Chapter 48
Had Cynthia Henry not had a will of iron, Alexander would have returned to find his bride in two-day old clothing, itching with dried sweat and stinging with scratches.
As it was, Mrs. Henry had taken charge of Saffron the moment she’d been deposited back at the hotel that afternoon. She’d swept Saffron up to her suite, where she discarded Saffron’s clothing and plopped her in a cool bath.
“Good for the nerves, and those ghastly scratches,” she informed Saffron, firmly placing a cake of soap into her hands. “Now wash.”
After the bath—which was bracing, Saffron had to admit when she’d been wrapped in a bathing towel and stopped shivering—she’d been plied with food and drink until she’d grown sleepy.
It wasn’t until Saffron was in bed that she realized that she was in what must have been Mrs. Henry’s bed.
When she tried to address this, Mrs. Henry waved a hand.
“Dr. Henry and I are vacating this chamber. You can’t very well return to the place where that dreadful confrontation happened.
” She said it all as if it were obvious.
“And besides, yours and Mr. Ashton’s belongings have already been brought in here.
Do try to rest, my dear. I’ve given you a reprieve for now, but come tomorrow, I and every other member of our party will want to hear all about what has happened, and how you managed to catch yet another killer. ”
That prospect kept her from sleep, though her body craved it.
Gossip is just the beginning, my dear.
Mrs. Demirel was not as easy to dismiss as the other killers—she cringed at Mrs. Henry’s word—that she’d helped to apprehend. Mrs. Demirel had been murderous—but in the end, she’d believed she’d killed for the sake of safety for herself and her family. She was wrong, so very wrong, for it, but …
Saffron didn’t think she was wrong about everything.
Even when one is innocent, it poisons the water just as surely as true guilt does.
The door to the room opened.
Her heart stuttered and then leaped when she heard her name being spoken by the only person in the world she wanted to see.
She bolted from the bed and froze in the open door to the sitting room.
Alexander stood there, hand still on the doorknob.
She drew in a ragged breath. And then she went to him.
He caught her in his arms, lifting her and crushing her to him. “They told me what happened—”
“You’re safe—”
Their voices overlapped until only their mouths did. Then, there was silence, a kiss, and a desperate need for less space between them.
Saffron didn’t realize she was crying until he’d pulled away and was brushing his fingers delicately over her cheeks.
“My God, Saffron, what did she …” His words broke off, his fingers tightening around the nape of her neck. His dark eyes flashed over the long scratches from Mrs. Demirel’s nails marring her cheeks and forehead. “I should have pieced it together, damn it.”
She swallowed thickly. “There was no way you could have known. Either of us.”
They were both shaking.
“You made it back to me,” she said with a tremulous smile. “It worked? You caught more of the smugglers?”
He nodded, and it appeared he was as unable to stop touching her as she was him. He took her hands in his, wincing at the red tracing her forearms. “The truck was stopped just short of Manisa. Bey sent three men, one in his direct employment. They were armed—”
She bit her lip, hands tightening on his. Alexander smiled wryly. “We were also armed, of course, but it turned out the firearms were unnecessary. Banks was the one to hold them off, if you can believe it.”
“What on earth was Banks doing there!”
“He insisted on accompanying that rock,” Alexander said with a touch of exasperation.
“And when we were stopped, he came charging out of the cab, yelling at Bey’s men.
And, of course, he speaks Turkish like a local, and he distracted them swearing the air blue long enough for Nick and the agent driving the motorcar to take the men into custody. ”
As amusing as that was to imagine, she didn’t think was the whole story.
That was fine. She could be patient until he was ready to tell her all that had occurred.
Just then, she didn’t feel like she wanted to share all that had happened, either.
She wanted to be there, with Alexander, not back in bad memories.
But some things needed to be discussed first, and it seemed Alexander had noticed one of them.
“You are …” He peered down at her, a question in his gaze. “You are wearing pajamas.”
She was, and the sort one wore when the weather was warm: a nightgown of thin white cotton trimmed with a bit of lace. Thank heavens she wasn’t wearing a nightcap, or curlers, for that matter. She touched her damp hair, shy.
“Mrs. Henry said we were to take this suite. She didn’t want me to have to return to the other room after …” She trailed off with a sigh. “It was terribly nice of her. But it means we’re both to stay here.”
“Is that not what you want?”
She bit her lip. “We haven’t had the chance to discuss …
well, anything. We are legally married. A few people in the crew know, which means by the time we drop anchor in England again, everyone will know not only we’re married, but that we’ve been …
” Her hand fluttered toward the walls of the room. “In private. Together.”
His lips quirked up. “In private together?”
Heat touched her cheeks. “Yes. The talk will be dreadful.”
“Forget about the talk,” he said calmly, taking her still-fluttering hand in his. “What do you want? Do you want to forget all this—murder and smuggling and everything that happened here—and do it all again, properly? Or do you want to start this now as it is?”
“I feel silly,” she admitted, “worrying over this when you’ve been out pointing guns at smugglers and I’ve been clawed half to death by a murderer.”
“This is important.”
She nodded firmly. “It is. And I …” She searched his face, wishing she could read his own thoughts. “I don’t think I can forget. I don’t want to.”
“So, you’ll be my wife?”
A laugh that was half a sob burst out from her. “I will. I am.”
His answering grin was hot and fierce, much like the kiss he dragged her into.
Giddy anticipation flooded her in a hot rush. She was dimly aware she was being lifted, her legs wrapping around Alexander’s waist. Her fingers twined into his hair, pulling him impossibly closer and—
“Is this straw?” she laughed.
His hazy eyes focused on the broken strand of straw in her fingers between them. He set her down regretfully. “I probably smell like a barnyard.”
“You’re perfect,” she said with a tender touch of his cheek. “But perhaps a bath and dinner, er, first.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “A bath might not go awry. Will you be all right for a few minutes?”
She nodded, suddenly too shy to look at him. She retreated to the other side of the room as he sorted through his belongings for his shaving kit and fresh clothing.
“What’s this?” he asked, lifting a folded paper from his luggage.
“Oh, the telegram. It was here when I came in earlier, along with the message from Miss Moore. Whoever packed your things must have just packed it up along with everything else.”
“You didn’t open it?” he asked. “You’ll only open notes from other women, then?”
She nodded unabashedly. “Yes.”
He shook his head, unfolding the paper. His smile faded as he read it, and when he looked up at her, her stomach dropped. “What is it?”
“Saffron, your grandfather died six days ago.”
“Oh.” Nothing else came out of her mouth. Every other word seemed to have been shocked out of her mind.
Alexander came across the room and handed her the message. She looked down at the telegram blankly.
His hand felt impossibly heavy on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I … We don’t have the details. John’s message is short but he said he would be at Ellington and to contact him as soon as possible.”
Her cousin, John, suddenly the new viscount, a burden none of them expected he’d be handed so soon.
He was at Ellington, with their grandmother, who was suddenly without her husband.
Her mother, now bereft of the man Saffron had finally understood to be almost a father to her. They would all be shocked, grieving—
“I have to go,” she said slowly. She looked up at Alexander. “I have to go now.”
“Of course.” He pulled her close so her ear pressed just where the steady beat of his heart thrummed in his chest. “I’ll check when the next passenger ship out of here sails. Are you all right to pack? I can send a maid up to see to our things. And I’ll need to speak to Dr. Henry, of course.”
She pulled away, frowning at him. It sounded like he was saying—
Alexander pulled her back to him and kissed away her confusion. “I’m coming with you.”