Rapture Becomes Her

by Shirlee Busbee

  Penelope considered Cornelia’s comment and agreed. “Yes, there’s no pretending that there won’t be a firestorm of gossip.” Her gaze affectionate, she added, “You know the vicar and I will do our best to help quell the worst of it. Your Emily is a darling and I couldn’t be happier for her . . . but there will be others who will suffer great heart burnings at her good fortune.” She frowned. “If only there was a way that I could help defuse the worst of the dismay that certain ladies are bound to feel when they learn that the most eligible gentleman in the neighborhood is no longer available.” She considered the situation a moment longer, and then an impish smile crossed her face. “I think I shall call upon Mrs. Featherstone tomorrow and perhaps Lady Broadfoot. After all, one might say, as the vicar’s wife, that it is my duty to apprise them of this exciting occurrence. Much better for them to learn of the engagement from me than to hear of it out of the blue on Sunday.”

  Cornelia nodded her approval and Penelope went on. “Naturally, I shall let them know how much the vicar and I approve of the match—and remind them what a dear, charming young lady Emily is and how often they have expressed their fondness for her.” Her eyes twinkled. “What else can they be but happy for her good fortune?”

  Cornelia laughed. “I wonder if the vicar knows what a clever little minx he married.”

  “I think he suspects,” Penelope admitted, smiling, “but I am very careful not to be too clever.”

  The two ladies were seated on one of the sofas near the fire that crackled on the hearth of the huge marble fireplace, and in perfect harmony, they sipped their tea, both of them satisfied with the plan Mrs. Smythe had put forth. Setting down her cup and looking toward the alcove where the vicar, Barnaby and Emily were still standing, Mrs. Smythe said, “After Mathew’s unflattering description, I must say that Lord Joslyn is not at all what I expected.”

  Tartly Cornelia replied, “I’m sure that Mathew led you to expect a wild-haired barbarian wearing furs who eats raw meat with his fingers and wipes his nose on his sleeve.”

  Penelope smothered a laugh. “Something like that.” Her expression serious once more, she added, “It was not very nice of Mathew, but one can hardly blame him for feeling rather hard done by. He’d been groomed for the title since he was a child.”

  Cornelia fixed a pensive gaze on Mathew where he stood at the edge of the group of younger people. He looked animated enough, she thought, as he smiled at something Esther, the eldest of the Smythe daughters, said. Watching him closely though, she detected just the faintest air of unhappiness around him. Something in his forced gaiety and the resentment she had noted in him sometimes when he was around Barnaby and thought himself unobserved told her that Mathew had not fully accepted his fall from grace. She didn’t blame him. Only a saint would have accepted with equanimity the kind of loss Mathew had suffered.

  Penelope echoed Cornelia’s thoughts. “I’ll have to give Mathew credit though for being here tonight. To be treated as a mere guest by the man who had taken away everything he had grown up believing would be his one day, can’t be easy for him.”

  Barnaby laughed at something the vicar said and Penelope’s gaze slid to him. “Particularly not easy when Lord Joslyn has such a winning way about him,” she said. Her head tipped to one side, she studied Barnaby for a moment and added, “One cannot say that he is precisely handsome, but with those rugged features and broad shoulders there’s no denying that he has great appeal for the feminine sex.” Penelope sighed dreamily. “No wonder Emily agreed to marry him so quickly. Resisting all that dark virility would be near impossible.” “I agree,” Cornelia murmured, a decidedly impure gleam dancing in her hazel eyes. “His great-grandfather was the same . . . and resisting him didn’t cross my mind.”

  It wasn’t very late when the party broke up and the guests departed. Emily and Cornelia did not linger long downstairs once the Smythes had driven away, and well before midnight, Emily was tucked up in her bedroom.

  A candle flickered on the stand near her bed and finding sleep elusive Emily studied the intricate pattern of the silk canopy overhead. Throughout the day she’d had no private moment, no time to think about what she had done, but now alone for the first time, she grappled with the enormous changes that were going to take place in her life. Good God! She had agreed to marry Viscount Joslyn!

  She wasn’t completely certain of the state of her heart, but she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t find him fascinating. Nor that she didn’t find his company most exhilarating—when he wasn’t being deliberately annoying. Ignoring his wealth and title, Joslyn appealed to her in a way no other man ever had, and there was no denying that he aroused the most delicious and exciting sensations within her when he took her into his arms. For just a while she lost herself in the memory of that demanding mouth on hers and the strength of those powerful arms as they had crushed her next to him. To her embarrassed astonishment, her nipples peaked and shuddery warmth cascaded through her body.

  Her cheeks flaming, she buried her face in one of the pillows. He bewitched me, she decided not very happily, and like a feeble-minded twit I melted into his arms with nary a thought about anything but the wonder of his kiss. She snorted. Addlepated, that’s what she was!

  She rolled onto her back and stared again at the canopy as if the answer to her feelings and emotions were hidden in the complicated pattern woven in the silk. Was she regretting her acceptance of his proposal? Not exactly. But their courtship, if one could call it that, certainly had not followed the traditional path. A month ago Lord Joslyn had been an utter stranger, nothing more than a name to her, and yet now, a scant three weeks after that fateful meeting in the best bedroom of The Crown she had agreed to marry him.

  He swept me off my feet, she acknowledged. There was much to admire about Lord Joslyn and he had proven himself to be an honorable man, a man who could be trusted and, don’t forget, she thought with a wry smile, Cornelia approves of him.

  Remembering the sight of him as he had burst into the room where Ainsworth held her captive, her heart swelled. He had looked like an avenging god, those black eyes blazing and that gleaming knife held in one hand; he had come to her aid at the time she had needed him most. He was many things. Fascinating. Trustworthy. Charming. Wealthy. Kind to old ladies, she reminded herself, smiling. Don’t forget that. And she suspected that she might very well be, if not in love with him, certainly falling in love with him. Of course she had agreed to marry him!

  Emily frowned. Her reasons for accepting him were obvious, but why did he want to marry her? She had no fortune. She had no great, noble or titled family—quite the opposite, thinking of her cousin Jeffery. She wasn’t a notable beauty or a scintillating wit. She sighed. There was nothing about her that she could see that would attract a man like Lord Joslyn. Her lips drooped. But if she couldn’t name a reason why he would want to marry her, she could think of one very good reason why marriage to her would be anathema to a man like Joslyn: the smuggling.

  Yet, incredibly, he had asked her to marry him. She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. Indeed, he had seemed, she admitted, puzzled but pleased, determined to marry her. Who knew what he was thinking? She shook her head. It was all too complicated and she gave up trying to understand Joslyn’s reasons and snuggled under the covers. A wistful smile curved her lips. Was it possible, she wondered, that he was as fascinated by her as she was by him?

  All in all, as he lay in his bed, much later that evening, Barnaby was satisfied with the events of the day. Emily had agreed to marry him and tonight’s dinner party had gone well. He liked the vicar and his wife and thought the daughters and son reflected laudably on their parents. A brief word with Cornelia before she had departed for her rooms imparted the welcome information that Mrs. Smythe would be cheerfully spreading the news of the engagement tomorrow. He smiled in the darkness. And, of course, from Lamb, he knew that the servant grapevine was already hard at work. By this time tomorrow night, he doubted there’d be anyone of high
or low consequence in the area that wouldn’t know that Lord Joslyn was to marry Miss Emily Townsend in early February.

  For a second, Barnaby spared a thought for his younger sister, Bethany, an ocean away. She’d like Emily, he decided, and with the wedding soon to take place, he wished not for the first time that he had not given in to Bethany’s pleadings and allowed her to remain in Virginia with their mother’s brother and his wife as chaperones. His lips twitched. There was a great deal about his sister and his wife-to-be that was similar—they were a pair of stubborn, spirited wenches and he feared that he was as malleable as butter in their small, determined hands.

  His smile faded as he considered the ominous clouds still on his horizon. Someone had tried to kill him, not once, but twice, and the unknown attacker, or attackers, remained at large. He rubbed the healing wound hidden beneath his thick black hair. The argument could be made that this latest attempt had been an accidental shooting by a poacher, but he dismissed that idea out of hand. He didn’t believe in coincidences, and for him to have escaped death two times in less than a month beggared belief. It would have been comforting to think that whoever had tried to kill him would give up and accept defeat after two failures, but Barnaby doubted it.

  It was possible, he conceded, that the attacks on his life had nothing to do with his inheritance, but it was difficult to come up with another compelling reason for someone to want him dead. He couldn’t claim to be beloved by everyone he met, but neither could he come up with any reason other than the Joslyn fortune that would drive someone to want to murder him. Which left a very short list of suspects . . .

  Mathew. Thomas. Simon. In various ways, they all stood to gain by his death. Mathew would inherit everything that he had always believed would be his; Thomas would become the heir apparent and while Barnaby admitted it was a weak reason for murder, it wasn’t to be dismissed—what was one more murder when a fortune was at stake? As for Simon . . . Barnaby scowled. What would Simon gain? He couldn’t think of any advantage for Simon beyond being one step closer to inheriting the title, but it seemed a weak reason. Killing three people in order to inherit seemed a bit extreme, but if he was willing to accept that Thomas might kill two people, then for Simon to kill three . . . The only thing Barnaby knew for certain was that someone wanted him dead.

  Thoughts of death turned his mind to his half brother, Lucien. Emily’s abduction yesterday had temporarily obliterated any serious contemplation of Lucien’s fate, but with his own affairs well in hand Barnaby finally had a moment to consider Luc’s situation. With the turmoil and savagery boiling through France these days, he wondered, with no little anxiety, if Luc was even alive. Barnaby had warned his half brother that this trip to France was folly, but Luc wouldn’t listen to him—or Lamb—and had blithely sailed for the continent intent upon finding any surviving member of his mother’s family.

  The news of the death of Louis XVI had shaken Barnaby. France was a country about to explode into even greater violence and Luc was somewhere in the midst of the madness. Wearily, Barnaby ran a hand over his face, finally admitting that he had no choice but to go to France to try to find his half brother.

  Tomorrow he would talk to Lamb about Luc and thinking of Emily and his own happiness, guilt clawed through him. How could he be happy knowing that Luc had need of him? How could he leave Emily behind at a time like this? But what choice did he have? He could no more ignore Luc’s plight than he could have left Emily to Ainsworth’s evil designs. He took a deep breath, aware of what he must do: just as soon as Jeb returned he’d have to talk to him about sailing back to France, this time with a passenger Jeb would be leaving behind....

  Barnaby grimaced and admitted that Mathew might be inheriting the title sooner than anyone expected, particularly if he should lose his life in France while on what might be a fruitless quest to find and rescue as thankless a scamp as ever lived. His heart ached at the thought of leaving Emily, but he could not abandon Luc. Blast him!

  After tossing in the bed, he eventually gave up all pretense of sleep and, wrapping a dark blue robe around his nakedness, wandered to the other end of the cavernous room. A pair of overstuffed chairs with a low mahogany table situated between them was arranged in front of the massive fireplace and, selecting one of the chairs, he sat down. A fire glowed on the hearth and staring at the shimmering orange and yellow coals he tried to gain control of his unpleasant thoughts.

  To no avail. No sooner had he pushed aside painful images of Luc’s lifeless body or Emily standing over his own grave than the memory of Ainsworth lying dead at his feet popped into his brain. He frowned, wondering how he could have handled the situation differently. Leaving Jeffery alone with Ainsworth’s body probably hadn’t been the wisest thing he’d ever done, but the need to get Emily away from there and safely at Windmere had been his paramount concern. With the luxury of hindsight, he was aware that the decision to thrust the disposal of Ainsworth’s body into Jeffery’s hands could come back to haunt him.

  The probability that he’d be awoken tomorrow morning with the news that he was being arrested for Ainsworth’s murder was low, but Barnaby didn’t trust that spineless cousin of Emily’s not to make a muck of everything. On the other hand, he reminded himself sourly, Jeffery had a strong sense of self-preservation. . . .

  Barnaby was still thinking about the Jeffery/Ainsworth problem when he arose the next morning. As Lamb helped him shrug into a jacket of russet superfine, Barnaby said, “We should have heard something about Ainsworth before now. A death in the country, especially one under suspicious circumstances, should have raised comment.” He glanced at Lamb. “You’ve heard nothing in the kitchen?”

  Lamb shook his head. “All anyone can talk about is your engagement. Everyone, except perhaps Peckham, is over the moon about your choice. Your Miss Emily is well thought of in the community and most people are happy for her.” He grinned. “You have risen in the opinion of your staff. They’re of a mind that having the good sense to choose Miss Emily for your bride that, despite being an American, you’re a right good fellow, after all.”

  Barnaby chuckled. “Well, one does try to keep the staff happy at all costs.”

  “And you?” Lamb asked, his blue eyes searching Barnaby’s face. “Are you happy?”

  Barnaby patted him on the shoulder. “Yes, old man, I am happy.” When Lamb just continued to stare at him, his brow raised, he asked, “Don’t tell me you’re in Mathew’s camp and disapprove of my choice?”

  Lamb smiled. “No. If she is the bride of your choice, then I cannot wish you anything but happy.”

  It wasn’t quite the glowing acceptance Barnaby could have wished for, but it would do. He suspected that any reservations Lamb held had more to do with Jeffery than with Emily, and reminded again of the Jeffery/Ainsworth problem, he frowned.

  Almost as if he read Barnaby’s mind, Lamb said slowly, “I’m thinking it would behoove me to ride into the village and find out if there is any talk about Ainsworth or Jeffery. As you said, something should have surfaced by now.” He grimaced. “Unless Jeffery buried Ainsworth’s body alongside of that other fellow’s and is just going to pretend Ainsworth rode away without a word to anyone.”

  “Surely, he’s not that stupid!”

  Jeffery wasn’t stupid at all, as they were to discover. With Barnaby’s blessing, Lamb had ridden into the village to spend an hour or two at The Crown and to further his acquaintance with Mrs. Gilbert and perhaps one or two of her pretty daughters. There was, he told himself, as he tied his horse to the rail in front of the inn, no reason not to combine pleasure with business. Entering the main room, that Saturday afternoon, he glanced around and was pleased to see that except for a pair of old fishermen seated at one of the tables and two of the Gilbert daughters behind the long counter, no one else was inside the inn. He’d barely seated himself in a quiet corner and been served a tankard of ale by a smiling Flora, before Mrs. Gilbert appeared from the nether regions of the inn and joined him. S
eating herself across from him, she said, “Terrible news about poor Mr. Ainsworth, isn’t it?”

  In the act of sipping from his tankard of ale, Lamb set the tankard down on the table and asked cautiously, “And what news would that be?”

  “Why only that it seems he and Squire imbibed too much while in Newhaven on Thursday and lost their way home. According to Squire, in the darkness and in a state of great inebriation, he missed the road to The Birches. Seems they ended up near the cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Mr. Ainsworth, needing to relieve himself, dismounted his horse and, despite a warning from Squire, wandered too near the edge of the cliffs.” Her voice bland, she continued, “Unfortunate man fell over the cliffs and was swept out to sea. Village gossip has it that it was near three o’clock on Friday morning before Squire was able to make it to the constable’s house and report the accident. Of course, a search was instituted, but . . . Constable thinks the poor fellow was killed by the fall from the cliffs and that there was nothing anyone could have done for him even if they’d found him right away.” She shuddered delicately. “Ainsworth’s body was discovered only this morning on a rocky stretch of beach not far away—they say that the ravages of the sea and rocks was something terrible to see . . . or so I hear.”

  Lamb’s eyes met hers unflinchingly. “Now that’s a tragic tale,” he said slowly, thinking that Jeffery might be swine dung but the man obviously thought on his feet. Considering the situation, Lamb decided that it worked very well and also gave a plausible reason to explain why Emily’s cousin hadn’t been at Windmere last night. Lamb had assumed that the news of the engagement would have already reached the village, but it appeared he was mistaken. He rubbed his jaw. “It’s a shame this had to happen at a most joyous time for Miss Emily.”