by Lisa Bingham
Thrown off-balance, Nigel stumbled beneath the unfamiliar weight of his toga, landing on one knee and an elbow. The weapon bounced out of his grip and skittered across the floor. The two men scrambled for the blade, but it was Reginald who caught it first.
Seeing that his secretary had the weapon, Nigel began to babble. “It was Reggie’s idea. Reggie made all of the arrangements. I might have framed your parents, I might have seen to it that they were exiled, but—”
Reginald peered around him in disbelief, seeing the open-mouthed horror of the onlookers, the servants closing in, the trio of strangers who had drawn them both into so neat a trap.
“Reggie was the one who stole the documents.”
“Shut up!”
“Reggie was the one who slipped poison into Albert’s tea—”
“Shut up, I tell you! They don’t know anything. They don’t know—”
“Reggie was the one who hired those men to hunt you down—”
“Damn you! I was your friend! I protected you! I killed for you! You would throw me to the lions for that? They don’t know anything!”
“Reggie—”
“They don’t—” Biting back his cry, Reginald lunged toward his employer in a blind rage, not really seeing, not really thinking, only knowing that he had to stop him before he said any more, before he revealed their crimes any further.
He had no conscious recognition of drawing the knife back or clasping Nigel’s shoulder with his free hand, but then he was stabbing, stabbing, stabbing.
It wasn’t until the warm rush of blood bathing his knuckles permeated his consciousness that Reginald realized what he’d done. Crying out in horror, he stared at the crimson river covering him, splattering across his clothes, staining the floor.
His fingers opened. The weapon clattered to the ground.
Staring blankly at his employer, he shuddered in horror. A huge red blossom spread over Nigel’s immaculate toga and ran down in rivulets that covered his bare calves, his shoes.
Nigel blinked at him, his face a perfect mask of surprise and childish pique. “Reggie?” It was a gurgle of sound.
The man wavered, fell, but Reginald rushed to catch him and gently eased him onto the floor. “Nigel?” Cradling his head in his lap, he crooned to him. “Nigel … Nigel?” His fingers trembled, leaving trails of scarlet as he touched his employer’s face, stroked his cheek. His friend. His soul-mate. “Nigel, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I only meant to stop you from telling them our secrets. It was a trap, Nigel, a trap.” He sobbed, staring up at the sea of faces around him. “He was my friend. My friend …”
Crying openly, he bent over the familiar face, the familiar form. “Please forgive me. Please, please, forgive me.” Over and over, he rubbed his cheek, his lips. “Please forgive me … please. Forgive me … forgive me … forgive …”
A shivering silence descended over the ton, an aching astonishment. Never had they seen such a painful tableau of grief and despair. They nearly expected the wounded man to blink, take a quick breath.
But Nigel did not respond. His eyes remained open, bleak, staring into eternity. Reginald, who had lost the only person who had ever shown him a shred of kindness, arched his head back, screaming, “No! Nooo!”
Sullivan found Chelsea much later, out in the garden. Someone had given her a cape, and she clutched it around her torso and stared into the gloom. Around her, the white roses from Estella’s garden nodded in the moonlight. Pure. Fragrant. Cold.
“Chelsea?”
She made no sign of having heard him, but he knew she was aware of his presence.
“I hated him. But I never would have wished this upon him.”
“I know.” Sullivan cupped her shoulders and drew her against him, offering the warmth of his body, the strength of his heart.
“I failed you, Richard. I should have trusted you. I should have told you of Nigel’s bargain.”
Sullivan experienced a pang of guilt, knowing that he, of all people, was not in a position to cast stones. There were confessions of his own that needed to be made. He could only pray that this woman would find it in her heart to forgive him for a necessary silence.
“We are none of us perfect people,” he murmured at last. “We do what we have to do in order to protect the people we love. You did what you thought best.”
“I didn’t think things through. I reacted on instinct.”
“You meant to keep me safe.”
“Instead I put you in danger.”
“No. Nigel was never a threat to me.” He hesitated, wrapping his arms about her more tightly, knowing that he must tell her now, or never. “You see, I was no real threat to him.”
She tried to face him, but he kept her still.
“But, Richard, you were the true heir, the—”
“No.”
He loosened his grasp enough so that she could shift in his arms and stare at him in confusion.
“I am not the true heir,” he admitted, then stepped aside to reveal the two figures silhouetted in stark relief against the brilliance of the candlelit ballroom. “Chelsea Wickersham, I should like to present my brothers to you.”
“Brothers?”
“You see, everyone assumed that my father had left only a single son. But he left several.”
One of the shapes disengaged from the wall to step forward, and Chelsea watched in wide-eyed disbelief as he moved closer, revealing a face that was familiar to her. A near duplicate of those she had seen in the portrait gallery. An older, leaner version of Richard Albert Sutherland, but with lighter hair and green eyes.
“May I present Gregory Wicket Cane Sutherland.” The man she had known as Richard Sutherland was watching her carefully. “And Rupert Perry Cane Sutherland.”
The giant who still remained in the doorway limped forward, smiled at her. “I hope Sully treated you kindly, miss.”
“Sully?” She looked at the man who had been her constant companion for weeks, who had tried her patience as a savage and enticed her soul as a gentleman.
The man she had grown to love and adore bowed shallowly at the waist. “Sullivan Arthur Cane Sutherland.”
Chelsea gathered her skirts and ran. She didn’t know where she was going or what she intended; she only knew she had to get away. Now.
“Chelsea? Chelsea!” Sullivan chased her through the roses, down past the arbor and behind the privet hedge. There, shielded from prying eyes, he grasped her arm and forced her to turn.
“Once again you’ve made a fool of me, Rich—” She broke off in disgust. “No, not Richard.”
“I haven’t made a fool of you.”
“I thought you had sunk to the depths when you masqueraded as the heathen for so long. But all this time you lied to me, played an elaborate charade, and laughed at me behind your sleeve.”
“No.” His grip gentled. “I loved you. I love you still. I wanted to tell you the truth, but there were bigger things at stake.”
“Such as your blasted fun.”
“No, damn it!” He sighed in frustration, then said quickly, “You were willing to believe in me enough to tell me about Nigel. Now let me tell you about my childhood.”
His voice became low, urgent. “Nigel meant for my parents to be executed. But through influence at court, they were exiled instead—put aboard a penal ship bound for the depths of hell. But through some act of providence, there was a storm. My father and mother jumped ship and through the grace of God were able to make their way to shore.
“My father and mother nearly died in the attempt. They were washed ashore—and if not for the help of a pair of Jesuit priests, they surely would have perished. The first few years were a living hell for them. Word of their escape spread rampant in England. Men hunted them like dogs, eager for the rewards offered to find them dead or alive and return them to the officers of the crown. They dreamed of returning to England and proving their innocence, but when my mother became pr
egnant, they both knew that to confront Nigel would mean putting their child’s life in peril. With the crime of treason still hanging over their heads, their only avenue was to make a new life for themselves. So they abandoned all thought of their previous existence. They took a new name and began building a home.
“There were three of us—Gregory, Rupert, and I. My mother died soon after I was born, and my father grew even more bitter, more distant. It wasn’t until he was on his deathbed that we even knew of his true identity—that he was the infamous Richard Sutherland who had been sought from one end of the continent to the other. By the time we understood the significance of his confession, we discovered that he had sent a messenger to Biddy to tell her where to find him.”
Sullivan’s lips twisted. “He thought he was doing the right thing. He knew his sons could inherit his title but not his crimes. He thought that we could return in glory and claim the Lindon estates. But he had not counted on his message being intercepted, nor on Nigel’s continued cunning. When Nigel discovered that my father was alive and had left a possible heir, he sent assassins to find us. Before we truly understood what was happening, we found ourselves hunted—for no more than the fact that our family had once belonged to the Sutherland clan.”
When he saw that Chelsea was listening, he continued more slowly. “Gregory was married at the time. His wife’s name was Lydia. She was kind and giving and warm. When Nigel’s men were unable to find my father, they found his grave. The villagers told him about our family. Nigel’s men tracked us to the coast of Brazil. They set fire to the hut where we were staying with some villagers, and Lydia was killed.” His eyes clouded at the memory. His voice grew gruff. “We waited in the jungle and watched, impotent to help her. When the men finally left, we realized that they thought they had destroyed the Sutherland heir.
“Thinking no one would search for us again, we returned to Isla Santiago, the island where our father and mother had first gone to hide from the world. From that moment, we trusted no one. We kept ourselves isolated—even from the natives who lived there.
“Gregory was affected the most by our predicament. He became moody and consumed with guilt. He drank and disappeared for days on end. When another set of English bloodhounds appeared on the island, Rupert and I knew that it was time to discover who was chasing us and why they refused to believe the Sutherland heir was dead.”
He touched her cheek. “But it was not Nigel who sent them. It was a sparrow-sweet figure of a grandmother and her lovable servants. Before I could cry ‘Nay,’ I was swept away to a new country, a new home, and entrusted to the special care of an indomitable British governess.”
He paused, hoping that the softening he saw in her stance was real. “I did what I had to do. In order to protect my family. But I never meant to hurt you or Biddy in the process.” His voice lowered, became fervent. “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you can bear the fact that I am not a titled lord, I will live with you here. Or, if you’d prefer, I’ll take you back to a paradise like none you could ever imagine. You need only agree to surrender your heart to me, as I have surrendered mine to you.”
Chelsea thought of all she should say, the anger she should continue to cling to, but none of that seemed important. She was being offered a future. She was being offered hope.
There was time to tell him she was sorry for the way she’d acted. Time to warn him that the portrait was missing and could very well be used to blackmail his family. But as the warm velvet night settled around them, she realized that even if they were to be given a hundred years, there would never be enough hours to love him.
Drawing on tiptoes, she lifted her face for his kiss. A kiss that soon deepened into a flurry of passion. Then he lowered her onto the fragrant grass, opened her cape, and began to pluck the petals from her gown, one by one by one …
Two tall masculine forms waited for quite some time on the marble steps leading into the ballroom. When Sullivan and Chelsea did not appear, they considered their best options.
“Do you suppose they’re lost?” Gregory asked.
Rupert closed his eyes in a vague, faraway manner as if receiving a vision. “I see … I see … two figures, entwined, sampling the delicious dalliance of youth and …”
Gregory playfully smacked him in the stomach. “It doesn’t take the ‘sight’ to fathom that, you idiot.”
Rupert chuckled and rubbed his abdomen. “How long should we give them? An hour?”
One of Gregory’s brows lifted in mock disgust.
“Two then?”
“It’s the summer solstice, brother mine. I say we give them all the time they could possibly want.”
“Meanwhile …”
Gregory grinned. “We have a party to host.”
“Mmm. I do believe you’re right.”
“I spied some tender young things. If they haven’t fainted dead away, perhaps we could persuade them to dance.”
“Capital idea.”
The soft sound of a throat being cleared filtered into the darkness, and two masked gentlemen—one stout one tall—tiptoed forward.
“Excuse me, sirs,” Greyson intoned. “Might we trouble you for some advice?”
“What is it Greyson?”
The elderly butler stepped aside to reveal that his companion was weighted down by the awkward shape of a huge painting.
“We would like your advice as to what to do with this … item we took from Nigel’s study.”
“What is it?”
“A painting.”
“What is the subject of the painting?”
“Well, it’s a trifle … delicate to explain.”
“Oh?”
The brothers stepped forward in curiosity, but Greyson stopped them. “If you don’t mind, I think it best that you not see it.”
“Whyever not?”
“It is a portrait.”
“Yes …”
“Of Miss Wickersham, sir.”
“And …”
Greyson consulted Smee, Smee consulted Greyson. If Gregory was not mistaken, the two men flushed behind their masks.
“It is a painting of Miss Wickersham … en deshabille.”
“Really?” Gregory drawled. “No,” Rupert breathed.
Once more, they tried to catch a glimpse, but Greyson slapped a palm to either chest, refusing to let them pass.
“It is a private painting. A very … revealing painting. We would like to know what you think we should do with it.”
Rupert and Gregory considered the problem for a moment.
“Rupe?”
“I think you should save it for a wedding present,” the gentle giant said. Quirking his brow toward the privet hedge, he added, “I have a feeling that the nuptials will be taking place quite soon. You wouldn’t want to be left without some sort of token, now would your?”
“No,” Greyson agreed solemnly.
Smee began hopping from foot to foot in utter glee.
A wedding!
How delightful!
Epilogue
Sullivan Arthur Cane Sutherland roused the vicar from a sound sleep just as the first ruby glow of sunrise washed into a clear summer sky. The vicar, grumbling at the imposition, glared at him from beneath his nightcap.
“What?” he demanded cryptically, his disposition far from friendly.
“I need you to perform a wedding.”
“Do you have the proper papers?”
“No.”
“Then come back when—”
“But I’ve compromised her, sir. We’ve shared”—he bent close to whisper—“carnal relations.”
The vicar stared at the prospective groom and the bride-to-be. Seeing the grass in their hair and the disheveled condition of their clothing, he ushered them into the chapel, posthaste. If it struck him odd that a tall green-eyed man had come along to serve as best man and another giant as a sort of bride’s maid, he did n
ot comment. His only objective was to draw these youngsters away from the very chasm of everlasting hell.
Once the ceremony had been performed, the carriage—being driven by a grinning Smee and a flushed Greyson—made one last stop in town before barreling toward Bellemoore.
Beatrice Sutherland heard the clatter of hooves and the squeak and groan of tracings the minute the coach topped the rise.
She had endured a sleepless night, waiting, wondering. Even when Smee and Greyson had returned in the wee hours to assure her all was well, whisking a mysterious package up the stairs, she had not been able to relax. She needed to see for herself that her family was safe. All of them. Greyson and Smee. Chelsea. Richard.
Hurrying as fast as her feeble legs could carry her, she arrived at the mounting block just as the conveyance’s wheels rolled to a stop.
There was a moment of silence. A beat of anticipation. Then the door opened, and her grandson alighted.
Biddy lifted her hands to her breast to still the beating of her heart, so relieved was she. “Chelsea? Is she—”
“Safe, Grandmama.” He bent to press a kiss to her cheek. “And, I might add, very, very married.”
She cooed in delight. “You’ve exchanged vows?”
“Yes. Only an hour ago. I hope you’re not angry that we did not come to fetch you.”
“Not as long as you’re happy, my boy.”
“Very happy.” The words were Chelsea’s. “But we promise to repeat the ceremony again once we have the proper papers.”
“Wonderful. Wonderful!” Biddy would have tugged them into the house, but the couple balked.
“Grandmama …” her grandson began hesitantly. “I hope you do not mind, but I’ve brought a few guests back with me to stay.”
“My home is always open, especially to—”
The invitation died as a huge figure appeared in the door of the carriage. She gaped at the character, seeing something, a glimmer of memory she felt she should grasp.
“Grandmama, I would like to introduce my brother, Rupert Perry Cane Sutherland.”
“Brother?” she whispered.