The Marriage Masquerade

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  These thick, thick walls. Like being sealed inside a stone mausoleum. No. Yancey closed her eyes and gulped in several deep breaths, assuring herself that there was air to be had. The only openings for fresh air were infrequently placed and extremely narrow portals. No doubt ancient archers had positioned themselves along these very steps so as to rain a deadly hail of arrows down on the enemy. Although she couldn’t see how they’d had room to draw a bow. Not a big one, anyway. Because, had she stood in the middle of a step and stretched her arms out to either side to touch the walls, she could not have completely extended either arm before she met stone-cold resistance. It was that narrow.

  And very scary. Eerily silent, too. Yancey began to wish the woman would charge her. Anything to break the tension.

  At that second, a rock-hard arm whipped around her waist and a big hand clamped down over her mouth. Yancey damned near passed out. Shock seized her as she was literally lifted off her feet. In less than a second, there she was—effectively trussed and gagged and held tight against the man behind her. Though she could barely draw in a breath and though she stared helplessly ahead, her senses frozen and her bones melting, she managed not to squeeze the trigger on her gun or even to drop it.

  “Shhh, Yancey, it’s me,” her assailant whispered in her ear.

  Yancey tensed with recognition, lost her temper, and kicked back as hard as she could, connecting with Sam’s shin. His satisfying—to her—“Oof!” of surprise and pain had him letting go of her as quickly as he’d grabbed her. When he did, Yancey fell forward in a heap, catching herself with her left hand as she helplessly scrambled forward in a crouching run that had her two steps up before she could stop herself.

  When she did, she jerked around, took the two steps down to Sam—who leaned against the wall, holding his right leg bent and rubbing his shin, a pretty helpless posture, really—and smacked his arm soundly. He grimaced, biting back a protest and frowning at her.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” she hissed, shaking his arm and dividing her gaze between him and the upward spiral of the twisting stairs around which a very demented woman—surely curious, at the very least—could come charging. “Why aren’t you in your mother’s room, Sam?”

  His glare alone should have melted her gun. “Because I am not five years old to be sent to my mother’s room. Why aren’t you in the dining room?”

  Well, he had her there. “Because,” Yancey said, letting go of him. That wasn’t much of an explanation. Sam’s raised eyebrows said he agreed. Yancey stuck her gun in her waistband and changed the subject. “Do you know that Mrs. Edgars is sitting up there in the window? I think she means to jump.”

  “At the very least, she means to jump,” Sam whispered stridently, letting go of his leg and standing now on his own two feet. “I saw you come running in here and then saw her up there and feared this could be a trap.”

  “Which is why we’re whispering, Sam.” Yancey pointed back down the way he’d come, toward the bottom of the tower. “Now, go on. Get out of here. I can take care of this by myself.”

  The stubborn man crossed his arms over his broad chest and said, “No.”

  Yancey firmed her lips—a dangerous sign to anyone who knew her well. “I work alone.”

  “We’ve had this conversation.” He stood there like a rock. Solid. Determined. Immovable.

  But … he was lower on the stairs than she was. Giving no warning as to her intentions, Yancey simply turned around, making a darting run up the stairs. She was about one up on him before the back of her skirt was grabbed and she was again yanked backward and hauled up against Sam.

  “Dammit, Sam,” she gritted out, hissing and squirming in his grip as he turned them around in the stairwell. In their struggle, Yancey’s gun dislodged and went clattering back down the stairs. Along with Sam, she froze, staring after it as it disappeared around the curve of the worn-smooth steps. “Look at that. You put me down and stop this nonsense. That woman up there is a killer.”

  “I am fully aware of that. And you are now unarmed. So…” He finished his sentence by lowering Yancey to her feet and letting her go.

  Blinking, she stood there for one disoriented second, and then realized what he’d done. She now faced downward, and he was behind her. Yancey spun around and, sure enough, she saw Sam disappearing around the next bend. Frustrated with him, she charged up three narrow steps and did the only thing she could think to do. She grabbed the back of Sam’s waistband and hung on for all she was worth … which turned out to be about ten cents, maybe, because she barely even slowed him down.

  Determined, and desperate to protect the man she loved, she stiffened her entire body in a straight line and dragged her feet. Her boot-toes edged against the riser of the next step and held tight. Yancey had just effectively made an anchor of herself. The resistance of her weight finally, effectively stopped Sam … and lowered his pants a good couple of inches.

  Cussing, tugging at her grip on him, and trying hard to surge forward, all while hanging on to the wall and trying desperately to keep his pants up, Sam conceded the battle. His back to her, he stopped resisting and held his hands up. “All right, all right. This isn’t working. I give up. You can let go now.”

  “Ha.” That was too easy, and she wasn’t about to fall for such a play. The second she let go, he would bound up those steps again, and well she knew it. “Not on your life, Sam Treyhorne. Which is exactly what I’m trying to save.” She stared at his behind. “Or your sweet ass, at any rate.”

  The sound of disgust he made told her he was unmoved by her sentiment. He planted his hands at his waist and tried to turn enough to see her … but Yancey tensed, a clear sign that she meant to yank his pants down farther should he try anything untoward. He froze. “I said I give up.” His voice was a hoarse hiss of sound. “What the hell do you suggest we do, Yancey? We can’t stay like this the rest of our lives.”

  “Say you’ll go back down and let me handle this.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t even have a weapon now. Besides, I am more than twice your size. And look—” He produced his gun from the front of his waistband and held it up, waggling it for her to see before replacing it in the front of his trousers. “I have a weapon, should I need it. And Mrs. Edgars is my housekeeper, and I will deal with her.”

  Yancey’s arms were getting tired. “You hired me to do that.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t count on this, did I? So … you’re fired.”

  “I am not.”

  “I can fire you if I so choose. Now tell me, do you really intend to pull my pants down?”

  “To the ground, Sam.” She was having trouble keeping her grip and it was making her feel grim. “If need be, my love, to the ground. And then we’ll see how fast you can get up these steps having to hop like a rabbit.”

  “I have absolutely no intention of doing something so undignified. Now let go.”

  “No.” Every muscle in her body ached with the strain.

  Sam lost his temper, no longer bothering to keep his voice down. “Yancey, by now Mrs. Edgars could have already jumped, her body been discovered and hauled away and buried and the funeral over. We must solve this impasse.”

  His voice echoed and ricocheted up and down the hollow spiral of the tower.

  “I’m fully aware of that, Sam,” Yancey shouted back. She felt Sam give an experimental push forward. She renewed her grip and pulled down hard. The twelfth Duke of Somerset’s trousers now rode around his hips, almost to his legs. “But,” Yancey assured the stubborn man, “you’ll still be standing here with your pants around your ankles and with me latched onto them … Your Grace.”

  Sam muttered a particularly foul oath and then declared, “That’s enough.” He then did the one thing Yancey had feared he’d think of. He backed down one step, causing her to lose her toehold and therefore her tension. The second she squawked and felt her body give, Sam reached around behind him and grabbed her hands up together. “Aha!”
he cried triumphantly, forcing Yancey’s grip off his pants and hauling her upright.

  In one swift move, with Yancey protesting and struggling, though ineffectually against his size and strength, Sam very neatly clutched both of her wrists with one hand and pulled his pants up with the other. “What do you think of that, Miss Pinkerton?”

  Yancey looked past Sam and stilled, sobering dramatically. “Sam,” she said, speaking slowly and deliberately, “behind you.”

  He eyed her dubiously, but then shook his head. “No. I assure you I am not going to fall for that old trick, my dear. Geoffrey used to try that one all the time when we were boys. Tell me some scary monster was behind me.”

  With her hands being held above her head by Sam, Yancey faced toward the tower room, and divided her wide-eyed gaze between Sam and the stairs behind him. Her mouth went dry. “And when you turned around, Sam, was he ever telling the truth? Was someone there?”

  Perhaps it was something in her voice, Yancey didn’t know. Or maybe it was the look on her face. But Sam sobered and stilled. “She’s right behind me, isn’t she?”

  Her heart pounding, Yancey nodded. “Yes. She is.”

  Almost conversationally, Sam said, “What’s she doing?”

  Yancey spared the madwoman a glance. “Just standing there.”

  “Lovely. Any weapons that you can see?”

  “A gun.”

  “Well,” Sam commented, mock cheerfully.

  Yancey eyed the unmoving woman again and then looked up at the man she loved more than she loved anyone else in the entire world. “It’s been my experience, Sam, honey, that things get interesting at about this point.”

  He nodded, being very congenial. “I can see how they would. Any suggestions?”

  “You could probably let go of my hands before they go numb. That would be a good start.”

  He looked from her face to her hands and then met her gaze again. “Oh. Sorry. Of course.” He released his grip on her.

  “Nice and easy now.” Yancey lowered her arms. “No sudden moves,” she coached Sam. “Don’t turn around and look at her. That might set her off.”

  “And we don’t want to do that.”

  “No, we don’t,” Yancey said, her gaze now slipping to Mrs. Edgars, whose black eyes shone with an oily glaze. The woman had clearly snapped and gone completely around the bend. “Don’t move, Sam, I need you to cover me,” Yancey said quietly, edging her left hand, since her right was in Mrs. Edgars’s line of sight, toward Sam’s waistband.

  Yancey saw in his eyes that he meant to question her, but she gave a serious but subtle shake of her head, mouthing No. His features contorted by a look of fear, Sam mouthed back I love you. And Yancey winked at him.

  Absolutely terrified, though—one single mistake in judgment now could get them both killed—Yancey inhaled and exhaled very slowly. God alone knew what would set the woman off … or when. Yancey flicked her gaze the woman’s way again. And wanted to die. She was right behind Sam. Right behind him. Maybe two steps up from him. Dear God, the man’s entire broad back and precious head were exposed to the gun Mrs. Edgars held pointed at him. If he so much as moved one inch, some instinct told Yancey … just one inch …

  Sam suddenly shifted his weight, and Yancey froze. His gray eyes had a look in them that scared her terribly. He meant to do something brave and stupid. “Yancey,” he said very softly, “I can’t let—”

  “No.” She felt certain she would cry. He was going to do it. Already he was slowly bringing his hand toward his gun. “Sam, honey, no,” Yancey pleaded quietly, desperately. He would be dead before he could get turned around with it. Tears spilled over and coursed down her cheeks as she got her hand closed around the grip on Sam’s Colt before his could. But then he closed his hand over hers, holding them both there. She never looked away from him. “Please, baby. This is what I do for a living.”

  He smiled down into her face. “Well, you’re fired. Forever.”

  Just then, behind Sam, Mrs. Edgars spoke. “I had to do it. I had to.”

  A jet of fear shot through Yancey and widened her eyes. Sam’s features hardened, as did his grip on her hand. Over his shoulder he barked out, “Why?”

  “Because he lied to me. He told me if I helped him, he’d make me his overseer of both Glenmore and Somerset. He was poor. Had no money. Was about to lose his precious estate. But he lied to me, and then he laughed at me.”

  Then it was true. The gambling debts. All of this sadness was over money and greed and pride. Yancey felt suspended in time, as if her heart weren’t even beating, as she listened to Sam question his housekeeper. She hoped he realized that when she was done talking, she would start shooting.

  “What happened to my brother, Mrs. Edgars?” Sam’s grip on her hand tightened painfully. Yancey bit down on the inside of her cheek and held on.

  “I gave him a medicine that killed him. For the heart.”

  “There was nothing wrong with Geoffrey’s heart.”

  She cackled. “There was after that. It was easy. He was having trouble sleeping. Had his own gambling debts to worry about. So I got him something for sleep—we were in London, it was easy to buy—and I slipped the other drug in his sleeping powder. He took it right down with water. Just like a baby.”

  Yancey watched helplessly as Sam’s face drained of color. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. Then he opened them and said, still over his shoulder, still with his back to the murdering woman, “Why didn’t you kill me, Mrs. Edgars?”

  “You were next. I wanted you here a while so no one would suspect another death so soon. But then she arrived—”

  “Leave her out of this. Tell me about Roderick, the man who was going to make you mistress of the combined duchies. Why did you kill him?”

  “He was trying to stop me from killing her!” Greatly agitated now, Mrs. Edgars narrowed her eyes on Yancey.

  Yancey felt chilled, much as she would if a poisonous snake had her in its sights. “Roderick meant to stop you from killing me?”

  “Yes.” And she hated that he had. It was there in her malevolent gaze.

  This was a revelation. Yancey didn’t have to ask the woman why she wanted to kill her. She knew. Last night, she and Sam’s cousin had believed she, Yancey, was the actual Duchess of Somerset returned from America, reunited with Sam, and ready to produce heirs that would complicate their dreams of grandeur. But why Roderick should stop her—

  “He said you didn’t need to die anymore. But I didn’t believe him, and I couldn’t let you have babies.” Spittle foamed at the corners of Mrs. Edgars’s mouth. “I couldn’t. But you weren’t in your room. You were in his bed and—”

  “What happened, Mrs. Edgars?” Sam interrupted. “Did my cousin just come home early and surprise you?”

  The woman directed her gaze and her gun to Sam’s back. Yancey’s knees weakened … but she held on to his gun, even when he moved his hands to grip her arms and hold her close to him.

  “Yes. He laughed and told me he didn’t need me,” Mrs. Edgars all but shouted, her voice echoing like Sam’s had moments ago. “He said he was going to tell the authorities that I had killed the duke on my own. He said they’d believe him, too, because he was a peer and I was nobody. He said I’d spend my life in prison. I won’t do that.”

  Yancey could only exchange a look with Sam. What could they say? Mrs. Edgars was right. Roderick would have been believed over Mrs. Edgars.

  “But what changed, Mrs. Edgars? Why did Roderick no longer need me and Miss Calhoun dead?”

  “Because last night he found himself a wife. No Englishwoman of the nobility would have him. You know that. But he and the Duke of Yarborough got the man’s ward, a rich German niece, to consent to marry him.” Mrs. Edgars’s expression became a snarl. “The Duke of Yarborough is as bad a man as your cousin. They don’t care how they use a woman as long as she’s rich. And this one’s ugly and old, past her prime. A spinster. But her dowry would have saved his precious G
lenmore. That was all he cared about. Not me and my plans. But I showed him. He can’t use me like that. Nobody uses me. And now it’s your turn to find that out.”

  The moment was here. There was no sense arguing that Sam or she hadn’t used the woman at all. Fright seized Yancey. She wet her lips and shifted her weight, hoping to communicate the urgency to Sam. But his attention was riveted behind Yancey, back down the stairs. She couldn’t see what or who—

  “Now, Scotty!” Sam yelled.

  Scotty? That was all she had time to think before Sam shoved her aside and down, following after her, crashing into her and sending her to the cold, hard steps. His weight atop her knocked the breath out of her. Yancey banged her head against the wall and her ears rang. Shots were ringing out from all sides, it seemed. She thought she heard Mrs. Edgars scream and Scotty—where had Scotty come from?—grunt as if in pain. Then Yancey realized that somehow she had Sam’s gun in her hand, that he had lifted his weight off her, and was up on his knees—

  But then, sickeningly, he toppled limply and fell atop her, only to immediately roll off her. Frantic, screaming, Yancey reached for him, grabbing his shirt. “Sam? Sam?”

  But he was slippery and her hand slid off him. Yancey’s mind wouldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. Numb, she held her hand up. It was red. Blood. Sam’s blood? Had she shot Sam? She looked stupidly at the gun. And then looked up from where she sat in a heap with her back to the inside curve of the wall. Scotty was lying like a broken doll off to her left. Blood covered his chest.

  “Scotty?” Yancey wondered where that child’s voice had come from. Then she realized it was hers. Numb, feeling as if every movement were accomplished only with great effort, Yancey turned her head the other way. There stood Mrs. Edgars. She had her back to the wall and one foot on one step and her other on the next one down. She had blood on her, too. But, her arm trembling, she was raising it and pointing her gun at Yancey. Yancey stared at the woman and then at the gun in her hand.