The Edge of Desire (43 page)

Christian didn’t know what to say, how to respond to such foolishness.

But it seemed they’d run out of time.

That quantity slowed as Swithin turned to Letitia. Christian saw him tighten the grip he had on her arm.

He was going to half throw, half swing her over the edge—he’d only need to make her topple. He could do it without stepping closer to the parapet. There was only one thing Christian could do—one risk, one gamble, he had to take.

“Swithin.” He poured every ounce of command he possessed into his voice. “Look down.”

Startled, Swithin glanced back at him; he still had his pistol in a firm grip. Christian didn’t move so much as an eyelash.

Puzzlement growing, unable to read anything in Christian’s face, Swithin shifted; bracing his arm, anchoring Letitia at arm’s length, he edged closer to the parapet, looked over and down.

Two shots rang out, virtually inseparable.

Swithin jerked, then stumbled backward, crumpling to the ground.

Slinging Letitia forward as he fell, his descending weight acting as a fulcrum propelling her over the edge.

Christian shot forward, leapt over Swithin, dove for the edge, grabbed—but her body had already cleared the parapet.

He couldn’t reach her—but her bound hands, desperately reaching out to him as she twisted and fell, brushed, clutched at his sleeves.

He seized her wrists, hung on with both hands as her falling weight yanked him to the edge. Going down on his knees, he braced his body behind the low parapet, his hands locked viselike about hers.

Her fingers clenched convulsively, gripping, clinging.

Then came the jerk as he took her weight.

The muscles in his arms screamed; pain shot across his shoulders. He heard her cry out in pain and shock.

But he had her. Mentally giving thanks, he closed his eyes for a second, savored the feel of her hands still in his.

Still alive in his.

She gasped, gulped in air as her swinging weight steadied.

After a moment she looked up; he felt the shift in her weight.

Spreading his knees, lowering his body, he leaned into the parapet, and opening his eyes, looked down.

Into her face.

He smiled. “I’ve got you.”

The concern—the fear—in her eyes didn’t fade.

She studied his face, then he saw her gaze lower.

“You can’t hold me forever.”

“Believe me, I can—or at least for long enough now to be able to manage forever.”

She smiled faintly; something in her face changed. Her eyes, when she lifted them to his again, were filled with an emotion he hadn’t seen in them before—one she’d never let him see.

“I love you.” Letitia knew that, no matter what he said, she was going to fall and die. The muscles of his neck, shoulders, and chest were under horrendous strain, the veins in his throat starkly corded. Even now the muscles in his arms were starting to quiver.

So she had to say now what she hadn’t yet. “I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you. I’ve always loved you, every day through all the years. I never stopped loving you. Even when I lay with Randall, it was you I was with in my heart.” She smiled softly. “That was yours from the first, and will be yours to the last.”

“I love you, too.” He continued to look into her eyes. “I always have. I never stopped loving you—I never will.” His hands tightened on hers. “Now hold on.”

Her smile faded. “It’s hopeless.”

“Nothing’s ever hopeless—just look at us. And in this case, we have friends who are running hither and yon as we speak.”

He glanced past her. “Apparently there’s refurbishing still going on around the house—they’ve found a large oilcloth. And there’s bales of hay, too. They’re arranging them beneath you.” His gaze switched back to her face. “You can’t possibly be so gauche as to fall before they’re ready to catch you—they’re going to so much trouble.”

Hope sprang to life within her. A bright burning flame, it caught and flared—so quickly, so strongly, she felt giddy. She nearly laughed.

If there was hope, she’d cling to it—cling to life, and him.

He was looking down past her again. “They’re almost ready—they’ve stretched out the oilcloth. There’s only four of them—no, Barton has joined them. Good man. You’ll have to stop hounding the poor beggar now—very bad ton to hound a man who was instrumental in saving your life.”

The thought of Barton finally being helpful was too much; she humphed.

But then his expression sobered and he looked back at her.

“Now comes the difficult part.” He held her gaze. “You have to trust me. When I say let go, you have to let go. Believe me, that won’t be as easy as it sounds. You’ll be falling. But the straw bales are beneath you—you won’t hit the ground. And the oilcloth will slow you—which is why you have to let go
exactly
when I tell you, because they’re going to have to pull the cloth taut at the right moment.”

She nodded her understanding. “Yes, all right.” She trusted him implicitly, more than enough to trump all fear.

“Good.” He looked down, raised his voice. “On the count of three.” His gaze returned to her face. His hands shifted on hers, easing his grip but not yet releasing her. “One, two…” His eyes held hers. “Let go.”

Wrapped in his gray gaze, she opened her fingers.

Felt his warm grasp slip away as gravity took hold and she started to fall.

Heard him call from above, “Three!”

And then she was falling.

Falling.

Onto the taut oilcloth. As she landed, she saw the other men hauling back hard, hands locked on the edge of the cloth, their weight fully back.

She bounced once, then settled onto the bales of hay as the men released the tension on the cloth. Sitting up, she flicked her black skirts down, then frowned at her bound wrists.

Justin grabbed her, hauled her to the edge of the bales and hugged her wildly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Perfectly.” And she was. She thumped his side with her hands. “Here—untie my wrists.”

Without meeting her eyes, Justin bent his head to pick at the knots.

Dalziel, as cool as ever, came up. “Here—let me.” He had a wicked-looking dagger in his hand.

Justin straightened. Letitia held out her hands and Dalziel expertly sliced through the cords.

She couldn’t quite believe she was alive.

Determined to hang onto her composure, she glanced regally around the circle of her rescuers, inclining her head and bestowing a smile on each of them—even Barton. “Thank you, gentlemen. That was…quite an experience.”

Beyond Dalziel she saw Christian come out of a door.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She stood, discovered her legs were fully functional. She started to walk along the facade to where Christian had halted, just beyond the door.

Then her Vaux heritage got the better of her; she picked up her skirts and ran.

Straight into his arms.

He opened them as she neared, closed them tightly about
her as she landed against his chest, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him hard.

She closed her eyes, felt the tears leak out.

She was safe. She was where she’d always wanted to be. This time he’d come for her. This time he’d saved her.

Christian knew beyond doubt what she was thinking. He buried his face in her hair, breathed in her scent—that elusive, unforgettable scent of jasmine—murmured, “I’m here,” in her ear.

She hugged him harder.

For one moment they simply stood, wrapped in each other, and let the past go, let it fade. Knew they stood on the cusp of their future—the future they’d dreamed of so long ago.

Eventually she drew back. Looked up into his eyes. Smiled one of her seductive smiles. “I’ve already thanked the others. I’ll have to thank you appropriately…but later.”

He smiled back. “Later.” Releasing her, he took her hand. “Now”—expression hardening, he looked up as Dalziel and the others neared—“we have to deal with the aftermath of Swithin’s Grand Plan.”

Inside the house, they located Swithin’s wife. A pale blonde of good but minor family, she was a mild, gentle, quiet female; with his extensive experience in dealing with such ladies, Tristan took on the task of explaining what had occurred without reducing the poor woman to hysterics. Letitia sat beside Mrs. Swithin, lending wordless support, but wisely leaving the talking to Tristan.

Tony meanwhile organized butler and footmen to fetch Swithin, not dead but wounded, and definitely incapacitated, from the roof. Barton assisted; he no longer had his eye on Justin, but on Swithin.

Swithin wasn’t unconscious. He babbled incessantly, the pain and shock of his wounds having unhinged what little rationality he’d possessed.

When he was carried, still babbling, into the drawing room, Christian, who had more experience of gunshot wounds than the others, took one look at his injuries and ordered the butler to summon a doctor, then examined the wounds more closely. The bullet lodged in Swithin’s right shoulder he attributed to Justin; at twenty-six and unbloodied in war, he still possessed the naïveté to shoot to incapacitate rather than kill. The other bullet—just a fraction too high to put an end to Swithin’s life—would have come from Dalziel, a man far too experienced to court the slightest risk.

As it transpired, they were all soon sorry Dalziel’s bullet hadn’t found its mark; it would have saved everyone a great deal of bother, and freed Swithin from a life of misery as well.

Luckily, Mrs. Swithin proved to have rather more backbone and nous than her meek demeanor had suggested. She accepted the tale of her husband’s villainy without protest or argument. “He’s always been quiet and strangely secretive for as long as I’ve known him, but over the last weeks he’s been acting
most
peculiarly.”

Swithin’s continued bleating in the background, fragments of sentences jumbling together in an incomprehensible ramble, verified that he’d deteriorated even further.

Tristan exchanged a look with Christian and Dalziel, then turned back to Mrs. Swithin and gently suggested, “Given the circumstances, it might be best for everyone concerned if we apply to have Swithin certified.”

Mrs. Swithin frowned. “What circumstances, and what would having him certified entail?”

Christian listed the number of people who would be harmed if Swithin and his secrets were put on public show via a sensational murder trial. Mrs. Swithin herself was at the top of the list; she nodded her understanding as he added Trowbridge, Honeywell, the elder Trowbridges, Letitia, Justin, the Earl of Nunchance, and the Vaux family in general.

When he fell silent, she stated, “There’s surely no need for all of us to suffer more.”

“No.” Tristan looked at Barton, who was frowning. “And if we manage it carefully, no one but the authorities needs to know the full story.”

Barton brightened considerably; he hadn’t wanted to end with no quarry to show his superiors.

“If everyone agrees?” Tristan looked around. Most nodded. No one protested. He looked at the butler, who had returned after sending for the doctor. “Who’s the nearest magistrate?”

As it turned out, Tristan, a magistrate himself in the neighboring area, knew Lord Keating well. His lordship arrived promptly; shown into the drawing room where they’d all remained, he was at first shocked by the bare bones of the story Tristan related, but then quickly got down to business.

Settling in a chair with a traveling writing desk balanced on his knees, his lordship decreed, “I’ll want statements—perhaps from the representative of Bow Street first, and then you, Trentham”—he inclined his head to Tristan—“and perhaps one of you others?” He cast a vague glance at Tony, Christian, and Dalziel, then beckoned Barton forward. “Now, then.”

Under cover of Barton explaining what he knew, Tony glanced at Christian and Dalziel, and grinned. “One of you outranks me, and I suspect the other does, too. It should be one of you two.”

So saying, he wandered off to join Justin, who was sitting beside Swithin, listening, curiously intent, to his ramblings.

Christian glanced at Dalziel. He’d always wondered…

Dalziel’s lips lifted slightly. “No, I don’t outrank you. We could toss a coin, but all things considered, I suspect it had better be you Keating speaks with.”

Christian raised his brows but nodded. “All right.”

Dalziel drifted away to settle in a chair by the windows, attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible. Not an easy task, especially as Lord Keating, regardless of that earlier vague look, was very aware of his presence.

Letitia noted the exchange between Dalziel and Christian. While Tristan, and then Christian, gave their version of the affair and answered Keating’s questions, riveting the attention of most in the room, she patted Mrs. Swithin’s hand, rose, and glided to the windows. She sank into the chair alongside the one Dalziel occupied.

He acknowledged her presence with a sound suspiciously like a grunt. “At least,” he said, his gaze fixed across the room, “I now know why you married that upstart. I never could understand it—I’d always regarded you as one of the saner of our females. Nice to know my judgment wasn’t at fault.”

Letitia smiled, not the least offended. That was a typical enough comment from him.

They chatted—bantered—for some minutes, about the likely reaction of the ton once they learned it was Swithin who’d killed Randall, not Justin.

“He’ll have to be extra careful.” She considered her brother, still listening, a frown on his face, to Swithin’s all but continual blather. “He’ll not only be eligible again, he’ll be famous to boot.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about him,” Dalziel dryly replied. “Not unless the matchmaking mamas and their charges have taken to hunting in libraries. He’s barely stirred from mine except in pursuit of our investigation.”

Letitia smiled fondly. After a moment she more quietly said, “Speaking of hiding, your time for hiding—for being in exile, as it were—will soon be at an end.”

She glanced at Royce, but he didn’t meet her gaze; his remained fixed broodingly on the tableau before them, although she would have sworn it wasn’t Christian and the others he was seeing.