Recklessly Yours (46 page)

“My lord! I have sent for a physician. This man is badly wounded.”

Kirkston's cry sent Holly, Colin, and Geoffrey running across the lawn. The valet and remaining footmen moved aside, and Colin and Holly knelt down on either side of the Frenchman.

“Hélène . . . Holly?” Henri de Vere attempted to sit up, but Colin placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder. Holly gasped at the crimson stain spreading all too quickly across the other side of his coat. His head turned toward her, his eyes searching. He stretched out a hand. “Hélène . . .”

“He means you,” he said.

She nodded. “His brother explained it to me.” She shuddered involuntarily. “Or at least he told me a fantastical story about—”

“It is . . . all true.” A bubble of blood formed at the corner of the Frenchman's mouth. “Except in his version . . . I am no doubt . . . the villain.”

Colin gently pressed his shoulder again. “Don't try to speak. Not now.”

“But I must . . . explain. . . . There is . . . more.”

Holly's eagerness must have shown on her face, for Colin met her gaze and gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.

“Later,” she said to Henri, “after the physician has seen you.”

The two footmen had retreated to the house. Now they reappeared, carrying between them a door that had been taken off its hinges. One also had a blanket slung over his shoulder. When they reached Henri, they placed the door on the ground beside him, covered it with the blanket, and eased the man onto the surface. As steady as they could, they struggled back to their feet and carried de Vere inside.

A carriage came rumbling up the drive.

Holly shaded her eyes with her hand. “The physician is here already?”

Colin shook his head. “My mother. She's back from Windsor.”

“Good gracious. However will we explain all of this to her?”

Colin wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. “Prudently.”

They walked around to the front steps, where Ivy met them. “What is going on?” she demanded. “I was napping and awakened to the most dreadful clamor. And now I see this gentleman being carried into the house. Why, is it Mr. Verrell?”

For the first time since they'd fallen into each other's arms on the ground near the trees, Holly left Colin's side. She climbed the three or four steps until she stood level with her sister, and threw her arms around her.

Ivy let go a startled laugh. “What is all this?”

Holly looked deeply into her sister's eyes. “Yvonne.”

“Who?”

“Come into the house, Ivy. I have much to explain to you. Where is Willow?”

“I thought she was with you.”

“I'm right here.”

Willow and Lord Bryce stood at the base of the steps. Holly went down to her youngest sister and caught Willow's hands in both of her own. “There is something I must tell you. Something both you and Ivy must hear.”

“What is everyone doing gathered around the steps?” With the help of both a footman and her lady's maid, Colin's mother stepped down from her carriage. “And why do you all look so grim?”

Colin touched Holly's shoulder. “You speak with your sisters. I'll explain to my mother. And take care of de Vere.”

She smiled sadly up at him. “Thank you.”

“No, thank
you
.” He grasped her chin, and warmth traveled her length even before he brushed his lips across hers.

He strode away, going to greet his mother and escort her into the house. Holly watched his retreating back, sensing a profound change in him. Oh, so much had changed since her arrival, since that day outside the Ascot Racecourse when he had nearly struck her down with his curricle. She had believed him to be indifferent to her, to disapprove of everything about her. But it had never been her he disapproved of; it had been himself. He had judged himself in terms of his heritage and the mistakes of those that came before him. That such an extraordinary man could think so little of himself brought tears to her eyes.

She impatiently blinked them away. Their future still lay in uncertainty. Their trials were far from ended, and she knew that in the coming days she would have to be stronger than ever before. All she knew was that, no matter what happened, she would stand by him. Even if it meant angering Victoria and sharing his fate.

“Holly?”

Ivy's quiet summons jarred her from her thoughts. Steeling herself for the immediate task at hand, she pulled her gaze from the man she loved, linked an arm through each of her sisters', and went with them into the house.

 

They were the most difficult words Holly had ever had to utter. The tale, defined by greed and brutality and murder, left Ivy and Willow pale and speechless. Willow wept silently. Ivy pressed a hand to her belly.

They had retreated to the privacy of the ground floor receiving parlor where they had met Antoine de Vere. The silence, as her sisters took in all she had told them, stretched on until it resounded in Holly's ears.

Then Ivy tilted her head, her brow wrinkling. “Uncle Edward's garden.”

“I'm sorry?” Holly could understand her sister's thoughts turning to Thorn Grove, the estate where they had grown up isolated but protected, but why the garden in particular?

“Can't you picture it?” Ivy closed her eyes for a moment. “The towering laurel tree. The ivy clinging to the back of the house, the old dovecote and the stables. The holly growing in tangles around—”

“The giant willow,” Willow finished for her. Her mouth dropped open, then snapped shut. “He brought us to his home and found names for us in what he saw outside his windows.” She swallowed audibly and wiped her palms across her cheeks. “Then I am . . . Wilhemine? Wilhemine de Valentin?”

“Yes.” Holly, who had stood as she wove her tale for them, walked behind her younger sister's chair and pressed a hand to her shoulder.

“Yvonne.” Ivy seemed to test the fit of the name on her tongue. She shook her head. “It is as though we are speaking of strangers, not ourselves.”

Holly agreed. “I am perfectly content with who we are.
Were
. I mean . . .”

“The Sutherland sisters,” Ivy finished for her. “No matter our past, we
are
the Sutherland sisters, with all that entails. This changes nothing, except . . .” Her eyes filled with tears. In a whisper she said, “Now at least we know what happened to our parents.”

Holly went to sit beside Ivy on the settee and put an arm around her. She held out her hand to Willow, who immediately jumped up from her chair and hurried to them. Taking Holly's hand, she sank to her knees on the rug and rested her cheek on Ivy's knee.

“I don't care about the fortune. I don't want it,” she declared, sounding much like a recalcitrant child refusing the offer of a treat. “That money is tainted. It killed our mother and father and I . . . I never knew them. I have no memory of them.” She lifted her tearstained face. “Do either of you remember anything at all about them?”

Her heart clenching, Holly started to shake her head, but Ivy whispered, “I remember a scent . . . like lilacs . . . Whenever I smell lilacs I feel . . . I don't know . . . soothed. Calm. Almost . . . happy.” She reached down and stroked Willow's hair. “I think perhaps Mother wore that scent. I like to believe it.”

Something not quite a memory, more of a sensation, pushed its way through Holly's thoughts like a ship breaking free of an ice flow. “Rumbling. I remember a rumbling against my cheek, and . . . and reaching up and tangling my fingers in the curly softness of a beard. Uncle Edward never wore a long beard . . . so it must have been Father's.” She bent down and put her arms around Willow. “Think, dearest . . . perhaps there is something . . . even the smallest thing.”

Willow's face filled with eager hope. Her brow furrowed and she closed her eyes. But the upsweep of her lashes revealed only a deep and unshakable sorrow. “There is nothing. I was too young. Oh, it isn't fair.” She bowed her head, and Holly thought she heard words slip out beneath her breath, ones that sounded very much like,
Damn those men for doing this to us
.

Ivy was the first to gather her composure. “I agree with Willow. I don't care a whit about this fortune. Of course, we'll have to confer with Laurel, but I say we either give it all away or allow it to remain in abeyance indefinitely.”

Holly related the details Antoine de Vere had revealed to her, that after Napoleon's defeat, the newly restored French monarchy had seized the family's holdings, or what remained of them. In those chaotic years following the wars, it had been unclear which branch of the family, the de Veres or the de Valentins, had betrayed their king and so many of their peers, and equally unclear which cousin had preyed upon which. Indeed, many had believed the fire that killed Roland and Simone de Valentin had been an accident, and that their four daughters had perished with them.

“Yes, give it all away.” Willow lifted her blotchy face higher. “I've no wish to be suddenly French.”

Madly, that assertion sent laughter bubbling up in Holly's throat. She tried to stifle it, for there was nothing humorous here, nothing at all, but not even biting her lips kept the chuckles from spilling out. Certain her sisters must be appalled, she tried to apologize but could barely form the words. Suddenly Ivy was laughing as well, her shoulders shaking. Willow frowned with a mixture of puzzlement and hurt, but after a moment her lips parted and she, too, fell to uncontrollable guffaws. Holly laughed until her cheeks ached and her belly cramped. Scarcely able to sit up, she half collapsed against Ivy's side, while Ivy, in turn, wilted helplessly back against the cushions and Willow, red-faced and nearly shrieking, huddled against their knees.

Their laughter gradually subsided with tears and sniffles and more silence, until a sobering, but not unhappy thought made Holly smile. “Well . . . it would seem we are still indeed the Sutherland sisters, aren't we?”

 

Colin wasn't certain his mother fully understood what he had spent the last quarter hour trying to explain to her. Sabrina, who had come running from the paddocks at the first sound of shots, sat dumbfounded beside the elder woman as Colin's story unfolded. Geoffrey added his version of events as witnessed from the music room window, leaving out, however, his part in wounding Antoine de Vere.

In the end, their mother nodded her head with something of a dazed look. “So, then, Miss Sutherland and her sisters are not misses at all, but ladies in the aristocratic sense of the word?”

“One would make that assumption, Mother. Their father was le Comte de Valentin, or was so before the end of the wars. The title has been in abeyance ever since.”

“Ah, well, no matter.” His mother gave a little shrug. “Miss Sutherland will be the Countess of Drayton as soon as the two of you are wed.”

Unease mingled with the joy he should have felt. For several precious moments out on the lawns, he had wholeheartedly believed that with Holly at his side, there wasn't anything in life he couldn't do, couldn't face.

But now that the immediate danger had passed, it was remorse and not relief that filled him. If he married Holly and the queen sent him to prison, Holly's life would be ruined. If he didn't marry her, Lady Penelope and her family would waste no time in sullying Holly's reputation, and thus ruin her prospects. Either way, he had wronged her grievously, given into temptation and failed to protect the one person he loved most dearly.

It was time to see exactly what the future held. Leaving Geoff to answer his mother's questions as best he could, Colin excused himself from the library. He intended first to check on Monsieur de Vere. Then he must return to the abandoned manor. In his haste to save Holly from Antoine, he had left the colt—around which so many fates hinged—alone in the dilapidated stable.

C
olin left Masterfield Park without informing Holly, but she was with her sisters, the three of them struggling to come to terms with the startling truth of their origins. The revelation had so shocked Holly that she hadn't even remembered to ask him whether he had found the colt. He couldn't blame her. Even now he could hardly fathom this new identity of hers, and he wondered how Simon de Burgh would react to the news that his wife was not the obscure miss he believed he had married, but a member of the French aristocracy.

Colin quickly realized it wouldn't make the slightest difference to Simon, because it didn't make the slightest difference to him. Holly was still Holly: sensual and surprising and courageous. She could be a queen or a washerwoman for all he cared; he'd still be intrigued by her, at times awed by her. He'd still wildly crave the spicy warmth of her skin and the taste of her lips. Still love her to distraction.

At the pair of rickety gates he'd entered earlier, he and the others turned down the dilapidated drive. Halfway to the house he brought Kirkston and the footmen to a halt. “Weapons out,” he told them. “Eyes and ears sharp. We don't know what we'll find.”

Not that he believed Antoine would have returned here, even if he could have, but it paid to be prudent. Judging by the amount of blood the man had left splattered on the ground near Holly, Colin doubted Antoine had gotten very far in his flight, perhaps no farther than the heath beyond Masterfield Park's pastureland.

Had he survived? And if not, would his brother join him in death? Henri had lost a good deal of blood, and the physician feared the bullet might have nicked a lung. If that was the case, Henri de Vere had only hours to live.

“I believe the young devil just gave a snort,” Kirkston said, interrupting Colin's bleak musings. They had ridden through the derelict gardens and dismounted just outside the low wall encircling the stable yard. “The colt must smell us coming.”