Barbara Metzger (33 page)

“Do what?” she shouted right back, stomping on his sore toes. “Disobey you? You promised you were not going to be a despot, and here you are, already acting the bully when I don’t follow your orders.”

“Disobey me? Hell, no. You can take my orders and feed them to the blasted dog. But you put yourself in danger, that’s what I mind. Do. Not. Do. That. Again. Not ever.”

Athena threw herself into his arms, her own arms wrapped tightly around his chest as if she would keep him next to her forever. “You do love me! You do. I knew it!”

Chapter Twenty-Four

When a man decides to take a wife, he should find one he can trust.

—Anonymous

When a woman finds a man she can trust, she should marry him.

—Mrs. Anonymous

Maybe he did love her, Ian thought. If love meant putting her above all others, setting her welfare above every other concern, then yes, he thought he just might love his precious wife. If it meant wanting to celebrate their survival, and their wedding, in the most basic way he knew, then yes, he did love her.

He wanted her, he wanted to be with her. He wanted to keep her safe and happy, and he would want to die if he lost her in the smoke or the fire. Could love really be that simple? Why did those poets have to make such a deuced mystery of the thing, then? To sell more boring verses, he supposed, and to make lesser men think they were senseless clods for not going into raptures about a beloved’s eyebrow. Athena did have a fine brow, now that Ian considered it, softly arched, the brown hairs tipped with gold, and two out of line with the others at the ends. He’d wanted to smooth them earlier, but had found too many other fascinating details of his bewitching bride.

He’d make sure to do it soon, tonight, right after he told her that he loved her. She would most likely cry, the silly goose, but he could dry her eyes with his kisses, and lick away her tears. No, that reminded him too much of the dog.

He’d bring an extra handkerchief, that’s what he would do, after he had a bath to get rid of the smoke and some of Cook’s ointment to get rid of the sting on his feet. The fires were all extinguished, but footmen were on watch to make sure they did not reignite. Others were patrolling the perimeter of the house, in case the arsonist decided to make another try. Bow Street had two of its Runners watching, too. In the morning they would look for clues, and Heaven help the gallows bait if Ian found him first.

Ian had thought of moving everyone to a hotel, but they were so many, and so tired. His mother was truly ill this time, pale and shaking, and Rensdale was seeing double again. The house did not appear to be heavily damaged, so it was safe, and the smoke had not reached every corner. With the windows open to the cool night air, the remnants of smoke were not pleasant, but they were not unbearable.

He would make a closer inspection in the morning, with architects and engineers called in to survey the soundness of the structure, and hire extra work crews to wash down the walls and air the rugs. That could all wait for morning, which was not so far distant by the time Ian had paid off the firemen, spoken to the Runners, and sent his servants—those not on watch—to their own
well-deserved beds.

He deserved to finish what was left of the night in his wife’s arms.

The problem was, Athena was fast asleep in the countess’s bedchamber. She slept on her side, he saw, curled over in the center of the bed. There would be room for him, he figured, if he slipped behind her—very close behind her.

But he might wake her. Hell, he intended to wake her, and that was not fair. She had been a trooper through the night, helping the maids serve refreshments to the workers, keeping her brothers from danger and his mother from apoplexy. She gave orders to the household staff as if she were born to the task, which she most likely was. Then she had gone with the butler and the housekeeper to inspect the sleeping quarters and direct the temporary locations of cots and pallets, the placement of fresh linens on the beds.

She’d had a bath, he could see from the damp, curling tendrils of hair that framed her face by his candle’s light. She smelled of roses, despite the fires. Her room and his had been spared most of the damage, and the wedding flowers were trying their hardest to mask the traces of smoke.

Ian wanted to tell Athena that he was proud of her and grateful to her, but he would not. Not tonight. Tonight he’d let her sleep, like the gentleman he was—the tortured, tormented, and throbbing gentleman, that is.

He covered her with another blanket, for the open window was letting in the cold and the coals had all but gone out. She did not waken, not even when he kissed her cheek good night. He shoveled more coals onto the hearth and used the bellows to rekindle the embers, and she did not wake up at that, either.

Out of excuses, he had to leave, to seek his own cold, empty, most likely smoky bed, where no one complained if his feet were icy, and no one cared that they hurt.

Surely he must love her, to make such a sacrifice.

* * *

He was ready to tell her in the morning. Oh, he was ready for a lot of things in the morning. Athena was still sleeping, though. How noble could he be? Too noble to hurry through consummating his marriage while a Bow Street Runner, an architect, and a housepainter waited downstairs. Once he started, Ian knew, he was not going to stop making love to his wife, not if the regent, Christopher Wren, and Michelangelo himself were waiting downstairs.

He dealt with the household matters first, putting everything in his butler’s capable hands, including a heavy purse to see the work done quickly, with the least disruption. Then he invited the Runner to take breakfast with him.

The Runner had eaten, but he followed Lord Marden to the dining parlor, since the morning room was damaged. He accepted a cup of coffee, then started with his questions. The first one was where Lord Paige had gone. Everyone knew the two men were enemies, he said, and Paige might have wanted revenge.

The cowardice of the arson attack might have been Paige’s style, but Ian was certain Paige had left for Scotland. Carswell had checked, and Ian trusted his best friend. He had, anyway, before the cad seduced Ian’s sister. Ian doubted that Paige had the funds to hire a ruffian to do his dirty deeds, but the Runner said he would ask around the gaming halls and the low dives Paige might have patronized. If he’d employed a torch man, someone would know about it. For a generous enough reward, that someone would talk. Ian emptied the household cash box, making a note to visit his bank.

If not Paige, the Runner asked, did Lord Marden think Lady Paige might have had anything to do with the fires?

Mona might be offended at his marriage, and insulted at the end of their affair, but she was living in his Kensington property, for heaven’s sake, at his expense. Not even she could be moronic enough to think he would be more generous if his town house was burned to the ground. She was too lazy, anyway.

Did Lord Marden have any other idea of who might be behind the attempted homicides?

The very word sent chills down Ian’s spine. The Runner thought someone had tried to kill him and his family, not simply tried to cause a mess and a commotion on his wedding night.

His wedding night. There was someone who might have felt he had a prior claim on Miss Renslow’s hand and dowry. Wiggs might have decided that if he could not have Athena, no one should. Ian had a hard time envisioning the center-parted prelate as a creature of such burning, possessive passion, but he gave the Runner Wiggy’s name.

“A man of the cloth, you say? Not your usual suspect. I’ll look into it. Do you have his address?” He wrote down the location Ian gave him, then flipped back two pages in his occurrence book. Wiggs’s address was indeed the same as Lady Paige’s.

The Runner blinked twice. “Not your usual reverend, it seems. Can you think of any other enemies you might have? Gentlemen who lost to you at cards? Another irate husband? Someone you might have bested at fisticuffs or swords?”

“You might be speaking of half the gentlemen in London. I doubt my sins were so great to deserve roasting alive, however, and I have been a veritable saint recently. A married man, don’t you know.”

The Runner did not know if a wedding band was a cure for moral turpitude, but he kept flipping through his notes. “What about anyone else in the house? Might someone here have someone out to kill them?”

“Like my mother? Gads, I doubt whining and nagging are capital crimes. My sister offends everyone”—himself included, this morning—“but, her reform movement does not have enough power to be a threat. My wife? Who could dislike that angel? Why, she is the most caring, loving soul who ever—”

The Runner coughed.

“Quite. Her little brother is hardly out of the house enough to annoy anyone. But now that I think on it, her other brother, Viscount Rensdale, was set upon by a thug a few days ago. I thought it odd at the time.”

The Runner nipped through his occurrence book to last night’s investigation. “Concussed, they said. A brick. Not your usual weapon.”

“And not your usual robbery. Nothing was taken.”

So they went to speak to Rensdale, who was still asleep after the excitement of the fires. Lord Marden had no compunction whatsoever about waking this guest, especially if he had been the target of the attacks, placing Ian’s entire family at risk.

Rensdale knew of no one who hated him enough to light a match under his foot, much less a conflagration at his new brother-in-law’s house. The attempted robbery could not have any connection. The pack of ruffians who set upon him must have been a street gang or some such.

“He limped,” Ian interrupted Rensdale’s tale of bravery. “The attacker ran away when I called out. I thought it might be you, because he limped.”

Rensdale did not like speaking of his impairment. “A lot of fellows limp. They might have been returned soldiers, out of work and out of money.”

“Do you know anyone else in London with a limp, my lord?” the Runner asked.

Rensdale thought a moment. “Only one of my grooms. I sent him to town with Attie and Troy. Haven’t seen him, now that you mention it.”

“Alfie Brown?” Ian asked.

“That’s him. He must have found a better position. With my brother and sister staying here, I suppose he wasn’t needed.”

“Where did you find him? Who are his people? Where might he be, and why does he hate you?” Ian was sure Alfie was the culprit. He’d never trusted the man for leaving Troy in the field that day, and for not coming forth afterward. Any decent crook would have tried blackmail weeks ago.

Rensdale hemmed and hawed, then admitted that Alfie Brown’s people were from his own neighborhood. His own house, in fact. Alfie was one of his father’s by-blows, off a kitchen maid, Sally Brown. The former viscount had done the right thing, Rensdale told them proudly. He’d supported the maid and her son until the day he died.

“Alfie doesn’t hate me. Gave him a job, I did, and he was grateful. Said he’d look after the nipper like his own brother. Well, stands to reason he would, since he was. A brother, that is, though no one spoke of the relation. Everyone in the neighborhood knew, of course. Family traits, don’t you know. The limp, for one.”

“The limp? You said yours was due to a carriage accident.”

Rensdale tugged at his covers. “I didn’t want my wife to think that our children might be clubfooted.”

“And Troy?”

Rensdale nodded. “Him, too, but they tried to fix it when he was a babe. My father was so distraught over his young wife’s death, he couldn’t stand another deformed child. Some sawbones broke the infant’s leg to set it straight. He was never the same after.”

“Good gods, I should think not. No mother, and then they torture the babe? It’s a wonder he survived at all.”

Rensdale shrugged. “No one thought he would, except Attie.”

The Runner cleared his throat. “You say this Alfie Brown is here in London? I’d like a word with him.”

Ian wanted more than a word with the bastard, but he sent the Runner on to Cameron Street, to see if the captain’s man, Macelmore, could help locate the missing groom.

He himself went to Kensington, in case he was wrong about Lady Paige and the Reverend Mr. Wiggs.

The lady was still asleep, since it was not yet noon, and Mr. Wiggs had departed within the last half hour, for Lord Marden’s house, the butler believed. Lord Marden did not care; it was the butler he wished to interrogate anyway. The man was in Ian’s employ, after all, not Lady Paige’s. His loyalties followed his pay to the bank. “The—
ahem
—lady and the—
ahem—
reverend gentleman were both in the house all night,” the butler reported. Neither had left, for the doors and windows were still locked from the inside when the servants awoke.

That was the information Ian needed. He went on to the captain’s house, to confer with the Runner and assure Athena’s uncle that she and his nephew were unharmed by the fires. No one had seen hide nor hair of Alfie, but the Runner would put extra men on the search, now that the groom was the only suspect. Ian offered a reward, and the captain said he would double it, to protect his kin. In charity, they walked to their banks.

* * *

Wiggs had indeed called at Maddox House. He was convincingly appalled at the fire damage, more appalled that Lady Dorothy was out so early, and most appalled at the news he felt he had to impart to Athena.

“I warned you not to marry that libertine,” he told her, puffing out his chest. “And I was right. Divorces are frowned upon, but I see no other hope of ending this disastrous misalliance. Annulments are near impossible, unless you gave false names, heh-heh. I know you did not, for I recited them myself. And I doubt you could prove him incapable of performing the—
humph
—marriage act, not with half of London swearing otherwise. Lunacy might be a legitimate cause. The man must be insane to think you would never find out.”

“Find out what, for goodness sake?” Athena demanded. She was tired, peevish, and worried that someone was trying to harm them. She had a great deal to do, too, in seeing that Ian’s house was restored to its former grandeur. “Just say what you are bursting to say, sir, so that I might get on with my day, and my marriage, which, I assure you, I shall not try to dissolve.”