Not Quite Married (35 page)

“There ’e is!” came a shout from the quarterdeck of the
Secret.

Shortly Hicks was rushing down the gangway toward him. The first officer’s face was red and Aaron could have sworn his lip was smashed on one corner.

“Captain!” Hicks grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into motion. “Thank God you’ve come. He just showed up—fighting furious—and nearly took the ship apart looking for you. He’ll be waking up any minute now . . .”

Moments later Aaron found half a dozen of his crewmen standing around a large form lying inert on the floor of the commons. They were nursing battered jaws and noses and watching for any sign of movement from the big man.

“Dyso?” He knelt by Brien’s servant. From the looks of things, he’d dealt out more punishment than he’d taken. He shook Dyso’s arm and braced for a reaction.

Dyso roused, shook his head, and began to thrash and strain against the ropes that bound him. Aaron grabbed him by the shoulders and called to him. Recognizing the voice and face he sought, Dyso stilled and looked up at him with darkness that Aaron found impossible to read.

“All right, I’m going to free you,” Aaron declared, glancing up at his men and seeing his uncertainty reflected in their faces. Then he looked back at Brien’s protector. “And you’re not going to knock any more heads together. Right?”

Dyso nodded and when he was freed, sat up and rubbed his wrists. Now drained of hostility, the big man rose and rubbed his face wearily. Aaron noted that his boots and his usually neat clothes were flecked with dried mud . . . a sign that he’d ridden hard from somewhere. The signs of strain around his eyes said he’d recently gone without sleep. Aaron sent to the galley for coffee.

“Why have you come?” Aaron eased into a chair across from him, recalling the last time Dyso had sought him out. When the bodyguard traced an hourglass curve with one hand, Aaron knew instantly: Brien was in some kind of trouble.

“Did she send you?” Getting a shake of the head, Aaron continued. “You came to get me to help her?” Affirmative, this time. “What’s happened?”

Dyso’s face suddenly showed more animation than Aaron had ever seen in it. Casting about for a way to explain, he spotted a thin brass rod attached to a candle snuffer and bent it forcefully around the third finger of his left hand. Caught up in the symbolism of the bending, Aaron missed his main point.

“Someone bends her? Forces her?”

Dyso shook his head in frustration and pointed to the ring of brass on his hand. It was a moment before the meaning got through to Aaron.

“She’s getting married?” Aaron felt as if he’d just taken a cannonball in the gut.
“To whom?”

Dyso shook his head, grabbed Aaron’s arm, and forced the ring of the metal onto one of
his
fingers instead. Then he repeated the action more emphatically. Hicks was the first to glimpse the truth behind his pantomime.

“She’s being forced to marry?” the first officer guessed.

With a relieved nod, the big man turned to Aaron and seized him by the arm, pulling him toward the steps. Aaron resisted briefly, telling Dyso to wait. Laying down orders for his crew to stay aboard ship and keep alert, and for Hicks to grab a weapon and prepare to ride with him, he ducked into his cabin and returned a moment later with a sword in his hands and a brace of pistols tucked into his belt.

“Let’s go, my friend.” He clapped Dyso on the shoulder. “Show us the way.”

Twenty-Four

BEING ONCE AGAIN under Squire Hennipen’s roof immersed Brien in a sea of memories, not the least of which was an unwelcome visitation of her time as Raoul’s prisoner. He had declared that he would keep her locked away until she bore proof of his seed, when in fact he was plotting to do away with her. She thought of all of her regrets and recriminations in those early days following the fire. She had nearly been suffocated by a fog of guilt over what had happened between them, thinking that if she had only tried harder or had sought a genuine reconciliation with him . . .

Looking back now, it was clear that nothing she could have done would have changed the outcome. No woman—no matter how wise or saintly—could have truly shared a life with Raoul Trechaud. His cunning and avarice would have consumed whatever, whomever he touched. Then, with age and experience, he would have gradually become the marquis. She shuddered to think of what it would have been like to have such powerful greed, ruthlessness, and lust for control turned on her.

A chill ran through her at the realization that she was confronting those very things. In the person of the marquis himself.

Was there no way out? What of her father? Would he stand by her in this? In the carriage that day, she had made plain her thoughts about renewing ties with the house of Saunier. Surely, he wouldn’t be fooled into thinking that she had changed her mind so quickly.

But in her deepest heart she knew that he still believed she should someday marry, and he hoped to someday persuade her to reconsider giving him grandchildren. Would he see this as the perfect opportunity to force her to do what he believed to be the right thing? How strong was the bond that had grown between them in the last two years?

Guilt settled over her, weighting her spirits further. How strong could it be if she had withheld the most important thing that had happened to her on her colonial journey . . . her experiences with and deepening feelings for Aaron Durham? How could she tell her father that she’d fallen in love with a decamped nobleman with a yen for ships and sea? Or that he happened to be the same man she believed she had married in an attempt to escape the marriage he had arranged for her? Worse still, how could she explain her confusion about Aaron’s decision to make his life in Boston? And worst of all . . . how could she tell him that she was having a baby . . . his longed-for grandchild . . . but that the child would have no father, no name but hers, and could never be his heir.

It was a mess, and each passing day seemed to bring some new catastrophe.

All the next day she watched the road from her upstairs room in the Hennipens’ comfortable house, hoping against hope that her father had already gotten the second message she sent, telling him of her plan to seek refuge with their old friends. The day dragged by and though the Hennipens tried to bolster her spirits, she grew steadily more apprehensive. If only Dyso were there with her . . .

Mrs. Hennipen insisted Brien have some dinner to keep her strength up and as they took coffee in the parlor later, a commotion arose in the hallway. The front doors banged open, feet shuffled, and voices rose. Brien bounded up and rushed out into the entry.

“Father—” She stopped short, with the rest of the greeting dying in her throat.

“How warmly you greet your once and future father-in-law.” The marquis bowed with mocking gallantry.

“What are you doing—” She halted, seeing in the fact that he was accompanied by the loathsome Pitt and the limp-willed Louis and another sinewy henchman that pretending either surprise or pleasure would be a waste of time. “How did you find me?”

The marquis produced a letter from the pocket of his elegant frock coat. A letter bearing a familiar wax seal. A
broken
seal.

“How accommodating of you to write out your plans in a letter so that we could track you here.” As he tossed the letter packet on the hall table, her heart skipped wildly.

“Is it his lordship?” Mrs. Hennipen called as she hurried out into the hall after her. At the sight of the four strange men, she rushed to Brien’s side and put a protective arm around her, demanding,

“Who are you?”

“What in blazes is this?” The squire rushed out into the entry hall behind his wife.

“Why don’t you introduce us to your host and hostess, my dear?”

the marquis demanded with his eyes glittering.

“The marquis de Saunier.” Brien complied more to share her anxiety with the Hennipens than to alleviate theirs. “My late husband’s father.”

“What brings you to my door at this hour?” the squire asked in a tone that teetered on the edge of incivility.

“I wish to have a word with my lovely daughter-in-law in private,” the marquis declared, glancing back and forth to choose a room with doors. He extended a hand to Brien and when she refused to take it, he swept along into the drawing room ahead of her. She reluctantly followed. When the Squire and Mrs.

Hennipen moved to accompany her, Cornelius Pitt stepped forward to prevent it.

“I believe the marquis said it was
private.
”

Seeing him and the other man closing in with their hands inside their coats, Brien turned back to reassure her friends.

“No, it will be all right. I’ll speak with them alone.” Mind racing and stomach churning, she joined the marquis and Louis inside, and she flinched when the great doors slammed shut behind her.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.

“You thought to hide in the country while you tried to find a way to prevent the marriage from taking place.” He made a
tsk
ing sound. “So very predictable.” He strolled closer, looking her over. “But it wouldn’t have mattered if you
had
realized your house was being watched and your communiques were being intercepted. Your wedding,
chéri,
was never meant to wait upon anything as insipid as banns. The announcement to the
Times
was merely for appearances.”

Her mind raced and her mouth went dry. He had planned this all along.

“You know little of me if you think I will submit to this without a fight.”

“I expected no less.” The marquis sauntered casually about the large room, touching the furnishings appraisingly. “So we have come to see you properly wedded this night, before some foolish action might mar your chance for marital bliss.”

“This night?”
Brien fought to control her panic.

The marquis casually brushed his sleeves. “You will come with us to the church and marry Louis this evening. Another of my men has gone ahead to alert the priest. He will have made ready by the time we arrive.” He leveled a possessive look on her.

“Beautiful as you are, even a simple dinner frock will suffice as a bridal gown.”

“I won’t go,” she said, raising her chin and scrambling for a larger show of defiance. “You cannot force me. The marriage will not stand if I am forced.”

A sharp sigh and nod from the marquis signaled Louis to throw open the doors to the hall . . . where the Squire and Mrs.

Hennipen stood gasping in the choking grip of the marquis’s men.

Pistols were aimed at their heads.

“No, my lady, don’t—” The hand at the squire’s throat tightened to cut off the rest, and his face reddened dangerously.

“No!” Brien rushed toward them but stopped when the henchmen tightened their hold on the hostages and began to drag them out the front doors. “Let them go.” She turned on the marquis with her eyes blazing. “They have nothing to do with this.”

“I beg to differ. Your presence here has brought them into the game . . . as pawns. So the good squire and his wife will accompany us to the church. If you fail to do exactly as I say, they will suffer for your obstinance . . . in most eloquent ways.”

She was bested. She would hazard her own safety and fortune, but she would not barter the very lives of those who had sheltered her. The fires in her eyes dimmed, banked with the rest of her resistance.

“I will go with you.” She glanced contemptuously at her clammy-faced bridegroom. “But if you harm the squire or Mrs.

Hennipen, I’ll not be married long, whatever the price.”

Satisfaction oozed from the marquis. He had won.

Numbness settled over Brien as Louis led her outside to a coach, where two more men waited. The Hennipens were bound and gagged and tossed into the footwell between the seats. Time seemed to stand still as they traveled to the church. It might have been a moment, an hour, or an age before the carriage slowed and stopped. Louis and the marquis bolted out and Brien—feeling like a spectator of her own fate—stepped out of the carriage and into the clutches of the marquis’s men.

The familiar details of the courtyard of St. Anne’s became clear in the light of the carriage lanterns. Her hopes rose briefly when she recognized it, only to fall when a gaunt, dour-faced man in cleric’s garb admitted them to the rectory.

“Where is Vicar Stonegate?” she asked.

The new priest turned on her with a scowl. “Stonegate was transferred nearly six months ago to a parish in Cornwall.”

“Do you know who I am?” She prayed that her name might give the vicar pause.

“A spoiled and defiant young woman who refuses to wed a man who has offered honorably for her,” the vicar snapped, leading the bridal party back into the sanctuary, where he’d lighted candles in preparation. Even caught hard between Cornelius Pitt and the marquis’s hired henchman, Brien refused to surrender.

“I’m Brien Weston—”

“Trechaud,” the marquis intervened. “My son’s widow. And . . .

I have learned to my dismay . . . my other son’s mistress.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Brien cried as the vicar turned away to light a few more candles. “The marquis’s henchmen are holding Squire and Mrs. Hennipen at gunpoint to force me to do this.

Look in the coach outside—see for yourself—”

“Lies and accusations.” The vicar nodded in confirmation to the marquis, then looked back at her. “I was warned you would spout all manner of nonsense.”

“Then call the archdeacon, Mr. Samson . . . or the warden, old Willie Beverly . . . they know me.”

That gave the vicar unexpected pause for a moment, then he brushed it aside.

“The archdeacon has been off visiting his daughter in Plymouth for two months and your other witness, Willie Beverly, died six months back. Both of your references, it seems, are unavailable.”

The small-eyed vicar scowled in final judgment. “Just what I would expect from a woman so insolent and unrepentant that she refuses to wed the father of the child she carries.”

Her shock and silence were all the clergyman needed to confirm his vengeful charge. He strode off to the sacristy to don his vestments and get his prayer book.