Blackhaven Brides (Books 5–8)

by Lancaster, Mary

  Caroline’s jaw dropped. “That is ridiculous! He cannot say such things!”

  “I am afraid your waltz at the castle was noted by many. After all, he did not dance with anyone else. And now you are engaged to his cousin. It fits Swayle’s story, which is always more interesting than the truth.”

  “I wish I had the luxury of not caring what people say,” Caroline said intensely.

  “So do I,” Mrs. Gallini agreed. “Women who must work are at the mercy of all.”

  Caroline’s smile was twisted. “What comforting thought you bring me, Signora.”

  Casting a quick glance behind her at Javan, the singer lowered her voice further. “I wanted to be sure you did not believe these calumnies against him. We are old friends, he and I, and after what he suffered at the hands of the French, it makes me angry if his own people abuse him, too,”

  “He was a prisoner of the French, I believe.”

  “For several months.” The singer’s gaze was direct. “They tortured him.”

  The blood drained from Caroline’s face. “Why?” she whispered.

  Mrs. Gallini shrugged. “The kind of fighting he did. They assumed he knew secrets.”

  “Dear God…” No wonder he had nightmares from which he sought to escape. No wonder he had betrayed San Pedro or was afraid that he had.

  And in reality, when he finally had escaped his terrible prison, when he reached home, he had found his wife with her lover, a daughter who couldn’t speak, and a lot of vile rumors and accusations. With the flood of pity came the beginnings of an understanding. He doubted his worth.

  “He is a proud man, Miss Grey,” the singer said quietly. “But a lost one. I do not pretend to know what’s going on between the three of you, but please, please do not let him down.”

  Whatever she had expected of Mrs. Gallini, it was not this. “How are you friends?” she blurted, for the first time doubting her assumptions of their past, if not present intimacy.

  “In my profession, I travel,” Mrs. Gallini replied. “I sang in Spain for Joseph Bonaparte…and for Lord Wellington, which is where I met Javan. He escorted me safely out of Spain, when it was time for me to return to Italy. And we met again after I escaped to England.” She spread her fan, raising it to her face. “He is a fascinating man, Miss Grey, but he never loved me. And if I ever loved him, it was only a very little. I have a…weakness, it seems, for strong Englishmen.”

  Mrs. Gallini sat back, smiling, as Lady Serena drew away from the pillar and two gentlemen entered the box. As the world went on around her, Caroline felt a little as if she’d been struck on the head. Javan doubted her to some extent at least because he doubted himself. In his heart, he suspected she preferred Richard.

  What she didn’t know, of course, was how he felt about her. A few kisses to a man, a soldier, didn’t necessarily mean anything. He’d been starved of female company for some time, and the times he’d touched her had been in moments of stress or drunkenness. Her heart tightened painfully. She didn’t want to be just anyone to him. She wanted to be his all, as he, God help her, was hers.

  Tears gathered threateningly in her throat, but fortunately, the curtain went up again and she could focus on the stage.

  It was only as they finally left the theatre that the inevitable encounter between Javan and Swayle occurred. Although he’d wandered out of the box to stretch his legs a few times, he never seemed to have met the man he regarded as his enemy.

  Perhaps Swayle grew too bold. Though he really didn’t want to encounter Javan, Benedict’s over-casual attitude must have given Swayle the wrong impression of his observational skills. In company with Serena and Tamar, Caroline was following the Benedicts out the theatre door when Swayle stepped up to her from the shadows.

  “Miss Grey,” he said nervously. He licked his lips, his gaze flickering to right and left. As well it might, for several people seemed to be avidly watching the encounter.

  Caroline inclined her head and would have walked on, only he took a step nearer. “Please, Miss Grey, I wish only to be assured of your wellbeing.”

  To her relief, for she did not want there to be a fight, Richard had walked on without noticing. Javan, however, paused and turned slowly to face her and Swayle. The eyes of the two men met, the one large, scarred, and just a little frightening, the other slight and fragile and, apparently, bravely facing up to the monster.

  Don’t hit him. Please don’t hit him…

  With an effort, Caroline forced her shoulders to relax and bestowed the most dazzling smile she could summon. “As you see, sir, I am very well. Very well indeed.” She stepped nearer Javan and set the tips of her fingers on his proffered arm. Paying no more attention to Swayle, she prattled, “Did you enjoy the play, sir? I found it quite charming.”

  “Nicely done,” Javan murmured. “Thank you.”

  “It does not suit my dignity to be thought afraid of you,” she said coolly.

  “Nor mine.”

  There was time for little more. Lord and Lady Tamar were going to the hotel for supper, and so said farewell to Caroline and the Benedicts.

  “Did that little slubber speak to you, Caroline?” Richard demanded as he climbed into the coach beside her.

  “He timed it well. I think he meant to separate me from you both and see what trouble he could cause in front of the crowd.”

  “She sent him about his business with a most believable display of happiness,” Javan observed. “I don’t really understand why he’s still here.”

  “I expect he thinks you won’t hit him now that he has a walking stick,” Richard said.

  Javan curled his lip.

  “Seriously,” Richard added, “I think he’s looking for revenge against you for making him look like the cur he is when Louisa died.”

  Javan scowled. “I don’t want him skulking in Blackhaven when Rosa’s there.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The following morning, for the first time in several days, Caroline woke with a feeling of optimism. The silly engagement to Richard could easily be fixed and the world made right if Javan only cared for her a little. And as she began to understand him more, she thought he did. Now, she could try to help him heal.

  She sat up as the maid crept in with her washing bowl.

  “Oh, you’re awake, Miss,” the girl said. “Good. There’s a letter here, came for you yesterday, but you’d gone out already.”

  As the maid laid it on the bedside table, Caroline saw that it was from her sister Eliza, which was rare enough to intrigue her. Breaking the seal, she spread out the sheet and began to read.

  A second later, she held the back of her hand to her cheek in fear and shock. Peter was worse, dangerously so, and more money was necessary for the doctor.

  She was out of bed and throwing on her clothes before she’d even finished reading, let alone planned what she must do. It was still early, so if she could persuade Williams to drive her to Carlisle immediately, she might just catch the Edinburgh mail coach and be home by the evening. Hastily, she threw her spare gown and undergarments into her bag and left by the passage door.

  Hurtling downstairs, she almost crashed into Richard, coming in the opposite direction.

  “Woah, there,” he exclaimed. “Where’s the fire?”

  “Home,” Caroline said distraught. “I have to go home. Do you think I could borrow Williams to drive me to Carlisle? Oh, and if I don’t have time to write, can you tell Rosa I’ll only be gone a few days, and apologize to Mr. and Miss Benedict—”

  “Slow down,” Richard begged. “If there is a family emergency, of course I’ll drive you to Carlisle—or all the way home, if you prefer. Let me get my man and then we’ll go.”

  Caroline seized her bonnet and cloak from their usual place, ignoring the foolish ache as she glanced along to the study door. Alert for sounds of Richard’s return, she dashed into the drawing room and scribbled a note to Javan. There wasn’t time to write much. Richard clattered down the stairs and the c
lop of horses’ hooves heralded the speedy arrival of his curricle in front of the house. In the end, she wrote only,

  My dear Sir,

  Forgive me, I have gone to Scotland. Please assure Rosa I shall return in a few days. My apologies to you and to Miss Benedict.

  Yours humbly,

  Caroline Grey.

  She barely had time to fold it and prop it up on the mantle shelf before she ran out to join Richard. In no time, she was seated beside him, her familiar, battered carpet bag on her lap, while Richard, with a practiced flick of his wrists, set his spirited team of horses into motion.

  As she drew away from Haven Hall, she had the peculiar fantasy that her heart was being ripped from her body.

  *

  Marcus Swayle was barely awake when the villainous but useful Mr. Miller—Killer Miller to his friends—was brought before him. From his bed, propped up on pillows, Swayle regarded his most recent henchman with disfavor.

  “They’re on the move,” Miller informed him.

  “Who are?” Swayle demanded testily. He wasn’t at his best before his morning cup of tea.

  “Folks at Haven Hall. Two of ‘em at any rate.”

  When no further information was forthcoming, Swayle snatched his tea from his valet and glared at Miller. “Which two?”

  “Benedict and the young lady.”

  Swayle paused with his tea half way to his lips. “Indeed?” he said softly. “Now you interest me, my friend. And…er…where are they on the move to? Blackhaven?”

  “No, sir, they took the north road.”

  Swayle almost choked on his tea and hastily set down his cup. “Truly? Then they are eloping? This is wonderful! He’s got so angry that she engaged herself to his cousin that he’s dragging her to Gretna Green!”

  Miller scratched his head. “Glad we’re pleased by the turn of events.”

  “We most certainly are. Now you must hurry, my man. Ride after them, and on a quiet piece of road, shoot her.”

  Miller blinked. “Shoot her? Got no call to go shooting women! I thought it was this Benedict we was out to get?”

  “Idiot, sirrah! We do get him! The world thinks he shot her, just as he killed his wife, my sainted Louisa. At best, Benedict’s hanged for it. At the least, he loses what’s left of his reputation and is furious besides at losing his latest toy.”

  “Toy?” Miller said, bewildered.

  Swayle scowled. “The governess, whom you will have shot.”

  Miller’s low brow tugged further down his face as he stared at Swayle. “Can’t go around killing gentlefolk,” he said at last, with a trace of regret.

  “She isn’t gentlefolk, she’s the governess!”

  Miller appeared to be considering this while he stroked his unshaven chin. “Very well,” he pronounced. “One thing you might not have considered.”

  Swayle almost laughed in his face. The very idea that the brutal imbecile Miller might have thought of something Swayle hadn’t was really quite exquisitely humorous. But Swayle was in a good mood now. “What might that be?” he inquired with patience.

  Miller let his grubby hand drop from his face. “Not entirely sure which Benedict it is. What if it’s the cousin?”

  Swayle’s mouth dropped open. “The cousin? Richard? Don’t you know?”

  “No. Couldn’t skulk in their stables, now, could I? They look the same over the kind of distance I was at.”

  Swayle finished his tea and rattled the cup against the saucer for more. As his valet obliged, pouring from the pot, he glared at his henchman, reminding himself that he wasn’t called Killer Miller for nothing.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said at last. He opened the bedside cabinet and took out a monogrammed handkerchief. It bore the initials JB, lovingly embroidered by some dead Benedict no doubt. Swayle had taken it long ago, with many other things, when he’d lived in Javan’s house. “Leave this close to the scene. It will be enough to prove Javan Benedict’s presence there. He might just as well shoot the girl for eloping with his cousin. The important thing is she gets shot and Javan Benedict gets the blame.”

  Miller pocketed the handkerchief with a smooth, speedy movement that spoke volumes for his previous career as a pickpocket.

  “Well, I will shoot her,” he agreed at last. “But I ain’t killing her if I can help it.”

  Swayle cast his eyes to heaven. “You have to kill her! Otherwise, she’ll inform against you!” Or, at least, claim Javan’s innocence, which didn’t suit Swayle at all.

  Miller looked back at him with unexpected contempt. “You’d better pray she don’t. Because if I get collared for this, so do you.”

  With that, Miller sauntered out of the room. Swayle waved his hands urgently at his valet to follow and make sure the disreputable assassin left the hotel by the back stairs.

  *

  Javan was surprised by a morning visit from his daughter before he had even left his bedchamber. Dressed in his old walking clothes, he was gazing out of the window, contemplating a long walk with Tiny to strengthen his injured leg, when Rosa burst in with barely a knock. She looked as if she were about to cry.

  “What is it?” he asked, going to her at once.

  For answer, she seized his hand and tugged him out of his chamber in the direction of the schoolroom. Happy enough to oblige—for it was time, past time, that he spoke to Caroline like an adult—he walked into the schoolroom.

  Caroline was not there. However, the connecting door to her bedchamber was open, and Rosa dragged him toward it. Now at last, he pulled back.

  “Rosa,” he objected. “No. Is Miss Grey ill?”

  Impatiently, she pulled free of his hand and ran into the bedchamber, waving her arms around to show him that it was empty.

  “She’ll be in the kitchen, eating breakfast and waiting for you,” he said. “Go and find her.”

  Rosa shook her head vehemently, pointing at her eyes and then downward to show she’d already looked for her governess downstairs. Then she walked to Miss Grey’s wardrobe and opened the door. Only the peach evening gown hung there. Of the other gowns he’d seen her wear, there was no sign. However, it felt quite wrong to be in the room like this, and despite a twinge of definite unease, Javan refused to go through her possessions, or allow Rosa to do so.

  He pulled her out of the room. “You mustn’t pry into her things,” he said severely. “Perhaps she’s gone for a walk. Tiny was barking earlier, so she might have taken him. Is your aunt up yet?”

  Marjorie was discovered in the drawing room, staring at a sheet of paper which she held in front of her.

  Slowly, she raised her eyes to Javan’s and held the paper out to him. He strode forward and twitched it from his sister’s fingers. A note from Caroline—brief, impersonal, and apologetic.

  His ears began to sing. “Scotland…”

  “She went with Richard,” Marjorie said with difficulty. “I saw them from my window.”

  Javan gripped the letter so tightly that it began to tear. He sank onto the arm of the nearest chair. “What have I done?” he whispered.

  He’d driven her away, made life impossible for her. She could have been his. He’d seen it in her eyes, gloried in it, and yet chosen to punish her for his own lack of confidence. He should have claimed her the night in the library. Instead, he’d let Richard be the gentleman. He knew instinctively she did not love Richard. So how had he let it get to this? He was destroying himself and everyone he loved all over again.

  And God help me, I do love her…

  Without a word, he walked out of the room and downstairs to his study. Tiny, lying in front of the fire, lifted his head hopefully, but Javan only closed the door and walked to his desk like some clumsy automaton.

  I can live without her. I can live with this grief, too…

  Only, why should he? Why should Rosa? Why should Caroline? She belonged to him and his family, and he would never be complete without her. But what propelled him into sudden action was the knowledge that neithe
r would she be whole without him. A hundred tiny looks and smiles and blushes had told him that. The way she trembled at his touch and gasped at his nearness. He’d soaked them up like water to a drowning man and never realized how much he valued them. How much she had given him, how much she had risked because she couldn’t help this love any more than he could.

  With an oath, he strode out of the room, yelling for Williams and his horse.

  “Rosa!” he called up the staircase. “I’m going to bring her back! Stay with your aunt and be good!”

  *

  When Richard had gone, Marjorie sat down by the drawing-room fire with Rosa at her feet. They both gazed into the flames, each thinking, no doubt, much the same thoughts about the same people.

  To Marjorie, there had always been something not quite right about Richard’s engagement to Miss Grey. Not that the girl wasn’t pretty, cultured, charming, and well-mannered in the quietly-spoken way Marjorie most admired, but it had seemed to her that any tendre Miss Grey might harbor beneath her severe and civil exterior, was for Javan. Not that she suspected the governess of inveigling him into marriage, as it was rumored she had tried with the Earl of Braithwaite.

  Although that had been Marjorie’s first fear, the day Miss Grey had arrived and she had thrown the cake… She’d known if it had missed Javan it was liable to hit the governess. Marjorie cast the troubled memory aside. That had been a bad day, but she’d recovered, and observed Rosa’s growing brightness, and Javan’s. Particularly Javan’s. And she had discovered the new governess to be a kind and sensible young woman.

  Somehow, Caroline Grey had got under all their skins. She was a comfortable companion, interesting to converse with, witty when she chose to be, and had enough fun in her ill-dressed person to appeal to Rosa. Marjorie was aware that theirs was an odd household full of damaged people, but Miss Grey had never appeared to judge. She accepted them all and quietly went about making things better.

  Until this odd engagement to the mischievous Richard. Marjorie liked Richard, and she was aware he thought the world of Javan. Could he not see that his betrothal hurt Javan?