The Unintended Bride (28 page)

Raised voices grew louder in the hallway. "I heard a shot. Who has been shot?" Reluctantly, they came apart, but his arms still cradled her protectively as they watched the room fill with Fenwell Delagrace's houseguests.

Digby stood in the doorway, a smoking pistol in his grip. He looked as pale and shaken as she felt. She wanted to thank him but felt that to do so might be an insult to Arthur yet again. She looked into her husband's worried eyes. How had he found her? "What brought you here?" she asked.

"I noticed that you had retired early," Arthur said stiffly, his eyes focused on Digby and his smoking pistol. "I wondered if you were ill."

"There was —" She paused, realizing that anyone in the room could be listening. She would have to tell him about the note later. "I had a headache," she said, which was true enough. She truly did have a headache, and it seemed to be growing by the second. "I thought if I came in here for some quiet, I would recover more quickly."

She tried to convey with her eyes that her words were only a partial truth. Arthur did not seem to understand, however. "A headache. You should have gone up to the room directly and had the maid bring you some tea or a toddy to soothe you."

"The pain wasn't that severe, and I did not want to have Fenwell Delagrace thinking that I did not enjoy his society." He said nothing more.

Gabriel Digby came toward her. The look on his face was one of a man waking up who had been asleep for a long time. "I'm glad you were not hurt."

"Thank you, Mr. Digby," she said, trying to maintain as formal a tone as possible while she was still trembling from fear. "I appreciate your quick dispatch of the fox."

"I wish I deserved your thanks. But I do not." He shook his head. "It was your husband, not I, who killed the animal. He said he was a crack shot, so I gave him my pistol."

He looked to Arthur. "I believe you are the best shot I have ever met. I hope you will teach me what you know, one day."

"I would be happy to," Arthur replied.

Somehow, the thought of Gabriel Digby and Arthur on the shooting range did not soothe her shattered nerves.

Digby crossed the room and examined the carcass of the fox.

"Is it dead?" Hero asked anxiously. "It had foam coming from the mouth, and it was not afraid of me as it should have been."

"Yes, I am happy to say." He looked at the startled maid who had come as far as the doorway and paused, unsure of what to do to help. "Call a footman to remove this. It should be best burnt. But I will leave that up to your master to decide."

Fenwell shouldered toward the animal's body and then said authoritatively, "Yes, girl, call a footman immediately. This must be removed at once."

Arthur's arms tightened around her. He knew the danger of a wild beast as well as anyone did. Still, she felt pity for the poor creature and its madness. "I think it may have been rabid, Arthur." For what else could have caused it to behave in that fashion? She leaned against him and closed her eyes.

"Thank you for shooting it so cleanly, Arthur. I could feel its breath on my face just before it fell."

"I'm sorry that you had to be frightened at all." He looked at Digby. "Whatever would have made it attack my wife like that? Do you see foam in its jaws?" He had put mild emphasis on the word "wife," which pleased her somehow.

Digby prodded the fox with his foot, turning it this way and that as he completed his examination. "Rabid, I would guess."

Rabid. If she had been bitten — "Thank goodness you shot him before he could bite me."

Arthur cradled her head in his hands and kissed her eyelids. "I would have put myself in front of you if I had not had the pistol. I intended to do so anyway, if only he had not leaped when he did. I did not intend to fail you one more time."

Fail her? How could he imagine that he had failed her?

"A man should not need others to rescue his wife from danger," Arthur muttered.

Of course. The fire at the inn still rubbed at his pride. "I trust you with my life, always." She understood how important it had been to him that he be the one to shoot. In his mind he had evened some invisible score between himself and Digby. "But more, I'm glad you came searching for me," she said softly to him.

"I was concerned for you."

"And I trust that you are concerned for my welfare, Arthur." She put the emphasis on the word "welfare." Would he understand that she meant it from the very tips of her toes?

He touched the top of her head with his lips. She had all but told him she was ready to be his wife. It could not be a mistake. He could not have misheard it. It was not just the emotions of the moment. She had said it twice.

He wished he had known earlier this was the way to win her affections. "Well, then, I should save your life more often."

"No." She shook her head. "Don't you understand? When I looked to the doorway, I saw Digby with the pistol. I did not know you were the one to shoot the animal. But still, you were the one I was glad to see."

How could she not care that he had made the shot? That he had protected her? "I —" he began to interrupt.

"She is not hurt?" Digby asked quietly as he approached them.

"No, I am not, thanks to Arthur," Hero replied.

Arthur could not in good conscience take all the credit. "And thanks also to Digby, who had the good sense to carry a pistol."

"It was not mine, Watterly," Digby protested, as if he, too, were not willing to take credit for something that was not his doing. "I found it lying on the table outside the library, and I had just picked it up, when I heard your exclamation."

"What brought you to the library?" Arthur asked, suddenly realizing what a coincidence it was.

Digby seemed disconcerted for a moment, and then he said quietly, "I received a note."

"A note?" Hero sat up in his arms, suddenly tense. "What did it say?"

"Merely that someone wished to meet privately with me in the library." Digby seemed embarrassed.

Arthur wondered why. Surely Hero had not sent the note? He did not want to believe it.

Gwen came over to them, and he could see tears in her eyes. "What has happened?" There was a tiny frown between her brows. And a slightly larger pout upon her lips. Arthur knew her well enough to guess that something about this situation displeased her, but what?

He answered, to ease her mind, "There was a rabid fox in here, but it has been dispatched safely. No one was hurt."

"I am glad, then," she said with a sincerity Arthur suspected only he, who knew her from childhood, could tell was not complete. She turned a tremulous smile upon Digby. "Mr. Digby, please let me get you some brandy for your nerves," she offered.

"I am fine, it is Miss — Mrs. Watterly who needs the brandy, I fear." Digby brushed her off.

"But a hero deserves a reward —"

"Then you should offer the brandy to Mr. Watterly. He is the one who shot the fox."

"Arthur?" She turned astonished eyes upon him.

"I am a crack shot, as you well know," he reminded her. But he could not bring himself to be angry. It was all too obvious to him that she had feelings for Digby. Poor girl. First the man she expected to marry is abruptly married to Hero Fenster, and then she has the worse luck to fall in love with a man who still loves Hero as well, despite her marriage to another man.

"He was very brave," Hero said indulgently, with a smile that warmed his heart.

Gwen's eyes narrowed. "What were you doing in the library, Mrs. Watterly? Were you lost?"

"I was hoping to find a quiet place to ease my headache," Hero answered. Arthur could feel her tense beside him again, and he wondered what there was to worry her in the simple answer.

"I'm sorry that you did not." The phrase might have been graciously meant, but Gwen's tone was a bit abrupt.

Fenwell Delagrace's angry tones penetrated their corner. "How did the fox get in here?"

"This window has been left open," the footman answered as he investigated. He turned, a puzzled look upon his face and a rope dangling from his hand. "It appears the animal was staked here but managed to chew through its restraint."

"Who would do such a thing?" Delagrace looked around the room, but no one volunteered an answer. With a heavy frown, the man lifted his hands and motioned for his guests to leave. "I will find out. And be assured, whoever it is will pay."

"As well they should," echoed Digby.

"Do you not think perhaps someone might have had an innocent reason for tying the fox there?"

Gwen asked, her eyes wide and her face pale.

Arthur wondered if she had — "Digby, do you have the note that summoned you here?"

The man pulled his startled gaze from Hero and said, "Yes, I do." He took the paper from his pocket and handed it over. Arthur saw at once what he had feared.

But his wife threw her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. "Am I not the luckiest woman, to have a husband who is so quick to gather the evidence to solve this mystery?"

Digby's face shifted into an expression so bland, it had to be controlled. "I can only wish that I might be so fortunate." Arthur understood that Hero had deliberately sent a message and that message had been clearly received.

"I'm certain you will be," Hero said lightly. She was not one to rub salt into a wound. His arms tightened around her. What would he have done if he had lost her tonight?

"The note?" Digby reached to take the note back.

Arthur, with a glance at Gwen's bloodless features, shoved it into his pocket and said, "I will give this to Fenwell. It should help him catch the fool who set this trap."

"Gwen, you are looking very pale," Hero said softly. "Mr. Digby, would you be so good as to see her to her maid, so that she does not faint dead away?"

"Of course." Digby's smile was an imitation, but Gwen's pallor was instantly spotted by hectic color in her cheeks as she took his arm and they left the room.

They were alone. "I'm glad you chased me to the library Arthur." Her fingers brushed lightly against the back of his neck. He tightened his grip and rested his head against hers.

He closed his eyes. "I do not want to lose you, Hero," he whispered. "I want to keep you safe."

"You have."

"How can you say that when I have almost lost you three times? I am not the best guardian of your well-being." Though it hurt to say it, he knew he must. "I am sending you back to London tomorrow."

"No —"

He released her and said without a shadow of doubt, "I must. I cannot concentrate on meeting my challenges, when I know that any moment your life might be forfeit."

All the protest in her expression died as she heard his words. "Very well," she said with a meekness he had rarely seen in her before. He had a feeling he had hurt her once more, but he could not see how. All he wanted was to keep her safe.

Hero wanted to cry. He was sending her back to London. Yes, she believed he meant to keep her safe. But he also thought her a hindrance to meeting his challenges. Why else would he have said — She realized he still did not know why she had come into the library.

"Arthur," she said quietly so as not to draw the attention of the few people left in the room, "Digby is not the only one who received a note tonight."

"What?" He tensed for a moment and then reached up to remove her arms from around his neck. "Where is it?"

He understood the puzzle no better than she. For an hour they moved aimlessly about the shelves, searching for anything that could be a clue. The Delagrace copy of
Le Morte d' Arthur
was beautifully illustrated but contained nothing that might hold the answers they sought. Nor did any of the other Arthurian literature.

Tired, and searching for a way to change his mind, Hero paused to survey the library again. What had she missed? She touched the magnificent Round Table and said softly, "The table — it is amazing."

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" He smiled. "I always liked playing around and beneath it when I was a child."

That fact surprised her. She had imagined it a more recent acquisition. "Then it was built before Gwen was even born?"

"Yes. My grandmother had always intended me to marry the daughter of the house. She instructed Mr. Delagrace to build it according to the best guesses of current-day scholars as to the size and position of many of the knights."

"What a wonderful addition this would be to your collection." She wondered if her dowry might even be enough to purchase the table for him. That would be a gift of generosity for the Round Table Society.

In fact, she had to wonder why Mr. Delagrace had never gifted it to them.

"It is meant for Gwen's husband." Hero looked at the table again, this time seeing it as a tangible statement that Gwen and Arthur had indeed been intended to marry. Suddenly, the table seemed less magnificent.

"You mean you." She felt another tremendous surge of guilt. "Before you married me. Oh, Arthur — "

"Don't be silly. It is only a table. It was Grandmama's dream, after all, not mine. My mother thought she was daft though."

"She did?"

"Called her a witch once —right to her face." Arthur smiled at the memory. "My grandmother didn't seem to mind."

"Still, to call your mother-in-law a witch — "

"Yes." He sighed. "My mother and Grandmama never got along." He looked up at her with a bittersweet twist of his lips. "I suspect my mother would have adored you, however."

Arthur had begun to examine the table, running his hands across the top. And then he stopped, his gaze fixed and focused.

"What is the matter? Has the table been damaged somehow? I don't think the fox was near enough to it to do damage — " She broke off, as he was obviously not paying a whit of attention to her questions.

As he stared at the table, his eyes grew sharp. "I remember. The key. This is where I have seen a key like the one we found in the ruins."

Hero looked at the smooth expanse of the tabletop, mystified. "The key? Here?"

"Yes." He frowned in concentration. "I remember. This table, with a key just like sitting on top. Gwen and I used to slide it back and forth in an idle game when we were young."