Valentine (53 page)

And at the court-martial Neil Gerard had said that he was coming up in support, but for some reason, a reason lost in the mists of amnesia, Major Gilbraith had surrendered his colors by the time the reinforcements had arrived. The captain’s force had chased the French across the plain but hadn’t been able to overtake them.

The bright light of memory flooded Sylvester’s brain, and he felt as if some massive weight had been lifted from his spirit. Neil presumably assumed that Sylvester knew nothing of his retreat. It was only the sharp eyes of an ensign and an unlucky ray of sun that had given him away. All he’d had to do at the court-martial was insist he’d been following the orders they’d all received, and Major Gilbraith, with no living witnesses to his decision and convicted by his own actions even if his motive remained a mystery, couldn’t gainsay him. But why had he then tried to kill him?

“Yes,” he said, his voice startling in the dreadful silence that had fallen in the room. “Yes, we were outnumbered and you turned your back on us.”

“We saw you. There was nothing we could do. Behind the hill facing you, there were three more regiments of French.” Gerard was babbling now. “I had only a hundred and fifty men. We’d be slaughtered with the rest of you if we came up in support. Damn it, Sylvester, headquarters didn’t know what they were asking.”

“Yes, they did,” Sylvester stated flatly. “If you’d come up, we could have held the bridge for the two hours necessary before the main army arrived. We were running out of ammunition, Gerard.” His voice now was as deadly as a rapier thrust. “It was all that kept us from continuing.”

“No. You’re fooling yourself.” Gerard’s voice rose to a pitch of desperate conviction. “We’d all have been slaughtered. You were on the plain, you couldn’t see what I saw from the hill.”

“So you cut and ran,” Sylvester said. “And we were destroyed and the colors were lost, and the bridge was lost. Quite a record of achievement one way and another. But tell me”-—his voice became almost confidential—“just why did you need to kill me? You’d ruined me, forced my resignation from the regiment. Why try to deliver the coup de grace?”

Fear blossomed anew in Gerard’s flat brown eyes. “My sergeant,” he mumbled.

“Ah …,” Sylvester said slowly. “O’Flannery, wasn’t it? Was he blackmailing you, Gerard?”

There was no answer from the bed, and Sylvester’s face twisted in an expression of revulsion. He spun suddenly to face Edward, and his eyes were living coals beneath the blue-tinged scar. “Did you hear all that, Fairfax?”

“Yes, sir. Every word.” Edward almost stood to attention, and Theo shrank back against the door, suddenly wishing to make herself invisible. Whatever was going on now in this room among the three of them was outside her own experience. It dealt with a world whose perils and rules she knew nothing about.

Sylvester nodded. He released the chain, and as Gerard struggled up on the bed, he took off his coat. Very deliberately, he began to roll up his sleeves. “Take Theo downstairs and wait for me in the curricle, Fairfax. I have some unfinished business that I believe I am going to enjoy.”

Gerard’s face was the color of whey as he sat massaging his
throat, watching mesmerized as the powerful forearms were revealed, watching as Stoneridge flexed his hands, pulled at his fingers to loosen the joints.

Theo knew she couldn’t let this happen, whether she understood the ramifications of the issue or not. She had no sympathy for the despicable Gerard, her skin still crawled at the memory of his touch, but she knew that if Sylvester yielded to his murderous need for vengeance, something dreadful and irretrievable would happen. And it would live with him forever.

She moved forward, laying a hand on her husband’s arm.

He turned his pale anger onto her, and she flinched from it, but she said, “Sylvester, I know what you’re feeling. I know you feel it’s owed you, but you have what you came for. You’ll kill him. He’s no match for you—look at him. He’s a louse; no, Rosie would say that’s disparaging lice. He’s despicable and a coward, but he’s not worth your vengeance. What satisfaction will you get from pounding such a creature to a pulp?”

Slowly, Sylvester came back to the room on Ludgate Hill. He looked into Theo’s impassioned eyes and heard her wisdom. He had been at the brink of control, and he knew that once his bare fist had smashed into the brittle bones and thin skin of the coward that was Neil Gerard, he would have lost himself in an orgy of blood vengeance for that eternity of confused shame and hideous self-doubt.

“Please,” Theo said, softly now, reaching up to touch his cheek. “It’s over, love. Let it go. I’m here, I’ll help you.”

He allowed himself to slide into the deep-blue pools of her eyes, to receive the balm of her words. He saw in her eyes what he’d seen when she’d been at his bedside during his agony, and slowly, the long anger slid from him. He clasped her wrist as she continued to stroke his cheek.

“Yes,” he said with a twisted smile. “You’re here, gypsy. And you’re going to help me whatever I do or say.”

“You married a Belmont,” Theo responded, with a smile of
her own now as she heard his changed tone and saw the light in his eye. “It goes with the territory. Like it or not.”

He caught her chin, fixing her gaze with his own. “I find I like it.” Bending his head, he brushed her lips with his own in a kiss as delicate as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. “And we have much to talk about, madam wife.”

Theo simply nodded.

Edward said somewhat hesitantly, “Perhaps you should take the curricle, and if you’ll trust your horse to me, sir, I’ll ride him back to Curzon Street and pick up the curricle there.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Sylvester said coolly. He picked up his coat, glancing at the cot where Gerard still cowered. “I suggest you take an extended trip abroad. I shan’t press for a new court-martial, but it won’t be necessary once Lieutenant Fairfax has reported your confession at Horse-guards.”

He put on his coat and for a moment toyed reflectively with one of the dueling pistols. “I’d challenge you, but a man doesn’t match his honor against a coward. Come, Theo.” He swept her ahead of him out of the dingy chamber and down the stairs. A scared face peeped out at them from a door in the lightless lower hall. A door that Theo noticed had a bullet hole in it. She thought of the blood on Edward’s sword and wondered how many people in this malodorous hole were licking wounds. No one hindered their departure at all events.

Sylvester tossed Theo up into the curricle and sprang up after her. “Edward, we’ll see you later.” He leaned down, holding out his hand. “A man couldn’t wish for a sounder ally.”

“What about me?” Theo demanded with a touch of indignation. “I’m a
very
sound ally.”

“That is a matter for further discussion,” her husband said, failing lamentably to hide a broad grin. “Stand away from their heads, lad.”

The urchin jumped back, catching the half sovereign as it flew through the air toward him, and the horses plunged forward.

“I’m as sound an ally as Edward,” Theo insisted, prepared to capitalize on circumstances, now that things had turned out so favorably. “My plan took an unexpected turn, I grant you, but the result was the same. You have your confession and an objective witness.”

“True,” Sylvester agreed, adding pointedly, “How’s your head?”

“A bit achy,” she confessed. “All right, so it didn’t turn out right, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

“No,” he said. “In the circumstances, I can quite see that.”

“I love you,” Theo said, just in case he was still missing the point.

“Yes, I know,” Sylvester responded quietly. “And I’ve loved you since I first laid eyes on you. You’ve tried my patience almost beyond bearing on many occasions, sweetheart, but never my love.” He looked down at her, the stern lines of his face softened, the once cool eyes aglow. “Never in my wildest dreams, or do I mean my craziest nightmares, did I imagine falling hopelessly in love with a passionate, wayward, managing, and unruly gypsy. But that’s what happened.”

Theo smiled, thinking of her grandfather. Whatever had really been behind the conditions of his will, he wouldn’t have intended to hurt her in any way. Had he perhaps heard something of this Gilbraith … something that made him believe he would make his granddaughter happy? He was such a devious old man, it wouldn’t surprise her to discover that he’d set out to learn about his heir from the moment of Kit Belmont’s death. But whatever the truth, the outcome would have pleased him as it pleased everyone else—and brought his granddaughter such sweet joy.

She moved her thigh so that it pressed hard against her
husband’s and allowed her head to drop onto his shoulder, a deep peace filling her, as if she’d been relieved of the most enormous weight.

They drew up in front of the house, and Sylvester jumped down as young Timmy came running to take the horses. Sylvester lifted Theo down and carried her up the steps and into the house.

“Is everything all right, my lord?” Foster asked in concern. Theo, despite her bravado, was looking rather wan.

“It will be,” Sylvester said. “Tell Dora to bring a cold compress and arnica up to Lady Theo’s bedroom.”

Foster’s air of concern deepened. “Yes, right away, my lord. Lady Emily, Lady Clarissa and Lady Rosie are awaiting your return in the library.”

“Oh, well, bring it to the library in that case.” Sylvester turned aside with his burden.

“Whatever’s happened?” Emily jumped up as they came in. “Theo, you’re as white as a ghost.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Theo said hastily. “I … I … uh … I tripped on the pavement and fell in front of an oncoming carriage, but Sylvester managed to pull me back in time.”

Her husband made no comment, and only Rosie noticed the raised eyebrow and the slight twitch of his lips as he settled Theo on a sofa.

A footman came in with the required items and set them on a low table beside the sofa. They all waited in silence until he’d bowed himself out. Sylvester was aware of an air of suppressed excitement in the room as he moved behind Theo and delicately parted her hair at the base of her skull, feeling for the lump.

Theo was aware of it too. “What is it?” she demanded of her sisters. Clarissa in particular was bubbling with exuberance.

“Oh, Theo, Jonathan has a splendid commission to paint
Lord Decatur’s daughter, so he’s asked Mama for my hand and she said yes,” Clarissa declared, her voice a passionate throb, her hands clasped tightly to her bosom.

Theo smiled warmly, trying not to wince at Sylvester’s probing fingers. “That’s wonderful, love.”

“Yes, but it’s not exactly a surprise,” Rosie put in, peering myopically at a plate of shortbread on the table in front of her. “Clarry’s behaving as if there was ever any doubt.” She selected a piece and bit into it.

“Well, we came to tell you that,” Emily said swiftly before her sister could respond to this dampener. “But also we wished to ask Stoneridge something.” She gave him a shy smile as he looked up intently from his first aid. “We’re going to have a double wedding—”

“What a lovely idea,” Theo interrupted. “You’ll be married from Stoneridge, of course.”

“But of course,” Sylvester agreed.

Emily flushed slightly. “That would be wonderful, but it wasn’t what we wanted to ask exactly. We wondered if you would be willing to give us both away, Stoneridge?”

“No one else feels right,” Clarissa said. “Uncle Horace … or Cousin Cecil … they’re not family in the same way.”

A slow smile spread over Sylvester’s face as he wrung out a cloth in cold water and gently applied it to Theo’s bump. “I should be deeply honored.”

“Will you give me away too?” Rosie piped up, brushing sugar dust off her lips. “When the time comes.”

“No, I think I’ll hang on to you,” Sylvester responded dryly, gently smoothing arnica over the bruising. “Save some poor soul from a ghastly fate.”

Emily and Clarissa chuckled, and Rosie, unbothered by the teasing, responded matter-of-factly, “Well, I don’t particularly expect to marry anyway. I’d have to find someone who’s particularly interested in snails and beetles and things. I don’t think many men like that kind of thing.”

“Oh, the right kind of men turn up in the most unexpected places,” Theo said carelessly, reaching up to grasp Sylvester’s wrist. “And from the most unexpected families.”

“Even Gilbraiths,” he said with a smile.

“You’re no Gilbraith,” Theo stated. “You must have been a changeling.”

“Theo, my dear, whatever’s happened to you? Foster said you’re hurt.” Elinor entered the room with a most unusual haste, her customary composure vanished.

“She fell in front of a passing carriage,” Rosie informed her mother. “At least that’s what Theo said. Stoneridge didn’t say anything.”

Elinor glanced sharply at her son-in-law as she bent to examine Theo’s injury. His expression was wry, but he offered no further explanation.

“I don’t believe it’s serious, ma’am. The skin isn’t broken.”

“No,” she said, scrutinizing the bruising. “But you must have a headache, dear.”

“Like the pounding of Thor’s hammer, I should imagine,” Sylvester said. “She should be in bed. You’ll excuse us, I’m sure, if I see to it.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll suggest to Lady Gilbraith that she and Mary might join us for nuncheon in Brook Street. They’ve just gone upstairs to take off their hats.” Elinor was unable to help herself from sounding a little weary. She’d already spent an interminable morning with them.

Sylvester shook his head as he scooped Theo off the sofa. “There’s no need to put yourself out further, ma’am. If my mother is unable to amuse herself for the afternoon, then I’m afraid she must go to the devil.”

Elinor struggled with herself for a second, then laughed. “An unfilial sentiment, Sylvester, but I can’t help but agree with it. Come, girls. Theo needs to rest.”

“I’m sure I don’t really,” Theo protested from her husband’s arms as they went into the hall.

“There’s resting and resting,” Sylvester said blandly, mounting the stairs.

“But what about my sore head?”

“I wasn’t intending to focus my attentions on your head.” “Ah,” Theo said, shifting in his hold so she could put her arms around his neck. “That’s all right, then.”