Barely a Lady (33 page)

She smiled and knew that her heart lay exposed to him. “Love has never been the problem, Jack. I’ve always loved you desperately.”

“And you won’t mind being wooed?”

“Properly.”

He groaned, but he was smiling. “You could well kill me,” he admitted. “But you have a deal.”

And then he was kissing her, his hands in her hair, his heart thundering to meet hers, his mouth so gentle she thought her last dream might well be mending. She closed her eyes and sipped at the unfamiliar taste of happiness.

And then, as if he had choreographed it, Jack dropped one final kiss on her nose. “If what I’m hearing is what I think it is, I may have one more surprise for you, Liv.”

Still lost in the sweet delight of his kisses, she couldn’t quite keep up with him. “Another surprise?”

But he was looking over her head, and then, with a big grin, he pulled her to her feet.

“My Lord,” Harrison, his butler, solemnly intoned, as if in High Mass, “your visitors are here.”

And suddenly, like a miracle, there he was. Taller, a little broader, with his baby fat sadly gone. But his eyes, his daddy’s beautiful sea-green eyes, were happy, and he was laughing.

“Mama!” he yelled, and ran for her.

“Jamie!” she cried, and opened her arms.

“Mercy,” Georgie said from the doorway. “What happened to you two?”

But Olivia was too busy to answer. She was whirling her son around, smelling his little-boy smell and thinking how precious his weight was in her arms, how she had been gray and silent without him, how she had lived only days in the last years—the days she’d been able to see her beautiful boy.

And then she was on her knees before him, swiping his hair back off his forehead and listening to his excited babble about the boat he’d just been on and the storms they’d had and the letters Aunt Georgie was teaching him, and dash it, where had she been?

“I’ve gone to bring somebody home for you, love,” she said. Leaning close, she whispered in his ear. “Do you see that man behind me?”

He looked up with wide eyes. “Who is he?”

“He’s your daddy.”

Much, much later, she would remember that this was the moment she finally pulled that last box off her shelf. The moment when Jamie, wide-eyed and serious, took the measure of the man who claimed to be his father.

“And just where have you been?” he demanded.

His voice suspiciously gruff, Jack knelt before his son. “Trying to get back to you and your mother.”

“Why did it take so long?”

“Because I had to learn how to be a good father first.”

And Jamie, hands on small hips, leaned his head back and frowned. “Well,” he said. “I suppose we could let you try.”

“It’s all I can ask,” Jack said, his eyes glinting with tears. “It’s more than I deserve.”

It was finally, after five long years, a reason for Olivia to hope.

It could have been worse, Gervaise thought. At least he was on the state side of Newgate until he finished negotiating with the government. They knew he would talk. He just had to convince them that the information they received would only be equal to the compensation offered, which shouldn’t be difficult. In the meantime, he could make sure he had more aces up his sleeve.

He was doing that now by writing one last letter when the door swung open behind him. “Be with you in a moment. I’m in the middle of suggesting my uncle, the marquess, afford me an allowance in exchange for keeping the family name off the scandal sheets.”

“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Gervaise turned with a huge smile of relief. He hadn’t wanted to admit how anxious he’d been here, where the wrong people could find him. “Ah, good. It’s you.” His chuckle was a bit forced. “Then they’re going to pay me more for my silence? Excellent! I admit I’d half expected to turn around to see that rogue Surgeon looming over me.” He shivered. “Chap has no sense of humor, you know?”

“I do, Gervaise. I do. Fortunately for you, though, he is still safely imprisoned. So I come to see you instead.”

Gervaise’s laugh was strained. “Good. Would you like the West Indies, do you think? I hear it’s lovely there.”

“Oh, yes. This prison, it does not agree with you, I think.”

“It’s all right. I won’t be here long.”

“No. No, you won’t. But here, close your eyes and let me make your time a bit better.”

Gervaise chuckled. “Ah, you make me feel better, and I’ll make our friends feel better. I have a special bit of information I believe they would pay dearly for. Quite enough to see us to Barbados.”

Giving a sly wink, he leaned back a bit, spread his legs, and closed his eyes as commanded. He shouldn’t have. Before he could even cry out, his throat was sliced open from ear to ear.

His eyes flew open in surprise, then bemusement. He looked down at himself, as if confused by the sight of all that bright red blood pumping down his pristine clothing and splashing onto the floor. Looking up at his attacker, he slowly collapsed like a discarded rag doll until his head rested against his half-finished letter, his eyes clouding over in an odd expression of amusement, as if he were thinking,
Ah well, the joke’s on me.

And so it was, Mimi thought as she wiped the knife off on his biscuit pantaloons and slipped it back into her thigh sheath. “Ah,
mon pauvre
,” she said softly to his dimming eyes. “It is too bad you did not know that the Surgeon is not the only one with a love for knives, him. In fact”—she leaned close to whisper in his ear—“he learned this from me.”

Dropping a parting kiss on Gervaise’s forehead, she pulled up her hood, stepped carefully over the gory wooden floor, and knocked on the door.

“All finished, then?” the warder asked, carefully averting his eyes.

She tapped him on his chest with perfectly manicured nails and sauntered by. “But of course.”

And then, knowing she wouldn’t be questioned, Mimi simply walked out of Newgate and went home.

Epilogue

I
t was just as Jack had envisioned it. The morning was bright and clear, the sky that sharp blue of early autumn. The trees had begun to turn, but the weather was still warm enough for Jamie and cousin Lully to be chasing his new puppy across the back lawn. The house rang with workmen who were helping Olivia and him to transform Oak Grove into a home where children could grow in safety and comfort. Where, if nothing else, he could watch close by.

His family had reacted as he’d feared, showing not an inch of remorse or regret for what they’d done. No, that wasn’t exactly true. They bitterly regretted not originally being successful in kidnapping Jamie so they could raise him in the Wyndham image.

They had also reacted to Gervaise’s murder. Not with shame at his treacherous behavior but with fury at Jack for revealing it. Grieving for the butterfly they thought Gervaise was, they let Jack say nothing bad about him.

Which made the decision to raise his little family as far as possible from the Abbey much easier for Jack. After what his family had put Olivia through, he had no intentions of exposing her, Jamie, Georgie, or her little Lully to their poison.

The only exceptions he’d made had been for his younger brother Ned, who he’d learned had spent two years searching for Livvie so he could help her, and the twins, who had helped.

The more he heard about those terrible days, the more he loved his Livvie. The more she humbled him. His colleagues at the War Office had been telling him of his alleged acts of heroism while in France. He didn’t remember more than one in five. He’d remembered only two names besides Gervaise’s on the list, low-level government employees who had been dealt with. He did remember, night after night in his dreams, his callous behavior toward the only woman who would ever hold his heart.

He spent every day trying to mitigate his sins. It was why he lived in the Oak Grove dower house, much to his father’s outrage. It was why he spent his days helping restore a dormant estate so that it would be a gem for his son to inherit or, God willing and he won back his wife, a daughter.

Watching now as Jamie tumbled over his own feet to roll, laughing, down the slope of the lawn, Jack knew it didn’t matter that his family didn’t understand. He would live out under a tree if it was the only way he could spend time with Jamie and Olivia.

Even if Livvie never let him closer. Even if she could never quite bring herself to trust him. He had five terrible years to make up to her. He had a son to acquaint himself with. He had a sister who had become even more beloved to him as he witnessed the grief that still shadowed her smiles, and a niece with the most impish green eyes he’d ever seen. He would make it up to them all, and be damned to the stiff-necked, holier-than-thou Wyndhams.

As if called, he heard Livvie’s brisk step in the hallway.

“Oh, good, Jack,” she greeted him, stepping into the room. “I don’t have to go searching through the entire house for you.”

He looked up to see that she grew more beautiful by the day. Finally out of those horrid grays, she was instead clad in a lovely blue dress with long sleeves and a ruffled neckline that enhanced her soft blond beauty. He was so relieved to see the weariness easing from her healing face.

She didn’t look up to see his examination. Her focus was on the small gift-wrapped box she held in her hands.

“I hope you don’t mind my breakfasting here, Liv,” he said, standing. “I want to get an early start on the roof.”

She waved off his query. “Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to eat down at the dower house. Besides, you shouldn’t have to eat alone on your birthday.”

“You remembered,” he said, unaccountably uncertain.

She looked up and smiled, her soft, sherry-brown eyes gleaming. The happiness he saw there seemed to be genuine. “Of course I remembered. I’m not the one with amnesia.”

Setting her burden down, she took the time to load up her plate, pausing by the back windows to look out over the view that had so captivated Jack.

“You’re going to spoil them,” she accused gently, although her smile had grown, and Jack saw tears well briefly in her eyes. “Ponies
and
a dog, all in one week. And you realize that beast is going to grow taller than Jamie by Christmas.”

“He’s an Irish wolfhound. They’re reported to be protective.”

“Very true,” she agreed, finally pulling her gaze from where Jamie and Lully lay on their backs shrieking as the gangly dog enthusiastically licked their faces. “In fact, he almost didn’t let me into Jamie’s bedroom last night.”

Jack held out her chair and accepted another quick smile from her before reclaiming his seat. “I’ll have a talk with him.”

“That you will,” she said, then tapped the box before her several times, as if assessing it. “After I give you your birthday gift… well, my…” Impatiently, she shook her head and pushed the box over to him. “With all my heart, Jack.”

Jack looked up at her. He couldn’t remember Livvie ever looking this blatantly anxious. “Should I open it?”

“If you don’t, I’ll never speak to you again.”

So he did, pulling a lovely gold ribbon free and carefully lifting away the pretty foil paper to find nothing more than the box his boots from Hoby had come in. He looked up to see Livvie biting her lip. Now really intrigued, he lifted the lid.

Trash. There was nothing but ripped up papers inside. For a second, he couldn’t make any sense of it. Then he saw the ribbons. Red ribbons. And seals, all crushed, as if their power had been shattered. Suddenly he wasn’t sure he could breathe. Tears he thought he’d done with thickened his throat, and his hands shook.

Carefully he looked up to see that Livvie looked as unsure as he felt. “This is your guardianship of Jamie,” he said.

She nodded. “You said until I was ready. I’m ready.”

For a second he couldn’t get sound past his throat. “You’re very sure, Livvie? I’m not giving you another chance to say no.”

And then, like day breaking, a look of such pure love radiated from Livvie’s face that Jack felt awed. “I’m sure. I would like to invite our friends to celebrate with us, Jack. Is a month too soon?”

He almost groaned. He’d deliberately kept from her bed these last two months, knowing that a child would only provide him with blackmail over her. “It’s too long, but I’ll cope. I’d like a real wedding, Liv. To make up for the last time. To show everyone I mean it. Do you mind that I’ve been checking with the chancellery courts about Jamie’s status? Even if we don’t marry, I can claim him as my son and legal heir, since we were legally married when you conceived. But, oh, Livvie, I want it all.”

Her smile was shy and sweet. “So do I, Jack. I’m tired of being afraid. Of being careful. I want to try again.”

She didn’t have a chance to say anything else. Dropping the box, Jack swept her up in his arms and kissed her thoroughly. So thoroughly, in fact, that neither one heard the intruder until she was tugging at Jack’s coat.

“Are you listening to me?” Georgie demanded, waving a letter. “Let her go for a moment, Jack, and pay attention. Livvie, check your mail. You have to see if it’s true.”

Jack saw that Livvie had to blink a few times before being able to attend his sister.

“Oh,” she murmured vaguely. “Has the mail come?”

He grinned. “What’s true, imp?” he asked his sister, never looking away from Livvie’s languorous eyes.

“I got a letter from a friend,” Georgie said, bouncing a little on her toes. “It’s about your friend Grace, Livvie. She got married.”

She even had Jack’s attention now. “Really? Who to? That Braxton chap?”

Georgie looked between them. “Diccan Hilliard.”

“What?”
Olivia demanded, grabbing the letter.

“Oh, no,” Jack disagreed with a grin. “Not Hilliard. That would be the greatest
misalliance
since Prinny and Princess Caroline.”

But Olivia was shaking her head, her expression blank. “Diccan Hilliard. Oh, Lord. I have to see her.”

Jack lifted the letter from her fingers and handed it back to Georgie. “Nothing you can do now, my love,” he said, pulling her back to him. “Besides, we’ll see them in a month anyway.”

It took a second to get Livvie’s full attention, but in the end, she melted back into his arms. “You’re right. We’ll see her in a month.”

“What’s happening in a month?” Georgie asked, her chestnut curls bouncing as she looked from one of them to the other. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thank you,” he said, focused completely on the well-remembered joy in Olivia’s eyes. Never, he vowed to himself, would she lose that joy again. Not as long as she lived. “It seems that Livvie has accepted my hand in marriage. Again.”

Georgie jumped up, giving a shout. “Finally!”

“Yes,” Jack said, saying everything he needed with his eyes to his precious, dauntless Livvie. “Finally.”