A Stolen Heart (37 page)

As the words spewed out of her, Willa let go of Rhea’s hair, and the hand that held the knife trembled, falling a little from Willa’s throat. Her gaze was fastened on Alexandra, and she did not notice Rhea’s hand slide ever so slowly up. But Alexandra saw, and her stomach tightened.

To keep Willa’s attention focused on her, she said quickly, “Then it was Richard who was the bad person, not you. It was Richard who took the Countess’s grandchildren away from her. She will understand. She’ll see that—”

Willa laughed, hysteria creeping in around the edges. “Understand? No one could understand that—or forgive it! Do you think I’m a fool?”

“No, of course not.” Alexandra nervously eyed the knife that trembled in Willa’s hand. “Normally perhaps one could not forgive that. But given the circumstances—I mean, the Countess will be so happy to know that I am really her granddaughter that she will be in a forgiving mood. Don’t you see? And the other two children, John and Marie Anne—if you could tell her where they are, what happened to them…”

“That will get me no favors from her,” Willa snapped, and Alexandra’s heart sank. Did this mean that her sister and brother were dead?

“Why? What happened to them?” Alexandra asked, paling. “Where are they?”

“Why should I tell you?” Willa demanded scornfully, unconsciously swinging her arm forward.

Suddenly, moving faster than Alexandra would have thought possible, Rhea grabbed the other woman’s wrist. Willa let out a shriek of outrage, jerking her hand. But the movement had given Alexandra enough time to race around the bed and throw herself at Willa just as Willa lashed out with her knife at Rhea. She aimed for her throat, but Alexandra knocked her arm aside, and the knife slashed down across Rhea’s arm, laying open a long, red cut.

Alexandra’s rush carried Willa backward, but she did not fall. She was preternaturally strong in her madness, and she fought back. They careened around the room, Alexandra holding Willa’s knife arm up and back while Willa scratched and kicked and beat at her, trying to loosen her hold. They crashed into the wall and slid along it to the highboy, sending a porcelain dish of pins crashing to the floor, followed a moment later by a small box. As they fought, Rhea climbed out of bed, clasping the sheet to her upper arm. Blood poured forth, staining it red. She staggered toward the door, screaming for help.

Willa turned as she and Alexandra shuffled in a deadly dance, then shoved with all her might, throwing Alexandra against the wardrobe. Alexandra’s head smacked against the tall cabinet, and she loosened her grip on Willa’s arm enough that Willa was able to jerk it down. Willa shoved her arm forward, aiming for Alexandra’s stomach. Alexandra twisted and pulled away, and the knife sliced harmlessly through her dress and chemise. She turned, grabbing Willa’s arm again with both her hands, and they grappled.

The door to the room was flung open, and Aunt Hortense let out a cry of horror. An instant later, she was unceremoniously shoved aside as Sebastian barreled into the room.

Willa, seeing the reinforcements arrive, let out a high animal scream of rage and pushed against Alexandra with all her might. Alexandra staggered backward, her hands still clenched around Willa’s arm, and stumbled over a footstool. They went crashing to the floor, Willa landing on top of Alexandra.

Thorpe rushed forward, grabbed Willa by the shoulders and pulled her off Alexandra. All he saw at first was the blood staining the front of Alexandra’s dress, and he went pale.

“Alexandra!” He let go of Willa to go down on his knees beside Alexandra, and when he did so, Willa crumpled to the floor. It was then that he realized the knife was deep in Willa’s chest, not Alexandra’s.

He gathered Alexandra in his arms, and she clung to him, crying. She pulled away suddenly. “Willa!”

“Don’t worry. She is beyond hurting you any more.”

“No! It’s not that!” Alexandra scrabbled across the floor to where Willa lay.

The knife was sunk into Willa’s chest, but she was still alive, her eyes open. Blood had soaked the front of her dress. Her breathing was labored, and there was an odd gurgling noise in her throat.

“Tell me what happened to them!” Alexandra begged, bending over her. “Please…tell me what happened to my brother and sister!”

She heard Sebastian’s astonished exclamation behind her, but she ignored him, leaning closer to Willa to catch her words.

Willa looked at her with hatred. “Why should I? You’ve ruined me.”

“For your soul,” Alexandra pleaded. “Do you want to go to your Maker with that on your soul, too? Tell me what happened to them. What did Richard do with them?”

“Boy had fever.” Willa choked the words out, bloody bubbles seeping out of her mouth. “Died. Girl…orphanage…no name.”

She began to cough, and blood poured out of her mouth. Then the light of hatred dimmed in her eyes and went out. She was dead.

Alexandra stared at her. A wordless moan of grief issued from her mouth.

“Alexandra, my darling.” Sebastian pulled her into his arms and stood, taking her with him. Alexandra rested her head upon his chest and sobbed.

Finally she calmed down and raised her head. “Mother!” She pulled away and looked around the room. Her mother was seated in a chair, Aunt Hortense kneeling beside her, wrapping a strip of sheet firmly around her arm.

“Mother, are you all right?” Alexandra hurried across the room to Rhea.

Rhea smiled at her. “Yes, darling. I’m fine. Aunt Hortense is bandaging me. It was just a cut.”

“Alexandra,” Sebastian said, his voice taut with frustration. “What is going on here?
Willa
is the person who has been behind all these attacks?”

“Yes—or at least the hired ones. I don’t think she could have been responsible for that man who attacked me when I walked home from the ball—Oh!” Alexandra’s eyes widened. “That must have been the Earl! He had just met me that night, and he must have realized who I was.”

“The Earl?” Sebastian exclaimed. “You mean Richard? He really was involved in this? But why?”

“Willa?” Aunt Hortense interrupted, amazed. “Oh, my God, and we have left her in the room alone with Rhea time after time!”

“I know. Apparently she wasn’t going to hurt Mother unless she regained consciousness. Fortunately Mother sensed that and pretended to still be in a coma. You were awake the other day when you squeezed my hand, weren’t you?”

“I was coming to, but I was very confused. I knew I had seen that woman before, and it scared me. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t want her to know.”

“But why?” Sebastian asked, frustrated. “Why did Willa—or Richard, for that matter—want to get rid of you?”

Alexandra drew a deep breath. “My mother told me everything tonight. Simone gave her the children, and she brought them to the Countess. She kept me as her own. She pretended that I had died. But she gave the others to the Countess.”

“What?” Sebastian stared at her, astounded.

“Well, not to the Countess. She gave them to Willa, actually, because the Countess was not receiving anyone. She was prostrate with grief. But Willa was having an affair with Richard, the new Earl, and she realized what it would mean to him if my brother suddenly showed up.”

“Of course. He wouldn’t be Earl anymore.”

“Exactly. So she gave the others to Richard instead of the Countess, and she kept it a secret from everyone.”

“But, then, what Willa just said…the little boy died?”

Alexandra nodded, tears welling in her eyes again at the thought of the brother she had never known and who had died so young. “Yes. He had a bad fever. Fa—Mr. Ward had died of it, too. And the girl, Marie Anne—that wicked, wicked man gave her to an orphanage. She grew up poor and alone—and we have no idea who she is now.”

“Poor little John,” Rhea said and began to cry. “Poor Marie Anne. I did so poorly by Simone! She entrusted them to me, and I failed her. If only I had known, I would never have turned them over to that woman!”

“Of course you wouldn’t, Mother. But you couldn’t have known what would happen. You did all that anyone could ask of you.”

“Did I?” Rhea asked mournfully.

“Yes. Yes.” Alexandra bent to hug her mother. “And this thing that you have suffered over all this time—taking me for your own? You saved me! Don’t you see? You kept me from the same sad fate as my sister!”

“Oh, darling,” Rhea began to cry, and so did Alexandra, and they clung to each other.

At last their tears dried, and Rhea gave a weary sigh, laying her head on Alexandra’s shoulder. Aunt Hortense intervened, circling an arm around Rhea’s waist and pulling the smaller woman onto her feet.

“I think it’s time you were in bed. You’ve lost a fair amount of blood.” She bundled Rhea into bed, fussing over her.

Alexandra turned to Sebastian, who took her hand in his. “So the attacks on your mother and you—Willa hired them done so that no one would find out what had happened to the children?”

Alexandra nodded. “If Mother told the Countess the truth, the Countess would have realized that Willa and Richard had done away with her other grandchildren. It would have been a terrible scandal, at the least, for the Earl, and Willa knew that the Countess would never forgive her for what she had done. She would be ruined with the woman who was her whole life. I don’t know if they acted together or separately, but I am sure that they are the ones who were behind the attacks.”

Sebastian put his arm around her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. He led her into the hall, away from Aunt Hortense and Rhea and the gathering crowd of servants.

“I have sent for the doctor for Rhea and the magistrate for the rest of it.”

Alexandra nodded, then sighed. “Oh, Sebastian, what a terrible thing! How are we going to tell the Countess? To find out after all this time that her grandchildren did not die in Paris twenty-two years ago—and at the same time to learn that they are still lost to her.”

“It’s a hard thing,” he agreed. “But the Countess is a strong woman. And now she has you to help her through it.” He squeezed her hand. “We will find your sister. I shall put a Bow Street Runner on it right away. We’ll search every orphanage in London if we have to.”

“Do you think we can actually locate her?” Alexandra asked, hope beginning to stir in her. “It seems a hopeless task.”

“Not as unlikely, I should think, as you being restored to your grandmother,” he told her. “At least we know that she grew up in this country.”

“That’s true.” Alexandra brightened. “Perhaps we can investigate it on our own.”

“Oh, no.” Sebastian shook his head, pulling her against his side. “I do not plan to engage in any more mysteries with you. We are going to be married, and you are going to be a good and proper wife, not one who gets kidnapped or stabbed or winds up in a brothel every few days.”

Alexandra chuckled. “I promise I shan’t get kidnapped anymore. But if you expect me to be a good and proper wife…”

“I know.” Sebastian sighed. “I am doomed to disappointment.”

“You needn’t marry me,” Alexandra replied.

“There you are wrong. I need very much to marry you.”

He bent and kissed her lips tenderly. “If I don’t marry you, you see, I shall be doomed to spend the rest of my life in boredom.”

“That will never do,” Alexandra responded, smiling. “I suppose I simply shall have to marry you.”

“Thank God. I was beginning to think I would never get you to agree.”

“And if I hadn’t?”

He grinned wickedly and swept Alexandra up in his arms. “Then I would have had to kidnap you.”

He turned and strode down the hall toward his bedroom, carrying her. Alexandra’s delighted giggle floated after them. He halted at the door of his bedroom and bent to kiss her.

“I love you,” Sebastian told her, all laughter gone from his face. “Promise me you will never leave.”

“I will never leave,” Alexandra agreed. “Why should I, when all I love is here?”

With a smile, he carried her into the bedroom.

T
HE STONE TOWER OF THE
N
ORMAN CHURCH
rose in the distance. It would not be long before the carriage reached it. Alexandra, who had had her head pressed against the window, leaned back against the luxurious squab. Across the carriage, the Countess smiled benignly at her.

“I am so glad you will be married in the family church,” she said with satisfaction. “With all the tradition of the Earls of Exmoor. So much better than some impersonal pastor’s study in London. Sebastian never did have much notion of what was proper.”

Alexandra smiled. “So I have noticed. Perhaps we are well-suited that way.”

Her hand went up to touch the delicate gold circlet around her neck from which several pendants of enameled gold dangled. Sebastian had offered her her choice of jewels to wear on their wedding day, and he had seemed quietly pleased when she had chosen the antique
satratana
instead of the heavy pendant of sapphires and diamonds. No doubt the sapphire and diamonds would have been more proper, but Alexandra preferred the history and oddity of the Indian necklace.

The Countess looked grim. “Richard will be there today. I could scarcely leave him out with the wedding here on his estate’s doorstep.” Her upper lip curled in scorn. “The snake. I don’t know how I will be able to look at him, knowing what he did to my grandchildren.”

“I know.” Alexandra felt the now familiar shadow that settled in her heart whenever she thought about the fates of the brother and sister she had never known. “If only we had some proof. But with Willa dead…” She shook her head. “Perhaps if we could find those jewels in his possession, the ones that Mother brought over from Simone.”

“I doubt that I would recognize any of them—except the emerald pendant. That was a breathtaking piece. It was Emerson’s wedding present to Simone. But even if he has it and your mother can identify it as what she brought with the children, we cannot prove that Richard did anything wrong. He would lay the blame on Willa, say that all she gave him were the jewels, that she told him the children had died. She is not here to contest it. He would say she was insane and point to the attempts she made on your life and your mother’s. Even if we could prove that he knew about the children, what difference would it make? It would be a scandal, a blot on the Montford name, but nothing more. John died of a fever—and how could we prove how much he neglected him? With John dead, Richard is still the Earl of Exmoor.” Her blue eyes flashed. “Sometimes I think that I could rip his heart out with my bare hands.”

Alexandra nodded, then said, “At least we may find my sister someday.”

“Oh!” The Countess sat up straighter, chagrin coming over her features. “How could I have forgotten? In the bustle of getting dressed, I didn’t tell you. I received a letter from the Bow Street Runner today.”

“You did?” Alexandra leaned forward eagerly. “Did he have news?”

“Yes. He got little concrete news from any of the London orphanages, so he moved to the smaller towns outlying from the City. And he found one—the St. Anselm’s Orphanage in Sevenoaks—where a small girl, perhaps five or six—was admitted late in the summer of 1789. She gave her name as Mary Chilton.”

Alexandra drew in a sharp breath. “Chilton. You mean like—”

“Yes. Like my son’s title. Just think. That is what he was called by everyone. If you asked a young girl what her father’s name was, meaning his surname, she might very well have answered with the title by which he was called.”

Alexandra nodded. “Yes, of course. It would make sense. And Mary, an anglicized form of Marie. It seems very possible.”

“I thought so, too. I sent a note back to him immediately, telling him to pursue it.” The Countess’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, Alexandra, to think that I might someday have both of you back! I think I would die happy.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want that!” Alexandra protested with a chuckle. “You must promise me that you will live happily.”

The Countess leaned across the carriage to pat her granddaughter’s cheek. “All right. I can promise that easily—with you here. The Lord has given me a present in my old age.” She settled back against the seat and flashed a wicked grin. “Now, if only you and Sebastian will provide me with great-grandchildren, I shall be a truly happy woman.”

“Grandmama!” Alexandra exclaimed, feigning shock. “Surely talking about such things is not proper.”

“Minx,” the Countess said fondly. She leaned forward and patted Alexandra on the knee.

“I am sorry we missed all those years, but I cannot help but be grateful to Mrs. Ward for keeping you with her instead of giving you to Willa.”

“I’m glad you feel that way. It has made Mother feel much better.” Years of habit and love were too difficult to break. Alexandra knew that even though Simone had borne her, Rhea would always be Alexandra’s mother in her heart.

“How is she doing? Is she still planning on returning to America?”

Alexandra nodded. “She and Aunt Hortense are leaving shortly after the wedding. She has been much better since she told me everything; I think it has relieved her mind a great deal to get rid of that burden of secrecy and guilt. But, still, she will be happier at home, among the people and things she knows. Sebastian has promised me that we will visit them next year.”

The sound of the wheels changed beneath them, and the Countess said, “Ah, we must be there.”

She lifted the curtain and peered out. The carriage had indeed reached the stone courtyard outside the church. They came to a stop, and a footman leaped to open the door and help the women down. They climbed the stone steps of the church and entered the narthex, where a maid waited to fuss over Alexandra’s veil and train until they were exactly right. The Countess walked through the double doors of the sanctuary.

Moments later, Alexandra followed her. She walked slowly down the aisle, seeing the faces of her new life in Nicola, Penelope and the Countess. Even Lady Ursula was there. She had grudgingly admitted that Alexandra was her niece, although Alexandra was sure that theirs would never be a close relationship. There, too, were the faces of her old life: Aunt Hortense and her mother, both of them beaming at her. Rhea was crying unrestrainedly, and Aunt Hortense had her arm around her sister-in-law to comfort her. Aunt Hortense’s eyes gleamed wetly.

Alexandra gave them a last smile and looked past them, down the aisle to the altar, where Sebastian waited. Alexandra’s heart gave a little lurch, as it always did when she came upon him. Here was the foundation of her new life, the heart and soul of it. Whatever came, good or bad, she knew they would get through it together.

She smiled at Sebastian, love shining in her eyes, and stepped forward to give him her hand.