Becket's Last Stand

“Even when he thinks we should all leave him before Edmund Beales makes his move, get as far from him as possible. Save ourselves.” Chance balled his hands into fists. “Sometimes I just want to knock him down.”

“He’s a father, Chance,” Ethan said quietly. “Just as you and I are fathers. What would you do if you believed having your children with you needlessly exposed them to danger?”

“You make a valid point, Ethan, considering that I’m sending Julia and the children back to Coventry once we reach London,” Chance said. “But I was seventeen the day I stood on the deck of the Silver Ghost as we sailed out of that damn mist and into the middle of a half dozen ships to our two, because Beales and his three ships had slipped away during the night, leaving us to be slaughtered. I was seventeen when I walked onto the beach to see it stained red with the blood of old men, women and small children. I’m going nowhere. My place is right here, and Julia understands that.”

Courtland closed his eyes, Chance’s words bringing back memories he fought away every day, and Isabella’s words to him. You are her protector. Never leave her, not ever. Promise me.

“We all belong here,” Rian said quietly. “Courtland? You won’t leave, we all know that. Callie most especially. You’re her rock, you know. Her rock and, God help you, her target.”

“You just want to win the bet,” he complained, lifting his mug to attract Ivan’s attention. “And now, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to sit here and get myself very, very drunk. Does anyone care to join me?”

Chance laughed again. “Are you kidding? We’re all married, Court. Falling into a bottle is for the free and unfettered, that don’t have to answer to a wife. Enjoy yourself, this may be the last time you’ll be able to toss up your accounts in your chamber pot without abjectly apologizing between retches.”

“You’re all wrong. All of you. If none of you care for Cassandra’s happiness, I do. And that happiness doesn’t lie with a man like me.”

“A man like him. As if he has two heads, or something, and not a brain between them.” Ethan chuckled softly as he lifted his mug. “A toast, gentlemen. To Courtland Becket, one poor, deluded bastard.”

“Hear! Hear!” they all agreed, clinking their mugs together, and Courtland sank low on his spine in the wooden chair, believing the entire world, save him, gone mad.

CHAPTER FIVE

“DOMINOS?”

Eleanor Eastwood looked levelly at Cassandra, saying nothing, although her dark eyes spoke volumes.

“All right then, not dominos,” Cassandra said, knowing that look. “Chess? I’ll even magnanimously allow you to beat me.”

“I always beat you, Callie,” Eleanor reminded her. “And, before you ask, I don’t wish to play Hearts, I don’t care to read another book, hem another gown for the baby, have another slice of cake, nor will I ask you to plait my hair. What I want to do, Callie, is to scream. Loud and long.”

Poor Eleanor, confined to her bed all summer and now into the fall and winter, as well. She looked so small in the huge bed, except for the swell of her belly beneath the covers. Eleanor was, as they all said, their lady. Small-boned, regal, fragilely beautiful, but possessing a will of iron that had no one in confusion as to who was in charge of Becket Hall. That their grande dame should be hidden away upstairs, unable to quietly ride herd on all of them had to be endlessly frustrating to her.

Cassandra attempted to stifle her smile, but it was no use. Her sister was the most sensible, calm, collected person in the universe, and seeing her so agitated was almost amusing. “Oh, you sad thing. You won’t be locked up in here for much longer, will you?”

Eleanor pleated the covers with one hand as she looked up at the cut velvet canopy over her bed. “One moment more will be too much longer, Callie. Would you like to know how many roses are in this canopy? Six hundred and forty-three. And I loathe and detest every single one of them.” She sighed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m being such a sad complainer, aren’t I?”

“If someone put me to bed for—what is it now, seven months?—I would be much more than a sad complainer. I would be carted off to Bedlam, that madhouse in London.”

“Bethlehem Hospital, yes,” Eleanor said, smiling at last. “And I shouldn’t be anything but happy that this baby is still where he or she belongs, waiting patiently to grow and be born. Odette swears it’s a boy, you know. I’m at the point where I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s healthy, and arrives before Christmas. Now, tell me what’s going on downstairs The entire place is a shambles, I just know it is.”

Cassandra shook her head. “Jack and Odette would have my head. You’re not to do anything save to lie here and think pleasant thoughts, remember?”

“Easier said than done, I’m afraid. And, since I’ll worry anyway, why don’t you tell me what’s going on concerning that terrible man?”

“Courtland?” Cassandra said with a grin.

Eleanor picked up a small pillow and tossed it at her sister. “We’ll get to him in a moment. You know who I mean.”

“I can’t tell you anything about Edmund Beales because nobody knows anything about him other than that he’s out there somewhere, looking for us as desperately as we’re looking for him. You know that Chance and Julia and the children left this morning for London, don’t you?”

“They came to say goodbye, yes. And Alice gave me a drawing she’d made of Odette, Lord love her. It’s a good thing Odette can’t really turn little girls into toads. Only Chance is staying in London, however, sending Julia and the children on to Coventry with their London servants and some others to watch them until this is over. You, I understand, were supposed to have gone with them.”

“Papa relented,” Cassandra told her, quietly glorying in her victory. “He realizes I’m a woman now, and capable of making my own decisions.”

Eleanor pushed herself up against the raft of pillows behind her. “I imagine that’s why you’re considering Court a terrible man right now. He wasn’t happy for you to remain?”

Cassandra shrugged as she sat down on the edge of the bed. “He hasn’t said. Actually, he’s not speaking to me at the moment, which is fine with me, for I’m not speaking to him. He told me to never put up my hair again. Who is he to tell me how to wear my hair?”

“Yes, indeed, who is he? As if his opinion matters a jot to you one way or the other. After all, you don’t care a snap for him, correct?”

Cassandra allowed her body to list over to one side until she was lying on the covers, her head on Eleanor’s knees. “He drives me insane.”

“That seems only fitting, as turnabout is fair play,” Eleanor teased, stroking Cassandra’s tumbling curls. “Morgan and Mariah were in here earlier, visiting, and looking extremely guilty and altogether too pleased with themselves. What have our conspirators advised you to do now?”

“You know?” Cassandra sat up, pushed her hair out of her face. “Morgan said not to tell you because you’re so…poor spirited, and would probably ring a peal over all our heads.”

“Poor spirited? Is that what she calls being sensible?” Eleanor said, reaching for her cooling cup of tea. “Although, to Morgan, anyone a step below the rank of hellion is too boring to contemplate. Are you all so certain I disapprove?”

“You don’t? Really?” Cassandra allowed her shoulders to relax. And then she made a confession she hadn’t shared with Morgan or the others, because it was all just too embarrassing. “I kissed him two days ago,” she said, watching Eleanor’s face closely for her reaction.

“Is that so? My, and Morgan suggested this course of action?”

“Well, no…not directly. She just said—they all said—that Court has to stop seeing me as a child. So I…I just…”

“Ambushed him?” Eleanor suggested, handing Cassandra the empty teacup. “What did you do, jump out from behind a statue and hang yourself around his shoulders like a limpet?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Cassandra said quietly. “Almost, but not quite. We were sitting on the steps below the terrace and I just…I just turned to him and, well, launched myself at him, I suppose you’d say. It was very impulsive, not well thought out at all. But the entire thing seemed perfectly logical at the time.”

“Oh, I’m sure it did, after Morgan filled your head with nonsense. Cassandra, that probably wasn’t a good idea. You know what a stickler for propriety Courtland can be. You’ll have to be less obvious. Launching yourself is not being less obvious. Next time, you might want to find a way to make him think the kiss was his idea.”

Cassandra’s eyes went wide for a moment. “You’re giving me advice?”

“Why shouldn’t I? It would seem everyone else has, yes? And this is a baby I’m carrying, and we all know how babies are made. You and Fanny may have called me Saint Eleanor a time or two behind my back when I tried to school you in proper deportment, but I am a woman, you know. And, speaking of Fanny, please tell me she didn’t give you advice.”

“Well, Fanny didn’t say too much, as she and Valentine were in a hurry to get back to their estate. Something about a small fire in the kitchens, or something. A messenger arrived yesterday evening with the news, and they left this morning soon after Chance and Julia. But you know that, too, don’t you? Nobody hid that from you?”

“Yes, I’m allowed that sort of information, since Brede Manor didn’t burn to the ground, thank goodness. It’s probably better to have Fanny and Valentine gone, in any case, if things become, well, complicated. No one will know Fanny is a Becket, and Valentine shouldn’t be involved in anything that could end in violence. He has his place in Society to consider, his Earldom.”

“Not to hear him talk about how much he’d like to be the one who personally puts a ball between Beales’s eyes,” Cassandra said, sighing. “All of them, all the men. It’s all they talk about. Like little boys. They really want to see it come to a fight, Beales sailing into the harbor, his cannon run out, ready to deliver a broadside, or riding across the Marsh with one hundred well-armed men behind him, set to attack us. Do men never tire of war?”

“Are you including Court in this group of bloodthirsty avengers, Cassandra? I would have counted on him to be more subdued.”

“I suppose he is. He seems more interested in protecting us than in destroying Beales. He and Papa closet themselves together every morning, going over their plans as if something changed during the previous night.”

“And what are their plans? To defend Becket Hall, that is?”

Cassandra shook her head. “Oh, no, I’m not going to be tricked into telling you things Jack says you’re not to know.”

“But I feel so helpless, lying here. I’ve rolled enough bandages to wrap every other man here from head-to-toe if the occasion arises, and I’ve been over and over our list of supplies, until I could tell you precisely how many sacks of flour we have stored away, how many dozens of candles. Anyone would think we were Troy, about to come under siege. And all with me stuck here, unable to help. It’s so frustrating!”

“How should I be less obvious, Elly?” Cassandra asked, seeing that her sister was becoming agitated. If Odette were to enter the bedchamber now, Cassandra knew she’d be shooed out, probably with a flea in her ear and an admonition that she never return.

“Very well, I’ll stop complaining.” Eleanor took Cassandra’s hand in hers. “I doubt you should listen to me, sweetheart, when it comes to attracting a man. After all, I watched Jack from afar for over two years,

hiding my feelings like some silly ninny, before I finally got up the courage to…well, that’s neither here nor there. Was Courtland really angry when you kissed him?”

“I’m not sure. I think he was surprised. Oh, I know he was surprised. But then, just for an instant, you know, he seemed to…he seemed to soften toward me, as if he didn’t really mind all that much. That’s when he got angry!”

“Angry with himself,” Eleanor concluded, nodding her head as if this made perfect sense to her. “Poor, poor Courtland. He loves you so much, and has always loved you. What a surprise it must be to him that this love has been slowly shifting from the avuncular to the…ah…never mind. Do you know what I think? I think you should ignore him, Cassandra, just for a few days. Let him think you’re upset at his reaction to your kiss.”

“Well, I most certainly am not happy about his reaction. But what good will that do?”

“I can’t be sure, but I think it might make him begin to reconsider your association. The baby he helped care for hasn’t been a baby for a long time. He may need, however, to be introduced to the adult Cassandra. Because they’re two different people, aren’t they?”

“Sometimes,” Cassandra admitted, sighing, for if nothing else, she knew her own faults. “Sometimes I still act like an idiot child. Chasing after him, teasing him, driving him to distraction—all the things he’s always told me I do.”

“Then don’t do them anymore. It’s that simple. He is accustomed to reacting to the way you act— behave, that is. But, if you no longer behave as he has come to expect, then he will also have to change his own behavior and conclusions as they concern you. That only makes sense, doesn’t it? It could, actually, be rather delicious to watch. While I’m stuck up here, drat it all.”

Poor Eleanor. Cassandra decided she’d suffered enough. “Let me comb your hair. It’s all tangled in the back, from lying against those pillows.”

“Oh, I suppose so,” Eleanor said, sitting up. “Jack must think I’ve got birds nesting in my hair at times. But aren’t I keeping you from something?”

“Not a bit of it,” Cassandra said, grabbing the brush from the dressing table and climbing back up on the bed, kneeling behind her sister. “I can’t think of anything more enjoyable than spending time here with you.”

“Which explains why you’re pulling my hair out of my head—ouch!”

“Sorry,” Cassandra mumbled, trying not to giggle. But she’d talked so long with Eleanor that she’d lost track of time, and Jack would be coming into the bedchamber at any moment, while Mariah kept Odette occupied checking on young William Henry’s supposed putrid throat. “Oh, see how pretty you look now? Let me get you that bed jacket over there, and put it around your shoulders. I think I feel a chill.”

“Cassandra,” Eleanor said sternly as her sister dashed away, running back with the lace-edged bed jacket, “what are you doing? And don’t tell me you invited everyone in here to my prison to entertain me, because I’m in no mood to be cheered by a gaggle of people who can come and go as they please while I’m stuck here like some—Jack? I thought you were all meeting over at The Last Voyage to decide who next goes out on maneuvers with the Respite.”

“Yes, I imagine you do think that, since that’s what I told you,” her husband said, smiling at Cassandra.

He’d changed his clothes since she’d last seen him, and his dark blond hair was still damp from his bath. Jack always had a rather lean yet rugged look about him, riding out on the Marsh daily, his skin darkly tanned, making the laugh lines around his mouth and eyes stand out in relief when he smiled. He looked dangerous, while Eleanor looked the Compleat Lady. And they loved each other very much. “Thank you, she looks beautiful. Not that you aren’t always beautiful, darling, so don’t go pulling a face at me. Now, are you ready to go downstairs?”

“Down— Downstairs?” Eleanor shook her head, looking incredulous. “What did you all do, lock Odette in the cellars? She won’t let me leave this bed.”

“What Odette doesn’t know won’t hurt us, or at least not until she finds out,” Jack said as Cassandra pulled back the covers and helped Eleanor on with her slippers, not that her sister’s feet would ever touch the floor, and then arranged her long nightgown so it covered the scars on her ankle. “At Morgan’s suggestion, we’re having a musical evening, and as you’ve been such a brave little soldier for all this time, we thought we’d include you.”

He slipped his arms beneath her and she wound her hands around his neck as he lifted her from the bed, high against his chest. “Well, look at me, Cassandra, holding my entire family in my arms. Gives a man pause, I’ll tell you.”

“Just don’t be so nervous that you trip with your family as you go down the stairs.”

“My darling wife, always so trusting.”

“I was only teasing, Jack, poking fun at my new weight that you couldn’t have been expecting. But, to speak of being trusting, and I don’t wish to appear ungrateful, not when you’ve all gone to so much trouble—but will Spence be singing?”

“Not if there’s a merciful God,” Jack said, carrying his wife toward the door, Cassandra following behind, so happy for her sister, who’d found her Jack, and who would soon, after so much heartache, have her own child to hold.

COURTLAND WALKED DOWN the hallway toward the music room still holding a sheaf of papers filled with drawings of the first and second lines of passive defenses he and Ainsley had commissioned a few weeks earlier, all of them now in place.

Thankfully, Ainsley had at last been able to convince the women in Becket Village to leave. Except for the stubborn Becket women and some of the household staff, who refused to leave Eleanor, who could not be moved without imperiling her unborn child. They’d taken their children inland with them, out of the way of battle and safe from the defenses that now made the area dangerous even to its inhabitants. They had all gone together, but would break off for predetermined destinations in small villages scattered throughout Romney Marsh, so that no one would raise an eyebrow at an influx of over one hundred new inhabitants descending on the same place.

Becket Hall, Becket Village, were now little more than armed camps…and one musical evening meant to entertain Eleanor.

Mentally, not really needing to consult his lists, Courtland reviewed their defenses.

Deadfalls fitted out with wooden spikes and seamlessly hidden beneath the landscape were now located in the tall reeds to the East, behind the treacherous, shifting sands along the shoreline that were their own deterrent.

Protective trenches had been dug around the Western and Northern sides of Becket Village, in places more than twelve feet deep—good for burying Beales’s dead hirelings once the assault was over, Spence had joked. Again, these defenses were camouflaged with grasses and shrubs, ready to snare the unwary, and too wide for most men to jump across them if they were discovered.

The shingle and sand beach and the first dozen or more feet of shallow sea in front of the village and Becket Hall itself had been studded with sharp sticks of wood tied together to make large structures that, to Courtland, looked like enormous children’s playing jacks, preventing small boats from landing easily and then slowing any force trying to make its way across the beach. Only those who lived at Becket Hall knew the paths through these obstacles that wouldn’t end with a foot impaled on hidden nine-inch metal spikes Jasper and Waylon had fashioned in the smithy.

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