Chapter 28
“I’ll break her neck easy as I’d wring a hen’s,” Monks snarled, jerking the chain to wrench Grace closer. Her terrified eyes sought Matthew’s, silently pleading for help.
Matthew felt like someone had punched him in the gut. Cold creeping fear turned his blood to ice. How the hell had he allowed this to happen? He should have foreseen that his jailers would snatch any chance to escape justice. What in heaven’s name had possessed Grace to come here tonight? He cursed her gallant soul, even while his heart filled with overwhelming love. And dread.
“Don’t mistake that he means it,” he snapped, gesturing everyone else in the room back. One false move and Grace would be dead.
He assessed Monks for signs of weakness and as so often before, found none. He balled his fists against his sides as he fought the urge to fling himself on the brute and strangle him with his bare hands.
“Stay where you are,” the duke said to his men who surrounded the room.
“Aye, that’s right canny.” Roughly, Monks tugged Grace around so his back was to the French doors and she faced the room like a living shield. “Nobody follows.”
“What about the lady?” the duke asked.
Monks laughed unpleasantly and Matthew saw Grace shudder at the sound. Her face was pallid with terror.
Monks sneered. “She’s no lady. She’s a poxy whore.”
“No!” Grace gasped.
“Button your lip, slut!” Monks grunted and tightened the chain so she coughed against the pressure. He glared at the duke. “Do nowt to stop me getting away and I’ll let the lass go.”
That was a lie. Monks was in a towering fury and he’d vent that anger on Grace when he had her to himself. If he was caught, a hanging already awaited. What difference another murder?
Against every instinct he possessed, Matthew steeled himself to say what he must. “Release the girl and you have my word as Marquess of Sheene that you may leave unhindered.”
He ignored the duke’s movement of protest. Grace’s life was more important than revenge or punishment.
Monks edged toward the doors, forcing Grace into a stumbling backward walk. “Eh, and pigs might fly. I’m not daft. Happen I’m summat better off keeping the lass as a bargaining piece, your lordship. Collect her at the gate in half an hour.”
Collect her dead, Matthew knew.
If his beloved were dead, what use was freedom?
This had gone on long enough. He turned and seized a pistol from the nearest of the duke’s men.
“Let her go, Monks.” His voice rang in the silent room. Silent except for the uneven gasps of Grace’s breathing against the chain.
“You’ll not risk shooting the lass,” Monks sniggered.
“I won’t shoot her.” With a surprisingly steady hand, Matthew cocked the gun and aimed between Monks’s eyes.
“Don’t be a blasted fool, man!” Lord Wyndhurst whirled toward him. “You’ll hit her!”
The cool weight of the gun was familiar, even after all these years without touching a weapon. In his boyhood, he’d shown blazing talent as a marksman and had promised to become a crack shot. He hoped to hell his hours of pitching rocks at trees had kept his eye in. It seemed a fragile basis for confidence but as he leveled the pistol, he had no doubt he could do this.
He loved Grace too much to fail.
“Matthew, please,” Grace begged brokenly then fell silent as Monks twisted the chain. The harsh metal links rubbed the skin on her neck raw, Matthew noted with grim anger. Monks would pay for that. And so much else.
“Stay absolutely still,” he said softly to Grace. If she made a sudden movement or jerked Monks out of position, the bullet could go wild.
The lout towered above her, presenting an easier target than he realized. Strangely, everything in the room was uncannily clear as if illuminated by bright light. Matthew took a deep breath and said a silent prayer.
“You’re right full of hot air, my fine lordship,” Monks scoffed. “You’d no more have the gumption to shoot me than you would to swim to America.”
Matthew leveled the pistol. “I’ve always enjoyed swimming, Monks.”
Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger. The bullet entered squarely between Monks’s thick eyebrows. The mud-colored eyes widened with shock. Then glazed in swift death.
Monks tumbled to the floor without a word, taking Grace down with him. She screamed as she fell, a jagged high-pitched shriek of terror. The sound broke the odd paralysis that gripped everyone in the room.
Wyndhurst burst into movement and rushed over to disentangle her. “Are you unharmed, child?”
“Yes. Yes, I am,” she said shakily. At the admission, some of the painful tension drained from Matthew’s shoulders.
“Bugger me,” Filey gasped, staring in open-mouthed surprise at Matthew. “I seen nowt like it.”
Matthew’s heartbeat quieted as his agonizing fear for Grace receded. Thank God his father had taken the time to teach him to shoot like a sniper. Thank God he’d kept up his target practice with whatever lay to hand in his prison.
Slowly, his arm lowered until the pistol dangled at his side.
He’d never killed anyone before. He’d imagined the act would be harder, more emotional. But he looked across at Monks’s motionless body and felt only a vague satisfaction.
His eyes slid over Lord John’s body. Then as he always would, he looked up and sought Grace. Drawn and shaken, she huddled in the Earl of Wyndhurst’s arms. Once more, her strong resemblance to the older man struck him.
Why did she turn to someone else for comfort? Couldn’t she see that Matthew starved for her merest touch? She must know how he longed to hold her.
“Egad, Sheene, that’s the best damned shooting I’ve ever seen!” the duke said. “I take my hat off to you.”
“I couldn’t let him harm her,” Matthew said in a flat voice. Jesus, he felt flat.
With a deliberate movement, he set the gun down on the table to which he’d been bound so often. It gradually seeped into his mind that nobody would restrain him again. The thought seemed distant, unimportant, as though it applied to someone else.
Lord John was dead. Monks was dead. Filey would face justice. Matthew should be shouting to the skies.
When he’d imagined his release, he’d pictured himself incandescent with joy. But his emotions felt frozen.
“Remove this rogue. The law will deal with him,” the duke told the men who held Filey.
“I were but Lord John’s servant, Your Grace. I did nowt but what I were told,” Filey said in his cringing way. He wasn’t wasting any grief on his employer or his long-term colleague, Matthew noted sardonically.
“That’s not true. He’s guilty and I will see he’s punished.” Matthew had promised himself he’d kill this brute. Now his taste for spilling blood had faded. As far as he was concerned, the courts could decide Filey’s fate. If the evidence against Lord John was as convincing as the duke claimed, Filey would hang.
He hardly cared. All that mattered was Grace. He fought the urge to rip her from the earl’s grasp.
After the armed men hauled Filey away, the duke glanced around the room with displeasure. “I can hardly breathe. Newby, open the windows. Fenwick, find some clothing for Lord Sheene. He can’t appear at Windsor in his shirtsleeves. He can wash and shave when we change horses.”
Windsor? What was this? “Your Grace, what are your plans?”
The duke glanced at Matthew then over to where Grace huddled in the Earl of Wyndhurst’s arms. “I’ll explain on the road. Time is of the essence. His Majesty awaits. Jones and Perrett, remove the bodies. It’s a confounded charnel house. Then I require privacy with Lord Sheene, Lord Wyndhurst, and this lady.”
The servants cleared the room. Cool air rushed in and teased at the edges of Matthew’s strange detachment. He struggled to accept the startling truth that he was free. His enemies were routed. His nightmare was over.
When they were alone
at last, he extended his hand to the duke. “Sir, I thank you for your intervention. May I know to whom I owe my gratitude?”
“Of course,” the duke said, shaking Matthew’s hand with hearty strength.
“Lord Sheene.” Grace stepped away from the earl and toward him. Still not close enough to touch, though, damn it.
The formality of address struck him as discordant even while her husky voice fell on his yearning soul like balm on a wound. He supposed like her mask, her use of his title was designed to preserve her reputation.
No, that couldn’t be right. The men present must know who she was.
Bafflement surged anew. What game was she playing? He forced himself to concentrate on what she said even though his deepest instinct was to snatch her up and kiss her until she stopped treating him like a distant acquaintance.
Her mouth turned up in a faint smile as she gestured to the duke. “Allow me to introduce my godfather, the Duke of Kermonde.”
Her godfather? His father’s old friend Kermonde? He’d had no idea her connections stretched so high.
Grace turned to the other man. “And my father, the Earl of Wyndhurst.”
Astonishment held Matthew silent. In a night of surprises, this was perhaps the greatest. His indigent widow belonged to one of the grandest families in England. He could barely believe it. Even while he managed a creditable bow, he struggled to make sense of everything. His muscles, still stiff from his long captivity, protested the movement but he ignored the twinge of discomfort. “Your Grace. My lord.”
“Are you hurt, Sheene?” Kermonde clapped him on the back and he almost groaned. “No need to test your sanity. Any man who shoots like that doesn’t have bees in his brain box. We have doctors here if you want them. They can poke and pry at you in the carriage if you feel need of their services.”
Doctors? He didn’t want doctors. He wanted Grace. Grace who already glided away to take her father’s arm. Grace who he noticed was dressed in the height of fashion. Grace who had touched him briefly when he was in chains, but who now left him bereft.
He didn’t understand. He was free. She was here. Why the hell wasn’t she in his arms? “Grace?” he asked dazedly.
But it was Kermonde who spoke. “You must see Lady Grace cannot stay. The risk of scandal is too great if her link to this matter becomes public.”
She paused at her father’s side and tilted her head toward Matthew. The blasted mask still hid her expression. A sullen trickle of blood seeped from the wound at her throat, reminding him how close he’d come to losing her.
So why did he feel like he was losing her now?
“Goodbye, Lord Sheene,” she said huskily.
Goodbye? What bloody nonsense was this? “Christ, Grace! You can’t go! Not like this!”
She turned away. “I must. I came to free you, my lord, and to see justice done. Now all matters between us are at an end. I wish you every happiness.”
“Grace, no!” He staggered forward, reaching for her even as she moved with her father toward the door. “Wait! What in God’s name are you doing?”
She looked back and the full lips he’d kissed so often curved in a sad smile. “I’m returning you to the world, my lord. A world I can never share.”
“That’s not true! What do I want with freedom if you’re not there to share it?” She plunged a knife into his vitals then twisted it.
She shook her head in wordless denial. She trembled. He couldn’t doubt she suffered. But why was she doing this?
Her voice broke. “Don’t, I beg you. Matthew, don’t make this worse than it is already. I knew from the moment I met you that anything more between us was impossible. Please…just let me go.” She bent her head and let her father lead her from the room.
“Grace! Grace, stop!” Matthew called, but she didn’t pause.
This couldn’t be happening. He wouldn’t let it happen. He forced his leaden feet into clumsy pursuit.
Kermonde grabbed him before he’d taken more than a step. “Let her go. This isn’t the time.”
It mightn’t be the time but it might be his only time. He shook off Kermonde’s restraining hand and set out after her.
Grace was pathetically grateful she had her father’s arm to cling to as she stepped into the night. Her terror when Monks had grabbed her still crashed through her blood like thunder and her legs felt as though they’d crumple. Her mind replayed that horrific moment when he’d jerked her into his massive chest and scraped the chain across her neck.
She barely credited Matthew’s astounding feat of marksmanship. Then had followed the nightmare instant when Monks’s lumbering body had dragged her down with him.
Death’s cold bony fingers had brushed her tonight. Monks had meant to kill her. His murderous rage had been palpable.
But worse by far than Monks’s attack had been telling Matthew goodbye.
She’d seen him for the last time. As she’d promised herself four long months ago, she’d liberated him from his uncle. Now she’d liberated him from her.
She couldn’t bear it.
Tears stung her eyes, dampened the horrible mask. She stumbled blindly, hardly aware where she went. Hardly caring. Without Matthew, there was nowhere she wanted to go.
“It’s all been too much for you, Grace.” Her father frowned with concern as her step faltered again. “Kermonde was right. You shouldn’t have come.”
“I had to be here,” she said in a muffled voice. She swallowed to ease the lump of misery that choked her and winced at the pain in her bruised throat.
“Grace, wait!” she heard Matthew shout from the house.
Her stomach cramped with wretchedness. Matthew was a fighter. He’d doggedly fought for his sanity and his freedom and his pride through the last eleven years. Misguided as the attempt was, he’d fight for her.
Of course he wouldn’t just farewell her with an acquiescent nod of his dark head. Although it would be kinder to both of them if he did.
“Take me home, Papa,” she said brokenly.
What a coward she was to hope she could rush away before she had to confront Matthew. She couldn’t summon courage to stay and endure his pain. She rejected him for his sake but he wouldn’t understand that until he’d tasted the world he’d never known.
“Just a word, Grace,” Matthew said with a bark of command from behind her. She’d forgotten how quickly and how quietly he could move. His hold was implacable as it closed on her upper arm. He swung her around to face him. “Surely you can spare me that much.”
Yes, surely she could. She bit her lip and reluctantly lifted her head until she met his eyes. Her father released her and stepped away.
The open doorway and the carriage lamps allowed her to read the fury and incomprehension in Matthew’s face. His beloved face. Hungrily her gaze traveled over his features, testing the changes four months had made. His disheveled hair was long enough to touch his shoulders and he needed a shave. His cheekbones stood out prominently and there were deep hollows above the sharp angles of his jaw.
“Lord Sheene…” she began, then glanced away because she couldn’t bear to witness the misery underlying his rage.
“Be damned to that! You know my name,” he growled, hauling her away from her father.
“I’ll wait in the coach,” the earl said.
“Father!” she called helplessly. How could he abandon her when she needed him most? For once, she wanted him to play the despot, order her off this estate with its memories of death and pain and captivity.
And love. Always love.
“Come when you’re ready.” Her father shuffled toward the line of carriages where armed men waited with the shackled and cowed Filey.
“There’s no point to this,” Grace said in despair.
“Well, there’s something we don’t agree on,” Matthew said grimly. He ignored her resistance and dragged her around the side of the cottage until they had privacy. They were directly outside the garden room. Lamps within shed enough li
ght for her to see his impatience. Not that she needed to see it. It was vividly apparent in his voice and in the hold he kept on her arm.
“What the hell is this about?” he snapped.
She wrenched away with a shaky jerk. “You haven’t got time. You’ve got to go with Kermonde. The king commands your presence.”
“Damn the king. He’s waited eleven years for the pleasure of my company. He’ll wait another half hour. Why are you running away?”
“My father…”
“Will wait too.” The awful night became even worse as he encircled her with his arms and hurt confusion softened his tone. “Grace, aren’t you happy to see me?”
“Of course I am,” she admitted before she could stop herself. For one blissful second, she leaned her head on his chest. Under the stained linen of his shirt, she heard the race of his heart. How she’d craved his touch. His rich scent filled her head with poignant memories.
No. She couldn’t afford to weaken.
“Let me go, Matthew.” She tried to sound firm, resolute, determined, but her words emerged as a choked whisper.
“It’s been an eternity. I want to hold you. Grace, let me hold you.” His voice was velvety with yearning. Every hair on her body prickled as that seductive tone brushed across her skin, lured her to surrender.
“I…can’t,” she said through dry lips. This was like having her skin scraped off. She couldn’t take much more. With a muffled sob, she struggled out of his arms.
At first, she thought he wouldn’t let her go, then he lifted his hands with an ironic gesture. The eyes that had haunted her for four endless months were opaque as polished golden glass. He studied her as if he read her every secret. He probably did. In their short time together, he’d come to know her so well.
When he spoke, his voice was level. “Won’t you take off the mask? I’ve only had dreams to keep me company. I want to see your face.”
“The servants,” she said huskily. If she took off the mask, he’d know how she cried.
“As you wish.” He smiled at her, the sweet, tender smile that was manna to her soul. His voice gentled and he took her gloved hand in his. The warmth of his touch through the soft kidskin was a piercing reminder of all she sacrificed.
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