“You are so sexy right now,” I told him. “I can’t tell you how awesome you look fending off the bad drug lords with just a shield and a sword, and I’m going to remember this moment for a long, long time. But you know, the odds aren’t terribly in our favor.”
He winked at me, actually winked at me. “Aren’t they?”
“No, they aren’t,” Barry said, and, lifting his sword, was about to charge.
And that’s when I realized that the dull murmuring that I’d assumed was the sound of the stream echoing around the chamber had grown louder. I recognized that sound; it was the murmuring of a crowd.
Alden gave a battle cry at that moment, shouting, “For the shire!” as he rushed forward, taking Barry and gang by surprise. At the same time, answering cries, muffled and somewhat dulled, sounded, as well as excited voices calling out questions.
“My kingdom for a bow!” I yelled, looking around desperately for something to use as a weapon as the five men all leaped on Alden.
I ended up grabbing one of the plastic tubs, and smashed it down on the head of one of the men, then used a wooden stool to beat at the back of the one who was banging Alden on the head with his shield. Bodies poured in through the narrow opening, first Vandal, then one of his students, and then three more men who weren’t in armor.
“The cavalry is here!” I shouted gleefully, doing a dance of happiness before using the stool to bash Barry on the head.
“Drug enforcement, actually,” one of the uniformed men said.
“Same difference, really.” Now that Barry was not blocking the way, I pushed past the men to where Tamarind lay, quickly checking her for injuries. One of the uniformed guys joined me. “I think she’s just been knocked out. There’s blood on the back of her head, but she’s breathing, and her pulse seems to be fairly OK. I’ve done a CPR course, if that’s needed.”
The cop nodded, and pulled out a radio, speaking into it to ask for medical aid. I left Tamarind in his charge, and returned to the pile of men. One of the guys was on his belly, his hands tied with zip ties, while the other three were in a pile, struggling with the police and the melee combatants.
Barry, swearing up a blue streak, was fighting with two of Vandal’s students.
“Alden? Where are you, my darling? Vandal, do you see him in that pile of plate? They all jumped him.”
“I’m here.” Alden’s voice came from beneath everyone. He sounded pained, his voice thick. “Just a bit winded. Can you get them off me?”
It took a few minutes, but in the end, there were five men lying prone, their hands shackled behind them. Alden sat on the stool I’d used to brain Barry, while Vandal and I disarmed him. There wasn’t enough room for more people than were already present, so one of the Scandinavian fighters stood at the entrance and recounted everything that was going on.
“The woman is all right. She just came to,” he said through the crack in the wall. A muffled cheer followed.
“The owner of the place has two black eyes, and a split lip, but now there’s a woman in a dirty blue dress who’s kissing his face and crying and dabbing at the split lip. I think she must be his partner.”
A group “aww” could be heard.
“Girlfriend,” I told the narrator.
“Fiancée,” Alden said, his voice getting thicker by the minute as his nose swelled up. It was broken, and I thought briefly of trying to set it myself, but decided to wait for the medics that had been called for Tamarind.
I blinked at him. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, really,” he said, trying to grin, but flinching when his hurt lip protested.
“They’re engaged, evidently,” the man called to the crowd through the crack.
“No, we aren’t,” I told him, still dabbing at Alden’s lip while Vandal unhooked his chest plate.
“We are.”
“You haven’t asked me to marry you. Until you do that, and I accept, we aren’t engaged.”
Alden looked at me with his now two black eyes. “You don’t think I’d marry you after everything we’ve been through?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you don’t want to marry me.” Instantly, his body language changed. He went into full awkward mode.
“Trouble in paradise,” the narrator yelled. “He wants to marry her, but she doesn’t want him.”
The boos that met that statement were so loud, they echoed in our chamber.
“I do want to marry him,” I told the guy at the wall. “But I want a proper proposal.”
“My bad,” he called out to the crowd. “She does want him.”
Alden sighed and, with a groan, tried to go down on one knee. He ended up just kneeling in front of me, taking my hand in his. “Mercedes whatever-your-middle-name-is Starling, will you save me from being an inarticulate lump of social anxiety, and marry me?”
Love filled every last inch of me. “Yes, Emanuel Alden Ainslie, I will.”
“He just proposed,” the narrator yelled. “She accepted.”
Another cheer could be heard.
“Now he’s trying to get up. Oh, he’s down, flat on his face. She’s helping him up. So is Vandal. They have him on the stool, and she’s kissing him. He’s giving me the thumbs-up. I think it’s all good.”
Another cheer could be heard, this one including what I assumed were some ribald suggestions, if the laughter that followed was anything to go by.
“He’s got his hand on her arse now, and she’s stroking his thigh—”
I stopped kissing Alden, and glared at the man.
He grinned and turned back to the crack. “My work here is done! Let us go celebrate with ale and wenches!”
A cheer so loud it made bits of dust flake off the wall shook the entire cave.
We waited until the medics arrived to check Tamarind, and take her away, saying she’d suffered a slight concussion. Several more police arrived, but by then, we were out in the cave proper, where there was room for everyone who was tramping back and forth while they led out Barry and his cohorts, and dismantled the meth lab.
“We will want a full statement,” one of the cops told us, but, after seeing Alden’s face, added, “You can do that tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” I said, leading my tired warrior out of the cave. He was limping, his face was battered, he had numerous bruises, swellings, and a few scratches, but otherwise, he was relatively unhurt.
“Just get me home and into a hot tub,” he said when I suggested driving him to the hospital. The medics had said there was nothing they could do for him, but I thought they were being a bit callous. “Then I’ll be able to reciprocate.”
I paused as we started up the many stairs to the top of the cliff. “Reciprocate a bath?”
“No.” His cracked and split lips moved in a stiff smile. “It’s my turn to use the leather cuffs on you.”
“You have remarkable staying power,” I told him as I slid my arm around his waist, helping him up the steps. “But I’m not sure if even you could survive the sort of attentions I want to give you tonight.”
“Just you wait and see, Nancy Drew. I’ll surprise you yet.”
I smiled, and decided that although he probably wouldn’t be up to romping with the restraints, there was no reason I couldn’t show him how much fun a bath for two could be. “You’re on, my darling Ned. You are so very on.”
Epilogue
“And this is, of course, the famed verandah of the famed Ainslie Castle, with the famed west view of the Roman dig site.”
“Famous!” I said, giggling a little as Alice, Lady Ainslie, led me out of the house onto a stone verandah that was dotted with a couple of round glass tables. At one, a woman who had been introduced to me as Alden’s sister-in-law Lorina sat with her stepdaughter, a charming, if talkative, girl in her late teens.
“It is, i
sn’t it? Well, perhaps just to us.” Alice sank down at one of the unoccupied tables, sighing with relief, and propping her feet up on another chair. “But the tourist numbers are increasing, thanks in part to Gunner and Lorina doing that archaeology show.”
“I think I heard about that. There was some trouble about it. . . .” I tried to remember the gossip I’d seen going around at the time.
“Yes, but that’s all over with. Everyone is fine and well and receiving medical treatment.”
I stared at her, aghast.
She laughed. “There was an issue with one of the men being HIV positive, and he didn’t know, but Lorina tells me he’s doing quite well on the medications.” She stretched her back, and settled into the white wrought iron chair.
I eyed her large belly. “You must be tired of hauling that baby around.”
“You have no idea.” She patted her stomach fondly. “Just another month to go, and then the alien life-form will be out, and I’ll be able to do things like bend. And get out of a chair by myself. I won’t need to call Elliott every time I want to get up.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” the Elliott in question said, strolling out of the building with Alden and their brother Gunner in tow. Gunner immediately went to sit with his wife and daughter, bending over the former to give her a swift kiss, and ruffling the hair of the latter. “I happen to like you needing me to do things. It makes me feel like I have a part in this whole baby process.”
“Oh, you had a part,” she said, poking him in the side. “But that’s best not mentioned in front of others.”
Alden smiled down at me, and said softly, “How are you getting on with Alice?”
“Just fine.”
“Good. I told you she’d like you.” He gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder. I took his hand and bit the tip of his finger, enjoying the brief look of surprise that flashed through his eyes, followed by smoldering heat.
“I never doubted she would,” I said, giving him back his hand.
“Alden, I want you to see the progress we’ve made on the tower since you were last here. We’re thinking of using it as a special honeymoon suite for visitors. . . .”
“Affluent visitors,” Alice called after them. “The affluent part is important.”
The men waved at us, and proceeded down the steps and off to the other side of the castle to inspect the latest renovation work.
“I’m glad to see Alden excited about rebuilding,” Alice said, wiggling in her seat to get more comfortable. “Things sounded pretty dire there for a bit, what with the fire and all.”
“Yes, well, they were dire. Luckily, the Hairy Tit people still wanted that north pasture despite the underhanded business that Barry was pulling, and Alden decided that selling off just a small amount of the land was better than selling it all.”
“Will the money be enough to rebuild Bestwood Hall?”
“No, but Tamarind—she’s the cop who fancied Alden, although he claims she didn’t—she said we might be in for some reward money if the conviction for drug manufacture and trafficking sticks to Barry and Lisa.”
“I don’t think I understand exactly how they were related,” Alice said, slipping on a pair of shades against the afternoon sun. “Was she working with him, or not?”
“Kind of both, actually, although she’s not saying a word other than she was not hired by Lady Sybilla before she arrived at the hall.”
“Then why did she go there? And why was she trying to seduce him if she was married?”
“I suspect it was just her way to get Alden in a position where she could blackmail him into selling the house to Barry, although who knows why she assumed Alden would be that foolish.” I made a face, then grinned. “As for the other, Alden thinks you sent her.”
“He does?” She looked startled. “That’s odd of him.”
“He’s a bit confused about that whole thing.”
Alice looked at me for a few seconds. “You didn’t tell him, then?”
“That it was me you wanted to match up with him? No, I think that would ruin his idea of the serendipity that brought us together.”
“But you didn’t agree to be matched with him,” she protested. “I deliberately didn’t tell Alden about the Hard Day’s Knights people just so he wouldn’t spend time fretting about meeting the woman I’d picked out for him.”
I shrugged.
“And then you insisted on taking that job with the horrible children, while Vandal found someone else for your job, and . . . oh, I suppose it doesn’t matter, since you ended up with both the job and the man I had planned for you anyway.”
“To be fair, I didn’t know that job I took over from Janna was the same one you talked to me about. All you’d told me was that it was a unique opportunity, and that your brother-in-law desperately needed a woman just like me. I didn’t figure it out until he told me his name.”
“Well, you were obviously meant to be together,” she said, patting her belly happily.
“I know we were, but I think I’ll wait a bit before I tell Alden that you had planned for us to meet.”
She snorted. “Men just don’t know what’s good for them.”
“Amen to that.”
Alden and Elliott, evidently done looking at the renovation, headed across the lush grass toward the verandah.
“Returning to the previous subject—why did Lisa show up at the house?”
“Her husband’s aunt asked her there.”
Alice’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Her what? Who is that? Not—you’re not going to tell me that Lady Sybilla was involved with the drugs!”
“Not directly, no,” Alden answered, taking a chair next to me. “It was her husband who installed all the grow lights in the secret passages.”
“Grow lights? Like for pot?” Alice asked, her eyes big.
“That’s what the cops tell us,” I answered, nodding and scooting over so I could put my hand on Alden’s leg. “They figured that, by the date of them, Sir James Baskerville was running a grow operation in the seventies and eighties. Lady Sybilla maintains she knew nothing about it, but Alden thinks she’s not so innocent.”
“It’s one reason why she didn’t want to leave the house until it was destroyed,” Alden said. “She was afraid we’d find the passages, and guess how her husband had funded the estate decades ago.”
“So if she’s not the aunt, then who is?” Alice asked.
“Her maid, Adams,” Alden answered, laying his hand on mine, and squeezing my fingers. “Evidently she was hired by Sir James to help him with the plants, and she just stayed on, morphing into a companion.”
“So . . .” Alice looked thoughtful. “So this Barry character, the one who was making meth under the house, he was Adams’s nephew.”
“Yup. That’s how he learned about the passages. The best the police can guess is that they’d been making it down there for about seven or eight years,” I answered, feeling about as happy as a person could feel without actually breaking into a Disney song.
“They used the cave to get the stuff out onto a waiting boat,” Alden added. “It was a perfect plan—no one knew they were down there except Adams, and she got a cut of the proceeds. Lady Sybilla was in her own little world, and didn’t have the slightest idea of what was going on. Adams made sure of that.”
Alice tapped her fingers on the table, and frowned.
Elliott, who had been looking into the distance (Alden told me he wrote espionage books, so I assumed he was mulling our recent events over as book fodder), asked, “Why did Lisa try to kill Alden?”
Alden and I exchanged looks. “We don’t know,” he admitted.
“We know—we just have no proof until Lisa spills the beans,” I corrected. “She wanted Alden out of the house in case he found the drug lab, and since he wasn’t taking Barry up on any of the luc
rative offers he forced the board of the tits to make, she took matters into her own hands. I figure at least half of the accidents Alden had were caused by her trying to scare him off. Or injure him so gravely that he’d have to sell out.”
“We have no proof,” Alden said gently, and rubbed his thumb over my hand.
“Perhaps not, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” I sighed. “Part of the problem is that the police aren’t finding much to charge Lisa with. She says she had no idea there was a meth lab beneath the house—which they moved out of the secret passage and into the cave after Alden arrived—and Barry, her husband, isn’t saying she did.”
“So she’ll get off without any repercussions?” Alice asked.
“Possibly. I’m going to work on the cops to third-degree her and get her to admit she tried to kill Alden with the trapdoor and the loose railing outside the window.”
“You’re going to do no such thing,” he said, lifting my hand and kissing my fingers, much to my delight. “You’re going to be too busy helping me rebuild Bestwood Hall.”
“Planning, surely,” Elliott said.
“Not just planning. We’re going to do as much of the work as possible by ourselves,” I told Alice and Elliott. “To save money, because the Hairy Tit funds will only go so far. And we’ve already signed up for a home builders’ course so we can learn how to hang Sheetrock and build joists and do roofing. Alden says he knows enough architecture stuff to do the design work, and we’re going to take the elements of the old hall that we liked and incorporate them. It’s going to be awesome.”
“I’m sure the new Bestwood will be delightful,” Elliott said, making googly eyes at Alice.
She giggled at him and blew him a kiss.
“But not as delightful as the new mistress,” Alden said, waggling his eyebrows.
“Are you flirting with me, Alden? Right out here in the open, in front of your family and everything?” I teased.
“I am, I am, and I will,” he said, standing up, pulling me to my feet and into his arms.
“You will what?” I asked, wiggling against him.