Brentwood's Ward

by Michelle Griep

  His breath caught.

  So vulnerable, so out-of-sorts, she’d never been more beautiful.

  “Are you all right?” He stepped toward her, shoving down a swell of resurging rage that made him want to turn back and kick Henley in the head. “Senseless question, I realize, but I must know, did I get here in time? Did he…” He stopped inches from her and studied her face, hoping, wishing…praying. “Did he hurt you?”

  Her lips pressed tight. Though spent tears streaked her face, the slight shake of her head uncoiled every muscle he’d been clenching. Closing his eyes, he breathed out a thank-you to the One who’d guided and hastened his steps.

  “I’ve been so wrong.” Her voice was wobbly and small, yet strong enough to snap open his eyes.

  “You and Bella…you were both right,” she continued. “Henley wasn’t the man I thought he was, hoped he was. He’s…he’s not like you.” Her eyes shimmered with fresh tears. “There’s no one like you.”

  He sucked in a breath. Women looked at him all the time, but never the way Emily did in that moment. Never this unguarded. Not even Adelina had, the girl he’d loved so long ago. The admiration shining in Emily’s gaze was so intense, so pure, the pressure of it slammed his heart against his rib cage. If he gathered her in his arms now, he’d never let go. So he retreated a step and ran a hand through his hair—anything to keep from reaching out to her. “I’m not the paragon of virtue you think I am, Miss Payne. In truth, you may revise your opinion when I say what I must.”

  He paused, memorizing the look of esteem softening the lines of her face, for it would likely be the last time he saw it. Yet if he didn’t speak now, Millie surely would. “There’s something I’ve kept from you. Something you should know. This is the worst possible time to tell you,” he swung out a hand toward Henley’s body. “But I must.”

  Her nose crinkled in the funny little rabbity way he’d come to cherish. “What is it?”

  Absently, he rubbed his smarting knuckles. He’d told countless people of the demise of their loved ones, but this was different. This was entirely too…personal. How to tell the woman he’d come to treasure that her father’s body lay in a holding crypt until the investigation into his death ran its course? That the man she depended upon was gone forever? Whether suicide or murder, the scandal would be such that she’d never again hope to make an advantageous marriage match.

  As if she could hear the course of his thoughts, she shivered and ran her hands over her upper arms.

  “You’re chilled. Allow me.” He shrugged out of his dress coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. The silk of her loose hair caressed his fingertips in the process. The warmth in her “thank you” weakened his resolve. She’d never let him this near her once she learned of his deception.

  He breathed in so deeply, his chest strained against his shirt. Beating a man senseless was easier than this. Retreating to arm’s length, he planted his feet into a fighting stance, though it didn’t provide nearly the amount of confidence he’d hoped for. “Your father…well, you see, he’s…gone.”

  She cocked her head like a robin, alert to a possible danger. “Gone?”

  Behind him, a deep groan rumbled in Henley’s chest—a moan teetering on the edge of consciousness.

  “I’ll explain, but come along.” He stretched out his hand to her. “Or we’ll be attached to more scandal than either of us will care to admit to.”

  Emily slipped her arms into the long sleeves of Nicholas’s dress coat. The fabric yet carried the heat from his body, and she shivered in response. As she pulled the coat tight around her, it felt like an embrace. His embrace. Safe. Warm and protected. The cloth smelled somewhat metallic and sweaty, just like the man, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t. The breakneck speed of her emotions—fear, despair, relief, longing—dazed her in a way she’d have to sort through later.

  She lifted her hand to his. As his fingers wrapped around hers, her lips parted. Strength flowed up her arm. Despite the degradation of the evening, she had no doubt that from now on, everything would be set to rights.

  He led her through the garden maze, the dark hedgerows not nearly as suffocating as when Henley had dragged her out here. Though Nicholas had rescued her in time, the touch of Henley’s hands, the bruise of his lips against hers, sullied her in a way that had crawled under her skin and taken up residence.

  Oh, how Wren must suffer.

  Light from the mansion flickered into view. As they neared the veranda, Nicholas paused and turned to her. “You’ve been through enough this evening. If you like, we can avoid putting our bedraggled selves on display and cut through the side yard instead of exiting via the house.”

  A genuine smile tugged her lips. For all his rugged bluntness, inside beat the heart of a true gentleman. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”

  “Stay close, then. I’m poor concealment, but I’m afraid I’m all you’ve got. We’ll move fast. Ready?”

  She nodded.

  He wasn’t jesting.

  Gravel nipped the thin heels of her kidskin slippers as she raced to keep up. Nicholas sprinted from shadow to shadow, never resting in a dark hollow long enough for her to catch her breath. It was an odd dance, replete with ghostly bars of a quadrille hovering on the night air from the gala inside. From shrub to shrub, they skirted the open grounds nearest the mansion, avoiding the attention of the couples on the veranda. Thanks to Henley, this was by far the most unorthodox exit she’d ever made from a ball.

  Nicholas didn’t stop until they reached a twelve-foot-high wrought-iron fence—a fence with no gate in sight.

  Emily threw a hand to her chest, panting. “Now what?”

  Nicholas dropped her other hand, a low groan in his throat. Hopefully he was forming some kind of solution. She was too busy breathing.

  “Take off the jacket.” Nicholas’s voice cut into her apprehension.

  She lifted her face to his. Had he really just told her to remove his coat? “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  Her heart answered before she could dissect the question. “Completely.”

  “Then hand it over.” He held out his hand.

  She peeled off his dress coat and shivered from the chill that immediately gripped her arms. Nicholas threw the coat to the ground, missing her scowl as he bent and laced his fingers together.

  “Whatever are you doing?” she asked.

  Shadow masked half his face as he looked up at her. “Step into my hands.”

  “But—”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” he shook his head. “You said you trusted me completely.”

  She scowled, her own words tasting like soured milk. Slowly, she lifted her foot. As soon as her heel rested in the palms of his hands, the world rushed down in a blur. Instinctively, she stretched out her hands and grabbed the rail at the top of the fence, using the momentum to pull herself atop it. Her already ruined skirt snagged on a jagged edge and ripped further, but she held on and threw one leg over the fence, teetering astraddle like a ropewalker she’d once seen at a carnival.

  Clutching the top rail like a saddle horn, she gaped down at Nicholas then gasped. He looked so small. So far away.

  And there was no one to boost him. Unless he possessed superhuman qualities she’d not yet seen, there was no way he’d be able to follow her.

  “Catch my coat,” Nicholas shouted up at her.

  Before she could ask what in the world he was talking about, a swish of fabric hit her dangling leg. Holding tight to the fence with one hand, she swiped down the other and barely snagged the hem of his coat before it fell away.

  “Tie the sleeve around your wrist, tight as you can, then dangle the rest of it down to me.”

  Clearly the stress of the situation had skewed his thinking. Merely the weight of his jacket balled in her hands made her wobble. “But…I can’t pull you up.”

  “Just do as I say and remember what you said about trusting me.”

  The man was a d
og with a bone. She’d have to live to her nineties to outlast her hasty plea of trust in the fellow. She fumbled with the fabric, but tying a knot one-handed was hard. Doing it while clinging to the top of a fence, impossible.

  “How’s it coming?”

  “Slowly, especially if I have to keep answering you.” Eventually, though, she managed to secure it around her wrist and cast the rest of it downward, dangling the fabric just above his head.

  He grabbed the sleeve. “Now jump.”

  “What?”

  “Trust, Miss Payne. Trust.”

  Anger pushed her over the edge. Literally. She leaped into a free fall, but not for long. Her arm yanked, and for a single stunning moment, she hung suspended. Then plummeted. The sudden jerk on her arm made his plan clear. He’d never intended for her to pull him up with her own frail strength. By soaring downward, her body acted as a counterweight to boost him skyward.

  Though none of that mattered when her feet hit the ground. Her knees buckled, and she crashed, jarring through every bone. A whoompf landed somewhere beside her.

  “Let’s go.” Nicholas’s voice breathed into her ear. His grasp hefted her to her feet. Was she on her feet? Hard to tell. The world tilted one way then another. A strong arm wrapped about her shoulders, straightening out sky from ground.

  Nicholas ushered her to the line of carriages snaked along the drive, taking care to keep to the shadows. Not that he had to, really. Coach drivers were either too preoccupied in passing small flasks among themselves or too unaware as they snored on their benches. Normally, if she’d caught Wilkes so engaged, she’d have censured him. This time, just to have him present and able to get them out of there quickly, she might kiss his cheek.

  By the time she reached the family coach, however, she lacked the energy to even care. Nicholas swung open the door and hoisted her up. The familiar smell of leather and axle grease eased her nerves a bit as she sank onto the seat. Soon all this would be over…ended with as much finality as her dream of marrying Henley. A dream that was better cataloged as a nightmare, now. Why had she never noticed the rotten content of the man’s character before tonight?

  Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes. The answer pained her as much as the throb in her shoulder. She’d been far too busy looking at Henley’s bank account to notice.

  Outside, Nicholas’s deep rumble conferred with another man’s, one bearing a distinct brogue. Either Wilkes had some Irish blood in him that she’d never recognized, or she was way beyond tired.

  The carriage tilted. The door shut. The cushion she sat on jiggled, and her eyes popped open. Moonlight seeped in the windows, pooling on the broad shoulders next to hers.

  Nicholas sat a breath away, on her side of the carriage, wearing a mantle of silver light.

  “You all right?” Concern warmed his voice as he reached for her hand. She’d not even noticed his coat was yet shackled to her wrist.

  “I hardly know.” She watched his fingers tug at the knot. One of his sleeves flapped open, revealing a forearm just as knotted with muscle. He freed the ruined coat then flung it onto the empty seat across from them.

  Yet he did not move away.

  “It’s been quite the eventful evening.” His murmured words blended with the turn of the coach’s wheels. He lifted her wrist to eye level, examining it. In the space of a heartbeat, a frown darkened his face. “I’m afraid you’ll have a bruise here come the morning.”

  “Then it shall match the rest of my body, I suppose.”

  She ought pull her hand back. She ought move away. Indeed, a lady would protest at his nearness. But the little circles his thumb whispered over her inner wrist held her in place.

  “For that I am sorry indeed.” His eyes slid from her wrist to meet her gaze. Compassion, genuine and intense, caressed her more gently than his touch.

  Without a word, she leaned closer, pulled like a flower toward the sun.

  He bent nearer.

  Then immediately released her hand and looked past her, out the window.

  An odd sense of loss shivered through her. Following his line of sight, she turned and peered out the glass into the night. This far from town, no streetlamps lit their route. Fear that had never really packed its bags and departed knocked against her ribs. She turned her face back to his. “Do you think we’ll be followed?”

  “It’s happened before.” He returned his gaze to her, though a smirk lightened the intensity. “But don’t fret. Flannery’s more skilled in evasion than your Wilkes.”

  “Flannery?”

  “The fellow who’s driving. I’d have told you,” he shrugged, “but I didn’t want you to worry.”

  His words in the garden barreled back with astonishing speed. He’d been about to tell her something when Henley groaned. Something she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to hear, for whatever it was couldn’t be good.

  But she had to know.

  She shifted on the seat, allowing the fullest measure of moonlight to fall upon his face, intent on listening with more than just her ears. “There’s more you’ve kept from me. You said so yourself.”

  A muscle rippled at the apex of his jawline, as if words he didn’t want to speak were shouldering their way to break an escape.

  Emily swallowed. Suddenly she didn’t want to know why. Not really.

  But words tumbled out her lips before she could catch them. “What did you mean when you said my father was gone?”

  A shadow darkened his face, though hard to tell if it came from without or within.

  “I’m afraid I’ve sorely underestimated you. You show a rare courage, the caliber of which I don’t see in half the officers of Bow Street. So bear up. What I’m about to tell you will no doubt hit you broadside.” He paused long enough to reclaim her hands and cradle them both within his. “Your father is dead, Emily.”

  Dead? The word exploded into a thousand pieces. There was no way to gather in all the implications, for they traveled too fast and too far. She wrapped her fingers tight around Nicholas’s and held on.

  He squeezed back. “You have suffered much. It’s all right to weep.”

  She gasped. No, it wasn’t all right. It was impossible. Unspent sobs clogged her throat and a wealth of tears burned her eyes, but she could no more cry than speak. So she stared into the black wall of the carriage opposite her, refusing to look at the light in Nicholas’s eyes or the glimmer of moon outside the window. Either would be her undoing. For now, darkness was her friend.

  How long she sat, she could only guess to be an eternity, but at last, Nicholas spoke.

  “Emily?” Worry poked holes into his voice. “I vow before God I’ll find out what happened to your father. Justice will be served. You have my word on it.”

  She turned her face to his. Lines creased his brow. Lines put there by her. After all he’d been through on her behalf, she owed him. At least a little. Especially truth, for dearly did he value it.

  “He…” Was that squeak her voice? She cleared her throat and tried again. “He wasn’t my father.”

  Chapter 23

  What the deuce are you talking about!” As soon as the heated words spewed out his mouth, Nicholas clenched every muscle in his body. Control. That’s what he needed. Breathe in, breathe out, subdue the tremor running along every nerve. Anger led to mistakes. And it was no mistake he’d lived through war on two continents or survived the thugs terrorizing London’s streets for this long. Not that he hadn’t gained scars, but how big of a jagged red mark would this woman leave on him?

  Emily flinched and edged away from him, stopping only when her back hit the carriage wall. “You’ve no right to be so cross. You’ve not been straightforward with me, either.”

  Unlocking his jaw, he forced a calm to his voice he didn’t feel. “Do not think to play me like a flash game of wicket. If I am to help you, I must be told everything.”

  Spare starlight from the clear night streamed in through the window, casting a ghostly glow upon half her face
. Her eyes were wide. A loose curl trembled over her brow, begging to be brushed aside. Besides a darkened smudge of dirt on her cheek, her skin was the pale hue of exhaustion.

  She’d been through a lot this evening. He’d grant her that. Blowing out a long, slow breath, he softened his tone further. “I will have the truth, and I will have it now. All of it. Am I clear?”

  Her hands clenched together in her lap, bunching the fabric of her already ruined skirt. “All?”

  He nodded. “If we’re to sort through this mess, then yes. Indeed.”

  Fine, white teeth nibbled her lower lip before she answered. “Very well. Go on. Tell me if you’re keeping back any more information from me.”

  His first thought was to smile. The second, to throw her over his knee and supply the sound thrashing she deserved for such cheek. He went with his third impulse and merely eyed her with a growing admiration. “A gentleman always allows a lady to go first.”

  “A gentleman also keeps a lady’s secrets, and so I ask…” Her eyes sought his, looking deeply into one then the other. “I know I said I trust you, leastwise I did in the heat of the moment, but can I? Really?”

  He cocked his head and studied her in return. “If I am to continue to protect you, then I’m afraid you must.”

  Her lips, yet swollen from Henley’s abuse, curved downward. “And I am afraid you’re right.”

  Though she’d agreed with him, she fell silent. A faraway glaze shone in her eyes. Only God knew what thoughts she chewed on, though judging by a poorly concealed wince, none were sweet. As he waited for her to continue, he took to counting the seconds then moved on to tallying how many times the rolled-up window shade banged against the top of the glass. Still, he waited. Sometimes truth ripened at a rate slower than the plodding horses Flannery guided.

  The grit of wheel upon gravel changed to the smoother grind of cobblestone as they drew closer to the inner city, and at last, Emily’s lips parted. His every sense heightened to full alert, a skill honed to a sharp edge by countless interrogations—as both the examiner and the examinee.