by Lucy Ashford
‘Lucas!’ she called again.
‘Verena’. Quickly he assessed the situation. ‘We’ll get you safely up. Hold on…’
Then he saw Martin Bryant, about ten feet below her, pressed into a crevice on the cliff face, aiming his pistol.
Lucas was reaching for his own gun, but before he could shoot, something heavy went hurtling down past his shoulder. Bryant juddered with shock, let out a great cry and toppled backwards into the darkness.
‘Nothin’ like a good lump of rock, Lord Conistone,’ said Billy grimly. ‘And my aim is always spot on. Now, the main thing is to get Miss Verena up to safety’.
Ned was already running to them with a rope; Lucas tied one end swiftly round his own waist, and while Ned and Billy held the free end secure he lowered himself to where Verena still clung and grasped her tightly.
‘Oh, Lucas’. She felt fragile to him, and infinitely precious as she wrapped her arms round his waist and breathed his name.
‘My love,’ he whispered, pressing his cheek against hers. ‘Thank God you’re safe’. He called up to Billy, ‘Pull away!’
* * *
By the time he got her to the top of the cliff and rested her on the sea-turf there, her eyes were closed. He knelt and lifted her hands to examine the scratches that covered her palms; she let out a low cry at that and her eyes opened wide.
‘Damn,’ he swore softly. He saw that her wrist was badly swollen.
He turned. The villagers hovered close by, anxious, silent. Still cradling her, he called to Billy and Matt to bring him his horse. ‘She’s hurt. I’m going to take her, now, to the doctor’s house’.
‘No, Lucas!’ she argued. She was trying to sit up. ‘You must get Martin Bryant!’
Lucas doubted Bryant would have survived his fall. As well for him if he didn’t. ‘I think Martin Bryant’s taken care of,’ he said softly.
‘But the others—’
‘What others?’
‘There were two Frenchmen, down at the shore, with a boat. Be careful—they’re armed…’
‘Not for much longer,’ Lucas answered grimly. ‘Alec will be here shortly, and he’ll get them in. Right now I’m concerned about you. You’ve hurt your wrist’.
‘Oh, that’. She tried to shrug and smile. ‘It’s just bruised…’
‘Bruised! My brave, foolish, beautiful girl, it looks to me very much as if it’s broken. The doctor must attend to it’.
‘Such a fuss,’ she said faintly. And then, half to herself, ‘Miss Bonamy would advise that a lady should never draw attention to her ailments’.
‘Miss Bonamy be damned,’ Lucas Conistone said with considerable force. ‘Billy! Ned! Pass Miss Sheldon up to me, will you?’
He mounted his big horse first, then the careful hands of Billy and the others lifted her up, so he could settle her sideways in front of him. He clasped her tightly with his left hand round her waist, the reins in his right. The warmth of her, the sweet scent of her skin and her clouds of tumbling hair, ravished his senses. The thought of the terrible danger she’d been in tore at him as if someone had stabbed his heart.
He wanted her. And not just physically—though, damn it, even now the nearness of her, the sweet pressure of her body against his thighs and loins, was setting his lust surging again—but he wanted her at his side, as his life’s companion. She was brave, she was sweet, she was utterly endearing. Who else but Verena Sheldon would have chased him to Portsmouth, endured the company of a shipful of whores, then dragged Bentinck up to Busaco ridge to deliver that vital map?
She was more precious than anything to him. He had gambled all to gain her trust, her love. He’d thought she had come to terms so bravely with the dreadful news that her father was a traitor.
Yet something, in Coimbra, had made her run from him.
But she had called out his name, there on the cliff face. She had turned to him in her moment of need. And now, nestling into him with a little sigh, it was as if she knew she belonged in his arms. Damn it all, was there still hope?
* * *
When Verena opened her eyes she realised that Lucas was steadily guiding his horse along the road down to Framlington and she was cradled against his strong, warm body. Feeling his heart beating steadily was enough to make her pain seem as nothing. Above her the black sky wheeled and the stars shone brightly.
‘All right, querida?’ he murmured.
‘Thank you, I am,’ she whispered. The endearment, from him, sounded so right. So true. She’d thought that Martin Bryant would end her life with his pistol. No one else but Lucas could have been here, at the very place, the very moment, to save her.
Yet he had killed her father.
She could not bear to know the details. Not yet. But her heart ached for what could never be.
She lifted her head to see him frowning, his austere profile silvered in the moonlight.
‘I’m a fool,’ he was saying bitterly as they drew closer to the village. ‘I should have guessed about Bryant much earlier. It must have been he who lit that fire on the cliff to guide in the French who attacked you…’
Of course. ‘And it was Martin who shot at you through the window, wasn’t it, Lucas?’
He glanced at her sharply. ‘You knew about that? ‘
‘He told me. Tonight. He said, "Conistone escaped my pistol before, but he won’t this time." Oh, Lucas…’ she drew a ragged breath ‘.…you should have told me about everything’.
He said tersely, ‘And you should have been honest with me, Verena. Why in God’s name did you leave Coimbra?’
She felt her throat tighten. He sounded angry. Anguished. How could she say to him now, when he had yet again risked his own life for hers, ‘Lucas, I know that you killed my father?’
She answered very quietly, ‘Maybe I felt I’d done what I needed to do. Paid my father’s debts’.
‘Oh, Verena’. He was cradling her strongly, tenderly, using just one hand on the reins. ‘You’ve paid in full and more. Why punish yourself so?’
She shook her head, speechless. Her wrist was starting to ache badly again. Yet his tender arm around her caused ten times more pain than any physical hurt.
Lucas seemed about to say something else. Then— ‘We will talk later,’ he said curtly.
Yes. Later. And she must put an end to any lingering hope.
Paid in full and more? Perhaps. Yet she had made such dreadful mistakes along the way. She had misjudged Lucas again and again, assuming him lazy and indolent. Believing Deb’s false accusations about him. Thinking he had set Bentinck to spy on her when really Bentinck was her protector.
Misjudgements could be corrected. But the final hurdle was insurmountable. Yes, she believed he did love her, in his way; but how could marriage ever work, when every time he looked at her, he would be reminded of her father, his treachery and his death?
Her heart surged with almost unbearable emotion. Yes, it was all almost over. But—and she lifted her chin in defiance—no one could take away the love she’d felt for him. Still felt for him. She would never love anyone else. Lucas Conistone was incomparable.
That was her tragedy; the memory of his love would also be her inner joy, in the years to come. She closed her eyes, clenching her teeth, because now the pain in her wrist was white-hot, consuming all her thoughts, and only his strong grasp was keeping her from succumbing to it.
* * *
It was Dr Pilkington’s spinster sister Maude who answered the door. Maude quickly summoned her brother, and he looked suitably startled to find Lord Conistone there, carrying Verena in his arms.
‘We need your services, Doctor,’ Lucas said quickly. ‘Miss Sheldon met with an accident’.
Dr Pilkington sized up the situation swiftly, and if he wanted to ask more, hid it well. ‘St Luke’s Eve celebrations, I take it, my lord Conistone?’
He drew Lucas aside and spoke briefly with him, while Maude kindly ushered Verena through to his consulting room and lit candles. There Dr Pilk
ington soon joined her and gently examined her wrist. ‘My dear Miss Sheldon, it looks as if you’ve broken it! No, perhaps it’s just a bad sprain…’
‘I fell, you see. So stupid of me,’ she murmured.
‘Hmm’. His voice expressed mild but significant doubt. Gentle though the doctor was, the pain still sliced through her as he applied a cold compress and went to search for bandages. ‘Good of Lord Conistone to bring you in,’ he went on as he worked. ‘He was just telling me he must leave for London tonight, some important business; but he wanted to see that you were all right first. He works for the government, doesn’t he? Rather dangerous stuff, I believe’.
‘You know!’
‘I guessed. That sabre scar, amongst other things. Thought I’d better keep it quiet, eh?’
He was binding her wrist now, with the utmost care, then called to Maude, who brought hot, sweet tea laced with laudanum drops. Verena took only a sip. She was in torment, both physical and mental, but laudanum was not the answer. The door was open and briefly she saw Lucas outside, pacing the hallway, his hands clasped behind his back, his dark head bowed.
She wanted to call out to him. Lucas. My love, please forgive me, for everything. Take care of yourself. And remember that wherever you go, you take my heart with you.
* * *
She woke in the night. The room was dark except for a single candle glowing in a corner. She saw Maude sitting in a chair with some embroidery lying in her lap, snoring gently.
Verena’s wrist, still tightly bandaged, seemed to ache a little less, but her heart, she felt, would never mend.
Lucas would have gone by now. Martin Bryant would be dead or captured. Her father’s maps had saved the British army at Busaco, and now it was over. She closed her eyes and felt tears pricking at her lids.
Stupid, stupid to cry. Verena Sheldon was not supposed to cry. Verena Sheldon was the sensible one, the pillar of her family. It was only because she was tired still, and because of the pain.
* * *
She must have slept a little again, but she opened her eyes quickly, because she thought she’d heard footsteps, and quiet voices.
Maude had gone. The door was open.
‘How are you feeling?’
A drawling male voice. Lucas’s voice. He stood in the doorway, his tall frame dominating the small room, his handsome face etched into planes of light and dark by the candlelight.
She blinked. Confused. ‘But Dr Pilkington told me you were going to London—’
‘I decided London can wait a while’.
She caught her breath. Implying that he would rather be here? No. Impossible.
He strolled closer, soft-footed as a cat. But she knew that softness was deceptive, because he was a leader of men. A killer of men.
‘Did you—find Captain Bryant?’
‘He died in his fall from the cliff, Verena. Alec arrived very soon afterwards, and with the help of some of the villagers he rounded up Bryant’s French friends and escorted them to Chichester gaol’. He sat by her side, pulling up Maude’s empty chair. ‘I asked you how you were’.
She managed a faint smile. ‘A sprained wrist—it’s nothing, I assure you! But Lucas, you should have gone to London, I’ll be quite all right now’.
A shadow of anger crossed his face. ‘Leave you? In God’s name, why?’ He clenched his fists. ‘You are ignoring the fact that I asked you to be my wife! Damn it all, Verena, what if I refuse to let you go?’
She swallowed hard on the ache in her throat. I never knew love could hurt so much. ‘Lucas, I know that you feel bound by duty. But I understand that you cannot possibly marry me’.
‘Why ever not?’
‘Because of my father!’
He rasped, ‘Your father, Verena, was led by foolishness and greed to attempt to become a traitor, and you have more than made up for his folly—’
She broke in quietly, ‘I know that you killed him, Lucas’.
He was on his feet. He sat down again. He drew one hand across his brow. ‘Tell me. Tell me how you know that’.
Her throat was dry, her wrist throbbing. ‘I—I overheard you and Alec talking, down in the courtyard, when you came for me at Coimbra…’
His eyes were dark. Hooded. That damned conversation with Alec in the courtyard of the inn where she was staying. She must have been somewhere near. Hell and damnation.
‘Dear God,’ he said softly. His eyes burned into hers. He said at last, slowly and deliberately, ‘I did not kill your father’.
‘But Alec said—’
He got up suddenly again from his chair and this time paced the room, running his hand distractedly through his hair. ‘I was responsible for his death, yes. But—I did not kill him’. He swung round on her. ‘Hell. I had better tell you everything’.
He sat down again, tense. ‘That autumn, when I was home on leave, I knew nothing about what your father was up to, Verena, I swear. But—when Lord Wellington asked me to resign, and to work in secret for him, in England, as well as the Peninsula—I was told about your father’.
She nodded mutely, feeling a black hole of despair opening up within her.
Lucas went on tersely, ‘We knew, I’m afraid, that your father was negotiating to sell vital information to the French. We knew that he kept a diary, crammed with records and maps of his travels. We could not let the French get it. That winter we chased your father into the mountains on the Spanish border and caught him at the edge of a deep gorge. He could go no further. He said, "Look after her for me, will you, Lucas? Tell her I did it for Wycherley. For all of them." Then he said, "For God’s sake, look after Verena…"‘
Lucas let his voice trail away. Verena gazed at him, white as a sheet.
Lucas went on, in a low voice, ‘I told him that if he would come back with me, and hand over his diary and all his papers to the British, there might be hope for him. And your father hesitated, Verena! I’d swear he hesitated! He was clutching something wrapped in oilskin, and I guessed it was his diary. But then—’ and here Lucas rubbed his fingers across his temples ‘—some of our soldiers came rushing up. He just repeated the words, "Look after her," and stepped backwards—to his death. The river at the bottom of the gorge swept him away. He chose his own end, Verena’. Lucas sighed and leaned back. ‘And his very last thoughts were of you’.
The silence lay heavily between them. Verena said at last, in what was little more than a whisper, ‘And he did not have the diary anyway’.
‘No. At least, not the one we wanted, the old one; my grandfather had that. Your father’s body was found earlier this year, Verena, and he was buried in the mountains he loved’. He was gazing at her with dark, ravaged eyes. ‘You will think I should have told you all this from the beginning. But you see, I guessed you already hated me. You’d answered none of my letters, and I thought you would hate me even more if you realised I was there at your father’s death. Yes, I wanted that diary for Wellington, but I still loved you. I never stopped loving you’.
He drew a deep breath. ‘We know the truth now. The diary Jack Sheldon had been holding was one he’d started afresh, only weeks before. My grandfather had tricked him. And my grandfather had hidden the diary we wanted, though, frustrated and half-mad, he’d been unable to read it. Whereas you, Verena, possessed what turned out to be the most important of all your father’s possessions—the map of the mines at Busaco’.
Verena closed her eyes, imagining her father’s desperation before he jumped to his death. Oh, Papa. Why.…
Lucas eased his chair back from her side and said quietly, ‘I will leave you in peace now, to sleep. I just wanted you to know the truth. All of it’.
The anguish tore through her very soul. Yet again, she had misjudged this man. And surely this time he would never forgive her.
‘You must go, Lucas,’ she said steadily, swallowing on the burning ache in her throat. ‘The doctor told me you have urgent business in London’.
He was standing up. ‘It’s true,
I’m afraid I can’t postpone my journey any longer. Alec tells me Bryant’s French friends have begun to reveal vital information about a network of enemy spies here in England, and I must report it’.
She nodded. ‘I understand’.
Afterwards, when he’d gone, she lay awake; and the pain in her bound wrist was nowhere near as great as the pain in her heart. This, surely, was the end. Oh, Lucas. Oh, my love.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Wycherley Hall had never been a busier or happier place, for Izzy was having her eighteenth birthday party here tonight, and almost a hundred guests had arrived already. But Viscount Conistone, whom her mother had invited along with his friend Alec Stewart, had not replied to the invitation. Lucas was living the high life with the Prince’s set, people said.
Verena knew the truth about Lucas Conistone now and she felt privileged for knowing it. She had been busy for the last week from dawn till dusk, organising everything; though just sometimes she would stop, for no reason, in whatever she was doing, remembering Lucas. Thinking she heard his soft, drawling voice. Thinking she saw him striding towards her, a glad smile on his handsome face.
The nights were the hardest. She would lie awake, afraid of sleep, because sometimes she dreamed he was there, holding her in his arms. And to wake from those dreams was agony.
Though it was mid-November, the day had been full of sunshine. All afternoon the villagers had brought presents for Izzy, and been offered copious refreshment. And now the Sheldons’ friends and relatives were still pouring in for the evening’s party.
Then Verena suddenly saw a familiar figure—’Alec!’—and her heart skipped a beat, but as he came striding towards her, smiling, she saw he was alone. Verena forced her disappointment aside to greet him warmly and only later asked him if he had news of Lucas, putting her question politely, as if she and Lucas were but distant acquaintances.
‘He’s busy,’ Alec replied equally lightly, ‘busy as ever, my dear Miss Sheldon!’
So—he was going to tell her nothing.
‘And Portugal?’ she asked, quickly changing the subject. ‘I heard that Lord Wellington and his army reached Lisbon successfully’.