The Convenient Arrangement (27 page)

“I hope so.” She kissed his soft cheek. “I hope so!”

She watched as he vanished into the shadows before she turned to climb into the carriage beside Miss Urquhart. A hand on her arm halted her. When she saw Lord Caldwell, she shook off his hand.

“Begone!” she cried. “Take your deadly greed and go!”

“I want you to know. I did not fire that shot.” His face was the color of the pale glow on the breastplate that lay, bloody and forgotten, on the road. “The men misunderstood my shout to stop you. I never intended that something like this would happen. It was just an accident.”

“Just like when her brother died?” Lorenzo asked as he assisted Valeria into the carriage.

“I had nothing to do with that! It was an accident caused by too much port and slick stones on that bridge.”

“Mayhap the authorities will have a different opinion about that when it is considered that Paul Blair might have had his mind more on his driving if he had not been worrying about how you had persuaded him to gamble away his sister's inheritance.”

“You can prove nothing.”

“I need not. Two accidents, if one is to believe that firing on us and Miss Urquhart is an accident, plus kidnaping David? You took the wrong gamble on this, Caldwell. I doubt even £8000 will buy you out of this.”

“Moorsea—”

He pulled the door closed and shouted for the carriage to make its best possible speed to Moorsea Manor. He feared, as he looked at the blood along the front of Miss Urquhart's gown, that it did not matter.

When the old woman gripped his hand, he was amazed with the strength she still had. “Don't let me die yet, my boy,” she whispered.

“Of course not! We—”

“I have too much I must tell you. What I should have told you weeks before.” She moaned as the carriage dropped into a chuckhole. “You and Valeria.”

“There is no need to speak.”

“Yes, there is! My boy, were you taught no manners? You don't talk back to your elders.”

He had not thought he could smile, and he saw Valeria's lips twitch. Miss Urquhart's eccentricities were comfortingly dear now. “Tell us what you must.”

“Not here! When we get back to Moorsea Manor. That's where it began.” She winced. “That's where it must end.”

Seventeen

Valeria feared that Miss Urquhart's words would turn out to be less than prophetic, because blood flowed from the wound in her side. Yet the old woman was still alive when they reached the gates of Moorsea Manor. As soon as they arrived at the manor house's front door, Valeria ordered the old woman to be taken to the bed in the library, which was closer than her own rooms.

The house was somber as the servants watched in silence while Miss Urquhart was carried by three strong stablemen up the stairs. Even Kirby, whose face was still dark with the dirt he had used to conceal him when he led Gil and two of the other footmen to the trees and dumped water on Lord Caldwell, was sober.

Kirby asked, “My lord, what can we do?”

“David went for the doctor,” Lorenzo said. “Send the carriage to meet them. It will be faster than the doctor's pony cart.”

His valet nodded, backing away as he stared at the slow procession climbing the stairs. Valeria offered him a tight smile before she gave orders to Mrs. Ditwiller to bring clean water and cloths and Miss Urquhart's nightdress.

Hurrying up the stairs, Valeria entered the library just as the men who had carried Miss Urquhart were leaving. She tried not to look at the blood on them, for she doubted if a person could lose this much blood and live. Yet, Miss Urquhart had survived the trip back to the manor house. Mayhap she would meet Death on her own terms, exactly as she had Life.

Lorenzo held out his hand to Valeria as she came around the bookshelves to see the old woman looking incredibly small and fragile on the grand bed. Taking his hand, she let him draw her within the curve of his arm. So much they needed to say to each other, so complicated their lives had become in just the past few hours, but that must wait until Miss Urquhart was tended to.

“Tell her to leave me alone,” Miss Urquhart ordered when Mrs. Ditwiller hurried in with a pitcher of water and some rags. “I want to speak with you two alone.”

“My lady?” the housekeeper asked.

“Just leave it here.” She pointed at a nearby table that was not completely covered by books.

“I will speak with just you and the boy,” Miss Urquhart said in her most imperious voice.

“Thank you, Mrs. Ditwiller,” Valeria said.

The housekeeper gave her a sad smile and left.

“Come here, boy.”

Lorenzo went to the bed. Even with his height, he looked like the boy Miss Urquhart always called him when he knelt beside its high mattress. “I'm here, Miss Urquhart.”

“I want you to know the truth.”

“The truth?”

She looked past him to Valeria and motioned for her to come closer to the bed. As Valeria did, she said, “You both must know the truth of what has almost destroyed your families. Francis was a good man, but he never was completely comfortable with the constricting ways of the peerage.” She smiled. “Like you, boy. Yet, unlike you, he went often to London to enjoy its entertainments. There he fell in love with a beautiful young woman.”

“You?” asked Valeria when the old woman paused.

Tears of pain filled Miss Urquhart's eyes for the first time. “How kind of you to say that, but you are sadly mistaken. He fell in love with your mother, my dear. He adored her first from afar, then he dared to approach her to discover she held a
tendre
in her heart for him as well. The only problem was that she had already been promised to another. He tried to talk her betrothed into allowing her to break her engagement, but the man refused.” Her voice faltered. “Love can be a type of madness, don't you know? Francis challenged the man to a duel for your mother's hand and was the victor, killing his rival.”

“Oh, my!” Valeria dropped onto a stool by the bed. “I had no idea. Nobody ever spoke of this to me.”

Miss Urquhart patted her hand. “It was hushed up swiftly, and your mother was as swiftly married to another man, for your grandfather would not consider Francis's offer for her after the duel. Francis returned here in shame and cut himself off from everyone, even his beloved sister.” She looked at Lorenzo and smiled with sympathy. “He missed your mother deeply, but he did not want her to suffer from the taint of his moment of insanity, too. He arranged for her marriage to your father and then, wanting to protect her from ever being connected to him again, did not attend the wedding.” She grimaced and groaned, clutching the covers, but added, “Her letters to him went unanswered until she gave up and stopped writing.”

Lorenzo whispered, “Thank you for telling us this, but you are straining yourself when you should be reserving your strength.”

“But that is not the whole of the story.”

Valeria watched in amazement as the old woman pushed herself up to sit against the pillows. She looked toward the door. How much longer could it take for the doctor to arrive? “Miss Urquhart, you shouldn't—”

“Don't you start telling me what I should or shouldn't do, too,” she scolded, but her voice was growing weaker. Leaning back into the pillows, she said, “I have more to say.”

“It can wait.”

“I doubt that.” She closed her eyes for so long that Valeria feared she would not open them again. Then, her voice once again stronger, she said, “Your mother loved Francis all her life, Valeria, and her letters to him never stopped. I don't know how she smuggled them out of her husband's house or how she arranged for Francis to be your guardian if something happened to her, but she did. And I hated her for it.” Miss Urquhart opened her eyes and glared at Valeria. “And I wanted to hate you.”

“But you have been so kind to me.”

“Because you have treated me with respect that no one else felt I deserved because I was only Francis's mistress, not his wife. I did try to treat you with the contempt I always held for your mother, but I couldn't,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “You are a dear child, and I cannot be angry at you because Francis wanted to marry your mother. He never asked me to marry him. That made me angry because I believed he loved your mother more than he ever loved me.”

“That's not true.”

Valeria whirled about to see Earl standing behind them. For once, he was not carrying his candle, but the soft glow surrounded him. She wondered where it was coming from, for the room was dark beyond the bookshelves.

“How do you know that, Earl?” she asked, knowing that soothing Miss Urquhart's pain was more important than satisfying her own curiosity. “Did Lord Moorsea's uncle tell you something that will ease Miss Urquhart's heart?”

The old man smiled and stepped closer to the bed.

“Miss Urquhart!” cried Lorenzo as the old woman stared at Earl and swayed as if caught in a high wind off the sea.

Valeria grabbed a cloth from the table and dipped it in the pitcher. Wringing it out, she placed the cloth on the old woman's forehead. “Mayhap you should leave, Earl. This discussion can continue later when Miss Urquhart is better.”

Miss Urquhart pushed aside Valeria's hand weakly and used Lorenzo's arm to steady herself against the pillows. She pointed at Earl and asked, “What are you doing here?”

Lorenzo said, “Do not distress yourself, Miss Urquhart. Earl, this is not a good time. You should leave.”

The old man did not move as he gazed at Miss Urquhart with a broadening smile.

“If you would please—” Lorenzo put out his hand toward the old man. With a yelp, he pulled it back and shook it.

“What's wrong?” Valeria asked, tearing her gaze from Miss Urquhart.

“He's cold. Incredibly cold. I froze my hand when I touched him.”

She whirled to see Earl reaching toward Miss Urquhart. As she moved to halt him, he waved her back.

“I do not want to hurt you, too, my dear child.” He smiled at Lorenzo. “Forgive me, my boy. That was most unintentional.” Not giving them a chance to answer, he turned to Miss Urquhart. “I waited for you,” he said as he held out his hand. “Our time here was not the same, but I could not leave without you.”

She raised her trembling fingers out to him. When she put her hand on his, Lorenzo gasped, because she did not pull it back. Instead the glow flowed from his hand into hers as if she was cupping a handful of sunshine. Color flowed back into her face, wiping away the lines engraved by pain.

“Who are you?” asked Lorenzo as he drew Valeria closer to him.

“I thought you'd recognized me when you spoke of the painting of me and your grandfather at the tavern in Win-lock-on-Sea.” He smiled broadly. “I am your late Uncle Francis.”

“My
late
uncle?”

“A ghost?” whispered Valeria, grateful that Lorenzo's arm encircled her shoulders, because it was her only connection to what was real. This could not be real. Could it? “A real ghost?”

“Mayhap that is what I am. I have not really worried about what to call myself other than Earl, so you would not be suspicious of an old retainer no one else seemed to know about.”

Valeria recalled how Miss Urquhart had mentioned soon after their arrival that she knew of no one named Earl in the house. “No one else saw you here?”

“Just you two and young David. Where is he?”

“Getting the doctor for Miss Urquhart.”

“There's no need for a doctor now.” He turned to smile at Miss Urquhart. “I knew I could not go on from here until you were ready to leave, Nina. So much I owe you for mending my heart when I thought it was forever shattered, for tolerating my peculiar obsession that my nephew seems to have inherited for the study of the past, for understanding when I never seemed to find a convenient time to ask you to be my wife.” His smile faltered. “But, after hearing you just now, I see that I was wrong. You did not understand. You thought I loved someone else more than you.”

“But you said you would never stop loving her,” Miss Urquhart whispered.

“So I did.” He drew her down from the bed.

When Lorenzo started to steady the old woman, he pulled back his hand and shook it again. He clasped Valeria's hand with it, and she shivered as the cold on his skin touched her. Folding his fingers between hers, she rubbed them gently, trying to warm them as she watched in stunned silence.

Tears billowed into her eyes as she heard Earl—How he must have enjoyed the jest of using his title for his name!—say, “And I never have stopped loving her, Nina.” He gave Valeria a swift smile. “To see her daughter here and to know that she is happy makes me joyous beyond words. But, my dear Nina, the love I had for Valeria's mother was a young man's love. As unbearably intense as lightning and as fleeting. The memory of that flash remains with me, but it is only a memory. What warmed my heart for most of my days was the love I have for you, a mature man's love, no less passionate but more like sunshine, there every day until one takes it for granted even when it is overmastering any storm clouds that dare to try to intrude.”

“I never knew.”

“Forgive me for that, Nina.” He took a step away from the bed and offered his arm. “Will you grant me the rest of eternity to atone for that?”

She gave him a coy glance and laughed. “The rest of eternity? You may come to regret that offer, Francis.”

“If I do, at least, I will regret it with you.” He put his hand over hers on his arm. “Are you ready to go with me?”

“Wherever you wish, my dear Francis.”

The earl smiled. “I wish you happiness, Valeria. I tried to do my best for you.”

“You did, especially when you kept Austin Caldwell from marrying me.”

“I know the marriage I arranged to keep you safe from that cur might not have been what you dreamed of.”