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"Well then what--?" She fell silent when he patted her hand.
Smiling wryly now, he shook his head. "I am not doing this right. It is just that you and Daniel have had such an unusual courtship. Well, really, you haven't had a courtship at all, and I just want you to be sure. I don't want you to feel you have to marry him because of anything that's transpired . . . and I want you to know that if you wish to take more time to get to know him now that there is no need or rush to marry, I will support you in that."
Suzette relaxed and leaned forward to hug him, whispering, "Thank you, Father. That means a great deal." Sitting back she added, "But I don't need more time. I want to marry Daniel."
"Well, good." He smiled, and then gave a little sigh and said, "I suppose it shall just be Lisa and I from now on then . . . and she will be off marrying her own husband soon enough too." He shook his head. "It seems like just yesterday when you were all my little girls running around playing."
"We will always be your little girls, Papa." Suzette squeezed his hand. "You are always welcome to come visit Daniel and me at Woodrow. And now that you've sold the townhouse you will have to stay with Christiana and Richard when you go to town. You will see us. You are still our father and a part of our lives."
"Of course I will," he agreed, managing a smile that seemed weak at first, but then became more sincere as he said, "And you will all give me lovely grandbabies to spoil and watch drive you as mad as you all drove your mother and I."
A surprised laugh slipped from Suzette and she shook her head. "Both you and Lady Woodrow are on about grandbabies and we have not even married yet."
"Hmm." Her father stood and offered his arm. When Suzette stood as well and took it, he urged her toward the door saying, "Lady Woodrow seems a fine woman."
"Yes, she does," Suzette agreed with a smile as he led her out of the room. "I like her already."
"Well, it's mutual. She told me so herself." He paused to pull the door closed, and then urged her along the landing toward the stairs, asking, "Are you nerv--?"
When his question stopped mid-word and his steps faltered, bringing them to a halt, Suzette glanced to her father curiously and then followed his gaze to what had caught his attention. A man had just come out of one of the rooms further along the landing. He was a good distance away, even so, Suzette could see that he wore the coarse clothes of the working class and a short single-breasted jacket that was popular with stablemen. Assuming he worked in the stables here, Suzette was just wondering what on earth he was doing in a guest's bedchambers when he turned toward them and she saw his face. She was just registering that it was Jeremy Danvers when he spotted them and pulled his pistol from inside his jacket.
"I thought you said she was ready?" Daniel asked, glancing fretfully toward the inn. His mother had come down several minutes ago and sent Lord Madison up to collect Suzette. The group had then immediately moved out into the courtyard to wait . . . and wait.
"She was," Lady Woodrow murmured, glancing toward the inn as well. Sighing, she shrugged helplessly, and suggested, "Perhaps they are having a father/daughter talk."
"Hmm." Daniel tapped his fingers against his thigh, counting out the seconds as he waited, but his gaze was now trained on the inn door as he willed it to open. They should have been here by now and he was getting a bad feeling.
"You don't think she's had second thoughts because you aren't poor, do you?" Richard asked with a frown.
"I haven't told her that yet," Daniel said at once.
"Oh." Richard hesitated and then admitted, "I did."
"What?" Daniel turned on him with dismay and his friend grimaced apologetically.
"It was after she got that letter. I thought--"
Daniel didn't wait to hear what he'd thought. He was already headed back into the inn, his mind in an uproar. Leave it to him to fall in love with probably the only female in all of England who would refuse to marry him because he had wealth, he thought with disgust as he stomped inside.
Honestly, he did always seem to choose the hardest route to everything. So, of course, he would find himself in love with the most difficult woman he could probably find. But if Suzette thought she was going to back out of this wedding, she had another think coming, he told himself grimly as he mounted the stairs to the bedchambers. They had already consummated this marriage. She may be carrying his child even now. And he loved her, dammit! That had to count for something, he assured himself as he started along the landing. She was going to marry him if he had to--
Daniel stopped abruptly as he heard Suzette's voice coming from the door he was passing. It wasn't her door, but the door to the room he'd shared with her father and Robert last night. Frowning, he moved closer and pressed an ear to the wooden panel to listen. If she and her father were having a father/daughter talk, he would just slip back outside and force himself to wait patiently. If not though, and she was arguing with her father over marrying him, Daniel would--
That thought died as a male spoke next. He didn't recognize the voice, but it was not Lord Madison, and since all the other males in their party were below, that left only one person he could think of. Jeremy Danvers. Daniel supposed that he should have known the man wasn't smart enough to stay in hiding.
Jaw clenching, he grasped the door handle and turned it as slowly and carefully as he could, then eased the door open enough to stick his head in and peer about. Daniel saw Lord Madison and Suzette first. Lord Madison was looking worried and grim, but Suzette just looked angry as she glared at the man holding a pistol on them and said with disgust, "You are an idiot if you think your stupid plan to marry me for my dower will work now. Even if you did force me to marry you, everyone knows what you are up to and it wouldn't stand."
"I have no intention of marrying a sharp-tongued little guttersnipe like you," the man he suspected was Danvers growled.
"Then what do you want?" Suzette asked sharply. "Why force us in here?"
"Because I need money, of course," he said dryly. "Thanks to you, I am going to have to go on the run now, and--"
"Oh, do not try to lay the blame for the mess you have made of your life at my door, my lord," Suzette interrupted, scowling at him. "You are the lackwit who knocked Father out rather than just let us out of the carriage, and you are the one who chose to shoot your own driver, and then tied us up. You probably shot Daniel too, didn't you?"
Daniel was looking at Suzette and didn't hear Danvers say anything, but he must have done something in deed or expression to suggest that was the case, because Suzette snorted with derision. "Fortunately, you made a mess of that as well and he still lives. And that fact is the only reason I will make this offer: if you leave now, Father and I won't say a word about this business today. Just go. We won't send the men after you."
"I am not going without what I came for," Danvers snapped. "I need money to buy passage to the Continent and to live off of and I know your father has the proceeds from the sale of his townhouse here somewhere." His gaze shifted to Lord Madison. "Y
ou said as much that first day when you found us by the waterfall. You said you had it at the inn and would fetch it at once. Instead, we left for Gretna Green. I thought you surely had it in the bag you packed and brought with you."
"I didn't trust you so I didn't take it with me," Madison said, and Daniel noticed he seemed pleased to be able to say so.
"I figured that out on my own," Danvers said bitterly. "I walked all the way to the inn only to see Woodrow and a woman riding out. I realized the entire party was probably there, so turned back. But, of course, he got to the two of you first," he ground out. "After he and the old woman headed back to the inn with the two of you, I decided my best bet was to find the proceeds from the sale of the townhouse and flee for the Continent, so I walked all the way back to the overturned carriage, but it wasn't in your bag."
"I left it in the chest in Robert's care," Madison said calmly.
"Then you can just get it now and give it to me if you and your daughter want to walk out of this room alive."
Daniel narrowed his eyes. He was unarmed and had been waiting to see what the plan was before deciding what to do. If the man was going to try to escape with Suzette, he would have slid to the next room along the landing, hid inside and leapt out to jump the man as they passed. However, that didn't appear to be the plan, and whether Danvers got the money or not, Daniel didn't believe he planned to let Lord Madison and Suzette leave this room, alive or otherwise. There was too much venom and fury in the man's voice. He hated Suzette and her father and blamed them for the failure of his plan and the situation he found himself in. He had also killed once already, that they knew of, and had tried to kill both him and Suzette on top of that, shooting him and choking her. Daniel suspected the man would shoot Lord Madison the moment he produced the money and then finish what he'd started last night and choke Suzette to death.
Judging by the expressions on Cedrick Madison's and Suzette's faces, they believed the same thing. Still, Madison nodded once and then turned away.
"What are you doing?" Danvers snapped, taking a step after him.
Daniel took that opportunity to slip into the room and ease the door closed. He then started to slide to the left, trying to get behind Danvers and out of his peripheral vision as Lord Madison calmly said, "I am getting the money for you. It is what you want, isn't it?"
