*
Marcus lost all track of time before the carriage finally jounced to a halt. Every bone in his body ached and he had desperate need of a chamber pot. The door was snatched open and he was dragged outside. At least this time they did not drop him. They had been traveling for the better part of two days. Where in God’s name could he be? A tattoo of booming barks moved towards him.
“Down, lads. You’ll deafen the poor man. My lords, is there a reason you have His Grace trussed up like a poor man’s Christmas dinner?” Marcus knew that voice. In a series of rough and hasty moves his blindfold, gag, and trusses were removed. He blinked at the bright sunlight and looked around to get his bearings. It wasn’t until a rather amused face came into focus he realized where he was. Two days ride up the Great North Road, a place where he usually changed horses on the way to Yorkshire.
“Mr. Overhill, can you tell me why I am here at The Olde Cock and what precisely is afoot?” Marcus stumbled forward to escape the inspection of two blunt snouts in his back.
“Always happy to have your patronage at my establishment, Your Grace.” The tavern keeper wiped his hands on his stained apron and snapped his fingers for two nearby lads to see to the carriage horses. “But I think I’ll let these gentlemen do the explaining. Nick, Scratch, leave the duke alone, boys. Back to the taproom with you.” Two tall, rangy bull terriers, one black and white, the other a mottled brown, came from behind Marcus. They gave him one final suspicious sniff and followed Mr. Overhill into the tavern.
It took a moment for him to realize his three captors were no longer masked and they too looked very familiar. He was mildly annoyed with the first two. He planned to murder the third.
“Before you kill me listen,” Crosby said even as Creighton and Tildenbury stepped between them. “If you care for Addy at all, listen.”
Marcus fisted his hands and followed Crosby as he walked to a nearby carriage and knocked on the door. They stood there, side by side, and watched as a footman in Selridge livery and a large, rather ugly dog left the carriage. Marcus was acquainted with the dog.
“John, by whose orders have you brought my brother’s dog here?” To his amazement, the footman led the dog over and handed Marcus the lead. Augustus, tail wagging, leaned against Marcus with a soft woof of recognition.
“By Mr. Jeffries orders, Your Grace. Gus is his dog now.” He gave Marcus a respectful bow and returned to the carriage.
Creighton and Tildenbury strolled up to join Marcus and Crosby.
“This is where your brother met Augustus for the first time.” Crosby indicated the tavern and inn. “Six years ago, after Addy and I rescued the dog from the bear baiter my father sold him to, we ran into the duke. He took us up in his carriage and returned us to my grandmother at Rose Hill. And he and Jeffries took Gus to Winfield Park with them.”
The booming barks of the two dogs in the tavern echoed out into the coachyard. Marcus started. He’d seen those dogs before as well. They’d been in Hyde Park the day Addy confronted the barker. “You took those dogs from the bear baiter, the one in London. You and… my wife.”
Crosby smiled in answer, a sad, but unapologetic smile. “My father took Gus from my sister, Josie, and sold him to a bear baiter. She ran away from home to find him. By the time they found her and called me home she was dying. Pneumonia. I promised her I would find her dog and save him.” He shrugged as if to brazen it out. Marcus saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. “And I did, after she died. She was ten years old.”
“I’m sorry, Crosby. Truly I am.”
“I vowed I would never allow another dog to suffer the fate my father had in mind for Gus. I swore it on my sister’s grave. And Addy took that vow with me. That’s what we’ve been doing. That is all that has ever happened between us, Selridge. I don’t know what made me kiss her when I knew you were there. I… didn’t want you to have her.”
Marcus fought past the fog settled over his brain. “I don’t understand.”
“She loves you, Selridge,” Crosby rolled his eyes and looked to Creighton and Tildenbury for help. They raised their hands in surrender. “Although after what you said to Julius, I don’t know why.”
“She knows… what I said…” His breath turned to ice in his lungs.
“That you called him a bloody sodomite and said if he didn’t have those unnatural urges your father wouldn’t have kept you out of the military so long to ensure the line?” Crosby’s expression of disgust held not a candle to what Marcus had held in his heart all these months. “Yes. She knows. And she loves you anyway. God help her.”
Marcus looked at Gus standing peacefully at his side. He could see the scars across the dog’s muzzle, old and faded, yet still there. He was whole and happy and had a home with Jeffries for as long as he lived. Because of Addy. She didn’t see scars. Growling and barking did not deter her. She loved her way past all that, past the pain, and darkness, and guilt. She knew every horrible thing and loved in spite of it, because she could not help herself.
“Isn’t that one of your footmen?” Tildenbury shielded his eyes with his hand and pointed at a horse and rider entering the coachyard.
Marcus shoved Gus’s lead into Creighton’s hand and limped to meet the horse and rider. Thomas had come from Winfield Abbey. “What is it? Is it the duchess?” The young footman, covered in mud and dust, handed Marcus a note from Puddlesby. The words leapt off the paper.
“Crosby,” Marcus roared and lumbered over to punch the man square on the chin. He went down like a sack of potatoes. Creighton and Tildenbury moved to interfere.
“What the devil, Selridge?”
“Not very sporting of you.”
“No, I had that one coming.” Crosby raised up on his elbows.
“Thomas, I need a horse. Ask Overhill which is the fastest in his stable and saddle it for me.”
“Right away, Your Grace.” The footman handed his own mount off to one of the young stable boys and sprinted to the tavern door.
“Crosby, where the hell are Finch’s dogs? He’s threatening to arrest Addy for stealing them.” Marcus began a halting pace back and forth between Crosby lying in the dirt and the carriage from which his brother’s dog had emerged.
“He can’t do that.” Crosby scrambled to his feet.
“Where, Crosby?” Marcus clenched his fist and tapped it against his leg to keep his mind from running mad. He had to get to Addy.
“If we don’t have a home in mind, they go to Wicken End.”
“Why would you take the poor beasts there?” Creighton asked. “Wicken End houses an entire family of bedlamites. Starting with the earl.”
“Wickenshire has a relative, his aunt. She’s quite good with dogs. Not so much with people. She trains the dogs and Addy finds them a place to go.”
“Why not your brother’s estate?” Tildenbury asked. Thomas left the inn and hurried into the stables. They all looked across the coachyard expectantly and then back at Crosby.
“Wessex won’t allow dogs. Never has. Won’t allow one on the place.” He went to the back of the old carriage they’d traveled in and began to rummage in the boot.
“Dogs?” Creighton returned Gus to the carriage in which the dog had traveled. “He won’t allow dogs? The man owns an elephant for pity’s sake.” He took the Manton pistols Crosby handed him.
“Actually, he owns three.” Crosby handed Tildenbury a fowling piece. “And a rhinoceros.”
“Good God.” Marcus joined Crosby at the boot of the old carriage.
“And he recently acquired a bear,” Creighton added. Crosby elbowed him in the side.
“How recently?” Marcus truly did not want to know.
“Not too long after you acquired a wife. Crosby if you elbow me again I shall be forced to shoot you. He might as well know it all.”
“She didn’t.” Marcus reached for the rifle Crosby held only to have him pull it away.
“She did,” he said and stepped back a few steps.
“My wi
fe stole a bear?” Why was he surprised? This was Addy they were discussing.
“It came with the two dogs Mr. Overhill has taken in.”
Marcus groaned and slapped a hand to his face.
“And a cat,” Crosby added.
“A cat? She stole a cat?”
“It came with the bear as well.”
“That’s handy,” Tildenbury piped in as he, with a surprisingly deft hand, loaded the fowling piece. “I am fond of cats.”
“The dogs came with the bear. The cat came with the bear. Did anything else come with the bear? A coach and four, perhaps?”
The three men stopped preparing their arms and stared at him as if he were the one run mad. Thomas came out of the stables leading four saddled horses.
“A boy.” Crosby said as they checked the horses’ tack.
“A boy? My wife stole a boy?” Only his wife would steal a boy.
“A small one. But he’s safe. He went to Wicken End with the dogs and the cat.”
“Crosby, is there anything else you care to tell me before we make for Yorkshire?”
“At some point, we may have accidentally murdered Sir Delbert’s son.”
“At some point? When?” Why did he keep asking these questions? It only made matters worse.
“He keeps repeating things,” Creighton observed as they mounted the horses. “How hard did you drop him into that puddle?”
“The night of your engagement,” Crosby offered.
“What?!” Marcus had to get away from these lunatics. So he could go to the aid of the lunatic he’d married.
“Oh, come now, Selridge,” Creighton admonished as they walked their horses across the coachyard. “You must admire the woman’s industry. She became engaged to a duke, stole three large dogs—”
“Rescued,” Crosby corrected.
“Murdered an apparently cruel and useless young wastrel and made her way home in time for breakfast.”
“She didn’t mean to murder him. She simply hit him with the butt of her pistol.”
“Her pistol?”
“There he goes again,” Tildenbury said. “Repeating things.”
“Twice. He tried to get up after the first time. But I know she never meant to kill him. Who knew the blighter’s head was so soft? I’m not convinced he’s dead. They’ve never found his body.”
“Useless young scoundrels tend to have soft heads. One of their many flaws,” Creighton said with a grin. The carriage carrying Gus and the footmen Thomas and John pulled out behind them.
Marcus reached across his horse to snatch the rifle from Crosby. “I will shoot the next man who utters a word.” He kicked his horse into a gallop and did not look back to see if they followed. He had to get to Addy and tell her how very much he loved her. And then he was going to lock her up before she drove him completely mad.
*
Adelaide stared at the papers in her hand and sighed. A few months ago, the words there might have frightened her. Since losing Marcus, nothing frightened her at all, except perhaps the fact he might never accept the child she now knew she carried as his.
“Your Grace, will you come peacefully or will I have to use force?” Adelaide had to agree with her mother-in-law. The man did look like a toad. She gazed out over the front drive where a small force of militia was mounted and ready to escort her to York.
It would be easy to go with him and be done with it. She was the Duchess of Selridge, however, and she refused to allow Marcus’s family name to be dragged through the courts. She certainly had no intention of giving birth to the next Duke of Selridge in prison.
“If you’ll allow me a moment, Sir Delbert,” she said sweetly. She turned to Mrs. Church. “Is everyone ready?”
“Oh yes, Your Grace. We’re ready.” Addy took the old blunderbuss the housekeeper handed her and turned around to point it right between the magistrate’s eyes.
“Sir Delbert, you have exactly one minute to leave my home and never come back, after which the servants of this house and I will consider ourselves at a state of war with you.” She smiled. “And we take no prisoners.”
Sir Delbert blinked and stepped back. He continued to step back until he fell down the stairs. Servants appeared from everywhere armed with pistols, pitchforks and swords. The old toad picked himself up and shook his fist at her. That’s when the cloud of dust that had been coming up the long drive arrived.
“Finch, get the hell away from my wife.” Marcus slid from his horse and tossed the reins and a rifle to Dylan. Adelaide’s knees gave way and she sat down on the front portico, her eyes never leaving Marcus’s face.
“Are you alright, Addy?” he asked. His gaze was full of so much feeling she scarce believed it true.
“I am now,” she replied.
“Your wife has broken the law and I am taking her and this ruffian,” Sir Delbert pointed at Dylan.” To York to stand trial.”
“You do and I will call in every single one of your markers I own. And trust me, Finch, I own them all. I’ll ruin you.” Marcus knelt down beside her and brushed the hair from her eyes. She should be furious with him, but all she wanted to do was tell him how tired he looked and take him to bed.
The captain of the militia glanced from Marcus to Sir Delbert, gave a brief salute, and led his men back up the drive past an approaching carriage. For a woman in exile she had quite a few visitors, both welcome and unwelcome. Finch stared at Marcus in absolute terror. “You wouldn’t. You can’t.”
“It’s done, Finch. Tildenbury, here, and I helped him buy them up. You owe him the tidy sum of fifty thousand pounds, give or take a pound or two. Can I help you onto your horse?” Creighton asked as he took the man by the arm.
“My son has been murdered, I tell you. Nothing but bloody clothes and a boot were left after your wife and her friend made off with his dogs. I have papers from the magistrate in York to have them arrested.”
A carriage rolled to a stop behind the blustering magistrate.
Marcus pressed his finger to Adelaide’s lips and smiled. He rose slowly and caught the rifle Dylan tossed him. He trained it on the magistrate. Oh Lord, surely, he wouldn’t actually shoot the man. Adelaide started to stand. Lord Creighton gave a slight shake of his head.
“I don’t care if you have papers from the Blind Beak of Bow Street signed by Prinny himself. You will not be taking my wife anywhere.”
“Of course, he won’t. Delbert, do stop talking before His Grace shoots you.” A stately, thin woman of middling years was handed down from the carriage by Jeffries of all people. She spun Sir Delbert sideways and shoved him towards the carriage.
“She killed our son, Matilda. She and her ruffian friend.”
“She most certainly did not. Dickie, come out here at once, you idiot boy.”
Whilst Adelaide and Dylan stared at each other in disbelief, Jeffries reached into the carriage and dragged out a pale and disheveled Dickie Finch.
“What the devil?” Sir Delbert grabbed his son and shook him. “Where have you been, you rotter?”
“Your son paid your servant to help him disappear and make it appear he’d been murdered,” Jeffries explained. “He’s been hiding out in a gaming hell in Seven Dials ever since he lost his rooms at Albany.”
“Albany?” Marcus and Creighton tightened their grips on their weapons. Adelaide wasn’t certain she could stop them both. Each time she glanced at the recently resurrected Dickie Finch she was less and less certain she wanted to try.
Lady Finch reached into her bulky reticule and withdrew a bundle of yellowed letters, bound with a faded blue ribbon. Marcus handed his rifle to Creighton and took the letters from her.
“I should kill you.” He looked from the letters to Sir Delbert’s son, who hung his head. Adelaide stepped up and wrapped her hands around Marcus’s arm. “You had no right. No right to these letters. No right to come after me.” He looked at Jeffries. “Or any member of my family.”
“You needn’t worry, Your Grace, neither m
y husband nor Dickie will be in a position to bother your family ever again,” Lady Finch assured them. She shoved her son towards the carriage, none to gently. “Into the carriage. You, as well, Delbert. It is a long ride to Ireland.”
“Ireland?” the man spluttered. “I am not going to Ireland.”
“You owe His Grace and his friends fifty thousand pounds. You will come to my brother’s estate in Ireland with me and the children or I will not pay a farthing of your debts.” She curtsied to Marcus and Adelaide and allowed Jeffries to hand her into the carriage without a backwards glance. The process of loading Sir Delbert into the carriage was quickly accomplished, thanks to Jeffries assistance. Adelaide watched it disappear up the drive. Marcus handed the bundle of letters to Jeffries. Something more than letters passed between them. Adelaide’s heart hurt in a wonderful way to see it. Jeffries nodded briefly, bowed to her, and went into the house. With a few quick compliments, Creighton cajoled the still shaken Mrs. Church into preparing a small nuncheon for their party. Suddenly she and Marcus were alone on the front portico.
“Marcus, I…”
“No, Addy, let me.” He took her hands in his and kissed each one in turn. “I love you, Adelaide. More than I ever thought possible.”
“You don’t have to say that, Marcus. The words are just words if you don’t mean them and that’s alright for now. I would prefer no flowers, to wilted ones.”
He smiled and shook his head. “There are not enough flowers in Yorkshire to tell you how much I love you. My life is as empty as the moors in winter without you, Addy. I have lived so long in the shadow of guilt and anger. You changed all that and I never even realized it was happening until you left”
“You sent me away, remember?”
“I was an arse, an idiot, a complete sapskull.” She laughed out loud. It felt so good to laugh with him, to see his face. His face was different now. The scar was still there, but everything else was so different. That emotion she saw when he rode up to rescue her, could it be love? Dared she hope?
“Why did you buy up Sir Delbert’s vowels, Marcus? Did you know I was the thief?” He would not let go of her hands.
Lost In Love (Road To Forever Series #1) Page 37
