Married By Midnight

by Julianne MacLean

  Garrett lay alone in his bed, staring up at the canopy, recalling all the sensual pleasures he’d enjoyed in Anne’s bed the night before, and wondering if she would be agreeable to more of the same this evening.

  Again, he had slept all night with her. There were no dreams of stormy seas and drowning faces. Only peace and...well, exhaustion.

  He was about to get up and visit Anne in her bedchamber for a brief time before tea when a knock sounded at his door.

  “Come in,” he said as he swung his booted feet to the floor.

  A footman burst in to the room. “My lord. Her Grace is asking for you. She is in the duke’s chamber. She said to hurry.”

  Garrett flew off the bed and followed the footman.

  A moment later he was striding into his father’s chamber where his mother was pacing back and forth in front of the window.

  “Garrett, I’m so glad you are here. We cannot locate your father. Dr. Thomas is scheduled to arrive at any moment for their regular appointment, but now your father is missing.”

  “Did he not want to be examined today?” Garrett asked.

  “He never wants to be examined. I told him to stay in bed, but when I returned he was gone. The servants have searched all the rooms, but we haven’t been able to find him.”

  Garrett strode to the window, pulled the curtain aside with one finger and scanned the courtyard and snow-covered lawns in the distance. “What was he wearing? Did he take a topcoat?”

  “No, he was dressed only in his nightshirt. He is not wearing shoes.”

  Garrett faced his mother. “Where are Devon and Blake? Have you told them?”

  “They have already left for London with Chelsea and Rebecca to see the solicitor and banker about the will. They won’t be back until late tomorrow. I don’t know what to do. Where could he be?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.” Garrett glanced around the room for signs of something—anything—out of order. “Was he distraught when you left him?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “And you’ve searched all the rooms?”

  She nodded. “The servants are still looking everywhere. Perhaps we should send a search party outside. What if he went to the lake house? It’s been sunny and mild the past few days. The ice isn’t safe.”

  Garrett hurried to the door and called the footman. “You there, come here at once. Go out to the stables and tell the grooms to take a few horses to the lake. We must find the duke.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Garrett swung around to face his mother. Her brow was creased with concern. “Was he talking about the ghosts again?”

  “Not that I know of. He just seemed frightened and restless.”

  “Has anyone checked the chapel? Could he have gone down to the tunnels?”

  She sucked in a breath. “Possibly. I didn’t think of that. Why didn’t I?”

  He squeezed her hand and moved quickly to the door. “I will go and search there. In the meantime inform Lady Anne about what is happening. She is a good person to help search. She has a calming effect on him.”

  * * *

  Just as Garrett had suspected, the chapel door was wide open, the loose stone that concealed the key was dislodged, the key was missing, and the door to the catacombs was ajar.

  He had come prepared with a lantern and blanket, and was about to duck his head low to pass through the small door when he heard rapid footsteps on the flagstones outside. Turning to look, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Anne, dressed in a warm cloak, rushing up the chapel steps. She, too, had come with a lantern. He could have kissed her.

  “There you are,” she said, out of breath. “Your mother told me you came here to search.”

  “Yes.” He waved her over. “I see you brought another lantern. Good thinking. Perhaps we can split up this time. You can go left, and I will go right.”

  “That is precisely what I was thinking.”

  Together they ducked through the entrance and descended the steep steps to the underground level where the air was cold and damp. Holding Anne’s hand, Garrett led the way to the end of the first long corridor. When they reached the T, Garrett turned to her. “If you find him, shout as loud as you can and I will come to you. I will do the same. Otherwise, I will meet you back in the chapel. If you do not return within an hour I will send another search party after you.”

  “But what if your father has escaped out the other door? If he has done so, I will follow his footsteps in the snow.”

  “Yes,” Garrett replied. “I will do the same. We must each leave that door open to signal that we have left the passages to pursue him.”

  With a steady nod, she disappeared into the left vein. Garrett hurried to the right, grateful for Anne’s clear head and helpful presence.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Father!” Garrett shouted as he rounded another curve. A mouse scurried along the wall at his feet. “Are you here?”

  He had been calling out to the duke since he entered the catacombs, and could hear the faint sound of Anne doing the same, but there had been no replies.

  The passageway narrowed before him and he held the lantern aloft to slip sideways through the tight space.

  He stopped when he heard a moan up ahead, like that of a child. A boy. All the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. For a moment he could not move.

  “Who’s there?” he called out. “Where are you?”

  Garrett’s insides flooded with sickening dread as recurrent images of that frightful day on the water came crashing into his brain. The wind in the sails, the stinging spray in his face, the thunderous sound of the water filling his ears...

  Garrett shut his eyes and strove to control his breathing. This was not Johnny, returned from the dead to haunt him. There were no ghosts here, only guilt and regret.

  “Where am I?”

  Garrett’s eyes flew open as he recognized the sound of his father’s voice. His turned in that direction.

  “Father! You are in the tunnel network beneath the chapel.” He moved faster through the narrow passageway until he reached the duke, who was frozen with fear, trapped against the wall, dressed only in a white nightshirt.

  “It’s me, Garrett. Are you all right?” Then he called out to Anne. “I’ve found him! We are over here!”

  The duke’s lips were blue. His teeth chattered and he shivered uncontrollably. “I’m cold. How did I get here?”

  Garrett glanced down at his father’s bare feet. “Do you not have a candle or a lamp?”

  The duke shook his head.

  “How in the world did you reach this place in the dark?”

  “I don’t know,” the duke answered. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the tunnels beneath the chapel,” Garrett repeated. “But do not be concerned. Everything’s going to be fine. I’m going to get you out of here and take you home.”

  “I’m c...cold,” he said.

  “I have a blanket for you, but first we must get out of this space.”

  It was too tight and narrow for Garrett to wrap the blanket around him.

  “Which way?” the duke asked.

  “Go forward, to your right. Only a few more feet and the corridor will widen.”

  “But I’m frightened. I don’t want to die. Not here.”

  Garrett spoke in a calm, reassuring voice. “Everything’s going to be fine, Father. I am here beside you and I won’t leave you, I promise. All you have to do is take a few steps to the right. Can you do that?”

  The duke nodded and managed to move shakily along the wall until the corridor opened up again. Garrett pushed his way out and immediately set the lamp down on the ground to wrap the heavy woolen blanket around his father’s shoulders.

  “Good God, you’re freezing,” he said, taking him into his arms and rubbing his back. “We need to get you warm again.”

  The duke inhaled a few shuddering breaths while Garrett felt the alarmingly thin, boney structure of his fathe
r’s spine and shoulder blades. He was so frail compared to how Garrett remembered him. In his younger days, he had been a large and powerful man who knew how to punish and terrorize—could do it with just a single cold, scathing look down the intimidating length of his nose.

  “I c...can’t feel my f...feet,” the duke said.

  Garrett looked down. His father was standing in a puddle of water.

  “Take hold of my shoulders,” he said. “I will carry you on my back to another door where we will meet Lady Anne. Do you remember her?”

  Leaving the lantern on the ground, he bent forward, lifted his father up, and started walking.

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Yes, she’s very pretty,” Garrett replied. “She has green eyes and dark hair.”

  “Is she your wife?”

  “Not yet, but she will be soon. We will be married on Christmas Eve.” His father clung tightly to Garrett’s neck. “We’re almost there, Father. Look, see? Here we are.”

  He reached the rough-hewn wooden steps and set his father down. “Stay here, don’t move.” He hurried back to fetch the lantern and returned, sat down, and removed his own boots and stockings. “Put these on.” He handed his stockings to his father. “They will warm your feet.”

  With shaking hands, the duke pulled them on and gathered the blanket more tightly about his shoulders while Garrett pulled his boots back on. He was going to need them himself to get his father out of here.

  “It’s cold,” the duke said, still shivering. “What is this place?”

  “We’re in an old set of tunnels beneath the palace. They were dug out long before you and I were born. Do you remember coming here before?”

  He knew for a fact that his father was well acquainted with the catacombs. It was he who had first introduced Garrett and his brothers to the secret door in the chapel when they were children.

  “No,” he replied, shaking more violently now.

  Garrett slid closer and wrapped his arms around him again. “Anne will be here soon. She knows a way to avoid that narrow section. I’m going to call out to her now.”

  His father nodded.

  Garrett shouted as loud as he could. “Anne! I found him! Are you there?”

  Like an echo, she replied. “I am almost there!”

  Soon, a bright yellow glow illuminated the passageway to the right and he heard the sound of her rapid footsteps splashing through puddles.

  When she appeared and stopped breathless before them, he met her gaze with concern.

  “He’s freezing,” Garrett said. “We must get him back to the palace. Can you take both lanterns?”

  “Of course. Follow me.”

  Garrett stood and scooped his father up again, this time in his arms, not on his back. They moved through one dark corridor after another.

  “Are you sure it’s this way?” Garrett asked as they took a sharp left turn.

  “I am positive,” she replied.

  His father hugged him tightly around the neck. “I’m tired,” he said. His head nodded forward.

  Garrett was an experienced yachtsman. He knew enough about the effects of the cold upon the human body. His father was seventy-six years old. He should not fall asleep.

  “You must stay awake,” Garrett commanded, roughly jostling his father about in his arms to startle him. “Can you sing a song for me?” Garrett began to sing I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, and Anne quickly joined in.

  “Come along, Your Grace. You’re not singing.”

  The duke began to softly mumble a few bars while Garrett walked faster through the tunnels. The muscles in his arms were burning and his heart was pounding heavily from the exertion, but he pressed on, following Anne through the twisting corridors.

  When at last they reached the chapel steps and he looked up at the brightly lit door at the top, he said to her, “Go on ahead of us. Tell Mother we found him, and that we need Dr. Thomas to meet us in the chapel right away.”

  “He’s lost consciousness,” she observed.

  “Yes.” Garrett gently set his father down on the bottom step. “Go now, and hurry.”

  She carried both lanterns up the steps and disappeared into the chapel.

  Garrett gently slapped his father’s cheeks. “Father, wake up. Can you hear me?”

  The duke’s eyes fluttered open, but he gave no reply. His head nodded forward again.

  “Dammit!” Garrett shouted. He shook his father roughly. “Stay awake!”

  Realizing this was hopeless, and he could not wait for assistance, he scooped the duke up into his arms again and carried him up the stairs.

  He did not stop when he passed through the door and emerged into the bright rays of colored light streaming in through the stained glass window. With swift, long strides he moved beyond the altar and down the center aisle past the choir stalls.

  Anne had left the chapel doors ajar. He kicked them open and passed through to the outdoor courtyard within the cloister, and was blinded by brilliant sunlight upon the white snow. Still, he ran.

  He burst through the palace doors and saw Anne and his mother running toward him with Dr. Thomas by her side.

  Suddenly mindful of his muscles straining painfully, and fearing that his knees were going to give out beneath him, Garrett stopped and knelt down in the center of the great hall.

  Dr. Thomas ran toward him. The look on his face, the expression, was familiar—so like his sister’s. As the scene unfolded in slow motion before Garrett’s eyes, he was strangely unnerved by it.

  The doctor was there in an instant, taking the duke out of his arms. “Good work,” he said. “How long has he been unconscious?”

  “Only a few minutes,” Garrett replied, struggling to catch his breath as he entrusted his father into the doctor’s capable hands.

  “We must get him upstairs,” Dr. Thomas said. “Send for hot water, extra blankets, and warm tea. We’ll need to get a strong fire going as well.”

  Garrett remained there overwhelmed by exhaustion, but even more by possibilities...possibilities that could explain so much.

  Anne laid her hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded, then staggered to his feet to follow the doctor up the main staircase.

  * * *

  As Garrett sat at his father’s bedside clasping his hand, he couldn’t help but wonder why he was here at all, caring for the man who had always treated him like the unwanted bastard son that he was.

  Nothing had seemed quite the same since his return. The duke was no longer the harsh and cold disciplinarian who ruled this house with an iron fist. Over the past few years, his mind had deteriorated and his body had shriveled. He was now a helpless old man who was terrified of being alone. Of dying.

  Garrett understood that fear very well. He had seen it in the eyes of others.

  The duke stirred and moaned. “Where am I?”

  “You’re safe in your bed, Father,” Garrett replied. “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired.”

  “Would you like some tea?”

  The duke turned his stricken eyes to Garrett. “Who are you?”

  The question was like a knife in his heart. They had come so far, or at least he’d thought they had. “I’m Garrett. Your son.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue.

  Those empty eyes filled with moisture, and the duke’s brow furrowed with misery. “Oh, my dear son.” He clasped Garrett’s hand. “I am so glad you have come home to us at last.”

  Feeling quite sure that his father did not remember that he was not his true son—but grateful nonetheless that there was love in his eyes—Garrett dropped his gaze and contemplated the situation.

  For many years he had convinced himself he was indifferent to his father’s emotional neglect, and his cruelty, yet in this moment he could not deny a crippling need to hear a loving word from this man.

  “So am I,” he replied, his heart fracturing just a little inside, while at the same time, that old animosity
simmered beneath it all. All his father had to do was utter a single word of kindness, and all was forgiven?

  But Garrett needed kindness now. He needed to know he had some worth. And to hear it from this man, of all people.

  His father reached out with a trembling hand and cupped Garrett’s cheek. “You’re a good boy. I think I was too hard on you.” His eyes filled with fear while he struggled to remember. “Was I?”

  Garrett swallowed over the emotion rising up within him. “Sometimes...yes.”

  A look of regret flashed across his father’s face. Then he lowered his hand and blinked up at the canopy. Garrett leaned back.

  “Brother Salvador said there is a reason you are still with us,” the duke said. “A reason you were not lost.”

  Garrett looked up. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re not meant to leave yet.” The duke rolled over onto to his side and closed his eyes.

  Garrett frowned in bewilderment. Did the duke know that he meant to return to Greece immediately after the wedding? Or was he referring to something else? Something about the accident? Could he know? If so, how?

  Garrett pulled the covers up over his father’s shoulders and tucked him in as he drifted off to sleep.

  A short while later, Dr. Thomas walked in. “How is the patient?” he quietly asked.

  “He seems better,” Garrett replied.

  The doctor laid the back of his hand on the duke’s forehead. “His temperature seems normal. I believe he is going to be fine.”

  “Thank you for everything,” Garrett replied. “Especially for taking him out of my arms in the hall. I couldn’t have carried him much further.”

  Dr. Thomas listened to the duke’s heart with a scope on his back while consulting his timepiece. “Well. He might have died if you hadn’t found him when you did. He’s a lucky man to have such a devoted son.”

  Garrett leaned back in his chair and studied the doctor for a long moment. “Thank you, but I do not feel I can accept the compliment, for I’ve been absent for the past seven years. I’ve been sailing around the Mediterranean while my brothers have remained here for the most part, steadfast in their duties.”