Come the Dawn (7 page)

India could have sworn she was being followed.

She turned sharply, tugging her cloak about her while she studied the nearby streets.

There was nothing.

She hurried on, her lacquered walking stick tight in her hands, ready to be used as a weapon if it became necessary.

Again and again her thoughts were drawn back to a hard, tanned face and a silver scar that coiled about one jaw. Thorne’s voice had been so utterly cold, so lacking in affection that she could not believe he was lying. He seemed completely the stranger he said he was, a man whose memories had been wiped clean and whose heart was gutted. India shivered, remembering the endless rows of wounded, carried back in carts from the horrors of the battlefield at Waterloo. Had a man fallen there and been left to die, beneath a pile of other bodies…

Yes, India could believe that such horror might well strip the mind clean of memory. And what was she to do now? She had moved through her life half asleep since the day Devlyn Carlisle had left her in Brussels. In the wake of his death, she had closed herself away from happiness of any sort. India saw now that she had set about creating her own version of death in the last months. Locked in a world with no hope and no joy, she had given up being alive.

She gave a wild, ragged laugh. But her husband, come back from the dead, had taught her a painful lesson. She could finally return to life with a full heart. She had no more reason to mourn.

Maybe it was better this way, India told herself. She was bone and blood a Delamere, and her birthright made her reckless and proud, driven by different passions from others of her acquaintance. India vowed there would be no more grieving for her!

She would start by attending the masquerade at Vauxhall that Ian had mentioned to her several days before. If her brother balked at taking her, she would simply go by herself!

India was smiling at the thought when she rounded the corner and found two surly individuals blocking her way.

“What’s this we have here, Graves?” The taller of the two, his face nearly hidden beneath a battered brown hat, strutted toward India.

“A nice bit of pigeon for the plucking, that’s what,” his companion hissed, laughing. He brushed one hand along India’s shoulder, close enough for her to smell his breath, sour with whiskey.

India’s fingers tightened on the walking stick. “I advise you to move out of my way.”

“Oh, ho,” the bigger man said, easing closer. “So we are to be out of the lady’s way, are we? Not just yet, I think. And not without the purse that no doubt lies hidden beneath yer skirts.”

India raised her walking stick and leveled it at the man’s chest. “Be gone with you, or I shall have to use this.”

“Behold me quaking in my shoes, my lady,” her attacker muttered. He was smiling when he reached out to the walking stick or at least to where the walking stick should have been. But in a twinkling the polished wood was there no more. Instead it was flashing through the air and slamming down against his shoulder. Cursing, the man toppled to the cold street.

India turned to glare at her second assailant. “Take your friend and be off with you, or I shall do the same to you.”

“I’d like to see yer bleeding try it.”

India frowned as the man came closer. She had learned her skills on the sandy plains outside Delhi years before, when her father had been host to an Indian master of ancient fighting techniques. India had learned well, and soon could handle the most innocent stick with deadly accuracy. Even Ian did not slight her abilities, and they continued to enjoy sparring together. India was planning her strategy when a new figure hurtled out of the shadows behind her.

A pistol glinted in the moonlight. “Move away from her.”

Thorne?
India turned, brow raised. What was
he
doing here? The man must have followed her all the way from his town house. Truly, it was the outside of enough. India had been taking care of herself quite nicely without his help.

But Thorne seemed to be the one having difficulties at that moment. The man in the battered hat had recovered from India’s jab and come growling to his feet. Now the two men were closing in on Thorne.

“Run,” he ordered, his eyes never moving from his attackers. “Damn it all, get yourself to safety, woman.”

India could only sigh at this example of utter folly. What honor would she have if she left now? Instead of picking up her skirts and fleeing as he expected, India pulled her stick from beneath her arm and waited for the best moment to attack.

“What are you doing? Get yourself away, I said!” Thorne’s breathing was labored as he circled the two ruffians.

India’s stick rose through the air again, swift and silent in the moonlight. It hammered down on the man to Devlyn’s right, sending him to his knees. A moment later Devlyn finished off the other attacker with a right hook and a sharp left undercut.

The two lay on the cobblestones grunting in pain as Devlyn brushed off his coat, scowling at India. “I told you to run.”

“And I decided to stay. It would have been two against one, hardly fair odds.”

“You’re a
woman,
blast it. You shouldn’t even be out alone, much less fighting with such riffraff.”

“You would prefer that I ran away and allowed you to be slain?”

“It’s not a question of preferences, damn it all!” Devlyn took her arm, trying to tug her down the street. “We’ll speak of it later. This is no time and place for—”

India shoved his hand away. “On the contrary, this is precisely the time, Lord Thornwood. I am to run away, clutching at my skirts, abject with terror — is that what you expect of me?”

“Blast it, I never said—”

“That is
precisely
what you said.”

Thorne’s face hardened. “At any moment those two are going to come around. We will not be here when they do so, however. We must go now!
”
He eyed the darkened houses around the square.

“You have no right to give me orders.”

“No?” Devlyn’s eyebrow rose in a mocking slant. “You tell me that I am your husband. Should I choose to exercise my legal rights, giving you orders would only be the
beginning
of what I might do to you, my lady.”

“You wouldn’t
dare!”

“Do not think to try me.”

India’s fists slid to her hips. “I am going home. Do not interfere in my life.” She spun about in a whirl of muslin, but had gone only a foot when a shadow lurched past her. Without warning, a pistol barked and she cried out, pitching forward to the rough cobblestones.

Thorne fired, but the footpads were already out of range, vanished into a dark alley that led to the north. Cursing, he caught India in his arms and scanned her face.

She was pale, her jaw tight. When Thorne looked down, he saw that a line of blood darkened her gown.

“Little fool,” he said harshly. But his hands were trembling as he started back toward Belgrave Square, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that the woman in his arms couldn’t even hear him.

~ ~ ~

The surgeon seemed to take forever. Devlyn was on his hundredth trip between the upstairs bedroom and the front door when the older man arrived, looking rumpled and anxious.

“It’s the youngest girl, I take it? I trust her fever hasn’t returned. A pity, because she seemed to be doing so much better when I last saw her.”

“No, it’s not Alexis this time. A woman has suffered a pistol wound.”

“By God, London grows more dangerous by the day!”

Thorne led him up to the bedroom where India lay, her eyes closed. She seemed far too pale, and was barely breathing. He looked at the doctor. “Well?”

“Most irregular.” The doctor cleared his throat. “The propriety of this—”

“Damn
the proprieties! Just pull her through, and you can name your price.”

The doctor rolled up his cuffs as he bent to his bag. “My price does not change per patient, Lord Thornwood. I suggest you go fetch a glass so that I can prepare some laudanum for my patient when she wakes. She’s had a nasty bump on the head, unless I’m mistaken.” The doctor frowned when Dev did not move. “Go on. And do not come back for at
least
twenty minutes!”

~ ~ ~

Thornwood strode to his study, emptied a glass of brandy, then found another glass for the doctor. When that was done, he ran his hands through his hair and stared down at the fire.

Long moments passed before he roused himself. His hands tightened and he moved to the bookshelf, where he pulled out a volume entitled
Miscellaneous Tracts on Natural History.
As
the book left the shelf, there was a click, and the whole bookcase slid away from the wall.

Thornwood caught up a branch of candles. Below him a passage led down to a storage room just off the kitchen. No doubt in centuries past the route had conveyed smuggled goods in and out in secrecy.

Now it was used to conceal a different kind of mission.

At the base of the stairs, Thorne stopped and waited. At the far wall a door eased open. A man stepped into the gloom.

Thorne stared critically at the man in the shadows. The black hair, gray eyes and lean face could have been Thorne’s own.

“Did you get those papers off without being seen?” he asked tightly.

“Right as rain. There should be an answer in several hours. Shall I—”

Thornwood shook his head. “No, this time I’ll go. It’s safer. I don’t think I could stay here anyway. Not with her beneath this roof.” He looked out the room’s single window at the now quiet streets. “It was all my fault, of course. I should have
made
her take that bloody hackney, instead of trying to follow her. This damnable shoulder of mine slowed me up.”

“You’re lucky to
have
a shoulder after the pounding you took at Quatre Bras,” the other man said grimly. “Besides, you couldn’t have known she’d be followed and attacked.”

“But I
should
have. Someone is always watching the house, after all. Why should this night be any different?” Thorne turned and slammed his fist against the wall.

“You had your orders. We all do, Thornwood.”

“Maybe I’m tired of the orders and the secrecy. Maybe it’s time the war was finally over for me, Herrington.”

The man named Herrington frowned. “But it
isn’t
over. It won’t be done until those diamonds are found. You know what Wellington said. In the wrong hands they could reverse all the gains won at such cost at Waterloo. Meanwhile, this plan depends on utter secrecy. You know that as well as I do. Otherwise neither of us would be here, and I would not have to play at being a blasted aristocrat while you ghost about, trying to track down those lost diamonds of Napoleon’s.”

The man by the window cursed softly. The light of the candles danced about his face, and dark frustration filled his eyes. “Wellington talked me into finishing this last mission, but I’m not going anywhere tonight. Tonight, for the first time in far too long, I’m going upstairs to stay with my wife.”

“But that last report said—”

“Damn the report!”

The Earl of Thornwood caught up the branch of candles and strode back up the passage, leaving his near-double to frown and shake his head.