"I did. My nephew Christopher."
"Fine lad. Very fine." But Simon sensed that it was he himself Alexander was now staring at.
"My God," Jonathan breathed, staring now himself. "It's not possible. And yet I see miracles happen every day."
Simon felt a prickle up his spine, but told himself to not be silly. There was nothing to be nervous about. These men were not going to harm him, not with Jonathan so near.
Simon cuddled the infant and looking him over for any sign of injury. "I'll have to get Blake or Eswara to examine him. Her home is closest. If you wouldn't mind letting me borrow your mount, sir," he said to the dark rider, "I should be most grateful.
"Or I can swing up behind if you will continue to be so kind as to take him up with you and hold him a bit longer. And I must find my wife and sister-in-law, who was shot by that madman."
The silence was so profound he could have sworn he heard his own heart beat. No. Three hearts beating in time.
At last he looked up to meet a pair of brown eyes so pale as to be nearly gold, and another pair so dark as to be almost black.
"My God," Jonathan said again. "I still can't believe it."
"Believe it," Alexander said. "I'll be glad to ride along with you, Simon. My brother."
Simon frowned slightly. Then he looked harder. And looked again. "Jason?" he gasped.
"Alexander now. Alexander Deveril. Formerly Jason Alexander Davenport."
The other man called George, overwhelmed utterly, began to weep, and all eyes now turned to him.
"Oh God, you have no idea. Jason, Simon. I've been looking for you for years, Jason. And you too, Simon. When they told me you had been captured I prayed like I'd never prayed before that one day I would see you again. Six years of doing nothing but waiting, hoping, chasing shadows, and here you are. Here."
"George? Georges?" Simon and Alexander both said simultaneously.
"Aye, it's me. I'm alive too. Alive, and no longer bitter and alone."
The time for male stoicism was now at an end. They all began to weep in earnest, and hugged each other as though they would never let each other go.
Jonathan certainly couldn't manage to keep his eyes dry, but he was the only one not completely overcome with emotion by the stunning reunion.
At length he said, "I think we need to get back to see what's happened to Lucinda, and to reassure everyone that Christopher is fine and Oxnard can't harm anyone any more.
"Come, Simon, hand the baby up here to me, and swing up behind. George and Alexander can share. We'll be back in a trice. Then I think we need to adjourn to Lawrence's house for some much-needed explanations."
Simon held the baby up for the vicar once he had mounted. He was numb with shock and relief, and a host of other emotions, but eager to get back to Gabrielle and Lucinda to see how they fared, and to tell his beloved his miraculous news.
Jonathan grasped the infant firmly before offering him an arm up. With one last embrace George hugged Simon. Next George and Alexander also embraced, then mounted and returned to the clearing following on close behind.
Lucinda was sitting up, her shoulder bandaged thanks to Blake, still alive but completely in hysterics.
"My son. My boy. Simon, bring him back. My son!"
She leapt to her feet and ran amid a flurry of petticoats as soon as she saw the kind vicar with her child, and began to smother the infant in kisses.
The dark-haired woman hurried forward and gasped, "Darling, are you all right?"
"I couldn't be better," George replied. "Oxnard is dead and will never harm his wife and child again. Or you, my love. And I now have everything I've ever wanted in my life. And I have you to thank for it, my treasure."
"Me? I don't understand." she gasped.
Gabrielle had moved forward to meet her lover as well, but it was too late.
Simon could feel the darkness encroaching already. "I'm not mad. I've never been mad. They know I know things. They've left me here to rot. Couldn't kill me in case they needed me. Please, I have to-" He began to twitch and looked at Gabrielle beseechingly. "Please, help me."
Gabrielle realised at last that every time he heard the phrase "I don't understand," he uttered the same formulaic phrase. "It's all right, you're safe. It's not a real seizure. You're safe here with friends. Darling, tell me what happened."
She helped him down off the horse and pulled him into her arms.
He fell to his knees with her, and began to make sure she was all right after the dreadful ordeal with Oxnard. He ran his hands over her worshipfully and smothered her face in kisses. His eyes were full of tears as he accepted Lucinda's hug as well.
"Thank you. You kept your promise. You protected him, saved him."
"I love you all. You're my family now. And while nothing can ever make up for all I lost, the three of you have brought me here, to this place, where everything has been found again."
"I don't..." Gabrielle caught herself in time, and said instead, "What are you trying to tell us, my love?"
"That I've found them."
"Found who?"
Gabrielle stared in shock as the tall dark man with nearly black eyes declared to the woman by his side, "My dearest Miranda, I would like you to meet my two brothers. Jason Alexander and Simon Andre D'Ambois."
Gabrielle gasped. "Ess, a, dee. SAD. Your tattoos."
"Yes, and this is my brother Georges. George. George Davenant, I think?"
"Aye," he said, nodding.
The other women in the clearing both stared at him, wondering if all of the upset with Oxnard had taken a toll on his sanity.
But as Gabrielle looked around at the four men all looking moist-eyed and overjoyed, she realised with a lurch that he was actually telling the truth. He had found his brothers at last.
The dark-haired woman held out her hand. "So very delighted. Oh, you have no idea." Scattering all caution to the winds, the lovely young woman threw her arms around Alexander first, and Simon second. She even hugged the vicar for good measure as he beamed in delight.
"I'm Miranda, George's wife, Lawrence's sister-in-law. He married my sister Juliet."
"And this is my wife Gabrielle, and her sister Lucinda, now officially a widow, for which we shall all thank the gods daily," Simon said at last, in a voice choked by emotion.
"And I am therefore related to you all by marriage," Jonathan explained, "for Alexander here is married to my sister Sarah," he said, pointing at the other dark-haired, intelligent-looking woman in a plain gown who had come over to stand nearby.
"Come, let's go find Lawrence and tell him the remarkable news. Then I'm going to tell the other Rakehells what's happened. Don't worry, we wouldn't wish to intrude..."
"Intrude?" the woman Miranda said with a laugh. "Lawrence is my brother-in-law, and Matthew Dane is my brother. Tell him to come."
"Intrude?" Gabrielle said with a laugh. "Randall and Michael are my cousins, and so is Randall's wife Isolde and Matthew's wife Althea. We're all one big family. You've always treated us like that, ever since we came here when Simon was so ill. It's even more true now that we know the everything at last."
"Yes, do please come up to the house. Juliet and Lawrence will be only too pleased, I promise," Miranda reassured them.
Thus the picnic moved indoors and a short time later, Eswara and her son Ash came with their spouses to join what looked to be a rather exciting Rakehell gathering.
"Well, I have to say everything you've told us is quite remarkable," Ash Paington said with a fond smile down at his lovely wife Ellen, a statuesque blonde who was swathed in a most elegant sapphire blue sari which made her blue eyes look enormous.
"There's only one more piece of information you might like to hear to put an end to this chapter in all your lives."
"Oh, what's that?" George asked with interest.
"Ellen and I just heard it in Bath and came straight home to tell everyone the news."
"Come on now, lad, out with it," his step-fat
her Martin laughed.
"All I can say is I hope you have champagne, Lawrence, for we shall all want to celebrate in earnest now."
"Oh?"
"For not only have the three brothers been reunited at last, after all these years, but I have even more momentous news. Let's toast to your good fortune, and Europe's," Ash said with barely suppressed excitement.
Philip Marshall came charging in at precisely that moment, and managed to upstage the handsome young man. "I say, everyone, you're never going to believe what I just heard in Bristol!"
Ash was nothing if not gracious, and didn't mind when Philip, scarcely pausing for breath, said, "I was looking everywhere for all of you. The news just came to England from St. Helena. Napoleon is dead at last."
Chapter Thirty-nine
One could have heard a pin drop after Philip Marshall's remarkable announcement that Napoleon Bonaparte really was dead. That they would never have to fear invasion or another war again.
"Oh, thank God," Jonathan said with equal parts of devotion and rancour.
Simon concurred, and knew how heartfelt the vicar's sentiments were. Three years in the army had convinced Jonathan that Napoleon was the Devil incarnate, though it had also shown him the road to salvation, and set him on his current career path as a vicar.
All the Rakehells, in fact, has suffered because of the war. But now it was over. And he was truly free from his puppetmasters at last.
He looked at Gabrielle now, who met his gaze and smiled with obvious relief.
"Are you sure? Really sure?" George rasped, feeling an incredible sense of unreality creep over him.
Ash Paignton and his wife nodded.
Philip confirmed it. "Certain. It's in the official dispatches, signed and sealed. No mere false rumour, but fully confirmed. It's all over, ladies and gentleman. The Emperor is no more. Long live the King, England, and the Rakehells."
"Here, here!"
"Hip, hip!
"Hurrah!" everyone echoed, and then the hugging, kissing and weeping of joyful tears began in earnest. They drank toast after toast, sang, danced, and were numb with excitement and disbelief.
Simon's head spun dizzily. He was glad he was sitting with his two brothers, for he feared he would have fallen otherwise.
All of the long, dark years of service, intelligence gathering, imprisonment, torture, all seemed to fall away now as he sat gripping both of them by the arm. They were solid, real.
This was no mere dream any longer. His quest for freedom, and the brothers he had lost, was finally at an end.
He glanced across at Gabrielle, getting to know Miranda and Sarah, their new sisters in law. And at baby Christopher, who was being dandled by Blake's wife Arabella, and Ash's young wife Ellen, who reminded him very much of Lucinda, resting next door in the small parlor, but who would make a full recovery, according to Blake, so long as no infection set in.
His family, old and new. And a bright future with Lawrence in the tea trade, or Juliet in the wine trade, which had once been the life's blood of his family until the war. He wouldn't be at all surprised if these had been some of their own routes and partners down in Dorset.
Alexander and he had never troubled to seek out the family fortune, but George was a much more canny man of business. He had invested it well, and made a great deal more during the war at his theatre. The brothel he had run as a cover for spies had apparently also been successful, but he had never touched a penny of it, giving it all to the girls who worked there, and later making many generous donations to the Bethnal Green clinic where Antony Herriot worked.
Simon was sorry Antony was not at the family gathering, but he knew how busy the young man was with his Herculean task of helping the poor in London.
"We shall have to write to Antony, tell him all our good news," Simon said to her.
She looked surprised, but pleased.
"After all, he was the one who told you what to do to relieve opium addiction, even though he thought you were mad for ever trying to help me at Bedlam."
"He didn't understand, that's all. I didn't either. I never knew there could be so many evil people in the world trying to profit from war and the suffering of others. Keeping you there like, like an animal for whenever they needed you."
He nodded and sighed. "They tormented George into doing their bidding all these years in the hopes of finding the two of us again. And kept Alexander in the service in the same way. He's been in the most danger of all, on active service. Even so many years after Waterloo, there are still plots and stratagems afoot to help re-build the Empire."
"Well, it's all to no avail now, for they have no Emperor. He's dead now, and good riddance," she said stoutly. "If I weren't such a lady in such a lovely parlor, I'd jolly well spit."
He nodded. "As George did when Oxnard fell to his death. Such a man as that, well, disgusting."
"Aye, but as powerful as they both seemed, they're both dead, and we're still here, and in love, and happy. We've won, Simon. We've won. It really is all over now, and the future, our future, can be exactly as you choose."
He gripped her in a fierce embrace which left no doubt as to what they both desired most in their immediate future.
"And I have you to thank for it all. You saved my life..."
She put one finger on his lush lips. "You saved Lucinda and Christopher. We're even."
"Come over here, you two, and tell us again how you met," George commanded, sliding over and patting the widened empty space on the sofa which Simon had recently vacated.
Simon and Gabrielle were thrilled to be with their new family, and the brothers almost looked as though they didn't want to let the others out of their sight.
But soon the pressure of romance caused them to separate into three couples who crept out of the drawing room to share some deeper and more private emotions of their own.
They went outside into the arbor Lawrence had constructed for his wife, and held each other tenderly, overwhelmed by the news.
"Is it really over at last?" Gabrielle asked him softly when he finally lifted his lips.
He nodded, and held her close to his hammering heart. "Over, and just beginning. I promise you, darling, I'm going to make the best life possible for all of us. I know it won't be easy. I have no idea what plans Georges, er, George, or Jason, er, Alexander have, but I would want us to all be together as near to one another as possible."
"Well, we can stay with my family for as long as we like while you move back into the world again at last. We don't have to decide everything at once. Little steps. But I recall Lawrence asking for you to help with the wine trade, so there's no harm in asking if he's still interested in one or more helpers."
"That's right. Only how will he feel about me being Simon D'Ambois?"
She shook his head. "I'm sure he won't mind. I might be very nervous, though. I'm still so afraid they might come for you."
He shook his head. "I can't live in fear any longer. And now that my brothers are so near, I'm sure they won't dare... Not to mention the fact that Napoleon is dead. What use can they have for me now?"
By this time they had arrived in the bower, and he sat on the swing and pulled her into his lap, cradling her against his chest as though he would never let her go.
"Let's hope they have none. Because I have far too many for a wonderful husband like you. You've spent too many years in the service of your country. It's time for you to get your life back."
"As have we all," he sighed. "Poor Georges. And Jason, er, Alexander. He just got back from duty in Ireland last night apparently, and couldn't resist a Rakehell picnic."
"Well, who could," she joked. "Never a dull moment, eh?"
"Thank the gods he came when he did, though," he said fervently a moment later. "I have no idea what would have happened if Alexander hadn't saved the baby from that madman, and Georges, er, George and I saved each other from the ravine."
The reminder of how close she had come to losing him prompted her to kiss
him hard, and before they knew it, they were blanketed on his jacket on the thick lush grass as his frenzied lovemaking drove them both to the heights of bliss.
But at last he rolled off her, tugged her skirts back down, and pulled her close to his side. He murmured against her hair, "I told you I would know when the time was right, didn't I?"
She knew what he meant at once, and a surge of joy soared through her.
"It's right now. We have no reason to wait any longer, my lovely Gabrielle. I have my name back, D'Ambois, and I've seduced and thoroughly ravished you. I'm afraid there's just no help for it, my love. You're just going to have to marry me."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection 6 Page 35
