Arabella clutched her father’s pistol in her trembling hand as she picked her way through the darkness.
“Justin,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice low. “Justin!”
She circled the front of the house, whispering his name to no avail. Where was he?
“Justin!” she called again, louder this time. Had he abandoned her? No. He wouldn’t. She could rely on him, couldn’t she? “Justin!”
“Here!”
She cried out in relief and raced toward his voice. Out of the darkness, he reached for her and pulled her violently to him. Her father’s pistol dropped to the ground between them.
“Justin?” The moonless night made it impossible to see his face.
A hand came around her neck and gripped hard. “No, sister dear. It’s Jude. I’ve come to bring you home.”
Pure terror drove her to react. She thrust her palm upward, and it connected with his face with a thunk. A lip? Maybe a nose? She crouched to search for the pistol, her heart hammering as she patted frantically at the fog-dampened grass. The air swished above her as Jude came down beside her with a grunt. Her fingers brushed the slick, cold barrel of the pistol, and with a cry of relief, she gripped it. A tug of resistance came immediately.
“Let go,” Jude growled.
She grasped the barrel tighter. Jude was mad. His words proved it. He’d called her his sister, which was deranged!
She jerked upward on the pistol with a scream that momentarily pierced her ears, only to be drowned out by a deafening shot.
The force of the bullet entering her shoulder threw her backward against a tree. Her head hit the wood with a crack, and the black night filled with bright specks of light as hot, searing pain engulfed her right arm. She tried to suck in, air but coughed as pistol smoke filled her nose. Jude jerked her to her feet, and a wave of pain washed over her as the shining flecks dulled and all went black.
Justin’s chest constricted when Arabella’s piercing scream filled the night. Before he could recover his composure, the sound of a pistol exploding sent him racing forward into the darkness. Branches snagged his shirt and grazed across his face, leaving stinging marks as he ran. Curse the damnable clouds, fog, and pitch-black night.
A horse’s loud whinny gave him just enough notice to lurch out of the way. He jumped to the right as the wind, moving with the horse’s speed, whispered across his cheek, and he stared in shock into the dark night, into which the creature must have disappeared.
“Arabella?” he thundered.
Deafening silence answered him. He didn’t waste a second wondering what had happened. He knew two things with sickening certainty: she’d been taken against her will, and he’d promised to protect her and failed. His heart squeezed within his chest. Damn the mission and damn the king. Arabella came first.
He tore through the dark toward her father’s home and didn’t stop to knock. He slammed through the door and stopped cold. Her father sat in a wheelchair with a pale-faced woman standing behind him, clutching his shoulder. The man had a pistol aimed at him.
Justin lowered his own pistol and held up his hand to show he meant the man no harm. “Please, is there anything I need to know? I mean to go after your daughter and save her.”
The man’s shoulders slumped as his pistol lowered. “Bedroom,” he croaked. “Pa-apers,” he struggled to get out.
Justin stormed toward the room Arabella’s father had pointed at and glanced around quickly. On the bed lay a pile of papers. He snatched them up and read them one by one as he walked back out into the hall.
Carthright motioned him close. Justin walked over and bent down when he realized the man was going to speak. Arabella’s father grasped Justin’s shoulder. “She t-trusts you. Picked you.”
Justin nodded as his pulse ticked a furious beat. Emotions roiled inside him, but he beat them back with an iron will. He had no time to feel anything. Allowing himself to soften might very well cost Arabella her life, if it had not already. His gut clenched at the possibility. “I’ll bring her back to you,” he promised, praying it was one he could fulfill.
As he was walking out the front door, Davenport appeared with Miss Morgan in tow. Fresh claw marks ran down the right side of Davenport’s face. He slapped a palm over the bellowing woman’s mouth and regarded Justin with an irritated gaze. He jerked his head toward the woman. “Miss Morgan tried to kill me, but luckily I prevailed.”
“Does she have a horse?” Justin demanded, ignoring the woman glaring at him.
Davenport furrowed his brow. “What the devil sort of response is that?” He glanced warily over Justin’s shoulder toward the foyer of Arabella’s home. “Where is—”
“Taken,” Justin snapped. “And I tell you she knows nothing,” he thundered.
Davenport wisely nodded in agreement, then twitched his head toward Miss Morgan again. “She has a curricle parked up the street.”
“Excellent.” Justin brushed by Davenport.
“Where are you going?” his friend called after him.
“To Darlington’s house. My gut says he’s headed there.”
Davenport, dragging Miss Morgan behind him, fell into step with Justin. “I’m coming with you.”
Justin refused to feel gratitude. He refused to feel at all. Feeling hurt. He wanted numbness. He wanted logic. He wanted to return Arabella to her father and mother alive. They needed her. He did not need her. He could not need her. It had been foolish to even let the notion enter his head.
“Bella.”
Arabella swatted a hand at her ear. Why was her father bothering her? She was so tired.
“Bella, this won’t hurt. I’ve made sure of that. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to shoot you.”
Her eyes popped open at that. Jude’s face was so close to her that she yelped and flinched. She cried out again while reaching for her arm, except it seemed she was moving in very slow motion.
Jude’s hand flashed out and stopped her movement in midair. “You mustn’t touch the wound, lest you infect it, sister dear.”
“I’m not your sister,” she spat. Or tried to. Her tongue felt too thick for her mouth.
He gave her a pitying look that filled her with dull fear. Arabella tried to shrink back, but he still gripped her hand.
“You are my sister.” His tone was insistent. Menacing.
He quirked his mouth in a manner so similar to something she would do that doubt pierced her heart. She squeezed her eyes shut for a split second. She didn’t believe this. It was madness. She opened her eyes and shook her head. “No,” she insisted again, shoving the uncertainty away.
A hard smile settled on his face. “The witch will tell you. She knows the truth, as do I. Though the slut didn’t even know what she knew.” His grip tightened a fraction more, making her wrist throb. “I had to put it together for her.” He released her and knotted his hand in his hair.
Arabella gulped in a breath. She had to make him see reason. “Jude—”
He slapped his palm over her mouth. “Stop it! Stop denying me. You’re making me very angry, Arabella.”
She bit the inside of her cheek on the desire to cry and nodded instead.
His sweaty palm slid away and she gulped in a breath. “The witch took you as a babe from Canning and believed you were the by-blow of a lady-in-waiting to the queen. I had to tell her when Canning came to see me. I knew I was too good to be the witch’s true son, and my gut told me my sister was not dead. You were not dead.”
“Jude, this is madness!”
She never saw the slap coming. His hand connected with her face and sent her head sideways. Her skin instantly burned and tiny sparks of pain vibrated across her cheek and down her neck. He jerked her head to face him. “You are my blood.”
“I’m not,” she spat. At that moment, she didn’t give a damn if he slapped her again. She was furious. “My mother found me in the street and rescued me.”
Jude raised a sharp knife and wiped it on a rag until it gleamed. He
glared down at her. “Lies. She told you lies. The witch gave you to the woman you call Mother.” He pointed the knife at her, the tip almost grazing her nose. “Do you understand?”
Fear and a hefty dose of self-preservation doused her anger. The notion that what he said might be true made her stomach roil and her fuzzy thoughts tilt in her head. “Who are your parents?” The words took effort to form. She frowned at how she was feeling. Was it blood loss? She tilted her head to the right to glance at her arm and grimaced at the blood covering it.
Jude’s finger came under her chin, and he drew her gaze back to his. “Our parents are George Canning and the queen. Now, I’ll tell you all later. I’ve not spent the last two years of my life discovering who you are and plotting to bring you back to me only to have you die.”
Could what he said be true? The question echoed in her mind, but she could not truly wrap her thoughts around it. It was as if her ability to think clearly had been broken.
“We are meant to be a family,” Jude said. “I’ve sent word to Father to come immediately and bring Mother with him. So what I’m going to do now is make sure you stay alive.”
He started toward her with the knife. She tried to roll away, but her body would not cooperate. Jude simply put out a hand and stilled her. “Don’t be stupid. I won’t hurt you. I love you, and I want to help you. Hold still.”
He wanted to help her as long as she agreed with everything he said. Yet, at this moment, she needed his help. She did not feel right. All she could do now was play along. She nodded, her head heavy and her heart beating in her throat. “Where am I?” she asked, the painted ceiling above blurry.
“At our house,” he replied, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world to say.
“In the Garden District?” she asked, feeling hopeful but trying to recall why.
“Of course.” Jude leaned over her arm and brought a rag up to wipe it.
She clenched her teeth against the expected pain, but she could not even feel his touch on her arm. Fear gripped her. Was she dying, then? Would she lose her arm?
Jude tossed the rag behind him. “We’ll move, certainly, now that you are joining me, and after Father and Mother acknowledge to both of us that we are their children. The son and daughter of a powerful man and the Queen of England certainly can’t live across from a brothel.”
Her mind tried to sort through what Jude was saying, but she felt funny, dizzy, her head swimming. “I feel strange,” she said, her words sounding slurred to her own ears.
When he nodded, it was as if there were two of him. “I gave you a hefty dose of laudanum so you’d not feel the pain when I cut out the bullet.”
“Ohhhh,” she said, thinking she should feel scared, but her body was floating. She laughed as her eyes fluttered shut.
“Untie me, Phineas!”
Arabella understood every word being screamed near her. The command had been repeated several times, and though she tried to ignore it, she could not anymore. She wanted to drift in the warm darkness, but someone was ruining her peace. She struggled to open her eyes for several moments, and when she did, she was looking at a painting of fairies done in pale blues, yellows, and lavenders. She squinted, trying to recall what had happened, and slowly turned her head to the right. Tied to a chair, facing her, was Mr. Canning—the president of the Board of Trade and, she was positive, Jude’s father. Her heart lurched. Was he her father, too?
No. She gritted her teeth. She had a father.
“I have a father,” she croaked.
Canning gawked at her, and Jude stepped into her line of vision to block Canning momentarily. “You do,” Jude said, “and he is sitting there tied up because he refuses to acknowledge you, and he came without Mother. She may be the queen, but she is our mother,” he roared. “We deserve her attention!”
“Jesus Christ, Phineas.”
“Jesus Christ, Phineas,” Jude mimicked. He held out a hand to Arabella, his demeanor changing in a flash. “Can you sit up?”
She nodded, her thoughts finally becoming clearer. She had to get out of here. Jude was beyond reason. She took Jude’s hand with her good one. Her other arm throbbed dully. The pain, she suspected, was still lessened by the laudanum. At this moment, she was grateful for that. The room spun a little as she sat up, and once it quit moving she started to stand.
Jude placed a staying hand on her shoulder. “Stay seated,” he commanded, waving a bloodied knife in the air.
With her dried blood on it, she realized.
He sat beside her on the edge of the table and threw his arm over her shoulder. “I shall let you decide what you want to do, Arabella,” Jude said, gazing at her.
Fear curled in her belly. “About what?”
He frowned. “Our father, of course. I’ve done everything he asked and more. And all I demand in return is that he acknowledge you, my sister, as he acknowledged me. Though, he still needs to claim me as his son to the world. It’s only fair.”
Canning groaned and lowered his head. “Phineas,” he murmured, his words muffled from the angle. “I should have never made contact with you. I was weak. I wanted to know you.”
Dear God! Arabella shivered. Was Canning going along with Jude, too, or was he admitting there was truth to Jude’s story?
“Don’t say that, damn you,” Jude cried and jumped up. “I’m glad you did, but you must accept Arabella, too. You and Mother abandoned her, too. I won’t abandon her as you did.”
Canning raised his head, his face a mask of twisted pain. “No. I see that. But you used her. Even when I told you not to do so. Even when I demanded you stop your plan.”
“She had to prove she was cunning and loyal to me,” Jude snarled, “so I could know she’d chosen me as I did her. You wanted the letters. Well, here they are.”
Panic prickled across Arabella’s skin. She’d forgotten about the letters. She had to get them back somehow.
“You’ve made a mess,” Canning whispered. “I’ve made a mess.”
Arabella shook as she stood, her legs weak from the blood loss. She judged the distance to the door. Ten paces. Jude was at least twenty paces away. She wasn’t sure she could even make it, and she certainly couldn’t flee without the letters, nor could she abandon Canning to Jude’s mercy. She didn’t think there’d be much of that.
No, she couldn’t leave him, even if the man had left her, she thought sourly. She shoved her anger away. She had parents, and she was blessed that they had been given to her.
Jude reached behind his back and withdrew a pistol. Arabella cursed. It was her father’s. He raised it and pointed it at Canning. “Either admit Arabella is your daughter so she can know the truth, or I’ll shoot you. I’d rather go back to having no father than a coward for one.”
Arabella’s gaze was drawn immediately to the man. His gaze locked with hers. “I am your father.” His words were laced with misery, regret, sorrow.
Arabella gasped as she moved toward him, unable to stop herself. Was he truly her father? Or was he simply trying to appease Jude? She stopped beside him. His eyes seemed to be pleading. “I cannot claim you, don’t you see? There is more at stake than my desires. There always was, except for the moment I let my desire get away from me, when Caroline and I conceived the two of you. She is the queen. To lose her throne would be devastating.”
“But to lose her children was not. We were expendable to keep her throne,” Arabella said. Sadness filled her for this man and the queen, followed by an overwhelming sense of gratitude that she’d been loved so much by her parents. “My mother lost her eldest son, and it almost killed her. She would have given up a thousand thrones to have him back.”
“This is wonderful!” Jude exclaimed. “We’re all talking and working things out as a family should. We will go together to meet our mother face-to-face since she couldn’t be bothered to come here, and we’ll give her the king’s naughty letters.”
Arabella exchanged a long look of mutual understanding with
Canning. They had to stop Jude from trying to see the queen, and Arabella had to somehow get those letters. She kneeled by Canning, but the motion made her woozy. She set her palms to the ground to steady herself and cringed at the pain that danced up her throbbing right arm. “The room is hot,” she muttered, swiping thick perspiration off her brow.
“You’re flushed,” Canning replied. “Jude, you must let me fetch a physician for Arabella. Fever is setting in.”
Arabella suspected Canning was right. She was hot, but as she struggled to untie the rope around his wrists, she suddenly felt cold and nauseated. She got the last knot undone and went to stand, but the room tilted and her knees buckled. Canning caught her with a grunt and steadied her. Jude rushed toward them with an expression of panic.
“Arabella!” he cried, his gaze focused on her.
Now was her chance. Possibly her only one. She gave Canning a sidelong look that she hoped he understood. When Jude put his arms around her to hug her, she grasped the letters and Canning lunged at the pistol, but Jude easily shoved the older man away. Canning scrambled near her, panting.
Jude faced them, his face a portrait of wild fury. He swung the pistol toward Canning. “Betrayed again,” he bellowed.
Arabella tensed, sure he was going to shoot Canning when Jude altered his aim in a flash and pointed the weapon at her chest. “I loved you,” he cried out in anguish. “Everything I’ve done was for you. All I wanted in return is for you to love me as your brother! You’re supposed to love me now that I’ve finally revealed all to you! You were supposed to be thrilled and want to care for me. Stay with me! Always.” He hit his head with his free hand. “You’re such a disappointment.”
The Dangerous Duke of Dinnisfree Page 19
