Patrica Rice (40 page)

She found no lack of concealment in the rambling thorns and untrimmed shrubbery at the base of the mansion. She had only to concern herself with keeping her gown from being torn from her back.

The gown was the least of her worries as she pried her fingers free and darted into the bushes. The worst of her fear centered on the helpless occupant of the carriage. She need only focus on Blanche and all else seemed trivial.

The insistent shouts and knocks of the carriage driver on the massive doors of the manor brought a creaking groan of aging wood. Beyond terror now, Dillian watched in astonishment as a tall lean figure materialized in the opening, the folds of his cloak flapping in the cold spring wind as he listened to the driver’s hushed arguments. Not until this grim specter loped down the stone stairs to remove Blanche from the carriage did Dillian realize her peril.

As the black creature carried Blanche through the gaping maw of the gothic cavern, Dillian realized she would have to enter after him.

* * *

The eighth Marquess of Effingham didn’t notice the slight shadow slipping in behind him as he carried his sleeping burden into the manor. One more shadow among many didn’t disturb him. He’d lived with shadows long enough to welcome their privacy.

He cursed under his breath as the doddering clock on the landing struck eleven chimes and one expiring whistle. He cursed the clock, cursed the purloined coach, cursed its driver who now raced up the dust-coated stairway ahead of him. He cursed the stairs as he climbed them carrying the helpless bundle in his arms. He cursed the generations of Effinghams who had sunk all their spare capital into expanding this hideous architecture into a gothic village one needed a horse and carriage to traverse.

He hadn’t begun to exhaust his extensive repertoire of curses when he saw Michael disappear down the entire length of the hallway and enter the farthest room. At times like these he suspected Michael of seeking subtle revenge for the differences in their heritages, but he knew Michael too well to believe that for long. His appearance here now with this unconscious woman meant he’d embarked on another of his harebrained adventures.

Were it not for the fact that his brother had a heart wider than his chest, the marquess would have turned around and gone back to the carriage. He and Michael had been through too much together, however, for Gavin to disregard his brother’s summons now.

Besides, Michael acted as Gavin’s eyes and ears to the outside world, so the marquess indulged his idiosyncrasies. The old war wound in his side ached as he carried his light burden to the end of the hall. The woman wore a voluminous nightshift that trailed on the floor and a nightcap that left her long blond hair falling over his arm. In the furtive shadows of this unlit hallway, Gavin couldn’t see more than that.

She stirred as he reached the room where Michael already knelt at the fireplace. Laying her down on one of the few whole mattresses left in the house, the marquess relinquished his burden and strode toward the window to pull back the draperies.

“Don’t!” Michael warned, turning from his task. “Light might endanger her eyes. It’s freezing in here. Where’s the coal?”

Gavin swung around to confront the smaller man speaking so peremptorily. Dragged from his slumbers by Michael’s knocks, he wore only the breeches and stockings he’d fallen asleep in. The cloak and hood he had pulled around him before answering the door served both as blanket for warmth and protection from prying eyes. His voice was cold when he spoke.

“It’s May. I haven’t bought any. I wasn’t precisely expecting guests.”

“You have one now. I’ll find some firewood.”

Cloaked, Gavin remained in the shadows as Michael departed, watching as the woman on the bed stirred. She would no doubt waken soon. He’d known Michael to go for firewood and disappear for weeks. The marquess wondered if it cost anything to commit a relative to Bedlam.

The soft moans from the bed tore at what remained of his softer insides, but he could do nothing. He didn’t dare light a candle or lamp—even should he have one—to examine the extent of her injuries.

Gavin sighed with relief when he heard Michael’s footsteps pounding down the hall. His bloody aristocratic stockinged toes had practically frozen to the floor while waiting. Gavin had half a mind to slip out through the secret passage and leave Michael to his patient, but then he might never get his questions answered.

Michael carried a candle and a coal scuttle filled with wood chips and kindling when he returned. Holding the candlestick high, he searched the darkened corners until he found his brother’s frozen shadow. “Damn you, Gavin, she’s waking. Get out here and make her comfortable.”

“You think she might be comfortable clinging to the ceiling and screaming?” Gavin asked dryly, not moving from his hiding place in the shadows as Michael arranged his fuel in the fireplace.

Michael threw the cloaked marquess a glare and uttered a few pithy phrases of his own. “Her eyes are bandaged. She can’t see a thing. She may never see anything again. You’ll just be a voice and hands to her. You needn’t worry about your pretty phiz.”

Perhaps one-tenth of Michael’s tales contained some portion of truth. This particular tale had the sound of tawdry drama from beginning to end. Still, the fact remained that a real woman lay in that bed, apparently moaning in pain. Reluctantly, Gavin stepped forward to see to her comfort.

“Who in hell is she?” he muttered as Michael struggled with the fire. “And why the devil did you bring her here?”

The figure on the bed suddenly lay still. Gavin suspected she could hear him, and he cursed his uncouth tongue. He had lived too long from civilization.

“Her name’s Blanche Perceval. She’s an heiress. Someone set her house on fire. She made sure all the servants escaped, then found herself trapped. So she rescued her companion’s life savings and flung the purse out the window for lack of anything better to do.” Michael’s tone didn’t hold the same sarcasm as his words.

“By the time the servants found a blanket for her to jump into...” He shrugged and turned away from the fireplace to watch the woman on the bed. “The surgeon says she’s lucky to be alive. She’s a heroine. I thought you’d appreciate the irony.”

With small flames finally burning in the grate, Michael carried the candle to the bed. Its flickering light made a ghostly gleam across the figure on the sheets. For the first time, Gavin realized she wore bandages and not a nightcap. The linen covered her eyes, but not the raw burns on her cheeks. His fingers involuntarily traced the scars on his own jaw.

“She belongs in a hospital,” he said curtly, turning away, leaving Michael to adjust the pillow beneath her singed hair and draw the sheets over her.

“I told you. Someone set her house on fire. I couldn’t take any chances.”

Gavin knew he didn’t want to hear more. If it weren’t for Michael, he’d lead a relatively peaceful existence in this decrepit hermitage he’d burrowed into. Michael, however, had never been one for staying quietly at home. Michael had always kept Gavin on a permanent carriage ride to hell with a lunatic for driver. Not for the first time, the marquess considered exiling his younger brother to one of their distant American relatives.

Not that any of those stuffy Puritans would take a man of twenty-six years who routinely masqueraded as anything from a gentleman’s gentleman to a street magician. This time, he’d apparently taken on the role of footman, judging by the sooty livery.

Gavin never knew what caused Michael to behave as he did. He just knew his brother operated under his own peculiar sense of morality, which had nothing to do with society’s. Their relatives had disowned him at an early age, which had only reinforced Michael’s tendencies to behave as if spawned by the devil.

But Gavin knew the man behind the deceptive facade. For that reason, he didn’t throw his brother out now. Gavin had sheltered untold legions of Michael’s homeless, maimed, and starving creatures before, but this was the first time in recent memory he had hauled home a grown female.

Gavin had a niggling remembrance of a grimy waif brought home in the middle of a blizzard once. Unfortunately, Michael’s propensity for rescuing the needy didn’t differentiate between the honest and the villainous. Once the snow cleared, that same waif had disappeared with the last coins for their food. Gavin clung to his wariness now.

Suspecting the invalid feigned sleep, the marquess gave a jerk of his head and indicated the hallway. Michael obediently followed him out of the room.

“Are you telling me you brought her here to protect her from arsonists?” Gavin demanded, not concealing his incredulity.

“You’d rather I leave her to be murdered in her bed?”

“I’d rather you find somewhere else to take her! Bloody damn hell, Michael! What am I supposed to do with her? The servants think the place haunted as it is. That silly chit of a maid would take off screaming the first time the wind blew around the corner if I asked her to come up here.”

“We can’t tell the servants she’s here. They’ll spread it all over town, and the wrong person might hear it. You’ll have to do it yourself, old chap. I’ve got to get that carriage to Dover or somewhere and lead any pursuit off the track.”

Gavin swung around and paced the hall, cloak flying as he flung his arms wide to emphasize his words. “You’re a bloody lunatic, that’s what you are! What in hell am I supposed to do with her? Send her shrieking into the night the moment she catches sight of me?”

Ignoring the Lawrence penchant for dramatics, Michael tilted his head to listen for any sounds from his patient. “You don’t listen well, my noble lord,” he answered dryly, once satisfied the woman in the other room still slept. “She’s an heiress. She’s most likely blind and probably more scarred than you. She’s in desperate need of protection. What more can you ask? Protect her. Woo her. Earn her undying affection. Marry her, and save her and yourself. I expect you to speak politely to me for all the rest of our lives in return.”

Michael’s audacity shouldn’t surprise him anymore, but Gavin still found himself caught off guard by his stupendous gall. His brother was quite capable of entering a hospital and kidnapping the poor woman in the mistaken assumption that what he wanted was right and therefore the rest of the world could go to hell.

“I suppose I can expect a Bow Street Runner and the militia on my doorstep by morning,” Gavin replied gloomily, imagining the invasion of his privacy to come.

“Nary a bit.” Michael produced a bottle of laudanum from his pocket and handed it over. “I took her out of the physician’s house in his own carriage while the physician slept. No one had any reason to follow. He makes late house calls all the time. I just need to remove the carriage before anyone sees it. All you need do is hold down the fort a day or two while I’m gone.”

The woman in the other room moaned softly. Michael instantly slipped from Gavin’s grasp, disappearing into the bedchamber to look after his patient—or victim, whichever the case might be. Still fighting his temper, Gavin slammed his fist into the wall, then in a swirl of his long cloak, stalked after his brother.

The bedchamber was empty of all but the restless invalid in white. Michael had disappeared.

* * *

Dillian cringed and clung to the wall at the muffled roar of rage from the room where the monster had taken Blanche. A draft blew around her feet, and the old walls surrounding her creaked and groaned in the stillness. The rage in the next room, however, didn’t frighten her so much as their circumstances.

She heard the sound of pounding feet outside her doorway. Stockinged feet, she’d noticed earlier. What manner of man or beast traversed these drafty halls in stockings? Or hooded cloaks, for all that mattered. Whoever had abducted Blanche had brought her to a lunatic asylum.

But the conversation she had overheard relieved some of her fears. She had feared one of Neville’s men lay behind this abduction. Now all she need fear was a simpleton who thought a woman as wealthy as Blanche should feel grateful for the protection of a moldering ruin.

She suspected that this Michael had been one of Blanche’s myriad footmen, but she hadn’t seen him in a good light now. She’d heard the cloaked one leave, but she hadn’t heard Michael depart. From the roar of rage, she suspected Michael had slipped out before the other finished ripping up at him.

She hesitated. She needed to see Blanche. But she didn’t want the men knowing of her presence. If they were Neville’s accomplices, Blanche could be in worse danger than before.

Brushing disheveled curls from her face, Dillian rubbed her hands together for warmth. She wished she could just walk into Blanche’s chamber and warm herself at the fire, but she’d learned patience and a cynical suspicion over these past few years. She had learned she had no physical strength or power with which to fight men. She had no wealth or fame. She had only her wits, and her wits told her the element of surprise was her best weapon right now. If they didn’t know of her presence, she had some small advantage.

Listening carefully, she could hear no more sounds from the other room. She must take the chance. Blanche would be frightened. They needed to talk.

Cautiously, Dillian clung to the shadows as she slipped down the corridor from one room to the next. The fire threw a nickering light across the bare floors and wall. No shadow passed before it. No sound emanated from the chamber. Taking a deep breath, she entered.

Blanche was prying at the bandage over her eyes.

“Stop that!” Dillian hissed. “Do you want to ruin your eyes for certain?”

The figure in the bed turned quickly toward the sound of her voice. “Dillian! Thank heavens. Where am I?”

That was an excellent question, but Dillian couldn’t answer it. In the dark, all country roads looked alike to her, and she couldn’t read the signs while clinging in terror to the back of a carriage. She just knew it had taken hours at hair-raising speeds to get here. She didn’t tell Blanche that.

“We’ll figure that out later. I only have a few minutes before one of them returns. I just wanted you to know I’m here. Make them go away, and then we can talk.”