There was a howl of victory from the mob. She looked up in time to see the sweep grab the cane and rip it from Ian's hand during the split second the ex-soldier had been forced to concentrate on regaining his balance.
Defenseless now against the onslaught, Ian did the only thing he could to protect her. He turned his back to the attackers, pressing her closely against the bricks. He put his hands on the wall above them, and lowered his face so that his cheek rested over the top of her head. The position protected her, but it also prevented her from seeing anything.
Something struck Ian's back, probably the board. The blow was hard enough that the force of it was transmitted through his body to hers. She heard his gasp of pain. Knowing there was nothing else she could do, Anne closed her eyes, her mouth moving soundlessly as she began to pray.
Chapter Nine
A shot rang out. Ian raised his head, probably searching for its source. Her heart in her throat, Anne stood on tiptoe, looking over his shoulder, hoping to see Dare's coachman brandishing the same kind of pistol Ian had used so effectively the night they had been attacked by highwaymen.
Instead, Doyle Travener stood in the middle of the street, aiming the second of a pair of pistols he held at the man who had been lifting the length of board to bring it down on the head of her guardian. With the sound of the first shot, the man had frozen, his makeshift weapon still raised.
"That's enough," Travener said.
So complete was the silence that had fallen after the gunshot, it seemed as if those quiet words had been spoken into a vacuum. The shouts of the angry throng and the screams of the boy were still echoing off the brick of the buildings, but no one was making any sound now.
And then, as quickly and inexplicably as they had appeared on this quiet street of expensive shops, the crowd who had supported the sweep's attempt to retrieve his property evaporated. They ran, each in a different direction, threading their ways through the pedestrians and then disappearing into the maze of streets and alleys.
Within seconds it was as if the mob had never existed. The faces of the shops' other patrons, those who had witnessed the fray, looked as stunned as Anne felt. For a few seconds, none of them moved. Then, seeming to recover more quickly than anyone else, Doyle Travener lowered the second, unfired pistol and began to walk toward her and Ian.
By then Anne had had time to realize she was unhurt. Of course, she wasn't the one who had borne the brunt of that attack. She was the one who had been protected from it, at a cost she was almost afraid to discover. She turned her head, no longer watching Travener's approach. Nor was Ian. He was looking at her instead. Looking into her eyes.
There was a trickle of blood making its way down his lean cheek. Her gaze followed it upward until she found the cut that had been opened above his brow. Then her gaze shifted from the gash to his eyes, trying to read what was in them.
This was what he would have looked like in battle, she thought. This same savage determination in his features. It had been expended on her behalf today, but the will that had made him fight on, despite the odds, despite the blows, despite the seeming futility of his effort, had been forged years ago. It was obvious that no matter what he had laughingly claimed, there had been far more to Ian Sinclair's military experiences than dancing attendance on Portuguese ladies.
"Anne?"
Her name had been a breath, loud enough for her ears alone. And for a moment everything around them faded away. There was nothing but his eyes on hers, his lips whispering her name.
"I'm all right," she said, her throat so tight with emotion it was hard to speak.
Her hand forced itself upward between their bodies. She wanted to put her fingers over the line of his lips. To shape his cheek. To urge his mouth downward to align itself over hers.
She did none of those things, despite the fact that her body was pressed against his as closely as if they were lovers. Still holding his eyes, she put her gloved fingers over the slash above his eye instead, touching it gently.
Ian turned his head, moving it away from contact with her hand. It was not a flinch. It was, rather, a deliberate avoidance. And realizing that, her fingers curled into her palm.
I never worried that his heart might be engaged. It was. And hers were not the fingers he wanted on his face. "Major Sinclair?"
Doyle Travener's voice was an intrusion, despite Ian's reaction to her touch. Reluctantly, Anne turned her head toward the sound. Travener was standing beside them, and she wondered if he had been close enough to see that small exchange.
After a second or two, Ian stepped away from her, creating a more acceptable distance between their bodies. The movement drew her attention back to him. And she saw, despite Travener's approach, her guardian's gaze had not left her face. It didn't now.
"Are you hurt, Miss Darlington?" Travener asked.
Anne again broke the connection with those piercing hazel eyes and turned to face their savior.
"See to Major Sinclair, if you will, Mr. Travener. I assure you I am not harmed."
"Major Sinclair?" Travener said, more softly this time.
She watched the breath Ian drew, his mouth opening slightly to accommodate its depth. Finally he turned his head to look at the man standing beside them. The pistols with which Doyle Travener had scattered the mob were still in his hands.
"Would you find my coachman, please?" Ian asked, as if that request were the most ordinary thing in the world. As if Travener were someone who might be sent to do his bidding.
"Are you sure you're all right, sir?"
"Perfectly sure, thank you," Ian said formally. "Miss Darlington, however, should be conveyed home immediately. She has had a shock, as you may imagine."
She had, of course, but she wasn't hurt, and she certainly wasn't hysterical. She couldn't imagine why she was not, but then she could never have imagined any of what had just happened.
"Of course," Mr. Travener said, moving away to carry out the assignment he had been given, as if the chain of command that would have bound these two men in Iberia had not been changed by their present circumstances.
When Travener had disappeared, Ian turned his head again, looking down once more into her eyes. He was no longer touching her. There was as much distance between them now as if they were dancing or conversing at some crowded rout.
And yet it seemed as if she could still feel the imprint of each individual muscle of his body on her skin. Her breasts were tight and aching, with fear or excitement or need. And she felt as if she had been burned by whatever incredible current of emotion had passed between them during the seconds-long eternity his eyes had held on hers.
"It seems I once more owe you my life," she said when this silence had also gone on too long.
He shook his head, the movement small, but clearly negative. There was still within his face something of the battle rage she had glimpsed before. Even as she watched, however, his features seemed to be changing, transforming themselves once more into the face of the man she had thought she knew.
"You should have run when I told you to," he said. "You might have been hurt."
"You didn't run."
The stern line of his lips softened, not quite a smile. "I can't," he said, touching his thigh.
"I don't think you ever knew how to run from a fight. Maybe that's a lesson I haven't learned either," she said returning the smile. "Obviously Elizabeth's teaching is at fault. Or perhaps I am more my father's daughter than I have believed."
And once more his eyes changed, slowly, gradually, even as she watched. There was again a physical withdrawal, more subtle this time than the actual step back he had taken before. What was happening now was nothing so blatant as that. Perhaps it had been only a shift of his weight onto his good leg. Or maybe a shift of his attention.
She became aware of the arrival of the carriage at the same time Ian turned to face it. The coachman brought the horses as close to them as he could, given the size of the crowd which had now gathered in the street. Anne wonder
ed where all those people had been when they were being attacked.
And then she saw Ian's cane lying in the street between them and the coach. She brushed past him and walked over to it, stooping to pick it up.
She realized as she did that Mr. Travener was standing beside the coach, holding the door open for her. He had apparently put the pistols away, for his hands were free.
Instead of walking over to the carriage, she turned and carried the cane back to her guardian, who was standing exactly where she had left him. She held the stick out like an offering on her open palms.
His eyes rested on it a moment, and then he reached out and took it from her hands. For a second or two, she stared down at her stained kid gloves, which she had noticed for the first time. She looked up, smiling at Ian to indicate how little she cared that they were ruined, and realized that her guardian's eyes, holding the intensity they had held before, were on her face.
"Thank you," he said softly.
She expected him to take her arm and lead her to the coach. And his support would have been very welcome since her knees had begun to shake. Unaccountably, they hadn't while the attack was going on or even when she had walked that short distance to retrieve Ian's cane.
Now that it was all over, however, she had had time to realize how near to tragedy this had almost been. And time to understand the consequences had Mr. Travener not intervened.
Neither of them had yet expressed their gratitude. She turned and walked toward the coach. As she approached the door beside which Mr. Travener still stood, she held out her hand. Doyle took it, but instead of kissing it, he enclosed her shaking fingers in his, as a friend might have done.
"Thank you, Mr. Travener," she said.
"I only regret I wasn't sooner."
"You were soon enough," she said. "We owe you our lives."
"You owe me nothing, Miss Darlington." His eyes lifted to Ian, who was approaching from behind her. "Major Sinclair was the one who fought them. I simply arrived in time to send the rats scurrying back to their holes."
"You are too modest, Mr. Travener," Ian said. "Your arrival was most fortuitous. You have my gratitude."
"Hardly fortuitous," Travener said, smiling for the first time, and the boyish grin was almost sheepish. "I confess I came today hoping for an encounter." His eyes returned briefly to Anne's face, before they rose to meet Ian's. "Not an encounter like this one, of course."
"Hoping for an encounter?" Ian repeated. "You knew we were here?"
"I had invited Miss Darlington to go for a drive. This morning she sent me a note explaining that she would be unable to keep our appointment. She had another, far more pressing engagement with her dressmaker." Doyle turned his head to smile at Anne. "I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Miss Darlington when I set out. Actually, to be honest, I had already driven up and down this street half a dozen times," he admitted with a laugh. "And then, on this particular trip..."
His eyes returned to Ian's face, the fair brows above them arched.
"Lucky for us you are so faithful a suitor," Ian said. "I thank you on my ward's behalf. And on my own, of course. Your intervention was both timely and courageous."
"My fighting days were short, major. My few feats of valor during them nothing to compare with yours. I am very glad that I could have been of service today, but in truth, it was more a matter of being in the right place at the right time than being courageous. And a matter of being armed, of course," he added with another smile.
He turned to lower the step of the carriage and held Anne's hand as she climbed in. From inside the shadowed interior of the coach, she mentally cringed as he offered that same supporting hand to her guardian. Ian ignored the gesture, using his cane and his hand on the frame of the doorway to pull himself up.
His eyes met hers for an instant as he entered the coach, and then he lowered himself carefully into the opposite seat as Travener replaced the stair and closed the door behind him.
"Good day, Mr. Travener," Ian said through the open window. "Again, please know that you have my most sincere gratitude."
"May I impose upon it then to call upon Miss Darlington tomorrow, sir? Just to see how she gets on?"
Ian glanced at her for permission. Only when she nodded, did he reply.
"We should be delighted to receive your call, Mr. Travener."
And then he tapped on the top of the carriage with his cane, signaling the coachman to move on.
***
They rode a few minutes in silence. None of the conventional openings for conversation seemed appropriate in this situation. Actually, Anne wasn't entirely sure exactly what the situation between them was.
And she wanted desperately to ask Ian how badly he was hurt. It was obvious to her in some indefinable way that he was. Obvious, too, that he was in pain. About neither of those, however, would Ian welcome questions.
And she certainly couldn't ask him if he, too, had experienced what she had felt as he'd pressed his body protectively over hers. If she ever did find the courage to mention that, he would undoubtedly deny that he had done anything more than put himself between her and a vicious mob. In actuality, that was all he had done.
"We are very lucky," she said, echoing the tenor of his comments in the street.
His eyes came up, focusing on her face. "Are you truly unhurt?"
"Not even a bruise," she said reassuringly. "The only lingering effect seems to be a slight residue of sulfur from what I believe was a rotted egg."
Again there was a subtle relaxation of his mouth. "Not so slight a residue, I'm afraid, on this side of the coach." He looked down at the mess on his dark coat.
"I wonder what happened to the boy?" she said.
She knew that if she asked Ian to direct the coachman to turn back so that she could look for the child, she would find no sign of him. The boy had wisely fled the scene while his master had been occupied in dealing with her guardian. He was probably far away by now or well-hidden in some dark alleyway.
"How old would you say he was?" Ian asked, lifting gloved fingers to touch against the cut on his forehead. He winced as they made contact with it.
"How old was the boy?" Anne repeated, wondering why it mattered.
The child had been small, his frame slight, but there had been something about his eyes that had made him seem older than either of those might indicate. And despite her years of experience in dealing with children, she really couldn't be sure. Her charges had all been well-fed and well-cared for. They were not abused street urchins, deliberately kept thin and undergrown to allow them to crawl through the narrowest chimney.
"Eight or nine, perhaps," she said. "No more than that I should think."
Ian nodded, his eyes leaving her face to focus on the passing scenery. He shifted on the seat, stretching out his leg. As he did, his gaze came back to Anne in time to discover that she was watching him, the anxiety she felt probably revealed in her face. She dropped her eyes, using the opportunity to pull off the stained gloves.
"Do you think he got away?" she asked.
"He had every opportunity," Ian said.
Actually, the sweep had seemed to forget all about the boy when Ian opposed him. His fury had been directed not against the child so much as against the "nobs."
Of course, there had been a lot of social unrest in the country during the last few years. Perhaps what had happened today had been the result of pent-up frustrations, not so much directed at them for trying to help the boy, but at their class and the excesses for which it was known. The knowledge of those excesses, from those of the Regent down, must be extremely galling to people who had so little.
So little. As that poor child did, she thought. She brushed her bare fingers over the stains the boy's desperately clutching hands had left on her skirt. She could not imagine the senseless brutality to which he had been submitted during his short life. It was a wonder he had found the courage to run.
"If you wish, I shall send the coachman and a groom back
to search for him," Ian offered.
She looked up to smile at him. "They won't find him," she said, very sure of that. "Thank you for offering to have them look, but we both know it will be wasted effort. I only hope the men who were helping his master won't be able to find him either."
"They will no doubt realize the futility as well."
His long fingers touched the gash above his eye again, wiping at the small, but steady stream of blood it produced. Anne reached into her sleeve and pulled her handkerchief free. She held the scrap of cloth out to him.
"I should ruin it," he said, quickly removing his fingers from the cut, almost as if he were embarrassed to have been caught touching it.
"You have just saved my life, Ian Sinclair. And before that, you attempted to save a boy from his tormentors. I think this," she said, shaking the wisp of lace to emphasize her point, "would be a very small price to pay for either of those efforts. Unless, of course, you value my life less than this? I assure you that I do not."
She smiled at him again, and finally he reached for the handkerchief. It looked absurdly small in his hand, but he used it to dab at the blood. After watching a moment, she leaned forward and took the cloth from his unresisting fingers.
"May I?" she asked, remembering his earlier reaction to her attempt to stem this flow of blood.
"Of course," he said.
He closed his eyes and leaned forward as well. He was near enough that, despite the unpleasant residue of egg on his coat, she could again smell all the fragrances that would forever in her mind be associated with Ian Sinclair.
She didn't know why she hadn't been aware of them in the street. Perhaps because she had been more aware of his body, and of its strength, pressed tightly along the length of hers.
This was the second time he had come to her rescue. And again, just as when her guardian had stepped between her and danger before, she had not found the rescue to be romantic in the least. It had been frightening, rather than thrilling. It seemed that London was determined to teach her the fallacies in all the fantasies she had once enjoyed.
Wilson, Gayle Page 13
