Barbara Metzger (25 page)

“I’m going out the back door,” he declared. “And no one is going to try to stop me. One move from any of you and I’ll shoot the wench.”

“Take me with you,” Sir Randolph begged, but his erstwhile companion merely sneered.

“If you hadn’t gone greedy and tried to bleed Maitland, you’d never have been a suspect, you fool.” He sidled toward the rear of the room.

“Surrender!” shouted Dunbarton, the king’s man.

“It’s now or never,” yelled Major Sinclaire, training his own pistol on the baron, along with at least ten others in the room. “Make your move.”

“We’re playing for keeps, Northcote,” warned Bow Street’s assistant director.

“But I’ve got a woman,” snarled the baron.

“Hiding behind a woman’s skirts.” Private Waters, still in his footman’s garb, lowered his weapon and spit. “And they said you was high class.”

But it was Lord Maitland who gave the order. “Let him go, men. He’s finished here anyway.”

The baron inched his way across the room, trying to watch his back and keep Senta between him and any of the fools with hair-trigger pistols in their hands.

The viscount watched, venom in his stare. “Know this, Northcote,” he said. “If you harm my wife in any way, the merest scratch, I’ll track you down to the ends of the earth. Men, money, whatever it takes, I’ll see you hanged for this.”

Northcote kept going. There was no noise in the room but Sayre’s occasional whimper. At last Northcote reached the glass doors to the patio. If he could make it out there, he could drop the female, jump the garden fence, and be gone before a shot was fired.

“Unlatch the door,” he ordered Senta. She looked at her husband in despair.

“Do it, darling. There’s no choice.”

So she did, and Northcote dragged her out the doors onto the stone terrace, where Sir Parcival had been practicing all the new songs he’d heard that night. As usual, his spectral voice had created quite a draft. As it mingled with the cold rain, a sheet of ice had formed. Lord Northcote took two hurried steps and skidded. The gun went flying and Senta rolled behind a concrete bench. Five soldiers sprang up from behind the potted yew trees and tackled the baron where he lay sprawled on the ice.

Sir Parcival looked under the bench at Senta and shrugged. “Well, I did it my way.”

Chapter Thirteen

Lord Northcote was going to be tried, and most likely hanged. Randolph Sayre was being permitted to leave the country, with stipulations, after testifying against Northcote, the actual traitor and murderer. The conditions were that he never return, and that he relinquish his title and holdings in favor of Teddy.

The new Sir Theodore Sayre, baronet., lost no time in calling at Maitland House to ask the viscount’s permission to pay his addresses to Mona. “I’m not sure if she considers you her guardian, but she is living in your house, so I thought I should approach you to make my offer in form.”

Lee wasn’t sure of the protocol involved either, and he was positive that Mona and Teddy, Sir Theodore, had already come to terms, but he nodded. Senta, who refused to leave the library during such an interesting discussion, said she thought Teddy was behaving just as he ought, which had that young man blushing.

“I mean to resign my army commission,” he told them, “and take up the reins of the family property in Durham. I aim to make the estate succeed for once, rather than bleeding it dry. I know you would do something for Mona, find her a cottage somewhere at one of
your estates, my lord, but I can offer her a real home and a life of her own. I can give her my name, which you never can.”

“But you told me your mother wouldn’t have taken her in,” Senta reminded him. “Mona doesn’t deserve to be treated like a, um…”

“Soiled dove?” her husband suggested, and she agreed.

Teddy nodded. “But now the manor house is mine. If Mama cannot accept my wife, she does not have to make her home with us. It’s that simple. My mother is happier in Bath anyway.”

“And will Mona be happy?” Lee asked. Senta thought she already knew the answer.

“I will spend my life trying to see that she is, my lord,” Teddy assured the viscount in great earnestness. “I believe that she’ll accept my offer because it’s the right thing to do for her and the baby. Having lived through the hell she has, she’s too practical for anything else. But I like to think she would marry me anyway.”

Senta smiled her agreement.

“And you’re not afraid she’ll still be mourning Michael?” Lee wanted to know.

“I don’t expect her to forget him, if that’s what you mean. But I hope in time she’ll grow to love me, too, maybe in a different way. I know she likes me, and if that’s all I ever have, it will be enough.” He reached inside his coat pocket and extracted a signet ring, Michael’s ring that Mona had worn on a chain around her neck. “She asked me to give this back to you. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

“Are you sure she wants to part with it?”

“I think perhaps she wants to start with unchained memories, too. Besides, you’ll be needing it for your firstborn son.”

Now it was Senta’s turn to blush. Lee put his hand over hers where it rested on the sofa.

“And what about Mona’s baby?”

“I would be proud to raise Michael’s daughter as my own. We could claim a secret marriage in Spain or a premature birth, anything so that Vida never has to be stigmatized as a bastard. We’ll be living quietly in the country, far from the London gossip mills. No one ever needs to know.”

The viscount pretended to think a moment while Teddy wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead. Senta squeezed her husband’s hand. “Well, yes, that sounds like the perfect arrangement, except…”

“Yes?” Teddy asked.

“Except I shall have to insist on being Vida’s godfather, and frequent visits, and that you take Private Waters and his dog with you, too.”

*

After Teddy left to find Mona, Lee and Senta stayed on in the library, her head resting on his shoulder.

‘Teddy is a brave man,” Senta said.

“Of course he is. Did you see all his medals?”

“No, I meant about Mona. I thought I could be content with your liking me, when I thought you just married me to get an heir. But I couldn’t. That wouldn’t have been enough for me.”

“And I tore myself apart when I feared I was second in your heart, second in your dreams, always worrying that you preferred another.”

“But now you know there never has been another, never could be another.” Senta cuddled a little closer. “And I think that I could not be like Mona, loving again, for I have only one heart to give.”

“When I saw you in that villain’s arms, and thought I might lose you after all, I
knew my life wouldn’t be worth living without you.”

*

So Lord and Lady Maitland had their wedding night after all. It was a bit late in the marriage, and a bit tardy even for Valentine’s Day, but no less wondrous or romantic for all that.

Senta was in her husband’s arms, in his bed, as close as two lovers could be, when she felt a cool draft on her bare skin. Sir Parcival was standing at the foot of the bed. “I think I’m getting my memory back!” he mouthed.

“Good, now go!” She made shooing motions with her hand.

“What’s that, dear heart?” Lee asked.

“Nothing, my love, I just thought I heard the dog barking.”

Lee went back to what he was doing, which was turning his innocent bride into a remarkably content wife. “Oh, my darling Senta,” he whispered, “I love you.”

Senta sighed, but Sir Parcival said, “And?”

“And?” Senta turned a perplexed look on the specter.

“And?” asked Lee, even more confused.

Sir Parcival was waving his hands around, twitching his legs, all the while growing dimmer and more transparent to Senta’s eyes. “And!” he demanded.

So she shrugged and repeated, “‘Oh, my darling Senta, I love you’ and…?”

To his credit, Lee hesitated only an instant. “And I always will.”

“Yes!” shouted Sir Parcival, fading completely, leaving only a cool breeze behind.

And “Oh, yes,” Senta sighed, before losing herself to her husband’s passion.

The last thing she remembered hearing, or maybe she said it, was, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

*

His wife—how wonderful that sounded—was nearly asleep, arms and legs all tangled with his. When Lee made sure she was covered, Senta gave a sleepy “Hm?”

“Nothing, darling, just that you have made me the happiest man on earth. Now go to sleep; we have a lifetime ahead of us, dear heart.”

Someone nearby cleared her throat and said, “Ah, excuse me?”

Lee looked over Senta’s tousled curls to see a woman standing at the foot of his bed. She was wearing some kind of leather headcovering, goggles like the ones jockeys wore, and a white silk scarf around her neck. “Excuse me,” she repeated. “Did you say dear heart, or Earhart?”

Lee could see the firelight flickering in the grate right through the bizarre figure. Obviously he was seeing things because he was exhausted. “Get lost.”

“I think that was the problem in the first place….”