The Star-Crossed Bride (26 page)

"I could take her away to Europe. She could divorce you." Valentine made his threat by instinct.

Granbury was growing much too cocky. He needed to be made to doubt himself somehow.

Kerstone sighed. "See? He may be my wife's brother, but he has no sense of propriety at all. What makes you so certain he will keep the secret, whether the scandal hurts Emily or not?"

The marquess looked him in the eye and Valentine felt as if his soul was being scoured for clues. But then, with a flick of his gaze, the marquess turned his attention back to the duke. "He loves her enough to play the part of servant. He will say nothing once he has lost her."

"Perhaps, once he knows all is lost, he will want revenge?" Kerstone suggested reasonably.

Granbury's laughter was pitying. "No, he will pine for her, like the impotent, inferior lover he has always been."

Valentine fought his rage, which made him want to throw the truth in the sneering marquess's face. He had not only married Emily, he had bedded her. And she had not found him inferior in any way. But he did not.

Granbury thought once he and Emily married, he would be safe. If he knew he could not marry her because she already possessed a husband, there was no telling what he might do to Emily in his rage.

Kerstone had come close enough to touch Emily's sleeve before Granbury noticed and pulled her off her feet, tightening the cord around her neck. Emily's gasp of fright stopped the duke. "Don't follow us, or I will find it necessary to mar her pretty neck as I did that insolent maid's earlier. None of us want that, I'm certain."

The men stood still, forced to watch as Emily and the marquess disappeared into the darkness, down the wooded path toward the stables.

"Are you just going to stand there like two lumps?" Nan recalled the men's attention to the situation at hand with her caustic comment. They turned to stare at her, but her face was invisible inside the hood of her cloak, with rain dripping steadily down.

"No. We must follow them."

Valentine would have followed the path the marquess had taken, but Nan stopped him with a hand on his arm. "There's a shorter path-the one the servants take sometimes." Over her shoulder, as she led the way, she said, "It's a mite less well cleared, but we'll get to the stables before they do, if we 'urry."

Emily could feel the cord around her neck. It was not tight enough to restrict her breathing, as it had been for Nancy. But all that would take would be a quick twist of Granbury's fingers. She needed to escape. But how? Their passage down the rain-slick path was slow and steady as he pulled her backward. But suddenly he forced her to a stop and held his finger to his lips for silence. She heard nothing but the patter of the rain on the leaves above.

He uttered a sigh of satisfaction. Evidently nothing but raindrops was what he wanted to hear. "We'll go faster if I don't have to drag you," he muttered, releasing her, but not his hold on the cord around her throat. He grabbed her arm and began to pull her up the path. She tried to resist, but he would not slow his pace and twice she nearly slipped on the leaves underfoot. Common sense warned her that to fall would mean strangulation or worse, so she went only as slowly as she could do safely.

Too soon they reached the stables. The stable men watched without curiosity as Granbury led her into the stable yard and called for a horse to be saddled.

Despite the weather, despite the darkness, they complied without question. Where this evening she would wish for them to be shorthanded and slow, instead they worked quickly. In too few minutes a deferent servant, who didn't even look her in the eye and see her plea for help, led out the marquess's horse. She noticed that he had ordered only one horse saddled. She dared to hope that meant — "Are you letting me go free?"

"No." His answer was short and brusque. Even as he spoke, his gaze followed the shadows of the path.

Emily hoped he had simply overlooked her need for a mount in his haste. "Then where is my horse?"

Unfortunately, he had not. "You will ride with me." He tugged playfully at the cord. "I will not risk letting you out of my sight this time until we are married."

Damn! Emily studied the marquess's horse. If only it had been a more sedate mount that would be easily overtaken by one of the better beasts in her mother's stable. But the animal was magnificent and would no doubt hold them both and still manage to outpace most horses without difficulty. She was beginning to believe that she was going to be forced to commit bigamy when she caught sight of a flicker of movement in the shadows within the stable entrance. There. It came again. She watched closely turning her back to the marquess so he would not see where she had focused her attention. With renewed hope in her heart, she saw Valentine take advantage of Granbury's inattention to step out and catch her eye. He put his finger to his lips.

She nodded, not even allowing herself a smile, in case the marquess might notice and wonder at it. In one blink of her eye, Valentine had disappeared. For a despairing moment, she wondered if hopelessness had made her dream that he was there.

"Up you go, my dear," Granbury said in her ear as he lifted her into the saddle. He mounted quickly behind her. The horse registered its protest of a double burden with sudden skittishness. Granbury had no trouble controlling the animal, however. "Ho!" he murmured, pulling tight on the reins. The horse gentled at once, to Emily's great disappointment.

"Your mother's stables are not as fine as they once used to be, I'm afraid," he complained in her ear. "Zeus does not balk unless he has been poorly cared for."

"Perhaps the feed was not up to his usual standards," Emily replied with a touch of irony. "Or the stall was colder than he is used to."

Granbury laughed. With his body pressed tight against her back, the vibration was most unpleasant.

She hoped Valentine did not intend to wait much longer to rescue her. And then she realized what was holding him back. She reached up to her neck and pulled at the cord. "If Zeus throws me, this will break my neck more surely than the fall itself." Granbury's cold damp fingers traced her neck a little above where the cord lay. "A little insurance is always wise when one possesses a valuable investment that is not yet secure," he answered.

"I…"

"When we are married, Emily," he chided her. "I will not remove it a moment sooner." The cord grew tighter as he spoke. "Do not question me again."

She nodded, feeling the cord pull against her throat as she did so. "I won't," she answered meekly. To her relief, the cord grew loose as a necklace. Apparently the marquess appreciated her humility and obedience enough to reward it.

Hopefully Valentine and the duke had seen the exchange and understood that the cord would not be taken off in the stable yard. She prayed they would not use that as an excuse to allow the marquess to ride away from the castle unhampered.

As Granbury turned the horse away from the stables, the animal shied again. This time, it pawed its hoofs into the air and Emily was afraid of being unseated. Instinctively, she tried to slip the loose cord over her head while Granbury busied himself getting control over the horse.

Just as a groom grabbed the reins and forced the horse to stand still, Emily found herself free. Granbury had providentially loosed his grip on the cord while he fought for control. Without further consideration, she dove from the horse. For a moment she thought herself free. Then, with a rip of silk, the marquess's hands grasped at her skirts and she was caught, dangling at the side of the still skittish mount.

But not for long. Strong hands grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away from the horse, even as it once again reared. She embraced Valentine, feeling the tears of relief fill her eyes so that she could not see his face as more than a blur in the darkness.

He pulled her away from Zeus and she saw that the duke held the reins. They had him. The plan had worked after all. But even as she turned to kiss Valentine full on the mouth in celebration, Granbury slashed away the reins with a sharp knife he pulled from his boot. Before anyone could react, he had wrapped his hands in the horse's mane and spurred the frantic stallion toward freedom.

Valentine swore as the mud from Zeus's hooves splattered against him like blows. His arms tightened around Emily and he drew her face into his chest to protect her from the brief but thorough assault. He exchanged a glance with Kerstone. Should they saddle their horses and follow? In the dark and the rain it would be difficult .... But even as he had the thought, he knew that they could not move quickly enough to catch Granbury.

Still, they had to try. To leave at large a monster who valued life so little — It was unthinkable. "I shall see that the horses are readied…" He had released Emily and turned to do so even as he spoke, but the duke stopped him with a gesture.

In a voice that captured the low moment they all felt, he asked, "What use would it be to bring him back here now?"

Wasn't the answer clear enough? The question surprised Valentine. Even Emily turned in puzzlement to glance at her cousin.

He said, "We can do as we planned, and tell everyone what we saw."

"We could." His brother-in-law frowned. "No doubt he would claim he had come upon the two of us trying to kill Nan — or perhaps his twisted sense of humor would make him claim he had foiled an elopement between you and Emily. And it would be our word against his."

True. The marquess did seem to have the gift of turning things to his own favor. "We must do something," Valentine said.

The duke nodded, his glance going quickly to Emily and then back to Valentine. "But must we do something that forces the man back here, where not only Emily, but Nancy as well, face danger from him?"

The question made sense. Now that the marquess had left the castle, there was less urgency to unmask his crimes. But they still must look for justice. "You do intend to pursue him, then?"

The duke nodded. "Yes. I will notify a discreet and very competent man in my employ to track his whereabouts."

"Is that safe?" Emily, her voice still shaky from her brush with death, faced her cousin. "What if he decides to return?"

The duke rubbed the rain from his eyes wearily. "I would not return, if I had — " He broke off and sighed. "But then, I am not mad. We shall have to remain on guard until we find where he has run to. The man seems to have no conscience — a dangerous advantage for an enemy."

"So we shall simply give up?" Emily's outrage was obvious.

Valentine would have soothed her by taking her into his arms, but it occurred to him that he was still dressed as a footman and the other servants would no doubt notice and question the familiarity between their mistress and a servant. He said gently. "No, we will not give up. We shall have to come up with a better plan."

"Now that he knows we are aware of his crimes? He will not be so foolish as to let us trap him again."

"True," Kerstone replied. "But Emily, there are those men who make their living doing tasks such as uncovering murderers and bringing them to justice. I will hire one of them — one I know will handle this matter well."

"So he escapes justice yet again." Emily nodded, her dissatisfaction clearly visible. "At least he is gone from here and Nancy is safe."

"No one is safe until Granbury is brought to justice," The duke answered sharply. There were lines of worry etched around his eyes that gave Valentine pause. Their vigilance would have to double. Granbury was not a man to dismiss — even if he was not nearby.

"Let us return to the castle and let Miranda know what has happened." He glanced around the stable yard, and then looked sternly at Emily. "I can only say it is a miracle that she had more sense than you showed, and remained in the castle as instructed."

Nan, who had been standing silently beside them, did not let that pass. "Lady Emily saved my life, your grace. She may 'ave no sense, but she 'as more courage than anyone I know." The maid turned her back to the duke, put her arm around Emily and began to lead her back to the house. "Come, my lady, I will fix you a bath."

Emily laughed softly. "And I will have someone tend that cut on your neck where the cord bit deep."

"I think they've recovered from their ordeal faster than I have," the duke observed dryly.

Valentine agreed, following them all back to the castle. His mind churned with possibilities, but none that satisfied him. He wished that The duke was wrong about the futility of pursuing Granbury. No doubt they would both feel better if they were able to ride hard in the dark, rather than return to the castle and decide what to do now that Granbury had fled.

Thankfully, the duke would have to deal with Miranda and all her questions.

"I am star-crossed, there is no doubt," Emily lamented to Miranda as they all huddled in clandestine comfort in her room. Nancy had provided them with a pot of chocolate for the women and a bottle of port for the men. "How could things go so wrong"

"How could you have offered yourself in exchange for the maid?" Miranda asked. "I am in awe of your courage."

Emily shrugged. "He wanted to marry me, I didn't think he was as likely to kill me as he was to kill Nancy."

"That was a risky gamble," the duke ground out.

Emily shook her head. "No. I was right. He didn't give a fig for her life. It's a wonder that she wasn't killed. You should have seen her, Miranda, with that rope around her throat. Her face turned purple."

Valentine tightened his arms around her. "You could have been killed. I have not seen anything so foolish since I saw you climb out your window and hang a dozen feet above the ground on bedsheets you had tied together. I do believe I wish I had let you run away as you intended back then."

The duke cleared his throat. "I wondered how you two met up with each other this time, given the countess's security."

"It was fate, of course." Emily sighed. "I cannot believe all our plans came to naught."

Miranda sipped at her chocolate. "He thought more quickly on his feet than we expected, I suppose. But we can take heart that he is on the run. I expect the duke is right and he will turn up in London, as if nothing had happened."