The Earl stepped forward and frowned at John. "Wakefield, take this half-blood nuisance, and get out of here."
"I'd rather not," John flippantly retorted.
Ian glared at the vicar. "I apologize for being late, but I'm afraid I missed a section of the vows. Could you repeat it?"
"To which one are you referring?" the vicar queried, trying to inject some sanity into the scandalous scene.
"Ask me if anyone objects to the union. Ask me if there is anyone who would like to 'speak now or forever hold his peace.'"
"I take it you're opposed?"
"Damn straight I'm opposed!" Ian snarled. "You can't have her, Shelton."
"How do you plan to stop me?" Edward replied.
"You're naught but a disgusting pervert, and I'm prepared to accuse you to the entire world."
"Now see here!" Edward indignantly spouted. "You will not cast aspersions on my character!"
"Why shouldn't I? You're aware that any story would be true. And as for you ..." Ian advanced on Britannia until they were toe-to-toe. "I wish we were at Wakefield. I'd have John order you to the stocks in the village square and have you publicly whipped."
"You little weasel!" Britannia raged. "How dare you barge in! How dare you insult me! Bernard, do something!"
"What would you have me say, Britannia?" Bernard sighed. "Your scheme has been foiled. I warned you to be cautious, yet you've made a total mess of it. Why should I rescue you?"
Caroline scowled at the Earl. "You knew about Ian? You knew she was threatening to kill him?"
"Well..." Derby blushed and tried to assert, "Not really."
"You encouraged her!" Caroline charged. "What is the matter with you? You've known John since he was a baby. You were friends with his father, yet you could let her murder Ian? You're as deranged as she is."
"I've had enough of this," Ian said.
He drew her away and started out, with John staying behind to prevent any of them from coming after her.
"Where are you going?" the Earl demanded.
"Wherever Caroline would like," Ian answered.
Edward was finally rattled into action. He stomped toward John, as if he'd tromp over the slighter, younger man, but John delivered a hard punch to Edward's chest that cowed him into halting.
"This is my wedding," Edward bellowed at Ian, "and Caroline is my fiancée. You can't abscond with her. Who the hell do you think you are?"
Ian grinned. "I'm the fellow who ruined her."
"What?" Edward nearly swooned. "What are you saying?"
"She's damaged goods, Shelton," Ian confessed. "I've had her dozens of times. Didn't her parents tell you?"
Edward was about to commit mayhem. "You'd better be lying."
"I'm not. Just ask them. They both know all about it. The Countess even bribed me to be silent and go away, and I'd considered it, but it appears I've changed my mind."
"Clayton!" Bernard shouted. "Don't you leave this church with her. I'll hunt you down, I'll find you, I'll sue, I'll... I'll..."
Ian assessed Bernard, then Caroline, and shrugged.
"Let's go," he said.
"Let's do," she replied.
They started down the aisle again, when Britannia hurled herself at Edward. She grabbed his lapels and shook him.
"You have to stop them," Britannia insisted.
"I don't see how I can," Edward said, "or why I'd want to now. You treacherous witch! You were about to pawn her off on me when you knew she was a whore."
The insanity that had been simmering inside Britannia bubbled to the surface.
"She's your daughter!" Britannia screeched. "You can't let him take your own daughter! You can't!"
"Britannia!" Edward snapped. "Control yourself."
"She's your daughter!" Britannia claimed again. "You have to marry your own daughter. I must have my revenge! I can't be denied! Not after I've waited all these years to see you punished!"
The crazed pronouncement seemed to suck the air out of the room. Everyone froze in place.
John frowned at Ian. "Did she say what I think she said?"
"Yes, she did," Ian responded.
Caroline dropped Ian's hand and came back to her mother. She studied Britannia's unhinged expression, then she shifted her gaze to Edward, and the assembled group turned with her. They all observed the same thing: She and Edward looked exactly alike.
She peered at the Earl, studying him, too, and deeming it curious that she had no features in common with him. How was it that she'd never before noted the differences? No wonder the Earl had never felt any connection to her. There wasn't one.
"You had an affair with Edward, didn't you, Mother?" Caroline correctly deduced. "You hinted at it once, but I ignored you. That's what you were trying to disclose, wasn't it? You were planning to marry me to my own father."
"Oh, my God." Edward lurched away from Britannia as if she had the plague. "Woman, you are mad as a hatter! You always have been!"
Britannia's beady little eyes darted around the sanctuary, seeking an escape route, and she resembled a rat caught in a trap. For a moment, Caroline was certain Britannia would scoff at the accusation, but instead, she laughed an eerie laugh that raised the hackles on Caroline's neck.
"Yes, I had an affair with him," Britannia admitted. "I was young and foolish, and he made me love him, but he never arrived to take me away as he promised he would."
"I didn't come for you," Edward interjected, "because you were a lunatic, and as far as I can tell, nothing has changed in the intervening decades."
"You see?" Britannia fumed. "Even now, he insults me. Even now, he has no idea how to be sorry. He must pay!"
Her arms outstretched, she stumbled toward Edward, lumbering like an automaton and intent on inflicting bodily harm.
"Britannia!" the Earl commanded, and he marched down from the altar and stepped between Edward and her mother.
John positioned himself between them, too, but Britannia was such a large person, and in such a muddled state, that Caroline wasn't positive they could restrain her. Not that Caroline cared if they could or not.
For once, she was unconcerned about the Earl and his countess and how their predicament was resolved.
She scrutinized the Earl, who'd always detested her, then Edward, who was unveiled as her true sire, and she shuddered with distaste. She'd been mere seconds away from an incestuous union, orchestrated by a maniac. She felt tainted and revolted, but at the same juncture, strangely freed.
The Earl was struggling to contain Britannia, as Edward scurried out, led to safety by the vicar. For a brief instant, Caroline's gaze locked with the Earl's, and he appeared stricken and apologetic, but it was probably a trick of the light.
"Lord Derby," she said, her mode of address severing her ties to him, "your countess previously informed me that she murdered your mistress. With poison."
"She what?" he wheezed with shock.
"She confessed her homicidal crime a few weeks ago. Directly after, I tried to notify you, but you wouldn't listen. I thought you should know." She turned to Ian. "Please, take me out of here. I don't want to see either of them ever again."
"You won't ever have to," he vowed. He glanced over at John. "Will you be all right?"
"Yes," John said. "I'll stay and clean up the disaster. You get going."
Together, she and Ian walked out of the church.
Behind her, she could hear her mother shrieking, "Let me at him, Wakefield. Let me at him!"
Her brother was by the door, having watched all with his typical disdain. As she passed, his sole participation in the event was to mutter, "Good luck. You'll need it."
Caroline swept by him without a word, judging it peculiar that he was now only a half brother and scarcely related, at all, but not being especially saddened by the realization. He'd always been awful to her, his dislike as blatant as her parents' had been.
She followed Ian outside. His horse was tied in front, and he escorted her to it, tossed her up, and jumped on after her. The animal was winded from the journey that had brought Ian to London, but it was hale and spirited, and as Ian pulled on the reins, it eagerly leapt to action.
They raced off, cantering down the road, the church quickly vanishing from view. She didn't even have on a coat, and the cold bit into her skin. She wrapped her arms around Ian's waist, held on tight, and never looked back.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
I
demand that you have me released!" "I could, but I won't." Bernard stared at Britannia, wondering how he was to deal with the reality that his countess was a raging lunatic. He'd never liked her, had definitely never loved her, but hones
t
y!
She was pacing incessantly across the small cell. Her dress was ragged and dirty, her hair sticking out as if the gray strands had been altered into snakes. She looked inhuman, demonic even, like a wicked creature from an ancient Greek legend.
The hospital where he and Wakefield had delivered her was the best of its kind, but the accolade was a sorry statement on the level of modem convalescent care. She'd been housed in the private wing, with the other members of affluent families who had to be permanently locked away, but the conditions were sparse and disturbing.
"You can't mean to keep me here," she said.
"Oh, but I do. You're completely insane. And you're
dangerous. You can't be out among normal people. There's no telling what mischief you might instigate."
"I've done nothing wrong!"
"Nothing!"
"I was entirely justified in seeking revenge against Edward."
"Madam, I suggest you be silent. The very fact that you would mention your affair to me only underscores how crazed you are."
"You are a philandering roue
!
You always have been. Don't try to seize the moral high ground."
He'd been an awful husband; he couldn't deny it. He'd chased after every trollop who'd strolled by, but with all that had recently occurred, his liaisons seemed to have been so pointless.
He wished he could go back and do so many things differently. He wished Georgie were alive and being courted by some fine fellow her own age who would have cherished her as she'd deserved. He wished he'd been a better father to Adam and Caroline.
After the fiasco at the church, Adam had packed his bags and left, claiming he'd never return, and Bernard hoped that time and distance would calm him, but he wouldn't count on it.
Mostly, he wished he knew how Caroline was weathering her mother's revelations, but he had no idea where she was and no one he could ask who might inform him. She wasn't an earl's daughter, after all, so everything she'd understood about herself was false.
She'd been born during his marriage to Britannia, so in the eyes of God and the law she was considered to be his child and always would be. He wouldn't repudiate her. It was so strange, but when he'd believed himself to be her actual father he'd constantly snubbed her. Now that he'd found out he wasn't her father, he was desperate to make amends, to take the faltering steps toward a continuing relationship.
Instead, he would head to his empty mansion. The family he'd loathed was in tatters. His spouse was deranged, his son had fled, and his daughter was missing and would likely never talk to him again. It was a pitiful situation, indeed.
"If you aren't here to fetch me home," Britannia nagged, "why have you come?"
"I've brought some of the items you requested."
"Pen and ink?"
"No."
"But I need to write letters. I have to notify my friends of how heinously I'm being treated!"
"You have no friends, Britannia. Not any who'd like to hear from you anyway, and I won't allow you to share your venom with the outside world. You've done enough harm."
"You can't refuse to let me correspond!"
"I already have." He placed the satchel of her belongings on the narrow, rickety cot where she slept. He didn't know how it held her enormous weight and girth.
"Now then, I'm off."
"When is your next visit scheduled?"
"It's not. In the future, if you must contact me, you'll have to send a message through my solicitor. I don't intend to confer with you in person ever again."
"Don't be ridiculous. You shall come whenever I summon you."
"No, Britannia, I won't. I'm leaving you to stew in your own juice."
"Stop being melodramatic."
"I could have had you tried and hanged."
"For what crime?" "For murder."
She laughed. "There's not a jury in the land that would have convicted me for killing your mistress. You were going to divorce me. The girl had you bewitched."
He could have made a thousand replies. He could have admitted all the ways he'd erred; he could have reminded her that his failings weren't Georgie's fault, or that he was genuinely sorry for everything that had transpired.