“True,” Spencer said smoothly, “but I was merely pretending to care about her until I had reasoned this situation out. I only hit you once, which was all I intended to do, and that only as a mere show. It would be expected because you were, after all, kissing my wife. But Victoria quickly came to your defense and hit me over my head with a flower vase. You sustained a bruised jaw, sir. But I fell victim to a concussion at her hands.”
“I should have killed you,” Victoria said quite clearly. Spencer ignored her, still watching Loyal Atherton … and waiting.
“When did you find out the baby was mine?” he asked.
“She has been pregnant since we’ve been married. Whose baby do you think it is? Certainly not mine.”
Edward shook his head slowly and stared at Spencer as if he’d never seen him before. Spencer spared him but a glance looking past him to his captor, whose expression reflected his consideration of Spencer’s details. “You said she hit you to come to my defense. Why would she do that when she wouldn’t even have me? When she wouldn’t marry me? Even a moment ago she said she hated me.”
“And she may well. But if I won’t have her and her baby is yours, I don’t think her pride will stand in her way, do you? She’ll marry you or raise a bastard.”
“I’ll raise a bastard,” Victoria said, again quite clearly and unhelpfully. “But what I will not do is stand here another minute and listen to you. Personally, I hate you both, so there.”
With that, she stomped down, apparently as hard as she could, on Spencer’s arch and ground her heel against his bones. Bellowing, he jerked back. She whirled out of his grasp and gave a piercing whistle, followed by: “Sic ’im, boy. Get ’im, Neville! Now!”
In a flying leap that stretched his body out to its capacity, the dog, all teeth and snarls, jumped off the porch. In the next second, a gun fired, the dog yelped piteously, twisted in the air, and landed with a thud in a flowerbed. Victoria screamed and grabbed the gun out of Spencer’s numb hand. “Victoria, no!” he shouted hoarsely.
He grabbed for her, but she was too quick for him as she whirled on Loyal Atherton and held the pistol in both hands, out in front of her and at shoulder height. “You son of a bitch! You killed my dog!”
Spencer overcame his shock enough to turn to Edward and Loyal. The two men were involved in a rousing bout of fisticuffs. Instant logic told Spencer that when Loyal had moved the gun away from Edward to shoot Neville, Edward had turned on the man and grabbed his gun hand, which he now held up, his arm stretched out, in an ineffectual pose. Hitting each other with their free hands, they turned around and around—and kept Victoria from getting off a clean shot. But she was trying. She kept circling them and looking. The expression on her face said no one had better interfere.
Spencer did the only thing he could do. He tackled Edward and Loyal, sending them all three flying out into the bruising street, which fortunately was not paved with cobblestones. They landed hard, grunting and struggling and teeth bared. Over and over they rolled, an intimate mass of three sweating, frantic bodies, all punching the other and trying for the gun and no one winning. It seemed to go on forever. Then, suddenly and somehow, Loyal Atherton broke away—and still had the gun. He staggered to his feet and stood looking down on Edward and Spencer there on the hard-packed dirt of the street. His gun was trained on them both … his finger was on the trigger.
“Loyal.” It was just a single word, said almost quietly.
The man’s head came up; he seemed to be listening.
“Turn around, Loyal. Like you said, I’m the one you should kill, not them. And you have to admit, this has been a long time coming between me and you.”
Spencer scrambled to untangle himself from Edward. But his limbs seemed weighted with lead, his movements slow. He could not extricate himself. Fear seized him … there was nothing he could do in time to save her. Victoria was going to die, right here in front of him. Spencer bellowed “No!” as Loyal Atherton, his intentions plain on his scratched and reddened and snarling face, spun around to Victoria, his gun held at the ready.
Two shots rang out, unnaturally loud and echoing in the otherwise deserted streets of Savannah. Time stood still; Spencer’s heart froze. Then, Loyal Atherton staggered back but still stood on his feet, his back to Spencer and Edward, who had grabbed Spencer’s arm in terror. Suddenly, the man’s bones seemed to melt as he did a slow spin, turning to face Spencer and Edward.
A bloom of bright red spread down his shirt from his shoulder … but there was also a neat, round bullet hole that marked the exact center of his forehead. He fell dead to the ground, his body bouncing once before it lay still, not two feet from Spencer and Edward. With him no longer blocking their view, Spencer, along with his cousin, jerked his attention to Victoria, who’d obviously fired twice to Loyal’s none.
Staring back at them, she stood unwounded, the smoking gun in her hand, and said, quite calmly: “He shot my dog.”
CHAPTER 22
It was a week later, the night before the duke and duchess’s combined and now quite sizable entourage would travel into Savannah, first thing in the morning, from River’s End and board a steamship on which Mr. Milton, at the duke’s behest, had booked their passage back to England. The tedious packing had been done by Rosanna and Hornsby, with Victoria’s and Spencer’s help … until they’d been dismissed. The result of all the lady’s maid’s and the valet’s labor was an incredible mound of traveling trunks and soft-sided bags downstairs to be loaded tomorrow morning onto the heavy dray wagons.
As the Redmonds could not be dissuaded—they would all three of them accompany the traveling party to the docks—every River’s End carriage and driver had been pressed into service to transport them all. The slower drays, carrying the luggage, would leave earlier than the party itself, just to ensure no tardiness, which could cause them to miss the ship or have to leave their luggage behind. Absolutely unthinkable.
But that was tomorrow. Sweetly sated from their lovemaking, Victoria still had the rest of tonight alone with her husband … in bed. Following many days of his pleading, and her ignoring him, she had finally forgiven him for his shocking ploy—admittedly brilliant but hardly endearing—of offering her life to Loyal Atherton in exchange for Edward’s. With the entire household’s nerves on edge, finally, her father—dubbing Spencer “you poor bastard”—had taken the distraught man aside and held a closed-door discussion with him. Mr. Redmond, a man more senior in these matters, had evidently told Spencer to spend every penny he owned until his wife was happy.
He was also advised to grovel on his damned knees, if necessary, to appease her. Otherwise, he could expect many nights of sleeping alone and just as many days of a veritable living hell on earth. Victoria knew this was what had been told to her husband because her mother had passed her tactics on to her daughter in their discussions of how to behave as a wife.
So now, all was forgiven, and here the duke and duchess lay, naked, their limbs entwined and their bodies tangled in the covering sheet. Victoria lay on her side, her head resting against Spencer’s shoulder, an arm and a leg thrown over his chest and his legs. She loved the contrast of their bodies; how his was so powerful yet gentle; how his muscles were so firm yet warm; and how the sprinkling of short black hairs on his chest narrowed in a funnel pattern down to his navel. Lying on his back, an arm wrapped around Victoria’s shoulders, he gently rubbed her arm and made her feel safe and happy and loved. For some time now, they’d stared quietly out the opened windows across the way at the full moon silvering the earth below and shining a bright light into the bedroom.
“Have I said yet,” Spencer said into the quiet, “how glad I was to return to River’s End last week, on that fateful day, to find Jefferson had taken your parents aside and confided the entire truth to them? I cannot imagine us having returned here from Savannah, in the shape we were in, and having to sort all the details for them. Though I gladly would have done, had that been the case. Still, I was glad.”
“Yes, you have said. Every night.”
“I am tedious, aren’t I?”
“No. Just glad. I was equally glad the barbecue was over and the guests were leaving.”
“Thank heavens for that back road you knew which kept us out of the departing guests’ sight. We would have had to explain to each and every carriageful what the devil we were doing out there and why you were in men’s clothing.”
“You didn’t have to burn them.”
“Yes I did. Are you certain you’re ready to make the trip back to Wetherington’s Point tomorrow, Victoria?”
He’d asked her this, too, maybe twenty times in the past week. She grinned, knowing he couldn’t see her do so. “Do you mean am I packed; am I ready to leave my family; or am I feeling up to the trip?”
“All of those, I suppose.”
“Well, let’s see.” She ticked her points off by tapping her fingernails against Spencer’s chest. “I haven’t had any sickness for the past three or four days, so hopefully that will hold. And what else? Oh, yes—I cannot wait to see old Fredericks again. I have missed your butler. But my family … I’m never ready to leave them, I suppose.”
“They’ll be coming to England next spring to see the baby.”
Victoria’s heart gave a happy little flutter. “I know. I’m so happy about that. I will still miss them, though.”
“Of course you will. It’s been a most difficult visit for you, if one could call it a visit. More like a mission. Nothing restful about it.”
“No. And in so many ways it didn’t end well, did it?”
“It ended as well as one could expect. Crises are seldom settled amicably, Victoria, and hardly ever without some daunting results.”
“I know.” She shied away from unbidden images of Loyal Atherton’s bleeding body and settled her thoughts instead on her brother. “I wish there was something we could do for Jeff and Jenny.”
Spencer restlessly shifted his position on the bed but still held her close against him. “If there was, I would do it in a heartbeat, Victoria. I wish, too, there was something we could do for Jubal, stuck like that for all his life in a swamp.”
Moved by his compassion, she planted a kiss on the firm, warm skin of his chest. “I know you would, and I love you all the more for it. But there isn’t anything to be done.”
Spencer was quiet a moment, pensively so. “I suppose he’ll continue to go out to the swamp to see her.”
He meant Jeff, she knew. “He’ll have to. She made the decision to stay there with her mother and brother.”
“I suppose, like her brother, I can hardly blame her, given how she’s fared outside it.”
“I know. And it’s ironic, isn’t it, Spencer? That a swamp could become a haven.”
“Terribly. Your parents did try, though.”
“Yes.” The heartache only deepened for Victoria. “I ache for that little baby, Spencer. Sweet little Sofie. Poor Mama and Daddy … they lost a grandchild they could never publicly claim but never had the chance to love, either. But the shock of it all for them, to learn of Jeff and Jenny’s love.”
“Quite the test of their beliefs and convictions, I’d said. For all of us, actually.”
“True. Miss Cicely was never happy with it, either. She knew if their love was found out, Jenny would pay a much steeper price than would Jeff. But Jenny loves Jeff, just as my parents love Jenny, so what can they say or do but worry?”
“It’s not exactly a just world we live in, is it?”
“No. And then, poor Mama to suggest that Jenny come to River’s End to live. Only then did she realize the depth of Jefferson’s torment. ‘In what capacity?’ he asked her. ‘A maid? A cook?’ Mama had not known how to answer. ‘She is as much my wife as Victoria is Spencer’s,’ he’d shouted. ‘To be acknowledged as anything less is insulting.’”
“Yes. That was quite the painful supper gathering.”
“How I hurt for them both. For all of us, really.” A shiver slipped over Victoria’s skin. “So much hatred in the world. To be hated for whom you love … I just can’t imagine a worse thing.”
“Nor can I.”
“Do you suppose there will ever come a time when it’s any different?”
“It’s hard to see how, or even when, isn’t it? We just don’t seem to learn—and I mean as a species considered as a whole. But rest assured, my dear, that if you were confined to a swamp, I would make the trek, too—despite my admitted fear of alligators and water moccasins.”
Victoria raised her head to look at him. “You’d do that for me? Pole a jonboat again? Travel through all that murk and fog just to see me? Why, you warm my heart, Your Grace.” She laid her head again on his chest. “Not as much as it would if you’d said you’d come live with me there. But, nevertheless, you warm my heart.”
Victoria felt Spencer slump as much as was possible while already lying down. He coupled this with groaning in good husbandly form. “Well, damn me for a fool. My thoughtless remark is going to cost me, isn’t it?”
She patted his stomach. “I’m afraid so.”
“But you have everything already.” He sounded completely vexed, but Victoria knew better. “I know you do because I’ve already bought it—and two new traveling trunks to carry it all.”
“You really had no choice, my love.”
“Your father made that very plain to me.” He now sounded like a suitably scolded schoolboy. “He told me a smart husband is terrified of his wife’s anger or displeasure and will do whatever it takes to make certain he incurs neither. But should he, he must pay for it.”
Biting back a chuckle, Victoria nodded her agreement. “Daddy is such a wise man.”
“Yes, he is. He also worries about you, Victoria.”
Again she raised her head to look into her husband’s face. “Me? Why?”
“Why do you think? You were forced to take a life. He worries how this will haunt you. So do I.”
Bombarded by conflicting emotions, Victoria rested her cheek against Spencer’s shoulder … and said nothing.
Spencer hugged her close and kissed her forehead tenderly. “Your quietness speaks very loudly, my love. The man was a snake and deserved his fate. I only wish it had not been delivered by you. Taking a life, no matter how despicable the person, is an awful guilt to live with. And no, I’ve never taken a life, but one doesn’t have to do so to imagine how it must feel. But you must forgive yourself, Victoria. Had you not killed him, he would have killed all three of us. You did the only thing you could.”
“My head knows that, Spencer, but it’s harder for my heart to accept. It feels like a stain on my soul.” Now that she was talking about it, the confession flowed. “Do you know what scares me the most, Spencer? I did it so cavalierly. It was so … easy. And I have no regrets. Shouldn’t I? Is something wrong with me, do you suppose?”
He chuckled. “Nothing is wrong with you. I hardly think you’re likely to take to a life of crime and murder, my dear. If you have no regrets, couldn’t it be because you are convinced, deep in your heart, of the rightness of your actions? Think of all the ways Loyal Atherton harmed you and your family and Miss Cicely’s, as well. He wasn’t going to stop, Victoria. Instead, he had to be stopped. And if you will remember, you did give him a chance. You told him to put his gun down because he’d done nothing yet that couldn’t be forgiven. Do you remember?”
“Yes.” She was listening … and feeling better.
“Good. And do you remember that he did not take the olive branch that you extended to him? He chose evil over forgiveness. The decision was his, and he left you no choice. In a way, that was the last indignity he suffered upon you. Don’t let him win, Victoria. Put him from your heart and mind.”
Feeling her emotions boiling to the surface, Victoria reached out to Spencer, smoothing her arm up his chest to wrap her hand around his neck. She could feel the steady throb of his pulse there and felt comforted for it. “My father is not the only wise man in
this household. Nor is he the most loved.”
“You melt my heart, Victoria. I love you.” Spencer’s voice rang with the sincerity of his declaration. “But one last word regarding your father. I have been pleased to learn that he and his business partners are going to be able to recoup most of the money lost to those bad investments that involved Jefferson.”
“I hate Loyal Atherton for that, too.”
Spencer patted her shoulder. “That’s the spirit, my love. He was very deserving of your hatred. The man did shoot your dog.”
Victoria’s heart turned over. “Oh … poor Neville. I can hardly stand to talk about that awful moment.” Thinking of the brave bloodhound, Victoria pulled away from Spencer and rolled over onto her other side. Then, peering over the side of the bed, she patted the mattress. “Come here, Neville. Come here, boy.”
The dog, his chest bandaged all around and very much the pampered hero in the household, reclined on the rag rug beside the bed. True to form, he merely raised his head now, stared at Victoria tiredly, and flopped his head back down.
Tsking her opinion of that, Victoria returned to her original position in her husband’s embrace. “You’d think a bloodhound making a first-class crossing to England, in our cabin, no less, would be more grateful.”
Neville’s going to England with them was one of the concessions Spencer had made. Victoria heard it in his sigh. “Perhaps once his wound heals—Dr. Hollis did a wonderful job on him, by the way—and Neville sees the English-bloodhound ladies, he’ll perk up.”
“I expect he’ll enrich the bloodlines over there as well. And make much better trackers of those English dogs.”
Spencer ran his hand down her side and pinched her bottom, eliciting a squawk out of her. “I have already lost that argument, madam. I refuse to have it again.”
“Yes, Your Grace. But do you think Sven will like England?”
“Sven? Who the devil is Sven?”
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