Ransom Redeemed (20 page)

* * * *

The last time he thought he was at the gates of hell, he had been angry, full of spit and fire, but this time was different. He was not that same foolish young man anymore, of course. Six years had passed since then and he had, against all expectations, matured.

Now he was engaged. Ransom Deverell, the Determined Malefactor, the man who said he'd never marry, had allowed this woman to take up residency on his moor. In a matter of weeks, she had caused him to act like a love-sick fool, yet she claimed not to know how it was done.

Suddenly the door flew wide open and Damon strode in, already shouting, "What the devil did you say to Elizabeth? You sent her away, didn't you? You put her off and told her to leave me! How dare you interfere?"

Smith followed close behind, looking apologetic. "Sir, your brother would not—"

"Why are you hiding up here?" Damon halted, stared. "Good God!"

Ransom felt his wounds burning again as he saw his brother's appalled expression. Yes, he must be a sight. He'd resisted looking in any mirrors. Didn't need to.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Somebody seems to have taken a severe dislike to me," he replied. "But that's no reason for you to race up my stairs and into my room as if the place is on fire."

Damon looked at Mary, who still stood by his bed. Ransom reached for her hand again and held it.

"This is my fiancée, Miss Mary Ashford." A strange whisper of something new swept through him when he said it. He wrapped his fingers tighter around hers.

"Who? What?" his brother scoffed. "Since when?"

"Since now."

Damon's eyes flared with anger. "Well, how nice for you. I'm glad that your affairs are all in order. What about mine? I should never have entrusted them to you, should I?"

"You refer to Elizabeth?" Flames shot through his lung and he strained to get the words out.

"She's gone. Left London. I've been searching for days. Finally I received her short letter telling me that if I wanted to know why she left, I should ask you. So what the deuce did you tell her? I suppose you paid her off, is that it?"

Behind Damon their father had just entered the room, but he moved so stealthily that the younger brother didn't know it. Ransom did his best to cut the conversation short. "Let's talk of this matter another time. I think we—"

"No! I want to know what you said or did to send her away on that Friday evening when she came to see you. Elizabeth is carrying my child, and I intend to make a life for us together, whatever you think and whatever father has to say about it!"

Chapter Nineteen

"Good morning, Damon. I thought I heard your voice in the hall."

The young man froze, wide eyed.

For a moment nobody spoke. Ransom sagged against his pillows, still holding Mary's hand. The wind picked up, blowing snow at the window and dancing with the flames in the fireplace. Mary, he noted, seemed to be holding her breath again. He stole a quick glance at her face and saw she was paler than usual, very somber.

Finally Damon turned to greet their father, his face red. "I...did not know you were here in London."

"No. Clearly."

Another silence.

Their father walked up to the fire and stood with his back to it, warming his seat. "I believe Miss Ashford said she has another appointment today, so perhaps it is time we let her go. We shouldn't keep her longer than necessary." He gave Mary a stiff smile. She quickly released Ransom's hand, muttered a promise to return later, and hurried out.

As soon as the door was closed and they heard her quick step descending the stairs, their father sighed deeply and said, "So who wants to tell me about this woman who is carrying Damon's child and why I have not been consulted in the matter?"

* * * *

Her heart was thumping like a rabbit's foot when alerted to danger. Elizabeth— she had no doubt they talked of Lady Elizabeth Stanbury— was pregnant with Damon Deverell's child? That must be the Elizabeth about whom Damon accused his brother of interfering. Unless Ransom made a habit of meeting women called Elizabeth on Friday evenings. Besides, he had told her that the woman she saw at his house was one of "his brother's problems" and not one of his own. He spoke truthfully then, she thought with relief.

Oh, but she should not know about this. It was a wretched business and a very private matter.

Did George know?

Proud, haughty, conceited Elizabeth! It seemed unbelievable. The Stanburys were such a rigid, conventional family. Bloodline was everything to them. Pedigree
and
money, of course. And Damon was ten years her junior at least.

Surely it couldn't be true.

The butler met her in the hall with her coat and the bonnet she'd left behind on Friday.

"Mr. Deverell the elder insists that you take his carriage, Miss."

"Oh, I couldn't!" Her sister would certainly have questions if she returned in that luxurious splendor.

"He
insists
, Miss. And he says you are to keep it all day for your errands. He has no need to go out in it anymore today and will stay inside to watch over his son." He paused, looked at her gravely and repeated, "He
insists
, Miss."

She could hear raised voices coming from the room above now, although the words were muffled.

The butler leaned toward her and added, "It is not wise to get Mr. Deverell the elder in a temper, Miss."

"No. I suppose not."

A comfortable carriage ride did sound very nice, especially with the streets in such a mess, and she was tired, wilting, her nerves stretched to their limit by the events of the morning.

"If you don't mind me saying, Miss, you may as well get used to it. If you plan to become a Deverell."

Yes, he was right. People would know sooner or later. Mary would have to get accustomed to questions and curious looks again, to people making assumptions about her. They would all think she'd married for the money, of course. The servants in his house must already be discussing it.

She would no longer be a peripheral player on the stage; she was about to take on a more prominent role.

Was she prepared for it?

Oops. Something hard had just hit the wall upstairs. Sounded like a body. She hoped her portrait would survive.

Time, perhaps, to be as brave as Ransom thought she was.

* * * *

When Damon was gone again— in just as high dudgeon as he first arrived— their father stayed in the bedchamber, sweating and furious.

"A few years ago a doctor told me my heart was giving out," he sputtered, tugging on his cravat until it was loosened. "Told me I only had six months or a year to live. I didn't care to believe it then and I don't now. But the lot of you will surely put me in my grave before too long."

Ransom said nothing. His father's temper would rage until it burned itself out, and there was nothing anybody else could do about it in the meantime. Not if they valued their own skin.

"I thought Damon was the
clever
one. I thought he would make the most of his talents and not become distracted." These, at least, were two sentences one could understand, for they were not peppered with various, wildly colorful curses that succeeded in obstructing the English language until it became something else entirely.

"Well, she's gone now, sir, so he can get on with his life, can't he?"

"You know he won't! He didn't believe you when you told him she left London of her own accord. He'll go after her."

Ransom groaned softly. "Yes, but he won't find her."

"Why not? You told him where she'd gone."

"Yes, but I told him she'd gone to Yorkshire."

"And?"

"She's gone to Kent. Other end of the country." He grimaced. "Damon isn't the only one with a brain, sir, even if he is the only one you expect to use his for good." Closing his eyes, he added, "Fret not, the golden boy will recover from this setback. We Deverells are resilient. Like weeds that cannot be eradicated. Isn't that what you like to say?"

He heard his father moving around the room, but nothing was said for a while. There was the clank of an iron poker, the shuffle of coals being stirred up, the squeak of a chair being moved. Finally his father exhaled a gusty sigh.

Ransom opened his eyes. "Still here?" He half expected his father to run out after Damon, but instead he was sitting beside the fire, staring at the flames.

True cleared his throat. "I hope you have not leapt into this marriage idea as recklessly as you leap into most schemes. Miss Ashford appears to be a kind, well-meaning young woman, and she does not deserve her heart broken."

"How can her heart be broken? She's not in love with me. I don't expect her to be. Good lord, there is nothing lovable about me. But I need her. She sees me exactly as I am and yet she is neither afraid nor completely repulsed. It makes me feel as if I could take on the world and possibly win."

"It's purely selfish then, as I thought."

"Not entirely. I can give her some help. I'd like to provide her some business guidance, for instance."

"She's a businesswoman?"

"She has a bookshop, sir."

His father looked askance. "How the devil did you meet her then? She said she is a friend of Raven's, but I assume your sister kept her well away from you. She's not one to share."

"Quite. In typical Raven fashion she wanted to keep Mary all to herself. But I happened upon her by chance and she has not been out of my mind since. So now she'll belong to me and Raven can bloody well put up with it."

His father looked at him sternly. "She's not a toy or a pony."

He would have laughed if it didn't hurt so much. "I know that."

"Are you in love with her?"

"Love? Damn and blast I hope not. That would be dashed inconvenient all around."

His father nodded thoughtfully, then got up and strode to the window, where he stood with both hands behind his back.

"Is that why you began your memoirs, sir?"

"Hmm?"

"Because a doctor told you that your heart is giving out? That you are dying?"

"That was one reason." He gave a loose shrug. "Let's see...it must be eight years ago now when I was given that prognosis. That was when Olivia came to Roscarrock to work as my secretary and help with the memoirs. I hired her for six months. I didn't think it would take that long. But she never left, of course." He smirked, placing a hand to the front of his waistcoat. "My heart started beating with renewed vigor, thanks to Olivia."

"And your memoirs are still not complete."

"How can they be? I'm still living them."

Ransom watched his father's profile in the cool light from outside. "You never told me about that— your heart and what the doctors said."

"I never told anybody. Not even Olivia."

"Why tell me then, sir?"

True turned to look at him. "I wanted you to see how wrong those so-called 'men of medicine' can be." He stretched out his arms. "
I'm
still here, aren't I?"

His father was actually trying to give him hope. For the first time in his life he felt as if his father was on his side. Perhaps even that he cared. A little.

* * * *

Mary scoured the piles of paper on the dresser shelves, searching urgently.

"What is it that you seek, Mary my dear?" Mr. Speedwell shuffled over to help.

She explained about Ransom Deverell's injured lung and how she wondered if the application of pure air might help.

"You mean
oxygen
, my dear." He looked at her over his spectacles. "That is what they call it now." Proudly he added, "I have some experience of it myself. As a boy I was taken to the Pneumatic Institute in Bristol for treatments to fight the asthma I suffered."

"And was it effective?"

"Indeed. It was rather grim for a little boy who would rather go to the seaside to get his air, but it was effective in improving my condition. I daresay it was that experience which first began my interest in medical science. I might have become a physician myself, if my papa had not seen any future in it and viewed the profession as little more than witchcraft." He chuckled.

Mary prodded his attention back to the matter at hand. "But does this Pneumatic Institute still stand?"

"I think not, my dear. Not as it was then. As far as I recall, it was made over into a hospital at the turn of the century to help accommodate the sufferers of a typhus outbreak. I never went there again once my school days were over." He shook his head. "Fifty years ago. How time dashes by."

Again her heart sank. "There must be somebody here in London who can help. We have a great many doctors and scientists who are customers, do we not?"

"Dr. Woodley was not helpful?"

"I think he was not much in the mood to assist, although he met with considerable resistance from the patient in this case, so I cannot blame him completely."

Thaddeus bent his head to look at her over his spectacles again. "The good doctor is, it must be said, somewhat stuck in his ways."

"I have noticed," she replied grimly.

"And you are very concerned about this young man with the injured lung."

She swallowed. "I am. Perhaps you will understand, if I tell you that he is the gentleman who arranged for all our debtors to come forward and clear their accounts. He is also the benefactor who provided that splendid hamper of Yuletide cheer."

"Ah." His misty eyes grew large and round. "Then we must do what we can for him in return."

Violet came down the staircase, carrying her precious new material— well wrapped against the elements in paper and canvas. "Do let's hurry, or we'll be late for the dressmaker."

There was no more time to discuss Ransom's predicament with Mr. Speedwell at present, but he put a kindly hand on her arm and gave her such a reassuring look that she felt quite tearful again. Without a word more being said, she trusted in his help.

Meanwhile, Violet had stopped sharply in the door of the shop when she saw the carriage waiting.

Mary thought quickly. "Lady Charlotte sent the barouche box for us."

"Gracious! How kind of her. It is very grand, is it not?" Violet bounced gleefully as snowflakes gathered on the brim of her bonnet. "People are sure to stare as we pass."

"Undoubtedly," she replied glumly. Why did she lie? Because having to explain everything to Violet at that moment was beyond her. Almost anything was beyond her, when she could think only of Ransom and his condition. It was as she felt every breath he struggled over. Her own lungs were constricted in empathy and she was in no frame of mind for frivolous shopping. But, having promised her sister a new gown, she could not let her down.

Violet was jolly, of course, knowing nothing of Mary's inner distress. "I shall pretend to be royalty and wave."

"Just step up into the carriage,
Violette.
I thought you were concerned about being late?"

Her sister climbed up and arranged herself on the luxurious padded-leather seat. "You never said Lady Charlotte is so kind a friend. I must say, Mary, I was very surprised. From everything you and Raven ever said I thought she would be older and sharp-tempered. I was quite afraid of her at first. But she is positively delightful."

"You're fortunate, Violet. She took a liking to you— as she does to shiny, decorative things."

And what would Lady Charlotte have to say when she learned that Mary had accepted her son's proposal of marriage? It may never come to pass, of course. This might all be a moment of madness in his mind. But she had accepted him.

Perhaps
she
was the mad one.

Lady Charlotte had once talked of her hopes that Ransom would, eventually, make a "good" marriage.

"After all," she'd remarked while flicking through the pages of a magazine, "my son is,
financially,
most eligible. And has the looks to completely disarm most women."

"You must worry that he could become prey for fortune-hunters," Mary had replied.

"Fortune-hunters?" the lady had laughed, tossing her magazine aside. "My poor, naive Mary, everybody hunts fortune. Both women
and
men. It is the way of the world."

So now she would, inevitably, think Mary a fortune-hunter. As would the rest of society. Lady Charlotte might consider it commonplace, accepted behavior to hunt a man purely for his money, but that was not normal or acceptable to Mary.

She did not care what most of the world thought of her. Just as she'd said to Ransom, she knew herself— felt confident in her choices— and whatever opinion anybody else formed about her was their problem, not hers. But she knew now that she
did
care what Ransom and his family thought of her, most especially what they would think about her reasons for marrying him.

The horses were soon pulling them swiftly across town through the snow and she stared out at the jumble of passing houses, amazed that everything looked much the same as usual. The world ought to look vastly different, surely, after all that had happened that day.

"Where were you all morning, anyway?" Violet asked suddenly. "You still haven't told me."

"There is no time for that now. It is a story of some length, and I'm not much inclined to tell it." Although Mary knew she would have to tell her sister about Ransom soon, she didn't think it wise to let Violet know before Lady Charlotte did.

How to even begin the subject was causing Mary increasing levels of consternation, particularly as Violet did not even know she had ever encountered Ransom Deverell and thought her destined to end her days an old maid, sitting on the dusty shelf with Mr. Speedwell's medical journals.

When they arrived at the dressmaker, they were both startled to find Lady Charlotte waiting for them already. Violet was openly delighted, while Mary's surprise took on a quieter, more anxious tenor. On such a cold, snowy day, the lady seldom slithered out of her suite or far from her fire. Either she had heard some gossip she wanted to investigate, or she was bored.

Fortunately, it turned out to be the latter case.

"I must share my expertise in the design of this dress for you, Violette. Did you think I could leave it all in the hands of a dressmaker with nobody but Mary here to offer her opinion?"

It was apparent that Lady Charlotte still had not heard about the attack on her son. This vexed Mary greatly. Surely the lady had a right to know that he was ill— perhaps would not recover. Yet Ransom had said he didn't want her at the house and his father must have made no effort to get word to her.

Mary felt torn. Having never known anybody else who was divorced, and after hearing many times from Raven about her parents' animosity, she was exceedingly cautious. But there remained the matter of a mother and her son. Mary knew what it was to lose loved ones, of course, and to wish she could have done more, said more, while she still had them. She wanted, desperately, to take the right course, for the good of everybody.

For so long she had been on the perimeter of this family— through her relationship with Raven Deverell— and she felt herself invested in them. Was it because she had so little of her own family left now?

Obviously in the way in that small room, Mary tucked herself into a chair in the corner, with a book, and tried to read while the discussion about sleeves, pleats and waistlines proceeded. Occasionally her sister called her name to ask what she thought of a frill or a flounce, but only to laugh at Mary's vexed expression— not to actually want her opinion.

"You fight a losing battle in dour Mary's case," said Lady Charlotte, waving a limp hand toward her. "She would not know a gigot sleeve from an
engageante
."

And indeed she did not.

But she was going to marry Ransom Deverell.

If he lived.
Oh, let him live, please
!

"Poor Mary, look at her expression! She is quite hopeless."

They both laughed smugly together, while pretending to feel pity.

Again she looked at her book, but Mary could not concentrate on the printed words.

After a while, Lady Charlotte said, "You are quieter than ever this afternoon, Mary. Are you ill? Your complexion generally has that common swarthy tint, but today there is a ghostly pallor."

"Oh, no, your ladyship. I am very well."

She loved her sister, but with Ransom's health on her mind it was very difficult to show any interest in something as frivolous as a new frock.

At last she could hold it in no longer, and while Violet was being measured in another room, she said to Lady Charlotte, "Have you had word from your son of late, madam?"

"Ransom? Not since last week. As I told you, he never bothers with me until he has to." Her eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"I wondered, your ladyship...if you had heard...anything. About an accident." Now that she had begun, it was harder than expected, rather than easier.

The woman's eyes were almost black; her eye-lids looked heavy. "To what do you refer?"

"I'm afraid your son had an accident, madam."

"Yes. A few years ago. What about it?"

"No, madam. I meant recently. Very recently. Friday evening to be exact." She took a breath. "I am sorry."

Lady Charlotte raised a hand to her pearl choker. "Sorry?"

"You must forgive me, your ladyship," she exclaimed in a distraught whisper, "but I have struggled with how best to tell you. It has preyed upon me all day and I think that you, as his mother, have a right to know. He was set upon by thugs in the street."

"But I— Friday? And why was I not told until now?"

"I suppose he did not want you to worry." Yes, that sounded tactful enough. "And his father is with him. I have sat here not knowing how to give you this news without alarming you unduly, or over-stepping my bounds, but I would feel dreadful, madam, if you were left in ignorance and...
especially later, when you discovered that I had known and kept it from you. Oh, dear." The book almost dropped from her fingers. "I hope I have done right in telling you. That he won't be angry."

"He?"

"Your son." She gripped the book tighter, holding it against her breast.

For several moments, Lady Charlotte simply stared at her, one hand still touching the beads of her necklace, her lips working as if she chewed something that already disagreed with her stomach.

Mary wanted to say so much more, but held it back, unsure how to continue until she had some verbal reaction from the lady.

Finally..."His father is there with him, you say?"

"Yes, madam."

"Then it has been kept from me by
him
. My wretched husband." Her eyes sparked with anger and then she focused on Mary again. "But would you mind telling me how, exactly, you knew of this
accident
, Miss Mary Ashford, and I did not?"

The edge of the book cover was digging into her fingers. "I am engaged to be married, Lady Charlotte. To your son."

Again she heard her heart beating, fluttering wildly. It had to be said and at least she had more tact than Ransom who may not even tell his mother. But how odd it sounded on her lips.

"
You
?" A harsh gasp spat from the lady— almost a laugh, but not quite. "Is this one of Ransom's practical jokes? He talked you into teasing me, did he not?"

She licked her lips. "No, madam. I am quite in earnest. I would not tease you about such a matter."

Lady Charlotte smoothed a hand over the lace ruffle at her shoulder and then inspected the stitching of her calf-skin gloves. "I should have guessed there was something between you. That day when he came back to the suite. You, Miss Mary Ashford, are not nearly so meek as you seem and have been scheming, sneaking about behind my back."

Now she worried that she had spoiled things for Violet, and her sister would never forgive her. "I certainly have not, madam. It only happened this morning."

The lady fluttered her lashes and gave a high, odd laugh that was more of a rattle, like the sharp ring of a bell clapper, snapped off impatiently by the same hand that rang it. "Don't look so distressed, Mary. I didn't think you had it in you to be sly and mercenary. I must admit I'm impressed. I underestimated you, it seems. But this won't last, of course. You're a plaything. Different to most, perhaps, but...ah, wait! I suppose he did this to take you away from Raven. They've always been so competitive. Well, he alters his mind as often as the wind changes direction, so I would advise you to look about before you think to give your heart." She swallowed, blinked, looked as if she might faint. "And I wish someone had warned me the same way, before I—"