Wayward One

by Lorelie Brown

  But he didn’t stop firing. She threw herself out of the chair. The shot went wild somewhere over her head.

  Another shot cracked through the room—this one different. Higher somehow, with a little less power to the sound. But it did the job anyhow.

  Rick dropped his gun. His hands clapped over his chest. His mouth gaped open and his eyes went wide. A second later, bright red blood seeped between his fingers.

  He slumped back against the wall until she couldn’t see him anymore.

  Fletcher was before her, running his hands over every inch he could reach. “Are you well?” he asked. “Did he hurt you?”

  She seized his lapels, then buried her face in his neck. He smelled like he always did, lemon and warmth and comfort.

  She shook her head against his skin. “I’m fine. I’m well.” But her voice cracked.

  His strong, warm arms banded around her. He curled over her, her bulwark against the unpleasantness on the other side of the room. “I’d kill the bastard all over again if I had the chance.”

  The laugh that burbled out of her was nearly hysterical. Her rough prince didn’t hesitate at violence. Where once she’d have been appalled at that, now she was fiercely glad.

  When it came to Rick Raverst’s life or hers and Fletcher’s, there was no choice.

  “Come along,” he said roughly. He gathered her in his arms, one scooping under her knees and the other around her back, before standing.

  Sera’s stomach was nearly left behind in the rush. Fletcher paused by the door to issue brusque orders to staff. Hareton he put on guard at the door. John he sent running to the magistrate.

  Through it all, Sera kept her face carefully tucked into the clean linen of his shirt. Perhaps it was selfish of her, but she didn’t wish to see any more than she had to. It would have to be enough that she remembered the red, red blood seeping through Rick’s fingers.

  She might be haunted by the sight for the rest of her life.

  As tempted as she was to make a new box to shove it into, she didn’t think she could get away with it.

  Even as Fletcher carried her away, she kept her face hidden. Her arms wound around his neck, her fingers wove through his hair. Her shining star.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Fletcher laid her on the settee so that she could recline with her head on a pillow. He meant to call Mrs. Farley by way of the bellpull, but before he could move away, Sera latched on to his wrist.

  Her eyes were so wide the whites were completely visible around her rich brown color. “Please don’t leave me.”

  He’d do anything for her; he’d long known that. His bones were still vibrating with fresh fury, and his neck had seized until he hardly knew if it would bend.

  He’d kill that prick more slowly the second time around, if given the chance.

  Despite that, he went back to the sofa to kneel by her side. Her fingers were ice cold as he took them in his hands. He rubbed her knuckles across his jaw then pressed a kiss to them. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said.

  “But not sorry you had to do it?”

  He hesitated to answer. Such truths could drive the wedge between them deeper. But he couldn’t hide who he was, and he refused to be pushed into the shadows any longer. “Not the least bit.”

  A feral smile pulled her lips back, all teeth and bright vengeance. “Good.”

  He pushed loose hair away from her eyes. His Sera was always so neat and orderly that to see her so was a shock to the system.

  At least seeing her disheveled, though with a near-hysterical glint in her dark eyes, meant she was alive. Through the days she’d been gone Fletcher had comforted himself that she had made her own choice and was living as she liked. If she’d been killed…he’d have taken the world apart piece by piece in order to claim his revenge.

  He swallowed down the sharp edge of anger and fear that still choked his throat. “The magistrate will be here soon. Do you think yourself strong enough to speak with him?”

  She nodded and immediately began struggling to a seated position. He pulled her up by the shoulders in assistance. “I’m well enough, but for the shock,” she protested. “Even when I lived with Mama, I never saw a man killed.”

  “And before that?” Sick rage churned in his belly. “Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “No, thank God.”

  “Good,” he growled.

  He pushed up from the floor to sit beside her. When he put his arm around her back, she curled gratifyingly into his side. Her head lay on his shoulder and one set of graceful fingers tucked between the buttons of his waistcoat. Her other arm slid in under his back, as if she couldn’t bear to be separated from him even by inches.

  “It was all so strange,” she said. “We only sat there. And sat there. And then sat some more. If he wished to kill me, I’ve no idea why he waited.”

  Fletcher could guess, but only because he’d known Rick to do it before. The situation with the Dover couple now took on a sinister edge. If Rick had killed both Fletcher and Sera, there would have been no one to dispute his claim. He’d have told the magistrate that Fletcher had caught him in flagrante delicto with Sera, killed Sera and tried to shoot Rick. Rick would have come out not quite a hero, but a man who’d tried to save his own life.

  “He wasn’t the man I thought he was,” Fletcher said in a dry voice of significant understatement.

  Sera shuddered and clutched him. “He killed my mother and your father.”

  He cursed long and fluently under his breath. His father had had plenty of weaknesses and hadn’t been a particularly good man, but the pain of his death lanced Fletcher all over again. “I’d suspected as much.”

  “Did you?” She turned large eyes up toward him. “But how?”

  Fletcher explained what he’d discovered from Jigger Jack, though he elected not to go into specific details about how he’d wrenched the information from the man. Knowing that the man he’d once thought his friend had hired thugs to dissuade Sera from marrying him was infuriating enough. Rick had offered a big enough bounty that Jack and his crew deemed the risk worth the reward.

  “How terrible,” Sera said.

  “Yes. I’m sorry you had to experience such fright.”

  She shook her head, then stroked over his chest. “No. I mean it must have been terrible to discover that the man you’d counted as friend for so long wasn’t who you thought he was.”

  He pressed his cheek against her dark hair, the better to hide his smile. She wouldn’t understand it; he hardly understood himself. There would be pain from the realization to come later, but for now there was only fierce joy that Sera was still in his arms. That she was alive and breathing and still whole in both body and that interminable soul. She thought herself so logical and contained, but he knew the truth. She was all compassion and love.

  Mrs. Farley appeared in the doorway. “Your pardon, but the sergeant is here.”

  Sera sat straight, drawing away from Fletcher. She smoothed her hair back in quick, frantic gestures. That easily, she was back to the ice-princess paragon she wished the world to know. “Please send him in. Please bring tea as well.”

  “Ah, yes,” Fletcher drawled. “Can’t discuss a murder without the English armor of afternoon tea.”

  “Hush, you,” Sera whispered. He thought her about to serve him a dressing-down on behavior and manners and how poor jokes were particularly distasteful in such circumstances.

  In a snake-quick move, she grabbed his hand and drew it toward her on the cushions.

  “You’re no murderer,” she said in the lecturing tone he’d expected. The topic was entirely different. “I won’t stand for you to refer to yourself as such.”

  Her fingers laced through his in a gesture so tender it made his heart ache.

  Hareton showed in the small, spry detective, and Fletcher couldn’t help but glance down at their interwoven hand. His large, blunt-tipped fingers were shades darker than her pale skin.

&nb
sp; He shook himself out of his reverie and greeted the detective. But while he gave what information he could to the man who’d introduced himself as Inspector Henry Wren, Fletcher kept thinking of that gesture and the public intentions it seemed to show.

  Perhaps he’d have his wife back after all.

  Sera watched the door shut behind Mr. Wren with no small measure of relief. Cool air rushed down her throat and her lungs loosened as much as her corset allowed. Telling of the hour she’d spent locked up with Rick Raverst had been more exerting than she’d anticipated.

  Twice Fletcher had tried to come to her defense and shoo the little man out, but Sera had insisted he stay. She only wanted to go through the description once if at all possible.

  Finally she and Fletcher stood in the large entryway. Hareton and a single footman hovered nearby.

  Hareton looked from his master to mistress and apparently decided he had duties elsewhere. “Come along, Fritz,” he said. “I need to…educate you on table linens.”

  The boy’s eyebrows went up, as well they should. Table linens were not within a butler’s purview. He nodded anyhow. “Yes, sir.”

  Sera held back a smile as she and Fletcher shared a sardonic look.

  Fletcher cleared his throat. “Hareton, while I appreciate your attention to the lessons of the lesser staff, please do not draw Fritz away from his post at the door. Mrs. Thomas and I will be elsewhere.”

  Red flushed across the butler’s round cheeks. “Yes, sir. As you like.” He disappeared down the long hallway to the servant’s section.

  Based on the crooked-toothed smile Fritz seemed unable to subdue, the news would be well greeted.

  Sera couldn’t help but feel a small measure of pride at that. It was a sign of a well-ordered household that the mistress be happily received by staff.

  Fletcher sketched a shallow bow and gestured toward the parlor. “My lady?”

  She shook her head. “I’d like more of a measure of privacy,” she said with a subtle nod toward Fritz. She had no doubt the boy would have his ear pressed to the door within seconds of it closing.

  As much as she appreciated the staff’s good thoughts, there was no reason to tempt them beyond what they were capable.

  An uncomfortable twinge passed across Fletcher’s mouth. “Where, then? We’ve much to discuss and my study is…still being cleaned.”

  Such polite words for such a disgusting task as Mrs. Farley and the rest of the housemaids had been saddled with. Sera pushed away the recollection of the body that had likely passed out the back door to the undertakers. Fletcher was right, they had much to talk about, and that nasty man had no place between them.

  “My study, perhaps?”

  “Your study?” His eyes flared bright and hot. “You intend to stay, then?”

  She nodded, then cast another look at Fritz, who was avidly studying the ceiling from his post by the door.

  In tacit agreement not to discuss anything until they were alone, Sera took Fletcher’s arm as they went upstairs. Down the long stretch of the hallway, Sera felt her heartbeat begin to thump harder with every step. She had no doubt that Fletcher would welcome her back, but the process she would have to go through before that… It terrified her.

  She hadn’t exposed her secret thoughts to anyone in a long time. Perhaps never.

  If she and Fletcher were to have the type of marriage that hovered just out of reach, it was up to her to set things right. The first thing she’d have to do would be to throw open all her tiny boxes and expose everything to the sunlight.

  Her morning room was exactly as she’d left it. No one had even cleared away the spills of thread pouring out of her embroidery box, nor put away the hoop she’d left on a table beside her overstuffed chair. On her desk, piles of potential dinner menus had been neatened and the books containing the budget had been closed and stacked, but that was the extent of it.

  She drew away from Fletcher, ostensibly to slide her fingers over the smooth wood of her desk to check for dust allowed to run rampant in her absence. In all truthfulness, however, it was a way of distancing herself from her fears.

  Her knees were weakened and sweat dwelled in the crook of her elbows.

  “Whatever troubles you, I would have you set it aside,” Fletcher said. “We can go on as we were before. I’m that damned grateful to have you home and safe.”

  Deep within her, the last ghost of the tired young girl she’d been lay down to sleep. Warmth furled through her chest. Fletcher would always take care of her. Always keep her protected.

  He deserved the same from her.

  He came near enough that her fingers tingled with the need to touch him, to reassure herself of his wellbeing with a detailed inspection. She held up her hand. A shadow crossed his eyes, turning them almost stormy. He nodded in a short, sharp bob and stepped back.

  “I must say this.”

  A wry, cold smile curled his mouth. “I need no reiteration of our rules. Shall I visit you tonight, then?”

  She flinched at the hurt of his resigned acceptance. “No. That is, don’t leave now. What I’ve a need to say has nothing to do with rules or proscriptions.” She rubbed a shaky hand over her temple. “I’m not explaining myself well, am I? This is even more difficult than I anticipated.”

  He cupped her cold cheeks. “Start at the beginning. It’s generally the easiest way.”

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Of course not,” he said, but his eyes had lightened to the pale, clear blue she loved so much. His mouth had taken on a suspicious tilt.

  “Fine,” she huffed. “The beginning then? I love you. There, how’s that for a beginning?”

  His bit-back smile turned into a full grin. “That’s the beginning, is it? I’d have rather thought that was the end.”

  She was filled with an incredible lightness that swelled her heart and made her feel as if she could walk on clouds. “No. I think I might have loved you since you reappeared in my life. No matter what your intentions, deciding to settle money on a woman you hadn’t seen in years displays your nobility. You give me everything I need before I even realize what it is I lack.”

  He shook his head and stroked her cheekbone in a gentle caress that tingled with belonging. “I’m not noble. Selfish, through and through.”

  “I refuse to discuss your merits or your believed lack thereof.” She blew out a little huff of frustration. “The point is that with my love began my fear. What we have between us…” She gave into her impulses and slipped her hands under his fine coat. At her fingertips was the hem of his waistcoat. Through the thin linen of his shirt a hint of his warmth seared her. “It seems too big to be confined or restrained into something more civilized. It frightened me.”

  “But no longer?”

  She leaned her face into his touch. “No longer.”

  His stroke over her head was heavy as he tucked her face to his shirtfront. The thick muscles of his torso were still hard with tension under her touch. He said nothing.

  Somehow she managed to work more words past the burning knot in her throat. She deserved no less than this, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “You don’t believe me.”

  “God knows I want to.” His chest lifted beneath her cheek on a slow breath. “Having you here will be enough.”

  Of both of them, he was by far the better person. She’d have to prove herself to him over the years, not that it would be much of a hardship at all. Being his soft place and warm comfort seemed like the epitome of her life’s yearnings.

  That didn’t mean she had nothing more to offer him. Peeling out of his grip, she slipped open the drawer of her desk. The hand-cut lace she’d spent hours on shook as she drew the card out. “I intended this for your birthday. I failed you and I failed myself in not giving it to you. I thought by presenting you with such a card, you’d know immediately how I loved you.”

  Fletcher’s hands were steady as he took the silly, much-labored-over card from her grasp, and his pale
eyes were solemn. He traced a single fingertip over the layered cutwork. “This must have taken you hours.”

  “At least,” she said on a helpless laugh. Her heart was lodged at her collarbones. Fear ate beneath her corset.

  “You really do love me.”

  “I do. I have so long.”

  “Thank God,” he breathed. He angled a fast kiss over her mouth that was no less devastating for its quickness. “It was hell on earth to love you as I have and to know you didn’t feel the same.”

  She went up on her toes to kiss him. As her lips slid across his, she recognized it was the first time she’d ever done so. Always before she’d been content to wait for him to come to her.

  From the way his grip on her shoulders tightened to draw her near, he knew the import of the moment as well.

  As he moved to lay the card carefully back on the desk, his gaze caught on the half-open drawer. “What else is in here?”

  “Nothing,” she blurted automatically.

  He lifted his eyebrows as his mouth quirked into that shape she was coming to hold so dear. A light amusement only she seemed capable of drawing forth. She sighed. “As you like. It’s Tristan and Isolde’s story. It’s too costly and specialized to have gone with everything else.”

  “I was wondering where that had gotten off to,” he said with a distinct strain of laughter in his voice. The small blue volume was nearly dwarfed by his hand when he picked it up. “Seems a curious place to keep an expensive manuscript. You weren’t by chance reading it, were you, Mrs. Thomas?”

  Heavens, but this was difficult. Yet she had to admit, exciting at the same time. Fletcher would never shame her or shun her, no matter how lasciviously she behaved. She swallowed down the last remnants of her fear. “Perhaps a few passages here and there.”

  He bent his head over hers in that protective manner he had. The trace of his lips up the column of her neck was nothing safe and everything exciting. “Did you develop any favorites?”

  Forcing herself to speak was too much. She only nodded.