The Bride's Necklace (25 page)

“Very good. Now open the storage-room door.”

She saw the anticipation in his face. He had wanted to be rid of her for years. “Why?”

“Because you are going to have an accident. You are
going to take a terrible fall, poor dear. You’re going to crack your head wide open—fitting, don’t you think, since you once did that to me. Only when I do it, I won’t leave you alive.”

Fresh fear trickled through her. He was going to kill her and the child she carried and she still had no idea how to stop him. She glanced frantically around the kitchen in search of a weapon. There was a row of butchering knives in a wooden rack on the wall. If she could somehow get to them…

She bolted in that direction, but the baron’s long fingers caught the coil of her hair, ripping it free of its pins and sending a shot of pain up her neck as he yanked her backward, slamming her hard against the door leading down to the basement.

“I would really prefer not to shoot you, my dear. So messy, you know. But I swear to you that I will.”

A deep voice resonated from the doorway. “I wouldn’t advise it. Should you do anything other than let my wife go, I shall take great pleasure in killing you—as slowly and as painfully as I possibly can.”

“Cord…” Tory whispered, her eyes filling with tears. Dear God, she had thought never to see him again.

Cord didn’t so much as glance in her direction. Every ounce of his concentration was focused on the man with the gun. In the pale light of the lamp, the blue metal barrel of his own pistol glittered.

“Step away from her, Harwood. Move very, very slowly.”

“So you saw the letter. A pity Mrs. Rathbone proved such a disappointment.” Still, he didn’t back away from her. Instead, he jerked her in front of him, up against his chest, and pressed the gun to the side of her head.

“See how quickly the game can shift?” he said. “Now, I believe it is my move. I would advise you to do exactly as I say.”

Keeping the pistol in place, he slid an arm beneath her chin and locked it around her throat. “Set the gun on the floor, then shove it over here with your boot.”

“Don’t do it, Cord! He’ll kill us both!”

“Shut up!” the baron warned, tightening his hold until it was hard to breathe.

Cord’s jaw hardened as he bent down and placed the gun on the floor, sent it spiraling across the room with the side of his foot.

“There is a man working in the fields,” Cord said. “He’ll be in here the instant you fire that weapon.”

Harwood laughed as he turned the pistol away from her and aimed it at Cord. “Then I suppose I shall have to leave through the storage room. The door opens into an area on the other side of the carriage house. There isn’t the slightest chance anyone will see me.”

He looked from one of them to the other and shook his head. “Terrible what happened here tonight…the unfaithful wife shoved down the stairs, killed by her jealous husband, who then took his own life. Men can be such fools.”

Tory heard the hammer being cocked, knew Cord had only a moment to live. Clamping her teeth, she shoved Harwood’s arm up as hard as she could and at the same instant, hurled herself against him with every ounce of her strength.

The gun went off, the sound deafening in the closed-up kitchen. Tory screamed as Harwood bolted past her, racing for the door, but Cord caught his coattail and brought him crashing down, both men hitting the floor in a tangle of thrashing limbs.

She heard Cord’s softly muttered curse and knew he had reinjured the wound in his chest. He delivered a couple of vicious blows to Harwood’s face, but the baron managed to tear himself free and run for the door. Cord raced after him, both men pounding up the stairs to the main floor of the house.

Tory grabbed the brass lamp off the table and ran after them, hoping Jacob had heard the gunshot, but knowing he was probably too far away.

She glanced around, caught sight of the baron running into the drawing room, Cord close on his heels. Above the hearth, in a crisscross pattern, her grandfather’s dueling sabers glinted in the light of the lamp she carried into the room.

Harwood grinned as he dragged one of the weapons down and tossed it to Cord, then reached up and yanked down the other.

“See what a sportsman I am? I am giving you a chance. Perhaps you yet will live.”

But Miles Whiting was an expert swordsman, and the way Cord was favoring his left side, the match would hardly be fair.

Ignoring the pain, Cord tested the blade. “You’ve just made your second mistake, Harwood. It’s going to be your last.”

The baron just laughed, the sound echoing through the deserted house, sending chills down Tory’s spine. The men stepped toward each other, raised their arms and crossed blades. Sabers clashed. Steel clanged against steel, ringing across the drawing room. Harwood thrust and Cord parried, the baron slashing one way and then another, driving his wicked blade toward Cord’s heart.

Tory saw that Cord was more skilled than she had imagined. Far more. But he was not in the same league as the baron.

Some might have called it a duel.

Tory thought that it was the baron’s excuse for murder. Harwood had killed her mother and father. She wasn’t about to let him kill her husband, too.

Heart pounding, she took off for the short flight of stairs leading down to the kitchen. She considered trying to find Jacob, but even if she did, Cord might be dead by the time they got back to the house.

As soon as she reached the kitchen, she went down on her knees in search of Cord’s pistol. Her hands shook as she ran her fingers over the planked wooden floor where the weapon had disappeared.

Please, God…
Frantic now in the semidarkness, she groped the surface beneath the table and her fingers closed over the grip of the gun. Tory dragged it toward her and leaped to her feet.

By the time she reached the drawing room, the men had stripped off their jackets and waistcoats. As they circled each other in the center of the room, a scarlet blossom of blood spread over the sleeve of Cord’s white shirt, and her heart squeezed with fear for him.

“You surprise me, Brant,” the baron said, showing only the least bit of exertion. “Perhaps in time, you might make a descent swordsman. Unfortunately, time isn’t something you have.”

“It would seem to me that you are the one whose time has run out.” Cord found an opening and his blade sliced into Harwood’s shoulder. The baron hissed in pain. Furious that Cord had drawn blood, he started slashing in earnest. As Cord fell back, Harwood
circled his blade, caught Cord’s saber near the hilt and sent it flying into the air.

Tory bit back a scream as the tip of Harwood’s blade found the spot above Cord’s heart.

“You did very well…considering. Unfortunately, as I said, I have plans for the evening. And there is still the problem of disposing of your troublesome wife.”

The muscles in the baron’s forearms tensed as he prepared to thrust home—and Tory fired.

The blade trembled in Harwood’s hand. An expression of disbelief appeared on his thin, dark face. The saber wobbled and fell from his nerveless fingers and he crumpled onto the floor.

Tory stood there shaking. A sob escaped as the pistol dropped from her hand, hitting the Persian carpet with a quiet thud.

The sound jolted Cord into action. Turning away from the baron’s lifeless eyes, he crossed the room to where Tory stood, tears streaming down her cheeks. She started to weep as he hauled her into his arms.

“It’s all right, love.” He held her hard against him, trying to ease the tremors coursing through her body. “I’ve got you now. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Her fingers curled over the lapels of his coat. “I never imagined you would come.”

“I had to. I was afraid for you. Afraid something like this might happen.”

“He would…would have killed you.”

“Yes. But you were there with the gun and I knew you wouldn’t let him.”

Her voice shook. “Harwood said Mrs. Rathbone burned my letter. I thought you might not believe what it said, even if you read it.”

His hold tightened around her. He thought of the letter and how close he had come to casting it aside. How close he had come to giving in to his jealousy and fear, to running away from his overwhelming feelings for her.

“I’m going to have a baby,” she said, looking up at him through her tears.

“I know.”

“The child is yours—I swear it on my life.”

“It doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t. He knew that now, knew it with every ounce of his soul. From the moment he had stepped into the kitchen and realized the danger she was in, he had understood the depth of his love for her. The depth of his feelings for both her and the child. “I just thank God that you are safe.”

Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. “I love you. I love you so very much.”

Cord looked down at his brave, beautiful wife and captured her tear-streaked face between his hands. “I love you, too, Victoria. As God is my witness, I do.”

I
t was full dark outside by the time the wheel was repaired and the carriage rolled up in front of the house. Jacob had left to fetch the constable, who arrived at great speed a few minutes later. Cord answered questions for more than an hour, but finally he and Victoria were allowed to leave.

“There is something I need to tell you,” Cord said.

Victoria looked up at him, worry creeping back into her face. “What is it?”

“You didn’t have to make this mad journey. Harwood didn’t know it, but he was selling Windmere to me. The house needed a good deal of repair, which I hoped to begin right away. Then I planned to give it to you as a birthday gift.”

“But Claire said a man named Baldwin Slaughter had bought it.”

“I knew the baron would never agree to sell it to me for any sort of reasonable price.” Cord grinned. “Bald means white…as in Whiting? Slaughter…well, Mr. Slaughter drove a very hard bargain.”

Tory grinned and threw her arms around his neck. “You are the most wonderful man!”

Cord winced and Victoria hurriedly released him. “Darling, I’m so sorry. Is it hurting very much?”

“It’s just a little sore, is all. Nothing to worry about, though I don’t relish the long ride home.” Victoria climbed into the carriage and Cord climbed up beside her.

The wound in his chest was aching, the muscles and tendons still sore. With Mrs. Riddle’s assistance, Victoria had bandaged the gash in his arm, but there remained an uncomfortable four-hour ride back to London.

In the end, fussing over him as always, she insisted they stop for the night at a place called the Black Dog Inn.

“I told you it is only a scratch,” he grumbled. “Nothing to get worked up about.”

Victoria simply ignored him. She helped him undress and checked the bandage on his arm. She insisted he take a dose of laudanum before he went to bed, to which he agreed—only if she would join him. Unfortunately, the damnable laudanum put him almost immediately to sleep.

It was just before noon of the following day that they arrived back in London. As the coach pulled up to the house, Cord was surprised to see the duke of Sheffield’s extravagant four-horse rig parked out in front.

It wasn’t like Rafe to arrive unannounced. Cord worried what new crisis might have arisen while he was away.

“It appears we have company,” he said to Victoria.

“Are you certain you’re up to it?”

“I would love to play the invalid a bit longer, love,
since you take such good care of me, but aside from a bit of soreness, I am feeling just fine.”

They made their way toward the town house just as Sheffield walked out on the porch.

“Timmons said you had left for the country,” he said. “I suppose I should have sent a note ahead, but I didn’t want to waste that much time.”

Cord climbed the front porch stairs, Victoria on his arm. “I don’t know if I should be glad to see you or terrified of what news you may have brought.”

The duke chuckled softly, then frowned as he noticed the coat draped over Cord’s shoulder. “Problems with your wound? I thought you were pretty well healed.”

“I was,” Cord said.

“My stepfather tried to kill him,” Victoria said. “He tried to kill both of us. Cord was injured during a saber duel.”

“The cut is minor. It’s a long story,” he said with a sigh. “Why don’t we go inside?”

Rafe flicked a glance at Victoria. “Good idea. If your wife can spare you for a bit, I’d like a word with you in private. There is a matter of some importance we need to discuss.”

Cord’s eyebrows drew together. “I was afraid of that.”

“Buck up, old friend. This is news you’ll want to hear.”

“I’ll arrange something for luncheon,” Victoria said diplomatically. “Will you join us, Your Grace?”

He smiled. “Thank you, I believe I will.”

Mollified a little by his friend’s congeniality and more than a little intrigued, Cord led Rafe down the hall into his study.

“Something to drink?” he asked.

“Not at present.”

“Will I need one?”

Rafe chuckled. “Perhaps later, to celebrate what I’m about to tell you.”

“Now I
am
intrigued.”

The men sat down in front of the fire. “I had a visitor earlier this morning.”

“Is that so?”

“His name was Julian Fox.”

Cord felt a rush of blood to the back of his neck. “What did he want?”

“He came to discuss your wife. It seems he recently received a letter from her.”

A pulse began to pound in his temple. “Victoria wrote Fox a letter?”

“Take it easy, my friend. It is not what you think. Apparently your wife wrote to the man in desperation. In the letter, she explained the series of events that led you to the erroneous conclusion that their relationship went far beyond friendship. She begged him to help her set things right. She told Fox that she was with child—”

“Did she tell him the child might be his?” Cord shot to his feet. “Perhaps that is the real reason she wrote the letter.”

“Dammit, man, sit down and listen. This is the very reason Fox came to me instead of approaching you directly. When you hear what the man had to say, you will know your wife has been telling you the truth.”

Cord took a deep breath, Rafe’s last words beginning to sink in. He sat back down in his chair, his chest starting to ache again. “What did Fox say?”

“He said that he and Victoria were never more than friends. He said that he didn’t like the way you ignored
her and he believed making you jealous would force you to realize how lucky you were to have married such a woman.”

“And why, exactly, should I believe him?”

Rafe cast him a glance. “You’re acquainted with my younger brother, Simon?”

“Of course. What does Simon have to do with any of this?”

“Fox came to me because of my brother. The two of them are friends, you see. Julian knew that I was aware of Simon’s er…sexual preferences, and yet I’ve never condemned him. Fox trusted me with his own, similar secret and asked that the information go no further than you.”

Cord worked to get his mind around exactly what Rafe was saying. “Are you telling me that…that Julian Fox is a—”

“I’m saying Fox prefers intimacy with members of his same sex.”

“Good God.”

“As I said, he and Simon share a similar preference. Fox and your wife are nothing more than friends.”

For several long moments, Cord simply sat there, mulling over Rafe’s words.

Then a slow smile broke over his lips. “Victoria never betrayed me with Fox.”

“According to Fox, your wife is desperately in love with you.”

He wanted to cheer, to shout into the streets. “She tried to tell me. She said that she and Fox were only pretending. But she had lied to me before and I refused to believe her. And there was McPhee’s report.”

“I believe your wife convinced the servants at Har
wood Hall to keep their silence in regard to her visit. The night Julian happened to run into her, she was headed for her father’s old town house in search of her mother’s journal, just as she said.”

Both men came to their feet. “You’re a lucky man, Cord,” Rafe said a bit wistfully.

Cord thought of Victoria and how close he had come to losing her. “Yes, I am.” He smiled. “And in the not-so-distant future, I’m also going to be a father.”

Rafe laughed and Cord chimed in. The future had never looked brighter.

“If you will excuse me,” Cord said. “I believe I need to speak to my wife.”

Rafe nodded. “I wish you great happiness, my friend.”

Cord just smiled. “I appreciate that—but I already have it.”