The Ideal Bride

Caro understood immediately—not just what he was proposing, but why. If he did this and saved Michael and Timothy, she’d be in his debt—he could claim the letters as a reward.

The Cynsters were unconvinced, but ultimately looked to her. She nodded. Decisively. “Yes. Let him try. He might pull it off, and we can’t.”

Ferdinand looked at Devil. Who nodded. “Get the pistol she’s holding—we’ll be there as soon as you’ve got your hands on it.”

With a nod in reply, Ferdinand moved past them. He paused before the door to resettle his coat, then he lifted his head, squared his shoulders, and pushed through, walking confidently, his boots ringing on the tile.

“Caro?” He called. “Where are you?”

Silently, they followed him into the front hall.

He reached the drawing room, looked in, then smiled hugely and walked in. “Ah—Mrs. Hedderwick. What a pleasant surprise. I see you, too, have come up from the country—”

The last word changed, steely purpose breaking through. They heard an outraged female gasp, then the sounds of a struggle.

Like angels of death, Gabriel and Lucifer swept in. Caro started after them. Devil caught her about the waist and held her back.

Furious, she struggled. “Damn it, St. Ives—let me go!”

“All in good time,” came the imperturbable response.

A shot rang out, echoing through the house.

Devil released her. She dashed for the door; he still got there before her, momentarily blocked her path as he scanned the room, then he let her in, and followed as she flew across the room to her fallen men.

She glimpsed Muriel struggling like a fiend; all three men were battling to restrain her. The second pistol had been kicked to the side of the room; Devil detoured and picked it up. The one that had fired lay at Muriel’s feet.

Caro fell to her knees beside Michael and Timothy. Frantically she checked Michael’s pulse, felt it steady and strong, but he didn’t respond to her touch or her voice.

Timothy’s pulse, when she found it, was thready and weak. Blood had soaked his shirt and coat and lay pooled beneath him. In his upper chest, the wound looked to have stopped bleeding. She reached to lift the wadded cravat she’d pressed over it to check—Devil stopped her.

“Best leave it.” He called to Lucifer to send Sligo for a doctor.

Glancing over, Caro saw Muriel being held down in the chair, Gabriel winding curtain cords around her to hold her there.

Across the room, Muriel’s eyes locked with hers. For one long moment, Muriel stared, then she threw back her head and screeched.

All four men flinched. When she barely paused for breath, Gabriel swore, whipped a handkerchief from his pocket, balled it and shoved it into her mouth. Reduced to raging mumbles, eyes starting, Muriel flung herself against her bonds, but they held.

The tension gripping the room eased; the men stepped back. Shrugging his coat into place, Ferdinand walked over to Caro. He looked down at Michael and Timothy, then glanced at Devil. “They will live?”

Devil had checked Michael’s head, lifted his lids; Caro had grasped the moment to shift Michael’s shoulders so she could cradle his head in her lap. Glancing at Timothy, Devil nodded grimly. “Both should. Luckily, the ball missed the lung.”

Ferdinand hesitated, then said, “It will be better if I am not here when your doctor arrives, I think.”

From her position on the floor, Caro looked up at Ferdinand. “Probably. Call on me tomorrow—the Anstruther-Wetherby house in Upper Grosvenor Street.” She smiled. “You were very brave, acting as you did.”

Ferdinand’s usual grin broke through. He shrugged. “A woman with a pistol—that is hardly a problem.”

She held his gaze. “Except when the woman is a marksman.”

He looked down at her; his grin faded. “It is a joke, yes?”

She shook her head. “Unfortunately not.”

Ferdinand muttered a curse in Portuguese. He glanced back at Muriel, still wrestling futilely with Gabriel’s knots. “Why did she do it?”

Across Michael and Timothy, Caro met Devil’s eyes. Quietly said, “I suspect we’ll never know—she’s quite mad.”

Ferdinand nodded and left. Devil remained on the floor beside Timothy and Michael; Gabriel sat on the chaise and kept a close eye on Muriel. Caro studied Michael’s face, with her eyes traced the lines that had become so familiar, stroked his hair.

Then Lucifer returned with the doctor; she stüred and, giving thanks to the gods, gave herself up to caring for the two men she held closest to her heart.

The final scene in the drama was played out in Magnus’s library. All the family involved gathered late that night to hear the full story, to understand, to be reassured, ultimately to help protect.

Michael sat in a deep armchair, his head, still distantly pounding, cushioned on a silk pillow. A bump the size of an egg on the back of his skull throbbed; he raised his glass and sipped—a cordial. Caro, sitting on the chair’s arm no more than inches away, had insisted on the tonic. All the other men were drinking brandy, but with Caro so close and Honoria on the chaise nearby, her eyes fixed on him, he had no option but to drink the ghastly stuff.

Devil was present, along with Gabriel and Lucifer and their wives, Alathea and Phyllida. Magnus sat in his favorite chair listening intently as they recounted the facts, put together the pieces. Evelyn, too, hung on their words.

“I didn’t really believe it until I remembered Muriel was a marksman.” Caro glanced at Michael. “She excels at all those things at which girls normally don’t—like driving, archery, and pistols.”

“And,” Michael grimly added, “slingshots.”

She nodded. “That, too.”

“So,” Honoria said, “when you returned to Bramshaw, Muriel told you of the Ladies’ Association meeting, insisted you attend, then when you did and the local ladies treated you, unsurprisingly, as a celebrity, she saw red?”

Caro met Michael’s gaze. “I think it was more the straw that broke the camel’s back.” She glanced at the others. “Muriel always saw herself as the rightful lady of Sutcliffe Hall. She was a true Sutcliffe, Cam-den’s firstborn—the heir of his talents if you will, but then, in marrying me and making me his hostess, he chose me over her. Bad enough. She then worked hard to be the premier lady of the district—that position was all hers. Yet despite my long absences, all I had to do was appear and the other local ladies put me on her pedestal, displacing her. Camden wounded her, but then every time I returned home, salt was rubbed into the wound.”

Michael squeezed her hand. “That wasn’t your fault.”

“No.” She looked down, after a moment raised her head and went on, “But once she started trying to get rid of me, in her usual dogged fashion, she just kept at it. Then she saw the house, and also the chance to even her old if secret score with Timothy, and…”

“However,” Magnus said, looking up at her from under his shaggy brows, “her true target, the one she wished to punish, was Camden. But he’s dead. You and Breckenridge were merely the two on whom she could vent her rancor.” Sternly, he held Caro’s gaze. “All this has been more about the loose ends of Camden Sutcliffe’s life than about either you or Breckenridge.”

Caro looked into his old eyes; after a moment, she inclined her head.

“Regardless,” Devil said, “we’re now left with the final tying of those loose ends.” He looked at Gabriel and Lucifer, who had taken Muriel, still bound and gagged, to her London home. “How did Hed-derwick take it?”

Gabriel grimaced. “He didn’t argue, nor even seem all that surprised.”

“He was surprised over what she’d done,” Lucifer amended, “but not surprised she’d finally done something.”

“He must have known how obsessed she was,” Gabriel said. “He was quick to take our points. He’s a quiet sort, but seems competent and decisive enough, and we left him in no doubt over what he needs to do to ensure our silence.”

“So he’s undertaken to keep her restrained?”