The Next Best Bride (33 page)

A fitting punishment
. The threat vibrated through him, propelling him to action. But he could not do what he planned to do with Helena here. He must gain time to send her away and keep her blameless of his crime.

He took Helena's arm and tried to warn her not to react to his words. "I told you once that I never break a promise. It is the one thing my grandfather did manage to drum into me."

He nodded to his grandfather. "I will bring the boy to you at Parsleigh."

Helena tried to pull away from him. "No. You cannot."

"Do you take me for a fool?" His grandfather's lip curled in disdain. "I am leaving London today. I expect you to collect the boy and bring him to me before my carriage pulls out of my stables."

Rand did not mistake the threat implicit in the simple demand. He quickly calculated the time it would take for him to retrieve the boy and give him into his grandfather's care. Four hours. It was not much time, but it was enough to see Helena clear of the mess he was about to make. "I will do so without delay."

His grandfather turned on his heel and left them on the stairs.

* * * * *

Helena watched the marquess go, wondering how Rand had survived his grandfather's care for so many years. Or perhaps he had not, if he so easily kept a promise that condemned their son to the same fate. She realized she was trembling, but she forced her limbs quiet and gazed up at her husband. "Promise or no, I will not let you give our son—"

He glanced down at her, his eyes burning with rage. "Do you think I am that big a fool?"

He went up the stairs, two at a time, leaving her behind him. "I will see you back to the duke, before I deal with my grandfather."

She followed him, finding the stairs immeasurably easier to navigate without skirts. "What do you intend to do."

He did not slow his pace. "What I must."

She followed him into a room with a narrow Spartan bed and small table with a pistol at the ready. He picked it up, confirming her worst fears. She gasped. "No. You will hang."

He smiled bleakly. "Perhaps not. Perhaps I will merely be confined to the madhouse. But you will be safe, because you will be with the duke. With our son."

She reached up to twine her hands around his neck. "Come with me. Bring your mother. Bring Jenny and the children." She pulled his head down for a kiss. "Don't let your grandfather destroy your chance to see your son grown."

"I will make a better father in memory than in flesh and blood." He reached up to disengage her hands from his neck with an angry growl and put the pistol in a small leather bag.

Stubborn man. "Who will see to my pleasure when you are gone? William?"

He stilled his movements at last. The look in his eye make her take a step back. "You have changed me, Helena. When we married, I promised you I would not mind if you took a string of lovers. But that is not true, now. Even knowing what I am to do." He sighed, closing his eyes. "I suppose I am a man who breaks his word, now, to add to my other vices."

"Some promises are better broken." She wrapped her arms around his waist, wishing she could weight him to this place, and keep him from his sacrifice.

He lifted her face to his and kissed her with a passion that left her breathless. He rubbed his nose along her fake sideburns. "I've never made love to a woman dressed as a man before. I think I'd like to try it."

His hands made short work of her men's clothing. He touched her like a man who knew he might never touch her again. Frantic and fierce and gentle in turn. Urgently, he whispered into her neck, "Forgive me for hurrying, but I must get you back to the duke."

His fingers twisted just as his mouth clamped over a sensitive spot on her neck, and she gasped. Heat and want enveloped her without warning.

Dimly, through the dizzying rush of blood in her ears, she heard him say, "Thank you for freeing me, my love."

Chapter Twenty Five

Rand did not know whether it was the smoke or the crackling noise at the door which alerted him. But whatever it was told him at once that there was danger.

He raised his head and one deep breath filled his lungs with acrid smoke. He coughed out Helena’s name even as he drew his discarded shirt over his nose and mouth and drew a cleaner breath.

"Fire." They struggled haphazardly into their discarded clothing and he led her at a crawl to the door. It was hot to his touch.

As he paused, she moved, tugging at his arm, pointing to the window. He shoved the dilapidated sill upward and they both gasped for a clean breath for a moment before staring silently down at the ivy vines which had overrun the expanse of stone wall under their window.

The climb down was daunting, but not impossible when compared with the smoke and flames they might face inside.

He took a deep breath, and before Helena could realize what he intended, he lifted her into his arms and lowered her slowly out the window. When he could go no lower, he said, "Grasp hold of the vines and work your way down. If you fall, bend your knees to ease your landing." And he let her go.

She fell a foot, but then gained a hold in the ivy. Looking up, she grinned at him triumphantly. "You forget that I grew up following Ros on her adventures."

The door behind him burst in and a tongue of flame shot out the window above his head. Her expression was anguished as she looked up at him and urged, "Hurry."

"Move out of my way." He leaped, reaching out for ivy and feeling the vines shred and rip through his hands. But they served their purpose in slowing his fall at least, his landing only hard enough to knock the wind out of him for a moment.

Frantic, they raced around to the front of the manor house. Flames could be seen coming from the upper windows, although the lower floors seemed untouched by fire as of yet.

Jenny and the hysterical red-haired mother of his latest bastard were huddled against the side of the well, their children watching wide-eyed in terror.

"Where is my mother?" He could see her nowhere.

Jenny left the weeping woman and said sorrowfully, "She's still inside, my lord. She would not leave her harp." She handed him a bucket of water and went back to draw more.

"How could you abandon her?"

There was apology in her voice, but no shame. "I had to get the boy to safety. I tried to bring her, but the harp got stuck on the railing, and she wouldn't let go." She didn't say what he knew had been her thoughts—that an eight year old boy with all his wits about him was worth more than a broken old woman who didn't know her own son.

"I'll go." He ran toward the massive front doors, as smoke began to boil out. Helena followed him. He waved her back. "I know this house, you do not."

"Rand..." He could see her fear naked in her eyes. But he could offer no assurances. Only... "I'll wager you a new gown that I'll be out with my mother in under a minute."

She stopped, closing her eyes, "Hurry."

He fought through the roiling smoke, sensing his direction by years of familiarity. Still, he might not have found her in the hellish chaos if not for the sounds of the harp cutting through the din of the fire.

She lay on the floor at the foot of the stairs. She had tried to crawl for safety, but the harp had caught in the railings and was wedged tight. She played it where it wedged, as if there was no fire around her.

He bent down to shout in her ear above the crackle of the flames as they ate through dry wood and years of dust and debris. "Milady, we must leave at once."

"My harp," she cried, clutching the unwieldy instrument to her as he tried to lift her.

"You must leave it."

Stubbornly, she wrapped her arms around the instrument. "No. My son loves it so."

Desperate, he coughed and promised blindly, "I will get you another. You must leave it."

She seemed no more concerned than a curious child. "Is there danger?"

"Yes." Again he tried to lift her, again she resisted.

"Is my Rand safe?"

"Yes." He cursed, realizing that he had wasted time with the harp when he should have used the baby as a lure. "Don't you want to calm him? He is very frightened right now. He needs his mother."

"I must go to my little boy. He needs me." She released the harp without further protest. He carried her from the burning building.

He grinned at Helena. "I owe you a gown."

She shook her head grimly.

"You were supposed to be gone to fetch me the boy." His grandfather stood staring at the rag tag survivors as if he were sorely disappointed.

Rand put his mother down gently against the well so that she could use the stone wellhead for support. He turned to face his grandfather. "What is the punishment for a man who does not keep his word, Grandfather? You promised me they would be safe if I gave you the boy and you have the place torched within minutes of our agreement."

His mother bleated in alarm, whether because of the fire, or his grandfather, he could not say. Jenny hurried to put the red-headed child in her arms and his mother soothed the baby's fears and calmed herself, with a crooning, "There, there, it will all be fine in a moment, Rand. Mama won't let the bad man hurt you ever again."

"There is no dishonor in breaking your word if it is given to a proven liar." Moving as fast as a snake, his grandfather plucked up the boy and stared into his face for a moment. "Not my blood," he said at last, and would have tossed the child to the ground if Jenny hadn't leaped to catch him by the arms.

The air was suddenly full of infant cries. Before Rand could move, his mother let out a scream and threw her battered body at the marquess' legs, unbalancing him. He would have tumbled harmlessly against the side of the well, but the untended mortar between the stones crumbled under his weight. The stones gave way and fell into the well. The marquess followed them headlong, disappearing from view.

His mother leaned against the crumbled wall, staring at the spot of collapsed stone which marked where the marquess had disappeared. After a moment, she held out her arms to the baby. "Everything is fine now, Rand. The bad man is gone. He'll never hurt you again."

* * * * *

Helena came awake suddenly and opened her eyes to see Rand leaning up on one arm, watching her. He smiled lazily at her. "I wish I had a paintbrush."

"What would you do with it?"

He teased a strand of her hair, playing it across her lips. "Create a masterpiece of course."

She sat up, remembering how they had arrived last night, a filthy, tired group, all still stunned from the sudden death of the marquess. "We haven't time. We have to deal with our displaced householders before the duke thinks we've dropped them in his lap permanently."

"Your sister seems unsure of me."

"What should she be? Remember, you did bring me back covered in soot and dirt, dressed in men's clothing...or should I say, half-dressed in men's clothing." She smiled when he seemed to take her teasing seriously. "She will come around. You have a way with women, my lord."

"Do I?" He pulled the sheet from her slowly, exposing her breasts, and then her abdomen. He stopped, examining the faint pink scars that marked her there. He leaned down to kiss across her belly and then rested his cheek against her.

She patted his head and would have spoken then, but he raised up, startling her to pronounce, "We must always sleep together in the same bed."

"As you like." She kissed him lightly on the lips.

He rolled away. "You are too accommodating, considering the bargain you made with me." Though his tone was teasing, his eyes were serious.

"What bargain is that?" She stroked her fingers along his ribs, and watched the gooseflesh rise on his skin. "That I should be able to do as I wish?"

"Exactly."

"But I am."

He traced the scars on her belly again. "I'll never leave you again, not even when you beg me to."

She raised his head with her hands. "I won't."

Rand closed his eyes. "You sound so certain. But this is not the bargain we made, and you may come to regret it, after a handful of children and me becoming a responsible marquess."

She let out a low chuckle. "That will be a sight to see."

"I don't know how good a father I'll be. Or even how good a husband. So if you wish to wait before we begin trying to make a daughter, there are ways to arrange it."

"New lessons?" Her eyes lit with mischief. "There is nothing for it but to try." She rose from the bed and slipped on her robe, unable to suppress a smile.

He had only a moment to suspect what she might be about before she returned and confirmed his suspicion with the swaddled bundle in her arms.

He sat up.

She smiled then, wholeheartedly. "Let me introduce your son to you. I hope you don't mind that we've named him. But it would have been unfortunate to let him go all this time addressed only as "Boy" or "Baby."

Rand held his breath as Helena handed his son into his arms. "What have you called him?"

She touched the tiny cheek. "James Randolph." The boy slept deeply, not stirring at the exchange.

"After my father. He would have approved." The small body lay trusting and pliant in his father’s hold. A father whose forehead was rapidly beading with sweat. "Take him back," he pleaded with her.

"No." Helena only smiled. "I want to capture this moment."

He began to groan at the sight of her sketchbook, but broke off when the child stirred restlessly in his arms. "I might drop him."

She looked at him for a moment, consideringly, not as an artist but as a mother. Then she shook her head and pulled her pen out of her basket. "You never would."

His son’s body was warm against his bare chest, one tiny arm free of swaddling curled against his shoulder. He reached a tentative finger to be instinctively grasped by the sleeping infant's fingers.

Helena was looking at him now with her artist’s eyes.

He realized that she might fall into one of her near trances and leave him with the child. He looked down at the boy, suddenly worried. "I don’t...I never..."

She settled easily at the end of the bed and found a clean sheet for her drawing. And then, as if belatedly hearing the panic in his voice, her artist’s gaze cleared for a moment, to that of a wife who loved her husband despite his myriad flaws. "A baby’s head is sweet to kiss," she said softly.