He stood up and began to tidy his clothes. "No, I’m going to go to the flat, get some fresh garments, check in there and at the theatre, and then go to The Three Bells and have a bath. I’ve taken up your sitting room long enough."
"You know you’re welcome any time," Philip said.
"I know. Thank you both." He paused at the door. "You know, I thought Alistair and Viola were my friends here, but the two of you have come up trumps for me every time."
"Glad to help."
"You've done more than help, Philip. You've been a rock for both of us, and you, Jasmine, have been a real friend to Miranda in a way Viola could never bring herself to be. I'm more grateful than I can say, no matter how this turns out."
"It will turn out well. Just give it time," Philip said with his most reassuring smile.
"Pray God you're right. Send me word if you hear--"
"Of course, and I'll do the same."
They walked him to the front door, where he impulsively embraced them both, and then stepped out into the blinding sunshine.
By the time he reached his street corner, however, the clouds had rolled in, and he could see a jagged fork of lightning streaking the sky. He strode on, raising his collar against the pelting rain.
He paused in surprise at the sight of a burlap sack left lying under the portico, and scraped to a halt. And stared. Gaped. He tentatively caught hold of the skein of chestnut silk, matted with straw and filth, and stroked it back from a brow as white as milk. He stared, drinking in the scene as if were coming to him in a dream, or nightmare: Eyes shadowed by pain, skin purple with bruises, raw with cuts. The horrible slash on her throat. Her bare arms covered in cuts and scratches.
"Miranda. Thank God, you’re alive. You’ve come home, my love," he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
"George, please, help me?" she pleaded weakly, barely managing to peep open one eyelid.
"Always. Whatever you need." He grabbed her up into his arms and ran to the corner, the rain lashing them as he went. Only three blocks to go, and he could get Dr. Baron.
George ran on in the pelting rain with his beloved in his arms, running for his life. And hers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
George burst in through the back door with his sodden bundle, and fell to his knees panting.
"It's all right, we're at The Three Bells, your safe now, we'll get help, my love. Please, stay with me, Miranda. Stay with me. Don't leave me," he pleaded hoarsely.
His voice ragged from having talked to her through all the streets he had charged along to get there, he could barely summon enough volume to shout for help, but Tom the pot boy heard the commotion and screamed for the doctor.
To George's infinite relief, Antony Herriot and his handsome blond assistant Oliver Neville were giving the girls their monthly checks at, while Dr. Baron was away on holiday.
"Oh thank God you’re here. You need to help me, Antony!" George said urgently, as he gathered Miranda up into his arms once more.
"Of course, but George, what on earth have you got there—"
"Oh my God," Oliver gasped. "The poor girl."
Miranda's arm had fallen out of the burlap sack and the livid bruises were stark against her pale flesh.
Now several other people crowded into the room.
"Oh, George, thank God. Where did you find her? Miranda, can you hear us?"
"Emma, can we use your rooms, yours and Abigail’s?" he requested, already skirting past her to charge up the stairs.
"Yes, of course," she called.
"Girls, the Boss found her! He found her!" Abigail shouted loudly enough for all to hear, as she tore after the two medical men following Emma up the stairs.
A bevy of girl all emerged from their rooms and eagerly offered to help, fetching hot water, linens, tea, anything they could think of.
George lay Miranda down on the bed, and was going to remove the sacking she was clad in when Antony shook his head.
"I think you should go outside. This is only going to upset you. I need to know what I’m dealing with without you getting outraged. It’s private, do you understand, between myself and my patient? Go in the next room and lie down, and I’ll call you when she’s ready to see you."
"But—"
Oliver asked, "Did she speak with you?"
He nodded. "She was conscious when I found her. Knew who I was."
He nodded. "Good. That’s a good sign."
Antony now turned to see eight women clustering in the doorway, their hands full, all eager to assist. "Thank you, that’s grand. Put them on the dressing table, side by side, and we’ll shout if we need anything else."
Once the supplies they were offered were inside, Emma shut the hall door. Then she gently pushed George into Abigail’s room and closed and locked it.
George stared at the portal blankly as he paced up and down. His heart sang in his breast. She was alive. She had found him. Come home. But the way she had looked… My God, the poor child had been through hell, and it was all his fault….
All Castlereagh's fault, he could hear Sebastian say in his head. The man is a power-hungry fiend. Will we ever be free of him?
It was the question upon which his entire future hinged. Yet he knew the answer was no. Not as long as they were all alive. And as long as he was still separated from his brothers, and Napoleon still alive.
Which meant as long as he was in the Foreign Service, Miranda would never be safe. Dear God, he had moved heaven and earth to find her, only to lose her again, one way or the other.
But no, he was not going to think about that now. He forced himself to focus on more practical matters, the theatre, how they would manage now that she would no longer be able to act, how he would turn everything over to Daniel so he could nurse her full time, perhaps even take her away to Bath to heal in the waters there. Whatever she needed, she would have, if only she survived….
He waited in an agony of impatience until finally he heard a tap at the door.
"Come in."
Antony unlocked it from the other side, entered, and sat down on the bed.
"She’s resting comfortably now, George, but I won't lie. She's pretty beaten up. Nothing broken, but she has a lot of cuts, scratches, contusions. She's taken quite a beating, by the look of her, and a bad fall. I'll tell you the truth. I don’t know about internal bleeding. I need to keep an eye on her. Oliver or I will remain for the next few days, so we can see exactly what we’re dealing with."
"What did he do to her?" George demanded.
The sandy-haired doctor's handsome lips thinned. He knew what George was asking. "I’m not at liberty to say."
George’s jaws ground together. "That bad, was it?"
Antony sighed. "I won’t lie. She needs to rest and has to have an eye kept on her. I really can’t tell the extent of her injuries and she won’t provide any details. To tell you the truth, I think Miranda is such an innocent she really doesn’t know what happened to her, except that it was horrid."
"My God, when I get my hands on that swine Castlereagh— Bloody Oxnard!"
George was furious with himself for his slip, but he knew that the good Rakehell doctor was aware of a great deal concerning all that had happened the previous year, when Alistair Grant had nearly been killed amid the political turmoil of the Cato Street Conspiracy.
The conspiracy had been engineered by the new government in order to eliminate anyone who opposed their authority. George, much to his regret, had helped the government grow in power, and had betrayed the Rakehells by kidnapping the only witness who could have helped Alistair save all the Cato Street Conspirators from the gallows. No command Castlereagh or Sidmouth in the Home Office had given him since that time had ever sat well with him again.
Antony’s brows shot up. "You can’t do anything to Oxnard and you know it. Not if you value your life. He's titled gentry, for goodness sake. If what you suspect is true and Castlereagh arranged all of this, God knows what consequences you’ll face if you try to go after ei
ther of them."
"Merde! He ruined an innocent young girl just because she was a friend of mine. Not even a friend, a woman I worked with," he lied. "Gave a job to. The bastard deserves a damned good thrashing."
"You are her friend. In fact, more than that," he said quietly. "I can see you love her."
George ran his fingers through his hair in sheer frustration. "And I’ve lost her just as surely as if she’d died. That sweet wide-eyed ingenue is no more. She’s learned first-hand what a despicable, nasty place the world is. I don’t know how she’s ever going to be able to stand it."
"With your patience and understanding," the sandy-haired doctor replied.
George shook his head. "She can never love me in return. Not after—"
Antony sighed. "Never is a long time. She’s fond of you, that much I know. She moved heaven and earth to come back to you when she could have returned to her family. Or the house here. Or her friends at The Three Bells. No, she went to look for you at your home. That has to count for something."
George shrugged. "She was delirious, hysterical."
"Be gentle with her, and perhaps in time you’ll see that I'm right, George."
"I can’t help if you don’t tell me what you think they did."
Antony relented in the end, and told him.
"My God," George wept, unable to stop the tears. "We have to bring him to justice, stop him from ever--"
Antony crossed his arms over his chest, the picture of grim refusal. "And make her testify to that? No, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy."
George shook his head, cuffing his tears away with the sleeve of his coat. "Damnation. I’ve lived a hellish life for so many years now. Then just when I think I’ve met the woman of my dreams, she’s duped and ravished by some debauched bastard and I can’t even help her."
"You can. It will take time, but where there is love, well, it has a wonderful healing effect."
"Time, time, I'm sick to death of hearing about how time heals!" George snarled, letting his emotions fly at last. "That’s what they told me when I first started looking for my brothers. Now all these years later I’ve still come up empty-handed.
"I’ve given up everything, my estate, my title, my chosen profession, all for the sake of freedom for tyranny, only to exchange one merciless task-master for another. Louis the Sixteenth, Robespierre, Napoleon, George the Third, tyrants, all of them. But at least your British kings don't throw millions of lives away to hold their power. They just make an example of a few of them."
"That's right, George, let it all out now," Antony said with a nod. "Purge yourself of the bitterness so you'll have a better stomach for the fight ahead of you."
"And what has all my loyal service to the British Crown got me?" George continued to rail. "Nothing! A tiny flat, a couple of odd jobs as a pimp and theatre manager, and all for the greater glory of England." He laughed bitterly. "Some glory. A country that deliberately sends spies in to political organisations to incite decent, hard-working folk to riot, and then hangs them all for rebellion."
"I know the Cato Street Conspiracy still rankles—"
"And my friend and his sister would have been killed if we hadn’t had the Devil’s own luck."
"You loved her," the doctor observed quietly.
George blinked. "Who? Viola?"
The doctor nodded.
He shrugged one shoulder. "Aye, like a sister. Only that, I swear, though there were times I was so damned lonely and her so decent and kind that I do admit I might have allowed myself to imagine more than there ever was between us. No, I’m afraid it’s Miranda I love. And now—"
"Now you wait, and help her keep busy, make sure she doesn’t brood. I’m going to tell you my honest opinion. You need to give Miranda her old job back."
"What, on stage?" he gasped. "And in the state she's in? Are you mad?"
"Not mad, no, but also trying to make sure that neither of you end up that way."
His tone was adamant. "Out of the question."
"Why?
"Well look at the state of her!" George exclaimed in exasperation. "She's lucky she's still alive!"
"I’m going to allow it."
"You allow it? Who the hell do you think---"
Antony squared his shoulders. "Her doctor."
"Back on stage?" George shook his head as if trying to clear it. "In God's name, why?"
"Because it will stop her from brooding. The worst thing she can do is hide away as though she’s done something wrong when we all know full well she hasn’t. She was duped. If Oxnard ever comes to the theatre again, you can make sure you jolly well beat him to a pulp. Just don't kill him. But in the meantime, let her have her job back and work her until she's exhausted so she doesn’t retreat into a dark place in her mind."
"But what can I do to help—"
"Put her through her paces. All your favourites. Coach her, make her become the finest actress London has ever seen. I've heard about nothing but Mademoiselle Lyon since her first performance as Cleopatra. Allow her to become what she truly is. You know she has it in her. Especially with you as her leading man. Perform until you can’t stand up. But let her get her confidence back by getting back onto the boards once more, once she's well enough. And then just wait for her to confide in you."
George grudgingly had to admit that there was a great deal of wisdom in what the young man was advising, but now was not the time to make such a momentous decision. Not until he was sure of what he was dealing with.
"Very well," he said at length in clipped tones, "I shall take it under advisement and deal with it all in good time, as you say. But for now, first things first. I need to see her."
He patted him on the shoulder. "In a minute, old man. Oliver and Emma are just finishing up."
George paced once more, listening to Antony’s instructions for her care, until Emma at last told him he could come in.
CHAPTER EIGHT
George tiptoed into the sick room as reverently as he might enter a church. He hardly dared hope she was really still alive. Approaching the bed, he steeled himself, and peered down at his beloved.
She looked a lot cleaner, and they had even done their best with her hair. But her poor face…
The bruises every colour of the rainbow stood out starkly against her pale flesh. He could also see she had lost a great deal of blood, she was so weak and wan.
As he stared at her, all burning desire for revenge which had been scorching his heart burned to ashes as he drank in her marred beauty, and he determined there and then that he would make it his life’s mission to get her well again.
Her dark blue eyes opened, and he could see the sheer relief in their expression as she gazed up at him. "You look terrible, George," she whispered through cracked and bloodied lips.
He gave a short bark of laughter that became a flow of bitter tears. "Aye, Philip did tell me to clean up for when you came home, but I was looking for you everywhere and didn't find the time."
"Don't think I fancy the beard much. Too prickly."
"No, my love, no beard. As soon as I have a spare moment, when I'm sure you're all right, I'll have the barber in."
Antony, Oliver and Emma, reassured that all was well, stepped outside so they could have some privacy, and to tell all the waiting girls she would recover in time.
Alone at last, George gingerly perched on the edge of the bed and took her hand gently in both his huge hands. "It's so good to have you home, my love."
"It's good to be home," she whispered.
"I’m so sorry, darling, more than I can say. Do you want me to do anything for you? Send for your family?"
She gave a curt shake of her head. "No. It would only make it worse, them seeing me like this."
"Still, they would want to help."
She sighed. "Only gone from home for a few weeks and look at the mull I’ve made of my life. I was just, well, swept away. I mean, Oxnard seemed so sincere.
"But it was all a pack of lies
," she said before he could explain what he believed had been Castlereagh’s part in her downfall. "And my own fault for being so vain. For enjoying the adulation. The toast of London indeed. I’m not even a person to them, just an object of their lusts. Tits and arse, just like you said."
George shook his head. "Now that's not true. I only said that to try to—"
She squeezed his fingers weakly. "The only difference between me and an orange wench is where we stand in the theatre and how much we get paid. He didn’t care about me as a person, he just wanted to swive me like I was some sort of animal."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection 6 Page 62
