Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
Gideon continued, finally coming up on the escarpment.
Visible against the night sky, he made out one distinct figure.
Arms behind her and no doubt tied, Gwen stood too near the edge of the precipice where the ground was unstable.
One false move, and she could tumble over the edge, without even the benefit of her hands to brace herself.
It was all he could do to not run to her.
Then he spotted Brice, at the midway point up the rise, his body half-shielded by a thick box tree trunk.
“Brice,” he called. “Send Gwen down. We’ll leave and forget all about this nasty affair. I’ll pay whatever you ask. You can take the money and go wherever you want. No one will follow. You have my word.”
Brice chuckled. “After all I’ve done to set up this happy reunion? I don’t think so. Now toss your pistol behind you. I know you brought one.”
Gideon hesitated, then Brice added, “Don’t test my patience. I’m an expert marksman, remember? I’ll shoot her dead before you can squeeze off the first shot.”
He pulled the weapon from his waist band and threw it lightly behind him.
“Now get over here,” Brice snarled, absent his usual affable tone. “Climb. Halfway between Gwen and myself for starters.” Brice aimed the pistol at Gwen and cocked the hammer.
Gideon’s insides tightened with fear. He moved forward. Calm. He told himself Stay calm.
Gwen did not utter a word. Only when he was equidistant between her and Brice did he realize that Brice had not only bound her wrists.
Her ankles were tied and a gag was in her mouth.
Her entire body trembled, with fear or cold, making a fall that much more likely.
He had never been more terrified in his life, nor more filled with a lust for blood.
“Where’s your groom?” Gideon asked in a casual tone that belied the dark emotions running roughshod through him.
“I sent him into town on foot.”
Gwen grunted and Gideon’s gaze jerked upward. She angled her head toward the river—and then wobbled as a result.
His breath froze in his lungs.
“Oh, all right,” Brice said. “I couldn’t leave any witnesses, so after he tied Gwen”—he shrugged—“I shot him. He’s down there somewhere.” He wagged his pistol.
Dear God. He was dealing with a mad man. When had Brice lost his mind?
“Stop right there,” Brice shouted.
Gideon had been inching higher, hoping to reach Gwen or at least shield her with his body. He gazed up at her, his eyes drinking in the sight of her, his insides twisting with guilt, love, fear, and desperation. He could not fail her.
“What’s this about?” he asked Brice.
“I think you know. Mr. Holt, the stakeholder you visited earlier, had strict orders to notify me if and when anyone matching your description came asking questions. He notified me.” Brice sighed. “Why couldn’t you just stay gone, Gid? Was that too much to ask?”
Gideon couldn’t take his eyes off Gwen. “Can I remove her ties?”
“If you’re ready to go over together, to die after having a lover’s quarrel and chasing her up the escarpment, be my guest. Personally, I thought you’d want to know a few things first.”
His breath stuttered in his chest. He turned to Brice. “Why did you target me?”
“It started a long time ago, when the duchess hired me to keep an eye on you.
At first, I only wanted the money. But then I started seeing what she saw.
How easily everything came to you. Women especially.
They fell over themselves to get to you, even from a young age.
Grayson, I could have stomached. He will be duke. But you? A bastard by birth?
“I had the looks. I had the charm. But the women who visited the abbey paid me no heed. Fannie saw me, though. She understood me like no one else ever had. Then one day, she joined the ranks of Gideon worshippers.”
“If you wanted her, then why didn’t you marry her when you got her pregnant?”
“My, you have been busy. If you must know, I had to punish her for the many times she’d made a May game of me—at Averly.
How she saw fit to lift her skirts for me then went all doe-eyed the moment she spotted you, as if I were nobody.
That summer before you returned, I set about seducing her again.
She fell hook, line, and sinker—and I admit I grew to care for her more than I expected. But I had my priorities.”
“Money above all else,” Gideon summarized.
“Money and prestige. When I learned—only after she told me she was pregnant and that we’d have to marry—that her family was practically bankrupt, I had to cut her loose.
Can you imagine? Me? Poor? No. I had to go with option two—Lady Mary.
Kind, average, recently of the nobility thanks to her father inheriting the title, and madly in love with me.
Oh. Did I mention how wealthy her father is?
“That’s when I came up with idea for you to marry Fannie.
I had to do something or she would have talked and ruined everything for me.
I thought it was rather poetic justice. You never wanted her, and now you’d be stuck with her forever—while raising my child, a bastard raising a bastard.
It was unfortunate that they both died. But out of that tragedy, came another golden opportunity. ”
While Brice expounded on his accomplishments, Gideon changed tactics. Inch by slow inch he moved closer to Brice. He only had to keep Brice talking.
“The duchess became obsessed with Fannie and her supposed grandchild. When they died, and she couldn’t bear the sight of you, my true brainchild was born.”
“You decided to get rid of me, and pave the way to make a killing—while pinning me for the crime, and you assumed the duchess would aid you. You never counted on her changing her mind.”
“Unfortunate. When I mentioned I had a plan to drive the two of you away, she asked me to stop. Can you believe that?”
He was nearly close enough. One flying leap, even if he did not quite reach Brice, would draw the man’s aim off of Gwen. It might end with Gideon shot, no matter what, he would not allow himself to die without seeing her safe.
“What about Dirk?” Gideon asked.
“What about him? Casualty, I’m afraid. Died at sea, I understand, trying to thwart the sale to the French in the final hour.
Should’ve known he couldn’t be trusted. We had to go to extreme measures to convince him to do our bidding, threatening to harm his family if he did not—Of course, his family still needed to die to prevent them naming names.
“But that was where things started going wrong,” he continued.
“They somehow slipped out of Rory’s sights.
Speaking of which, you found Dirk’s wife, didn’t you?
She’s the one who led you to Rory? Without that tip, things would not have started unraveling.
In truth, I blame all of this on your little pretend wife for showing up and providing you with an alibi. ”
Brice glared up at her, leveled the pistol.
Gideon braced to jump.
Then, rocks started skittering down the escarpment. His heart in his throat, he jerked his gaze upward, praying she had not fallen over the edge.
She hadn’t. His wife had implemented her own plan to save them and was tumbling toward him like a snowball out of control.
He had the split-second thought that now he had to worry about her breaking her beautiful neck, when Brice shouted, “No,” and stumbled back, firing arm adjusting to the re-aim at the moving target that was Gwen.
Gideon flew at him, and the pistol fired. He landed on his feet, charging forward, fists primed. He closed the distance separating him and Brice in one stride.
Never was landing a punch more satisfying than the first of many he slammed into Brice. He was dimly aware of Brice returning his assault in equal measure. He didn’t care. All that mattered was downing the bastard so he could get to Gwen.
She couldn’t be shot. She couldn’t be.
Finally, with a swipe of his booted foot, he knocked Brice’s legs out from under him.
The two went down hard, with Gideon on top.
Brice scrabbled for dirt and flung it into Gideon’s face, momentarily blinding him long enough to squirm out from under him.
As he scrubbed at his eyes, he remembered his dirk, pulled it from his ankle holster, and heaved himself onto the smaller man, flattening him into the ground. In the next instant he had his blade pressed to the man’s throat.
“Gideon,” a man shouted from the access road. Grayson. Only then did Gideon notice the sound of horse hoofs pounding over the earth.
“Gideon, Gwen, are you all right?” his brother called.
Gideon looked up to see his brother sliding from the saddle and running toward him.
“I’ll kill him,” Gideon said through his teeth.
“No,” came a soft, achingly familiar voice behind him.
Gideon choked in a sob at the sound. “Gwen? Are you…” He could not finish.
“A little bruised, a little cold, a lot dirty, and I’d like these bindings removed, but I’ll survive. Let the law deal with him, Gideon, I beg you. I will not see you suffer any more as a result of this monster.”
He turned his head, squinting through the sweat and dirt to take in the sight of the kneeling, bedraggled, most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Abruptly his vision cleared as tears he could not stem welled, then leaked from his eyes.
Grayson cocked his pistol. “I’ve got him, Gideon, and the magistrate is coming. You can let go.”
“No,” came Brice’s hoarse shout. “Kill me. Kill me, Gideon. I beg you.”
Gideon turned once more to Brice. His hand, gripping the knife, shook. A drop of red blood appeared on Brice’s neck, black in the moonlight.
It would only take one slice.
“Gideon, please,” Gwen begged.
It took everything in him, but he withdrew the knife and got to his feet. In the next instant he was at Gwen’s side, cutting her ties off, and then she was in his arms.
“Gwen, dear God, Gwen. I have never been so frightened in my life.”
“I know darling. I know. It’s all right now.”
He was battered, blood spattered, and undoubtedly covering his wife with grime, but he could not make himself care. He would hold her forever if she’d allow it.
“Tell me you love me again, sweetheart. Tell me,” he all-but sobbed into her hair.
“I love you, Gideon, with all my heart.”
“And I love you, Gwen, more than life. More than I ever knew was possible. I’m sorry. I should have told you. I was such a fool—”
“Shh,” she said. “I know.” She rose up on tiptoes to move her lips near to his ear. “Don’t be angry, but I read your last journal entry.”
A beat passed. Then, unbelievably, Gideon found himself chuckling. Then laughing. His wife. His clever, beautiful, bluestocking wife.