He helped her to the ground and pulled the string on her bonnet, wrenching it out of the way. “They’ll be looking for the duel between Quentin Penderbrook and Major Payne-Elsdon, and neither of them are here. This was a mere bit of sword practice between two old survivors of the wars in the Peninsula.”
“They will have heard the pistol shot.” She gripped his hand. “What will I say?”
“You won’t have to talk to them. I’ll see to it.”
Russell handed the maid a pair of shears and she nudged in between them and began cutting away the shoulder of Jane’s gown.
“Let’s have a look at you, my lord.” Shaldon let the surgeon rip away his black shirt, wincing as the man probed, watching as Jane’s wound was revealed. A gash ran across the top of her arm.
“Take care of her first,” Shaldon said.
Russell glanced over at her. “Press a clean cloth to that wound,” he told the maid. “Now, you, my lord, have a puncture wound here.” He pressed an ear to Shaldon’s chest. “No wheezing in the lungs. And there are a few cuts we’ll tend to directly.” He waved at MacEwen. “Find his coats.” He went to Jane’s side and began to examine her.
* * *
Jane watched Shaldon, his torn shirt hanging open, deal with the guard captain and the magistrate who had appeared, barely hearing the conversation. The Duque had finally stopped squawking. In the crush and commotion she couldn’t see the man.
Would he die of that wound? She hadn’t meant to shoot him. It had been accidental, a mere reaction to his blow.
She’d never have believed it possible that a gentleman would strike a lady like that.
At least Quentin had got away, and they were all, at least for now, alive.
They were alive.
When the surgeon finished with her, Jenny draped a blanket over her and helped her up. MacEwen joined them and escorted her to the carriage.
“What of Lord Shaldon?” she asked.
“His lordship will be right along,” MacEwen said.
The shooting was her crime, not his. “I should go and join him—”
“My lady,” MacEwen said, “he’s spinning a tale to the magistrate about how a Spanish duke happened to be shot during their sword practice. Best let him handle it. He’ll join you directly.”
“He’s right, Lady Jane,” Jenny said, glaring at MacEwen, “this time.”
Chapter 22
Jane gazed up at the canopy overhanging the bed. The drop of laudanum the surgeon had pushed on her had made her woozy. The details of her arrival here were equally unclear, but she knew they’d been heading to Shaldon House.
Lady Sirena hovered nearby, and Lady Perry gazed at her from the foot of the bed.
“Has Shaldon arrived yet?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Sirena said. “Nor Bakeley. Charley is back, though, and Gracie is tending to him.”
“Quentin?”
“In a guest chamber moaning and heaving. The surgeon’s man looked in on both him and Charley after he sewed you up. One of the footmen is with him now.”
She lifted her head and looked around. This wasn’t her old room at Shaldon House, but another bedchamber, decorated in spring greens and with silky curtains; a feminine room.
She sat up and pain stabbed her. She’d refused more laudanum, wanting her wits about her for what was to come, whatever that might be.
And how was she to deal with Shaldon? For all she knew, he’d been taken up by the authorities, all for protecting her honor and her son’s.
And managing his feud with the Duque too, she must not forget that.
Her stomach roiled. She’d shot a Spanish nobleman. The Duque’s wound could fester. He could lose his foot. He could lose his leg. He could die, and she’d be his murderer.
Lady Perry came around the bed. “Let me help you, Lady Jane. Remember how many times you scolded Kincaid about ripping his stitches?” The younger woman slipped an arm under her, helping her to sit up fully and swing her legs off the bed. “You must be mindful of your injury. But what excitement you’ve had, taking part in a duel.”
Sirena laughed. “After filching his lordship’s painting right under his nose.” She waggled a finger. “And not letting us in on the secret.”
The painting. Oh, blast it. “I left the painting there.”
“Father will see it comes home,” Perry said.
“That was a copy. Shaldon already has the original.”
Sirena laughed out loud. “Of course, he does. You must tell us everything.”
“Almost everything,” Perry said with a sly grin.
Heat rose in Jane, pounding through all of her aching muscles into her cheeks. They knew about her night with Shaldon. How, she didn’t know.
“Do I have clothing here? I want to be dressed when the men return.” And when Quentin was recovered enough to talk. “Help me into a gown and I’ll tell you almost everything.”
“But we just managed to get you into the nightgown, and the surgeon said—”
“It is only a deep cut. My arm is still intact, my hands and fingers work, and I want to dress. I must speak with your father, and I’m not going to entertain him in any part of this house wearing a nightgown.” Especially one as filmy and revealing as the one they’d dressed her in. “If he is too ill to come downstairs, once I am fully clothed I’ll go along to his bedchamber.”
Sirena and Perry exchanged a glance. “You won’t have far to go, Jane.” Sirena walked to a door and opened it.
Jane stumbled to the doorway on Perry’s arm. The room beyond held a grand bed with rich dark blue hangings. Books and papers littered a table, and a massive wing chair sat near the fireplace, a padded hassock bumped up against it.
Her pulse quickened, her wound picking up its throbbing, and she remembered: the bed she’d shared with Perry at Gorse Point Cottage had been Lady Shaldon’s, hung with the same green-patterned cloth.
“You put me in your mother’s room?” She pressed Perry’s arm. “How could you?”
She must get out of here.
“Call us hopeful,” Sirena said.
Perry squeezed her free hand. “And, if you but allow it, we will call you Mother.”
As she spoke, the corridor door to the other chamber opened and Shaldon entered, supported by Kincaid and Bakeley, the surgeon who’d tended her wounds trailing behind, and Lloyd following with the surgeon’s bag.
Shaldon glanced her way and their gazes locked.
His lips turned up in a boyish grin, sending her heart pounding harder. Heat tingled through her, making her conscious of her dishabille, and the long plait of hair that hung over her shoulder.
She stepped back and closed the door. There was no lock, no key. Apparently, the Earls of Shaldon had full access to their lady wives.
But she was not Lady Shaldon, and she must leave this bedchamber directly.
There was no time for the complicated business of stays, gown and coiffure. “Find me a dressing gown, at once, Sirena. Perry, gather my things. I am not staying here.”
* * *
“Lloyd, find me a banyan.”
“Let Russell tend you first, Father,” Bakeley said.
He lurched toward the wardrobe, but Kincaid interceded, finding the blasted dressing gown and helping him into it.
“I must talk to Jane.”
“Getting ready to bolt again, is she?” Kincaid muttered.
“Father—”
“Bakeley, come with me and chase your wife and your sister out. Lloyd, go and tell Cook to send a tray up to Lady Jane’s bedchamber. Take Russell with you and feed him.”
“But, Father—”
“It’s all right, Bakeley,” Kincaid said. “Russell treated his lordship’s stab wound on the field, and the cuts are small enough to keep for now.”
Bakeley took his arm, but he shook it off and straightened, ignoring a flare of pain. He would walk through that damn door on his own.
He pushed it open. Perry looked up from the dr
essing table and grinned. Sirena craned her head from the clothes press, where she was poking around.
Lady Jane clutched a bed hanging and pulled it in front of her. “Shaldon,” she squeaked. “What—oh, blast it, why am I surprised? You need to leave this moment, sir.”
Bakeley went to his lady, who had finally found what she was looking for, a filmy feminine robe. He yanked the garment from his wife and tossed it. Shaldon caught it, pain shooting through his shoulder.
“You fool man.” Lady Jane must have seen him wince. “Let the surgeon see to those wounds.”
“Everyone out,” he said. “Except you, Jane. I must beg an audience.” He moved nearer and draped the dressing gown over her shoulders. Behind them, one of the girls giggled and the door latch clicked.
She leaned her forehead against the bedpost. “They are as insufferable as you, Shaldon.”
He’d been counting on that.
“I’m not sleeping in your wife’s bedchamber.”
When she stood tall, the loose braid settled along the length of her proud back. “Can you manage getting your arm into this sleeve?” he asked.
He paused, catching a breath. The bandage showed white under the thin lawn and lace of her gown. One more thing to settle with the Duque de San Sebastian.
“I was hoping you would be willing to sleep in my bedchamber. And I’m so sorry the Duque struck you, the cur.”
She extended her arm and allowed his help, accepting the braid as he passed it over her shoulder. He’d wedged his amorous hopes between helpfulness and apologies, and she hadn’t noticed.
When she turned to him, her eyes were clouded with anguish.
Dammit, why had he mentioned the cursed Duque at all?
“Will he die, do you think?”
“He may lose a toe, an insignificant appendage, but with good care, there should be no infection. His boot partially shielded him.” He paused, pushing back at the anger rising in him. “It will teach him not to abuse a strong lady.”
She nodded. “What of the Major?” She clutched her hands at her waist.
“The Major will not plague you or Penderbrook ever again.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“There was a yacht waiting for him in the Pool. He’s on his way to Spain.”
“He escaped?” She cried.
He reached for her hand. “No. He is in the custody of a powerful Spaniard whose son he killed in a duel.”
* * *
“Oh.” Her head whirled with the news. How could a woman ever hope to keep up with a man like this? She swallowed hard and searched his face for deception, finding none.
“His captor is a friend of the Duquesa’s father.”
“Oh. You…you discussed this in one of your liaisons with her?”
“Yes.” He paused, his gaze thoughtful. “But no—they were never liaisons. She is an ally, not a lover.”
And now she knew he was lying. She pulled her hand out of his grasp.
“I saw you with her, with my own eyes.”
He blinked.
That was all. One did not catch the Spy Lord often in one of his lies, and of course, he was unlikely to confirm or deny the truth of her assertion.
But she would get the truth, about the Duquesa, about the duel, about her son’s poisoning, about everything that had happened that day, and then she would gather her things and leave. Like Jenny, she had no use for a faithless man.
“Do you kiss all your allies with such passion?”
He swiped a hand over his face. “Jane—”
“None of your lies, Shaldon.”
“But, Jane—”
“You may make love to whatever allies you wish. I am not sleeping in your bed, or your late wife’s. I am going home.”
Home. As soon as the word left her mouth her heart fell. She had no true home, only a dilapidated cottage in Ireland she couldn’t afford to repair.
But she would find a home. She would return to Gerrard Street for the time being until she could arrange other lodgings.
A knock at the door brought servants with trays, giving her time before she needed to say more, before he could plague her again.
As the servants left, another figure slipped in, pale-faced, hair in disarray, but otherwise perfectly dressed and groomed.
She went to him.
He bowed and said, “Mother.”
The cascade of emotions on his face, the pasty color, they had nothing to do with his illness—his poisoning. This was abject misery.
“I heard you were injured. I’m sorry, Mother. I meant to defend your honor and I failed.”
“Please, my dear,” she said, “come and sit down.” Only two chairs graced the table. She should eject Shaldon from the room.
“Penderbrook,” Shaldon said, “fetch the extra chair from the dressing table. Come, my lady.” He took her elbow and steered her to her seat.
Quentin shook his head. “I will stand. I came only to say goodbye.” He bit his lip. “I must leave England. I am ruined.”
Chapter 23
“Ruined?”
Her vision clouded and she gripped the table edge, leaning in, struggling for a breath. “You’re leaving England? You’re ruined?” The damned fool. “As if you have any idea what it is to be ruined.” She unclenched her hands, straightened, and jabbed a finger at him. “You will carry that chair over. You will sit down and join us. Lord Shaldon has things he must tell us about today.”
His brows pinched together and his mouth firmed into a hard line.
“Quentin, there are things you and I must hear.”
He bit down on his lip, but fetched the chair.
What kind of mother might she have been to a strong-willed boy? Regret poked at her, and she pushed it aside. She must help her pigheaded son find the good sense that should be his legacy from her.
She was sensible, mostly.
Shaldon seated her and then himself, and only then would Quentin sit. The Earl’s face was a cypher, but Quentin’s demeanor screamed obstinance.
Blasted men. She looked hard at Shaldon, nodded her head toward her son, and cleared her throat. “My lord?”
“Charles will go with you to White’s tomorrow, Penderbrook,” he said, “where you will learn that other members of the club succumbed to a severe dyspepsia.”
Quentin’s shoulders lifted.
Jane handed Shaldon his tea. “You sir, are a devious one.” She poured another cup and heaped in sugar. “Drink this,” she said, handing the cup to Quentin, “it will help settle your stomach and get your strength back.”
He grimaced and took a sip. “Nevertheless, I’m doomed when the Major comes into White’s.”
“He won’t return to White’s,” Shaldon said.
His head came up from the cup. “He’ll be expelled?”
“What he did was not the act of an honorable man, not even if he’d been completely befuddled with drink. But he won’t return to White’s because he won’t return to England.”
“His past has caught up with him,” Jane said.
As hers had caught up with her. She hadn’t chased after the past, the way Shaldon had. She’d simply deferred her day of reckoning.
Perhaps Shaldon’s way was better. He didn’t hide from trouble. He addressed it head on.
She blinked and reached for a biscuit, nibbling without tasting, needing to keep her hands busy, as Shaldon recounted the Major’s fate.
Quentin listened until the end and frowned. “The fellows will puzzle out that it was a fraud. I’m a fraud. They will laugh when they learn that my mother appeared and—”
“Damn the fellows,” she cried, rising, and quickly seating herself again as he shot to his feet. “Sit down, Quentin.”
“Mother, the Major can’t just sail off for some rough Spanish justice. He attacked a lady. He cut you.”
Quentin knew of her wound but hadn’t been told who inflicted it. She glanced at Shaldon and he lifted an eyebrow.
“The Maj
or had been poisoned as well,” she said. “He didn’t duel today.”
“But Shaw was as ill as I. Too ill to—”
“Shaw didn’t fight, either,” she said. “It was the Duque who stepped in for the Major.”
Shaldon rubbed his injured shoulder. “And got the better of me, I’m embarrassed to say. Your mother avenged me by shooting him.”
Quentin turned wide eyes on her, as if he were really seeing her for the first time, a woman capable of shooting a Spanish nobleman. Perhaps from time to time effective mothering required such decisive violence.
She waved a hand. “Merely an accident.”
“When he slashed her with his sword, she shot off his toe.”
She lifted her cup but saw that her hand was shaking too much to drink from it. Settling it into the saucer, she drew in a deep breath. “You must write Mr. Walker and ask him to offer prayers that the Duque’s wound doesn’t fester. Much as I despise the grief the Duque caused…” She glanced at Shaldon. Given the scars on his body, he had suffered the most. “I don’t want to take any man’s life.”
Quentin nodded, his mouth still agape. “May I also tell him about you, my lady?”
“Yes. And I shall pay him a visit soon, if he is willing to receive me.”
He pushed back his chair. “I am feeling well enough to excuse myself and return to my lodging. I’ve intruded on your hospitality too long, my lord.”
“Penderbrook,” Shaldon said. “Before you make your way to White’s tomorrow, call on Bakeley. He has need of a new steward at his estate in Kent. He would like you to consider the position. It will take you from London, but you will need to visit often for business and to see Lady Jane, and when you do, you will stay here at Shaldon House. It will be more convenient for both of you.”
Her breath caught. He was implying that she would still be living here. She must set him straight.
“Th-thank you, my lord.”
Jane took the younger man’s hand. “When you are finished with Bakeley tomorrow, come and see me in Gerrard Street.”
Avenging the Earl’s Lady: Book Five, Sons of the Spy Lord Page 18
