My Lord Rogue (7 page)

Tell number five
: Y
ou are marked for death.

Lady Hamilton’s eyes rounded
a
nd her face reddened
.
Nelson patted
her
hand reassuringly
and r
aised his penetrating
gaze
to Gillian’s
box
.

“Make no mistake
,” Gillian fussed.
“
Dismissing m
y advice
will cost you.
Fate’s
wrath will find its mark
.
”
Her Shakespearean élan drew cheers
and applause
.
Did the crowd think this a planned act?

Nelson
quickly n
odded to his aides, who surrounded Lady Hamilton.
“Dead foul,”
the admiral
shouted. “Dead foul,
my dear
Fanny.” The use of his
wife’s given name substantiate
d
the person responsible for
the
public quarrel
to those within the amphitheat
e
r
.
The Gazette would run with
the
maddening display
like dogs on the hunt
.
“
W
idow’s weeds
? You have taken devotion to
our marriage to a
lower
level. As you see,
your husband is
alive and well.
”

Lower level? She cast her gaze around the theat
e
r.
“For now
.”
Movement in a box to her right made her skittish. “But I promise to lift them to loftier heights,” she warned, giving a bow.

The crowd
murmured in
collective
shock
and then cheered again
.

Her mission at an end
,
Gillian stepped back into the shadows, knowing when to beg off. She’d
fulfilled her promise to Lucien
. Admiral Nelson
had been warned
of the plot against him
and was under Simon’s protection
. Whatever happened now was
in the government’s hands.

Her
heavy
burden
lifted
,
she
hesitated slightly to
gather her wits.
Scuffling footsteps
and an overturned chair
in the box next door
set off warning bells in her head
.
Her skin bristled
as fear took over. A
nxious to make her
getaway
, she
cautiously
pulled back the curtain
and gazed down
the
hallway,
noting
a large number of
militia
moving briskly
toward
the
stairs
.
Were they
the
men
she heard, the very ones
prick
ing
her
suspicions
? No.
Their presence meant
Nelson’s would-be assassins were bound to fail. But the added
protection either locked her in to discovery by the
gens d’armes
or
thwarted her escape.

Where to go
?
What to do? Was she still a target?
It stood to reason the
same men
might
be more inclined to seek
retribution
because
she’d spoiled their
well-calculated
plans.
Napoleon wasn’t known to suffer failure
easily
, which meant
Nelson’s
assailants
wouldn’t dare return to France without
being able to report
a kill
.
Why not
the famed wife of their betrayer
?

Determined to
live to see another day
,
Gillian
caught
a slight
movement to her left
as the curtain to box four opened and t
wo men darted out, stopping suddenly when they saw her. Their eyes
met
and held for agonizing
long seconds
. Hers
narrowed
significantly as one of the men
grimaced and then
reached
into
his coat
.
F
ear
and disbelief
twisted inside her breast.
Had Nelson’s
assassins been right next to her all along
?

Several gentlemen exited their boxes just
as
the silver glint of a
weapon
appeared
in
the man’s hand
.
Conceding defeat,
the Frenchman
replaced the weapon and
said,
“You are free… for now.”

Gillian moved quickly,
daring a glance over her shoulder
while putting
as much distance between herself and the men as she possibly could. She’d be dead if it hadn’t been for the innocent bystanders
making their
way
to the stairs
. Mingling among those seeking the exit, she was
thankful for the wide, respectful berth theat
e
r
goers gave her.
S
he received s
everal nods and short-lived
applause
,
making Gillian
miss the stage, making her
realize Simon had been right. T
he legitimate
dislike
arrowed at Lady Hamilton
for publicly humiliat
ing Nelson’s wife
proved if
she’d
set
out
to be Simon’s mistress,
she’d have led Lady Edwina Danbury to
a similar end.
She didn’t want
Edwina’s shame
on her
hands
any more than she
wanted Nelson’s death to add to
her
misfortunes
.

Uneasy now, she
felt the gaze of everyone she passed as she fled
to
the door that led to
Russell Street
,
where she’d paid a
carriage
to wait
for her
. All she had to do was make it to the exit before the
doorways
were seized by
Simon’s
guards.
Several drew near.
She ducked
quickly
behind a column
and waited until they
passed. Then
,
her heart hammering behind her ribs, she
studied th
e
outer door
straight ahead. One man stood sentry
—
Drury Lane’s acting manager and
actor, John Phillip Kimble.

Noises erupted behind her
as a crowd of patrons pushed through the
alcove entrance
. Men shout
ed
loudly, arguing about the directions they’d been given.
In the confusion
, she was spotted
by Kimble
.
Would he turn her in? Or would he let her pass?
Her heartbeat
drummed in her ears
as
a guard
order
ed
her
detainment
.
Without
another thought
, Gillian
bolted
past
the tall, somber
Kimble
, who
,
like a Spanish matador
,
stepped to the side
theatrically
with a flourish of his cape, allowing her easy access
to the street beyond
.

“Brava,
Dolcissima
,” he called after her as she vaulted onto the carriage stoop and tore open the door.

The carriage wasn’t empty
.
But with men chasing after her, she
had nowhere else to turn, nowhere else to run
, making the man
inside the lesser of two evils.
S
trong, broad hands, immediately
gripped her before she could
protest
. All at once, she found herself unceremoniously tossed back
onto the
s
qu
abs
,
facing the one man she’d hoped to escape — Simon Danbury.

“
You!
How did
you
get here so fast
?” she asked, angry
that a
crack in her voice reveal
ed
her
overwhelming sense of doom
.

Silence.

S
light movement.
A jolting, energizing touch of
a
knee against her thigh.
Thud. Thud. Thud. As if on cue, t
he vehicle
vaulted
into motion
.

“I see you haven’t lost your touch
.”
S
he squeaked, lunging for the door.

“Not. So. Fast.”
Sturdy arms reached forward and grabbed her, tossing her back on the seat
none
too
gently
.

No no n
o
!
This can’t
be happening
!
Tearing her arm away from the beast of a man
as if she’d been scalded
by
hot
water
, Gillian
shrank back. “What are you doing in
my
carriage?”

“
Your
carriage?”
Simon
leaned forward until a strand of moonlight
illuminated
his expressionless face. “Were you in such a
wretched
hurry to flee
that debacle you
created
in the theat
e
r
that you neglected
to ensure your
own safety
?”

She
had
been in a hurry. Never in her life had she been so careless or thrown
caution to the wind
in such a
manner
.
Lucien would be horrified
by
the risks she’d taken
.

“Are you done squirming?”

T
horoughly chastised,
heat r
ose
to her face. Damn Kimble.
No wonder the man had looked amused.
Now she knew why she’d never appreciated his acting
or his advances
.
He’d been
in on
Simon’s plan to
remove her from the stage and
capture her
spirit from the start
.
And
without thinking,
like a deer racing away from a broken branch,
she’d played right into
Simon’s hands
. The reality
and weight
of her blunder hit her square in the face.
She’d been
a senseless idiot
.
S
he
could very well
have been
in the enemy’s
possession right now, if not for Simon
. What was wrong with her? She’d never been
that
careless before.

“
Confound that
coachman, I—”

“
Coachman
?
Do not blame someone else for your ridiculous
inability to see to your own safety
.”

“
Ridiculous?
My coachman
had strict orders to wait for me.”

Simon’s
laug
hter unnerved her. “He did
.”