Her own faint smile echoed his. "I love you," she whispered in answer. "I am sorry for my agitation. All I need is a little fresh air, and I will fine, I assure you. We will not need to be on deck for long."

It was against his better judgment, but he couldn't keep her a prisoner below deck. As long as it was dark, there was little chance of anyone spotting them from the docks, and they wouldn't be on deck very long. "Very well," he reluctantly agreed. "Just for a little while." By this time tomorrow, if weather permitted, they'd be out to sea, and she could get all the fresh air she wanted.

A little while was all she needed, time enough to breathe in fresher air and calm her nerves before they returned to cabin. Waiting for darkness seemed to take an age, but it was not so very long before Oliver deemed it safe enough for them to step out onto the deck. They deliberately kept to the seaward rail, away from the dock so close at hand, and Connie leaned against it heavily, taking in great lungfuls of the salt-touched air. Both missed the eagle-sharp eyes of a hired hand on the quayside, and the hasty messenger sent by the owner of those eyes toward the inns that lined the quay.

"It will not be an easy voyage," he told her, though they'd been over all this already. Even if they didn't encounter bad weather, the sea could get rough and choppy, the air cold and damp. Their quarters, though comfortable enough, were small and cramped, and there wasn't much in the way of entertainment on board. Concerned for her well-being aboard the ship, Ollie failed to notice that eyes were watching them from the pier.

"It is worth all the discomfort in the world to be with you," she murmured, curling her hand into his as she smiled wearily. It was just as well the captain and the watchman were under the impression they were a married couple; they'd see no impropriety in the way Connie laid her head on Ollie's shoulder with a soft sigh.

He hoped that was true, but who was he to argue. Propriety be damned, he touched a brief kiss to her cheek, as chaste as one might kiss a friend, or as tender as a lover. If only they were already somewhere far away from Edmund's reach, it would have been a perfect moment.

The sound of a carriage traveling over cobblestones on the quay roused Connie from her smiling contemplation of his face in the moonlight, glancing idly over her shoulder. Her face abruptly paled as she caught sight of just who was alighting from that carriage. "Ollie," she whispered urgently, not daring to move.

"Hmm?" he asked, belatedly noting the urgency in her voice, as he lazily turned his head to see what - or who - had caught her attention. "Blast," he muttered, when he saw who was alighting from the carriage. "Go to the cabin, lock the door, and don't come out until I come for you," he instructed, tugging her away from railing.

She moved with his tugging motion easily, only too happy to obey, but Edmund Stanley was already striding up the gangplank, his long-legged gait smooth and swift enough to intercept them both before they reached the hatch.

At the bow, the watchman belatedly realized someone unknown was aboard, blowing his whistle to call for help. "'Ere, you can't come on board!"

Edmund's hand closed over Connie's wrist with white knuckles as he glared at her. "Constance," he greeted her coldly. "Blackwood, be assured you will be hearing from my solicitor."

"Let her go, Edmund," Oliver said, grabbing the man by the shoulder to turn him back around. "You care nothing for her. You never have." He knew that, by itself, wouldn't be enough to convince the man to let her go, but it might at least attract the attention of onlookers, who Edmund would want to avoid at all costs.

"She is mine, Blackwood." Edmund raised his cane, rapping smartly at the hand Oliver had laid on his shoulder even as he pulled harshly on Connie's arm in his grasp. She cried out in pain at the rough way he handled her, hearing the stumble and slip of the watchman scrambling toward them.

"I'm warning you, Edmund. If you don't let her go, you will see me in court, and I can assure you that I will not hold back. Everyone will know the truth. If you want to avoid scandal, then let her go. Give her a divorce, and we will never blacken your door again. That I promise you," Oliver reasoned, hoping to appeal to Edmund's good sense, if the man had any. If either of them took the other to court, the entire sordid tale would be splattered all over the papers, damaging Edmund's reputation, possibly for good. As for Oliver, he didn't care much what people said about him. He and Connie would simply leave the country and start over somewhere else.

Edmund laughed scornfully at the offer. "Do you honestly believe I would ever act for her benefit?" he sneered at Oliver, thrusting his cane toward his rival viciously.

Behind Ollie, the watchman scowled. "'Ere now, sir, there's no call for violence," he declared. "Let the lady go and be on your way."

Edmund snorted derisively. "Don't speak to your betters, man," he snapped at the watchman, turning on his heel to pull Connie toward the gangplank, his grip on her tight enough to bruise.

"No, of course not! We both know the circumstances of your marriage. The question is whether you'd like that information to become public knowledge," Ollie replied, the threat obvious in his voice as he stepped around Edmund to cut off his retreat. "This ends here and now, Edmund. Your control over her is over." From the look on his face and the tone of his voice, he wasn't going to budge. Edmund was going to either have to let Connie go or force his way past Oliver.

But Edmund was not a man used to others he believed to be inferior standing in his way. He marched forward, dragging Connie behind, intent upon forcing a path through Oliver if he would not step aside. He should rather have been watching where he put his feet. A ship's deck is never clear of obstacles. His foot caught on a neat coil of rope, sending him lurching toward the gangplank, out of control of his own momentum. With Connie's arm in one hand and his cane in the other, he had no hands left to right himself, letting out a yell as he pitched off the gangplank, striking the dock's edge before he hit the water.

"Edmund!"

As much as Oliver hated the man, his instinct as a both a gentleman, a human being, and a seaman was to save the man's life, if he could. There was no time to explain or to shout for help. Instead, Ollie hurriedly shrugged off his coat and with no thought to his own safety, dove into the water after his sworn enemy.

Connie screamed, and finally that brought others running from the docks and ships moored on either side, the captain from his cabin. Men pushed against the Fall to keep her from crushing the men in the water, others jumped into danger to help with the rescue. The watchman was aghast, sending two of those watchers off - one for a constable, and one for a doctor. But the doctor would have little to do. Edmund was still, his neck broken by the crash against the dock, dead before he ever hit the water.

"We have the rest of our lives, love," Oliver reminded her, his voice low, so that the driver wouldn't overhear, if he even could over the sound of the clip clop of the horses and the rattle of the wheels. He didn't bother to pretend in front of Lawry, who knew him better than anyone.

"Yes," Lawry agreed, knowing what it was like to want to share your life with someone you loved. "But first a period of mourning, or there will be scandal," he told them both, almost waiting for an argument.

"To hell with the scandal," Connie said abruptly. "Edmund was a tyrant. I will not allow supposed respect for his hated memory to keep my happiness a second thought a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. And yes, Lawry, I know society will likely scorn me for it, but that doesn't matter. They have you, and they have Clare, and I will happily live in a ditch if it means I can call myself Mrs. Oliver Blackwood."

Despite everything, Oliver couldn't help but smile a little at Connie's insistence that she'd be Mrs. Blackwood before long. He reached across the short distance between them to take her hands in his. "I have waited all my life for you, dearest. I am willing to wait a little while longer to have you for my own."

Lawry, too, smiled. "There. You see" I'm not asking you to wait years, just until after the funeral and the police investigation."

Despite her shock and her weariness, Connie smiled as Oliver took her hands, squeezing gently to acknowledge his answer to her declaration. "As soon as those awful lawyers are finished telling me that Edmund left me nothing, after the funeral, we will be wed," she promised him. "I care not a fig for the scandal." Drawing back, she sighed, resting her shoulder against Lawry's. "I should like to sleep, though."

Oliver reluctantly let go of her hands as she settled her head against her brother's shoulder. He exchanged a worried frown with Lawry, but refrained from saying another word about a possible future. He felt guilty enough as it was, not only for Edmund's death but for dragging Connie into all this, despite his good intentions. He didn't care much about what people might whisper about him behind his back, but Connie was another matter.

Clare was waiting for them in the foyer when they arrived at the hotel, taking Connie into her custody to calm and settle her sister-in-law in the bedroom they had engaged for her. One soft comment to Lawry had the men retiring to the private parlor attached to Lawry's own suite of rooms, with something to steady the nerves, whether they chose to speak together or not.

Half an hour later, Clare joined them. "She's sleeping," she told her husband and his friend, moving to gently embrace Oliver. "I understand why you did what you did, but don't ever frighten me like that again."

"I could not stand the thought of her being with that man another minute," Oliver explained in his defense, looking almost as weary and upset as Connie, but doing a better job at hiding it. "I did not mean for him to die," he added, though he knew they'd hardly miss the man.

"We know that," Clare assured him softly. "And though it is a tragedy, I cannot say that I am sorry he is gone. He was not the sort of person to put me at my ease." She exchanged a meaningful glance with Lawry, moving to sit down. "I take it we will be in Bristol for a few days, while the investigation is underway?"

"That seems to be the case," Lawry replied. None of them had been fond of Edmund Stanley, but what concerned Lawry most was his sister's well-being. "There's no question that Edmund's death was an accident, but I'm concerned about a possible scandal," he said.

"I don't give a bloody damn about a scandal!" Ollie exclaimed, pounding a hand against the nearest flat surface for emphasis. Except where Connie was concerned, anyway.

"You should care, Oliver," Clare said quietly. "If it becomes widely known what you were attempting to do, your character will be blackened. My father may not be able to keep you in his employ if such a thing happens, and no other would risk taking you on. Connie will be shunned and snubbed by the society she was born into. If too much scandal attaches to your names, you will not have an easy life together."

"Then we will go where no one knows us and no one cares about such things," Ollie insisted, though he knew Clare was right. It was for the very reasons she'd suggested that he felt so guilty. He sighed as he leaned back in the chair and rubbed a hand across his face. "This is all my fault."

"Hardly." Clare shook her head, wondering why Lawry was so quiet on this subject. "Connie is a grown woman, and she chose to go with you. Edmund was an arrogant idiot, and he chose to follow. The fault ultimately lies with her father, and though I am loath to speak ill of the dead, he was an idiot, too."

"There's plenty of blame to go around," Lawry broke in, taking a share of that blame for himself. "What we need to do now is ensure that neither of you suffers for what?s taken place. If the public were to know what Connie suffered as a result of her marriage, perhaps they would be more sympathetic," he reasoned.

Clare bit her lip thoughtfully. "We would have to ask Connie, of course," she said, but the mind behind her eyes was already working, prompted by her husband's suggestion. "But we could insist upon a public inquest, in which she could relay under oath the circumstances of her marriage. Edmund's death was obviously an accident, but to have it all out in the open, reported in the newspapers ....it would certainly bring public opinion to your side. I doubt many of the members of Parliament would be able to escape their wives' opinions on the subject, either."

"It might bring my father's reputation into question, but it could also change the way women are treated in the future," Lawry added, obviously more concerned with his sister and Oliver's reputations than his late father, for whom he'd held little regard.

As for Oliver, he looked a little surprised to hear them suggesting they make the whole story public, when he'd expected the exact opposite. "We would have to ask Connie first," he pointed out.

"Of course we would." Clare rose, nodding firmly. "And she may not agree, in which case we will defer to her wishes. But this is a tale that is not uncommon. If one woman speaks out, others may find the courage to do the same, and all Parliament needs is the opinion of the people to intimidate it into changing the law."

"Women should not be treated as chattel," Lawry added, in complete agreement with his wife. It was rare that a man agreed on such matters, but Lawry had always been a forward-thinking man, and he'd witnessed first hand what his father and Edmund had put Connie through.

"You would do this for us?" Ollie asked, looking between them both, though he wasn't sure why he was so surprised when he knew how they both felt.