One Naughty Night2 (34 page)

But Aidan made no sound at all. And Lily had never seen such a terrifying look on anyone’s face as he wore now, a calm lack of any expression as he stared down at the man he was beating to a bloody pulp.

“Aidan!” David shouted. “Enough, brother!”

Dominic pulled Lily to her feet, holding her steady as she staggered on her numb legs. She saw Brendan lifting Isabel into his arms. Lily’s head pounded painfully, and her whole body ached, yet she couldn’t turn away from the horrible sight of Aidan and Tom.

At David’s words, Aidan finally glanced up. His eyes flickered over her for an instant, but the sight of her seemed to awaken some faint spark of life deep in their dark blue depths. He lowered Tom to the floor, at the last second flipping him over onto his back. Tom’s nose was broken, his eye swollen shut, and his face covered with blood.

“Please, Aidan,” Lily whispered. Everything about Aidan now showed him as a man ready to kill in an instant. But she couldn’t let him do that, not for her. “Please don’t.”

He didn’t look at her again, but something seemed to shift in his body. As Lily watched, he hauled Tom to his feet and pressed him back hard against the railing as Aidan’s fists twisted in his coat.

“If you dare touch her again,” he said, so calm, so elegant, “I will slice off your dick and feed it to my mother’s lapdogs. In fact, I just might do that anyway.”

“I will help you with that, Lord Aidan,” Dominic said. Lily stared up at him, startled to find he watched Aidan
with a glint of agreement and near-respect in his eyes. He still held on to Lily’s arms as she swayed dizzily.

“You see,” Aidan said, still in that horribly polite voice, “you are quite outnumbered here, Tom Beaumont. No one would blink if I gutted you right here like you deserve. But I hate to make such a mess in front of ladies. Would you rather I just hand you over to Her Majesty’s authorities? I am quite sure there will be no chance for any escape this time. Or maybe I could just give you one little push…”

Below them the audience gasped, caught by the real-life drama enfolding before them.

“No,” Lily sobbed. “No, Aidan, please.”

“Aidan.” David stepped forward and held up a coil of rope in his hand. “You can let him go now.”

Aidan twisted his fist against Tom’s throat until the man choked, and for a moment, Lily was sure he would go against his own words and kill Tom anyway. Then Aidan pushed Tom back and to the side, as if he could no longer dirty his hands, and stepped away as David and Dominic moved forward.

Lily saw only a flicker of movement from Tom’s arm, and she cried out. But it was too late. Tom’s blade sank deep into Aidan’s shoulder, sending Aidan staggering back. David caught him before he could hit the floor.

As the blade dragged free from Aidan’s body, Tom’s momentum made him stumble into the railing. As Lily watched, horrified, he fell over it and vanished from sight. She could hear his shouts as he tumbled down and down onto the stage, then a loud thud and… nothing.

Tom was gone in an instant, yet all she could see was Aidan, the blood seeping onto his shirt, his face blanched
of color as he went an ashen gray. His brother lowered him down to the floor, and Lily choked back a sob as she staggered to his side.

“Oh, God, Aidan, no,” she whispered. She reached down and tore open his shirt to examine the raw, jagged wound that marred his perfect, smooth, golden skin. She bent down and kissed his lips. They were cold under hers, and she kissed him again, trying frantically to make him warm, make him well, to force her own life into him. She dashed away the tears prickling at her eyes and shook her head in violent denial.

Someone held a strip of white cloth in front of her, and she glanced up to see that Dominic knelt beside her, holding out the scarf from his costume. She folded it quickly into a tight pad and pressed it hard to Aidan’s shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. It was soaked through too quickly.

“I’m going for the doctor,” Dominic said, and as he hurried away, David hauled Aidan up to sit propped against his chest.

“It’s only a scratch,” Aidan said hoarsely. “Don’t cry, Lily. You know I’m not worth it.”

Lily dashed the back of her hand over her cheek. She hadn’t even realized she was crying until that instant, but her face was wet with tears.
So stupid
. Tears were not what would save Aidan now. And she was the one who had brought him here.

Suddenly Isabel was beside her, ripping apart her dressing gown to make fresh bandages. She helped Lily wrap them around Aidan’s shoulder, all of them struggling to keep him from fading into unconsciousness.

“He’s only doing this to garner attention from pretty
ladies, aren’t you, Aidan?” David said teasingly, but Lily could hear the edge of fear in his voice.

“You don’t need to go to such extremes for me, Aidan,” Lily said. “You already have my full attention, don’t you know? You already have me.”

The audience was loud again as the ushers tried to herd them out of the theater, but she hardly heard it. She knew only Aidan. “I’ll beat you senseless if you dare die on me now,” she said as she tied off the ends of the bandage. “We aren’t nearly done yet.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” he said. Then his eyes closed, and his head slumped back on his brother’s shoulder.

“No!” Lily cried. “No, Aidan, no…” She wrapped her arms tightly around his chest and held on to him. She couldn’t lose him, her lover, her champion, the man who showed her the beauty and fun of life. She couldn’t go on without him.

She was only vaguely aware of being gently lifted away from him and held in Brendan’s arms as a doctor knelt beside Aidan with his black bag and stagehands brought in a stretcher. Her head felt so light, everything so hazy and cold around her. Her head pounded as if it would split open, and she shivered.

“Lily!” she heard someone shout, just before she fainted away.

“A
idan, wake up. You can’t lie here forever just so pretty girls can weep over you and bathe your fevered brow.”

Aidan heard his brother’s deep voice as if it echoed down a long, dark tunnel. He struggled up from the haze of sleep, but it felt like crawling out of that tunnel into the light again. His dreams drifted farther and farther away. He pried his gritty eyes open and found himself staring up at the ceiling of his own bedchamber.

And his whole body ached, especially his throbbing shoulder. The sunlight from the window pierced into his head, and he winced as he turned away. The pain reminded him that it wasn’t just a dream; it was real. Tom Beaumont, the theater, the knife—all of it.

Aidan remembered Lily crumpled on the walkway, so still when Tom Beaumont pushed her down and she hit her head. He remembered the terrible grief and fury that overcame him in the instant when he was sure he had lost her. The feeling that everything was over and he had nothing to lose, nothing to live for.

“Lily,” he growled, and pushed back the bedclothes tucked tightly around him to sit up. David held him down.

“She’s fine,” David said in a soothing voice Aidan had never heard his brother use on humans before, only on temperamental horses. Aidan was sure then he must have been dying if David was going easy on him now.

But Aidan shoved against his hand. “Where is she?”

“Her brother came to fetch her, to take her home so she could pack some clothes,” David said, struggling to hold Aidan down. “Damn it, man, don’t make me tie you down! She’ll be furious if she gets back to find you out of bed when the doctor said you should rest. And I don’t want to face her temper. Your woman is a veritable Valkyrie when she’s angry.”

“Yes, she is.” Aidan slowly sank back down onto the bed and closed his eyes. “She wasn’t hurt?”

“Just a few bruises. She wouldn’t let the doctor look at them, though. She hasn’t been away from this bed until her brother made her leave this morning.” David sat back in his chair once he was sure Aidan would stay still, a flash of raw relief in his eyes. “She’ll be happy to see you awake. We were afraid there for a while. You were raving with fever.”

Aidan frowned. “How long have I been here?”

“Three days now. Mother sent a basketful of calves’-foot jelly, and I stole some of Father’s good wine when you want it. I convinced them to stay away until you’re feeling better.” David paused, tapping his calloused fingertips on the chair arm. “I thought you might want to tell them about Mrs. Nichols yourself.”

Aidan nodded and turned his head to stare out the window. The sun was a pale yellow in a vivid blue sky. “Beaumont is dead?”

“Quite dead. And the inquiry was a very short one.
Her Majesty’s government commends you on your heroic actions.”

“Heroic,” Aidan snorted. “I should have killed the man in the first place, not trusted in the prison to hold him. Then Lily would never have gone through this.”

“I doubt she holds it against you in any way, considering how carefully she’s nursed you these last few days.”

“I hold it against myself.”

“Then you are too hard on yourself, Aidan. I never would have thought it of you. And you have a second chance now,” David said. “What will you do with it?”

Aidan closed his eyes, and for an instant, every fear he had when he’d thought he lost Lily came back to him. “I’m going to marry Lily and take her away from here, if she’ll have me. I’m not going to lose her again.”

David just nodded, as if the news that his brother meant to marry a St. Claire, a greengrocer’s widow, a child of the slums, was of no surprise to him at all. “Where will you go?”

“Anywhere she wants to. Italy, maybe. Paris, Zurich. But preferably somewhere warm and beautiful.” Somewhere he could spend the rest of his life making her smile, making her forget.

“Good luck to you, then,” David said.

“And what will
you
do?”

“Me? Go back to the country, of course. I’ve had enough of London life for a while, as adventurous as you’ve made it, Aidan.”

Aidan opened his eyes and studied his brother’s face. A half-smile lingered on David’s lips, but his eyes were shadowed. “What of your lady from the assembly? Did you ever find her?”

David’s smile widened. “I did. In a most unexpected place.”

“And?”

There was a sudden knock at the door. “Come in,” Aidan called, vowing to get more out of his brother later.

It was Freddy Bassington, his shock of red hair bright in the dim room. He held a hamper in his hands, no doubt more invalid’s jelly. He grinned when he saw Aidan sitting up against the pillows.

“You’re alive!” Freddy cried. He dumped the hamper on the dressing table and rushed over to shake Aidan’s hand enthusiastically.

“Was there some doubt?” Aidan said as he extracted his hand.

“Rumors have been flying all over town,” Freddy said. “You’re quite the
on dit
now.”

“Until a new elopement or affair,” Aidan said. “Do sit down, Freddy, and quit hovering.”

Freddy laughed and dropped onto the chair next to David’s. “I had to see for myself you were well. And to say thank you.”

“Thanks for what?”

“I received my letters back last week,” Freddy said. “Burned ’em all. It’s the last time I write to a lady, I promise.”

Aidan doubted that. Freddy would be in love again next week. But Lily had returned the letters? What had changed her mind about trusting?

They talked for a while longer, about trivial matters of gossip and mutual friends, until Aidan heard the sitting room door open and the murmur of voices. Lily hurried into the bedchamber, her glowering blond brother behind her. A bright smile lip up her face when she saw Aidan
awake, and she rushed over to the bed, ignoring everyone else in the room.

“Aidan,” she said softly. “How are you feeling? Is the fever gone?”

Aidan smiled up at her. He had never seen anything as beautiful in his life as the soft curve of her lips as she smiled at him. “Perhaps you should kiss my brow and check for yourself. And then kiss other things and make them better too…”

Lily laughed. “Flirting already? You must feel better.” Then she did just that, framing his face gently in her gloved hands and pressing her lips to his forehead.

“Umm-hmm,” David coughed. “Perhaps that is our cue to leave you alone.”

Lily twisted around to smile at him, but her smile faded when she saw Freddy sitting there staring at her. “Mr. Bassington,” she murmured.

“M-Mrs. Nichols,” he stammered. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Nor I you. I trust you received my package?” Lily said.

“I did, yes. Th-thank you.”

David drew Freddy and Dominic St. Claire out of the room, closing the door behind them. Aidan could hear the sound of their voices in the sitting room and the clatter of glasses as they drank his father’s wine, but he was alone with Lily at last. There was so very much he needed to say to her, to make her understand, make her marry him.

But for once in his life, now when they were so very important, words failed him.

Lily untied the ribbons of her bonnet and slowly set it aside before she glanced in Aidan’s small shaving
mirror and smoothed her hair. She couldn’t stop peeking at Aidan’s reflection in the glass, trying to reassure herself that he was there, that he was alive and breathing and whole. That he had not been stolen from her.

Those hours of sitting by his bed, listening to his nightmares, frantically trying to get him to take the medicines, bathing his fevered skin, had been torture. She had feared the bed where they had made love would be his deathbed.
She
had brought him to that, the man she loved, the man who had dared to go to battle for her. She had never imagined such a man as Aidan existed, so brave, so intelligent. He made her laugh, he made her think… and he was wonderful in bed. And he was her champion, her knight. He couldn’t be taken from her now.

But here he sat, his head propped on his good arm as he watched her. She wanted to weep with sheer joy, to fall down on her knees beside his bed and hold his hand in hers and feel the living, breathing heat of him. She wanted…

She wanted to tell him the truth, now that he was awake to hear her. That she loved him, had loved him ever since that dark, intense night at the hunting lodge. No one had ever seen her, really seen her, as he did. He understood her because they were alike, deep down in their most hidden souls. And that bound them together.