Chapter 12
Clarissa refused to stay and be that vile toad’s wife.
It was a fate worse than death. If she could only escape Jeffrey and get back to David, she was certain she could find a way to prove the marriage license false.
It was a mistake to come with Jeffrey willingly.
She should have known he would double-cross her.
Jeffrey might have tied her to the bedpost, but he hadn’t done a very good job of it. She twisted and squeezed and yanked until she got a hand free, then untied her other hand in a matter of moments. She ran to the door. It was locked, of course.
Pulling a hairpin from her bun, she wiggled it around in the keyhole, hoping against hope that she could unlock it. But she had no lock-picking expertise, especially in darkness, and after several minutes of finagling, she was forced to give up.
The window. Was there any way down? Or perhaps she could gain the attention of someone outside.
But the window refused to budge, no matter how she pulled on it.
A thick layer of paint sealed the window shut.
She had nothing to cut through the paint with, so she grabbed the coverlet from the bed, wrapped it around her arm, and shattered the glass.
The noise was alarming, but the fresh, cool night air gave her renewed hope as she peered out of the hole she’d made.
Looking down, she balked at the dizzying, three-story drop.
Forcing herself to focus on the building facade, she looked for a handhold or foothold—anything that she could cling to and use to climb down.
The decorative stonework around the second-story windows only offered an inch or so of ledge, and that wasn’t enough to trust her life to.
This truly was turning into one of her gothic novels.
If she wasn’t so terrified, she would laugh.
What would Lady Lucinda from The Oath of Aldino do?
She would climb out and dangle from the balcony, risking life and limb to free herself.
But Clarissa couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She wouldn’t survive the drop if something went wrong in her escape attempt.
Curse it all! She was going to have to call out for help and pray that someone other than Jeffrey heard her plea.
Was that a coach parked across the way? Perhaps she could get the attention of the driver.
“Help! Please, I need help,” she cried out.
Thank God! The driver took notice and came running, bring a footman with him. Wait a moment. Is that David’s livery?
“Please get Lord Whitcomb! I need his help!” Oh, what she wouldn’t give to see her husband right that moment.
The driver called up, “Lord Whitcomb is in the house with Lord Effingham. He’s come to get you, my lady. He should be there any moment.”
“Clarissa,” David called out in a muffled voice behind her. An enormous thud made the door shudder. “I’ll be there just as soon as I break down this door!”
Another impact made the door give way. It splintered and fell into the room, revealing her husband.
A moment later, he gripped her with fierce strength, kissing her head and murmuring her name again and again. Nothing mattered but his warm embrace. Her knight had rescued her once again.
“Clarissa, my love. You’re safe. I have you.” He gripped her so tightly she could hardly breathe, and her heart soared. He called her “my love”! He did have feeling for her, no matter how hard he tried to hold them at bay.
“I’m here. He can’t take me from you. Please believe me that it’s all a lie.”
He was silent for a long moment. Too long. Did he doubt her?
“I—”
The click of a cocked gun made them both stiffen.
“Unhand my wife.” Effingham. Would he never leave her in peace? And how were they to escape now that he had a weapon?
David pushed her behind him, shielding her from that lout she’d almost married—a folly that she would regret for the rest of her life.
She peered out from behind him. “It’s over, Effingham. I’m not your wife, no matter how many papers you falsify.”
“I don’t think so. My license cancels out his. And right now, I have a pistol, and he doesn’t. I saw him leave his in my study. That means I have the upper hand.”
No. There had to be some hope. It simply wasn’t possible for that pig to win. She refused to believe it. She might have been shaking like a leaf at the sight of the muzzle pointed at David’s chest, but she was not ready to give up.
“You want money, yes? That’s what this is all about?” She was grasping at straws, but she had to try something.
Effingham’s eyes narrowed. “In part. I owe too many unscrupulous people too many debts, including that harpy who matched you with Whitcomb. Though she isn’t the worst. One of my lenders put a bounty on my head last week, and my life is forfeit if I don’t pay up.
I need a fortune, and I need it now. But that’s not all.
You humiliated me, Clary. And no one does that without paying a price. ”
Him and his stupid pride. She hoped he never lived down the humiliation of losing her. But she couldn’t afford to offend him when he had a gun pointed at the man she loved.
“I sincerely apologize,” she said as humbly as she could manage while she seethed inside. “It was never my intention to humiliate you.” Even though you humiliated me so thoroughly that I can never show my face in London again.
Jeffrey pressed his lips together and nodded. “That’s a good start. Let’s see if you can do better. On your knees, little wife. I want to see you beg for my forgiveness.”
“Never!” The audacity of this man!
But he took a step forward, aiming at David’s heart.
“No,” she shrieked. There was too much at stake. She wouldn’t sacrifice David’s life for her own pride. Slipping around David, she slowly knelt on the floor.
Effingham kept the gun leveled at David.
“If he pulls the trigger, run. Don’t try to save me,” David murmured.
No. She couldn’t lose him, no matter what the dangers.
“How much do you need?” She didn’t want to give the villain a cent, but if money and apologies were what it took to get Jeffrey out of her life once and for all, she would gladly pay the price.
“All of it.” His contemptuous sneer failed to disguise the greed of his gaze. Her ploy was working.
David stepped in front of her again, shielding her. The muzzle of the gun now pressed against his chest. She clambered to her feet behind him.
“Don’t give him anything, love. We’ll find another way out.” David’s defense was sweet, and her heart fluttered at the endearment. But he was going to get himself killed if he didn’t back down.
“Our lives and our marriage are at stake. My fortune seems a small price to pay to save our future together.” She was willing to give anything at all. She would happily live as a pauper for the rest of her life if it only meant she could spend it with David and be rid of Jeffrey forever.
Another ominous click made everyone stiffen. Charles’s head appeared over Jeffrey’s shoulder, as he pressed a gun to Jeffrey’s temple. “Let my brother and his wife go, or I pull the trigger.”
All the blood drained from Jeffrey’s face. “You wouldn’t. You don’t even know how.”
“I’m not as useless as you think, and I’ve had about enough of your bullying. Drop the gun, Effingham. Now.”
Slowly, Jeffrey lowered his weapon, and Clarissa hardly dared breathe. Cold sweat drenched her back as she wondered if the nightmare was over at last.
But at the last moment, Jeffrey elbowed Charles in the gut. And Clarissa’s heart stopped as two bangs went off in quick succession.
David fell backwards on top of her with a roar of pain. A second wail nearly deafened her. But who had been injured? Was it Effingham or Charles?
She wriggled out from beneath David to find Effingham clutching his face, blood streaming from where his nose had once been. His gun lay on the floor, and she kicked it to the other side of the room. He was an alarming sight, but it was no less than he deserved after all he’d done.
David made an animal groan, and she searched his body for injuries, not seeing any at first. Then she noticed the hole in his trousers in his left thigh where a dark stain was spreading. That rat-faced goose-turd shot her husband!
“Quick. I need a tourniquet.” The strain in his voice made her heart ache. “I don’t think it hit an artery, but better safe than sorry.”
Heart pumping, she tore a strip of cloth from the bedclothes and tied it as tightly as she could manage around David’s thigh.
Scanning the room, she spotted a boot horn she could use to wind it tighter.
He winced ever so slightly at the final turn, but at least it the wound wouldn’t be fatal.
Thank God! Her bandage would hold until the doctor arrived.
Charles sagged against the wall, catching his breath, the pistol still in his hand. He met her gaze. “My brother may be an uptight arse, but he’s all the family I have.”
He and David exchanged a long, indecipherable look. But when Charles looked away, he had tears in his eyes.
David hoisted himself to sitting then used the wall as a support to stand. “Give that to me, you blighted cod’s head.” He took the gun, but his eyes were misty too as he patted Charles on the shoulder.
“David, you’re hurt. You shouldn’t be standing.” She wrapped her arms around him to steady him, and he put his hand on her shoulder. “Let me help you to the bed.”
“I’ve business to finish with that nose-less coward.
” He nodded at Effingham. Staggering, and leaning on her shoulder for support, he made his way over to the blighter.
“Tell Charles where every copy of that forged marriage license is right now, or I will finish what Charles started.” He leveled the muzzled at Effingham’s forehead.
Her former fiancé wept loudly. “Look what you’ve done! I’m hideous! I’ll never be able to show my face in polite society again.”
“The copies. Now, Effingham.” David was having none of Jeffrey’s self-pity. He loomed over the pathetic coward. “Shall I shoot?”
“No, don’t shoot. I’ll tell you.” His voice was pitched higher than usual, and it shook as he spoke. “Here’s one.” He pulled it from a pocket within his sodden waistcoat and gave it to David. “There are three more copies in the top right-hand desk drawer in my study. Here’s the key.”
He held it up with trembling hands.
Charles strode over and snatched it. “I’ll go check for you.” He hurried from the room, leaving them alone with Jeffrey.
“Go sit on the bed,” David ordered.
Jeffrey obeyed with alacrity, all the while emitting a keening whimper that sounded more like a dog’s than a human’s.
“My love, can you find him a wad of cloth to hold against his wound until the doctor comes? I can use that bedpost for support.”
The endearment warmed her heart almost as much as his kindness toward a villain who had shown him no such consideration. Helping him limp back across the room, she slipped reluctantly from his embrace.
Glancing around for something to use, she pulled the sham from one of the pillows and handed it to Jeffrey. “There. You’ll hardly notice the stain on these ghastly scarlet sheets.”
Charles returned a moment later with the copies of the marriage license in hand. “What would you like for me to do with these?”
“Burn them,” David said at the same moment that she said, “Give them to me.”
Their gazes met.
“Why would you burn them when they are proof of his perfidy?” She wanted to see Effingham jailed after all he’d done to her. “And don’t you want proof that these are false—that I’m truly your wife?”
“I don’t need a court to tell me our marriage is true.
I’ve harbored doubts and suspicions for too long, refusing to let anyone close ever since Laura.
I thought I would never love again—that my heart was dead and petrified.
But you have taught me otherwise, love. And when I thought you were in danger, that he might harm you, I knew there was nothing I wouldn’t do to save you.
The heart that beats in my chest is very much alive, and it is all yours. ”
Her own heart was melting into a puddle hearing him say such things. “Oh, David. I hope you know that I’m all yours too. I have been ever since I fell into your arms at the Carringtons’ musicale.”
Effingham emitted an irate snuffle, but they ignored him.
She stepped close and kissed her true husband softly on the lips.
“We can do whatever you wish with marriage licenses. If you wish to burn them, I will be happy to be rid of them. If you wish to keep them and prosecute Lord Effingham, I will happily support you in that as well. Either way, I’m certain it will all turn out for the best.”
He held her close for a long moment, squeezing her so tightly she could hardly breathe. Then he loosened his embrace. “Your good cheer knows no bounds, does it, love?”
She laughed. “I have it on good authority that it does not.” Caressing his cheek, she kissed him again. Even at two in the morning with Effingham bleeding nearby on the bed, the world was full of daffodils and rainbows with David’s lips upon hers.
Charles cleared his throat. “I vote we keep one as evidence.”
David shook his head. “No. We burn them all. The fact that Effingham kidnapped my wife is evidence enough of his wrongdoing, and I’m sure that another couple of fivers will make his butler and his footmen talk about what they saw prior to our arrival if he tries to lie his way out of it.
I’ve spent too long hanging onto the past looking for a justice that would never come.
Let it go. Let it all go. I have my family, and that is all that matters. ”
Charles shrugged and threw the documents in the fire, along with the bloodied copy David handed him. Together they watched the falsehoods burn to ash, and her hope for a marvelous future welled up in her chest like a phoenix.
This was the future they were both meant to have, and she blessed her good fortune for bringing her the man of her dreams.