Chapter Sixteen
The following morning, for the first time in several days, Caroline woke with a feeling of optimism. The silly engagement to Richard could easily be fixed and the world made right if Javan only cared for her a little. And as she began to understand him more, she thought he did. Now, she could try to help him heal.
She sat up as the maid crept in with her washing bowl.
“Oh, you’re awake, Miss,” the girl said. “Good. There’s a letter here, came for you yesterday, but you’d gone out already.”
As the maid laid it on the bedside table, Caroline saw that it was from her sister Eliza, which was rare enough to intrigue her. Breaking the seal, she spread out the sheet and began to read.
A second later, she held the back of her hand to her cheek in fear and shock. Peter was worse, dangerously so, and more money was necessary for the doctor.
She was out of bed and throwing on her clothes before she’d even finished reading, let alone planned what she must do. It was still early, so if she could persuade Williams to drive her to Carlisle immediately, she might just catch the Edinburgh mail coach and be home by the evening. Hastily, she threw her spare gown and undergarments into her bag and left by the passage door.
Hurtling downstairs, she almost crashed into Richard, coming in the opposite direction.
“Woah, there,” he exclaimed. “Where’s the fire?”
“Home,” Caroline said distraught. “I have to go home. Do you think I could borrow Williams to drive me to Carlisle? Oh, and if I don’t have time to write, can you tell Rosa I’ll only be gone a few days, and apologize to Mr. and Miss Benedict—”
“Slow down,” Richard begged. “If there is a family emergency, of course I’ll drive you to Carlisle—or all the way home, if you prefer. Let me get my man and then we’ll go.”
Caroline seized her bonnet and cloak from their usual place, ignoring the foolish ache as she glanced along to the study door. Alert for sounds of Richard’s return, she dashed into the drawing room and scribbled a note to Javan. There wasn’t time to write much. Richard clattered down the stairs and the clop of horses’ hooves heralded the speedy arrival of his curricle in front of the house. In the end, she wrote only,
My dear Sir,
Forgive me, I have gone to Scotland. Please assure Rosa I shall return in a few days. My apologies to you and to Miss Benedict.
Yours humbly,
Caroline Grey.
She barely had time to fold it and prop it up on the mantle shelf before she ran out to join Richard. In no time, she was seated beside him, her familiar, battered carpet bag on her lap, while Richard, with a practiced flick of his wrists, set his spirited team of horses into motion.
As she drew away from Haven Hall, she had the peculiar fantasy that her heart was being ripped from her body.
*
Marcus Swayle was barely awake when the villainous but useful Mr. Miller—Killer Miller to his friends—was brought before him. From his bed, propped up on pillows, Swayle regarded his most recent henchman with disfavor.
“They’re on the move,” Miller informed him.
“Who are?” Swayle demanded testily. He wasn’t at his best before his morning cup of tea.
“Folks at Haven Hall. Two of ‘em at any rate.”
When no further information was forthcoming, Swayle snatched his tea from his valet and glared at Miller. “Which two?”
“Benedict and the young lady.”
Swayle paused with his tea half way to his lips. “Indeed?” he said softly. “Now you interest me, my friend. And…er…where are they on the move to? Blackhaven?”
“No, sir, they took the north road.”
Swayle almost choked on his tea and hastily set down his cup. “Truly? Then they are eloping? This is wonderful! He’s got so angry that she engaged herself to his cousin that he’s dragging her to Gretna Green!”
Miller scratched his head. “Glad we’re pleased by the turn of events.”
“We most certainly are. Now you must hurry, my man. Ride after them, and on a quiet piece of road, shoot her.”
Miller blinked. “Shoot her? Got no call to go shooting women! I thought it was this Benedict we was out to get?”
“Idiot, sirrah! We do get him! The world thinks he shot her, just as he killed his wife, my sainted Louisa. At best, Benedict’s hanged for it. At the least, he loses what’s left of his reputation and is furious besides at losing his latest toy.”
“Toy?” Miller said, bewildered.
Swayle scowled. “The governess, whom you will have shot.”
Miller’s low brow tugged further down his face as he stared at Swayle. “Can’t go around killing gentlefolk,” he said at last, with a trace of regret.
“She isn’t gentlefolk, she’s the governess!”
Miller appeared to be considering this while he stroked his unshaven chin. “Very well,” he pronounced. “One thing you might not have considered.”
Swayle almost laughed in his face. The very idea that the brutal imbecile Miller might have thought of something Swayle hadn’t was really quite exquisitely humorous. But Swayle was in a good mood now. “What might that be?” he inquired with patience.
Miller let his grubby hand drop from his face. “Not entirely sure which Benedict it is. What if it’s the cousin?”
Swayle’s mouth dropped open. “The cousin? Richard? Don’t you know?”
“No. Couldn’t skulk in their stables, now, could I? They look the same over the kind of distance I was at.”
Swayle finished his tea and rattled the cup against the saucer for more. As his valet obliged, pouring from the pot, he glared at his henchman, reminding himself that he wasn’t called Killer Miller for nothing.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said at last. He opened the bedside cabinet and took out a monogrammed handkerchief. It bore the initials JB, lovingly embroidered by some dead Benedict no doubt. Swayle had taken it long ago, with many other things, when he’d lived in Javan’s house. “Leave this close to the scene. It will be enough to prove Javan Benedict’s presence there. He might just as well shoot the girl for eloping with his cousin. The important thing is she gets shot and Javan Benedict gets the blame.”
Miller pocketed the handkerchief with a smooth, speedy movement that spoke volumes for his previous career as a pickpocket.
“Well, I will shoot her,” he agreed at last. “But I ain’t killing her if I can help it.”
Swayle cast his eyes to heaven. “You have to kill her! Otherwise, she’ll inform against you!” Or, at least, claim Javan’s innocence, which didn’t suit Swayle at all.
Miller looked back at him with unexpected contempt. “You’d better pray she don’t. Because if I get collared for this, so do you.”
With that, Miller sauntered out of the room. Swayle waved his hands urgently at his valet to follow and make sure the disreputable assassin left the hotel by the back stairs.
*
Javan was surprised by a morning visit from his daughter before he had even left his bedchamber. Dressed in his old walking clothes, he was gazing out of the window, contemplating a long walk with Tiny to strengthen his injured leg, when Rosa burst in with barely a knock. She looked as if she were about to cry.
“What is it?” he asked, going to her at once.
For answer, she seized his hand and tugged him out of his chamber in the direction of the schoolroom. Happy enough to oblige—for it was time, past time, that he spoke to Caroline like an adult—he walked into the schoolroom.
Caroline was not there. However, the connecting door to her bedchamber was open, and Rosa dragged him toward it. Now at last, he pulled back.
“Rosa,” he objected. “No. Is Miss Grey ill?”
Impatiently, she pulled free of his hand and ran into the bedchamber, waving her arms around to show him that it was empty.
“She’ll be in the kitchen, eating breakfast and waiting for you,” he said. “Go and find her.”
Rosa shook her head vehemently, pointing at her eyes and then downward to show she’d already looked for her governess downstairs. Then she walked to Miss Grey’s wardrobe and opened the door. Only the peach evening gown hung there. Of the other gowns he’d seen her wear, there was no sign. However, it felt quite wrong to be in the room like this, and despite a twinge of definite unease, Javan refused to go through her possessions, or allow Rosa to do so.
He pulled her out of the room. “You mustn’t pry into her things,” he said severely. “Perhaps she’s gone for a walk. Tiny was barking earlier, so she might have taken him. Is your aunt up yet?”
Marjorie was discovered in the drawing room, staring at a sheet of paper which she held in front of her.
Slowly, she raised her eyes to Javan’s and held the paper out to him. He strode forward and twitched it from his sister’s fingers. A note from Caroline—brief, impersonal, and apologetic.
His ears began to sing. “Scotland…”
“She went with Richard,” Marjorie said with difficulty. “I saw them from my window.”
Javan gripped the letter so tightly that it began to tear. He sank onto the arm of the nearest chair. “What have I done?” he whispered.
He’d driven her away, made life impossible for her. She could have been his. He’d seen it in her eyes, gloried in it, and yet chosen to punish her for his own lack of confidence. He should have claimed her the night in the library. Instead, he’d let Richard be the gentleman. He knew instinctively she did not love Richard. So how had he let it get to this? He was destroying himself and everyone he loved all over again.
And God help me, I do love her…
Without a word, he walked out of the room and downstairs to his study. Tiny, lying in front of the fire, lifted his head hopefully, but Javan only closed the door and walked to his desk like some clumsy automaton.
I can live without her. I can live with this grief, too…
Only, why should he? Why should Rosa? Why should Caroline? She belonged to him and his family, and he would never be complete without her. But what propelled him into sudden action was the knowledge that neither would she be whole without him. A hundred tiny looks and smiles and blushes had told him that. The way she trembled at his touch and gasped at his nearness. He’d soaked them up like water to a drowning man and never realized how much he valued them. How much she had given him, how much she had risked because she couldn’t help this love any more than he could.
With an oath, he strode out of the room, yelling for Williams and his horse.
“Rosa!” he called up the staircase. “I’m going to bring her back! Stay with your aunt and be good!”
*
When Richard had gone, Marjorie sat down by the drawing-room fire with Rosa at her feet. They both gazed into the flames, each thinking, no doubt, much the same thoughts about the same people.
To Marjorie, there had always been something not quite right about Richard’s engagement to Miss Grey. Not that the girl wasn’t pretty, cultured, charming, and well-mannered in the quietly-spoken way Marjorie most admired, but it had seemed to her that any tendre Miss Grey might harbor beneath her severe and civil exterior, was for Javan. Not that she suspected the governess of inveigling him into marriage, as it was rumored she had tried with the Earl of Braithwaite.
Although that had been Marjorie’s first fear, the day Miss Grey had arrived and she had thrown the cake… She’d known if it had missed Javan it was liable to hit the governess. Marjorie cast the troubled memory aside. That had been a bad day, but she’d recovered, and observed Rosa’s growing brightness, and Javan’s. Particularly Javan’s. And she had discovered the new governess to be a kind and sensible young woman.
Somehow, Caroline Grey had got under all their skins. She was a comfortable companion, interesting to converse with, witty when she chose to be, and had enough fun in her ill-dressed person to appeal to Rosa. Marjorie was aware that theirs was an odd household full of damaged people, but Miss Grey had never appeared to judge. She accepted them all and quietly went about making things better.
Until this odd engagement to the mischievous Richard. Marjorie liked Richard, and she was aware he thought the world of Javan. Could he not see that his betrothal hurt Javan?
Marjorie sat up straighter. Of course he could see it. Richard was no fool. Was that his game? Was he trying to force Javan into action? After all, with his first, utterly disastrous marriage under his belt, Javan was understandably skittish about marriage and highly cynical of women on the so-called marriage mart. He might well need to be forced, although where on earth the rush was when Miss Grey hadn’t been here a month…
Moreover, Marjorie balked at the idea of Miss Grey bringing shame on herself, her family, and her employer’s family by eloping. One way or another, it would surely break her relationship with Rosa. Nothing about Miss Grey gave Marjorie any reason to believe her a schemer, a fortune-hunter—the Braithwaite rumors notwithstanding.
Marjorie nodded twice. “Rosa,” she said firmly. “Ring the bell. I think we need to question the servants.”
“So,” Marjorie said, ten minutes later, after she had spoken to the servants and dismissed all of them save Williams. “So, Ginny took a letter to Miss Grey and then Mr. Richard called for his curricle.”
“He was going to take her to Carlisle, at least, or ‘home’ if she preferred,” Williams repeated.
“And did you tell this to the colonel?” Marjorie demanded, forgetting that she wasn’t meant to use his rank.
“No, he didn’t ask, just rode off without a word.”
“So, he thinks they’ve gone to Gretna Green. And in fact, they’re going to her family somewhere else in Scotland. Or Richard will put her on the mail coach at Carlisle.”
Williams inclined his head, while Rosa looked from one of them to the other.
“Does it seem to you,” Marjorie asked, frowning, “that there is room there for lots more misunderstandings? And scandal? And in spite of all, the wrong marriage? At best, Miss Grey will need a chaperone.”
Williams, who clearly hadn’t thought of Gretna Green until Marjorie mentioned it, began to nod vigorously. He knew his master very well.
“Then we had better go, had we not?” Marjorie said.
“To Scotland?” Williams asked doubtfully.
“If we drive like the wind, will we reach Carlisle before the Edinburgh coach leaves?”
“Maybe. But it will rattle your bones.”
“Well, what else do I use the old things for? Fetch the coach and the horses, Williams! We’ll need food and a blanket.”
*
The way from Blackhaven to the Carlisle road was not great for carriage travel. Javan, riding across country, had every hope of catching up with Richard’s curricle long before it reached the city. The road wound between hills and along the coast for part of the way. Javan cut off several miles by simply riding as the crow flies, over the hills and streams and through the forest, until, galloping fast, he caught sight of the road below him. A horse and cart ambled in the opposite direction. And then, around the corner, came a curricle containing two people, a man and a woman.
With some triumph, Javan turned his horse’s head and galloped onward and downward to head them off. It was then that he noticed the fresh hoof prints again. He’d glimpsed them at various stages on the way without paying much attention, for he knew both his quarries were in Richard’s curricle, not riding on horseback. He followed the hoofprints for a little, but as he came closer to the road, they carried on around the side of the hill while he galloped on downward toward the road and Caroline.
Now that the moment was almost upon him, he realized he’d no real idea of what he would do or say. Every speech he came up with made him sound like a pompous ass, a coxcomb or a pathetic whiner, none of which could he imagine appealing to Caroline.
The trouble was, words could not adequately express his feelings or his desires, or his care for hers.
He would have to wait until he saw her. Once he saw her face, he would know whether he was saving her to be with him, or simply to prevent a disastrous elopement and the damage to her reputation. Either way, he would fight to win her and be worthy of her, and he would never give up…
A flash from the hill above caught his attention. Almost at the road now, he turned and gazed several yards up and to his right, just above the next bend. The low, wintry sun was certainly glinting on something, something so familiar to him it was like coming home. A sword. Or a rifle.
He absorbed the terrain without really trying. From the glint, a sharpshooter had a clear sight of the road below, and yet had plenty of cover. From the road, and from where Javan observed, he could remain hidden. Any vehicle would slow drastically around that bend, giving a good shot his best chance.
Only, who would do such a thing? He hadn’t heard of highwaymen in the area, though it was true he hadn’t been in much of a position to hear of any that were. That, too, was the result of his chosen isolation.
By the time he stopped the curricle now, they would all be in the direct view of any sharpshooter. Before the thought was properly formed, he’d turned his horse’s head, urging it up the hill as fast as it would go. All the time, he scanned the hills for signs of other weapons, other shooters.
By the time he threw himself off the horse, the rumble of the curricle’s wheels seemed to fill his ears. Blending speed and caution, he crept around the rocky outcrop and saw what he’d become sure he would—one man stretched out with a rifle pointing below. The distance was perfect, and the curricle was rounding the bend with slow, smooth perfection. No one had ever accused Richard of driving badly.
“Good morning,” Javan said to distract the shooter, because he wasn’t sure he had time to jump on him before he shot. He hadn’t, as it turned out. A mere instant before he landed on the shooter, the familiar crack of a rifle exploded and echoed around the hills.
The gunman heaved himself around almost in the same movement as he shot—not in time to save himself, but in time to see his attacker’s face. “You!” he exclaimed as Javan landed on his shoulder and punched him hard on the chin.
The man’s eyes rolled up, but he was clearly as tough as old boots, for he still managed to heft the rifle and swing the butt at Javan’s head. Swearing, Javan seized it in both hands, bouncing as the gunman bucked beneath him in an effort to dislodge him.
“I don’t have time for this,” Javan said between his teeth, and brought up his knee sharply between his opponent’s thighs. As the shock jerked the gunman’s body into an attempted ball, Javan snatched the rifle and swung it sharply into the gunman’s head. This time, he went out like a light.
Javan had no time for triumph. Taking the rifle with him, he began to run down the hill, whistling for his horse as he went. Now, at last, he could observe what had happened below. But if he’d hoped to see the curricle trundling on in blissful ignorance of the events on the hill above, he was doomed to disappointment.
The gunman had let off a shot, and it seemed he was good. For the horses and curricle stood still on the corner, and the female passenger lay spread out in the road.