Authors: Lynn Kerstan
Ernestine leaned back in her chair. “Nothing is stopping us from trying to find the young lady ourselves,” she observed placidly. “I suggest you continue the search in your own way, while Isabella and I pursue other avenues. If you think Clare will come back to you once she knows the whole story, it doesn’t matter which of us reaches her first.”
“And you must make sure the newspapers publish a correction to Landry’s announcement,” Isabella reminded him. “She might see that and come back of her own accord.”
After a few beats, he nodded and came to his feet. “I must rely on you, then. For now, Landry should be informed that all his hopes are dashed, and I shall take great pleasure in doing so. Izzy, the coach can drop me at St. James’s Street and take you wherever you are headed.”
“Lady Sefton’s rout,” she said. “Mr. Peyton is meeting me there.” When he lifted a brow, she laughed. “I promise to make an early night of it and head out for that post house first thing in the morning.”
When they were gone, Ernestine Fitzwalter summoned her own carriage and directed her driver to the Hothouse, suspecting that Clare had indeed taken refuge with Florette.
She had ways Caradoc had never thought of to get this Rose person to talk. Before the evening was out, a coach would be dispatched to bring Clare back to London.
Clare huddled against
the wooden panel as the coach sped along the road, Attila sleeping peacefully in the basket on her lap. By her side, a fat woman grated the air with her snores. The two men sitting opposite her were playing at cards, flipping the pasteboards on the leather squabs, scarcely able to see in the dim light from the lantern. Occasionally they disputed the score and voices rose, only to die down again.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, wishing it had been possible to stay the night at the Bull and Cock. The host, who remembered her, had offered a room, although the inn was crowded. But when a stage bound for East Sussex pulled in to change horses, she couldn’t turn down the chance to continue her journey. Isabella knew about the post house, and Bryn could track her there.
She was not altogether certain why she’d run away without facing him. It was cowardly, but the wicked temptation to stay might well have overcome her resistance. Bryn had a way of breaking through all her defenses, leading her to places she had promised herself not to go.
She was so weak. Dear God, she had meant to spend only one night with him, but he coaxed her into another and yet another until she began to dream of a lifetime with him. Of having his children. Even before the exquisite pleasure he gave her on the silken pillows by the river, she had found him nearly irresistible.
But adultery was a fence she refused to cross. Almost from the beginning she had known he would marry Elizabeth. She ought to be glad he’d found a wife who deserved him. Elizabeth would make him happy. She was beautiful and intelligent. She would appreciate Bryn’s virtues and tolerate his faults.
The stage drew up at an inn to change horses, and Clare alighted to use the necessary. Then she let Attila out of his basket to relieve himself and run about. The cat never failed to come to her when she called. He was generally sweet and good-natured, and she often wondered why he had taken Bryn into such dislike.
Of course, she had disliked him too, when they first met. How long ago it seemed, the day he regarded her with aristocratic insolence from the street in front of Florette’s Hothouse. And the next morning, when he ordered her to strip for him. At that moment, she loathed him.
Now, she loved him.
With a sigh, she summoned Attila, returned him to the basket, and reentered the coach. Florette had bought a small house in Hastings and given her the address before leaving London. Clare was to come to her if ever she needed a place to stay.
And she did, for a little while. With Joseph and Jeremy in good hands,
their
futures assured, she had only her own to consider. Eventually, she would carve a life for herself and be independent. Slipping her hand under the lid of the basket, she stroked Attila’s head and heard him purr.
Few women were so fortunate, she decided, as the coach rumbled through the night. Bryn had given her memories to last a lifetime. She had experienced passion, and the joy of loving a complex, difficult, wonderful man. When the pain dissipated, as it eventually would, she could begin to make reparation for her sins.
Repentance, if it ever came, would be much more difficult.
BRYN CARVED HIS way through the crowded gaming room at White’s, his gaze fixed murderously on his quarry.
Landry sat with his back to the door, tossing dice at a large round table. With a vicious swipe, Bryn kicked the chair from under him and the baron tumbled to the carpet. He barely had time to roll over before his neckcloth was seized in a strong hand.
Bryn twisted the cravat, dragging Landry to his knees. “You,” he said icily, “have caused me a great deal of trouble. Now you will answer for it.”
Someone tugged at his arm. “You are choking him, my lord.”
Bryn threw the man off, his eyes never leaving Landry’s red, sputtering face. “I would call you out here and now, if not for your daughter. Elizabeth is halfway to Scotland, on her way to marry Viscount Heydon, and I’d not have her begin the honeymoon forced to pretend mourning for a father who beat her.”
A low murmur rumbled through the crowd of observers, quickly silenced as Bryn spoke again.
“You are quite done up, Landry. No rich son-in-law, despite your efforts to acquire one by planting a false notice in the
Times.
Heydon hasn’t a feather to fly with, so you cannot rely on him to cover your debts. And if you had wings, you could not get to them in time to stop the wedding.
“Only one question remains. Will you manage to escape England before your creditors have you thrown into Fleet, or before I change my mind and cut out your liver with a dull knife?” He lifted Landry off his knees, dangling him in the air like gallows bait. “You’re a gambling man. Care to place a bet?”
Choking, Landry flailed helplessly in the earl’s iron grip.
Two men seized Bryn’s elbows, and another tried to loosen his fingers from the baron’s neckcloth. “You are killing him!” one of them shouted.
With disgust, Bryn released Landry and shoved him to the floor. “Get him out of here before I finish the job.”
As a pair of footmen hauled the baron away, the onlookers found their voices. Bryn scarcely heard them, blood pounding in his ears like artillery fire. Someone put a glass in his hand, and he drank the brandy in a single swallow, every muscle in his body taut with rage.
He should have killed Landry while he had the chance. Every instinct told him that. The certainty was so strong he moved forward, but two men blocked his path.
“Not worth the trouble,” Alvanley said.
“You’d have to leave the country,” Pennington reminded him. “Sure you want to do that?”
With effort, Bryn focused on their concerned faces, swearing under his breath. They were right, of course. He had to find Clare.
Alvanley steered him back to the table, pushed him into a chair, and reached for the dice. “Good time to pluck you, Caradoc, while you ain’t seeing straight.”
Why not? he thought bleakly. He could do nothing useful in the middle of this hellish night, except get filthy drunk and stay busy enough to forget about Clare for a few hours.
He glanced up at the circle of men gathered around the baize-covered table and managed a wry grin. “I’ll take on all corners, no limit. Someone get me a bottle of cognac.”
Several hours later, he’d no idea how many, he made his way into the nearly deserted street. It had begun to drizzle, and he welcomed the cool mist against his forehead and cheeks. Vaguely aware he had won rather a lot of money, he reflected that virtual oblivion seemed to bring him luck at gaming tables and cockfights.
Turning the wrong way, he found himself at Pall Mall instead of King Street. A hackney driver, huddled in his cloak, looked up hopefully, but he shook his head. St. James’s Square was only a few streets away, and he wanted to walk. Clear his head and make plans for tomorrow morning.
Bow Street first, to hire every Runner not otherwise engaged and any others he could bribe away from prior commitments to join the search for Clare Easton. Then he’d find Izzy and see if she had learned anything at that post house. Lost in thought, he passed the turn at George Street and had to backtrack. It had begun to rain in earnest, and he could barely see two feet ahead of him.
Dimly recognizing the circular park in the middle of St. James’s Square, he crossed the road to follow the gaslit walk to his house. The square was eerily silent, except for the dull pounding of rain and his own heels clicking on the pavement.
Where was she? What was Clare doing at this moment? He closed his eyes briefly, imagining her in the rain, cold and lost, as lonely as he felt right now. She hadn’t wanted to leave, he was certain. But only yesterday, for the first time, had she really wanted to stay. Before, she had done so because she felt she owed it to him, but everything changed in those few hours by the river.
Then Landry drove her away with his lies.
Blinded by the rain, Bryn plodded ahead, his mind spinning. Clare would come back to him, once she knew the truth. All he had to do was find her. And then he would do everything in his power to keep her.
From the park to his left, on the other side of the wrought-iron fence, he heard a noise. He turned, trying to see through the water clumping his eyelashes.
“Caradoc!” Giles Landry stumbled through a gate onto the sidewalk, waving a pistol. “Got you now.”
Bryn took a step back as the baron materialized in front of him. In the wavering gaslight, Landry’s eyes glittered with malice.
“Figured you to do right by Eliz’beth,” he muttered, holding the gun between both hands to keep it steady. “But you shuffled her off to Heydon. Had her first, I’d wager. Everybody knows how you favor the virgins. Ruined her and me. Time you paid for that.”
“I never touched your daughter, Landry.” Without a weapon, aware he was confronting a madman, Bryn held out his arms in a gesture of submission and schooled his voice. “This is about money. You need it, and I have it. We can come to terms.”
“Think I’d trust you now?” Landry snorted. “You’ll give me fine words while this gun is pointed at your heart, but the minute I let you walk away you’ll be scheming to get rid of me without a payoff.”
“Maybe not. Think about it. I can afford your price, whatever it is, and what you really want is to get away without any more trouble.” Bryn had to force the conciliating words between his teeth. “I know when I’m beaten, Landry. You win. Everyone in London knows I’m a man of my word, and you can count on me to honor it. Besides, how will it help you to kill me? You’ll never get away with it, after what happened at White’s.”
“What the hell do I care?” Landry slurred. “Like you said, I’m done up. Nothing to lose. And damned if I’ll take the word of Owen Talgarth’s son. He was a lying son of a bitch, and so are you. You’ll destroy me sooner or later, Caradoc, but if I’m going down, I’m taking you with me.” He lifted the pistol. “Rot in hell!”
Before he could move, Bryn saw a flash and something slammed him hard in the chest. Then his head struck the pavement and the world went black.
Dark.
So dark. He felt heavy, encased in stone. But he was floating, too, in the black void. He thought he must be in a tunnel, somewhere underground, but there were sounds. Like voices, and not always, but sometimes he heard them. Or imagined he did.
Clare’s voice. He must have had dreamed that. She was gone.
Now he was gone too. He didn’t know where. Under the ground, cold as marble, floating.
It came again, the soft voice. Her voice. She said his name.
He tried to move toward the sound, straining against the bonds that held him.
Wait,
he called, but he couldn’t open his mouth. Could not move.
He had to reach her. She would leave again. With all his strength, he pulled against the weight chaining him to the darkness. And pain swept through him, so intense he could only flee from it, deeper into the black tunnel.
“I THINK HE moved his hand,” Clare told Dr. Winslow urgently. “The right one. It lifted a bit, and the fingers curved.”
Dr. Winslow looked down at the pale, limp hand resting on the blanket. “You may have imagined it, Miss Easton. Too many hours in this room. Better you get some sleep now, and let someone else sit with him for a time.” When she looked mutinous, he sighed and took the earl’s pulse. “Slow and thready. He only grows weaker. Unless he rouses enough to take some nourishment, there is no hope.”
“You said two days ago that he could not last more than a few hours, but he’s still alive. Don’t you dare give up on him. Don’t you dare!” Flushing hotly, she touched his arm in a gesture of apology. “Forgive me. I know you will not give up. And it is a great comfort to us all that you have stayed here every night and come by so often during the day.”
“Her Grace was most insistent,” he said, “although there has been little I could do since removing the bullet. He lost too much blood, lying there in the rain. God knows how long before someone found him. But he survived the operation, and moving his fingers is a good sign.”
Clare knew he didn’t believe she’d seen it and was only trying to reassure her. But she smiled at him and agreed to let Isabella stay with the earl while she got some sleep.
Dr. Winslow picked up his bag. “I can tell you only the truth, Miss Easton, because you would not settle for less. That he has endured this long surprises me, but he is growing weaker. Even so, the will to live often produces miracles. I have seen that happen, in cases where all my experience indicated the patient was lost. And Lord Caradoc has a powerful incentive to recover, knowing that you are here waiting for him.”
But he did not know, she thought miserably as the doctor took his leave. Bryn knew only that she had run away from him. Misjudged him. Trusted a few lines in a newspaper instead of the man who created a paradise by the river only to please her. And gave himself, in a way she could not mistake, when they made love under that silken canopy.
She had let him down. Been gone when he most needed her. If the duchess had not convinced someone at the Hothouse to reveal Florette’s address and gone for her, Bryn might have died before she could make amends.
Clare lowered herself onto the chair beside him and took hold of the hand that had moved. She had apologized, over and over, for not believing in him. Begged him to open his eyes and forgive her. But he lay still as a corpse, only the slight rise and fall of his chest and the raspy sound of his breath assuring her he still lived. She was afraid to take her eyes off him even for a moment, lest he die without her knowing it.
Four days since he was shot, and two since her return, but not once had he moved until a few minutes ago. Someone was always with him, watching for any sign of improvement. Isabella and the duchess spelled her from time to time and occasionally sat with her by the bed, talking to him.
She couldn’t bear the silence, especially at night. In long rambling monologues she told Bryn stories, sometimes made up but more often incidents from her own life. Not the bad things—he didn’t need to hear those—but she shared with him her joy when Joseph and Jeremy were born. She led him through their infancy and childhood and recounted nearly all of Jeremy’s madcap adventures. They were so alike, Bryn and Jeremy. She could see them together, hurtling down the road in Bryn’s curricle, testing how fast Black Lightning could really go.
Sometimes she prayed, or tried to. It seemed futile, for surely God’s ears were closed to the pleas of a whore unless they were prayers of repentance. And she was beyond repentance now. If Bryn lived, and wanted her again, she would stay. More than that, she would revel in her sin. Enjoy to the fullest every minute they were together, now that she knew how precious life could be.
The only thing she had not done, in the endless hours gazing at his bloodless face and sunken cheeks, was cry. All her tears must have been spent years ago. She felt hard and empty, scarcely a woman at all if she could not weep for him.
She touched his forehead. So cold, like his hand.
Oh, God,
she thought.
Please. He only tried to help Elizabeth. How can You punish him for that?
Isabella came into the room, her gaze focused on Bryn’s still face. “Dr. Winslow said you ought to rest now.”
Clare looked at her blankly for a moment and then shook her head. “Give me a little more time, if you will. I thought I saw him move.”
“The doctor told me.” Isabella looked skeptical. “I’ve had a good rest and will keep careful watch while you do the same. If he moves again, I promise to call you immediately.”
“No.” Clare lifted her chin. “One hour, and then I’ll go to bed. Have some broth sent up. He requires nourishment, the doctor said. I’ll try to feed him.”
“My dear, he’s hardly been able to take water.”
They would open his mouth forcefully, at regular intervals, and dribble moisture from a sponge between his lips. But most of it ran down his face.
“I’ll try again,” Clare said in a determined voice. “Watching and waiting has accomplished nothing. He is slipping away, bit by bit. We must pull him back, whatever it takes.”
Isabella nodded. “I’ll see to the broth and relieve you in an hour. Unless you’d like me to stay with you now?”
“Thank you, but no. If I fail, you can have a go at him.” She managed a wan smile. “If Bryn has any sense, he’ll come about before the duchess takes her turn.”
When the door closed, Clare sat forward on the chair and gripped Bryn’s hand between her own. “Now you listen to me, Caradoc,” she said loudly. “Wake up! I mean it! It’s past time you stopped this nonsense. In all creation there was never a man could sleep the way you do.”
She went on in similar fashion for half an hour, practically shouting at him, with no response. He never stirred, and his hand remained icy cold and limp.
No use, she thought in despair, even as she continued to rail at him. He was past reaching, more in God’s arms than her own.
Give him back,
she begged.
I’ll do anything. Whatever You want. Let him live and I promise never to sin with him again. Don’t let him die like this, thinking he is alone. Allow me one chance to tell him that he was loved, and then I’ll go away.
She became aware that her eyes were burning and felt a hot tear streak down her face. Then another, and another, until she could no longer see his face. Still she clutched his hand, pressing it to her cheek, pleading without words to the God of her father, the God of love and forgiveness her father had believed in, the God she’d nearly forgot after all the years listening to Ardis preach to her of hellfire and damnation.
HE HEARD THE voice again. It seemed he’d been trying forever to leave this dark place and follow the sound to where it led, but each time he got close, almost there, the pain overwhelmed him. So much easier to let go, sink back and down, not fight. For all his striving, the darkness gripped him ever more tightly. He was so cold, unbearably weary. Even for Clare, he could not do it.
He dreamed colors. Bright reds and vivid greens. Colors he’d never seen before. They spiraled around him, making pictures that dissolved into new pictures. He dreamed a daffodil that became a rose, a tree that melted into a river. He rode a black horse that turned to white and became transparent when it left the ground. He was flying, on the horse and then alone, over the turquoise sea to the snowy mountains and ever higher until he passed the sun. Stars like diamonds whizzed by him, their glow brighter than the darkness, which dissolved into blinding, glorious light.
Clare.
Light.
He reached for her.
“BRYN!”
She was sure of it. He had squeezed her hand. She kissed his fingers, wet with her tears, and felt them move against her lips. “Bryn,” she said again, her voice raw. “Wake up, my love.”
Letting go his hand, she gripped his shoulders. “Do you hear me? Wake up!” Not caring if it hurt, she shook him hard and thought she heard a groan. “Dammit, Caradoc, open your eyes.”
His lashes fluttered.
“Yes. Oh, God, yes,” she whispered, shaking him again.
This time she could practically feel him struggle to obey. “Do it, Bryn! You can do it. Look at me!” Tears dripped from her chin onto his face, onto his closed eyelids.
And they opened. Only for a moment at first, but longer the next time, and longer still until he gazed at her.
“Do you know me?” she asked breathlessly.
He nodded slightly, and she saw his lips trying to move. Grabbing for the sponge, she moistened them. His tongue licked out and she wet the sponge again, this time squeezing it into his open mouth.
All the while he gazed up at her, choking at first on the liquid but finally able to swallow a bit. Again and again she dripped water into his mouth, lifting his head with one hand to help him drink.
After a while he lay back, shaking his head weakly. But his eyes stayed open, fixed on her face, as she moved away long enough to pull the bell rope. Then she sat on the bed and leaned over him, stroking his damp hair from his forehead, massaging his scalp, as if that would help him stay alert.
“Isabella is bringing some soup,” she said practically. “You must stay awake and drink it, Bryn. I won’t let you go to sleep again, even if I have to send for the duchess to bully you. And she’ll do it, you know.”
His lips curved slightly, and she wanted to jump for joy. He’d come back, however tentatively, and she would not let him get away.
A footman knocked at the door and peered in, the fearful expression on his young face showing that he expected the worst.
Clare smiled at him over her shoulder. “Lord Caradoc has awakened,” she said, pleased to see his immediate delight at the news. “Will you summon Dr. Winslow, and ask Lady Isabella to hurry with that broth?”
“Yes, Miss Easton.” He bowed, and then addressed the earl. “Good to have you back, milord. Damned if it ain’t.” Blushing furiously, he hurried away.
“See?” Clare rubbed Bryn’s temples. “Everybody is happy you have decided to get well.”
He licked cracked lips, trying to form a word. “You?” he finally managed in a whisper.
“Me most of all,” she assured him.
BRYN WAS A terrible patient.
Or so everyone kept telling him, although he considered his demands perfectly reasonable. But it appeared he was no longer master in his own house, so few of his orders were obeyed. He asked for roast beef and received endless mugs of broth. The very servants he dismissed for serving him bowls of tasteless pap served up the same foul concoctions at his next meal.
He was in considerable pain. The doctor recommended he not take laudanum, at least until he’d recovered more strength, and with that Bryn agreed. But he saw no reason he shouldn’t numb himself with cognac. After endless wrangling, he was allowed one glass of port after dinner.
As his frustration mounted, so did his temper. And Clare met him with equal obduracy. She’d become a veritable martinet, directing the household—and him—with an iron will.
And when he called her to account, she immediately agreed to return to Clouds. In fact, she would rather do so now that he was out of danger. It was unseemly for the earl’s mistress to be in residence at his home, and the duchess would be more than pleased to take over.
That threat was more than enough to keep him on good behavior for almost a full day. He wanted Clare with him all the time and even tried to convince her to sleep by his side in the enormous canopied bed. She refused, but she always sat with him late into the night, when the pain was worst.
He was never left alone in the room, not since he seized a rare moment of privacy to try out his legs. They’d given way three paces from the bed, where a footman found him curled on the rug, drenched in blood because the fall had reopened his wound.
In spite of that setback he continued to improve, and after a week Clare allowed him to receive visitors other than Isabella and Ernestine. First to call was the magistrate, anxious to question him about his assailant.
Bryn had already decided to lie about that.
“Common footpads,” he told Mr. Peebles. “They came at me in the dark, and it was raining. Can’t describe them, and doubt I could identify the men if they were standing in front of me now.”
The magistrate scribbled in his notebook, clearly unsatisfied. “Didn’t rob you,” he pointed out. “And you was carrying a lot of blunt.”
Bryn had wondered about that. Landry must have lost his mind altogether, to bolt without taking the money. “I was a trifle bosky at the time,” he confessed, “and remember little of the encounter. Likely I objected with my fists, and one of the robbers pulled the trigger. They must have run off, figuring someone heard the shot.”