The remaining highwaymen scattered into the forest, one of them pausing to drag his wounded companion off the road. Robert heard Beaumont's cry of triumph and Northmere's mad whooping. He had no attention to spare to join in their celebrations. Cecily was lying in the damp earth beside him, transforming that grimy ditch into a flower-filled bower of delights. They were both mud-stained, dishevelled, laughing near-hysterically with the mad joy of their escape. He kissed her forehead, kissed the leaves which had caught in her hair, kissed her stained gloves and her torn sleeves and the place on her neck where her heartbeat still pulsed with fright.
"My word, Scarcliffe," said the Duke of Beaumont dryly. "This was a battle, not a wedding."
Cecily pushed Robert away in mock anger. "First you ask me to wait for you. Then you shoot at me. Now you expect me to kiss you?" She scrambled to her feet, using Robert's shoulder to push herself upright. "It's too much, Robert."
"Are you hurt at all?" he asked her, making his unsteady way out of the ditch and turning back to lend her a hand. He ran his eyes over her body, not, for once, in appreciation, but to check her for any sign of damage. "Your arm?"
"A little twisted. Nothing more." Cecily pressed a hand to her chest. "Though I wish my heart would stop pounding."
Northmere joined them in the centre of the road, leading his horse. "This is a poor lookout, chaps. One horse between us!"
Hart's had run away, startled by the gunfire, and Hart himself was, of course, riding Beaumont's back to Scarcliffe Hall.
"No matter," said Robert. "It's a fine night for a walk."
Cecily was looking down at the dark patch of blood which now stained the road. "Did you kill him, Robert?"
"No. I aimed for his shoulder."
Beaumont let out a low whistle of approval. "That was quite some shot, man!"
Robert had, in fact, been aiming for the left shoulder – and had struck the highwayman in the right. The bullet had come so close to Cecily that she must have been able to feel the wind as it whizzed past. Robert immediately resolved to take that particular fact to the grave. "Thank you, Beaumont. Though I must say, this ruins my scheme of persuading you to bet on the number of grouse we both take down this summer."
Beaumont wagged a finger. "You've fooled me once, Scarcliffe. Never again."
"Your Grace!" Cecily gasped, touching Beaumont's arm. "You're wounded!"
Beaumont glanced down at his bloody sleeve in astonishment. "Good heavens! I didn't feel a thing. A scratch, only, Lady Cecily. Don't be alarmed."
"And Lord Jonathan," said Cecily, looking about as though she might find him hiding behind a tree. "Lord Jonathan rode out with you – where is he?"
The festival atmosphere which had followed their victory immediately dissolved. Robert's stomach twisted with anxiety. He had not been able to assess the extent of Hart's wound before he rode off.
"He made it away and has gone to fetch help," he said. "He took a bullet, but…"
Cecily put her hand in his, understanding him instantly. "We will walk back to Scarcliffe Hall as quickly as we can," she said. "That is the best and only thing we can do. Lord Jonathan will be well, Robert. I know it."
Northmere offered Cecily his horse, but she refused it, preferring to walk at Robert's side. As they went, Beaumont and Northmere began to chatter once more, attempting to lift Robert's spirits.
Cecily's hand stayed in his own. He felt her willing all of her strength and fortitude to pass into him through the tightness of her grip.
What the morning would bring, none of them could say. All they could do, as the first glow of dawn began to filter through the trees, was walk towards it.
Chapter Thirty
It took a considerably longer time to walk back to Scarcliffe Hall than it did to ride out. By the time the sun had fully risen, they were still on the road with the journey not half done. Northmere, who favoured fashion over practicality when it came to choosing his footwear, had begun to complain bitterly about the pain in his feet. Beaumont, on the other hand, was as suave as ever, and had chattered away to Cecily as lightly as though he were paying her a morning call. Since Robert was the first of the four good friends to choose himself a bride, Beaumont appeared to have made it his business to get to know her. Robert was surprisingly touched.
Even with Northmere's complaining, it was difficult not to be optimistic on that fresh summer's morning. The air was filled with the cool, green scent of the woodland after a gentle rain. The tribulations of the night felt more than hours away – they had more in common with a lurid dream than reality. Only the blood on Beaumont's arm, now impossible to ignore in the morning light, and the absence of Hart, remained as markers of what they had been through.
"What's this?" asked Beaumont, stopping in his tracks. "Someone coming down the road ahead – a great many someones."
Cecily shaded her eyes to get a better look. "That is my father's livery, I believe. What on earth are his men doing out on the road?"
"Northmere, you have the best eyesight," said Robert. "Stop staring at your own boots and tell us what you see."
Northmere obeyed without too much grumbling. As he peered out at the men in the distance, his jaw slowly slackened in disbelief.
"What is it, man?" asked Beaumont. Northmere looked at Robert and Cecily, overcome with confusion.
"You are not going to believe what I tell you," he said, "but only half of those men are wearing the Duke of Loxwell's livery. The other half, as far as I can make out, are from Scarcliffe Hall."
"What?" Cecily's hand tightened on Robert's. "That is quite impossible." She seemed more frightened now than she had been by the highwaymen. "Can it be that they have banded together in order to find us and… and…"
"We will not let any harm come to you, dear lady," said Beaumont gallantly. Cecily was not comforted.
"The greatest harm they could possibly do would be to tear me from Robert's side."
The men on the road ahead had noticed them. A great shout went up, and several of them came running forward. However fast they ran, however, they were swiftly overtaken by two men on horseback coming up from the rear of the party.
"Papa!" Cecily cried.
Robert did not know whether he ought to stand his ground or lift Cecily up in his arms and spirit her away into the woodland. The man riding beside the Duke of Loxwell was none other than his own father.
The Duke reached them first. Drawing up his horse to an abrupt stop, he looked down at Cecily and passed a hand across his forehead. On their first meeting, Robert had found him quite forbidding. Now, although the Duke was mounted and Robert was not, he had the odd feeling that he had the upper hand.
"Curse you!" the Duke snapped. "You insolent girl! I gave you permission to visit Scarcliffe Hall, and you take the opportunity to run away? To spend the night away from home, when highwaymen and bandits are abroad?" He leapt from his horse with surprising agility for a man his age and swept Cecily up in his arms. "I have never in all my life been more frightened. At first, I thought you had simply run off to get married. That would have been painful enough – but when Lord Jonathan appeared, and told us of the dangers on the road, and that you were not with the gentlemen…"
"You have seen my brother?" asked Robert urgently. "Tell me, Your Grace, is he well?"
Before the Duke could answer, the Marquess reached them and let out a howl which no-one could tell was rage or gratitude. "My son!"
The swelling in the Marquess's gouty leg was still visible through his leather riding breeches. Robert helped him down from his horse, amazed to find that his formidable father was on the brink of tears. "You are not hurt, my boy?" asked the Marquess, embracing Robert tight enough to cut away his breath and render him incapable of answering. "They did not harm you?"
"I am well, I am well," Robert gasped, struggling to free himself of his father's desperately clinging hands. "But Hart, father – what of Hart?"
"My men found Lord Jonathan on the road while searching for
Cecily," said the Duke. "We took him to Scarcliffe Hall and roused your father. He was wounded, but able to tell us everything that had happened. The doctor has been sent for."
Robert's knees sagged in relief. He was suddenly glad that his father was holding him so tightly. "Then he is not too badly hurt?"
"Hart will live," said the Marquess, gripping Robert's shoulders tightly. "It was a fool's task he undertook last night, but he will live. Oh, my boy! When Hart arrived half-fainting, and said you had been left behind, I feared the worst."
"We both feared the worst," said the Duke of Loxwell sternly, fixing Cecily with a look of such reproach it was a wonder she could meet his eyes.
"But I am safe, Papa," she said, patting his arm. Robert never ceased to be amazed by Cecily's composure. There was mud down her back, rips in her dress, and her bonnet had been entirely lost, letting her chestnut hair free in a glorious, tangled tumble. But despite it all, she had the bearing of a queen. "Robert took excellent care of me. And the Duke of Beaumont, and Baron Northmere, too."
The Duke turned his fearsome gaze upon the gentlemen. "I trust that each of you will have the nobility not to speak of the way my daughter has behaved of late. It is not her custom, I assure you."
"Papa, there is nothing scandalous about it!" Cecily laughed. "Robert and I are betrothed. Why should I not spend an evening with my intended? And I suppose I had the highwaymen to act as my chaperones."
They had not yet had the opportunity to speak of the inevitable delay to their marriage. This was the first indication Cecily had given him that she might agree to wait. Even as his heart warmed, Robert found he could not look at his father.
It was not that he wished the old man dead – only that he wished he were somehow different. That everything was different. That he could publicly and forever call Cecily his own.
"I am still your betrothed?" he asked, hardly able to believe it.
"However long we must wait," she answered firmly.
As Robert had expected, the Marquess all but forgot his former fears. Pale anger settled on his features once more. "You are set on defying me, Robert?"
Robert felt all eyes turn to him. The Duke of Loxwell watched with imperious attention; the Marquess glowered with barely-tempered rage; and Cecily gazed at him with open-hearted trust.
"Cecily, I do not believe I have introduced you to my father," he said. "May I present the Marquess of Lilistone. Father, this is Lady Cecily Balfour – the woman I will marry." He squared his shoulders. "Punish me as you see fit."
"A word, Lilistone, if I may," said the Duke of Loxwell, holding up a finger. "Our old enmity has already left this county in disarray. We have allowed the roads to fall into a state of disrepair and become infested with villains, simply because we could not sit around a table and apportion responsibility equally. Our children have almost paid for that error with their lives." He looked at Cecily and sighed. "I cannot find it in my heart to oppose their union. Let bygones be bygones. Let us be reconciled."
He held out his hand. The Marquess stared at it a moment, and nobody dared breathe.
"Robert and I have uncovered the truth behind what happened to Lady Letitia, my lord," said Cecily quietly. "There was never any need for our families to fall out. This all began as it will now end." She took Robert's hand and clasped it firmly. "With love."
"You put aside your differences to save us," Robert urged him. "If you could do that once, father, you can do it again to ensure my happiness."
The Marquess's brows lowered. "No more," he said.
He clasped the Duke of Loxwell's hand with his own.
"There will be no more enmity between our families!"
A great cheer went up among the assembled men. Cecily embraced first her father, then the Marquess, kissing both men on the cheeks until they blushed an unaristocratic red.
"Then we have your blessing, Papa?" she asked, almost shyly. The Duke slapped Robert on the back so hard that, strong as he was, he almost tripped over.
"My blessing, indeed!"
"And mine!" said the Marquess, not about to be outdone.
"And we shall seal our new friendship with a wedding the like of which has never been seen!" continued the Duke.
"Every lord and lady of substance in England will be invited!" the Marquess agreed. "My friends on one side, Loxwell, and yours on the other – the day shall be the envy of every great house in Europe!"
"Good gracious," Cecily murmured, taking Robert's arm as their fathers remounted their horses and rode away happily boasting. "It sounds a great deal more extravagant than the wedding I had planned."
"Do you think it will take a very long time to arrange?" Robert asked, making an effort at nonchalance. Cecily laughed.
"My impatient darling! Don't tell me you aren't willing to wait?"
"Till the end of the world," said Robert. "Till the stars burn away. But, Cecily, please – not until the end of the summer?"
"An autumn wedding would suit me nicely."
"Don't tease." He lowered his voice. "I can't bear it."
Cecily glanced up to check that her father was not watching, and stood on tiptoe to give Robert a quick kiss. "It will not be long, my love. Compared to the lifetime ahead of us, it will not be long."
Chapter Thirty-One
The space of a week found a very pleasant tea party in the gardens of Scarcliffe Hall, the like of which no-one in his right mind would have predicted at the start of the summer. The Duke and Duchess of Loxwell sat around the table with the Earl of Scarcliffe and his mother, the Marchioness of Lilistone, taking tea and eating cake and chatting away as cheerfully as old friends.
The Marchioness had come to stay at Scarcliffe Hall the moment she heard the news of her eldest son's engagement, with the intention of staying until the wedding was planned, the Marquess was healthy, and the new friendship between the Hartleys and the Balfours comfortably bolstered by a series of visits and happy outings.
It was a great relief to Robert that his father would soon be well enough to return to the Lilistone estate. Scarcliffe Hall was almost his once more, and, though it would never again be the bachelor paradise he had promised his friends, it would run once more under his own mastery.
The Duchess and the Marchioness, who had long been separated by their husbands' enmity, had found a great deal of common ground in retelling the histories of their youth, and only stopped their lively chatter to look around in satisfaction at the young people scattered about the garden.
Northmere had taken the change to a more sociable lifestyle in good grace, and was engaged in animated conversation with Jemima as they walked together across the lawn. Hart, on the other hand, was so comfortable around Robert's new family-to-be that he had no compunction about lounging around in the grass, letting it stain his shirt, and soaking up the sun with a cup of tea balanced on a rock beside him. His left arm was bound in a sling, but that was the only reminder of the bullet which had struck him below the collarbone.
"We were speaking this morning of the wedding," said the Duchess of Loxwell, leaning forward to catch Robert's attention. Robert smiled as best he could. It seemed to him that nobody spoke of anything but the wedding anymore. "I know your father had his heart set on London, but Cecily thought it would be so much nicer to have it in our parish church in Loxton."
"My husband will make no objections, if Cecily desires it," the Marchioness assured her, before Robert could speak. At his side, Cecily was busy with a quill and paper – much to her mother's chagrin, as they were not the traditional accompaniment to tea and cake.
"That means we really must make haste with the invitations," said Cecily. "The Duke and Duchess of Redhaven, for example, have such a great way to travel. And your sister, Robert – will she make it up from Larksley?"
"Not in her condition," said Hart abruptly. Robert gave him a surreptitious kick.
"She is having a difficult time at this stage in her pregnancy, I fear," he explained, with as much delicacy as pos
sible. "And her husband, by all accounts, will not leave her side."
"How very fortunate for them, to be blessed with children so soon after their marriage!" sighed Cecily, her eyes glowing. "Lady Lilistone, you must be overjoyed!"
"I am equally excited for all my children," said the Marchioness happily. "To think, two of my darlings safely married off, to such wonderful people, in the course of a single year!" She gave her younger son a meaningful nod. "Now I have only Hart to worry about."
"I do not think you would want me to marry with quite such haste as my siblings, mother," said Hart lazily. Robert made a mental note to acquaint Cecily with the reality of his sister's situation as soon as possible. It was not right that he should keep family secrets from her, after all. But, as his sister's indiscretions were not a fit subject for the Duchess of Loxwell's ears, Robert endeavoured to steer the conversation away from Hart's ironic comments.
"Mother, was there not something you wished to say to Cecily?"
Cecily set aside her quill and paper at once and listened attentively.
"Oh, yes! Thank you for reminding me, Robert. Cecily, I wish to give you a tour of the house this afternoon. I know you will have seen much of it already, but there are several things you ought to know before you take up residence. The Marquess and I will not be here often, you see. We will leave you and Robert to begin your lives together in peace. Above all, I want you to feel that this is truly your home, and I will show you the rooms which you are to redecorate according to your own taste."
"Thank you, my lady!" said Cecily, surprised and delighted. "That is too kind!"
The Duke of Loxwell roused himself from the contemplation of his slice of cake. "Very kind, Lady Lilistone, kind indeed – but I am disappointed to hear that you and Lilistone do not intend to stay in the area."
The Earl's Secret Passion (Scandals of Scarcliffe Hall Book 1) Page 17
