The Wyndham Legacy (Legacy 1)

The following ten minutes were fraught with silence so thick she thought she would choke on it. Spears and Badger had to pry open Marcus’s mouth. He struggled to the point she knew he was hurting himself. Yet still he fought them. Finally they managed to pour a goodly amount of tea laced with laudanum down his throat. Monsieur Junot stood over them, holding a candle, saying not a single blessed thing.

He appeared to be enjoying himself.

Marcus fell back. She saw that he was fighting the drug, but he was losing. She hated this, but she knew it was no time to have an attack of scruples. Nothing had changed. True, he had complicated things, made all of them jumpy and feel guilty, but he’d succumbed in the end. There was no other way to save him, the damned stubborn sod.

She gently touched her fingertips to his swollen jaw. “It will be all right, Marcus. I promise you. Don’t worry, just lie still, please.”

He said in a slurred voice, “I will kill you, Duchess.”

“Perhaps you will want to, but you won’t.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I will kill you.”

Monsieur Junot approached. “Is he ready for the ceremony?”

Spears looked into the earl’s vague eyes, saw that he was more compliant tha

n he’d been but a moment before, and said, “In two more minutes.”

In four more minutes, Monsieur Junot said in a jovial voice, “It is done, my lady. You are now the countess of Chase. Fancy how he said I do when Mr. Spears gently nudged him. Now, he will have to write his name on the certificate.”

Spears guided the earl’s hand, but he did write his name and it was legible and strong. She signed her own beside his. Then she rose and dusted off her cloak. She took a slender gold band from her pocket and slipped it over the knuckle of her third finger. “Good,” she said, and smiled at all of them in turn. “It is done.”

“Yes,” Badger said, rubbing his hands together. “No more Dispossessed Earl.”

“I wonder,” Spears said, “if his lordship will remember that he dismissed me when he awakens.”

Monsieur Junot laughed. “This is quite the most interesting night I have spent since my house was very nearly shelled by Russian cannon two months ago.”

Marcus opened one eye. He saw soft white hangings overhead. That couldn’t be right. Even if he were in Lisette’s bedchamber, there were no hangings over her bed. There was a huge mirror.

He slowly opened the other eye. Bright sunlight poured through a wide window to his left. It was morning sunlight, late morning, if he wasn’t mistaken. He was wearing his dressing gown, he knew that, and it was odd, for he wore nothing at all to bed.

He sat up, shaking his head, clearing the odd muzziness from his brain. He was in a lady’s bedchamber. The furnishings were all fragile-looking and gold and pale green, everything looked soft and vague. It was not a man’s room.

He stilled, hearing footsteps outside the door opposite the bed. He watched as the door slowly opened.

The Duchess came in, carrying a tray on her arms. She turned and gently closed the door with her foot.

“You,” he said. “So it wasn’t a dream. You came to my house last night, in the middle of the night, and you were up to no good. What was the no good?”

“Good morning, Marcus. I’ve brought you breakfast.”

“Spears and Badger were with you. I remember now, there was a knock at the door and those two bloody bastards knocked me down and took the gun. Then—” He paused, his brow furrowed, trying to remember. “You drugged me.”

“Yes, but it was necessary. You’re a stubborn man, Marcus.”

He fidgeted and she said kindly, as would a nanny to her two-year-old charge, “Can I assist you?”

“If you don’t leave this instant, Duchess, I will relieve myself in front of you. Men have no sensibilities, not one speck of modesty.” She didn’t move, just stared at him, and he threw back the covers and swung his black hairy legs over the side of the bed. She made no sound, just turned about, set his tray on a table, and left the bedchamber.

When she returned, he was seated at the small table eating the breakfast she’d brought him. The brioches were delicious, warm and flaky, the coffee hot and strong. His dressing gown was securely fastened around his waist.

“How do your ribs feel?”

He grunted and drank more coffee.

He looked like a brigand with his black eye, the heavy beard stubble, his tousled hair, and the bruises along his jaw.