Sattler, Veronica (80 page)

Then,
suddenly, she heard a familiar bark, and spied Finn's shaggy head in the water,
a few yards away.

A
shriek from Margaret told her her assailant had also spied the dog, who was
fast approaching the boat. The oar crashed a second time, and this was met by
Finn's sharp yelp of pain.

"Oh,
God, Finn—no!"
Ashleigh
gasped. She swam clumsily in the dog's direction and saw her beloved hound
struggling in the water, a bloody gash on the side of his head where the tip of
the oar had slashed him. And the oar was now being thrust at him, like a
battering ram!

But
Finn was not finished yet. With a menacing growl, he lunged through the water,
straight for the advancing oar. In the next instant Finn's giant jaws had hold
of the oar's blade, and, giving it a sharp yank, he pulled Margaret with it
into the lake.

Margaret
screamed as she hit the water, then began to thrash about in desperation when
she felt herself sinking. "Help!" she choked. "Help me!
I
cannot swim!"

Even
as the awareness of what Margaret had been attempting throbbed in her brain,
Ashleigh would have swum to help her, but her skirts were badly twisted about
her legs now, and she could barely move. Water seemed to be everywhere—above
her, around her, everywhere. She felt herself being sucked inexorably downward;
the last thing that appeared to her fading consciousness was a blurry, dark-gray
shadow, and then even that faded and there was nothing.

Brett
watched his eighteen-month-old son toddle over to his older sister and hand her
a bunch of violets he'd picked, minus their stems, of course. Marileigh, now
almost four, smiled sweetly at the sibling she adored—and who adored her in
return.

"Why,
thank you, John," she murmured. "And I shall help you pick a bouquet
for Mama. She loves violets, too, you know."

Brett's
contented gaze fell on his wife. Ashleigh... how he loved her! She sat on the
grass, several yards away, surrounded by a group of youngsters who were
listening attentively to a story she told them. Her eyes raised, caught her
husband's gaze and she smiled at him. Brett returned the smile with a look that
promised more, once they were alone.

But
he really didn't mind sharing his wife with the children, both their own
offspring and the eight they'd adopted in a process that began almost four
years ago—a process that came out of a joint decision to follow the example of
his mother, and take into their home orphans whom no one else wanted.

His
mind drifted back over the four years, savoring the happiness they'd shared.
Theirs was a blissful marriage, their home a happy one, filled with children's
laughter as well as their own.

He
allowed his thoughts to wander further as his eyes fell on the lake in the
distance. The lake. Where it had all almost ended.

He
shivered, recalling that terrible day when he'd almost not been in time—when
he'd barely reached his unconscious wife in the water and then managed to swim
with her to the shore, just as Christopher had done with the failing Finn.

Christopher's
driver had been able to pull Margaret ashore as well, but the evil madwoman—for
such was the only way he could allow himself to think of her—had already
drowned. And a blessing it had been, he mused—not for the first time these past
years. For Margaret would surely have been forced to face justice before the
bar, had she lived, and even he would have been hard-pressed to see her hang.
And hang she would have, for the murders of her own child and grandchild years
ago, not to mention Edward, Brett's father.

His
mind passed quickly over the remaining events of that day in June, nearly four
years ago... the shocked staff and arriving guests at Cloverhill Manor, the
hysterical weeping of Elizabeth who cried over and over, "I didn't
know...
I didn't know...."

And
then there had been his mother, her face white with concern, as she flew into
the upstairs chamber where they'd taken the dazed, but otherwise unharmed,
Ashleigh and bandaged the cut on Finn's head. Mary had arrived at the lake too
late to stop Margaret, but she'd found Tom Blecker and young Jonathan heavily
drugged from the tea they'd been served, and hastily sent Finn into the water
to "Fetch Ashleigh!" By the time she managed to hurry to the Manor in
the barouche, Mary was nearly hysterical with fear—until she at last assured
herself that Ashleigh was unharmed, and then, with Lady Jane Hastings's help,
Mary had explained what she'd learned from the letters, and the ghastly puzzle
of Margaret Westmont's crimes had been pieced together for them all.

Brett's
grandfather's sister, it seemed, had never gotten over the fact that she, the
firstborn twin, had been denied the dukedom by virtue of having been born
female. And her twisted mind had spewed and plotted evil from the time she'd
been old enough, apparently, to think she could install one of her own in place
of John Westmont's line.

Lady
Jane was now a contented dowager, happy to play fond auntie to Elizabeth's
twins—for Elizabeth had been taken under Mary's wing following the tragedy and
had at last found contentment herself by wedding an Italian duke. But Jane
Hastings had astounded them during the inquest by swearing that, before he died,
her husband had confessed everything to her, including the fact that Margaret
had deliberately gotten herself with child by him, seducing him with the intent
of bearing an heir she could somehow insinuate into her brother's dukedom.

But
when Jane would have gone to the authorities to tell what she knew, Margaret,
whom she had foolishly confronted with the truth, had threatened to end Jane's
life if she dared to speak to anyone of it again. But Jane had prudently saved
Andrew's letters and not told Margaret she had them. Then, finally, after all
her years of silence, Jane had dared to bring them to light in the face of some
encouragement—encouragement in the form of the kindnesses of a small slip of a
girl named Ashleigh.

Ashleigh...
Brett's mind savored the syllables of her name as his turquoise eyes again
found her laughing face amidst the children's in the grass. How he loved
her—today, it seemed, more than ever.

Next
week they'd be welcoming Megan and Patrick back to England, and their two small
sons as well. It was the first trip abroad for the St. Clares since they'd left
to live in America, although he and Ashleigh had sailed to Virginia to visit
them a little over two years ago. Brett grinned to himself. Young John had even
been conceived there!

Brett's
expression was grim as thoughts of the St. Clares forced him into the
unpleasant past again. After the constables arrived to investigate the
circumstances surrounding Margaret's death, a thorough search of Ravensford
Hall turned up a diary written in the now infamous backhand. Hidden in a secret
compartment in a desk Margaret used in the dowager's cottage, it not only
confirmed the substance of the letters to Lord Andrew, but revealed that it had
also been Lady Margaret who'd set the fire that killed the parents of Ashleigh
and Patrick. She'd learned of Mary's clandestine visits to Kent through an
informant who'd had loose free-trading connections with the St. Clares, and
fearing Mary's abduction of Brett—who was then essential to her crazed
plans—she'd coolly plotted to kill Mary!

Suddenly
a voice from the present shut out the disturbing memories.

"Father,
Father!" Marileigh called as she came running up to him. At her side was
Brett, a ten-year-old rescued from the slums of London where he'd been forced
by poverty to work as a chimney sweep. The lad was bright—sharp as a tack,
Brett thought—and his handsome young face glowed with health— a far cry from
the emaciated, haunted look it had held three years ago, when they'd found him.

"Father,"
Marileigh continued, "Brett made a bargain with me that I could ride his
pony if I managed to keep my dress clean when I played with Finn and Lady
Dimples, and I
have,"
she indicated, holding out the skirts of her
sprigged muslin frock, "and now he says he's not so sure he's going to
keep to his end of it!"

Brett
bestowed a fatherly frown on young Brett, then glanced over the two children's
heads at the advancing figure of his wife before returning his attention to the
boy.

"Brett,
did you strike such a bargain?" he questioned.

Brett
squirmed uncomfortably, then stared at his toes. "I did, sir," he
murmured.

"Well,
then, you know you'll have to honor it," Brett told him. "And take
heart, lad, for it might turn out to be a very good thing." Brett's eyes
met Ashleigh's as she stood behind the children. "You just might, when
you've made a bargain, receive far more from it than you ever dreamed of....
You might just find a miracle."