Risking the Detective (The Bluestocking Scandals Book 6)

by Ellie St. Clair

  “I told you I would be back if you did not give me what I asked for — what I deserve.”

  “You deserve what was coming for you.”

  “Oh, my hanging at Newgate?”

  “Yes.”

  She inched backward, until she bumped into the table behind her. She reached a hand around her back, her fingers searching the table as surreptitiously as possible, until they closed over the instrument she had been looking for.

  Madeline willed deep breaths, not wanting Maxfeld to know just how much his sudden appearance had frightened her — and how much she was still panicked.

  “I have nothing to give you,” she said, raising her other hand in the air. “Why will you not just leave me alone?”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Maxfeld said, advancing toward her, his smile sickly sweet, “you still hold the key to my financial freedom, but no longer in the way that I initially thought you would.”

  Madeline eyed him warily. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, sweet, it seems that there is someone else who you have angered. Someone who is even more vindictive than I am.”

  “I don’t understand how that has anything to do with you.”

  “Well, the two of us have… joined forces, you could say. He gets what he wants, and I get my revenge.”

  Madeline’s heart beat against her ribs and she wished now that she hadn’t ordered Drake to leave her, wished that she hadn’t been so stubborn in her hurt. If there was ever a time she could use a little protection, it was now.

  “And just how are you going to do so?”

  He kept advancing toward her and she tried to step around him, but he stopped so close that she had no room to escape.

  He leaned in, and she was reminded of how, at one point in time, she had welcomed his closeness, welcomed his kiss. How stupid she had been. How desperately hopeful for love, that she hadn’t seen who he truly was. For now, she knew what true love was, true attraction, true passion. She had been so worried that she no longer had enough intuition to know whether or not to trust Drake, but all she had to do was compare him to Maxfeld to know that he was nothing like him, that he was, rather, the man for her. The man she could count on. The man who would always be there for her.

  She turned her face to the side as she tried to push Maxfeld away with her free hand. “Get away from me.”

  “Come now,” he said tracing a finger down the side of her face, and she shivered in disgust. “Don’t you want one last kiss?”

  As he said the words, he leaned in to kiss her, and she was so busy trying to avoid his lips that she didn’t realize he had raised his other hand until the fingers of both hands were at her neck holding her still — and then clenching.

  She squirmed in his grip, trying to free herself, but she wasn’t strong enough. His hands tightened, squeezing all breath from her, attempting to take away her life. For a moment she panicked. And then she forced herself to calm, to think — and reached around and plunged the carving knife she had been using on her sculpture into his abdomen.

  His hands immediately loosened as he released her before dropping to his stomach as he gripped the small blade.

  He stared at her in shock as she gasped, horrified yet free.

  Maxfeld slowly started to pull the knife from his gut as he stared at her, his eyes hard with fury, and Madeline had no idea if she had inflicted any actual damage or not. But there was one thing she did know — she had to run.

  She turned, but in her shock and panic, her foot got tangled in her skirts and she fell to the floor. She scrambled up, trying to make her way to the door, but suddenly a hand closed around her ankle and began pulling her backward.

  “Did you really think you could run from me?” Maxfeld sneered, flipping her over and this time he brandished the knife. “I was going to be nice about this, but—”

  Suddenly there was a loud pop and Maxfeld’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He took one step backward, then another, until the knife fell from his hand and clattered to the floor.

  Madeline heaved a breath, about to turn around to see just who her saviour was, when the voice she never thought she’d hear again spoke from the doorway, flooding her with every emotion imaginable — relief, thankfulness, and love.

  “Madeline?” Drake called, his voice raw and gravelly. “Are you all right?”

  She didn’t trust herself to speak but nodded as she rolled over and turned back onto her stomach, scrambling to her feet as she sprinted toward Drake and launched herself into his arms.

  He dropped his pistol as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tighter than she could have ever imagined as he dropped kisses on her head.

  “Madeline,” he breathed, “thank God you are all right.”

  Even as he stroked her hair, Madeline could feel him looking around her, back at Maxfeld, who was still prone on the ground.

  “I need to go check on him,” he murmured in her ear. “Stay here. Hold the pistol.”

  “But—”

  “Just one moment,” he said, holding up a finger. “I can’t risk him coming after you again.”

  She nodded jerkily as she picked up the pistol with distaste, holding it far away from her as she watched him walk over to Maxfeld. He leaned down, placing two fingers at his throat, before turning back to look up at her with a nod.

  “He’s gone,” he said, his breath coming out on a sigh. “He’ll never bother you again.” He stopped for a second. “Madeline… what happened to him?”

  “I… I stabbed him with my sculpting knife.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Madeline could only stare at the body of the man who had caused her so much pain, so much angst, as she was flooded with relief as intense as the shock over all that had just occurred. She slowly nodded.

  “I think so. I… don’t know what to say.” She slowly lowered the pistol beside her. “I—”

  “I have something to say.”

  She whirled around to find another man standing at the door, a pistol in his hand as he stared at her. She raised hers in turn, although the truth was, she had no idea what she proposed to do with it. She had seen them loaded and fired before, but had never actually done any of it herself.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, forcing herself to keep her voice steady.

  “Why don’t you introduce me, Runner?” the man asked, a glint in his steely blue eyes, and it unnerved Madeline that he actually seemed to be enjoying this entire scene in front of him.

  “You aren’t worthy to make her acquaintance,” Drake seethed, taking slow steps toward them, his voice so full of malice that Madeline had to blink a few times.

  “Very well, then,” the older man said flippantly. “I am Lee Fowler,” he said with a nod to Madeline, his smile sickly sweet. “You must be Miss Castleton.”

  “How do you know who I am?” Madeline asked, anger rising within her now. She was sick and tired of being at the mercy of men who wanted nothing from her but her money, her land, her business.

  “How could I not?” he said with a shrug. “For you are—”

  “Madeline!” Bennett burst through the doors behind this Fowler. “Thank goodness,” he said, breathing hard when he saw her.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” Drake couldn’t help exclaim, rolling his eyes as Bennett came near to them. “What are you here to do?”

  “To save Madeline,” Bennett said, bending over with his hands on his knees as he breathed heavily, unused to such exertions. “Fowler had locked me in a room, but I managed to escape in time.”

  “Would someone please tell me just what is happening here?” Madeline asked, annoyed now and ready to shoot all of them — well, except perhaps Drake.

  “Fowler is the man who killed my parents,” Drake said, his voice full of such malice that it was a wonder he didn’t run across the room and kill him right then and there. “He’s the head of the smuggling ring my father was a part of — the very same smuggling ring that is try
ing to access your factory, with the help of your cousin over there.”

  Madeline whipped her head over to Bennett. “No,” she said, shaking her head. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, had convinced herself that Drake had been wrong about her cousin. “Bennett — is this true?”

  “Madeline,” he said, holding out a hand in supplication. “I never meant for it to come to this, you have to believe me.”

  “To come to what — to someone trying to kill me?” she said, her voice rising incredulously as she pointed her chin across the room to where Maxfeld lay.

  “Exactly,” he said with relief. “I’m so glad you understand.”

  “Bennett,” she said, enunciating every syllable. “All that has happened with the business — has that been your doing?”

  “Well… yes,” he said scratching his temple. “I thought if you would let it go peacefully, tell your father to turn it over to me, that we could do all this without bloodshed, and everyone would be happy. It was what I deserved, what was supposed to happen when you married Donning — Maxfeld — and lost interest in the business. Then it all came to nothing.”

  “Oh, well then,” she said sarcastically. “I am so sorry that my sham of a marriage and near-death was such an inconvenience to you.”

  “It was for all of us, Madeline,” he said condescendingly and if she hadn’t been holding the pistol, she would have smacked him across the face.

  “Enough of this,” Fowler said, his jovial attitude gone, annoyance in its place. “We’re here to take the business. No one here is going to stop me as I have more men on the way. I didn’t realize I would be greeted by such a party. We have a new plan.”

  “We do?” Bennett said, looking to him hopefully.

  “We do,” Fowler said. “We still kill your cousin — and her lover over there — and then the old man will have no choice but to give you the business. Hopefully he’ll be so distressed it will be sooner rather than later.”

  “Not on my watch,” Drake growled, but as he began to move toward them, Fowler lifted the pistol and pointed it, not at him but at Madeline, although he kept his eyes on Drake.

  “Not another step,” he said, and Madeline used the attention he held on Drake to begin inching over to the wall. “If you come any closer, I will shoot her. You might as well drop that gun, sweetheart. You have no idea how to use it.”

  “She might not but I most assuredly do.”

  Georgie, Marshall and three other Bow Street detectives stepped through the door. As soon as Georgie’s voice rang out, everything happened so quickly that Madeline had trouble describing the scene afterward.

  Fowler twisted around, lifted the pistol, and began to aim at Georgie as Drake went flying toward him and Madeline pulled her own trigger in the same instant.

  Multiple retorts rang out through the room, until they were all standing there in eerie silence with gunpowder thick in the air around them.

  Madeline breathed deeply as she saw Drake collapsed overtop of Fowler. She ran toward him, her heart beating loudly in her ears, nearly as loud as the shout of “Drake!” that rang through the room — even as she realized it came from her own mouth.

  She reached him before anyone else, pushing him over to see that blood covered his chest.

  “Drake, no, oh Drake, I’m so sorry, I—”

  Tears flew down her face as she ran her hands over his face, his chest, his arms, too stunned to know what she should be doing to help him.

  But then he sat up and cupped her face in his hands.

  “Shh, Madeline, it’s all right. I’m fine. You’re fine. All is well.”

  “But—” she looked at him, before reaching in and ripping open his jacket. Beneath it his white shirt was near pristine but for a few drops of blood — and some dirt.

  “It’s not my blood,” he said quietly. “It’s his.”

  Madeline rocked back on her heels as she looked down at Fowler. She had shot him clean in the chest — how she had no idea — luck she supposed, but the slight rise and fall told her that he was still breathing.

  “He’s still alive,” she said, breathing out. “Good. That’s good. I know he was evil and that he killed your parents, but I would never want someone to die by my hand — even him.”

  “I know,” Drake said as he removed his ruined jacket and threw it to the floor. “I know.”

  Then he reached over and wrapped his arms around her, picking her up and taking her into his lap despite all of the onlookers, and kissed her square on the lips.

  They were mid-kiss when a shocked voice rang out. “Madeline?”

  It was the only voice, the only thing that could cut through such a moment.

  She turned quickly, her eyes flying open.

  “Father?”

  Chapter 24

  “Father?”

  Drake had been so lost in Madeline that he had nearly forgotten everything else around them. He most certainly had not been prepared for Ezra Castleton to step into the room.

  It wasn’t every day you met the father of the woman you wanted to marry.

  He scrambled to his feet, aware that this was not exactly the surest way to show a man that he could protect and look after his daughter. He expected Madeline to push away from him, to put some distance between them so that she was no longer trapped in his embrace.

  But she surprised him, and instead interlaced her fingers with his, then tugged on his hand to pull him across the room.

  Meanwhile he noticed that Georgie, Marshall, and the two other detectives who accompanied them had crossed the room to Fowler and Bennett, and were in the process of preparing to take them to Bow Street, although if they had asked Drake, he would have told them to take them straight to Newgate. As it was, Fowler was not looking particularly healthy.

  “Georgie,” he said on his way by, “best get some men over to the timberyard before it’s cleared out.”

  She nodded at him, “Already done,” she said. “We should have this entire operation taken care of while you look after your lady love.”

  He smiled bashfully, which only caused her to laugh as he walked over to Castleton.

  “Father!” Madeline stepped into the older man’s embrace, and her bearded, round father with the most loving expression one could ever imagine wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.

  “Oh Madeline,” he said, looking around him in wonder, “what exactly have you gotten yourself into while I was gone?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, looking up at him with a smile, stepping back and holding her hand out to Drake once more. “But first, there is someone you should meet.”

  “Oh, should I?” he said, lifting his brows, and Drake stepped up with his hand extended.

  “Mr. Castleton, it is a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “I must tell you that I am very much in love with your daughter.”

  Drake wasn’t sure if Castleton’s bushy brows could have risen any higher, as he turned to look from Madeline to Drake and back again.

  “You’re the Bow Street Runner.”

  It was likely the first time Drake had ever kept himself from correcting the reference as he didn’t think it was the best way to win Castleton over.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You helped save Madeline last year.”

  “Well,” Drake cringed, “I tried. But Maxfeld escaped.”

  He motioned across the room.

  “And now?”

  “Now he will never hurt your daughter again. No one will. I promise you.”

  He had been so intent on his conversation with Castleton that he hadn’t noticed Madeline staring at him in wonder.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her, hoping that she hadn’t been injured any more than he had thought.

  “I am,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “Did you just say… that you love me?”

  “I did,” he said with a quick nod, noting that Georgie winked at him as she passed.

  “I’ll, ah… I’ll g
ive you two a moment,” Castleton said, clearing his throat. “It seems I need to go have a word with my nephew.”

  Drake no longer cared about anything else that was happening around them as he took Madeline’s hands within his.

  “Madeline,” he said reverently, noting that her bare hands were covered in clay, and he absentmindedly rubbed some of it off, “I was a fool.”

  “You were.”

  “I said things to you that are unforgiveable, I realize that. I know it sounds flippant to tell you that I didn’t mean any of it, and I am aware that an apology can never be enough. But you have to know that I said them to push you away. I thought… I thought that if you were with me, you would be in too much danger. My mother was killed because of my father’s actions. But by pushing you away, the only result was that I wasn’t there to protect you when you needed me the most. And for that I am so sorry. I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but I need you to know just how much I love you.”

  She looked down for a moment, and when she finally returned his gaze, her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

  “Oh, Drake,” she said, then paused, tilting her head to the side. “I wasn’t good to you either. I was so afraid to trust again. To trust in you, yes, but most importantly, to trust in myself. I was so concerned with the past that I didn’t focus on the future, and the present. On what you were showing me, on the man you were.” Her voice softened. “I know you didn’t mean those things. I realized belatedly what you were trying to do. And even when I tried to push you from my mind, it seems that you wouldn’t leave.”

  She laughed lowly as she led him over to the artist’s corner of the factory. She turned a sculpture on the table around so that he could see it.

  And looked into a reflection.

  “I came to sculpt, to think, to allow my mind to wander. But all I could think about was you.”

  “Madeline,” he breathed, “this is… unbelievable. Not so much the subject, but your talent.”

  “She’s something, isn’t she?” Ezra Castleton approached them once more, placing a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “What is this?”

  “It’s a new stone,” she said, obviously hesitant at first, but then Drake was proud when Madeline lifted her chin confidently.