The Perfect Princess (5 page)

Much the same thought was going through the mind of the hard-eyed man. What in Hades was
she
doing here? An arrogant, overdressed aristocrat, with nothing better to do than visit the condemned, was going to skew his plans. But for her, the keeper would be in his rooms. Now Proudie would discover that he, Richard Maitland, had escaped. At any moment, he was going to come clattering down those stone stairs and raise the alarm. And he would be prepared for trouble. The element of surprise would be lost, and it was highly unlikely that they could take him hostage. Then the prison would be locked up as tight as a drum. There would be no changing of the guard, and he’d be caught. And all because of Lady Rosamund Devere.

He’d recognized her, of course,
la belle dame sans merci
. That’s what they’d called her in Lisbon. Not that she was merciless, merely indifferent. God forbid that she should speak to anyone below the rank of a colonel, or mix with the officers’ wives. He’d once admired her beauty, but that was before he’d come to see that those finely
sculpted features and cool gray eyes concealed an overweening conceit.

He’d heard enough to know that he was the object of her visit, but that didn’t make sense. They’d never met. In Lisbon, ordinary soldiers like him—and he was only a lieutenant then—were not considered fit to kiss the hem of her gown. And if he had tried, he was damn sure that her elegantly shod foot would have lashed out and connected with his teeth.

He had a bad feeling about Lady Rosamund’s motives in coming here. A very bad feeling.

Harper was becoming restless. From the side of his mouth, he whispered, “You’re the commanding officer. What do we do now?”

“We wait,” said Richard.

“For what?”

“For all hell to break loose.”

“Then what?”

“Then, in the confusion, we take ourselves a hostage, Harper, and barter our way out of here.”

Harper turned his head. “Not the duke’s daughter? Not Lady Rosamund Devere?”

“Who else do you suggest?”

“But she’s almost as tall as you are. Why not take the other lady? She’ll be a damn sight easier to control. She’s as dainty as a doll.”

“Yes, but she’s not a duke’s daughter, is she? Her currency isn’t high enough. And . . .”A faint smile touched Richard’s lips.

“And?”

“I’ve always wanted to get my hands on Lady Rosamund Devere. This may be my only chance. Listen! Here comes trouble. Easy, Harper, easy. Do nothing until I give the signal.”

The turnkey who came hurtling down the steps and into the yard could hardly get his breath. “Lock up the
prison,” he croaked out, then louder, “lock up the prison. All prisoners back to their cells! Visitors remain in the yard! Prisoner has escaped. Watch out for Richard Maitland!”

The turkeys in the yard drew their pistols and waved them threateningly at the inmates and their visitors. There were cries and shouts as women clung to their husbands and guards pried them apart. Rosamund was numb with shock. Richard Maitland had escaped.

Then she knew, she
knew
why the hard-eyed turnkey had seemed so intimidating.

Callie was on her feet. “But he can’t have escaped. No one escapes from Newgate! Rosamund, what’s the matter? What are you staring at?”

Rosamund took a quick step back, then another. Richard Maitland, and she was sure it was he, was coming straight at her with pistol drawn. She wanted to scream, but all she did was gulp. The nonchalant predator had sighted his prey. At any moment, he would pounce.

Several things happened at once. She took another step back, tumbled over the basket Charles had set down, and struck her head on a paving stone. A shot rang out. Screams. Shouts. Richard Maitland fell on top of her, and she knocked her head again.

His voice was as hard as his eyes and touched with a hint of Scotland. “Fight me and I’ll kill you, do you understand?”

She couldn’t fight him even if she wanted to. His weight was crushing her; she could hardly breathe. The fall had dazed her and tears of pain stung her eyes. She looked at her white gloves and saw that they were spotted with blood. “I think I’ve been shot,” she said.

“Up there! Up there!” shouted Harper, pointing to one of the staircases. “He’s getting away! And there’s another one!”

At these words, the panic intensified. Some turnkeys
ran for the cover of the stairs; others began to herd the prisoners and their visitors into one corner of the yard, out of the line of fire.

Richard got to his feet. “The duke’s daughter has been hit,” he shouted above the din.

Callie was shouting, too, but her voice did not carry. Rosamund sat up and looked around for Charles. Somehow, he’d become separated from them. He was in a corner, with the other prisoners, with his hands in the air. Then, before her horrified eyes, the gargoyle-faced man stuck a pistol in Callie’s ribs. Whatever he said made a profound impression. Callie stopped screaming, nodded, and sank down on one of the stone benches. She looked petrified.

Rosamund cried out when Maitland yanked her to her feet, then swung her into his arms. He lowered his head and for her ears only hissed, “If you so much as say a word, one of my comrades will kill your friend, then I’ll kill you. Understand?”

One of my comrades?
How many of them were there?

“Did you hear me? I’ll kill you.”

Rosamund nodded. She believed him. He had the face of a killer—there was a vicious twist to his mouth, and his eyes were as hard as flint. And he had nothing to lose by killing Callie or her. He was going to hang anyway.

She winced when his companion opened his mouth and bellowed, “Make way for the duke’s daughter! She’s been hit! She’s been hit!”

She was still groggy from striking her head on the paving stone, but she’d realized that she hadn’t been hit. The only pain was in her head. It wouldn’t matter to Maitland whether she was hit or not. She saw what he was up to. He was going to use her as a hostage to make his escape.

Don’t panic! Don’t panic!
she told herself. Her ordeal
would soon be over. Once he was out of the prison, he would have no use for her and would let her go. All she had to do was keep her head.

And maybe he wouldn’t get away. Maybe the turnkeys would refuse to let him pass. Maybe one of them would recognize him. Maybe he would be captured and returned to his cell.

And, quite forgetting her aversion to Newgate and its horrors, she decided it would give her a great deal of pleasure to be present when they hanged him in the morning.

She was appalled at how easily he got past the turnkeys. No one recognized him because he held her high against his chest and kept his head well down, and the gargoyle did all the talking. The turnkeys were reluctant to let them pass. They didn’t know that Maitland had escaped, but they knew about the lockup and assumed some of the prisoners had gone amok. However, they recognized her as the lady whom the keeper had fawned over, and all doors opened like magic for the duke’s daughter.

Before they came to the keeper’s rooms, her abductors had a conference. They’d never get away, Maitland said, by pretending she was wounded. The turnkey would want to send for the prison doctor to examine the wound. They’d have to change their story. They’d say that the Duke of Romsey’s daughter had fainted, and the keeper had ordered them to take her to her carriage.

“Where is your carriage?” Maitland asked in that hard-faced, hard-eyed way of his.

There was no point in lying, so she told him.

And once again, these bold as brass, bare-faced villains got away with it. The turnkey took one look at her dazed expression and he unlocked the last door.

When they were out on the street, Maitland seemed to stagger under her weight. She wasn’t surprised. Though she didn’t have an ounce of fat to spare, she was, after all,
five foot seven in her stockinged feet. If he’d wanted a pocket Venus, he should have picked Callie.

As if reading her mind, he said, “I should have taken the other one.” He dropped her on her feet none-too-gently. “I think I’ve broken my back. A regular Amazon, isn’t she?”

She took instant umbrage, but it was muted by fear. There was no sense provoking the villain at this point. He could still hurt her.

“What’s that?” he asked.

They lifted their heads and listened. It sounded like distant thunder, or a stampede of horses.

“Rioters,” she said with relish. “They’re marching on the prison. I suggest you make yourself scarce. Well, good-bye, Colonel Maitland. Perhaps I shall see you again some day.” At the end of a rope, she hoped.

Those nasty eyes narrowed on her again, making her pulse jump.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he snarled, “until I know why you tried to have me killed back there.”

She was speechless, but only for a moment. “You’re out of your mind! One of the turnkey’s guns must have gone off in the panic.”

He fettered her by the wrist in a grasp that made her flinch. “You’ll tell me, if I have to break every bone in your body.” Then, to the other man, “Where are the horses?”

“Behind the church.”

They started off at a run toward the Church of the Sepulchre. She could hardly keep up with him. A time or two, she stumbled, but the brute just yanked hard on her arm, dragging her along behind him.

She was suddenly angry, cat-spitting angry, with the kind of anger that drives out fear. She’d played the game his way, and this was her reward? Without her compliance, he would never have made it out of Newgate. If she went on like this, she’d end up just like his first victim.

At that moment, a wave of people surged into the street ahead of them, and she knew what she had to do. With an energy born of desperation, she lunged for Maitland and slammed into his back. As he fell to his knees, he relaxed his grip on her wrist. She tore herself free, and leapt past him, then she raced to meet the rioters as if they were the cavalry come to her rescue.

“Bloody hell,” said Harper. “They’ve cut off our line of retreat. We’ll never get to the horses now.”

Maitland got up. He looked behind him. “We can’t go back, either.”

A stream of armed turnkeys were pouring out of Newgate.

“Here,” said Harper, “where’s she off to?”

As they watched, Rosamund veered off to the side, avoiding the surging mob, and she darted into a lane behind the Old Bailey.

“Where did she say her carriage was?” asked Richard.

“The Magpie and Stump.”

A looked passed between them.

Ducking a hail of rioters’ stones and turnkeys’ bullets, they took off after Rosamund.

R
osamund ran for her life. She didn’t have to think about where she was going. The Old Bailey was right there at the crossroads. There would be judges and lawyers and officers of the law to protect her from Richard Maitland and his henchman. And she would warn them about how wily and dangerous he was so that, unlike the turnkeys in Newgate, they would be prepared.

The man was not only a killer, he was deranged as well. Everybody was his enemy; everybody was trying to kill him. He saw treachery and conspiracy in every chance encounter. But how he could suspect her, a duke’s daughter, of conspiring to have him shot, in Newgate of all places, was beyond belief.

The man was insane. There was no other explanation. And there was no reasoning with madmen.

She ran down the back of the Old Bailey and stopped at the first door she came to. It was locked. She used both fists to hammer on it. There was no response. Her
breathing was so erratic that her cries for help were like the pitiful mewlings of a drowning cat.

She looked over her shoulder. The mob was streaming toward Newgate and there was no sign of her pursuers. But the danger wasn’t over yet. She hadn’t spoken more than a few words to Richard Maitland, but she’d taken his measure. He wouldn’t give up easily.

Ignoring the stitch in her side, she picked up her skirts and ran on. Then, ahead of her, like a river in spate, the mob, coming from another direction, surged into the alley. The trampling of their feet, their murderous yells, their savagely angry faces made her blood run cold. There was the sound of rifle fire, and the mob went wild.

She darted into the shelter of the nearest door and hammered on it as well. This time, there was a response. Someone yelled at her from a window above the door. Then a pistol was pushed through the bars and was aimed straight at her.

“You must help me,” she cried out. “I am the Lady Rosamund Devere and—”

When she saw a thumb pull back the pistol’s hammer, she gasped and flattened herself against the wall. Windows shattered as rioters threw stones. And from the Old Bailey itself, the defenders retaliated with pistol fire, warning shots over the heads of the mob, but this only enraged them more.

She stood there trembling, her mind in a whirl. She didn’t know which way to turn. And even as she debated with herself, two figures turned the corner of Newgate Street and raced toward her: Richard Maitland and the gargoyle.

Panic swept over her. This could not be happening to her! Nothing ever happened to her! She could hardly turn around but she was falling over chaperons. If she went shopping in Bond Street, there were always one or two footmen in attendance to ensure that no one looked
at her the wrong way. If she went out riding, a groom was always on hand to watch over her. If she went for a drive in the carriage, the coachmen and postilions had orders to shoot to kill if highwaymen waylaid her.

Yet here she was, totally unprotected, with a deranged murderer and his accomplice on one side, and an enraged mob on the other. This was England. These things could not be happening.

And she shouldn’t be dithering like this. Maitland or the mob, she had to choose one or the other.

She chose the mob.

As soon as she’d made her decision, her panic ebbed a little and her brain began to function. On the other side of that mob was Fleet Lane and the Magpie and Stump, where she’d left her carriage.
Her carriage. And her armed postilions. And her armed coachmen
. They would blow Maitland’s head off if he so much as touched her. All she had to do was fight her way clear of the mob and she’d be safe from a deranged killer.