The Spy’s Convenient Bride: The Macalisters, Book Five

by Taylor, Erica

  “I will keep her safe, but you see now this is no base for you to build your life upon. The time has come for you to choose.” Quan smirked as Luke absorbed the truth of his words. “Don’t mess this up, my lord. You won’t find another woman willing to put up with you.”

  Luke sighed as he turned to survey the chaos before him.

  “I wonder if you might refrain from the ‘I told you so’s.” Halcourt’s expression was apologetic.

  Luke glared at him, his humor for this man turning quickly to contempt. “This could have all been avoided, if you’d listened to me years ago.”

  Halcourt sighed, and they watched as Adam Poppins was walked out the doors, his hands clapped in irons. “Yes, I suppose it might have been. He fooled me as well, they both did. But I am listening now.”

  * * *

  Colette, Martin, and Poppins were sent to Newgate Prison to await trial.

  Luke, Redley, and Halcourt, as their reporting officer, notified the Foreign Minister of the developments, but as it was the night of the royal wedding, all official reports were to wait until morning. By the time he’d made his way to Norah’s, Vivian had been asleep. Waking her seemed cruel.

  She was gone from the bed the next morning.

  Trevor informed him, “the ladies thought they should at least appear to be going about the normal business of being society ladies so as not to appear as if anything was out of the ordinary.” Luke accepted Vivian and Norah’s wisdom on such matters and reluctantly returned to Carlton House.

  Hours passed in Carlton House, and then at the office of the Foreign Minister, and again in Carlton House. Luke presented Redley’s information over and over, Halcourt chiming in where he had information to fill in about Poppins and Martin. Redley was there, but there was not much to add, as he’d given Luke every piece of information he’d been able to unearth. He managed a few sentences here and there, mostly from his rehearsed repertoire, to avoid appearing completely deranged.

  At the end of the day, Luke found a moment alone with Redley, eager to speak with him. But when the moment came, nothing seemed sufficient.

  Redley watched as Luke struggled with words, something he was not accustomed to. He wanted to be angry at Redley, to berate him for involving Vivian, but none of it seemed to matter now.

  “I understand why you did it this way,” Luke told him. “Though I do not like it, it was the only way for me to see this life for what it truly is.”

  Redley made some movements with his hands, tracing a V through the air with his finger.

  “Vivian is alright, I think,” Luke replied. “She is with my sister. I am on my way to see her now.”

  Redley made some more movements with his hands before releasing a deep, weary sigh. His hands tightened to fists at his sides, and his jaw tightened as he swallowed hard.

  “I am sorry to have… involved you both as I did.”

  Luke blinked in surprise. It wasn’t one of his rehearsed statements, and it wasn’t a one-word answer. Luke knew how much effort that must have taken him.

  Luke chuckled. “I know you are. And honestly, for the briefest moment, I didn’t even care if you had been a traitor. You are my friend, Redley, my family. All I wanted was for you to be safe. I did this because I felt I owed you that much. For the years you’ve stood with me while we faced our individual demons, this was how I thanked you.”

  Redley’s jaw clenched and he looked away. Luke didn’t need him to say anything more.

  “Come for dinner next week. Or a drink, or… something. I suspect things will be quieter. Vivian and I can tell you all about our adventures these past weeks.”

  Redley smiled softly and nodded.

  A clock chime echoed down the hall, marking the time. Luke turned towards the sound, counting the chimes. It was already six in the afternoon.

  “I really do need to get back to Vivian,” Luke said, turning back around to Redley, but the man was gone. Luke spun about, but he was no where to be seen. He laughed and shook his head, silently applauding Redley’s stealthy exits.

  * * *

  Luke searched Norah’s house for his wife, but she was nowhere to be found.

  He spied Norah in a sitting room, rocking back and forth with her infant daughter, trying to sooth the crying child. Norah was caring and patient through her daughter’s cries, but there was nothing that calmed her. Lady Eloise was simply a very fussy baby.

  “Vivian has gone to think,” Norah told him.

  “What does that mean?” Luke demanded.

  Norah met his steely gaze with a fortified one of her own. “Yesterday was a trying day for her. She said she wanted to think amongst the trees. I assumed you’d know what that meant.”

  “She’s gone to Wells?” Luke frowned. It would take him days to get to Wells, but he would follow her to the ends of the earth if needed.

  “No. Think along the same lines, but closer to home.”

  Wells was closer to her home, if she’d chosen to return to the Abbey after all. He wouldn’t blame her. Since he’d pulled her from her obscurity in near poverty, he’d thrust her into situation after situation that should have been beyond her. And yet, she’d met each challenge with grace and skill. He could not lose her now, not when he’d just found her. Not when he’d realized what it meant to truly love someone.

  He’d give her the heavens if he could. She’d likened Wells to what Heaven might look like, light and airy, as the Gothic cathedrals boasted.

  “Westminster Abbey.” Luke breathed a sigh of relief as he realized there was a Gothic cathedral right here in London.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny,” Norah said with a wink.

  “Thank you, Norah.” Luke kissed her cheek and then Eloise’s tear-soaked cheek.

  “Go and tell her how much you love her,” Norah said and changed the direction of her bouncing. “And bring Vivian home. I rather like her.”

  “Yes, Lady Sandton,” he said with a smirk as he left the room.

  * * *

  Luke found Vivian where she sat alone as she gazed at the stained glass windows in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey.

  He knew the moment she saw him. One moment she was lost in the beauty of the glass artwork, the colors dancing across her face as the dying sunlight came in through the glass, and then she took a deep breath and sat a little straighter, as if preparing for an important conversation.

  He was amused at how nervous he felt. His thumb moved along the brim of his beaver-skinned hat. He turned it in his hands as he fought for the right words to say to her. He worried one wrong move might spook her. She looked if she was about to bolt.

  She finally turned towards him, her green gaze locked onto his and his breath caught. He could not mess this up.

  “May I sit?”

  She shifted further down the bench, allowing him space to join her.

  He glanced at her. “How are you?”

  “Faring well, considering.”

  “Considering you went toe-to-toe with a French spy and lived to tell about it?”

  “Considering your not-so-dead wife tried to destroy the heads of our government.”

  Luke’s heart clenched at the evenness of her tone, as if this had become normal for her. “I am sorry for what you went through. I cannot imagine how confusing this all must have been.”

  Vivian sighed. “I’ve been confused for weeks, Luke. This was just one more thing to add to the list of ways my life does not make sense.”

  “I apologize for my absence. There was quite a bit to inform Carlton House.”

  “Your position must be secured by now. Surely the Prince Regent and the Foreign Minster see what an asset you are?”

  “They do,” Luke acknowledged. “And I’ve been offered a marquessate.”

  Her head snapped around, her eyes wide in shock.

  Luke chuckled. “I turned them both down.”

  “You… what?”

  “I’ve been someone else for so long, running from the scars
of my past, that I didn’t think I could find my way back again. You brought me back, Vivian; to my family, to myself, to a world where espionage and darkness are a thing of the past. I love you Vivian, you must know that.”

  “You shouldn’t love me. It will make it even more difficult when you leave me.”

  He took her gloved hand in his and gently squeezed it. “Vivian, I don’t ever want to leave you. I don’t want to go back to that life. I want my decisions to be my own, not prearranged by some puppet master. Knowing now what my life truly was, I can’t return and put my full attention into it. There are other pressing things here in which I’d rather spend my time.”

  “But to turn down a marquessate…” Vivian watched him carefully, confusion reverberating through her gaze.

  “It seemed best to not have to find answers for why I went from a lower born son of a duke, to an earl, and then a marquess, in under a year. I felt it was better to leave it alone.”

  Tears brimmed in her eyes and she looked away. “And the Abbey?”

  He pulled a folded document from his coat pocket and handed it to her.

  She unfolded the paper, and her eyes scanned over the loopy legalized scrawl before her gaze met his. “This is the deed to Kenswick Abbey. How did you get this so quickly?”

  “I requested the transfer just after our wedding. It has your name on it.” He pointed to the line where Vivian Macalister was written in thick script. “But the name on this deed can be whatever name you want: Vivian Burke, or your mother’s name. Or the name of any child we might have. It’s up to you.”

  Refolding the parchment, she folded her arms against her chest, the deed tucked close to her heart.

  “How can I know any of this was real?” she asked, and her voice shook. Tears brimmed in her eyes and she tilted her head back as she blinked them away.

  “Vivian, it was all real,” he said and brushed away the few tears that spilled over. “It was all real for me.”

  Vivian shook her head. “I’ve become so accustomed to lying and pretending that I don’t even understand up from down anymore. Is this part of the charade we’ve been forced to play? How am I to know the difference?”

  “It hasn’t been a charade for me for some time,” he admitted. “I think I wanted to convince myself it was, that I could walk away from you in the end. But I don’t want to be anywhere without you.”

  “What if I don’t want to be married to you?” The tremble in her voice cut through Luke like shards of glass.

  A lump formed in his throat and he was unable to speak. From the beginning, she had not wanted him. Since they’d met, he’d dragged her across the country, through dirty crypts, escaped fires, run for their lives. Even now, she was not wrapped in his arms; she barely let him touch her.

  “If you don’t wish to be my wife, the Abbey is yours, no further obligation required. We can live separate lives.”

  If she rejected him, he would let her go. It would gut him, but he would do it, if it meant she was happy.

  “Do you know why I came here?” she asked after a long moment.

  “Because you have an affinity for Gothic architecture?”

  “No,” she replied. “Well, yes, that is what brought me to Westminster Abbey, but do you know why I am here, in this spot?”

  “You like the stained glass?”

  She nodded up towards the stained glass. “Look at it.”

  He looked at the glass but didn’t understand what she meant.

  “It’s Thomas Beckett.”

  And he saw, the small pane of colored glass with the name of his French alias etched into the glass.

  “I was walking past, lost in thought, and then a light pierced through the glass, catching my attention. And then there you were, staring down at me from the stained glass.”

  “Vivian—”

  “I was fine in Herefordshire, Luke. Content. Happy even, on occasion. I did not want for grand adventures, had given up hope of finding the great love my mother always hoped for me. Until you came along, with your charm and your secrets, and you whisked me away, off to a world I never knew existed. And you know what?” She glanced at him finally. “I fell in love with you, despite my best intentions. I refused to even acknowledge it, for fear of what it might do to me when we parted after six months. You pulled me into a world so brightly lit and filled with color, it made Herefordshire look dull and grey.”

  She tucked her hand into his. “I admit, having Colette address you as your alias, and seeing her standing in the foyer was disturbing. The euphoria I’d felt after Carlton House came crumbling down. I wanted to pull the damned house down, brick by brick, just to erase the mere memory of her there.”

  “We can tear it down if you want to. I don’t need it. It’s never been home.”

  She shook her head. “It became my home, and we’ve barely spent any time there. You are my home.”

  Luke stared at her, trying to keep his breathing even, afraid to get his hopes up.

  “You are so much more than what she saw of you. For so long, you pretended to be these other people—Thomas Beckett, Walter Reynolds, John Potter—to escape who you are. To escape whatever guilt you feel over your past. I often wonder if you even know how remarkable you are without all that.”

  She glanced down at her hands, and he realized there was a folded piece of parchment tucked into her other hand. She unfolded the paper and handed it to him.

  “Do not trust blindly, for your mind will often deceive you, but your heart never will,” he read. “Trust your heart, as it probably knows more than your head will realize.”

  “Redley Ralston,” she said. “He gave this to me, that morning I asked to go to Wells. He knew I would need reminding; he knew I would need a way to understand what was to come.”

  Luke held the paper lightly in his hands, understanding what Redley had done for him.

  Vivian wiped away a tear as it trailed down her cheek. “These past weeks my mind and my heart have been at war with each other, pulling me in different directions. But if you tell me you love me, I will believe you. I find myself so utterly in love with you. My mind is completely clouded when it comes to you, and yet my heart has never been clearer. However, if this is part of the game, you must know I no longer want to play.”

  “I’m not playing anymore either,” he insisted. “I love you, Vivian. I will say it every minute of every day, if it will convince you.” He brushed the few rebellious locks of auburn hair as they’d fallen from where they been twisted into her coiffure. “My love for you will not wane. You are my heart, and I don’t know what life is like without you anymore because you are as much a part of me as I am you.”

  “You truly won’t regret giving up espionage and a marquessate?”

  “You and Kenswick sound like a much more captivating adventure.”

  “Luke,” she said softly, with a gentle shake of her head. “You truly are utterly ridiculous.”

  “On that note, I had a thought for the name of the house: Phoenix House.”

  Her gaze was thoughtful as she considered it. “Interesting.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a metaphor.”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  “Rising from the ashes, almost literally,” he explained. “Rebirth, resurgence. A new chapter. A new beginning.”

  “It is not exactly subtle.”

  “And there is no other house in England with that name. I checked.”

  “It is ridiculous,” she chuckled and cupped her hand against his cheek. “And also, perfect.”

  He rose and pulled her into his arms, laughing as he held her tight against his chest.

  “Marry me, Vivian.”

  “I already have.”

  He pulled away, a bright grin splitting his face. “Then marry me again. I love you, and I want to be your husband, and for you to be my wife. For it to mean something. I want this to be real between us. I am asking as a man desperately in love, as I should have done from the beginning. You dese
rve more than I’ve given you these past weeks, but I promise to do better. I promise to give you more than you’d ever dared hope for.”

  “What if I hope for children?”

  “Then you shall have them,” he said, kissing her. “Say you’ll marry me.”

  “Yes, of course I will,” she laughed and he kissed her again, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

  The clearing of a throat warned them they were no longer alone, and Luke pulled away, grinning at Vivian before looking to see who’d interrupted them.

  “This is a place of worship,” the bishop said, his face red and scandalized.

  Luke winked at Vivian. “And that’s just what I’m doing.”

  The bishop’s face grew even redder, but Luke cut him off before he could leap into a tirade.

  “This lovely woman has just agreed to marry me. What do you say? Will you marry us?”

  Vivian turned her head into his chest as the bishop gaped at them.

  Luke leaned forward, as if he were conspiring with the man. “Would it matter at all if I told you we were already married?”

  “Get out!”

  “Settle now,” Luke said and pulled out a bright grin that often earned him whatever he wanted. “Would it help if I offered to pay?”

  The man looked about ready to burst. Luke took that as their cue to leave.

  They burst out of the front doors of the church, doubled over in laughter, nearly toppling a few lingering churchgoers as they arrived for evening mass.

  “Goodness, Luke,” Vivian gasped as she leaned against him. “How will I ever survive marriage to you?”

  Her bright, beaming smile was contagious, and soon the happiness he felt in his heart was reflected on his face. It didn’t matter how she’d come to be in his life, but he didn’t doubt her place there. She was here for him to love her, and for her to love him. Together, they would find a way, as they always had.

  “I will catch you,” he said and tipped her chin up towards him. “And you will catch me. And that is how it will always be.”

  “Promise?”