“Fred will get his comeuppance,” she said. “I promise you. But not here. Not now. You must go. It’s too dangerous for you to linger in this manner.”
St. Clare glowered in Fred’s direction. “He’s the one in danger. If he so much as—”
“He won’t touch me again. Not after this.”
“No, he won’t,” St. Clare agreed. “Not once I break both his arms.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake. If you think this is what I want—two men pummeling each other over me—then you’re very much mistaken. I’m not some damsel in distress for you to rescue.”
He arched a brow at her torn dress.
She grimaced. “Yes, well… I confess, it is fortunate that you came along when you did. I’m not as formidable as I thought I was, not when Fred’s blood is up. But I know better now. You can be sure I’ll keep Jane’s aunt awake during the remainder of the journey home.”
“Is that meant to set my mind at ease?” he asked.
“It’s the best I can offer at the moment.”
It plainly wasn’t good enough. St. Clare’s lethal gaze once again drifted in Fred’s direction. Maggie had no doubt he’d have broken every bone in Fred’s body if given the chance.
“Look at me.” She touched his jaw, drawing his eyes back to hers. “You’re putting everything at risk. Don’t you understand? It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.”
St. Clare stared down at her. “It’s not about him. It’s about you. It’s always been about you.”
Her heart gave a heavy thump.
And she wished—quite desperately—that she could see his face clearly in the darkness. That she could look into the eyes of the man behind the mask. Nicholas Seaton, not Viscount St. Clare or some nameless highwayman, but her friend. Her love.
“In that case,” she said quietly, “you must go. I’ll not have this reckless stunt on my conscience. If it should get out—”
“It won’t.”
“You’re very confident. You must trust your partner excessively. It’s not Lord Mattingly, I can tell that much.”
“It’s Enzo.”
His tiger? She felt the unholy urge to laugh. “That’s not very reassuring.”
“He can handle a pistol as well as I can.”
“Not tonight he won’t.” She tugged St. Clare’s mask back into place. “You’re both going to leave before anyone gets hurt.”
“Margaret!” Fred shouted.
“I’m here!” Emerging from behind the carriage, she found Fred on his feet, cradling the back of his neck. She supposed she should feel sorry for him, but given how he’d manhandled her, she couldn’t muster a single drop of sympathy.
“Into the carriage, my dove.” St. Clare opened the door and handed Maggie inside. He shut it firmly behind her, and then whistled to Enzo.
Abandoning his post, the tiger trotted round the carriage to join his master. They retreated to where their horses waited in the brush alongside of the road. Hooves sounded on hard earth, stirrup leathers creaking as the pair of them mounted up.
“Is there a third one?” the coachman asked the footman.
“Can’t rightly tell,” the footman replied. “Too dark.”
“Fair warning, John Coachman,” St. Clare said as he spun his great black horse around. “My compatriots might be anywhere along the road ahead. Gentlemen, all. They don’t take kindly to men who abuse their women. Best keep your guvnor on the box.”
With that, he kicked his horse into a canter, and along with Enzo, disappeared into the night.
“Give me that if you won’t use it!” Fred shouted at the coachman. The carriage shook. “What do I pay you for?”
Maggie leaned out the lowered window to see what was going on just in time to witness Fred take aim with the coachman’s double-barreled carriage pistol. He fired into the darkness.
There was a sound—an unmistakable sound. The thud of a bullet striking flesh. It was followed by a shout, and the skitter of hooves as St. Clare and Enzo galloped off at breakneck speed.
She covered her mouth to stifle a scream.
“Did you get him, sir?” the footman asked excitedly.
“I hit something,” Fred said. “The big one, I think. He’s who I was aiming for.”
“A bullet straight through the vitals,” the coachman said. “Not a pleasant way to die.” He gathered up the ribbons. “There may be more of them.”
“Onto the back,” Fred ordered the footman. “I’ll ride up front.” He stalked to the door of the carriage.
Maggie looked at him, her eyes wide. “The bullet hit him?”
“Of course it did. With any luck, he’ll be dead by morning.” He scanned her face and figure through the lowered window. “He didn’t hurt you?”
She shook her head numbly. “Fred, are you certain—”
“There’s no time for talk. We must hurry. There could be others lying in wait for us along the road.” He departed without another word. Within seconds the carriage sprang into motion.
Maggie sank back in her seat. Her vision blurred with tears.
Fred had shot St. Clare.
It didn’t seem possible. And yet, she’d recognized that sound. Had known as soon as she heard it that the bullet had struck flesh.
She’d wanted to leap out and run after him, foolish as that would be. Even now, she suppressed an overpowering urge to scream for the coachman to go back. She couldn’t just leave St. Clare there. She had to see for herself that he was all right.
But what could she do?
Even if she managed to convince Fred to let her out, there would be no way of aiding St. Clare without revealing his identity. She was powerless to help him. Powerless to do anything.
“There, there, dear,” Aunt Harriet said, patting her hand. “His valet will look after him.”
Maggie blinked at her through her tears. “What?”
“These sporting gentlemen and their servants know how to take care of their war wounds. And I daresay Lord St. Clare knows better than most after so many years of villainy.”
An icy awareness seeped into Maggie’s veins. Her vision slowly cleared. “I…I don’t know what you mean.”
“Young Viscount St. Clare,” Aunt Harriet said. “I saw you conversing with him through the back window.”
“You…what?” Maggie’s nerves jangled a sharp warning. She flashed an anxious look at the long carriage window behind them. It was framed by velvet curtains and lit by the single flickering lamp inside.
Standing behind the carriage with St. Clare, she’d taken no notice of it at all. It had never once occurred to her that Aunt Harriet might be peeping out at them. That she might have witnessed Maggie lowering St. Clare’s mask.
“I saw him,” Aunt Harriet said.
Maggie wiped her eyes. “My dear ma’am…I know how it must look. But it isn’t what you think. Lord St. Clare—”
“He turned to highway robbery, didn’t he?” Aunt Harriet asked mildly. “After killing the duke’s son?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s what people said at the time. I always thought it was a vicious rumor myself. He was such a nice boy.”
Maggie stared at her in dawning realization. “Do you mean…James Beresford?”
“Aye. That’s right.” Aunt Harriet looked at her as though it was Maggie who had lost her wits. “The Earl of Allendale’s son. Jim, they called him. A handsome golden lad. Such a shame he was a wrong ’un.”
Located on Albemarle Street in Mayfair, Grillon’s was an eminently respectable London hotel. Luxurious too, by any standard. But St. Clare hadn’t taken rooms there to enjoy such luxury. If that were the sole consideration, he’d have sooner remained at his grandfather’s house in Grosvenor Square. No. It was privacy he wanted. And privacy for which he paid a tidy sum.
&
nbsp; The hotel’s manager, Mr. Fordyce, was the soul of discretion. He didn’t utter so much as a peep when St. Clare appeared in the dead of night, shrouded in a cloak and leaning on Enzo for support.
No doubt the man assumed he was foxed. An assumption aided by the fact that, upon reaching his rooms, St. Clare immediately sent down for two bottles of brandy.
Enzo busied himself filling a basin in the dressing room while St. Clare stripped off his linen shirt. He sucked in a sharp breath as his sleeve—stuck fast with dried blood—peeled away from his arm. Fred’s bullet had merely winged him, but that didn’t mean the wound didn’t hurt like the very devil. And it hadn’t stopped said wound from bleeding profusely.
It was no less than he deserved for behaving in such a reckless manner.
The moment he’d heard that Fred had taken Maggie away in his carriage, St. Clare had lost the remaining hold he’d had on his temper. For the second time that night, he’d seen red.
His grandfather often warned him of the dangers of his Beresford temper, both in words and with visual displays of his own poorly controlled ire. St. Clare had prided himself on his ability to manage that temper. To hold his emotions close, like a card player who never revealed his hand.
Even when he’d dueled with Fred so many weeks before, St. Clare had kept a tight leash on his emotions. He’d been cold and calculating. Never once permitting the anger—the hatred—that roiled within him to melt through the glacial exterior he’d forged for himself.
Until tonight.
“Acqua, signore.” Enzo brought a porcelain basin from the dressing room, placing it on a low table near the bed. Water sloshed over the rim. “E un panno.”
St. Clare wet the proffered cloth and used it to clean his wound, rinsing the blood away over the basin until the water was tinted red with it. “Portami una bottiglia di brandy.”
Enzo obediently fetched a bottle of brandy from the sitting room and brought it back to him.
Uncorking it with his teeth, St. Clare poured a liberal amount over his wound. He may as well have doused it with liquid fire. It burned like the dickens. He clenched his jaw against the pain. “Blast Burton-Smythe to hell and back,” he muttered wrathfully.
“Stupido inglese,” Enzo echoed in sympathy. He craned his head. “Ago e filo?”
St. Clare angled his arm to examine his wound. The bullet had taken a chunk out of him. It wouldn’t be easy to stitch it back together, but he supposed it was worth a try. “Sì,” he said. “And Enzo? Try and find a sharper needle than the one you used in Rome.”
Enzo flashed a grin before disappearing once again into the dressing room.
This wouldn’t be the first time he’d sewn his master back together. After an Italian street brawl several years ago, he’d rather ruthlessly stitched a gash on St. Clare’s shoulder using what could only be described as the dullest needle in Christendom. At the time, St. Clare had considered it a just punishment for his own bad judgment.
Tonight, however, he was in no mood for additional pain.
He took a long drink from the bottle of brandy.
And then another.
By the time Enzo began to sew him up, St. Clare had half a bottle in him. And by the time Enzo finished, St. Clare had half a bottle more.
He sat down in a chair for Enzo to pull off his boots. “I’ll have to send word to my grandfather. Puoi consegnarlo a Grosvenor Square.”
Allendale had known St. Clare was leaving the Parkhursts’ ball early, but he hadn’t known why. There’d been no chance for a private word. No opportunity for anything save a glaring look of disapproval from his grandfather, silently indicting him for abandoning Miss Steele in the middle of supper.
St. Clare would have to think of something to tell him. An excuse his grandfather would deem acceptable. But to what end?
He didn’t know anymore.
Everything had changed since returning to England. Since that fateful moment Margaret Honeywell had walked into that darkened library and fainted into his arms.
Recalling the way she’d looked tonight in the glow of the carriage lamps, his temper once again threatened to get the better of him.
Fred had torn her dress. Good lord, he’d been in the process of forcing himself on her when St. Clare had ambushed them on the road. If he hadn’t arrived when he had…
It didn’t bear thinking of.
He ran a hand over his face. “Fetch me ink and paper.”
Enzo brought him his writing implements and St. Clare dashed off a short message to his grandfather:
Spending the night at Grillon’s. Can’t be helped. Will explain tomorrow.
After dispatching Enzo with the note, St. Clare lay down upon his bed, one arm draped over his brow. His eyes fell shut. He might even have drifted off awhile, for when next he opened them, it was to the sound of someone rapping softly, but rather insistently, at the door.
He roused himself with a groan. His arm was stiff. A bone-deep ache that threatened swelling and fever. He’d have to clean it again, and soon. Either that or summon a doctor to do the job.
St. Clare prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
He wasn’t anxious for anyone else to discover he’d been shot. The last thing he needed was Fred realizing that it wasn’t some random highwayman he’d encountered on the road.
Rising from his bed, shirtless, St. Clare tugged on a silk banyan over his breeches and went to the door. “It’s half two in the morning,” he muttered as he opened it. “This had better be…” The words dissolved on his lips.
It was Maggie Honeywell.
She stood on the threshold, garbed in a blue velvet cloak, the sable-trimmed hood drawn up to conceal her features. She looked up at him, naked relief on her face. “Oh,” she said on a breath. “Thank heavens you’re all right.”
St. Clare stared down at her, stunned. For a moment he wasn’t certain she was real. And then it hit him. Not only was she real, she was standing in the corridor outside his rooms. In a dratted hotel of all places.
Ducking his head out the door, he glanced quickly to the left and right, assuring himself that the hall was empty, before pulling her inside his room and shutting the door behind her. “What in blazes are you doing here?”
She pushed her hood back from her face. “Looking for you, of course.”
His pulse stuttered. She was too beautiful for words. Too unutterably dear. It almost hurt to look at her. Especially now, tonight, when his self-control was already on a razor’s edge. “How did you know—”
“You told me you kept a set of rooms at Grillon’s. When you weren’t at your grandfather’s house, I assumed you’d be here.”
A jolt of alarm shot through him. “You visited Grosvenor Square?”
“No, I sent Bessie. She went to the kitchen door this time. One of the scullery maids told her you hadn’t come home yet. And I thought—”
“This is a hotel, Maggie,” he said roughly. “Good God. If someone saw you enter—”
“You’re concerned about my reputation?” She was incredulous. “How can you be? After what happened tonight—”
“Of course I’m concerned! Respectable ladies don’t visit hotels. If they did, they wouldn’t be considered respectable for long.”
She stretched out a hand to touch him, but he backed out of her reach.
He shook his head. “You can’t be here.” He was half-dressed. Half drunk. And his emotions—usually under such rigid control—were as raw and vulnerable as they’d often been when he was a lad. “This isn’t… This isn’t a good idea.”
She advanced on him. “Don’t be stupid. You haven’t anyone else to look after you. Naturally I came. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
“I mean it. I’ve drunk nearly two bottles of brandy. I’m not…” He ran a hand over his disheveled hair. “For pity’s sake, I’m not even
dressed.”
Her gaze flicked from his banyan to his breeches and back up again. A blush rose in her cheeks, but she didn’t fluster. If anything, her tone became even more businesslike. “I’m not a green girl, you know. And besides, you’re not just anyone.” She came closer. “Where did the bullet hit you?”
“My upper arm. But that doesn’t signify. You—”
“Here?” She touched him lightly.
He flinched and sucked in a breath.
“Poor darling,” she murmured. “Does it hurt terribly?” She stripped off her gloves and removed her cloak, revealing the same ill-fitting blue dress she’d worn to visit him that night in Grosvenor Square. “You’d better let me have a look at it.”
St. Clare marshaled his addled wits. She’d all but backed him into a corner. “Does Miss Trumble know you’re here? Does Burton-Smythe?”
“No one does. No one except Bessie. She accompanied me here in a hackney cab.”
He exhaled a breath. Her maid was with her. That was something, at least. “Where is she now?”
“Gone back to Green Street, I expect. I told her to wait in the lobby for ten minutes, and if I didn’t come back from your room—”
“You what?”
“I’ll make my own way home in the morning. You can put me in a cab yourself if you like.”
“Have you lost your mind? If someone were to discover you—”
“I begin to think that’s it’s you who doesn’t want me here.”
Multiple wood-paneled doors led off of the sitting room. The one to his bedroom stood open, providing a glimpse of the rumpled coverlet on his four-poster bed and the clothing littering the carpeted floor—his shirt, stockings, and boots tossed at random.
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have someone in your bedchamber with you, do you?”
“What?” The suggestion was so ludicrous—so far removed from the truth—that it took him a moment to comprehend her meaning. He huffed an astonished laugh. “A woman, do you mean?”
“Do you?”
“Of course not. I’m alone. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Even Enzo has gone. That’s precisely why you can’t—”
Gentleman Jim Page 17
