The Wyndham Legacy (Legacy 1)

“You’d best knot it.”

It was very late, a late-summer rain pounding against the windowpanes. They were sitting in front of the fireplace even though the fire had quite died down to glowing embers, but they didn’t care, for they were writing another ditty, this one about Napoleon and all his mistresses, a song the Duchess swore would never leave the bedchamber. Marcus told her the rumor of the emperor’s lack of majesty in his male part. She stared at him and said quite seriously, “How odd. I thought that all men were the same in that area. I mean, couldn’t that song apply to all of you? There are differences, really?”

He turned red with outrage, yanked her against him, and kissed her until she was panting and laughing at the same time.

A knock came at the door, and Marcus cursed, then sighed. He called out, “Enter!”

It was Antonia and she was carrying a silver tray on her arms.

“Goodness,” the Duchess said, leaping off Marcus’s lap. “What do you have there?”

“A present from Badger. He said you were both to drink it down. He called it a por-ency drug, not to me, but to Spears, who was with him. I just overheard it and Badger looked very uncomfortable and he cursed.”

“A potency drug?” Marcus said, trying to keep the smile off his face.

“That’s right. When I asked him what that was, he said it was an aphrodisiac. What’s that, I asked him, but he just wagged his finger at me and told me to make myself useful, so here I am. Spears looked as if he would cry he was so embarrassed. I think he was mad at Badger for telling me words I want to know but probably shouldn’t. It was very curious. Fanny wanted to bring it so she could look at you and get all moon-eyed, Marcus, but I wouldn’t let her.”

“Thank you, Antonia.” He said to the Duchess, “Just two more years.”

The Duchess took the tray from Antonia and set it on a tabletop. She sniffed. “It smells like hot chocolate to me, with something in it I can’t identify. Perhaps it’s chopped snail toenails.”

“Badger said you were to drink it and then do what you normally do. He

said you’d know what he meant.”

“The bugger. Yes, Antonia, we know. Thank you, muffin. Go to bed now.”

When Antonia was gone, Marcus raised a cup and gave the Duchess the other. “To us, to snail’s toenails, and Badger’s attempt at heir-making.”

“Hear, hear,” she said and drank deep. “An heir. I surely like the sound of that.”

They were asleep soon, snuggled together, her head tucked against his neck.

31

THE BRIGHT MORNING light shone in her eyes. Odd, but she didn’t want to open her eyes, the light was too bright, it hurt, but finally, she did slit her eyes open.

“Hello, Duchess, it’s about time you joined us. As you can see, your dear husband is already awake, unhappy with me and with his headache, and naturally he’d kill me if it weren’t for the tight ropes around his hands and feet. Your bonds aren’t quite as tight. I don’t intend for you to suffer, not you, never you.”

She stared in blank astonishment at Trevor. “I don’t understand. Where are we? What are you doing here?”

“To begin with,” Marcus said, his voice so calm it frightened her, “he somehow drugged that hot chocolate Antonia brought to us last night.”

“Yes, certainly. She said Badger made it. I don’t believe it. It’s not possible, not Badger.”

“Of course Badger made it and added the laudanum to it as well, just as we’d planned,” Trevor said. “But believe what you will, whatever romantic, honorable swill enters your minds. But didn’t you wonder at all when Badger came back here and told you that all the Colonial Wyndhams were accounted for in London? No, I can see you didn’t. Pity, but too bad.

“Odd that you survived the bullets that day. Three bullets in your wretched bodies, but you still managed to live through it.”

“You’re a miserable shot,” Marcus said.

Trevor very slowly turned to him, rose to tower over him, raised the butt of his pistol and brought it down hard on his shoulder.

“Stop it, damn you!” She was struggling, yanking hard at the ropes around her wrists, ignoring the pain that ripped through her, yanking and pulling until Marcus said, “No, Duchess, I’m all right. Just hold still, love.”

Trevor returned to his place, an overturned crate he was using as a chair. “What a brave hero he is, don’t you agree, Duchess? Yes, my cousin Marcus needs to learn who is in charge now. Even now that he’s in exquisite pain he won’t accept that he’s finally lost. No, Marcus isn’t a man used to losing at anything. Ah, Duchess, don’t look at me like that, with blood—my blood—in your eyes. Obey your husband, just hold still. I am sorry about you, my dear, but I have no choice about this, none at all.

“Ah, Marcus won’t even moan from the pain and he does hurt, Duchess, he does indeed. Isn’t that odd? He knows he’s going to die, yet he holds to that myth, to that absurd men’s code, whatever the hell it is, that dictates that he won’t yield and he won’t plead with me. Well, no matter.