Chapter Fourteen
“Lily?”
The whisper was unrecognisable to Tabitha. Had someone mistaken her for Lily when they had pushed and locked her in here? Was this a friend or an enemy?
“No,” she said clearly. “It’s Tabitha.”
“Lady Sark!”
Unmistakably, that was Nathaniel Meade, his voice betraying both shock and astonishment.
She removed the saw from the crack in the door. “Let me out.”
But the bolt was already being drawn back and Meade stood upright and blessedly normal by the light of the lantern in his hold.
“Dear God, what has happened to you?” he exclaimed, as though involuntarily.
“Where is Lily?” she demanded.
“I don’t know. I was looking for her when I found you. We were meant to meet on the terrace just before the supper dance, but she didn’t come, and I didn’t see her in the ballroom. The thing is, she didn’t come out either...”
“Then she’s still in the house,” Tabitha said grimly, striding back along the path. “I should have known Ralph had tricked me twice over. We must find her immediately.”
“I agree, but my lady, do you really want to be seen in the ballroom like that?”
“Like what?” she demanded impatiently.
“Your hands are bleeding all over your torn gloves. There’s dirt on your face and your gown, and cobwebs in your hair.”
Tabitha opened her mouth to deny that any of that mattered. Although, of course it did. She swerved toward the kitchen entrance.
“Besides,” she muttered, “Chivers is the man we need. Nothing happens in this house without his knowledge.”
There was no obstacle to their entry through the kitchen door.
A whole gaggle of people were discovered in the servants’ hall, enjoying a well-earned rest around the table.
No doubt supper was all prepared and laid out in the ballroom’s large ante-chamber, giving the servants the remainder of this dance—music could clearly be heard drifting over from the ballroom—before they would have to serve it.
At sight of Tabitha and Meade, they all leapt to their feet in varying degrees of horror and alarm. Chivers surged toward them.
“My stepdaughter is missing,” Tabitha snapped at him. “Where is she?”
“Perfectly safe, my lady,” Chivers soothed. “She is with the mistress.”
“Where?” Tabitha demanded, although with marginally less fear.
But Chivers’s eyes swivelled. “I am not at liberty to say, my lady.”
“You will not be at liberty at all if you don’t,” Tabitha said savagely.
He looked positively frightened now. “But it is a wedding, my lady...”
“Without me?”
Chivers’s eyes widened. He swallowed.
“You must speak,” Meade said, every inch the army officer in command.
“I cannot imagine the mistress meant to exclude your ladyship.”
“Where?” Tabitha demanded.
Chivers sagged. “The library, my lady. Let me show you in.”
Neither Tabitha nor Meade waited to be shown. They flew up the servants’ stairs and across the hallway to the closed library door. Meade turned the handle.
Suddenly, Tabitha was terrified what she would discover on the other side of the door.
“It’s locked,” Meade said.
“I’ll fetch the key,” Chivers said, and bolted.
Inside the room someone cried out. There were frightening, scuffling sounds and grunts and someone saying in an unnaturally high, pleading voice, “Isbourne! Jack! Jack, please...”
Of course he would never agree to this wedding, but what in God’s name were they doing to him?
Tabitha raised both her fists to the door and thumped desperately once before Meade said curtly, “Stand back.”
He didn’t trouble with knocking, merely lifted his smart, military boot, and kicked viciously, twice.
The wood splintered and the door flew open.
Jack, his hair tangled and his coat ripped at the shoulder, was wrestling and heaving in the hold of Carily and Cousin Ralph.
Close by, Lord Hazlett appeared to be wringing his hands.
Louisa had covered her face in horror and Sir Peter, white faced, was commanding helplessly, “Stop this! Stop this now!”
At the sight of Tabitha, everyone froze, like a Hogarth drawing of some disreputable scene. Through it, Jack’s wild, furious gaze clashed into Tabitha’s.
As though he couldn’t help it, his face broke into a blazing smile that stole her breath.
Carily, taking advantage of his captive’s stillness, swung back his fist.
Meade strode forward, and grasped the fist, wrenching it hard behind Carily’s back. “Unhand my friend,” he snarled.
Jack, freed so abruptly on one side, backhanded Carily almost casually in the mouth while pulling free of Ralph. He strode straight to Tabitha, and she to him, grasping both his hands.
“Tabbie!” Lily cried, launching herself from Louisa’s side. “What have they done to you?”
Tabitha spared her a long, searching glance and, finding her state satisfactory in the circumstances, returned to Jack. He had drawn her hands to his lips, softly kissing the cuts and blisters.
“She was locked in a garden shed,” Meade said tightly, “and was sawing her way out when I found her.”
But Ralph, it seemed, never knew when to give up. “The question is, why was she there? And who with? Entirely unsuitable! No wonder I am reduced to marrying my poor cousin out of hand to this kind and generous gentleman. It is all I can do to save her from this —”
“You will be quiet,” Jack said, and stunningly, Ralph was.
“This has all gone horribly wrong,” Lord Hazlett said, almost in a wail. “No one should be man-handling or hurting the duke. It is meant to be a wedding, not a prize fight. This was not what we discussed, Sark!”
“It was not what we discussed either, uncle,” Jack said.
The agitated Hazlett dropped his gaze, but pleaded hoarsely, “Come away from that woman, Isbourne. She is not fit...”
“Fit,” Jack repeated.
Wheatsheaf stepped forward, speaking with all the authority of his calling. “She is not. An immoral woman, fallen—”
“Immoral?” Jack stared at him so fiercely that the clergyman’s words seemed to die in his throat. “Do you hear yourself? This lady has more integrity, more honesty in her little finger than anyone else in this room has ever shown!”
“Anyone except Nat,” Lily said anxiously.
Jack’s lips twitched. “Anyone except Nat. And our hosts, who I’m sure were tricked into supplying their respectable presence.” His gaze refocused on Lord Hazlett. “You, I cannot forgive. Nor my former chaplain. In the circumstances—”
“Former chaplain?” cried Wheatsheaf, dismayed. “But your grace, it was all for you!”
This, Tabitha suspected, was where Jack usually gave in, accepting the apology and the apparent devotion. But the duke, it seemed, had learned much.
“Why should you imagine I want a chaplain who connives at imprisoning and hurting innocent women? At forcing a young girl into marriage against her will? Conspiring with an attempted murderer—oh yes, sir, I know all about your attempt to shoot the true Lord Sark. And I’m sure those documents spread so conveniently on the table there are your attempt to embezzle me out of a considerable amount of money under the guise of a wedding settlement for Lady Lily. ”
Everyone was silent now. Jack, maintaining a gentle hold on Tabitha’s torn hands, held the floor completely.
“I believe, in the circumstances, Sir Peter and Lady Hawthorn, will forgive your early departure from this house. I’m sure their footmen will be ready to escort you from the premises—within five minutes at the most, for they have supper to serve and you have disrupted the household enough.”
He returned his gaze to Tabitha and his eyes softened. “Come my love, let us see to your hurts. Lieutenant, please conduct Lady Lily to supper.”
He placed Tabitha’s hand on his arm and strolled out with a style that made Meade grin. Chivers, who had clearly if belatedly grasped the seriousness of the situation, had brought four burly footmen to oversee events.
“As his grace orders, Chivers,” Sir Peter said, sounding slightly dazed but quite determined. “Discreetly, if you please.”
***
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Jack had bathed her hands. Allison had anointed them, brushed and sponged her gown clean, and was brushing out and restoring her hair to its former style.
“Some clean gloves, my lady, and no one will know. Are you sure you want to go back to the ball?”
“I want to dance with his grace,” she said honestly.
Allison smiled. So did Jack, watching in the mirror as the maid reaffixed Tabitha’s head-dress with jewel-headed pins.
“Your grace shouldn’t be here,” the maid pointed out as she straightened, finally satisfied.
“We’ll go down in two minutes,” Tabitha promised. “I need to see to Lily. But first, I have to speak to his grace.”
Allison inclined her head and departed without fuss. In fact, she seemed to be smiling.
Tabitha turned to face Jack. “What will you do?”
“About my uncle? What I intended from the moment I spoke with my solicitor in London. He and the others have been taking liberties. Oh, not embezzling, simply fudging the truth a little. Full control of my person and my estate came to me on my twenty-first birthday. The Trust is no more, and my uncles have no authority. The trouble is, they liked it. I daresay there is affection and they tell themselves I am too sickly to cope, but I’m not and haven’t been for some years.
Much of the fault is mine because I accepted too much, was too unwilling to hurt the feelings of those I knew devoted their lives to me.
But it goes no further. None of my uncles will be welcome in any of my properties until I receive a full apology in writing.
Even then, the visits will be with fixed limits and solely on my terms.”
“Good for you, Jack. I’m proud of you.” She rose and went to perch on the arm of his chair. “No guilt attaches to you, you know. You acted—or failed to act—through kindness. That is a rare enough virtue in this world.”
Another pair of white gloves sat on the opposite arm of the chair where Allison had left them. Jack picked them up and began to slip one over her fingers.
“I can’t forgive any of them for what they did,” he said quietly. “When I thought Ralph had hurt you, even killed you, I could not...”
She dropped her cheek onto their joined hands crushing the glove. “Neither could I. What are we going to do, Jack?”
He stroked her nape—about the only part of her he could touch without disturbing her hair or clothing. That made her smile too.
He said, “You could marry me. I know it’s not what you want, but truly, all marriages are not like your first.”
“I know. Is there an alternative?”
“I would gladly be your lover,” he said softly. “It would make me the happiest of men and I count the privilege a gift beyond price.”
She raised her head, gazing into his face. “You do?”
“I do. And yet I want more. I think I will always want more. I want to share everything with you—my name, my home, my children if we are so blessed, my whole life. And yours.”
“Oh, Jack,” she whispered, lowering her face to his, her lips parting.
It was a sweet kiss, lingering, tender, and full of promise.
“Will you think about it?” he asked huskily.
“I will.” She rose with sudden briskness, pulling her other glove on and reaching for her reticule. “Shall we go into supper and make sure Lily is behaving?”
“We shall.” He stood and winged his arm, and she laid her hand on his sleeve.
Together, they walked to the bedchamber door, yet when he reached to open it, she caught his hand and stared up at him.
Jack. Her wonderful, unique, Jack... When she had been so afraid of losing him...
She caught her breath. A world of forever was opening up in her mind, not with fear or horror or doubt, but with gleeful, wondrous anticipation. She could be happy. With him. She could only be happy with him.
“Oh, the devil, Jack,” she said brokenly. “Just marry me! I—”
The rest was lost in his mouth as he kissed her with searing, desperate need.
And when, finally, he lifted his head, his breath somewhat ragged, they walked unhurriedly back to the ballroom together. She need never be afraid or lonely ever again. Quite suddenly life was blazing with gladness and promise.