Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

I sla stirred awake, feeling strange and full of sorrow. She’d thought she heard Papa talking to her, but perhaps that was just a dream.

“Papa?”

She pushed back her blankets and found Nanny was reading by the fire.

“Was Papa here?” she asked.

“Yes, a short while ago. He kissed you good night before he went to bed,” Nanny said as she closed her book. “And you should go on back to bed, dear.”

Isla shook her head. “No. I had a bad dream. I want to see Papa!” As she slipped out of her bed, she glimpsed the portraits of her other papa and her other mama on the shelf close to her bed. Beneath them was a stack of letters. Papa only ever put those portraits out when he went away.

“Nanny...” She pointed to the letters. “Did Papa go away? He left some letters for me.” She loved to hear Papa read letters to her, especially when they were from his family, because he always made funny voices to sound like her aunts and uncles. But the fact that he’d left letters with her parents’ portraits made her stomach tighten with fear.

“What are those?” Nanny left her chair by the fire and carefully lifted the portraits to retrieve the letters. “They are addressed to your aunt and uncle... What on earth?” She looked at Isla in growing concern. “We need to see Lord Lennox at once.” Nanny took the letters in one hand and Isla’s palm in her other. They reached Uncle Ashton’s bedchamber door, and she rapped her knuckles on it.

“My lord? I’m sorry to disturb you, but I believe it’s urgent!”

After a moment, the door opened. Uncle Ashton wore his dressing gown and held a lit candle.

“Mrs. Chesterfield? What’s wrong? Is Isla all right?”

“The girl is fine, but Isla found these by her bed. Mr. Lennox came to see her after she was asleep, and I believe he left these for you.” She passed Uncle Ashton the letters. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner, but he had tucked them underneath the portraits of her parents.”

“Rosalind, darling, wake up,” Uncle Ashton called over his shoulder. “Come inside, Mrs. Chesterfield.” Her uncle stepped back and let Nanny and Isla come into his bedchamber.

Aunt Rosalind was pulling on a pale-pink dressing gown and tying the bright-blue sash around her waist as they entered. When she saw Isla, she held out her arms and Isla ran to her aunt and hugged her as Rosalind knelt down to catch her.

“Isla, dear, what’s the matter?”

“I had a bad dream,” Isla confessed. “I dreamed Papa left me...” She didn’t want to relive that dream, of running through the gardens, calling for him and never finding him just as a storm opened up above her. Papa would never leave her forever. Would he?

Ashton set his candle down and opened the envelope with his name. His eyes narrowed, then widened.

“Christ,” he muttered. He shoved the letter at Rosalind. She sat down on the floor to read it, whispering the words aloud, forgetting that Isla was right beside her.

Ash,

I know that the last year has been good between us. I wish with everything that it could have continued that way, but my past has caught up with me. The story is too long to tell, but if fate will protect me one last time, Diana may live this night to share it all with you. She is my wife in all the ways that matter; please treat her as such as my last wish. Let her live at Foxglove Hall and raise Isla as her child. See that she has all the dividends from my investments. I know you cannot give me financial support, not after what I’ve done all these years, but please support them. They are the family of my heart. I wish I could say that I will make you proud of me at least once in my life, but I fear when you learn the truth it will not matter. I love you, brother. I only wish I’d said it more often.

—Rafe

“Ash, what does he mean? It sounds like Diana may be in trouble.”

“He also left letters for you, Mother, Thomasina, Joanna, Diana, and Isla,” Ashton said as he rifled through the stack of slender letters Nanny had given him. “I fear he isn’t coming back.”

Uncle Ashton’s face went white as he stared at Isla and Rosalind. “I...” Whatever it was he wanted to say to her, he couldn’t finish it.

“Where would he go? Why did he leave?” Nanny asked him.

“The letter is damnably vague on those points...” Uncle Ashton sank into his chair and buried his face in his hands. Isla pulled free of Rosalind and hurried over to her uncle, setting a hand on his knee.

“Mayhap Papa’s friends know where he is?”

Ashton looked up. “Will and Caspian?”

Isla nodded.

“Kitten, you’re bloody brilliant.” Ashton kissed her forehead and rushed from the room, leaving Rosalind to be in charge.

“Mrs. Chesterfield, wake everyone up and have the cook prepare some food and brew some tea.” Rosalind stopped by the bassinet near her bed and kissed her child’s head before adjusting his blankets. “Ashton will need to be ready for whatever we must do.”

Diana saw a group of riders coming toward her in the distance. Dawn was an hour away, and the skies were a faint purple at the edge of the horizon. There was enough light for her to see the horses as they thundered toward her, but not enough to know whether to expect friend or foe. When they were close enough to be recognized, a sob of relief choked her throat.

It was Lord Lennox, followed by three other men. She halted her horse upon the road and waited for them to reach her.

“Diana?” Ashton gasped. He slowed his horse, causing it to snort and toss its head. “We feared something had happened to you. Where is Rafe?”

She glanced at the riders behind him: Brock Kincade, the intimidating Scottish brother-in-law, and two other men Diana thought looked familiar but could not place. One was fair-haired and the other dark. Each wore a worried look as they waited for her to speak.

“Lord Caddington kidnapped me, and Rafe exchanged his life for mine.” Diana pointed back the way she’d come. “We must hurry. Caddington will kill him!”

Ashton nodded and she turned her horse back down the path. Now she led the charge to Caddington’s home. She’d been afraid they would ask a thousand questions, questions she didn’t have time to answer truthfully, but Lord Lennox had trusted her brief statement and followed her.

For the first time in the last hour she had hope, feeble though it was. She couldn’t get the image of that whip striking Rafe’s back out of her mind, nor could she stop reliving the moment when he’d removed the mask. Rafe and Tyburn. The two men she loved were one and the same. She hadn’t been angry with him, nor did she feel betrayed, no matter what that devil Caddington had tried to convince Rafe of. She had been relieved, even overjoyed at that moment, only to become terrified when she realized she was going to lose both of them.

He won’t die, he wouldn’t dare .

She tried to argue with herself, but she had seen that he’d given up when Phelps had been given the order to kill her. He couldn’t know she was still alive, and if he didn’t... Surely he wouldn’t give up on her and his daughter like that. He’d made it clear while courting her that she had become his world, that he had nothing left but her and Isla to fight for...

She turned back from the dark path where those thoughts were leading her, and suddenly tears blurred her vision too much for her to see the road ahead of her. Her horse was lathered with sweat and foam dripped from its mouth as they reached the gates of Caddington’s home. As they approached the house, she jerked the reins, halting her horse, and threw herself from the saddle so fast she nearly tripped over her torn skirts.

Ashton and the others were on her heels, pistols raised as they entered the house, expecting trouble. Phelps’s body lay where she’d left it. His dead eyes stared into nothing, the tapestry still partially draped over him.

Lord Lennox looked between Diana and the body of the man she’d killed, his brows raised in a silent question.

“He tried to kill me—” Diana pointed to the pistol that lay abandoned on the floor. “But I was quicker.”

One of the men who had come with Lord Lennox and Brock looked around with uncertainty. “Where is everyone?”

“Yes, it’s far too quiet,” the other man agreed.

“Aye.” Brock passed the stairs, his pistol still ready.

“Before I left the house, I told the servants to flee. It seems that they did.”

They searched the hall, and Diana caught sight of a body that hadn’t been there when she’d fled.

“No,” she whispered, her heart suddenly freezing. “No . . . no . . .”

“Rafe!” Lord Lennox bellowed as he ran to his brother’s body. Rafe’s back was slashed to ribbons. The sight turned Diana’s stomach so violently she nearly tossed her accounts.

Lord Lennox turned Rafe onto his side, and Rafe’s closed eyes fluttered.

“He’s alive!” Lord Lennox said. “Thank God. Rafe, damn you, hold on.” Lennox glanced around. “We need to bind his back, to stem the bleeding as much as possible. Will, go to the stables and see if they have a wagon we can use to transport him home. Brock, ride for the doctor in the village at once. Have him meet us there.”

Diana crouched beside Rafe, brushing her fingertips over his face. A lump formed in her throat when she saw her mother’s pearl necklace wrapped around his wrist. He truly was both her beloved Tyburn and her darling Rafe. He was everything to her. She couldn’t lose him now.

“Rafe, fight for me—for us ,” she said, tears falling now, blinding her to all but his face. His eyes finally won the struggle, and they remained open as he looked up at her.

“Di . . . ,” he rasped. “You came back . . .” He choked on the words, a shocked look in his eyes.

She could scarcely breathe. “I’ll always come back for you.”

His lips twitched, but he didn’t have the strength to smile. “Father told me... upend the board... break the rules...” His eyes drifted to his brother’s face. “Ash?” he whispered in shock.

“I’m here.” Ashton’s usually controlled voice broke as he held Rafe’s face in his palm. “I’m here, little brother.”

“Ash . . . No . . . He’ll kill you . . .” Rafe’s body shuddered. “Can’t let you face him.”

“Haven’t you learned by now that I would do anything for you, you fool?” Ashton asked. Diana put a fist to her mouth to hold back a sob.

“My fault . . . Father . . .” Rafe’s gaze began to drift into the distance.

“No, it wasn’t!” Diana said, then turned to Ashton. “What happened to your father wasn’t his fault, Lord Lennox. Caddington met Rafe and wanted your father to give him over for his debts. Caddington wanted to hurt Rafe as he’d done to many young men in his care. Your father saw the danger he posed to Rafe, so he tried to send him home. What happened to your father, that coach hitting him—it wasn’t Rafe’s fault. You can’t blame him.”

“Is that the truth?” Ashton asked her, his blue eyes swirling with storms. “Caddington wanted my father to give Rafe over?”

“Yes,” Diana said. “Even your mother doesn’t know, but Rafe has carried that guilt all this time, guilt that he stayed when he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t leave your father and you behind. He was a child, and he only wanted to help you bring your father home.”

Sudden tears dripped down Ashton’s face as he bent and pressed his forehead to Rafe’s, his body sheltering his younger brother’s as he drew in a ragged breath.

“I didn’t know. Forgive me— I didn’t know . I should never have placed the blame upon you, but I was a coward.”

“No . . . ,” Rafe murmured drowsily. “You were . . . my hero . . . always .”

“Ashton, I have a wagon ready out front!” Will shouted from the doorway of the house.

“Caspian, help me lift him. Diana, be ready to assist us if we start to fall,” Lennox commanded.

Lennox and Caspian got Rafe to his feet. They were halfway down the hall when something clattered behind them. Diana retrieved Ashton’s pistol from the floor and spun to face the threat.

Caddington stood in the doorway to the cellar, his face a mess of blood and dark bruises. One arm clutched his chest as if protecting broken ribs. It was clear he and Rafe must have fought before Rafe had escaped the cellar. In his other hand, he held a gun, pointed at Rafe’s back.

“Stand down... Lord Lennox,” Caddington wheezed as he approached the body of his dead manservant. “Your brother is wanted for... so many crimes. I have his... signed confession to it all. He is mine .”

Diana raised the pistol. “He will never belong to you!”

Lennox gently took the gun from Diana’s shaking hand. “No, my dear. You’ve been brave enough this night. I will not have you shedding any more blood.”

Ashton now faced Caddington, who seemed to be enjoying the agony he was causing.

“Careful, Lennox,” he said, still shuffling forward. “Helping two murderers escape? Assaulting a magistrate? You will be ruined.”

“On the contrary. The Lord High Chancellor is a good friend of mine. If I were to suffer you to live, he would see you removed from your position and charges brought against you. It is you who will be ruined, Caddington.”

For a moment, Diana saw doubt cross Caddington’s face. He looked at the pistol that lay beside Phelps’s body and lunged for it. He grabbed it and took aim. Diana turned her body to shield Rafe as much as she could.

Crack!

Diana flinched at the gunshot, expecting pain. But none came. When she opened her eyes, she glimpsed Caddington slumping to the floor, dead, Ashton’s bullet having struck the center of his evil heart. Ashton slowly lowered his pistol, still staring at Caddington for a long moment as though to make sure the man breathed no more. It was only then that Diana remembered the pistol Caddington had tried to use had been spent when she’d killed his manservant.

“They say revenge doesn’t bring any satisfaction,” Ashton said quietly. “But they are wrong. I am quite satisfied knowing that man shall never hurt another person ever again.”

Diana agreed. She found that justice was only for someone who could be redeemed. A man like Caddington had no chance at redemption. She let out a shaky breath, her legs feeling like they just might give out beneath her in sheer relief that it was all over.

For a long moment Diana stared at Caddington’s body, almost unable to believe he was dead, that this monster who’d haunted Rafe’s nightmares was finally, truly gone.

“Come on!” Caspian said. “We must move.”

The three of them carried Rafe down to the waiting wagon.

Diana sat in the hay beside Rafe, who was lying upon his stomach. Will drove the horses in a half circle until they were back onto the road and away from that dark and awful place—away from death. Lord Lennox sat on the other side of Rafe in the back of the wagon. The slow light of dawn illuminated his face.

“Tell me everything—please. I need the truth, all of it,” Lennox pleaded with Diana. She let out a shaky breath and told Ashton everything.

“I met Rafe when he held up the coach I was on. He was pretending to be a Scotsman named Tyburn...”

She left out nothing, not even the fact that she and Rafe had made love more than once. She confessed that she had also taken up robbery using Tyburn’s identity to save her family home, learning about the story of Malcolm Lennox’s death, and how Caddington had formed an unnatural fixation on Rafe all those years ago.

“My father must have gone back into the tavern after trying to send Rafe home,” said Lennox. “He must’ve known Rafe was in danger and wanted to stop Caddington. But he was attacked by one of the wenches and robbed. That blow to his head left him disoriented when I found him. He wasn’t thinking clearly when he saw Rafe across the street from us. I tried to stop him from crossing, but... I couldn’t. What happened that night could never be Rafe’s fault. I never truly believed Rafe killed him, but in my grief and anger I told him I did, and shame kept me from taking back those words. Christ, he was only a child, though in truth I was not much older. It was easier to put my fury and blame on him.” He dragged a hand over his weary face.

“How old were you?” Diana asked.

“I was fifteen, a young man, I . . .”

She put a hand on his arm. “You were a child too. I believe it’s time for the Lennox men to stop blaming themselves, and each other, for what was an accident.”

Lennox smiled then, the expression fond. “No wonder my brother is madly in love with you. I’m glad for it. He deserves someone to be his champion after so long.”

His unexpected praise hit her heart in a most tender place.

“What will happen now?” Diana asked after a moment. “Now that Caddington and Phelps are dead? We killed them.” Diana met his weary gaze. She didn’t want to think about the legal ramifications or the emotional ones of having taken a life, but it was something neither of them could avoid.

Lennox took a moment before replying. “I learned a long time ago that sometimes the only way to stop evil is to remove its pieces from the chessboard. Then it cannot make any more moves against you and it cannot hurt you. I will speak to the king as well as the Lord High Chancellor and tell them what happened. George will listen to me. I have not worked all these years without the means to garner his favor and have something like this go my way. If it helps, I will take Phelps’s death on my own as well.”

“No, my lord, you mustn’t?—”

Ashton held up a hand. “Let me do this for you, for the woman my brother loves. The woman who will cherish both him and his child. You are now under the protection of the house of Lennox.” In that moment, the already striking lord became a knight of old, his vow moving over her, leaving goosebumps on her skin.

They looked down at the bloody ravaged stripes on Rafe’s back, and Ashton’s face hardened.

“I wish that I could strike that devil down a thousand times over for what he’s done.”

Diana, who would never have considered herself a bloodthirsty creature, agreed. He was right. Evil did not belong on the chessboard.

“If... When ,” Ashton corrected himself. “When Rafe is feeling better, I shall let you marry straightaway by special license, no more delays. Lord knows you’ve both had enough challenges in your lives. I won’t add one more to the list.”

“Thank you,” Diana whispered. Though in truth she didn’t care about the wedding. She only wanted Rafe to be all right, to see him smiling at her, to let him tease her and feel his lips on hers and his body wrapped around hers at night. Neither of them would ever be alone again if only he would be all right. She stroked Rafe’s sweat-dampened hair and silently urged Will to make the horses go faster.

Hold on, my love . . . hold on.