Valentine v-4

by Jane Feather

  Theo was breathing heavily, her face damp with perspiration, but exhilaration surged through her veins. She listened to the commotion and guessed it was Edward. Not alone, of course. Which meant Stoneridge, who would discover that she'd rescued herself. Or at least partially. Whether that would count in her favor remained to be seen. Her grand scheme lay in ruins, bungled by her own incompetence and impulsiveness. Stoneridge was entitled to take what reprisals he chose.

  "Give me the key," she demanded, jerking her leg so the chain tightened.

  Gerard gasped, choked, scrabbled wildly at his coat, trying to find the inside pocket. A pistol shot cracked from downstairs and someone cried out, a shrill, high-pitched screech.

  "Hurry," she said coldly, contempt mingling with the icy rage in her eyes. "Or I'll begin to take a little walk around this pretty chamber. I certainly owe you some grief… although I doubt you're worth the effort."

  His fingers closed over the key and he dragged it forth, waving it at her.

  "Thank you." Theo took the key, then reflected that when her husband found her, she was going to need all the help she could get, and she presented a very arresting picture with her captor held by the chain in this way, immobilized for whatever Sylvester might decide to do with him. "Perhaps I won't use it just yet." She folded her arms and faced the door as it burst open.

  Sylvester took in the scene in one swift glance. Sweet relief seeped through his pores. Whatever they'd done to Theo, she was none the worse for wear. A glint of laughter appeared in his gray eyes as Theo put her head on one side in her habitual unspoken challenge, although he could detect a slightly apprehensive question mark in her gaze.

  "Well, well, my dear," he drawled. "It seems you had no need of knights errant after all."

  "I haven't exactly managed to get out of the house," Theo pointed out, anxious he shouldn't feel his efforts were unappreciated. Matters were tricky enough as it was.

  "No, but perhaps you haven't had sufficient time," he said smoothly. "I can't imagine another reason."

  Edward's chortle turned into a violent coughing fit.

  "How did he hurt you?" Sylvester asked, and there was no amused drawl in his voice now.

  Theo gingerly touched the back of her head. "Somebody hit me… but it wasn't that slimy piece of flotsam."

  Sylvester nodded. "I'll still add it to the account. Secure the door, would you, Edward? I have some business to conclude, and I would hate to be interrupted."

  He snapped his fingers for the key to the chain, and Theo handed it over. She wasn't at all sure how to read her husband in this mood. There was something infinitely dangerous about him, but she didn't feel threatened herself. Wisdom, however, dictated a course of passive compliance for the next minutes.

  Edward bolted the door and stood with his back to it, the sword stick held lightly in his hand. There was blood on its tip, Theo noticed absently as the key turned in the shackle and her ankle was released.

  Sylvester took the freed end of the chain and jerked it.

  "Time for a little chat, Gerard," he observed pleasantly. "Edward, would you take note of everything that is said in this room?"

  "That was my plan," Theo said, forgetting her resolution of a minute ago in this opportunity to salvage something of her grand design. "It's a good one, I believe."

  "I'll deal with you later, gypsy. If you wish to minimize what's coming your way, you'll hold your tongue."

  That was rather more along expected lines, but Sylvester never called her gypsy when he was truly displeased. Thoughtfully, Theo went to stand beside Edward, who grinned at her, his eyes glowing with jubilation. "I haven't lost my touch," he whispered against her ear, indicating the bloody sword stick.

  "You were always a superb fencer," she said, smiling, kissing his cheek by way of congratulation. "Did you kill him?"

  Edward shook his head. "No, merely pinked him, but it certainly stopped him in his tracks. He was wielding an ugly-looking cudgel."

  "Let us return to Vimiera, Gerard," Sylvester was saying. He wrapped the chain round his wrist and moved behind the bed. "There's something I believe you want to tell me."

  There was silence from the bed. "Come, now," Sylvester said softly. "You're not going to make this any harder on yourself than you must. I know you too well, Gerard. What was it?" The chain jerked again.

  Gerard's voice rasped from the cot. "You were outnumbered."

  "As we'd been all day." All expression left Sylvester's voice now, and he seemed no longer aware of either of his listeners. He was standing in a dank, ill-lit chamber off Ludgate Hill, but in memory he was back on a scorched plain, looking into the Portuguese sunset and the ever-advancing line of the enemy.

  The line of French was coming up at them. His men were firing into the sunset. Sergeant Henley's face hung in his internal vision. He was saying something urgently. Telling him something he'd been expecting. They had two rounds of ammunition left. They could maybe beat off this attack, but after that they would be helpless.

  Where the hell was Gerard? He was looking across the flat plain ringed by hills. A slice of blue sea peeped between two of the lower hills. Behind him was the bridge that he had to hold. Gerard would bring his reinforcements over that bridge.

  Sylvester stared at the gibbering, craven wretch on the bed, but he barely saw him. His mind was racing across the red-tinged barren landscape of a Portuguese plain. Memories crowded in now – faces, snatches of conversation, the frustration and helplessness as he faced the prospect of losing now, after a long day of battling the odds, buoyed by the certainty of support hurrying to their aid. Now they were going to be defeated, and the lives of the boys lying on the scratchy earth round him had been expended in vain.

  The void of amnesia was filling rapidly, like an empty bucket in a rainstorm. The face of the young ensign who'd been acting lookout in the topmost branches of a spindly tree appeared before him. The lad's eyes were wild, and he was out of breath after his mad dash from his post. He could barely speak as he brought forth his unbelievable message: Redcoats had appeared on the high ground beyond the bridge. He'd seen the sunlight flash off a glass as someone had surveyed the battleground before them. Then they'd disappeared.

  Sylvester had been unable to grasp this message. He'd made the lad repeat himself. He'd told him that heat and fear had addled his brain, ruined his eyesight. But the ensign had stuck to his story.

  They'd been abandoned. Captain Gerard's reinforcements were not coming. Why? And even as he'd been wrestling with this, the young ensign at his side had fallen, a musket ball through his throat, and the horde of French were racing across the plain screaming their war cry: Vive l'Empereur. And he'd ordered his men to lay down their now useless arms. Only the ensign and Sergeant Henley knew that the reinforcements were not coming.

  And the sergeant had died under a French bayonet.

  And at the court-martial Neil Gerard had said that he was coming up in support, but for some reason, a reason lost in the mists of amnesia, Major Gilbraith had surrendered his colors by the time the reinforcements had arrived. The captain's force had chased the French across the plain but hadn't been able to overtake them.

  The bright light of memory flooded Sylvester's brain, and he felt as if some massive weight had been lifted from his spirit. Neil presumably assumed that Sylvester knew nothing of his retreat. It was only the sharp eyes of an ensign and an unlucky ray of sun that had given him away. All he'd had to do at the court-martial was insist he'd been following the orders they'd all received, and Major Gilbraith, with no living witnesses to his decision and convicted by his own actions even if his motive remained a mystery, couldn't gainsay him. But why had he then tried to kill him?

  "Yes," he said, his voice startling in the dreadful silence that had fallen in the room. "Yes, we were outnumbered and you turned your back on us."

  "We saw you. There was nothing we could do. Behind the hill facing you, there were three more regiments of French." Gerard was babbling now
. "I had only a hundred and fifty men. We'd be slaughtered with the rest of you if we came up in support. Damn it, Sylvester, headquarters didn't know what they were asking."

  "Yes, they did," Sylvester stated flatly. "If you'd come up, we could have held the bridge for the two hours necessary before the main army arrived. We were running out of ammunition, Gerard." His voice now was as deadly as a rapier thrust. "It was all that kept us from continuing."

  "No. You're fooling yourself." Gerard's voice rose to a pitch of desperate conviction. "We'd all have been slaughtered. You were on the plain, you couldn't see what I saw from the hill."

  "So you cut and ran," Sylvester said. "And we were destroyed and the colors were lost, and the bridge was lost. Quite a record of achievement one way and another. But tell me" – his voice became almost confidential – "just why did you need to kill me? You'd ruined me, forced my resignation from the regiment. Why try to deliver the coup de grace?"

  Fear blossomed anew in Gerard's flat brown eyes. "My sergeant," he mumbled.

  "Ah…," Sylvester said slowly. "O'Flannery, wasn't it? Was he blackmailing you, Gerard?"

  There was no answer from the bed, and Sylvester's face twisted in an expression of revulsion. He spun suddenly to face Edward, and his eyes were living coals beneath the blue-tinged scar. "Did you hear all that, Fairfax?"

  "Yes, sir. Every word." Edward almost stood to attention, and Theo shrank back against the door, suddenly wishing to make herself invisible. Whatever was going on now in this room among the three of them was outside her own experience. It dealt with a world whose perils and rules she knew nothing about.

  Sylvester nodded. He released the chain, and as Gerard struggled up on the bed, he took off his coat. Very deliberately, he began to roll up his sleeves. "Take Theo downstairs and wait for me in the curricle, Fairfax. I have some unfinished business that I believe I am going to enjoy."

  Gerard's face was the color of whey as he sat massaging his throat, watching mesmerized as the powerful forearms were revealed, watching as Stoneridge flexed his hands, pulled at his fingers to loosen the joints.

  Theo knew she couldn't let this happen, whether she understood the ramifications of the issue or not. She had no sympathy for the despicable Gerard, her skin still crawled at the memory of his touch, but she knew that if Sylvester yielded to his murderous need for vengeance, something dreadful and irretrievable would happen. And it would live with him forever.

  She moved forward, laying a hand on her husband's arm.

  He turned his pale anger onto her, and she flinched from it, but she said, "Sylvester, I know what you're feeling. I know you feel it's owed you, but you have what you came for. You'll kill him. He's no match for you – look at him. He's a louse; no, Rosie would say that's disparaging lice. He's despicable and a coward, but he's not worth your vengeance. What satisfaction will you get from pounding such a creature to a pulp?"

  Slowly, Sylvester came back to the room on Ludgate Hill. He looked into Theo's impassioned eyes and heard her wisdom. He had been at the brink of control, and he knew that once his bare fist had smashed into the brittle bones and thin skin of the coward that was Neil Gerard, he would have lost himself in an orgy of blood vengeance for that eternity of confused shame and hideous self-doubt.

  "Please," Theo said, softly now, reaching up to touch his cheek. "It's over, love. Let it go. I'm here, I'll help you."

  He allowed himself to slide into the deep-blue pools of her eyes, to receive the balm of her words. He saw in her eyes what he'd seen when she'd been at his bedside during his agony, and slowly, the long anger slid from him. He clasped her wrist as she continued to stroke his cheek.

  "Yes," he said with a twisted smile. "You're here, gypsy. And you're going to help me whatever I do or say."

  "You married a Belmont," Theo responded, with a smile of her own now as she heard his changed tone and saw the light in his eye. "It goes with the territory. Like it or not."

  He caught her chin, fixing her gaze with his own. "I find I like it." Bending his head, he brushed her lips with his own in a kiss as delicate as the flutter of a butterfly's wings. "And we have much to talk about, madam wife."

  Theo simply nodded.

  Edward said somewhat hesitantly, "Perhaps you should take the curricle, and if you'll trust your horse to me, sir, I'll ride him back to Curzon Street and pick up the curricle there."

  "That sounds like a good plan," Sylvester said coolly. He picked up his coat, glancing at the cot where Gerard still cowered. "I suggest you take an extended trip abroad. I shan't press for a new court-martial, but it won't be necessary once Lieutenant Fairfax has reported your confession at Horseguards."

  He put on his coat and for a moment toyed reflectively with one of the dueling pistols. "I'd challenge you, but a man doesn't match his honor against a coward. Come, Theo." He swept her ahead of him out of the dingy chamber and down the stairs. A scared face peeped out at them from a door in the lightless lower hall. A door that Theo noticed had a bullet hole in it

  She thought of the blood on Edward's sword and wondered how many people in this malodorous hole were licking wounds. No one hindered their departure at all events.

  Sylvester tossed Theo up into the curricle and sprang up after her. "Edward, we'll see you later." He leaned down, holding out his hand. "A man couldn't wish for a sounder ally."

  "What about me?" Theo demanded with a touch of indignation. "I'm a very sound ally."

  "That is a matter for further discussion," her husband said, failing lamentably to hide a broad grin. "Stand away from their heads, lad."

  The urchin jumped back, catching the half sovereign as it flew through the air toward him, and the horses plunged forward.

  "I'm as sound an ally as Edward," Theo insisted, prepared to capitalize on circumstances, now that things had turned out so favorably. "My plan took an unexpected turn, I grant you, but the result was the same. You have your confession and an objective witness."

  "True," Sylvester agreed, adding pointedly, "How's your head?"

  "A bit achy," she confessed. "All right, so it didn't turn out right, but I couldn't think of anything else to do."

  "No," he said. "In the circumstances, I can quite see that."

  "I love you," Theo said, just in case he was still missing the point.

  "Yes, I know," Sylvester responded quietly. "And I've loved you since I first laid eyes on you. You've tried my patience almost beyond bearing on many occasions, sweetheart, but never my love." He looked down at her, the stern lines of his face softened, the once cool eyes aglow. "Never in my wildest dreams, or do I mean my craziest nightmares, did I imagine falling hopelessly in love with a passionate, wayward, managing, and unruly gypsy. But that's what happened."

  Theo smiled, thinking of her grandfather. Whatever had really been behind the conditions of his will, he wouldn't have intended to hurt her in any way. Had he perhaps heard something of this Gilbraith… something that made him believe he would make his granddaughter happy? He was such a devious old man, it wouldn't surprise her to discover that he'd set out to learn about his heir from the moment of Kit Belmont's death. But whatever the truth, the outcome would have pleased him as it pleased everyone else – and brought his granddaughter such sweet joy.

  She moved her thigh so that it pressed hard against her husband's and allowed her head to drop onto his shoulder, a deep peace filling her, as if she'd been relieved of the most enormous weight.

  They drew up in front of the house, and Sylvester jumped down as young Timmy came running to take the horses. Sylvester lifted Theo down and carried her up the steps and into the house.

  "Is everything all right, my lord?" Foster asked in concern. Theo, despite her bravado, was looking rather wan.

  "It will be," Sylvester said. "Tell Dora to bring a cold compress and arnica up to Lady Theo's bedroom."

  Foster's air of concern deepened. "Yes, right away, my lord. Lady Emily, Lady Clarissa and Lady Rosie are awaiting your return in the lib
rary."

  "Oh, well, bring it to the library in that case." Sylvester turned aside with his burden.

  "Whatever's happened?" Emily jumped up as they came in. "Theo, you're as white as a ghost"

  "Oh, it's nothing," Theo said hastily. "I… I… uh… I tripped on the pavement and fell in front of an oncoming carriage, but Sylvester managed to pull me back in time."

  Her husband made no comment, and only Rosie noticed the raised eyebrow and the slight twitch of his lips as he settled Theo on a sofa.

  A footman came in with the required items and set them on a low table beside the sofa. They all waited in silence until he'd bowed himself out. Sylvester was aware of an air of suppressed excitement in the room as he moved behind Theo and delicately parted her hair at the base of her skull, feeling for the lump.

  Theo was aware of it too. "What is it?" she demanded of her sisters. Clarissa in particular was bubbling with exuberance.

  "Oh, Theo, Jonathan has a splendid commission to paint Lord Decatur's daughter, so he's asked Mama for my hand and she said yes," Clarissa declared, her voice a passionate throb, her hands clasped tightly to her bosom.

  Theo smiled warmly, trying not to wince at Sylvester's probing fingers. "That's wonderful, love."

  "Yes, but it's not exactly a surprise," Rosie put in, peering myopically at a plate of shortbread on the table in front of her. "Clarry's behaving as if there was ever any doubt." She selected a piece and bit into it

  "Well, we came to tell you that," Emily said swiftly before her sister could respond to this dampener. "But also we wished to ask Stoneridge something." She gave him a shy smile as he looked up intently from his first aid. "We're going to have a double wedding -"

  "What a lovely idea," Theo interrupted. "You'll be married from Stoneridge, of course."

  "But of course," Sylvester agreed.

  Emily flushed slightly. "That would be wonderful, but it wasn't what we wanted to ask exactly. We wondered if you would be willing to give us both away, Stoneridge?"