Lady Bess

“Get rid of them,” Holland snapped. “Hurry, Sally—we don’t have time for this. Just have your maid get rid of them.” He turned and addressed the minister, who was sipping his brandy in a comfortable chair near the fire. “Are you ready, Mr. Stokes?”

The earl surprised Holland at that moment by suddenly getting to his unsteady feet and taking a swing at him.

Holland sneered at him and made a low, guttural sound, but the earl’s words, though incoherent, most definitely held a threat, and his blue eyes glared as he swayed.

Holland growled and pushed him hard, and the earl fell back on his heels and sat heavily on the sofa.

The earl once again surprised Holland by putting his hands on his head and giving himself a shake before leveling a frenzied glance at him and choking out, “I’ll kill ye fer this, doona ye know that?”

“No, no, you won’t, and what is more, my arrogant lord, it will all be over in a moment, and you will have a wife, who I am certain will lead you a pretty dance all the rest of your days. And at night, well, whenever you look at her, you can think of me, as I have had her in every imaginable way a man can have a woman.” He grinned evilly. “Now won’t that be fun for you?”

Mr. Stokes was a small man with a quizzing glass over one eye and a glass of brandy in his hand. He stood up at that moment and announced that he was ready to perform the ceremony. However, he then hiccupped and immediately sat back down.

“Devil, doona think it will be so, doona think it,” the earl said on a raspy note as he once again tried to stand.

Holland eyed him and said, “I don’t think I put enough of that laudanum in your drink, tch, tch. Coming out of it too soon, are we? Well, no matter, not soon enough to save yourself.” He pushed the earl back onto the sofa, turned, and closed his eyes a moment before he gritted his teeth and called out roughly, “Sally, what is taking you so long?”

* * *

Sally was at that very moment backing away from her drawing room door. The viscount, who had dismissed the maid from her duty with the threat of having the beadles fetched, entered forcefully, his daughter on his left and Robby looking like a demon ready to devour his prey on his right. Donna watched the maid as she followed them into the room.

“Lady Sonhurst, you will cease and desist whatever it is you are doing,” the viscount said between clenched teeth. Bess thought she had never seen him so very angry.

Sally collected herself and was beginning to object when the viscount said, taking a bold step towards her, “I can have you thrown into the gallows for this night’s work. My daughter bleeds still from your vicious attack.” He stopped for a moment, and Bess actually thought he might strike the woman, but his fists remained clenched at his side. “Indeed, do not think you will come away unscathed from this. I will see to it that both of you pay.” He turned to Robby. “See to the earl …”

Bess rushed with Robby and bent to touch the earl’s face. He looked up at her and whispered, “My love, something in … the drink.”

“Yes, yes, we know.” She turned to Donna and said, “Have a servant bring him coffee, Donna, please.”

Holland released a roar and had started for Bess with the obvious intention of doing her harm when Robby stepped in and pushed him so hard he toppled over furniture on his way to the oriental carpet.

The earl grinned and said, “Thank. You. Been. Wanting. To. Do that.”

“Hush, my love, hush,” she said and laid her head on his chest.

The earl looked at the viscount and managed to murmur, “Permission …” as he made a ring sign over his finger.

“Indeed,” Bess’s father said jovially, as though they were at a private party. “I have been ready to give you permission to marry my daughter from the first moment you looked at one another. The two of you reminded me of her mother and myself just before I realized I couldn’t live without her.”

Bess and Donna both started to cry and laugh and cry and laugh as Robby said bluntly, “Let’s get this damned business over with so that we can go home and get something to eat!”

~ Epilogue ~

WHISPERS AND GOSSIP were abhorrent to both the earl and Bess’s father. Bess thought that they should beat Holland to a pulp and then throw him to the sharks, but the earl had laughed and told his love that he had something far worse in mind.

And in fact, that very night Bernard Holland suffered the fate he’d meant for the earl. The viscount had the minister, Mr. Stokes, marry Holland to Sally Sonhurst with the special license she had obtained. The viscount gave them a choice: prison or marriage. Holland rather thought they were much the same.

When Sally balked, Bess’s father advised her that her marriage and a trip to visit her family’s plantation in the islands were just what she needed. He was very clear and very hard. She had no doubt that he would at the very least ruin her if she did not comply.

Holland did not overly object. Marrying Sally Sonhurst would remove his financial woes, and, after all, they had no need to spend any time with one another once the deed was done.

Thus, they were married and, a week later, accompanied by the earl and the viscount to a ship leaving for Barbados. What Holland couldn’t know but the earl immediately suspected from something Sally let slip was that she was planning to be a widow once more and in the very near future. So be it—they deserved one another, though he rather thought Sally would not have as easy a time becoming a widow with Holland as her husband.

The next month was spent in preparations, as Bess’s father wanted a posting of the banns and time enough to plan a lovely wedding at their country home for his daughter and the earl.

Bess made a beautiful bride, and as the earl watched her walk towards him, with Donna holding her train, he thought his heart would burst with the emotion he felt.

In that moment he wondered if he had the right to so much bliss. How had he found her, his lass? He dinna know the answer to that, but he was bloody well sure he would make his bride happy all the rest of their days.