The Reckless Bride (56 page)

“Yes. I mean …” Manning dragged in a breath. “I never had any interest in her ladyship’s health, and I certainly have none now.”

Rafe smiled. “Excellent. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear that.” With a nod to Roscoe, he headed for the door.

Gabriel followed him out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the front door. He halted on the pavement and held out his hand to Rafe. “An excellent outcome all around. I’d heard whispers that Roscoe dabbled in some non-profit-making enterprises, but for all his obvious presence, the man prizes his privacy. Still, you can tell Lady Congreve that Argyle Investments have a new shareholder and a very able protector.”

Shaking his hand, Rafe nodded. “Thank you for your help.”

Gabriel smiled. “That’s what old friends are for.”

They grinned, exchanged salutes, then Rafe headed for the carriage while Gabriel strode off in the opposite direction.

Loretta leaned forward as Rafe opened the carriage door and climbed in. “Well? How did it go? What happened?”

Still grinning, Rafe closed the door, dropped onto the seat beside her, pulled her to him and kissed her soundly.

Then he told her all that had happened, ending with the need to send an express letter to Esme in Bingen informing her that it was safe to come home.

“Thank goodness.” Loretta leaned against his shoulder, comfortable within the circle of his arms. “She’ll be home in a month or so, in good time for our wedding.” She met Rafe’s eyes. “I wouldn’t have wanted to get married without her.”

Rafe laughed. “I wouldn’t dare.”

The carriage turned into Mayfair. He glanced down, and saw a pensive expression on Loretta’s face. “What is it?”

She looked up, then smiled. “I was just imagining—trying to imagine—the next meeting of the board of Argyle Investments. What do you think will happen when Esme and Roscoe meet?”

Rafe thought, then said, “I think they’ll get on famously.”

Loretta nodded. “Esme has little respect for rules. I rather think Roscoe’s the same.”

Rafe thought of Roscoe, of Esme, and of them both together. He grinned. “I suspect it’s the other investors in Argyle who are in for a disconcerting time.”

May 29, 1823
London

Alexandra Millicent Campbell, née Middleton, the lady who’d achieved notoriety as the Black Cobra, was hanged that afternoon.

None of the four officers who had played the crucial roles in her exposure and downfall attended.

They’d been far too busy attending their wives.

Deliberately. They’d discussed it, and had each decided that watching the hanging would do them no good. Their part in the Black Cobra’s saga had ended on the twenty-second of December. Since then, all four had been actively building their new lives.

None of them saw any need to step back into their past.

That said, they hadn’t been able to escape attention entirely.

The news of the arrest of a well-bred Englishwoman for unspeakable crimes committed both in India and more recently in England had broken in early January. The news sheets had fallen on the story with glee. The first reports had been so hysterical that the four couples had been seriously disturbed. Even distressed. By their very wildness the
reports turned the Black Cobra into a fantastical figure, by contrast cheapening and lessening, certainly showing scant respect for, the many horrific deaths she’d caused.

That was when Loretta had confessed that she had the ability to write their history as they would have it told, and to have it published verbatim. They’d all been stunned, then delighted, and had accepted her offer gratefully. Thus the
True Story of the Black Cobra
came to be penned by that well-established columnist,
A Young Lady About London,
who had herself only recently returned from a trip through Europe, as witnessed by her
Window on Europe
vignettes. It was popularly supposed that the Young Lady had met the officer-couriers on her journey and had gained their confidence.

With no hope of finding any similar sources of such compelling and verifiable truth, the other news sheets regretfully dropped the story, leaving the
London Enquirer
to enjoy popular success beyond its publisher’s wildest dreams.

The serialized
True Story of the Black Cobra
had concluded with a hair-raising account of the fiend’s capture, that had been published six weeks before the commencement of Alexandra Campbell’s trial.

With the public’s focus switching to the Old Bailey, the four couples had been able to retire from the public eye—and attend to the matter of their weddings.

Through the early weeks of the season, they’d been very much the heros and heroines of the hour. Del, Gareth, Logan, and Rafe had been publicly lauded for their bravery, loaded with medals, pensions, and awards from the army and the East India Company—and unexpectedly created barons by a sovereign sincerely grateful to have the public distracted from his own shortcomings and thoroughly relieved not to have been personally mired in the scandal.

However, once loaded with said honors, and with the news that they were all as rich as nabobs somehow circulating through the ton, Del, Gareth, Logan, and Rafe had
found it expedient to cling to their fianceés’ arms, if not their skirts.

Rafe had declared he’d rather face a couple of cult assassins than the ton’s matchmakers with him in their sights.

They’d married as soon as they’d been able to arrange it, and by chance the order of their weddings had matched the order in which they’d returned to England’s shores. The other three couples had traveled first north across the Humber, to the tiny church at Middleton on the Wolds, where the men had stood as groomsmen and the ladies as bridesmaids and watched Del and Deliah exchange their vows.

The couple had left the church beneath an archway of sabers held by all the members of their old regiment who had attended, the Cynsters among them, with the ranks further swelled by the members of the Bastion Club. Del’s aunts had been beyond delighted with the outcome of their matchmaking.

From there, the cavalcade had moved on to Oxfordshire, to the sleepy village where Emily had grown up and outside of which her parents still lived. Another happy ceremony had ensued, filled with the cheer of a larger, very welcoming family.

By then, the guests and the brides and grooms had become a tight-knit traveling party. They’d journeyed to Plymouth, and found the
Esperance
waiting. A brisk run to St. Peter Port had given too many of the ladies too many ideas, then a journey across the island in donkey-drawn carriages had delivered them to Mon Coeur for a magical week. The highlight had been Logan and Linnet’s wedding in the tiny church on the cliffs above Rocquaine Bay. Will gave Linnet away, Jen and Gilly were flowergirls, with Brandon and Chester as pages. Muriel and Buttons had never stopped beaming.

Last to tie the knot had been Rafe and Loretta. They’d spoken their vows before the altar of the church in the small village midway between Loretta’s sister Margaret’s house
and Rafe’s family home—a village Rafe and Loretta had selected as their own, and outside of which they’d bought a sprawling manor house to make into their home.

There hadn’t been a dry feminine eye in the church as, pronounced man and wife, the pair had kissed, then turned, and, radiant, the both of them, had started back up the aisle, the joy in their faces as they’d embarked on their new life a joy of its own to behold.

So now they were all married, and had gathered in Del and Deliah’s London town house to see out the final chapter in the story that had brought them together.

The trial had been lengthy, but straightforward. Throughout the accused had uttered not one word. Regardless, the nature of the charges, coupled with her arrogant, contemptuously silent attitude and the details of her birth and connections, had ensured that the news sheets had never been short of fodder.

Once Alexandra Campbell’s connection to the Earl of Shrewton had become public knowledge, the public as well as the ton had taken to labeling the trio who had created and governed the Black Cobra cult as “Shrewton’s nest of vipers.” The earl had had no choice but to retire from public life and go into social exile, leaving Kilworth—untouched by the scandal and supported by Wolverstone, St. Ives, and the grandes dames—to be the public face of the family.

As Royce had prophesied, Alexandra Campbell’s hanging had drawn a record crowd.

“But now it’s over.” Deliah pushed back from her elegant dining table. “I suggest we all repair to the drawing room—bring the decanters, if you wish. It’s a balmy night and the windows are open in there—it’ll be much more pleasant.”

Emily, Linnet, and Loretta rose and joined Deliah for the short stroll down the corridor to the lovely drawing room in which they’d congregated earlier; on the first floor, the room looked over Green Park, wide windows giving access to an iron-railed balcony.

Exchanging relaxed grins, the men rose, too. Falling in with Deliah’s suggestion, each picked up a cut-crystal tumbler, Del picked up the decanter of port and Rafe the one of brandy, then they ambled in their ladies’ wakes.

In the drawing room they discovered the ladies already disposed on the chaises chatting about ton affairs. Setting the decanters on the sideboard, they helped themselves to drinks, then, after one glance at the feminine conference taking place before the hearth, stepped out onto the balcony.

With all four of them on it, the balcony seemed small. Their backs to the windows, they stood shoulder to shoulder, and, as if drawn, looked up at the stars.

“The night sky, the stars, were very different there.”

None of the others needed to ask which “there” Logan referred to.

Silence held them. Memories stirred, rose, then washed through them.

Then Del raised his glass. “To absent friends.”

Gareth held his glass to the stars. “Gone, but not forgotten.”

“Never that,” Logan murmured, lifting his glass, too.

After a heartbeat’s pause, Rafe raised his glass. “To James MacFarlane, the true hero without whom we wouldn’t have reached today, without whose bravery we would not have seen the end of the Black Cobra.” Eyes on the black velvet sky, he said, “Vale, James. Rest in peace.”

He sipped, then drained his glass.

With soft hear-hears, the others did the same.

Silence fell—a silence filled with regrets released, with the simple knowledge of vengeance fulfilled, of promises kept, not broken. Of a man, a younger man than they, who would live forever in their memories.

Then a stir at their backs had them turning.

“What are you all doing out there?” From the other side of the windows, Deliah frowned at them as if she didn’t know precisely where their thoughts had strayed. She beckoned imperiously, ignoring the sudden gravity that had infected them. “Come inside—we’re discussing plans for later this
summer. If you don’t come and listen, and make your wishes known, you might just discover that our plans are set in stone.”

The four men exchanged glances, then slow smiles broke across their faces, dispelling their solemnity. Dispelling the past.

One after another they stepped back across the sill, looking ahead caught their respective lady’s eyes, and followed Deliah deeper into the room.

Back to what now mattered most.

Their wives, their homes, their prospective families—all solidly rooted in the green fields of England.

She tried to suck in a breath, but her lungs had constricted. By sheer force of will she kept her feet moving and managed to climb the steps into the carriage. He released her hand and her senses snapped back into focus.

A second later, the carriage tipped as Carstairs climbed in. He hesitated, then sat alongside her, leaving the place beside Rose for Hassan.

Carstairs’s shoulder brushed hers as he settled.

She couldn’t breathe again. Worse, her wits had scattered. As for her senses, they were flickering and flaring, not in alarm but in a most peculiar way.

Fixing her gaze forward, she forced her lungs to work. It was preferable that Carstairs sat beside her rather than opposite; at least she didn’t have him constantly before her. Bad enough that she could somehow
feel
him alongside her; his warmth, his solidly muscled strength, impinged on her consciousness as if every nerve she possessed had come alive and locked on him.

She was irritated and utterly mortified.

By Stephanie Laurens

The Black Cobra Quartet

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HE
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ECKLESS
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HE
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