Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (34 page)

“Of course I did. Who do you think forms a little part of the Friendly Society of Seaton? I thought you would never find Marie Mompesson until Granger suggested that we could have it all and cut out all those pesky doctors and dentists that would take their cut.” Edgar laughed. “I hadn’t realized that his grandfather helped dear old Grandpapa turf Viscount Summerbain out of the estate. I only found out once father started raving in his sleep.” Edgar stared at Granger. “I thought the apple might not fall far from the tree, and I was right.”

“And you mean to kill us after I have signed the will,” James said flatly. Harriet clenched her fingers. Of course Edgar did. He was no stranger to killing. All those people… her parents too.

James’ breath warmed her face as he inhaled. “Apple blossom,” he whispered. He took in another labored breath. “Harry do you remember the scene from Romeo and Juliet that I caught you rehearsing at the school?” Harriet nodded. James’ nose brushed against her cheek.

“What are you two whispering about?” Edgar stepped closer, his cane tapping against the stone floor.

“I was trying to tell my wife how much I loved her,” James said evenly, looking only at Harriet. “That I hoped that she would take me as I am, a killer, from a long line of murderers, but a man that has done so in the name of the crown only.” He drew in a gasping breath. Harriet laid her head gently on his shoulder.

“Don’t touch him!” Edgar yelled. His cane tapped closer. “Leave him alone.” Harriet kept her head on his shoulder. James had yet to sign the will. Edgar couldn’t kill them both yet.

“I wanted to tell her,” James said slowly, as if not having heard Edgar speak, gazing forward at the altar where two large dripping candles burned high on the table, “that my love for her burns hotter than any candle, and hurts more than any sword wound. If she were to look at me, she would but see it in my face.”

Harriet sighed. In all of her dreams her hero had never spoken so poetically.

Too bad her hero was being a little more practical. Perhaps saving her life was more romantic than all the words in heaven. 

“Uggh. This is worse than a penny dreadful.” Edgar shrugged his shoulders.

“I happen to quite like it,” Mrs. Sumner said across the pews. “I wish you would serenade me in the same way, Edgar sweetie.”

“You like me for my money, Eliza. Or rather the money we’ll have.”

Mrs. Sumner pouted. “True.”

James tensed beside Harriet.

“I believe we need to sign the marriage register before James signs his will,” she said coolly. “Perhaps if you could untie my hands and lead me to the altar, I can sign the register and make everything official?”

“And I will need to sign the register too. But,” James gasped, falling to the floor beside Harriet. “I… will need help… getting there.”

“James!” Harriet shouted.

“Oh good grief. Samuel, pick her up, untie her hands and get her to the altar.” Edgar turned to James. “I will deal with my brother.”

Harriet winced as Samuel pulled her up from the floor by her hands tied behind her back.

“No funny business,” he whispered in her ear as they stepped round James’ shivering form on the floor, and up the steps to the altar. As they stopped behind the altar table, Harriet peered at the registry book.

“I can’t see it clearly. The boxes are too small and there is too little light. What if I sign the wrong page?”

Samuel grunted and, reaching round her, shifted a candlestick near the book. Harriet held her breath whilst the candle flamed. She shook her head.

“Still not enough light,” she muttered.

Samuel sighed heavily and then, brushing against her breast, pulled the other candlestick closer. Harriet held herself still as he leered into her bodice.

“My hands,” she said through clenched teeth.

“What’s taking so long?” Edgar called, standing over James. He looked down at James. “Get up,
brother
,” he sneered.

“I… can’t,” James said quietly. Harriet had to strain to hear him. “I’m dying. I cannot move without my hands…” Harriet watched silently as James’ head slammed against the floor. She put a hand to her mouth.

“Sign the book,” Samuel said. Harriet glared at him and pushed an elbow out into his stomach. “I can’t move my arms if you stand too close to me, and if my signature wavers everyone will know that we were forced into this.”

Samuel glared at her but moved a pace away. Harriet gave him a small smile. “Thank you,” she said, turning back to the book. Through the frame of the candles, she watched Edgar with one hand unknot James’ hands and pull him round into a sitting position.

“Come, sir…” James voice was weak, but Harriet’s hands were moving before he had even finished.

“Your passado,” she muttered, reaching her hands out at the candlesticks and whirling with them tilted at head height towards Samuel.

Hot wax flew through the air, splattering in large pools across Samuel’s face. He screamed and put his hands to his eyes.

“You know, my husband told me that two weapons were always better than one,” Harriet screamed. “This is for him.” Holding the still flaming candles aloft, Harriet drew them down in a swiping motion as if holding a pair of swords. An acrid smell filled the air as Samuel’s clothes began to burn with a brighter and brighter flame.

“My son!” Mr. Granger cried, leaping up the steps to the altar.

“Stand back,” Harriet said, brandishing the candlesticks. Hot wax fell around her in arcs.

“Please, let me help my son,” the man pleaded, stepping back behind the altar.

Samuel screamed behind Harriet. “Papa,” he said in a childlike voice. “I’m burning.”

Harriet glanced across the altar table. Edgar crouched low across James, watching her. She smiled at him. “Your turn, Mercutio,” she shouted.

James sat up faster than she could have thought possible. Grabbing the end of Edgar’s cane, he pulled strongly at it, forcing the sheath off to reveal the blade in Edgar’s hand.

“I have the knife,” Edgar said with a sneer.

With one quick movement, James reached under Edgar’s arm and grabbed hold of the blade end of the knife and pulled it round to face Edgar. Knocking out Edgar’s other arm from beneath him where he supported himself on the ground, James pulled Edgar into his arms.

“Of course you do, brother.” James said. “In more ways than one.”

Edgar jerked with a gasp.

“Edgar!” screamed Mrs. Sumner.

But she was not the only one screaming. Behind her a smell of burning meat filled the air.

“Papaaaaaa!”

Mr.
Granger took the steps two at a time, ignoring Harriet. As soon as he was past her, Harriet ran from the altar table to where James sat supporting Edgar.

As Mr. Madely took a shocked step forward, she whirled and took a step in his direction. “Don’t encourage me,” she said in a low voice, looking at Mrs. Madely. “I’ve been
dying
to do something like this for some time.”

She turned to look back at James. He stared at her, and with one hand let Edgar go. Edgar rolled upwards onto the hard stone of the church, his sword stick impaled in his chest, his eyes open, sightlessly staring at the rafters.

“And that is how Tybalt kills Mercutio,” James said softly, echoing Harriet’s words from months earlier, “when Mercutio doesn’t expect it, with a stab under Romeo’s arm.” Getting to his feet, he strode to Harriet and plucked the candlesticks from her aching hands. “We won’t need these anymore, my love.”

Harriet glanced behind her. The vicar and his wife were hurrying down the side aisle towards the chapel door. With a start, she realized the screaming had ceased and been replaced by sobbing. Up in the chancel, Mr. Granger moaned over the supine figure of his son on the floor.

Mrs. Sumner leaned over the body of Edgar, her hands fluttering at his clothes, feeling in his pockets, pressing at his neck. “Oh ye gods,” she screamed, “Edgar what have you done? I need the money or the Viper will come for me.”

Harriet looked away. “He was hardly Romeo,” she said, gazing at James from under her lashes.

James laughed. “You always want to have the last word, Harriet. At least you didn’t kick him in the shins.”

Tentatively she put out hand and touched James’ arm. “James, I, we…”

James looked down at her, the light from the candles dancing off the green in his eyes. Capturing her hand in his, he drew her towards him.

“James, your side, the knife,” Harriet mumbled.

James dropped his head to her ear. “All an act,” he whispered, his breath tickling the small tendrils of hair that curled round her chin. Harriet shivered and arched as she felt his hands on her back. “I’ve carried the embroidery you used on my shoulder with me since the day you left me in the cave.”

“I… I don’t understand.” Harriet tipped her head back and moaned as James kissed the underside of her jaw.

“His knife slid through my clothes and caught on the material, to him it must have felt like the knife was sliding along my ribs. I was lucky.” James lifted his head up and stared into Harriet’s eyes. “Harriet, I would be the luckiest man alive if you would consent to be with me, we don’t have to get married. We haven’t signed the register… everything I said was true. My love for you does hurt harder than a sword swipe, and burns hotter than oil. If you said no I would be left half a man, even less than who I was on the Peninsular with that one thought of revenge in my head. Almost alive, but in many ways dead.”
      Harriet stared into James’ eyes, feeling his fingers tightening on her back. The chapel door crashed against its blocks at the back of the church and a babble of voices broke into her thoughts. But still she gazed into James’ eyes. No one else mattered.

Freddie’s voice echoed above the rest. “We need to find them as soon as possible. Good god, is that Edgar?” Feet pounded up the aisle. “James lad, Miss Beauregard…”

Harriet took her hand off James’ waist and held it in the air. Freddie huffed to halt behind them, breathing heavily. All sound in the church ceased.

She took in a deep breath and put her upraised hand on the back of James’ head. Briefly she caressed his long black hair.

Then she looked behind her. “That’s Lord Stanton, and Lady Stanton, I think you’ll find,
Freddie
.” Hearing James’ gasp of astonishment, she turned back to him and pulled his head down to hers. “You may now kiss the bride,” she muttered softly, nose to nose. James gazed into her eyes.

“My wife,” he said, his eyes wide. “My wife.”

With trembling lips, he sought out her mouth. Harriet pressed herself against him and sank into his warm embrace, sighing as he kissed her.

This was better than any Romeo and Juliet scene.

EPILOGUE

Earl Harding stared over the audience towards the makeshift stage at the actors, children and adults, who were drawing out the last scene interminably. He blinked as the curtain fell and the crowd clapped.

“I’ve never seen you so enthralled,” Lord Anglethorpe said, leaning forward. He raised an eyebrow and dropped an eye glass to his side.

“I was working out a strategy by which Romeo could have taken the poison and still lived,” the earl said, flicking an irritated glance towards Lord Anglethorpe, who sat next to him. “This is a damn strange wedding celebration if you ask me. Wouldn’t have come if you hadn’t said it was urgent. I have better things to do.”

“Like sit in your armchair, you mean?” Lord Anglethorpe said.

Earl Harding glared at him. “Not all of us have married bliss to occupy us whilst our informants sit around in Newgate.”

Lord Anglethorpe looked at the ceiling. “Lady Guthrie was extensively injured when we captured her.”

“Thanks to your wife.” Earl Harding rubbed at his jaw. “So she’s said nothing about her connection with Edgar and Fairleigh, then?”

“No.”

“Anything about your father?”

“No.” The whites of Lord Anglethorpe’s knuckles showed as he gripped the seat in front of him.

Lord Granwich coughed on his other side. “We
have
had some more information about an entity called the
Viper
.”

Earl Harding straightened. His eyes flicked out across the crowd and landed on a head of bright blond hair. He frowned. She had fooled everyone with her simpering manners, but she hadn’t been able to hide her quick mind during the
Monsieur Herr
affair.

“Eyes off my sister, Hades,” Lord Anglethorpe said quietly, laying his hands in fists on his knees in full view. “You’ve been there before. And you tried with my wife.”

Earl Harding shifted in his seat, his shoulders rubbing against that of Lord Granwich. “Where’d the information come from?” he said with a growl.

“The daughter of Mrs. Sumner,” Lord Granwich said quietly.

“The woman who is about to be deported for fraud, and murder?” Earl Harding laughed. “That should be reliable information then. Women never lie,” he said sarcastically. “Where is she now, the daughter I mean?”

Lord Anglethorpe shrugged and stretched his hands. “No one knows. She helped Lord Stanton attempt to trap Edgar and then disappeared. She didn’t take kindly to being duped by her mother.”

“So you say.” Earl Harding stopped speaking as the clapping died away. He half-rose but Lord Anglethorpe put a hand on his shoulder.

“Sit down, Hades.”

“But it’s finished,” he protested.

Lord Anglethorpe shook his head. “No it’s not. There’s an encore.”

Earl Harding flicked out his tail coats and sat back squarely on his chair. “And I thought Lord Stanton was one of our most level-headed coldblooded killers in the war.”

Lord Anglethorpe laughed quietly. “Don’t let Harriet hear you say that. She says he’s got
romance in the soul
.”

On stage, Mercutio, Romeo and Tybalt lined up for the encore to re-enact the scene of attack that had drawn gasps of amazement from the crowd.

“Bloody hell, it’s good to have you back, James,” Bill said, pushing back his Romeo hat. “With you around hopefully Harriet won’t be able to push us into this too often. I mean Romeo? Whatever was she thinking?”