Rushed to the Altar (46 page)

Luke poured himself more brandy and drained the glass. Clarissa glanced casually around the salon, looking for inspiration. Something she could use, anything that would give her a plan of action. Luke regarded them in silence, that same flicker of a smile on his lips. Francis sat slumped in the corner of the sofa, and Clarissa could feel beneath her hands that he had surrendered his spirit. She couldn’t blame him after the dreadful experiences
of the last months, but it filled her with a cold fury that added fuel to the determination to do something . . . anything.

The manservant came back with a tray, which he set down on the table in front of the sofa. “That be all?”

Luke waved him away. “Well, what are you waiting for? Avail yourself of my hospitality, Niece.”

Clarissa came around to the front of the sofa. “You are very kind, sir.” She picked up the milk and gave it to Francis. “Drink this, love, and I’ll get you some bread and butter.” She turned back to the tray. “Coffee, Uncle?”

He shook his head, refilling his brandy glass for the third time. “Make the most of it. We’ll be leaving in half an hour and I doubt you’ll see another coffeepot for the remainder of your miserable existence.”

Clarissa picked up the coffeepot, spun on her heel, and hurled the pot and its steaming contents at her uncle. “
Run,
Francis.” She picked up the poker and swung it at Luke’s head as he convulsed, with his hands to his face, hot coffee streaming through his fingers. The poker made contact with bone, and he crumpled to his knees, choking and gasping.

Francis was already at the door, wrenching it open. Clarissa hurled herself after him, grabbing his hand and racing down the stairs. The startled manservant was halfway across the hall when he saw them. He stared, his jaw dropping in surprise, and Clarissa shoved him hard as she ran for the door. He stumbled, righted himself as she tugged at the heavy bolts.

“Hurry, ’Rissa . . .
hurry.
” Francis was prancing on his toes beside her while she struggled with the door. The manservant lunged forward and the child ducked and drove headfirst into his belly. The man made a strange sound like air emerging from a deflated balloon, bending double, his eyes streaming.

Clarissa hauled the door open and burst into the street, Francis on her heels, and ran, for the second time in her life, straight into the Earl of Blackwater. His arms went around her and for a moment he held her tightly, her head pressed to his chest.

Francis found himself swept into the arms of a man he’d seen before in the house on Half Moon Street. “Steady now, little man. You’re quite safe.” Peregrine’s voice was soothing as he held the child tightly. He looked at Sebastian over the child’s head, and they both looked at their elder brother, who was still clasping Clarissa closely against him.

“I don’t know if I’ve killed him,” Clarissa said, her voice muffled. She lifted her head from Jasper’s chest.

“We’re talking of your guardian, I assume.” Jasper moved her a little away from him so that he could look at her properly.

Jasper gently touched the cut on her mouth, the bruise on her cheek, the lump on her head. “Is he responsible for these?” His voice was very soft but nonetheless filled with menace.

“Yes. But I might have killed him . . . with the poker.”

“Well, why don’t we go and find out.” Despite his
fury at the cuts and bruises on her face, Jasper was filled with such happiness he could barely contain it. Only now did he understand the depths of his fear that something dreadful had happened to her . . . to the woman he loved more than life itself. She had been hurt, but he had her safe now.

He tipped her chin on his palm, looking deep into her eyes. “I thought I had lost you.”

Clarissa looked at him, her eyes still a little wild. And it was as if she hadn’t heard him. “If we go back in there and he’s not dead, he won’t let us go again.”

Jasper shook his head. “Believe me, Clarissa. No one is going to keep you from me. No one has that power. Now, let’s go in and see if I’m about to wed a murderess.”

“I can’t understand why you would find that amusing,” she protested, although the terror of the last hours was gradually sliding away. “Francis mustn’t go into that house again. Perry, will you take him home?”

“Of course, ma’am. Anything you say . . . be my pleasure.” Peregrine set Francis on his horse and swung up behind him, circling the boy with a securing arm.

“ ’Rissa?” Francis held out his hands to his sister.

She managed a reassuring smile. “I’ll be back soon, sweetheart. Go with Peregrine, you’re quite safe now.”

The child looked over his shoulder at the gentleman riding behind him. Peregrine smiled. “Your sister’s right. You’re safe as houses with me, and you’ll see her soon.”

“Perry, take him to Blackwater House, and stay with
him,” Jasper instructed. “Sebastian, you had best come with us. If this brute of an uncle is not yet dead, we might need two swords. Although, of course, there’s always the poker.”

“Oh, I do love a mill,” Sebastian said cheerfully, pushing the door open wide. “Dear me, there’s some poor soul gasping in the hall. Is that the uncle, Clarissa?”

“No,” she said. “The servant. Francis butted him in the belly.”

“Good for him,” Sebastian said. “You two seem remarkably well able to take care of yourselves.”

The brothers were making the whole situation seem surreal with their light amusement, but Clarissa felt the nightmarish terror receding. They might have seemed to treat the situation superficially as a jest, but she was in no doubt as to the deadly seriousness of their intent. It was clear as day in the set of their mouths, in the fierce determination in their eyes. Sebastian was as fair as Jasper was dark, but the family resemblance was there, and never more so than at this moment.

Jasper sensed the tension gradually leave her and was well satisfied. As he’d held her he’d felt her terror and could only guess at this point at what she’d gone through since her disappearance twenty-four hours ago. His deliberately humorous attitude was an instinctive attempt to restore and reassure her, and he could see the wildness begin to leave her eyes.

“So, where’s the uncle?”

“Upstairs.” She paused, hugging her arms across her
chest. “I hope I have killed him. He was going to have me committed to Bedlam.”

Jasper lost all ability to make light of anything. His face went white.
“What?”

She nodded bleakly. “He’s my guardian. He can do whatever he wants.”

“Let’s get him.” Sebastian drew his sword and started up the stairs.

Jasper followed suit. “Wait outside if you’d prefer, Clarissa.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m coming.” She followed them up and into the salon. Luke was slumped in a chair, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged. A great lump was forming on his temple. His face was reddened by the hot coffee, and his clothes dripped with it. The pot itself lay on its side on the floor.

“Did you throw the coffeepot at him as well, Clarissa?” Sebastian asked with some awe.

Clarissa was standing with her arms folded tight across her chest, looking down at the man who a few short minutes ago had terrified her with his power to harm her. “Yes,” she said. “I hope it scalded him. I don’t seem to have killed him.”

“No,” agreed Jasper. He stretched out his sword arm and pressed the tip of the weapon against the unconscious man’s throat. Blood welled, and Luke’s eyes flew open.

He stared blankly up into cold flat black eyes. His gaze flickered, and he saw Clarissa standing behind the
man whose sword was pressed to his throat. He put a hand to his throat. “Who are you? What are you doing in my house?” His voice was a croak.

“I came to see if you were alive, and if you were to remedy the situation,” Jasper said amiably. “I understand you had some rather unpleasant ideas about this lady’s future.” He cast an illustrative glance at Clarissa.

“She’s my ward, in my guardianship until she gains her majority.” Luke’s voice gained strength. “There’s not a justice in the land who would dispute my right to make what arrangements I see fit for
my
wards.”

The sword point pressed a little deeper, and Luke sank back into the chair as if he could thus avoid the point. Jasper continued conversationally. “Well, there’s one small matter you’ve omitted to mention. Or perhaps you didn’t know it. The lady is no longer your ward. She is now my wife, the Countess of Blackwater, and as such lives under my authority, not yours.”

Luke’s eyes darted wildly around the room. “She hasn’t the right to marry without my consent.”

“Maybe not, but she has done so, and it is a fait accompli. If you attempted to challenge it, I would challenge the right of a guardian to commit his perfectly sane ward to a lunatic asylum, and I’d lay odds you would find yourself facing some very serious unpleasantness. The only question that interests me now is what to do with such a loathsome piece of human flotsam.”

Clarissa’s mind was reeling. Jasper had just told a barefaced lie, without so much as the quiver of an eyelash.
She glanced at Sebastian, expecting to see shock on his face. He knew quite well she was his brother’s mistress. But he seemed perfectly sanguine, as if he’d heard nothing at all surprising.

“So, Clarissa, what do you want done with this
relative
of yours?” Jasper looked over at Clarissa without moving his sword point.

“He put Francis out with a baby farmer, expecting him to die of infection and starvation in a few months,” she said slowly. “If Francis dies, Luke will inherit everything.”

“Then I think we had best ensure that under no circumstances can he inherit anything. What d’you think, Sebastian?”

“Without a doubt.” Sebastian stepped forward. His own sword point pressed into Luke’s belly and the man gave a strangled scream.

Clarissa closed her eyes. She couldn’t let them do this, and yet with every primitive instinct she possessed she wanted revenge for what had been done to Francis, and for what Luke would have done to her. A slow and wretched death for both of them.

“I don’t think he deserves a quick death,” she said. “He was not prepared to give that to either Francis or myself.”

“How true.” Jasper nodded. “Now, my dear, I suggest you go downstairs and leave Sebastian and myself to our own devices. You may rest assured we will enact a biblical vengeance, precise in every detail.”

Luke moaned and his eyes closed again. Clarissa looked thoughtfully at Jasper, wondering if he was really capable of the kind of savagery he was implying. But when he said softly, “Go, Clarissa,” she turned and left. She walked out into the crisp afternoon and breathed deeply.

Jasper waited until he heard the front door close, then he leaned over his victim. “Listen to me very carefully. My brother is going to escort you to the coast, where he will find you passage on some craft heading a very long way from here to a place as barbaric as you. You will be quite at home. And if ever I see you within the borders of this land again, there will be no limit to my vengeance. Do I make myself clear?” His sword point moved in a leisurely stroke across the man’s throat, leaving a fine line of blood in its wake.

“Do I make myself clear?”

Luke nodded, trying to keep his Adam’s apple still.

“Good.” Jasper raised his sword and sheathed it. “Seb, hold him here until I send my coach with Plunkett. He could hold this louse down with one hand, so between you, you should have no trouble getting him to Dover.”

Sebastian nodded with a grin. Jasper’s coachman was an erstwhile prizefighter and more than capable of dealing with the scrawny figure of Luke Astley. “Never fear,
Jasper. We’ll have our friend on the high seas by dawn tomorrow.”

“Look for a ship sailing for the Indies. They should be big enough and inhospitable enough to hold him.” Jasper raised a hand in farewell and left. He found Clarissa on the street, stroking his horses, while Tom stood phlegmatic as always at their heads.

Clarissa turned her cheek against an animal’s silky neck as Jasper emerged from the house. “Is he dead?”

“He will soon wish he were.” He stroked her hair back from her forehead, smoothing the deep frown lines with his finger. “But, forgive me, my love, killing him out of hand could make my life a little awkward, and I also thought you might have regrets at such a drastic vengeance when matters had settled down, and since such a vengeance would be so very final . . .” He gave an expressive shrug.

Clarissa smiled. “I was already having regrets. But if he stays alive, he will be a threat to Francis until I gain my majority and my brother passes into my guardianship.”

“You have no need to worry. Your uncle will be far away for the next ten months. And Francis will be with us.”

“Oh, yes.” She remembered and was astonished she could have forgotten even for a moment. “That was an amazing lie, my lord, even bigger than the ones I’ve been telling.”

“Oh, I very much doubt that,” he said with a dry smile. “However, my particular lie is about to be made
truth.” He lifted her unceremoniously and deposited her in the curricle, jumping up beside her.

“I don’t understand.” She grabbed the side of the curricle as the horses sprang forward, racing down the street. “Jasper, if this turns over, we’ll all break our necks.”