The Bodyguard (35 page)

There were no other passages than the one that led from his cell to the opening of the sea cave. He set down the lantern on a rock and knelt to splash his face with cold saltwater. He was alive. He was free. He could go to Blackthorne Hall for clothes. He never needed to see her again.

But when he lifted the lantern, it was toward her cottage that he strode, unmindful of the sharp stones cutting his feet or the sharp wind off the sea chilling him to the bone. His anger kept him unheeding of any hurt.

The cottage was dark, but he didn’t need a light to find his way to her bedroom. It was easy to sneak in and close the door behind him. In the scant moonlight from the window, he could see the shape of her on the bed. She was lying on her back, her arms outstretched over her head, the blanket barely covering her legs.

He was struck with a lust so strong it made him quiver.

Alex covered her mouth with his hand before he covered her body with his own. He watched her eyes flash open.

“Do not speak. Do not even breathe too loudly, or I will ensure you breathe no more. Will you be silent?”

She nodded once.

He released her mouth and captured both her wrists in one powerful hand. “Your lover is dead, madam.”

Her eyes went wide with horror and fright. “My lover?”

“Ian MacDougal.”

“Ian was never—”

“Don’t bother denying it. He said as much.”

“You killed Ian?” she gasped.

“He would have killed me. That was what you intended, was it not?”

“Alex, let me explain—”

“How could I ever have thought I loved you?” he said, looking into a face that seemed so very innocent, but which he knew concealed deceit. “This marriage is at an end. I’ll make sure of it when I get home to England. Don’t try to pawn off any bastard of Ian’s as my child. I’ll have you jailed if you do.”

“Alex, please—”

He was shivering violently, quivering with hatred. He had just killed a man, and he could easily have killed the woman lying beneath him. He put his hand to her throat and squeezed.

She stared back at him but did not fight him.

“Are you willing to die, then? Shall I murder you and have that on my conscience, too?”

“I love you, Alex.”

The pain was enormous, as though he had been stabbed in the heart. He was off of her an instant later and moving toward the chest across the room where she kept her father’s things. He could find no trousers,
only the kilt he had worn on their visit to Castle Carlisle.

He was too frightened of what he might do to her if he took the time to search further, so he grabbed what he could find, including the borrowed shoes with holes in the toes that sat in the corner of the room. He was running by the time he reached the front door, but her cries reached out to him.

“Alex, wait! I’m innocent. The child is yours. Alex, please. You must believe me!”

Climbing far up in the hills, he could still hear her ululating wails of despair.

By the time the stone outline of Blackthorne Abbey came into view, Alex had traversed the breadth of Scotland and England as a pauper. It should have been a simple matter to throw himself on the mercy of his friends, or to send a letter to his valet and wait for Stubbins to bring proper clothing and funds for the return trip. But he had changed a great deal in the months he had been gone. His pride was not as important as getting home to his family.

So he had hitched rides and walked and traveled almost as fast as if he had come in a coach and four. He glanced down at himself and grinned. He looked like a Highland reiver, dressed in the kilt he had worn for the past few weeks of muddy travel. He hadn’t shaved and his hair was too long, but he had never felt more fit in his life.

He wanted to see his children. And Marcus. He must speak with his brother and offer the forgiveness
he had wrongly withheld. Life was too uncertain. And love was too precious to lose in such a way.

To Alex’s amazement, there was not a soul to greet him when he banged the iron ring on the immense front door of Blackthorne Abbey. Most unusual. Where was Fenwick, his butler? He finally opened the door himself and walked in. He started to call out, but decided he would take himself to his brother’s rooms in the East Wing of the Abbey, where he was sure to find the answers he sought.

As he walked the shadow-ridden corridor that led from the main portion of the house to the crumbled remains that his brother had claimed, Alex discovered the cobwebs were gone, along with the moth-eaten curtains and the tattered rugs. Had Marcus continued the restoration that had stopped when he had gone into the army?

Alex turned a corner and ran into his butler.

“Yer Grace? Is that really yerself?” Fenwick exclaimed.

He smiled at the little man who had left Scotland to become his father’s butler so many years ago. “Yes, Fenwick. ’Tis I.”

“We thought ye were drowned!”

“I was not,” he said, gripping the shoulders of the tearful old man to reassure him he was real.

Fenwick seemed to recover himself and looked with a frown of alarm at the hands on his shoulders. “Are ye well, Yer Grace?”

Alex realized he had never before touched one of
his servants, not even Fenwick, whom he had taken a liking to all those years ago when he was a boy at Blackthorne Hall. Well, that was going to change. He patted Fenwick’s shoulder once more and smiled. “I am perfectly fine, Fenwick. Where are my children? And my brother?”

“Oh, my, Yer Grace. What a basket we are in! What can I tell you, but—”

Alex felt a quiver of alarm. “Is something wrong, Fenwick?”

“Well, not exactly, Yer Grace. But His Grace—that is, yer brother … I mean—”

A female voice interrupted him. “Who is that you’re talking with, Fenwick? You should be—”

Alex watched as his housekeeper’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened in shock.

“Your Grace!” she exclaimed. “Fenwick, it’s His Grace! In a kilt!”

Another voice joined the fray. “I say, Your Grace. I had no idea you were home!”

Alex turned to find Sergeant Griggs, his brother’s batman. He had lost an arm and was out of uniform, Alex noticed, but otherwise seemed the same. A white-haired, elderly woman, a lady judging by her attire, held fast to his one remaining arm.

“This is Lady Lavinia, Your Grace,” Griggs said, making the introduction. “It’s Blackthorne, my lady. Home from Scotland.”

The elderly lady held out a hand, but Alex was a good foot distant from where she had aimed it. It took
him a moment to realize she was blind. He stepped forward and bent over her hand. “So nice to meet you, Lady Lavinia.”

“This is wonderful! This is perfect,” Lady Lavinia said. “His Grace returned alive and well. If that doesn’t beat all. I don’t mean to be a rattle-box, Your Grace. I mean a prattle-rate. Or is it a prattle-rattle? Oh, dear, where is that girl when I need her? Take me to my room please, Griggs.”

The elderly woman looked upset. Alex was ready to follow after her to inquire if he could be of some assistance, when he saw his brother standing in the East Wing drawing room.

“What is all the commotion?” Marcus said. “Have you found them?”

“Good news, Your Grace—I mean, your lordship,” Griggs corrected himself with a grin. “Your brother’s home. His Grace, I mean.”

Alex stared at his younger brother, the infamous Beau, and saw that his looks were not what they once had been. One side of his face had been terribly scarred. Alex crossed the hall and stepped into the drawing room with Marcus, shutting the door behind them.

“Well, laddie, your big brother is home. How about a fond greeting?”

The tears in his brother’s eyes reassured him he had been missed and brought a lump to his own throat. When he saw Marcus was going to shake his hand, he realized it was up to him to close the gap that lay between
them. He opened his arms wide. And Marcus stepped into them.

He hugged his brother hard and realized it must have been a hundred years—well, twenty at least—since he had held him thus. He could not keep the grin off his face when he at last released him.

“Where have you been?” Marcus choked out. “We were told you had drowned.”

He spread his arms wide. “Here I am. Alive and well.”

“Why did you not come home?”

The smile disappeared as he thought of Kitt, but he forced himself to speak lightly. “A cunning lass held me captive through trickery.” When Marcus would have interrupted, he held up a hand. “She’ll repay the debt she owes me in full. Never doubt it. As for where I have been … why, seeing to my lands in Scotland.”

“Are you the mysterious laird of Clan MacKinnon?”

“The laird,” he said with a thick Scottish burr. “And married to its lady.”

Marcus gasped. “You are married, Alex?”

He smiled cynically. “The witch would tell you so. I say it is for the courts to settle.”

“What witch?”

“My wife. But Katherine is not a fit topic for discussion. Where are my children, Marcus?”

“I hesitate to say.”

Alex frowned. Marcus’s worried look, combined with Fenwick’s distress, suggested things were not as
they should be. He felt a chill of alarm. “I trust they are well.”

“As far as I know.” Marcus swallowed hard and said, “I seem to have lost them.”

“Again?” The twins’ last adventure had ended with them being found none the worse for wear in London. If they were lost somewhere on the property, they would show up soon, stockings torn and ribbons flying. He grinned, put an arm around Marcus’s shoulder in a bear hug, and said, “You really must be more careful.”

“You are so different, Alex. What has changed?”

It was true. Whatever wall had existed between him and the rest of the world had come down during his sojourn in Scotland. He guessed that meant he was no longer afraid to let the people in his life get close to him. He owed that to Kitt, he supposed. She was the one who had taught him to love again. And how precious life could be when one believed one would not have much more of it to live.

“I have realized how short life can be, Marcus,” he said. “I am no longer willing to let doubts keep me from loving my children. Or let acrimony separate me from my only kin.”

He watched the smile form on his brother’s face, saw how the scar drew his lips up slightly on one side. Marcus was no longer perfect. But then, Alex no longer wanted or needed perfection from his brother.

“Scotland is good for you, Alex. You should go there more often,” Marcus said.

“Perhaps I will take the twins to see Blackthorne Hall next summer.” He smiled and added, “If we can find them.”

“I believe they are somewhere in the hidden passageways within the Abbey. Are you familiar with them?”

Alex nodded. He had good reason to remember his near-fatal visit to the dungeon of Blackthorne Abbey. His anxiety increased at the thought of his daughters lost amid the dark passageways. Some of them were quite dangerous. “There’s an entrance to the passageways in your bedroom, Marcus. We can start looking there.”

They were deep within the honeycombed passageways when Marcus said, “There is something I have been meaning to say for a long time.”

“Can it wait?” Alex asked.

“I have waited too long already.”

Alex had always suspected that his brother could have told him at any time whether the twins were his children or not. He had never wanted to know for sure. Now, it didn’t matter. He would love them whether they were his or not. Still, he held his breath as he waited for Marcus to speak.

“I never lay with Penthia, Alex, except that one time you founded us together. I never put myself inside her. Reggie and Becky are your daughters, not mine.”

Alex released a shuddering sigh. “It’s good to know the truth at last, Marcus. But before I left, I had made
up my mind to love them no matter whose children they were. And I made up my mind to forgive you.”

“Thank you, Alex.”

Alex thought he heard someone calling Marcus’s name somewhere in the passageway. “Do you hear that?”

“It sounds like—It is! Eliza!”

“Who is Eliza?” Alex asked.

“Elizabeth Sheringham, now Elizabeth Wharton,” Marcus said. “My wife.”

“It seems I have been gone a great deal too long. The Beau has accepted a leg-shackle?” Alex studied his brother in the glow of the lantern he held and realized Marcus looked different, too. Less attractive. But more content.

“It is a long story, Alex,” Marcus said. “Suffice it to say I did
not
act honorably toward the lady, that my friend Julian Sheringham—before he was killed at Waterloo—engaged himself to her, and that after a period of mourning, she has recently become my wife.”

“Miss Sheringham did not care that your looks were spoiled?”

“No, Alex. She is concerned only that I love her.”

Alex felt a stab of envy. “It is a love match then?”

“It is on my side. It was for her, I think, in the beginning. But there have been problems.”

Alex smiled ruefully. “With women, there usually are.”

They separated then, Marcus to hunt for his wife,
who had also disappeared, and Alex to continue the search for Regina and Rebecca. He headed in the direction of the dungeon where he had been locked as a boy. He could hear Becky long before he got there.