Colors of a Lady (21 page)

After that fateful July day, Lucille took it
upon herself to keep her family upon the right path. Soon, Henry
married a wealthy heiress. Despite her own opinion of Constance,
not a soul could question her heritage with her flaxen locks,
alabaster skin and china-blue eyes. She would give Henry beautiful
children. Lucille had high hopes for her sibling.

Until he wrote home of his marriage to some
common woman. Lucille may have been able to live with the disgrace,
but no, it was worse than that! She was a dirty African. Devine had
been correct about the women o that race. They seduced good men
with wild sex tricks. This would not do. Not at all. Henry claimed
to be happy with this marriage. It was high time Joseph found
himself a wife. Any wife. What a fool.

In haste, she wrote to Lt. Devine with
deliberate plans. If not yet with child, that woman would soon be.
In the event that should happen, he should murder both mother and
child. She did not care how, but it must be done. Imagine her
surprise when Joseph arrived at their doorstep with a horridly dark
babe. Lucille grew blind with rage and retired to her chamber.
Devine had failed in his mission.

“At least he got rid of the witch,” she had
muttered. Lucille had just about accustomed herself to the
half-breed child when Joseph wrote to her. He wanted to take her
out of the will. All his earthly possessions would go to Emma.
Every. Single. One. Thousands of pounds to a grubby child. No. This
would not do.

Lucille appeared to accept this news and
continued on with her life. But a plan was brewing inside her
devious mind. She was accustomed to send a jug of delicious red
wine to her brother every month. She would do so again, but this
one would have a special ingredient. They said that poison was a
woman’s weapon. That much was true. Lucille did not wish to dirty
her genteel hands with the blood of her brother.

He was not supposed to die so soon. It was a
regrettable side-effect of poison, but it had to be that way.
Disposing of the new will had been easy. But not as easy as bribing
a tired old coroner to fib on an autopsy report. It was the perfect
crime.

Until 2nd Lt. Rollings informed her further
of Devine’s cowardice the summer before. All those years she
believed Devine was her hero, saving Joseph from his own folly.
That woman was dead and gone as was her brother. His demise was
regrettable, but it had to be done. She had his money. She was rich
as Croesus. She lived in his properties. A townhome in Paris. A
villa in Italy. Even a home in Vienna. Lucille lived in these home
and furthered her own efforts. Until last summer. Until she
discovered the truth.

Devine failed her to the very end. At times
she regretted not marrying him when she came of age, but this
moment reminded her of his failures. He had not killed the woman at
all. She lived!

“LIVED!” Lucille roared. It was no longer
the past. Napoleon had risen. Her friends were dead. But soon,
everything would be set to rights.

It was 1814 and the products of Devine’s
betrayal stood cowering before her. “All the work I did ruined
because that imbecile could not obey my instructions.” She pointed
a pistol at the Thea.

Emma’s presence was not part of her plans.
She had hoped to do away with Thea after all these years. But her
niece’s presence stilled her finger that hovered over the trigger.
Despite herself, Lucille truly loved her niece. She was not to
blame for her parentage. But Thea was.

Her niece stared at her. She had angled her
body in front of Thea, offering a form of protection to her long
lost mother. She stared at her aunt, eyes accusing. What she
suspected was disappointingly the truth.

“By the time I found out it was too late,
they had been her for years.”

“I have known for some time of your crimes,”
Emma said. Her back was rigid, hands balled into fists. “At first,
I was appalled to even consider you as a murderess. You had always
been so kind to me during the times my mother was not. If you hated
my kind so much then why did you make such an effort to ingrate
yourself to me?”

A wave of warmth surged across Lucille’s
face as she considered her niece. She lowered her gun arm. “I
loathed you when I first met you. I avoided you at all costs, but
you managed to worm your way into my good graces. Far more than
Caroline ever did. I don’t know why I came to love you and still
despised the unclean.” Lucille choked out a laugh. “You were
innocent. You did not ask to be born to such parents.”

“I still do not understand why you thought
it best to dictate the lives of other people.” Emma said without
rancor. “Your love for me does not excuse your actions.”

“I never expected it to.”

Thea watched this exchange with a
slow-growing anger. This woman thought she knew best for the world
based on the views learned as a naïve young maid. Young girls often
believed the nonsense whispered from the lips of handsome men. She
had been such a fool and hated herself for years. Only to find out
his honeyed words were not lies at all. Too many years she had
allowed her heart to grow black with hate. She still had Juliet…and
now, Lady Hartwell. Emma. Emma. She had twins. Two beautiful twin
girls. They were women now. Her memories of their birth had always
been hazy. Now Thea considered that Rollings and Devine had been
involved. She had spent that day in excruciating pain. Her final
concrete memory was of Joseph’s face. The tanned handsome face she
knew as well as her own. His brows were threaded with worry but his
mouth smiled down at her. He had squeezed her hands with a fervent,
“I love you, Thea. But they said I have to leave now. ‘Tis no place
for a man it seems.” Joseph kissed her lips. “I will return just as
soon as I am allowed. I cannot wait to meet our child.”

Thea did not know if she ever returned those
words of love a final time. Then he was gone. Thea’s next memory
was awaking in a fresh bed with a babe in a cradle nearby. She
never saw Joseph again. Learning of his demise now, she wished he
had, in fact, abandoned her. In that reality, he, at least, still
lived happily with a new wife and family.

Revenge. Retribution. She suddenly saw no
other possibility in sight. She craved it all. Thea hoisted her
skirts above her knee. Emma turned her head sharply.

“Whatever are you doing, Thea? Do you need
to relieve yourself? Surely…not in front of us?...” She gasped as
the innkeeper pulled out a pistol of her own. She leveled it at
Lucille, her dark face twisting into a sneer.

“This cannot happen,” insisted Emma. She
backed away from Thea, moving towards a wall. “Are you two going to
duel? Whatever will those pistols do for you? If we only sit down
at talk this out, we can s--“

“Hush, child. I have spent twenty years
hating myself and Joseph when it all came down to a nosy chit who
thought herself to know better.” Thea stepped forward.

Lucille’s responding cackle sent shivers up
Emma’s spine. “I do know better than you. Europe is littered with
half-breed brats who think because they have an English father or a
French mother that they deserve the same as me? I lived in France
for years making sure those men and women knew their place.”

“Who are you to say that I or anyone like me
is not as good as you? You had the fortune to be born an
Englishwoman. If you were not, could you still claim the English to
be superior to all others?” Emma’s heart beat in her chest like a
stampede of horses. Once false step and they would all end up dead.
Not today. She could not die today.

“Look at our empire and how we conquer the
masses,” replied Lucille. She rolled her eyes. “If they were equal
to us, they would be free.”

“Napoleon has done the same, as you well
know,” she reminded.

“But he is losing to us.”

Emma just sighed. Lucille would argue until
she breathed her last breath. Somehow she believed in her words.
The stance was not a peculiar one for the English and yet hearing
the words still stung.

“Enough!” Thea’s yell, laden with fury,
broke through the nighttime air. She aimed her pistol at Lucille
and pulled the trigger. Emma screamed, her cries certain to awake
the inn. Lucille fell to the ground clutching her stomach. Blood
trickled from the wound. The room began to stink of the metallic
stench.

“EMMY!” Thomas charged into the kitchen with
Nathaniel on his heels. Both men were half-dressed, their linen
shirts open at the chest. Thomas, too, carried a pistol. Nathaniel
was weaponless.

The shouts below had awoken him. Thomas
appearing at his door in the dead of night was alarming. But not as
alarming as the single gunshot that sent his friend bolting into
the kitchen.

Emma remained rooted in her spot, back rigid
against the wall. Her hands grazed across the uneven wood,
splinters lodging themselves into her smooth palms. She spun her
head to look at the intruders. A wild look overtook her face,
trying to place these men in the chaos. Thomas let out a sigh of
relief. Emmy was alive. Shaken, but alive.

“Is she dead?” she asked in a small
voice.

“If I wanted her dead, she would be,” Thea
explained. She dropped the gun. It clattered to the floor. Wiping
her hands on her woven apron, she approached Emma. “I only shot her
in the abdomen. If she dies, it will be painful. But she still may
live though she does not deserve it.”

Nathaniel stepped around Thomas to view the
injured party. “Why the devil did the innkeeper shoot Lady
Wren?”

“Ms. Thea is Emmy’s birth mother and Captain
Wren’s widow,” replied his friend. He stuck his gun in his
waistband.

Nathaniel sputtered, looking between Thea
and Emma. “How the devil do you always know everything?”

“I make it my business to do so.” The
Marquess walked slowly towards his wife. She know sat on the floor
in a heap of bottle green satin, her hair wild about her face.

“Emmy…”

Her brown gaze flicked up to him. For once,
he could not read her expression. “You must have known for some
time.”

“I pieced together some intelligence
tonight. I could never imagine that this would happen.” He tugged
on his hair, a sheepish expression tinting his grey gaze. He fell
to his knees at her side.

“I should be sorry about Aunt Lucille, but I
really am not. She deserved it all. I am just shocked.” Emma’s
hands grabbed onto the fine linen of his shirt. She rested her head
against his chest. She felt better at once. Not herself, but closer
than she had been in some time.

Thea massaged her temples. “I cannot believe
this still. One of my daughters is a marchioness.”

“And later a duchess,” Thomas remarked.

The innkeeper turned her light eyes to
Thomas. She almost smiled. “You are my son-in-law.”

“That I am.”

“I shall have very handsome grandchildren
when the time comes.”

Nathaniel cleared his throat. They ignored
him. He cleared it again. They continued in their ignoring. He
noticed Lady Wren’s gun and picked it up. He looked it over and
then pointed it to the air. He cleared his throat a final time. No
recognition. He pulled the trigger. The clamor filed the room.

To answer the glares directed at him,
Nathaniel shrugged. “You did not listen to me. What shall we do
about Lady Wren?”

The woman herself groaned. Her hand fumbled
for something amongst her skirts. Pain seared across her features
with every reach. But she continued on until she grunted, fingers
curling around yet another pistol.

“Good god!” Nathaniel yelped. Before a soul
could move, Lucille raised the gun to her temple. Her eyes remained
open, intermingling emotions struggling to the surface. A final
shot rang out but the marchioness’ screams rang louder. They
curdled the blood of all those in attendance.

“Now, she is dead,” Thea muttered. She
lowered her voice even further, an unknown language spilling from
her lips.

Sobs overtook Emma’s body. She mumbled to
herself until she began to choke. She gasped, trying to take in air
to her lungs. Everything was changed. It would never be the same.
Never again would Emma look forward to the visits of her beloved
aunt. This woman who admitted to killing her father. Then, Lady
Hartwell fainted to the floor and Lord Hartwell went white.

“I cannot believe I slept through all of
that,” whispered Lady Hedgeton to her husband. Two days later, Lady
Lucille Wren had been buried after a quiet ceremony. Helena was
still unbelievably shocked that she had slept through three
gunshots and her friend’s heart wrenching sobs. Nathaniel chuckled,
squeezing her hand. They stood in the drawing room at Kellaway
House. It was, at last, time to bring an end to this chapter in all
their lives. With the suspect dead and buried, there was no need
for the interference of the judicial system.

Lord Sheridan spoke in hushed tones with the
other peers in the room—Lord Kellaway, Lord Hartwell and even Lord
Carradine. Nathaniel did not know why he was not invited to their
conversation, but it probably pertained to matters of Captain
Wren’s will. The blond did not like legal matters.

Lady Sheridan shared a couch with Lady
Carradine and Lady Caroline Wren, likely swapping descriptions of
favourite gowns adorned with gilded thread and lace ruffles. That
is what women discussed, was it not? His wife, however, could
prattle on endlessly about Napoleon and politics. Mayhap they too
were discussing the latest exploits of the emperor. But then
Caroline shrieked with laughter and repeated, “Tangerine feathers.”
Ah, dresses.

The main feature of the event, Lady
Hartwell, paced across the sitting room. She held a handkerchief in
her hands that she had seen better days. Her body trembled as she
walked, still remembering her aunt’s grisly death. She awaited the
arrival of her mother and twin sister. It still had not registered
there was another being walking around London that resembled
her.