by Sharon Page
Minutes later, the cart jiggled as a man leapt up to the driving box, then he called out a command to his pony. With a lurch, they set off.
How had she managed to vanish into thin air?
Devon stood on the muddy road. The breeze had whisked away the rest of the mist, so he could see up and down the road and across fields. He could see so much it made his head hurt.
But he couldn’t see Anne.
What had possessed the foolish woman to run from him? He knew exactly what he was getting into. He had faced cannons and rifles, but Anne Beddington thought she should protect him.
He had to squint as sunlight filtered through the sky and landed on the wide strip of road. It was searing for eyes that hadn’t seen for three months.
How had she escaped him? Admittedly, he’d been unsteady on his feet, disoriented because he could now see. At first when he was running, he’d tripped over every blasted root in the forest. He’d been worse than when he was blind. But he should have been able to catch her.
He swung around in a circle. Instinct warned him he was in the open and vulnerable. He shook his head—that was a remnant of battle. Now he was hunting a damsel in distress, one determined to evade his help. Leaves rippled around him. Sheep dotted a hillside to the right, behind a quiet stone farmhouse. Every detail of the farm loomed at him—the time-mellowed edges of the stone, the golden thatch on the roof, the pink of late roses rambling up a wall. On the other side, the woods stretched to a meadow, following the hill downward toward the village.
The one detail he couldn’t see was a slim woman in a wet shirt and breeches running down the road, through the meadow, or across the fields.
The farm would be filled with hiding places. More than he could effectively search. He needed to return home. Bring out a band of his servants and scour the farm, the woods, and the fields from top to bottom. He had to send a man to the village inn. If Anne made it that far, if she could find another hat to disguise her head—she’d dropped his at the stream—and made herself look convincingly male, she might try to get on a stage. But she would need money to buy a ticket.…
Devon’s heart gave a strange, hard kick in his chest. Anne had worked in a brothel. He now knew how lovely she was. Any man she approached would want her—certainly with her wearing that wet, almost transparent shirt.
God, the thought left him reeling more than the onslaught of color and images that came from regaining his sight.
Two days later, Devon strode down the steps toward his waiting mount. His groom held the reins of his fastest horse.
“Are you certain you should ride alone so soon after taking a serious blow to your head?”
He jerked around to see Tristan coming down the steps, his courtesan following on his heels, the plumes of her extravagant bonnet waving in the wind. “Dev, why not ride with us?”
“A horse will travel faster than a carriage. I feel perfectly fine.” Fine, but impatient.
Two days of searching and he still had not tracked Anne down. In hours, she had fashioned an escape plan of her own, one worthy of a general. Worthy of Wellington. He could imagine the praise the Iron Duke would have heaped on her for this clever plot.
“So she didn’t vanish into thin air after all? Treadwell told me you had reason to think she’d gone to London. I thought she’d want to avoid Town at all costs.”
“It’s a long story.”
Tristan grinned. “Give me a summary. I want to hear how she outwitted you.”
Devon scowled. He’d found a young boy who had seen a “gentleman” sneak out from the back of an apple cart. But after that, the “gentleman” had disappeared. However, Devon had discovered his clothes neatly bundled up behind the stables of the Black Swan. Like Tris, he’d been certain she wouldn’t take a stage to London.
He’d been wrong.
He briefly explained that to his friend. “It was a chance comment by a maid at the Swan that finally made me realize what Anne did. One of the girl’s dresses was missing from her wardrobe, along with an old straw hat. I questioned the innkeeper, and, indeed, a woman in plain servant’s style of dress had bought a ticket on the London stage two days ago.” He also had his men searching for Mick Taylor, who had effectively disappeared.
“She bought a ticket? How did she get the money?”
That question haunted him.
“So you’re going in pursuit?”
“Of course.”
Tristan crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. His expression implied he knew something Devon did not. “Why are you going to chase her down, Dev?”
“Obviously, I—” He paused. It seemed … natural for him to pursue her. “She could be in danger. I can’t abandon her.”
He mounted Abednigo and took the reins. Barely aware of his servants or Tris and Miss Lacy watching, he set his horse trotting. Anne had gone to London. Why? Had she done it because she guessed it would be the last place he—or anyone—would look for her? Or was it because of Kat? She had been terrified that Mick Taylor had badly hurt her friend.
That would be his Cerise. She would risk her own neck to ensure Kat was safe.
As he rode out onto the road, he urged his horse to a gallop. He was two days behind Anne, with no hope of overtaking her now. But some instinct made him want to move quickly.
This morning, he’d realized that, even though he could now see, he hadn’t actually taken a look at himself. He’d finally faced the mirror in his bedchamber. And discovered he wasn’t at all like the man who had gone to battle. He had been mourning Rosalind then, and he’d looked grim, empty, ravaged.
Now he wore every mark of mourning, loss, and fighting on his face. A bayonet scar gouged his temple. His nose had been broken in a fall from his cavalry horse—it was no longer perfectly straight. Various scars from blades had left a trail of white lines over his jaw and his forehead. He hadn’t shaved in days, and black stubble shadowed his face. He looked … like hell.
Anne Beddington had lived through a hell of her own. She had lost her home. Lost her father and mother. She’d ended up in a brothel that should have claimed her soul.
But she had not looked like a haunted woman. She had still looked pure and lovely, every inch a lady, no matter what she had seen, what she’d been forced to do. To do that after what she’d endured … it showed how strong she was. Was she strong enough, clever enough, to evade him in London?
No, she wasn’t. He hadn’t commanded a regiment of men for nothing.
Just as she’d done more than a fortnight ago, Anne crept up the mews behind Kat’s house and used a tree to help her scramble over the back wall. She stole to the kitchen at the rear and slowly pushed open the door. Kat’s plump cook, Mrs. Brown, turned quickly from the stove. “Miss Beddington? Let’s get you upstairs to the mistress. She has been worried about you!”
Anne’s heart lodged in her throat as she followed the cook to Kat’s sitting room. She was so afraid of what she would see. Mrs. Brown cried, “It is Miss Beddington. She’s returned safe.”
Kat rose slowly from her chair and turned. Fury toward Mick Taylor burned in Anne’s heart. “Oh, my goodness, Kat!” Bruises blossomed on Kat’s cheeks and jaw. A scab had formed on her lip, where Mick had obviously split it. But, despite that, Kat held out her arms in welcome.
Anne embraced her dear friend. “Oh, Kat, were you badly hurt?”
“Nothing worse than I’ve endured before. But I’m so sorry, Anne. I couldn’t hold out, though I tried. I told Taylor you’d gone to the Duke of March, to his hunting box. I sent you a letter to warn you, but I feared it would arrive too late. Did he find you?”
“Yes.” Her stomach gave a fierce growl.
Kat’s brow arched. “You can tell me everything that happened while you eat.”
Anne did, speaking swiftly between mouthfuls of delicious steak and kidney pie. Kat’s large brown eyes widened at every twist and turn of Anne’s tale, including her revelation that she hadn’t killed Madame after all. “The Duke of March
rescued you from Mick?”
Anne nodded. “He wanted to help me. It was his plan to hide me while we searched for Madame Sin’s true killer, but I couldn’t let him take such a risk for me.”
“He must have cared for you very much to offer such a thing.”
“I’d helped him before he regained his sight. I assume he felt obligated to help me.”
“If you went to Bow Street, could you convince them you’re innocent?” Kat asked.
“I don’t know. Without Mick’s story, how could I? I’ll be arrested. And Mick Taylor could withhold the truth and give evidence against me. I’d hang for certain then.”
Kat set down her wineglass, frowning. “Anne, you are a viscount’s daughter! You can’t believe your cousin would let you hang. Surely he will help you. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to find you—he must want you back very much.”
“That’s what frightens me. Oh, Kat, he was always horrible.” Anne felt her lip wobble. She gathered her strength. “I have to leave England. I’ll get money somehow. Enough to buy passage on a ship.”
Kat swept to her feet, hurried over, and embraced her. “I have money, Anne.”
“Kat, I can’t—”
“You can. What good is money if you cannot use it to help a dear friend? This doesn’t begin to repay the debt I have to your mother.”
Kat had once lived in the stews beside them, in a small, dingy room like theirs. Without funds and desperate, Kat had finally got employment on the Drury Lane stage. One night she was returning home after a performance and a man attacked her. Mama heard the screams, ran outside, and rescued Kat by fighting off the man with a frying pan.
“It does, Kat,” Anne said softly. “For you would be saving my life.”
Chapter Nineteen
OW MUCH FOR these?” Anne asked, drawing a small velvet pouch from a pocket in her cloak. Grime coated the windows of the cramped shop, situated on a narrow street off Petticoat Lane—a place where money was handed over for all kinds of goods, whether obtained legally or not. She spilled out two necklaces: a modest one with small rubies and a second with a pear-shaped sapphire. Kat had given her these. Somehow, in some way, she would repay her friend.
She watched the door nervously, as if by magic Bow Street would catch her here.
The slender man behind the counter, Mr. Timble, picked up the rubies first, his face carefully impassive. He studied them, grunting. Then he gave his assessment and she gasped in disappointment. “They’re worth far more,” she protested.
“It’s all I’m willing to pay for them, my dear.”
“What about the other?”
Timble named a second figure, also depressingly low, but it was enough for her to buy passage and start a new, frugal life in a different country.
“All right.” She pushed the jewels across the counter.
He put a small stack of notes in front of her. Five-pound notes—large and colorful, something she had not seen in years. She pushed the money into her bag and slipped out of the shop. In a fog-laden lane, she found a hackney and instructed the driver to take her to the London docks.
Katherine Tate gracefully arranged her curvaceous form on a Grecian chaise. “Your Grace, how wonderful to see you, and how unexpected. Unfortunately, I had no time to dress. I am wearing nothing but my silk robe.”
Devon rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what Kat’s game was. He knew her from the time he attended Cyprian balls, when he used to keep mistresses, before he met Rosalind. He knew that her seductive play was intended to buy her time and distract him. She was staring at him curiously. He had ridden straight to London, stopping only at the inns along the Kings Highway for fresh horses, and had come directly to Kat’s without even bothering to stop at his London house. He was aware that his clothes were disheveled and coated in road dust.
“I can see you, Kat,” he said. “Miss Beddington helped me regain my sight.”
Kat’s kohl-darkened eyes opened wide in surprise that he didn’t believe. She laughed in silvery delight. “How wonderful! Impetuous Anne did heal you, after all. But where is she? I thought she hoped to make this affair with you into one of a longer duration.”
He could tell she was putting on an act. “I don’t know, Kat. I came here so you could tell me where she is.”
“I have no idea, Your Grace. I have not seen her since she went running off to your hunting box, determined to seduce you.”
“You’re lying, love.”
“I am not,” she said, her voice a seductive caress. “I have not seen her since she left.” Graceful fingers stroked the edge of her robe, tracing the red silk—cerise silk—from her pale throat to the shadowed valley between her large breasts. Her attempt at distraction wasn’t working. All he could think of was Anne. He had never been so obsessed with a woman before.
Courtesans like Kat were his past. And what he wanted, what had driven him here, finally struck him. He wanted Anne to be in his future. He wanted her back. He could see, but he still wanted her to read to him, he still wanted to walk in the rain with her, ride with her, be with her. This wasn’t about rescuing her. It was about taking her, keeping her, having her. And that scared him. He wanted to possess Anne with the same driving need that had made him steal Rosalind away from Gerald, his former best friend.
“Is something wrong, Your Grace?”
He pulled his thoughts in line. “You’ve made yourself up well, but I can see the damage from Mick Taylor’s attack. Did it take long for him to force you to betray Anne?”
Pain flashed in Kat’s exquisitely made-up brown eyes. “I did not want to betray her. I tried to endure it, but that man is a monster.”
“Why shelter her, Kat? Taking risks for another woman, a competitor, isn’t like you.”
Kat waved an elegant hand. “Her mother saved my life once.”
He leveled his gaze at her, drinking in the nervous tics of her jaw. “Kat, if you didn’t know for a fact that Anne was safe, you’d be upset, given Taylor is after her. You wouldn’t be so calm.”
She stiffened on the chaise. “I didn’t think she was in danger from Taylor—he was working for her cousin. Surely, her cousin would not want to hurt her.”
“So why would you not tell Taylor where she was? Why make him beat it out of you?”
Kat’s eyes widened and flicked nervously around the room, as though she was seeking escape. He reached out and clasped her wrist to remind her there was none.
“All right.” She sighed. “I knew she was in danger from Mick Taylor and her lunatic cousin.”
Devon tightened his grip, hating having to be rough. “Why do you call her cousin a lunatic?”
“What would you call a man who set his young cousin on his lap and touched her in ways that made her feel ill? That is the sort of man he was. He began fondling her when she was only eight years of age and he was twenty. He is a perverted madman who is obsessed with her. But I am telling you the truth, Your Grace. She did not come back here.”
“She did. Kat, I expect you to trust me with the truth—we have known each other for a long time. You know I would not hurt Anne. She has nothing to fear from me.” But his gut was churning at what he now knew about Anne’s cousin.
“Of course I know that! But she does not want you to help her. She only wants to escape. She has fallen in love with you, of course.”
He frowned. “That’s not true.”
She wagged her finger. “You must listen, Your Grace. Anne does not want to hurt you or your family by putting you in a scandal. She is leaving you to protect you. It is better if you let her go.”
It was not. He could not let her run with no money or protection. After all she had done for him, he owed her so much. “How does Anne plan to escape?”
“She would not want me to tell you. Why are you so determined to catch her, Your Grace?”
He didn’t want to threaten Kat, after what she’d been through at the hands of Mick Taylor. “I need to find her because she is accused of murder�
��”
“You aren’t looking for her to turn her over to Bow Street and the law, are you?” Kat cried. “She does not deserve to hang! Her madam was a cruel witch, and if Anne killed her with a fireplace poker, I can promise you that woman deserved her fate.”
“She claims to be innocent.” He watched her eyes. Did Kat believe it?
“Of course she is.” But Kat didn’t sound convincing.
“Either way, I can help her,” he pointed out. “But unless I know where she is, there’s nothing I can do for her. I rode directly from my hunting box to Town in pursuit of her. I am hungry, exhausted, sore, and my head is pounding. You will tell me the truth, Kat. I have no intention of leaving until you do.”
“She is just your mistress. Why not let her go?”
“Kat, if you care about Anne, you’ll let me help her. Trust me with your friend’s life.”
Her teeth tore at her lip.
“Unless you want Taylor or Bow Street to find her first.”
“She is planning to escape England by ship,” Kat admitted. “I gave her two necklaces so she could buy her passage. How could I not help her? She came back to London, risking capture, to ensure I was all right.”
“Where is she planning to go?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think she knows yet. All she is thinking about is running. Remember, her heart is most likely breaking—no woman thinks clearly through that.”
Was he too late? Had she already gone?
The docks stank of dead fish, muck, rotting wood, and unwashed sailors. Devon realized he probably didn’t smell much better. Sweat, from hard riding, made a filmy layer between his shirt and his back. It soaked his hair beneath his beaver hat.
At a public house on Wapping High Street, he tied up his horse. A lad hurried out with a tankard of ale. Devon tossed it back to quench his thirst, threw the lad some coins, and strode to the hubbub of the port.
Where was she? Dozens of ships bobbed on the water, hundreds of sailors teemed on the docks. There were women too. Wives in dull dresses, whores in garish garb. Was Anne still wearing the servant’s dress and hat? Or she could be disguised as one of the women in plain brown wool or one of the tarts in scarlet silk.
