Three Rogues and Their Ladies - A Regency Trilogy

by G. G. Vandagriff

  And they had fulfilled one of his fantasies and made love in the midst of his forest.

  Devil take it! Why had their pasts risen up in corporeal substance to threaten his life and their love? For it was love, at least on his part, nothing doubting. Though she was maddening, he loved even that about her. Life would never be dull with his Kate. Only, she wasn’t his.

  At this point in his tortured thinking, he heard a knock on his door. It was too dark to see who had entered until Kate slid into bed beside him.

  To his surprise, she twined herself about him.

  “Jack, I have been tossing and turning. I cannot sleep without you by me.”

  Cradling the back of her head with one hand, he drew it down on his chest. “You do not really love that boy, do you?”

  “Of course not. I love you with all my heart, and well you know it.”

  In spite of all that still hung over him, he sighed with contentment. “And, of course, you know that I love you as well.”

  “Do you really?” she asked, stroking his face with her fingers. “Even though I make you angry as a hornet?”

  “Even then. Kate, I fell in love with you in your aunt’s sitting room for gentleman callers the very first time I met you.”

  “You must be very susceptible.”

  “Not at all. I can honestly tell you that I have never loved another woman.” He caressed her face, outlining her jaw with his fingers, and then began to run them through her thick, wavy hair. “When did you know that you loved me?” he asked her.

  “When I was nursing you at the Hoof and Sail. I can recall the precise moment. It was when I was trying to remove your coat and you were abusing me thoroughly.”

  “It seems I spend a lot of time doing that.”

  “You do. And I have no idea why I put up with it. It is one of the great mysteries of the age.”

  He chuckled. Then he thought of the pickle they were in. It wasn’t her fault any more than it was his. “So. What are we to do about tomorrow?”

  “It may go against your quarrelsome, difficult grain, but believe me when I tell you that Francesco is honorable. We can trust him.”

  “I guess we will just have to do so. In the meantime, there are far more pleasurable things to do.”

  Kate began nibbling on his ear.

  He wrapped both arms around her and pulled her close. “Oh, my Kate, I love it when you do that.” He forgot all about the next day.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  IN WHICH OUR HEROINE WATCHES A DUEL

  “Kate, women do not witness duels. It is bad ton,” Jack said as he watched her pull on her hooded cloak against the dawn’s mist.

  “I do not care a bit for the ton. I care for you.” She had no intention of absenting herself from the drama. “Think of me as Francesco’s second. He does not have one, poor dear.”

  “What if seeing you makes him want to shoot me again?”

  “I told you, he is honorable.” She told herself that he truly was. “Kiss me, Jack.”

  Taking her into his arms, he complied, kissing not only her lips, but her eyelids and her cheekbones. “At least, I will go to my death knowing you wished it otherwise.”

  “Silly. You are teasing me. I love no other. I thought I had convinced you.”

  “Either that, or you are the veriest doxy.”

  “Your doxy,” she murmured, kissing him again.

  They walked out into the mist-shrouded morning. The sun was barely showing itself behind the forest. Despite her professed faith in Francesco, Kate’s heart was pounding with anxiety. Perhaps it was the eerie gray of the morning, but fear that something might go wrong had driven her to Jack’s bed the night before. That fear still churned inside of her.

  She could make out the figures of Francesco and her cousin, standing at the far east end of the lawn. To her surprise, there was another cloaked figure. The dowager!

  As they came closer, her mother-in-law said, “Jack, I forbid this duel. It is entirely silly and unnecessary. Maybe she has not told you, but Kate loves you with all her heart.”

  “Mama, go back inside,” Jack said. “You will take a chill and come down with an inflammation of the lungs. Besides that, you know it is bad ton.”

  “Kate is here,” she said.

  “Kate is disobedient, stubborn, and altogether a great disturber of my rest.”

  “Well, I will not go. What is more, I have called Dr. Grimes. We will not proceed until he is present. I know the protocol for a duel.”

  “Buon giorno, Catarina,” Francesco said.

  “Good morning, Cousin,” Freddie greeted her, showing all his teeth in a broad grin. She shivered.

  “I am not at all certain this is a good morning,” she replied. “A man may die here.” She decided to play it up for her cousin’s sake. Throwing her arms around her husband, who was clad in his bulky greatcoat, she buried her face between his capes. “Oh darling, surely you will reconsider?”

  “Certainly not!” He produced a leather case from his capacious pocket, and handed it to the treacherous Cousin Freddie. “You will approve them, Cleaverings?”

  “Ah,” the man said, “Of course.” Opening the case, he surveyed a pair of silver mounted dueling pistols. “Very fine indeed. I believe, as the challenged party, you have first choice, Northbrooke.” He offered him the case.

  Kate shivered again, unable to throw off the foreboding that she felt.

  “Count Cortini?” Her cousin offered the remaining pistol to Francesco.

  At that moment, she became aware of another caped figure hurrying across the lawn. Relieved, Kate saw that he carried a small black bag. It must be the doctor.

  Drawing a deep breath, she told herself that her cousin only appeared ineffectual. He was a dangerous man. A traitor. He wanted Jack dead. Freddie was evil and conniving. She should have known that when he insisted on sending Joey to Eton. Papa would be horrified that the title had passed to a man who would commit treason against his country.

  “My lord,” An overweight and puffing Dr. Grimes addressed Jack. “I never would have thought I would see such a day. What can possibly be worth fighting a duel over?”

  Jack raised an eyebrow at the doctor. “My wife, sir. Allow me to make you acquainted with the new marchioness, Lady Northbrooke. Kate, this is Doctor Grimes.”

  “I pray you are good at your profession,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “You seem a sensible gel,” the doctor said. “How can you have allowed things to come to such a pass?”

  “Count Cortini is Italian,” she said in a low voice. “This is his doing. He thinks to carry me off once he has killed Jack.”

  “Oh, Italian! I understand.”

  Her cousin spoke. “You each have your pistols. Now that Dr. Grimes is here, we can begin this matter.”

  The duelists stood with their backs to each other. Kate shivered again. She clutched the dowager’s arm.

  Cousin Freddie began counting. “One, two, three . . .” Francesco and Jack each strode ten paces.

  “Ready!”

  They turned sideways.

  “Aim!”

  They drew their pistol arms up. Freddie strode to stand near Jack before pronouncing the final command.

  “Fire!”

  Before Jack could delope, he crumpled to the ground. Francesco shot the Marquis of Cleaverings square in the middle of his chest. He fell backwards.

  Stunned, Kate could not move. No one moved until Francesco began to swear in Italian, running forward.

  The dowager said, “Those pistols only have one shot. The count did not fire at Jack!”

  Dr. Grimes moved swiftly to Kate’s husband.

  Jack! Jack had been shot. By Cousin Freddie. Kate threw off her confusion and ran to her husband. Collapsing on the wet ground near his head, she looked into his eyes. They looked back at her, though his face was contorted in pain.

  “Oh, my darling!”

  “My lord, where are you shot?” the doctor was
trying to remove Jack’s greatcoat.

  “In the back. Cowardly, miserable traitor. Is he dead?”

  “I am sure he is, Jack,” Kate said. “I love you. You must not die. You cannot leave me.”

  “I have no intention of leaving you to that Italian popinjay.”

  “He is a very good shot,” Kate told him. “Just thank the Lord that he did not aim at you.”

  The doctor had removed Jack’s coat. “His aim was wild. Probably because he was so short. Your coat protected you some. You must have a dozen capes.”

  “What did he hit?” Jack asked. “It hurts like blazes.”

  “You are very fortunate when he was firing at such close range,” the doctor said. “He missed your heart and lungs, or you would not be alive. But I will not lie to you, my lord. You are bleeding a great deal. The ball is lodged in the small of your back. I believe it is in the area we call the spleen.”

  “Let us get out of the cold and damp,” the dowager said, stoutly. “I will summon some footmen to take him to the house.”

  Kate was rigid with shock and fear. She could not lose him! Oh, dear God, do not let him die!

  Francesco was at her side. “Do not despair, Catarina. Your big Englishman, I think he will live,” he crooned softly in Italian.

  It was only then that she realized she was crying.

  * * *

  Kate was only vaguely aware of what was going on outside Jack’s chamber, where she sat holding his flaccid hand. He had finally swooned from blood loss. Dr. Grimes had bandaged him tightly after removing the ball.

  The dowager let herself into the bedroom and sat by Kate. “The magistrate was most co-operative. There will be an inquest on the marquis’ body. Francesco will have to testify, and so will Dr. Grimes. However, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Francesco clearly fired after your cousin shot Jack. The fact that it was a duel will not come out.”

  Kate merely nodded. “Oh, Serena, I am so worried about Jack. This is the second time he has been wounded in as many weeks. And the doctor says he has lost a deal of blood.”

  “Dear girl, you will not help him by falling into the dismals.”

  “I love him so.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “Yes! I finally silenced my pride and spoke up last night. And he confessed to falling in love with me when first we met. I never knew.”

  “I am convinced it will help him if you stay by him and talk to him, telling him of your love. Read to him. Sing to him. Do whatever you can to call him back from oblivion. I will help too, of course.”

  “Maybe that works in books, Serena, but I am not at all certain that it works in real life.”

  * * *

  That night, Jack was again consumed in raging fever. Francesco came to sit with her as she nursed her husband.

  “In spite of my brave words, I have never shot a man, Catarina.”

  “You shot a very bad man.”

  “I was not quick enough.” His voice was heavy with self-loathing.

  She shifted her gaze from where she was engaged in sponging Jack’s heated brow. “This is not your fault, Francesco.”

  “If I had not proposed a duel, your Englishman would not have been shot.”

  Kate dragged her attention away from Jack’s life or death struggle. “I am convinced that my cousin was a thoroughly evil man. He meant to kill Jack one way or another. If he failed to do so, he would have hanged for treason eventually. At least this way he did not get off a clear shot. He shot through his pocket, and Jack was much taller. The doctor said those two facts saved my husband’s life.”

  Francesco seemed to struggle with this interpretation of events. “So maybe I helped a little?” he asked, at length.

  “You did.”

  “I will leave you now. I pray to the Blessed Virgin that your Jack will be spared.”

  “Thank you, Francesco.”

  “However, if the Englishman, your husband, should die, you can be assured, I will marry you and care for you the rest of your life.”

  “Oh, Francesco, I do care for you, and I love Italy. But, I hope it will not come to that.”

  When he left her alone, Kate found her thoughts winding back to the time before she had met Jack. What a shallow, thoughtless chit she had been!

  Because the English did not wear their hearts on their sleeves, she had disdained them and thought them less than the more passionate Italians. She had thought her own education so much more culturally advanced because she had lived in Italy and understood the miracle of the Renaissance. Did not the understated nature of English art perhaps leave more to the imagination?

  Kate saw herself now as the daughter of a doting papa, who had never been crossed or seen the darker side of life. She had been encouraged in her art to think that someday, if she were allowed to drag her family to Italy, she could become a great artist. What conceit!

  Francesco was passionate, but he was not the grown, seasoned man that Jack was. He had not served his country at grave risk to himself. He had not lived with an abusive father and managed to turn to the light on his own. Just because her husband’s countenance appeared to be sunny—when he was not quarreling with her—did not mean that was naturally so. Now that he was her husband, he had shown that his manner hid a surprisingly sensitive heart. A heart that was willing to overlook her self-absorption and silliness.

  Perhaps, if he lived, she would still have to have the last word, and she would always attempt to be a reins-grabber. But Jack would chivvy her into being sensible, and would love her with more than a sufficient amount of passion even if she were not. She did not imagine all quarrels would be done away, but she knew their love would survive them, at times actually thriving on them. Had it not been during such a quarrel that she had fallen in love with Jack?

  She would still paint, of course, but it would not be her raison d’etre. Kate hoped to have a family of little Jacks who would fill her days with mischief and love. And she wanted to bring joy to her mother-in-law, who had raised her own sons in darker times.

  When she reached this point in her thoughts, Kate looked around her. She could not tolerate the dimness and darkness of this room a moment longer. It was funereal, and she was not going to accept a funeral as necessary. Standing up, she yanked at the navy blue velvet bed hangings, jerking them down in clouds of dust. They fell about her on the floor. Next were the drapes. At each of the four, long, skinny mullioned windows, she pulled upon the drapes until they fell likewise. The day was sunny, she noticed for the first time.

  Jack was going to live, if she had to stay by his side and revive him by the strength of her will. Following the dowager’s advice, she began singing to him.

  Mares eat oats,

  And does eat oats,

  And little lambs eat ivy.

  A kid’ll eat ivy, too.

  Wouldn’t you?

  She sang until her voice was raw. She was on the last verse of a stirring version of Rule, Britannia! when Jack moaned miserably. “Confound it, Kate. Will you cease that unholy row?”

  So lost had she been in her singing that she had failed to note the signs that his fever had broken.

  Now she put her flannel back into its bowl of water, and threw herself upon him, kissing his bared back, his face, his neck. “Oh, Jack, you are going to live! I promise I will be the best wife! I am going to change.”

  “That is a corker, if I ever heard one,” he grumbled. “Don’t you dare to change. What makes you think that after surviving this fever and a devilish wound, I want to die of boredom?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  IN WHICH OUR HERO AND HEROINE

  GO TO ETON

  Even though Jack knew where his wife’s heart lay, nevertheless he was very glad to say farewell to Francesco, following the delayed inquest on Cleaverings’ death. All had gone smoothly. There had been no necessity for anyone from the War Office or the Home Office to testify. The marquis’ mysterious assault on Jack had been evidence enough to clear
Francesco.

  Jack had arranged passage for him on a British ship which would carry him to a neutral port in North Africa. From thence, he would board a ship bound for Florence.

  “Bon Voyage, Francesco,” his wife said, at the posting inn whence they had carried him. “Thank you for being a friend to us. We will come to visit you and your wife when the war is over. Jack wants to see the paintings in the Uffizi, for some reason.”

  Jack watched, gritting his teeth, as Kate gave him a warm kiss on the cheek and squeezed his hands. After she had waved good-bye to the post chaise, she turned to him and immediately became alarmed. “Jack, you look positively green!”

  “Not with jealousy, I assure you.”

  “No, you have been knocked about traveling even this far in the carriage. We must get you home.”

  The trip to rescue Joey was thus delayed another two weeks, although Kate did write to the boy that they would be coming, telling him about his new top-of-the-trees guardian. The two-week period was as idyllic a time as Jack had ever known. Heretofore, time on his estate had been spent under the cloud of his father’s presence. Now, he sat in a chair that had been carried for him outside, watching as Kate directed the gardeners to dig and plant petunias, lavender, rose bushes, primroses, pansies, and many flowering annuals he could not name. He gave instructions for a plot of land on the east side of the house to be dug up for the planting of his apple orchard.

  “I do not want my children to get into the habit of stealing apples from Farmer Wright,” he told his wife.

  Jack also set the draining of his field in progress. “We will have to postpone the improvements on the tenants’ property until I can get about a bit more and assess what they need,” he told Kate.

  In the evenings, they sat in the smaller Music Room while the drawing room was being redecorated according to Kate’s specifications. She would not hear of her new mama moving to the Dower House. Privately, she told him, “It is time she learned some happy memories in this house. We can give her those.”