FORD CHASED Jason down the corridor. “You cannot just leave!” He plucked him by the sleeve. “How long have you known?”
“Nearly two days. I felt wretched keeping it from her, but I just couldn’t tell her. I knew it would be like this.” He wrenched from Ford’s grasp and continued walking.
Ford ran after him. “You knew it would be like what?”
“She hates me. Couldn’t you see it her eyes? Whatever feelings she had for me just died.”
It had been even worse than he’d thought it would be. Much, much worse.
“I couldn’t stay and watch that. I love her. Gothard’s well and truly ruined my life.” He started down a narrow flight of stairs.
“You never would have met her without Gothard.” Ford’s voice came from behind him. “She’s in shock. She might need some time to absorb it all, but if she loved you before, she still will. It was an accident.”
At the bottom of the steps, Jason whirled. “I killed her brother. Her brother. Do you reckon I’d find forgiveness for the man who killed you, or Kendra, or Colin? It was bad enough when the man was nameless. This isn’t easy to live with, Ford.”
He stopped and took a deep breath. Inside him was naught but an abyss of grief and regret and guilt. But he had to look outside himself right now. He had other responsibilities.
“Go back to Kendra and Cait,” he said. “And—her cousin, is he?” Ford nodded. “She loves him—he will comfort her much better than I could. She killed Wat, you know.”
“What?”
“Wat’s in the back room. You’ll need to send for the authorities. I take it you warned Scarborough?”
“Criminy.” Ford’s eyes widened. “No. We ran into her cousin and learned the truth and—egad, I forgot. We came straight here to tell Cait what we knew, and—”
Jason was already running for the exit.
JASON STRODE through Lord Darnley’s front door, past the gaping footman and into a swarm of glittering guests. Scarborough. Where was Scarborough? What the deuce did the man look like? He’d seen him once or twice at court, but, hang it, he’d never paid much attention, and—
With a jolt of relief he spotted him. Sandy-haired, like Gothard, but taller and sporting a broad mustache. Dressed in deep blue velvet and apparently unconcerned, Scarborough stood in a circle of young men, discussing the shocking news that Clarendon, the Lord Chancellor, had resigned earlier in the day.
“Barbara was leaning from her window, cheering at his departure,” Scarborough said as Jason walked up. Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine and the king’s longtime mistress, had always hated Clarendon. “So do you know what he said to her?”
The men leaned closer into the circle. “What?”
“’Pray remember, my lady, that if you live, you will grow old.’”
Amid their laughter, Jason touched Scarborough on the arm. “I apologize for interrupting, but there’s a matter of some urgency.”
Scarborough turned, a look of confusion on his face. “Yes?”
Just as Jason was about to respond, a flash of silver caught his eye.
He spun around, shoving Scarborough from harm’s way as he drew his rapier from its scabbard. “I arrest you in the name of the king,” he cried, startled to hear how his voice carried. “You will put down your weapons and wait here for the magistrate.”
The music stopped, and as one, the wedding guests turned to watch. Jason’s grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. “Now, Gothard.”
The disguised man’s gaze held hard and unwavering. “We meet again,” he drawled through the bushy brown beard. “My nearest and dearest enemy.”
Words familiar to Jason. Familiar and enraging. “Once and for all, why should you call me your enemy?”
Gothard’s sunburned features went tight with resentment. His blue eyes narrowed. “You have what should rightfully be mine.”
“Rightfully yours?” Again Jason had the feeling he’d seen those eyes. Befuddled, his head swam. “I have nothing that is yours. And because of this misconception, you’ve been following me, trying to kill me?”
“I never wanted to kill you,” Gothard said with a smile—a cold one. “Only to enjoy some of your riches. They should have been mine. Including your girl.” The familiar eyes turned as cold as the smile. “I’d have taken her long before now if you’d ever left her alone.”
Jason ignored the threat to Cait. She was safe. But he swiped at his missing mustache, infuriated.
All the disguises and hiding, and Gothard had never been out to kill them. Just playing hide-and-seek.
“And Scarborough?” He nodded in the man’s direction.
“Him I want dead.” The wild sheen in Gothard’s eyes said he wasn’t sane. “With him dead, Wat inherits and I get what I deserve.”
What he deserved was questionable at the moment. He was well and truly mad. “What about what I deserve, Gothard? What do I owe you and why?”
“May you roast for all eternity.” Gothard moved forward, then pulled back when Jason brandished his sword. “Both you and the father we share.”
Confusion and anger coursing through him, Jason advanced. “We share nothing!” He circled the tip of his rapier, then sliced it hissing through the air in a swift move that brought a collective gasp from the wedding guests.
The blade’s thin shadow flickered across the candlelit parquet floor. His mind whirled with thoughts of little Mary, her mother Clarice, Cait and her brother Adam…all the blood, the irrational violence.
With a roar, Gothard lunged, and the first clash of steel on steel rang through the ballroom.
“I was born first,” Gothard yelled. “It should be mine, all mine!”
He slashed wildly, catching Jason’s sword across the middle. The vibrations shimmied up Jason’s arm. Muscles tense, he swung and thrust, and again steel bashed against steel. His heart pounded; blood pumped furiously through his veins.
What Gothard was saying couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be this demon’s half brother.
They scrambled onto the dance floor, and the crowd scurried back. Gothard was cornered, but Jason was incensed. He would never believe it, never. He edged Gothard back against the wall. Gothard took sudden advantage, and Jason found himself retreating as their blades tangled, slid, broke free with a metallic twang.
His arm ached to the very bone. Perspiration dripped slick from his forehead, stinging his eyes. But the other man’s breath came hard and ragged.
Measuring his foe, Jason put his all into one determined swipe of his sword, and Gothard’s went clanging to the floor and skittered into the crowd of gaping spectators.
“I came not to kill today, Gothard, but merely to see justice done.” Jason sucked in air, smelled the other man’s desperation. “There are those here who will see to it you won’t escape.”
An affirming murmur came from the crowd, and men jostled forward, hands going to their hilts.
Jason waved them back. “Tell me what you said isn’t true.”
“It is true. And you won’t live to enjoy what should have been mine!” Gothard went into an all-too-familiar crouch, coming up with a pistol in his hand.
In a flash of blue velvet, Scarborough leapt forward and knocked the gun from his older brother’s grasp. It went flying, barely missing a minister’s head as it sailed though a window with a startling crash. “You won’t live to kill again, brother.”
Scarborough nodded at Jason, who moved in.
An inhuman howl of rage escaped Gothard as he rammed past Scarborough and flung himself into a knot of matrons. Screams erupted and rainbow shades of satin and silk swirled in a colorful kaleidoscope as wedding guests darted out of his path. He burst through the doors that led to the garden, broken glass crunching beneath his feet as he disappeared into the trees.
Within a heartbeat Jason was after him, chasing him along a graveled path. Footsteps pounded behind him; he assumed they were Scarborough’s and kept running. This time he wouldn’t fail. Even should he have to do the unthinkable, he wouldn’t let Gothard get away.
But first he needed answers.
His lungs burned with the effort to catch up. Confound it, Gothard was fast. But not fast enough. Gothard might be running for his life, but Jason was fueled by implacable fury and a resolve born of weeks of frustration. His muscles pumped with determination; his jaw gritted with iron will.
His quarry was nearly within reach.
He pulled up short when Gothard staggered to the ground.
He hadn’t registered the sharp report of the bullet. But he turned to see the pistol that had shot it. And the woman on the other end of it.
Emerald MacCallum.
It hadn’t even occurred to him that she was after the reward when he saw her at the inn. He’d thought only of Cait. Now he looked to the ground and Gothard’s still, lifeless form. He dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse.
Dead. Gothard was dead. He frantically searched the limp body, for a letter, a miniature, anything. Anything that would prove or disprove what the man had claimed.
“He was telling the truth,” Scarborough said quietly from behind him.
Jason sat back on his heels, feeling the unmanly sting of tears in his eyes.
A crowd was gathering again, people pouring through the doors and out into the garden. Scarborough turned and conducted a hasty, whispered conversation with Lord Darnley. Together they hustled the guests back inside. It took some minutes, and by the time Scarborough returned, Jason had composed himself.
The gray day had finally delivered on its promise, and a light drizzle fell from the sky. Silently Scarborough walked Jason down the garden path, away from the sight of the body.
Their brother.
Jason dropped onto a stone bench, his hands dangling limply between his spread knees, his eyes blindly perusing the wet gravel beneath his feet.
Scarborough sat beside him. “Your father had a dalliance with my mother before either of them married.” His voice was low, his words matter-of-fact. “When he fell in love with your mother, he left mine with child. Eventually she was offered to my father as a widow with a young son. She was beautiful, and her family had land that bordered his. Her dowry. He didn’t know the truth at the time, but when he learned it later, he forgave her. Their marriage wasn’t bad, all things considered.”
Jason’s father—the valiant war hero—had had an illicit affair. Had left a pregnant woman. Had left behind a child.
“Geoffrey was the oldest,” Scarborough continued, “but he would never inherit. He resented it. He made my life miserable.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason muttered, feeling somehow as though he were to blame.
“He never knew who his own father was until our parents died. While going through their things, we found—a letter. From your father to my mother. From that moment, Geoffrey…” Scarborough seemed at a loss for words. His fingers curled into fists. “He lost his mind. It’s the only way I can put it. It was as though he finally had somewhere to channel all that hatred. I’m sorry I threw him out, though. If I’d known he would come after you, I’d have coped with him somehow. I feel a substantial burden of responsibility here, and for that I apologize.”
“It’s not your fault.” Jason shoved the damp hair from his eyes. It was his father’s fault. His not-so-perfect father. A human man after all, selfish enough to act in his own interests, a man who had made mistakes.
Mistakes that Jason had paid for. And little Mary and her mother. And Adam and Caithren, and who knew how many others?
“I thank you for your candor.” Jason rose and held out a hand.
Scarborough stood and grasped it tightly. “I’m sorry.”
“And for jumping in to save me from Gothard’s pistol.”
“I was only evening the score. You saved me from his sword. I would never have recognized him in that disguise.”
Their eyes met, acknowledging each other. Two men who both did what needed to be done.
“I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” With a nod, Scarborough backed away, then turned and walked toward the house.
“Pardon me, but are you the Marquess of Cainewood?”
The voice was light and musical, and Jason swiveled to see Emerald MacCallum. Good heavens, she topped him in height. How had he ever insisted that Cait was Emerald?
Taken aback, he blinked. “Where is your emerald amulet?”
Her eyes looked puzzled. “My what?”
“Your…” He shook his head to clear it. “How did you get your name?”
She grinned. “My birth name is Flora. The first time I went tracking, I recovered a large cache of stolen emeralds. The news sheets called me ‘Emerald’ MacCallum, and the name stuck.”
Of course. It made perfect sense. Another misconception that had stubbornly lodged in his head.
“Lord Cainewood…” When she swept off her man’s hat, the drizzle beaded on her bright red curls. “I believe you had offered a reward…?”
He measured her, unblinking. He sensed she was a good woman, drawn to desperate measures. Something he understood now more than ever before.
And he remembered a man saying she was a mother.
“You have children?”
“Aye.” Her eyes saddened, and he knew what to do.
The pouch in his surcoat was heavy. He drew it out and handed it to her.
Frowning, she spilled the contents into her hand and slowly counted a hundred pounds, then put the rest back.
“Keep it,” Jason said. “All of it.”
“But…there’s more than two hundred pounds here! Maybe three. The reward was a hundred.” Her expression said she thought he’d lost his mind.
Perhaps he had. “Keep it,” he repeated. “I didn’t exactly want to see justice done this way, but perhaps it is for the best.” He shrugged. “As for the money…I would just as soon not picture you chasing dangerous men all over England. Go home to your children.”
She smiled, her face transforming. Her eyes brimmed with tears. And once he’d thought that a woman like her would never cry. Another thing he’d been wrong about.
“Take it and make a life for yourself,” he said. “And your family.”
“I will,” she breathed. “God bless you, Lord Cainewood.”