The Duke of Lindow wore all the frills and furbelows that the rank both demanded and conferred. But he was a Wilde at heart. His eyes were icy.
“If she hadn’t threatened your life, Miss Ffynche, I would have let her free. But now she must be confined.”
Alaric expected Willa to request mercy, but she just nodded. “It has occurred to me that our children would be at risk.”
Children. Children with Willa. It gave him a peculiar feeling that he had no difficulty identifying as joy.
“Thank you,” Alaric said. His father wasn’t the sort of Englishman who lavished affection or praise. But ever since he was a child, he’d known that his father was always there, a man to be counted on.
“Hopefully, the news of this night’s adventures won’t spread,” the duke said, his voice returning to its usual dry cadence. “You are famous enough as it is. A bloodthirsty missionary’s daughter would make you legendary.”
“What about Diana?” Willa asked. “Prudence told me that she’d left the castle.”
“North followed her to London,” the duke said. “He will make certain that she returns safely to her mother’s care.”
Prism bowed. “Baths are being prepared, Miss Ffynche, Lord Alaric. I will deliver a light repast to your chambers.”
“I shall escort Miss Ffynche to her chamber,” Alaric said. In truth, he had no intention of leaving her, but he might as well preserve appearances. He took Willa’s arm and they made their way slowly upstairs, trailing bits of peat. “It’s been a long day,” she said unnecessarily, stopping at her door.
He put an arm against the door, over her head, and smiled down at her with voluptuous pleasure. His wife-to-be was disheveled and dirty. He thought she’d never been more beautiful.
“I’m joining you,” he informed her. “I mean to make love to you on a bed for the first time, though we may have to sleep first.”
For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse. They were back in the castle, after all. Someone might find out. She might be ruined.
“Oh, and I’m marrying you as soon as I can get a special license,” he added. “No waiting for banns.”
“No one is making love to me before I’ve had a bath,” Willa announced. “Perhaps you can pay me a visit later.”
Alaric brought his lady’s small, muddy hand to his lips. “An excellent idea,” he said, as smoothly as if they were discussing cups of tea. “Except I cannot let you out of my sight. I—”
He dropped her hand.
Impossibly, Prudence—Prudence, who was supposed to be under guard in her bedchamber—was making her way down the corridor toward them. Even more impossibly, a pistol was gripped in her right hand.
Alaric’s eyes met hers as he gathered himself to lunge.
“Don’t move,” she snapped. “This pistol is cocked and aimed at your concubine. The duke took one of my pistols from me, but they come in pairs—or at least, mine did.” Her eyes burned with a nameless macabre light, but her hand was steady. At this range, she couldn’t miss.
At his side, Willa stood frozen, scarcely breathing.
“I wrote that play for you, Alaric, from pure love,” Prudence said, in throbbing accents. “That was before I knew you were a misguided sinner, one who will writhe in the pitchy smoke of darkest hell, unless you repent.”
“Prudence,” Alaric began.
“I love you too much to leave your soul in the care of a trollop,” she remarked, as casually as if she were discussing laundry—and Alaric’s instincts told him it was a declaration of intent.
At once, he threw himself in front of Willa while pushing her to the floor. The pistol cracked with a deafening report and a flash of light, and the corridor filled with the acrid, sulfurous smell of gunpowder.
For some moments, chaos reigned. Doors slammed open, and Willa heard cries and pounding feet. Alaric lay, face down, on top of her. To her horror, she realized that the warmth she felt was blood. His blood.
“Alaric!” she cried, trying to extricate herself without injuring him further.
His face was colorless. “Sorry, darling,” he whispered.
Like a guardian angel’s, Lady Knowe’s face appeared above hers. “Good, there’s an exit wound,” she said. In one smooth movement, she lifted Alaric and laid him gently on his back.
Willa came to her knees. Her hand instinctively went to the wound in Alaric’s shoulder to try to stop the flow of blood gushing from it. She discovered that she was praying, praying harder than she ever had in her life, pleading for Alaric’s life with every sobbing breath.
Lady Knowe kindly but firmly pushed her away. As a footman leaned close, holding a lantern, Alaric’s aunt ripped open his shirt and examined the wound. She put her weight behind wads of cloth applied above and below.
The duke was standing to the side, holding Prudence’s arms clamped to her sides. She was staring at Alaric, crying something.
It wasn’t until she repeated it three times that Willa understood. “He saved her. He sacrificed himself for her.”
“We need a litter,” the duke commanded. His voice was as quietly authoritative as ever.
“It’s just a shoulder wound,” Lady Knowe said calmly. “No vital parts.”
At this point, Prudence became hysterical, sobbing and shrieking.
“Prism, take a footman and search her luggage to make sure she wasn’t carrying the contents of an armory along with her,” His Grace instructed. “And find out how in the bloody hell she escaped the room in the first place!”
Prism hauled Prudence away down the corridor, surrounded by three footmen.
That was a good thing, because Willa—who had never had an impulse to physical violence that she remembered—was close to lunging at her and ripping hair from her scalp. Instead, she watched closely as Alaric’s aunt lifted the pad covering the bullet’s entrance wound. Blood still oozed, but the flow had subsided.
Lady Knowe made a satisfied sound and pressed the pad down again. “Alaric’s always been lucky.”
“ ‘Lucky’?” Willa cried, trying to reconcile the notion with what had just happened.
“The bullet’s not inside, and he won’t lose use of the arm, unless I miss my guess.”
Footmen arrived with a litter, and Willa scrambled to her feet. She looked down at herself helplessly. The mud of the bog was now mixed with blood, so much blood.
As footmen lifted Alaric onto the litter, he opened his eyes. “Someone get a special license,” he muttered.
“No need—I have one,” his father said calmly. “It was acquired for North, but it will do.”
Alaric’s eyelids were heavy but he made an obvious effort. “It will be in his name,” he said in a harsh whisper.
His Grace shook his head, his lips twisted in a rueful line. “In fact, it isn’t. You can thank Horatius for that—North wasn’t sure whether he had to marry under Horatius’s courtesy title, which he has refused to take, so the archbishop left the license blank.”
“Up,” Lady Knowe commanded the footmen, ignoring the conversation.
“If I’m delirious, I suppose we could wait a few days,” Alaric said, his eyes closing.
“I don’t allow my patients to get fevers,” Lady Knowe announced. She strode after the footmen, shouting orders to do with boiling water and comfrey-root poultices.
Alaric didn’t open his eyes again for well over twenty-four hours. Willa had bathed, washed her hair three times, and eaten something. She was sitting by his bed, having chased off any number of retainers and family members, including Lady Knowe, Alaric’s valet, his brother Spartacus, and the duke.
Alaric’s father put up the most resistance, and Willa knew he’d be back in a matter of a few hours, no matter what she said. But at least there was some peace in the chamber now.
If she’d been torn open by a hot lead ball, she’d want quiet in which to heal.
When Alaric opened his eyes, she started and put a hand on his forehead. “Hello, darling,” she whispered.
“Did Aunt Knowe take care of me?” he murmured.
Willa nodded. “She sewed you up herself with all sorts of fussing.” She dropped a kiss on his forehead.
He smiled faintly. “My aunt’s had practice, with all the hunting and archery done on the estate.”
Willa hadn’t given much thought to the dangers of hunting. “Our sons will never hunt,” she told him. It was terrifying to see Alaric lying so still, his face ashen, his shoulder bound up in muslin.
“Let’s conceive the sons before we make rules for them.” Alaric was looking at her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, his mouth curled in a smile.
“How do you feel?” she asked, hand on his forehead.
“Aches,” he said with a grunt, twitching his shoulder. “If I hold off the fever, I’ll be up and about soon.”
“Up?” Willa cried. “You most certainly will not.”
“We’re getting married,” Alaric stated. He raised his shoulder slightly, winced, and let it drop. “If we have to say our vows here in this room, Evie, I’m marrying you.”
Willa smiled down at him. “I daren’t refuse, because your brother Leonidas set off for Manchester on horseback last night in order to get Lady Gray’s signature on that special license. He should be home in a few hours, and it would be most inconsiderate not to use the license at the earliest opportunity—if you are not feverish, of course.”