“I just knew it would happen! That hoyden of yours has led poor Beauregard into sin. Oh, whatever shall I do?”
Emilyann led the distraught woman to the sofa and Aunt Adelaide handed her a cup of tea. “So soothing, my dear. I always find—”
“Damn and blast!” Smoky looked up from the note he had been reading. “She’s really done it this time. Here, listen to this: ‘Have taken Nadine to Gretna. Only way. Don’t worry.’ ”
The next sound was a loud thud as Aunt Adelaide hit the floor.
“But why would they do that?” Emilyann wanted to know as she and Stokely struggled to get his aunt onto a sofa. “Nadine knew we would not stand in her way if her heart was really set on it. We might not have been thrilled at the match”—Stokely coughed—“but in a year or so ...”
“And I even told Beauregard I thought the chit was coming along. He could have done a great deal better, of course.”
“Aunt Ingrid,” Emilyann cautioned, “Nadine is my sister-in-law.”
“And my daughter-in-law!” Ingrid wailed. “She will never be accepted. Dear Lord, I will never be able to hold my head up again.”
“Hold off on the dramatics, ma’am,” Stokely told her, studying the letter. Lady Aylesbury sniffed and even Em thought he was acting with high-handed insensitivity, but he never was one for Cheltenham tragedies. “This does not sit right with me. They cannot have been gone long, so why would the clunch—pardon, ma’am—leave a note where we could find it? Why would they leave in the middle of the day at all, when they would be missed so soon?”
Emilyann glanced cautiously at her aunt and said in the politest terms she could think of, “Bobo never was one to, ah, worry over practical matters.”
“You mean he hasn’t got the brain power of a bedbug. And this is just like some fool romantical notion Nadine might enjoy.”
“I told you the girl was no better than she should be,” Aunt Ingrid countered. “Novels, hah!”
Rather than listen to the two of them trade insults, Emilyann went up to see if Nadine’s things were missing, or if Toinette knew anything. This suggestion won her an approving nod from Stokely, who was rereading the note, and muttering that he didn’t know the bacon-brained Bobo could write.
When Emilyann returned with the maid and Aunt Adelaide’s restoratives—hartshorn, vinaigrette, feathers for burning, a flask of ... rum?—Stokely was already calling for the carriage, a change of clothes, his pistols.
“Nothing much is missing that I can tell. Even her jewelry is left here, and there is a ten-pound note in her glove drawer.”
“That’s what I thought. Nadine would never elope without her wardrobe, not voluntarily anyway. I am going after them, my dear. Don’t worry, I shall bring them back safe and sound. They cannot have much of a lead.”
“I am going with you,” two voices chorused.
“No, I’ll make better time without you.”
“But you’ll need help, Smoky. You cannot take a lot of servants along or this will be all over London,” Emilyann said, and added, “You’ll need me to lend countenance to this affair.”
So they set out in one carriage, Jake driving, Rigg up beside him with a rifle. Their first inquiries netted the information that yes, a young couple fitting the description had passed by, on the North Road, all right. They were not trying to hide their tracks, it seemed. Ingrid was not-so-quietly praying on the seat next to Emilyann while Stokely laid his pistols on the other and reloaded them.
“This is all my fault,” Emilyann lamented. “I should have watched her better.”
Aunt Ingrid sniffed her disdain and murmured something about bad breeding which, thankfully, Smoky either did not hear or chose to ignore. He reached for his wife’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Never think so, Sparrow. She was never meant to be your responsibility, my love. You’ve looked out for her interests like she was a chick of your own, and I can never repay you for that either. Except possibly by wringing the chit’s neck when we find her.”
He tugged on her hand until she moved to the seat beside him, where he could put his arm around her shoulder in comfort, and draw her close. “And you taught her more about being a real lady in this year or so than anyone else has managed in seventeen.”
And right there, in the hurtling carriage with Ingrid sitting in her black gown like a vulture across from them, Smoky thoroughly kissed his wife.
* * * *
At the next stop Stokely decided to ride ahead, over Emilyann’s loud objections. He felt he could better concentrate on the problem at hand if his wife weren’t in his arms. The prayers and Ingrid’s carping about Nadine were trying his already strained nerves, but he told the ladies, half truthfully, that his leg needed to be exercised or it would tighten up. With night soon falling, they needed to cover ground more quickly.
The only horse available at the posting house was a likely-looking animal, but with a sadly ragged gait. Before the aching earl could resume the coach ride at the next change, the nag unfortunately ran out of wind. Stokely and his mount fell behind the carriage, which probably was the only thing to save them all when the three highwaymen rode out of the woods, firing.
Rigg nicked one of them, who rode off, and the pistol in Stokely’s waistband dropped the second dead in his tracks before the bandit could pull open the carriage door. The third man was already around the other side of the coach, pointing a heavy pistol, before Smoky could get him in sight. Then a shot rang out, and the highwayman fell, clutching his shoulder.
“I told you missy was pluck to the backbone,” Jake said to Rigg as the two tried to calm the frightened horses. Emilyann was calmly reloading the pearl-handled pistol drawn from her fur muff while the earl tied the injured attacker, who looked a great deal like one of the footpads who had assaulted him and Geoff on the streets of London.
“You are lucky,” he told the man, binding the cove’s shoulder with the thug’s own greasy neckerchief. “My wife always did pull her first shots a bit to the left. Of course, she never misses with her second. Do you want to put it to the test, or shall you tell us where your employer is hiding?”
When they went to leave they found Ingrid on the side of the road, on her knees.
* * * *
“Rigg will go around back,” Stokely commanded when they reached the deserted hedgerow tavern, dark except for a faint candleglow in one window. “Jake holds the horses quiet and keeps an eye on our friend here while I try the front door. You”—he indicated Emilyann—”stay here with your aunt.”
Limping badly, the earl made his stealthy way along the building’s side, ducking under windows and keeping to the cover of shrubs. He bit off an oath when he bumped into his wife inside the door of what was obviously the common room of the old tavern.
“Welcome, nevvy, welcome.” Morgan chuckled, shifting the aim of his pistol from Nadine, tied in a chair and gagged, to Emilyann. Cursing, Stokely dropped his own gun.
Ingrid rushed to Bobo, unconscious on the floor, with an ugly bruise on the side of his head. She immediately began weeping and calling on divine intervention to save her baby.
“Ah, motherhood.” Morgan sneered. “But that was the gist of the whole matter, wasn’t it?”
The man had obviously shot the cat. Empty bottles testified to the battle for Morgan’s mind. Morgan had not put up much of a fight, Stokely decided. It was only a matter of keeping him pacified, he figured, until Rigg could find a way in from the back. Emilyann had other plans.
“You’ll never get away with this, you know.”
Stokely tried to shush her. He would like to shake the little fool for arguing with a madman who held a gun, but he kept his hands in the air so Morgan would not feel threatened. Emilyann was in full spate now, though, and he could see Morgan’s face growing redder with fury.
“Do you think Mr. Baxley doesn’t know about all the so-called accidents? Well, he does, you addlepated old tosspot. You won’t live to see the next Duke of Aylesbury, you’ll hang before my son is even born, you scurvy piece of offal, you makebait—”
Morgan leveled the gun vaguely at her heart. “So you want to be first, eh? I thought to have you all trussed up before lighting the place, but I can see I have to change my plans.” He turned blurring eyes to Ingrid, keeping the gun mostly pointed at Emilyann. “You were right, m’dear, it’s hard to find good servants. No one wants to work to get the job done. An honest pay for an honest day’s work. Hah-hah. Those fools have ruined my plans countless times, aye, and taken my blunt ne’ertheless. Well, I’m done with them. Have a better ally now.
“Yes, niece,” he continued, “you can see the fires of hell firsthand, as it were. I’ve seen them, you know. They’re in little eyes on the great cathedrals, all over. Burning. Burning. Now you’ll see them, pesky brat, then it will be your crippled hero’s turn.”
The gun kept wavering. He needed two hands now to hold it steady, and his eyes shut to pull the trigger.
Emilyann pulled the little pistol out of her muff just as Smoky dived to push her aside and knock the gun out of Morgan’s hands. Both guns fell to the ground, but not before discharging both shots. One grazed Smoky’s shoulder, the other his cheek.
“Of all the cork-brained, misbegotten moves,” Smoky started while Emilyann began shouting, “You knew I had the pistol, you ninny. What did you think—”
Then they were in each other’s arms, laughing, hugging, and even weeping a little in relief.
Rigg coughed, bringing their attention back to the dingy room. He was dragging the third highwayman behind him. “Sorry for the delay, Major. I had to take care of this fellow before I could see to the rear door. Everything satisfactory here now?”
They looked around. Uncle Morgan was flat out on the floor, and Aunt Ingrid was still bashing him over the head with a grimy long-handled cookpot from the fireplace. “I’ll show you hell, you jackass!”
Whap!
“You want an heir so badly you can go—”
“Aunt Ingrid!”
Whap!
“How’s that for an eye for an eye, you spindleshank ale-spigot? The devil’s on your side, eh? Well, here’s one for him, too.”
Whap!
She put the much-dented pot down only when Bobo groaned, and Emilyann and Stokely both said amen.
* * * *
“What will happen to Uncle Morgan now?” a very tousled Lady Stokely asked later, safe in her much-bandaged husband’s lap, at a comfortable inn some miles down the road.
Stokely’s injured shoulder was not keeping him from holding her tightly. He smiled. “Ingrid mentioned a new interest of Brother Blessed’s. He is sending missionaries to bring the word to some new native outpost. Esquimeaux I think they are called.”
“And Uncle is going along? The Lord certainly does work in mysterious ways.”
“His choices were that or Newgate. Bedlam maybe. He would have to relinquish the title and any future claims to the dukedom in any case. Otherwise you would never be safe.”
“Nor you, as my husband.” She shivered at the thought and Smoky pulled her closer. He brushed a kiss across her head and set her a little away from him so he could look into her eyes.
“As for that, my dear,” he said, “we have to come to some kind of terms. I mean, now that the threat is gone, you do not need me anymore, except for target practice, of course. Therefore I, ah, will agree to the annulment if you wish, so you may have your freedom and your fortune back.”
So he was going to be noble, was he? “I was going to say the same thing to you. Now that we need not be married, you must be wishing your carefree bachelorhood restored, so I would agree to the annulment. After all, I did trick you into the marriage. I knew you were disguised and I kept your cup filled with brandy so you would not be thinking clearly. And I threatened to sue you for breach of contract and libel you in the newspapers and ruin your family. I would not have done any of it, of course.”
“Don’t you think I knew that, peagoose? I’ve known you all your life.”
Emilyann hoped he did not know how strangely her body was acting, growing warm and cold, tingly and numb. “Well, but I cannot hold you to a promise made while in your cups.”
“I have a harder head than that, Sparrow. I knew what you were doing, and more important, I knew what I was doing.”
“Then why did you marry me? You certainly did not love me.”
“No, I have to admit I did not love that ragtag brat, not in the way you mean. I was not in the marriage mart, in any case, not with the war going on. On the other hand, I never thought of marrying anyone else. You were mine, always, to cherish and protect, and if giving you my name was what it took, there was no big sacrifice. Then when I realized you were all grown up, I stopped feeling brotherly altogether. You knew that.”
“And you do not want an annulment?”
“Not on your life. Lord, when I think of your precious life, facing that lunatic’s pistol ...” He ran his fingers through his disordered hair. “Confound it, girl, don’t you ever listen to orders?”
“Don’t you ever stop giving them, my lord?” she asked sweetly.
“I cannot help worrying, Sparrow. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.”
“And me you,” she told him, gently touching the bandage and placing a shy kiss on his cheek.
“Besides, where else could I find another woman who could stand to look at my body?”
“Your body is beautiful!”
“Not so very beautiful, after you made your mark with chicken scratches up and down it.”
“I am very proud of my handiwork, I’ll have you know.”
“So you did look after all,” he teased, grinning before his gray eyes turned serious again. “Then you will be my wife?”
“Silly, I am your wife.”
“But I never proposed to you, and you never answered. You are supposed to tell me what a great honor it is.”
“And you are supposed to go down on one knee.”
“You would only have to help me up, Sparrow. But, truly, we have been engaged by managing parents and wed to avoid another relative’s machinations. We’ve never been consulted, really, and you have never had a choice. And I’ll most likely always limp, and have more scars, and I can’t promise to stop acting like a drill sergeant or resenting your fortune, but, Lady Stokely, I am humbly asking you to be my wife, in every way, forever, because I cannot live without you.”