The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla

by Lauren Willig

  As if from very far away, Lucien heard the whisper of Sally’s tunic against the floor, felt her hand on his arm, steadying him.

  Without looking, he groped for her hand, grasping it like a lifeline. “Have you always hated me?”

  Uncle Henry looked at him in surprise. “I never hated you. You always were a good boy.” The words sounded like an elegy.

  Sally tugged on Lucien’s arm, drawing him back with her. “I think it’s time for us to go.”

  “Oh, no,” said Uncle Henry kindly. “I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere at all.”

  He drew his hand from the folds of his Roman costume, revealing a pistol that was anything but antique.

  “You see, I have other plans for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Sally grabbed for her bow, loosing her golden arrow.

  It plunked harmlessly into the silver champagne cooler.

  “Really, Miss Fitzhugh.” Lord Henry looked at her reproachfully. “There’s no need for such histrionics.”

  “I would say that being murdered is every need,” retorted Sally indignantly.

  “‘Murder’ is such a strong word,” said Lord Henry conversationally, his pistol trained on Sally’s chest with an easy competence that suggested his aim might be somewhat better than Sally’s.

  Sally knew she ought to have paid more attention to the archery at their archery lessons rather than hiding behind a tree with the latest Cosmopolitan Ladies’ Book.

  “I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding,” Lucien said soothingly, moving carefully forward.

  Sally, with a twist of the heart, realized exactly what he was trying to do. He was trying to step in front of her, to shield her with his body.

  “Yes,” agreed Uncle Henry, moving to keep his pistol trained on Sally. “Miss Fitzhugh was never meant to be here. However,” he added, with a cheerfulness that Sally found highly unnerving, “this might just be even better. It will make a very affecting scene. The duke, having, in a fit of mania, poisoned his betrothed, slays himself in remorse. Shakespeare couldn’t do better.”

  “I’ve never liked those plays where everyone dies in the end,” said Lucien. From the corner of her eye, Sally saw him flick his wrist, such a tiny movement that she thought she had imagined it, until he did it again.

  “Yes, it clutters up the stage awfully.” Sally’s eyes met Lucien’s, and what she saw there warmed her to the core. Whatever happened, they were a team, working in concert.

  She would just prefer to be a team in life, rather than death.

  “Like Romeo and Juliet,” Sally said at random, edging slightly towards the right, as Lucien had indicated. “I’ve never understood why everyone loves that play so. The hero and heroine are annoying and the ending is depressing.”

  Lord Henry swung the pistol in her direction. “Stop right there, Miss Fitzhugh.”

  Sally stopped. She opened her eyes wide. “You wouldn’t want to spoil your affecting scene by shooting me. Bullet holes are so uncouth.”

  “At this point,” said Lord Henry, “I am prepared to take that risk.”

  There was something in his expression that said he meant it.

  “I imagine,” said Sally kindly, attempting to keep his attention away from Lucien, “that it must be very provoking to have quite so many of your plans go awry.”

  “I understand that I have you to thank for that.” Lord Henry didn’t sound at all thankful.

  Sally felt for an arrow in what she hoped was a subtle fashion. “One does what one can.”

  “Not any longer,” said Lord Henry, and cocked his pistol. “I have a new plan. Duke shoots his betrothed and then shoots himself in a fit of remorse. It’s not as tidy as poison, but it will serve.”

  “Let her go.” Lucien’s voice rang out from two yards to Sally’s left. He held up his empty hands. “Take me. That’s what you want. She’s nothing to do with anything.”

  Lord Henry’s pistol swung away from Sally. “I might just,” said Lord Henry, and took aim.

  There was no time to notch an arrow. Sally grabbed for the first thing she found in her quiver.

  “Kill, Lady Florence!” she shouted, and flung the outraged stoat at Lord Henry’s head.

  It worked rather better than Sally had expected. Lord Henry dropped to his knees, flinging up his arms to shield his head as ten pounds of furious fur and muscle landed on his shoulder, claws scrabbling for purchase in the fabric of his toga.

  The pistol clattered to the ground, going off with an explosion that filled the room with acrid black smoke. The pistol ball ricocheted off the silver wine cooler. Sally didn’t wait to see where it went. She flung herself on the floor, only to be mashed to the ground by a heavy male form as Lucien flung himself on top of her.

  “Down!” he barked, holding out his arms to shield her.

  “Umph,” said Sally, which, if she was thinking about it, translated a little to “I love you” and a lot to “Ouch, you’re squishing me.”

  An uncanny howl rose from Lord Henry, spiraling to a soprano shriek as Lady Florence bit down hard on the back of his neck.

  In the middle of it all, there was the sound of feet pounding against the flagstones and shouting and jostling and someone yelling, “Sit on him! Sit on him! Before he gets away!” followed by an indignant “Agnes! That was my foot!”

  “Sorry,” said Agnes’s familiar voice.

  “I say,” came Sally’s brother’s voice, sounding rather more cheerful than the situation warranted. “Are those puddings?”

  “Don’t eat anything!” Sally attempted to lift her smoke-grimed face from the floor and encountered an expanse of scratchy red velvet blocking her view. “I think the cavalry has arrived,” she croaked into Lucien’s chest.

  Lucien rolled off her. “I think it has,” he agreed.

  Struggling to a sitting position, Sally saw a series of scratches on Lucien’s face, including a rather nasty one above his right eye, which was oozing blood in a piratical fashion.

  Sally touched a finger to the corner of the scratch. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  She wasn’t referring to his wounds. Not those wounds, at any rate.

  Lucien glanced back over his shoulder, where his uncle was curled in an unhappy ball on the floor, Agnes sitting on his chest, Lizzy standing guard over him with her scepter at the ready, as Lady Florence complacently licked her own tail.

  “I will be,” he said, and Sally opened her mouth to tell him not to be stoic, when he silenced her by adding, with a look that made her go warm down to her toes, “Thanks to you.”

  Sally did her best to shrug, which wasn’t as easy as one would think when one was partially prone, in a dress that showed an alarming tendency to slip off her shoulder, one strap having been ruptured in the fray.

  “Well. You know,” said Sally, looking up at him with her heart in her eyes, “anyone would have done the same.”

  “You say that,” said Lucien, holding out a hand to help her up. “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

  His hand closed over hers, large and firm and safe. He was safe now, Sally realized. It was all over. The villain had been apprehended. The mystery was solved.

  “What do you think it means?” she asked, her hem getting all tangled underfoot because her eyes were on his face rather than her feet.

  “I think,” said Lucien, his eyes very bright in his powder-grimed face, “that it means that you are magnificent.”

  Someone let out a loud harrumph behind them.

  “Don’t let us interrupt you,” said Miss Gwen loudly. She slapped her purple parasol impatiently against her palm. “Just because we have the villain in custody.”

  “You mean, Sally has the villain in custody,” said Lucien. Sally tried to tug her hand away, but Lucien held it fast. “She was the one who
figured it all out.”

  That reminded Sally. . . . “Spies?” said Sally, looking pointedly at Miss Gwen.

  “You were the ones who came along prattling about spies,” said Miss Gwen loftily. “I only drew the obvious conclusions. How was I to know it was all a petty matter of inheritance?”

  “Petty?” Sally sputtered. Her eyes flew to Lucien, magnificent and bedraggled, his face scarred, his doublet charred. But alive. Wonderfully, gloriously alive. “Petty?”

  “Ah, well,” said Miss Gwen, with magnificent condescension. “At least we need waste no more time on this matter.”

  “What about the puddings?” inquired Turnip, browsing among the comestibles. “What? Nothing like a rescue to raise the appetite, and all that.”

  “Fourteen lobster patties weren’t enough?” said Miss Gwen. She poked her parasol in Sally’s general direction. “Go on. Say your good-byes.” She consulted the watch pinned to her bodice. “If you cry off, we can go home and I can finish another chapter before Tuesday.”

  What if she didn’t want to cry off? But that wasn’t her decision to make. Sally looked at her duke, and knew that wherever he went and whatever he did, he would always be her duke. Even if he didn’t know it.

  “Well, then,” Sally said, playing for time.

  “Don’t,” Lucien said. His voice was hoarse with smoke; the words came out in a croak. It still sounded like music to Sally. “Don’t cry off.”

  Sally cocked her head, trying not to let the hope show in her eyes. “Tonight?”

  “Ever.” The word seemed to echo in the air between them. Lucien took a deep breath, taking his heart in his hands. “Stay here. With me.”

  “Was that a proposal?” whispered Agnes.

  “It did seem to be missing certain key words,” commented Lizzy. “Like ‘will you’ and ‘marry me.’”

  Lucien wished all of them to perdition. He held out his hands to Sally, twining his fingers through hers.

  “Don’t go. I meant what I said before. I don’t have much to offer—”

  Miss Gwen emitted a loud snort.

  Lucien ignored her. “—but what I do have is yours.” He used their joined hands to draw her closer, trying to keep his voice light as he wheedled, “You know you’ll make a brilliant duchess.”

  Sally looked up at him, her blond brows drawing together. “Is that the only reason you want me to stay? Because you need a duchess? To go with all this?”

  It would be easy to pretend that that was all it was. A dynastic alliance. An attempt to prevent scandal or save her reputation. But that would be a lie.

  “I don’t need a duchess. I need you. I need you hectoring and meddling—”

  “Really!” Sally tried to pull her hands away, but Lucien held them fast.

  “—and bedeviling my relatives and bewitching my servants and making the room brighter simply by being in it.” Once started, Lucien couldn’t stop. “That night you blundered into my garden was the luckiest night of my life.”

  “Oh,” sighed Agnes, hugging her sheep.

  “If I were you,” commented Lizzy, “I would say yes.”

  “He hasn’t asked me anything yet,” said Sally.

  Lucien couldn’t stop the smile that tugged on one corner of his mouth. “Oh, is that what you were waiting for?” He dropped down on one knee, trying not to wince as his knee struck the flagstones. “Miss Sally Fitz—”

  “Her real name is Sarah,” provided Turnip helpfully. “Sarah Claribelle Dulcinea Fitzhugh. Shouldn’t want to plight the troth in a shoddy way.”

  Sally rolled her eyes to the ceiling in an extremity of annoyance.

  “Claribelle?” repeated Lucien.

  “Have you met my family?” said Sally, through gritted teeth. “I count myself fortunate it wasn’t Aubergine.”

  Lucien felt a bubble of laughter swell in his chest, and with it, a sense of well-being so powerful that it seemed to bathe the whole room in sunshine.

  When he thought of this place in the future, it wouldn’t be with sorrow or fear, but with the memory of this moment, the moment when he asked the most important question of his life.

  “Miss Sarah Aubergine Fitzhugh, will you do me the honor of not breaking our betrothal? If it helps,” he added, as an aside, “I’ll even pretend to admire your weasel.”

  “Stoat,” Sally corrected him, looking down her nose. “She’s a stoat. And Dabney will be very cross with you if you’re unkind to Lady Florence.”

  “It’s not Dabney I’m worried about,” said Lucien, whose knees were beginning to feel just a little uncomfortable. “Besides, I owe a debt to Lady Florence. And her owner.”

  Sally looked down at him, and a shadow passed across the clear blue of her eyes. “I don’t want you to marry me to cancel a debt.”

  This whole kneeling thing didn’t seem to be working very well. He would prefer to speak to Sally as they did best: eye to eye. As equals.

  Lucien hauled himself to his feet. “I want to marry you because I love you,” he said bluntly.

  “Oh,” said Sally, and, for a moment, there wasn’t anything imperious about her at all. Her hands tightened on his. She made an attempt to reclaim her dignity. “Well, if that’s the way you feel . . .”

  Miss Gwen murmured something that sounded like “Ha! I knew it.”

  “I love a love match,” said Turnip happily.

  From the floor, Uncle Henry emitted a loud groan. That was followed by a thunk, into which Lucien decided not to inquire too closely, although he suspected that it might have had something to do with Lizzy’s scepter.

  Lucien turned so that his back blocked the lot of them. “Well?” he asked, settling Sally’s dangling diadem straight on her head. “Will you have me?”

  Sally lifted her head proudly. For the benefit of their audience, she said, loudly, “Only because Lizzy tells me that crying off will do terrible things to your reputation.”

  Lucien raised a brow. “Oh?” he said gently.

  Biting her lip, Sally lifted her eyes to his. Lucien could see the laughter in them, and the resignation. And the love. “And because I can’t imagine living without you,” she said ruefully. “It’s very vex—”

  Lucien couldn’t help it. He had to kiss her. It didn’t matter if she was in the middle of a word. A kiss was absolutely imperative.

  From the way Sally’s arms twisted around his neck, she seemed to agree.

  It was some time before they pulled apart to arm’s length, Sally’s cheeks rosy, her hair tousled, and her eyes glowing.

  “—very vexing,” she finished triumphantly, if somewhat breathlessly. “I didn’t mean to go falling in love with you, you know.”

  “I know,” Lucien agreed. “I know.”

  He rested the tip of his nose against hers, thinking of the strange and tortuous paths by which they had arrived at this moment. He lifted his head, looking into the bright blue eyes that were all the seas he needed to sail and all the sky he needed to see.

  From now on, his future was here, with Sally.

  There was just one thing. Lucien rested his hands on his betrothed’s shoulders. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said solemnly.

  Sally drew a deep breath that did further damage to her ruined tunic. “Anything,” she said recklessly.

  “My dearest love . . .” Lucien cradled her face tenderly in his hands. “Just what do you have against chickens?”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Cambridge, 2004

  The plastic pumpkin rocked on its dented base. I hastily steadied it before it could spill candy out across the floor.

  “Did you say you’re leaving Selwick Hall?”

  Colin spoke through a mouthful of candy pumpkin. “Leasing.” He swallowed the orange goop and tried again. “I’m leasing Selwick Hall.”

&n
bsp; I stared at him. “I thought you were breaking up with me,” I said numbly.

  “Would I be here if I were breaking up with you?” Colin grimaced, wiping his sticky lips with the back of his hand. “This stuff is vile.”

  “Here.” I thrust the plastic pumpkin at him. “Have a Snickers to clear your palate. Leasing Selwick Hall. Why are you leasing Selwick Hall?”

  Colin had moved heaven and earth to hold on to Selwick Hall. Since his father died, it had been his home, his project, his world.

  A dark suspicion entered my mind. “Has Jeremy—”

  “No.” Colin held up his hands. “Jeremy hasn’t done anything. He’s been quite helpful, really.”

  “Then—why?” I looked helplessly at Colin. “I don’t get it. You love Selwick Hall.”

  Or, at least, I’d always assumed he did. But maybe love didn’t translate to wanting to stay there.

  I’d always said I loved grad school, and look at me.

  “You here. Me there,” Colin said patiently. “If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain . . . Unless you don’t want me to, that is.”

  “I’m not sure I like being compared to a mountain,” I said numbly. This was so beyond anything I had expected. Colin leave Selwick Hall?

  “You’re not the mountain; I’m the mountain.” Colin tugged at his tie. “Nothing is definite yet. It’s all still in the planning stages, but there are some Americans who are interested.” When I didn’t say anything, he added, “They’re friends of Jeremy’s.”

  Of course. They would be. Colin’s stepfather/cousin lived a very transatlantic life.

  Colin squirmed himself out of the dent in the center of the cushion where the springs had long since expired. “Look, I realize it’s a bit of cheek inviting myself into your life. If you don’t like the idea—”

  He was, I realized, nervous. Palm-sweating, tie-tugging nervous.

  And I? Was beyond words. “Like the idea? I love the idea. I— Wow!”

  The idea of Colin without Selwick Hall was mind-boggling. Colin giving up Selwick Hall for me—I didn’t even know how to react to that. A proposal would have been easy. This—this meant so much more.