by Laura Landon
“Yes, Major.”
Sam turned around and went back into the room. He sank down in the chair that had been Hunt’s and waited.
The clock struck eleven, then twelve. Before the last chime of the midnight hour, Sam heard muffled voices from the hallway and sat with his eyes focused on the door.
“The Earl of Cardmall to see you, Major.”
Sam rose to his feet. “Show him in, Watkins.”
Watkins stepped back and Sam’s cousin entered. His cheeks were flushed, his hair plastered to his head, no doubt from riding bareheaded in the drizzling mist that had been falling since late evening. His clothes were askew on his body, as if he’d come in from a night of wild revelry as Ross was known to enjoy, never expecting to have to leave the house again. But it was the frantic look in his eyes that gave Sam the first warning. The wild desperation Sam saw on his cousin’s face that sent a shiver down Sam’s spine. “Come in, Ross. You look like you could use a drink.”
The Earl of Cardmall walked unsteadily across the room, then stopped while Sam poured them both a drink. Cardmall watched him as if in a daze, then took the glass Sam held out to him with trembling hands. Sam pointed to the nearest chair. “Would you like to sit?”
Ross tipped the glass back and downed the whole of it in one swallow. “You know why I’m here,” he said, bracing his hand against the back of the wing chair facing the desk. “You’ve been waiting for me, haven’t you?”
Sam shook his head. “I prayed I was wrong, Ross. But I’m not, am I?”
Ross swiped the perspiration from his forehead. His face held a deathly pallor Sam associated with fear. A fear that would prompt a sane man to act with irrational behavior. A fear that would push a desperate man past the boundaries of sanity. Sam stepped behind the desk and slowly opened the top drawer where he’d placed the gun.
“Just give me the papers, Sam, and we’ll forget this whole thing.”
Sam shook his head. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Sam! We’re family!”
“In all but this, Ross. I’m a loyal British citizen first. I’m an officer in Her Majesty’s Army next. And I’m family last. Don’t ask me to betray everything I stand for. Don’t ask me to step aside and let you betray principles you’ll never survive if you abandon.”
“I have to. I don’t have a choice. I just overheard Father and Roseneau.” Ross staggered, then focused his gaze on Sam. His look contained even more desperation than before. “Hell, Sam. Do you know what they’ve done? I’m begging you—” He took an unsteady step forward, as if looking for a place to run and not finding one.
A jarring terror slammed through Sam’s chest as he watched his cousin’s frantic pacing. “Who, Ross? What who’s done?”
“Father! What he’s done! We’ll never survive this. He’ll never survive this.”
Sam struggled to make sense of what Ross was saying. How could it be his uncle? How could it be the Marquess of Rainforth?
“What are you saying, Ross?”
“You’ve got to help me, Sam. We have to get Father out of England. We have to—”
“Ross! Tell me what you heard.”
“We’re ruined, Sam. Ruined! Do you know what he’s done? Oh, God, Sam. Do you know the lives he’s destroyed? He’ll hang!”
The door burst open, and the Marquess of Rainforth stepped into the room. “Enough, Ross!”
Sam’s gaze spun to where his uncle stood. The expression on his face was hard, the look in his eyes lethal. But more terrifying was that in one hand he had a gun cocked and ready to fire. In his other, he held Claire hostage, his fingers clamped tightly around her arm.
“Look who I found coming down the stairs.” He pushed her forward without releasing her. “Now, Major. Tell the men who followed me to leave.” He shoved the gun against the side of Claire’s head. “Or I’ll kill her.”
Sam looked to where Barnaby stood in the open doorway. “Close the door, Barnaby.”
Barnaby hesitated, the look on his face filled with uncertainty.
“Leave!” Rainforth bellowed, jerking Claire toward him. “Or I’ll kill her!”
“Father! No!”
A small cry escaped from Claire, and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. His blood thundered inside his head. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t dare. One look at the fear in her eyes and he’d go mad.
Barnaby looked at him again, searching for any sign that would indicate what Sam wanted him to do. If Sam were the one Rainforth had the gun aimed at, he’d want them to take the risk. But not Claire. He couldn’t chance anything happening to her.
Sam gave Barnaby a dismissive nod, and he backed out of the room and closed the door.
They were alone. Sam felt a fear unlike anything he’d ever known. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. He couldn’t survive if it did. “Let her go, Rainforth. Don’t make this any worse than it already is.”
“You are hardly in a position to bargain, Samuel. Now, step back from the desk.”
Sam’s gaze slowly moved to Claire’s, and he fought the urge to leap over the desk and take her in his arms.
“Now!”
Rainforth lifted the gun and pointed it at Sam’s chest.
“Father! No!”
“Now, Major!”
Sam stepped back, enough to placate his uncle, yet not so much he couldn’t reach for the pistol in the desk drawer.
Rainforth nodded as if satisfied. “Go home, Ross. Or better yet, go to your club and await news of Major Bennett’s unfortunate accident.”
“No! No one has to be hurt.”
The Marquess of Rainforth smiled. “Oh, Ross. You poor fool. You don’t understand any of this.” He placed the pistol beneath Claire’s chin and pushed her head back. “You understand why it has to be like this, though, don’t you, Major?”
Sam felt the air leave his chest. He’d assumed the traitor was his cousin. Not his uncle. Assumed because of Ross’s flagrant spending and extravagant lifestyle, he’d done the unthinkable so he could continue living as he was accustomed. He hadn’t thought for a moment it was the man who’d taken him in when he’d been orphaned; who’d raised him when he had no one else. Not the man who’d been a father to him—who’d instilled in him a love of country and been the example of integrity and unfailing loyalty. Every part of Sam screamed it wasn’t possible for his uncle to be the one. But it was true. There was no doubting that the man Sam had looked up to his whole life had sold his soul as well as his country for a few pieces of silver.
Sam inched forward and placed his hand on the top of the desk. “I understand that unless you give yourself over to me, one of us will not survive the night.”
“How astute, Samuel. You are right, though. One of us will not survive this night regardless of what happens. I prefer to be the one left to see the sun rise.”
“Then let the lady go and there’s a possibility you will be.”
“Oh, no, Samuel. I would be a fool to think there is more than one way out of this, and I have not reached my advanced years by being a fool. Now, keep your hands where I can see them and step away from the desk.”
Rainforth leveled the gun at Sam’s chest and squeezed his finger slightly against the trigger.
Sam stepped back from the desk and lifted his hands in the air. He tried again. “The papers are here. Take them. Just let Lady Huntingdon go.”
Rainforth shook his head. “You know I can’t do that. She’s my safe passage out of this.”
Fear grew inside Sam, and he lowered his hands, praying he could reach the gun in the drawer. “Why, Rainforth? Why did you do it?”
“Why do you think, Samuel? For the money. For my son.”
Ross reacted to his father’s admission with abhorrent shock. “Me! You sold government secrets—for me! God help us! No!”
“How else could I support the life you led, Ross? How else could I amass enough to secure the Rainforth holdings after I was gone? The bills I covered to pay for your lavish li
festyle every month were more than all of the Rainforth profits. How was I to leave enough so you’d never have to go without after I was gone? So you wouldn’t lose everything that would someday be yours?”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you ask me to curb my spending? Why didn’t you just once talk to me?”
“You’re my son. My only son. It’s my responsibility to provide everything you needed.”
“I had everything I needed. More than I needed. I would have done with less.”
Rainforth shook his head then looked back at Sam. “If only you would have given the papers to Roseneau, Samuel. Then the lady wouldn’t be in danger, and you wouldn’t have to die.”
“But you know I have them,” Sam said, lowering his hand inside the desk drawer.
Rainforth laughed. “Yes. Roseneau convinced me you had. But I knew you wouldn’t think of me first. I knew you’d think Ross was the traitor.”
“Me?”
Rainforth’s gaze turned to his son, the look in his eyes one of unadulterated love. “Do you remember the code you and Samuel devised when you were young?”
“That was a game, Father! A code Sam made up so we could pass notes Master Graham, our tutor, couldn’t read.”
“The code was brilliant. If you hadn’t deciphered it for me, Ross, I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out, either. No one could. That’s what made it so safe. But when Huntingdon stole the papers from Roseneau’s safe, I knew it was only a matter of time until he showed them to Samuel.”
Ross reached out a hand and braced himself against a chair. “And you knew once Sam saw the coded messages, he’d think I was the traitor.”
Rainforth smiled. “And that’s what you thought, wasn’t it, Samuel?”
Rainforth turned his glazed look in Sam’s direction, and Sam saw the demented ruthlessness in his eyes.
“Yes. That’s what I thought.”
Sam waited, then let his gaze move to Claire’s. What he saw tore at his heart. Her face was pale and her lips were pinched tight, but her eyes darted from him to Rainforth, then to the door Barnaby was behind, as if she was planning the best way to save him.
Sam’s heart raced in his chest. He already knew the risks she was willing to take. Facing Roseneau on her own had taken more courage than most men he knew could gather.
He clamped his hand over the gun and positioned his finger around the trigger. “Where is Roseneau?” Sam asked, praying to distract his uncle just enough to gain an advantage. Praying Claire would wait a second longer before she made a move.
Rainforth laughed. “He fled England the minute he discovered the lady had somehow switched the real necklace with a fake. Quite like the proverbial rat on a sinking ship. He was squeamish about killing from the start.”
“But you weren’t?”
“Perhaps I was the first time. One accustoms oneself to it. Self-preservation puts killing on a different level. Don’t you find that to be true, Samuel? You’ve taken more than your share of lives, haven’t you?”
“Yes. More than my share. But I never thought I’d be forced to kill the man who raised me.”
“How sentimental, Samuel. But we’ve wasted enough time. Ross, leave.”
“No, Father. You can’t—”
“Leave!”
The Marquess of Rainforth turned his gaze to his son for a fraction of a second, but it gave Sam the time he needed to raise his gun. Rainforth had his pistol focused on Sam, and Sam knew he wouldn’t get a shot off before Rainforth fired. He only prayed it would give Claire the chance to escape before his uncle turned the gun on her.
Rainforth caught Sam’s movement and fired. Sam felt a burning sting in his side as his gun flew from his hand and slid across the floor. The force of the bullet being fired from such a short distance pulled him off balance. He heard Claire’s scream as he spun to the side. He struggled to stay on his feet so he could get to Claire, but couldn’t.
Everything after that moved in slow motion. He watched Claire shove Rainforth away from her. Rainforth stumbled and reached out to right himself. Then lifted his hand and pointed the gun at Claire.
“No!”
Sam yelled and pushed himself toward Rainforth. If he could only step between them he could . . .
A loud explosion rent the air and Sam watched Claire dive to the floor. Rainforth’s eyes opened wide, and he stood unmoving for a moment before the front of his pristine white shirt turned a dark red. He staggered, then sank to his knees before crumpling to the floor.
Sam jerked his gaze to the side where the bullet had been fired from and sucked in a harsh breath. Ross stood with his arm still outstretched while smoke spiraled from a pistol clutched in his hand. His face was deathly pale, his gasps of air coming in short, jagged gulps. There was an expression of horror in his eyes.
“Ross,” Sam said through the pain. “It’s over now. Put the gun down.”
Ross’s hand jerked, and the gun fell to the floor with a loud thud. His eyes stayed riveted to the spot where his father lay.
Sam fought the urge to go to his cousin, but he had to get to Claire first. He tried to move but stopped when a burning stab of pain grabbed hold of him. He waited until the pain subsided, then crawled another step. She was so far away it seemed to take forever to get to her. The stitch in his side stole his breath, and he clutched his hand to the burning wound and crawled closer.
“Major!”
Sam recognized Barnaby’s voice and heard his heavy steps as he rushed into the room.
“Linscott. See to your sister.”
Sam checked the spot where Claire was rising from the floor, then looked back to his cousin and realized he hadn’t moved. His stillness frightened Sam almost as much as his need to make sure Claire was all right. When he looked at her, he found her rushing toward him.
“Claire.”
“Sam!”
Her hands held him down, his back pressed to the floor, and she nestled his head in her lap. “You’re hurt. Just lie still.”
“Are you . . . all right?”
“I’m fine. Fine. Watkins!” Claire turned when the butler rushed through the doorway. “Send for Doctor Bronnely. Now!”
Sam relaxed until the next wave of pain gripped him. When it receded, he tried to ease the worry on her face with humor. “If we don’t change our ways . . . Bronnely will demand we set up . . . a room for him here.” Sam tried to smile but gasped as another wave of pain seared through him. Linscott knelt beside him and pulled back Sam’s jacket and his shirt.
“I’ve seen worse,” Linscott said, pressing a cloth to Sam’s side to staunch the bleeding. “But you’re going to be damn sore for a while.”
Sam turned his head to where his uncle lay sprawled, a pool of blood darkening beneath him. Lieutenant Honeywell and another officer were kneeling over him. “Is he dead?”
Barnaby shook his head. “Not yet.”
Sam locked his gaze with Barnaby’s. “I need a favor.” Sam knew he was crossing a line he never thought he’d come near. “Take my uncle home. It won’t do anyone any good to know he died here. Then send for McCormick.”
Barnaby nodded. “I’ll take your uncle home. Perhaps it would be best if Society believes Rainforth had an accident while cleaning his gun. It’s not so implausible, and his son is not in any condition to dispute anything right now.”
Sam moved his gaze to where Ross now knelt, clutching his father’s hand. Sam knew his cousin’s sanity hung by a fragile thread. “Thank you,” he said to Barnaby, fighting another stabbing shard of pain.
Barnaby nodded, then issued orders for Honeywell to bring a carriage round back. “I’ll make sure everything’s taken care of before I bring McCormick back here.”
Sam breathed a painful sigh, then said, “You’re him, aren’t you?”
It was impossible to mistake the slow hiss of Barnaby’s breath or the lift of his shoulders.
“You’re the man Hunt was training to take over for him, aren’t you?”
Claire’s brother arched his brows. “Lord Huntingdon thought I might be of some use to my country, yes.”
“He chose well,” Sam said, then closed his eyes and sucked in as deep a breath as his body would allow. “He would be glad we found the necklace and uncovered the traitor.”
“Yes. He would.”
Sam listened to Barnaby’s retreating footsteps. When he opened his eyes, several men were carrying the Marquess of Rainforth from the room. His son walked at his side, clutching his hand. Ross’s face was already gaunt and pale, as if he realized his father’s death hovered just hours away.
“Doctor Bronnely is on his way,” Watkins said, rushing into the room when Rainforth was gone.
“Bring him right in when he arrives,” Claire said. “And send in some men to carry Major Bennett to his room.”
Watkins rushed from the room. When Sam looked up, his gaze locked with Claire’s tear-filled eyes. “Don’t cry, Claire. It’s over now.”
“You could have died. I could have lost you.”
“You aren’t going to lose me. I’m right here. Nothing’s going to happen to either of us ever again.”
Sam looked at Claire’s pale face and wanted to reach his finger to still her trembling lips. Instead, he took her hands and held them in his. Her gaze was fixed on his, and tears ran steadily down her cheeks.
“It’s all right, Claire.”
She nodded as she struggled to speak. Finally her lips parted, and she whispered a very shaky question. “Do you really love me, Sam?”
“Ah, Claire. You know I do. With all my heart.”
She nodded as if confirming a fact she already knew. Through the tears brimming in her eyes, she cupped her palm to Sam’s cheek. “I love you, too.”
Sam’s breath caught in his chest. “As soon as this is all over, we’ll marry.”
“There’s bound to be a scandal when Society finds out I was never the real Marchioness of Huntingdon. When they discover I lived with Hunt for seven years without the bonds of matrimony. They’ll think the worst, of course.”
“After what we’ve survived, we’ll hardly notice a scandal.” Sam’s heart swelled when she smiled. He locked his fingers with hers and held her gaze. “I can’t offer you a title, Claire.”