Tomorrow, we end this nonsense. What had he really meant by that? At the time, she had been sure he meant the nonsense of her engagement to Mr. Campbell. Surely, he could not have kissed her as he had and meant anything else?
But what if he’d meant the nonsense of their meetings, their kisses, when she was engaged to marry another man? After all, they had been very much in the wrong.
And yet, it had felt so right to her. Being with Bill, marrying him was all her heart desired. Perhaps she really could find happiness and still save her family from disgrace—although there might be some explaining to do to, and indeed about, Mr. Campbell. But she would be blissful with the man she loved… If only he loved her. He had implied he did.
Almost.
Desperate anxiety made her doubt her understanding. She needed to be clear. She needed to know.
And tomorrow she would.
So, go to bed. Sleep. And then it will be tomorrow.
In fact, it was already tomorrow. By the light of the candle, the clock on the mantelpiece told her it lacked only twenty minutes until one o’clock.
She began to take the pins from her hair since she had sent the maid away before the girl could do it for her. Her fingers stilled as something else Bill had once said popped into her mind. When she had followed him out of the Lyon’s Den that last night.
You know where to find me.
She knew which house was his. And she knew he often left the ground floor window to his study unlocked.
Her heart hammered. She wondered if she dared. But the alternative of a sleepless night and hours more waiting suddenly seemed unbearable. She needed to talk to him now.
After an instant’s thought, she dragged her dressing gown around her, seized the candle, and left her chamber, hurrying along the passage to the room that was her brother’s. Fortunately, Arthur was at their country home, Thretford Hall, with her sisters, preparing for university. But she was sure he would have left some clothes.
She lit the lamp from her candle and hauled out a pair of pantaloons that Arthur had outgrown, but which would probably not look too bad on her. Then she found a shirt, a wildly colorful waistcoat, and a dark coat with a tear in the sleeve. She hauled the chemise over her head and donned her brother’s clothes with a growing sense of excitement. She also found a pair of his old boots at the back of his wardrobe. They had a large hole in one sole, and both heels were worn at the side. They were slightly too big for her, but an extra pair of stockings made them bearable. Perhaps it was not quite how most young ladies would choose to dress to visit their beloved, but it made her laugh breathlessly to think how her costume would amuse Bill.
One glance at the glass sent her rummaging for a cravat to hide the femininity of her neck and a round cap to cram her hair into.
Now, I’ll do. Slightly ridiculous, but I’ll do.
Well, she didn’t mind ridiculous. She’d scampered about in a powdered wig and blue silk breeches and a coat even Arthur would howl derision at. She swaggered past the glass in Di’s style a couple of times and then grinned, doused the lamp, and took up her candle once more.
The quietest way out of the house, now everyone was in bed, was through the kitchen. So, she crept along the passage, down two flights of stairs to the hall, then through the green baize door to the servants’ quarters. There she paused, peering downstairs and listening intently. But there was no light and no sound.
With only her candle to guide her, she went down past the servants’ hall to the narrow passage that led to the area door and the kitchen. Carefully, she turned the key in the lock and pulled back the heavy bolt. The hinges were well-oiled and didn’t creak, so her departure was as silent as she could have wished. She just hoped no one came down and bolted the door again before she came back.
At the last minute, she picked up the lantern from the table on her way out and put the flint in her pocket. She might need it to determine which garden was Lord Garvie’s.
Flitting up the area steps, she had a nasty moment when she saw a rather tatty carriage—a hackney, perhaps—waiting on the other side of the street. But then she reminded herself, she wasn’t Miss Wade creeping out of her parents’ house in the small hours of the morning. To anyone who noticed her—and who would notice a mere servant?—she was simply a lad sneaking off to meet his lady love. She remembered to swagger as she strode off down the street, paying no attention to the carriage or its occupants.
She decided to walk by the main roads to Grosvenor Square and then slip around to the back lanes. In fact, she was so busy trying to remember exactly how many back gardens she would need to count to reach Bill’s that she failed to hear the carriage rumbling slowly after her.
Until the horses passed her on the same side of the road and stopped. She walked faster. But the hairs had risen on the back of her neck, and every instinct was to run. She heard the carriage door open, swift footsteps coming after her. She grasped the lantern tighter.
At the first touch of an ungentle, detaining hand, she spun around, swinging the lantern with all her strength, and caught her would-be attacker a mighty blow full on the chin. He staggered back and fell, cracking his head on the road.
She stared at him dismay, poised for flight but not yet moving, for he lay quite still with his eyes closed. By the streetlight, she saw clearly that it was Mr. Harrington.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, dropping to her knees beside the body. “I’ve killed him.”
Chapter Nine
Cursing, the coachman lumbered down from his box and crouched on Harrington’s other side. “I hope to blazes you haven’t,” he growled. “How am I to get paid if he’s dead?”
The man stuck his face near to Harrington’s. “Nah, he’s breathing.” He raised his head, glowering at Diana. “Though he’s out cold, which is almost as bad. What you go and hit him for?”
“What did he go and grab me for?” she retorted.
The coachman scratched his head. “Got me, there. He never seemed much in that line, and he told me we were abducting a girl.”
Diana frowned. “What girl?”
The man touched the side of his nose. “No names. Some posh bit of skirt, I should think. Well, seems like he wasted my time.” He sniffed resentfully, then, as if suddenly thinking of a solution, he delved inside Harrington’s pockets and came out with a handful of bank notes. He grinned ferociously. “That’ll cover my expenses. If I was you, lad, I’d run.”
With that, abandoning both carriage and horses, he loped off down the street.
“Wait!” Diana hissed after him. Their whole conversation had been conducted in whispers and hisses. “He needs a doctor!”
But the driver gave no sign of even hearing, simply vanished into the night.
Diana stared at the unconscious man. She tried slapping his cheeks, but he didn’t come round. Well, she could probably drive the carriage…though where she would find a doctor, she had no idea.
Bill. She needed an ally. She would drive him to Bill’s. Rising, she gripped the fallen man under his shoulders and tugged. He groaned faintly but didn’t move.
This was impossible. Even if she could drag him to the carriage, she would never get him inside. She thought of rushing to the nearest house and asking for help. But supposing she could rouse anybody at this time of night, they would probably call the Watch on her and accuse her of robbing him. She didn’t exactly look respectable in this garb.
Oh, God, the Watch!
No, she would have to leave him here, rush to Grosvenor Square, and get Bill to help her move him. The decision made, she left the unconscious man where he was and ran.
Bill sat in his study, an untouched glass of brandy in his hands. It wasn’t the most comfortable room to sit in of an evening, but he had chosen it because Diana had been here. He was in danger, he reflected, of making himself ridiculous over that girl. And he didn’t mind in the slightest.
He had won her. Tomorrow they would both clear the air with honesty. Campbell would b
e sent about his business and Mrs. Dove-Lyon pacified…somehow. As would the Wades. But he was worldly enough to know they would appreciate their daughter’s change of bridegroom.
He raised the glass to lips and paused. Every so often, his certainty shook, and he reasoned he had only taken her by surprise. That a moment of passion did not mean love. He, of all people, should know that. The girl had had an appalling time in which every certainty of her life had been turned on its head. She had known him little more than a week, and she had already confided to him that she must be fickle because she didn’t miss Bamber in the slightest.
What if she didn’t miss him either?
Well, once he had her safe, he would make sure of her.
Is that fair? some reasoning part of him scolded. Shouldn’t she make her own decision in her own time?
Of course, she should. And he would give her that time…if only Campbell was sent away.
He would be. She loved him.
He groaned and set down his glass, still untouched. This was silly. He was going around in circles.
Something moved outside the window. Something brushed against it, and Bill sprang to his feet.
The window was fastened on the inside, so to get in, a burglar would have to break the glass. Which would be annoying. He walked swiftly and quietly across the rug, slipped one hand between the curtains, and unfastened the catch. Then he stood aside and waited, poised, to see what would happen.
Listening intently, he could hear no voices, and he was sure the movements outside were those of only one man. One he could deal with. And would.
The window slid softly upward. A booted leg was flung over the sill and poked through the curtain. Helpfully, Bill jerked back the curtain and clenched his fist, and the lamplight fell across the face of Diana Wade.
His mouth fell open, which was not a look he wished to cultivate and certainly not with her, but there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.
She wore what looked like a schoolboy’s cap, with one or two chestnut locks escaping from it, and men’s clothes, from a bizarrely knotted cravat to down-at-heel boots. And she carried an unlit lantern in one hand.
She blinked in the sudden light and smiled.
A fierce new happiness surged through him like wildfire. He had reached for her before he knew what he was doing, dragging her through the window and into his arms. She melted into them as if she was meant to be there.
“Oh, my dear, foolish little…” he began incoherently. “What on earth made you risk coming here?”
She drew back suddenly, clutching his arms, her face no longer contented but anxious. “Oh, Bill, I am in another scrape! I was coming here to see you because I couldn’t wait until tomorrow, but now I need you to come with me because I might have killed Mr. Harrington, and I don’t know what to do with him.”
As she spoke, she was already tugging him toward the window. Pausing only to grab his coat, he followed her over the sill. A secret exit seemed most sensible.
In spite of the dire nature of her words, laughter was bubbling up inside him.
“Life is never dull around you, is it, Di?” he asked breathlessly.
She cast him a quick grin over her shoulder, perhaps because he had called her Di again. “Well, I make bad decisions, sometimes, but I’m still not sure this was one, because the coachman said he meant to abduct someone, and if I hadn’t hit him with the lantern, then he might have succeeded.”
That sobered him. “Where is he?” he asked grimly, boosting her over the wall into the next garden.
She dropped lightly to the ground and waited for him to land beside her. “In Mount Street, at the side of the road. I thought if I could get him into the carriage, I could drive him to you, and you would know of a doctor. I couldn’t move him, he’s far too heavy. And, of course, it’s complicated because the Watch might find him.”
“Damned good thing if they did, if you’ll pardon my language.”
“I will,” she said cordially. “But it wouldn’t be a good thing if they arrested me for stealing from him.”
“Did you?”
“No, but the coachman did before he ran off, and Harrington was out cold, so he won’t know which of us did it, and it really wouldn’t be helpful if I was arrested like this.”
“It would rather make a nonsense of your family’s expensive efforts to rehabilitate you.” He opened a gate into one of the lanes to let her precede him.
“Also, apparently, Harrington is fleeing the country because someone he shot in a duel is likely to die.”
“He did die,” Bill said, frowning. Ladies were not meant to know anything about duels. He could only surmise Campbell—Harrington’s second in the affair, by all accounts—had blabbed something. “Harrington will be charged with murder.” And quite rightly, too. He had picked a fight from nothing and ended a man’s life.
“If he lives,” she said morosely. “I don’t like the man, but I own I don’t want to have killed him, even if he did try to grab me, and I’m slightly worried that the lady he meant to abduct was me. Only I can’t see any reason for that.”
“He was fleeing the country,” Bill said. “I imagine he wanted some female company to while away the time. In which case, I’m glad you hit him with the lantern. If he survives, I shall probably hit him, too.”
“Thank you,” she said with apparent gratitude. “Only why would he want me around? We barely spoke.”
“You’re beautiful. Ruining you would not trouble his conscience. Besides which, by taking Campbell’s betrothed, he gets revenge for being bested in their shooting wager at the Lyon’s Den. And…” He broke off, drawing her into the shadows as a well-lit coach trundled down the lane past them. “On me for shooting him. I’m sure he noticed my…partiality.”
She stared at him. “What a vile man! But he can’t have imagined I would stay with him.”
“Why not, if you were ruined? Where else would you go? Mind you, I doubt he would care much, for the damage would be done by the time you reached Calais.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “Never doubt that you did the right thing hitting him. It’s not your fault but his if he dies.”
And if he wasn’t already dead, Bill thought savagely, he might just finish the matter himself.
But fury would not help this situation. He needed to think of Diana’s safety, about what was best for her.
As they turned into Mount Street, Diana pointed ahead. A carriage and two horses stood relatively still at the side of the road. Beside it, a dark lump was moving lethargically, a man rising painfully to his knees. Bill’s quick glance up and down the street showed no one else abroad, and all the houses in darkness.
“Why is it,” Diana mused, “that when I came staggering home alone, later than this, everyone and his wife was there to witness my indignity. But no one is here now to help an injured man.”
“Be grateful,” Bill said, increasing his pace.
Diana seized his arm. “Be careful. He might be armed.”
Almost certainly, Bill thought. “Wait here,” he said, breaking into a run.
The man still knelt on the ground, feeling his face and the back of his head. When Bill seized him by the hair and dragged his head up, Harrington’s eyes were still groggy and a little unfocused.
“You,” Harrington uttered with loathing.
Bill hauled him to his feet and turned toward the carriage, which is when he discovered that Diana had not obeyed him and stayed where she was, for it was she who obligingly opened the carriage door to let him bundle Harrington inside.
“Should I stay with him?” she asked doubtfully. “Or drive the carriage?”
“Neither,” Bill said flatly. Whether unconscious once more or just in pain, Harrington lay still on the coach bench, making only the feeblest of protests when Bill patted his pockets and retrieved a wicked looking dagger wrapped in a roll of money. He left the money. He also found a pistol in one of the vehicle’s corner pockets and took that before closing the door.
“You’re not leaving me behind,” Diana said accusingly.
“I probably should,” Bill said ruefully. “But it would be somewhat ungracious when you came to visit me. Can you climb onto the box?”
Of course, she could and did, with an agility that heated his blood. He climbed up beside her and took the reins.
It was strange, but as he drove the horses and their unwieldy carriage through the unusually quiet London streets, he rather enjoyed the companionship. She sat squashed against him at thigh and shoulder, which would certainly have distracted him from clear thinking, had his plans not already been made.
He even felt ridiculously gratified when she approved those plans.
There were a few moments he treasured even more, when, briefly, she laid her head on his shoulder.
When he pulled the horses to a standstill outside the Lyon’s Den—where, inevitably, there were still lights all over the building—Diana climbed down unaided and ran up to knock on the front door.
Egeus looked only faintly surprised when he opened the door. “Evening, young Di! What are you doing back here?”
She answered much more quietly, and he let her in before ambling down the steps to talk to Bill.
“Evening, my lord,” he murmured, touching his forelock as he gazed up at Bill. “What can I do for you?”
“Show me the back way in, and help me with my…er—guest.”
“Foxed, is he?” Egeus said, peering through the carriage window. “Here. isn’t that…?”
“If you please,” Bill interrupted.
“He’s blackballed,” Egeus said bluntly.
“I know. Di is currently addressing the matter with your mistress. We need waste no more time.”
Egeus shrugged and walked forward to take hold of the nearest horse’s bridle and lead them down the side path, past the ladies’ entrance to the back, where he had always suspected, many more unusual things happened.
Fed to the Lyon Page 10
