With startling speed, Jacob lurched back and pulled Meredith in front of him. He gripped her tightly from behind as Silverton slowly advanced toward them. She heard more noise out in the hall, and then Robert burst into the room. He froze as he took in the scene that met his eyes.
Jacob dragged Meredith behind the table, away from Silverton.
“Let her go.” Silverton's voice was soft and deadly.
Jacob's hand clenched her wrist so tightly that Meredith feared her bones would snap. Silverton continued his predatory stalk across the room as her cousin pulled her farther around the massive wooden table.
Robert's eyes darted into the corners. “Meredith,” he gasped, “where is Annabel?”
She clawed frantically at Jacob's fingers, trying to release the unbearable pressure on her wrist. “Down the hallway to the right and up the stairs to the landing,” she cried. “Go right again to the end of the passage. Annabel is there.”
Robert spun around and dashed out the doorway. She heard him call to someone, ordering the person to follow him.
Jacob held Meredith in front of him as he edged around the other side of the table and moved toward the door. She hung heavily against him, trying to slow him down.
Silverton kept his pistol trained at Jacob's head.
“Shoot and you'll hit her,” Jacob rasped.
Silverton hesitated. He dropped the pistol into the pocket of his greatcoat.
“Let her go, Burnley,” he said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. Meredith shivered at the sound of it. “Let her go now, or I'll kill you.”
Jacob's hoarse laugh reverberated off the low ceiling. “Meredith belongs to me, you bastard. Before this night is out, she'll be damaged goods. No man but me will ever want her again, I'll make certain of that.”
Jacob's face was congested with blood, his eyeballs protruding from his sockets. But Silverton might as well have been carved from granite for all he responded to the other man's taunts.
Jacob jerked Meredith to the door. His hand squeezed her arm so tightly she could feel the bones shift beneath her skin. She choked, her breath seizing with the pain that exploded up to her shoulder.
As she saw rage flash across Silverton's face, Meredith decided that she'd had enough. Twisting around, she grabbed her cousin's arm. She bent her head and sank her teeth into his wrist, biting him as hard as she could. Jacob roared, cuffing her on the side of the head with his other hand. Meredith's vision blurred as she crumpled to her knees.
Silverton launched himself across the room at Jacob. All three of them went down in a tangle of flailing limbs, and Meredith was thrown backward with stunning force into the wall. She collapsed onto the floor, gasping painfully as she tried to suck air into her lungs. Rolling out of the way of the struggling men, she groped her way up the wall and pushed herself to her feet.
Silverton had somehow managed to regain his feet as well, dragging Jacob up with him. His left fist smashed into her cousin's face and blood spurted from the other man's mouth.
It was a devastating punch. Jacob swayed but remained standing. Staggering to the side, he swung powerfully at Silverton, who ducked just before the blow connected. Jacob lashed out again. Silverton jerked his face out of the way, but this time her cousin's massive fist landed solidly on his shoulder. He fell back into the table, and Jacob threw himself on top of him. They crashed to the floor.
Meredith watched, terrified, as the two men rolled over the uneven floorboards. Jacob was a brute, outweighing Silverton by almost two stone. If he got the upper hand, Meredith was sure he would kill the man she loved.
She cast her eyes about frantically for a weapon. Spying a large brass candlestick on the fireplace mantel, Meredith ran across the room. She flung the lit candle into the fire and rushed back to the rolling bodies on the floor. Jacob heaved himself on top of Silverton, trying to wrap his beefy hands tightly around his neck. Silverton gasped for air but was still able to free an arm and push the heel of his hand against the other man's chin.
As Jacob's head snapped back under the force of Silverton's hand, Meredith slammed the candlestick into the back of her cousin's skull. He collapsed, blood pouring freely from the wound she had inflicted on his head.
The room was silent but for the sound of heavy breathing. Silverton pushed Jacob's body from him and slowly sat upright, coughing as he gingerly rubbed his throat. Meredith stood frozen, the candlestick dangling from her hand. From what seemed a very great distance, she noticed a few strands of bloody hair stuck to the brass.
“Is he dead?” she asked in a strangled whisper.
Silverton put his hand to Jacob's throat to feel for a pulse. After a moment, he shook his head. He looked up at her, and the edges of his mouth began to lift in a ragged smile.
“Thank you, my love,” he murmured in a raspy voice. “Your cousin is a very large man.”
The sound of his voice released her from her paralysis. She gave a small cry, dropped the candlestick, and threw herself onto the floor and into his arms. Meredith sobbed against his chest as he rocked and soothed her, just as she had done for Annabel only a short time ago.
At the thought of her sister, she jerked up, alarm tightening every muscle in her body.
“Annabel!” she gasped. “We must find her.”
Silverton grimaced as he helped her to her feet. “Robert and Peter have already gone to look. Show me where they were holding her.”
She was momentarily distracted by the pale and drawn set of his face. “You're hurt!” she exclaimed. “What did he do to you?”
Silverton winced as he touched his shoulder. “Nothing but a little bruising, my love. Don't concern yourself.”
He put his arm around her to lead her from the room when Trask and two other men strode through the door. Meredith vaguely recognized the strangers as two of Silverton's grooms.
“Well?” asked Silverton.
The earl smiled grimly as he wiped blood from an ugly looking cut on his cheek. “Isaac Burnley and his companions are trussed up in one of the rooms off the stables. Simmons is standing guard with a pistol. Not that Burnley is in any condition to notice such details.”
Meredith expelled a shaky breath of relief at the news of her uncle's capture.
“What about him?” The earl jerked his head at Jacob's motionless form on the floor.
“Meredith brained him with a candlestick.”
Trask laughed. “I'm glad to hear it.” He motioned to the grooms, who picked up Jacob and lugged him from the room.
“Miss Burnley.” The earl made her a small bow. “I am greatly relieved to see you in one piece.”
“So am I,” she replied fervently, “but we must go to Annabel.”
There was a quick, light step out in the hall. “Meredith!”
A moment later and Annabel was in her embrace. Robert walked in right behind her and went to stand by Silverton and Trask. Meredith wrapped her arms around her sister, vowing irrationally to herself that she would never let the girl out of her sight again.
After a moment, Annabel sniffed loudly and very inelegantly, and lifted her head to smile mistily at Meredith. “I told you Silverton and Robert would find us, didn't I?”
Meredith looked over her sister's head at the three men standing by the door, each one of them blinking rapidly, as if their eyes bothered them. Silverton surreptitiously rubbed his cheek.
Something effervescent started to bubble up within her, almost like champagne, but so much more wonderful that Meredith couldn't even put a name to it. A laugh began to prickle in her throat as she studied the battered, dirt-covered man who had risked his very life to save her. Silverton gazed back at her with such longing that her laughter was silenced with a joy so enormous it almost terrified her. All at once her spirit broke free, shattering the chains of doubt and fear that had gripped her soul for so many long, lonely years.
Meredith hugged Annabel tightly in her arms. “Yes, my love,” she replied, almost to herself. “Yes, you did tell me he would find us. And he did!”
Epilogue
She felt smothered. The darkness overwhelmed her, and the only sound she heard was the rapid beating of her own heart. Meredith whimpered, shrinking from the terror hovering at the edge of her consciousness.
She sensed movement even before the small sound from her lips faded away. Something big wrapped itself around her, cocooning her in a warmth that drove away the lingering remnants of fear. She relaxed, free to float up out of the darkness, swimming toward a gentle light glimmering just out of reach.
Meredith woke up. She blinked her eyes in the soft morning light beginning to illuminate her bedroom at Swallow Hill. A heavy weight pressed along the length of her body, enveloping her in a reassuring embrace. As she came fully awake, she realized the comforting heat came from a large male body sprawled on top of her. A golden head rested on her breast, a strong arm was thrown across her hips, and a long leg pinned her lower limbs to the mattress.
Meredith's heart constricted and then expanded with the startling joy of waking up in her own bed with Silverton on top of her. She lay quietly for a few moments, sifting through the glorious but unsettling emotions that rushed to greet her with the new dawn and her new life.
Moving cautiously so as not to rouse him, Meredith raised her left wrist into an errant sunbeam, catching the morning light on her emerald and opal bracelet. She had refused to take it and her wedding giftâa matching necklaceâoff last night. Silverton, however, had not seemed to mind that she had wanted to wear her jewelry to bed. In fact, he had been quite taken with the idea of his new bride clothed in nothing more than precious stones and metals. Meredith still couldn't help blushing whenever she thought of his enthusiastic response to her lack of attire.
She idly twisted her wrist, watching the light sparkle on the jewels and on the single, perfect emerald set in the gold band on her left hand. As much as she loved her wedding ring and her necklace, no piece of jewelry would ever mean so much to her as the bracelet. It had served as a precious link to Silverton during her and Annabel's hideous ordeal.
On that terrible night two weeks ago, Silverton had been eager to remove the sisters from the scene of their captivity. Both Meredith and Annabel were exhausted, and no one had relished the thought of the long trip back to London. After a hurried consultation with Robert and Trask, Silverton had decided they should drive to Swallow Hill, which could be reached in less than two hours. Meredith had insisted that two footmen ride ahead to warn the servants and to ensure that Nora Burnley had departed the estate before they arrived.
Meredith and Annabel emerged from the dank asylum into the clean air of a cloudless and star-filled night. The storm that had threatened earlier in the day had dissipated before a bracing wind that swept everything before it. Torches flickered in the courtyard as the grooms hurried to prepare the traveling coach for their departure.
Meredith started to climb into the carriage when she remembered that she had not yet reclaimed her bracelet. Coming to a sudden halt, she pleaded with Silverton to fetch it for her immediately. He was impatient to be gone, however, and would only promise to send one of the footmen to retrieve it. Meredith stubbornly refused to take another step. Silverton finally spun on his heel and, muttering to himself, stalked over to the barn where Jacob and Isaac were being held.
He returned to her shortly thereafter, his face set and grim. When Meredith asked him what had transpired, he simply shook his head and handed her the bracelet. She threw her arms around his neck and planted a grateful kiss on his cheek. Silverton had allowed a tiny smile to touch his lips as he returned her embrace, apparently satisfied with the reward for fulfilling his lady's request.
Now Meredith lay quietly in her bed, gazing at the bracelet and trying not to think too hard about the cousin and uncle who had betrayed her. Try as she might, though, she was unable to repress a small, bitter sigh. Silverton moved his head against her breast as his arm tightened around her hips. She wriggled under his weight.
“My lord, you are squashing me,” she whispered, not sure if he was awake.
She felt a moist puff of warm air against her nipple as he blew out a small but exasperated breath.
“Meredith, when are you going to stop calling me my lord?”
“When you stop squashing me.”
He rolled over and onto his back, winding one arm around her waist and pulling her to his side. She snuggled against him, resting her head on his shoulder as she stroked the smooth muscles of his broad chest.
Meredith had never felt so cherished or so safe. But she still couldn't seem to let go the dark memory of Jacob and the searing hatred he had revealed to her.
“Why does it still trouble you, my love?”
She tilted her head up to look at her husband, startled as always by his uncanny ability to read her thoughts. His cobalt eyes were gentle, and she couldn't help reaching up to stroke his firm jaw, rough with early morning bristle. He caught her hand and pressed it to his lips.
She sighed again as she snuggled closer to his warmth. “I know it's foolish, but I can't help thinking about it.”
Silverton settled her more comfortably into the crook of his arm. “You're safe now, sweetheart.” He tilted her chin up and dropped a soft kiss onto her lips. “I promise. They can never hurt you again.”
Trask and his servants had swiftly bundled Jacob and Isaac on board one of the earl's merchant ships bound for New South Wales. Silverton had believed the sooner they left the country, the better. Surprisingly, only Annabel had protested the plan, outraged that her uncle and cousin would escape the full wrath of the law. But Robert had eventually convinced his fiancée that penniless exile was far preferable to the scandal of a public trial, particularly for the sake of General and Lady Stanton. Annabel grudgingly agreed, and the Burnleys had shipped out from Bristol under close guard, never to be seen again.
“You don't think they'll ever try to come back, do you?” Meredith hated to even ask that question, but the idea had haunted her dreams for the last two weeks.
“If they do, they're dead men,” her husband responded in a casual voice that she found rather chilling.
He said nothing more, and Meredith assumed his reticence signaled the end of the discussion about her criminally inclined relatives. She let the matter drop. After all, it was her first morning as a married woman, and she really should make an effort to find a more cheerful topic of conversation. Meredith tried to absorb once more the idea that she was the new Marchioness of Silverton and that the man lying next to her would be there every morning for the rest of her life.
“Sometimes I think I don't deserve to be this happy.” The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them.
Silverton turned on his side to look at her, his lips parting slightly as if in disbelief. Meredith could think of nothing to say that would justify her remark, so she smiled apologetically instead. He groaned and dropped his head back on the pillow, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling. She had a sneaking suspicion he sought patience from the heavens.
“Well, it's true,” she defended herself. “It just seems to be the way I think.”
He moved swiftly, rolling her onto her back and coming down heavily on top of her. “Meredith, I told you once beforeâyou are the best person I've ever known. You deserve everything I can give you, and more. What will it take to convince you?”
She studied his narrowed eyes, pretending to seriously ponder the question.
“Well . . . I suppose you'll simply have to show me.” Meredith wrapped her arms around his neck. “Preferably when we're alone.” She nuzzled his mouth with her lips. “Like we are now.”
A passionate heat flared in his eyes, and for the next little while she knew nothing but the feel of his mouth and hands roaming over her body. In less time than she could have imagined, he brought her panting to ecstatic completion, any tiny doubts still lingering in her heart obliterated in the dazzling fire that blazed between them.
When they again rested in each other's arms, rather more breathless than they had been before, Meredith suddenly remembered a question she had meant to ask him yesterday.
“Stephen?”
“Hmmm?”
“How did you manage to convince your mother to behave so beautifully at our wedding?”
She felt rather than heard the low rumble of laughter in his chest. “Oh, her impeccable behavior might have something to do with the new townhouse I promised to build her in London.”
Meredith gave a small snort. “I should have known it had nothing to do with me.”
“Don't despair, my love. You have, after all, achieved a great victory in bringing the general so thoroughly around to your side. I only wish you could have heard the thundering lecture he gave my mother when she tried to complain to him about our marriage.”
Meredith still found herself amazed by the general's impassioned defense. He
had
softened to her considerably after Lady Stanton's illness, but now he seemed to regard her in much the same light as he did Annabel. He had been greatly affected by the kidnapping and had been almost pathetically grateful to Silverton for rescuing his granddaughter and Meredith.
“He wants me to give him one of my paintings. I must say, I can't imagine that any one of them won't shock him. He has such conservative tastes.”
Silverton propped himself up on his elbow, a teasing smile playing around the corners of his lips. “I know exactly which painting to give to him.”
She stared back, puzzled by his reaction.
“You know,” he prompted. She could hear the mischief in his voice. “Robert suggested it to him several weeks ago when Aunt Georgina was recuperating from her illness. Don't you remember? Your painting of the Minotaur in the mazeâthe one that Robert said looks just like the general.”
Meredith's eyes widened in shock, and then she burst into laughter.
His smile stretched into a grin, and then he was laughing, too. He swooped down and pulled her into his arms. Meredith's laughter continued to build inside her, fed by the sheer joy of the perfect, timeless moment.
The sound of their joy drifted across the room and out through the open window. Meredith heard a swallow's trill exuberantly echo their laughter as the small bird wheeled up from the lavender-scented garden to greet the dawning of the bright August morn.
Summer, she decided as Silverton's mouth covered hers, was surely the happiest season of them all.