The Marriage Contract Read online

  As he ran through his options, his gaze fell on the covered bridge. An idea came to him.

  He urged the horse in the direction of the bridge. With a glance behind him, he saw that Symon was gaining on him. Stephen only had one shot, and he was going to have to make the most of it.

  Stephen kicked the horse in the sides, encouraging it to go faster. But the poor thing was already going as fast as it could. He was sure he had a part in slowing the horse down since he was trying to balance the sword and lantern. They just had to make it to the bridge. If they could get past it, then Stephen would have the element of surprise on his side.

  Looking back was only going to slow him down further, so Stephen focused on the bridge. It wasn’t really that far away, but at the moment as he and Symon were racing up the path toward it, it seemed as if it was on the other side of the world.

  Focus. Just focus.

  He steadied his breathing and concentrated on the bridge.

  Never mind the horse gaining up behind me. Don’t think about Symon’s sword. Just focus.

  The bridge was a mile away.

  Getting close.

  Behind him, Symon’s horse snorted. It was closer than before.

  Stephen needed to pull further ahead. He was never going to reach his destination if he didn’t. He needed the lantern. Whatever he did, he couldn’t let go of the lantern. So, gritting his teeth, he threw the sword aside.

  The bridge was now three-fourth of a mile away.

  Renewing his grip on the reins, he leaned forward, an action which allowed his horse to go faster.

  Focus. Keep your eyes on the bridge.

  Symon’s horse snorted again, this time further away. It was still too close for comfort, but it wasn’t gaining anymore.

  Stephen almost breathed a sigh of relief. Almost. The truth was, he couldn’t. Not yet. He still had to make it to the end of the bridge.

  Don’t let your guard down yet.

  The bridge was half a mile away.

  Stephen resisted the urge to look behind him. Everything inside of him screamed at him to look back—to see how far, or close, Symon was—but he kept his focus on the bridge.

  You’re doing this for Patricia. You’re doing this for Susanna.

  The reminder of his wife and child renewed his energy. He had to get rid of Symon. Then he could get to them.

  The bridge was now a quarter of a mile away.

  Almost there. Almost there.

  He repeated the words to himself as he led the horse directly for the bridge. He just had a little more ways to go. Once he got to the end of the bridge, it would all be over. He swallowed the lump in his throat. Hopefully, it would end in his favor. He only had one advantage over Symon, and he wasn’t sure if it was enough.

  He reached the covered bridge, but he didn’t start slowing down until he was halfway into it. Which meant Symon was going to start gaining on him. And fast. But he had to slow down because he needed to stop at the end.

  Almost there. Almost there.

  By the time he reached the end, he heard Symon’s horse entering the bridge, the sound of its hooves echoing off the wooden boards. A chill ran up Stephen’s spine. For as long as he lived, he didn’t think he’d ever forget that sound.

  Holding on tight to the reins, Stephen stopped his horse once he was outside the bridge. He hurried to turn it around so that he was facing Symon. Symon was fast approaching. Stephen could make out Symon’s silhouette. His sword was drawn up high, and he was ready to strike.

  Stephen held the lantern up to his face. Then he brought his hand to his mask. He waited until Symon was at the very end of the bridge before he removed his mask and let Symon see his face.

  Symon pulled back the reins of his horse. Having hoped for that reaction, Stephen tightened his hold on the reins of his horse so that he didn’t get bucked off when his horse reared back to get away from the other horse.

  Symon’s horse also reared back, but Symon fell off his horse. Symon’s horse went past Stephen, running as if it was still chasing him. Stephen turned his attention back to Symon, who was lying at the end of the bridge. Stephen squinted. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but it looked like something was protruding from his stomach. Was it the sword?

  It had to be. Symon hadn’t been carrying anything else.

  Stephen waited for a moment to see if Symon would move or make a sound, but he didn’t. He put his mask back on and led the horse over to Symon, careful to keep a firm hold on the reins.

  Symon remained still. But that didn’t mean Symon was dead. Symon could be pretending he was dead. He could be playing with him.

  Stephen took a deep breath. He was going to have to chance it. He slid down from the horse, and holding the lantern in one hand and the reins in the other, he approached Symon.

  He lifted the lantern so he could get a good look at the man. Symon’s neck was twisted at the same kind of angle Eloise’s had been when she’d tripped down the stairs. Stephen hadn’t seen her fall, but he had heard her scream and had run into the room to see her in a position similar to this.

  Symon had to be dead. No one could have a neck twisted like that and survive. But to be sure, he nudged Symon with his shoe. Blood seeped out of Symon’s mouth.

  Lowering his gaze, Stephen saw that the sword had gone into Symon’s side. It wouldn’t have been enough to kill him. It would have only injured him. But the fall off the horse had broken his neck, and that had done the trick.

  Relieved, Stephen collapsed against the horse. It had worked. His plan had actually worked. For a split second, he had been sure the plan would fail. But it hadn’t.

  Patricia. Susanna. He had to get to them.

  Ignoring the way his hands trembled from the whole ordeal, he got back on his horse. It wasn’t over yet. He had to find the gypsy and stop her before she got to Patricia and Susanna…if it wasn’t too late. If Patricia made it into the maze in time and if she managed to quiet Susanna, there was still time.

  Stephen tapped the horse in the sides, trotted past Symon’s dead body, and then led the stallion into a full run so he could get to the maze.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Patricia sat in one of the corners in the center of the maze. She’d had to breastfeed Susanna upon entering the maze just to keep the girl quiet. It’d been the only way she’d been able to get away from the gypsy. And now the girl was asleep, affording her an opportunity to assess everything.

  She tried to tell herself that the gypsy had been lying about her mother, but it answered so many questions Patricia had while growing up. Why had her mother refused to tell Patricia how she’d met Patricia’s father? Why had her mother told her so little about him? All Patricia remembered was that they lived in a small apartment while he was alive. He had died when she was four. She barely remembered him. All she remembered was that her mother had been sad for the longest time after his death.

  Did her mother even know Patricia’s father had been married when she slept with him? Did her mother know the gypsy had been his wife? Patricia remembered asking her mother who the gypsy was, and her mother had said she didn’t know. Her mother had told her she’d never seen the gypsy until they’d gone to the circus.

  Patricia had known her mother and father hadn’t been married. It was why the neighbors avoided them. It was why Patricia had spent her childhood alone while the other children played. Patricia couldn’t understand why her parents never got married when everyone else’s parents had. It hadn’t made sense since her mother said she’d loved Patricia’s father with all of her heart.

  But it made sense now. She had a sinking feeling that if she could talk to her mother, her mother would confirm what the gypsy had told her. Her mother must have known Patricia’s father had a wife. She just hadn’t cared.

  And the gypsy knew it, which was why the gypsy made it a point to curse her and her mother. The curse was her revenge. She’d been wronged, and she was going to make sure Patricia and her mother would nev
er be happy. Somehow, the gypsy and Symon had arranged for her mother to come down with the illness that eventually killed her while she slept, and then they had arranged for Barnaby to die. They had even killed Ichabod because they assumed she had cared about him. And now they were trying to kill Stephen and Susanna.

  Tears came to her eyes, and she let them fall down her face, careful to keep quiet in case the gypsy heard her. She didn’t know if Stephen managed to escape as Symon chased after him on the horse. All she knew was that Stephen had been willing to risk his life to protect her and Susanna.

  Shivering, she wrapped Susanna more securely in her arms and bowed her head to hers. She didn’t know what was going to happen, and she was so scared.

  She heard a scuffle from one of the paths within the maze. Raising her head, she stiffened. She recognized the gypsy’s howl. She stood up. Did that howl mean the gypsy was frustrated from looking for her and was starting to hit the bushes? Did it mean she was attacking someone? Did it mean someone was attacking her?

  A long minute passed before she saw the light from a lantern coming toward the center of the maze.

  “Patricia?” Stephen called out.

  Crying out in relief, she ran toward the light. She was ready to run into Stephen’s arms when she realized he wasn’t alone. He was holding onto the gypsy, who was scowling at her.

  “It’s safe,” Stephen told her. “Symon’s dead, and I got a good hold on the gypsy. She’s not going anywhere except for prison.”

  Patricia didn’t want to look at the woman. She never wanted to have anything to do with her again. After all the suffering the woman had made her go through, Patricia just wanted to put the woman and her curse behind her. But something compelled her to go up to the woman. So she went forward and waited until she finally figured out what she wanted to say.

  “I didn’t know my mother had slept with your husband, and I didn’t know that’s how I was conceived. I barely remember him.” Patricia cleared her throat and glanced at Stephen. She had a lot to explain to him, but that had to wait. “My mother never told me any of it. I don’t even know if she knew who you were.”

  “She knew she had been with a married man,” the gypsy said, her tone bitter. “I overheard her telling one of her friends about it. And later, I caught them together, and that was when I realized whose husband she’d been with. They didn’t know I’d caught them, but I did.”

  She pointed a finger at Patricia, and had Stephen not restrained her, Patricia would have retreated. Even now, the woman terrified her. But then, Patricia reasoned that years of being scared couldn’t be easily dismissed.

  “I’m sorry my mother did that,” Patricia said. “But there are innocent people who had nothing to do with this whole thing. Innocent people you hurt. You hurt me. You killed Barnaby. Then you killed Ichabod. Now you want to kill Stephen and Susanna. And for all I know, you killed Lewis and the servants. What your husband and my mother did wasn’t right, but you didn’t make things better by your own actions.”

  The gypsy spat in Patricia’s face.

  “That’s enough,” Stephen said, pulling the gypsy away from Patricia. “She doesn’t care, Patricia. She’s just like Eloise. She’s too wrapped up in herself to think about other people. All that matters to her is what she wants. You can’t reason with people like that.”

  He was right. Patricia couldn’t get through to the woman. When a person spent years trapped in anger, it probably ate at them until they couldn’t see past their scars.

  “You don’t need to worry about Lewis and the others,” Stephen told her. “They were only sleeping when I found them. They’re not dead. Let’s get back to the manor. I’ll have the butler send for the police, and you need to warm up.”

  With a nod, Patricia wiped her face then followed Stephen and the gypsy. It was over. It was all finally over. She no longer had to live under the heavy burden of a curse—a curse the gypsy and her son had been determined to play out for the rest of her life.

  And Patricia would never be able to think of her mother the same way again. She’d known her mother wasn’t perfect. She hadn’t known the extent of her mother’s sins. For all she knew, her mother could have done other horrible things. But she wished she’d never found out the truth about why the gypsy had hated her so much. It felt as if a part of her innocence had just been taken from her.

  She was the product of an adulterous relationship. It was a good thing she didn’t live in London. She didn’t know if she could face a group of people every day knowing how she was conceived. The whole thing was shameful. If anyone found out, it would probably ruin Susanna and her future children from finding a suitable spouse. At least out here, she and Stephen could live in their own world with their children. Their children wouldn’t be under the dark cloud of her past.

  She looked down at Susanna, surprised the girl was awake. Susanna cooed, and despite the stress of the evening, Patricia found herself smiling. And her heart felt lighter because of it. Susanna was her future. Stephen was her future. The children she and Stephen would conceive together would be her future. And despite all of the unpleasantness of the past, they all had a promising future.

  ***

  “I have such a headache,” Lewis said as he rested on the settee with a cool cloth on his head.

  “You should consider yourself lucky that’s all you have,” Stephen told him. “The gypsy and her son could have killed you and all of my servants. They did you a kindness by sparing your lives.”

  “The gypsy was real?”

  Stephen nodded and poured himself another glass of brandy. He usually didn’t drink more than one in an evening, but after everything that had happened, he needed an extra drink to settle his nerves.

  At the moment, Patricia and Susanna were asleep, and the servants were all recovering from headaches. The police had taken the gypsy and Symon’s dead body off of his property. The gypsy would likely go to the gallows for murder. She’d come out and admitted everything, even going so far as to add that Patricia deserved it. Some people just couldn’t be reasoned with, and they took on many forms. The world wasn’t as simple as he’d grown up believing it was. Having been married to Eloise and then coming across the gypsy and her son had been eye opening experiences. He’d never take the good things he had in his life for granted ever again.

  “The gypsy was very real,” Stephen said as he sat in a chair across from Lewis. He took a sip of his brandy and let out a long sigh. “So was Symon. Those two were the curse. They spent years following Patricia around and destroying anyone who got close to her. They thought Patricia was in love with Ichabod. I don’t know how they did it, but they snuck into his bedchamber and made the butler think he choked to death while eating. They must have assumed she loved him. As for the child,” he shrugged, “they couldn’t touch the child until she was born.”

  “I feel awful for doubting Patricia,” Lewis replied. “I really thought she was imagining things.”

  “Well, you apologized to Patricia, and unlike the gypsy, Patricia’s the forgiving type.”

  “I know she said she forgave me, but I still feel awful.”

  “Next time when she tells you something, believe her.”

  Lewis glanced at him as he took another sip of brandy. “I will. I’ll never doubt her again.”

  Stephen threw his head back. The brandy was finally taking the edge off of the evening’s events. He hoped he’d never have to go through anything like this for as long as he lived. There were a couple of moments he thought he wasn’t going to make it.

  “Stephen, I have to admit that life has never been boring around you. Eloise used to barge in on us while we played games. Then she takes a tumble down the stairs. And then I come here for a boring dinner and someone sneaks up behind me and puts me to sleep before I have time to call out for help.”

  Stephen lifted his head. “Boring dinner? Since when has dinner with me ever been boring?”

  “I was expecting you and Patricia to go
on and on about how much in love you are and how wonderful children are.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t think of topics more boring than those.”

  Stephen smirked. “That’s because you’ve never been in love, much less had the pleasure of trying to make a child.”

  “I’ll get to do that soon enough. It turns out Ichabod didn’t have as much money as I thought he did. I was hoping to put off marriage for a few years, but I’m going to need to marry sooner rather than later.”

  “What about your investments?”

  “I ran into a gentleman in London who swore that a certain investment was going to yield excellent results, so I sort of took my money out of the ones you told me to put my money in.”

  “Sort of?”

  “He made it sound like a sure thing. He promised me thirty percent back in interest within a month.”

  Stephen groaned. “You can’t be that gullible, Lewis. Thirty percent in one month isn’t realistic. You need to look at investing as a long-term strategy. You can’t expect success overnight.”

  “I know that. Now.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I lost everything I had. I was hoping Ichabod had a substantial amount of money, but it turns out he didn’t. I’m going to have to marry a lady who has a significant dowry. I just hope none of the wealthy ladies are like Eloise.”

  “Eloise was one of a kind.”

  Lewis sat up and put the cloth on the table. “Will you help me pick a wife?”

  “I don’t know how to pick a good lady.”

  “You’re married to one.” He gestured upstairs in the direction of Patricia’s bedchamber.

  “I married her as a favor to you. I didn’t know her before you brought her to me. You said she would make a good wife, remember? And you were right. Surely, you can trust your own judgment.”

  “I’m the same person who believed that gentleman who promised me thirty percent on my investment. I might be a good judge of character when it comes to other people, but I’m not so good when it comes to me.”