Strathmere's Bride
Page 23
“What—sport? No, no. Listen to me, you little fool. I love you. I adore you. You are my life, you sweet idiot, and I cannot live without you.”
“You love me,” she repeated flatly.
“Oh, Chloe, if it were only love, I might have made it through all of this without having to toss everything else aside, but you have more than my heart. I am soulless without you, nothing without you. Just these last days, seeing all of my life stretch out before me without that spectacular smile of yours or the way you walk into a room like a prima ballerina entering center stage, or the ridiculous mess your hair is always ın, or the storm caught in your eyes when you are angry—if none of those things I can ever see again, then I don’t want anything else. Chloe, I told them I wasn’t going to do it—marry Helena, I mean. I told my mother that I was bringing you back and we are going to be wed—if you will allow it after all the ill I’ve done you—and that you were the one to whom I belonged, not the title, not the house, but to myself, and so I give all of it gladly to you.”
She was speechless, breathless, confused.
“Please, Chloe,” he said, coming closer, cradling her face in his hands. “Take me back into your heart. I’ve come on a terrible journey, from far, far away, and I have finally made it to your side. Take me as your husband, I am begging you.”
A single sob escaped her before his lips closed over hers. And then, like a miracle, he was kissing her, holding her, and she flung her arms around his neck and held on as tight as she could.
To her dismay, he cut the kiss short and shoved her away. “Oh, blast!” he exclaimed, patting his thighs and his chest as if searching his pockets for something. He suddenly looked apoplectic. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Chloe demanded.
“The ring. My family’s betrothal ring. Helena still has it.”
“Does it matter?”
He grinned. “Does it matter to you?”
“Of course not, you dolt. What would I want with a ring?”
“Well, you shall be a duchess, you know.”
She gave him a haughty look. “I have not accepted your rather unconventional proposal.”
He sobered. “No, you have not. Will you, Chloe? Will you give me the chance to make it up to you?”
“No, I shall not. I wish our marriage to be done with all of the past. None of this nonsense of forgiveness and such—”
“Is that a yes?”
She was exasperated. “Of course. Why is it you never understand what I am saying?”
He chuckled, throwing his head back. “I shall learn, love, I surely shall.”
“And I do not know what sort of duchess you expect me to be, but I shall certainly not emulate your mother.”
His lips jerked as he fought a smile. “Of course not.”
“And I am not going to dress in heavy brocades and prance about with my hair piled up so high that I cannot turn my head for fear of tipping over.”
“I should not think so.”
“And how will I ever get used to everyone bowing and scraping to me, and calling me your grace and laughing at my jokes when they are not at all funny, and—”
“And lying beside me every night, making love with me and bearing my children and looking upon a face each and every day that adores you,” he whispered. “I do not know how you will bear it.”
His words had been successful in melting her. “Oh, Jareth,” she sighed, and reached up to kiss him.
In the instant before his lips touched hers, a thunderous explosion shattered their joyous calm.
“Jareth—what was that?” she cried.
He only looked at her, all traces of their earlier amusement gone.
“Jareth?”
Slowly, he slumped forward, landing heavily in her arms. She staggered under his weight as the acrid smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils.
Slick stickiness met her right hand where it grasped his back. He sank to the floor and Chloe went with him, not understanding until she looked up to see Lady Rathford standing in the doorway.
In her hand was a pistol pointed straight ahead, a slow curl of smoke drifting lazily from the muzzle.
“And now for you,” she said, raising a pistol in her other hand.
“Mother!” another voice shrieked. “Mother!”
The gun went off. The roar of it seemed to Chloe to come from a long way off. More immediate was the brittle pop of the window frame inches from her head as the ball burrowed harmlessly in the wood.
“Blast!” Lady Rathford shouted.
Helena ran into the room, breathless and wild, her eyes wide as she cast her frantic gaze about the room. She saw Jareth on the floor, Chloe hunkered down over him as if she could stop the deadly balls from ripping into his flesh. The blood. The blood was everywhere.
She looked at her mother, dazed. “Mother?”
“Helena! Get out of here. How did you follow me?”
“I thought…Oh God, I hoped I was wrong.” She looked back at Jareth, horrified as the full weight of what she had found descended on her brain. “Oh, dear Lord, dear sweet Lord, what have you done to the duke?”
Chloe stayed crouched, frozen, aware of nothing more than Jareth collapsed before her. She could feel his blood on her hands.
Lady Rathford snarled, “I killed him, and I’m going to kill his whore.” Shoving one of the empty guns at her daughter, she barked, “Load this in case he is not dead. I may have to shoot him again.”
“Mama, no!” Helena declared, recoiling from the weapon held out to her.
Lady Rathford shook the empty pistol at her. “I have already done it. I only need to finish it.”
Helena looked about her with a frenzied expression on her normally placid face. “They will hear you downstairs. They must be coming now. We must leave.”
Jareth lay unmoving, pale. Chloe felt frantically for a pulse. Nothing.
Lady Rathford scoffed, “‘Do you think this is the first time a gun has been discharged in this establishment, because I can assure you it is a frequent occurrence. No one will pay any mind. Besides, I know this place, I used to meet that idiot, Henken, here sometimes. I can get us out of here unseen. Now load that gun, Helena. Watch me. Take the powder…that’s right. Now the ball. Shove it in good, make it nice and tight…good.”
The world had ceased making sense to Chloe. While Helena followed her mother’s instruction—blind obedience born out of years of subservience—Chloe could only think of the way Jareth’s chest seemed so still…
Fumbling for a pulse, Chloe found it at last. It seemed strong. There was no time to examine his wound. She simply pressed her hands, one over the other, on it to stem the blood flow. To her relief, she heard him grunt softly. It was a response, at least, and her heart filled with tremulous hope.
The Rathford women completed their task. “Give that to me and wait downstairs,” Lady Rathford ordered Helena.
Chloe looked up, her mind focusing on the twin threat of those primed pistols.
Lady Rathford held out her hand. Helena pulled back. Her expression was strange, washed clean of the careful composure Chloe had always seen. There was passion in her eye.
Helena said, “So, then, I was correct when I recognized that man at Strathmere the day of the luncheon party. He came to the house once, didn’t he? I remember how agitated you were. Secretive.”
Lady Rathford waved her loaded gun at Chloe. “It was her I sent Henken to kill. He got confused in the fog and ran off without doing a thing. Well! I refused to pay him, of course, and he threatened to go to the duke and tell him everything. I didn’t believe him until I actually saw him there that day. What luck! But not to worry, darling. I am ever favored by the fates. He is silenced.”
Helena’s face collapsed and she moaned, “No, mama. Oh, no. Why? Why would you do this?”
Chloe looked about desperately. Even if she could get clear of the woman’s aim, she could never leave Jareth at their mercy. She had to think of something—something!
This time, it was Chloe’s breathless voice that spoke. “You killed Bethany and Charles? Mon Dieu!”
Barely sparing her prey a glance, Lady Rathford continued to speak to her daughter. “You shall reign at Strathmere, and our families will be, together, the most powerful in all England!”
“Helena—” Chloe began, then stopped when Lady Rathford swung on her, arm raised. The gun was pointed straight at her heart.
Lady Rathford closed one eye and took aim.
Chloe looked to Helena, knowing this woman was her and Jareth’s only hope. “Helena, she is deranged. You can see that! You must stop her.”
Helena’s face was wild with the horror of her mother’s crimes. “You killed them! And now you have shot him! You have shot the duke, Mother!”
Lady Rathford paused, the gun dipping as she turned to defend herself to her daughter.
Chloe half rose, seeing her opening. “Yes, she shot him, Helena. The duke. And she has killed before. If not for chance, the children, too, would be dead at her hands. Think about it. She is a murderer many times over. Stop her—”
“Shut up, you little tramp,” Lady Rathford snapped. The gun came up. “You were the one to die all along. See what comes from forgetting your place?”
“All is lost,” Chloe goaded, coming to her feet. Desperation made her reckless. “Helena shall never marry the duke now.”
Lady Rathford smiled. “She shall. Gerald shall become the new duke, and she, my darling daughter, the seventh Duchess of Strathmere!”
Jareth roused, groaning as his head rolled from side to side. Lady Rathford swung the pistol down at him, then up at Chloe again. “Give me the gun, Helena. Now. He is rising and we must finish this quickly.”
“Helena,” Chloe called. “It is up to you—you can save him.”
“Shut up!”
No more delays. No more hope. Chloe crouched before the madwoman, watching as her index finger flexed on the trigger. She tensed, knowing the only possibility now was to leap at her and try to knock the gun aside.
She saw the knuckle turn white, and she knew there was no chance. And then she heard the shot.
She waited for the pain. It never came.
Through a dull haze, she heard a sound. She saw Lady Rathford was on the floor. Helena was weeping. The smell of gunpowder smoke was acrid and sharp, stinging Chloe’s eyes.
It came from the gun dangling in Helena’s hand, lifting in a sultry dance of pale light twining about her head like a perverse halo.
Under Lady Rathford’s body, a slow, lazy puddle of crimson began to form.
Jareth stirred again. Chloe snapped her attention back to him, anxious to see the extent of the damage from the wound. She quickly undid his clothing, ripping apart the expensive material with strength that surprised even her. The ball had entered just under his shoulder on his left side. She was no physician, but it looked as if it was embedded in muscle, too far from the lungs or heart to have done any fatal damage, and the bleeding seemed to be stopping already. She bowed her head, offering a silent prayer of thanks.
He began to awaken. “Where—what happened?” He looked about him, then down at his blood-soaked shirt. “Am I shot?”
“Hush, mon cher amour. It is over. Helena has saved our lives.”
His eyes flickered to the woman standing and the woman felled. “My God,” he murmured, his gaze returning to Chloe. “Did they hurt you?”
She smiled reassuringly. “I am unharmed.”
He closed his eyes as he relaxed back in her arms, too weak to ask more. Chloe settled him comfortably after tying a tight bandage around his torso, improvised from his shredded shirt.
“Go to Helena,” he murmured. “I can hear her crying.”
Chloe nodded, disengaging herself to move cautiously toward the other woman. Slowly, she unhooked the gun from Helena’s limp fingers and threw it on the floor.
Pointing back to Jareth, Chloe said, “He is hurt. I need to go for the doctor.”
“No,” Helena said, wiping the back of her hand against her cheeks. “Stay with him. Comfort him. I will go.”
As Helena turned to leave, Chloe reached out, touching her on the shoulder. Helena looked back.
“Thank you,” said Chloe.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jareth’s recovery was slow. Although he balked at the meager rations of his meals and the forced inactivity—his boots had to be hidden from him after he was spotted attempting to sneak out-of-doors—the time spent healing was not so bad. After all, Chloe attended him. This was exquisite torture, having her so close at all times, yet with the vigilant chaperonage of Lisette. The portly maid sat in her chair by the hearth and seemed ever to be dozing, yet Jareth’s hand had but to move one inch closer to Chloe’s and the woman never failed to waken and glare, lest propriety be breached on her watch.
The enforced platonic relationship with the woman he was mad for was by far the most troublesome burden in his recuperation.
To Chloe, Jareth muttered, “How much longer do I have to endure the presence of that damnable woman?”
Chloe’s smile held more than a hint of agreement. “Until you are released from bed by the doctor, or upon the event of our marriage, whichever comes first.”
“Can’t we just have the ceremony in here and get rid of her? I cannot even touch you, Chloe. It is driving me to distraction.”
“For a man who was so despairingly bound by convention, you are making enormous progress into impulsivity in a short amount of time,” she observed.
“Is that a complaint?”
She laughed. “When have I ever made complaint?”
It was his turn to laugh.
So, they contented themselves to talking. They spoke of Helena, who was closeted at Rathford Manor and refused to see or speak to anyone. Everyone was certain the inquest would be a mere formality and she would be cleared, but it was apparent she was finding it difficult to forgive herself.
“I feel some culpability in the matter,” Jareth confided. “After all, it was caused by my actions. I couldn’t say I would think ill of her if she blamed me.”
“Nonsense,” Chloe replied strongly, reaching for his hand to give it a reassuring squeeze. Lisette’s chair creaked, an ominous warning to desist. Chloe twisted her mouth in disappointment and dropped Jareth’s hand.
They talked of his mother. She had come only once to visit her son. It wasn’t an errand so much to see to his recuperative progress as to inform him she was taking herself to the London town house—permanently. She would return for the wedding, and that only to avoid more gossip.
When Jareth told Chloe this news, she did her best to look serious. “Oh,” she said, “does she really have to go?”
Jareth chuckled and did something in response to her mischief that sent Lisette into a full rise out of her chair.
They talked of the children and their joy at being reunited with Miss Chloe and Rebeccah’s reservations about having Chloe become her aunt. With so much change in their lives in the last year—and none of it good—Chloe understood the child’s fears. She did her best to reassure the both of them, as did Jareth when they came to visit, laden with drawings. They picked wildflowers and any other treasures they could scavenge to express their love for their uncle.
They talked about the wedding and the fact that Papa was to come with Gigi and her baby, and that Lord Rathford accepted the invitation Chloe had insisted be sent. This signaled there were
to be no hostilities between the families, despite the fact that Helena understandably declined.
Jareth tried to be sensitive to Chloe’s wishes as the plans for the wedding took on enormous proportion, but as he gained strength and began to assume more of his duties once again, it was clear that the wedding of the Duke of Strathmere could be no modest affair. Just his business obligations alone tallied up more than one hundred guests.
But on the day, when it finally arrived, even with the small orchestra playing and people packed into the pews of the village cathedral, and elaborate arrangements of flowers crowding the church and Rebeccah and Sarah tossing rose petals on a red velvet carpet, the simple woman who had captured his heart shone through.
In an exquisite gown of yellow silk, she glided down the aisle of the cathedral with that preternatural grace that had always bewitched him, her face so radiant he felt his heart ache. Even on this day, her hair escaped in willful tendrils, framing her face with an enchantingly mussed look that Jareth guessed the young women would be copying back in London.
She progressed slowly down the aisle, head held high as curious eyes followed her. She knew as well as he did that they had been the topic of countless conversations and speculations since the moment their engagement was announced. He had to admit he was more than a bit concerned about how she would hold up, but here she was with the same quiet dignity and self-possession that had delighted—albeit at times infuriated—him from the start.
And that smile, so true and bright and full of joy. Only Chloe could look like that, with her heart open for all to see, and melt the most sour looks of disapproval from some of his mother’s friends, transforming each one into a wistful smile as she passed.
She was his. Forever. And for that he would face down every raised brow, every snide look from those small-minded folk who had once—almost—counted him as their own.
As he waited at the altar, he turned to the man who stood with him and exchanged a look. Colin nodded, as if he understood. Jareth supposed if anyone did, it was he.
Then Chloe was before him. Her father placed her hand in Jareth’s.
He promised her his heart, mind, body and soul and listened as her faintly accented voice vowed the same. Then he kissed her, frustrated by the eyes that watched them.