Page 80 of The Dreaming Beauty
Ten minutes later and not a single person could say anything of their mother’s whereabouts.
“Where is that woman hiding?” Simon set his hands on his hips.
Marcus ran a hand over his face. “I have a wild guess at where she might have gone, and I hope we aren’t too late. We must get the horses.”
Never had Marcus saddled a horse so fast, despite his aching limbs. Within minutes they were to Rose Cottage, the house dark. “Can you tie up the horses?” he asked Simon.
When his brother agreed, Marcus rushed forward, put his hand on the fence, and vaulted over it. His eyes darted every whichway as he jogged up to the house. Tansy had better be in bed. When he reached the door, he had meant to search for another threatening letter, but his eye caught on the door itself. There was a key in the lock, and it was open an inch.
Mother. She was inside.
His blood ran cold. Sliding inside with all the stealth he could muster, he let himself into the narrow vestibule. Without a window, the house was darker than outside. His movements were painstaking and deliberate. The Masked Baron had taught him to shift his weight and to measure out the pressure of each step and smother his breathing. He carefully made his way toward the drawing room. He glanced inside but saw nothing. The stairs became his next objective. He had no knowledge of the layout of the second floor, but he was about to find it out. Walking along the edges of the stairs, he did his best to avoid the creaks he had heard in past visits when Tansy or her aunts had come down the stairs. He shifted his weight as measuredly as he could, but time was still his greatest motivation.
It seemed to take a year before he made it to the top landing. The door on his right was shut tight, but the door on his left was partially open. The left it was. He put his back to the wall, his breathing shallow and his heart pumping fiercely. Slowly, he pushed the door wider bit by bit until what he saw made his whole body freeze.
His mother stood over a bed with her hand outstretched. He did not have to see Tansy to know she was the target and his mother was about to strangle her. When the woman suddenly drew back, an even worse conjecture entered his mind. Perhaps the evil deed was already done.
He barreled into the room and shouted, “Get away from her!” He shoved his mother aside and went straight for Tansy. Her head was bent at an odd angle, and his next breath did not come. No! This wasn’t happening.
He scooped her up into his arms, her head falling limply over his forearm. He cried out and hugged her head to him, releasing her only long enough to kiss her still lips. A commotion stirred behind him, but he didn’t care about anything but this woman in his arms. That was, until the woman he held began to stir.
He pulled back as Tansy’s eyes blinked open. “Marcus?”
Air filled his lungs with immense relief. Daisy had been right. Kissing a sleeping maiden was an absolute genius idea.
Chapter 34
Was this a dream? Orworse, a nightmare? Would Tansy be tormented in her sleep with dreams of being kissed by the man she loved, only to wake to a life without him?
“Tansy, thank the heavens! Are you hurt?”
“Hurt?” Her eyes cleared, and her hand reached out to touch Marcus’s face. “You’re real?”
“Yes.” He laughed. “I am real.”
Daisy’s head popped up beside her, her bedraggled curls escaping her sleeping cap and dancing across her forehead. “Mr. Taylor! What are you doing in here?”
“I want to know the same thing!” Iris yelled behind him. “And that woman! What isshedoing here?”
“Your Grace,” Aster said, equally flustered at seeing Simon now joining them, but her voice was at least at a rational level. “Where did you come from?”
Tansy’s hand fell to Marcus’s waistcoat, and he slowly released her, setting her down as gently as one would a hurt deer. Tansy had feared it would be months before she saw him again, but now here he was, and in her room, kissing her.
And he had brought his mother?
She could not wrap her head around any of it.
“Are you sure you are all right?” Marcus asked.
She would be if he promised never to leave her again, but she had a feeling he was asking for different reasons. “I am well, except I cannot grasp what has happened or why any of you are here.”
“Mother, what have you done?” Simon stepped into the room, his accusing eyes landing on Lady Melbourne.
“You followed me too? I haven’t the faintest idea what you suspect me of, but I will have you know I was not trying to hurt her.” Lady Melbourne’s voice trembled, not at all the confident one Tansy had heard on past occasions. “I could not. Not Rosie’s child.”
“Then, whyareyou here?” Marcus demanded. “And believe me when I say that I will know if you are lying.”
“And don’t say you sleepwalked,” Daisy added. “No one in this room would believe you.”
