Emerald

by Lauren Royal

He took her by the shoulders. "That's not it, Cait." His eyes and voice were frantic. "Not at all. You mustn't think such a thing—"

  She pressed her mouth to his, to silence his proposal. He'd scaled the wall for her. She'd been wrong, and he loved her enough, after all. Her heart sang with joy, but she hadn't time for such things now.

  She put her answer into her kiss, a caress of such fiery possession that he had to know how she felt. Regretfully she pulled away, her lips clinging to his for a last moment, savoring the sweetness of his love. A love she would be sure of the rest of her life.

  He'd climbed four stories for her. The equivalent of a mountain for other men.

  "I love you, Jase. We'll talk of it later. I must get to the wedding."

  "You don't understand—"

  At the sound of pounding she tore her gaze from his and hurried into the front room, Jason at her heels. He yanked her back just as the door slammed in, barely staying on its hinges.

  Beyond its frame, Kendra and Ford stood in the half-dark of the corridor. And behind them, rubbing the shoulder he must have used to break down the door—

  "Cameron?" Confused, she stared at him in disbelief. He looked pale. As Jason moved behind her to shut the door to the bedroom, she took a wooden step forward.

  "Cait." Her cousin pushed his way between the twins and wrapped her into a hug. Smelling of home, he rubbed her back in a familiar, comforting rhythm. "Cait—I'm…" Laced with sympathy, his voice faltered. "I'm so sorry."

  "Why?" Her gaze flickered to the door shielding the other room. Could the news of Wat's death be spreading already? "It was an accident, Cam."

  He pulled away, searching her eyes with his. "You knew it before now, then?"

  She only looked at him, baffled.

  Jason peeled away Cameron's arms and took her by the shoulders. "Caithren. The thing I've been trying to tell you…"

  He looked down at his boots, then back up and straight at her. His eyes held such pain, she was taken aback.

  A cold knot formed in her stomach.

  He drew a strangled breath. "Adam is dead. At my hands."

  She was speechless. Adam was dead? It didn't seem possible.

  His green gaze implored her, but she couldn't get past the shocking news to figure out what he was asking of her.

  "There was a duel. Geoffrey Gothard pulled your brother from the crowd and used him as a shield. I wasn't fast enough—or skilled enough—to control my blade. And Adam died for it."

  "Adam is dead?" Her words were barely a whisper. "And you knew it and didn't tell me?"

  Jason stared at her for a long, silent moment. Then he turned and walked out through the empty doorway, into the emptier world beyond.

  Ford chased Jason down the corridor. "You cannot just leave!" He plucked him by the sleeve. "How long have you known?"

  "Almost two days. And every minute I didn't tell her was agony. But I knew it would be like this." He wrenched from Ford's grasp and continued walking down the hall.

  Ford ran after him. "You knew it would be like what?"

  "Whatever feelings she had for me died. Couldn't you see it her eyes?"

  It had even been worse than he'd thought it would be. Much, much worse.

  "I couldn't stay and watch that. I love her. God damn it, Gothard's ruined my life." He started down a narrow flight of stairs.

  "You never would have met her without Gothard." Ford's voice came from behind him. "She's in shock. She might need some time to absorb it all, but if she loved you before, she still will. It was an accident."

  At the bottom of the steps, Jason whirled. "I killed her brother. Her brother. Do you reckon I'd find forgiveness for the man who killed you, or Kendra, or Colin? It was bad enough when the man was nameless. This isn't easy to live with, Ford."

  The pain was excruciating, but he had to put it aside for now. He had other responsibilities.

  "Just leave me alone," he said. "Go back to Kendra and Cait. And—her cousin, is he?" Ford nodded. "She loves him—he will comfort her much better than I could. She killed Wat, you know."

  "What?"

  "Wat's in the back room. You'll need to send for the authorities. I take it you warned Scarborough?"

  "Bloody hell." Ford's eyes widened. "No. We ran into her cousin and learned the truth and—damn, I forgot. We came straight here to tell Cait what we knew, and—"

  Jason was already running for the exit.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Jason strode through Lord Darnley's front door, past the gaping footman and into a swarm of glittering guests. Scarborough. Where was Scarborough? What the hell did the man look like? He'd seen him once or twice at court, but, damn it, he'd never paid much attention, and—

  With a jolt of relief he spotted him. Sandy-haired, like Gothard, but taller and sporting a broad mustache. Dressed in deep blue velvet and apparently unconcerned, Scarborough stood in a circle of men, discussing the shocking news that Clarendon, the Lord Chancellor, had resigned earlier in the day.

  "Barbara was leaning from her window, cheering at his departure," Scarborough said as Jason walked up. Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine and the king's longtime mistress, had always hated Clarendon. "So do you know what he said to her?"

  The men leaned closer into the circle. "What?"

  "'Pray remember, my lady, that if you live, you will grow old.'"

  Amid their laughter, Jason touched Scarborough on the arm. "I apologize for interrupting, but there's a matter of some urgency."

  Scarborough turned, a look of confusion on his face. "Yes?"

  Just as Jason was about to respond, a flash of silver caught his eye.

  He spun around, shoving Scarborough from harm's way as he drew his rapier from its scabbard. "I arrest you in the name of the king," he said in a booming voice, startled to hear how it carried. "You will put down your weapons and wait here for the magistrate."

  The music stopped, and as one, the wedding guests turned to watch. Jason's grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. "Now, Gothard."

  The disguised man's gaze held hard and unwavering. "We meet again," he drawled through the bushy brown beard. "My nearest and dearest enemy."

  Words familiar to Jason. Familiar and enraging. "Once and for all, why should you call me your enemy?"

  Gothard's sunburned features went tight with resentment. His blue eyes narrowed. "You have what should rightfully be mine."

  "Rightfully yours?" Again Jason had the feeling he'd seen those eyes. Befuddled, his head swam. "I have nothing that is yours. And because of this misconception, you've been chasing me, trying to kill me?"

  "I never wanted to kill you," Gothard said with a smile—a cold one. "Only to enjoy some of your riches. They should have been mine. Including your woman." The familiar eyes turned as cold as the smile. "I'd have had her long before now if you'd ever left her alone."

  Jason ignored the threat to Cait. She was safe. But he swiped at his missing mustache, infuriated.

  All the disguises and hiding, and Gothard had never been out to kill them. Just playing hide-and-seek.

  "And Scarborough?" He nodded in the man's direction.

  "Him I want dead." The wild sheen in Gothard's eyes said he wasn't sane. "With him dead, Wat inherits and I get what I deserve."

  What he deserved was questionable at the moment. He was well and truly mad. "What about what I deserve, Gothard? What do I owe you and why?"

  "Damn you to bloody hell." Gothard moved forward, then pulled back when Jason brandished his sword. "Both you and the father we share."

  Pain and confusion shooting through him, Jason advanced a step closer. "We share nothing!" He slowly circled the tip of his rapier, then sliced it hissing through the air in a swift move that brought a collective gasp from the wedding guests.

  The blade's thin shadow flickered across the candlelit parquet floor. His mind whirled with thoughts of little Mary, her mother Clarice, Cait and her brother Adam…all the blood, the irrational violence.

 
With a roar, Gothard lunged, and the first clash of steel on steel rang through the ballroom.

  "I was born first," Gothard yelled. "It should be mine, all mine!"

  He slashed wildly, catching Jason's sword across the middle. The vibrations shimmied up Jason's arm. Muscles tense, he swung and thrust, and again steel bashed against steel. His heart pounded; blood pumped furiously through his veins.

  What Gothard was saying couldn't be true. No way in hell was he this evil man's half brother.

  They scrambled onto the dance floor, and the crowd scurried back. Gothard was cornered, but Jason was incensed. He would never believe it, never. He edged Gothard back against the wall. Gothard took sudden advantage, and Jason found himself retreating as their blades tangled, slid, broke free with a metallic twang.

  His arm ached to the very bone. Perspiration dripped slick from his forehead, stinging his eyes. But the other man's breath came hard and ragged.

  Measuring his foe, Jason put his all into one determined swipe of his sword, and Gothard's went clanging to the floor and skittered into the crowd of gaping spectators.

  "I came not to kill today, Gothard, but merely to see justice done." Jason sucked in air, smelled the other man's desperation. "There are those here who will see to it you won't escape."

  An affirming murmur came from the crowd, and men jostled forward.

  He waved them back. "Tell me what you said isn't true."

  "As God is my witness, it is true. And you won't live to enjoy what should have been mine!" Gothard went into an all-too-familiar crouch, coming up with a pistol in his hand.

  In a flash of blue velvet, Scarborough leapt forward and knocked the gun from his brother's grasp. It went flying, barely missing a matron's head as it sailed though the window with a startling crash. "You won't live to kill again, brother."

  Scarborough nodded at Jason, who moved closer, his sword still outstretched.

  An unearthly sound escaped Gothard's throat before he shoved past Scarborough and ran through the crowd. Rainbow shades of satin and silk swirled in a colorful kaleidoscope as wedding guests darted to avoid him. He burst through the doors that lead to the garden, broken glass crunching beneath his feet as he disappeared into the trees.

  Within a heartbeat Jason was after him, chasing him along a graveled path. Footsteps pounded behind him; he assumed they were Scarborough's and ran faster. This time he wouldn't prove himself less than a man. Even should he have to do the unthinkable, Gothard wouldn't get away.

  But first he needed answers.

  His lungs burned with the effort to catch up. Damn, Gothard was fast. But not fast enough. Gothard might be running for his life, but Jason was fueled by fury and a resolve borne of weeks of frustration. His muscles pumped with determination; his jaw gritted with iron will.

  His quarry was nearly within reach.

  He pulled up short when Gothard staggered to the ground.

  He hadn't registered the sharp report of the bullet. But he turned to see the pistol that had shot it. And the woman on the other end of it.

  Emerald MacCallum.

  It hadn't even occurred to him that she was after the reward when he saw her at the inn. He'd thought only of Cait. Now he looked to the ground and Gothard's still, lifeless form. He dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse.

  Dead. Gothard was dead. He frantically searched the limp body, for a letter, a miniature, anything. Anything that would prove or disprove what the man had claimed.

  "He was telling the truth," Scarborough said quietly from behind him.

  Jason sat back on his heels, feeling the unmanly sting of tears in his eyes.

  A crowd was gathering again, people pouring through the doors and out into the garden. Scarborough turned and conducted a hasty, whispered conversation with Lord Darnley. Together they hustled the guests back inside. It took some minutes, and by the time Scarborough returned, Jason had composed himself.

  The gray day had finally delivered on its promise, and a light drizzle fell from the sky. Silently Scarborough walked Jason down the garden path, away from the sight of the body.

  Their brother.

  Jason dropped onto a stone bench, his hands dangling limply between his spread knees, his eyes blindly perusing the wet gravel beneath his feet.

  Scarborough sat beside him. "My mother had an affair with your father before either of them married." His voice was low, his words matter-of-fact. "When he fell in love with your mother, he left mine pregnant. Eventually she was offered to my father as a widow with a young son. She was beautiful, and her family had land that bordered his. Her dowry. He didn't know the truth at the time, but when he learned it later, he forgave her. Their marriage wasn't bad, all things considered."

  Jason's father—the valiant war hero—had had an illicit affair. Had left a pregnant woman. Had left behind a child.

  "Geoffrey was the oldest," Scarborough continued, "but he would never inherit. He resented it. He made my life a living hell."

  "I'm sorry," Jason muttered, feeling somehow as though he were to blame.

  "He never knew who his own father was until our parents died. While going through their things, we found—a letter. From your father to my mother. From that moment, Geoffrey…" Scarborough seemed at a loss for words. His fingers curled into fists. "He lost his mind. It's the only way I can put it. It was as though he finally had somewhere to channel all that hatred. I'm sorry I threw him out, though. If I'd known he would come after you, I'd have coped with him somehow. I feel a substantial burden of responsibility here, and for that I apologize."

  "It's not your fault." Jason shoved the damp hair from his eyes. It was his father's fault. His not-so-perfect father. A human man after all, selfish enough to act in his own interests, a man who had made mistakes.

  Mistakes that Jason had paid for. And little Mary and her mother. And Adam and Caithren, and who knew how many others?

  "I thank you for being so candid." He rose and held out a hand.

  Scarborough stood and grasped it tightly. "I'm sorry."

  "And for jumping in to save me from Gothard's pistol."

  "I was only evening the score. You saved me from his sword. I would never have recognized him in that disguise."

  Their eyes met, man to man. Two men who both did what needed to be done.

  "I'll leave you to your thoughts." With a nod, Scarborough backed away, then turned and walked toward the house.

  "Pardon me, but are you the Marquess of Cainewood?"

  The voice was light and musical, and Jason swiveled and rose to see Emerald MacCallum. By God, she topped him in height. How had he ever insisted that Cait was Emerald?

  Taken aback, he blinked. "Where is your emerald amulet?"

  Her eyes looked puzzled. "My what?"

  "Your…" He shook his head to clear it. "How did you get your name?"

  She grinned. "My birth name is Flora. The first time I went tracking, I recovered a large cache of stolen emeralds. The news sheets called me 'Emerald' MacCallum, and the name stuck."

  Of course. It made perfect sense. Another misconception that had stubbornly lodged in his head.

  "Lord Cainewood…" When she swept off her man's hat, the drizzle beaded on her bright red curls. "I believe you had offered a reward…?"

  He measured her, unblinking. He sensed she was a good woman, drawn to desperate measures. Something he understood now more than ever before.

  And he remembered a man saying she was a mother.

  "You have children?"

  "Aye." Her eyes saddened, and he knew what to do.

  The pouch in his surcoat was heavy. He drew it out and handed it to her.

  Frowning, she spilled the contents into her hand and slowly counted a hundred pounds, then put the rest back.

  "Keep it," Jason said. "All of it."

  "But…there's more than two hundred pounds here! Maybe three. The reward was a hundred." Her expression said she thought he'd lost his mind.

  Perhaps he had. "Keep
it," he repeated. "I didn't exactly want to see justice done this way, but perhaps it is for the best." He shrugged. "As for the money…I would just as soon not picture you chasing men all over England. Go home to your family."

  She smiled, her face transforming. Her eyes brimmed with tears. And once he'd thought that a woman like her would never cry. Another thing he'd been wrong about.

  "Take it and make a life for yourself," he said. "And your children."

  "I will," she breathed. "God bless you, Lord Cainewood."

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Caithren could barely lift her feet to mount the steps to the town house.

  Her father was gone, and now her brother. And, dear God, she'd killed a man. And Jason was gone from her life.

  It was all too much to absorb.

  Ford shoved open the house's front door. "Why is it that anything the authorities are involved in seems to take forever?"

  A sound of derision came from her throat. "I expect they've nothing better to do than be bothersome."

  "Hush, sweet Cait." Cameron patted her arm. "The question was rhetorical. It's been a long day and night, but you can rest now." Stopping short on the threshold, he turned to Kendra and Ford. "Good Lord. You people actually live here?" Clearly aghast, he stared into the plush interior.

  Kendra beckoned him inside. "Father bought it in the pre-war days, before our family's capital was depleted in defense of the king. Jason is cash poor, but he has…things."

  "Jason seems to have plenty of money," Cait disagreed.

  "It's all relative." With a shrug, Kendra started down the corridor. "Come, we'll sit and talk."

  "I don't want to talk," Cait said to her back.

  Cam lifted a brow. "She wants to wallow."

  Reaching the drawing room, Kendra turned with a sympathetic look. "Go on in. I'll stop by the kitchen and ask for some refreshments."

  Cait set her jaw, but followed the men into the room and plopped onto the burgundy brocade couch. Cameron sat beside her, and Ford settled into one of two matching carved-walnut chairs.

  Kendra took the other chair a minute later. "Cait. Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine." Her hands tried to find her amulet, then her laces, and finally fell into her lap. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to kill him."