by Liz Carlyle
At that very moment, however, someone standing near Cole’s elbow cleared his throat delicately. Cole looked up from his boots just as his cousin Edmund’s shadow fell across him.
Edmund grinned snidely. “Cousin!” he cheerfully proclaimed, fanning a handful of banknotes between his fingers. “It seems you have brought me good luck this afternoon.”
“I certainly cannot see how,” Cole remarked darkly as he clambered up from the ground, “since we had the living hell thrashed out of us.”
Edmund showed his glittering white teeth. “Precisely my point, old boy! I had the foresight to bet on Harrow.”
Ruthlessly, Cole shoved his shoes into his saddlebag. “Christ!” he muttered. “I cannot believe you would wager against your own school.”
“Tut, tut,” cautioned Edmund. “We all saw you elbow poor Delacourt in the nose. Now you’re blaspheming! Father will be crushed to hear that his golden boy has come down to tread upon this earth with us mere mortals.”
“Oh, shut up, Edmund,” retorted Cole. “Why do you not let it go! We’re hardly schoolboys anymore. And I don’t give a bloody damn what James thinks.”
“Do you not?” Edmund folded the banknotes and restored them to his coat pocket.
“Then it would appear that life with our fair cousin has brought about some sort of alteration in your personality, Cole. But then, Jonet does tend to do that to men.”
Cole gathered his reins into one fist and threw himself easily into the saddle to stare boldly down at Edmund. “At least I am not floating down the River Tick,” he retorted, “while being pursued by a gang of East End hoodlums. But let me assure you, Edmund, that if you utter one more word against Lady Mercer, you’ll find your blacklegs a damned sight more compassionate than I shall be. For I shan’t stop at maiming you. I’ll put a bullet through you.”
And with that parting shot, Cole reined his horse toward the gate. He watched a trembling, white-faced Edmund hastily depart, leaving him to feel more like seven-year-old Robert with every passing moment He had been reduced to hitting and cursing—not to mention committing fornication and threatening murder. Was there, he grimly wondered, a commandment he hadn’t broken in the last two days? And he was still shaking with rage. Over Delacourt Over Edmund. And yes, over Jonet What the devil had that woman done to him?
Just then, that woman stepped from the shadows of the largest tree, her face a mask of anger mixed with satisfaction. “Bastard!” she hissed at Edmund as he hastened out the gate.
Swiftly, Cole dismounted and looked about Jonet was alone. Indeed, the entire cricket ground was now empty. “Jonet, where the devil is your groom?” The words were sharper than he’d intended.
Turning to face him, Jonet regarded him with a sardonic smile. “Why, what an ill mood you are in!” she remarked, crossing her arms and relaxing against the tree trunk. “But I do thank you, Cole, for so boldly defending me against Edmund. As to my groom, he was bored. I sent him home.”
Her nonchalance further galled him. Cole dropped his reins and paced toward her. “That was imprudent, Jonet.”
Her eyes flashed, and her smile shifted to something far more knowing. “Why was it imprudent, Cole?” she softly challenged. “I am a twenty-eight-year-old widow with an already scandalous reputation. Can it simply be that you are jealous? Or afraid to be alone with me?”
He closed the distance between them. “Do not be ridiculous, Jonet,” he hissed, fighting the urge to plunge his fingers into the softness of her hair and drag her mouth ruthlessly to his. Damn it, was he now to be further tortured? Delacourt had pushed him to the edge, and Edmund had very nearly shoved him over. Could she not see that it was dangerous to press him any further?
Apparently not. Jonet laughed, a gentle, incredibly feminine sound. “Oh, Cole! My dear, it is you who is ridiculous” she gently scolded. “And what was that bloody nose all about anyway? I vow, you and David behave as if you are little more than overgrown schoolboys.”
Cole forced his hands into fists. “Thank you, madam, for reminding me of my humiliation.”
Again, suppressed humor lit Jonet’s eyes. “Really, Cole,” she chided, “I should very much like to know what has come over you.” Her hand came up to touch his shoulder, lightly brushing away a smear of dirt in a sweetly maternal gesture. The kindness of it merely served to heighten his fury.
Harshly, Cole caught her fingers in his own. “Damn it all, Jonet—why are you dining with him tonight?” he demanded, his voice a low growl. “Just tell me how you can lie with me one night, and go to him the next!”
“Just tell me why you care!” she boldly countered, lifting her chin and staring him square in the eyes. “I dare you, Cole, to be honest with us both. I do not play games.”
Cole wanted to strangle her. By thunder, he really did. No doubt he’d intended to encircle her long, elegant neck with his fingers to make his point. But suddenly, he found himself kissing her instead. The beautiful oval of her face was captured between his filthy hands, and his rapacious mouth was driving her head hard against the tree. Rough and demanding, Cole’s tongue invaded her, forcing its way past near-bruised lips, to drive deeply and repeatedly into the heat of her mouth. He bracketed her against the bark, trapping her and urging his body stubbornly against hers until he could feel her breasts and belly and warm, sweet thighs mold to his own. Cole neither knew nor cared if Jonet was responding, so savage was his need, so deep was his hurt.
But she was responding. Her mouth answered his hungrily. Her breathing rapidly ratcheted up to swift, desperate pants. Soft cries caught in the back of her throat as Cole plundered her mouth. And then, Jonet’s eager fingers skimmed beneath his dusty coat to pull him closer still, and something inside Cole simply snapped. As roughly as he had begun, he stopped, jerking his trembling body from hers.
With a muttered oath, Cole lifted the back of his fist to his mouth and stepped away, dropping his gaze to the ground. Shame washed over him. “Fetch your horse, Jonet,” he ordered quietly.
Jonet seemed to falter as she followed him away from the tree. “Fetch my horse?” she repeated, her voice soft and incredulous. “Perhaps I shall, after you’ve told me what that kiss was all about”
Slowly, Cole lifted his eyes to hers. “That lass, damn it, was a lesson. I begin to tire of your willfulness, Jonet, next time do as I say and just go home with your blasted groom.”
“Do as you say?” she echoed. Her teasing tone was well and truly gone.
Cole ignored her indignation. “Just saddle up, Jonet. On no account would I make you late for your dinner engagement Lord Delacourt’s delicate soufflé might fall before you arrive.”
Hands fisting angrily at her sides, Jonet glared at him. “Why you obstinate, overbearing ass! You are so witless as to defy all logic! Moreover, you know nothing about my dinner engagement!”
“Nor do I care.”
“Well, you just asked—!”
“Another of my mistakes, your ladyship! I really wish to hear no more of it.”
“Well, fine—!” The fists went to her hips.
Cole narrowed his eyes and lifted his hands heavenward. “Yes! Fine—! Now fetch your mount.”
“I daresay that a gentleman would fetch it for me,” Jonet insisted, tilting her head toward the horse, which was tethered but a few yards away. She steeled her gaze and pinned him with it.
“I believe, madam,” he answered coldly, “that we have already established my many failings in that regard.” But Cole relented, and after thrusting his reins into her hand, he stalked off toward her horse.
“Cole,” Jonet said a moment later as he lifted her up into the saddle. “I’m sorry.” She reached down to pat him lightly on the shoulder. “I really don’t think you’re an overbearing ass.”
“But merely obstinate?” he growled, shoving her left boot in its stirrup and trying hard to maintain his stern expression. “And let us not forget witless.”
Jonet’s brows went up elegantly. “Well, my
dear, if the shoe even occasionally fits— “
Cole was afraid to say anything more. The ride home was long and silent.
———
Cole and Ellen Cameron dined alone that night. The meal was blessedly simple, and for once, Ellen had little to say It seemed to Cole that she was distressed by something, but given the rate at which his social skills seemed to be deteriorating, it did not seem wise to broach the subject. Moreover, he had no wish to talk. He was too incensed by the fact that he’d very nearly ravished Jonet in broad daylight. And that Jonet had so boldly gone off to Delacourt’s to dine alone with him. Both were scandalous, the former unforgivably so.
Over the meat course, Ellen finally began to talk desultorily about her day, and about the tailor’s visit to Stuart and Robert. Then, just as the fruit was served, she shoved back her chair a little abruptly and set the back of her hand to her forehead. For the first time that evening, Cole looked—really looked—at her. All thought of his own tribulations fled at once.
Ellen’s face was alarmingly pale, and a fine sheen of perspiration had broken out across her brow. “If you will excuse me, Captain Amherst,” she said unsteadily, “I must beg to be excused. I find I do not feel entirely well.”
At once, Cole leapt from his chair and snapped his fingers for the footman. Gravely concerned, he circled the table and touched Ellen lightly on the forehead. “She is burning up with fever, Cox,” he said quietly. “Fetch Mr. Donaldson at once.”
But matters quickly went from bad to worse. Donaldson could not help them. He had taken to his own bed not a quarter hour earlier. Cook, the scullery maid, and the bootboy had quickly followed suit. With Jonet away, in short order, the house was thrown into chaos, as Nanna, Cole, and the footmen rushed up and down the stairs toting water pitchers and chamber pots. Through all the illness, however, a burning fear began to nag at Cole.
In the midst of all the mayhem, Cole managed to pull Nanna to one side. The old woman looked shaken and tired. Cole was himself too terrified to feel anything but the panic that coursed through him. He had not seen cholera since the war, but he knew all too well the symptoms, and to his untrained eye, this looked dangerously like it. “What is it?” he asked Nanna quietly as a pale housemaid carrying a stack of linen brushed quickly past “Have you any idea?”
Breathing laboriously, the old woman shook her head and drew a handkerchief from her apron. “I canna say, sir,” she answered, mopping her brow. “But whatever it is, ‘tis verra quick.”
Cole looked at her handkerchief with some alarm. “Good God, you are not—”
Again, Nanna shook her head. “No, I’m weel enough, but we badly need a physician. I canna manage this.”
Cole considered it for a moment Ellen was beyond helping them, and no one else in the house had lived in Mayfair any longer than he had himself. He rather doubted that any of them knew the local physicians. But there was always Dr. Greaves, Lauderwood’s friend. He lived less than half a mile away, and he had been to the house before. Quickly, before he could think better of it, Cole stopped a passing footman and shouted out an urgent command to fetch Dr. Greaves, giving his address as just “Harley Street” As the frightened fellow darted off to do as he was bid, Cole returned his attention to Nanna.
He kept his voice to a whisper. “Can it be poison?”
Nanna’s eyes welled with tears. “Och! What kind of animal could do sich a thing?”
Clearly, she, like Cole himself, had not wished to consider it “Oh, I hope ‘tis only a bloody flux, though God knows that would be bad enough!” The old woman twisted her handkerchief into a knot and looked at Cole a little desperately. “The boys—?”
Cole explained that he had somehow found the presence of mind to confine the boys to Stuart’s room and set a ‘footman to guard the door. But an hour later, as one footman fell ill to be replaced by yet another who did the very same, true panic begin to claw at Cole’s gut.
Damn it! Where was Jonet when he needed her? The thought of her dining privately with Delacourt—if that was indeed all she had gone to do—had been painful enough. But now her entire household was falling ill, and Cole had no notion of what ought to be done. He had to know just what was happening.
Soon Agnes, the parlor maid, collapsed, and Cole carried her carefully up the back stairs to her room in the attic. It seemed but a matter of time before the boys, and perhaps even himself, became sick. With Donaldson and half the footmen abed, what then? Who would guard the house? Again, he stopped Nanna in the corridor.
“Nanna,” he said urgently,” I want you to think over the last two days. Have any strangers been into the household? Has any food been served to part of us, but not the others?” The old woman merely blinked. “Think, Nanna!” he insisted. “I am trying to determine who among us may fall, and who may be expected to remain healthy. If we cannot determine this, I am very much afraid we need to get the children out of the house.”
“Strangers?” Nanna licked her lips uncertainly, then added. “Aye, the chimney sweep was here not two days past And Mrs. Trelawney, the cook across the street, called yesterday w’some clotted cream for Cook.” The old woman paused. “That would be all, so far as I know.”
———
Dr. Greaves was blessedly prompt in coming. After he had seen each patient in turn, he met Cole in the corridor. Together, they went into the drawing room, where Cole poured out two generous tots of brandy and motioned the physician toward a chair.
With a weary glance, the old man set down his black leather bag, took the glass, and sank into the chair with a deep sigh. “You have a very sick household here, Captain Amherst,” he said gloomily. “You must warn her ladyship that the next few days will be crucial indeed.”
Cole slid forward in his chair, clasping the brandy snifter between his knees. He really did not like the question he was going to have to ask next. “Please, Doctor, I must know—is there any chance that this is poison?”
“Poison?” The doctor ran a gnarled hand down his face. “What a strange question. But I suppose, under the circumstances ...” Greaves let his words trail away.
“Well—?” Cole grasped the arms of his chair tightly. “Are you saying that it could be?”
The doctor slowly shook his head. “Ordinarily, such a thing would never occur to me, Captain. And in truth, we may never know. But if I had to guess, given the symptoms, I would have to say we are looking at a simple case of dysentery.”
“Dysentery?”
The doctor nodded gravely. “Yes, not that there is anything really simple about it, mind you. Nonetheless, if the victims are otherwise healthy, there is no reason they cannot survive it.”
Still holding his glass, Cole leapt from his chair and began to pace the floor. He had to make sure the children were safe. He turned on his heel and stared pointedly at Greaves. “You must understand, Doctor, that young Lord Mercer and his brother are upstairs. There has already been, as you know all too well, one probable poisoning in this house. I must have your assurance that these children are safe.”
Greaves shook his head sadly. “That, sir, I would be a fool to promise. It could be any number of things; poison, spoilt food, or even some contagion. I do wish I could say otherwise, but I cannot”
Cole quickly drained the last of his brandy, then set down the glass with a clatter. “Then I pray you will excuse me, sir. I have things to which I must attend. Thank you for coming.”
———
It took less than ten minutes for Cole and Nanna to dump out the contents of Cole’s huge trunk, then shove it full of enough clothing for a long journey. By the time he had managed to drag it downstairs, Jonet’s traveling coach was waiting in Brook Street. Then, at the last instant, Cole rushed back up the stairs, unlocked his top desk drawer, and withdrew the brace of pistols he kept secured there. But this was peacetime, not war. He felt inordinately foolish packing them. No doubt Jonet’s coachman was in the habit of traveling armed, and there was probably a loaded pi
stol holstered inside the carriage. And yet, he could not help himself. He shoved them into his saddlebag, his every instinct screaming that this was war. But unlike the battles he had fought before, the enemy was unknown.
In the street below, the coachman was loading two portmanteaus, and together, he and Cole hefted up the trunk. Miraculously, the stable staff seemed to have escaped the illness. But Cole had taken no chances, and he had ordered everyone but the coachman to stay away. As the last leather strap was drawn taut, Nanna rushed the boys out of the house and into the waiting carriage. Quietly, Cole ordered the coachman to drive to Lord Delacourt’s.
And they were off. The carriage rumbled slowly down Brook Street, gathering speed en route to Curzon Street, where Delacourt’s town house was located. The utter humiliation of what he was about to do dulled Cole’s blood. Perhaps he really was mad. Perhaps Delacourt would finally call him out for his audacity. But of course, Cole would have to sacrifice his honor and refuse him, because at present, he had far more important things to worry about than his pride. A small, sleepy voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Sir,” Stuart began, his voice grave, “where are we going?”
Cole cleared his throat carefully. “Well, gentlemen, it is to be a surprise.” Yes, and a bloody big one, he inwardly added. Especially to me.
“Oh, I just knew it!” interjected Robert, sitting straight up and clapping his hands with glee. “This is a surprise for my birthday, is it not? I knew—oh, I just knew that you and Mama would do something famous!”
“Your—your birthday?” Cole answered awkwardly.
In the dim light of the carriage interior, Cole could see Stuart cut a sidelong glance in his direction. “It’s next week,” he said quietly, in answer to Cole’s unspoken question. As usual, the boy was too bright to be fooled, but his eyes were trusting.
Robert was still babbling. “Oh, yes! Next Thursday, I shall be eight years old!” he continued. “And I have been wishing and hoping and praying for a really wonderful surprise. And since I was so sick of being cooped up, I decided to pray for a trip to the country. That is what I should like above all else, to go to a place where we can ride and play. And that’s where we’re to go, is it not, Cousin Cole?”
