The Reluctant Reformer (29 page)

“The right way?” Maggie was totally bemused. She pushed the feeling aside. What did the explanation matter? She just wanted out of here.

Waiting in that dark prison with Banks, Margaret hadn't dared reveal her fear that she might be living her last moments. That, perhaps he was, too, thanks to his loyalty to her. She had kept those thoughts to herself and suffered with them.

It wasn't death itself that frightened her, so much as the idea of never seeing James again. That very possibility caused her unbearable anguish. Now, she felt hope spring to life within her. If this was all a mistake, she might yet live to see him, might hold him in her arms and be sheltered by him once more. Trembling with this new possibility, Maggie asked, “Will you let us go?”

A bewildered expression crossed her captor's face. She seemed to struggle briefly, then shook her head unhappily. “Nay. I cannot.”

“What?” Maggie stared at her in frustration. “But—”

“You could still write about all this,” the woman interrupted quietly. “If you had nothing to write about before, you do now.”

“No, I don't. Besides, I couldn't if I did. My fiancé has forbidden me to write as G. W. Clark anymore.” Maggie almost rolled her eyes at her own words. She sounded so plaintive, like a child begging…. But she was begging—for her life and for Banks's.

“I am sorry,” the woman said, and Maggie almost believed her. “But I cannot risk your telling.”

“Telling
what?
” Maggie snapped in frustration. “I know what you look like but not who you are.”

“You know I am one of Aggie's girls, and that I kidnapped you and have tried to have you removed several times,” the woman said patiently.

“I will not tell,” Maggie promised. Her blood was like ice in her veins as she watched a sad expression come to the other woman's face. “I wish I could believe that.”

“You can,” Maggie assured her. It was no use; the blonde raised a gun. Maggie's thought then was to stall as long as she could, hoping the boy Banks had paid would bring James here in time. Or, failing that, that some plan would come to her mind. “All right. At least tell me why I am dying. I deserve to know that much. Who are you?”

“I am nobody.”

Maggie blinked. “What?”

“I am nobody,” the woman repeated. “My name is Elizabeth Drake. I was an actress, and not a very successful one. Then I had this idea to don a mask and set myself up at Madame Dubarry's…or some other es
tablishment. Always in a mask. That would lend me mystery, and mystery is a powerful aphrodisiac.”

“Lady X,” Maggie murmured, understanding. She never should have doubled back that night on the ledge of the brothel, at least not to avoid Lady X. She had gone the right way after all. The first room was the one that was supposed to be empty. Maisey had been in error about its occupancy.

“Yes,” the blonde acknowledged.

“They say you are a lady of nobility.”

“That was part of my plan. I dropped a hint or two with my first few customers. They thought what I hoped, and were quick to spread the rumors; a lady of nobility selling her body in disguise. Being naughty is as much an aphrodisiac as being mysterious. The men came in droves, reaching deep in their pockets to have just a half hour with me, hoping to figure out who I was. As Lady X I can command ridiculous sums, and often do not even have to do much to earn it. Most of them just want to talk to me in the hopes of discovering my identity—which member of the ton has fallen so low.”

“Brilliant,” Maggie complimented with unfeigned admiration. “As a woman who has had to make her way in the world, I admire the brilliance of your plan.”

“Yes. I believe you do.” Regret crossed the blonde's features. “If things had been different, I think we could even have been friends. I know you are not a snob about such things. You are friends with Agatha, after all.”

“It was you at the men's club, not Maisey,” Maggie realized, recalling what she should have noticed at the time. Maisey was about Maggie's own height, but the woman she had thought was Maisey that night—the
woman who had locked her in the room—had been several inches shorter.

“Yes,” she admitted with irritation. “I expected you to come dressed as a woman, but you dressed as a man and gave Bull the slip.” Her aggravation turned to amusement. “I was livid when you arrived without him on your tail. I paid the doorman to go to my carriage and tell my driver to take him to where Bull was watching Lady Barlow's residence, and fetch him. Then I locked you in the room until he returned. It should have been easy. I did not expect you to knock him out and escape,” she added dryly.

“How did you manage the letter she sent?” Maggie asked, wondering what the devil was taking James so long. “Maisey said she wrote that letter, and that there was nothing in it about meeting at a men's club. Was she lying? Did you pay her to help you?”

“I did not have to.” Lady X shrugged and explained, “Maisey cannot write. I offered to write it for her.”

“Ahh.” The sound came out on a gust of air. She should have thought to ask. It should have been obvious the prostitute probably wouldn't have that skill. Very few of the working class did. For someone who liked to claim that she had an investigative mind, Maggie really had let a lot of details slip by.

“And how did you manage today?”

In the process of raising her gun again, Lady X lowered it once more and tilted her head in confusion. “Today?”

“I presume my disguising myself as a servant worked, else your man there would have grabbed me on the way to Dubarry's rather than on the way back. I trust he was still skulking around looking for his opportunity?”

“Yes.” The blonde nodded slowly. “I have had him watching Lady Barlow's since he failed to take care of you in that fire. Your disguise did work. But there are no secrets at Aggie's, and the doorman, Ralph, was rather distraught at being reprimanded for not showing you in immediately. I was in the kitchens and heard him telling Cook about it.”

“And you sent someone to fetch…” Maggie gestured to the scarred man, her gaze moving slowly over his blank face. There was no sign of mercy there; if anything, he appeared to be looking at her with deep dislike. She could only think that was because she had survived his various attacks and made him look bad.

“Yes.” There came a click as Elizabeth Drake cocked her gun, and Maggie's attention was drawn away from such trivialities to the matter at hand: her death. She stared wide-eyed at the barrel of the pistol, her mind gone blank of any way to delay any longer. The barrel seemed to grow, filling her entire vision. She couldn't believe this was the last thing she would see in her life, the black hole at the end of a gun. And all because of poor directions.

A soft thump drew Maggie's eyes from the gun to the hallway beyond the door. She saw the shadow of a crouching figure cast on the opposite wall from the light in the room next door, and knew at once that it was James.

“What was—” Lady X didn't get to finish the question. Overcome with panic that James might be caught, Maggie leapt forward and grabbed the cocked pistol. It was an instinctive action, a desperate attempt to save Banks, James, and herself…and a wholly stupid move. A shot rang out, deafening her, and Maggie felt as if
some invisible tree trunk had hit her in the chest to throw her backward.

“My lady!” Banks cried.

She saw James lunge through the doorway as her back slammed into the wall. Their shocked gazes met, then her legs seemed to lose their strength. Maggie began to slide toward the floor. Her last thought was that he looked terribly pale, and she wished she'd had the chance to tell him she loved him.

James moved carefully toward the front of the building and the stairs waiting there. The first floor had a stench he didn't want to identify, and was littered with various bits of rubbish. It had also proven to be empty. He was beginning to suspect that he had chosen the wrong building and that Maggie, if she was anywhere on this block, would prove to be somewhere else. This building appeared empty and was as silent as a tomb.

He shuddered at the thought, then pushed it away. She wasn't here, he assured himself. He would not believe that her death was the reason this place felt so empty and cold. Maggie was alive. He would sense it if she were gone. The world would seem different, he was sure. It certainly had seemed different since she had entered his life.

James paused at the base of the stairs and peered up into the yawning darkness. He was really starting to
think that Maggie was in one of the other two buildings and, for a minute, he considered giving up on this one and going to join the others. Then he changed his mind. He should check this building out, at least. Johnstone and his men would check the others, and he couldn't not search here, simply because of a hunch. It was just that he wanted to be the one to find Maggie, and he had a dreadful feeling that time was running out. She was in great danger. If the man who had attacked her and set her town house on fire was the same one who had her now, he would kill her; James didn't doubt that for a minute.

It was better to do a thorough check, then he could go join Johnstone and young Jimmy in the next building. With that decided, he started up the steps, walking as close to the wall as he could to avoid too much creaking of the stairs.

As he reached the last couple of steps and was able to view the long hallway at the end of it, he spotted a light. It spilled out of two rooms at the end of the long, dark corridor. James's heart squeezed painfully, then started beating at an accelerated rate. He hesitated only briefly, his hand tightening around the dueling pistol he'd taken from his aunt's library. Drawing some comfort from it, he straightened his shoulders and went determinedly onward.

He was halfway down the hall before he heard the voices. They were drifting from one of the lighted rooms ahead, and he couldn't make out what was being said. Still, he recognized one of the voices as Maggie's. He moved a little more swiftly while still trying to creep as silently as possible.

He paused at one side of the first door, took a breath,
then eased around the frame for a quick peek inside. When he saw that it was empty, a beat-up chair and small rickety table the only furnishings, he relaxed. The light came from a lantern on the table, which also held a deck of cards, one dented metal cup, and a half-empty bottle of something. James supposed this was where Maggie's abductor waited. The single cup suggested there was only one man, probably the scar-faced man. Which was perfect. James would be more than happy to deal with that animal. He had been eager to meet that bastard since seeing Maggie's bruised and battered face after the fire. He wanted to return the favor and wouldn't pass up the opportunity to kill the man responsible.

His gaze raked over the table again as he listened to the murmur of voices from the next room. He couldn't hear what was being said, but the calm tones made him think that there was still time. Maybe he would hear a hint as to what to expect before he burst in to save Maggie. He wanted to be well prepared when he did so, as he had no desire to get Maggie killed by making a mistake.

The room had little else to tell. The single chair and cup suggested a single guard. The cards suggested the man had been waiting for someone—perhaps whoever had hired him. James wouldn't mind getting his hands on that person either, he decided. Easing back out of the room, he crept to the side of the next open door. His ears strained to make out the words being spoken.

“And you sent him to fetch…”

That was definitely Maggie speaking. James breathed a sigh of relief at the calm, strong tone of her voice. She didn't sound injured or weak, or even scared, he
thought with relief. But then he heard the answering voice say, “Yes,” and he stiffened. It was a woman answering her!

In all the time he'd had Johnstone looking into this mess and who might be after Maggie, he'd never considered that a woman might be involved. He'd assumed it must be one of the men she had written about, someone who had been embarrassed or ruined by one of her articles. He had never even dreamed a woman would be responsible!

James was so startled by the sound of the woman's voice that his arm jerked, the pistol he held bumping against the wall. It was the smallest sound, but seemed loud in the silence that had just fallen.

“What was—” he heard the female begin sharply; then there was a scuffling, promptly followed by a gunshot. That sound made him freeze, but the horrified shriek of “My lady!” that came directly afterward sent blood rushing through him. Horrified, James swung into the room, his pistol at the ready.

The first thing he saw were the backs of two people—a large, wide shouldered man and a petite, cloaked woman—but beyond them he caught his first glimpse of Maggie. What he saw both enraged and terrified him. She was in the process of falling backward, her pale face filled with shock and pain as blood squirted through her fingers from her chest. He watched in horror as she slid down the wall, then drove his gaze back to the couple standing between them. He had expected the man to have the gun, so he was surprised when he realized the woman held it, but that didn't give him pause for long.

Striding forward, James grabbed the weapon from her
startled hands. He swung then to plow it into the face of the man. Taken by surprise, the ape stumbled backward. James pursued him, his fists flying, the heavy pistols he held inflicting more damage than did his knuckles. He didn't stop until the man was unconscious.

Chest heaving, James straightened and turned to confront the woman—only to find that she had slipped out while he'd been busy with her compatriot. He took a step toward the door, but paused when a moan drew his attention to the floor. Banks sat holding his mistress close, supporting her with one arm, the other hand pressed against her wound as if he were trying to keep more blood from spilling out into the pool already growing on the dirty wooden floor.

“Please don't die, my lady.” The butler moaned, tears streaking down his old face. He rocked her gently.

Changing direction at once, James moved to kneel beside them. Banks raised sorrowful eyes to him. “She is bleeding badly, my lord. Very badly. I fear she isn't going to make it.”

“The hell she won't,” James answered. Scooping her into his arms, he stood and turned to the door, leaving the old man to find his feet on his own. He moved down the hall with her quickly, Banks scrambling after them, running to catch up, and promptly applying pressure to Maggie's wound from the side as he accompanied them down the stairs. Despite the awkwardness it caused in trying to descend, James didn't make him stop. He doubted the action was doing much good, but the man obviously needed to feel he was doing something.

He hardly even cared when he spotted Johnstone approaching, the woman who'd shot Maggie firmly gripped in his hand.

“What do ye want me to do with her, m'lord?” he asked as James hurried forward.

“Wring her bloody neck,” he said in a cold snarl.

Johnstone jerked to a stop in shock as he recognized Maggie's pale face, then saw how she was bleeding. Alarm covered his face, and he dragged the blonde along as he followed them to the coach. “What happened?”

“That bitch shot Maggie,” James answered through gritted teeth. They reached his carriage. “Her man, the scarred bastard, is upstairs. He is unconscious right now, but probably won't be for long.”

“Jack!” Johnstone shouted, bringing the other man running.

“Yes sir?”

“The scarred man's upstairs. Go get him.” Johnstone turned back as Crowch opened the carriage door. The driver had scrambled down from his perch on first seeing their approach, and now he held the door open as James got inside. Ramsey did his best not to jar Maggie as he did, but it was impossible not to altogether, and he winced at every little moan of pain that slipped from her lips as he settled her on his lap.

“Get us to Lord Mullin's, Crowch,” he ordered. Banks clambered in after him and returned to applying pressure to her wound.

“Straightaway, m'lord,” the coachman assured him, slamming the door. The carriage swayed as he hurried back up onto his seat; then the vehicle was off, leaving Johnstone to watch them go.

Crowch rode the horses full-out, careening wildly through the narrow streets in a way that would have alarmed James if Maggie weren't growing paler with
each passing moment. He stared at her face, unaware that he was alternately cursing God for letting this happen and praying to him to save her. And he was begging Maggie not to die.

When the carriage at last stopped, James waited impatiently for Banks to push the door open, then scrambled out. He led the way to the door of Robert's town house, paused there, and, hands full, began kicking it. Using his free hand, Banks promptly added his imperious knock while Crowch began shouting, “Here! Here!” through his cupped hands at the windows above. Between the three of them, they were causing enough racket to disturb the whole street, and much to James's annoyance other doors began to open while Robert's stayed closed.

“It is about bloody damned time!” he said in a snarl when the door finally opened to reveal a startled and slightly annoyed butler. Furious that it had taken the man so long to answer, he pushed forward, forcing the servant back into the hall.

What is it, Mills?”

James turned at that voice, peering over the butler's shoulder to see Lord Mullin himself standing in a room off the entry. Relief rushing through him, Ramsey quickly moved toward his friend, Banks stumbling to keep up.

“James!” Robert recognized him with obvious surprise then glanced down at Maggie whom James held in his arms. “What? Dear God, what has happened?”

“She's been shot,” he answered tightly.

Robert brushed Banks's hand away and lifted the blood-soaked cloth that was pressed to her wound. James had known it was bad—the amount of blood had
told him so—but the way Robert blanched confirmed his fears. He felt his heart shrivel.

“Get her upstairs,” the younger nobleman ordered, replacing Maggie's bandage. “Show them to the spare room, Mills, I'll collect my things.”

James followed the servant silently, his eyes shifting back and forth between Maggie's pale face and where he was going. The clomp of footsteps on the stairs behind him signaled that Banks and probably Crowch were following, though he couldn't fathom why. They would be of little use here. He would be useless, too, he knew. Only Robert could help. There was nothing he could do for her now.

But then, he had been little use to her since they'd met, he berated himself.
Look after my sister
, was all Gerald had asked in exchange for James's life…and James had failed him. Miserably.

First he had mistaken the woman for a prostitute. A terribly stupid mistake. Foolish. Idiotic. Who could believe sweet, innocent Maggie a ladybird? Only an idiot like himself. Then he had failed time after time to keep her safe. True, he had managed to pull her out from in front of one carriage, but he hadn't managed to draw her from harm's way. He hadn't saved her from being pushed in front of the second crash, or from having her hat shot, or from the fire. Dear Lord, he hadn't even protected her from himself, taking her there in his aunt's library as if she were some common strumpet. And not just once, but twice! Gerald had entrusted him with his sister. He had been foolish.

And now he hadn't protected her at this most critical moment. He had stood just feet away and let her get
shot. If he had moved more swiftly, acted more quickly…

“You can lay her down, my lord.”

James stopped his self-recriminations long enough to notice that they had reached a bedroom, and that Mills had spread a rough woolen blanket over the bed. Even now, he was brushing out the last few wrinkles so that Maggie could be laid upon it. James scowled at the sight of the prickly-looking material. “Get that off. She will lie on the sheets.”

“It is to save the linens from the blood, my lord,” the man explained. “Once Lord Mullin has cleaned and sewed up the wound—”

“Get it off!” he roared. “I shall replace the damn linens, and the damned bed, too, if I have to, but she shall not spend her last moments on that damn piece of—”

“Do as his lordship asks and take it off, Mills.”

James paused midsentence, and glanced over his shoulder. Lord Mullin entered the room, his hands full of implements. He was followed by two more servants, one carrying fresh white bandages, the other dragging a bucket of steaming water.

“Lay her down, please.”

At Robert's order, James turned back to the bed. Mills had whisked the ratty woolen blanket away and was now tugging the clean top linens down on the bed. Seeing the fresh white bottom linen for her to lie on, James grunted in satisfaction and laid Maggie down. He hesitated, then knelt at the bedside, taking Margaret's small hand in his own.

The doctor moved around the bed to the other side. He paused to murmur something in the ear of his but
ler, then tentatively lifted away the blood-soaked cloth to get a second look at Maggie's wound.

“Well?” James asked anxiously.

“I shall have to cut her gown away.” Robert lifted his head, looking around at the hovering servant. “Do you wish your men to remain?”

James turned to scowl at Banks and Crowch. The two men immediately scuttled to the door, though Banks moved more reluctantly than the driver. Satisfied, James glanced back as Robert began cutting away Maggie's gown. He started at the neckline, working downward in a curved pattern that left nearly half her chest bare. Maggie moaned as he pulled the material away, that little action alone seeming to pain her. The sound drew James's eyes to her face, and he felt his heart stop beating in his chest when he saw that her eyelashes were fluttering. Then he felt her hand twitch, and he held it a little tighter. She had been so silent and still since he had lifted her, he had almost feared her already dead. These new signs, terrifying as they were, were also encouraging.