“Well, you see…”
“Lord Glenrothes?” Thompson interrupted as Jack and James crowded around Shaftesbury’s still form. “I’ll need you to accompany me back to the station—”
Eve bristled at the thought of Francis’ returning to jail. After all that had just happened! Surely the detective could see that Glenrothes was not the villain here. “Mr. Thompson, I feel you should know Lord Glenrothes has been too much of a gentleman to provide an alibi for his ex-wife’s murder.”
“Eden, you don’t need to do this,” Francis began, but she waved him off briskly.
“Hush, yes I do.” She turned to the detective, laying a pleading hand on his arm even as he shook his head in denial. “The night that Vanessa MacKintosh was murdered, Lord Glenrothes was with me. In my rooms. All evening. Naturally you can see, he could not have done the horrible thing you’ve accused him of.”
Francis groaned as Mr. Thompson flushed a rosy red. “Lady Shaftesbury. I was only going to request that Glenrothes, and indeed yourself, come to the station to make your statements on this matter. I, er,” He tugged at his collar. “I had already determined Glenrothes was not at fault without your…er, assurance otherwise.”
It was Eve’s turn to blush and turn away. “You had? Then I needn’t have…? Oooh.”
“Please, my lady, be assured that you have my utmost discretion regarding your admission,” he rushed to guarantee her.
“You know it wasn’t Lord Glenrothes then?” Eve couldn’t resist clarifying.
“Aye, m’lady,” he pledged. “Thanks to Glenrothes and what I’ve witnessed here, I believe we now have enough evidence to prove that he was not the murderer, though your husband did an excellent job of framing him.”
“Indeed, he did.”
“Perhaps I may call on you tomorrow, instead, to get your complete statement, if that is acceptable?”
“Of course.” She nodded, regaining her calm social mask and offering her hand. “Thank you so much for your assistance, Mr. Thompson.”
“Not at all, my lady.” He shook her hand and regarded Glenrothes. “Are you in need medical assistance, my lord?”
“I’ve been nursed well enough to see my way home and summon my own surgeon, Thompson, but my thanks.” He offered the official his hand and shook it heartily before requesting assistance in gaining his footing. Eve wrapped an arm around his waist to help him as he limped to face Shaftesbury who was being tended to by the other two detectives.
“Is he dead?” Francis asked the question Eve had been afraid to voice.
“No,” Thompson shook his head. “It’s a stomach wound though. If he does recover, it will be a long, painful trial ahead for him. And even if he gets through it, he will face the hangman’s noose quickly enough for the murder of Lady Glenrothes.”
Francis stared down into Eve’s bright green eyes and touched his forehead to hers. “Shall we go, my love?”
“Yes.” She nodded emphatically. “I want to see Laurie and make sure he’s all right.”
Jack and James left Shaftesbury as other officers came in to assist Thompson. Offering their assistance to the limping earl, James asked his brother, “You all right there, old man?”
“No thanks to you two!” Eve pointed an accusing finger at both of them. “How could you just stand there and do nothing?”
“Wasn’t much to do but watch the fight. Francis had that under control. Enjoyed it no doubt. Can’t understand how the chap held on to that gun though.” Jack raised his hands defensively to ward her off. “Och, Evie. By the time he needed aid, we were dodging bullets of our own.”
She merely harrumphed, and they turned to go, Francis’ steps awkward even with the men’s assistance. He limped forward and frowned when a piece of pottery cracked under his boot. With a frown, he bent and picked up the shard and held it up to the light. “Bloody hell, I can’t believe you threw this. Do you have any idea what this is?”
“Yes, I have a very good idea what it is,” Eve raised an amused brow.
“Good God, Eden, what were you thinking? It was worth a fortune!”
“So are you.” She pecked his cheek playfully. “And I’ll buy you another if you like.”
Chapter 48
Love is born with the pleasure of looking at another,
it is fed with the necessity of seeing each other,
it is concluded with the impossibility of separation.
~ Jose Marti y Perez
“You hit him over the head with a Ming vase?” Jack repeated, astounded. “A fourteenth century Ming vase? Bugger it all, but that one little piece of pottery might have saved my entire estate.”
“Leave it to Jack to think of himself,” Abby teased, hugging her brother’s arm. “Oh, Eve, I’m so glad everything turned out all right!”
Scrapes and bruises attended to. Gunshot wounds stitched and cleaned. While infection was always a risk, Francis was expected to make a complete recovery, though walking would be painful for some time. Eve curled against him as they sat in the corner of the settee. Laurie was tucked against her other side in a snug embrace. His joy when she had returned made her heart sing, and though he should have been sent back to the nursery hours ago she was glad to keep him by her side. She stroked the blond curls on his head absently while everyone talked over the events of the day.
After the two boys had found Richard and Jack, the men had attempted to track the carriage but had split up when they reached the government district and had come upon Francis and the detective, also on the hunt. Richard had gone on with the footmen and another detective, canvassing the stagecoach and railroad depots, hoping to find them there, should they have already vacated the boardinghouse. They had been essential in capturing the valet, Wilkes, when he’d purchased tickets in Shaftesbury’s name.
As Hobbes brought in champagne for them all to celebrate, Glenrothes told his audience of his conviction that the truth would hold sway with the honorable detective Thompson. Something he’d been sure of when he had gone with him that morning. He’d given Thompson what they knew of Shaftesbury and Vanessa, knowing the man would see the logic in his argument. There had been no arrest after all. In fact, he’d spent most of the early afternoon taking a casual luncheon with the man and discussing the case while Thompson’s detectives searched for Shaftesbury.
“You took a chance he would believe such an outlandish tale rather than simply toss you in the clink?” Moira asked in amazement.
“You took a great chance,” Abby agreed with her friend.
“A calculated risk.” Francis shrugged in the face of their incredulity.
“I wish you’d seen fit to share that with us. You might have spared us some sorrow,” Jack grouched irritably, and the others nodded in agreement.
Eve, in turn, related her tale of trying to get out of the carriage, of how she provoked Shaftesbury so that she might fall against the door and roll into the street, laughing now at how she pushed herself to run after hurting her hip in the fall. When she told them of the chase down the street, Jack jested that he might have liked to see her running with her skirts held above her knees, only to earn a glare from Francis. But all were aghast as she told them of being captured at gunpoint and the fight that had ensued in the boardinghouse, ending with the vase and Thompson’s well-placed shot.
Shaftesbury had died during the surgery performed on him to remove the bullet lodged in his lower torso. Thompson’s bullet, going through the vase as it did, had propelled hundreds of shards of pottery into the wound with it, damaging internal organs almost as much as the bullet itself. Had he made it through the surgery, he would have eventually faced a slow, painful demise.
Eve supposed she should feel some sense of loss, but she’d already done her period of mourning and had no intention of doing it again. Instead, all she felt was relief that it was all done and over with. Shaw was expected to survive his gunshot. Francis was alive and well. Life was now hers to begin again on her own terms.
An
d that life surrounded her in this moment. Her son and the man she would marry. Her future was looking brighter than she could ever remember. She was ready to move on. “I’m just glad it is all over, and we can move forward.”
“My lady?” Hobbes intoned from the hallway. “There is a gentleman of a religious persuasion at the door. He says he has an appointment with Lord Glenrothes.”
“A gentleman of a religious persuasion?” she echoed. “What is that all about?”
“If it would please you,” Francis murmured in her ear, pulling a piece of paper from his breast pocket while the others looked on with mischievous smiles. “In the spirit of moving on, I obtained a special license last week before all this came to light. I thought perhaps you might do me the honor of becoming my wife this evening?”
She gaped at him for a moment in surprise. “Just in the spirit of moving on?”
He brushed his lips against her temple. “Perhaps in the spirit of moving on with our lives together? I cannot wait to make you my wife, to have the right to take you in my arms at any time. To show you my love openly, every day, for the rest of our lives. I don’t want to be forced to deny my feelings ever again. I love you, Paradise.”
“I love you as well.”
“Then will you marry me? Right now?” he asked once more. “If you prefer to wait for a large wedding, I will understand.”
“No.”
“Nay, you won’t marry me now, or no, you don’t want a big ceremony?”
“No, Francis, I don’t want to wait, and yes, I will marry you now.”
Luckily enough after bathing, Eve had decided it was time to officially put off her mourning wear and had instead donned a new dinner gown she had recently ordered. It was light peach silk overlaid with chiffon, covered along the edges with a wide border of flora and fauna cut-outs in a variety of blues, greens, lavender and a darker peach color that covered the short train and framed the center panel of Point d’Angleterre lace. The bodice had a profusion of ruched silk and flowers that cut a dramatic V from the edges of her shoulders to her waist where it nipped in tightly. More lace and chiffon filled that V, although the neckline was cut very low.
She was glad she had worn it this night, for the fresh spring colors were a perfect match to the occasion. This would be her wedding gown!
Thinking how pleased her mother would be that she’d managed to land another earl, she laughed inwardly. Not only another earl but the very earl who might have been hers years before if Fate had only dealt them a better hand. She would have to write her parents and Kitty in the morning and let them know the good news. She was a bride once again and madly in love!
Eve grinned brightly, and Francis returned it with the same charming smile pulling up the corner of his lips that had captured her heart so many years ago. She turned to face the room of friends, old and new, each wearing a smile of their own. Well, all except one, who was looking a bit green around the gills.
“You all knew about this?”
“It was all MacKintosh’s idea. Been working on it all afternoon while you were being pampered.” Jack Merrill rolled his eyes. “He’s so disgustingly happy about it that it’s making me fairly nauseated.”
“Well, don’t feel that you have to stay if you can’t stomach the sight of two people in love getting married,” the groom jested as he rose to his feet with the assistance of a cane and Eve’s arm.
“I suppose I might stay on,” Jack gave in. “I shall endeavor to turn away if the carnage upsets my delicate sensibilities.”
“Oh, please,” Eve mocked. “Jack Merrill, your day will come, and I shall taunt you relentlessly when it does.”
Haddington merely shook his head and shuddered at the thought.
Francis took Laurie up in his arm and looked down into his little face. “My lord Shaftesbury, will it be acceptable for me to marry your mother?”
“If you marry my mother, you will become my father,” Laurie reasoned solemnly.
“Aye, that I will. If you might be amenable to such a thing, that is.”
“I would like that very much, but,” he faltered a bit, but Francis gave him an encouraging nod, “but I will still be Shaftesbury, will I not, my lord?”
“You are Shaftesbury and always will be.”
The little boy’s shoulders sagged in relief. “That’s good. I have a responsibility to my people, you know?”
Francis grinned down at him. “As do I. Perhaps if your mother and I have another son who will someday become Glenrothes, I might count on you to help him understand his responsibilities as well as you do.”
Laurie smiled brightly in turn. “I should like that, my lord. I should like having a brother as well.”
“Very good.” Francis set the boy on the floor. “And perhaps you might choose to call me father before long?”
“Might I call you Papa?”
“I should like that very much,” was the serious reply. Francis was so pleased by the lad’s request that he asked in return, “And perhaps I might call you son? If you like?”
“Very much, my lord,” the boy returned, with a broad grin now.
Turning, he offered a folded piece of paper to Abby, “For you, minx.”
Abby smiled broadly as he slipped the fifty-pound note into her hand. “Well played, Francis.”
Francis offered his hand to Eve. “Shall we, my lovely bride?”
Flushed with happiness, Eve took his arm as he led her across the hall toward the larger drawing room at the front of the house, while the others fell in behind them. Her thoughts were a jumble of love for Francis, gratitude for his love of her son, and eagerness for the moments to come.
She was about to become his wife. A mere month ago, the very thought had paralyzed her with the same symptoms Jack expressed at the thought, but now! All she felt was excitement and anticipation. As much as she was about to become his, he was just as assuredly about to become hers.
She smiled beatifically up at him with her green eyes shining as they met the darker green of his.
“You look very beautiful this evening,” he whispered softly into her ear, seeing none of the slight bruising that marred her cheek and temple.
“So do you,” she returned, thinking he had never looked more handsome or happy as he did this night.
“No doubts?”
“Not one.”
With a flourish, Hobbes swung open the double doors of the drawing room and bowed low. When he rose, she might have almost thought there was a smile on his face, and she smiled at him in return.
But when she walked into the room, her jaw sagged as she took in the bounty of flowers and candles that transformed the room as if her gown had come to life. A makeshift altar had been set up at the far end of the room, where a Catholic priest waited for them. The soft strains of music reached her, and she located the violinist near the windows. A trail of rose petals marked the path to the altar.
Her sighs of appreciation blended with those of her two friends as she took in the scene. She could not imagine how all of this had gotten done so quickly and without her knowledge. It was lovely, just magical! Eve couldn’t imagine a more perfect setting to mark her marriage to Francis.
“Do you like it?” he whispered softly in her ear.
Her eyes met his, bright with tears, as joy pierced her heart. “You did all this?”
He nodded, his eyes gleaming with pleasure and love.
“Why, Francis”. She smiled up at him and caressed his cheek lovingly. “This is almost, dare I say it? Romantic.”
“Only almost?” he teased and met her lips in a tender kiss.
Epilogue
The Glenrothes Townhouse
Carlton Terrace
Edinburgh, Scotland
Six Weeks Later
Perhaps it was the intensity of the silence in the cozy sitting room where Evelyn MacKintosh was reading Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil that made the slamming of the door and battery of voices below seem so loud. She set her book and
tea on the side table and moved her sleeping son to the seat as a flurry of steps raced up the stairs. Rising, she opened the door just in time to meet her butler with his hand raised to knock. “What is it, Hobbes?”
“There seems to be a slight problem, my lady.” The old servant paused as if he did not know where to begin. If Eve hadn’t known better, she might have even said he was flustered, but dismissed the thought as inconceivable. “It appears that we have unexpected company.”
“Who is it?”
“A young female person of uneven temperament with a small girl-child and, if I am not mistaken, an aged Chinaman.”
“An aged Chinaman?”
“Indeed, my lady, most peculiar.”
“I’ll see to it.”
Eve rushed down the hall, wishing her husband were there as well. Her husband! She couldn’t stop the smile that flashed at the thought. The past six weeks had been more magical and fulfilling than she had ever imagined the days and nights of marriage might be. She’d never known such bliss and had been missing Francis mightily since he’d gone to Glen Cairn for a meeting with his steward. He wouldn’t return for a couple of days.
“I can’t believe this country,” were the words Eve heard as she reached the top of the stairs. She stood for a moment in the shadows and watched the late-night visitor pace the foyer at a ripping speed. Her hair was disheveled and hanging from its coiffure at a precarious angle. The color was impossible to discern, given the rain and mud caking it. Her face was darkened with dirt and…soot? Her dress, once probably a very lovely yellow brocade, was torn and dirty and hanging limply to the floor. She was indeed in a temper, pacing as she was and throwing her hands in the air. Fortunately, the countess could make out little of the stream of curses that were currently flowing from her lips.
“Damn Scottish idiots!” she heard briefly. “Can’t speak one decent word of English at all. I end up on the side of the road in the rain with no way to get anywhere. Idiots! Every single one of them.”
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