A Riveting Affair (Entangled Ever After)

by Candace Havens

  “I’ll see you tonight,” I said in his ear. “I promise.”

  “Never had a doubt you would,” he said and I could hear the roughness in his voice. I squeezed him tighter and hurriedly pulled away, trying my best not to cry. Leopold opened the carriage door and I hurried inside, boosting myself up rather than waiting for someone to assist me. I didn’t want anyone to see how much my hands were shaking. The gun slapped solidly against my thigh, and I took a deep breath, praying I wouldn’t need to use it.

  “What do we know about the Duke of Deverly’s dinner tonight?” I needed to focus on the practical aspects of the operation ahead.

  “It’s a small dinner party to celebrate tomorrow’s wedding,” Leopold said, hoisting himself into the carriage and closing the door with a slam. “The planned guest list includes the Duke and Duchess, Miss Eliza Deverly, her sister Meredith and her husband, and the Viscount of Marbury, on the bride’s side.”

  I growled loudly when he referred to Eliza as the bride, and Leopold shifted uncomfortably. “The other guests include Lord and Lady Capshaw, Julian, his younger brother Emerson, and the Archbishop of Canterbury—and now me.”

  “Thank you.” I reached across the expanse between the seats to squeeze his hand once before we both fell silent, lost in our own worries about what was to come. “For helping me. I appreciate it, Leopold.”

  “It’s the least I can do for you.” He smiled back, the sides of his mouth wavering slightly. “You deserve to find happiness.”

  The carriage pulled up short just outside the main house, and I slipped out the far side, ducked off the road, and stole toward the kitchen gardens. The woods were dark, but gas lamps blazed away inside every window of Llanlweyllan House, guiding my way. Once I reached the outside walls, I snuck around the corner to a rough wooden door set into the wall. When I pushed on it gently, I was relieved to find it open as planned.

  “Aida Capshaw? Mulvaney’s girl?” a gruff, male voice with a thick Kerry accent asked when I stepped into the dark, gloomy kitchen yard. I looked up to find myself staring at a tall man with bushy gray curls and outfitted in the livery of one of Deverly’s stable hands.

  “Aye.”

  “I’m Jonas, Head Groom. Claire said to expect you. Come along now. Let’s get you inside.”

  “Thank you. You’re putting yourself at considerable risk to help me.”

  The man grabbed my upper arm with his large, rough hand and pulled me through the door and into the bright, bustling kitchen filled with scurrying cooks and maids. He shut the door behind him and stared at me. “Risk is certainly the word for it.”

  “Humph,” a fat woman with faded auburn hair, a pink face, and a greasy apron said. Steam rose from six different pots on the huge fireplace, a mountain of loaded platters littered the tables, and three geese roasted on the fire along with a haunch of deer. Putnam had told me it was a small family dinner, but the preparations would have been more suitable for a public ball.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked. “Aren’t you worried we’ll be found out?”

  “They won’t even notice you here if we manage to pull this off right, girl. Now put on a cap so that hair of yours is covered, and you’ll be just as invisible as every other maid here tonight.”

  I caught the white mobcap she threw toward me and pulled it on, then tucked my hair inside. I grabbed one of the starched white aprons hanging on a peg near the door and wrapped it around my waist. “Speaking of sneaking me in and out of here, how do you intend for us to pull this off, precisely? Considering all that food, I have to ask, just how many guests do you expect for dinner tonight?”

  “About fifty, give or take a few guests we hadn’t gotten a formal reply from.”

  “Fifty! I thought this was a small family dinner?”

  “Was supposed to be,” the gruff man from before said. “But Deverly wanted a chance to show off his new son-in-law to all the finest families of Cardiff, except the Earl of Bute of course. He won’t come because he’s busy seeing to his houseguest the Prince. Claims the man is tired and needs his rest.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying not to look surprised at the mention of my new accomplice.

  “Meanwhile,” the man said like I hadn’t spoken, “Deverly wants to make sure that all the great and good in Cardiff see he’s got the scandal under control and Capshaw under his thumb with no questions asked. He doesn’t want them to think he can’t keep to his business—and theirs—when it’s needed. “

  “So what do we do? The house is full of people. There is no way we can sneak Julian out without someone noticing.”

  The cook laughed. “Of course we can. Lord Capshaw keeps your man locked in a small room upstairs. Won’t let no one else even see to him. Takes his meals up personally and won’t let the maids clean. But right now, Lord Capshaw is in the library with His Grace, and that means your Mr. Capshaw is unattended.”

  “Unattended?” I asked.

  “Exactly, so what you’ll do is sneak up the back stairs and smuggle yourself to his suite of rooms. You use the housekeeper’s key, free your man, and then it’s out the back door, no one the wiser until dinner starts and by then you’re halfway back to Cardiff and freedom.”

  “You’re making it sound easy.”

  “Because it is, girl.” The cook came around the table to give me a half-hearted shove in the direction of the kitchen stairs and pressed a large, ornate key into my hand. “Now quit waffling, screw up your shoulders, and go get your husband back. Because I must tell you, I’ve worked the kitchens here at Llanlweyllan since before Miss Eliza was born, and never have I seen a match less suitable. They’ll both be miserable together by Easter.”

  “Right.” I nodded and walked purposefully toward the stairs, my back ramrod straight. I paused at the threshold when I realized I wasn’t sure where to go. “Which room is Julian’s?”

  The groom hitched his pants. “Well the tower, obviously. You can’t imagine Lord Capshaw was just going to put a potential runaway on the main floor with all the guests? Too much chance of an escape.”

  I took another deep breath to screw up my courage, lifted my skirts, and hurried up the stairs.

  I reached the first landing and pressed myself back against the stone wall, listening for the sound of anyone nearby. There was little chance of one of the guests coming into the servants corridor, but considering what we were about to do, I’d rather be more cautious than less. I put my hand over my mouth and nose and peered around the corner, looking up and around the curve in the stairs, trying to see if I was still alone. I couldn’t see anyone, so I kept moving upwards.

  I reached the third floor and heard something clatter in the corridor outside the tower. I pressed myself back against the wall and tried my best not to breathe. I closed my eyes and bit my lower lip. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, don’t let me get caught now. Not when I’ve made it this far.

  A baritone voice rumbled a few curses and then the sound of muffled footsteps thudded on the wooden floors as whoever it was wandered away. I let out a shaky sigh and swallowed, trying to screw my courage back up. I ran my hands along the length of my skirts then grabbed the banister, starting up the final flight of stairs to the tower above.

  I stopped in front of the plain wooden door in front of me and smiled. There was no one here guarding him. The kitchen staff had been right. They’d thought Julian broken and left him alone. I shoved the key into the door’s lock and put my weight against it, preparing to shift the lock, but the door swung open easily instead. The door wasn’t locked. But then why was Julian still here? Why hadn’t he run?

  I looked around the room, searching for my husband, my heart pounding in my throat as I saw him chained by his ankle to the bed and a large, green, clockwork dragon blocking the distance between the two of us.

  “Aida watch out!”

  Hot flames licked at the air in front of me, and I leaped back as the fire scorched the hem of my dress. The monster opened its mouth again, and I he
ard a distinctive click a second before the dragon poured more flame between Julian and me, forcing me out of the room. The tapestries on the wall near where I’d stood caught fire.

  “What in the name of the Holy Mother?” I threw my arms up in front of my face to block the flames and squinted, trying to look at Julian, who had managed to crouch in a corner on the other side of the room to stay away from the burning wall hangings and the bitter, choking smoke. “I thought your father didn’t believe in technology?”

  “It appears he’s willing to ignore his scruples if the need is great enough,” Julian said and coughed loudly. “Tell me you know how to turn the blasted thing off.”

  “Not a clue.”

  “What do you mean you don’t have a clue? You made the damned thing, didn’t you?”

  “No.” I stared at the monstrous piece of machinery and felt my stomach turn to water. “What in the name of the saints makes you think I’d make that thing?”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the fear and the smoke from my brain, and looked at the dragon again. I hadn’t built it, but there weren’t too many engineers that could have and I knew each and every one of them. And more importantly, I knew how they thought when they were creating. If there was a way to beat this thing, I could figure it out.

  When the dragon opened its mouth, I stepped out of the doorway back into the hall. The creature’s eyes froze, and then it slowly closed its mouth. Hmm, it was controlled by some sort of motion sensing device. The creature would only attack things that moved. But like all sensors, the dragon’s eyes would only be able to scan a small visual field looking for movement. And given that the snout was large and its eyes were small and placed toward the front of the creature’s face, I was certain the sensors were impaired by the aesthetics of the design.

  If it had been my toy, I would have definitely come up with something that had fewer potential blind spots. “Does it have a button anywhere that you’ve seen?” I asked, still studying the creature.

  “No, my father controls it with some sort of device that he keeps with him at all times. He points it directly at the creature’s chest and then presses a button to disable it.”

  My mind whirled with the possibilities. Lord Capshaw was controlling the dragon with a remote device? How had they managed to make the sensors work? Did it impair functionality? I squashed down my curiosity and tried to focus on getting my husband free. After all, I could always find a way to dismantle Capshaw’s dragon at some later date. If it didn’t kill us first, of course.

  “That’s bloody brilliant,” I said suddenly.

  “You can study it once we’re free,” Julian said, his voice tense. “But now is really not the time for science, Aida.”

  “Of course it is,” a cruel voice said from behind me. “Since you’ll now have plenty of time to see the creature in action.”

  I turned and saw Lord Capshaw standing at the top of the staircase, leaning on the rickety wooden rail, close enough that I could have reached out and smacked him in the face without straining my arms.

  His hawk-like gray eyes were hard, and his mouth twisted upward in a sneer of contempt as he uncrossed his arms and stepped nose to nose with me. “Aida Mulvaney, I presume?”

  “That would be Mrs. Julian Capshaw to you,” I said angrily.

  “Not anymore.” The Earl held up a remote for me to see. He hit the button and I heard the distinctive whir of a piece of clockwork machinery shutting down. “Your marriage to my heir has been annulled and not a moment too soon. Although I do have to wonder what he saw in you in the first place.”

  “I haven’t the slightest,” I said. “But you have to know that whatever you have planned, it won’t work.”

  “I wouldn’t be so confident, if I were you. Now, inside. It’s long past time that I dealt decisively with both of you.” Capshaw stepped forward, herding me backwards into the room and closer to Julian. The tapestries on the wall continued to burn, and smoke filled the room.

  “How? Are you going to kill me? There are people who know I’m here tonight. They’ll know something’s happened when I don’t return.”

  “Will they?” he asked, his eyes blazing with anger and what I thought was probably more than a little madness. “I don’t think anyone will say a thing. I think they’ll be too afraid to speak against me. Besides, no one will know anything except for what I tell them, and do you know what I’m going to tell them? I’m going to tell them a story they’ll believe. A story that will make them all talk for years. The tragic case of poor Julian Capshaw, murdered by his insane Irish wife.”

  “I wouldn’t!”

  “Oh, but you see, society will have no problems believing that you did. I’ll let it be known that my son came to his senses and realized that poverty for true love wasn’t quite as picturesque as he’d first imagined. So he returned to the loving bosom of his family and chose to annul his marriage to you and start again with Miss Deverly, all titles and lands reinstated of course, rebuilding his life as my heir. Then you, in a fit of Irish temper, built this dragon and stormed the Duke’s hunting lodge to kidnap your former husband. Unfortunately for you, like all machinery, this automaton is treacherous, and will turn on you.”

  “I don’t think that’s very likely.” I pulled the gun from my skirt pocket and pointed it at him.

  “Why? Because you’re going to shoot me?” Capshaw laughed cruelly. “If you survived the dragon, you’d find yourself sentenced to hang for killing a peer of the realm.”

  “You’re right.” I dropped the gun and let my shoulders droop. “There’s nothing I can do except admit defeat and beg for your mercy. If only you’ll allow me to go, I promise to never contact your son or Miss Deverly again.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the Earl said. “This is not one of your silly, girlish romance novels.”

  “You’re right.” I angled the gun in case of ricochet and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the chain stretched from the bedstead to Julian’s ankle, close enough to make him mobile but far enough away to avoid wounding him.

  “What are you doing?” the Earl asked.

  I swung the gun up and leveled it at him, motioning him toward his machine. “Move. In front of your creature.”

  “Go ahead. Shoot me. You’ll still die by this dragon. Then Deverly and the rest of my compatriots will use our deaths to finally pass the laws necessary to see you and your kind are finally banned from practicing your unnatural trade.”

  “I hate to disappoint you, my lord, but I have no intention of being an unintentional dragon sacrifice today. This, after all, is not that sort of fairy tale.” I pulled the trigger, and the bullet whizzed past his shoulder.

  The Earl stared at me in shock. “You missed? After all your brave words? Such a daring rescue!” He looked at Julian. “And this is why you should avoid the Irish, son. They’re always useless when it comes to the really important matters.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, Father,” Julian said as the dragon behind the Earl started to make complaining noises, the hole where the bullet had entered its chest beginning to smoke as the machine crumpled into a useless heap at the Earl’s feet. Julian took two large steps forward, coming nose to nose with his father, and slammed his fist into the older man’s jaw.

  Julian reached back and grabbed my hand. He stepped around his father’s crumpled form and pulled me out of the room with him. “Now if you’ll excuse us, my wife and I have somewhere else to be.”

  When he pulled the door closed, I stopped and reached for the heavy key still in my pocket. I offered it to Julian with a smile. “That should slow him down.”

  He let go of me long enough to lock the door behind us with his father on the other side before he dropped the key into his waistcoat pocket and grabbed my hand again. “Come along, we need to get out of here in case anyone heard those shots.”

  We hurried down the stairs and toward safety, luckily finding the coast clear on all floors. On the first floor, it was only a short dash
between the stairwell and the swinging door to the kitchen and freedom beyond. I peeked around the corner. The tiny corridor was empty. I grabbed Julian’s hand and we stepped out of our hiding spot.

  “I say,” a bright, masculine voice said and Julian froze. “What do you two think you’re doing?”

  Julian spun the two of us around to face a portly young man with a bright red, bulbous nose standing at the other end of the hall. “Marbury, the new maid is lost. I’m helping her find her way back to the kitchens.”

  “Seems a bit friendlier than most the maids.” Marbury stepped closer and patted my hip. “Perhaps next time she gets lost she can knock on my door? I’ve a taste for a bit of the green. How did you convince your father to let you out early? From what I understood, he meant to keep you in your tower until the wedding like some sort of reluctant bride. Wait, why do you have that chain still attached to your—”

  Instead of waiting for him to put two and two together, I pulled out the gun and pointed it as his chest. He couldn’t know I’d expended both of my shots.

  “Well now,” Marbury said.

  “Mars, old chap.” Julian’s voice held a slight note of laughter. “Have I introduced you to my wife? No? Well, maybe next time we run into each other in town we could take a bit more time to have a chat. But right now, we have a pressing engagement. Somewhere else.”

  “I should have known old Leopold didn’t just show up on a whim to taste Mrs. O’Shea’s roast lamb. He’s here to help aid the two of you in your escape.”

  I shifted my grip on the gun and flung it at him. It hit him square in the forehead. The little man yelped in pain and shielded his face with his hands.

  Instead of waiting for him to recover his facilities and respond, Julian grabbed my hand and pulled me into the kitchen.

  “So was it as easy as I said, my girl?” The cook pushed a heavy leather bag across the counter to Julian.

  “Not quite.” I pulled off the apron and mobcap and dropped them onto the side table. “Marbury caught us in the hall. Expect him to start making a fuss any—”