The Bengal Rubies

by Lisa Bingham

  “Ready, yourself,” he growled. “You are to be wed this evening. I expect you dressed and biddable. If you please me in your efforts, I may let the man live and serve as your lover on future occasions. If you defy me, I will kill him this instant. Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  “Do as I say! I will have you wed to Torbidson. Today. Before you can breed with another man’s child and ruin my chances altogether.” His eyes narrowed, becoming dark and cruel. “And if you are wise, when the man takes you tonight, you will play the virgin. Do I make myself clear?”

  This time, Aloise offered no pithy remark. Once again, she thought of telling him she was already wed, but a blatant fury burned in Crawford’s eyes. The same emotion that must have been there when he had arranged her mother’s death. As well as those of his other wives. If she were to say anything, she had no doubts that Slater would be immediately killed.

  Pushing her roughly aside, he slammed the door closed, locking it behind him.

  Even so, Aloise tugged at the handle, shouted, begged, pleaded, but to no avail. Her father would have his way. In order to protect the man she loved, she would have to comply.

  When Mr. Humphreys came to fetch her, she was dressed in the garnet gown she’d worn the previous day. The timid secretary crept into the room, offering her an apologetic shrug. Aloise didn’t bother to invoke his help. He would not defy his master. He would see she was wed.

  “Your father wishes you to wear the rubies.”

  Sighing, she did as she was told, donning the rings, the earrings, the circlet, and bracelet.

  “Where is the necklace?”

  “I lost it.”

  Mr. Humphreys’s eyebrows soared. “Lost it?”

  When she did not speak, Mr. Humphreys added, “Your father will be most upset if you don’t wear it.”

  “I threw it away. In the pond.”

  Mr. Humphreys was obviously scandalized by such a foolish action, but he didn’t comment other than to say, “I’ll retrieve it immediately. Come, my dear.” He led her into the hall where four guards waited to escort her to the ceremony.

  Aloise fell into step, following the men to the delicate scrolling staircase. She was midway down the treads when she was greeted by the sound of applause and clapping fans. Looking up from where she’d been watching her dark skirts swish around the toes of her shoes, she discovered that her father had invited a good many people to the ceremony. True, they were not the crème de la crème of society, but even if they had little in the way of obvious funds if their worn clothing was any indication, she was sure that they were the sort he wanted to impress. The titled aristocracy.

  The muted strains of Mozart greeted her arrival, filling the air with sounds of lilting sophistication. The mixed aromas of powder and perfume, candles and leather teased her nostrils, becoming heady, overpowering, bringing memories half-remembered and still frightening. Her head swam with them all, ache, throb, so much so that she contemplated bursting away from her envoy and running into the darkness to take deep draughts of the cool evening air. But just when she would have taken her first step, Oliver Crawford melted from the crowd to take her hand. His grip was bruising; his eyes glittered. As if somehow he had sensed a portion of her thoughts.

  “How lovely you look, Daughter.”

  Daughter. Evidently, he still couldn’t bring himself to call her by name. He had bent her to his will, and now meant to break her heart. Yet, she had not atoned sufficiently for him to forgive her gender.

  As he led her through the throng, Aloise wracked her brain for some way to avoid her dilemma. She did not want to marry—she was already married. Drat it all! She was about to commit bigamy!

  But her father’s hold tightened painfully, as if to remind her that he held all of the power. She could only submit.

  He led her into the garden. The music came louder, jangling her nerves. Distant thunder warned her of an approaching storm. An excruciating tattoo beat in her temples—especially when she saw what awaited her. She had briefly seen her prospective mate, Peter Torbidson, at the “auction” and had found him to be an incurable fop. He wore more ruffles and furbelows than any woman she’d ever seen. His skin was completely obscured by a layer of makeup, two bright spots of color carefully painted on his cheeks. He wore a pair of lavender breeches and a darker lavender waistcoat encrusted with pearls. Above, he wore a wig of palest pink topped by a three-folded hat exploding with a riot of ostrich plumes.

  Blast and bother. Her father wanted her to marry that? That!

  “Here you are, Aloise.” Mr. Humphreys hustled to their side, holding the dripping necklace. When her father scowled, he hurriedly explained, “They were in need of cleaning, but I hadn’t the time to dry them off.”

  “Put it on, Aloise.”

  She opened her mouth to refuse, to proclaim she would not be bought, but what was the use? In the clash of wits, her father had emerged the victor.

  Fastening the elaborate piece around her neck, she ignored the way the remaining droplets dribbled down her chest and beneath the facing of her gown.

  “Smile, my dear. We wouldn’t want people to think you’re anything but an ecstatic bride.”

  She couldn’t; she wouldn’t. But when her father’s fingers dug into her skin, Aloise discovered she could.

  The yards to the folly where her groom and the vicar waited seemed an interminable distance, but not nearly long enough. Before Aloise could think of a way—any way—to extricate herself from this situation, Torbidson had taken her hand in his, winked lewdly in her direction, then turned to the vicar.

  “Lud, man, marry us so that I don’t ravish her on the spot.”

  Aloise’s eyes squeezed closed in denial, but when she opened them again, the vicar still squinted at her in confusion, her father glowered, and Torbidson leered.

  “Dearly beloved …”

  Her pulse pounded. Her head ached. This could not be happening to her. It couldn’t. She had found her heart-mate, they had confessed their love. Such avowals were supposed to result in some sort of happily-ever-after. That’s what she had discovered in the novels she’d read.

  But this marriage ceremony was not fiction. It was a horrible, terrible fact.

  Closing her eyes, she prayed for a miracle, prayed for some sort of deliverance. When it did not come, when the dipping sun became obscured by the clouds and the night air chilled the gold about her neck, she steeled herself. She had done what she’d had to do. Slater would understand.

  “… if any man can show just cause—”

  “I can.” The words were dark, molten, filled with a potent possession. “She is already wed to me.”

  Aloise whirled to find Slater, Hans, and Marco striding up the aisle, swords drawn. Clayton and several other gentlemen in uniform waited beyond. Ladies squealed and dodged aside, gentlemen sat with their mouths agape.

  Leveling his weapon toward her father, Slater demanded, “Release her.”

  “Damn you, how—”

  “In your haste to see your daughter wed, you and your men failed to take a good look at your guards, Crawford. A pair of them belong to me.”

  On cue, the two men stripped the elegant wigs of their livery away to reveal the grinning features of a beefy Rudy and a rumpled Louis.

  “Come, Aloise.” Slater held out his hand. “Come to me.

  “Damn it, Torbidson,” her father snarled. “Are you just going to stand there gaping?”

  “I think not, old chap.”

  To Aloise’s infinite amazement, Peter Torbidson tore off his hat and his wig, then removed a kerchief from his pocket and swiped at the thick makeup. She gasped, recognizing Will Curry.

  Curry also drew his sword free. “This match does not prove to my taste. So sorry.”

  “Come, Aloise,” Slater beckoned again.

  She tried to run, but her father snagged her arm, dragging her back against his chest and lifting a pistol to
her temple.

  Aloise felt the breath lock in her body, a surge of pain swell inside her head. From far away, she heard the clamor of voices but she couldn’t think. A woman was screaming. The cries echoed in her brain.

  Aloise. Aloise, hold tightly to me. We mustn’t let your father find us.

  Mama?

  Come along. Missy. The master has asked us pretty like t’ bring ye home.

  No.

  Aloise? Aloise!

  “Get back, McKendrick. You and your men!” This time the shout came from her father, but the words brought another instance to mind. Another night.

  “Mama!” The cry wrenched from Aloise’s throat. In an instant, as if floodgates had been released, she was inundated with a thousand memories. They flew through her head, leaving her with a host of impressions and one overwhelming set of images.

  A stormy bluff.

  Her mother’s body broken and bloody.

  Her father surveying the scene with cool dispassion.

  Then the pain. The overwhelming pain.

  “No!” She fought against her father’s grip with all her might, filled with a remembered panic. “You are responsible for my mother’s death. You!”

  Her father’s skin grew deathly pale and his mouth gaped in disbelief. “Daughter? What—”

  Before she could think of the consequences of her actions, she wrenched the pistol from his hand, then whirled to level it in his direction.

  “Damn you! Why? I needed her.”

  Her father uttered a short laugh, glancing at his guests, then his daughter. “Aloise, listen. You’re mistaken. I don’t know what this man has told you, but—”

  “He hasn’t told me anything. I remember. I remember.”

  “That isn’t possible. You were only a child. After your fall, when you didn’t recall what had happened, I saw to it that you were drugged for a time, so that you …”

  Her father’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d said.

  “You drugged me? You drugged me?” Aloise stared at him in fury. “I was only five years old!”

  “You shouldn’t have been there.”

  “My mother was trying to protect me.”

  “She shouldn’t have left.”

  “Even if she hadn’t died that night, you would have killed her.”

  “No. I loved her. I loved you.”

  “Quiet!” The word was sharp and slightly desperate. Because, in her heart of hearts, she knew the avowals of devotion were simply lies. “It’s too late for that. Fifteen years too late.” She held the pistol with both hands and sighted down the barrel. “Don’t you see? I remember. I know who you are, what you are. I know what you’ve done. You hired those men to bring my mother and me back to Briarwood. There was a fight, a scuffle. One of them took out a knife.” Her voice became hoarse, the pounding of her head excruciating. “I was frightened … so I ran … I ran toward … I…”

  She struggled to recall something, some dim image that refused to focus.

  “I saw the knife. Mother ran to help me … and he killed her.”

  “Silence!”

  “Why? Don’t you want this auspicious crowd to know the truth? How you arrived minutes later and looked down on her body as if it were a broken toy flung onto the rocks? You were glad she was gone. You said as much. I was there! I tried to stop it all, but I couldn’t. Instead, I saw what you did … I tried to get to …” Her eyes widened. “Brannigan?” A horror swelled and the bile rose to her throat. “You killed him. He was the man you hired and you stabbed him in the throat. Then you tried to kill…” She grew still, so very still, turned.

  Slater stood a mere foot away, watching her with sad, quiet eyes. Eyes she knew. Eyes she remembered. A thunder of images swam over her, a library, books, climbing on a kind man’s knee.

  “You?” she whispered, trembling, so cold.

  With his hair tied back in a queue, she realized that she knew him. He too had changed, had become darker, more dramatic. But she knew him.

  “This man,” she whispered. “You tried to kill this man. Matthew Waterton. My … betrothed.”

  A hush settled over the onlookers, then a rumble of murmurs.

  Wrenching away from her astonishing discovery and the wealth of unanswered questions it brought, she turned again to the man in her sights. Crawford had grown still pale. She thought she saw a glimmer of fear. “What else do you plan to hide, Father? Your own impotence? The nefarious plots you hatched to sell your only daughter? Or the way you masterminded the deaths of five other women?”

  “Damn you, stop it. Stop!”

  “I know everything, Papa. Everything. You should have killed me too. You should have known I would remember someday.”

  Crawford blanched. “You showed no signs … I thought I had succeeded in wiping that night completely away.”

  She shook her head in disgust. “No doubt, you also feared the scandal my death might bring so close on the heels of my mother’s. After all, the demise of each of your following wives was carefully planned to prevent any talk.”

  He glared at her, his face growing red in fury.

  “You failed, Papa. You failed to best me. And you failed to defeat this man as well.” Glancing at Slater—Matthew, Matthew Waterton—she felt a great pity rush through her, imagining what the intervening years must have been like for him. “You might have stolen his past, his true identity, but he became a man in his own right. In fact, I would hazard a guess that you made him stronger. More honorable.”

  Aloise saw the way her father trembled. His own daughter had exposed the awful truth. She had brought Crawford’s crimes to the light in front of the very people he had hoped to impress. His reputation was in ruins. His pride destroyed. She hated him for the fact that such facts seemed far more important to him than the way he had affected so many lives.

  Her finger tightened over the trigger.

  A hand curled over her shoulder. “Let him go, Aloise,” Slater urged.

  “No.”

  “He’s your father. Your blood.”

  “No!” This time, the cry came from her father. “No, damn it! She can’t do this to me! She’s a girl. A girl!”

  Aloise closed one eye, her finger tightening, tightening, the metal biting into her skin. The throbbing of her head made it hard to think. She only knew that fathers were supposed to love their daughters. They weren’t supposed to hurt them.

  The hand at her shoulder squeezed ever so slightly. “Don’t stoop to his level, Aloise.”

  He was right. So very right.

  Taking a deep breath, Aloise lowered the weapon and turned to her husband.

  Crawford lunged toward her, wrestling the pistol free. There was a scuffle, shouting, then she was being thrown to the ground as the gun discharged.

  Some minutes passed. Minutes where she waited for the pain, the sensation of oozing blood. It never came.

  “Have you fainted on me again?” Aloise blinked as Slater rolled her to face him. “There isn’t a drop of blood, I assure you.”

  She managed to peek over his shoulder, saw that the uniformed men who had been with Clayton had taken the pistol away and now dragged Crawford bodily to the house.

  He couldn’t hurt her. Not now. Not ever again.

  “What will they do to him?” she asked, curiously saddened by the fact that he would have to pay for all he had done.

  “For now, he’ll be locked in the cellar.”

  “And then?”

  Slater drew her into his arms, sensing her ambivalent emotions, the way her body had been drained of its anger thereby leaving it curiously purged of the need for retribution.

  “He must be punished, Aloise. The families of his late wives will demand it.”

  She supposed he was right. But even after all the heinous things he had done, Aloise discovered she still felt a shred of pity. The man they spoke of was, after all, her father.

  Rolling to his fe
et, Slater reached for her hand. Drawing her to his side, he turned to the bewildered guests. “As the true husband to this beautiful woman, I invite all of you to celebrate the exchange of vows between me”—he withdrew a ruby encrusted band from his pocket and slipped it over Aloise’s finger— “and my beloved bride.”

  The cheers that resulted were caused by the impetus of his men, but the stunning turn in events did not prevent the curious onlookers from drinking and dancing in the hours to come. In fact, what had started as a dull evening soon became a rollicking party. After all, the night had provided enough scandal for a dozen years. There were murders to discuss, secrets to disclose, suspicions to share.

  Through it all, Slater watched as his wife was drawn into the tight-knit circle of select society. The titillating circumstances surrounding her introduction to the aristocracy had made her a coveted prize. He knew it was only a matter of time before the grande dames began inviting her to tea, to fancy-dress balls, and intimate salons. There she would find her niche and the friends she had been denied for so long.

  Slater could have watched her for hours, days. But as the light grew dim and the lanterns were lit, he began to feel the taut expectancy brought on by evening. He was tired. His wife was tired. There were still so many things to discuss …

  Filled with a purpose, he waited until those around them had become slightly inebriated and no longer watched him with such avid attention. Seeing Aloise near the gate that led into the formal gardens, he began to make his way toward her.

  “Excuse me, Baroness,” he murmured to a dowager who had once hired him to instruct her niece. “But I am about to abduct my new bride.” Taking Aloise’s hand, he ignored the nostalgic twinkle in the baroness’s eyes and drew his wife into the darkness.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Away.”

  Leading her to where his stallion had been tethered, he lifted Aloise into the saddle, then swung behind her. Swiftly, he urged the animal far from the incessant din and into the quiet of the night. The ebony shadows seeped into his soul, offering him comfort, but more than that, offering him hope that all would be well.

  “Are you angry with me for not warning you what to anticipate this evening?” he asked some time later when Aloise made no attempt at conversation. “I knew your father would find us this morn. I planned the events, my capture.”