Rebels, Rakes & Rogues

by Cheryl Bolen

  “Oh, no—”

  “I was jesting,” he said with a lopsided grin. He pulled up before the steps. “That old bird will probably outlive us both. Besides, I’m going to find the sheriff right now and drag him there directly. Let me take care of tying up the details, and we can celebrate tonight.”

  Tonight. His tone sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine. Which nightgown would she wear?

  Passing the reins to a groom, Tris lightly jumped to the gravel and came around to hand her down.

  The powder blue one, she decided, offering her hand. He grinned up at her. “You waited this time.”

  “I would wait forever for you, Tris.”

  “I shan’t be gone that long,” he murmured, forgoing her hand to grasp her under her arms and swing her down. “Don’t tell anyone the news—I want to announce it together tonight, after everything is settled.”

  He kissed her forehead, her cheek, and finally her mouth. Drawing back, he smoothed a stray curl from her face. “You must be exhausted, considering your injuries. I hope you’ll rest while I’m gone.”

  Her senses still spinning, she nodded her assent.

  He reached back into the curricle for the silver basket and pushed it into her hands before dropping one last kiss on her lips. “Go, will you? Before I’m tempted to accompany you upstairs.”

  She went straight up to their bedroom. She was exhausted.

  Peggy seemed to be nowhere about, so she kicked off her shoes and burrowed, fully dressed, under the covers, where she dreamed of her marvelous new life while her husband secured their future.

  Chapter 58

  Alexandra was still snug in bed when she heard the door quietly close, followed by the clack of an engaging lock.

  She opened her eyes and yawned. Light streamed through the windows, and she hadn’t expected her husband home until dark. Everything must have gone well.

  “Tris?” she queried, rolling languidly to face the door. She couldn’t wait to see him.

  But instead she saw Peggy.

  Holding a gun.

  For a moment, that was all that registered: Peggy holding a gun. It was surreal, really. Why would Peggy be holding a gun?

  Then Alexandra’s sleep-fogged brain cleared a little, and she bolted upright in the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” Peggy said, walking closer. She hadn’t aimed the gun; she just held it in her right hand. But the hand shook. She was nervous. Which made Alexandra more nervous than she already was, which was very nervous indeed. Her heart was hammering against her ribs and threatening to climb out her throat.

  Her maid was walking toward her, holding a gun.

  And then Peggy raised it, and Alexandra was staring down the barrel of a gun. A gun pointed at her.

  It was, quite undoubtedly, the most frightening moment of her life.

  She stared down that barrel, thinking it the longest, darkest, most menacing thing she’d ever seen.

  But she couldn’t just sit there staring at it. She had to get her mouth to work. She had to say something to stop this. “Y-you cannot shoot that,” she stammered, still wondering why Peggy had a gun. “It’ll be heard. You’ll be caught.”

  “But my mother won’t,” Peggy responded through clenched teeth. “And that’s all that matters.”

  “Your mother?” Alexandra squeaked, inching toward the edge of the bed. Peggy was too old to still have a mother. Or at least she’d never mentioned a mother. What in heaven’s name was she talking about, and why did she have a gun, and would that hand ever stop shaking?

  And then something clicked in her head, just as her feet hit the floor. “Maude is your mother?”

  “Yes,” Peggy gritted out, and she brought her second hand up to steady the first, and her shaking finger moved toward the trigger.

  Alexandra didn’t think anymore. She just sprang, one palm hitting the maid’s chest while her other hand grasped her wrists and forced them up toward the ceiling. A sharp bang rang out, the recoil making them both fall as plaster rained down on top of them.

  Peggy dropped the gun. Or rather, it skittered from her hands and went clear under the big bed.

  Relief sang through Alexandra’s veins. The bullet was spent. Peggy couldn’t shoot her anymore, at least not without reloading. And first she’d have to get the gun, which was under the bed. All Alexandra had to do was get out of the room. She’d run for help.

  She scrambled up and dashed for the door, reaching for the key.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” she heard just before hands clenched painfully on her still-bruised shoulders, wrenched her back, then bodily tossed her on the bed.

  Whoever would have guessed Peggy was so strong? Alexandra twisted on the mattress to see her, then blinked, her heart racing even faster than before. This wasn’t Peggy, not the Peggy she knew. Or thought she knew. Peggy the maid didn’t have such a deranged look in her eyes.

  And this deranged woman was coming after her.

  There was no way to get to the door without going through Peggy. Alexandra slid off the far side of the bed and went under it.

  It was dark, and she didn’t fit very well, but she squirmed and squirmed some more, forcing her way under the bed, straining to reach the gun. She didn’t think Peggy had supplies to reload, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. Her heart beat so loudly it seemed to be thundering in her ears, ricocheting around the cramped space. If she couldn’t get the gun, maybe at least under here she’d be safe from Peggy, and Peggy’s crazy eyes, and Peggy’s strong, vicious hands.

  A fist began pounding on the door. And then another, and another, all accompanied by wild, angry barking.

  “Lady Hawkridge!” Mrs. Oliver called. “Was that a shot?”

  “Are you all right?” one of the footmen asked.

  “Open up!” That was Vincent, followed by a vicious kick at the door.

  Alexandra had warned Peggy people would hear. But being right brought no satisfaction. The doors at Hawkridge were thick, and the hinges were heavy, and there was nothing Vincent or anyone else could do.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Alexandra heard again, then felt Peggy tugging on her foot, dragging her backward. She yanked her ankle from the maid’s grasp and wiggled farther under the bed, trying to regain lost ground.

  The pounding on the door grew louder as more servants arrived, adding voices and fists to the commotion. Alexandra stretched toward the gun, almost touching it. Almost.

  Then a cackle echoed under the bed, and a hand reached out and snatched the gun from her grasp.

  Peggy. She’d scooted in from the other side.

  And now she was pointing the gun at Alexandra under the bed.

  It isn’t loaded, Alexandra told herself, forcing herself to breathe. There was nothing to do but back out, wiggling in reverse as fast as she possibly could, which wasn’t nearly fast enough.

  “You won’t get away,” Peggy said. “I am not going to let you take my mother.”

  Alexandra kept wiggling. Her heart was pounding, and her blood was pumping, and she was gulping spastically and trembling all over. But Peggy wasn’t trying to reload the gun. What did she want with the dratted thing anyway, then?

  Rex’s barking seemed to be getting even louder. “Lady Hawkridge!” the servants shouted. “Let us in!”

  If only she could. She and Peggy rose from beneath the bed at the same time, on opposite sides, and as Peggy rounded the bed, coming toward Alexandra with her arm raised, it became clear what she was planning to do with the gun.

  Hit Alexandra with it. Very hard, if Alexandra could judge by the maniacal look in the woman’s eyes.

  Panic rising in her throat, Alexandra scrambled backward, her eyes darting all around. A glint of silver caught her eye. As Peggy bore down on her, she snatched her sterling basket off the table and bashed it down on the woman’s blasted, curly head.

  The maid collapsed like a sack of flour.

  Alexandra rushed across the room to unlock the door, her trembling fin
gers slipping off the key, then knocking it to the floor. As she bent and snatched it back up, she heard a moan behind her and whirled.

  Peggy was rising up from the floor.

  The maid’s eyes—unreasoning eyes—were a sick, poisonous green. One over-strong hand flexed, as though she itched to clench it around Alexandra’s throat. Amazingly—petrifyingly—her other hand still held the gun.

  With a cry of rage, she sprang to her feet and rushed headlong. With no time to think, Alexandra pivoted and jammed the key into the lock, turning it just as Peggy seized her by the hair and began dragging her backward.

  The door burst open, and there stood the most beautiful sight Alexandra had ever laid eyes on: a drooling Rex, barking his enormous head off and bounding straight at them. Taking advantage of Peggy’s astonishment, Alexandra wrenched herself free.

  She managed to dive out of the way just as Rex’s huge paws came up and knocked the maid on her back. Before Peggy could so much as scream, he’d draped his body full on top of her.

  Pinned by two hundred pounds of dog, she couldn’t budge. In fact, from the looks of it, she couldn’t even draw breath. From his perch, Rex appeared quite pleased with himself, which Alexandra thought entirely appropriate.

  As the servants poured in, she sat quietly on the floor, catching her breath. A quick probe confirmed that all of her hair was still attached to her head, for which she was thankful.

  Eventually, Peggy regained the use of her lungs enough to howl, but her protests were lost among the staff’s excited chatter and Rex’s thundering barks. Amidst it all, Alexandra remained on the floor, content to just sit quietly and breathe and let the maids and housekeeper fuss over her.

  Until she heard a shocked “What…?” and glanced over, through many livery-clad legs, to see her husband standing in the doorway.

  He looked whiter than Juliana’s nightgown.

  The noise subsided as Tris pushed into the room. “For heaven’s sake, what happened here?” he husked out. “Where is Alexandra?”

  “Peggy happened.” The liveried legs parted to reveal Alexandra where she sat. “Maude is Peggy’s mother. She thought I wasn’t going to see Maude until tomorrow, and she was trying to stop me.”

  “With a gun?” Tris stared horrified at the pistol he’d nearly tripped over, left unattended where it had fallen.

  “The bullet is already spent.” Peggy’s hands had seemed as much a weapon as the gun, anyway, Alexandra thought as she let Tris pull her to her feet.

  He wrapped her tight in his arms. “Maude is Peggy’s mother?”

  “I am,” Maude said from the doorway.

  Every pair of eyes followed as she walked slowly toward her daughter, her cane clicking as she went. Rex’s ears perked up at the old woman’s approach, as if he, too, were waiting to hear her explanation.

  “I was but eighteen when I arrived here at Hawkridge,” Maude began. The rhythmic clicks accompanied her words. “I thought I’d landed in heaven when I was offered a position as nanny to the marquess’s son. But at twenty the head groom raped me, and I landed in hell instead.”

  The clicking stopped, and she gazed down at her daughter pinned beneath the massive dog.

  “Had the master known I was with child,” she continued, “I would have been turned out without a reference. I was a mite plumper in those days, but at seven months I was forced to feign illness and return home. After birthing the child, I left her to my mam to raise. When she reached the age of fourteen, I found a position for her here, but we never told anyone we were related.” She heaved a great, shuddering sigh. “My dear Peggy, what have you done?”

  Maude’s eyes rolled back in her head as she collapsed in a rather graceful heap.

  A collective gasp drowned out Peggy’s scream. Ernest knelt to feel Maude’s blue-veined wrist for a pulse.

  “Mother!” Peggy was shouting repeatedly, with impressive volume for someone who currently had a mastiff compressing her chest. “Mother! I didn’t want to hurt anyone! I just wanted to scare her away. But she wouldn’t leave, the stubborn chit—”

  “Maude’s only fainted,” Ernest announced.

  Peggy sagged in relief, while everyone released their held breaths.

  “Excellent,” Tris said. “Please move her to the bed and then go fetch the sheriff. The man is earning his keep this day.”

  He was still holding Alexandra. While they waited for the authorities, he finally released her and took her hand instead, clutching tight as they told their rapt audience all about Maude and his uncle’s accidental poisoning.

  Maude woke from her faint, rolled over, and went to sleep. Rex remained sitting on Peggy until the sheriff arrived and hauled her away. It seemed hours before the servants finally drifted back to their duties, leaving Alexandra and Tris alone in their room.

  Well, except for a slumbering Maude and a slobbering mastiff.

  Tris was still holding Alexandra’s hand. “Good dog,” he told Rex, then turned to her. “See, I told you he doesn’t hate you.”

  “He saved my life,” she marveled.

  “There’s no need to give him quite that much credit. There were twenty-odd servants waiting to rescue you if he hadn’t. They all love you, Alexandra. And so do I.”

  “You…what?” Was he really saying what she thought he was saying?

  He glanced again at Rex, then at Maude still in their bed. With a long-suffering sigh, he drew Alexandra from the room and down the corridor. “I love you,” he stated quite clearly.

  And with that, he pulled her into the Queen’s Bedchamber, used one booted foot to slam the door shut in Rex’s face, and crushed her to him.

  The kiss was fiercely possessive, and she responded with equal intensity. The warmth between them built into a heat that seared her senses and overwhelmed her awareness, making her forget everything except the three words that wouldn’t stop repeating themselves over and over in her head.

  I love you, I love you, I love you.

  She’d known he did, but she hadn’t known how much it would mean to hear it. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  “You cannot cry now,” he admonished. “I cannot kiss a sobbing woman.” He kissed her nose and her cheeks. “I love you. Have I told you I love you? You may not have saved my life, but you rescued it from oblivion, you stubborn chit.”

  She laughed. “I did it for myself as much as for you. I’m a selfish chit as well.”

  “You’re an irredeemable chit,” he said, pulling back a little. He brushed at her dress. “How on earth did you get so dusty?”

  “I scooted under the bed to hide from Peggy.”

  “I love you,” he said and laughed, either finding it funny she’d been under the bed, or perhaps from nervous relief—she wasn’t sure which. And she didn’t really care. She felt free and easy with him for the first time ever, and that mattered so much more.

  “I shall have to have a talk with Mrs. Oliver,” she said, looking down at herself in disgust. “There is no excuse for such muck to be under the beds.”

  He laughed even harder. “I love you,” he said.

  “Where did Peggy get a gun?” she suddenly wondered.

  Tris shook his head. “She nearly killed you,” he murmured, suddenly looking rather pale.

  “I guess she did.” Alexandra slanted a glance at him. “Are you going to tell me you told me so?”

  He shook his head again, his forehead creased in concern.

  “How can someone named Peggy have done such terrible things?” she asked. “It’s such an innocuous name, don’t you think?”

  That seemed to bring him back. He laughed, the tension flowing out of him, and wrapped his arms around her, so tight she groaned in protest. “Sorry,” he said. “I seem to keep forgetting you’re still bruised. But that’s because I love you. I think I will tell you I love you every five minutes for the rest of our lives.”

  "That won't be necessary," she told him with an amused smile. "But I love you, too. And I’m glad you finally
figured it out."

  He nodded, skimming his knuckles over her cheek. ”I couldn’t admit it before. Not even to myself. I was too afraid of losing you. I thought I would lose you when you chose to leave, but instead I almost lost you when Peg—”

  “Hush,” she said. “I know.”

  He nodded again, lifting her chin with his thumb and forefinger to fix her with a serious silver-gray gaze. “All right, just once more for good measure. I love—”

  She silenced him with a kiss.

  Epilogue

  CHOCOLATE PUFFS

  Beat the white part of a good-sized egg till very stiff and then add a handful of sugar. To this add finely grated chocolate and then put small spoonfuls on a flat buttered pan with an area between them. Bake in an oven not overly warm for an hour or until the puffs are very dry.

  Everyone loves chocolate, so these are perfect to take on a family picnic!

  —Anne, Marchioness of Cainewood, 1773

  Two weeks later, on the peaceful rise overlooking Griffin’s vineyard, in the last sweet days of summer, Tristan and Alexandra picnicked with her family once again on the red blanket. Her siblings and cousins gasped as she told the adventurous story of her quest for truth and justice.

  At least, she made it sound adventurous. Griffin suspected it had been rather more dangerous than she was letting on—and he wasn’t happy about that.

  Brooding, he watched Claire lift the silver basket and turn it in her hands. “This is gorgeous. But it’s dented.”

  “In two places,” Alexandra agreed. “Peggy’s hard head left quite a mark.”

  “I can fix it,” Claire offered, having taken up an old family pastime of making jewelry.

  Alexandra smiled. “I think not. I like it just the way it is.”

  Apparently still mulling over the tale, Corinna reached for another of the chocolate puffs Alexandra had brought. “So Peggy offered to make that list in order to control who was on it?”

  “Exactly,” Alexandra said. “There were others who knew Maude was alive, even if they didn’t know Peggy was her daughter.”