Page 34 of My Lord, My Rogue
“He is tied and gagged in the vault . . .” Benjamin’s attention riveted to singing he heard in the distance, and he barely perceived what Jess was saying to the guards. “Jess, I think I hear someone singing up ahead.”
“Singing?” she said in astonishment.
“Do you hear that?” he asked. “I cannot make out words.”
The two men stopped talking and listened for a moment. “It must come from above the tunnel. We are not sure how Stanton entered, but there is a storage room in a small carved out space, midway up a narrow stairwell, beneath the assembly rooms,” one explained.
“If she continues singing, you will find her,” the other suggested.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Benjamin said. “Jess, stay with them and I will meet you, once I find Honora. Stanton had her gown. And that sounds like her voice.”
“She has a pretty voice. I cannot make out the words in this tunnel. However, I have never heard a captive sing,” Jess laughed, pushing at his arm. “Go to her. We will deliver Stanton.”
Astonished, Benjamin sprang into a jog, shielding his candle and moving through the narrow passageway as quickly as possible. One song changed to another, and he realized to his amazement that Honora was singing nursery-rhymes, songs he had not heard since he was a child. He laughed, realizing no one would believe a song about an egg falling from a wall had helped him rescue the love of his life.
Her angelic voice guided him up a set of stairs he might never had seen in the dark to the storage room the Runner had described. He opened up the door, holding the dwindling candle above his head. Before him, rolled up in a filthy carpet, lay his beautiful Honora with her white wig wet and plastered around the edges of her face. In that moment, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“Honora, can you see me?” Her face was swollen and the area around her eyes had turned purple.
“B . . . Benjamin? You came. I have been so frightened. Aunt Violet told me once to sing . . . singanything. I have been singing, hoping someone would miss me and come for me.”
“I realized to my horror that you had gotten caught up in this when we caught the woman—who was a man—wearingyourgown. And yes. I have never been guided by a siren before. I shall have to thank your Aunt Violet.” Benjamin leaned down and kissed her. “I have to get you out of this carpet. Stanton took your dress from you, so I need to do one thing before I unroll you, or I cannot look your father in the eye.”
“Before you help me?”
“I do. I need to ask you if you will make me the happiest of men and consent to be my wife?” His heart pounded.Would she agree?
“I do not know what to say. What must you think of me? I am dirty,” she whispered.
“Say, yes. I want you for mine, Lady Honora Aster. I have always loved you. I vowed when I found you again, I would let nothing come between us and happiness.”
She struggled to open her eyes. “I will marry you, if you take me out of this carpet. I cannot feel my arms. And I could not see a thing. Please, Benjamin . . .”
He stood her up and gently unwrapped the dirty carpet, wincing at the sight of her sweet body, covered in black coal soot that had settled on it. “Take my cape,” he said, pulling it off and wrapping it around her. “And this candle. We need the light.”
She held on to the candle as he carefully lifted her into his arms and held her tightly to his chest.
She wrapped her arms about his neck and clung on tightly as he carefully carried her up the narrow passageway. When he opened the door to the assembly room, her parents stood there with Jess holding her pelisse. They quickly wrapped Honora in its warmth.
“If it is all the same to you, I would see her to your house before I depart for my own,” Benjamin said. “Never will I let the woman promised to be my wife out of my sight again.” He claimed her lips and kissed her in front of everyone.
Epilogue
Three months later
Honora pulled back the curtains and scanned the backyard.Goodness, Benjamin let me sleep too long.She would have thought Oliver would have woken her up, as he and Riggs usually did. However, he had been silent as well. Short barks and a child’s laughter drew her gaze toward the maze and the gardens. Benjamin, Riggs, and Oliver were laughing and rolling in the grass between the rose garden and the boxwood maze. “Benjamin, you are the best father this boy could have imagined,” she said out loud, marveling at the way her son had taken to her new husband.
Her mother-in-law’s cherished gardens had become Oliver’s and Rigg’s new play area. The dowager marchioness sometimes joined in and played. Honora had also, but these last two weeks had seen her more guarded with her activity. Her son and his dog used the maze as their play yard, running through it, often with Oliver declaring the first to make it out was the winner. She never worried with Riggs at Oliver’s side. Her son and his dog made fast work of every excursion.
Honora had noticed the discreet “peep holes” Benjamin had ordered strategically placed throughout the tall maze, enabling him to gather the two mischief makers for dinner, even though Mrs. Hadley had never asked for help. The older woman was not as spry as she had been when Honora was growing up.
Oliver’s hide-and-seek game had devolved into a wrestling match with Riggs as a barking referee. She wrinkled her nose when she saw the grass covering the three of them. Her husband would need a bath before lunch.They all would, she laughed.
Her hand drifted down to hold her stomach, a habit Honora had returned to since realizing she was with child.Their child. Closing her eyes, she gently rubbed her belly. She was certain they had conceived the child the night of their nuptials. Are you a boy or a girl?She cared not and felt sure when he found out, Benjamin would not either.
They had filled the church the morning of the sixth of January. They had chosen Twelfth Night as the day for their own beginning. The spirit of the holidays gave an added reason for family celebrations. Both mothers—hers and Benjamin’s—had worked together to make it a day they would never forget. Poinsettias, sprigs of holly and berries and other greenery had decorated the altar, and sprigs of mistletoe had covered the bases of golden candelabras. The vicar had allowed Oliver’s best friend to be part of the ceremony, and he and Riggs had stood quietly by her husband’s side as she and Benjamin recited their vows.
Several people she had never thought to see again had been there. The Duke and Duchess of Lancaster, Adam and Evie, sat in the front pew beside her parents. Next to them sat Lord and Lady Lawrence Gilbert. Gilbert had been named the new Marquess of Aster and had remained so until the guardianship papers revealed Oliver’s existence. He now served in the role of trustee for her son’s estates.
