Never Marry a Stranger Read online

  “Then tell me, Emily. I can understand why you felt you couldn’t tell me before, since I’ve been lying to you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “My lies were worse! But this isn’t a challenge about whose lies top the others.” She sighed. “I think someone within the household is working with Stanwood.”

  He stiffened. “You think he put a man in here?”

  “Perhaps, but I truly think someone is trying to protect you from me. The first blackmail note I received from Stanwood came in the post, but the second was left here in this room. The notes only arrived after you—and your friends—returned home.”

  “And after the Times article.”

  “Yes, but…it would make sense if someone was trying to help you. Your friend Lieutenant Lawton would naturally want to see me away from you. He’s from Southampton, just like Stanwood.”

  Matthew shook his head. “He has no reason to go behind my back and help Stanwood.”

  “But…he’s been so secretive about where he goes every day.”

  “And that is his business. I trust him.”

  “What about Mr. Derby?”

  “Peter? Who’s barely been out of Cambridgeshire his whole life?”

  “He felt humiliated when I rejected him last spring. And he somehow thinks I believe him undeserving of Susanna.”

  “These are valid motives,” he said quietly, “but if Stanwood is being helped, it could as well be any one of dozens of servants. We’ll remain vigilant, I promise you.”

  She nodded, but he watched her twist her hands together, and her eyes darted to the door.

  “Emily, don’t leave me,” he said, his voice husky with emotion.

  She closed her eyes.

  “Together we can best Stanwood.” He stood up, reaching out to cup her face with both hands. Her trembling was nearly his undoing. “Can you please try to trust me? I know you’ve only had yourself for so long, but you have me now. I want to marry you.”

  He leaned down and kissed her, softly at first, pressing his lips against her mouth, her cheeks, her eyelids, and then her mouth again. “Emily, sweetheart.”

  Her name was a heartfelt groan from deep in his chest, and finally she flung her arms around him.

  “I won’t leave you,” she said against his lips. “Make me feel safe, Matthew, please. Make me forget.”

  He undressed her gently, and showed her with his body every feeling he didn’t dare express aloud. He caressed and pleasured her until she cried out his name. When he sank into her, it was as if he was a part of her. He had no concern for preventing conception—he wanted lots of babies with his Emily.

  This time she stayed contentedly in his arms, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted.

  He gladly drew her beneath the covers and into his embrace. She rested her head against his shoulder, her arm across his chest. After kissing the top of her head, he murmured, “Sleep.”

  Though it took a while, at last her breathing slowed, the stiffness went out of her muscles, and she relaxed into sleep.

  Arthur Stanwood lay naked in bed the next night, well sated by the woman at his side. She talked too much, and normally he wouldn’t have tolerated that, but in this case she was helping him immensely.

  “Tell me more about Madingley Court,” he said, knowing that Emily’s maid, Maria, needed only a little prodding to keep talking.

  She rattled on about life in a palace, and the lives of the servants. He let her go on a bit, running his hands through her hair, soothing her.

  When she took a breath, he said, “I’ve missed you these last few days. I haven’t been able to come up to the house on an errand.”

  She smiled up at him, curling herself provocatively against his side. “I’ve missed ye, too, though they’ve kept me so busy I could barely think!”

  The first unease crept into his mind. “Why?”

  “I’ve told ye about the young Mrs. Leland, and the captain comin’ back from the dead. Things was awkward between ’em for a while, but love has blossomed again.”

  He laughed. “And that keeps you busy?”

  “When they’re leavin’ on a honeymoon, it does.”

  He stiffened, and she yelped when his hand tangled in her hair.

  “Sorry, love,” he said through his teeth, forcing a smile. “So they’re leaving?”

  “Already left, they have. This mornin’.”

  Gone. Stanwood had thought Emily completely cowed, and instead she’d slipped away from him. He remembered his unexpected guest that afternoon, who blackened his eyes and bruised his ribs, giving him one more chance to pay the money he owed. One more chance, before the man made sure that he never enjoyed life again.

  “And what romantic place is the captain taking his wife?” he asked.

  Maria sighed. “Somewhere in Scotland. He dearly loves her, he does.”

  Stanwood sat up, knowing they already had a day’s journey on him. Maria gave him a wanton smile and reached up to him. He came down over her—and put his hands around her neck. He couldn’t leave behind a witness to his interest. As she struggled silently, he ignored her, making his plans.

  Emily was not going to escape.

  Chapter 24

  Emily stood still while Matthew hooked up her gown. Over her shoulder she could see his distraction, the way he kept looking to the window. They were on the second floor of a nondescript inn, the same as the previous night. No one had accosted them, no one had lurked in the shadows. She at last had begun to think that Matthew’s plan might work, that they’d eluded Stanwood and anyone else he’d coerced into helping him.

  She smiled. “We’ve been journeying two days. We’ll meet the train by midday. You can relax now.”

  He kissed her nose. His easy affection and sweet gestures still amazed her.

  “You know the train doesn’t continue all the way to Scotland. We’ll have to finish our journey to Gretna Green in a hired carriage.”

  “I won’t mind,” she said, thinking of all the ways Matthew had kept her occupied in their private, enclosed carriage.

  He grinned, then sighed. “I must meet the coachman and footmen to see about the next change of horses. Will you wait here for me?”

  “Of course. I have my sewing to keep my mind and fingers occupied.”

  He looked at her portmanteau as if it were the enemy. He’d already confessed his suspicion that she wanted to leave when he found her sewing projects. She laughed and pushed him toward the door.

  A short time later she had just finished putting on her stockings and was searching for the shoes she’d kicked off last night when the door opened.

  She was bending over, looking beneath the table. “Matthew, have you seen my shoes?”

  A hand covered her mouth and an arm snaked around her waist hard, pulling her upright and backward against a man’s body.

  She heard Stanwood’s voice in her ear. “Find your shoes quickly, or you leave without them.”

  Oh God, Oh God, raced through her mind, and fear shot a burning path down her body. His hand smelled like leather, and he was so close to covering her nose that she panicked about taking a deep breath. Arching, she tried to inhale, pulled at his hand. He would get nothing if he killed her, she thought as she reeled with dizziness.

  But he repositioned his hand, and she took a deep, satisfying breath through her nose.

  “Can’t have you dying, now can we, my love? Not after I questioned every posting boy between here and Cambridge. You made me work hard to find you, and I will make you suffer for it.”

  She groaned as she sagged against him. After each stage, the posting boys took the rented horses back to the previous inn, while the carriage was outfitted with new horses—and new posting boys.

  She started to struggle again, hoping to delay Stanwood until Matthew’s return. Again he pulled her hard against him, arching her neck back painfully.

  “You are coming with me now. You cry out, and your husband is dead. I have a man with his rifle trained on your Ca
ptain Leland as we speak. I won’t mind at all going to his family with my demands after he’s dead. They might be even easier to threaten than you.”

  She’d been right all along, she thought with despair. Stanwood had help. Yet how could one of Matthew’s friends or servants aim a rifle at Matthew? It didn’t make sense.

  Once they were out of the room, she thought, there would be more people, and the chance to escape him. She nodded quickly, letting her hands fall to her side as she pretended to acquiesce.

  He let go of her mouth and spun her about, roughly holding her face until she was forced to look at him.

  “I will show you true pain if you cross me,” he hissed at her, drops of spittle landing on her face.

  She almost gagged, but was even more frightened by the look of panic he wore. His calm confidence had turned ragged, and that made him even more dangerous. He let her don her shoes, then took her arm and hauled her to the door.

  In the corridor, Stanwood urged Emily to the left, toward the servants’ stairs in back, away from the front of the inn. Still holding her by the arm, he forced her down the stairs ahead of him, so quickly that she stumbled and would have fallen the rest of the way if he hadn’t caught her.

  In the kitchen courtyard, she looked about, hoping that the inn’s stable yard was nearby. But Stanwood urged her around a corner and to the far side of the inn, away from the road and people who could help her.

  Away from Matthew.

  The ground sloped gradually down toward a river, roaring fast beneath the bridge after the previous day’s rain. The grounds were wide-open, deserted, and Stanwood would be able to take her anywhere, with no witnesses. She had to run.

  Using the wet grass to her advantage, she pretended to slip, using all of her weight in a hard fall. Stanwood was knocked off balance, and as he bent over, she drove her elbow back into his groin, a trick she’d learned from her brothers.

  He groaned harshly, letting go of her so suddenly that this time she did hit the ground. But she was up and running a moment later. She risked one look over her shoulder and saw that Stanwood was not far behind her.

  And he was between her and the inn.

  Matthew opened the door to their bedchamber, only to find it empty.

  “Emily?” he called, wondering if she still needed a moment of privacy behind the changing screen.

  But there was no answer.

  He’d told her to wait here. They hadn’t made a move these past two days without consulting each other. A sick feeling of dread tightened his chest.

  He ran back down the stairs to the ground floor, searching the many public rooms, but she wasn’t there. He pushed past several people to get out the front door, only to find the coachman standing beside the carriage, the footmen talking together near the back.

  “Did my wife come out here?” he demanded.

  The coachman’s eyes widened. “No, Captain. I haven’t seen her.”

  “She’s missing,” Matthew ground out, then went back into the inn.

  The young, plump maid who’d served them dinner the previous night was walking swiftly across the entrance room, and skidded to a stop when she saw him.

  “Captain Leland, I’ve been lookin’ for ye everywhere. I saw your wife bein’ pushed down the servants’ stair not a quarter hour ago. I thought perhaps “twas your man, but he handled her so roughly—”

  She broke off when Matthew cursed. “Did you see where they went?”

  “Outside, Captain,” she said, wringing her hands.

  Matthew turned and strode back through the front doors again. With that kind of head start, Stanwood could have pushed her into a carriage and been down the road already. Fear tasted bitter in his mouth, jumbling his thoughts. He couldn’t lose her, not when he’d sworn to protect her, when he loved her. She was alone with a madman, frightened for her very life—and he had once again proven himself unable to help her.

  As he stepped outside, he heard, “Matthew!”

  Peter Derby ran toward him, his arm bound in a makeshift sling, blood staining his coat.

  “Peter?”

  Peter’s face was ashen as he stumbled to a halt. “It’s Stanwood,” he said, gasping. “I’ve been following him. He’s here.”

  “I know.”

  Peter gaped at him, lines of exhaustion etched across his forehead. “So you know about him—and Emily?”

  “I do. Do you know where he has her?”

  “No. Then it seems I’m too late.”

  Grimly, Matthew said, “Did you help him?”

  “I’m sorry, Matthew,” Peter said, collapsing onto a bench. “I—saw her receive the blackmail note, and I was able to read it. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You could have come to me,” Matthew said grimly, his eyes searching the yard.

  “I tried to stop him,” Peter said, holding his wounded arm. “When I saw what kind of man he was, when I discovered that he’d killed Emily’s maid—”

  “Maria?” Matthew interrupted.

  Peter nodded, his eyes bleak.

  “What happened next?”

  “He shot me when I tried to stop him. I tried to reach you before he did—”

  “He just took her. He can’t be far. Wait here, Peter.” He spoke as forcefully as he would to a soldier under his command.

  Emily ran as fast as she could down the grassy slope, slipping, sliding. Her breath wheezed in and out of her lungs with her fear.

  On the far side of the river she could see cottages set back from the road. If she could just cross the bridge and reach them—

  Her legs pounded across the gravel as she hit the flat of the road. She risked one glance over her shoulder—and Stanwood was there, just coming down the hill, limping, but strengthening as he began to gain on her.

  The low bridge had stone walls less than the height of her hips, nothing more than a barrier to keep a coach or wagon from going over into the river. Before she reached the other side, he caught her, grabbing her by the arm, jarring her to a stop so suddenly that she fell hard against the half wall, the stone smacking her painfully in the hips.

  He held her bent backward over the wall, his lean face red with fury as he gripped her by the shoulders. She could hear the roar of the water below, feel the spray as water hit the bridge abutment.

  “If you ever disobey me again, I will silence you like I did your vicar!” he shouted into her face.

  He shook her so hard she bit her lip and tasted blood.

  “I’m a dead man without you, and if I have to die, I’ll take you with me!”

  Panicked, she choked out a scream, and he backhanded her across the face, flinging her sideways so her ribs slammed hard into the wall. The pain of his blow rang through her head, and the breath was knocked from her lungs. Desperate, knowing she could very well die, she came upright fast, slamming into him so hard she knocked him sideways, off balance. His lower body hit the half wall, his arms flailed and he fell over it, just managing to catch the crumbling stone edge with one hand.

  His shriek was piercing. “I can’t swim! Oh God, I can’t swim!”

  Hands on the lip of the wall, she stared over at Stanwood, his lower legs already dangling in the churning river that pulled at him. His free arm waved frantically as he tried to find another hold.

  Emily understood desperation all too well—she couldn’t just watch him die. She gripped his wrist where he held onto the wall, knowing that if he let go, she wouldn’t be able to prevent his fall.

  “Stop flailing!” she cried.

  Leaning over the wall, she desperately held onto him, while the water spray soaked them both. She looked over her shoulder—

  And saw Matthew running down the hill.

  “Mathew!” she screamed.

  He pounded across the bridge, and without hesitating or questioning or gloating over their enemy’s downfall, grabbed hold of Stanwood’s free arm, taking over for her. In that moment, everything inside her eased and lightened with gladness and love. />
  But Stanwood was beyond terror, kicking and screaming as he begged for his life.

  “Stop moving!” Matthew shouted.

  Emily cried out as Stanwood lost his grip on the edge of the wall. He lurched downward, held only by Matthew, who used two hands but was no match for the pull of the river, which now swallowed Stanwood up to his thighs. Their wet skin seemed to slide against each other. Matthew cursed and tried to brace his hips against the wall.

  Then Stanwood fell, his scream silenced by the water.

  Leaning over the wall, Emily and Matthew gaped as he surfaced once, flailing in the powerful current, then went under for the last time.

  “Should we go for help?” she cried, clutching Matthew’s arm.

  He shook his head, his breathing labored as he said, “He’ll be dead in a moment, long before a boat could be put to water.”

  She buried her face against his chest, shuddering, and he took her into his arms.

  “If only I’d arrived earlier,” he said roughly into her hair. “But at least there’s someone who can answer our questions.”

  She lifted her head to stare up at him. “Who?”

  “Peter Derby.” Matthew gave her a grim smile. “You were right all along.”

  Emily felt no triumph, only sadness. It was over; Stanwood was dead, and he couldn’t hurt them anymore. But what about Mr. Derby?

  She and Matthew walked slowly back up the hill to the inn, arms about each other. In the yard outside the front door, she saw Mr. Derby sitting on a bench, his face white with strain. When he looked up and saw them, he hung his head in relief.

  “Thank God you’re all right,” he murmured when they approached him.

  “You’re damn lucky she is,” Matthew ground out.

  Emily squeezed his waist, then released him to stand on her own. “Matthew, it’s all right. He was trying to protect you all, and was even wounded doing so. I cannot blame him for that.”

  “I know I should have come to you, Matthew,” Peter said.