The Marquess (2 page)

Blanche couldn’t die. She would slit her own throat
and stake herself in a lion’s den before she would let Blanche die.

And if Dillian discovered Neville responsible for that fire,
she would throw the grand and glorious young duke into the lion’s mouth
ahead of her.

* * * *

Clinging to the rear postilion of the black barouche where
she hid in darkness, Dillian shivered in equal parts fear and cold. After more
than an hour on the road, the vehicle had turned down a rutted, overgrown
drive.

Why had the footman stolen Blanche from the
physician’s care? Was the footman in the duke’s employ? Where was
he taking her? Dillian had hoped to a better physician, but that dream had
crashed with their race into the empty countryside.

Taking a curve at a reckless rate, the carriage tilted, and
she grasped the rail in white-knuckled terror, not seeing the edifice looming
ahead until the vehicle rumbled straight for it.

She widened her eyes in disbelief at the gothic monstrosity
silhouetted against the starlit sky, like some fable from a storybook. Nothing
else was visible. Not a single light glowed in the whole of that black
sprawling monolith. Where in the devil was the madman taking them?

Already so terrified she could scarcely unbend her fingers
from the rail, Dillian felt the carriage roll to a stop at this unwelcoming
edifice. As the driver leapt down and pounded on a massive oak door, she
glanced around for a hiding place.

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 the open door behind him as he carried his sleeping
burden into the manor. 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.

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 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 his adopted brother. 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 coal. I
wasn’t 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. Help me make her comfortable.”

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

Michael threw Gavin 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. Still,
the fact remained that a real woman lay in that bed, 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 gleamed 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 bums on her cheeks. His
fingers involuntarily traced the scars on his own jaw.

“She belongs in a hospital,” Gavin 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. 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 have 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 cloaked 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.
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.