They entered a spotless study. The coals of the fire had burned down to a faint glow. An empty coffee pot stood amongst a pile of newspapers. Dagonet ignored the wet footprints they were tracking across the exquisite carpet and set Catherine down in the armchair.
“You know this is highly improper, sir,” she said unsteadily.
The room smelt wonderful, of leather-bound books, and lemon and beeswax furniture polish, a clean masculine smell. Her eye ran over the ranks of books and the violin case that rested on the side table. Somehow it didn’t look like the den of an accomplished rake and gambler.
“More improper than spending the evening in Whitechapel alone with a gentleman, flinging rocks, brawling like a barmaid, and racing in a distinctly unladylike way through the streets? Sit there and relax. You are quite safe, dear Kate.”
He knelt and stirred up the fire, adding fuel until it was blazing merrily. Then taking the coffee pot he left the room. Minutes later he returned with a basin of warm water and a towel, and some very fragrant hot coffee.
“Here, drink this! It’ll do you good.”
Gratefully she took the cup of steaming liquid. He had added a generous shot of brandy, but she gulped it down. Suddenly she realized that she had eaten nothing since early afternoon. The hot coffee sent a warm glow through her limbs.
As soon as she had finished, he took her hand. “You are cut. Here, let me see that.”
She was too tired to remonstrate. For no reason she could fathom, she had the strongest desire to cry, but with determination she bit back the tears. It was true: she was safe! The full enormity of their ordeal threatened to overwhelm her. She would not break down in front of him! She was rescued by the next unsuitable quote.
“‘Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood!’”
“Don’t be absurd, sir, it is only a scratch. I believe a piece of masonry was the offender and it didn’t have hands.” What a relief that her voice was as casual as his!
“Nevertheless, it needs tending.”
He had obviously already washed his own hands in the kitchen, and now, kneeling before her, with deft, gentle movements, he washed hers, cleaned the cut and bound it in a strip of white linen.
“Where on earth did you learn to be such an accomplished nurse, Mr. de Dagonet?” she asked lightly.
Immediately she wished she could take back the words, for even his self-control was not sufficient to prevent the fleeting pain that crossed his features.
“On a battlefield,” he said curtly. A moment later, however, he was smiling up at her before he rose lightly to his feet. “Now,” he said, “there should be sufficient hot water ready to clean you up properly and return you to your sister looking more the thing. Follow me!”
She obediently went with him into the next room. With horror she discovered it to be his bedchamber.
She turned to face him. “Sir, this is unconscionable!”
“What, that you should bathe, while I scrape some of the mud out of your hem? You know I rarely get to see you in a clean dress. Dirt seems to be your most common sartorial accessory. For a rake like me, I really should need to see you in diamonds in order to ravish you. You will find soap and towels laid out and, I admit to my sorrow, ladies’ hairpins and a comb on the dresser. I shall deliver the water and then not disturb you, on my honor. Make yourself as presentable as you may, while I do the same in the kitchen, and then I think we can appear without scandal at Brooke House. I left a note for your sister. She will not be in the least worried about you. Only the butler will still raise his eyebrows that I should return you so late from the theater. I have had your evening cloak sent round here with the aid of one of Morris’s clever footmen from Exmoor. It is there on the bed. No one will discover a torn spotted muslin underneath.”
He grinned innocently as he left the bedchamber.
Too tired to remonstrate further, Catherine stripped off her dress. Gratefully she washed her face and limbs in the hot water and hung her dress outside the door. Good to his word, it was returned in ten minutes with the worst of the filth sponged away.
As she dressed again and put up her hair, she looked around the room. It was almost austere in its elegant simplicity. Had he entertained paramours here? She felt the color rising in her cheek. It somehow didn’t seem likely, the room was so plain, but then he had to have acquired the hairpins somewhere.
What did she know of the ways of a man like him? He seemed to deny nothing that was said about him, however heinous, yet there was some deeper mystery about his past. Something he himself didn’t know, something he also had hoped to learn from John Catchpole. Surely that must rattle that insufferable self-confidence?
Dagonet did not seem in the least rattled, however, when, an hour later, dressed in impeccable evening clothes, he delivered her to Brooke House in his phaeton. His tiger, unconscionably awoken from his bed in the stables, stood stiffly behind. Catherine had not been able to do quite as well with her own appearance. Her hair style lacked perhaps its usual polish, but keeping up the hood of her cloak, she knew she was passable.
Amelia had not, however, gone quietly to bed. Instead she flew down the stairs and straight into Catherine’s arms.
“Cathy, the most dreadful thing! Annie is taken deadly sick and she’s all alone in an inn in Marlborough. Polly arrived these three hours since with the news. She didn’t know what else to do, she said, than to come to us, but Annie has the fever and no one is there to take care of her but the chamber maid. We must go right away!”
“Quiet yourself, Amy, I pray! Let me see Polly! Of course I shall go to Annie, but you cannot travel so far in your condition.”
“But how are you to go, Cathy? David has the chaise in Somerset, and the curricle is at the shop having the right wheel repaired. I was run into this afternoon on my way home, and Peter Coachman says it will be days before it is safe to drive again. We have no carriage here at all.”
“Then I shall take a hack post chaise. It is not so far to go. I shall be quite all right and Annie will no doubt be up and well again even before I arrive.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss Hunter,” Dagonet’s calm voice interrupted. “But Marlborough is more than eighty-five miles. A hack post chaise will not be available until morning and will take you the best part of fourteen hours. You will thus not arrive at Annabella’s bedside until late tomorrow evening at the earliest. If you would allow me the honor of escorting you, we can leave now and be there before breakfast.”
Catherine immediately began to remonstrate, but after the maid Polly, who had been assigned to accompany Annie on the long journey from Exmoor, had given her story, it was obvious that there was no time to be lost. Polly was in tears through much of her tale. The people at the inn had seemed very nice and she had left Annie with them with no compunction at the time, but then she had not had any idea that it would take her so long to reach Brooke House, the distances between England’s cities meaning very little to a girl who had never gone more than five miles from home before.
There was no doubt, however, that Annie was very ill indeed. Polly had left her in a high fever calling deliriously for her mother and sisters, while the maidservant at the inn tried to keep the blankets on her and withhold the water she was crying for, on the theory that it was necessary to starve the fever.
“Good God!” Dagonet exclaimed. “Damn ignorance and prejudice! They will kill her. Kate, we must go now, however repugnant it may seem to you. In the phaeton we can be there in five or six hours if we keep our weight to a minimum. It means no tiger, no maidservant, and no luggage: an appalling breach of propriety, of course.”
“What on earth can propriety matter in the circumstances!” Catherine said desperately. “How soon can we leave, sir?”
“Cathy, you cannot travel at night.” Amelia’s blue eyes were awash with tears. “Think of the danger! And your reputation should this be discovered.”
“I shall be quite safe with Mr. de Dagonet, Amy,” Catherine replied. “All that matters is that I must get to Annie with maximum speed. The dark will cover us. No one need know that I have lost all sense of maidenly modesty. Come, think of poor Annie all alone in that inn!”
Amelia reluctantly agreed. It did not occur to either of the ladies at that moment to question Catherine’s statement that she was in no peril to travel alone through the night with a notorious rake. Instead, Catherine turned to Dagonet for an answer to her question.
“In half an hour. Lady Brooke, you will see that Miss Hunter has some hot soup and provide her with the warmest possible clothes.” He turned to Catherine. “Have your maid pack a small overnight bag, and lie down for at least a few minutes. You are going to need all your strength, I’m afraid.”
A few minutes later, his tiger was hanging on to the back of a phaeton traveling far too fast for safety through the empty streets of London. Dagonet took the stairs up to his lodgings three at a time and hammered at his manservant’s bedroom door. The tiger had already received his orders and was busy saddling the gray in order to ride ahead to the posting inns and arrange for changes of horses. The manservant opened his door rubbing at his eyes, his nightcap askew on his balding head.
“You called, sir?” he managed to say between yawns.
“Wake up, for God’s sake!” his master said. “I want clothes for travel, a small bag, and something to eat.”
The man snapped to attention and hurried off to do his master’s bidding. Mr. de Dagonet had been a most reasonable employer so far, but there was no accounting for the ways of the gentry. Where was he off to now in the middle of the night? Running away from gaming debts, no doubt!
Dagonet ignored the sour looks of his servant and strode into his bedchamber. As he began to strip off his evening clothes, he noticed the red cloak lying across the bed where Catherine had left it. He stopped for a moment, then carefully picked it up and hung it on the back of the door. Brave Kate! Damn it all! She had certainly delayed his hunt for the truth about the drowning of poor Milly Trumble. It would not surprise him if John Catchpole had left the country.
Either way, Catherine Hunter had made a mockery of his vow never to see her again. Thank God she was still angry with him! How else could he stay true to his honor, and prevent himself from showing the tenderness he had felt ever since Exmoor?
With a curse, he shrugged into the linen shirt and warm jacket that his manservant laid out, and carelessly thrust his arms into an extremely fashionable many-caped driving coat. There was no time to think about it now. Though they were about to race together through the night to Marlborough, he would have enough on his hands with his mettlesome team and a vehicle that, though undoubtedly fast enough, was designed rather for parading in the city streets than going at breakneck speed down the turnpike. It would take plenty of skill just to prevent them turning over at the first bend.
He had no doubt, however, about the danger to Annie should they not arrive in time. He had learned a great deal about fever amongst his wounded comrades in the Peninsula. Enough to know that the ignorant ministrations of a Marlborough inn maid would be more than enough to put the little girl’s life at risk. Minutes later, he took the reins of the phaeton once again and the horses cantered back to Brooke House.
Catherine was waiting in the hall. As he had ordered, she wore her most serviceable woolen dress and a fur-lined cloak of Amelia’s. At her side sat a tiny bag containing the merest necessities. Amy had given her enough money to buy anything that she might need once they arrived in Marlborough. She had even forced herself to eat soup and bread and lie down for a few minutes. She would not think about what she was about to do: leave London alone with the notorious Devil Dagonet. All that mattered was Annie.
She was handed up into the phaeton and Dagonet tucked a leather travel rug around her knees. There was a hot brick waiting for her feet. One of Lord Brooke’s servants was holding the horses’ heads, and at the gentleman’s signal he sprang back. The horses plunged ahead, taking Catherine unaware so that she rocked dangerously against Dagonet’s arm.
“Pray, attempt to keep your seat, Miss Hunter,” he said coldly. “I shall not need your help at the ribbons. This carriage is unstable enough without your interference.”
Furious, she sat bolt upright. She was already exhausted from her foolish venture into Whitechapel, but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing a moment’s weakness. She had appeared to enough disadvantage already in front of this arrogant rogue.
“Never fear, Mr. de Dagonet,” she said stiffly. “I trust that I have interfered in your affairs enough. I do not, however, imagine for a moment that having offered to take me to Annie you now intend to land us in the ditch.” She must not let him discompose her. In an attempt at reconciliation, she went on, “I must hope that you can believe that I am not insensible to the debt that I owe you. My thanks are due as well.”
He gave a wry smile. “I hope you do not think that I race through the night for your sake, Miss Hunter. I happen to be very fond of your sister Annie, a child of infinite good sense.”
She must persist, in spite of his determination to throw obstacles in her way. “I do not refer only to that, Mr. de Dagonet. I also owe you thanks for rescuing me from Whitechapel.”
He laughed. “The merest chance, my dear Kate. I came to see John Catchpole and discovered you, instead. I should have left you there, of course, but it appealed to my sense of the ridiculous to attempt to extricate you. Besides it gave me the opportunity to kiss you again. You looked very fetching in that courtesan’s cloak.”
“You are determined to mock me, sir! I insist on giving thanks where they are due. I happen to know that you inquired for me at Brooke House before you appeared so casually on that high windowsill. Indeed, I am led to understand that you threatened the butler with a pistol.”
“A regrettable habit of mine. My manners have always lacked polish.”
“How can you say so? You are reliably reported to be a rival with Beau Brummel. But why did you not use that pistol against the footpads who attacked us? To use a sword against a gun was surely a crazy risk to take? I can see that my life would have no value for you, but your own must be more dear.”