A Marquis for Mary (13 page)

“Your wife, she had twin sisters, didn’t she?”

Edward tensed. Without even telling him the whole story, she had already given him all the information he needed. “Isadora and Imogen contacted you?”

“This afternoon.” Her lips pinched together and he could see how ghastly it must have been for her. “They demanded I meet with them, and when I did, they threatened to destroy you if I went through with our marriage.”

Edward shook his head. “Alice’s sisters were defensive of her to a fault after her death. Funny, since the three of them despised each other before her suicide. But they are vicious bulldogs, the two of them. I can only imagine how awful they were to you.”

Mary’s nostrils flared. “Awful is not a strong enough word, I fear. They are monsters, and through them, I can see some of the monster your wife must have been.” She reached out and touched his face. “I am so sorry, Edward. I wish I could take it all away.”

“You do,” he reassured her, and found that it was true. “Since you came into my life that sting, that horror has faded so much. But I need to know what they told you that frightened you enough that you decided your only course of action was to break our promises to each other.”

She shut her eyes and a tear escaped one. “If I do not contact them by two o’clock tomorrow afternoon and tell them that our engagement is over, then they will go to the magistrate and tell him that they believe you…you
murdered
their sister. They will provide false stories that Alice feared you. They will say they came forward now out of a desire to protect
my
well-being.”

Edward slumped back against her headboard, unable to hold himself up any longer.

“I always wondered if they would take their private attacks more public. I assumed their desire to protect themselves from the world finding out about Alice’s suicide would stop them.”

“And it has for a while,” Mary said, her voice shaking like her hands. “But they hate you so much they do not wish to see you happy. They are willing to sacrifice a little of their own comfort in order to give you pain.”

He nodded. “That sounds very familiar. After all, my wife threw herself down the stairs, willing to risk her own death, in order to punish me. Why wouldn’t her sisters do the same or worse?”

“If they demand an investigation into Alice’s death, it may go public. It
will
if they have any say. And there will always be people who believe you murdered her, even when they clear your name.”

“If they clear it,” he said, taking her hand. “Mary, you must know there is a risk I may be found guilty of murdering Alice.”

“But you didn’t!” she burst out, rising to her feet, taking the sheet with her.

“And if I had her journals or the letter she wrote before she threw herself down the stairs, perhaps I could prove that. But I don’t.”

She shook her head. “Why?”

“When Flynn was bashing himself into oblivion over Alice two years ago, your sister came to me and begged for my help to prove to him that she wasn’t what he believed. Her love for him was so obvious, I couldn’t refuse her and turned over the proof. She said she would destroy it all after he read both.”

Mary’s eyes went wide. “But she may not have. They may still have them. Come on!”

She rushed toward the door, and he got to his feet and grabbed her wrist just before she hurtled the barrier open and ran naked into the hall.

“Mary,” he said, drawing her back. “You aren’t dressed, and if we come down together, looking as we do, they are going to know what we were up to.”

She shook her head. “Good God, Edward, I was willing to end our engagement to shield you from their intentions. You don’t think I would be willing to take a little embarrassment or wrath from Crispin?”

He pressed his lips together. “That is true. You were ready to face a life back under your father’s thumb for me.” He drew her near again. “Why?”

She stared up at him, lip trembling, face flushed. “Don’t you know, Edward? I love you. And I would sacrifice myself, I would sacrifice anything, if it meant I could protect you.”

He wrinkled his brow. Here in place of his bonny, winsome Mary was a warrior woman, clothed in a white sheet and the scent of their joining. She had fire in her eyes and a determination that made his heart swell.

“What did I do to deserve you?” he whispered.

She tilted her head. “You are just you. That is all I need or want.”

“We will go down and speak to your sister and Flynn,” he acquiesced. “But before we do, I must tell you, Mary, that you are the most splendid, unexpected and wondrous woman I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. And the fact that you love me as much as I love you, that is a gift.”

Her eyes lit up. “You love me?”

He nodded. “With all my heart. Now, let us face this unseen future, shall we?”

She took his hand and lifted it to her chest. “Together. From now on.”

Mary should have expected the scene she found when she and Edward stepped into the parlor, but she still gasped and blushed. Crispin and Gemma sat together on the settee, curled in each other’s arms, kissing. They were still fully clothed, but now that Mary had experienced passion for herself, she could guess that a few moments later and they just might not have been.

“Oh, excuse me,” she said, turning her face as the couple broke apart.

Her sister stood up, her own face red. “Mary! We thought you were asleep.”

“I couldn’t.”

Gemma had a strange expression on her face. Not that Mary could blame her. She had refused to do anything more but throw on her wrinkled nightgown and her robe to join Edward in his quest to find the proof that would save them from Imogen and Isadora.

Her sister’s expression turned from one of confusion to shock as Edward stepped into the room behind her. His untucked shirt and untied cravat made what they had done together crystal clear.

A theory proven when Crispin jumped from the settee with a scowl. “What the hell are you doing here half dressed? What the
hell
is going on?”

Mary folded her arms, as ready to face Crispin’s wrath as she had promised Edward she would a short time before. Knowing Edward loved her had only strengthened that resolve.

“Exactly what you
think
we have been doing,” she snapped, ignoring Edward’s groan behind her.

“You son of—” Crispin made to move on Edward, but Gemma caught his arm and tugged him back.

“Crispin, they are to be married,” she said softly. “We have expected this could happen, and it does no damage.”

“But to come down and flaunt this in our faces?” Crispin growled.

Mary sighed. “That is not what we were doing. I promise you, I would have greatly preferred to stay upstairs in my bedroom in the arms of the man I love. But something has happened and I need your help.”

Gemma tilted her head. “Our help? What it is?”

She turned toward Edward. She could see he still hesitated about confessing their problem to Crispin. The two men had that shared history, after all. And they were not yet friends.

But Mary wasn’t about to let such foolishness send her fiancé to the gallows.

“Please, Edward. Tell them,” she said, taking his hand.

His jaw set and he nodded before he shifted his attention to Crispin. “Mary was asked to make a call on two old friends of ours, Flynn. Isadora and Imogen Brookfield.”

Mary watched as both Gemma and Crispin paled. Her brother-in-law’s nostrils flared as he clenched his hands. “The twin bitches.” He looked at Mary. “They bothered you?”

She nodded. “They asked me to call on them and when I did, they threatened me. Threatened Edward, actually. If I do not break off the engagement, they will make a case that Edward…Edward murdered Alice.”

Gemma lifted one hand to cover her lips, while she gripped Crispin’s sleeve with the other. “Oh God.”

Mary nodded. “I tried to do it, I tried to make Edward think I didn’t want to marry him.”

“What?” Gemma asked, moving toward her. “You said nothing.”

Mary shrugged. “I was too brokenhearted. I couldn’t discuss it tonight. I wrote Edward a letter and I went to bed and wished I would never wake up. I was going to tell you both tomorrow.”

“But I refused to take no for an answer,” Edward interjected as he took her hand. “By the by, thank you for planting that oak so close to Mary’s window. Most obliging.”

Crispin’s jaw tightened. “So now what, they’ll turn on you?”

Edward nodded. “That seems to be the gist of it. They will go to the office of the magister and try to get the whole incident reexamined, with an eye toward me being a murderer.”

“But Edward says that two years ago, he gave a note and a journal written by Alice over to you, Gemma, for Crispin.” She moved forward, pulling Edward with her. “Please tell me you still have them, for they may be enough to clear Edward’s name.”

Gemma shook her head. “They were destroyed.”

“No,” Crispin said, turning away from them all. “They weren’t.”

Gemma turned on him, her shock plain on her face. “What? You—you told me you would burn them.”

He faced her, his expression drawn. “I didn’t.”

Mary could see how deeply that admission hurt her sister. Gemma went pale, her eyes filling with sudden tears. “Why did you keep her things?”

Crispin moved on her. “Not for the reason that is in your head, Gemma.
Not
because I still care for Alice, I assure you. I wanted to keep those things in order to remind myself that I was willing to throw everything away on a lie so I would never be so foolish again. I wanted to keep them as physical proof of how far you would go to love and protect me.”

Gemma stared at him for a long, charged moment. “To the ends of the earth, Crispin Flynn.”

He smiled. “And back, I hope.”

“Always back,” she whispered.

Mary stepped forward. “So you have the items?”

“I do and I will gladly stand at your side and testify to everything that transpired,” Crispin said, this time to Edward.

Mary could see her fiancé’s shock at that offer. He shook his head. “You would help me?”

“Yes. For Mary, of course, but for more than that.” Crispin sighed. “We were both hurt and deceived by Alice, you even more than I. And since you and I are going to soon be brothers, you should know that I protect my own.”

Slowly, Crispin held out a hand, and for a long moment Edward just stared at it. Then he extended his own and the two men shook.

“That is a great ally, indeed,” he said softly. “But rather than stir up this hornet’s nest ahead of Imogen and Isadora with the officials, I have a different idea.”

“Oh?” Gemma asked, smiling at the two men, even as she came to slip a comforting arm around Mary. “What is that?”

“I think we go into the lion’s den itself.” Edward squared his shoulders. “Tomorrow I say we pay a call to the Evil Twins and their grandmother, Mrs. Brookfield.”

Crispin wrinkled his brow. “I don’t think I ever met her.”

“You’re lucky. But unlike the twins, unlike Alice, Mrs. Brookfield has a bit more control over her vitriol. If we’re lucky, we can play into her sensibilities.”

“And if we’re
not
lucky?” Mary asked, fear gripping her.

Edward looked at her. “Then we will go to war, my love. Together.”

Edward had not been in the Brookfield family home since the day of Alice’s funeral more than three years before. As he stood in the parlor, his hand in Mary’s, with Gemma and Crispin standing behind them, he couldn’t help but be mobbed with memories. Bad memories.

But then Mary squeezed his hand and the past evaporated almost like magic. He stared at her in wonder, and she smiled. “What is that look for?”

He shook his head. “You are a revelation.”

“Standing here in a parlor with my heart pounding?” she asked.

“Standing at my side,” he clarified. “I feel I could take on anything.”

“Get ready to do just that,” Crispin said, interlocking his arm with Gemma’s. “I hear their so-called dulcet tones in the hall now.”

Edward tensed. He, too, heard the harsh sounds of Imogen and Isadora in the hallway. Joined with them was the older but just as bitter voice of their grandmother and guardian, Mrs. Brookfield. As the door opened, he only barely resisted the urge to shove Mary behind himself, protect her from the venom surely to come.