The Marquess Who Loved Me (36 page)

“Lord Folkestone. How pleasant to see you here,” he said.

Marcus rushed through the other door as soon as Edgewood spoke. Edgewood turned toward him, raising his hands as though he were the only sane one in the room. “And Mr. Claiborne. Another pleasant surprise. Is there some service you require from me?”

He was utterly calm. Too calm. Norbury, who was innocent, had been petrified. Edgewood seemed amused, as though two men with guns drawn were just a game to him.

“You know why we’re here, Edgewood,” Nick said. “You have two choices. A one-way trip to Van Diemen’s Land, leaving tonight. Or a public hanging at Newgate and a box in potter’s field. What’s your preference?”

Edgewood leaned back in his chair. “You already fired me. Am I really so irksome to you that you must further ruin my life?”

Nick leaned against the door frame, pretending to be as calm as Edgewood. “You deserved to be let go. But if I had known that you would continue to plague me, I would have had you arrested instead — you should have been grateful that all I did was fire you.”

“As though anyone there would have cared,” Edgewood said with a laugh. “Half the men in the East India Company were doing something illicit — skimming profits, taking bribes, or exploiting villages. If I had worked for them instead of you, I could have been rich by now.”

“You were more than comfortable.”

“Comfortable? In India?” Edgewood scoffed. “There isn’t enough money in the world to make that hellish place bearable. No white women, little entertainment, a fever every fortnight. In some ways I was relieved when you sent me home. Perhaps you would have hated it, too, if you had grown up with the higher classes as I did.”

Nick knew when he was being baited. He didn’t rise to it. “It’s a shame that all your class made you such a bad shot. All those times you missed me in India, and then you come here and shoot a maid and your own valet rather than either of us.”

Edgewood’s jaw ticked. “Not that I am admitting to anything, but I couldn’t have been the one who tried to kill you in India. I was already on a ship. I can’t say I’m pleased to see you survived, though.”

Nick turned to Marcus. “We don’t have any Maratha mercenaries here to do our bidding — but how many shots do you think you would need to kill Edgewood yourself?”

Marcus leveled his pistol. “One.”

“You have no proof whatsoever,” Edgewood said, baring his teeth.

“I would wager that a judge might not see it that way, not with what I’ve learned about you. I may have no class, but I am a marquess, and I’m richer than your petty little schemes ever could have made you. Do you really think you can keep yourself from swinging from a noose? Take the trip to Van Diemen’s Land. I’ve heard it’s cooler there than India.”

“Funny. I’ve learned a lot about you as well, you know. If I were to stand trial, the newspaper men would love to write all of my testimony about how you obsessed over your dead cousin’s wife, wouldn’t they? I saw everything you bought for her. I heard all the rumors of how you used to call for her when you were sick with fevers. Makes your decision to share a house with her seem a bit lewd, doesn’t it?”

Nick shrugged, but didn’t drop his pistol. “Lady Folkestone is no concern of mine.”

“Hmm,” Edgewood said. He turned his focus to Marcus. “Or your lady friend…Mrs. Grafton, she calls herself? A shame that she was injured last night. Of course, from what I’ve learned about her past, this isn’t the first time that little whore…”

Marcus snapped. Nick felt it happen, felt the atmosphere in the room pull in on itself, then explode. “You bloody bastard,” Marcus snarled as he rushed around the table.

Edgewood stood up faster than should have been possible, as though he’d been waiting for his chance. Marcus set aside his pistol and punched Edgewood square in the mouth, but Edgewood didn’t back away. He drove his fist into Marcus’s midsection and followed it with a knee to the groin — a dirty, dishonorable trick, but it did what he wanted it to do.

Marcus dropped to the ground in agony. Edgewood dove over him, reaching for the pistol on the table…

Nick didn’t hesitate. He braced his feet and fired.

By midnight, Ellie wanted nothing more than to be alone with Nick. But she didn’t want to draw attention to him by seeking him out — not while her guests were chirping like magpies over the best gossip of the season.

The aftermath of Edgewood’s death had taken hours to resolve. The magistrate was shocked to learn that the Marquess of Folkestone had shot a man after being in the country less than a fortnight. But even though the story would raise eyebrows for months, no one would question that it was self-defense.

More shocking was that Edgewood would be buried in unconsecrated ground just outside the family plot. He wasn’t their cousin any more than Napoleon was. But if people knew that Christabel had shared a house with an unrelated stranger, she would be utterly ruined. So they had all lied, with depraved fluency, and claimed that Edgewood was indeed their cousin — and that he had tried to kill Nick and Marcus in order to inherit the title himself.

It was a flimsy excuse, but the magistrate accepted it gracefully. If a marquess, an earl, a duke, and a marchioness closed ranks around each other, there was little he could do to disprove their statements. Her excuses to Norbury, however, were more difficult to offer.

“Don’t tell me you knew Folkestone was going to accuse me of murder,” Norbury had demanded that afternoon, when she had finally returned from the dower house.

Her wince was the only answer he needed.

“And you believed him?” Norbury asked. His voice was hoarse from coughing, which only made it worse.

Ellie sighed. “I am sorry, Norbury.”

“But we’ve been friends for half a decade. You know I’m not nearly dangerous enough to shoot anyone.”

“I think you give yourself too little credit. Haven’t I always found you interesting? Perhaps not dangerous — but certainly capable of daring deeds.”

He drew his shoulders up. The heroic effect was diminished when he sneezed. “You are stroking my ego, Lady Folkestone.”

She shrugged. “That’s what friends do. But I’m glad you’re not the killer.”

“As am I. Folkestone, however, owes me an apology.”

Nick had disappeared as soon as they had returned, although he had promised to rejoin them for dinner. So she knew he wouldn’t overhear when she leaned in to Norbury’s ear. “You should tell him you expect to spend two weeks hunting with him. He hates the country — it might be punishment enough.”

Norbury laughed. “Only if you’re there to organize the entertainments, my lady.”

There was a sly look in his eyes, but she didn’t acknowledge the lurking question about her future. She was just glad that he seemed willing to accept her apology, even if there would still be some awkwardness over what had happened in her breakfast room.

But as the afternoon and evening wore on, Ellie struggled with how to entertain her guests — particularly since all she wanted to do was talk to Nick. There was no clear etiquette for how to handle what had happened. The party should have dispersed after such a shocking development, but no one had left — they were too busy tittering and writing overwrought letters to their friends to bother with making travel arrangements.

When the clock finally tolled midnight, Ellie was still in the drawing room. Sir Percival sat beside her, scrawling something on a piece of paper. From what she could see, it was the start of an awful poem about Folkestone as Odysseus, come back to kill the intruders in his house.

She didn’t fault him for it. At least Percy would take some inspiration from what had happened, rather than dining out on the
on dit
for the next month as most of her guests planned to do.

She wasn’t being fair to them. The ones who cared about her weren’t spreading tales. The rest didn’t particularly matter.

All that mattered was whether Nick was all right. He had come down for dinner, but he hadn’t joined the ladies in the drawing room afterward. Marcus had told her that Nick had retired early. She couldn’t go to him without being noticed — but by midnight, she was ready to find him no matter what anyone thought.

Just as she stood up, a footman appeared with a note on a silver salver. She took it, trying not to blush as she slid her nail under the wafer and opened it.

E. - Conservatory, ten minutes. - N.

She stopped blushing. Where was the wildly evocative description of what he would do to her?

Surely he wasn’t having second thoughts?

She was in the conservatory in seven minutes, not ten. She couldn’t wait any longer. But it seemed Nick couldn’t wait either. He lounged against a pillar near the entrance, half-concealed in the shadows.

The conservatory wasn’t as cold as the outbuildings. The gardeners built fires during the day to keep the plants warm, and the heat hadn’t been lost overnight. But she still shivered. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t send for me.”

She winced at the plaintive note in her voice. He unfolded himself and came over to her. “I couldn’t make polite conversation with all your guests tonight. But I couldn’t wait any longer to see you.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her deeper into the conservatory, moving down the paths between the plants like a man rushing headlong into battle — all nerves and energy, abandoning all caution so that he could keep pushing forward.
 

She kept up with his pace, but her worry grew. “Are you feeling well? I know you had a shock today — should you perhaps be resting?”

He shook his head and didn’t slow down. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

His voice was a closed door. But it wasn’t a locked, barricaded, impassable door — more like a gate that he wouldn’t open today, but might open tomorrow.

She would ask him about it again. The speed in his stride and the thrum of energy in his voice distracted her, though. She’d heard that men were sometimes…voracious after battle, as though the stress of surviving needed an equally strong release.

This might not be a night for conversation. But she would help him however she could.

He cast her a backward glance, one that managed to look both amused and sardonic in the dim light of the waning moon. “When was the last time you let a challenge like that go unanswered?”

She made a wry face at him. “Since I realized how much you like to bait me. You’ll have to try harder than that.”

He stopped suddenly, near one of the back corners of the conservatory, and pulled her into his arms. “Would you take this bait?” he murmured.

She was pressed fully flush against him. She felt him hardening for her, felt herself melting against him. She tilted her face up to look into his eyes. “I might consider it,” she whispered.

He dipped his head and grazed his lips against hers. “And this bait?” he asked.

“You win,” she said. She draped her arms on his shoulders and kissed him thoroughly, consumingly. Her mouth wanted more of him. Her hands wanted to touch him, everywhere, but she contented herself with his broad shoulders and the silky hair that brushed across her fingers. The tempo of the kiss matched the thudding of her heart — and they came together without hesitation, without regret, as though all the walls between them had crumbled into dust.

When he pulled back, she sighed as she lost him. “What shall it be tonight, Nick?” she asked. “Do you want me as a woodland nymph? A gardener? A lost princess trapped in the woods?”

He shook his head. Then he gestured to the bed of plants behind him. “Do you know what these are?” he asked.

She squinted into the darkness. “Strawberries?” she guessed. “But it’s too early to pick them. The chef will have your skin if you interfere with his produce.”

“I will not commit any crimes against the chef,” Nick vowed. “But I’m disappointed there are no blackberries in the conservatory. I cannot find a blackberry in Surrey at this time of year to save my life.”

“Why do you want blackberries?” Ellie asked, bewildered. “Surely the chef has some blackberry liqueur. He might make something with it for you.”

“You don’t understand, do you? I’d hoped you would, but you may not remember that day as I do.”

“That day…?”

He frowned as though willing her to share his memory. “The day we picked blackberries,” she said suddenly. “I think it may have been the best day of my life.”

It was a dramatic thing to say — but then, it had been a dramatic day. Everything was bright, cloudless. The berries were sweet; Nick’s laugh was sweeter still. He had only just started laughing for her then, and she had treasured each time he sparked a smile for one of her jests. And when he had kissed her…

“It may have been the best day of my life, too,” he said. “So perfect that I sometimes wondered what the purpose of life was, if that day could not be bettered.”

Then he took her hands into his and stripped off her gloves. “Can you guess why I brought you here?” he asked.

She shook her head. She hoped she knew why he had brought her there. But she wasn’t going to rush him. “If it’s to tell me you are going back to India, I shall murder you.”

He stuffed her gloves into his waistcoat and twined his fingers through hers. “No trips to India in my future. But I have thought a lot about beginnings.”

Nick paused. Ellie held her breath. It seemed the whole conservatory held its breath — in the cool mist of the greenhouse, they were utterly alone, utterly able to focus on each other.

And what Ellie felt in Nick’s grip on her hands made her heart flip.

He drew a breath. “I have thought a lot about beginnings. That blackberry patch was a beginning. And it felt right, tonight, to revisit it — not with the girl you were and the boy I was, but with who we are now.”