Sir Henry said, "My lord, we have no need to bring her before you. We have her statement. And as of yesterday, when we caught this Ben Hagen, we have his testimony of your involvement."
"What? You have precisely what? The word of a criminal?" Carlson pulled tight his frock coat and oozed insult. "I'll not accept it."
"You will, sir." Sir Henry summoned his man. "Bailiff?"
A burly man strode forward and grabbed Carlson's arm.
"I'll not go."
"You will, sir," said Sir Henry with no nonsense. "My apologies, my lady, my lord, Your Grace. I hope I've not spoiled your Christmas."
Griff inclined his head toward the Customs man. "Nor we yours, Sir Henry."
"Thank you, my lord. Nasty business. But we're happy to have end of it."
After Simms had closed the door upon them, Griff turned to hug his step-mother and shake Alastair’s hand. "We need a brandy."
"Thank you, but I must run tell Bee what's happened. She's been worried that they'd never identify him."
He left in a rush, a wide smile on his face.
Griff savored his drink. “Quite a party, Mama.”
She lifted her shoulders, her eyes twinkling. “The highlight of the Christmas season.”
He chuckled, this hideous news behind them. “You’ll find your name in the broad sheets for years to come. ‘The Countess Catches Smugglers!’”
“My dear son, your name will be listed as well. As will all our guests.” She took a sip and on second thought, drained her glass. “I believe I’ll have another. Will you pour, please?”
He rose to do her bidding.
But Alastair ran back into the room. "Bee is missing.”
Griff was paralyzed with fear.
"Not in her room. Gone. Her maid is mystified."
"Where would she be?"
"Worse yet,” Alastair said, “why would she go riding in her dancing slippers?"
The Countess fanned herself. "Riding? Riding? To the stables!”
Griff strode to the bell pull. "Let's go! Mama, get Simms to rouse Bromley. We'll need him. Trevelyan, Riverdale too. We need every man."
Alastair was wild-eyed. "Wake all the guests. We need everyone to look for her."
Chapter 11
“Marjorie, open the door!” Del rapped on the wood. “Let me in! Quickly!”
Del was insistent yet remained discreet as she knocked.
Marjorie brushed her tears from her cheeks, then ran for her sitting room and pulled open the door. “Dear me! What’s the matter?”
Del rushed past. In her morning attire, her platinum hair wild, her cheeks flushed, wearing no robe or slippers, her youngest sister ran to Marjorie’s bedroom and tapped a fingernail on the window glass. “Come! Look! That’s Bee. What’s she doing?”
Marjorie peered down at the path through the parterre where Bee in her navy wool riding habit strode along. “Where are her riding boots?”
“Why does she have on her evening slippers?”
“And why would she go riding so early on Christmas morning with—with— Del? Oh, Del. That’s not Alastair.”
“No. It’s Hallerton!”
“Why?” Fear choked her.
Del spun toward her. “I’ll get Neville.”
She grasped Del’s wrist at her use of the man’s given name. “Neville?”
“He’s up. I know it’s—yes—odd that I do. But don’t ask me now. I—“ Del looked pained. “Oh, you’ll learn soon enough. He was with me last night. Only just now returned to his room.”
Marjorie’s mouth fell open. Quite a to-do last night in this house. “Yes. Well, it’s...fine.”
“It’s...fine?” Del searched Marjorie’s face, then touched her wet cheek. “You’ve been crying.”
“That’s unimportant right now.”
“On the contrary. Are you well?”
“Yes. Go. Get a robe. I’ll get mine. We must tell them all. Did you ring for a maid?”
“Not yet. I thought I was dreaming.”
“You weren’t.” Marjorie reached over and yanked at the pull. In the next few steps, she grabbed her velvet robe.
Del ran toward her room.
Within the minute, the two raced down the stairs.
“All the men,” said a wide-eyed parlor maid who stood like a stone statue in the hall, “went that way.”
Marjorie and Del followed the girl’s directions toward the servants’ back stairs.
“The men must know what’s wrong,” Del said as they dashed down the creaky narrow staircase. “Why is she with Hallerton?”
“We’ll soon learn.” Marjorie pushed past the swinging door into the hot kitchen. Cook stood, her hands white with flour, tears rolling down her plump red cheeks. “What did you see?”
“That gentleman has a pistol on Miss Belinda.”
“No!” Del cried.
“Wait!” Marjorie picked up a broom and yanked the butter paddle from the churner. “Have this.”
Off they went, scampering out the kitchen door, across the stone path to the stable block. Ahead ran a group of men.
A shot pierced the air.
“Oh, no!” Del barreled to a stop.
Marjorie groaned. “Bee. Oh, Bee.”
Del grabbed her hand. “She can’t be hurt.”
Ahead of them the men, pistols drawn, broke into a run toward the entrance to the stables. Inside, a horse objected to whatever was occurring.
The men motioned to each other and divided into two groups. Alastair and Griff were at the lead.
“Neville’s there, too.” Del pointed to the man who brought up the rear, hobbling along. “Fetched his cane.”
Marjorie’s eyes burned with tears. Griff and Alastair were to the rescue along with Del’s only love. This was Christmas. They must not lose any of those they loved. Not Bee. Not any of the men. “He is. Noble to help.”
Neville turned around, alarm widening his eyes as he spied them and lifted a hand to urge them to stay back. Then he slid from his walking stick a thin shiny dagger—and stumbled toward the entrance to the stables.
No sooner had Del and Marjorie run toward the entrance than Hallerton emerged, hands up in surrender. Behind him strolled Belinda pointing a gun at his back. But Alastair soon relieved her of her pistol and took her in his arms. Bromley kept his own sharp weapon pointed at the culprit.
As if they were urchins, Marjorie and Del ran toward their sister in their robes and nightgowns, hair flying.
“Are you all right?” Marjorie asked Bee who nestled into the protective circle of Alastair’s embrace.
“Yes!” Bee looked from one to the other. “And you?”
“We will be,” said Marjorie with a hug. From the sweet accord between Bee and Alastair, they had resolved their conflict and marriage seemed imminent.
“And happy with whatever you deem best for yourself,” Del assured her with a kiss to her cheek. “Look what you’ve risked for us. Life, limb. You must take your happiness. Seize it.”
Del was so right to free Bee of any need to provide for them. She must be happy. Each sister must be.
Griff removed his frock coat and swung it over Marjorie’s shoulders. Then he put an arm around her waist. His care had never been so welcome. “Let’s go into the house. Bee must talk with Alastair.”
Bromley fished a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and dabbed at Delphine’s tears. With a grin, he pried the butter churner from her grip. “You three can talk in minutes. Come.”
"Join us up at the house as you're able," Griff said with a wink to Alastair.
Trevelyan trained a pistol to Hallerton’s back and hurried him toward the manor.
Chapter 12
The frosty morning breeze bit into her as they rushed toward the house. Clutching Griff’s arm, she hoped to keep him with her until she could tell him what she thought of all that had occurred this morning.
Entering the servants kitchen door, Griff paused to tell the assembled staff that all was w
ell. “No one’s hurt. Miss Belinda has saved the day for us all and caught a smuggler. Really, two. This will be a Christmas all of us will remember. A very happy Christmas to you all.” He persuaded Marjorie to return the broom to its corner. It was then she noted the lines of the morning’s ordeals etched in his brow. “Shall we go up?”
The others had by-passed them and the two of them walked alone down the servants corridor.
“I must talk with you,” she said, halting in her tracks.
“Not now. I’m in need of breakfast. You, too, I should think.”
“I don’t want to think. Or eat. I must talk with you. Here!” She pulled his arm to drag him into the darkened wine cellar where the angel’s share of spirits wafted about and made her dizzy with hope and desperation.
“Marjorie,” he said with weariness. “I can’t—”
“Please let me talk to you.” Here in the shadows, she could not see him clearly. But she didn’t need light to know how he looked or how he’d react to what she had to say. “Thank you for the house in Lewes.”
He inhaled. Cast about to glance at the wine bottles—old dark and dusty lying on their sides awaiting the light of day, laughter and the fulfillment of their purpose. “You’re very welcome. Enjoy it.”
“I don’t want it.”
In the one bright ray of light emanating from the skylight in the kitchen, she saw him. Anger and sorrow lined his perfect brow. “Why not?”
“I’ve heard the vicarage there needs a new building for their school. The old one burned down last autumn and those children need an education.”
“I see.”
“You agree?”
“Marjorie, there is no need for me to agree. You own that property as of yesterday.” He spun for the hall. “Do with it as you wish.”
She caught his arm. “Wait! Wait, please. I will. All right, I will give it to them.”
“And what will you do without a house? Buy a different one with your winnings?”
“The one I wished to buy is most likely not still for sale.”
“A shame.”
“The house I thought to buy was owned by Hallerton.”
“Ah. So that’s what my mother wanted me to learn from him.”
“Aunt Gertrude knew I wanted to buy his house?”
“I suppose she did. She told me I could ask the man for information I’d find interesting. But I never did. I told you true when I said I had not asked him for anything. I would not lower myself.”
“Bravo for you,” she said with a grin. “I wouldn’t have purchased a thing from him. A card-sharp. A criminal. I hated him for taking so much from my father and I wanted...” She hung her head. “I’m ashamed to say I wanted as much money as I could win from him. Even if I sought to buy that house from him and then cancel the sale. It was revenge. I wanted it so badly I could taste it. But I learned—”
“Yes?”
“I learned the cost of revenge meant I drove out other emotions I enjoyed much more.”
“Good for you.” He stepped away.
“No, please,” she begged him. “Hear me out.”
“Hurry. I’m tired of this between us, my dear.”
“I know. I am too. That is what I am trying to tell you.”
He sighed. “Well then?”
“I—I don’t want to buy a different house.”
He swept out a hand. “Well, like the deed, the money will be yours to do with as you wish.”
“I want to fund the vicar’s school in Lewes and the orphans school here in town where Del teaches. They need primers and chalkboards, desks and ever so much more.”
Silence filled the heady darkness. In the stillness, she saw only the bright alertness in his eyes. “And what will you do without a house or money?”
“I hoped I might come live with you.”
“As...?”
She flowed against him. Strong, resolute, dependable, inventive, charming Griff. “I hoped I was not too late to accept your offer of marriage and...and become your wife.”
“You’d like that?” His words were breathless.
“I love you and I hope you’d forgive me for my pettiness.”
He blinked. “What pettiness?”
“That I wanted revenge. That I was small enough to think of it.”
In the darkness, she felt the hot firm grip of his hands around her waist.
“That I wanted to...in the words of my sisters...fleece your guests this week and win sums I thought rightly mine. Ours, Bee’s and Del’s and mine.”
“But you didn’t fleece them. Didn’t buy Hallerton’s property or feign doing so.”
By now she was so completely in his embrace, she knew to move would be not only indiscreet but highly indecent. And she loved the possibilities so she spread her arms up around his strong shoulders. “No. You saved me.”
A laugh escaped him. “How did I do that?”
“I preferred to play with you.”
He chuckled at her words.
She rejoiced at the sound of his happiness. “And in the doing, I learned that what one does in love is more pure and more rewarding than anything done in revenge.”
“A good lesson,” he said, resting his lips against her cheek.
“You are such a good man,” she whispered to his ear, then pulled back to admire him. “And I have loved you, I do believe, most of my life. So then if you will grant me the honor to become your wife or—or even if you don’t, I will love you, Griffith Harlinger, to the end of my days.”
“And I you. To the end of my own.”
He kissed her then, in the dark intoxicating aromas of passion and promise. She broke away, relieved so that tears dribbled down her cheeks.
Applause swelled and surrounded them.
Griff and she stepped to the hall where more than a dozen servants stood. Simms stood before them, his hands folded, his mouth in that odd twitching that denoted his humor.
“‘All’s well that end’s well.’” He spun, nose in the air, and hurried them away. “Back to work. Much to do. Much to do.”
“Does that man seem to be everywhere?” Griff asked her after they’d drifted back to their posts.
“All the time. Keeping every secret you ever had.”
Griff threw back his head to laugh and then bent to scoop her up into his arms. “Let’s see if he can guess where you and I are going now.”
“To church?” she ventured as he strode along the hall, headed for the narrow wooden stairs.
Griff slanted her a wicked look. “To the vicar.”
“Oh. Now I am disappointed.”
“Minx.” When he reached the top of the stairs, he set her to her feet and pulled the collar of her robe up around her throat. “Get dressed. We’ll talk to the vicar after the service and ask him to perform a ceremony...shall we say, day after tomorrow?”
“A unique ending to the Marsden Christmas house party.”
“Mama will be in heaven. The capture of smugglers and—” He shook his head. “The wedding of her niece and step-son.”
“Society will be atwitter. The papers will write columns and columns.”
“Mama will never equal the delights of this house party!”
“No, but—“ She frowned.
“What’s wrong?” He froze.
“Griff, we need a license.”
“Ah, yes! A special license to marry before you change your mind.” He crushed her close. “I’ll get one. Alastair knows how. Never fear. Soon you’ll be mine forever.”
She brushed her lips over his. “I always have been. And you, I do believe, always belonged to me.”
“Very fine Christmas gifts, I’d say.”
“A husband for me.”
He raised her hand, turned it over and dropped a kiss to her palm. “A wife. The only one I ever wanted.”
Epilogue
January 14, 1816
Paris, France
Griff opened the door to the four-story brick house he’d rented in
the Place des Vosges and stood aside for his wife to enter. With a glance to assure himself the sparsely furnished house had been dusted and floors swept, he tucked his shako under his arm. Hoping the kitchen had been stocked as he ordered and the linens supplied, beds dressed, he followed her in.
“Ohh,” Marjorie breathed, her hands clasped to her chest. “This is beautiful. Peaceful.”
She strolled into the corridor, taking time to admire what he had loved about the house. The pink-veined marble on the floor and friezes of grapes and butterflies on the translucent ivory walls.
“You do like it?” Eager to have her approval for this quick choice, he wanted to please his new bride. He appreciated the high ceilings, the large salon and dining room and the secluded garden in the rear. Houses in the city were difficult to acquire for rent. Few in number, they were also expensive. Inflation of the French currency ran amok. French citizens bore heavy financial penalties of hundreds of thousands of francs imposed by the Treaty of Paris. Many objected. They’d supported Napoleon and now had to bear the price paying for the quartering and rationing of one hundred and fifty thousand Allied troops occupying the new French borders from Calais to the Alsace. Griff was assigned to the group with the delicate task of monitoring the payments.
“A house. A home. Ours. Oh, Griff, I love it.” She removed her gloves as she strolled from the canary yellow dining room to the forest green salon. Her fingers trailing upon the few fine furnishings. “You’ve done well. It’s elegant. Larger than I thought when you described it.”
He liked the old place himself. “I had to take it quickly before one of my friends acquired it for his wife and children. This area is an old one. The French king, Henry the Fourth, designed this square as his model for the city. Many of the nobility lived here before the Terror. Many will return now that the Bourbons are in power again.”
She went to him, took his shako to put it aside, then tucked her arm through his and kissed his cheek. They’d been married only a few weeks and the changes they’d both endured had been startling. The day after Christmas, Griff had applied for a special license to marry. The following day, the vicar had wed them. The next day, the clergyman had done the same for Delphine and Bromley.
The Earl's Wagered Bride: Christmas Belles, Book 1 Page 10
