Beloved (47 page)

“So be it,” she said, tasting her own tears, her own blood. “But I give you nothing. And you are no gentleman.”

With the poker upraised, he laughed as if at some great triumph.

“Yes,” she told him. “What a man you are. You have beaten a woman in combat.”

“And to the winner falls the spoils,” he chortled, before Ella felt a draft of air fan her bared legs.

“Pomeroy!” a new voice bellowed.

“Get out,” Pomeroy said, blood trickling in rivulets over his face now. “Shut the door, dammit. This is nothing to do with
you.”

Whoever he spoke to entered the room roaring unintelligibly.

“Pommy, you’ve got to stop and let him help.” Precious sounded truly frightened. “He’s very angry, Pommy. Oh, do stop. We
mustn’t be—”

“Shut
up,
” Pomeroy said, his words hissing through his lips. “Go away, Father. And take that bitch with you.”

Lord Wokingham
. Ella squirmed beneath her attacker. She could not bear him touching her. Surely his father would stop this disgusting assault.

“We agreed,” Lord Wokingham said. “We were to have our little wedding ceremony for Precious and me. Then we would put the
gown on Ella and you could marry her, so to speak. I’ve looked forward to it. But what do I find? I find me own fiancýlf naked
out there, while you’re in here being selfish.”

“But I did send for you, Woky,” Precious said through hiccuping sobs. “I did send the coach, didn’t I?”

Pomeroy reared up, the poker brandished aloft. “I don’t need either of you.”

Before Ella could draw a breath to scream, the Honorable Pomeroy Wokingham smashed a poker into his father’s head, and raised
the implement to strike again.

Holding the tattered parts of her gown together, Ella scrambled to her feet.

The older Wokingham’s spindly legs buckled. An expression of piteous shock widened his eyes. Flesh lay open to shining white
skull bone. Blood gushed from a huge wound and from the man’s nose.

“Woky!” Precious cried at last.

Pomeroy struck again, slashing at his parent’s face and ear this time. But blood already poured from the man’s mouth, and
his eyes had grown flat and unseeing.

Slowly, without another sound, he fell backward, his legs folded unnaturally beneath his heavy body.

Voices in the passageway reached Ella. She couldn’t hear what they said, didn’t try. Lord Wokingham lay dead before her, dead
at the hands of his own son, who now turned his attention to Precious Able.

“No,” Ella whispered. “Leave her alone.”

“I cannot imagine why you insist upon bringing me up here,” another woman’s voice announced from the passage. “I have no wish
to prolong our acquaintance, Mr. Milo.”

The voice stopped Pomeroy from swinging at Precious. She promptly swooned into a heap on the carpet.

The sight of Countess Perruche, arguing with Milo, was a final unreal stroke. Spent, Ella slid to sit on the floor. She reached
her cloak and pulled it around her.

As she came into the room, the countess looked over her shoulder at Milo. “I paid you well and you did a poor job of things.
But all is well now.”

“So glad,” Milo said, a cunning twist to his lips. “I made sure the pieces of chiffon were delivered. And the letter. And
then I had a piece of luck with the boy coming to me.”

“Boy?”

“Max. Her brother. He came, and that helped. I was able to give Ella the message about how you’d let everyone know about her
life here at Lushy’s if she didn’t do like she was told.”

“I have no interest in that,” Margot said. “Fortunately Lord Avenall will never have reason to think I manipulated what had
to be. I could not risk losing his patronage. Now I shall not have to. I am to become his helpmate. There will be an annulment.
Mr. North can have the girl. I shall care for Lord Avenall—and his money.”

Milo laughed. “A nice arrangement.”

“I’m here to make sure you understand that you are never to mention our acquaintance …” She saw Lord Wokingham’s body, and
Precious still in a faint, then Pomeroy with the poker in his hands.
“Mon Dieu!”
She did not notice Ella.

“Oh, my,” Milo said conversationally. “These domestic spats can get so unpleasant, can’t they?”

“This is nothing to me,” Margot said, turning away.

She turned away and walked into Saber.

“Hold her,” he told Bigun, who followed him. “Don’t let the
countess
go. Oh, Ella.” He waved for her to retreat. “Get back, my love. It’s all right. I’ll deal with this fiend.”

Pomeroy had no chance to raise his poker before Saber attacked. He caught the other man by the front of his shirt and drew
him up until he could stare coldly down at him.

Before Ella’s horrified eyes, Pomeroy contrived to change his grip on the poker he still held. Slipping his hand down the
shaft, he grasped it just above the pointed end. He drew his hand as far away from Saber’s back as possible.

“No!” Ella cried, flinging herself forward and clutching Pomeroy’s wrist just as it would have sent the filthy metal point
gouging into Saber’s flesh.

He released the weapon. Ella fell to the floor and the poker clattered away.

Saber spun around and bent over her.

“Pomeroy!” Ella shouted. “He’s getting away.”

“He won’t get far,” Saber told her, gently gathering her to him. “Crabley’s outside the front door with a pistol, and instructions
to use it.”

“I want to be with you,” she told Saber. “I never want to be parted from you again.”

He frowned as he touched her face where Pomeroy had hit her. “You never will be. Not as long as I live. My God! What’s that?”

Clattering and thudding sounded from below—and gurgling screams.

“Gawd aw’mighty,” Milo said, raising his voice. He still maintained his position half in and half out of the room. “Look at
the mess in here. Who’s going to pay for it? that’s what I’d like to know. And listen to that racket. What does an old man
have to do to get some peace?”

The thunderous crashing and screaming ceased soon enough.

“Bring her,” Saber told Bigun, referring to Margot. He glanced at Precious, who had struggled to her feet. “Get yourself to
my house in Burlington Gardens. We’ll send you back to your parents—with an explanation of your behavior. They can decide
your fate.”

Precious blubbered afresh.

“I came here to help Ella,” Margot said, slapping ineffectually at Bigun. “Tell him, Ella. I came to help you.”

Holding Ella against him, Saber walked slowly past Margot and into the passageway. As they approached the stairs, Ella buried
her face in his chest. “They did not mean to do you any harm,” she said, referring to Papa, Uncle Arran, and Uncle Calum.
“They were told you were mad and they thought they were saving me from you.”

“I have Devlin North to thank for that. Margot sent Crab-ley and Bigun after me, but only to make the pretense of helping
me. Devlin was to do away with both of them. She and Devlin misjudged Bigun particularly. He has fought in ways they cannot
even imagine. And Crabley is a man I would trust at my back.”

“Is it over now?” Ella asked him.

“We have more to overcome. But I believe we can do it. That night—by the lake at Bretforten—you broke through something I
had thought could never change.”

“You are not mad,” Ella told him.

“No,” he agreed. “I am not mad. But I need to deal with those things I have hidden for so long.”

Ella kissed him quickly as they continued walking.

Saber started to speak, but tried instead to stop Ella from seeing the scene at the bottom of the stairs.

“Oh, no, no!” Precious Able screamed. She ran past them and down the steps. Her hat trailed by a pin and her gown was in tatters.

Ella pulled herself from Saber’s arms and looked after the other woman.

At the foot of the stairs, Precious fell to her knees beside the unmoving and grotesquely distorted form of Pomeroy Wokingham.

Crabley stood over the pair. He looked up at Ella and Saber and spread his arms. “There you are, Lord Avenall. Lady Avenall.”
He pointed to Pomeroy. “They do say more people die of falls than anything else, don’t they? People should learn not to be
in such a hurry, particularly coming downstairs.”

“Is he dead?” Saber asked.

Crabley’s face worked through a series of frowns and grimaces before he pulled a pistol from the waistband of his breeches.
He studied the weapon with evident disappointment. “I don’t think he’d be any deader if I shot him now, my lord.”

Castle Kirkcaldy, Scotland, Late Summer, 1828

“Ye dinna
so
, Max Rossmara,” Kirsty Mercer said, planting her thin hands on her hips. “And me da says it’s pleasin’ t’the devil when ye
tell stories.”

Max rolled from his back to his stomach and squinted up at the ten-year-old who stood before him. “If I say I fought a dozen
men in London, then I fought a dozen men in London, Miss Kirsty Mercer.” The little blond girl, daughter of Robert and Gael
Mercer, whose families had been tenants on Ross-mara lands for generations, had known Max from his first days at Kirkcaldy.

Bright afternoon sunlight shone through the child’s long curls. She shook them back and planted her feet apart. “Ye’ve grown
uppity, Master Max. I suppose ye’re too good for the likes o’ me now.”

“Come, come, now, baby,” Max said, catching Kirsty’s wrist and urging her to sit on the dry grass in front of him. “You’re
my favorite Scottish kelpie. Always will be.”

She applied a forefinger to his nose and brought her eyes so close to his that hers crossed, and he laughed. “Dinna laugh
at me,” she said, giggling herself. “At least say ye dinna kill anybody in that foreign place. Me ma says a man who kills
isna’ a man unless he’d die fer the want o’ the killin’.”

“Aye,” Max said, beginning to slip into the brogue he’d once deliberately adopted. “Well, since it’s you I’m talking to, and
since I know you’ll like me no matter what, I’ll tell the truth.”

He rested his chin on his folded hands. Life was good at Kirkcaldy. After what he’d almost done to Ella, he didn’t deserve
to be here with the rest of the family, but he was grateful they refused to let him leave them. Uncle Calum had helped the
most. He’d told Max how he’d risked everything to be sure who he was—and how much he regretted never having met his father.
If Uncle Calum could admit a few mistakes, why should Max do less?

Kirsty maneuvered onto her tummy, stretched out, and copied Max’s pose. She’d mimicked everything he did from the day he’d
first been taken to visit her parents’ cottage. He’d only been a child of eleven then, rather than a man of sixteen.

“So tell me, then, ” Kirsty said. “The truth, Max.”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“And ye dinna fight a dozen men?”

He closed one eye and looked into her blue ones with the other. “No,” he said without intending to. “No, I didn’t fight a
dozen men. I didn’t even fight one.”

“Hmm.” Her hair shone. She plucked at yellow blades of grass. “I like ye, Max Rossmara.”

“You’re passable yourself, Kirsty Mercer.”

“Hmm.” She wrinkled her nose. “Ella … Lady Avenall’s even more beautiful than when she wasna’ Lord Avenall’s wife.”

“Ella’s beautiful,” Max said, and felt the twist of self-dis- gust that had become his frequent companion. “And good. And
brave. Saber’s not so bad, either.”

“He’s bonnie,” Kirsty said. “Ye’ve a verra bonnie family. My da and ma say as much a’ the time.”

“They’re right,” Max agreed. “Bonnie and honorable.”

“And kind,” Kirsty said, never taking her gaze from him. “Ye’re all kind. I love ye all. Even the old one who makes me scairt.”

“The dowager?” Max tweaked her chin and smiled. “She’s the best. And we all love ye, too.” He glanced around. Uncle Arran
and Aunt Grace sat with their children under the wide branches of an oak at the foot of the rise where Max and Kirsty lay.
Uncle Calum and Aunt Pippa walked, arm-in-arm, down steps from a terrace beneath one of the castle towers. Papa and Mama were
on their way from the lodge to join the rest of the family for a picnic.

When he’d last seen Great-Grandmama, she’d been arguing with Blanche Bastible about a bonnet.

Who knew where Ella and Saber were, except they were together? They were always together.

“Elizabeth grows tall,” Grace, Marchioness of Stonehaven, said. “I believe she will escape the curse of being as short as
her mother.” The company of her husband and children never failed to fill her with peace and joy.

Arran put a powerful arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his shoulder. He leaned against the oak. “If Elizabeth
resembles her mother in any manner, she is favored,” he told Grace. “She has your fair hair.”

“And your green eyes, my lord.”

“We are fortunate in our three children. But, above all, I am blessed in you.”

She kissed his cheek. “I painted you again yesterday.”

“Oh, no!” He drew away from her and pretended to curl up as if in pain. “No, no, say it isn’t true!”

“Arran Rossmara, you are a beast!” She pummeled his broad back and the children came, running and shrieking at the prospect
of a family romp. “Behave yourself, Arran. Calum and Pippa are walking in this direction. And the others will be here soon
enough.”