The Bridegroom (36 page)

He started walking faster, jostling her, making everything hurt more.

She gave a sharp cry when he stumbled once and jarred her shoulder.

“Sorry,” he bit out. “I will try to be more careful. Terrence has been sent to find a doctor. With God’s help, he will be back before you suffer much more.”

Tears seeped from beneath her eyelids, but she endured the excruciating pain without further complaint.

“Don’t give up now, Reggie. Keep fighting, love. We have a great many years ahead of us together.”

That was the last thing Reggie heard before she sank into a blackness that summoned her with soft whispers that promised surcease from the pain.

C
lay paced anxiously outside Reggie’s bedroom door. Dr. Wren had been inside for nearly half an hour without offering a word of information on Reggie’s condition. Clay knew she was alive, but she had lost consciousness soon after he laid her down, and she had not regained it before the doctor arrived several hours later. He was frightened.

What if she never woke up? What if he never had a chance to say he was sorry? What if she never had a chance to see Castle Carlisle with all its windows open to the sunlight?

Suddenly, Reggie screamed.

Clay’s heart skipped a beat. Dear God! What had happened now? He burst into the room, saw the doctor bent over her, and shouted, “What are you doing to her!”

“I have just reset her dislocated shoulder,” the doctor said calmly. “Now, if you will please wait outside, your lordship, I can finish my work.”

Clay stood staring, unable to move. Reggie’s right shoulder was horribly bruised, and her right wrist was swollen nearly double its size. He was appalled at the enormous number of cuts and smaller bruises he could see on her face and arms despite the sheet that was drawn up to protect her modesty. Her face was wan, her eyes closed.

But if she had screamed, she was obviously no longer unconscious. Surely that was a good sign. “Will she be all right?” he asked.

“I will know more when I have completed my examination,” the doctor said. He turned to the plump, white-haired—and white-faced—housekeeper and said, “Mrs. Stephens, will you please take his lordship downstairs and get him some brandy.”

“I can see myself out, Mrs. Stephens,” Clay said, backing out of the room. “You stay and assist the doctor.”

He headed downstairs to the drawing room and found Pegg there before him. The big man was sitting in the single wing chair that occupied the room, leaving Clay with a choice between the stool at the pianoforte or the Grecian sofa, with its flaking gilded arms. The rotted red velvet that had once covered the sofa had been replaced
with a piece of bottle-green brocade drapery salvaged from an upstairs bedroom window.

Clay could not bear to look at the sofa. It reminded him too much of Reggie. He marched to the rolling cart in the corner, poured himself a glass of brandy—both the chipped crystal goblets and the slightly cracked decanter having been scavenged by Reggie from the attic—and swallowed it in one reckless gulp.

The heady fumes made his eyes water, but did nothing to ease his fear. He was tempted to pour himself another but realized it would take the whole bottle to drown his dread. He set the glass down and began to pace again.

“Sit down, lad. Ye’re makin’ me nervous,” Pegg said.

“If she dies—”

“ ’Twill serve ye right if she dies,” Pegg interrupted, lurching out of the chair to confront Clay. “Ye never valued the lass, and look what’s happened. Are ye ready now to give up this foolishness?”

“Are you suggesting I forgive her father because she fell off a ladder doing something I never asked, never intended, never even wanted her to do?”

“If ye love the lass, why not?” Pegg retorted.

Clay ignored the first half of Pegg’s statement to focus on the question he had asked. “Do you really think Blackthorne has suffered enough? He endured a slight financial setback when he tried to sell his wheat crop this year, but he has made arrangements to keep that from happening again.

“I have bankrupted his son-in-law, but Blackthorne
merely welcomed his daughter home with open arms. And I have taken his other daughter to wife, forcing her to live apart from her father for—is it three months now or four that we have been in Scotland?” Clay asked sarcastically.

“Where have I done Blackthorne any harm that can equal the harm he has done me? Where are we even? Whatever my personal feelings for his daughter, the duke must not be allowed to escape unpunished. I made a vow to God, to my wife and son, and to myself, that if I lived to return to England, I would do my best to repay the duke by making as thorough a ruin of his life as he made of mine. I have not yet begun to repay that debt!”

Clay marched out of the room without allowing Pegg to speak. There was nothing his friend could say to him that would change his mind.

But his feet took him back up the stairs, where he paced outside Reggie’s door as nervously and anxiously as any new bridegroom threatened with the loss of a beloved wife.

“Milor
rr
d? I must speak with ye.”

Clay turned to find Cam MacTavish standing before him. The gatekeeper had no business in the house and none at all upstairs where the family lived. “What are you doing here, MacTavish?” Clay asked irritably. “If you have come to ask about my wife’s condition, I have nothing to report.”

“I havena come for that. I’ve come to tell ye ’Twas no accident yer
rr
wife fell. ’Twas done on pur
rr
pose by the scarr
rr
ed man holding the ladder
rr
. He meant for her
rr
to fall. He meant to kill her
rr
if he could.”

Clay’s breath was caught in his chest. He had already interrogated Terrence about how the accident had happened. The man had not acted like a murderer. He had been in tears.

“She was swatting at a horsefly, my lord,” Terrence had said, his voice breaking, “and lost her balance.”

“What was she doing up there in the first place?” he had asked.

“When George was called away, Lady Carlisle insisted on climbing the ladder herself to finish what he had started. She said I could hold the ladder for her, but she would not be able to hold it for me.”

He remembered thanking Terrence for coming to find him so quickly and Terrence apologizing for how long it had taken to locate the doctor.

If what MacTavish said was true, it was entirely possible Terrence had delayed finding the doctor on purpose.

“How do you know Terrence is guilty?” Clay asked. Having been a victim of false accusations himself, he was not ready to accept MacTavish’s word without some further evidence.

“I was ther
rr
e, milor
rr
d, watchin’ over
rr
her
rr
like I was ordered to do and saw the whole thing. Yer
rr
wife
did
lose her
rr
balance, but she wouldna have fallen if that blackguar
rr
d hadna tipped the ladder
rr
.”

“Who ordered you to watch over my wife?” Clay asked in a silky voice.

“I was sent by the Lair
rr
d of Clan MacKinnon.”

It took Clay a moment to decipher the meaning of MacTavish’s words. The Laird of Clan MacKinnon, by
virtue of his marriage to Katherine MacKinnon, was Reggie’s father, the Duke of Blackthorne.

“The duke sent you to watch over her?” Clay confirmed, feeling a flush of anger spread upward from his throat.

“Aye, milor
rr
d. He couldna be sur
rr
e ye didna wish the lass ill. I suspected Terr
rr
ence when the skiff sank, but I didna see him do it. I’m only sorr
rr
y I didna say somethin’ before the lass was hur
rr
t.”

“Do you know where Terrence is now?” Clay asked.

“Aye. That’s why I came huntin’ ye, milor
rr
d. He’s in the bar
rr
n, saddling a hor
rr
se.”

“Find Pegg,” Clay ordered as he headed for the stairs. “And bring him with you to the barn.”

Clay did not know why he had not suspected sooner. Why he had not seen the truth when it was right under his nose. He had been searching for Cedric Ambleside ever since his return, had known the man must be somewhere nearby.
And he was
.

The scarred man was the same height as Cedric Ambleside. Had the same hazel eyes, though one rarely looked past the scars on his face to see them. What was left of his hair had gone completely gray, and where he had been soft before from sitting behind a desk, now he was muscular and wiry. But once Clay was willing to consider the possibility, it seemed horrifyingly obvious:
Terrence was Cedric Ambleside
.

When Clay arrived in the barn, his certainty faded. The scarred man did not look like a murderer. He looked like a humble servant. Which was probably why he had remained undetected for so long, Clay realized, once the
burns—and how had he gotten them?—had disfigured him enough to disguise his true identity.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Ambleside.”

The scarred man froze. And Clay realized he had his man.

“How did you get burned?” Clay asked.

Mr. Ambleside continued saddling the horse, buckling the cinch and laying the stirrup back down over it. “I was hiding in the attic of a tavern—after being shot and left for dead by Blackthorne—and it burned down.”

“The duke shot you?” Clay exclaimed.

“Fortunately, the bullet hit my watch instead of my heart,” Mr. Ambleside said. “As you see, I have been quite disguised for the past twelve years.”

“And continuing to cause mayhem wherever you go,” Clay accused.

Mr. Ambleside ceded him the matter with a tip of his head. “However, I believe I have accomplished what I set out to do here. Blackthorne will never stop hounding you now, and while his attention is focused on you, it is diverted from me. It is time to take my leave.”

Clay shook his head. “Not this time.”

Mr. Ambleside pulled a pistol from the bag that was tied to the saddle and pointed it at Clay. “My argument was never with you,” he said. “You were only a means to harm my half brother, the Duke of Blackthorne.”

“You and Blackthorne are brothers?” Clay asked incredulously.

“I am the bastard son who was kept hidden and never acknowledged,” Mr. Ambleside said. “I should have had half of everything Blackthorne owns in Scotland.
That is the law here. The bastard inherits equally with the legitimate son. But my father made certain my existence was never acknowledged. And my brother has done nothing to remedy the situation.”

“He made you his steward,” Clay said. “He put you in charge of his estates in Scotland. You had control of everything. You lived comfortably and well.”

“I deserved more,” Mr. Ambleside said.

“So you tried to murder your half brother and steal away his land,” Clay said. “And involved me in your plot.”

Mr. Ambleside shrugged. “You were young and gullible. A convenient tool. My plan would have worked, if those fools had killed Blackthorne before they threw him off his ship and into the sea.”

“Your murdering days are over,” Clay said.

“I am the only one holding a pistol,” Mr. Ambleside pointed out.

“Look again,” Clay said.

Mr. Ambleside’s eyes darted from side to side. Pegg stood at one door to the barn with a pistol. MacTavish stood at the other with a shotgun. Mr. Ambleside aimed his pistol at Clay’s heart and said, “Tell them to leave, or I will shoot you where you stand.”

Clay realized Ambleside had nothing to lose. He was a dead man whether he tried to leave and got shot, or gave up his gun and got hung. That made him dangerous.

MacTavish signaled Clay that he planned to fire the shotgun into the air. In that instant, Clay leapt forward, tackling Ambleside, fighting him for his pistol. The two
men rolled on the ground, as Clay tried to keep the gun aimed away from his face.

Ambleside’s finger was locked in the trigger, and Clay knew he was waiting for the chance to pull it. They were rolling around so much, there was no way Pegg or MacTavish could shoot without taking the chance of hitting Clay.

“I might have forgiven you for what you did to me,” Clay said through gritted teeth, as he turned the gun from his chest toward Ambleside’s heart. “But never for what you did to my wife.”

The pistol fired.

Clay saw the shock in Ambleside’s eyes and realized the older man had accidentally pulled the trigger. The ball had hit him in the heart—he could see Ambleside’s watch had not saved him this time—and the light died quickly from his eyes. He was dead within moments.

Clay raised himself from the villain’s body and stood on shaky legs staring down at Cedric Ambleside. He was such a small man to have caused so much harm.

Pegg kicked Ambleside’s ribs, as though to assure himself the man would not rise up again. MacTavish spit on him.

“Good r
rr
iddance,” the Scotsman said.

Clay realized suddenly that it was still light outside. It felt like he had been gone from the house for hours. In reality, the confrontation with Ambleside—for which he had waited twelve years of his life—had taken only a few minutes. “Will you two take care of him?” he said. “I need to find out how my wife is faring.”

Clay waited barely long enough to see Pegg’s nod
before he was gone. He ran most of the way to the house and bounded up the first few stairs before he stopped, paralyzed by fear.

Please let her be all right
, he prayed.

When had God ever answered his prayers?

Clay forced himself to walk the rest of the way up the stairs and down the hall to Reggie’s bedroom door. It was still closed.

When at least another half hour had passed, Mrs. Stephens opened the door and stepped outside, closing it behind her. “The doctor would like to speak with you now, milord. I will be bringing a tray to her ladyship. Will you be wanting to eat supper downstairs this evening?”

“I will dine with my wife in her room,” Clay replied. “Please have something sent up for both of us.”

“Very well, milord,” Mrs. Stephens said.