His Californian Countess (20 page)

Staring after him for an endless minute, Jamie heard Meara ask where her uncle had gone. He shook his head and put mystery, danger and bone-deep sadness out of his head, getting back to the matter at hand. He couldn’t worry about abstracts—what was the truth, what wasn’t. He had the here and now to handle.

He couldn’t look back anymore. Amber, Meara and the new baby were his future.

Amber heard Jamie tiptoe back to bed. The mattress shifted under his weight. Meara lay sprawled between them, somehow managing to take up most of the space.

Meara had done well at pretending it was all a great adventure until it was time for bed. She’d frozen at her doorway and had looked up at them and asked if they were sure that man who shot at them wouldn’t come to get her. Her fears weren’t unreasonable childhood fears. There was someone out there who wanted to hurt them. Meara was too intelligent not to understand that. Even for Amber that fact was nearly too much to contemplate.

She and Jamie were almost too tired and heartsore to deal with Meara’s frightened tears. But they were perfectly willing to cuddle with her in their bed all night if that was what it took to help her feel secure.

“Ouch,” Jamie hissed after a while in the bed. “We have to fatten her up. She’s all bones and angles.”

Amber chuckled.

A moment later Meara’s hand flopped across Amber’s face with an audible slap. The bed shook. He was laughing. After the day they’d had, she couldn’t even mind that it was at her expense. He was laughing.

Compared to a life-and-death struggle, their differences were unimportant. If in fact there were differences at all. Why had she allowed love to make her so distrustful? “I love you,” she said simply.

She did not wait even a heartbeat to hear him say, “And I love you, Pixie. More than life. More than death. More than anger or tears. Lying in this bed is my world. I
will
keep you safe. If I have to hire an army, you and my children will be safe.”

She got out of bed and walked across the room to the front windows. Then Jamie was there, behind her, holding her by the upper arms and kissing her shoulder. “I’m sorry for trusting Alex so blindly. And that marriage to me is such a disaster,” he said.

“No.” She turned to face him and lay her hand on his cheek. “It’s I who must apologize. I am sorry about yesterday. About demanding words when I should have seen your feelings in the things you did and the way you cherish me. You never once told me I couldn’t still love Joseph, but I demanded you not love Helena. They are our past. If you say you love me now, I know your heart is large enough for both of us.”

“That is more than generous of you, but I
never
loved Helena. I felt only obligation for her. And today proved I do indeed owe her that. Her father
did
die in my stead. For you I feel all-encompassing love. If there is obliga
tion it is
because
I love you. Do you see the difference?”

She nodded.

“I will keep you safe. Somehow we’ll have a good life if I have to petition the crown to give up my title. Alex will eventually inherit. If he wants the title so badly, he’s welcome to it. He and my uncle both are. I am so sorry for the fright you had today. Thank God Malcolm is convinced you and the baby weren’t harmed.”

She put her hands on his shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. His arms engulfed hers and he took the kiss deeper, transporting her to a place she could only call love. When he raised his head, she laid her head on his shoulder. “It isn’t your fault that the jealousy of others has endangered all of us. Or that my jealousy endangered our marriage. I’m sorry for doubting you.”

“You had a right to the words you needed. I love you. You shall have them day after day until you are sick of hearing them.”

“That won’t happen,” she warned him.

“Good, since I’ll never tire of saying them.”

She stepped back and took his hand in hers. “I am so sorry about your cousin. You love him. And he’s hurt you. I thought I could like him. I wanted Mimm to be wrong.”

“It is all so difficult to sort out. It has to be Iris who changed him into someone I don’t know. She poisoned his soul.”

Sighing, Amber sat on the chaise. “I think I may retire the field, sir. This chaise longue is looking rather comfortable.”

“No. I insist you and Meara share the bed. I’ll pull the roll-away into the room and sleep there. Let’s get you settled in. Malcolm said you were to rest.”

She climbed back in bed and watched as he made up the roll-away in silence, then she closed her eyes. Even if there was still danger to her and Jamie, she knew he would protect her and not because of obligation, but because he loved her. For tonight that was enough.

J
amie stared up at the bedroom ceiling for what felt like hours. He could hear both Amber’s and Meara’s soft breathing. It soothed him knowing they were both safe. Amber had quickly surrendered to exhaustion and the rest Malcolm Campbell had ordered. Jamie would be forever grateful neither of them had been harmed physically, but he was deeply saddened that they’d both been so badly frightened.

He’d begun to drift off when a noise roused him. Heart pounding, he sat up. Once again, he heard a sound foreign to a house in slumber. Footsteps? The rustle of paper? It could be one of the staff. But could Alex have returned for his things? Or could he be there to create trouble?

Jamie tucked his heartache away and stood. Still wearing his trousers and shirt because Meara was in the room, he crept into his dressing room and grabbed the revolver he’d bought after Harry Conwell had died. His older friend’s killer was at last incarcerated only a few miles away. But there was still the person who shot Gunter and those who’d hired him.

Creeping to the door leading to the back stairs, Jamie carefully opened it. After checking on Mimm who was sleeping soundly, he checked Alex’s room. It was deserted and nothing had been touched.

In his stocking feet, Jamie returned to the back stairs and descended them carefully. He’d gotten halfway down when the overpowering smell of lamp oil hit him. He kept going and had just gotten past his closed office door when he heard the distinctive click of a revolver being cocked behind him and sound of the pocket door rolling open.

“Hallo, nephew,” a voice from his nightmares sneered. “A gun? How very brave of you. What a surprise you continue to be. Drop it, turn around and kick it over here.”

Jamie saw little choice but to obey. Still, he wasn’t dropping his weapon until he’d made sure there actually was one leveled at his back. He started a slow turn.

“Can you never learn to listen?” Oswald growled. “I said drop it. I can kill you now or later. It’s up to you.”

Having turned enough, Jamie was able to see Oswald and that he did indeed have a gun. Jamie was all that stood between Amber and Meara and his vile uncle so he did as ordered. Perhaps the staff below would hear the thud. Then he completed the turn to face his nemesis.

His uncle’s gray hair made him look older, but he was still nearly as tall as Jamie. He looked a good deal like the father Jamie remembered, except for the perpetual sneer on his once handsome face. It was as if evil had corrupted his features and turned them into something sour and repulsive.

“You’ve been extremely difficult to kill,” Oswald com
plained. “And now look what you’ve done. Leave it to you to spoil a surprise. You never learned to cooperate.” He stepped back into Jamie’s office. “Come in. We’ll have a bit of a reunion. And then I’ll need to come up with a new idea now that you’ve spoiled my original plan.”

Instead of kicking the gun toward his uncle, Jamie stepped forward as casually as he could, pretending to ignore it. In the hope of distracting him, Jamie said, “I’d rather our reunion took place in hell, you bastard.”

“Tisk tisk, nephew. Such bitterness. Shocking. Now get in here.” Slowly, Oswald backed into the study, the gun still steady in his hand.

Jamie followed, thankful his uncle had forgotten the gun Jamie’d dropped. Which meant if the noise had awakened someone sleeping in the staff quarters below, the gun would be there to aid in a rescue.

Even without help, though, Jamie wasn’t going down meekly. He had reasons to live. Reasons to fight. He looked around at the ransacked room. “Taking up burglary, Uncle?”

“I decided I was tired of bungling inferiors. If I want you dead and buried, I suppose I’ll have to do the killing myself.”

From the disarray of the room, Jamie must have heard Oswald searching the office. And papers all around the office were doused in the lamp oil he’d smelled.

“Been looking for something?” he asked sarcastically. As if surveying the damage, he walked behind his desk. With a piece of furniture between them, Jamie figured he might be able to dive for cover when his uncle decided to fire his weapon.

“Far enough! I’ve been looking for your will, dear
boy. And preparing a bit of groundwork to cover up my presence here, as well. I must say I’m disappointed that I wasn’t mentioned in the document except to be excluded. I suspected as much and wondered who would stand to profit from your demise.”

“What do you care? You won’t see a penny, you bastard.”

“I need a scapegoat. Alexander will have to do. I’m sure your driver will let the police know he was there tonight and rode off after the gunman, but that he suspiciously returned empty-handed. Oh, and you really should watch who you call a bastard,” he said and chuckled.

Jamie wondered if the man was evil or insane. Or both. Then he remembered how Alex’s impudent grin used to enrage Oswald. Hoping to throw him off balance a bit, Jamie did his best imitation of it and said, “The Bastard was a pet name for you, you know. It was a joke between Alex and me. Actually, for me it was a wish. It would mean I’m not related to you at all.”

“Alexander,” he groused, his eyes full of fury. Then he took a deep breath and visibly calmed himself. “He’s been a trial, always getting in the way with ideas of his own for you.”

Jamie’s heart broke a little more over Alex’s defection, but he had no intention of dying. “You may get the title if I die, but nothing else will ever come to you.”

“No, I imagine it goes to your little wife. And, of course, if her child is a boy, I wouldn’t even inherit the title at all, would I?”

So Alex had passed the information along to his father. Jamie wasn’t even surprised by how much that hurt.

“Wondering how I knew about the addition to your
family?” his uncle asked. “You really should learn not to insult shopkeepers. Especially women. They have loose lips, especially when given the opportunity to complain. I heard all about the crass American pretender who had snapped up a title she couldn’t possibly appreciate. As an American, your Amber would annoy any well-bred Englishwoman. I’m assuming judges here would allow her to retain custody of your possible heir, as well as your fortune.” He paused significantly, his eyes glittering with malice.

Jamie felt his stomach turn over and fury burn through him. If Oswald weren’t armed, he would do what he should have done years ago. He would strangle the bastard with his bare hands. Then his uncle continued speaking and Jamie nearly lost control—gun or no.

“No. No. We can’t have that,” his uncle went on, smiling superciliously. “She’s a pretty little thing, but she’ll have to die. I plan to spare little Meara, though. She’ll be worth a tidy fortune come morning. And she’d be all alone in the world. Poor child. Until I step in, that is. I’ll raise her just the way I did you. Using her fortune so she’ll appear to live in the manner she’s become accustomed to, of course.

“When you think on it, that is only fair. It’s Meara’s
déclassée
mother’s money, after all. You were in debt up to your clavicle until I arranged for you to marry the lovely Iris—the heiress whore. But you were always ungrateful.” He shook his head and gestured around the room. “Look at all I’ve given you. I could have made sure my son married her, but I gave her to you.”

“Because you knew you’d never see a penny from Alex,” Jamie said. “I’ve been thinking about this all night and I remembered something. I’d been Alex’s
beneficiary for years. If he and Iris had married and something had happened to them, you’d have had to kill me next to get at the money. A trail of bodies that long would have alerted the authorities. Even as blind to the crimes of the aristocracy as they are, you’d have gone to the gallows. So tell me, Uncle. Was Iris to die eventually after she married me?”

“Of course,” he answered, sounding appallingly jovial. “She’d have been despondent and would have had to kill herself over the heartbreak of losing you.”

Jamie stared at his uncle, recalling those exact words said before. His mind traveled across the years back to that awful night. His uncle and his Aunt Deirdre had been visiting Adair the night of his father’s…murder…not suicide. Fury and elation warred inside Jamie.

“Putting it together at last, cuz?” Alex asked from the doorway.

Jamie’s gaze flew to Alex. He wondered if he’d done this well with the sarcastic smile Alex had perfected so many years ago. Then Jamie noticed Alex held a gun. The gun Jamie’d dropped in the hall. He didn’t know if his chances of survival had just gone down or up. But he was nearly sure Amber’s and Meara’s had improved considerably.

If there was a quarrel between him and Alex, it was because Iris had died in Jamie’s stead, and because Jamie was raising Alex’s daughter. He also knew his father had arranged the accident that had caught and killed the wrong person. He wouldn’t let anything happen to an innocent woman and child.

Jamie remembered then that Alex had been at Adair the night Jamie’s father died. But mostly he remembered him being there the next day. He’d held Jamie’s
hand and told him he’d be moving in with his mother and father. He’d promised to protect him as much as he could. Jamie remembered thinking his cousin was being very nice, but what did he need protecting from?

He’d soon found out.

“How long did it take you to figure it out?” Jamie asked Alex. “I’m apparently quite slow to see to the heart of these evil plots your father devises.”

Alex kept his gaze pinned on his father. The sarcastic smile fell away and his face took on a bleak expression. “There was nothing to figure out. I couldn’t sleep that night and Uncle James had mentioned a new book he’d gotten especially for me. It was called
Everyday Life in the Wilds of North America
by Ballantyne. I’ll never forget that title though I never could bear to read it after what I saw when I went to the library.

“I arrived in time to see my father walk up behind Uncle James and blow his brains all over the draperies. Blessedly, your father never knew his life was in danger or that yours would be once he was gone. He’d fallen asleep at his desk. I didn’t know what to do. My father had just killed a man. His own brother. He was my father. Was I to send him to the gallows? And then I thought, what if no one believed me? Would he then kill you and me?”

“You knew he would want me dead. That’s why you promised protection that morning. You were always there when I found myself in danger.”

“I was so ashamed. I finally broke down and told my mother about a year later, thinking she’d know what to do. I was never sure. Did you kill her, too?” he asked his father. “I already know you killed Iris.”

“
You
killed Deirdre when you told her. But she didn’t
let on you knew. I didn’t give her enough credit for being that cunning. She said
she’d
seen me. She must have been suspicious before you told her because she never looked at me quite the same way after we moved to Adair. I assumed she’d known for more than a year when she confronted me. Stupid woman. Did she think I’d let her live?”

Alex bit his bottom lip, still keeping his eyes on his father. The gun was pointed that way, as well.

Feeling encouraged yet still trying to feel him out, Jamie asked Alex, “Then the rowboat with the leaks that suddenly developed overnight was his doing. Everyone knew I rowed to the island in the middle of the lake to get away from him. You didn’t get a thrashing because I nearly drowned, but because you saved me. How did you manage to force him to send me to Scotland?”

“I said I’d tell anyone who would listen what he’d done if he didn’t send you away to boarding school. I was finally as tall and strong as he was. I took his pistol. He wasn’t very brave unarmed, I found. That is, of course, why I left Adair when you did. He’d have killed me in my sleep after that. I was nearly sure of it. I hadn’t known he’d send you so far, though.”

“I was sure the cold ride with no coat would kill him. God, nothing I do kills you!” Oswald said, teeth gritted, eyes glittering with something close to madness.

Unwisely perhaps, Alex laughed. “I took him warm clothes later, but I waited up the road with blankets when I saw him ushered out with no coat.”

Jamie’s guilt over Iris doubled. “And I took Iris from you. After you spent your youth watching over me. No wonder you came to hate me. I am sorry. He truly
trapped me into it, Alex. I really hadn’t compromised her. It just looked bad to her father.”

“Oh, tell him the truth, for God’s sake!” Oswald shouted, his face twisted with rage. “She was a whore who slept with any man she could tempt to her bed.”

“Don’t,” Jamie shouted, praying the servants below would hear.

“I’m sick of the two of you protecting each other. Coddling each other. You’d have been dead years ago but for his interference. He’s still interfering. Choosing you over me. You, the cousin keeping me from succession to the earldom. And him, too. I am his
father.
But that means nothing to him.”

“Oh, it means something,” Alex said, all the bitterness he felt showing in his tone and expression. “It means no matter where I go I am your son. You are universally hated in Britain, Father, and I am looked at with suspicion because of it.”

“You think I care?” His eyes darted from Alex back to Jamie. “If you won’t tell him what she was, I will,” Oswald growled, moving toward the library table, still keeping the gun on Jamie. “She used you. Pumped you for information about him so she could make him think they were well suited. But he wouldn’t have it. So she had to trap him. She was all over him on that terrace. He was so busy trying to keep her hands off him, he didn’t see her father and me observing the proceedings. She wanted that title. It wasn’t that Iris was afraid to wait for you, Alexander. She had me send you away. And she didn’t care if she had to pass your bastard daughter off on him. She wanted to be a countess.”

Alex’s eyes cut to Jamie. “I’m sorry. You weren’t to know.”

“I’ve known since she told me she was increasing. I can add.”

“You love Meara. I didn’t want to take that away from you. Or Meara.”

“She is a part of you. The champion of my childhood. The best friend I’ve ever had.” The cousin who was once again stepping in to save him—and his family, too, this time. “How could I have doubted you?”