Harlequin Historical May 2020--Box Set 1 of 2

by Sophia James

  He talked until he was hoarse and aware of his own strength faltering. He’d not slept last night and he’d barely taken time to eat. He was going to need reinforcements. He sent a hasty note by courier to Merry Weather, three hours away. This battle would not be over in a morning, or even in a day as he’d thought twelve hours ago. On the bed, Audevere lay pale and sweating, babbling nonsense in the grip of the fever. He applied more cold compresses, but felt more impotent each time. The fever seemed to burn right through them, turning the rags warm as soon as they touched her skin.

  By late afternoon, impotence had turned to guilt. This was his fault. She’d wanted to simply disappear and he hadn’t let her. He had insisted they could do more, have more, that they could challenge Brenley and it had led to this. She was beyond him once more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  There was a knock at the door shortly after supper time and, for a brief moment, Inigo’s hope surged. He answered the door and found Eaton standing there, tall, imposing, surely a bulwark against all evil, supplies from home slung over his back. ‘Eaton, she’s burning up.’ His own voice was a rasp.

  Eaton set the pack down on the table. ‘Your mother sent willow bark tea to bring down the fever if you can get her to drink it. Your mother said to rub her feet to draw the fever down and then try wet stockings.’ He put a hand on Inigo’s shoulder. ‘Everyone sends their love. I’m glad I arrived in time to be of help. I must have arrived at Merry Weather but an hour before your note came.’ He’d come because a council of the Cornish Dukes had been called, but now such a summons seemed pointless.

  ‘She’s not doing well,’ Inigo confessed, pushing a hand through his hair in frustration.

  ‘Perhaps the tea and the wet stockings will help. Don’t give up. Meanwhile, you look like hell. I have strict instructions from your mother to take care of you as well. Dinner is on its way up, along with a cot. You will eat and you will sleep. I will watch Audevere and wake you if anything changes.’

  Inigo smiled for the first time in days. ‘You always were the one to take care of all of us.’

  ‘Looks like nothing has changed.’ Eaton grinned. ‘Now, I’ll lay out dinner while you brew the tea.’

  * * *

  It took both of them to get any tea into her; one to hold her upright and another to carefully manoeuvre the cup into position to reduce dribbling, but even after fifteen minutes of careful effort, she’d only managed to swallow half a cup. ‘We’ll try again after supper.’ Inigo set aside the cup and went to the table. Eaton had ordered a hearty soup and fresh bread, but Inigo had to force the food down.

  ‘You have to try, too,’ Eaton insisted when Inigo ate only half a bowl. ‘You cannot help her if you take ill as well.’

  Inigo speared him with a hard look. ‘Platitudes, Eaton? Is that the best you’ve got? How can I eat when I look at her? Every hour she slips further away and it’s my fault. I pushed her to this. I pushed her to believe we could fight Brenley, that I could keep her safe. All she wanted was to disappear and start over, but I had to go and try to change her mind. I might as well have pulled the trigger myself.’ Inigo pushed back from the table with a force that sent the chair slamming against the wall, his anger breaking free. ‘Dammit all! Audevere was never meant for me. I wasn’t supposed to have her.’ Agony ripped through him at the admission. This was at the core of what haunted him. They were not meant to be and now she would die because he’d tempted fate.

  He leaned his head against the wall and let the pain of his guilt take him. Why hadn’t he ridden faster? Why hadn’t he woken up sooner, why hadn’t he realised she was going to leave? Why hadn’t he just shot Brenley at the docks? What was his life worth if Audevere died?

  Eaton was beside him, his voice quiet. ‘Oh, Inigo, you do have a heart after all, don’t you? The quiet ones are always the ones who feel the most, isn’t that what the old wives say?’

  ‘I love her. I would do anything for her, even give her up.’ Inigo raised his gaze to meet Eaton’s steady eyes. ‘I’ve already given her up once, you know. I suppose I can do it again. I let Collin have her because he saw her first. I never told anyone. I loved her from the first moment I saw her, but she wasn’t mine to love so I hid it, from all of you, perhaps even from myself.’ Tears made slow streaks down his face, his breath came in barely controlled gasps. He had only a little control left; his body wanted to rage, wanted to howl. ‘It shamed me for years that I wanted her. If she would only live, I would give her up, I’d let her go away as she wanted.’ He’d let her do anything, go anywhere. It would be enough to know that she was in the world, some place.

  Eaton had a brandy in his hand, a gesture reminiscent of Richard Penlerick’s funeral. Inigo remembered how Eaton had pressed a sustaining glass into Vennor’s hand. ‘Drink, and then sleep. Just an hour or two. You’re worn out—that’s why you’re talking like this. You have to stay strong for her. She needs you,’ Eaton insisted.

  They sat on the cot together, brandies in hand. ‘You know, I had a fever when I came out of the mine with Eliza in my arms, my shoulder shot to bits,’ Eaton said. ‘My situation was not unlike Audevere’s.’ Inigo remembered. Until now, he’d never been more frightened in his life than the night someone had left Eliza Blaxland in her own mine to die. Eaton had gone in after her and been shot for his efforts. He’d lingered with a fever for days until everyone had begun to fear the worst.

  ‘Peace is what is tempting her now.’ Eaton met his gaze with a sideways glance. ‘There are no worries on the other side. There is light and there is peace and there is no pain. I could never have children of my own, I could never give Eliza the big family she dreamed of. How could I condemn her to life with a sterile man? But without Eliza, what did I have to live for? No family of my own. No one needed me. Not even the succession needed me. I had my younger brother to carry that on. Why not slip away? I thought. Why not let go and set Eliza free once she was safe? Once I knew you and Cassian and Vennor would take care of her, keep her safe from Brenley, what did I have to live for? I’d nearly convinced myself slipping away was best.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ Inigo interrupted. Eaton had never talked of that time, had never talked of his impairment, his sterility from a measles epidemic in his adolescence. Inigo never would have guessed how close they’d all come to losing Eaton or why. ‘I’m glad. We could never have done without you, Eaton. You’re our leader, our caretaker.’

  ‘No, I didn’t, because Eliza came to me and poured out her heart. I could hear her and she called me back. I know it sounds like magic, like fairy tales. I’m a scientist, I believe in medicines, yet that’s what saved me when medicines failed.’

  ‘I’ve talked to her,’ Inigo protested.

  ‘Try again, after you’ve slept,’ Eaton encouraged.

  Inigo had not meant to sleep and certainly not for as long as he did. Except for the fire, the room was dark when Eaton shook him awake with urgency. ‘She needs you, Inigo. I think it’s now or never.’

  Inigo raced to her side, her hand searing him with its heat, panic flooding him.

  ‘God, Aud, you have to wake up, you have to break this fever.’

  He rubbed her hand. Did she truly think there was no reason to wake up? That there was no future for them?

  ‘Aud, we have a wedding to plan, a life to build,’ Inigo said, words giving shape to his dreams as he gave her his heart, his soul. ‘Aud, come back to me, I love you.’

  * * *

  ‘Aud, come back to me, I love you.’

  The words halted her in her tracks. The light at the end of the path seemed to shrink. She turned, squinting her eyes back along the grey road. What was back there? Who was calling to her? Who loved her? Not her father. She’d heard his voice often enough on this grey journey.

  ‘Bastard. No one will want you if they know what you really are, the natural-born daughter of a French actress. You ar
e nothing but what I allow you to be. How dare you defy me? You are nothing but a pawn, my chess piece to move about the board as I choose.’

  Somewhere deep inside her, she’d always known that to be the truth. No matter how much she laughed and flirted and danced with gentlemen and wore fine dresses, she was always nothing, just a captain’s daughter from Truro, and in truth she was not even really that. She was a captain’s bastard. Not even her mother was her own. She was nothing, she had nothing. Until she’d met Inigo…

  ‘Aud, I love you.’

  She’d not imagined it. She turned back into the grey tentatively, intrigued. The words were an echo now, repeating and repeating.

  ‘Aud, I love you…your beautiful body…your beautiful soul that cares enough about justice to leave everything behind to save others…to stand between me and a bullet. Come back to me…marry me…be my wife…raise our children with me…help the people of Cornwall rise against corruption…help me rise. I will be nothing without you. Please, Audevere, help me rise…’

  She was running now through grey mist, hurrying towards the voice. Where was Inigo? He was in pain, she heard it in his voice, this man who commanded the world effortlessly, who bowed to no one. But he was bowing to her, breaking because of her. ‘Inigo!’ she called to him, but her voice had disappeared. How would he hear her? She wanted to look at him, to see his face with its pale-blue eyes, but her own eyes seemed to be glued shut, too heavy to lift. Even running was an effort, her legs leaden on the path she’d flown down. She summoned her voice again. ‘Inigo, I am here.’ It was a cracked whisper, nothing more. She forced herself to move, each step an effort. ‘Inigo, I am coming. Don’t break. I am coming.’

  One more step and then another. Her eyes began to lift and she was there, looking up into the pale-blue eyes of the man she loved, the man who loved her, and he was weeping. The strongest man she’d ever known was weeping for her. ‘Inigo, I’m back,’ she whispered with the last of her voice. She didn’t need it any more, not now at any rate. She was in his arms, bodily lifted from the bed and into his lap as he rocked her, calling for water, calling for broth, calling for a doctor. Silly man, didn’t he know she didn’t need any of those things? She just needed him.

  ‘Aud, you scared the life out of me.’ Inigo held her close and she was in no hurry for him to let go. This was what she’d come back for. ‘When you fell, you disappeared into the water and I couldn’t see you. All I could think about was getting to you and not even that was enough. You seemed determined to leave me.’

  He’d been truly frightened, but even in his fright he’d been the bravest, strongest man she’d ever known. He’d fought for her, for them, every step of the way, even when she’d been determined to give up. She lifted a hand to his cheek. ‘Thank you for never giving up. I love you, Inigo.’ It was the first time she’d ever said the words to anyone, the first time she’d ever said them to him and she wished she hadn’t waited so long. She’d nearly lost the chance to say them at all.

  * * *

  Inigo was careful with her in the days that followed, encouraging her to rest, making sure she didn’t overtax herself. He read to her and stayed at her bedside. There were plenty of I love yous, plenty of kisses exchanged between them, but she knew those words weren’t enough to resolve what still lay between them. ‘What happened to my father?’ she asked on the third day when it was apparent that Inigo wasn’t going to bring it up for fear of worrying her. Had Inigo been forced to shoot him? Had he sailed off, once more unaccountable for his crimes?

  ‘He’s being held,’ Inigo offered slowly. ‘Waiting on the King’s pleasure to decide his fate.’

  ‘You sent the letter, then?’ Audevere shifted on her pillows, trying to get comfortable. Her energy was returning and she was less than an ideal patient now. She was eager to be out and about, but where? Would they go back to Merry Weather? Could they pick up the pieces of what they might have had? Or did she need to carry on with her plan and disappear?

  ‘Yes. We should hear shortly what his fate will be.’ Inigo reached for her hand. ‘But I am more interested in deciding our fate. I almost lost you. I don’t want to wait any longer, for other things to be decided. My happiness, and yours, doesn’t deserve to be contingent on anything else but us. I want to marry you before autumn is out, so that I can celebrate the holidays at Merry Weather with my wife.’

  ‘You are sure? You want to marry the natural-born daughter of a man who will lose his title and possibly be hanged for attempted murder?’

  ‘No.’ Inigo pressed a kiss to her knuckles. ‘I want to marry you, Audevere, just you. Not your past. Not your father’s crimes. It’s time to let the past stop defining us both.’ He leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. ‘It’s time for us to burn the ships, Aud, the whole damn fleet.’

  She couldn’t agree more.

  * * *

  It would be a small ceremony at Merry Weather, with only the Dukes, their families and closest friends in attendance. Even so, the family chapel was still rather full on the Wednesday that Audevere wed Inigo Vellanoweth, Earl of Tintagel, future Duke of Boscastle. Not that she was in any hurry to become the Duchess. She rather liked her in-laws and they rather liked her, much to her pleasure. The grey skies that had begun that morning had scudded away and a crisp November sky was blue overhead as Audevere stood outside the chapel with her two attendants, Mary Rose and Sarah, both thrilled to be wearing new dresses in the shades of pale-winter rose, lengths of Audevere’s pink ribbon threaded through their hair.

  She let the girls fuss with her skirts on the stone steps of the chapel while she steadied her nerves. Today, she wore something borrowed and old, Inigo’s mother’s own wedding dress, altered to fit in the short weeks of her convalescence. The Duchess, too, it turned out, had been a late autumn bride and the long sleeves and fuller skirts were ideal for the sharp Cornish weather. The gown itself was beautiful, trimmed in seed pearls and lace, the fabric a rich, heavy ivory satin. A matching cloak in winter-white wool, trimmed in ermine, lay on the seat for the journey to the wedding breakfast. Something blue was the Boscastle diamond engagement ring Inigo had given her the first night they’d returned to Merry Weather. There’d been a celebration to rival the name, complete with champagne. As for something new, she carried a bouquet of Eaton’s prized orchids straight from the Falmage Hill conservatory. She’d selected each colour carefully for what they symbolised: white for elegance, pink for joy and yellow for new beginnings.

  ‘And a sixpence for your shoe!’ Mary Rose cried suddenly. ‘Do you have one? Here, take mine,’ she insisted just as the doors opened.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  Audevere looked up from her shoe to see the Duke of Hayle standing before them. ‘Yes.’ He still intimidated her. He was Collin’s father and she’d not spoken to him alone since the ill-fated engagement years ago.

  ‘You girls go on in, the music has started.’ Hayle nodded to Inigo’s sisters. ‘Remember to walk slowly. It’s not a race.’ Audevere could hear the strains of the cello-and-violin quartet Inigo had arranged, a lovely Pachelbel’s Canon filling the near-winter air. Hayle was looking at her with a smile. ‘Would you allow me to give you away?’ There was so much unsaid in the kind offer and to have it made by this man who’d lost his son, who might have been her father-in-law had things gone differently, touched her to the core.

  ‘I would be honoured.’ She placed her hand on his arm and stepped inside.

  Even a small wedding for a duke’s heir could fill a chapel, she mused, making her way down the aisle. The Truscotts were present, the Duchess and Collin’s sisters; the Duke of Bude and his wife, along with his younger son; Eaton’s wife Eliza and her young daughter, Sophie, and, of course, Inigo’s family. At the front of the chapel, Inigo’s sisters stood to one side and Eaton stood with Inigo. The altar was simply done in a white cloth, another vase of flowers on it, flanked by two standing candelabra.
It was all perfect. But most perfect of all was the man who waited for her.

  Inigo stood straight-backed, dressed in a dark-blue morning coat that made his eyes stand out even more intensely, his walnut-dark hair brushed and styled immaculately, his strong jaw fresh shaven. And he was smiling. At her. Only her. Nothing else mattered. Not her birth, not whatever scandal might attach to their marriage—and there would undoubtedly be some. It only mattered that he loved her.

  The Duke of Hayle placed her hand in Inigo’s and the warm curl of his fingers gripped her hand as he brought it to his lips. ‘You are stunning, Aud,’ he whispered as the service began, as the rest of her life began. The past was finished and gone. Brenley could do nothing to hurt them now, but in truth, she’d been free the moment Inigo had come for her. His love had freed her in ways that a piece of paper never could. His love had shown her she needn’t fear herself. That she was good and kind, and nothing like her father.

  ‘You may kiss the bride,’ the vicar intoned. The service had sped by and now she was moments away from her new life with the most extraordinary of men. Inigo’s mouth bent to hers and claimed her with the first kiss of their life together, and she happily gave herself over to it.

  Outside, villagers waited to wish them well as they made the short journey from the chapel to the estate and the church bells rang out the news. The Boscastle heir had married, the future looked bright indeed for them all. Inigo threw pennies to the children as they walked the path leading to the wedding breakfast at Merry Weather. At the doorway to the estate, he stole a kiss from her, much to the villagers’ delight, and for a few minutes, in the hall, they were alone for the first time as man and wife.