by Gayle Eden
Jules headed that way, half in a jog, cussing again, cursing people who were apparently hearing the alarms. He could feel his breathing constricted, and feel sweat dampen his lawn shirt. He strained his eyes and finally saw the dark figure enter a narrow alley. By the time he reached it, he saw Raith running toward the back of a residence.
Looking behind him, Jules hoped his coachman had followed when the pedestrians cleared. His skin tightened, nerves getting more jagged at the noise and bells, shouts in the dark-and that thick cloud of billowing smoke now spreading and snaking further up town.
“Jesus Christ!” Jules groaned, his heart jumping in his chest and eyes horrified watching the mansion Raith had entered appear to explode inside.
He heard a man’s scream and thought his hair would crawl from his scalp. Both sweating and chilled now, Jules headed in that direction, screaming Raith’s name.
He was so intent on looking up at the second floor—at windows that blew outward, that he did not see Raith until his brother was upon him.
Filthy and coatless, Raith carried a woman—who was nude save for that coat. Jules could not tell if it was blood, soot or what substance on her, but she was lax, her head back and tumbles of dark hair flowing.
“I told you not to follow me.”
“Raith.” Jules wanted to grab and shake him. “What the bloody hell is going on!”
His brother looked stark eyed and drawn. “Is your coach nearby?”
“Yes, it—“
“Take her.” He handed the woman over.
Jules scarcely had her secure as Raith drew a chain from under his shirt and tore it lose. His actions rushed, he slid the ring off it, and put it on her finger. “Take her to the Duke of Coulborne. She’s his daughter.”
“Dear God.” Jules looked at the woman’s face, beauty yes, but it was marred. Her whole body was. He looked up in time to notice Raith was heading back to the house.
“Wait! Raith!”
Turning, Raith came to him and grasped his lapels savagely. “You want to help me? Then take her, go. Jules—listen to me—you never saw me tonight. You were not here.” He turned and ran into the burning house.
Jules grit his teeth, stood there, torn between obeying, getting the woman to safety, and plunging after Raith—dragging him out of there if he had to.
Cursing, swearing like he never had before, Jules went to his knee a moment and hastily buttoned the coat, bringing the collar up, and hoping like hell his driver was indeed close. Hefting her in his arms, he turned and started walking, setting his teeth harder as a series of screams issued from the flames.
His coachman was at the curb, on the opposite street. He rushed to it with his burden and gave the Duke’s address. The coach turned. Jules could only stare numbly at the opposite seat while a succession of explosions sounded behind them. The whole of London suddenly emerged into the streets. The visibility, because of the smoke was limited, the noise, panic, just beginning.
Jules shuddered, his arms holding the woman secure until they reached the Duke of Coulborne. Leaving her in the coach, he ran up the entry stairs and banged on the door.
The butler looked startled when he opened it.
However, Jules, not caring what he looked like, what his expression was, asked for the Duke, at once!
The butler hurried away and in moments, his Grace David Bordwyc was there in his shirtsleeves, and looking at Jules white-faced.
Catching his arm, Jules led him outside. “I don’t have time to explain. There is a woman in my coach. Raith, my brother, says she is your daughter. She’s in need of medical attention.” Talking while hurrying him to the coach, Jules said, “Discretion is obviously agreed by the both of us. I need to get back and find Raith.”
When the coach door opened, the Duke uttered a, “Oh, God in heaven,” then climbed in, gathering the young woman into his arms. He exited—neither noticing a packet sliding out of the coat pocket and landing under the seat of Jules coach.
Bordwyc spared a stark glance for Jules, “I am in your debt Stoneleigh. I…will explain... when things are less pressing. You did the right thing and though I do not know how your brother found her…I thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Raith saved her life.” Jules added grimly, “Though he may be the reason she was in danger to start with. I suspect, she had been his mistress.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I have no real information or explanation, as yet, Your Grace. It is all twisted up in some path to revenge Raith has been on for years, regarding his dead wife. Perhaps you can get more from her.”
“She’s alive, that’s all that matters. Do what you must…” Coulborne strode with his burden to the house.
Jules climbed back in and barked at the driver, shortly in another fight toward the east end. He ended up jumping out and running through crowds, making his way once more to that street, feeling his breath burn his lungs from the smoke by the time he reached it.
Heedlessly running toward the house, which was now burning down in the rear section, Jules sought a way in, and finding none in back, went to the side— nearly falling over a huddled figure on the ground.
From the glow of the fire, he saw a woman’s upturned face.
“Lady Harriet! What the devil?”
Harry was leaned over Raith’s prone figure. “I was….”
“Raith.” Jules went to his knees.
“You know him?”
“He’s my brother.”
She sucked in her breath. “We need to get him away from here and to a doctor. The Runners are spread out, but it’s only a matter of time….”
Already gathering him up, Jules carried him over his shoulder, grunting, trying to stay out of the light of the fire. He glanced at Lady Harriet—who was in male garb. “Did you just happen to find him there?”
“Not exactly.” She shot him an evasive look, but said, “I have a place on fleet street. The sooner we get him to a doctor the better, and I know a discreet one.”
They reached his coach. Harriet gave directions, and Jules sat half-holding Raith, who looked like a bloody mess.
“He’s alive.” Harriet said softly. “Probably has broken bones though. He jumped from a window, just burst through it as if he had run and…” She shook her head.
Jules was in shock and knew it. His head swam. His guts had long since turned inside out with shock and horror. He muttered, feeling absent his own voice, “If he dies, my father will never recover.” He was surprised that mattered to him. Yes, it mattered, very much.
Thankfully, Harriet’s house was on a quiet corner, at least most of the neighbors were not on the street. The other shops, printers, and papers though, were ablaze with lights. Clusters of people could be seen through the window, apparently writing about the fires.
As discreetly as possible, with the help of the driver, they got Raith inside. Harriet had the blinds pulled. They used candlelight to get him upstairs and into the guestroom.
Briskly, Harriet told them, “I’ll fetch a doctor. Get him undressed. Perhaps the driver should let your father know, but the less people who show up here, the better chance we have of keeping his presence a secret.”
Jules stared at her.
“I am sure others saw him…perhaps they won’t not know him, but others may have witnessed him jumping out.”
Raking a hand through his hair, and then yanking off jacket and cravat, Jules muttered, “At the worst, they’ll hang him. At best, he’ll be transported.”
“Or,” Harriet intoned, “He’ll be sent to an asylum.”
A look of horror covered Jules face.
“I meant a private one. Nevertheless, I am sure your father, his Grace, will have a solution. Send your driver for him. I’ll be back shortly.” Harriet left and dashed down the stairs.
Long and exhausting hours later, Jules sat at the bottom of those dark stairs, with just a light from above filtering down on his disheveled figure. His cravat was off, half shirttails out, and his normally silken
straight mane was much finger-combed. He was drinking whatever Lady Harriet pressed into his hands.
The Duke of Eastland looked pale and shaken. The others, grim faced.
“There’s no telling how many people died in that fire,” Jules muttered tightly.
“The servants all fled the house earlier today. That pretty brother in law of Stratton’s slipped out with loaded down bags, too.”
“How do you know?”
“I was….watching his house?”
“Why?”
“I was looking for someone.”
“Who.”
Harry shrugged, and then went to the cluttered table. “These were spread all over the streets. Everyone is talking about them.” She grabbed a hand full of the papers and passed them out.
Ry read some of it aloud for Blaise. By now, they knew the house belonged to Marcus Stratton, and aside from Jules’s own dislike of the man, they had known little until Ry informed them of what he had heard on the streets, much of what was printed in the flyers, but worse.
Out of necessity, Jules had to inform them of his earlier encounter with Raith, and of taking the woman to the Duke of Coulborne before going back to the house.
Blaise mused, “Was she Stratton’s mistress or Raith’s? It makes no sense.”
“Only she or Raith can answer that.”
No one noticed the slightly pale cast to Lady Harriet’s face since Jules had told of the daughter. She covered it well by sipping a brandy-laced coffee, her hand discreetly sliding that handbill of (the Gypsy) under a book.
She offered, “Perhaps, considering the reputation, and those printed accusations, the young woman had her own reasons for being there.”
After scanning them himself Eastland said, “I’m going there.”
“Where. Why?” Jules half stood.
Eyes still stark but with a determined look on his face, his Grace said, “I’m going to casually make sure the inspector sees these, and then I’m going to speculate aloud—that Stratton obviously had many enemies, and people who owned him money. Not to mention he was probably a murderer, certainly a pimp and known slaver, and that if they didn’t get to him, someone he crossed—he most likely killed himself.”
Eastland added, “Then, I am going to see David, and suggest that he get the young woman away from London. Eventually, someone will speculate if she set that fire. They will find his body in there, I have no doubt. So someone….should start the rumor that she must have died too tonight.”
Jules swallowed and sat heavily back down. “Bloody hell.” He put his head in his hands. His elbows on his knees, he stared at the floor. “This—is the secret you and Coulborne shared?”
“His part of it, yes. I don’t have time to go into it now.” Before going out the door, Artis said, “Ry, you, and Blaise make discreet arrangements so that I can transport Raith to Eastland as soon as he can travel.”
“Yes, my lord.” Ry nodded, still reading the print.
“Lady Harriet. I do not know how you came to be there, or what you were about, but I am eternally grateful to you. We, all of us, are. I shall be in your debt, if you would continue to house Raith until—”
“Of course.” Harry smiled a bit. “And do not worry yourself, I am a woman who can be trusted with confidence.” There was something ironic in her tone but the night was too grim for anyone to notice it.
He managed a strained smile in return.
When he was gone, Blaise went up to see the doctor who was still with Raith, before coming back down and pulling on his coat. He stood by Jules a moment while Ry was talking to Lady Harriet.
Reaching out his free hand, Blaise laid it on Jules’s shoulder. “I wish I was sighted so I could see what you look like after running over half of London.” He joked. “I’d almost claim you now.”
“Trust me, when I first arrived at Raith’s the shine on my boots was on my mind, but after I realized….” Jules could not pull off the humor and shuddered.
Blaise lightly flexed his fingers. “Chin up, brother. If he doesn’t live through this, it isn’t because you didn’t try to save him.”
“He was…possessed.”
“Um.” Blaise moved his hand away and sighed. “The world can be a very dark and cruel place. Raith was cheated more than any of us.”
When he and Ry left, Jules stood and walked up the stairs to the room Raith was in.
Chapter 6
Caroline had come home after her too brief tryst with the Captain. She dressed in her best gown and managed to make it to the assembly hall with her maid in tow, on time. Her father cried off, a bit under the weather he said, but Caroline forgave him that lie, seeing as how she was telling them too often herself these days.
Harriet had not met her at the park, and neither was she there tonight, though it was a gathering of the cream de la cream and boring beyond measure. Caroline did not blame her for skipping it.
She left at a decent time, her mind not wanting to be preoccupied with dancing and nodding prettily, but wishing to savor what had happened, and what she felt like in the coach.
As soon as she entered the house however, she knew something was wrong.
Her father was standing in the foyer, looking strained and obviously having watched for the coach. He requested, “Join me, in the study, Caroline.”
Half afraid she had been spied at the coffeehouse with the Captain, Caroline felt her stomach sink.
“Yes, father.” She handed her cape and gloves to the maid and cinched her hands together, walking behind her father to a well-lit study.
One glance at the half drank bottle of brandy on his desk, and she knew whatever it was, it was not going to be good.
Bordwyc went over to the French doors, running a hand through his hair. “Sit down, Caroline.”
She did, because her knees shook.
“There’s someone here…..someone arrived before…” He sighed, cursed, and turned to look at her. “I’ve another daughter. She was born when you were two years old….by a woman I….cared very much for.”
“She’s here?” Caroline sat up.
His mouth turned grim. “Yes. But not well. That’s not the worst of it.”
Her body could feel his emotion, his turmoil, and Caroline murmured, “Just tell me, father. Whatever it is, whatever I can do…”
His eyes watered a moment and he stared at her. “I love you, Caroline. Just know that.”
“Of course, I know that.”
He swallowed and nodded, looking down at the carpet while he told of his relationship with Natasha. He said at one point, “I don’t know what happened. I do not think she is alive. And I have no idea how our daughter came to be a part of events that unfolded this night.”
Caroline remembered Harry’s fears. “How is she?”
“The doctor says battered. The extent of her injuries is not apparent yet. He’s still with her and waits for her to regain consciousness.”
“What will you do?”
“I must get her out of London. Artis believes that is best. He will attempt to get Raith away too. Beyond that, I do not know. It’s all so…”
“Yes.” She stood and went to him, embracing him.
His arms around her, her head on his shoulder, he asked, “Will you be all right here, for a few weeks?”
“I’ll be fine. It is much better if we put it out that you were called away on estate business. I shall maintain my schedule and keep my ears open.” Caroline drew back and regarded him. “Although, I’d like to meet her.”
“You are too good, Caroline. I don’t deserve you for a daughter.” He supplied, “I shall need to leave as soon as possible. You will have to carry on, just as the Earl, Lord Stoneleigh will have to go on as if nothing happened. Thank goodness the two of you have such standing as to be beyond questions.”
“Of course.”
He said, “I think more of him, Stoneleigh, than I did even before. I did not tell you, but he intends to ask for your hand, and I could not be
happier. For all this…upset, you must admit, he has everything a father could want for his daughter. Now that I know he is more than just a handsome face, his dedication, honor, I feel such an incredible sense of wellbeing your future is nearly secured and you will complement each other wonderfully. He’s what you deserve, Caroline.”
Caroline inwardly groaned. Though fascinated by Jules’s part in it, and the connection between the Duke of Eastland’s younger son and all—given what her, and society’s perception of Stoneleigh was. Still, this was not the time to challenge her father’s views of herself, or his plans. He was obviously shaken and upset. She would find the right time, she was sure, to speak with him on the subject of marriage.
“You understand, don’t you m’dear,” her father cut through her muse. “About my past…and why, I must do this.”
“More than you know, father.” Caroline smiled softly. “I’m sorry you lost track of her. I know you would have…”
“—-God, yes.” He let her go and turned, walking to his desk and falling heavy into his chair. “I would have done right by her. I always wanted to.” He rested his head in his hands a moment. “I’m sorry.”
Caroline went to him, kissing his temple, and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Get some rest, father. All will be well. I promise you.”
He reached and touched her face, and then Caroline left him to himself. As she went to her rooms, she heard servants down the hall at one of the guestrooms.
“Ave you erd?” The maid whispered helping Caroline out of her gown. “Alf of London is ablaze.”
“I doubt it.”
“And there is a woman ere…”
“Jeanne.” Caroline stepped out of the gown and handed it to her. “Nothing that goes on in this house, not even her presence here, is to be repeated.”
“But of course.” The maid looked offended. “I’ve ran your bath.”
“Thank you. I’ll see to the rest.”
Caroline did, getting her bath and then resting on her bed in low lamplight. She was a mess of mixed emotions. Glad, her sister was found and here, shocked at the tangled tale involving Raith LeClair, Lord Montovon as her father explained his relation to the Duke—and his true birth. It was precisely like something Harry would nod and say, see, there is none perfect, and everyone has their dark side, their secrets.
