Enchanted Rendezvous: A Tangled Hearts Romance (21 page)

The duelists circled again. As the lamplight fell on Brandon’s set face, Cecily clutched Lady Marcham’s hand. “Aunt Emerald, he means to kill the colonel.”

“It will fall as it will fall,” Lady Marcham replied. Her soft voice was as inflexible as her godson’s eyes.

“But if he kills the colonel, Trevor will have to leave England,” Cecily mourned.

Within the circle Brandon was thinking that if he felled Howard, he would be facing worse things than exile. Even if she understood and realized that this was the only possible course of action, she would never forget that he had once killed a man in front of her. The colonel’s blood would lie between them forever.

But, he reasoned unhappily, not to kill the man would have worse consequences. What he had committed himself to do weighed more heavily in the
scales than individual happiness. He had only one choice, even though that choice might be one he would regret forever.

Through crossed blades, Lord Brandon glanced at Cecily, and the unhappiness in his eyes went to her heart. Unable to watch any more, she closed her eyes.

At that moment, a cold, inflexible voice spoke. “Put up your swords,” it ordered. “Put them up
now.”

Cecily’s eyes flew open. She looked toward the false thicket of alders and saw there a man with a face like a hawk. He was tall and powerfully built, and his eyes were dark and piercing. A high-bridged nose shadowed an arrogant mouth.

“Good heavens,” Sir Carolus cried, “it’s the Duke of Pershing!”

“The Duke of
Pershing?”
Cecily gasped.

The duke did not even glance at her. His attention was riveted on the combatants, neither of whom had lowered his blade. “This must cease,” he said sternly. “Inquiries into a duel will lead to trouble later on. Brandon, do you hear me? Remember that we act for the good of our country.”

Limping slightly, he stepped between the combatants and with his walking stick forced their blades apart. Colonel Howard snarled, “So you are in this as well, your grace. I cannot credit that you are a criminal like your son.”

“Hold your tongue, sir,” the duke commanded. He indicated James. “Is he dead?”

Sir Carolus began a long-winded explanation but was cut short by the duke, who demanded, “Who the devil are you?”

With a curious kind of dignity, the little squire replied, “One is named Sir Carolus Montworthy, your grace. The young man on the ground is one’s
son, James. Members of our family have had the privilege of fighting for England many times through the years. One does not understand what all this means, but one would gladly sacrifice one’s life in England’s service.”

The duke nodded, then turned to Cecily. “And you, madam?” he asked, curtly.

“This is Miss Cecily Vervain, sir,” Brandon explained, “Lady Marcham’s grandniece.” As Cecily curtsied, he added, “I think you have made her acquaintance.”

“The lady has made a definite impact on me, yes.”

His voice was hard, dry, colder than ever. Some instinct warned Cecily that if she quailed before the Duke of Pershing now, he would forever hold her in contempt. It took all of her courage to meet his black gaze, but she did so.

“Our first meeting was indeed memorable, your grace,” she said.

A strong forefinger extended itself, tucked itself under Cecily’s chin and lifted it. Perhaps it was a trick of the moonlight, but the duke’s eyes now no longer appeared quite so cold. In fact, his thin, aristocratic lips actually twitched at the corners as he commented, “So you are related to Lady Marcham. You don’t have her looks, but you do have her spirit.”

“Thank you, your grace,” Cecily murmured.

For a moment the duke looked almost human. Then the colonel exclaimed, “Pershing’s arrival does not change things. I came to arrest you, Brandon, for smuggling, and I mean to do so.”

He gestured his staring retainers forward, but Lord Brandon said, “If you look about you, you’ll see that you’re outnumbered.”

Cecily looked about her with the others and noted
that a contingent of men had materialized out of the trees. They were all armed and had their weapons trained on the colonel and his followers.

“Put down your weapons,” Brandon ordered.

The colonel had gone as white as the handkerchief he had tied around his wound. “Your smuggler band?” he sneered.

“There are no smugglers except in your head,” Lord Brandon said impatiently. “These men are law-abiding Englishmen.”

“All the time you thought you had Brandon trapped, he had you trapped,” Captain Jermayne exclaimed. “Funny, that. By Jove, yes.”

“You won’t be harmed,” Brandon went on. “You’ll be detained for a time and then released. Then you’ll return to your homes.”

“The devil I will!” the colonel spluttered. “I will see you in hell first.”

He got no further, for now into the lamplit glade walked a tall, thin figure dressed in diaphanous white. Her long fair hair was unbound, and moonlight teased it into an eerie nimbus. She walked hesitantly, looking from side to side as though searching for something—or someone.

Mary fell to her knees and began to cross herself violently. “Holy saints, shield us,” she wailed. “It’s the Widow’s ghost! It’s herself, come to take one of us to the other world with her!”

Chapter Twelve

T
he sepulchral figure raised its head hopefully and quavered, “Is that you, Mary?”

Mary’s eyes were as huge as saucers. “Not me,” she wailed. “I won’t go with you.”

Just then James Montworthy sat up and blinked at the figure in white. He gaped. “What in hell—”

“Aye, it comes from hell. It’s the Widow’s ghost,” Mary keened.

James’s jaw was aching, his head was pounding like the devil’s own anvil, and his ears were ringing. There seemed to be a mist before his eyes. The slow-returning memory of being planted a facer by Brandon rankled. It was the last straw to be confronted by a smuggler dressed up as a ghost.

Drawing his pistol, he threatened, “You in white! Stop or I’ll shoot.”

Brandon started forward, but Captain Jermayne was swifter. He threw himself between Montworthy’s pistol and the white figure. Cecily cried, “No! Do not shoot—it is Delinda!”

As her anguished cry echoed through the woods, a second apparition burst onto the scene. Montwor
thy dropped his pistol and yelled in pain as Archimedes sank his twenty claws and one tooth into his right arm.

“It’s that witch cat! Run for your lives!” Mrs. Horris shouted.

She hitched up her skirts and fled but was soon outpaced by Mary. All of Lady Marcham’s servants save Grigg followed, and after that, it was every man for himself. The colonel’s orders and threats could not stop the stampede as his rank and file fairly knocked each other down in their haste to get away. There was a pounding of feet, shouts, curses, and a thudding of frenzied hooves receding into the distance.

Finally there was silence. Brandon’s forces closed in about the colonel’s depleted band while their leader walked across to James, caught Archimedes by the scruff of the neck, and pried him loose.

“Are you all right, Miss Howard?” Captain Jermayne was asking anxiously.

“I do not know—I am so frightened. Why are you all here in Lady Marcham’s woods?” Delinda stammered.

“What are
you
doing here?” the colonel thundered.

Blanching visibly, Delinda hung her head and murmured, “I was only looking for verbena.”

Brandon carried Archimedes over to Cecily, deposited him in her arms, and whispered, “Is that girl touched in the head?”

“You are mad,” the colonel shouted. “I will have you packed away to a madhouse.”

Threateningly he advanced on Delinda, but once again Captain Jermayne stepped between her and peril. “Wouldn’t do to do violence to a lady,” he said mildly.

Colonel Howard grasped Captain Jermayne’s shoulder, but the younger officer refused to budge.

“The thing to do is calm down and think it over,” he soothed.

“I agree,” Pershing said. “Your army seems to have diminished, Howard. What do you say now?”

“You think that because we are outnumbered, we will surrender to you?” Contempt hardened the colonel’s voice. “I would never dishonor myself by giving in to brigands.”

The duke looked impatiently at the colonel and at his Riders, who had ranged themselves behind their chief.

“I am growing weary of this,” he declared. “All of you must leave at once. I want your word that you will not speak of this night to anyone.”

“One is more than happy to comply,” Sir Carolus chirruped, but his son growled, “Not so fast, Pater. The duke is trying to cover up for his precious son, but it won’t fadge. Something havey-cavey is going on. Mean to know what, give you m’word.”

He got shakily to his feet, rubbed his jaw, and glared at Lord Brandon, who told the duke, “You’ll have to silence them one way or another, sir.”

There was an ominous pause during which Sir Carolus looked alarmed, the ladies drew closer together, and the colonel and his followers assumed martial poses. At last the duke barked, “I have no choice but to take you into my confidence, but what I am about to say to you must never be divulged to anyone. Not three hundred yards away—”

“Is a band of cursed smugglers. I knew it!”

The duke leveled a withering look on the colonel. “Not three hundred yards away a meeting is being held to end the war between England and America.”

There was a stunned silence. Then Sir Carolus
stammered, “But—but are the peace talks not at Ghent?”

“On August nineteenth, those talks became hopelessly deadlocked. The Americans were ready to break off negotiations. To forestall an escalation of the war, a plan was devised.”

Negotiations were undertaken, Pershing said, to invite an American of high rank and honor to England. Here the American delegate would meet with an Englishman of equivalent rank. Between them, it was hoped, they could come to agreements that would then be taken back to the conference table.

“Do you expect me to believe that?” Colonel Howard sneered. “The Americans would never risk sending their man to England.”

“There were risks on both sides. We had much to lose in allowing foreign ships to lay anchor off the English coast.” The duke paused. “Also, we had to maintain complete secrecy. Had they known, those in our government opposed to peace would have tried desperate measures to prevent the talks.”

The colonel looked as though he were about to speak again, but Pershing snapped, “Be silent and do not interrupt me further! The rest is simply told. We chose Dorset as a site for the meeting because Lady Marcham’s late husband was once acquainted with the family of—of the American delegate. And Lady Marcham’s family have also been for years the trusted friends of the gentleman chosen to represent England.”

The duke’s fierce eyes softened as he bowed to Lady Marcham. “Lady Marcham is a gallant woman,” he said. “She knew there would be danger in agreeing to allow this meeting to take place on her estate, but she accepted the risk. It was her suggestion that the meeting be held in her woods.
She reasoned that her own, er, reputation and the locals’ fear of the Haunted Woods would keep people away.”

The colonel’s Riders looked impressed at this, and Sir Carolus nodded his head several times. “One admits that it makes sense. But, your grace, where does Lord Brandon fit into all of this?”

“My duty was to coordinate security for the meeting.” Crisply Lord Brandon continued, “As Lady M.’s godson, I had an excuse for a prolonged visit to Dorset. I know the waters hereabouts and could guide the Americans to make landfall at the most unlikely spot possible. Unfortunately I didn’t foresee that Colonel Howard would be a neighbor.”

The colonel muttered something beneath his breath. “His obsession with smugglers made him ready to suspect any stranger,” Brandon continued. “So I had to play the fool.”

“You did it exceedingly well,” Captain Jermayne exclaimed. “A proper cake you made of yourself.”

“I had been away at the wars, so people put the change in me down to war experiences.” Lord Brandon smiled at Cicely. “Most people dismissed me as a fribble.”

Montworthy burst out, “You mean to tell me that
you
planned this meeting? Next you’ll say that
all
the smugglers are working for the crown.”

“Of course they are. These gentlemen served with me on the Peninsula. Others, like Cully Horris, were boyhood friends. Among the servants Grigg was aware of what was happening, and my valet is even now leading a convoy of empty wagons toward the downs.”

“And of course I guessed,” Captain Jermayne cut in. “I mean to say, a man decorated three times for valor on the Peninsula, a man who saved my life—not likely to become a counter-coxcomb, is he?”

As Cecily listened, it was as though a complicated tapestry pattern was at last taking shape. Montworthy apparently thought so, too, for he said in an aggrieved tone, “I suppose you think I owe you an apology for the things I said. You won’t get it, give you m’word on’t.”

“Apology be hanged!” the colonel rumbled. “I do not believe a word of what you have said, your grace. Who is this so-called English delegate? You?”

The duke strode over to the colonel, and Cecily held her breath. But instead of challenging him to a duel for doubting his word, the tall peer merely said, “Come walk with me, and you will have your answer.”

The colonel started to gesture his Riders forward, but the duke raised an imperious hand. “You will come alone, colonel.”

“Might be a trap,” James suggested. He then encountered Brandon’s hard stare and fell silent.

Momentarily the colonel hesitated. Then he said, “I will see this business through. You gentlemen stay here.”

Together the duke and Colonel Howard disappeared through the alders. “I do not understand anything,” Delinda said, sighing.

With a smile Lord Brandon turned to her. “Never mind, ma’am. You’ve done very well. But why were you in Lady M.’s woods at this time of night?”

Delinda looked flustered. “I was here to gather some herbs. I heard voices—I nearly ran away—and then I recognized Papa’s voice, so I came to see what was happening.” She took a deep breath, then asked plaintively, “Why was Mr. Montworthy about to shoot me?”