So Worthy My Love (6 page)

Elise saw the tears well up in the silver-gray eyes. The agony was visible in the wan smile, but there was no ease for it, nothing either of them could do.

“I must have some time alone,” Arabella whispered in sudden desperation. “Delay the wedding party until I send a servant to beckon them.”

“Your father asked me to attend you,” Elise murmured softly. “What would you have me say to him?”

Arabella looked into the worried countenance of her cousin and hastened to reassure her. “Beg him to let me have a few moments alone so I can better prepare myself for Rebind. Only a little time . . . just until I have calmed myself. Then you may return and assist me.”

“Reland has a fair look about him.” Elise offered the comment with the hope that she could bolster her cousin's spirits. “You'll no doubt be the envy of many a maid.”

Arabella responded distantly, “Not as handsome as some I've known.”

A small, fleeting frown chased across Elise's brow. “Do you yearn after a dead man, Arabella?”

The gray eyes stared back in mild curiosity. “A dead man? Whomever do you mean, Elise?”

“The Marquess of Bradbury, of course,” the girl stated. “Does he still trouble you?”

“Oh, truly there was a man to stir a maiden's heart.” Arabella touched a hanging drapery absently and caressed the velvet as if in fond recall. “Quite dashing and handsome. Always a gentleman, always . . .” She snatched herself from her reverie. “But enough of this! I must be alone.” Laying her hands upon her cousin's shoulders, she turned Elise about to face the door and, at her uncertain resistance, avowed, “I only seek some time to myself before my husband comes. ‘Tis all I ask.”

“I shall inform your father,” Elise acquiesced and reluctantly made her departure. As she closed the door gently behind her, she wondered how she might approach Edward without first defeating her purpose. If she could somehow catch his eye without drawing the notice of the other men and then speak with him in private, he might prove more tractable, but if an audience of boisterous merrymakers were gathered around him, his pride would have to be dealt with more subtly.

The stairs were of stone and turned sharply with each short flight around an ornately carved newel. Her passage set the candle flames wavering in the wall sconces, and a multiplicity of shadows leapt and danced ahead of her until she was fairly dizzy
with the shifting light and her ever-turning progress. Though she hurried, she concentrated carefully on the stairs lest her silken slippers miss a step and bring about a faster but infinitely more painful descent.

From below the music of tambourines, celtic harps, and lutes blended with the louder, uproarious laughter and crude, boisterous shouts of the guests, mantling the ascending approach of another on the stairs until it was too late. The man's haste was more agile than her own, and at the very last moment they both glanced up and tried to swerve, only to step in the same direction and collide. Careening off the solid, unyielding chest, Elise staggered precariously on the edge of a step. A small cry escaped her as she seemed destined to plunge headfirst down the stairs, then an arm as hard as an oaken limb came around her. For a scant moment Elise leaned in relief against the stalwart body, then long fingers encircled her slender waist, and she was lifted to a safe stance upon a higher step. She opened eyes she had not been aware she had closed and, in sudden realization, flung them wide as she recognized the rough tunic of the servant, Taylor. The hood had slipped from his head, and what she viewed was not the
sort of face she had expected to see beneath the cowl. This was not some scarred and hideous beast she stared at, but a strikingly handsome man with pale-streaked tawny hair and aristocratic features half-masked by a shaggy beard.

A slight frown of concern marred the man's brow as he questioned in the same heavy tones, “Be ye well, mistress?”

Elise nodded hesitantly as she tried to sort through a moment of confusion, and then his hands left her waist and he was moving further up the stairs. Her head cleared with a snap. “Here! What are you about? What business have you in the upper chambers?”

The man halted on a step and pivoted about with deliberate slowness, allowing the shifting light of a nearby torch to illumine his features. The green eyes seemed to bore through her, and the gaze was so bold and froward that for a brief moment Elise held her breath, frozen by those steely orbs.

“You!” she stammered, struggling against that aching, mesmerizing stare as she realized she had been duped into thinking this man was a servant. The bearded visage was etched with sterling clarity upon her consciousness, dragging forth a remembrance of a cast-off portrait in the east wing. She now knew the artist had been most adept at his trade, for Maxim Seymour, the Marquess of Bradbury, was a most magnificent man, and he was here, standing before her as a flesh and blood man. “You're . . . you're alive!”

A scowl darkened his brow for a scant second, then his mood changed with the purposefulness of a strong will. Startlingly white teeth flashed suddenly in a grin, and when he spoke, the guttural jargon was gone. In its stead was the neat, precise speech of a well-tutored gentleman.

“You have forced my hand ere I desired to reveal it, fair maid. ‘Twould seem I must be well about my business or well upon my way before you raise a hue and cry.”

The Marquess cast a rueful glance upward toward the top of the stairs and sighed as if disappointed in the choice he was having to make. Turning, he moved toward her and caught her arm as he stepped past her, dragging her along in a rapid descent that left her breathless.

“I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to roam free until the proper moment is met,” he apologized. “Once the news is out, you will be at liberty to go your way . . . And was that not downward?”

“Stop! Please!” Elise gasped, trying to keep her footing in her haste. “I cannot . . .”

Lord Seymour halted and, sweeping an arm behind her shoulders and another beneath her knees, lifted her against his chest and bore her swiftly downward as if she were but an airy froth of silks and laces. Leaving the stairs, he made his entrance into the crowded hall which had, since her departure, grown strangely subdued and was awash in deep lethargy. The servants had returned to the kitchen, awaiting the moment when the wedding party would venture to the bridal chamber, but in the main hall the guests seemed to loll in a languid, soporific stupor as if awaiting the onset of some great event. Some were vaguely aware of the proceedings, while others appeared distantly amused by the antics of this roughly dressed man.

Maxim strode to the nearest table and seated Elise unceremoniously in a large, high-backed chair that stood beside it. Bending close, he held a thin finger in front of her slender nose, and his green eyes seized hers in an unrelenting vise. “I adjure you, madam, be still. You may well be amazed by what you hear.”

He whirled and, gripping the end of a long cloth that covered the bare boards of a trestle table, swept it and all its contents onto the floor where it landed with an horrendous crash.

“Ho! Good guests of Bradbury Hall,” he shouted. “Now that you have supped well and sipped even better, your must needs be entertained.”

The guests faced about with stupefied slowness and stared blankly, giving no hint of recognition as their eyes came to rest on this ill-garbed stranger. The hall grew silent as they appraised this new development, but their sluggish minds could not clearly grasp what was happening or even cope with the reality of it.

“ ‘Tis him!” an agitated fellow from nearby finally managed to choke out. “ ‘Tis him! Back from hell he's come!”

Confusion deepened, and a wave of halfhearted inquiries drifted through the hall. “What's that ye say? Who do ye mean?”

The one who first spoke threw up his arms in disbelief and began to chide the strangely apathetic guests. “Who, do ye ask? Great sainted mother, do ye not know this blackguard? Why, ‘tis the Marquess o' Bradbury himself!”

“Lor' Se'mour?” a man slurred thickly, and slowly grinned before he slumped forward, plunging his face into a trencher of food. Startled gasps came from others who gave their full and undivided attention to the Marquess. His mildly amused smile did not waver as his gaze wandered leisurely about the room, searching for the face that belonged to his chief accuser.

“Nay! Nay! It c'naugh be!” a muddled voice argued. “The Marquess is dead! He was killed!”

A soft chuckle flowed across the room, sending shivers down Elise's spine. From the sound she could well believe that Maxim Seymour had grown horns to complete his satanic demeanor.

“So! You thought me dead, eh?” Maxim seized a sword from the wall and leapt to the top of the trestle table. “Sweet darlings and gentle men, if you think me dead, then press your breasts upon my blade and trust no ghostling lord to bring you harm. Come feel my point,” he urged, then chuckled in derision when no one stepped forward to test it. His bold, accusing glare swept the room and no few felt the crawling prickle upon their napes as the full weight of his gaze fell on them. “I have not left you as some would have it . . . at least not in
that
fashion. ‘Tis perhaps true enough that I passed beyond recall.” He lifted his broad shoulders in a brief, careless shrug and leisurely paced the length of the wooden plank. “And ‘tis true I was sorely wounded by those laggards on the bridge who tried to halt my escape, but I fell into the stream and ‘twas my fate to pass . . . as though swept by angels . . . into the hands of friends
who saved me from the murky depths. So see and hear me, gentle folk! And spread the word that Maxim Taylor Seymour has come to serve vengeance on that thief who purloined his properties with a lie and gave his betrothed to another. I'm here to claim what is mine and to see justice served! Do you hear me, Edward Stamford?”

Maxim leapt across to another table and strode its length, scattering trenchers of food and tankards
of ale and wine to the floor with a soft, hide boot. The stupefied guests shrank back in bewildered fright, and some stumbled and fell in their panic. Others stared about them in a daze, unable to shake the mind-confusing trance which had come upon them. Too listless and befuddled to flee, they slowly slithered into their seats or retreated further to the floor.

“Seize him! Don't let him escape!” Edward shouted from the doorway. He had left some moments ago to relieve himself and had returned to find his guests fleeing a man he had thought himself rid of. He fervently sought an end to him now. “Cut him down, do ye hear! Run him through! He's a murderer! A traitor ta the crown! The Queen will reward ye for his death!” With a wave of his hand the squire indicated those who had fallen, and stirred fear as he continued. “I ask ye now! Were these simple souls addled by heady brews . . .” He glared about him as if demanding an answer. “Or be this the work o' a hideous fiend? Has he poisoned us all?”

Terrified gasps and wailing sobs attested to willingness of the guests to believe his statement. Elise searched her mind as she tried to recall just what the Marquess had been doing at the wine cask before she interrupted him. She formed a mental image of the two flagons he had served wine from, and she stared at him in growing dread, half-afraid her uncle was right.

Several men staggered forward to seek revenge for this horrible deed which had been done to them, but Maxim Seymour rested his hands on the hilt of
his sword and chuckled as he calmly awaited their stumbling advance. He seemed quite self-assured as he slowly shook his head and chided them, “Carefully consider, gentle men. ‘Tis true you are much besotted with the potion I added to your cups, but ‘tis not hemlock your tongues have tasted and no Socrates's doom you'll see. The most harm the brew will do is aid you in a long night's sleep, but if you test your skill against my blade, you may not fare as well. I ask you now, would you waste your life at the call of this Judas?”

“Take him!” Edward Stamford railed in mounting apprehension. “Ye mustn't let him escape!”

One of the guests plunged forward, and swords clashed as Maxim met and quickly parried the thrust. Three others rushed in to pit their skill against the Marquess, only to stumble away in defeat. The ease with which he parried the attacks dissuaded many from carrying out the bidding of their host. After all, they had come to Bradbury Hall to feast and frolic, not to do battle with a skilled swordsman.

“Haven't you brought enough sorrow to this household?” Elise cried, jumping to her feet. She was incensed that this man could hold the entire hall at bay while he worked his mischief. “Must you mar Arabella's wedding night with more pain and grief?”

The green eyes took on a steely hardness as they settled upon her. “This was my home, and this might have been my wedding night if not for the tales of this palterer. What think you that I should do, maid? Leave it to the likes of Edward Stamford
without a fight?” His sardonic chuckle belied the possibility. “Watch me and see if I will!”

Edward's rising panic made him desperate. “Are there none brave enough ta take him?” he screamed. “He's a traitor! He deserves ta die!”

The bridegroom, Reland, had toasted more liberally than many of the others and was sluggish and slow as he braced his broad hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet. Immediately the guests scattered, clearing a path between the two men, for here indeed was a match worthy of the Marquess.

“Arabella is mine!” Reland thundered in a low roar, and tried to focus his blurring vision on the other. He shook his head to clear it from the thickening cobwebs and slammed a fist down upon the table. “I'll kill any man who tries to take her from me!”

Edward quickly motioned for a guest to fetch Huxford's sword and, receiving it himself, delivered the weapon to his new son-in-law. “Catch him unawares if ye can,” the elder advised. “The Marquess is a shrewd one, he is.”