"How quaintly chivalrous. Your actually worried about me not having a chaperone?" she asked with a chuckle.
"Naturally."
Her green eyes sparkled with mirth. "You really are too good to be true. You must undoubtedly be married, or at least have a regular woman in your life?" she couldn’t resist asking in what she hoped was a light-hearted tone.
He shook his head. "No, no, not at all. No one. Not for some time." Then he scowled. "But I don’t see what that has— And I have no intention of availing myself of your, er, services, so just get me some plates, I’ll deliver my message, serve up, eat and leave."
She tossed her head, so that one honey blond curl bobbed temptingly over her patrician brow, almost begging him to touch it. To touch her….
"No need to get so missish. I promise not to tear the togs off you. But please, tell me, my brother, how is he?"
"Brother?" he asked, feeling so relieved he almost smiled. Except that it was not in the least amusing.
"Yes, Sebastian, who gave you the miniature of me. And I’m Viola, Viola Morrison."
A surge of lightning jolted through him. The dream...
The twin brother and sister in Twelfth Night were named Sebastian and Viola. He could feel his manhood pressing so urgently against the confines of his wool drawers and trousers he felt sure he was going to suffer from some sort of strangury. Yet at the same time, he felt an icy finger of fear stroke down his spine.
She held the plate for him to remove the bacon from the pan and drain it upon. He gave the eggs a final beat and poured them into the hot pan.
"There isn’t much to tell. I’m sorry."
He recounted his experience at Newgate prison, and then said, "He was worried about them, whoever they were, finding you."
She nodded, her eyes serious now. "I saw him just the other day, and he certainly wasn’t in prison then. He told me someone needed his help, that he was going to their house. That he might not be in his digs or visit here for a couple of days, but not to worry."
"He lives near here?"
She nodded. "Yes, or takes the trundle bed in my room."
Alistair frowned at that. Such an arrangement would certainly limit her amorous activities.
But before he had the chance to cross-examine her, as he phrased it to himself with an inward grimace of distaste, she asked, "What else did he say?"
"He said, ‘If they find out I’m still alive, that you’re nursing me, you’re a dead man too. I need her to be safe.’"
Then Alistair blushed.
"Go on. What else?" she prompted softly. "Whatever you say, I promise not to hold it against you."
He swallowed hard, feeling the blush heat his cheeks. "Then Sebastian said he knew of my name, that it was the only reason he was trusting me to come to you. The rest I can’t recall exactly, but it was something about there being a lot more to what was going on that Gribbens stealing and him being a, well, a prostitute. He told me if he died, I ought to find someone called Logan Villiers. Said something about running him, whatever that means."
Viola nodded. "Go on. You’re doing fine."
"I got rather good at this in the courtroom. He said to go only if he was dead. His final point was that it was harder to kill a whisper than even a shouted calumny."
Viola looked thoughtful and calm, despite the fact that she had to be upset that her brother had been stabbed. "Can you recall anything else?"
Alistair nodded. "Yes. His final words before the doctor came were of you. He told me not to bring you to see him there no matter what. He also said, ‘She needs a safe house. George will know what to do. I trust him, but I also trust you. Everyone says you’re incorruptible. Tell her I love her, and to take care, be happy.’
"The doctor came in, I told him to save him or else I’d get him the sack. I sent one of the guards to the Bethnal Green clinic to get help from my friend Dr. Antony Herriot, a good man, and came straight here. Well, not here, but The New Rose. Then George brought me to you."
"And a jolly good thing too," Viola said with a small smile. "You make some wonderful scrambled eggs."
When Alistair turned around his hot buttered rum was sitting on the table along with a half a pint of stout, and Viola moved to the door to fetch the others.
They seated themselves so that George was sitting across from Viola and next to Emma, and as they ate, she repeated all he had told her.
As soon as they got to the part about seeing Logan Villiers, George pushed his chair away from the table with the backs of his knees. "I’m going to tell him. I’ll be back in half and hour. You stay here, all of you."
Alistair now rose from the table. "I really ought to be getting back to—"
"You’re staying. I can’t just let you walk out of here without—"
"I’ll be fine. I’ll just head home and—"
George laughed snidely. "No you won’t. You’re going to go back to Newgate to see how he is, and will end up bloody dead. Now just sit still and drink your rum. Emma, shoot him if he moves."
"Oh, I say—" Alistair began to remonstrate.
But the dark-haired woman pointed the pistol at him calmly.
George stared back at him, as cool and collected as ever. "I’m trying to save your life, you silly bastard. So just stay put with these two lovely ladies. Don’t start riding off at the gallop on some holy quest like Sir Galahad. If they think you know anything, you’ll have your gizzards slit so fast you’ll be dead before you even hit the ground."
"George, please, we’re trying to eat," Emma said mildly.
"Sorry, ladies." He bowed formally, without a hint of sarcasm that Alistair could see. "I’ll back soon."
Alistair heard some creaking and neighing. There was a stable near the pub, there had to be. What sort to brothelkeeper kept his own coach?
Oddly, having the gun pointed at him did not diminish his appetite in any way. He ate until he felt full, then helped himself to more. He drank the rum, and accepted cake from Emma.
All the while she kept the muzzle of the gun trained on him and maintained a polite stream of chatter which would have done a society matron proud.
Alistair was able to respond civilly enough considering he wanted to make love to Viola so badly he was certain his jewels were going to explode.
She looked at him coolly, her green eyes assessing, and yes, even admiring. She didn’t seem in the least intimidated by him, nor put off by his silver hair, which he knew made him look a lot older and more worldly wise than he really was.
In fact, he felt a callow youth compared to Viola when he looked at the expression on her face. It was as if all the secrets of the universe were within her grasp.
He wanted to know what she knew. Wanted to know her. In every sense of the word. Especially the Biblical one.
But she was nothing more than a piece of Haymarket ware. He would be risking clap at the very least. In fact, he would be damned lucky if he didn’t end up in the Thames, so close to the pub it was almost on their back doorstep.
"More coffee?" Viola asked politely, seeming for all the world like a society demoiselle in a fine drawing room.
"Thank you."
"So tell me, George guessed rightly, didn’t he? You do intend to go back and find Sebastian."
He nodded. "I do."
"I know you don’t trust George, but can you please take my word for it that it’s too risky?"
"Don’t you want to know what 's happened to your brother?" he demanded.
"Yes of course I do, but you simply don't understand what's at stale here. If you go there again tonight, or start poking around asking questions, you’re going to get dragged into things you simply don’t want to know about."
He looked at her closely. "And just what have you been dragged into? Are you here working of your own free will?"
Viola and Emma exchanged glances.
"Yes," she replied with a proud lift of her chin. "My family lost everything. My chance of a good marriage was lost along w
ith it."
Alistair gritted out, "The man didn’t deserve you if all he wanted was your dowry."
She went white. "You know nothing of the case."
"I most assuredly do. I see it all the time. Girls being duped by rabid fortune hunters."
"In the circumstances, the family were right to wish to end the association, " she said in clipped tones. "It is not pleasant to have to be judged by one’s acquaintanceship, but it’s the way the world works."
"Any decent man who loved you would take you without a penny."
Her back stiffened perceptibly. "Ah, but perhaps I had more pride than that?"
Alistair shook his head and smiled tightly, hating himself for goading her. "Ah, no, you have that wounded look of a jilted girl about you. But if I were your man, nothing and no one in the world would induce me to part with you."
"Not even common sense, duty, responsibility?" she asked haughtily, her rare green eyes flashing.
"None of those things. They mean nothing compare to love."
Viola stared at him like some rare species of butterfly which had just landed at her table. "Oh my. You look and sound as if you really do mean that."
"All my friends the Rakehells married for love. So why not me? And indeed any man who has the guts."
She flushed with embarrassment at his first two sentences. Her cheeks flooded with ire at his last one. "You don’t know him! You have no right—"
"I’m sorry," he said, with a look at Emma, who was staring at him with a new degree of fascination. He couldn’t be sure if she was going to shoot him, or devour him.
Fortunately she did neither. She put the pistol down and strolled out of the room. As soon as she had gone, he stood.
"I’m leaving," he announced abruptly, though he made no move to depart.
She continued to gaze at him angrily for a heartbeat longer. "I ought to thank you for coming to see me. Even if you have been grossly impertinent."
"Madame, you haven’t seen anything yet if you think that’s grossly impertinent."
Her finely arched brows raised.
Alistair decided to wipe the hauteur from her face, and pulled her up out of the chair and into his arms, kissing her just as he had done in the dream.
It was like stepping into a blast furnace. He was certain his bones were going to melt from the scorching heat emanating from the centre of her body, the core of her femininity, which he now rubbed hard against until at last he gained his shuddering release. He groaned into her mouth, and the sound reverberated through them both.
Viola went from trying to push against his chest, to locking her arms around him as though she would draw him right into her bosom, there to reside for the rest of their lives.
He realised she too was quaking with barely suppressed desire. Or a very good imitation of, considering she was a harlot.
But no, he could feel her nipples cresting eagerly as he brought his hands up to cup them, his hot seeking mouth now dampening the pearl grey calico. She let out a groan and made no protest when he pulled her up against him, wrapped her legs around his waist, and crushed her against the wall.
Only the sound of broken glass in the bar brought him to his senses. Alistair let the panting woman slide down the long length of his body until her feet touched the floor once more.
Viola put the back of her hand to her now reddened lips and stared at him, her gaze still slightly unfocused as she contemplated the incredible thing which had happened between them.
He picked up his briefcase and hat and strode out the door before Viola had a chance to talk him out of it, or even to hand him the pistol.
She paced up and down for a few moments, then fled up to her room. She got her cloak, bonnet, reticule, and put on some extra clothing, a jacket and her warmest stockings and petticoats.
She knew exactly where Alistair was going. She only prayed they could stop him in time. She just had to wait for George, and pray he hurried back.
CHAPTER SIX
Alistair had got his bearings in relation to the river, and now headed to Tower Bridge, where he picked up a cab to take him the rest of the way to Newgate.
When he arrived, he noted that the door was opened by a different guard, one he had never seen before.
He frowned. Strange, he thought he knew almost everyone in the prison.
"Where’s Prentice?"
"There's no one here but me, sir."
The man let him in slowly. Alistair felt a prickle of fear as he entered once more. Alistair noted he left the key in the lock, which was almost unheard of for a jailer. His hackles rose still further, but he forced himself to try to remain calm. "Can I speak to Dr. Stubbs? And is there anyone here who has been asking for me?"
"Asking for you, sir? Who are you?"
"I know you’re new, but you can’t possibly not know who I am. Alistair Grant."
"In that case, Mister Grant, you might want to tell us what you know about the disappearance of the prisoner known as John Gribbens," a second voice said from the shadows.
"I’ll make a full report after I speak to the doctors."
"There is no doctor here."
"Not yet, you mean," he said, guessing that Antony Herriot had not yet arrived from the Bethnal Green clinic, and praying that Sebastan Morrison would be able to hold on until he did. "But that lazy bugger Stubbs must be around somewhere, helping--"
"I’ve been at this post all night," the first guard asserted, "and no one has come in or out."
Alistair blinked in disbelief. "But I was here. During the huge storm! You certainly weren’t on all night. Prentice and Bradford greeted me, and—"
The second man said, "There aren’t any guards by that name working here." He now forcibly removed Alistair’s briefcase from his numb hands.
He began to shiver, and not just with the frosty February cold. "Don’t be absurd. What sort of game are you playing? Prentice, tall, thin about thirty. Bradford, huge, stocky, about twenty. Surely he must have told you—"
Both men shook their heads.
A rap at the outer door made Alistair start. "Ah, perhaps this is one or the other of them. Or someone I know who can tell me where that young man is, and what’s happening."
"More like how they escaped, who aided and abetted them. Any ideas, Mr., er, Grant was it?" The second man moved forward menacingly, while the first turned the key in the door.
Alistair felt himself growing more and more agitated. And fearful. He barely restrained himself from punching one of them just to awaken them from their torpor.
Instead he pinched himself just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. But sadly, this was all too real.
"Look, I’m not imagining things! Gribbens was dead when I got here, the other man injured. No one ever escaped."
"Murdered, then?" the second man said, taking a menacing step forward.
"Well I certainly never killed them, if that's what you're implying! I’m a respectable barrister, for Heaven’s sake."
"And can anyone else verify what you claim you saw?" a third man with a face like a ferret now asked as he climbed through the portal with two other men.
Alistair didn’t like these odds one bit. "There were different guards here. I knew them. Where is Bradford? I sent him to fetch a proper doctor with a message to come at once. Is he still not back yet? Take me to the infirmary at once. We can at least talk to Dr. Stubbs and—"
A sea of blank faces registering only incomprehension or incredulity stared back at him.
"Whoever you are, we’re going to take you around to see the magistrates and—"
The words seemed innocuous enough, but the steely hand clamping down upon his shoulder was all too familiar.
He had never thought he would ever be nabbed by the long arm of the law himself. Yet here he was, being accused of murder, of aiding and abetting criminals. Was being grabbed by five men he had never seen before, who claimed they worked there even though he had never seen any of them before, and who said they had no id
ea who he was, but were circling him him hyenas.
It was impossible. Everyone in the judicial system knew of him. They were just trying to throw him off balance. Thought he would go along with them meekly because he was so law-abiding.
But if they put him in a cell in Newgate now, God only knew what would happen to him. To that young man, and the lovely young woman who made his heart turn over just thinking about her.
He could feel himself being led out the door, and felt a movement vibrate through his captor. He was fishing something out of his pocket, and tensing all his muscles as if for a blow.
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 5 Page 73
