There was no more to be said. Catherine did as she was bid, hammering and screaming at the door. Before long, nailed boots could be heard ascending the stairs.
“What’s the racket for? Shut your trap in there!”
“I shall throw myself from the window,” Catherine cried. “You cannot stop me!”
Instantly the key turned in the lock and the door was thrust open. As a large ruffian burst into the room, Dagonet, who had placed himself behind the opening, gave the man a single blow to the back of the neck which felled him like a tree.
“Well done, Miss Hunter! First move to us. Knight takes rook.”
Dagonet seized Catherine by the hand and began to lead her down the narrow stair. Voices could be heard at the bottom of the passage. Dagonet paused for a moment to thrust Catherine firmly behind him, but she was able to see past his shoulder.
Two men clad in heavy wool coats were crouched over a card table in the room where the fat woman had stolen her money. The mob cap, however, was nowhere to be seen. There was another door at the far side of the room which stood partly ajar.
In absolute silence Dagonet took a pistol from his pocket. Catherine suppressed a gasp. Surely he wouldn’t risk firing the gun and bringing in the entire neighborhood? She grasped his sleeve, but he shook her off with a smile. She bit her lip as he unloaded a bullet from the chamber. Taking careful aim he threw the lead pellet against the door on the other side of the room. It swung open a little more and the bullet rattled into the room behind. The men leapt up from their cards and ran over to investigate.
Pulling Catherine by the hand, Dagonet crossed the now empty room. It was the work of a moment to open the beaten front door, enter the final passage, and emerge into the night.
“Second move! Knight takes two bishops,” he said quietly.
“Countermove,” Catherine replied urgently. “Red Queen threatens checkmate.”
Rapidly approaching them was the large form of a woman in a gray cap and dirt-stained apron. As Catherine tried to step deeper into the shadows, the woman saw her and let up a screech.
“Jenkins! Mullet! The girl’s getting away.”
There was the sound of nailed boots thudding down the stairs as Dagonet and Catherine took off running up the street, the fellows in the woolen coats in hot pursuit. In a matter of minutes, they had momentarily outrun the hounds, who were both heavier and older, but Dagonet suddenly pulled up.
“Damnation! We’re into a blind alley. Checkmate in two moves.”
Sure enough, the last turn they had taken had put them into a short entry passage for the doors to various questionable residences, from some of which the sound of drunken singing welled out into the night. Unlike many of the lanes through which they had come, it was well lit with smoking lanterns. A throng of merrymakers, including several inebriated gentlemen who rubbed careless shoulders with pickpockets and footpads, staggered over the cobbles. The light shone down on them all indiscriminately. If their pursuers looked down into the passage, they would certainly be discovered.
At that moment, a doorway opened and a girl stepped out. Her hair was a lurid bronze above her scarlet cloak, and the eyes that raked over Catherine were blurred with drink.
Dagonet caught her around the waist and she smiled up at him. “Here, darling,” he said. “This lady has taken a sudden shine to that pretty cloak of yours, but this will buy you twenty just as good.”
At the glint of gold, the woman stripped off her cloak willingly enough, before she reeled away into the street.
In another moment, Dagonet had flung the cloak around Catherine’s shoulders, and running his hands over her hair sent a shower of hair pins into the gutter.
“White Queen blocks check.” He laughed as her hair cascaded over her shoulders, completing her disguise. “You look like a perfect hussy.”
And with that he pulled her into his arms and began to kiss her ruthlessly on the lips. Her spine melted into butter.
As the ruffians arrived panting in the opening to the passage, all they could see was a crowd of drunkards and a gentleman entertaining himself with a local doxy. With a curse, they turned and went thudding away up the street.
As Dagonet released her, Catherine stumbled against him. Her eyes were blind with angry tears. Not because he had kissed her, but because she couldn’t keep herself from responding. How many women had fallen prey to that practiced embrace?
Gentle fingers wiped the tears away from her cheek. “Forgive me, sweet Kate. A simple ruse. Even I could not fight off our pursuers should their local friends flock to their aid.”
“Then a pretense would have been sufficient, sir!” Catherine snapped.
The laughter died from his eyes. He gave her a short bow. “Of course, I offer you my most humble apologies. However, perhaps we could postpone our quarrel until a little later? We are not yet out of the woods.”
Taking her again by the hand he led her out of the alley into the maze of streets. It had begun to drizzle. They ran together through a labyrinth of stone and brick, more than once slipping up and down flights of steps that ran in and out of filthy courtyards.
They had just passed through one of these when a muffled shape stepped from the shadows and a nail-studded cudgel whistled within inches of Dagonet’s shoulder. He whirled Catherine up against the wall and with a deadly whisper his sword sprung from its cane.
“You’ll have to aim better than that, my friend,” Dagonet said calmly. “Come, try again! You mean to gain my purse, perhaps, but you’ll have to sweat a little for the honor. This blade is an old companion.”
Catherine flattened herself against the wall, then saw to her horror another man springing toward them. As Dagonet fought off the first attacker, the second pulled a pistol from his pocket and took aim. Without hesitation, she picked up a loose cobble from the street and flung it with all her might. As it thudded into the man’s shoulder, the pistol shot flew wild.
Dagonet laughed aloud. “‘Fair maid, is’t thou wilt do these wondrous feats?’” he quoted lightly.
There was a flash of the blade and the first attacker’s belt was severed. As his trousers collapsed around his ankles, he tripped and went sprawling on the filthy stones. A quick blow from the cane and the man lay insensible.
Dagonet turned to face the second footpad. His breathing was barely disturbed, except by his laughter. “You don’t return my quote, Kate? Doesn’t Joan reply: ‘My courage try by combat if thou dar’st’?”
“ . . ‘And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.’” Catherine felt a little unhinged, but the quote came easily enough to memory. “‘Resolve on this, — thou shalt be fortunate if thou receive me for thy warlike mate.’ King Henry VI, First Part? Oh God! Look out!”
The pistol had been raised again within three feet of Dagonet’s chest, but it suddenly flew from the ruffian’s hand and clattered to the ground. The man swore and raised his cut hand to his lip. As Dagonet presented the blade again, he spun around and took to his heels.
With a grin, Dagonet turned to Catherine. “You look like an Amazon, dear Kate. Would you be able to swing that ferocious weapon, do you think?”
Catherine looked with amazement at the cudgel in her hand. She did not remember picking it up. Instantly she dropped it.
“Saint Joan might have done. But I really don’t know, sir.” Her breath was coming in gasps, and she laughed. “I am not used to warfare. Don’t rely on me for a ‘warlike mate.’”
“You think I could not win such a partner?” His tone was perfectly serious, but he raised an eyebrow, and his eyes were like deep pools.
“You would receive nothing from Joan of Arc, sir. She goes on to say she ‘will not yield to any rites of love’. Your quote may be better chosen than you know.”
“Checkmate, Miss Hunter.” He sheathed the sword and gave her a self-deprecating grin. “You are impervious to all my deadly charm and poetry. Now, let us get out of this stinking hell.”
If only it were true, she
thought ruefully, as she followed him around two more corners. There stood a horse and cab, patiently waiting by the curb. In a moment, they were trotting away and Whitechapel was left behind.
Chapter 12
They did not, however, pull up before Brooke House in Grosvenor Square. Instead Dagonet led her into an unknown hallway and up to what had to be his own rooms.
“Where are you taking me, sir?” she asked stiffly. “I would prefer to be returned to my sister.”
“I think not, sweet Kate. You have not seen yourself, and Lady Brooke’s butler was starchy enough when I appeared at the door in the guise of an elegant gentleman. I do not think that at present he would suffer me to escort you into the hall.”
It was true. They were both mired from head to foot. The hem of Catherine’s gown was torn where she had caught it with her heel or on a nail, and it was thick with a crust of muck. Her damp hair curled in abandon around her face, and she had somehow cut her hand, perhaps on some projecting piece of masonry. She had not noticed it at the time.
Dagonet was equally besmirched, and his cravat, of course, had been left hanging from the rotten gutter of a house in Whitechapel. For the first time, Catherine recalled that yawning chasm below the window where she had been imprisoned. She shivered. Where had he found the courage to attempt to drop from the roof onto that minute windowsill? Had he no care at all for his own life?
They entered a spotless study. The coals of the fire had burned down to a faint glow. An empty coffee pot stood amongst a pile of newspapers. Dagonet ignored the wet footprints they were tracking across the exquisite carpet and set Catherine down in the armchair.
“You know this is highly improper, sir,” she said unsteadily.
The room smelt wonderful, of leather-bound books, and lemon and beeswax furniture polish, a clean masculine smell. Her eye ran over the ranks of books and the violin case that rested on the side table. Somehow it didn’t look like the den of an accomplished rake and gambler.
“More improper than spending the evening in Whitechapel alone with a gentleman, flinging rocks, brawling like a barmaid, and racing in a distinctly unladylike way through the streets? Sit there and relax. You are quite safe, dear Kate.”
He knelt and stirred up the fire, adding fuel until it was blazing merrily. Then taking the coffee pot he left the room. Minutes later he returned with a basin of warm water and a towel, and some very fragrant hot coffee.
“Here, drink this! It’ll do you good.”
Gratefully she took the cup of steaming liquid. He had added a generous shot of brandy, but she gulped it down. Suddenly she realized that she had eaten nothing since early afternoon. The hot coffee sent a warm glow through her limbs.
As soon as she had finished, he took her hand. “You are cut. Here, let me see that.”
She was too tired to remonstrate. For no reason she could fathom, she had the strongest desire to cry, but with determination she bit back the tears. It was true: she was safe! The full enormity of their ordeal threatened to overwhelm her. She would not break down in front of him! She was rescued by the next unsuitable quote.
“‘Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood!’”
“Don’t be absurd, sir, it is only a scratch. I believe a piece of masonry was the offender and it didn’t have hands.” What a relief that her voice was as casual as his!
“Nevertheless, it needs tending.”
He had obviously already washed his own hands in the kitchen, and now, kneeling before her, with deft, gentle movements, he washed hers, cleaned the cut and bound it in a strip of white linen.
“Where on earth did you learn to be such an accomplished nurse, Mr. de Dagonet?” she asked lightly.
Immediately she wished she could take back the words, for even his self-control was not sufficient to prevent the fleeting pain that crossed his features.
“On a battlefield,” he said curtly. A moment later, however, he was smiling up at her before he rose lightly to his feet. “Now,” he said, “there should be sufficient hot water ready to clean you up properly and return you to your sister looking more the thing. Follow me!”
She obediently went with him into the next room. With horror she discovered it to be his bedchamber.
She turned to face him. “Sir, this is unconscionable!”
“What, that you should bathe, while I scrape some of the mud out of your hem? You know I rarely get to see you in a clean dress. Dirt seems to be your most common sartorial accessory. For a rake like me, I really should need to see you in diamonds in order to ravish you. You will find soap and towels laid out and, I admit to my sorrow, ladies’ hairpins and a comb on the dresser. I shall deliver the water and then not disturb you, on my honor. Make yourself as presentable as you may, while I do the same in the kitchen, and then I think we can appear without scandal at Brooke House. I left a note for your sister. She will not be in the least worried about you. Only the butler will still raise his eyebrows that I should return you so late from the theater. I have had your evening cloak sent round here with the aid of one of Morris’s clever footmen from Exmoor. It is there on the bed. No one will discover a torn spotted muslin underneath.”
He grinned innocently as he left the bedchamber.
Too tired to remonstrate further, Catherine stripped off her dress. Gratefully she washed her face and limbs in the hot water and hung her dress outside the door. Good to his word, it was returned in ten minutes with the worst of the filth sponged away.
As she dressed again and put up her hair, she looked around the room. It was almost austere in its elegant simplicity. Had he entertained paramours here? She felt the color rising in her cheek. It somehow didn’t seem likely, the room was so plain, but then he had to have acquired the hairpins somewhere.
What did she know of the ways of a man like him? He seemed to deny nothing that was said about him, however heinous, yet there was some deeper mystery about his past. Something he himself didn’t know, something he also had hoped to learn from John Catchpole. Surely that must rattle that insufferable self-confidence?
Dagonet did not seem in the least rattled, however, when, an hour later, dressed in impeccable evening clothes, he delivered her to Brooke House in his phaeton. His tiger, unconscionably awoken from his bed in the stables, stood stiffly behind. Catherine had not been able to do quite as well with her own appearance. Her hair style lacked perhaps its usual polish, but keeping up the hood of her cloak, she knew she was passable.
Amelia had not, however, gone quietly to bed. Instead she flew down the stairs and straight into Catherine’s arms.
“Cathy, the most dreadful thing! Annie is taken deadly sick and she’s all alone in an inn in Marlborough. Polly arrived these three hours since with the news. She didn’t know what else to do, she said, than to come to us, but Annie has the fever and no one is there to take care of her but the chamber maid. We must go right away!”
“Quiet yourself, Amy, I pray! Let me see Polly! Of course I shall go to Annie, but you cannot travel so far in your condition.”
“But how are you to go, Cathy? David has the chaise in Somerset, and the curricle is at the shop having the right wheel repaired. I was run into this afternoon on my way home, and Peter Coachman says it will be days before it is safe to drive again. We have no carriage here at all.”
“Then I shall take a hack post chaise. It is not so far to go. I shall be quite all right and Annie will no doubt be up and well again even before I arrive.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss Hunter,” Dagonet’s calm voice interrupted. “But Marlborough is more than eighty-five miles. A hack post chaise will not be available until morning and will take you the best part of fourteen hours. You will thus not arrive at Annabella’s bedside until late tomorrow evening at the earliest. If you would allow me the honor of escorting you, we can leave now and be there before breakfast.”
Catherine immediately began to remonstrate, but after the maid Polly, who had been assigned to accompany Annie on the long
journey from Exmoor, had given her story, it was obvious that there was no time to be lost. Polly was in tears through much of her tale. The people at the inn had seemed very nice and she had left Annie with them with no compunction at the time, but then she had not had any idea that it would take her so long to reach Brooke House, the distances between England’s cities meaning very little to a girl who had never gone more than five miles from home before.
There was no doubt, however, that Annie was very ill indeed. Polly had left her in a high fever calling deliriously for her mother and sisters, while the maidservant at the inn tried to keep the blankets on her and withhold the water she was crying for, on the theory that it was necessary to starve the fever.
“Good God!” Dagonet exclaimed. “Damn ignorance and prejudice! They will kill her. Kate, we must go now, however repugnant it may seem to you. In the phaeton we can be there in five or six hours if we keep our weight to a minimum. It means no tiger, no maidservant, and no luggage: an appalling breach of propriety, of course.”
“What on earth can propriety matter in the circumstances!” Catherine said desperately. “How soon can we leave, sir?”
“Cathy, you cannot travel at night.” Amelia’s blue eyes were awash with tears. “Think of the danger! And your reputation should this be discovered.”
“I shall be quite safe with Mr. de Dagonet, Amy,” Catherine replied. “All that matters is that I must get to Annie with maximum speed. The dark will cover us. No one need know that I have lost all sense of maidenly modesty. Come, think of poor Annie all alone in that inn!”
Amelia reluctantly agreed. It did not occur to either of the ladies at that moment to question Catherine’s statement that she was in no peril to travel alone through the night with a notorious rake. Instead, Catherine turned to Dagonet for an answer to her question.
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