Highwayman Lover Page 61

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  He is not coming, Charlotte realized in dismay as her father drew her hand gently from his elbow and presented her to James.

  Up until that moment, she had harbored some fleeting hope that Will would come for her. He had promised that he would, and while the reasonable portion of her mind had known fully well it was an impossible risk for him—one that would likely see him, Lewis, and Reilly side by side and dangling from Tyburn—the rest of her had longed for it with near despair. She had kept shooting anxious glances toward the door of her dressing chamber, hoping that at any moment Will would come bursting through to snatch her in his arms and haul her away.

  She had scanned the foyer as she and Lady Epping had descended the stairs together from the second floor to meet her father. He will come for me, she had thought, distraught. He promised me that he would. He promised me.

  She had drained her mother’s flask dry by that point, and her mind felt sufficiently numb with brandy. She had kissed her mother’s cheek as they had parted company at the foot of the stairs. Lord Epping had been waiting, his arm crooked in invitation to escort her.

  “You look lovely, lamb,” Lord Epping had told her in a hush, as they had walked together along a narrow corridor cleaved through the crowded ballroom. She had heard quartets of musicians arranged throughout the vaulted chamber playing a harmonic blend of stringed instruments and winds. Everyone had watched them, a sea of powdered faces, starched shoulders and piled wigs. Everyone had smiled, whispered, and leaned together, and their visages had all blended to Charlotte’s eyes, none of them familiar or comforting to her. She had felt caught in a dream, or as if she tried to walk while fully submerged in deep water.

  He will come for me, she had thought, even as she had caught sight of James ahead of her, standing with the Archbishop of Colchester, who would ordain them wed. He promised he would.

  “I am sorry for all of this fuss,” Lord Epping had said, and she blinked at him, nearly dazed.

  “It is all right, Father,” she had whispered.

  He had met her gaze and draped his hand against hers, offering her a squeeze. “I love you, Charlotte.”

  “I love you, too,” she had replied, smiling.

  It was not until the moment when Lord Epping drew her hand from against his sleeve, tucking it against the nook of James’s proffered elbow that the full, dismaying realization had struck her headlong and brutally.

  He is not coming.

  Lord Epping stepped away from her, abandoning her to the altar as from behind them, Frederick Cuthbert led Margaret in step toward the archbishop. Charlotte looked up at James, and found him watching her, his mouth unfurled in a thin smile. “You would take my breath,” he whispered.

  Her brows pinched slightly. “Good,” she whispered back. “Drop dead, then.”

  James chuckled. “I am going to enjoy this,” he whispered, his lips scarcely moving, his words little more than fluttering air. “We may have to forego the ball my mother has planned to follow the ceremony. I am stiffening already just thinking about having you all to myself… every measure of you… at last.”

  He lifted her hand toward his mouth and leaned forward to kiss her knuckles. The tip of his tongue slid slowly, suggestively between her fingers; a subtle gesture no one but Charlotte noticed. When she snatched her hand away from him, however, everyone around them saw and a curious murmur stirred in the crowd behind them.

  James arched his brow at her. “Do you know how a man breaks a willful horse, Charlotte?” he breathed. “He rides it hard and often. A woman is no different.”

  The ceremony began, and the crowd behind them fell obligingly silent. Charlotte did not hear the archbishop speaking; his voice droned on and on rhythmically in her mind without the benefit of any discernable words. She looked down at her hand, draped against James’s sleeve and imagined his repulsive tongue sliding against those places where only hours earlier, Will’s mouth and hands had brushed with love and stirred such pleasure. She shuddered, feeling tears sting her eyes.

  Margaret and Frederick exchanged their vows first, and the archbishop turned his attention to Charlotte and James. She looked up at the clergyman, her eyes filled with sorrow as he recited the vows aloud for James, pausing after lengthy passages to allow for James’s recitation. When Charlotte’s turn came, she simply blinked at the archbishop, mute when the time for her reply came.

  A flutter of awkward whispers filled the room at her silence. The archbishop raised his brow expectantly at her. “My lady, your response?” he whispered in encouragement.

  James’s hand closed tightly atop hers. “Darling,” he said, his mouth spread in a humorless smile. “Do recite your vows.”

  She glanced at him and he held her gaze. “It is far too late for protest,” he whispered, still smiling. “And I think it has been made clear to you what shall come to pass if you try.”

  “Bastard,” Charlotte snapped, loud enough for the archbishop to hear. He took an uncertain, stumbling step backward, his eyes widening in start.

  “Say the words, Charlotte,” James said. He still smiled, but there was no cheer in his eyes; she could see bright rage glittering there. His hand crushed against hers, and she blinked against a flood of sudden, helpless tears.

  “Say them,” he hissed.

  “All right,” she said, her brows furrowing. She looked back toward the archbishop, who was regarding her with bewildered concern apparent in his face. She struggled to smile. “I… forgive me,” she said. “Might you repeat them, please, sir, as I… the vows have slipped from my mind.”

  “Of course, my lady,” the archbishop said, smiling again, but looking somewhat perplexed. He opened his mouth and offered the vows again. As he spoke, a new murmur stirred through the crowd, growing louder and sharper. Charlotte heard people shuffling, stirring in confusion. The archbishop’s gaze traveled beyond her shoulder, and his voice faltered, fading. Charlotte turned to look over her shoulder and her eyes flew wide, her mouth spreading in a joyous grin.

  “Father!” Margaret cried, pulling away from Frederick and darting toward the rear of the ballroom. Lord Essex was making his way along the opened aisle among the guests, leaning heavily against Reilly. His pallor was ashen, his shuffling steps weak and weary.

  “Father!” Margaret cried again, and Lady Essex ducked out from the throng, following her daughter.

  “My lord!” she cried, aghast. “My lord, what has happened to you?”

  Lewis and Will strode boldly up the aisle behind Reilly and the earl, with Lewis swinging a walking cane broadly to aid his injured gait. At the sight of Will—who all believed to be Kenley Fairfax, Charlotte’s former betrothed—a new and even more tremendous surge of voices filled the room, echoing off the ceiling and filling the air with a shuddering, cacophonous din.

  “Will!” Charlotte gasped, moving to shove her way through the crowd toward him. She felt James’s hand close roughly about her arm, jerking her back in stumbling tow. She staggered and nearly fell. She plowed gracelessly against the archbishop, who caught her clumsily.

  “My lady!” he exclaimed.

  “How dare you, Theydon, you rot bastard!” James roared, drawing the crowd to silence. “How dare you drag your wretched carcass here into my home and sully the occasion of my wedding!”

  He charged forward, balling his hands into fists. “What have you done to my father?” he bellowed. “By my breath, Theydon, if you have harmed him in any way out of petty, vengeful spite toward me, I will—”

  Lewis snapped his cane up in a sharp arc just as James drew within steps of Will. The brass tip of the cane caught James beneath the shelf of his chin, giving him pause. “You will do nothing but step back and stand down, Roding,” Lewis said in a low voice, his brows narrowing.

  James met his gaze. “I will enjoy watching you hang, Woodside,” he seethed. He turned to his father and looked about the crowd, raising his voice. “Here is treachery!” he shouted. “And surely the reas
on for my father’s delay!”

  He grabbed Lord Essex by the sleeve and shoved Reilly aside. “Get your rot hands off my father! Remove your hand, you bastard!” he snapped. “These men are the Black Trio bandits who have been tormenting and trespassing upon our highways!”

  Another startled din stoked at this proclamation. Will, Lewis, and Reilly drew close to one another, nearly shoulder to shoulder.

  “My man, Cheadle found evidence to prove this,” James declared. “He was a thief-taker proper in London before coming into my service. Such assertions were well within his realm of expertise to make! I dispatched Cheadle myself last evening to meet my father’s coach at the Essex border and see him safely northward to Dunmow. I cannot tell you of my heart’s horror when neither arrived at Roding in time for my vows!”

  James spared his father a feigned, doting look. “Or my relief that one at least—and most beloved to me— has made it.”

  He glared at Will, making a great show of supporting Lord Essex’s waning strength, sheltering him in a clumsy embrace. “What offense have you dared see upon my father, Theydon?” he shouted. “What have you done to Edmond Cheadle? I will see the lot of you strung from Tyburn. Someone ride to Epping at once and see the sheriff brought to me!”

  “That will not be necessary, Lord Roding, as I am already in attendance,” Howard Linford said, walking from the rear of the ballroom toward them. His clothes were still rumpled and his hair was yet askew. He seemed to have found no need to shave that morning, but there was a light in his eyes Charlotte had not noticed upon their introduction; a glimmer of bright intellect. “Fortunately, your father saw fit to send for me first to meet him here.”

  James blinked as if he had been belted upside the head at the sight of the sheriff. “Splendid, then,” he said, his voice shaky all at once, warbling with uncertainty. “Splendid, sir. Arrest these men!” He jabbed his forefinger at Will, Lewis, and Reilly each in turn. “They are scoundrels and highwaymen! They have accosted my father and my bride! God above only knows what they have done to Edmond Cheadle!”

  “She… is not your bride yet,” Lord Essex said, raising his head. “And… and by my breath, the dear lass never shall be.”

  His voice was frail and weary, his strength obviously waning, but there was fury in his furrowed brows, aglow in his eyes as he forcibly wrenched himself loose of James’s grasp. At this, the crowd again reacted, drawing back in startled surprise.

  James blinked at his father. “You… my lord, you are delirious,” he said. “Overwrought, obviously injured. You… you do not know what you are saying. What have these bastards done to you?”

  “They have saved my life,” Lord Essex said. “The life you would have seen taken for nothing more than shameful greed. I am humbled by them, and might only hope to spend the rest of those days you would have seen stolen offering my gratitude to them.”

  James stared at his father, stricken and trembling.

  He turned to Charlotte, his eyes blazing with furious indignation, then whirled, glaring at Reilly, Lewis, and Will. “That is preposterous!” he cried. “How dare you twist my father’s mind and turn him against me? What madness have you filled him with to make him believe such ludicrous fabrications and blatant falsehoods?”

  “I could declare the reasons here, Lord Roding,” Linford said, stepping toward James and conspicuously drumming his fingertips against the butt of a pistol he carried tucked down the front of his breeches. The sight of the gun alarmed the crowd, and they recoiled again, murmuring in frightened confusion. “Here,” Linford said again. “Before God, the archbishop, and all of your good neighbors and fellows. Or we could retire to an antechamber, that you might be enlightened with a modicum of privacy, sir, and the maintenance of at least some measure of dignity.”

  James whirled in a staggering circle, blinking and sputtering. He faced the sheriff again, his face flushed, his eyes ablaze, his hands curled in tight, shaking fists.

  Linford did not cow a bit; he continued tapping his pistol butt patiently. “It is your choice, my lord,” he said. “Either way, you are coach-bound for Newgate Prison by noon.”