"Come, that does the Earl say?"
John reached his hand out for the note, the
latest in a series of exchanges between the German Rogue and
Hugh.
"The man is still haggling!" Marcus said,
taking the note from his pocket and handing it over. "Did I not
tell you about the tightfisted English?" He bowed to Georgiana.
"Delightful present company very much excepted!"
John was reading and frowning, "What a knave!
He offers half of what we are asking, and we were already asking
for half of what we started with!"
"But you did ask for a very high sum,"
Georgiana reminded him, "So as to delay his compliance!"
"It's not the sum that we will get that I am
quibbling about," John said, "but the fact that he might easily pay
it, and yet he haggles over your life and safety!"
Georgiana could see that John was getting
angry, and even Marcus stopped and looked at him with
apprehension.
"That coward tried to protect himself, when
his wife was being abducted," John went on, getting up to pace, an
artery showing on his neck. "He let bandits take her away, caring
more for his own life. He could not know that she was not in
danger!"
He looked at Georgiana, and there was fire in
his eyes, "That is the man you married! The man you must return
to!"
Georgiana had been worried for a while that
the longer she stayed with John, the more chances there were that
he would be found, or the identity of his band of men discovered.
The abduction of a countess was a serious thing, it struck at the
rich nobility, and the authorities would not stand for it.
To leave John would be agony, but she wanted
him to take the money from Hugh, a fraction of the money he ought
to have inherited, stop being a highwayman, and buy his farm
instead. She wanted him to be safe.
And that is why she said, "You should take
what he is offering, and be done with it!"
She realized almost immediately what a poor
choice of words she had made, but she could not imagine that he
would think that she wanted to go. How could she ever want to go,
when she had known the happiest days of her life with him in this
cottage, when the thought of being the Countess of Halford again
made her nauseous, when she wanted nothing in the world but to stay
by his side?
During the month of happiness they had had,
she had forgotten how quick his temper was. He was staring at her
with fury, and she opened her mouth to explain what she meant but
he was already telling Marcus, "You have heard the Countess. Let us
accept the offer. It's how much she thinks she is worth!"
He stormed off, and Georgiana stood up,
flushed, determined to go after him and call him a villain for what
he had said. Marcus slid in front of her quickly and blocked her
path.
"I beg you to wait a moment before you go
find him. Both of you are unhappy at what must come, but you should
not say hasty words to each other."
She might have pushed Marcus aside, in
her rage, but his kind eyes stopped her.
"How he infuriates me!" she cried. "How can
he think -"
"Perhaps he wants to be angry, to be able to
bear your absence," Marcus said softly. He shook his head. "I have
never seen two people more in love than you, and sometimes that
comes with a little too much feeling."
Georgiana bowed her head. How was it possible
that they could still doubt each other? And yet she supposed the
nature of passion was constant doubt, constant fire, constant fear.
Marcus seemed to be reading her mind, as he said, "Sometimes a love
like yours can lead to something more calm and eternal, but you
must be wise!"
She could not help a mischievous smile, "I am
sure you know all about lasting love and marriage!"
He smiled back, "God keep either from me
always, but my parents did love each other till the day they died.
My father went a few days after my mother for no discernible
medical reason; a broken heart, is what it was. They had twelve
children, eight survived -- all named after bloody Romans -- and
that man and woman loved each other through it all."
He motioned for her to take a seat again,
wanting to keep her from John for a while. She sat down, as did
he.
"I will tell you their secret: only one
person at a time could be angry, only one person at a time could be
sad, only one person at a time could be weak. The one who was doing
better would either help the other or leave well alone until the
worst of the anger was past. Bad things were taken seriously, but
every day irritations were laughed at as soon as possible. They
never went to bed angry at each other."
Georgiana still looked a little mutinous as
she listened to him. "And what would happen when both sides were
miserable, as now?"
He shrugged. "One would have to find a way of
being less miserable and comfort the other."
"And why should it not be he..."
"Another time it will be," Marcus told her
with a smile. "Sometimes it's giving oneself importance that gets
in the way. Do you think that if you go now to kiss John, he'll
throw you about, or scream at ye?"
She was staring at the ground now,
understanding that she did want to go to John, not to be angry but
to comfort him, and herself.
"Why, Mr. Brennan, you are a
philosopher!"
He waved his hand, "Any man who drinks as
much as I do is a great philosopher, that let me tell you. A man
understands everything when he is drunk, pity that later he can
only recall half!"
She laughed, and stretched her hand to him,
and he kissed it. It was with his good-humored wisdom that
she went in search of John.
Georgiana found him pacing the fields,
thunder still on his face, but when he saw her coming towards him,
and saw the love in her eyes, his expression changed at once and he
walked forward to embrace her so tightly that he lifted her from
the ground.
"Will I just keep begging you to forgive me?"
he asked. "I am sure at one point you should send me to hell!"
God's heaven, the philosopher was right!
Georgiana realized that she wanted no harsh words, she only wanted
to kiss him over and over as he held her up, her face above
his.
"It's not yet that time!" she told him.
"Do you know, the Hindus believe we are born
many times, ever better if we are good, ever worse if we are bad,"
he told her. "And our wedding is meant to last at least seven
lifetimes."
She smiled. "Well, you are a thief and I am
an adulterer, so I think we might be rats in our next life!"
"As long as we are in the same sewer!" he
replied hopefully.
Their last two days were spent in half sad,
half happy harmony. When Georgiana was ready to ride out again with
Marcus, John said, as he kissed her goodbye, "Remember, you are my
rat!"
"And you remember to leave banditry aside!"
she asked him. "No matter how many lives we are meant to have
together, I like this one, and I want it to be long!"
As she rode away with Marcus she put her head
out of the carriage to look at John. He stood there, not waving,
but rather looking as if he were waiting, and she thought that this
was not the last time they would be together.
She knew it was not.
"They will hang for this, that I
promise!"
Hugh paced in front of Georgiana as she sat
in her morning room, having tea.
He had received a note with the bandits'
acceptance of the ransom, and instructions of where to leave the
money. Of course he had alerted the police, but the German Rogue
was too wise to have actually meant the place indicated on the
note, and had led the messenger delivering the money a lively
chase, before taking the ransom safely and confounding his
pursuers.
A note had then been delivered, informing the
Earl that the Countess was at a certain crossroads, and that is
where Hugh had found her.
Georgiana was surprised by his eagerness to
embrace her, and his constant asking if she were well and unharmed.
He displayed a tenderness that she had not seen in him for a long
while, even if he had decided that she was only worth one fourth of
the money that had been asked.
One could never give in whole to bandits,
Hugh had said. One must not encourage them, or where would it all
end?
He was very annoyed that his ploy to catch
the highwaymen had failed, when they had outraged him, kept
Georgiana for a month and, in spite of this, remained at large. She
had sworn that she had not been harmed, that she had been taken to
a farm which she could not find now, as she had been blindfolded,
and that during the whole time she had not seen the German Rogue or
the Laughing Bandit.
(She was not lying, because she had seen John
and Marcus instead.)
Hugh could not stop looking at his wife, as
her absence had made him remember how beautiful she was, or perhaps
there was something different in her upon her return. Perhaps the
danger she had passed had made her seem more vivid, as she glowed
with a renewed light. He had always wanted to possess the light in
her, before it had seemingly disappeared.
Georgiana was, as well, sweeter to him than
she had been for a long time, as if something in her spirit had
calmed down, or as if, perhaps, the thought of losing her life or
her family -- dare he believe, the thought of losing him -- had
made her more serene and loving.
He found her breathtaking by day and
irresistible by candlelight, and when he knew that she was
indisposed with her monthly complaint, he realized that she had not
been raped, just as she had assured him, and that there was no
danger of a bastard by some highwayman ending up as the Earl of
Halford.
He therefore made plans to send Bess away, as
he would not be able to woo his own wife if her sister – his
mistress -- were present. Bess thought that she had gained such
ascendancy over him that he would never again touch Georgiana or
have an heir, but that was absurd to anyone with a mind.
Georgiana's miscarriage the year before had
torn them apart, and for many reasons he had not returned wholly to
his duties as a husband and as the head of a noble house, but now
he would.
He therefore invited Virginia and her
husband, Mr. O'Malley, to Halford, and they came complete with twin
toddlers and a baby. Virginia wore a very high coiffure and was
powdered mauve to the eyelashes, in spite of her husband having
been nothing but a penniless Irishman and schoolteacher until Hugh
had settled a dowry on her. She sported more ribbons and trinkets
than her sister, who was a Countess.
Knowing her to be cunning and greedy, Hugh
told her that her dowry would be increased, as she kept hinting it
should be because of her fertility, but she needed to do him a
little favor: she needed to get Bess to go with her to Bath, where
they would be kept in luxury by him, and she needed to take Cecily
and Dotty as well.
Virginia only heard the
words
money
and
luxury
, and set out on
her mission, though Bess dug her feet and refused to accept leaving
Halford to Georgiana. Neither did Georgiana want her to go, for she
feared the looks that Hugh was throwing at her, and did not
want the younger girls to be at the mercy of the older ones.
However, imperious Virginia carried the day,
using such a mixture of emotional blackmail -- she needed help with
her babes, what sort of an aunt was Bess? -- and insistence, that
Bess agreed to go for two weeks and no more. Bess could not forget
that Virginia was her last ally in the family, and that she ought
not to cross her and be left standing on her own, especially
considering the unlikelihood of Hugh ever marrying her, unless
Georgiana died.
Bess had, in fact, half prayed that her
sister would disappear, not killed by bandits, since she was not
heartless, but kidnapped by them forever.
Hugh happily saw the sisters off, and even
more happily got rid of Mr. O'Malley and his brood of shrieking
children, who could be heard all over the enormous castle and
grounds as if they were three thousand instead of three.
His children with Georgiana would not shriek
so, he thought, as he went up the stairs. They would be lovely
little things, pretty as their mother, at least the girls. He would
not mind a son who would resemble him, and would inherit his title
and estate.
Once a child was conceived, his household
would again be in order, and he thought there might even be some
gladness in it. He thought all this with a small smile, as he went
towards his wife's room to begin the business of making an
heir.
The German Rogue was still at large when Mad
Jack returned to Woodbrook, the village nearest to Halford, and got
himself a room at the inn.
There was a lot of gossiping, which reached
the Earl's ears: John had gone to Brazil and had made good money in
the last six months trading in gold, silver and emeralds. Or, at
least, money enough to buy a farm twenty miles from the castle and
set himself up there.
Hugh believed that John had gone to Brazil,
because John had made sure that someone like him boarded a ship
towards that vast country using his name before the highwaymen had
begun to attack. And the German Rogue was still at large, because
Marcus had refused to stop using the tidy outfit they had created.
"We are experienced and even famous!" Marcus had cried.
"It's precisely because you are famous that
you ought to stop," John had told him and the four other men who
made up the band. Two of them were soldiers who had fought with
them in India, and the other two their brothers. "We have had a
good clean run, count your money and be done!"
"The more I count it, the less there is!"
Marcus protested.