Lady Hasselthorpe entered with Beatrice behind her.
Christ! Reynaud lunged against his chains, but the thick iron links held. Hasselthorpe swung toward the door, his gun pointed at Beatrice.
“Get out!” Reynaud ordered. Beatrice was looking at him, her sweet face set in mulish determination. He pulled at the chains with all his strength and felt a slight give.
Hasselthorpe turned toward him as the chains clanked. The lantern’s light glinted off the barrel of the pistol in his hand. Hasselthorpe raised it as Reynaud bared his teeth in defiance.
“No!” Beatrice screamed.
Lady Hasselthorpe rushed toward her husband. “Richard! Have you lost your mind?”
“Beatrice!” Reynaud lunged again, and the iron ring holding his right wrist burst from the wall.
Hasselthorpe swung toward him with the gun, but Lady Hasselthorpe was there, and Beatrice, damn her, Beatrice threw herself against the man.
The gun exploded with a deafening thunderclap, echoing off the stone walls and ceiling. For a moment, everyone froze.
“Beatrice,” Reynaud whispered.
She looked at him, her eyes puzzled, and raised a hand toward him.
Blood streaked her fingers.
SHE’D BEEN NEARLY deafened by the pistol’s report, but Beatrice still heard Reynaud’s angry roar. He sounded like an enraged lion, like some fiery archangel come from heaven to wreak vengeance on a mortal man. He leaped forward, his freed right hand outstretched toward Lord Hasselthorpe. The chain shrieked against the iron ring, and he jerked back, his fingertips brushing Lord Hasselthorpe’s sleeve.
“Dear God!” Lord Hasselthorpe exclaimed. He fell against Beatrice, grasping at her arm.
It was the wrong thing to do.
Reynaud roared again and lunged. The other iron ring exploded from the wall. He was on Lord Hasselthorpe in one bound, tearing the man away from Beatrice.
Lady Hasselthorpe screamed.
Reynaud hit the other man in the face with a horrible smacking sound, and Lord Hasselthorpe fell to the ground. Reynaud followed him down to the stone floor, kneeling above him, his balled fist driving again and again into Lord Hasselthorpe’s face.
“Stop him!” Lady Hasselthorpe clutched Beatrice’s arm. “He’ll kill Richard.”
He would, too. Reynaud showed no signs of halting, though the other man had long since ceased resisting.
“Reynaud,” she said. “Reynaud!”
He stopped abruptly, his chest heaving, his hands, bloody, hanging by his sides and the chains still dangling from his wrists.
Beatrice went to him and hesitantly touched his short, black hair. “Reynaud.”
He turned suddenly and laid his face against her stomach, his big hands grasping her hips. “He hurt you.”
“No,” she said, stroking his dear head, feeling his warmth beneath her palms. “No. The blood was his. The bullet must’ve hit him somewhere. I am not hurt.”
“I could not bear it,” he said against her. “I couldn’t bear it if you were hurt.”
“I wasn’t,” she whispered. She took his hands, large and bruised, in hers and drew him up. “I’m whole and safe. You’ve rescued me.”
“No,” he said as he stood. “I am the one who is rescued. I was lost and broken, and you saved me.” He bent and whispered against her lips, “You have redeemed me.”
He pulled her close, and she came willingly, happily, into the arms of the man she loved.
And who loved her in return.
Chapter Twenty
At the princess’s words, the Goblin King threw back his head and laughed until his green hair waved all about his head. “You shall be a delightful addition to my menagerie, my dear.”
He held out his horny hand. Princess Serenity laid her own small white hand in the Goblin King’s palm. At that very moment, Longsword appeared at a dead run.
“Stop!” he cried when he saw them. “Stop this dreadful thing! I did not know what my wife meant to do, but when I woke in the dark and found her gone, I suspected the worst. I have run all this night to prevent this thing.”
“Ah,” sighed the Goblin King. “But you are still too late. The pact between your wife and I has already been agreed upon and sealed. There is naught you can do. She is forfeit to me. . . .”
—from Longsword
“What will happen to Lord Hasselthorpe?” Beatrice asked later—much later—that day. She sat at her dressing table in her chemise, brushing her hair.
She watched Reynaud in the mirror. He lounged on the bed, his banyan falling open to reveal his bare chest. He’d discarded shoes and stockings, but he still wore his breeches. She’d almost lost him today, and the horror was still close to the surface. If she’d had her way, she would’ve shadowed him all day, just to watch him breathe. But they’d had to part early this morning. Reynaud had been concerned with taking Lord Hasselthorpe to prison, and she’d made an exhausting journey back to London in the company of a distraught Lady Hasselthorpe. The poor woman had had no idea of her husband’s murderous character, and moreover it seemed that she’d truly loved the awful man. Beatrice had spent the ride trying to comfort her.
As a result of all this, she’d only been reunited with Reynaud shortly after dinner, when he’d embraced her hurriedly and excused himself to bathe. His hair was still damp from that bath, she could see, and she wanted to touch it, but she restrained herself, feeling unaccountably shy.
“He’ll be charged with treason and murder,” he said. “And when he’s found guilty, he’ll be hanged.”
“How awful for Lady Hasselthorpe.” Beatrice shivered a little, placing her brush carefully on the dressing table. “Did he really inform the French of your regiment’s movements solely to kill his brother?”
Reynaud shrugged, causing his banyan to fall farther open. “He was probably paid as well, but I think the main reason was so he could steal his brother’s title.”
“What a terrible man.”
“Indeed.”
Beatrice swiveled on her stool to look at him fully. “I never thanked you for what you did to help pass Mr. Wheaton’s bill.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he replied quietly. “The men the bill benefits are soldiers. My men. I should’ve been more interested in the bill all along, instead of worrying solely about myself.”
She stood, walking toward him. “You’d lost everything. There was a reason you were focused on what you needed to have again.”