Marry the Man Today Read online

  Ross cleared his throat and put his mind to the task before he lost the sense of the moment, and his yearning to protect them became the danger to the mission.

  “He’s somewhere, dear,” Ross said to the clerk in his most beleaguered, husbandly derision. “He always is.”

  “Oh, Helen, look at this pretty gingham! It’s you!” Cassie and Skye were unrolling a bolt of yellow cloth between them.

  And damned if it wasn’t becoming a perfect screen across the back of the shop.

  “Oh, Josey! It is!” Jessica left Ross with the clerk and added her flouncing ruffles to the end of the counter.

  The aisle now looked like a decorated wagon in a mummer’s parade. Four skirts and four bonnets all swinging and bobbing. Four female voices raising a clamor against a wall of yellow gingham stretched here and there.

  All because of his amazing wife. Hell, this might work out after all.

  “You have quite a lovely family, sir!” The clerk lifted a sympathetic brow.

  “Don’t mean to be such a handful for you today, sir. With just one of you here and all.”

  The man gave a telling but nearly imperceptible flick of his eyes to the ceiling, then shook his head. “As usual, sir, a bit shorthanded this time of the day.”

  Pray God that he was right.

  “Mr. Norris, dear, has our Patrick come past you there? Or is the lad still outside somewhere?” Her eyes locked with his, alert to the play of the shop, as aware of everyone and everything as he was. “He’ll be wanting a look at the toy trains there on the shelves behind you.”

  “Yes, my dear.” Ross smiled wanly at the clerk and pointed wearily to the jar of humbugs. “A half pound, if you please. And make sure none of them are broken. Our Helen is a very .. . particular child.”

  Ross glanced at the chattering chaos at the back of the store, and noticed with a jolt of terror that Skye was missing from the mob. The core of their plan had been set in motion.

  Elizabeth could feel the concern in her husband, could see it in his dark eyes, his mouth drawn and deadly serious under that expansive moustache.

  A man wound tightly, ready to spring should anything go amiss. And if anything was going to go amiss, it would be right now.

  “Here, Helen, dear,” she said, holding up the length of gingham to cover Skye, who was on her knees, slipping through the curtain at the back of the shop.

  Seconds stretched out to minutes as she pictured Skye approaching the princess. Hopefully blindfolded, hopefully alone and unharmed. Dressing the hostage in a jacket and a pair of britches, cramming her hair into a cap.

  “Yellow is just perfect for my hair, Mama!” Jessica stood in front of the mirror, nearly dancing with the long length of fabric.

  While Elizabeth listened closely to the sounds from above, the soft brush of a footfall, a small voice, a creak. She was ready to rescue Skye or any of them, if it came to that. Armed as she was with a short cudgel and the will to use it.

  Just as she knew that Ross was prepared to do the same; she could see it in the broad set of his shoulders, in the powerful flex of his arms.

  But the amazing man kept the clerk busy with the rosewater and a box of cigars and a promise that he would purchase the entire length of yellow gingham.

  She held her breath and tried to steady her heart. Still, it was a full five grueling minutes before she finally heard two quiet sets of footsteps on the stairs.

  Quiet because it was Skye and the princess and not a brawling end to the mission.

  “Oh, good heavens, look at the time, girls!” she said, giving the signal that the princess was in hand and to prepare to leave the shop. “Your grandmother will start to fret if we’re a minute late.”

  “Can I have the gingham, please, Mama?” Jessica held out the bolt as Skye and the other figure slipped through the curtain and into the middle of their cluster.

  “Yes, child, your father’s already bought it for you, haven’t you, dear?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  They started forward from the rear of the shop as a group, then Elizabeth let out a loud snort. “Why, there you are, boy!”

  “Did you see the trains, Patrick?”

  “No trains for him, Josey; he missed his chance! Where have you been, boy?” Flooded with relief, Elizabeth clamped her arm around the small rounded shoulders of the princess and yanked the cap farther down over the blindfold. “Out gallivanting in the street, I’ll wager. Come along now, or you’ll not be getting your allowance this week.”

  While the three girls blocked the clerk’s view from the counter, Elizabeth led the stumbling, confused hostage through the aisle toward the door.

  They were just steps from freedom when a wiry man in a cap and a shop apron came striding through the door.

  He stopped abruptly in his tracks, blocking the whole of their exit.

  Elizabeth’s heart dropped into her stomach. She’d know that walk anywhere, even in the dark. She’d followed him here to the shop and then to the Austrian Embassy only a few hours before.

  She maneuvered herself and her skirts in front of the princess and gave the man an enormous smile.

  “Well, good afternoon to you, sir,” she said as brightly as she could manage.

  Still the man studied her for a moment, then the rest of her brood. Then cast a look above and behind them, doubtless at Ross towering above them all.

  The man then smiled and nodded. “Thank you for your patronage.” He stepped aside with a bow.

  “You’re most welcome, sir.” Her knees quaking, Elizabeth led her delegation through the doorway and out onto the sidewalk, with the princess disguised as her son and overwhelmed by the sea of crinolines and bonnets.

  The Carter P. Norris family, larger by one, paraded back down the street and around the corner to the waiting carriage, with Ross silently bringing up the rear.

  The rest happened quickly, silently.

  Henry opened the door and Elizabeth climbed in behind her husband. The girls surrounded the blindfolded princess and helped her up into the carriage, then down into a ball in the well between the seats.

  Then they hooked arms and kept walking down the street, chattering. Three young women on a market outing.

  What would she do without them?

  And what would she have done without Ross?

  Elizabeth wanted to bubble and blather to him about the terrifying parts of the operation and the nimble ones, the things they might do better next time, and how perfect he’d been at the spur of the moment.

  But her husband was pensive, unmoving; his gaze fixed out the window, his face unreadable, his mouth still masked by that ridiculous moustache.

  And with the princess at their feet, they couldn’t speak anyway. Not without risking her recognizing their voices at some time in the future. Or Ross’s immediately.

  But the princess was safe now, the world as well.

  And it was barely ten in the morning.

  And so Elizabeth watched out the window, startled when, instead of stopping in front of the Russian Embassy, they pulled through a pair of gates that opened into an unfamiliar courtyard that she couldn’t ask Ross about.

  Even as he silently handed her out the carriage door.

  A small group of equally silent men, doubtless more of her husband’s operatives, swooped out of a doorway then set to work gently moving the princess out of the carriage into the back of a van painted with the words finest household goods in deep arcs on each side.

  The poor woman was just as silent. Must still be terrified, though she must also have guessed at their good intentions because she had never struggled against her bonds or her blindfold, never cried out.

  Thinking that she ought to ride in the back with the princess and lend her a bit of comfort, Elizabeth looked around the busy courtyard for Ross. But he was nowhere to be seen.

  She was about to scour the place for him when she saw a bearded man with a slouching cap climbing into the driver’s seat of the van.

/>   Ross! She’d know those unforgettably dark eyes anywhere, that finely sculpted mouth. She went toward him, but he put up his hand to stop her and gave her a nodding salute, when surely she deserved a walloping kiss.

  More than a kiss!

  After all, they were still in the midst of their honeymoon!

  “Blast it all, Ross!” she whispered under her breath as her arrogant husband pulled the van through the gates and out into the street, taking the princess and all the risks with him.

  The blackguard! After all she’d done for him!

  “My lady Blakestone, if you please …”

  “Pembridge!”

  “His lordship said he might be away for a few hours, maybe more.” The man’s face flushed crimson. “So he wanted me to see you to your rooms at the Huntsman.”

  “A few hours?” Just to deliver the princess? Or maybe he had to report back to one of his many agencies.

  “He also said to tell you that you’d best be there when he returned, if you know what’s good for you.”

  “He actually had the nerve to say that?” No wonder Pembridge’s cheeks were red and growing redder.

  “Well, my lady, I’d certainly not be making up threats like that to another man’s wife.”

  Nor should the husband himself.

  “Then come along, Pembridge. Whether his lordship likes it or not, I have an excellent idea of what’s good for me.”

  And it wasn’t being locked in her husband’s sitting room for the rest of the day.

  Chapter 21

  It is the nature of a woman to cling to the man for support and direction, to comply with his humours and feel pleasure in doing so, simply because they are his; to conquer him not by force but by her weakness, to command him by obeying him… .

  Thomas Carlyle, to his fiancée, 1826

  “What’s good for me, husband, dear, may not always be what’s good for you. Elizabeth was still steaming mad a few minutes later when she went bolting into Ross’s empty suite at the Huntsman, prepared to do battle with the man the moment he returned. She was going to have to set him straight before their marriage grew another day older.

  She had just begun scrubbing the greasepaint off her face in the washroom when she thought she heard a knock at the door.

  It couldn’t be Ross, he hadn’t been gone long enough. Thinking it was Pembridge with a heaping tray of tea and biscuits, she opened the door to a stoop-shouldered old man peering at her from the private corridor.

  He was dressed well, his white hair neat and trimmed, his gray eyes drooping but surprised.

  “Oh, dear, miss. I must have knocked on the wrong door.” He glanced both directions down the hallway.

  “You’re looking for Lord Blakestone?”

  “Yes, is he here?” The old man looked past her shoulder.

  “I’m afraid he’s not right now. But I’m his wife. Elizabeth … uhm, I’m Lady Blakestone. I’d be happy to give him a message from you.”

  “His wife?” The man quirked his brow and studied her face. “I didn’t know the boy had married.”

  “It’s only been a day or two.” Worried about his balance, she caught his thin wrist. “Would you like to come in and leave a note?”

  “No, no, my lady.” But he came forward into the room with the gentlest tug. “The name is Tuckerton, Lord Tuckerton. I just came by to ask his lordship if he’d found my lass yet.”

  His lass? A lost, dreamy look had come into the man’s sad gray eyes. A long-dead wife, or a grandchild? “Have you lost someone, then?”

  “Oh, no, my dear. I wouldn’t be so careless with someone I love. My lass was taken.”

  Elizabeth drew back. “Taken where?”

  “I don’t know where, Lady Blakestone. Don’t know who took her either.” Tears began to soak into his leathery cheeks. “But she’s been missing a couple of weeks now. That’s what young Blakestone is looking into for me.”

  “Missing.” A chill slid over her skin. “What was your lass’s name?”

  “Eugenia.” The man wobbled as he sank onto the ottoman. “She’s my grandniece. She’s married to that bastard Wallace. You might have heard of him.”

  Dear Lord, no! Her heart plunged into her stomach. Her throat closed up, filled with tears.

  “My Genie’s the only family I have now, and someone took her from me.”

  Eugenia Wallace! He was waiting for Ross to find a phantom! She knelt in front of the old man and wrapped her arms around his thin shoulders. Hot tears brimmed in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Lord Tuckerton.”

  “I came by to find out if the lad’s heard anything at all about my Eugenia. Do you know if he has?”

  “No, my lord, I don’t think so. But I’m sure he’s working very hard on it.” What a terrible lie to tell a heartbroken old man.

  An innocent soul that she hadn’t anticipated in all her conspiracies. But she couldn’t very well confess to him that his Eugenia was fine and on her way to a happier life in America. A slip of his doddering tongue and the old man wouldn’t stand a chance against Lord Wallace’s interrogation.

  But there must be some way she could make things right for the dear fellow.

  “Good, then, my Lady Blakestone, Eugenia ought to be coming back to me any day now.” Tuckerton patted Elizabeth’s hand as he stood and started toward the door. “I’m glad I’ve got his lordship working on the case.”

  “I’m sure he’ll do his best, my lord.”

  And I will too, she promised as he hobbled off down the corridor. One way or another.

  Weighed down by more than a bit of guilt, Elizabeth finished cleaning up, then stuffed her costume into her satchel and was back at the Abigail Adams a few minutes later, the memory of old Tuckerton trailing after her like a ghost.

  The true, untold cost of Lady Wallace’s liberty.

  She made her daily rounds at the Adams, the tea room, the bookstore, the library, then into the workroom with her three assistants, to celebrate their first and probably final international success.

  “We were wonderful, my lady!” Jessica said, popping a humbug into her mouth.

  “Skye, you were the bravest of all.” Elizabeth gave the young woman a hug, her nerves still on edge for the danger they had all evaded.

  “I was lucky, my lady. The princess was blindfolded when I found her and very cooperative after I whispered that we’d come to rescue her.”

  “His lordship was magnificent as well.” Cassie dropped back into a chair. “Especially his moustache.”

  “I’ll tell him that, Cassie.” If she ever saw the man again.

  Elizabeth would have stayed at the impromptu party, but she was called into the clubroom.

  Lady Maxton was standing beside the besieged young woman from the charity ball.

  A sight that filled her with relief for the girl, and a sudden trepidation for the future of her own married life. Because she couldn’t give up on the lost and the aching, no matter her husband’s objections.

  “Lady Maxton,” she said, sharing an embrace with the woman, “how delightful to see you again. Thank you again for giving the charity ball. Definitely the talk of the entire season.”

  “As we knew it would be, my dear. And just imagine! I’ve brought you a new member.” Lady Maxton touched the young woman’s shoulder. “Miss Preston, I’d like you meet Lady Blakestone. A woman of many miracles.”

  Would that were true! But Elizabeth smiled and offered her hand. “Welcome, Miss Preston.”

  To the rest of your life.

  To the rest of her own life.

  And this wayward marriage to the most confounding man she’d ever met.

  Grousemeade Cottage had been a blissful paradise. Their own private South Seas island where their controversies couldn’t find them. Where there weren’t any fearful wives, or embattled embassies, or heartbroken old men.

  Where Ross had been the ideal husband.

  A paradise where she’d come to love her handsome
privy counselor for his humor and the goodness of his heart.

  And, blast it all, if they were ever going to put this marriage on the right course, they’d have to return to Grousemeade Cottage immediately.

  Tonight.

  And what better way to be sure that her husband would come find her than to return to their paradise without him?

  That is, if the lout knew what was good for him.

  ******************

  “Hell and damnation!” Ross cursed all the way from the Huntsman into the livery in Hampstead where he hired a mount and rode off toward Grousemeade Cottage.

  Cursing the darkness.

  Cursing the Russian ambassador and the Austrians.

  Cursing his wife’s stubbornness.

  Her bloody independence.

  And this driving need to hold her in his arms at any cost.

  He arrived at the cottage reeling in the saddle, exhausted from the lack of sleep. And certain that Elizabeth would be waiting for him on the doorstep, ready to do battle.

  But the cottage was dark, save for a few low-burning lamps, the main floor quiet.

  And his wife lying stark naked and fast asleep in their bed.

  Her hair was spread across the bank of pillows in the moonlight, the counterpane dipped to her waist, revealing the soft perfection of her breasts.

  His heart full, and pumping hot fluids to every corner of his body, he leaned over her gentle breathing and whispered softly against her ear, “Elizabeth?”

  A dreamy smile flickered on her mouth, but she only drifted deeper into sleep.

  Hardly a fit opponent for the hostilities sure to come. And Lord, he was sleepy. Compelling him to remove his clothes and slip in beside his wife, where he could hold her through the night and join in her dreams.

  Knowing that the battle would come tomorrow.

  But having no idea that it would come with the first rays of dawn and the smack of a pillow against his head.

  “Ross Carrington, how could you!”

  He sat upright, opened his bleary eyes and found himself face-to-face with his wife’s lovely navel.

  Dangerously close to her inviting triangle of curls, his groin already fully distended under the blanket.