Tristan glanced over his shoulder toward the figure of his wife, small and inconspicuous, sitting on a wooden crate. The workman’s cap was pulled low over her face and the youth’s clothes concealed her womanly curves. In the gathering fog and darkness of night, he prayed she would go unnoticed.
Renquist and Lord Kilgrew were on the wharf, huddled with a group of officials in a hushed conference. “Looks as if Kilgrew is about to wrap this up with his usual dispatch. All will return to ordinary in no time,” he said.
“I yearn to be ordinary, Auberville,” Geoff sighed. “Do you really think it’s possible?”
Tristan grinned. “Not for you, Geoff. But you could pretend.”
“I wouldn’t be so smug, Auberville.” Morgan inclined his head in Annica’s direction. “What with Lady Annica in your life, yours isn’t likely to approach ‘ordinary’ again.”
Lord Kilgrew joined them and squatted by Farmingdale’s body. He shook his head when he saw the nature of the fatal wounds, but did not question them. He felt for a pulse, bent his head to Farmingdale’s chest to listen for a heartbeat, then settled back on his haunches to look up at them.
“Good work,” he said. “Nice and tidy. Well, not tidy, perhaps, but certainly thorough.”
“Not thorough enough for my taste,” Tristan said. “There’s still el-Daibul.”
“Nothing we can do about that, lad. Foreign country, and all that. We shall have to leave him to his own countrymen.”
Geoff scoffed. “Do you see him punishing himself?”
“Mmm,” Kilgrew murmured noncommittally. “Next time, perhaps.” He glanced around. “All the villains apprehended?”
Tristan made a subtle move to block Annica from the man’s view. “All of them, sir. The few that are left had no idea what was happening. There’d be no point in prosecuting.”
Kilgrew pondered this statement for a long moment. “I shall leave that to you, Auberville.”
Geoff gestured widely at the empty wharf. “I think we’ve seen the last of them.”
“Then we can safely close the matter?”
“Yes.”
“Good…good,” Kilgrew pronounced as he got to his feet. “The municipals will finish cleaning up here. Come to my office in the morning and we’ll wrap up the reports.”
Morgan took Kilgrew’s arm and led him toward the gangway. “I’m relieved to have this over, sir. Hope you don’t have anything else at the moment. I’d like leave to take care of some personal business….” His voice became muffled by distance and fog.
Alone on the deck, Tristan went to Annica’s hiding place. He helped her to her feet and regarded her somberly. “Well, sprite. Now you know.”
Wisps of night-dark hair escaped her cap and curled around her neck and cheeks. Her face was flushed and the bruise on her cheek made her look fragile, awakening his need to protect her. Full, rose-pink lips trembled slightly, indicating nervousness or uncertainty. “Yes,” she whispered. “Now I know.”
“And what will you do with that knowledge?”
“I could never utter a word, Tristan. That would be treason. Disloyalty, at the very least. I shudder to think of the damage this could do if it ever became known.”
She knew and she understood. She was loyal and steadfast. And, even when he had ordered her to go, she had stayed. She would never desert him—never leave him—and he knew that now with unshakable certainty.
He took a step to close the distance between them, swelling with the desire to make love to her. He couldn’t wait to draw her into his arms, feel her warmth and smell the clean fresh scent of the forest on her, tell her how much he needed her. She stopped him with one dainty hand, palm against his chest.
“But you must know the worst. When we go home, you will find that I…I violated your privacy. I pried your desk drawer open. I was desperate, you see. I had just seen Chauncy meet with a man I thought was connected to Mr. Wilkes. I thought Chauncy might be…but now he is just your valet and, well, suffice it to say that you have only seen the worst of me. I promise there is a better side.”
“Annica—”
“And the awful truth is that I cannot promise it will never happen again. If there is a worthy cause that needs a champion, I shall likely become a part of it. If there is a woman who is wronged, or a law that is unjust—”
He laughed—a low chortle that started deep in his chest and bubbled upward in a release of all his long-repressed fears.
She hugged him fiercely. “God help me, Tristan,” she wept. “I love you more than life, but I cannot change who I am.”
“You are my life, Annica, and I would not want you if you were anyone else.”
He lifted her in his arms and carried her down the gangway. He’d wanted to make love to her in a coach since the day he’d carried her from the riot on St. James’s Street. Oh, yes. They would take the long way home.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-6025-5
A WILD JUSTICE
Copyright © 2002 by Gail Ranstrom
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