her pistol on him.

  “Cold, are you?”

  “Obviously. Which is just as good of a reason as any to end this sorry spectacle now.”

  “Do you not wonder why you are so very cold, yet there is still sun in the sky?”

  Mirabelle did seem puzzled as she looked up at the sky, which had clouds on the horizon, but nothing nearby.

  “Mirabelle, did you ever wonder why it was so cold in the old part of the castle?” asked Bancroft. “Were you never interested in the history you are a part of?”

  “No.”

  “That will be your fatal error. For there was the story of an unfaithful Duchess of Bancroft whose husband had his revenge. They said he ran his wife’s lover through, then left the bitch to descend into melancholia before she finally jumped off this very roof. Though I do not believe she went of her own free will. I believe she was pushed.”

  “And who would have done that?”

  “Turn around and you shall see.”

  “You are trying to trick me into lowering my weapon.”

  “Am I?”

  Mirabelle shivered. Her teeth began to chatter as she slowly turned while keeping her pistol trained on Bancroft. She screamed when she saw the ghost of the Mad Duke. He reached out a hand as he advanced on her. She backed away. “Make it stop!” she said to her husband, even as she moved closer and closer to the edge of the roof.

  “He is not mine to stop.”

  The wind was now howling, so they barely heard the door to the stairs open and slam into the wall. To Bancroft’s surprise, Nate appeared. He, too, held a pistol.

  “What…?” Nate watched the Mad Duke advance on Mirabelle, as she moved closer and closer to the small four-foot wall, which was all that stood between her and the ground far below.

  Mirabelle aimed her pistol at Bancroft. “I’ll kill you if you don’t stop it!”

  “Mirabelle, stop!” said Nate.

  Just then, the ghost reached out to grab Mirabelle by the neck. Nate could hear her gasp. She dropped her pistol as she tried to grab the Mad Duke. The pistol hit the small retaining wall and discharged.

  Nate ran toward Mirabelle, but before he could get there, she fell over backward. She regained enough breath to scream, until they heard the sickening crunch of her body hitting the ground.

  * * *

  Nate couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. He turned to his father, who was looking at the ground below. Then Bancroft slumped over, clutching his stomach, where the pistol shot had accidentally hit him.

  “Father!” Nate started toward him, while keeping a wary eye on the Mad Duke, who was hovering over the point where Mirabelle had stood.

  Bancroft stopped Nate’s approach by raising his own pistol. “You’re still alive.”

  Nate stopped. Fully aware that his father had tasked Mortimer with trying to kill him, there was every reason he would now finish the job. “Mortimer killed Jones. Why did you try to kill me?” Despite everything, it still hurt to know his own father wanted him dead.

  Bancroft shrugged, though the motion caused him pain. “I see it was a mistake now. Call it the follies of an old man’s vanity.”

  “You need a surgeon.” Though from the amount of blood, it appeared they might be too late for one.

  “I have been to quite a few of them in the past year. I believe I have already seen my last.” He looked down at the blood seeping from him.

  There were so many questions Nate wanted to ask. “Why did you frame old Ridgeway for treason?”

  “For the money, of course. I love how your lot seems to feel that money is never sufficient reason to commit a crime. When, in fact, throughout history some very large crimes have been committed for some very small sums.”

  Bancroft continued. “Ridgeway’s ultimate downfall would have amused him, if he had but known of it. He used to delight in beating his sons. He had none of his sons’ respect for the lower orders and hoped he could beat that weakness out of them. But it didn’t work. In fact, all it did was drive them away, what with James going to America and Colin to the army. And with Lady Ridgeway intent on thoroughly cuckolding him, there was a real risk the estate would never recover.

  “So Ridgeway looked into ways of sending a message to Colin in France, telling him to return home, where all would be forgiven. He spent almost a year travelling up and down the coast, looking for fishermen to send a message for him. I believe he succeeded a few times, but all for naught. Colin never received the messages and in the meantime, all Ridgeway had done was alert a lot of people that he wanted to send messages to France. He wasn’t a traitor. That would have required too much effort on his part. But when he confided in me one drunken night, I saw an opportunity.

  “I took a few trips to the coast myself, telling everyone who would listen that I was the Earl of Ridgeway. I conducted some business along the way with freetraders, which became profitable unto itself.”

  “Did you commit treason?” asked Nate.

  Bancroft took a long pause before replying. “I never sold state secrets, if that is what you mean. My intermediaries traded with some unsavory people in Napoleon’s regime, but I paid them money for brandy and other goods, which were sold at a tidy profit. I did not find it necessary to dirty my hands with anything else. After all, I am a peer of the realm.”

  “And I fancy you did not wish to get your neck stretched
if you were caught dealing with spies and secrets.”

  Bancroft shrugged. “Why should I take such risks when there was so much money to be made in so many safer ways? I decided to blackmail Ridgeway, using a third-party intermediary, of course. It is ironic that old Ridgeway was so bad with money, when there was so much of it to be had all around him.”

  “But if he hadn’t committed treason, why did he pay?”

  “Because the appearance of such things was often enough. The war had dragged on for years with little public support. The Crown needed to win over the masses and what better way would there have been than for an earl to be accused of treason? The hanging would have been the only thing anyone talked about for months.”

  Nate just stared at the man in front of him. “Ridgeway ended up selling Win to a man who beat her because of his debts. You bear that on your soul. If you have one.”

  “How very common of you, Nathaniel, believing in such things as souls. Which brings up the late, unlamented Mr. Pierce. He was my eyes and ears belowstairs.”

  “He was in trade, not in service.”

  “It is a much smaller difference than you think. He was able to use his sources to get gossip about peers that I would be unable to access in the ballrooms. He was also a sneaky bastard, so he was able to do the legwork – or have it done for him – limiting my exposure. It was a profitable arrangement, until he got greedy.”

  “When did you know I was on to you?”

  “I have known about your work with the Home Office almost since the very beginning, of course. I was actually notified when you joined. You were too good at maths at school not to have someone recruit you.” There was a touch of pride in his voice.

  “Why did you save Rose that day in the woods?”

  “She is my heir’s wife. No one has the right to kill her except for me.”

  The door whipped open again and Rose and Alex burst through. Rose ran into Nate’s arms and he almost fainted at the relief he felt.

  “Thank God you’re alive,” she said. “We saw Mirabelle fall from the roof.” She looked over to where Bancroft lay dying.

  Nate knelt before him and held his hand.

  Bancroft looked surprised, but did not attempt to pull away. “You chose your future duchess well,” he said, with a slight nod for Rose.

  “I know...Father.”

  Bancroft looked him in the eyes. “You are the duke now. Do your duty well.” Then the light went out of his eyes. Nate continued holding his father’s hand, even as it grew colder and colder. He could not remember ever having held it before, not even as a boy. It was odd to be doing so in the final moments of his father’s life.

  Then he became aware of a cold wind. He looked up in horror to see the ghost of the Mad Duke advancing on Rose. Rose turned to face him. She was shocked but held her ground. As the ghost reached out for her, Nate got in front of her.

  But suddenly the Mad Duke lurched backward and they watched as a sword ran him through from behind. The ghost had a twisted look of disbelief on his face before he vanished, taking the wind and cold air with him.

  In his place stood the ghost of a young man.

  “Charlotte’s lover,” whispered Rose.

  The ghost bowed slightly to her then turned to Charlotte, the woman he had been waiting centuries to be reunited with. They smiled, then joined hands. They kissed, then their spirits united and slipped back into the castle.

  “What the hell just happened?” asked Alex.

  The only thing Nate cared about was having Rose in his arms. He held her and kissed her and vowed never to let her go.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  While Rose’s brothers and Stemple had stormed the house just moments after the Mad Duke had been vanquished, it wasn’t until almost two hours later when everyone settled into the sitting room to relax.

  Westfield had sent the carriage to collect the women from the dower house, along with Win from the cottage. The surgeon had arrived to tend to Frederick Mortimer, who was now resting in an upstairs bedchamber, with Mrs. Lyons looking after him.

  Maude was playing with Letty and Anna on the other side of the large sitting room, allowing the rest of the family to discuss the extraordinary events of the day.

  “I was so worried about Letty and Anna,” said Rose. “I am extremely thankful they were safe at the dower house all along.”

  “They did set out to visit you,” said Ava, “but, fortunately, Stemple was unable to sleep and pacing the halls. He caught them just before breakfast, then sent them back to bed. He even kept watch in the hall to make sure they did not try to leave again.”

  “Thank God for Mr. Stemple,” said Rose.

  “I still do not understand what happened on the roof,” said Win. “You did not truly see ghosts, did you?”

  Nate, Rose and Alex looked at each other.

  “I believe we did,” said Alex. “Though I cannot quite credit it.”

  “There are portraits in the family gallery which may convince you,” said Nate.

  “I regret that my first official duty as magistrate will be to certify the events which happened today,” said Alex. “Assuming the new Duke of Bancroft wishes me to continue in the post.”

  For a moment, Nate was at a loss for words. He was the new Duke of Bancroft. And his father was truly dead. There was something overwhelming about the entire situation and he feared be might weep.

  Perhaps sensing his distress, Colin spoke up. “Do not think I will bow down before you. I might for Rose. She is a duchess, after all. But you will always be the fair-haired boy who got all the girls at school.”

  “What girls?” asked Rose.

  “An insignificant part of the past, love,” said her brother Nick. “Were you ever able to get to the bottom of the blackmail scheme?”

  Nate and Rose filled her family in on the events which had transpired on the roof.

  “So Father tried to get messages to Colin,” said James. “I wonder what they said.”

  “It would not have mattered even if I had received them,” said Colin. “I would not have returned home.”

  “I bear the disgrace of it all,” said Nate. “I promise to restore your fortune. I will do whatever I can to undo the damage, though there are some things I can never atone for, such as what happened to Win.”

  Win smiled at him. “Seeing as how my first marriage indirectly led me to the love of my life, I cannot say I regret it.”

  Now there were tears in everyone’s eyes.

  Colin cleared his throat. “Rose and Nate will need to sit for ducal portraits, of course. I can hardly wait to see the life-sized portrait of Nate greeting me as I enter the castle. I will throw a tomato at it at my earliest opportunity.”

  “No, you will not,” said Rose. “But I do hope the rest of us will at least have leave to touch the portrait. I confess, each time I passed the portrait of the late duke, I was afraid I would accidentally dislodge it.”

  Nate smiled wistfully. “I cannot remember a time when anyone touched it or even….” He stopped, lost in thought.

  “What is it, love?” asked Rose.

  “No one was ever to touch it. Not even to clean it.”

  “So I was told.”

  “But…” Nate rose from his seat, then walked to the grand foyer. He looked up at the oil painting, so forbidding. He wasn’t certain how long he had been standing there, before realizing Rose and her family were with him. “Westfield?”

  “Yes, Lord….your grace?” The butler was embarrassed about almost using the wrong title.

  “Can you have some footmen carefully remove my father’s portrait?”

  A quarter of an hour later, half a dozen footmen were removing the life-sized painting. Most were curious to see it up close, since they had always been ordered to stay away from it.

  Nate, Rose and the rest of the family watched as it was lifted off, then lowered to the floor.

  “There’s somethin’ on the back,” said one of the footmen.
/>   “There’s a lot of somethin’ on the back,” said another.

  “Lay it face down on the floor,” said Nate. “Carefully. But face down.”

  The men did as instructed, then Nate dismissed them and a curious Westfield.

  The back of the painting was covered with packets of papers. And there was a small box tucked into what had been the top right corner. “I suspect we will find much of the Ridgeway fortune here,” said Nate. “Please help me uncover the contents.” As the Emersons carefully peeled away parchment, much of it delicate and yellowing, Nate picked up the small box.

  He was not surprised to see that it had an elaborate French lock. But it was only a matter of moments before he had it open.

  “Look at this,” said Colin, as he held out various deeds. “These are the estates I found in Father’s papers.”

  “They are, of course, yours once again,” said Nate. “Along with my deepest apologies.”

  “There is nothing to say that your father did not purchase them,” said Colin.

  “I do not care. Anything that was once Ridgeway property will be so, again. In fact, you can take anything else you like. While I cannot give you the deed to anything which is entailed, you can take the proceeds. All I have is yours.”

  There was silence in the great hall, but Nate had never been more serious about anything. He would always feel the shame of his father’s misdeeds.

  “Your offer means more than I can say,” said Colin. “Though I will not take you up on it. I would accept anything that had been taken from Father through dishonest means, but nothing more than that. You do not owe me anything, though if you are willing to return Rose to us, we will gladly take her back.”

  “My wife is never leaving my side, Ridgeway,” said Nate with a somewhat good-natured snarl. “And from the looks of this, you will be a wealthy man once everything is sorted. Especially after you take this.” He held up the contents of the small locked box – the Ridgeway ruby and diamond ring.

  “It looks like the Ridgeway fortune has finally come home,” said Nick, as he hugged Kate.