Cross the Ocean (33 page)

A rare smile graced Briggs’ mouth and Blake saw Mrs. Wickham rushing down the hall, calling to other servants. Blake grasped Briggs’ shoulders and clapped his hands hard. “It’s me. Sanders. And your dour face is a sight for these sore eyes.”

“Your Grace! Master William!” Briggs said.

Mrs. Wickham turned her attention from a young liveried man with a tray of champagne to the door.

“Your Grace,” she called. “You’re home.”

“Indeed I am, and I could not be happier for the sight of you.” Blake drew Mrs. Wickham into his arms and hugged her.

The housekeeper’s eyes widened and her lips trembled. “I am so happy you are here,” she said.

William watched in wonder as his father and servants embraced. Briggs shook his head but was smiling.

Sanders was grinning as if he had discovered gold. Mrs. Wickham held one hand to her mouth and with the other touched William’s cheek. She backed up quickly.

“Give Mrs. Wickham a hug, William. She changed your nappies from the day you were born. Indulge her.” Blake said. Mrs. Wickham clapped her hands together under her chin as William wrapped his arms about her.

“Much I need to tell you two, as I’m sure you have much to say but for now, I’ll just let you know Benson is opening a clothing shop in Chicago. I would not be surprised if he is soon married to a plump blonde. Her name is Miss Forsyth. Briggs, tomorrow, you and I will have to pack his room and prepare to ship his belongings,” Blake said.

“A plump blonde?” Briggs asked.

“Chicago?” Mrs. Wickham gasped.

“Yes. And he is exceedingly happy. So we must be happy for him as well. Benson and I had quite an adventure together. I will tell you some evening the whole story. But for now, I assume these carriages mean Melinda is to be married.”

Both servants nodded.

“Well, then William. Let us join the festivities,” Blake said.

“I would be happy to help you change, Your Grace,” Briggs said.

“No, no. If they don’t like me as I am then the hell with them,” Blake said. “Right William?”

William smiled and nodded. Mrs. Wickham and Briggs watched as the two men strode toward the door of the ballroom.

“Your Grace?” Mrs. Wickham called.

Blake turned. “Yes?”

“Miss Finch will be thrilled that you have arrived.”

Blake skidded to a halt. “Pardon me, madam?”

Mrs. Wickham smiled softly. “Miss Finch and her uncle are here. She waits by the door most days to see you.”

Blake’s lip trembled. He could not stop the reaction. Gertrude was here. “But, but she is so close to ...

to--”

“Any day now, Your Grace,” Mrs. Wickham said.

There was but one question dancing in Blake’s mind. He rubbed the two days worth of beard on his chin and looked to his son.

Blake turned slowly and approached the door of the ballroom. His son opened the doors wide. The two of them stood in the entrance seeing a magnificent ball in progress. Slowly, heads began to turn and whispers abounded. Melinda was dancing with a man double her size. Angus and Ann. Elizabeth and Tony. And an older couple, Blake did not recognize. As the room began to silence, Blake and William entered. Blake saw Gertrude sitting in a far corner in a magnificent gold gown, with Fred’s hand on her shoulder. He recognized his peers of the realm among men and women wearing plaids.

The orchestra stumbled to a halt as the dancers turned to stare at the door. Blake heard his name whispered and saw Tony’s half smile. A French horn was the last instrument to quiet when a viola bow smacked its player on the head. The only remaining sound in the hushed room was an oblivious bagpiper merrily pumping his pipes. Blake watched Gert struggle to rise with Fred’s help. An expectant hush covered the crowd, other than the Scotsman still bellowing. Blake Sanders had something to say, and by damn, he wasn’t going to shout over the clatter. He eyed the player, the man’s eyes closed in his music, twenty feet to his right. The other pipers had moved away, leaving the lone man at the mercy of Blake’s glare.

Blake’s six-shooter was out of his holster in a split second. When the bullet hit the bladder of the bagpipe, its noise was reduced to a fizzle. Guests jumped and stilled as Blake holstered his firearm.

“The Duke of Wexford,” Briggs announced.

Blake turned to the still crowd. “I have one question to ask.” Every ear turned his way. Subtle movement brought the crowd closer by inches. The silence was so deep; Blake could hear the beat of his own heart. And that was where the question originated. His heart. “There are two women in this room, in this world, that I love. Are they either or both married?”

Melinda shrugged out of Connor’s arms and ran to her father. “Father! I wanted you here so badly but was terrified of what you would say. Yes, I am already married.”

Blake hugged his daughter, patted her back and laid his cheek in her blond curls. “There, there, poppet.

Don’t cry. I am home. I want to meet this Scotsman of yours.” A large handsome, young man approached and bowed deeply. It irritated Blake to no end that he had to tilt his head back to see his son-in-law’s face.

“Your Grace. I am Connor McDougal. I have taken your daughter to wife.”

Blake looked at William beside him. His mother was crying and covering him with kisses. “What do you think, William?” Blake asked.

“He’s no heathen, father. Seems polite and well bred. And not the least bit afraid of you,” William said over his mother’s shoulders.

“He’s as big as a bloody tree, William.” William shrugged and Blake turned back to his daughter’s husband. “You may not be frightened of me, son. But rest assured, if you do not make my daughter happy, I will track you down and stake you out on a moor till some wildebeest eats you.”

McDougal’s eyes widened just a hair and Melinda’s mouth dropped.

“I will be happy to call you my son if you strive every moment of the day to assure my daughter’s well being. Are we clear?” Blake said.

“We are clear, sir.”

Blake nodded to Anthony and Elizabeth.

“You’re looking well, Blake,” Anthony said.

“Quite the outlaw, I’d say,” Elizabeth commented. “You said there were two women in this room that you loved. I know Melinda is one. Pray tell, who’s the other?”

Melinda and her husband stepped aside as did William and his mother. There at the end of the corridor of guests stood Gertrude, tears running down her face. She was ethereal in the fading sunlight as it poured through the window. Gertrude was massive, he admitted, but to his thoughts the most strikingly beautiful woman in the room. The connection he felt when they made love was every bit as strong at this moment. He prayed she felt it as well. Blake loved her mind, her heart and every square inch of her body. Her laughter and arguments had rescued him from a sure, slow death as a duke and given him new life as a man.

Blake willed his feet to stay planted when he asked aloud. “Have you married?”

* * * *

Her pirate had arrived in cowboy duds and put to shame every other man in the room. Blake stood there, all man, every inch as masculine and wonderful as she remembered. His scruffy beard and western clothes was to her a stark contrast to the lofty duke with a clipped British accent. But he was perfect to her, for her, she knew. They would argue and fight and love and make up and raise horse-riding viscounts in western hats. There would be no mistress between them if Blake’s heated look were any sign.

Gert took one step forward and smiled softly. “I am not married.”

Blake took a step closer to her. “I thought you loved that cowboy. The one stupider than the cinch on my saddle.”

Gert’s legs moved under the mass volume of her dress inches closer to the man that she loved. “I found out just in time that a brilliant, handsome man from London loved me.”

“That man would wonder if the object of his desire, his very being, feels the same way.”

“I believe she loved you from the first time she bloodied your nose.”

Blake strode forward. He dropped to one knee and took her hand. “I have asked this question so often, I’ve lost count. I will ask it if need be until the day that I die. Gertrude Finch, will you marry me?”

Gert smiled down broadly at Blake’s raised face. “Yes, I will marry you.”

Blake rose and pulled Gertrude into his arms and kissed her. She smiled up at him shyly and her uncle tapped his shoulder.

“I be thinking the ceremony ought ta get started right soon.”

Blake nodded and scanned the room. “Ann? Did you send the minister home yet?”

His former wife rushed forward tears in her eyes. “He’s still here, I believe, Blake.”

Anthony dragged a man forward holding a plate of pastries in his hands. “Marry them,” Tony said.

The small man looked around the room wildly. “But the banns, Your Grace. They’ve not been posted.”

William and Blake pulled their guns in the same instant. Blake tilted his head as he aimed at the white collar around the quivering man’s neck. “Indeed?”

“Now is not the time to question the Duke of Wexford, sir. Wouldn’t you agree?” William asked.

Someone took the heaping plate and shoved a black book in the minister’s hands. His voice shook as he spoke. “No, now is not the time for questions.” He glanced at Gertrude’s stomach. “Far past the time, one might say.”

So there in the fragrant ballroom, amidst two hundred finely dressed guests, Blake took her hand from her uncle. They spoke their vows as if no one in the world existed but them. She was crying, but smiling.

Blake grinned. A sharp pain doubled her over andshe gasped for breath.

“The baby,” Gertrude said.

“Dear God, there’s no midwife,” Elizabeth said from behind.

Blake put his hands around Gert’s waist. “Fetch the doctor. I’ll help till he gets here.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “Blake, is that wise?”

Blake looked over his shoulder as he and Fred helped Gert to the door. “I delivered a young woman’s child in a mud hut. I think I can manage with my own.”

“Thought you just helped the neighbor woman, Sanders,” Fred said.

Blake glared over Gertrude’s head. “We’ll be fine till the doctor arrives.”

* * * *

Gert could hear the soft sounds of an orchestra, minus one bagpipe, as she lay in a bed holding her daughter. Ethel Mavis Sanders. The labor had been quick, Gert was thankful for that. The doctor had arrived in the nick of time. He ushered Elizabeth from the room but her husband had refused to leave. He told the old man he had promised to be there when his child was born and he had no intention of breaking his promise. Blake stared at her and their child with the awe of a man just awakening. He had kissed her and the soft downy hair of his daughter and bemoaned the day some brawny Scot would carry her off. Gert loved him so much at the moment she could not fathom the depth of her feeling. As she lay in pain in the throes of contractions he had promised her the stars and the moon. She looked up to his face; filled with love she could see and shook her head softly.

“Everything I ever wanted is right here in this room, Blake. No need to lasso a star.”

Epilogue

Ethel Sander’s was riding her Great Uncle Fred’s shoulders, wearing his hat low over her eyes all the while shouting, “Giddyup.”

“I need the exter for new corral supplies. I told ya last spring we was goin’ build a new one,” Fred Hastings said and grimaced as his grand niece pulled one of the few remaining hairs on his head.

“This year hasn’t been up to par,” Gertrude Sanders said from behind the desk in her uncle’s home. She and Blake lived closed by but they had agreed to run the horse business together and she still did the bookwork in Uncle Fred’s red leather chair. “You told me that yourself.” Her husband sat sprawled in a chair, to her right. He rolled his eyes.

“Dear Lord, Gert. We’re not paupers. Fred and I want to get this work done before Anthony and Elizabeth get here. Sign the blasted bank draft,” Blake said.

Ethel shimmied down her uncle’s back and up her father’s crossed, booted leg. He held her hands and rocked his leg up and down. She laughed and her dark curls whirled around her face. Blake Sanders grinned, crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out. Ethel laughed harder.

“And I want to have a grand party for them. With Donald coming to visit and Tony and Elizabeth’s girls too, I want to have something wonderful they’ll never forget.”

She watched her five-year-old daughter Ethel charm her father into giving her a hard candy he always carried in his pocket. “She’ll spoil her dinner, Blake,” Gert said and sat her foot on the bow of the cradle holding the two year old, Geoffrey.

“We can’t entertain guests and buy lumber in the same year?” Blake asked.

Gert pulled her mouth to one side and looked down at her open books. “We’re going to have to add on to the house soon and get Mrs. Wickham some help.”

“Cripe sakes, Gert. How much bigger a house ya need then the one ya got. Twice as big as this one as is. Don’t be puttin’ on airs. I taught ya better than that, Missy,” Fred said.

Blake’s head tilted and his foot stopped swinging bringing a frown to his daughter’s face. “Why, pray tell, would we need more room at the house, Gertrude?”

Gertrude stared at the husband she loved and the uncle she adored. “Well, if you must know we need to add another bedroom. I’m expecting. Again.”

Fred threw his hat to the floor. “Well, shit a big pile and damn it to hell and back. You know I’m happy as hell for ya but we can’t afford to lose hands from yer screaming and ranting and raving again, Gert. I love ya but pert soon no cowboys goin’ a work here.” His head swiveled to Blake. “Ya figure out what causes this yet, ya dumb Brit?” When no one seemed inclined to answer his question, Fred picked Ethel up and headed out the door of the office. “Yer goin’ a be eighty fer this one’s out a diapers, Sanders”

* * * *

Blake stood to admire his wife. She seemed to only increase in beauty these last five years. Their first year married was spent in England. He was glad when Gert said she missed home. Blake happily handed over the reigns of the Wexfords to William. He would have followed Gertrude to China if need be but he too had thought America was going to be a wonderful place to raise his family. No one watching his or Gert’s every move. No one to censure their children but themselves and Fred Hastings.