For Desire Alone (19 page)

But there was something deep inside of him that nagged, telling him all was not what it seemed.

He rode up next to the man and pulled to a sharp stop. The guard started as he recognized John.

“Mr. Rycroft?” he asked. “What are you doing here, sir? I did not expect to see you.”

John didn’t greet the man. Instead, he simply asked, “Is Mariah inside?”

He nodded. “Yes, sir. She arrived a few hours ago and has not left. You can see her carriage parked in the stable around the side if you lean a bit to the right.”

John did so and indeed, her carriage was there. It did little to relieve his tension and he gritted his teeth. “Stay here.”

The man called a question after him, but John ignored it. He couldn’t stop. He wasn’t about to waste time.

He rode across the lane and through Vivien’s gate. He swung down and the door opened even as he walked up the stairs. Vivien’s servant bowed slightly.

“Miss Vivien is not in residence, sir,” he explained.

John staggered back. “No.”

The servant blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Is Mariah here?” he asked, praying but knowing those prayers were not to be answered.

“No,” the servant said with confusion. “She and Miss Vivien left for Lord Edmondstone’s estate hours ago.”

John did not respond. He did not thank him. He did not do anything but bolt for his horse and ride into the night with an increasing sickness in his heart.

The servants tried to stop him when John burst through the door at Edmondstone’s ten minutes later. In fact, they tried with much more verve than he had been expecting. As he struggled, at least four footmen grabbed for his arms and lunged for his legs.

Under normal circumstances, he might have retreated from physical battle and instead resorted to a logical explanation. But these circumstances were anything but normal, so he pushed at bodies and elbowed his way through the arguing men.

At the sounds of chaos, Edmondstone himself appeared in the foyer, his face pale and his shirt covered with… John gasped.

“Is that blood?” he asked, forgetting about the men he fought long enough that he was tackled to the floor and held there. He didn’t care. All he could do was stare.

Edmondstone held his gaze for a long moment, almost as if he were judging his safety. Finally, he waved off his servants.

“Stop,” he said softly. “I don’t think we need to worry about Mr. Rycroft. He seems as upset as anyone.”

The men stopped struggling with John and slowly backed away, though John was not such a fool that he didn’t see they stayed right on the edge of the foyer. They were still ready to attack. He staggered to his feet.

“Rycroft?” Edmondstone said with a shake of his head. “What in God’s name—”

“Is it
her
blood?” he repeated, his voice cracking.

Edmondstone looked down at himself, at the red splotches on his shirt and flinched at the sight, which answered John’s question. Nausea turned his stomach and he grabbed for the nearest table to steady himself.

“What are you doing here?” the viscount asked.

“I have burst into three different homes tonight, looking for Mariah Desmond,” he said, and realized he was begging. “Please, tell me she lives.”

Edmondstone blinked and the shock that had lined his face seemed to fade a fraction. “She lives. I don’t know how you know that there was an alternative, but come with me.”

He pivoted on his heel back into the parlor he had exited and John followed. There were a dozen or so people milling around in the room and he scanned each face for Mariah to no avail. His frustration and fear continued to rise with each passing second.

Everyone was centered around one area in the room and he headed that way. At his approach, the other occupants of the room, both servants and a few men of the upper class, faded back and John caught his breath.

Mariah lay on the settee, half-propped up on a mound of pillows. Vivien was holding one hand, while a doctor finished bandaging the other as he spoke to her in low tones.

She was nodding, but she wasn’t listening. No, her eyes, and her attention, were fully fixed on him. Her face was lined with shock, but also relief at his appearance. She was pale and her face was bruised, but she was alive and his heart soared.

He raced to her side and dropped to his knees in front of her, not caring who saw this display of his feelings for her. Vivien released Mariah’s hand and the doctor pursed his lips in annoyance and stepped back to speak with the courtesan for moment, leaving Mariah and John as alone as they were going to get in this house, in this public chamber, with her the center of attention in her current state.

“Mariah,” he whispered, unable to manage any other words, any other thoughts, any other sounds but her name.

She reached up with her undamaged hand and touched his cheek. “I’m not hurt.”

“I beg to differ,” he whispered, brushing a finger over her bruised face and motioning to her hand. “What happened?”

Mariah shifted and her face paled even further. But Vivien had no such hesitation. She spun on John, her lips thin, her eyes dark with emotion and said, “She was attacked, in this very house. In a parlor not ten feet from where we all stood talking about such empty things.”

Mariah glanced up at her friend. “It wasn’t your fault, Vivien. Please stop torturing yourself.”

“I left you alone in there. I convinced you to slip away from your guard,” Vivien insisted.

John drew back because tears glistened in the experienced mistress’s eyes. He had never seen her like this before. And it only served to highlight the seriousness of the situation.

“I too feel the greatest of responsibility,” Edmondstone croaked out. “You came here as my guest, Mariah, and somehow a blackguard was able to obtain entry into my home and attack you, rob you, under my very nose. It sickens me.”

“Miss Mariah, may I bring you something?” a servant asked with a half curtsey. “Wine?”

“Tea?” Another chimed in.

“And I must tell you how to tend to that wound,” the doctor insisted.

John squeezed his eyes shut. These interruptions kept him from doing what he wanted to do. Talk to Mariah. Hold her. Prove to himself that she truly was whole and alive.

He locked gazes with her and without a word, without explanation or asking for leave, he slipped his arms around her and lifted her into his embrace. She did not protest, though he wasn’t certain if her acquiescence came from shock or real acceptance. The others in the room, however, did object.

He heard the sounds of dissention as he carried her from the chamber. Vivien’s tone was angry, the doctor’s filled with disapproval, servants with their dull rumbling and
tsk
ing. But he ignored it all and stalked into the foyer with her.

At the door, there was a touch on his arm and he turned back to see Edmondstone standing there. The older man looked both irritated and intrigued by this unexpected turn.

He folded his arms. “Rycroft, if you insist on sweeping her away in such dramatic fashion, do you at least have a carriage for her comfort?”

John hesitated. He had taken his horse on his desperate search because of the speed and maneuverability a lone rider possessed in the busy city. But Edmondstone was correct that such a position would offer her no comfort, nor even safety.

“Take my carriage,” the viscount said with a shake of his head. He motioned for a footman who ran off to fetch the rig. “It was readied earlier in the night so that I could escort Miss Mariah home.”

John tensed as those words sank into his mind. Edmondstone was looking at Mariah with a gentle smile. Mariah blushed, but she didn’t turn away from the man. And suddenly her reasons for being here became very clear.

He stared at the viscount with new eyes. He was rumored to be nothing but a good man. He’d had a few mistresses long ago, but had treated his late wife with respect, generosity and kindness. Something he would probably repeat, on some scale, with a mistress.

The carriage pulled forward and John shook off those troublesome thoughts.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Edmondstone nodded once and then took Mariah’s undamaged hand. “I am deeply sorry, my dear.”

“As am I,” she said softly.

He released her and watched until the rig pulled away toward John’s home.

They were silent on the ride. John wasn’t certain why. He had so much to say, but here, in this other man’s carriage, with Mariah still pale and shaking from whatever she had endured that night, it didn’t seem right to bombard her with questions or demands. Instead, he cradled her against his side, her head in the crook of his shoulder, her arms around his waist as if she feared releasing him. As if he was a lifeline. A role he had always insisted he could not, would not, play for any other person.

But in that moment, he felt how perfectly she fit in his arms, how warm and full of life she was. And he hated that it was because of him that she’d been hurt.

The carriage stopped at his home and he lifted her down as his stunned servants rushed out to greet him. He acknowledged no one but Swanson.

“Please ensure that Lord Edmondstone’s carriage is returned to him. And send a rider along to bring my horse back from his home,” he said as he carried Mariah into the foyer and straight up the stairs to his bedroom.

Once inside, he set her on the bed and moved to the side bar where he poured her a strong scotch. He sat down on the settee and stared at her as she sipped the alcohol with a wince at its potency.

She looked so small on his bed. And with her bruised face and bloody clothing, so fragile.

She shifted beneath his focused regard and finally shook her head. “John, when you appeared in Edmondstone’s parlor…it was as if I had called you there, like you had been plucked from some dream.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “A nightmare.”

“No,” she whispered. “A dream. I may have been surrounded by a dozen helpful people, but in truth, all I wanted was you. And then…you were there. Somehow. Some way. Which makes me wonder what other wishes I should make since they are coming true tonight.”

He stared at her. “How can you speak in this way when you were attacked?”

She dipped her chin and her bravado faded to nothing and was replaced by all her pain, all her fear. He saw what she had experienced flash across her face and it broke his heart and crushed him to his very core.

“What happened?” he finally asked. It was the question he had to know the answer to, but the one he feared the most. “Please tell me.”

She shook her head. “I remember very little. I turned into something which knocked me unconscious.”

“What?” he pressed.

She shut her eyes. “I don’t know. A fist, a bar of some kind, the butt of a gun. Something with enough power to render me helpless. I only woke again when he…” She halted and the way her throat worked when she swallowed made him ache. “I woke when my attacker cut my hand.”

He turned his head as her words slapped him across the face. “He cut you.”

She nodded and her gaze drifted to her bandaged hand. “The blade was so sharp and he seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in hurting me. I tried to scream, but he covered my mouth. He ripped my necklace from my throat and that’s all I know. My next memory is waking with Vivien standing over me, screaming for help.”

“Did you see his face?” John asked as he clenched his fists at his sides.

She shook her head. “He wore some kind of mask to conceal his identity. I only saw his mouth. His smiling mouth.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. Though he doubted his father would do his own dirty work in this instance, the attack had all the telltale signs of Vaughn Rycroft’s interference. Sadistic pleasure in the pain of others was something of a calling card of his.

“John, how did you know that I was hurt?” she whispered. “For I know it wasn’t my wishing for you that brought you to me.”

He shook his head. “No. I wish it were, but it wasn’t. I knew you had been injured because…” He hesitated, then dug into his pocket and withdrew her necklace. He unwrapped it and held it out to her. “Because of this.”

Chapter Sixteen

Mariah stared at the necklace John held out toward her. It was one she knew well. Owen had purchased it for her as one of his first gifts. She wore it whenever she attended a party. And tonight it had been snatched from her neck by a blackguard who beat her, cut her…

“J-John,” she whispered as she reached out for the jewelry.

His fingers glided against hers as she took it, but he snatched them away and turned his face with an unmistakable expression of guilt. Her heart sank.

“How do you have this? Why?” she asked, flinching at the sight of her own blood still streaked in some of the crevices of the necklace. Her memories of how it had gotten there were blurry, at best, but terrifying.

He rubbed his hands over his face and looked so tired and worn down that she longed to hold him. But she couldn’t. Not until she knew what was going on.

“Your attack tonight was a message to me.” He jerked his head toward the necklace. “
That
was the delivery of that message and the reason I went looking for you.”