Page 13 of Escape of the Bridegroom (Escape #2)

T he knowledge stunned him, so much so that he could neither laugh it off nor shove it out of his mind.

Eve came downstairs with Dr. Ells, who seemed satisfied with her progress and merely left instructions for her continued rest and peace. Aidan repeated those instructions pointedly to her family when they joined everyone for breakfast.

“But what on earth are we to do here for days ?” Miranda demanded.

“Talk to Eve?” Aidan suggested. “Remind her of her past life with you, family events, secrets you shared.”

Miranda looked doubtful.

“I have a business to run,” Romilly muttered. “I cannot sit around doing nothing.”

“You may post back to London when you choose,” Aidan said. “Neville here has duties too. He is already booked on the mail coach, though I suspect he’ll be a trifle squashed.”

Neville did indeed depart on the mail coach. Eve did not appear to miss him.

“You could post back to London with Aunt,” Miranda said to her father. “I could stay to look after Eve.”

Eve did not look outwardly alarmed by this threat, though Aidan felt her body tense beside him.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured when the family had all trooped back upstairs. “I think she still imagines going to Grand Court with you. Dolt and Fool would be all over her like twin rashes.”

She smiled. “Who the devil are Dolt and Fool?”

“Dolton and Poole. Gazetted fortune hunters due to their gaming habits.”

“Like you,” she said, frowning.

He shifted uncomfortably. “Not quite. I think the rain has gone off. Shall we risk a stroll in the mud?”

She agreed readily enough, and he went upstairs to fetch her cloak and bonnet.

Their room was already occupied, not by Jilly making the beds but by Miranda, gazing with awe into the wardrobe.

“They’re my pins!” she said in outrage, grabbing at the ballgown. “Eve took them!”

“They were hers to take,” Aidan pointed out. “Can I be of service, Miss Romilly?”

“Not unless you know where she’s hidden the rest of her clothes. I was looking to see if I could borrow something, should we go to Grand Court, for I have nothing very suitable with me. As for the diamond pins, they were as good as mine. Eve never used them.”

“As you see, she did, if not with their intended purpose. And the rest of my wife’s clothing is at Wolverton Hall. We shall not be returning to Grand Court.”

She turned to him, irritated and yet scornful. “Have you forgotten the terms of your twelve thousand pounds, my lord? You are to do your best for me too.”

“The best thing anyone could do for you is teach you some sense. Better born females than you have been ruined for considerably less than lurking in gentlemen’s bedchambers.”

“My sister’s bedchamber!” she blustered, though colour had swept into her cheeks.

When he merely continued to gaze at her, she flounced. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t rather have had me to wife than boring old Eve. When I’m a duchess, I’ll ruin you both if I choose with just one word!”

“With manners like those,” Aidan said, “my best efforts couldn’t win you a pig farmer. Good morning, Miss Romilly.”

The door slammed behind her, leaving him concerned not for her threats but for Eve’s past. No wonder she had been willing to marry him just to get out from under the same roof as her sister.

Clearly, the best thing he could do for Eve right now, was to get rid of the family he had so naively summoned for her good.

***

R ETURNING FROM THEIR walk, Aidan found a hand-delivered note from Sir John Grandison awaiting him. Apparently some of the stolen goods from the burglary had been recovered some distance away, abandoned, apparently, when the gang dispersed with several constables in hot pursuit. Grandison had requested the aid of the famous Bow Street Runners to run them to earth.

Aidan read his message in the common room while Eve went upstairs. He frowned over it for a bit. He had been so concerned for his wife and then consumed by the new feelings flowering between them that he had barely thought of the thieves.

“Not more bad news, is it, sir?” Mrs. Garrick said, pausing in her sweeping to gaze at him.

“Oh, no. It’s quite good, I suppose. The law is closing in on the burglars, and some of the stolen items have been recovered already. The runners are after them now.”

“I don’t suppose they’ll be long finding that young chap who brought her ladyship here then.”

“Probably not. But why pick on him? At least he brought my wife here where she could get help.” Though why he had taken her in the first place was another mystery.

Mrs. Garrick shrugged. “I just mean he should be easy to recognize.”

“Well, I suppose the mask would stand out,” Aidan said sardonically, “though it hardly proves the features beneath.”

“A mask don’t hide a man that lame,” Mrs. Garrick said with some satisfaction. “Nor the blood on his coat, neither.”

Aidan blinked. “You never said he was lame.”

“You never asked. I daresay I also never mentioned he spoke well for a gent of the high toby.”

“Are you saying he was a gentleman ?” Aidan asked in disbelief. A gentleman who limped, a not-quite stranger he had bumped into at the Grand Inn...

“Not saying that, sir!” Mrs. Garrick said in shocked tones. “Stands to reason he ain’t a real gentleman! But he fair dragged that left leg and he weren’t rough in his speech.”

And quite suddenly the man glimpsed at the inn on the day of the ball stood vividly in his mind’s eye. So did a gentleman making his difficult way through a very different, much more crowded and riotous inn on the night of the prize fight. A friend of Snake Sanderly who had played dice with them...

“That’s where I saw him before!” he exclaimed. “I’ll bet you anything it’s the same fellow. I need to see Snake.”

***

“Y OU’RE GOING TO RIDE over to Grand Court?” Eve said, quickly hiding her reasonless dismay.

“Not today,” Aidan replied, searching beneath the truckle bed for the worn copy of Mrs. Radcliffe. “I thought if I left first thing, I could be back before your family annoys you too much. By then I should have found a way to send them politely on their way.”

He came up triumphantly with the book held aloft.

“You don’t want them here after all?” she said.

He seemed to hesitate. Then he said carefully, “I’m not sure you and your sister were ever friends.”

We weren’t . How did she know that? That Miranda always made her feel bad? Plain, charmless, unloved... A few different moments flashed through her mind, confrontations, demands, tears, sitting alone at parties watching Miranda dance and flirt.

I liked to dance...

I danced with him!

The force of the memory seemed to spin her away from him. But she didn’t see the lightening sky nor the familiar inn yard below, she saw the woman Aidan had been kissing. And she knew her name.

Mrs. Archer . And she was at Grand Court, where Aidan wanted to go.

Fear for her new happiness caused her legs to buckle and she sat down abruptly in the window seat. Aidan was talking but she was too consumed by the returning memories, unveiling like a curtain drawing back.

And she remembered that she was used to this, to smiling and hiding.

It didn’t come all at once.

But she had lost the moment to tell him immediately and the more that came to her, the more she feared.

He liked her as she was here, now. So did she. She didn’t want the old baggage. It hurt more than her head ever had. Because he had married her for his brother’s debts. For twelve thousand pounds and a dowry. And he escaped immediately to Grand Court rather than be under the same roof as her. No wonder he had been so angry when she followed him there.

She could not concentrate on Mrs. Radcliffe, nor on chess or even jackstraws. She contributed little to conversation, which no one seemed to notice but Aidan, who insisted she go early to bed and rest.

She didn’t think she would sleep, so churned up was she by memory and pain. But she did. And when she woke, she was herself again. Old Eve had combined with new, and they were not so very different. Except that the new Eve was loved and happy and that was the version she wanted to keep. The Eve who longed to make Aidan happy.

Perhaps she never intended to hide the truth from him forever. But she was actually glad he meant to go early to Grand Court. The truth surrounding her accident was still a blur. She could not recall how she had got from the Grand Court ball to the inn. And she really didn’t want to talk about the memories that had returned. To do so would surely lose her his precious care and attention.

***

“H OW ARE YOU THIS MORNING ?” Aidan asked, on discovering her eyes were open. He sat down on the side of the bed.

“Much better,” she said, smiling. “I was suddenly exhausted last night. I shall be more careful today.”

“I should be back before dinner time.” He hesitated. “Don’t pay too much attention to Miranda. Sisterly rivalry has made her spiteful.”

“She can’t hurt me.”

He touched her pale, soft cheek. “I did marry you for money. But every marriage begins somewhere. It is the present that counts.”

Her smile turned a little tremulous. “I know. I am grateful to Patrick and his ten thousand pound debt. Take care on the road. You don’t want to run into those highwaymen-cum-burglars.”

“Oh, they are long gone.” He bent and kissed her forehead. “Go back to sleep if you can. Get Jilly to help you dress.”

“I will.”

Rather touchingly, she dragged his hand to her lips and kissed it. And suddenly he didn’t want to leave.

Forcing himself, he did.

Atlas was glad of the exercise and pounded happily across the miles to Grand Court. The ground wasn’t too wet and they made good time, arriving at Grand Court in time for breakfast.

Leaving Atlas in the stables with instructions for his feeding and rest, Aiden strode into the house and caused squeals of apparent joy in the breakfast parlour.

“Wolf!”

“My lord!”

“Tell us all! How is your poor lady?”

The last came from Lady Grandison, who rose to meet him.

Aidan bowed over her hand. “My lady does much better, thank you. She sends her gratitude for all the good wishes—and for your cook’s treats. The doctor advises quiet for another few days, but I rode over to see how things are here and to have a word with Sir John if possible.” He looked around the table, nodding amiably. “And you, Snake.”

Sanderly raised his eyebrows. It was satisfying, not to say amusing, to see Snake, who normally eschewed morning company, dancing attendance on his betrothed at breakfast.

“Sir John will be down directly,” Lady Grandison said. “Fetch yourself a plate and join us until then!”

Having worked up an appetite on his ride, Aidan was quite happy to break his fast in company. He heard that a few of the other guests had left the party already, too unnerved by the shock of the burglary. The rest, most of whom had returned to the ballroom the night of the burglary to finish their dance, had no intention of changing their plans.

“I do admire you, Lady G,” Helena Archer drawled from across the table. “You take everything in your stride—guests arriving without invitation, others departing without a word, or returning unannounced, burglary...”

“No one can say your parties are not interesting,” Aidan said, grinning at her ladyship. “I’ll expect pirates at the very least for the next one.”

“You can host the pirates,” Lady Grandison retorted. “Now that you have a hostess, we expect to be entertained at Wolverton Hall.”

“You may be sure of an invitation,” he said.

Grandison had not made his appearance by the time Aidan had eaten his fill, so he wandered outside to wait for him. Happily, Snake followed him into the garden.

“While we’re private,” Snake said, “a friendly warning in your ear.”

“About what?” Aidan asked without much interest.

“During the ball, just before the burglary was discovered, Helena Archer enticed me out of the ballroom and into one of the unlit rooms upstairs, on the pretence that Harriet needed my help. When I got there, Alicia Eldridge awaited me. I walked straight back out again and on the ballroom stairs encountered Helena once more with Harriet, apparently bringing her to me. Harriet was perfectly well. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”

Aidan scratched his head. It did ring a bell in his mind, although so much had happened since that he had to dig about for it.

He shrugged. “Between ourselves, Mrs. Eldridge came to me, enticing me outside, where Helena awaited me to say an apparently fond farewell. Are you saying they were playing some reciprocal game to spite you and me and our respective ladies?”

“It crossed my mind. Before my experience, I did happen to see Alicia with Lady Wolf which I thought odd.”

Aidan frowned. “Are you saying Alicia intended to take my wife to witness my fond farewell to Helena?”

“I’m saying she might well have done so. Your wife left the ballroom and went to her bedchamber in the middle of the ball.”

“She had no reason to be there,” Aidan said slowly. “I thought that at the time. You think Eve saw me?” Helena’s kiss had certainly been extravagant and hardly chaste.

“If there was something to see, I imagine she did.”

“I’m almost grateful she lost her memory,” Aidan said with suppressed savagery. “Did you confront either of them with this?”

“No, for I—being notoriously discourteous—merely abandoned them both without explanation.”

Aidan sighed. “Everything has consequences.”

Snake gazed straight ahead. “Harriet likes your lady. She thinks you should consider what you have there.”

“She is right. I have been slow and self-absorbed if not plain stupid. I hope you are going to marry Miss Cole.”

“I am,” Snake said cooly. “Here’s Grandison.”

Their host took them back inside to his study and closed the door, saying, “What’s it all about, Wolf? Has your lady remembered more about the burglary or her abduction?”

“No, but I have. I recalled it after Mrs. Garrick—at the Black Bull—gave me a fuller description of the man who carried my wife into the inn and left her there. A tall, fair young man with a limp.” Aidan glanced at Snake. “Sound familiar?”

“Not offhand,” Sanderly said.

“I saw such a man at the Grand Inn here,” Aidan said. “I was in a hurry so I didn’t pay him much attention at the time, but it was on the day of the ball and he looked dashed familiar. I just couldn’t think where I’d seen him before. It was your friend, Snake, from the Duck and Spoon. You remember, the night of the prize fight? We played dice.”

Sanderly stared at him. “I remember the fight and the dice and Captain Berry.”

“That was his name!”

Snake’s lip curled. “Are you accusing an officer and a gentleman, badly wounded in the service of King and country, of abducting and injuring your wife?”

Sanderly could be damned unpleasant when he wanted to be, but unlike most of Society, Aidan had never been afraid of him.

“I’m saying it’s damned suspicious. What was this Berry doing at the Grand Inn? You didn’t know he was there, did you?”

“Perhaps not,” Grandison intervened, “but we invited no one called Berry, and no strangers were admitted to the house.”

“Apart from a gang of burglars,” Aidan said dryly.

“So Berry is a burglar too?” Sanderly stood up. “I’ve heard enough. And if you go around slandering a good man, Wolf, I’ll knock your teeth out. Good morning.”

Aidan jumped to his feet, grabbing Snake’s arm as he turned to the door. “No, wait, Snake, who is this fellow? I’m willing to believe I’m wrong—convince me.”

“I don’t need to,” Snake said, brushing off Aidan’s hand somehow without touching him. He could be the haughtiest creature alive when he chose to be.

“You said he was a hero at Salamanca,” Aidan pursued. “Invalided out, presumably. Who is his family? How does he live?”

“His father is a clergyman. I have never inquired into his financial circumstances any more than I have into yours.”

One didn’t, of course, as a gentleman, but Aidan couldn’t let it go. “Where was he going when we met him at the Duck and Spoon? Where, incidentally, we spoke quite openly about the Grand Court party.”

“I hope you know a good dentist.”

Grandison intervened. “Gentlemen, let us not be hasty. At the moment there is nothing to prove this Captain Berry was the man who delivered Lady Wolf to the inn. We do not even know how he came to be in her company. But whoever he was, he wore a mask, and that is suspicious. I will inquire at the Grand Inn about this fellow that Wolf saw and what he was doing in the neighbourhood. It does seem quite a leap to link the two men, but until we actually catch any of the gang, we won’t know.”

Sanderly merely curled his lip and opened the door.

“I know he’s a friend of yours, Snake,” Aidan said. “So am I.”

Sanderly turned his head quickly, betraying surprise. The man had few friends, mostly through his own fault. Aidan had never believed the whispers against him of cowardice and treachery.

“People have reasons,” Aidan added ruefully, “for all sorts of bizarre behaviour. I should know.”

A frown tugged at Snake’s brow, and then he went out without a word.

“He defends this fellow as he never defended himself,” Grandison remarked.

“No one else ever defended Sanderly either,” Wolf said.

“I suppose he never seemed to care.”

He cared , Wolf thought.

“I’ll look into the fellow,” Grandison said, scribbling something on the paper in front of him. “Berry, is it? What’s his Christian name?”

Aidan rummaged in his erratic memory. “Jonathan,” he said triumphantly. “Of the 95 th Rifles.”

Grandison wrote that down too, then replaced his pen in its stand and fixed Aidan with a slightly awkward-looking gaze. “Are you staying?”

“Oh no, thank you. I’ll go back to the Black Bull just as soon as Atlas is rested enough to carry me.”

“You should know,” Grandison said reluctantly, “that more unpleasant rumours have started up since the burglary.”

“What kind of rumours? They’re not blaming that on Sanderly too?”

“Not on Sanderly, no. But I’m afraid there are whispers against your wife.”

“My wife?” Aidan repeated, uncomprehending, before he recalled the words he’d overheard when he rode out of Grand Court in search of her.

“Someone clearly told the miscreants all about the house and the party. What if she was one of them?”

“Well, she’s not one of us. No one knows anything about her.”

A flush of anger swept up from his toes, burning into his face. “How dare they? Because she was not born into their class they assume she is a criminal? She of all of us here has no need of more money!”

“It makes no sense,” Grandison agreed at once. “They are happy enough to say you married her for her money. The inconsistency of her risking hanging to acquire more does not appear to weigh with them.”

“Small-minded fools,” Aidan said furiously. “Who is saying such things?”

Grandison threw up one hand. “Consider my position as host of this party. There has been enough scandal here without you rampaging about the house bloodying noses and demanding satisfaction. All I will say is, you are charging a stranger with similar crimes with just as little evidence.”

“But that’s...” His impetuous denial tailed off as the words sank in. He cast Grandison a rueful glance. “You think I was wrong to bring this Berry up?”

Grandison shrugged. “It is never wrong to supply information. I would—and have—investigated other strangers passing through the area, as well as local people being where they had no real business to be.”

A breath of cold air touched him. “Including my wife being in her bedchamber during the ball.”

“And being in the masked man’s company to be carried to the inn. Why did he not steal the diamonds from her gown?”

“She cannot tell us!”

“Because she has lost her memory. Some have called that convenient.”

Fresh fury threatened to erupt in Aidan. He half-sprang up from his chair and then fell back into it as, from nowhere, Eve’s own words, spoken just before he left the Black Bull, forced themselves into his mind.

“I am grateful to Patrick.”

He had been saying the initial reasons for their marriage no longer mattered. He had told her he had married her for the money to pay his debts. He had never told her that the debt was Patrick’s. How did she know?

On her own wishes, she had never allowed herself to be alone with her family since their arrival at the Black Bull. She had not heard it from them. The only solution was that she remembered.

His ears sang. Was her memory loss total deceit? For the “convenience” Grandison spoke of?

Have I been gulled?

Only when it began to slip away did he realize the intensity of his happiness during the last few days, of his unacknowledged new hopes of companionship and love, of the strength of the feeling which might have begun without his noticing at Grand Court, but had bloomed so quickly and so fiercely at the inn.

It could not all be lies.

Could it?