Chapter 20

Twenty

Minnie gasped so hard as Lord Gerald crumpled that it sent her into a coughing fit which prevented her from leaping forward to save him. She liked the old man tremendously, and she had already made up her mind to love him like a father. But the blasted remnants of her cold had her doubling over a bit herself instead of rushing to the wily man’s aid.

Carys had no such impediment, however. As Lawrence and Waldorf dragged Owen back from Lord Gerald’s crumpled form, Carys rushed to her employer’s aid, crouching by his side and resting her hands on his face, her eyes wide with panic.

Minnie only caught a split-second glimpse of Lord Gerald opening one eye to see Carys hovering over him before her attention was yanked to the brewing battle between the men.

“How dare you?” Lawrence shouted, grasping Owen by his jacket and shaking him. “How dare you assault an aging duke?”

“I…I did not mean?—”

Owen was given no time to defend himself. Lawrence might have been content with shaking, but Lord Waldorf was not, and he was by far the more dangerous of the two men.

“Bastard!” he shouted, tearing Owen out of Lawrence’s hold and smashing his fist hard across Owen’s face.

Minnie and her mother both yelped as Owen’s head jerked to the side and blood splattered from his nose. Kat growled, her fists clenched, while Napoleon hissed from behind her skirts, then dashed to the other side of the room to hide under a sofa. From the look of her, Minnie was certain that Kat not only approved of her husband’s actions, she wished she had been the one to throw the punch.

“You would dare strike an old and ailing man?” Lord Waldorf demanded before throwing a second punch that has just as startling an effect as the first.

“Waldorf, compose yourself,” Lord Dunstan said, though perhaps without as much force as he might have used, as he shifted to grasp Lord Waldorf’s arm, holding him back.

“Villains, all of you!” Minnie’s father shouted. His eyes were wide with fear, though, and he’d retreated to behind a nearby chair, lest he be drawn into the combat.

Minnie saw a tiny sliver of opportunity and snatched at it.

“You would truly have me marry a man who assaults the elderly and speaks so wickedly of women?” she demanded, taking a step closer to her father.

“I…the uniting of our two houses would provide immense financial opportunity for?—”

“Someone fetch the doctor!” Carys cried out, her face a splotched mask of horror and misery. She sat splayed on the floor and had drawn Lord Gerald into her arms, as if he were her own father. “It is Lord Gerald’s heart!”

Lord Gerald moaned, continuing to clutch tightly at his chest, rocking slightly in Carys’s arms, as though he were in pain. The parson who had arrived with Minnie’s parents and Lord Owen moved as if to pray over Lord Gerald, but Dunstan shifted into his path to stop him.

“Send for Dr. Meadows this instant,” he called out to the small cluster of servants in the doorway. They must have heard the commotion and come to see what was happening.

One of the maids nodded and turned to run out, but the two footmen charged into the room, like their assistance would be needed to deal with Lord Owen.

Lord Owen must have thought they were coming to his aid.

“Stop this madman from killing me!” he called out, appealing to the two young men as the parson switched his efforts to attempting to calm him. “And send for a doctor for me as well!”

“I want this man banished from Godwin Castle,” Lawrence called out to the footmen, his eyes almost frighteningly wide as he glared at Owen. “He has offended the woman I love, and unless God, in His grace, intercedes, he will have killed my father as well.”

“I only poked him!” Owen shouted, all color draining from his face. “I haven’t killed him.”

Lord Gerald groaned out in agony and shivered in Carys’s lap.

“Father, are you well?” Lord Dunstan gasped, rushing to crouch by Carys’s side, resting a hand on his forehead. “The doctor is coming. All will be well. You will be saved.” He raised his head and appealed to the maids at the other end of the room. “Fetch his medicines at once!”

“You will pay for this,” Lawrence continued. “You dare to threaten my family with a lawsuit for attempting to set Lady Minerva free from the unholy deal to be your bride that she had no part in? Do you think the courts in London would side with a murderer?”

“He’s not dead yet…is he?” Minnie’s mother asked, tears streaming down her face.

Lord Gerald moaned, and Carys nearly flew into hysterics as she cried, “He’s dying! He’s dying!”

That sent Minnie’s mother into a swoon. Minnie was close enough that she leapt forward and managed to catch her, but her mother’s weight sent them both sinking to the floor.

“Look what your arrogance has done?” Lawrence boomed at Owen. “Will you feel self-satisfied and proud of your actions when you are moldering in a gaol, sir?”

“I…I didn’t…he cannot be dying,” Owen said, staring at Lord Gerald as blood streamed down his face and onto his neckcloth and jacket from his nose, which was now perched at an odd angle. “I did not do this. I am not a murderer.”

Minnie was so close to the edge of tears. She wanted to leap to her feet and finish the job Lord Waldorf had begun in ending Owen’s life. She could not bear the thought of losing Lord Gerald so soon after meeting him.

Hugging her mother’s limp form tightly, Minnie glanced across to Lord Gerald as he moaned in Carys’s arms. She was so close to tears that her eyes and throat ached.

And then Carys winked at her.

More than that, Lord Gerald opened one eye halfway, and when he spotted Minnie watching him in horror, his mouth pulled into the smallest of smiles.

And then Lord Gerald huffed out a breath and went completely motionless in Carys’s arms.

Minnie gasped, but not because the specter of death had touched the house. She gasped because she knew exactly what she needed to do.

“Murderer!” Minnie shouted, her heart pounding and her lungs squeezing with the desperate need to either laugh or cough. She jerked her head up and fixed Owen with a horrified look. “You’ve murdered him! Lord Gerald is dead because of you!”

“He isn’t…no!” Owen shouted, reeling back.

The moment and setting were too perfect for Minnie to resist shouting, “I curse you! By the power of the Curse of Godwin Castle, I curse you!”

She set her mother aside gently as she came out of her swoon, then stood. Lord Owen and his parson both flinched back as she surged toward them.

“I curse you, Owen Spurloch,” she continued, wishing she still wore her black gown and had her hair down and flowing wildly to boot. She remembered how Mary from the village church had assumed she was a witch, and in that moment, she had never embraced that image more. “I curse you to a lifetime of tragedy, you toad! You have sought to imprison a sorceress, and now you have killed a good man! May your days be filled with darkness and may treachery await you around every corner!”

“No! No, this isn’t real. You’re not a…a witch?” Owen stumbled back, his face a mask of fright and disbelief.

The parson started muttering prayers and crossing himself, backing farther away from Minnie, his face white.

“I have returned from the dead once, and I will do it again simply to spite you if you do not leave this place at once!” Minnie shouted. Her face was a mask of rage, but inwardly, she rolled with laughter. Owen was an utter fool for believing a single thing he was seeing. “Be gone with you!”

“Help! Help!” Owen shrieked, turning and bolting for the door, the parson following him. “Get me out of this place at once!”

“Caren! We are leaving!” Minnie’s father shouted.

“But….” Minnie’s mother glanced between her and her husband.

“Now!” Minnie’s father bellowed, already running for the door.

“Mother, you do not have to leave with them,” Minnie appealed to her mother, though perhaps without as much enthusiasm as she should have. Her mother was complicit in what would have been her fate for failing to stand up against it, after all.

After a few more moments of hesitation, Minnie’s mother pinched her face in misery, burst into sobbing, and ran after her father. The two of them, Owen, and the parson bolted from the room.

“Go after them,” Lawrence charged the maids as Waldorf and Kat joined Carys and Lord Dunstan crouching beside Lord Gerald. “Make certain that they leave here, and make it clear to them that if they ever return or pursue Lady Minerva again, everything they have done today will be exposed to the ton and used against them.”

“Yes, my lord,” the maids all said in turn, bobbing curtsies, then looking like Furies who had been sent after the villains of a Greek myth to hound them.

When that was done, Lawrence turned to join the others crowded around Lord Gerald. It was clear to Minnie by the genuine fear in his eyes and his pale face that he believed his father to be in dire straits, but she caught him, keeping him from falling to his knees in front of his father.

“All is well,” she attempted to reassure him. “Your father is?—”

“I must go to him,” Lawrence said, trying to break away from Minnie.

As if sensing the turn things might take, Lord Gerald drew in a deep breath and groaned again, showing that he was alive. He continued to huddle in Carys’s lap, however, and to behave as though he might die again at any moment.

“Father!” Lawrence cried out plaintively.

Minnie was uncertain what role Lord Gerald wished her to play in the drama they were apparently continuing, but she held fast to Lawrence.

At least, until Lord Gerald said in a weak voice, “Come here, my son.”

Minnie let Lawrence go, then moved forward with him.

Lawrence dropped to his knees and grabbed his father’s hands. “Father, you will be well, I know it. The doctor is on his way.”

“My son,” Lord Gerald said, reaching a hand up to cradle Lawrence’s face.

“I should have known you were truly ill,” Lawrence said, becoming more emotional by the moment. “I am sorry that I did not believe you when you told us all your time on this earth was short. I should have believed you.”

“Lawrence,” Lord Gerald said, beginning to slip out of his act.

Lawrence did not see the transition, however. “I should have sought out a wife sooner and obeyed your wishes. But I only just found Minerva now. No one else would have done.”

Minnie caught the flash in Lord Gerald’s eyes as he peeked at her. He then resumed his dying mien and said, “It is my dying wish. You have witnesses here, and we are in Wessex. The last thing I see and the last thing I hear in this life should be you securing Lady Minerva as your own.”

“Yes, Father,” Lawrence said. “Yes.”

He let go of Lord Gerald’s hands, then shifted around to grasp at Minnie’s as she crouched beside the scene.

“Minerva, will you have me?” Lawrence asked, as though the question deserved the desperation he put into it.

It took all of Minnie’s self-control not to giggle at the wild scene. “Yes,” she said, surprised at how quickly her heart filled with joy at the prospect not only of marrying Lawrence and spending the rest of her days as his wife, but at joining the Godwin family in all their wild and ridiculous glory. “Yes, I will marry you.”

“Are you aware of the sacred and binding laws and traditions in the Kingdom of Wessex?” Lawrence asked, still serious.

“I am aware,” Minnie said, her composure breaking slightly as her mouth wobbled.

Lawrence nodded, then stood, taking Minnie with him. He continued to hold her hands and gazed into her eyes as he said, “I Lawrence Godwin, Earl of Amesbury, do declare in front of these witnesses,” he nodded to his father and the others, still crouched on the floor and having a nearly impossible time keeping a straight face, “that I am engaged to you, Lady Minerva Llewellyn.”

Minnie could not help but smile as she squeezed Lawrence’s hands and declared, “I, Lady Minerva Llewellyn, make it known to these witnesses and any others who should ask that I am engaged to you, Lord Lawrence Godwin.”

Lawrence let out a heavy breath of relief, then surged forward, kissing Minnie’s lips soundly.

“Well then,” Lord Gerald said, his voice strong, suddenly in the picture of health as he stood, with Carys and Dunstan’s assistance, “that did not take much, did it?”

Lawrence nearly bit Minnie’s lip in shock before pulling away from her and staring at his father and family.

“You…you were not…how…,” he stammered.

Lord Gerald chuckled. “We certainly put the fear of God into those odious Welshmen, didn’t we,” he said with a wink for Minnie.

“You’re not…I cannot…this was all….” Lawrence went from being desperate and pale to flushed and furious as he glanced from his father to Waldorf—who also looked surprised—to Dunstan.

“I suddenly remembered your story of how you both pretended Lady Minerva expired from the putrid fever to dispatch Lord Owen once before,” Lord Gerald said, then shrugged. “And I thought, why should the two of you have all the fun? I am just as capable of feigning my own ultimate repose as you are, and with me, it was far more believable. Do you not think so, Lady Minerva?”

“You were most convincing, my lord,” Minnie laughed.

Lawrence gaped at her. “You knew?”

“Not at first,” Minnie said, shaking her head. “But when my mother swooned and I was on a level with your father, Carys winked at me, and then your father grinned. From there, I understood the ruse.”

Lawrence was still shocked. He turned to Carys and Dunstan, who had moved to stand closer to her, then to Waldorf and Kat. “And you. Did you know?”

“I most certainly did not!” Waldorf huffed.

“I puzzled it out in the middle of the scene,” Kat admitted sheepishly.

Waldorf snapped a wide-eyed look of indignation to her.

Lawrence turned to Dunstan with a scowl.

“Mrs. Weatherby whispered the plot to me when I first rushed to Father’s aid,” he admitted, blushing. “That is why I prevented the parson from approaching him and discovering the ruse.”

Lawrence clenched his fists, then settled his angry gaze on his father. “I know you do not think very much of me, Father, but this? This was cruel.”

Lord Gerald’s sly look changed to a surprised one. “What do you mean that I do not think very much of you?” he asked.

Minnie shifted closer to Lawrence and took his hand, but the volcano within him exploded all the same.

“My entire life, you have treated me as the imbecile of the family,” he nearly shouted, pouring so much emotion into his words. “I was never as strong as Waldorf nor as clever as Alden, nor as savvy as Cedric. Even Dunstan and the girls were given priority of place over me whenever you and mother entertained guests, or when it was just the family. I was forever relegated to second-best, and why? Because I could not read well? Because you believed me to be stupid?”

“I did not think you wished to be singled out,” Lord Gerald said, his words heartfelt and his surprise genuine. “You were always a shy child. Your mother and I did not wish to force you into any sort of performance that would make you uncomfortable. We championed your other skills instead. We are all so deeply proud of your artistic accomplishments, son.”

Lawrence’s anger puffed over into a breath of hopelessness, as if relieving decades’-worth of bottled resentments left him adrift and uncertain.

“We are very proud of you,” Waldorf said, looking kinder than Minnie had ever known the gruff man to look.

Those words made Lawrence seem at even more of a loss.

Minnie turned and reached for his other hand, nudging him to stand facing her and not his kin for a moment.

“Sometimes, the stories we tell ourselves of our own life may not be as factual as we believe them to be,” she said softly. “It is so often easier to believe the worst, particularly about ourselves, than it is to feel we are whole and accomplished and good.”

Lawrence relaxed even more, lowering his head and staring at Minnie’s hands in his.

“I think the world of you, Lawrence,” she said, ignoring everyone else in the room and moving one of her hands to cradle his face. When Lawrence looked up at her, she went on with, “I would have said yes to your proposal days ago, even before our pause at Tidworth Hall. I knew within days of our departure from London that you were a match for me and that no other man would ever come close to competing with you. I love you, Lawrence.”

Lawrence drew in a breath, seeming to feed off those words and gain confidence from them.

“And I love you, my Minerva,” he said, squeezing her one hand in his and resting his other over hers on his face. “I do not know how I lived before you, all I know is that I could not live the rest of my life without you. Whatever I lack in strength and confidence on my own, you have given me by your unconditional friendship and support. I will never take anything you give me for granted.”

“Good,” Minnie said, arching one eyebrow, then sliding her arms around Lawrence’s back to hug him tightly. “And I will fight and curse any man or woman who ever tries to belittle you or set you down again.”

Lawrence laughed and embraced her tightly in return. “We would not want that,” he said, resting his cheek against her head. “You’ve already come back from the dead once, after all. At this rate, you will become part of the Curse of Godwin Castle.”

“And I would enjoy every moment of it,” Minnie said, happier than she’d ever known herself to be.