Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (14 page)

He charged her then, his foot lashing out at the gun. It spun out of her hand, smashed into the kettle on the hearth, and slithered under a chair. There was no time to think about the pain in her arm, no time to cry out. He kicked out at her again, and she dived for his leg, sending him sprawling on his face. It wasn’t much of a victory. He was on her in an instant and they went rolling on the floor.

Fear gave her a strength she didn’t know she possessed. He couldn’t get his hands around her throat because she’d fastened herself around him like a terrified monkey. But her strength was no match for his. He pushed her head back and backhanded her across the face. Pain exploded inside her head, but she screamed with all the breath she had left. Then his fingers were at her throat again, squeezing the life out of her.

Just when she thought her last moments had come, her assailant was hauled off her and sent flying. Jason!

With a roar of rage, Jason flung himself at the younger man. They fell against chairs and tables and sent dishes crashing to the floor.

Gwyn was in no condition to help Jason. She was hunched over, trying to suck air into her lungs. Her head was swimming. She thought she was going to faint.

She was dragging herself to her knees, looking around for the pistol, when Mark ran into the room. “Mark, go back upstairs!” she screamed.

Mark stared at her in a daze, his eyes still heavy with sleep.

Harry took advantage of the distraction and kicked out at Jason, catching him in the side, and Jason went reeling backward. Then Harry reached inside his vest and produced a gun.

“Mark, run!” Jason yelled. “He’s got a gun.”

Mark turned and ran.

As Harry backed to the door, Gwyn slowly pulled herself to her feet. It happened so quickly, she didn’t have time to be afraid. Harry leveled the pistol at her and pulled the trigger.

Gwyn felt as though she’d been hit in the side with a blacksmith’s hammer. Her knees buckled and she
sank to the floor. Then Harry was through the door and racing down the back hall.

She saw Jason’s stricken face above her.

“Mark?” she groaned. “Don’t let him hurt Mark.” Her side was on fire. She writhed, trying to escape the pain.

She heard the outside door slam, and Jason’s face faded as darkness overwhelmed her.

Jason’s hands were shaking as he reached for Gwyn. It took him only a moment to determine that the wound was not mortal. Then he looked around for Gwyn’s pistol, picked it up, and ran into the hall. Mark was halfway up the stairs and looking as frightened as Jason felt, but he hadn’t seen that his mother was shot.

“Mark,” Jason said, “we’re leaving at once. Get dressed, quickly mind.” When Mark remained frozen in place, staring down at him, Jason gentled his voice. “Your mother is going to be fine. I’m not leaving you here. Anything could happen. I’m taking you to my house. You’ll both be safe there. Do you hear me, Mark?” Then urgently, “Get dressed at once.”

Mark blinked, nodded, and ran up the stairs.

Jason quickly returned to the kitchen and knelt beside Gwyn. His fingers were trembling as he tried to undo the buttons on her gown. Losing patience with his ineptitude, he tore the gown from throat to hem. A large crimson patch of blood had soaked both chemise and stays. He gritted his teeth as he gently eased Gwyn to her side so that he could slip the gown from her shoulders and undo the laces of her stays. When this was done, and the stays discarded, he lifted the hem of her chemise. The ball was lodged in the fleshy part of her hip, just below the waist.

He looked around for something to staunch the bleeding. There was a basket on the floor that had been overturned in the fight, a basket of clean laundry.
He found a sheet, tore it in strips, and made a pad of one piece to cover the wound and used another to bind it tightly to Gwyn’s side. This done, he lowered her chemise. He looked at her gown and decided it was useless now that he’d torn it to shreds. What he needed was a blanket, but there was no maid or servant to do his bidding, and he wasn’t going to leave Gwyn alone, not for a second.

A few strides took him to the door. “Mark,” he bellowed, “bring my coat with you when you come downstairs.”

Jason returned to Gwyn, knelt down beside her and studied her pale face.

“What in hell’s name have you got us into this time?” he whispered.

When they were children, it was always like this. Whenever Gwyn fell foul of the local bully, she taunted him with the refrain,
If you lay a hand on me, my Cousin Jason will beat you to a pulp!
He’d rescued her from one scrape after another. But this was different. Gwyn was at the center of something profoundly sinister, and he had to get her away from this place.

When she made a sudden, spasmodic movement, he reached for her hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here.”

The words seemed to soothe her and she quieted. Something seemed to lodge in his throat. She looked so small and defenseless, like a waif of the streets who had been set upon by footpads. There was a lump forming on one temple and a graze on her cheek. What kind of monster would have done this to her?

There would be a reckoning, he promised himself. As God was his witness, there would be a reckoning.

Just as he got to his feet, Mark came racing into the room. His eyes were very wide and his face was pale, but it did not look to Jason as though he were in shock. He had to give the boy something to do.

He took the coat from Mark. “I need your help,” he said. “Can you help me, Mark?”

Mark nodded.

“Good. Let’s spread my coat on the floor and we’ll wrap your mother in it.”

When the coat was spread on the floor, Jason gently rolled Gwyn to one side then the other as he positioned it beneath her. Then he wrapped it around her and lifted her high against his chest. She moaned, but did not regain consciousness.

Mark stared up at Jason. His voice held a betraying quaver. “Why doesn’t Mama open her eyes?”

“Because she has fainted. But that’s all to the good. Trust me.”

When Jason smiled, Mark made a valiant effort to do the same. That smile was so like Gwyn’s that Jason felt himself swallowing. “Your father,” he said softly, “would be very proud of you if he could see you now.” Then in a different voice entirely, “Now, blow out the candles and lock the doors after me. And stay close to me.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mark.

There were no neighbors or pedestrians congregating outside the door; no sign that the report of the shot had carried to the front street. Either the neighbors had not heard it, thought Jason, or the residents of Sutton Row had not recognized the sound for what it was. Either way, it suited his purposes. He wanted Gwyn and Mark out of here before anyone knew where they were going.

He knew there was a hackney stand in Soho Square, but luck was with them, and before they’d taken more than few steps, a cab rolled into Sutton Row. Jason emitted a shrill whistle to bring it to a stop.

“There’s been an accident,” he told the driver, and that’s the only explanation he offered for his wild appearance
and the unconscious woman in his arms. It was only after he’d settled Gwyn on the banquette that reaction set in. If that shot had been a little higher, Gwyn would be dead now.

Harry climbed into the hackney and told the driver to set him down in King Street. He smiled a lot, slurred his speech, and staggered as though he’d had a mite too much to drink—just another young buck bent on having a good time. That would explain his disheveled appearance and his torn jacket.

The blood was still pumping hard and fast through his veins. It had been a very close thing. He wasn’t afraid. He was exhilarated. He loved the risks. He was living on the razor’s edge and that made him feel superior to all the boring farts who looked at him and saw only what he wanted them to see. Another boring fart like themselves.

He laughed out loud.

When his amusement faded, he began to go over the sequence of events of that night’s near debacle. He’d handled the job with his usual attention to detail. He knew what time Mrs. Barrie got up in the morning and what time she went to bed at night. He knew she had been a guest at Sackville’s party, but from what the maid and boy told him, he understood that in her own home at least, Mrs. Barrie was as saintly as the Virgin Mary. That had been his impression as well. And in his role as the plasterer, he’d been through every room and had come up with nothing. If she had the miniature, she wasn’t hiding it in the house.

Sir Galahad had given him quite a start when he’d appeared on the scene. He’d managed to get off a shot, but he didn’t think it was fatal. In fact, he was sure of it. The trouble was, he wasn’t at his peak, because
that other bitch, Gracie, had sliced him with a knife before she’d run from him. He’d made her pay for that. And when the wound under his arm had healed, he’d try again, and this time, he’d make sure Sir Galahad was nowhere in sight.

He settled back on the banquette and thought about Mrs. Barrie’s protector. If the man had any intelligence, he’d get her out of that house as soon as possible. It didn’t matter. He’d find them and strike when they least expected it.

It wasn’t a wasted night. He’d thought at first that Mrs. Barrie knew nothing of the miniature portrait. If she had, she would have told him, not to save herself, but to protect her son. Now he realized that she’d been counting on Sir Galahad coming to her rescue.

No, he was not yet done with Mrs. Barrie.

She was more than a job to him now. She was a challenge, part of a game. And this game was worth playing because it was dangerous. She would fight back, and she had a protector. But he would win, because he was clever. Nobody beat him in this game.

Wheatley would want a full report. He would wait in vain. That’s not how he conducted his business. When the job was satisfactorily completed, he’d let Wheatley know, and not before.

When the hackney stopped in King Street, he paid off the driver and made for a coffee shop on the corner of St. James. He didn’t enter the coffee shop, but went straight to a room one floor up. Twenty minutes later, the man who left that room bore very little resemblance to the man who had entered it.

A red-hot poker was lodged in her side and her head felt as if it were going to explode. The pain was unbearable, but pain or no, the voice in her ear kept
droning on, demanding an answer. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?

“I can’t give you anything for the pain,” said Jason, “till I know you’re all right. Now tell me your name.”

For a moment, she was completely alert. She knew she was in a strange bed in a strange room. She remembered Mark running from the kitchen and her attacker going after him.

“Mark,” she whispered, but only a breath of sound came out of her mouth.

“Tell me your name.”

She looked wildly into Jason’s intent stare. Why was he asking her this? He knew her name. She was suddenly awash with fear. “Mark?” she cried.

“He’s fine,” said Jason quietly, “and sleeping in the next room. Who is Mark?”

She wanted to scream in frustration, but knew it wouldn’t do her any good. She’d seen that look on Jason’s face before. There was no escaping him.

“My son,” she whimpered.

“And my name?”

She gritted her teeth. “Jason, of course.”

He chuckled. “Good girl.”

She closed her eyes on a wave of pain. When it ebbed a little, she said as clearly and as distinctly as she could manage, “I want to see my son.”

Jason turned his head to confer with someone else in the room. She heard another voice. Brandon’s? She wasn’t sure. A door opened, then Jason’s voice again.

“See? I told you Mark was all right.”

The figure by the bed was just a blur. She forced her eyes to focus and saw that it was Brandon. In his arms, wrapped in an eiderdown, was Mark.

“Say goodnight to your mother,” Brandon said.

Mark stirred. “ ’Night, Mama.”

She choked out a goodnight and trailed them with her eyes as they disappeared through a door to an adjoining room.

“Leave the door open,” said Jason, his gaze never wavering from Gwyn’s face.

As her fear receded, the unrelenting pain returned. Her hands went to her side, but Jason stayed her movements. His strong fingers closed around her hands.