Linda Needham

by The Wedding Night

  “But you have—you’ve wounded me as no one else in the world could.”

  “Please!” She twisted out of his arms and he let her go. “Jack, I’m sorry it turned out this way.”

  “This way? Which way is that, Mairey?” He caught her shoulders and turned her. “That you betrayed me for another man’s treasure?”

  “I didn’t! There’s no other man! How could you think that?”

  “For your own, then? Have you bought your pick and your cart or will you wait until you have found your silver? Damn it, Mairey. There is nothing right about this whole enterprise. I know you. I know your heart and all of its splendor. I know its fullness, because I’ve been mere, Mairey. I’m still there, inside you. In here.” He spread his hand over her belly, his heart aching with all that she’d stolen from them. All their hopes, their happiness. For what? “Tell me why you ran from me.”

  “I can’t, Jack. I never should have loved you.”

  “But you do love me, Mairey. You belong with me.”

  Yet she also belonged here in this glade, among the willows and the maples, where the sun wove its rich traceries into the paleness of her dress. Was she homesick for this place—for her father and mother? For a peaceful village far from the likes of Drakestone House?

  He had crossed the same river three times to find her. He had followed a steep trail through a fragrant meadow, climbed a hillside to these woods. Her woods. And her home, it seemed. The shale hills, too, as they rose like the dorsals of a serpent into the brilliance of the sky. The sort familiar to him, because at their roots, they would be rich in lead and tin and—

  Silver.

  Oh, God. A winding river, a chevron of hills, a forest of willow. His pulse surged with recognition.

  “Christ, Mairey. This is where the Willowmoon led you.”

  She gasped, paled, and caught hold of a branch. “Don’t be absurd, Jack.” But she laughed too brightly, falsely. She paced away through the trees, touching the trunks and fingering the yellowing leaves. “I would have engaged an engineer to meet me here, if I suspected that there was silver hereabout.”

  “Like hell you would have.” He found a likely spot near an outcropping of shale, then knelt down and yanked away the moss, then dug in the sweet-scented earth.

  “What are you doing, Jack?”

  “I’m looking for my silver mine.” Three inches further, and he was scraping at solid, crumbling rock.

  “Stop it, Jack!” She was on her knees beside him, had a fierce hold of his wrist. “Please don’t. If you love me, you’ll stop. We can start over again.”

  But he was already pinching a raisin-sized rock between his fingers, holding its dark, sharp-edged tarnish in front of her. Holy hell! He’d pulled many a nugget from the rivers of the Yukon, but none were ever as pure as this.

  “Silver, Mairey.”

  He’d never seen a face so filled with defeat. She hung her head, her shoulders drooping. “Yes.”

  “You knew where to find the silver from the moment I handed you the Knot. While you lay there in our marriage bed. You recognized the river and this hillside of willows.”

  She said nothing, but rose wearily and turned away from him to look up at the hills.

  “You made plans to leave me, and then you made love to me.” He stood, wishing for understanding. “For auld lang syne, Mairey?”

  Her prideful shoulders shook with a sob. “Because I love you. And I would miss you.”

  She hunched over her knees as though he had beaten her, as though he would.

  He had his answer, and yet something deep inside of him knew that the answer was wrong. This was Mairey, not some greedy industrialist, not a social climber. She was the clear-hearted woman who loved him, who loved their child and her sisters. Who loved the woods and the innocent places. Who had gone to heroic lengths in her devotion to her family and to her father’s memory—

  Her father. There it was, splendid and bright.

  Erasmus Faelyn was buried in the village below. This was Mairey’s home, not a coincidental place she had discovered by following an ancient map.

  “My God, Mairey. The Willowmoon wasn’t legend to you; it was fact. You wanted to find the Knot because it would lead someone like me to the fortune in silver lying just beneath the ground.”

  “Please don’t spoil my village.” The sun lit her face, making shimmering streams of her tears. “Don’t let this beautiful glade come to be like Glad Heath. Let me keep my promise to my father and to my grandfather.”

  “And to all the Faelyns who have ever been? Is that it, Mairey?” Christ, his fierce-hearted wife was a champion like none he had ever known. She hadn’t stolen the Willowmoon Knot; she’d only returned it to what she knew to be its rightful place, driven by promises far older than his own. No wonder she had known his heart so well.

  “Please, Jack. I can’t stay here to see it happen.”

  “I don’t imagine you could.”

  Sweet Mairey. She wasn’t a deceitful, dishonorable thief, but an indomitable warrior, prepared to sacrifice her own life to protect her family—an incomparable woman who would love him till the end of time.

  “Who owns this land, Mairey?”

  “The Crown.” She stood her ground, her chin firm but her face streaked with tears. “It always has.”

  “And the name of your village?”

  “It doesn’t have one. Our family kept it off the maps that way. An unremarked part of Yorkshire, overlooked for its plainness.”

  “But loved for its beauty?”

  Another shattering sob wracked her, and he loved her for it.

  “Please, Jack, don’t bring your blight upon my village. Think of Anna and Caro and Poppy, our unborn child—”

  “Oh, Mairey, my love.” He gathered her into his arms, letting her sob her tears into his waistcoat where they warmed him to the marrow. “I think of them every minute, as I think of my own sisters. I think of the fortune I would gladly give if I could have them back. You see, I always believed that if I opened more mines, one day I might find them.”

  “Jack, you can’t open this one—”

  “Oh, but I could, love. More simply than I had imagined, if this is indeed Crown land. No greedy dukes to include in the royalties—”

  She shoved him away, his lady lioness. “I will fight you, Jack! With every weapon I can find!”

  “I’m sure you would, Mairey.”

  “I’ll raise a strike against you—I’ll burn you out! I’ll speak to the prince consort!”

  Jack didn’t dare smile, let alone laugh, though it bubbled up inside him.

  “Speak to the prince if you feel you must, Mairey, but I think I’ll speak to the queen herself.”

  “Throwing your power as always?” Her chest rose and fell, and her breasts shifted as he loved them to do.

  “I hope it works this time, Mairey.” Choosing between Mairey’s love for him and a hillside rich with silver was the simplest thing he’d ever done.

  Mairey was breathless with fear, and even more alarmed by the sudden change in her husband. He was smiling. No. He was grinning devilishly as he came toward her.

  “So, madam, what will you name this village when it belongs to me?”

  A heartless question. “I hate you, Jack.”

  “No you don’t.” He was stalking toward her, looking confident and horribly pleased with himself. And why not? He had his mine. She had handed it to him on a silver tray.

  “I’m going to fight you, Jack.”

  “No you won’t, my love. You’ll be too busy raising our children.” He lifted her into his arms and kissed her madly. “And I’ll be too busy keeping the secret of the Willowmoon.”

  She pushed against his shoulders, misunderstanding his words for the rushing of her pulse against his. “Keeping the secret from your competitors, while you exploit the hillside.”

  He shook his head. “This is your home, Mairey. I don’t need another silver mine.”

  Hope made
such a clamoring noise in her head that she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “What did you say?”

  “I already have two. And if another means losing you, my love, I don’t want any part of it.”

  There were joyous bells this time, and Jack’s laughter, and the erotic swell of his melody as he made love to her mouth.

  “Look, Caro! Mairey is kissing Lord Jack again!”

  They were at the edge of the woods, coming fast.

  “We’re not alone, wife.”

  “I love you so much, Jack.”

  “I know.” Mairey felt his smile as he closed his mouth over hers; heard the rumble of his laughter. “Does your cottage have a private room for the two of us?”

  “Oh, yes, my love.”

  “Good. Because I plan a good deal of princess-plundering tonight.”

  “Come plunder, my dragon. I am yours forever.”

  Epilogue

  Drakestone House

  Eighteen months later

  “You are a darling tyrant, Lady Rushford.” Lady Arthur shook Mairey’s hand vigorously and started down the front steps of Drakestone House, remarkably agile for a woman of more than sixty.

  “We have to be relentless, Lady Arthur, if we’re going to change the laws to protect the health of miners and their families.” Mairey followed the woman to her phaeton, delighted that this afternoon’s meeting had gone so smoothly and had been so well attended by the wives of peers and parliamentary ministers. “The mining barons certainly aren’t going to spend their profits on research into black lung and poor diet and lack of sunshine unless we force them.”

  “No, indeed. May all the mine owners in Britain beware.” She added with a broad wink, “Your own husband included.”

  “Viscount Rushford is foursquare behind the British Women’s Colliery Health Standards Commission.” Mairey would defend her husband’s honor with her bare hands if necessary. “He’s spent thousands already!”

  “I know, dear.” Lady Arthur’s grin was filled with affable mischief. “I was referring to the fact that his beautiful wife wraps him so easily around her little finger. Good girl.”

  Mairey couldn’t help her flush or her smile. Her dragon had been wrapped around more than her little finger last night—and early this morning, before their son had awakened for his breakfast.

  “Jack does indulge me now and then. He would have joined us today, but there was an important meeting he had to attend.” Jack’s meeting was with little Patrick, and the agenda included diapers and pram-strolling and all those irresistible cooing and smooching noises Jack made to him.

  Hardly a fitting reputation for Britain’s most influential mining baron, but a matchless reputation for a father and husband.

  “Parade your husband for us next time, dear. He’s sinfully handsome, and quite the gentleman.” Lady Arthur waved as her carriage sped away.

  Mairey loved her new crusade and was committed to the fullest, but she had missed her son and his father terribly these last three hours. She gathered up her notes from Jack’s conference table, and left his office for her desk in the library. A picnic would be a fine way to spend the rest of the day.

  The warm afternoon light streamed in through the library windows, scattering rainbows across the room. Her search for father and son ended on the sun-washed carpet. Jack was lying on his back, his head propped on a cushion and his son sprawled loose-limbed across his chest, his long, bronze fingers splayed possessively over Patrick’s diaper-thick bottom.

  They were both snoozing blissfully.

  Mairey felt like weeping for the boundless joy they brought her.

  Jack was never far away from her these days. She had assumed that after a chaotic year of negotiating his way past three little girls and a new wife, and now a son, all of whom adored him, Jack would have grown immune to his family, weary of their demands. But every day he seemed to draw them even closer.

  He encouraged the girls in their pursuits, supported Tattie in her tussles with Sumner, and joined Mairey in her causes.

  And now he held her village and the silvery peaks from the Crown, a landlord with all the powers of the State behind him. He’d kept his promise to keep the glade of the Willowmoon a secret between them, reserved and protected forever under the control of Rushford Mining and Minerals.

  “I love you so, Jack,” she whispered. Patrick stirred, wriggled his nose and his fingers and his toes, and then settled his little cherub cheek against his father’s heart, and Mairey’s breasts reacted on cue. He would be bellowing for a snack in a moment, waking his dear father from a much-needed nap.

  “Come, my little one.” She scooped her baby into her arms, but he slept on, undisturbed even as she settled him into his cradle beside Jack’s desk. Jack looked irresistible, too handsome not to kiss while he slept. She knelt to do so, only to feel her husband’s familiar hand sifting through her skirts, brushing lightly along the inside of her thigh. She gazed down at his eyes, glistening beneath his dark lashes.

  “You were sleeping a moment ago, my dragon.”

  “Dreaming of you, my love…of this, of your scent.” His eyes turned smokey when he found the breach in her drawers, and darkened when she met his questing hand and moaned.

  “Oh, Jack! You’re incorrigible. And wonderful.”

  “And you, my love, are delicious.” He slipped his free hand behind her neck and pulled her close to kiss her. “You finally finished with your meeting?”

  “Oh, yes.” She grew light-headed from his exhilarating caress, but encouraged his exploring. “We voted to petition Parliament for a hundred thousand pounds to establish a visiting medical corps. Oh, my!” She took a sharp breath when he dipped his fingers inside her, and another when he stayed to play.

  “And then what, sweet?” The devil.

  “We had tea—”

  “And?”

  “Then I told the ladies that I had a burning need to make love with my husband, and so I shooed them out, and came looking for you.”

  “And here I am, my love.”

  “You certainly are!” The rogue knew just how to make her sigh and gasp; and a long, breath-stealing moment later she was thoroughly sated, and tucked against Jack’s shoulder.

  And their son slept on in his cradle, as Jack described in detail how brilliant Patrick was—and only nine months old, mind you—and Mairey listened with all her heart, until Patrick woke up starving and wailing.

  Jack wondered how happiness could make his heart ache. Stuffed full, he guessed. Even watching Mairey nurse their son was enough to sting the back of his eyes; the feel of the boy’s hand wrapped around his finger sent him soaring with pride and filled with love.

  Patrick finished his noisy meal and grinned up at his mother with all the besotted joy that Jack felt.

  Could a man be more blessed?

  “I was thinking, Jack, of a picnic.” Mairey was fastening the two ingenious little openings between the copious pleats in her shirtwaist that allowed modesty while she was nursing.

  But Jack was very good at gaining access when his son wasn’t busy there…. “I was thinking, Mairey, of retiring with you to our bed.”

  Her smile aroused him in an instant. She stood with Patrick on her hips and offered her hand to Jack, promising a splendid afternoon as soon as they could get the boy to sleep.

  But then the library door burst open, and Poppy dashed into the room.

  “Michaelmas cakes!” She was carrying a plate of lumpy baked goods. “See!”

  They were the oddest cakes he’d ever seen. Plump with whole acorns and crumbling oats, spiced with bits of sea green moss, bristling with golden straw and glistening with honey.

  “Are these people cakes, Poppy?” he asked, hoping they weren’t, wondering how he would pretend to eat one without injuring her feelings.

  Poppy giggled. “For the horses, silly!”

  “I see,” Jack said, forgiven for his gaff.

  “Are the cakes cool enough yet, Poppy?” Caro aske
d as she came skipping through the door in her riding clothes, older these days, and mad for her new nephew, who seemed to think his young aunt was the funniest thing in the world. She nuzzled his nose with hers. “Hello, my baby duck.”

  Patrick whirled his fists at her and bounced on Mairey’s hip.

  “I’m going to jump the pony today!”

  Jack’s stomach lurched. Mairey shared a look of horror with him, but smoothed her fingers through Caro’s hair. “You mind your teacher, Caroline Faelyn.”

  “Lord Jack!” They heard Anna long before she came clattering through the door in a pair of wooden garden clogs. She would be twelve two months from now, but was fast adding grace to her girlish beauty, and would soon be trailing gangly young men in her wake. Just now, though, she was wearing homespun gardening trousers and a huge, mud-caked shirt.

  “For you, Lord Jack.” She handed him a thick, battered envelope that had suffered far more than her finger smudges.

  The mail came to Drakestone twice a day, and company correspondence flowed up and down the drive like ferries on the Thames.

  This was not that kind of mail.

  “What is it, Jack?” Mairey touched him, shifting Patrick into her arms.

  San Francisco. Addressed in a firm hand to “Jack Rushford, London.” A simple envelope, but his heart was in his throat.

  He had discovered recently that an Emma Rushford had emigrated to America in the spring of 1844, sailing around the Horn to California. His own Emma would have been fourteen, but the manifest hadn’t listed ages, so he had sent inquiries to his contacts in San Francisco.

  He had learned to hold tightly to his hope.

  “Where did you get this, Anna?” he asked.

  “I was out at the end of the drive, and a boy came by with it.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  She blushed through her sunburned cheeks. “Not about the letter. I told him I would deliver it to you straightaway.”

  “Thank you, Anna.” His hands shook as he sliced the envelope open. He felt Mairey’s eyes on him, and absorbed the love that she wrapped him in.