Stealing the Bride (14 page)

“A babe, miss,” the maid said. She shifted her armload again and winked. “That husband of yers has that randy look to him. Got you with child before the parson said his blessing, didn’t he? Well, I won’t tell no one, but you’d be best to go back to yer room and lie down a spell till yer color comes around. If I didn’t know you were having a baby, I’d swear you’d just seen a ghost.”

The door to the room flew open, rattling it nearly off the hinges.

Temple scrambled upright from the slab of hard floor that had been his bed. He fumbled for the pistol he usually kept under his pillow, but found only the thin blanket Diana had tossed at his head before she rolled over in a huff and buried herself deep in her goose-down haven.

A whirl of muslin dashed across his sleep-crusted gaze.

“Good morning,” he muttered, as she began grabbing up her belongings and stuffing them willy-nilly into her valise.

“Hardly that,” she spat out. She reached up on the chair where he’d left his waistcoat and cravat. She threw them at him. “Get dressed. You’ve been discovered. That is, we’ve been discovered.” She paused for only a moment before she darted back to him and snatched his clothing out of his hands and stuffed both pieces into his traveling case. “No time for those. You’ll have to make do as you are.”

Crossing the room, he caught her by the shoulders. “Diana, be still. Whatever are you going on about?”

“He’s downstairs. I mean, they’re downstairs. We haven’t a minute to spare.” She shook free and headed to the window, throwing open the drapes, then shoving open the sash. She threw her leg over the edge, but a glance downward stopped her. “Oh, the devil take us. We’re too high up. How will we ever escape now?”

Temple felt as if he were watching a Haymarket comedy. He didn’t know whether to applaud or cringe at her well-played bout of madness. “Diana, come off that window.” He took her by the arm and led her away from the ledge and into the solid safety of the middle of the room.

In her state there was no telling what she might do.

“Now who has come? Is it Pins and Needles who’ve got you in this state?” he asked.

“No! No! Neither of them.” She paced a couple of steps, then whirled around. “Oh, how could you, Temple?” she asked, shaking a finger at him. “You’ve gone and ruined everything. Everything, I tell you. Whatever would possess you to do such a
thing
?”

“What is this tragedy you think I’ve supposedly committed?” he asked.

She gazed upward as if she were the sane one seeking patience. “Murder, my lord. What were you thinking when you killed Cordell?”

“K
illed Cordell?” Temple shook his head. “I did no such thing. Where did you hear such nonsense?”

“The sheriff. He’s down below with a writ for your arrest.”

Temple shook his head. “The Sheriff of Nottingham is downstairs looking for me?” There was no way on earth he’d heard her correctly.

She nodded emphatically.

He swore under his breath. He could hear Pymm now
tsk
ing and muttering over his report.

Lady Diana was allowed to slip from my grasp when the Sheriff of Nottingham arrested me for the murder of Viscount Cordell.

“Diana, this is all a mistake. I didn’t kill Cordell.”

“They think you did. Why would they think that, if it weren’t true?” Diana’s eyes began to well up.

The sight of those starry tears lighting her blue eyes tore at his common sense. Against his better judgment, he gathered her into his arms. “Believe me, I didn’t kill Cordell.”

Though I would have liked to,
he mused.

“So why does the sheriff think you did? According to the maid, he’s got a writ for your arrest.”

“Listen to me, Diana. I did not kill the man. The French agents who followed us the other night killed him.”

Diana pushed out of his grasp and took two steps back from him. “Temple! Not this ridiculous nonsense about French agents again.”

“But it’s the truth. I followed Cordell out into a meadow and saw him meet with three men. When their business was done, the leader shot Cordell and retrieved the gold they’d paid him.”

Diana threw up her hands. “This is the best you can do? Oh, Temple, you need to work on your fictions. First that rubbish about you being a merchant and me your sister, now again with this ludicrous tale of French agents in Geddington. You’ll never save your neck from the rope if that is the best defense you can offer.”

“Diana, it’s the truth,” he told her.

She put her hands on either side of her head and groaned. “Oh, botheration, you are around the bend.” Then her eyes lit up. “That’s it! You could claim it happened in a moment of jealous insanity. I’ll even testify for you, tell the judges you’re utterly mad.”

“Diana—” Temple’s protest was cut off by a pounding at the door.

“Open up, in the name of the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

“Dear Lord, they’ve found us!” She darted again for the window, but he caught her by the back of her skirt and held her fast.

The sheriff, in his eagerness to arrest a dangerous felon, didn’t wait for a reply, instead laid his shoulder to the door and broke it open.

Diana let out a short squawk of dismay.

“Lord Templeton?” the sheriff asked.

“Don’t answer him,” she said, stepping in front of Temple, as if she could shield him with her lithe form.

He pushed her back behind him. “Yes, sir. I am the Marquis of Templeton. How may I be of service?”

The man appeared taken aback. Almost, one might say, disappointed at such a forthright answer.

Diana supposed the local tyrant was hoping for a pleading denial, followed by a desperate fight. She glanced around the room seeking another route of escape, a weapon of some kind.

Holding up his hand, the sheriff revealed a piece of paper. “My lord, I have a writ for your arrest, signed by the magistrate of Geddington.”

From the doorway, the innkeeper stood watching the proceedings in wide-eyed horror.

“And what crime did I supposedly commit?” Temple asked.

“Don’t play coy with me, my lord. You know ’twas murder. There were witnesses.”

Now it was Temple’s turn to be surprised.
Witnesses?
How could there be witnesses when there had been no one else about but…

Then he saw with only too much clarity the brilliance of it. Marden had returned to Geddington and presented the magistrate with a more convenient version of the murder.

What better way to flush out one’s quarry than to use the law? With Temple arrested for the crime, and out of his way, Marden would have a clear path to Lady Diana.

Damn the man’s cunning.

“Sir, I fear there is more to this than meets the eye. I believe—” he began.

“Are you Templeton?” the man said, interrupting.

“Well, yes, but—”

“And were you in Geddington night before last?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then there is no mistake, my lord. In the name of the King, I hereby arrest you for the murder of Viscount Cordell. Now if you will come along with me—” He reached out to take Temple by the arm but froze before moving another step. “What the—” he sputtered, the man’s face going white as a sheet.

And when Temple glanced over at Diana, he realized why the sheriff looked as if he’d seen his own end.

The poor man was staring down Temple’s pistol held in Diana’s wavering grasp.

“Bloody hell! Diana, what are you doing?” Temple took a step toward her, but she knew what he intended and so she turned the weapon in his direction.

That brought him to a quick halt.

“I’ll not let them arrest you,” she said.

“Now, miss,” the sheriff stammered, waving his hands out in front of him. “Don’t make this any worse than it has to be.” He took a hesitant step toward her.

Temple had to give the man his due; he was either brave of heart or a demmed idiot.

She swung the pistol back toward the sheriff. “Not another move, sir.”

Temple cringed as her hand trembled. “Gentlemen, I’d suggest doing as the lady says. That’s my pistol, and the trigger is very sensitive.”

The innkeeper made a strangled, gulping sound as he shook like an autumn leaf in a tempest. The sheriff showed a modicum of sense and stopped swaggering.

Temple turned to his would-be rescuer, caught by both his dismay at her course of action and the sheer audacity by which she lived.

Gads, she was an amazing woman. She looked like a veritable Amazon with her fiery eyes sparkling with deadly intent. In truth, she struck fear in his heart, and she was on his side.

“Diana, put that pistol down.”

“No! I don’t care if you did kill Cordell. I’ll not let them arrest you.”

“Would you listen to me? I did not kill Cordell!” Then he turned to the innkeeper and the sheriff. “I didn’t kill the man.”

Disbelief marked all their faces. Including Diana’s.

Temple groaned. “Now I’m going to ask this one more time. Put that pistol down before someone gets hurt,” he told her. The way her hand trembled under the weight of the piece, she’d as likely shoot him as the sheriff.

“No! I won’t let them hang you,” she declared.

“Miss, we won’t be hanging his lordship,” the sheriff told her.

“At least not until after the inquest,” the innkeeper added hastily.

Temple and the sheriff shot the man equal looks of irritation.

Diana wasn’t listening to any of them. “Temple, get your cravat.” She waved the pistol at his open valise.

“My cravat? What, you want me to show these gentleman the correct way to tie a neckerchief?”

She glanced upward and shook her head. “No, you ninnyhammer, I want you to use it to bind their hands.” Smiling at the sheriff, she said, “My apologies, sir, but I fear it is the only way.”

“Miss, you don’t want to do this,” the sheriff told her, taking a tentative step forward. Temple was now convinced that man took his namesake as the scourge of Nottingham far too seriously. The fool was going to get himself shot. “You’ll be in as much trouble, if not more than the marquis if you persist in this course of action.”

“He’s right, Diana,” Temple told her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

She gazed into his eyes and nodded. Her conviction, her faith in him even when she thought him capable of murder, astounded him.

Temple’s heart constricted. She’d follow him anywhere. He knew that with every certainty he possessed. The damned foolish chit would follow him to the ends of the earth.

She was mad…and so was he.

If he wasn’t willing to bet his last breath that Marden was behind this warrant, and that the wily Frenchman was most likely close at hand, Temple would never have considered going along with her foolhardy attempt to flee the law.

Then again, if Marden hadn’t murdered Cordell, he wouldn’t be in this muddle.

He did his best as well to ignore the fact that if Diana hadn’t run off with Cordell to begin with, none of this would ever have been cast into motion.

Still, the problem remained that if he were in the Nottingham gaol, he’d have no way to protect her from whatever nefarious plans the determined French agent had for the lady.

And it was obvious from these trumped-up charges that Marden was willing to go to great extremes to gain his “bride.”

Diana caught his attention with a long, exasperated sigh. “Temple, are you going to stand there all day woolgathering or are you going to tie these men up?”

Always the sharp-tongued little minx
, he thought, grinning at her. “You’re asking me to ruin my best cravat, I’ll have you know,” he told her as he rummaged through his valise.

“I dare say you can withstand the loss,” she shot back. “After all, I am saving you from having a different sort of noose.”

He approached the sheriff, cravat in hand. “My apologies, sir.”

The Sheriff of Nottingham, obviously as concerned about his reputation as the innkeeper had said the night before, wasn’t about to be tied up—not willingly.

He cocked back a fist and swung it at Temple, apparently thinking he was dealing with nothing more than another idle member of the nobility.

Temple was hardly that. He’d met far more ruthless opponents during his years of service than this earnest sheriff. He dodged out of the man’s path, and landed a facer in the wink of an eye, knocking the man cold and sending him flying.

Right into Diana.

To his horror, the pistol in her hand fired, followed by a horrific shriek from the innkeeper. He spun around to find the pasty-faced man sinking face-first to the floor.

Meanwhile, Diana lay on her back, arms swinging wildly in the air, with the unconscious form of the Sheriff of Nottingham sprawled over her. She paused for a second and peered over his shoulder. Her eyes were wide with horror, her mouth trying to move to form the question that Temple didn’t know if he wanted to answer.

Nodding at the innkeeper, she finally managed to ask, “Did I kill him?” She closed her eyes and started to sob. “Oh, what if I killed him? I didn’t mean to.”

Temple dashed to the man’s side. Without hesitating, he rolled the innkeeper over. Thankfully, there was no sign of blood anywhere. And the man’s chest rose and fell in regular fashion. Before he could check him over completely, there was the thump of boots down the hall.

He glanced up to find Elton coming to a fumbling halt in the doorway. And then he saw the real damage of Diana’s erratic shot.

A gaping hole in the plaster right over where the innkeeper had been standing. The bullet had likely whistled past his ear and given the man a good fright. Enough to have him faint dead away.

“What the devil?” Elton said, looking first at the innkeeper’s body, then at the unconscious sheriff draped inelegantly over Lady Diana. He shook his head in dismay. “Can’t a man even get a decent breakfast down before you two start causing all sorts of trouble?”

They rode from Nottingham, first driving southward for over an hour at a deadly pace, leaving the city far behind them. Elton had already seen to having the horses ready, and all that had been left to do was assure themselves that both the innkeeper and the sheriff were well, then bind them up and lock them in the wardrobe. Diana had hastily finished packing before making their excuses and tossing coins to the gaping staff.

If they were being pursued, no one had caught up with them, but Diana wagered that not even Lord Nettlestone and his legendary prowess as a whip could catch Elton once Temple’s servant got his hands on the reins and a well-matched set before him.

They finally stopped at a crossroads, and Diana peeked out the window to spy Temple muttering something to Elton about getting to bottom of this business. After the two men conferred, Elton climbed back up into the driver’s seat and Temple got in the carriage with Diana.

The carriage bolted to a start again, and then veered hard to the right and off on another of Elton’s shortcuts.

An old, straight track, used mostly by locals, she guessed. And headed in the wrong direction.

“Why are we going north?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we be off for London? Surely between my father and your grandfather, they can get to the bottom of all this nonsense.”

“If by nonsense, you mean Cordell’s murder, that is not my problem, since I didn’t kill the man.”

“Fine, Temple, if you say so,” she shot back. “But unfortunately, not everyone is as understanding as I am.”

He snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.

Though her words had come out a tad more sarcastic than she’d meant, she had been telling the truth when she said she didn’t think him capable of murder.

Oh, there had been a wild romantic moment in the Nottingham inn when she’d envisioned him standing across a field of grass, facing Cordell for her hand, but that in itself was a ridiculous notion.

For one thing, Cordell wouldn’t have had the wherewithal or courage to stand up and face his enemy without pissing himself, let alone show up.

And besides, Temple was many things, but a cold-blooded murderer he was not. No, there was a mistake in all this, and time would sort it out.

That is, if the sheriff didn’t catch and hang them first. What they truly needed was a more convincing fiction to prove Temple’s innocence.

“Really, Temple, I’m to believe that French agents killed the man? The only things remotely French that Cordell would have been involved with were illegal brandy or some imported tart he promised to marry before he swindled her out of her last remaining family heirlooms.”

“That is precisely why we aren’t going to London,” Temple told her. “I can’t go back until I know why he was killed.”

Diana could offer half a dozen reasons why someone would have wanted to kill Cordell, but judging from the deep crease in Temple’s brow and the firm set of his jaw, she doubted he wanted to hear her theories.