by Jane Ashford
In the next instant, she was thrust roughly away and left swaying on her feet at arm’s length.
“There,” said Gavin unevenly.
Laura could see his face only dimly in the light from the distant windows. She thought for a moment that he looked almost shaken. But in the next, the sneering mockery was back.
“Was that what you wanted?” he said.
“I…?”
“When you allowed me to bring you out here?”
“Allowed?”
“If the general suggested such a ploy, he is even denser than I realized.”
“You practically dragged me out of the ballroom,” Laura accused.
“Dragged? I think not.” He said it in a caressing tone that made Laura’s face go hot.
“You…you bastard.”
“Tch. Is this language for a lady?”
Sweeping back her skirts, Laura kicked him in the shin with as much force as she could muster. “Be thankful I am a lady,” she said over her shoulder as she strode back toward the ball. “If I were not, that might have hurt a good deal more.”
His derisive laughter followed her up the steps onto the terrace. Laura turned to glare at him, and he raised one finger in a lazy salute. Her fists clenched, and blood pounded through her temples. If she had had a pistol at that moment, she thought, she would have killed him.
As she turned to go inside, Laura heard Gavin call, “Who’s there?” She looked back. Was this another of his vile tricks? she wondered. But he wasn’t following her. He was striding purposefully toward the back of the garden.
“Who are you?” he said.
Laura saw a large shadow detach itself from the garden wall and move quickly away.
“Stop!” cried Gavin, starting to run.
The shadow ran as well. But Gavin was obviously catching up to it when the figure stopped and made a rapid movement. With a sharp exclamation, Gavin clutched his shoulder and crumpled to the ground.
The shadow receded. There were scrabbling sounds, and then a thud from beyond the wall.
Laura stepped back toward the doors, which were now closed against the chill of the night. She searched the darkness, but she couldn’t see anything. She started to open the door to fetch help.
There was a hoarse groan from the back of the garden.
She turned back and saw Gavin struggling upright.
“Don’t call anyone,” he said in a stronger voice.
Hesitantly, Laura went down into the garden once more. “Why not? Are you all right?”
“Perfectly.”
As he straightened, he stumbled and made an involuntary sound of pain. Laura moved closer. When he swayed on his feet, she risked a few more steps. He was holding his upper arm, just below the shoulder. The hilt of a small knife showed there, and blood welled between his fingers and soaked his sleeve. “My God!”
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Are you mad? I must get someone.”
“No!”
His tone stopped her in midstride. She looked back. “You’re wounded. I must—”
“You must mind your own damned business,” he interrupted.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Wait right there.”
But Laura had not even reached the steps again when he grabbed her wrist hard enough to bruise. “You will not tell anyone what occurred here tonight,” he said.
Laura jerked away from him, smudges of his blood on her wrist. The blaze of his eyes made her back away.
“It is none of your affair. Forget what you saw.”
“But…” At a loss for words, Laura gestured toward the wall where the ominous shadow had disappeared and then at his bleeding arm.
“An interesting development,” commented Gavin.
“Interesting?”
He gazed at the wall, then raised his wounded arm experimentally. He winced and muttered a curse. “I won’t be climbing tonight,” he added. His head moved as if he were examining every inch of the garden, looking for a way out.
“Not unless you wish to bleed to death,” said Laura tartly. “What is going on? I don’t understand.”
“There is no need for you to do so. Go back inside.”
He spoke as if she were a highly unsatisfactory servant. Laura put her hands on her hips and glared at him.
“Someone didn’t want to be followed,” he explained curtly. “Now go…”
“How can you act this way when you have a knife in your arm?”
“It isn’t serious.”
“Really? You’ve been attacked so often you can tell without examining the wound?” she asked sarcastically.
“Yes.” He turned his back on her, moving slowly to the high brick wall surrounding the garden and beginning to walk along it, checking for a gate hidden in the dimness.
Laura watched him in amazement, trying to comprehend his behavior. He seemed a different man. The mockery was gone; his lazy detachment was revealed as a pose. He was intent and focused—utterly absorbed. It still seemed senseless to her to ignore the aid that waited a few feet away. But he clearly had no intention of communicating with anyone. She couldn’t resist moving farther into the dark garden and following his progress around the wall. “Do you think it was a footpad?” she asked after a while.
“Will you go inside!”
“No.”
Gavin stopped and looked at her, his face pale in the light from the windows. “Mrs. Pryor will be looking for you,” he said.
“Yes, she may even come out here. The general too. They will make a great fuss.”
“What is it that you want?” he snapped.
“I want to know what happened.”
“Someone threw a knife at me and then escaped over the wall, and if I am to have any hope of discovering…”
“But why do you not summon the authorities? If it was a thief…”
“Thieves do not climb over walls into well-guarded houses when a ball is in progress,” he said with exaggerated patience.
“If it was not a thief, then who was it? Who would want to attack you?”
“This is none of your affair.”
“An enraged husband?” she asked, remembering the remarks of the Frenchwomen a few days ago.
“What?”
“Or a brother, perhaps?” Laura nodded to herself. “And that is why you don’t want anyone to find out—because of the scandal.”
Gavin had finished his circuit of the garden wall. Now he came closer. “That’s it,” he replied. “Crime of passion. Mustn’t drag the lady’s name in the dirt.”
His mocking tone was back, Laura noticed. He was speaking to her as if she were a child. She didn’t believe a word of it.
“So you can understand,” he added. “This shouldn’t be mentioned.”
“Your time must be fully occupied,” Laura answered dryly. “When you are not dragging me into dark gardens, you are compromising the reputation of some other lady.”
“I—”
“And rather clumsily too, if it is so obvious that her husband must stab you. I suppose that is why you are so often attacked?”
“There is no need for you to be jealous.”
“Jealous! You may be sure I do not envy any woman the sort of attentions I have endured from you.”
“Splendid! Why, then, don’t you go back to the ballroom and let me be?”
“Let you be?” Laura couldn’t believe it. “You are the one who forced me to come out—”
“I don’t have time for this.” He brushed past her and strode onto the terrace.
“Are you going to walk through the ball with blood running down your arm?” wondered Laura, rather wishing to see this.
Gavin stopped with the door handle in his grasp. “Damn.” He frowned. “I have to get out of here.”
&n
bsp; “To find the man who attacked you?”
“It’s far too late for that, but there are inquiries…” He bit off the words as if he had not meant to say them and turned to give her a hard stare.
“You need to inquire which of the many husbands it might be?” she asked sweetly.
“You are an extremely irritating woman,” he replied.
“You are a completely exasperating man,” she responded.
They stood looking at each other in the squares of light from the crowded ballroom. Though his gaze was somewhat intimidating, Laura did not allow her eyes to waver. A shiver went through her—not of fear, but of mingled fascination and excitement. This was far more than she had imagined when she took the chance of coming to Vienna.
“Would you get me a cloak?” Gavin said.
“Your cloak?” At once she saw that it was his means of escape. “How will I recognize it?”
“It’s black,” he answered sardonically.
“But so are a hundred…”
“I don’t care whose cloak it is, so long as you bring it at once.”
“You want me to steal a cloak?”
He looked at her.
The blood was drying on his sleeve, Laura saw. He looked slightly drawn, and more than slightly annoyed. She had no obligation to help him, she thought. And yet the situation cried out to some instinct in her. “Wait here,” she said and slipped into the ballroom.
For a moment, she concealed herself behind the draperies in the recess. No one seemed to be looking at her. Straightening her shoulders and putting a confident expression on her face, she moved out along the wall, heading for the entrance and the rooms where guests’ wraps had been left.
She had nearly reached it when Catherine Pryor caught up with her. “Laura! Where have you been?”
Laura forced a calm smile. “I was talking to some people.” She gestured. “Over there.”
“Where is Mr. Graham? You went off to dance with him half an hour ago.”
“We danced,” Laura assured her. “And then I met these people, and…”
“What people? Did he leave you alone?”
“No. He…took another partner, and I stayed chatting. I’m sorry if I worried you. I won’t do so again.”
Catherine eyed her as if she wasn’t convinced.
“I am just on my way to…” Laura indicated the direction of the ladies’ tiring-rooms.
“Are you all right?”
“Perfectly.” Seeing that more reassurance was required, Laura added, “I am having a splendid time. I saw Baron von Sternhagen.” It was true, she thought a bit guiltily. She had seen him from across the room earlier.
“Were you talking with him? He’s very well thought of. A nice young man.”
“Umm,” responded Laura. “I’ll be right back.”
Thankfully, Catherine allowed her to escape. Laura hurried across the entryway to where a troop of footmen watched over the guests’ belongings. “Yes, miss?” said one of them, stepping forward.
“Oh. I…” What was she supposed to say? Laura wondered. Ladies didn’t fetch gentlemen’s cloaks. Providentially, a large group came in behind her, calling for their wraps. “My friends,” she muttered, fading back as the footmen came forward to serve them.
Cloaks and hats were fetched. When the servants were occupied draping them over shoulders and waiting for tips, Laura slipped past and grabbed the first dark cloak she saw from the scores awaiting their owners. Moving quickly to the rear of the hall, she was lucky in finding another set of doors that led out onto the terrace. In the next moment, she was through them, her heart beating rapidly, and she hurried along to the spot where she had left Gavin.
He was leaning against the wall, looking rather unwell. “I got it,” Laura told him. “Are you all right?”
He nodded and held out his hand for the cloak. She gave it to him, and he tried awkwardly to swing it over his broad shoulders. “Here,” she said, pulling it straight and then stepping back.
“It’s short,” he commented.
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t have time to try it for fit.”
“Never mind. It will have to do.”
“Really?” said Laura, stung at his lack of gratitude. “You don’t want me to go back and find a better one?”
“I doubt you’d be able to.”
“You—”
“Go inside. I’ll wait a few moments so that no one will connect us.”
“That’s all?”
“What else would there be?”
“I made some effort to get that for you,” Laura pointed out. “Catherine was wondering where I had been, and—”
“Then you’d best return to her at once,” he interrupted.
“And I had to sneak around several footmen. It was not precisely comfortable.”
“I would have managed it better,” he acknowledged, as if she had been confessing some fault.
Laura was speechless. She had not expected effusive thanks, but this was beyond anything.
“Will you go?” he added.
“With pleasure!” she snapped, turning back toward the hall doors and leaving him standing there alone.
Four
Gavin sat in his parlor slowly sipping from a glass of brandy. His arm scarcely hurt now. Hasan, who had skills beyond the imagining of most gentlemen’s gentlemen, had bandaged him up, pronouncing the wound minor. They had both seen worse, Gavin mused. Much worse.
For a moment, his mind ranged over some of the perils he and Hasan had endured. Never once had he found occasion to question the man’s loyalty, he thought. On the other hand, he had earned that loyalty, Gavin acknowledged. He had included Hasan in his escape from a filthy prison pit straight out of a medieval inquisition.
Gavin’s thoughts returned to the present incident. His attacker had certainly been a watcher, not an assassin. He had thrown the knife only to avoid capture and the exposure of whatever plot was brewing.
Gavin moved his shoulder to ease it and turned the brandy glass in his hand. He had sensed he was being watched, but he hadn’t known the stakes were this high. He had to find out why he had become a target.
He sipped brandy and found his thoughts drifting again from this vital question to his companion in the night’s adventure. Laura Devane’s reactions had been surprisingly intelligent, he thought. He hadn’t actually expected that she would get him a cloak. It had only been his first scheme. But not only had she agreed, instead of whining or arguing, she had done it. How many gently reared women would, or could, steal a man’s cloak from under the noses of a gaggle of footmen?
An unconscious smile tugged at Gavin’s lips. He had always judged women at a glance. One look told him whether he was interested, whether he wished to pursue or avoid. But with Laura the process had become more complicated. Her striking appearance might have attracted him. The general’s plots repelled him. Her spirit and wit might have beguiled him. Her forced interference in his life annoyed him. He despised manipulation, and though it was Pryor and not Laura who was attempting to manipulate him, the fact remained.
The fact remained that she must be removed from his life, he thought, setting down his empty glass. Indeed, there was even more reason now. He was quite accustomed to danger. She wasn’t. And he found he was very reluctant to imagine her in danger.
Who would have thought that kissing her would be so incredibly arousing? Gavin gazed into the darkness beyond the windows. He had done it to frighten her off, of course, to make her reject him once and for all. And she had been outraged—but not predictably so. Laura Devane was never predictable, he thought, the smile appearing once again. He had felt, when he held her, much more than outrage passing through her body. He had felt it in every nerve and muscle. He remembered every nuance of the sensation of holding her in his arms.
What was thi
s? Gavin reached for the brandy decanter. He had kissed many women, enjoyed nights of passion with a number. But with her there was an added dimension. It was as if their bodies sent messages—unseen, unheard, but set in a compelling rhythm that perfectly matched. He had known the contours of her skin, all the depths of her passion. He knew precisely how she could be wakened and roused, and he was absolutely confident that her desires were as fiery as his own. It would be more than pleasure to show her the extent of his knowledge, to take her on a slow exquisite journey, touch by touch, to the blazing end of desire.
Gavin realized that he was gripping the neck of the decanter so hard it threatened to crack. What the devil was the matter with him? he wondered. Had the knifing addled his brains? Only one thing was important just now—finding out why he was the target of such inordinate attention here in Vienna and putting a stop to whatever plot was being hatched.
* * *
“This is becoming worse than a London season,” grumbled General Pryor as their carriage rattled through the streets of Vienna on the way to yet another evening party. “With the delegations trying to outdo each other in entertainments, we’ll never see the end of it. What is it tonight?”
“The Saxons have summoned one of their leading singers to perform for us,” answered Catherine in neutral tones.
The general groaned. “A concert!”
“She is said to be—”
“I don’t care if she sings like a lark. It’ll be dashed uncomfortable chairs and no talking or moving about. And if you do, being hissed at by a pack of foppish ‘music lovers.’”
Wisely his companions said nothing. For a while the only sound was of wheels on cobblestones and scraps of German from the street.
“You know,” said Laura then, gathering her courage, “if I knew more about Gavin Graham, I might have more success.”
“Eh? What more do you need to know?” asked the general. “He’s a reckless, insubordinate fellow who won’t follow orders. If this was the army, I’d show him a thing or two about command.”
“What sort of work does he do?” said Laura.
