Dangerous to Hold (42 page)

He could not banish from his mind the picture of
El Grande
, unarmed, riding like a demon to save Catherine’s life. He must have known that if he’d waited for the militia to catch up with him, it would have been too late for Catherine. And afterward, Catherine, weeping uncontrollably as she crouched over
El Grande’s
body. Until last night, he had never truly understood the bond that tied these two together.
El Grande
had come back for her. As
for Catherine, she’d proved to him that
El Grande
was innocent by putting his own life in danger. She’d never doubted that young man. In all the time he’d known her, her loyalty to
El Grande
had never wavered. It was awesome, and it chilled him to his very soul.

Loyalty. Was that what it was?

He wasn’t jealous. What he felt was too deep for jealousy. And he could not hate
El Grande.
His debt to him could never be repaid. But he pitied Catherine and he pitied himself. They were locked in a marriage that they couldn’t get out of.

He let out a long sigh. Gritting his teeth, he carefully adjusted his position. The laudanum was beginning to take effect and he was glad. She would be with
El Grande
now. He wondered what her thoughts were. He’d made a botch of everything, even allowing his cousin David to take him by surprise. It was his fault that things had turned into a nightmare, and if it had not been for
El Grande
, he and Catherine would both be dead by now.

He wished he’d never become a soldier, never gone off to war, had never been rescued by
El Grande
and taken to his mountain hideout. And most of all, he wished he’d never fallen into the hands of Catalina.

As he slipped into sleep, another thought occurred to him. If he hadn’t done any of those things, David would have succeeded in murdering him a long time ago.

Darkness had fallen, and in an upstairs bedchamber in Heath House,
El Grande
lay white and still in the big tester bed. There was a chair pulled close to the bed, and Amy was sitting in it. She had been there for hours while Catherine caught up on her sleep.

As she gazed upon the face she loved so well, more tears welled up. She’d given up on handkerchiefs and was using a towel to dry her face. She spoke in a soft undertone, addressing him as if he could hear her, pouring out her heart, pleading with him not to leave her. It wasn’t working. He was going to die. She knew he was going to die.

On a teary sob, she rose and took a few paces
around the room, then stopped and looked at
El Grande.
“How can you do this to me, Robert?” she pleaded. “I wasn’t looking for love. I didn’t invite you into my life. You forced your way in. Now you’re going to leave me, just like that? Oh, how like a man, and how right I was not to believe you!”

More tears fell. “I’ve told my sister that we’re in love. She doesn’t believe me, and now she’ll never believe me because you won’t be here to tell her.”

There was no movement from the bed.

“Oh, I suppose you’re happy because you’re going to that God of yours. Well, you’ll pardon me if I tell you that I don’t think much of your God. He’s never been a friend to me, and now he’s my enemy.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Are you listening, God? I’m never going to fall into your clutches, not after what you’ve done to Robert. Why did you have to let this happen to him? He’s good through and through. If you’d wanted a victim, why didn’t you take me?” This outburst was followed by a prolonged bout of weeping.

“Look at me!” she said. “I’ve turned into a watering pot, and it’s all your fault, Robert. This is not me. This is not Amy Spencer. Oh, I know what you think.” She moved to the end of the bed and gazed down at him. “You think you’ve reformed me. You’re quite happy to go off to your God because you think you’ve saved my soul. Well, let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. If you leave me now, I’m going to go right back to being the old Amy Spencer.”

Not a flicker of awareness showed in that pale face.

“I’m going to swear like a trooper. Bloody hell! Damnation! Sod off! What do you think of that? Yes, and I know a lot worse than those.”

Silence.

“I’m going to give riotous parties. And I’ll go to the theater, and sit in my box, and allow all those horrid, horrid lechers to paw me. Is that what you want?”

Seeing that this was leading nowhere, she knelt by the bed and took his cold hand between her warm ones. “Oh Robert, if only you would come back to me, I’ll do whatever you wish. I’ll change. I’ll be a different woman.
We’ll marry, and go off to Spain, and have babies, and I’ll never try to hide my heart from you again.”

She bowed her head. “I knew there would be no miracles for me. Oh God, just this once, give me a miracle and I swear I’ll be the kind of woman you want me to be.”

“Amy?” Cat stood in the doorway. “His eyelashes flickered.”

Amy looked at
El Grande
, but could see nothing. “Oh God,” she whispered. “Oh God. Please?”

El Grande
opened his eyes. “Amy?”

She leaned closer to catch his words. “Yes?”

“Don’t ever change. I love you just the way you are.”

Amy sat back on her heels. “You were listening? All this time, you were listening!”

El Grande
managed a weak smile. “God forgive me, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Amy started to curse, thought better of it, and catching Catherine’s eyes, began to laugh and cry at the same time.

Catherine rearranged the decanter of sherry and glasses on the silver tray for the tenth time in as many minutes. Marcus was expected at any moment. Two weeks had passed since she had last seen him, two weeks of wondering and waiting and speculating on all the compelling reasons that had kept him away. She knew he was on the mend. Penn came every other day to keep them informed and to see how they were getting along. If it had not been for Penn, she would never have known how Marcus was.

She glanced up as
El Grande
and Amy entered the room, and her throat tightened. If any two people deserved their happiness it was these two. She couldn’t believe now how naïve she’d been, thinking that
El Grande’s
only reason for seeing her sister was to reform her, and she’d thought Amy had been putting the wrong interpretation on his interest when she’d said that he loved her. Then, she’d seen them together and she’d felt as though she’d been struck by a thunderbolt.

They were so right for each other. Life had dealt harshly with them both, and as
El Grande
told it, they’d both been in search of their souls. He’d told her something else. He didn’t want to turn the clock back. He loved Amy because she was who she was, and if she’d lived a different kind of life, she wouldn’t be the woman he loved.

“We thought,” said
El Grande
, “that we’d take a walk to the village.”

“You’re not going to stay and speak to Marcus?” She felt apprehensive at the thought of seeing Marcus
alone for the first time since that night on the heath, and she couldn’t help showing it.

El Grande
said, “We won’t be gone long. Ask him to wait for us. I’m sure you and he have things to say in private.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, trying not to sound as bleak as she felt.

Two weeks were a long time to wait for a sign from Marcus that he’d softened toward her. A word from him would have brought her running to his side, but that word never came. Instead, Penn had told her that Marcus wished her to remain at Heath House until things were settled between them. He would come to her when he was ready. She’d known a week ago that he was back on his feet. Then why had he waited so long to come and see her? She knew why, and she tried to brace herself for what was coming.

Amy kissed her on the cheek. “Just remember, my love, don’t hide your heart, and I think Marcus may surprise you.”

They went off arm in arm, and Catherine watched them from the parlor window till they were out of sight.
El Grande
walked with a cane and leaned on Amy’s arm for support. Not Amy Spencer, but Amy who looked like a young girl and whose eyes glowed with the bloom of love. The odd things was, no one seemed to recognize her as London’s foremost courtesan. That lady was known to be spending the winter months in Italy, and when Amy encountered people around the village, they saw what Catherine had told them to see, a friend who had brought her betrothed into the country to recuperate from a carriage accident. Even Emily, who had noticed the resemblance of Catherine’s friend to Amy Spencer, accepted her story. It might have been different in London where Amy was well-known, but in this quiet backwater, where Catherine was well-known, her story was accepted without question.

Shaking her head, trying not to feel dispirited because Amy and
El Grande
would be leaving for Spain at the end of the week, she returned to her study. A few minutes later, the door opened and Mrs. McNally ushered
in Marcus. He wasn’t alone. Major Carruthers was with him, but Catherine had eyes only for Marcus.

He looked pale and thinner, with dark circles under his eyes. She wanted to fling herself into his arms, but sensed a reserve that made her polite rather than warm.

After the amenities were dealt with, and they were all sitting sipping sherry, they talked for some time about the night David tried to murder them. Of the three, Major Carruthers was the most animated and took up much of the slack in the conversation. He was elated that his theories had been so close to the mark. His error was in not realizing that everything tied together. When he saw that his companions weren’t really interested in his theories, he, too, fell silent.

It was then that Marcus felt in his coat pocket and produced a packet of papers that were yellowing with age. “I came by these yesterday morning,” he said. “After David’s funeral, his solicitor approached me and gave me a key to a box that was held for David by Ransom’s Bank in Pall Mall. Inside the box I found these, letters from my father to David’s father that prove that David was my heir.”

Penn had already told her his mother’s story, but she was surprised that Marcus would say so much in front of Major Carruthers.

Noting the look she darted at Carruthers, Marcus said, “Major Carruthers is in my confidence.”

Carruthers said dryly, “Only because he needs me to smooth things over at the War office. The official position is, David Lytton was murdered by highwaymen. As for the English soldiers at
El Grande’s
base, we are accepting that their deaths were accidental. The only thing that the Minister has been told, and the only thing he has an interest in, is that Lytton murdered Freddie Barnes in a lovers’ tiff, and the Minister certainly doesn’t want that to be made public. Barnes was his cousin, you see.”

Catherine was smoothing out the letters Marcus had given her, but she wasn’t really reading them. “What do you mean, ‘they had a lovers’ tiff?”

Marcus gave her a level stare. “David and Freddie were lovers,” he said.

“Lovers! But David seemed so … well, I never would have guessed.”

“David made sure none of us guessed what he was really like.”

“But how do you know all this?”

“In David’s trunk, there were letters from Freddie also. Poor Freddie! He never knew that David was my cousin. He thought he was a deserter, and that’s why he didn’t want anyone to know he’d been at
El Grande’s
base. Freddie thought he was protecting him. I don’t know why David didn’t kill Freddie at once.”

“For the money,” Carruthers said. “David was in debt up to his ears. He had expensive tastes, and Freddie gave him whatever he asked. But when David decided to be himself in order to get closer to you, Marcus, it was time to do away with Freddie Barnes. At least, that’s what I deduce.”

“We found this in the box also,” said Marcus.

Catherine held out her hand and he slipped a bracelet into her palm.

“The Wrotham bridal bracelet,” said Marcus.

It was an exquisite piece, five cameos set in filigreed gold overlaid with vines and roses. One of those cameos was of Marcus’s mother. Catherine found which one by looking at the inscription on the back.

“My father asked his brother to hold it for him,” said Marcus. “I won’t tell you what was in that letter, but nothing that is to my father’s credit.”

She returned the bracelet to Marcus. The thought crossed her mind that Marcus had not mentioned adding her likeness to the bracelet, and although she didn’t much care for this particular tradition, she felt disappointed.

They talked at some length, clearing up various points. Finally, Major Carruthers rose to his feet.

“I came here to talk to Robert,” he said. “Where may I find him?”

Catherine told him that
El Grande
and Amy had decided to walk to the village and she expected them back at any moment.

“Ah,” said the major, looking from Catherine to
Marcus. “If you don’t mind, I’ll go after them. I could use the exercise.”

There was a long silence after he left. Marcus looked at Catherine, looked away, and said in a curiously distant tone, “I’ve been to see my solicitors, Cat.”