“You can go.” He released the pale baron. The earl would not appreciate it if some harm befell his heir simply because of a stroll down the street with the wrong companion.
Stanhope took a long, slow breath and seemed to straighten ever so slightly. He squared his shoulders. “No, sir. I will stand with you.”
“As you wish,” Jameson almost snarled. “I took you for a fool when I first met you. I see my ability to judge character is on target as usual. We are all given free choice. Even fools. Perhaps that will be your epitaph.”
“What do you want, Jameson. State your business and be gone.” Garrett weighed his chances of overcoming the man in front of him and avoiding the bulky bulwark behind him. As if sensing his thoughts, the giant stepped closer. Not good.
“My business?” Jameson gave a mirthless chuckle. “You interrupted my business. It will take me some time to recoup and begin again. But I am not without resources. You have not stopped me, Lynch. You have merely delayed me. Trust in that.”
“Enough people know of your scandalous pursuits now to send you scurrying off to hide in the dark where you belong.”
Jameson’s brows drew together. “You have made a thorough nuisance of yourself. But I have recovered from worse. And shortly you will no longer be a problem because I know your secret—the secret you will take to your grave. The great Green Dragon, gunned down in the gutter like a common thief.”
Behind Jameson, off to the left on the opposite side of the street, Seamus was coming to meet Garrett to take the night watch over Maura’s house. As long as Jameson had been on the loose, one or the other of his men had been nearby. Even if she would not see him, he could not leave her vulnerable to the kind of assault Jameson had almost pushed on her.
Out of long habit and training, Seamus sized up the situation in every detail of the street in the space of a single heartbeat. Seamus crossed the street and disappeared into the bushes of the Merrion Square Park.
Good man, Seamus.
If he could just keep Jameson talking for a few moments longer.
He forced a hoot of laughter. “That’s rich. You think I am the Green Dragon.”
“I did not come here for conversation. You will not stall for time. Farewell to a legend who turns out to be but a man.”
The pistol in Jameson’s hand exploded. Pain lanced Garrett’s side.
“No!” Stanhope’s shout sounded far away.
Everything in Garrett’s world seemed to slow down and focus on the dull thud of his own heartbeat. He felt weightless and drifting as he fell to the ground. Sounds of a scuffle and Seamus cursing mingled together.
Darkness engulfed him.
For several days neither of her erstwhile suitors called. They both left her alone, finally.
Perversely Maura was unsettled by the lack of their attention. Where had they both disappeared to? And why at the same time?
She had a pang for Freddie, twined with relief that he might have found a way to move on. But Garrett’s disappearance left a deep, painful wound that somehow managed to underscore all of the reasons for her decision to leave the Clancy farm and bar her door to him. Could he be in danger? Where was he? And with whom? The myriad of concerns for him plagued her as they always would, no matter where she settled, but at least she would not run the risk of running into him any time she emerged from behind her door.
She dressed to go to Eagan’s. She needed to set things in motion to sell the townhouse to support her far from Dublin and to turn the draper’s shop and school over the Polhavens and Mrs. Kelly. Between them all, they should be able to keep things going. She hated leaving, but it would be the only way for her to raise her child with any peace of mind.
As she descended the grand staircase, an urgent knocking sounded at the front door. A shiver went up her spine and she froze midway down the stairs. She knew no one who would pound so precipitously, demanding entrance. Not for any good reason.
Gerald frowned as he approached the door. He glanced up at her and she nodded. He opened the door the tiniest bit.
“Thank God!” Freddie’s voice spilled through the crack and the tension eased out of her shoulders. Just Freddie, not bad news. Not the news she would dread every day of her life. She had overestimated his ability to accept farewell as final.
“Let me in immediately.”
“I am sorry, my lord. Mrs. Fitzgerald is not at home.” Gerald repeated the well-practiced line he had been using for the past few weeks.
“Damnation.” Freddie cursed with an urgency she’d never heard in his voice before. This was not the desperation of a spurned swain. “Don’t give me that drivel, man. I know full well she is at home. Interrupt her! Now! She’s needed. She will want to hear what I have to say.”
“Let him in, Gerald.” Maura descended the rest of the way and met Freddie as he entered the vestibule.
“Maura!” He gripped her hands. His face was pale, his clothes creased and his hair in disarray. She’d never seen him in such a state.
She pulled free of his grip. Alarm raced through her, and her hands moved instinctively to her belly.
“Freddie.” She pressed her hand against his cheek, wondering if he was feverish. He was cool, clammy to the touch. “What is it? What has happened?”
His gaze ran over her quick and assessing. “Good, you are dressed to go out.”
“Go out? Freddie, please—”
“You must come with me, right now.” He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her toward the door.
“You are not making any sense. Go where? Why?”
In her heart of hearts she already knew the answer even as he continued to simply try to hustle her out of the house.
“Freddie.” She dug her heels in. “I cannot go anywhere with you. Not anymore. We have been through this—”
“Shall I throw His Lordship out, madam?” Gerald pulled Freddie away from her.
“This is not about me.” He looked frantic and as if he hadn’t slept in far too many days. “You have to believe me.”
“Believe what? You have not told me anything.”
“It’s Lynch.” His voice gentled although the urgency returned to his gaze. “You must come with me for him.”
“Garrett?” Her heart dropped to the floor. Her knees threatened to buckle.
“He is injured, Maura. He was shot. I had him taken to my home. My personal physician attends him. But—”
“But what?” Alarm raced along her nerve endings. Freddie’s personal physician? “What are you trying to tell me?”
“His condition is grave.” Freddie blew out a long breath. “He may die. Soon. The doctor does not think there is any rally left in him.”
“Oh.” The word tore from her on a moan. She swayed as her vision darkened and nausea swirled afresh.
Freddie gripped her elbows and helped her to a chair. “He needs you. He has barely spoken, but the last thing he whispered was your name.”
She focused her gaze on his.
His lips tilted in a half-smile though regret shadowed his eyes. “From the looks of you, you need him too.”
“Oh Freddie.”
His hands drew her to her feet. “Ready then?”
An agonizing carriage ride later they pulled to a stop in front of a prestigious-looking townhouse—Freddie’s home.
He helped her alight as a footman took care of the carriage. They ascended the front steps, and the butler opened the door as they reached the top.
“This way.”
She followed Freddie inside grimly, her thoughts focused on Garrett and the injury that threatened his life. Dear God, let it not be so.
“Upstairs, first door to the left.” Freddie told her as she paused, uncertain where to go.
“Thank you.” She rushed up the steps as quickly as she could. Why had she denied her love? Why had she turned him away day after day. Why hadn’t she taken the chance for what happiness she could find, not hidden out of fear?
Please. Please. Please.
Let him live.
Incoherent prayer ran through her mind and shuddered through her heart.
She turned at the top of the steps and found a bedroom door that stood ajar. Fear gripped her at the silence within. She pushed the door open. There on the bed was a lone, very still figure. A lamp from a table beside the massive four-poster cast strange twists of light and shadow across the coverlet that was too smooth.
“Oh Garrett.”
He lay there in the bed, so handsome her heart was breaking at the sight of him. So very still. So very still.
A young maid sat nearby. She looked startled at Maura’s entry and started to protest until Freddie came to the door. In moments the maid was gone and Maura was at Garrett’s side.
“Garrett.” She touched his face and traced his jaw. She laced her fingers through his, slack against the counterpane. He was far too hot and so pale.
“Oh, my love.” She pressed her face to his hand as tears burned her eyes. Her throat ached.
“Freddie, what happened?”
“Jameson.” Freddie’s answer was clipped. “Attacked by that whoreson Harold Jameson and his beef-witted dolt. I was there, Maura. I was right there beside him and there was nothing I could do.”
“Garrett.”
“Jameson was caught. His days of manipulation and secrecy are finished, thanks to Garrett’s man, Seamus.” Freddie paced away from the bed. “Lynch’s men have come and gone and come again. I have left my home open to them at any hour they wish. The doctor says there is nothing else that can be done for him. All we can do is wait.”
He turned back to face her.
“I knew that if it was me lying there, all I would want is you.” Sweet, honest, Freddie. “So I came to get you, for him.”
“Thank you.” She pressed a kiss to Garrett’s hand.
Freddie studied her face for a moment longer, then crossed to her side and pressed his hand to hers. “I shall be right outside, if you need anything.”
“Thank you.”
He left her then, alone with the man who had displaced him in her heart. She would have been so very proud of him in that moment had her heart not been tearing in two within her.
“Garrett. Oh Garrett. Can you hear me?” A sob broke from her in the silence.
When the colonel’s wife lay dying, he had insisted over and over again that she could hear him, even though she gave no sign. Maura remembered the long hours he would sit by his wife’s bedside, talking to her about everything and anything and always repeating how very much he loved her.
And she had never told Garrett.
The thought burned through her like a light in the darkness. She rested her weight carefully against the bed, coming as close as she could without risking any injury to him. “It’s me, Garrett. It’s Maura. I love you.”
Not the slightest flicker of an eyelash showed that he heard her. It didn’t matter.
She stroked her fingers over his brow as her soul twisted within her. Tears welled hot and dripped over her cheeks.
“I’m here, I am with you. It’s me. Maura. I love you. I always will. You, Garrett Lynch, and no one else. I am yours. You are mine. There is a future for the both of us.” She took his hand, slack within her own and pressed it against her belly. “Inside me is our child. Our future. Our life together. You cannot leave me. You cannot leave our babe. You must live. For the babe. You must stay for both of us.”
She stayed that way for the rest of the day and into the night, repeating herself over and over again. Telling him anything and everything she could think of. All about her past. Her mother. Her brothers. The grief and guilt she’d felt over her father’s death. No detail was spared. She would share everything with him, open her soul to let him know how very much she loved him, even when she hadn’t wanted to, and how very much she needed him to stay with her.
And always she circled back to “It’s me. It’s Maura. I am here. I love you.”
“Oh God, please let him stay with me.”
And then in a desperate whisper. “Papa, if you can hear me, if you see him, please send his soul back this way.” The tears continued to drip down her cheeks unceasing through all those hours.
Seamus and Liam came and went. Daniel McTavish, too. No one interrupted her.
The maid brought her tea. She sipped a drop or two and spooned some into his mouth as well. Cool water in basins was always at her elbow so she could sponge his face. Sean was there for a time. Liam, Seamus, and a host of others. Silent and respectful, they too kept vigil.
“Garrett, it’s me. I am here. I who love you.”
In the wee hours of the night, exhaustion took over; she slept for a short time, clutching his hand, her head on the bed by his side.
She awoke with a start at the first rays of the sun. For a single instant she couldn’t remember where she was or what had happened; then she realized she was curled against Garrett’s side, and the night flooded back to her.
“Oh Garrett.” She’d slept. She’d left him even as she’d begged him not to leave her. She lifted her head to begin her litany again. His eyes were open. Those lovely green eyes. That gaze she could spend her very life in.
A gasp shuddered out of her and the tears began anew in joy now instead of sorrow.
“Garrett—”
“Aye.” His voice was rusty and his eyes rolled shut before opening to focus on her once again. “You love me even when you tried so hard not to. You’re my Maura, the one with the smile to light the darkest corner of a man’s soul and the will to wrestle him back from the devil.”
She kissed his hand, her heart full. She’d talked all night and had no words now when he could hear her.
“We are well met, my love,” he whispered. “For I will not have our babe born without me.”
“Oh Garrett.” She pressed a soft kiss to his lips as the sun continued to rise and spill bright light throughout the room. “You did hear me.”
“Aye, how could I not?” His eyes shut again, but his skin was no longer burning with heat and his breathing was more normal. “I dreamed of you all through the night.”