The Secret Rose (30 page)

Mac and Abby shared a look that told Ethan the two most important people in his life approved of—and liked—each other. He was pleased.

“We’ll go now,” he said, lifting Mary Rose into his arms and ushering Abby toward the gangplank. “Palmsworth and Stella will organize our things and come with you when you get the cargo unloaded.”

Ethan didn’t wait for an answer but ushered Abby off the ship. He hailed a hackney, and they left for Langdon House. Ethan couldn’t believe how his life had changed in little more than a week. He marveled at how content he was. And he owed it to the woman who sat beside him. He had never known he could be this happy.

The hackney stopped in front of Abby’s town house, and he stepped to the ground. Mary Rose had fallen asleep before they were barely away from the docks, and he took the babe from Abby, then helped his wife step out onto the curb. They made their way up the walk, and a twinge of uneasiness passed over him.

He wasn’t sure why he should feel apprehensive. Everything looked normal. There was nothing that seemed out of place. And yet…

A footman didn’t come out to greet them. And Bundy didn’t open the door as he’d expected him to.

“What’s wrong?” Abby asked.

“Nothing, sweetheart. Why don’t you take Mary Rose?”

He handed a sleeping Mary Rose over to Abby, then stretched out his arm to keep her behind him.

“Ethan?”

Ethan placed a finger against his lips and slowly opened the front door.

No one was there to greet them.

He pulled a gun from his jacket and motioned for Abby to stand against the wall inside the door.

He looked around the deserted room. The door to every room off the foyer stood ajar, the openings gaping in shadowy dimness. Ethan raised his finger to his lips and turned her in the direction of the study, swiftly moving her with him.

Before they could enter the room, something moved above them. With his gun raised, he pushed her into the study and fired one shot. Return fire splintered the wood at the corner of the frame near his head.

“Stay back, Abby. Against the wall. In the corner.”

Abby ran to the corner while Ethan bolted the door. He raced across the room, locking the windows and pulling the drapery.

“Is there another gun in here?” he asked.

“In the top desk drawer on the right. There are bullets in the back.”

Ethan reached in and took out the gun and the bullets. He scattered the bullets on the top of the desk and shoved them into the chambers until both weapons were loaded.

“Put Mary Rose beneath the desk,” he said.

Abby put the babe on the floor and gave her a glass ball with swirling white snow to play with. She hoped it would keep her occupied so she wouldn’t fuss.

“Use this if you have to,” he said as he handed her the gun.

Her hands trembled when she took the gun, and he touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Everything will be all right, Abby. Mac will be here soon.”

She tried to smile, but her attempt was dismal. Ethan wanted to hold her, to convince her that everything would be all right. But Stafford’s voice stopped him.

“Come out, Captain. I’ve been waiting for you. And please, bring the lovely lady with you. I have such pleasant reminders of the last time we met.”

Ethan clamped his hands on either side of her face. “Stay here. No matter what happens, stay here. And use the gun if you have to.”

“No, Ethan. You can’t go out there.”

“I don’t plan to. I just need to buy time until Mac gets here.” He dropped his hands from her cheeks and stepped away from her.

“I’m short on patience where you are concerned, Captain. Please join me before I send my men in to get you.”

“Go to hell, Stafford.”

Stafford laughed a demented cackle. “I’ve already been there, Cambridge. That’s where you put me when you took my slaves and made me look the weak fool in front of my wife and my neighbors. And now you’re going to pay for what you did.”

Ethan heard the sound of heavy boots treading closer and fired a shot through the wooden door. Someone on the other side cried out in pain.

Ethan heard the scurry of retreating footsteps.

“You aren’t going to get away, you bastard. You’re going to suffer just as I did. You’re going to watch as everything is taken away from you.
Everything!
Now come out here!”

“What kind of fool do you think I am?” Ethan said, saying anything he could to keep the conversation going. Anything to buy time until Mac arrived.

“I’ll show you how foolish it is to taunt me,” Stafford answered, then countered his threat with a diabolical laugh. “I think your brother should be the first to pay for your stubbornness.”

It took a second or two for Stafford’s words to register.
Stephen?

What kind of trick was Stafford playing? How did he even know about Stephen?

“Come out here Cambridge, or your brother will die.”

Abby sucked in a harsh breath behind him. When Ethan turned, Abby’s face was a pasty white. She leaned against the desk as if her legs weren’t steady enough to support her.

“Abby?” he whispered. “Sit down.”

The expression on her face was one of terror. Her wide-eyed horror frightened him. She clasped her hands over her mouth and looked to be in danger of fainting.

“Now, Cambridge! Come out now! Or your brother dies!”

Ethan took a step forward, but before he could reach the door, Abby raced to him and grabbed him by the arm.

“No, Ethan. It’s a lie. Stafford doesn’t have Stephen.”

A thin sheen of perspiration covered her face, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Her lips trembled so violently she’d barely gotten the words from her mouth.

“What if he does, Abby?”

“He doesn’t,” she screamed. “Stephen’s not out there. Stafford doesn’t have him.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because…” She wrapped her arms around her waist as if she was in pain. “Because Stephen’s dead.” Tears flowed down her cheeks like a river after a thunderstorm. “Because I killed him.”

Time seemed to stop. The look on Ethan’s face held more anger than she’d ever seen before. More revulsion and disgust than she was capable of standing up against. The ache deep inside her hurt with an unrelenting pressure, its weight an agony that increased with every breath.

He took one step away, as if he couldn’t stand to be so close to her. To a murderer. To the woman who’d just announced that she’d taken his brother’s life.

“What did you say?” he asked, the wide-open look of horror plain to see.

Tears ran down her face carrying the pent-up anguish she’d held inside her for almost two years. “My last secret,” she whispered. “The one I’d have done anything to keep you from discovering. The secret I knew you could never forgive.”

He shook his head as if a small part of his mind and heart wanted to refuse to believe such a nightmare. “How did you…? Why?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen. I’d give anything if it hadn’t.” Her tears were replaced by a vacant, hollow emptiness that stole every ounce of emotion. There was as much relief in giving up her secret as there had been agony in trying to keep it. Nothing was worth living with something so horrible. Nothing was worth the terror of knowing someone would eventually find out what she’d done.

Nothing had prepared her for the loss.

“Tell me what happened,” Ethan demanded, his lips pressed together in a thin line, his hands doubled in fists so tight his knuckles stretched white. “How could you have killed Stephen?”

She turned away from him, unable to face the blatant disgust in his eyes. “It was the night I discovered him with my mother. I stared at the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms and only wanted to escape the nightmare of the man I was to marry making love to my mother. I ran. He came after me. He intended to…”

“Intended to what!”

“He tried to force himself on me. We fought. He threw me to the ground and…I picked up a rock and hit him.”

The blood roared inside her head. From the other side of the door, Stafford’s angry voice shouted again for Ethan to come out or he would kill Stephen. From inside the room, Ethan’s disgust loomed over her like a vile sickness that had no cure.

“I can’t believe you capable of killing Stephen with a single blow. He’s nearly as tall as I, and equally as broad across the shoulders. It would have taken someone much stronger than you to kill him.”

“My blow merely stunned him.”

“Then why do you think he’s dead?”

“Before Stephen got to his feet, Father came home. When he saw Stephen on top of me, he went into a rage. He and Stephen fought, but Stephen was in no shape to defend himself against someone so insanely angry. By the time I could stop them, Stephen was severely injured.”

Abigail closed her eyes and released a breath that shuddered in the silence. “He couldn’t have lived,” she whispered, her voice shaky and weak. In her mind’s eye, she could still see Stephen’s unconscious body fighting to stay alive.

“Then what happened?”

“We took Stephen to London and put him on a ship that was sailing at dawn.”

“You what!”

A startled Mary Rose whimpered from the other side of the room.

“I had to get Stephen out of London. I knew if I kept him under our roof, Father would kill him for sure. He was that angry. And I was afraid when Stephen died, Father would be tried for murder.”

“Was Stephen alive when you reached London?”

“Yes, but even the doctor on the ship said he wouldn’t live out the day.”

“Then you can’t be sure he—”

“Stop it, Ethan! Stephen is dead. If he’d lived, he would have come back. It’s been nearly two years. He’s dead, or he would have come back long ago.”

“He left a note! A note saying he needed time to himself before he married.”

Abigail hid her face from him. “I wrote the note and had it delivered to you the next day.”

“You! Why didn’t you tell me? All these weeks you kept this from me when you knew how desperate I was to find him. Why couldn’t you trust me enough to tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want to see the look I see on your face right now. At first I was just frightened of what might happen to me, that you would press charges. Then…” She looked up at him. “I started to care for you and didn’t want to lose your love. I knew you couldn’t love me when you found out what I’d done.”

“You couldn’t have known that,” he hissed, the black, angry look in his eyes glaring a fiery blaze that burned her to her very soul. “Not if you cared for me like you say you did.”

“Yes. I knew,” she whispered. “And I was right. The look on your face tells me so.”

“Damn you, woman! How did you think we could survive this? How did you think we could have any kind of a life between us when you knew my brother was dead and didn’t tell me about it?”

Her heart slammed against her ribs, causing a pain as fierce as if Ethan had struck her. “I knew we couldn’t.”

He braced his arm against the wall and lowered his head. His voice, when he finally spoke, was empty, lifeless, devoid of hope. “Would it have been so hard to trust me?”

She had only one answer, but when she tried to speak, her voice came out soft and fragile. “It would have been that hard to give you up.”

“Cambridge! Open that door or your brother dies.”

“Go to hell, Stafford. You’re the one who will die when this door opens. You and as many of that little band of miscreants as I can—”

Stephen’s voice stopped him cold. “Ethan?”

Every muscle in Ethan’s body jerked. He spun to face her, his face taut with anger and betrayal. “That
is
Stephen! He’s alive!”

Abigail staggered against the burnished leather chair, her hand reaching out to find any support that would steady her. She couldn’t take in what was happening. Her mind couldn’t focus on anything except the familiar voice calling from the other side of the door.

She thought he was dead. She was positive he’d died. She’d lived with the nightmare that she was a murderer, but she wasn’t. Stephen was alive. That was his voice.

“Ethan,” Stephen said again.

“Stephen? Are you all right?”

Ethan took a step toward the door, then stopped when Stephen’s voice came at him.

“Stay where you are, Ethan! Make your fight from in there—”

The horrid sound of a fist throttling human flesh was heard from the other side of the door. Stephen’s screams split the air.

“Get out here now, Cambridge! Or your brother dies!”

“No, Ethan!” Stephen called out again, his voice rasping with strain. “I’m not worth it.”

There was another loud thud of flesh hitting flesh followed by a muffled cry of pain. This time the groan seemed softer, weaker.

Ethan tucked his pistol in his jacket pocket and took a step toward the door.

“No, Ethan,” she cried out. “You know Stafford is no man of honor. He has no intention of letting Stephen go. He has no intention of letting any of us go.”

Ethan hesitated a moment, then turned back to her. “Keep that pistol ready.” He glanced at the gun on the corner of the desk. “Kill the first man who walks through that door. Mac should be here before you need to use it.”

“Ethan, please. Don’t go.”

Her words fell on deaf ears. He looked at her as if to memorize her features, then turned and strode away from her.

Without a look back, he opened the door, then closed it firmly behind him.

“Captain Cambridge,” Stafford said from beyond the closed door. “What a pleasure to see you again. But where is your lovely wife?”

“She has nothing to do with this, Stafford. Leave her alone.”

“Mrs. Cambridge,” Stafford bellowed. “Come, join us. I insist. Unless you do not care to see your husband alive again.”

“No, Abby. Don’t come out.”

The air left Abigail’s body. She looked to where Mary Rose played contentedly beneath the desk. The child turned the glass ball in her pudgy hands, as if the swirling snow was the most fascinating sight in the world.

Abigail stood rooted to the floor, unable to move. She knew the wisest decision would be to stay hidden until Mac came to rescue them, but what if Stafford made a move and Ethan tried to stop him? What if Stafford killed Ethan, and she would never get to see him again? What if Ethan needed her, and she wasn’t there to help him?