A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides (42 page)

She reached down into her coat and found the heavy weight of her father’s gun and dragged her arm out straight before her. And slowly and deliberately cocked the hammer back.

At the end of the long telescope of her vision she could see nothing but Aldridge’s face as he swung toward the sound. She recognized nothing but the look of fresh astonishment and abject fear as he reeled back—pinned like a battering butterfly at the pointed end of her aim.

She could hear nothing but the echoing sound of Will’s voice, low and calm and desperate. “Preston, don’t. Don’t do it. He’s not worth it.”

“I know.” Her own voice came from someplace deep, deep inside her head. “But I am.”

And she looked at Aldridge, closed one eye, and squeezed back the trigger.

Chapter Twenty-four

She could see and smell nothing but the deadly sulfuric belch of black powder.

But she knew that twenty feet away, she had very deliberately blown the head of Lord Aldridge’s priceless porcelain Chinese Mandarin figurine to smithereens, shattering it in a burst of flying shards and a plume of dusty plaster raining across the carpet.

Antigone lowered her arm to see Aldridge ashen and agape with abject terror. The immaculate pleats of his fawn trousers stained dark with the damp of his own piss.

She threw the spent gun at his feet, and had the added pleasure of seeing him jump and flinch away as the heavy metal barked against his shins. “I am giving you what you tried to take from me. I am giving you what you never gave those children you defiled. I am giving you another chance to make another choice. But if I ever,
ever
hear of you abusing another child, or exploiting another penniless boy—and I will be watching and listening—I will hunt you down like the despicable piece of vermin you are, and blow you to a thousand indifferent pieces.”

And having said everything she had meant to say, Antigone turned her back on the man who had caused her so much trouble and grief, to find the only other man who mattered in her life watching her with those deep blue, fathomless eyes.

She had no idea what to expect. She had no idea if Aldridge’s obscene lie had already come between them and would remain there, wedged hard into the widening crack in her bruised and battered heart.

But Will smiled. A smile that moved around on his lips from one side to another with no place to land, because he was shaking his head. And then he said aloud the words she didn’t know she had been waiting to hear.

“How delightfully bloodthirsty you are. Bravo, Preston. Bravo.”

“No.” It was a snarl of grief and rage. Aldridge who would not admit that he was beaten. Who would not do the sensible thing and just take the money and let her go. Who would not relent.

Because behind her back, Antigone heard the distinctive metallic grind of a hammer being cocked back.

In front of her, Will’s face changed. And cleared. And sharpened down to a stinging blade of lethally honed intent. All at the same time. All as he reached out to gather her into his body, and pull her so tight against his chest that she could not see, much less breathe. As he turned. And raised his arm. And fired without so much as blinking an eye.

A roaring blast followed—the thundering report of three pistols being fired at once.

In its wake, the concussion left her deafened until all that remained was smoke and ringing silence. But she was still there, alive, held so tightly against Will’s warm wool sea coat, she could feel his heart pounding like an anvil through the rough layers of wool cloth. So tightly she could barely breathe.

She put her hands against his chest to turn and see.

“No.” He tightened his hold. “Don’t look.”

“But I must.”

He shook his head, and held her firm against his chest, his chin pressing down on the top of her head, as if he could make a protective cave of his body. “Please. You have no idea. There are things you can never unsee. Things that stay with you. Forever.”

“Really, Will. It’s all right. I’m not squeamish, you know. And I think I need to know that he’s gone. That he got what he deserved. If not for me, then for that boy last night. For all those nameless and faceless children who don’t have guns and bloodthirsty natures, and friends.”

She felt a sigh boil through Will’s chest. But still he would not let go. “Please. Don’t you think that perhaps you could take my word for it? Don’t you think you could let me save you just this once?”

That was when she began to cry. The tears she had shut behind the creaking gates of her determination and endurance and resolve began to course down her cheeks. “Is that what you came to do, save me?”

“Of course, but you had, again, already saved yourself. Your competence is astounding. As is your aim.”

“Oh, that.” She shook her head and sniffed, and wished she had a handkerchief in her pockets instead of a gun. But now that the tears had started, she couldn’t seem to get them to stop. She pressed her face into his coat to sop up the stupid tears. “I told you I knew how to use it. But I couldn’t bring myself to shoot him. I was only playing bluff.”

But Will Jellicoe did not see her failure as weakness. He rubbed her back, and held her even tighter. “You managed magnificently.”

“So did you. Thank you.” The words were entirely inadequate, but she had to say them.

“You appalling girl. You don’t have to do
everything
by yourself. How could you think that I would let you face him alone? No, don’t answer that. Obviously you did. Damn your pretty eyes, but you do have the most unfortunate penchant for direct confrontation. But you should have known that I’m not the sort of man who ever deserts a confederate. Ever.”

She
had
thought that she must face Aldridge alone. She had thought that fate was not done being unkind to her. She had thought she would never see Will again. But here he was, holding her as if he would never let her go, and trying to amuse her out of her terror. He had come back for her, and stood by her, and been her truest friend.

But she wanted him to be more than a friend. She wanted him to be her lover and her husband. She wanted him to be hers alone, for all time.

And she was no longer afraid to say it. “I
should
have known. I
should
have asked. So I will now. Will you have me anyway? Please? I don’t care how or where, just…”

He finally loosed his hold enough to pull back to look at her face. “Are you proposing to me?”

“Yes. Yes, I know it’s not done, and I know it’s heedless and reckless and altogether hoydenish, but I’m not going to let that stop me, even though I have nothing. No money. Nor any relations worth having except my sister. I have nothing with which to recommend me but myself and my love for you.”

There was that smile again, hobnobbing its way across his face until it finally settled into its rightful place on his lips. “Preston, you appalling girl. You’re more than enough.”

Epilogue

They were married in the garrison church of St. Ann’s near Portsmouth harbor, on a fittingly sopping wet day on which the rains poured from the heavens and the sun hid its smiling face behind the heavy clouds. But Antigone saw nothing but goodness and right in the day. To her the rain could only be the blessing of nature upon their union.

Her sister was there by her side, standing up with her at the altar in support, as Antigone and Will Jellicoe pledged their troth and proclaimed their love for one another.

Her captain looked as tall and handsome and steadfast as ever in his blue uniform coat with the shining gold braid. But no shine could match that in his eyes as he made her his wife, and him her husband.

“Are you ready, Mrs. Jellicoe?” Will asked her after the rector had blessed their union, and Will was leading her from the church.

“For what?”

“For the rest of our lives. Now that we’re married, I can show you how to really misbehave.”

And he did.

And she enjoyed every last impetuous, rash minute of it.

Read on for an excerpt from the next book by

E
LIZABETH
E
SSEX

Scandal in the Night

Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

Wimbourne Chase, Hampshire
Early summer, 1830

“My God, Thomas! Is that you?”

Thomas Jellicoe squinted his eyes against the dazzlingly clear sunshine of the English summer day and hoped the man charging across the lawn of the walled courtyard was his older brother, James, Viscount Jeffrey, the owner of this ancient estate. The years had wrought so many changes, Thomas couldn’t be sure.

Nothing was familiar. Not the verdant, overgrown English countryside. Not the large, ancient, English manor house beyond the lodge gate. Not the tight, constricting English clothes he wore. Not even the language he was trying to force out of his mouth.

“James.” His voice sounded rough and frayed, tattered around the edges, and he knew he must appear as disreputable and worn as he felt. What if his brother, his own flesh and blood, didn’t recognize him? It had been so long he’d forgotten himself.

He could only stand on the locked side of the gate and hope that despite his rough demeanor, his brother would recognize enough to gain him admission.

“My God.” His brother, James Jellicoe, Viscount Jeffrey, peered hard through the barred barrier of the gate, before his face finally lightened in recognition. “Thomas. It is you. It’s been too long.” His brother’s voice was thick with emotion, and in another moment, the gates were unlocked and flung open, and Thomas found himself enveloped in a crushing, bruisingly heartfelt embrace. “You ought to have sent word you were coming. You ought—But no matter. Everyone is here.” James clapped him on the shoulder and then drew back to survey him head to toe. “Look at you. God, but it’s good to have you back. Welcome home, Thomas. Welcome home.”

Was it home? Thomas found his presence of mind, along with his name and his voice, had deserted him.

It ought to be good to be back in England. It
had
been too long. In Calcutta, the monsoon season would have started, bringing endless curtains of lukewarm, swampy rain and steaming brown mud. In Hampshire, the sun was shining in the glittering, cool air and every color was shocking in its sharp, crystalline brilliance. The English trees were a thousand different shades of deep, leafy green, and the sky shone a diamond-bright blue.

How could it be home when everything was so foreign and new?

“Good Lord.” James gestured to the crumpled saddlebag the gate porter passed to one of his footmen, as Thomas’s hired mount was led away toward the stable block. “Is that all your baggage? After all these years, you return with less than you took? I expected chests of rubies at the very least!”

“The rubies are to follow.” Thomas tried to answer with something approximating his usual wry humor. “I rode. From Liverpool. I was on my way to Downpark, but I stopped at an inn at Sixpenny Handley and heard your name mentioned.”

“Not in vain, I hope?” James joked. “Liverpool? What on earth were you doing there? I thought you were meant to be in India all these years? Never mind—what matters is you’re here, at last. Come in, come in.”

“Thank you.” Thomas was touched to notice James kept a loose hold of his arm as he pulled Thomas across the lawn of the forecourt, as though, after so long an absence, his brother wasn’t prepared to let go. As if he wanted to make sure Thomas didn’t disappear for another fifteen-odd years before he made it into the safe confines of the house.

“We’ll go straight out.” But instead of ushering him into the house, James was leading him through an arched passageway in the wall that led to the open park beyond. “The whole family is out on the west lawn—all of them but William and his wife—so it’s a good thing you didn’t go home to Downpark, for they’re all here, Father and Mother, and the others. We’re having a bit of a garden party—strawberries and cream with the children. You’ve come just in time for Annabel’s christening.”

Thomas slowed before the archway. “Annabel?”

“My youngest, born while you were in transit, no doubt.” James smiled patiently. “There are rather a lot of them, my children. But you’ll know everyone else here.”

A large group of people were gathering on the lawn beyond. Strangers still from this distance. Thomas put his hand against the warm brick of the wall, to steady himself and gain another small moment of preparation after so long. “But my dirt. From the road.”

“No matter.” James pulled him along anyway. “They’ll be ecstatic to see you, though we’ll have to make sure Mama is sitting down. It has been a long time. Fifteen years.”

“Yes,” Thomas echoed, still not fathoming the passage of so much time. “I suppose it has.”

It hadn’t felt like fifteen years until he’d set foot back in England two days ago, to find everything so changed and unfamiliar.

“God, you were a twig when you left, and look at you now. You’re taller than I. Come.” James smiled and threw an arm around his shoulders to steer him across the parterre, toward the group of people assembled below on the lawn. His family.