The Rusticated Duchess (36 page)

The next few seconds seemed a horrible slow motion, because Gloria pulled the trigger even as Clare moved to intercept the earl.

Even before Clare could touch him, Winchester crumpled, shouting in pain. Blood blossomed on his shoulder, and Clare swung his head to look at her, shock on his face. Behind him, Hammond turned and drew a gun on Troutwell, aiming directly at the sharp’s head. A second loud report echoed in the room and Gloria screamed, black fear wiping out all reason as she waited to see if Clare would fall. Instead, Clare’s arms went around her and they tumbled to the floor together. She struggled, releasing the pistol into Clare’s hands as she frantically searched him for injury.

Behind them, Winchester shouted bitterly, “She was a widow once! She can be a widow again.”

They both turned towards him at those words, in time to see Winchester throw a knife at Clare with his uninjured arm.

Gloria screamed again. Clare flinched and shifted in instinctive reaction, but did not turn aside. The blade would have passed by and landed in Gloria’s neck. Instead, it pierced Clare’s upper arm.

In that instant, the room filled as soldiers rushed to and fro. Beyond her, Gloria knew, two of the redcoats were struggling to subdue Sykes. Still, she paid no attention. She’d been pushed back down onto the stone floor by Clare, and together they tried to staunch the bleeding and stay out of the battle raging in the room by pressing Gloria’s black velvet to the wound. Two soldiers had taken a struggling Winchester in hand, both restraining him. Completely without regret for the bullet she’d lodged in Winchester’s shoulder, Gloria tore at the lining of her pelisse and offered the fabric to those soldiers, who used it to both secure him and as a makeshift bandage.

By the time she finished wrapping lengths of the fabric around Clare’s upper arm, Arwyn was on the floor beside his father and Lauderdale’s quiet voice, tinged with the authority of his rank, was giving orders.

“You could have been killed,” Arwyn was saying, a small quaver in his voice.

Clare glanced at Gloria, but his real attention was on his son. “I suppose I might have, but keeping any lady safe from these black-hearted devils was the honourable course of action, and to protect Gloria, I would have happily done so.”

Gloria’s heart nearly stopped. For the first time, as Clare’s hand clasped the shoulder of the adolescent beside him, she understood what he had risked for her. What he had given up already for her.

Her voice shook as she fought back tears. “H-he n-needs a doctor, Arwyn. To clean it.”

Arwyn looked at her, blinked, then straightened. “I can do it,” he assured her, then looked down at his father. “There’s a physician in Norham, I’ll go now. I can run into the village from here easily.”

“Yes, that would be for the best,” she agreed in a whisper. “Have him meet us at the Castle.” She looked past Arwyn and shuddered. Captain Hammond was on the stone floor, obviously dead. Beside him, one of his soldiers was covering him with a heavy woollen blanket.

Her head still rang from the report of the shot that had pierced his heart.

Gloria licked her lips, a bit faint from the reeking smell of blood in the small room. But the ordeal was not over, as Lieutenant Wickers took Arwyn’s place at Clare’s side.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

Gloria spoke. Clare groaned several times, both to warn her against saying too much and to encourage her to explain further, but Gloria rushed ahead.

When she had babbled out the sordid sequence of events, including the information that she had been the one to shoot Winchester, Wickers’ lips were pressed tightly together and Clare was pale, his eyes glittering with pain. “We have all of them in custody, my lady,” he said. “But without the captain, I’m going to have to send for help to the garrison in Jedburgh.”

“You won’t try to keep him here in Norham?” Gloria exclaimed.

“No, no, ma’am. We’ll hold onto these rogues until the soldiers from Jedburgh can come down and cart them back. Lauderdale’s word is enough to charge them, though I suppose there will be someone about to take your statement eventually. I’m sure they will want Lord Clare to testify if there is an inquest, but what with the circumstances being what they are, I doubt the coroner will even do that.” He frowned, his eyes turning to inspect Winchester. “As for this one, I suppose we’ll have the Jedburgh surgeon attend him. Lauderdale’s physician will be busy at Norham Castle, I suspect.”

Glancing down, she saw Clare slide her pistol into his jacket pocket and she breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t so much as spoken one cross word about it, and he needed to be home in his bed if he was to recuperate from the blood loss and shock.

“Can we go home, then?” she asked the lieutenant. “The doctor is coming to see his lordship.”

“Of course, of course,” Wickers replied, stepping back and squatting. “Let me help you get him to the carriage.”

* * * *

It was hours, though truly only late afternoon, before he was settled into his own bed inside the Castle. He had finally fallen asleep, his healthy hand grasping Gloria’s as he drifted away. He’d held onto it as the doctor had painstakingly cleaned the wound, while his valet had tossed a full three fingers of whisky down his throat before he’d finally drifted off into a weary sleep. Then, and only then, had his fingers eventually loosened. Gloria had forgotten to glide and instead ran through their connecting doors to her chamber.

She stood shaking in the centre of the room, her body shuddering as great, giant tears welled in her eyes and her hands wavered in front of her face.

Helpless to do anything but remember, she reviewed all she’d done with him, said to him, from the first moment they’d met. And she remembered all he had said to her. All he’d done for her. Then she sat down on the floor and sobbed.

Jeremy had loved his first wife, dearly. And yet he’d set aside his devotion to her and to her memory for Gloria’s safety. He’d inconvenienced his own life and his staff to accommodate her refusal to marry. He’d gone to great personal expenditure to provide her with a comfortable journey, and had not hesitated to adjust business and family obligations, whatever the expense. He’d gone out of his way to accommodate her reservations and conditions regarding their marriage, and made promises that neither the law nor society would expect him to keep.

Clare had somehow managed to turn their betrothal into a good example for his son instead of the outcome of a scandal. He’d made it clear he would share his home and his family with her. He’d welcomed her son and a collection of servants—most of whom he did not need about—into his home without a complaint. He’d given her a brother cloaked in respectability and welcome at their dinner table, and the knowledge of a sire who’d not turned against her but had been lost to the heroic defence of their heritage.

Clare had accepted without censure her stricture for no children, though his father had gruffly expressed a clumsy hope that their new family would ‘prosper’, and Gloria knew all of England would expect her to fill the nursery with well-bred English girls and boys to fill the ranks of the government, military, diplomatic core and clergy. He’d repeatedly defended her against the terror that had stalked her for months, to the point that he’d nearly given his life to protect her.

In return, Clare had asked for nothing more than her acceptance of their marriage and the opportunity to pleasure her body beyond her wildest imagination—and he’d promised her that she could deny him even that.

Jeremy had asked for nothing except the legal arrangement of marriage. He’d made no demands, outlined no expectations. Instead, he’d taken her objections—one by one—and addressed them each and had taken steps to resolve them. He’d asked for nothing, until today, when all he’d asked for was to hold her hand while he fought back the pain.

And what had she given him? She’d angered him, once upon a time, for questioning his honour. She’d shared her body, but more for the selfish need to indulge her own pleasure or prove a point. She’d accepted his caresses and wallowed in the pleasure of them, cognisant that he enjoyed the exchanges as well and satisfied that it was enough.

Gloria stared down at her wedding gown, thinking of the furious sewing that had gone into it. It was ruined beyond repair, for Clare’s life blood had spilt over it before they had staunched the wound.

Numbly, Gloria rang for Astrid and set about removing the silk. Yards upon yards of fabric in various shades had been removed to the servants’ hall already, but for the moment Gloria had no choice but to attire herself again in tired black. Astrid arrived, and helped her to wash and, with her mind numb and her brain exhausted, she returned to Clare’s chamber and drew a chair close to the bed.

And she held his hand.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Clare kept his eyes closed and listened to her shallow breathing. He’d already peeked through his eyelids and seen her puffy eyes. Gloria had cried, for quite a long while, as he’d slept. He puzzled over that evidence of her tears. The doctor had assured him that the largest risk was infection, and he’d survived any number of those. Besides, he’d have sworn he wasn’t feverish yet.

She did nothing except sit and gently, so as not to wake him, squeeze his hand. He’d watched her mouth move as silent words escaped, but with her head bent as it was he couldn’t read her lips. He considered speaking, but he was tired. Too tired to chat. Too tired to love her properly, as she deserved to be loved.

Clare wasn’t too tired to watch the line of her jaw or the plump flesh of her lips. He opened his eyes to absorb as much of Glory as he could and inhaled deeply. Dressed in drab black again, except for a white apron from the servants’ hall that she had tied over her dress, she seemed more nurse than wife. Fortunately, his ring sat firmly on her finger, disabusing anyone who might be confused. She was sitting too far away for him to catch her scent, but he’d manage to get her into his bed later. For now, he could study her face and in a few moments he would begin thinking up ways he could turn it into the angelic, glowing visage that so entranced him.

He remained as quiet as Gloria, filling his mind with the simple moment and letting be. They’d not had any time to simply
be
and Clare wondered if they ever would. Was her life a series of crises interrupted by too little peace, or would the disruptions and drama become few and far between?

It was too soon to say, Clare thought, picturing tiny Eynon in the nursery and another ten years of angst brewing in his own son, but he suspected he ought to treasure all opportunities for quiet as they came.

Thoughts of Arwyn brought a knock to his chamber door. Without warning, even as Gloria looked up, the door opened and the boy marched in, Lauderdale in the doorway behind him.

Clare inwardly winced. All his life, Arwyn had had free access to him. Anytime, Clare had said. He was going to have to explain that ‘anytime’—once one was married—meant knocking on the door first and waiting for an answer. Clare’s eye slid down Glory’s frame for a second, and he added to himself that he would have to start locking the door.

Still, Arwyn’s frank and worried assessment relieved him of any desire to pretend to be unconscious. Arwyn would worry, even if the lad said nothing. In any event, Glory had already noted the relief on his son’s face and was turning to him, so Clare nodded in his visitors’ direction and met Glory’s eyes as she inspected him.

Her eyes widened in accusation, so he tightened his grip on her hand, hoping she understood his message not to try to escape.

Instead of answering her unspoken question, he patted the bed on the side of his bandaged arm. “Up here, son, after you bring a chair for your grandfather.”

They were settled quickly and Lauderdale narrowed his eyes at Clare. “Glad to see that fool didn’t cause too much damage, m’boy. And I s’pose you first want to know what happened to those fools,” he sniffed.

“I assume they’ve been nullified, at least temporarily, since we’re all in this room,” Clare declaimed, still hanging onto Gloria’s hand. He had memories of Sykes pinned to the floor, and of Winchester tied up with the silk lining of Gloria’s pelisse, and the silence that had echoed over the river as the carriage had picked its way across the bridge and driven home. His driver had done everything possible to make the journey comfortable while Gloria had sat on the floor beside the bench to help keep him in position.

She hadn’t cried even a bit, then.

“Yes. Sykes is being held on charges of shooting that captain—Grant Hammond?” Lauderdale confirmed, drawing his eyebrows down and close together. “And Winchester for attacking and stabbing you, though he’ll have to be sent to the Tower, given the title. The fool must be in debt to Troutwell. ’Tis my opinion that Troutwell will likely get off in the end, as he didn’t actually injure anyone and cooperated as soon as Hammond aimed the pistol at his head, but he’ll be sent down to the Tower as well while it’s sorted. The other three, even if they had no part in the murder of the captain, were conspiring to kidnapping and murder. And they resisted orders from the border guards to halt and desist. Pretty sure they’ll spend years in prison for that, even without shooting anyone.”

Clare sighed, relieved, while Gloria’s face creased. “Is it over then? All of it?” she whispered.

Lauderdale considered, then nodded. “The lieutenant has made it clear that you discharged your weapon to deter Winchester from attacking you only, and that you shot to disarm only. No one will pursue you further on that matter, not with my name and Lennox protecting you. As for the rest, Chancery won’t give custody to a madman who attempted to murder a duke’s heir and attack his own daughter. They may not like the manner of your marriage in Scotland, but they’ll be bound to recognise it as legal and that will end this nonsense.” His jaw firmed. “While you were sleeping, I wrote to our firm in London. They’ll file with the Court on your behalf and Clare’s to dismiss the suit, given you’ve wed.”