by Sahara Kelly
Simon couldn’t help glancing at Tabby. She looked at him at the same moment, and gave a little nod. He smiled at her, still not quite believing that they were both alive, and she had promised to marry him.
Paul was talking again, and Simon dragged his attention away from his now-real fiancée.
“I wandered through Europe, surviving as best I could. More than a few years passed, which I’m not going to detail here.” He grinned. “Perhaps I’ll write a book. Fiction, of course.”
There was a smattering of laughter.
“But a time came when I found myself in company with some very interesting gentlemen. They reminded me of something.”
“What, Paul?” Rosaline asked the question when her brother paused in his narration.
“They reminded me that I was British. That I had a country I could call home, after a fashion. And that I had a duty to that country.”
Tabby’s head lifted a little at that. Simon could guess the reason.
“I believe I might know the same sort of people.” Her voice was dry.
“Well, now,” Paul looked at her. “That explains a few things.”
The two of them shared a look Simon couldn’t interpret, but he found he wasn’t jealous. He didn’t want to know more than he should about that business. Especially now that Tabby was out of it.
“Anyway,” continued Paul. “The long and the short of it is that I ended up assisting certain persons, as requested. Actually it was interesting. Challenging, a bit risky, but the sort of thing that reminds you you’re alive. And the added benefit? After a few years, I was notified—quite formally—that there was no longer any kind of bounty on my head, or charges pending here in England.” He took a breath. “I was free to come home at last.”
“And I never knew.” Rosaline’s voice trembled.
“I couldn’t take the risk, my dear.” He lifted her hand and dropped a kiss on the knuckles. “Given my occupation, I simply couldn’t even mention your name. I heard about your wedding to Henry, but learning you were now a Baroness came as a bit of a surprise.”
“Came as one to me as well,” she chuckled. “That story is for another time.”
“What is your status now, Paul, if I may ask?” Edmund leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “There is a title loafing around somewhere for you, isn’t there?”
“I don’t know, Edmund, to be honest. It’s one of the reasons I decided it was time to return. I completed my last assignment, requested permission to catch a boat from Ostend to London, and received an affirmative response. So now I’m back, I must look into the legalities of my situation. It will doubtless be complex, and put a large amount of my savings into various lawyer’s pockets.” He sighed.
“Such is the way of the world, sir,” said James. “But I do know a couple of quite reputable lawyers who won’t take quite as much off you…”
“I would be in your debt. And please…it’s Paul.” He looked around. “That goes for all of you.”
“A question, if I may.” Edmund spoke up. “Were you in the little room above the church office at any time?”
Paul nodded, exhibiting a certain degree of embarrassment. “Yes, I’m afraid I was. You see, I wasn’t certain of what kind of welcome I would receive. Or if even my own sister would acknowledge me. It has been so long, so many years have passed. In my mind I could not be the prodigal brother returning unannounced and possibly walking into—well, who knows what.”
“So you spied on us?” Hecate’s eyebrows rose.
“I suppose I did, but I’d prefer to call it friendly surveillance.” He spread his hands. “I had to know Rosaline was happy. I found that she was. If not for the church incident, I would have presented myself at the front door of Ridlington Chase this afternoon. And we’d still be sitting here now, although without the brandy.”
“Don’t make book on it,” said Letitia, finishing hers. “You’d have been a surprise no matter what the circumstances.”
“I second that,” added James. “Good taste in cravats, by the way.”
Paul shook his head and laughed. “I knew I had a sister in England. But now it seems I have an entire family.”
Simon chuckled. “Don’t be too happy about that. We’re not the nicest people in the world, you know.”
“Vicar.” Tabby’s tone was dramatic. “Should I rescind my acceptance of your spontaneous proposal? Were you just leading me down a primrose path?”
“Don’t even think about it.” He narrowed his eyes wickedly. “You’re mine, dear girl. You promised in front of witnesses, the altar, a vicious felon and God himself. I regard that as a firm commitment contract, don’t you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I dare say I could find a clause you missed…” she punched him in the arm. “But I’m not inclined to look.”
“Speaking of felons,” interjected Letitia, “can we learn about the man who tried to shoot Rosaline?”
Heads turned toward Tabby. “Yes, I suppose some of this is my portion of the tale.” She straightened in her chair and let go of Simon’s hand. “I cannot reveal much of what went on in London. Forgive me for that. But in one conversation, I was given some information that, when put together, led me to believe that there was someone here looking for either myself or Rosaline. And that his intentions were possibly violent. Given what we’d already discovered, that conversation confirmed my worst fears.”
“You didn’t know which of us was his target, did you?” Rosaline asked.
“No.” Tabby shook her head. “And to be honest, I wasn’t even sure that he was here now. But the organ business, the dead body, an unknown presence—and all so soon after my returning here …everything seemed to coincide and paint a picture in my mind that left me very ill at ease. I rushed down with only a name, worried that one of you might be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Chidwell is still in shock, Tabby,” chuckled Letitia. “He’s never seen a lady arrive on the box of a carriage, let alone driving.”
“Er…”
Simon turned accusing eyes to her. “You what?”
She patted his hand. “Never mind, dear. We’ll talk later.”
“We certainly shall.”
Tabby ignored that comment. “So I managed to sneak into the church and find Rosaline. We exchanged bonnets…well she gave me her bonnet actually. I think I lost mine outside Fordingbridge. But no matter.” She waved that triviality aside. “And then it was a matter of waiting until the villain revealed himself. But there is one thing I don’t know…” She looked at Simon. “Who was Gevener? He wasn’t the organ expert…”
“He was Godfrey’s assistant, I understand. Someone has to man the bellows for an organ to produce sounds. You can’t tune or fix an organ if there is no air.”
“Ah. He was the windbag,” nodded Hecate sagely.
Her comment reduced the entire assembly to uproarious laughter. “Do you know his name is an anagram?” Her observation stilled the laughter.
“Really?” Edmund tipped his head to one side. “I’m not seeing it…”
“Revenge, Edmund.” Hecate looked around her. “His name is an anagram for revenge.”
There was utter silence. Then Paul took a ragged breath. “Yes, that fits. You should know—and this is private, please—August von Rillenbach and I weren’t fighting over a woman. I had happened to observe him in an…um…intimate moment. With his best friend.”
The implications rippled through the room. “Dear Lord,” muttered Edmund. “He’d have been completely finished in Society, wouldn’t he?”
Paul nodded. “Yes. And being drunk, he refused to accept my word of honor that I would remain completely silent. In his wine-addled state, he became convinced that he had to kill me.” He looked down at the carpet. “I seem to recall one of his other….associates was named Johann.”
“Gevener was his lover, then, not a blood relation,” said Tabby bluntly. “Well, that does explain a lot.” She turned to Rosaline and Edmund. “On
e other thing I learned in London was that the remaining members of the von Rillenbach family are short of funds. There are murmurings about them seeking legal advice on pursuing a suit against you, Rosaline, as the representative of the DeVoreaux family. Of course they have heard you are now a Baroness.”
Edmund snorted. “They are fair and far off with that assumption, unless they’ll take chickens.”
“Not only that,” said Rosaline, “but now that Paul has returned to the fold, and with the things he knows, the stories he could tell…they would be very foolish to come anywhere near me. Us. Him…” she laughed. “Any of us.”
“Indeed. We’re quite a force to be reckoned with, aren’t we?” Letitia looked around proudly.
“I do admire the smack-his-head-on-the-granite method of silencing a villain,” said Hecate calmly. “Tabby, would you teach me how to do that, one day?”
“Of course, my dear. I’d be happy to.”
Edmund groaned. “I do hope dinner will be served soon. Otherwise I’ll have both Letitia and Hecate asking to be allowed to spy for England.”
Rosaline leaned against him with a smile. “And they’d be very good at it, too.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Darkness had fallen by the time Simon and Tabby left Ridlington Chase for the Vicarage. The trusty gig was once again called into service, because no one wanted to see the two of them walk nearly a mile after the day they’d just experienced.
And truthfully, Tabby was glad of it. Although she’d have cut her hair off rather than admit it, she was exhausted. Such sleep as she’d managed to seize had been fitful, and the fierce rush of battle had depleted much of her usual stores of energy.
She was content to lean against Simon as the horse walked them down the lane toward what she was coming to think of as home.
“Quite a day,” said Simon quietly.
“Indeed yes.”
“Are you all right, Tabby?”
She thought for a moment or two. “I think I am. I’m probably more all right than I’ve been in quite some time, but I suppose I need to ponder the question for a while before I can answer with any certainty.”
“That’s the longest ‘yes’ I’ve ever heard.”
She laughed. “My apologies. I will admit to being a little tired.”
“I’m not surprised,” replied Simon. “You must have been up well before dawn to get here when you did, and do what you did after that. Those long hours in the carriage and then the incident in the church? How could you be anything but exhausted?”
The Vicarage came into sight and Tabby nodded. “Never mind. We’re almost there.”
“You’ll stay with me, of course.”
“Of course.”
“A good night’s sleep will set us both to rights.”
“I agree.” She let him hand her down from the gig. “If you take care of the horse, I’ll stoke up the fire and heat up water. I need to wash off the travel dirt,” she glanced down at herself, “and I think I still have a bit of church floor on one knee.”
Simon chuckled. “Do you still have your key?”
“I do. Wise of you to make sure those who need one have one. No more tucking it over the door.”
“Yes, Madam.” He bowed and began to unfasten the harness and release the horse from the gig.
She let herself in, feeling the comfort of familiarity slide over her like a welcoming blanket of warmth. Even Tiddles appeared and rubbed around her ankles in greeting. Nothing had changed since she left only weeks before. Why did it seem like a lifetime?
She had candles lit and a good blaze in the stove beneath a pot of water before Simon returned. “There we are. Hot water coming up.”
“Amazing.” He dropped a light kiss on her head as he walked past and into the pantry. “I think we can indulge ourselves a little tonight. No tea, something…” he rummaged around, “a little stronger.”
Finding herself presented with one of the two mugs of ale he’d poured, surprised her, but she tasted it anyway.
“Oh.” She tasted again. “This is really excellent.”
“Isn’t it?” He waved her to the table, where they both sat with the tankards in front of them. “Chillendale ale. Finest in the south of England, I’m told.”
“I’m inclined to believe it.”
“Tabby,” he clasped his hands around the cool mug. “I must say something to you.”
“Very well.” She watched his expression, so serious in the candlelight.
“Today, when I asked you to marry me, I did so out of panic, terror and the realization that if I lost you my life would end.”
She kept silent, wondering where he was leading with this statement.
“I forgot to say one thing.”
“What was that?”
“I love you.”
Tabby’s heart stopped for long moments, then started up again, a rapid hammering against her ribs. “Pardon?”
“I said I love you.” He looked up, his gaze meeting hers. “I think I always have. It’s probably why none of the women I met were more than a passing smile. None of them attached my interest—because that interest was already taken. By you.”
“Simon,” she reached a hand across the table, and he took it in his, turning it over and rubbing his thumb over her fingers.
“We Ridlingtons don’t do love well, or easily, Tabs. You know why…you knew more about our life with the old Baron than a lot of people.”
“Yes. He was a difficult man at best, and probably a demon to live with at worst.”
“All that and more,” sighed Simon. “I never thought I’d love anyone enough to want to spend my life with them. I was afraid to. Perhaps becoming a Vicar was a form of self-protection? A way to avoid any deep intimacy. I’ve asked myself that many times over the years. After all, what better protection can a man have than the hand of God on his shoulder?”
“I don’t know. Ask Miss Susan Frost or Miss Tedworthy.”
Simon chuckled. “Well, all right, it may not be perfect, but I do believe that for me it was a sort of shield I could pull around myself.”
“You hid your emotions, didn’t you?”
“Certain ones, yes.” He sipped again, swallowed and shook his head. “I’ve tried hard to be a good Vicar. To help people, to be sympathetic and encouraging…to be what they needed.”
“But you’ve never looked at what you needed…” She finished his thought.
“Not until you walked back into my life. Then I knew what I needed. My shield crumbled when you first looked at me and within ten minutes all I could think of was being intimate with you.”
“Deeply intimate?” She raised an eyebrow.
“As deep as I could go,” he growled.
“You did.”
“I know.”
“So there it is. I love you. And having said that, I hope you’ll still marry me willingly. If not, I shall assume the role of my ancestor and demand my Droit du Seigneur.”
“Will you wear armor, capture me and take me to your castle? Will you use me quite scandalously?”
“Many times.”
“All right. I am in favor of that proposition.”
“Isn’t there something you’d like to say to me first?”
She grinned. “When do we start?”
An hour later, cleaned, tired and holding each other in bed, Tabby turned to Simon. “I love you too, Simon. And like you, I think I always have.”
They had agreed to just sleep this night, knowing they had the rest of their lives ahead of them now.
But at her words, he turned to her and kissed her, deeply and with more passion than she’d yet experienced. Or perhaps it was the fact that she had learned to be free herself, and could return his kisses with her own.
Whatever it was, it turned to heat between them, and then she was naked, astride him, reaching for his cock and impaling herself on his hardness.
“God above, Tabby…” he grunted as she lowered down, sliding easily, then
rising again.
“I love you, Simon,” she replied, “Love you, love you…”
Her words punctuated her movements and the whispers grew softer as the desire rose higher. It didn’t take long for either of them to reach their releases; this was a night for affirmation, for the ultimate expression of their newfound honesty.
At last, sated, exhausted and content, they cuddled, back to front, relishing in each other’s warmth. “I promise every night to make sure the last thing I tell you before I sleep is that I love you.”
“A wonderful notion, my love. I agree. Every night before you sleep, you will tell me you love me.”
She elbowed him. “Idiot.”
He chuckled. “Yes. I’m an idiot in love. And I will also promise.” He rested his head comfortably on the pillow and squeezed her gently. “I love you too, Tabby.”
*~~*~~*
The sun was a welcome sight the next morning, and in that delightfully whimsical way that English weather is renowned for, there was not a cloud in the sky.
Simon blinked as he woke, reaching for Tabby and sighing when his hand met cool sheets. She’d been up and around for a while, it would seem. He stretched, yawned and discovered his shoulder was still a little sore from its impact with the church floor.
They really should go over and make sure all was well this morning. He couldn’t even remember if he’d locked the door behind him yesterday.
He said as much to Tabby after he’d dressed and found her in the kitchen, apparently conversing with Tiddles. “There you are, sweet thing.” A saucer of milk was lowered in front of the impatient little madam.
“You locked the door,” she smiled, leaning in to Simon’s morning embrace. “Tea is ready, and there’s bread and jam. You need food, my darling.”
“I certainly do,” he answered, sitting down and helping himself. “I’m hungry.”
