Clandestine (43 page)

“I can hardly imagine that you will dare to interfere, madam, when I am merely fetching home my own wife.” The earl laughed, still slapping his thigh. “No unarmed footman would have the nerve to lay hands on a peer of the realm—”

“Perhaps not, but I, on the other hand, am both armed and dangerous,”
another man's voice said. “So you will not raise that whip, Moorefield, unless you really wish to give me the excuse to kill you.”

Rachel looked up as if the gates to Heaven had just opened.
“Guy!”

Sarah's heart had skidded to a halt, then lurched into a mad, unsteady rhythm, like a horse galloping over stones. Joy and fear and relief surged through her veins. Yet she sat clutching Anne's hand as if she were frozen.

Guy ignored all of them and walked farther into the room, his dark gaze fixed only on the earl. He was soaked with muck, his boots ruined, his clothes spattered. Even his hair was filthy, falling forward as he threw aside his hat and riding crop. A bone-deep fatigue marked his face, as if he had not slept in weeks.

The duchess lifted her elegant brows. “My dear nephew, what impeccable timing! You chose to return from France on horseback?”

“It was faster.”

Moorefield slowly lowered the whip, but his eyes looked murderous.

“You should leave, my lord,” Guy said quietly. “Even without calling on the footmen, you are outnumbered.”

The earl guffawed. “By you, sir—in your present state hardly fit to be called a gentleman? And these females?”

But two more equally bespattered young men strode into the Great Hall.

Lord Jonathan wiped the mud from his face with a handkerchief. His eyes met Anne's for a moment before he walked up to stand beside Guy. His face was equally drawn.

The third man was a stranger. He stalked proudly into the room, removing his gloves as he did so. Unlike the Wyldshay cousins, he was as fair as Adonis, yet bruised shadows circled his red-rimmed eyes.

Rachel promptly fainted. Anne and Sarah ran to kneel beside her.

As if unaware of them, Guy strode up to the earl and took the whip from his hand.

“This gentleman is Lord Moorefield, Jack,” he said over his shoulder. “You may remember him from some unfortunate prior encounters in London.”

“A long time ago,” Lord Jonathan said. “But I'd be happy to kill him for you, if you like.”

The blond stranger walked forward. “No,” he said with a slight French accent. “The pleasure of killing him is mine.”

The earl looked the Frenchman up and down. “Who the devil are you, sir?”

In spite of his obvious exhaustion, the stranger smiled with open menace. “My name is Claude d'Alleville. I am given to understand, sir, that you have persecuted that unhappy young lady.” He gestured toward Rachel, now lying insensible in Sarah's arms. “You threatened her and frightened her and drove her into hiding and despair. Your other crimes may be upon your own conscience, but there is also the matter of a child. I intend to kill you, sir, just for that.”

The duchess walked forward. “Welcome to Wyldshay, Monsieur. I do so adore all this high drama and vengeance. However, my first duty is to my guests who are already discomposed. You will forgive me, I am sure, if I leave all this unpleasantness to you gentlemen?”

Claude d'Alleville bowed with impeccable grace and kissed her hand.

“Meanwhile, Lady Moorefield is about to accompany me to my private suite to take tea.” The duchess cocked her head as more wheels rattled on the cobbles outside. Another carriage had arrived in the courtyard. “Ah! I suspect that the duke has returned a little earlier than expected. So very fortunate! Good day, sirs.”

Lady Moorefield's face remained frozen as the duchess led her away. Two footmen carefully carried Rachel from the room. With unspoken understanding, Anne and Sarah took a seat together in the corner. Lord Jonathan strode across the flagstones to stand beside his wife.

A whirlwind of footmen ran to assist as the Duke of Blackdown stalked in, several other gentlemen trailing behind him. The duke stopped in his tracks. His penetrating gaze coolly assessed the ongoing drama.

And at last Guy glanced at Sarah. She met his tired, burning gaze and tried to smile, but the Frenchman stalked up to Moorefield and slapped him across the face with his wet gloves.

“I demand satisfaction, sir!”

The duke raised his eyebrows. One of the guests at his shoulder murmured softly, “Good Lord!”

“An affair of honor, Your Grace,” Lord Jonathan said calmly, walking forward. “Perhaps some of these gentlemen may agree to act for Lord Moorefield? Guy and I will be delighted to offer the same service for Monsieur d'Alleville, of course.”

Anne squeezed Sarah's hand. “Come,” she said softly. “Apology is impossible now. We must leave this to the men.”

Sarah swallowed her sick fear and allowed Anne to lead her from the room.

The duchess met them at the bottom of the stairs. She was a little pale, but her composure was absolute.

“Well?” she asked. “We are to host a duel?”

Anne nodded. “Yes, and immediately, I fear, even though Monsieur d'Alleville can barely stand.”

“Then we must hope that this Claude d'Alleville is less tired than he looks and is a better shot than Moorefield,” the duchess said. “Or that he will demand rapiers. Frenchmen love to fight with swords. However, I fear that Mrs. Callaway needs to sit down before she faints.”

The duchess led the younger ladies into a private sitting room and rang for tea.

Sarah collapsed to a sofa, her soul an ocean of exhaustion, as if she stared hollow-eyed over the remains of a sea battle and had no emotion left. They all knew what this meant. If Lord Moorefield killed Claude d'Alleville and emerged triumphant, a devastated Rachel would still have to marry Guy. If the Frenchman killed the earl, he would be forced to flee the country. Either way, disaster stalked.

The duchess stood quietly at the fireplace, her ribbons trembling. Anne closed her eyes as if she retreated into some quiet private place, where perhaps she prayed. Sarah folded her hands and gazed numbly from the window.

Sunshine streamed through high clouds. Swallows gathered on the rooftops. The last of the summer roses nodded lazily in a small breeze.

She could not pray. She could not even hope. Lord Moorefield had cheated and manipulated and threatened, yet they had no evidence that he had ever murdered. She could not actively hope for any man's death, simply in order to secure her own happiness.

The minutes ticked by, marked by the steady beat of the gilt clock on the mantel. A stifling hush blanketed the room.

We all love him! Sarah thought suddenly. All of us!

The duchess loves her sister's son as if he were her own child. Anne loves him like a brother. Jack and Ryder love him, as does Miracle and his own family. Berry will love him just as much, and Rachel will come to love him in the end.

If Lord Moorefield walks out of Wyldshay alive, I am the only one who will lose him. Yet though I love him more than I love my own soul, I cannot hope for a death in order to win him. I cannot!

Boots thudded at last in the hallway. The door to the room burst open. Anne opened her eyes and met her husband's bright smile. Guy strode in behind his cousin, brushed the hair back from his forehead, and bowed to his aunt.

“Well?” the duchess said. “Am I to arrange a wedding or a funeral or both?”

“Not dead,” Guy said. “It was pistols. Moorefield's badly wounded. But in front of a half a dozen witnesses—including the duke, Lord Grail, and Lord Ayre—he apologized to d'Alleville and renounced all claim to the child.”

“Then a wedding,” the duchess said, smiling. “No, two weddings.”

She glanced at her son and his wife, and the three of them left the room.

His eyes dark with passion, Guy's met Sarah's gaze. Her heart soaring, she stood up and walked straight into his embrace.

H
E
slept heavily, his newly washed hair spilled on the pillow, his freshly shaved jaw sharply defined in the candlelight.

Somewhere in Wyldshay, Anne and Jack, similarly reunited, were no doubt sleeping together with equal delight.

Lord Moorefield, bandaged and disgraced, had been driven away in his carriage. Lady Moorefield, against every entreaty, had decided to go with him.

Guy, Jack, and Claude d'Alleville had ridden across France without stopping and then galloped straight to Wyldshay as soon as they reached land. Yet in spite of his fatigue, the Frenchman had prevailed. Not with swords, but with pistols. A duel decided by first blood. The earl would walk with a limp, if he ever walked again, for the rest of his life.

It was over. The duchess had quietly sent up food and drink and a bath, after which Sarah had allowed Guy to fall unmolested into bed. Further explanations could wait until morning.

Meanwhile, Rachel had begun to weep piteously as soon as she recovered her senses and saw the father of her child and love of her life. And so Claude was very likely sitting by her bedside, watching her sleeping face, as Sarah watched Guy's.

Sarah woke next to the ticking of the clock and the light sound of Guy's steady breathing. A high moon rode the clouds outside their tower room. Restless, she slid from the bed and walked silently to the window.

At the base of the castle walls, the River Wyld spread into a calm lake, shimmering with silver and shadows in the moonlight. Sarah leaned on the sill, her heart entirely at peace, and gazed down.

Warm fingers touched her nape. Her blood leaped. She turned her head and smiled.

Guy kissed the back of her neck, then enfolded her in his arms.

“The goddess walks,” he said quietly. “The White Lady of moonlight and flowers.”

“And the god has returned,” she said. “Oberon, king of the wild realms of Faerie.”

He laughed with that uniquely wry appreciation for the absurd and stroked her hair back from her cheek.

“I drove to the Chateau du Cerf entirely without real hope,” he said. “Jack had caught up with me by then, so I knew that Claude d'Alleville must be dead. I tried to take comfort in the knowledge that Anne and the duchess were both here to support you, but at that moment—”

“Yes,” she said. “At that moment, when it seemed that all real hope was lost…Yes, I felt the same way. Yet you didn't give up?”

“God, no! How could I give up, feeling as I do about you? So Jack and I drove on and arrived at the chateau to find the place in chaos. Claude d'Alleville shared the same name as his father. Claude
Père
had indeed just died, but Claude
Fils
had been called back from Alexandria as soon as the old man first became ill.” His arms tightened about her. Sarah leaned her head back into the warm hollow of his shoulder. “Yet my letter arrived in the days soon after the father's death, and his secretary assumed it was once again for him.”

“And so returned it unopened to Wyldshay? Meanwhile, Berry's father was on his way home from Egypt, and he arrived to find you there in his home. How did he react?”

“At first he was inclined to send us to the devil, but then he found Rachel's letters amongst his late father's papers. He brought them down into the grand salon—”

“The chateau is imposing?” Sarah asked.

Guy chuckled in her ear. “Very! Which may be the reason why Claude
Père
had been so hysterically opposed to his son's marrying a penniless Englishwoman. He apparently couldn't bring himself to actually destroy Rachel's letters, but he'd kept them without sending them on to his son. Claude believed his father's suggestion that Rachel had found a new lover. He never knew about Berry.”

His fingers gently stroked the hair away from her nape. Sarah wished she could purr.

“Until you told him. After which, he agreed to come back here with you to marry Rachel?”

“Not exactly. He was furious that he'd been so betrayed by his own father. Yet he was still inclined to believe that Rachel might just be some kind of hussy, after all—until he was able to take the time to read her letters. Of course, Jack and I were frantic with impatience by then, knowing the havoc that the returned letter must be creating here at Wyldshay. We'd written to you and Anne as soon as we knew Claude was alive, but when he agreed to come back with us we rode across France like the devil, told him the rest of the story on the journey, and obviously arrived here ahead of the post.”

He felt so solid and real and ardent, enveloping her in his warmth and strength. Sarah caught one of his hands and kissed his palm. “So Claude no longer believes that Rachel never really loved him?”

“My dear Sarah, I don't know what the devil he believes. Yet he will marry her and take her back to France. He's filled with determination to rescue his little son and agonizing over the fate of his damsel in distress. So they'll be mad romantic fools in a home full of drama. Fortunately, I believe he'll be an excellent father. Betsy Davy will go, too, so Berry will always be safe.”