Not Quite Married (37 page)

Saunier’s slashes grew wilder and more desperate as Dyso repeatedly lunged at his old enemy then sharply retreated, wearing him down. It was a deadly cat-and-mouse game, in which the cat was slowly losing his patience and his edge.

Then, as Saunier slashed furiously and his blade cut into the top of a pew and caught, the tide changed. Dyso straightened, his eyes glittering and his face set with cold vengeance. He caught the marquis’s gaze and held it before lunging inside the ineffective arc of the blade and lashing his arms around the marquis’s body. Carried by the momentum, they toppled onto the floor and the marquis’s blade was dislodged and sent clattering between the pews.

Stripped of the insulation of wealth, status, and the fiction of superiority . . . reduced to muscle and sinew and emotion and reflex . . . they rolled and grappled savagely before Dyso’s huge fists began to deal out the punishment they had absorbed and stored over a lifetime. Rising on his knees astride the tiring Saunier, Dyso saw the Frenchman’s contempt turning to fear and the fear turning to pain. Each blow the big man landed transferred a part of justice’s debt back to a man who had lived most of his life in a world where he was exempt from consequences.

As the rest of the fighting ended, Aaron and Hicks hurried to Brien.

“Aaron?” She recovered her voice and she came out of her sensory fog as he threw his arms around her and scooped her against him. “Oh, thank God.”

“Are you all right?” he demanded, pushing her back to look at her.

“Yes. I’m—you got here just in time.” She touched his face and neck and shoulders, unable to believe he was real. “How did you know where to— Aaron, the Hennipens, they’re—”

“Free,” he told her. Then he spotted Hicks rushing to the center aisle where there were still sounds of grappling and flesh smacking flesh, and followed, pulling Brien along with him. Once there, he thrust her partway behind him, to shield her from the sight of Dyso pounding the now helpless marquis.

“Dyso, stop!” Brien called as the marquis’s eyes closed and his head snapped from side to side. She gave Aaron a frantic shake.

“Stop him—he’ll kill the marquis and they’ll hang him for it!”

Hicks and Aaron sprang to drag the big man from Saunier’s body and it took all of their combined strength to pull him off and then restrain him. When Dyso finally quit struggling, Hicks knelt to check the marquis and declared he was still breathing.

“Good,” the squire’s voice came from behind them. “We need him alive.”

They turned to find Squire and Mrs. Hennipen hurrying in from the sacristy.

“Why? So he can stand trial and publish all manner of lies about us?” Aaron said, still holding Dyso back.

“S-squire! You’re really here?” The vicar crept out from behind the altar, looking horrified as he realized the ramifications of what had just taken place. Then in an instant he turned the blame outward—on Brien. “If you were already married, young woman, why didn’t you say something?”

“I— I—” She leaned back against Aaron, unwilling to dispute the story he’d told, but unable to quickly think of a way to explain her silence. “Would you have believed me?”

“No more than he believed the Hennipens were in danger,”

Aaron answered her.

“If I were you, Father,” the squire said, drawing himself up to his full height as he addressed the vicar, “I would find some rope to bind these ‘sinners’ as they wait for the constables.” He patted his wife’s hand before setting it from his arm and striding over to look down at the unconscious marquis. “But this one . . .” His usually genial face was suddenly like red granite. “He deserves something more appropriate.”

“He deserves nothing,” Brien declared hotly. “The man is a brute and a monster.”

The squire smiled coolly. “Did I ever tell you, dear Brien, that the name ‘Hennipen’ comes from the Norman? French, don’t you know. I still have some relations and a goodly number of acquaintances in France.” He gave a sardonic little sigh. “Some of the poor wretches are infected with that pernicious revolutionary fervor. . . .”

As Brien and Aaron contemplated that, the squire went to Dyso and pulled the big man down by the arm to whisper in his ear.

Whatever he said brought an easing of tension and after a moment Dyso nodded. The squire pressed a length of cord into his hand and then turned to give Hicks a thump on the arm.

“If you would be so good as to help out our big friend here with the marquis. . . .”

As they bound the unconscious Frenchman and carried him out to the coach, the squire paused by Brien and gave her a pat on the arm. “You needn’t worry about him, dear girl. Ever again.”

Aaron and Brien watched the little squire escort his wife outside through the sacristy, and followed. They watched Dyso and Hicks drop the marquis in the footwell of the coach and hand the squire and Mrs. Hennipen up into the seats. After a private word with Aaron, Hicks volunteered to drive at least as far as the Hennipens’ house, where Jeannie Trowbridge anxiously awaited word of her mistress. As the coach pulled away, Brien looked up at Aaron.

“Is it over?” she asked, shivering suddenly in the cool, damp air, feeling like she was awakening from a horrible dream.

“There may be a few questions. We have to find someplace safe .

. . someplace where no one will look for us right away.” He thought for a moment and then nodded firmly. “I know just the place.” He looked around and spotted the horses tied nearby.

Three. Just enough. He looked down at Brien. “Can you ride?”

“It’s really you.” She looked up and threw her arms around him.

“I was so afraid I’d never see you again. . . .” He slid his arms around her and held her for a moment.

When they looked up, Dyso had collected the horses and stood waiting with the felt cloaks the three men had discarded earlier.

Aaron held her back at arm’s length and studied her with a worried expression. “We have to go, sweetness. Can you ride?”

She smiled, feeling as if the weight of the world had just been lifted from her shoulders.

“Just watch me.”

Twenty-Five

THEY RODE HARD for a while, heading west-northwest. The rain had stopped, the clouds had thinned, and the roads were drier. As they picked their way across the landscape by the light of an emerging moon, they were able to shed their raincloaks and slow the pace to spare the horses. Brien caught her breath and had a chance to ask some of the questions whirling inside her.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Dyso came to get me,” Aaron said, nodding across her mount to where the big servant was riding. “Where else would he go when you’re in trouble?”

She looked at him in amazement. “How did he know where to find you? How did he even know you were in England?” She straightened in the saddle. “Jeannie! She’ll be worried sick.”

Aaron chuckled. “Hicks went home with the Hennipens to tell her.”

“You know where she is, too?”

“We went first to your house in London.” He smiled wryly.

“Fortunately, your servants talk. We persuaded your housekeeper to tell us where you’d gone, and Dyso apparently knew where to find the Hennipens. We got there not long after you’d left with the marquis . . . Jeannie and the other servants told us he’d been there. From there, we simply tracked you to the nearest church. Not really very inventive of the marquis.”

He searched the moonlit contours of her face. “Are you all right?

They didn’t hurt you? . . .”

“I’m fine. But I still don’t understand how Dyso knew where to find you.” She looked at her big protector. “How did you know where he was?”

Dyso gave her an enigmatic smile and kicked his mount into a faster gait that left her staring in puzzlement at his back.

“I think he likes being something of a mystery.” Aaron chuckled.

“The truth is, I mentioned in front of him that we’d be sailing for London shortly after . . . after the fire in Boston. He just took a chance and came to search the docks for
The Lady’s Secret.
”

“Thank Heaven he found you.” She focused on Aaron’s profile, giving thanks for every stubborn and assuming and persistent bone in his body. “The marquis announced an engagement between Louis and myself, and then tried to coerce me into going through with it.” Anxiety threatened to rise as she spoke. “He produced a witness—that other man, Cornelius Pitt—to say that I had intentionally started the fire that killed Raoul. He swore he’d see me prosecuted and hanged for the murder of his son if I didn’t marry Louis.”

“That’s absurd. Who would believe such a thing?”

“Anyone might, if he produced witnesses claiming to have seen and heard things.” Her voice thickened with rising emotion. “Pitt had learned from Raoul that I demanded an annulment. He knew about you. Not who you were, exactly, but he knew there had been someone else.” She took a shuddering breath, recalling the marquis’s threats and the sick feeling she’d had in the pit of her stomach. “I was frantic. My father had been called to Bristol and then Dyso disappeared.” Her voice shrank as she recalled those awful, desperate hours. “I’ve never felt so alone in my life.”

He studied her for a moment, then reached out to put his hand over hers. “You’re not alone now, Brien.”

The gentleness beneath the strength and certainty in his voice freed the emotions she had held in check for the last three days.

Anger and relief welled in equal proportions in her and began to overflow in big, salty tears that she was glad the darkness hid.

She threw herself into the task of riding . . . urging her mount faster, reveling in the movement and the freedom that she had come so close to losing.

They rode through the rest of the night, stopping only for a bit of food and a change of horses the next morning. It was midafternoon before they reached the stone pillars and wrought-iron gates that marked the carriage lane leading to their destination.

A friend’s house was where they were bound, Aaron had said. A place where they could stay until they sorted everything out. But it was, in fact, a sprawling manor house made in the Elizabethan style, with a sweeping entry drive, huge windows, and a facade of hand-cut marble that glowed in the afternoon sun.

Brien looked at her elegant refuge with uncharacteristic indifference. All she wanted, she had told Aaron for the last ten miles, was a bug-free bed and twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep. Now that the journey was over and they were dismounting, the reserves that had sustained her for the last four days finally ran out. She was suddenly too fatigued to move a muscle, much less make a proper dismount. When Aaron sensed her difficulty and came to help her down, she had difficulty prying her stiff fingers from around the reins. Her legs turned to rubber when her feet touched the ground; she had to lean on Aaron to steady herself.

Any other time it would have been humiliating to have to depend on someone so thoroughly. But just now she was too exhausted to be stubborn, independent, or even embarrassed by her weakness. She managed to walk stiffly across the gravel drive and up the approach to the house, but when she tried to lift a foot onto the first of several steps leading to the front doors, it refused to leave the ground.

She yanked her skirts aside with numbed fingers and looked down at her unresponsive feet in horror. Her entire body seemed to be rebelling. She was too overwhelmed to protest when Aaron pulled her against him and scooped her up in his arms. The way he panted up the steps with her made her feel guilty. But not so guilty that she insist he put her down and let her walk.

A pair of impressive lacquered doors swung open and slack-jawed servants in full livery stared in dismay as he carried her across inlaid mable floors and thick Persian rugs and up a sweeping staircase.

“Master Aaron.” The butler bowed awkwardly as he passed.

“Peters. The master suite”—Aaron threw over his shoulder—“is
he
here?”

“No, sir. Cambridge, sir,” Peters answered.

“Good!”

A heavy blow from his boot opened the door to a sumptuously furnished suite of rooms, the first of which was dominated by a massive rosewood bed draped in gold silk damascene and piled with pillows that looked so soft that she groaned with pure longing. When Aaron set her on the side of the bed, she fell back, rolled over onto her stomach, and crawled clumsily toward those sumptuous pillows. The feel of a goosefeather pillow and soft linen beneath her face was the last thing she remembered.

Aaron stood by the bed watching her collapse into the pillows and felt a curious trickle of pleasure that had no basis in the physical. He had quit listening to his body several hours ago. If he hadn’t, he would be swamped with complaints of “aching back, swollen feet, overextended shoulder, saddle-sore buttocks, cramped hands, strained arms, pounding head . . .”

Sweet Heaven Almighty. He couldn’t remember ever being this tired.

And yet . . . one look at his sleeping bride on the bed and a primal surge of pleasure transformed his exhaustion into a spongy, enveloping sense of exhilaration.

She stirred after a moment, punching the pillows and burrowing into them. Her eyelashes were a dark, thick fringe against her fair skin and her lips were parted. He imagined them moist and luscious against his own.

Later.

Much later.

He trudged around the bed, feeling his limbs turning leaden, and glanced at Peters, who stood watching in astonishment from the doorway.

“The big fellow downstairs is Dyso. He’s my wife’s servant and he’ll need a good bed and plenty of food when he awakens.” He staggered over to the bed and fell onto it beside her.

“Draw the curtains and take her shoes off,” he muttered into the pillow. “And if you want my advice, you’ll let her sleep until she wakes up on her own.”

JUST PAST NOON the next day, Brien raised her head to look about. She was in a lavishly furnished bedchamber, lying on a bed the size of the
Secret
’s quarterdeck. Aaron sat in a stuffed chair nearby, with his feet propped up on a Chinese-print silk ottoman. He was freshly bathed and dressed in clean clothes, and his auburn hair was damp and looked slightly tousled from toweling. He seemed newly wakened himself and was watching her with a very pleased expression.