Wicked Proposition (60 page)

He would see the woman back to health and see
her on her way. He needed no complications in his orderly life. No
woman was necessary to his life. He could imagine her revulsion to
know what he did for a living. His face hardened to reflect he was
an extremely unlikely hero.

###

Nicholas watched Catherine napping with their
son with tenderness in his eyes. He slipped out of their room and
went down to greet his visitor.

Chumley smiled broadly when he entered the
study. The little man was seated there, along with Tieghan.

“Did you find what we hoped for, Myron?” he
asked tensely.

“I found her, Nicholas, but she is terrified,
naturally,” Chumley said gravely, his steely gaze softening. “She
wants your assurances of her safety. You do realize she is the only
one left alive to support your wife’s story?”

“Has she given you the same accounting as
Catherine?” Nicholas asked quietly.

“Yes, and has gone even further to show us where
your wife was held during the pregnancy,” Myron replied stiffly. “I
went there. I saw where they kept her. The warehouse is owned by
Lord Iverleigh. It is deserted. He has not leased it in years. That
is why we were unable to find her.”

Nicholas stiffened in outrage. He had been to
that same warehouse several times during the time Catherine was
missing to drop off smuggled goods. His blood ran cold to know
Catherine had been there the whole time, right under their
noses.

“Where was she kept? Iverleigh gave me leave to
use that warehouse for my cargoes. I saw no one coming or
going.”

“There is a basement below the warehouse,”
Chumley stated with an indignant expression. “There is a cell
there, much as she described in her dreams.”

“What of the child?” Nicholas hesitated to
ask.

Chumley smiled and gazed at Teighan, who grinned
as well. The two seemed to share some secret information.

“Your wife will be pleased to know the woman has
cared for the child these last few years,” Chumley asserted. “She
is relieved to know your lady lived. I believe the woman felt
responsible for what happened that night. She was too scared to
speak out against Lady Iverleigh.”

“She has earned whatever I could give her for
agreeing to help us,” Nicholas said in obvious relief. “She has but
to name what she would ask for, and it is done.”

“She asks that you allow her to stay on with the
child,” Chumley replied hesitantly. “She has raised the girl, and
naturally feels bonded with her now.”

Nicholas wondered if Mrs. Gates would be a
constant reminder to his wife of what she endured and hesitated. It
was not for him to decide.

“It would be up to my wife, Chumley.”

Chumley nodded sadly and jumped down from the
chair. “She would understand your wife’s feelings after what she
endured. The woman witnessed all of it. She is still shaken by the
event as well.”

Nicholas gazed at Tieghan in gratitude. The man
had been tireless in seeking the midwife the last several
months.

Nicholas knew his pursuit of the midwife cost
Teighan finding Elise. The giant appeared troubled much of late,
and he knew he worried over the girl’s disappearance.

“My wife can put the past behind her now,” he
said in relief. “I do not know how to thank you both.”

“The woman will be brought here tomorrow. It has
all been arranged,” Tieghan told him. “Eric and Dane are chomping
at the bit to go home, Nicholas. Do we cut them loose?”

“I think it is safe to say we can finish the
rest on our own. Tell them they can leave.”

Nicholas returned to his room and went back to
ogling his wife and son. Devlin looked like a tiny replica of his
wife, his dark head covered with thick black hair.

He felt a measure of frustration. He was now
more content than he ever dreamed to be in his life, and yet the
nightmares persisted.

He dreaded sleep, dreaded the images that
revealed themselves there. The lecherous hands that reached for him
dragged him back to that hell nightly, reminding him it was far
from over.

“Where is my prize, Yvetta?” Lord Dartmouth
asked as his obsidian eyes raked over her harshly.

Yvetta panicked by the look in Dartmouth’s eyes.
Lester was combing the streets for a replacement. The redheaded
girl had gotten away, and had taken the others hidden below with
her.

She was furious with Lester for not making sure
the girl was drugged adequately, and now she had nothing to offer
Dartmouth to keep him content.

“Were making her ready for you, my lord,” Yvetta
lied smoothly and smiled sweetly, inwardly cringing from his
baleful stare.

“Very well, I can wait,” the nobleman allowed
and drew away from her to join Lord Rudd and his cronies.

Yvetta knew real panic to see Lord Rudd here
tonight. He would not be pleased to know his toys were missing from
the basement. She felt the evening was proving to be a disaster
when Lester passed the doorway to the salon and winked at her.

Yvetta breathed a sigh of relief and gestured to
Milly. The girl rushed to her side, fear and hesitancy in her
expression. Yvetta could see the maid loathed this task. They all
had to do their part to take care of the brothel’s most wealthy
patron’s.

“Go get this one ready and put her in the rose
room,” she snapped harshly. “Get the powders in my desk and be
quick of it.”

Yvetta relaxed somewhat until Lester called her
into the hallway outside the salon. She approached her henchman
with a look of fury in her eyes.

“What took you so long?” she demanded under her
breath.

“Oi’ did me best ta find one o’ those little
buggers fer Rudd, but they saw us comin’, they did,” he explained
in disgust. “Herbert’s done fer the night an’ gone home. Wot ye
think oi’ should do?”

Yvetta paled and felt sick to know Lord Rudd’s
itch would not be scratched. She paced up and down the salon until
she found an answer, her blue eyes filled with speculation.

“Daphne’s daughter is still here visiting, is
she not?” Yvetta asked under her breath. She knew the child’s
mother was presently busy with the gentlemen all evening.

The prostitute would not need to know her five
year-old daughter would have to be sacrificed.

Drugs were affective means of getting a child to
cooperate. Lord Rudd would be appeased.

Lester looked dismayed at this. Daphne adored
the child, even if she couldn’t keep her at the house fulltime. The
girl lived with her grandmother, and only visited when the old
woman demanded money of her daughter for her child’s care.

Daphne was too busy making coins tonight to send
her daughter back home to her mother to know what Yvetta planned
for her child.

“See that it’s done, Lester,” Yvetta snapped
cruelly. “We can’t afford to offend His Grace.”

Lester left the hallway to trudge up the stairs
to retrieve Daphne’s daughter, sickened by what the child would
endure later.

###

Caspian watched the woman writhing in her
feverish state in his bed without expression. The doctor had come
and gone, saying there was nothing he could do for her.

Caspian was dismayed when her fever climbed even
dangerously higher. He listened to her rant as her delirium
worsened. He caught only fragments of words, but little that made
any sense.

His eyes traced her flushed, bruised features
with interest. Her looks had been a surprise. Once the filth was
washed away, he found himself looking at a true beauty
underneath.

Her long lustrous red hair was tangled about her
ivory shoulders like molten fire. Her eyes intrigued him, a mixture
of green and yellow, large and heavily-lashed. They had flown wide,
filled with fear during her delirium.

She lost the child she carried. The doctor had
told him that after his cursory examination. The doctor said it was
from the beating she had taken. He estimated she had not been far
enough along that she would have any further complications. Caspian
said nothing to that. It was not his affair.

Caspian sat with her for a time, unsure why the
girl’s fate bothered him at all. He could only speculate she was a
harlot on the run from an abusive pimp. She was far too lovely to
from the streets. Perhaps she had been tossed out of one of the
fancier houses due to her condition.

He didn’t care if she was a whore. It made no
difference to him. His mother had been a whore and a damned good
one back in her day. His sisters were all whores, and doing a fine
job of it. His first woman had been a whore, and relieved him of
his innocence at the age of ten. His current mistress was a whore,
albeit a high-priced one.

One could not afford judgment in his line of
work. Innocence was not a part of his world. It was reserved for
those good people his work sought to protect.

Elise had been kindhearted enough to feed and
protect the street urchins she fell in with. Ezra refused to leave
until he knew she was going to live. The small boy was adamant, as
were the other six children who stayed here now.

Caspian didn’t mind, realizing his current
residence was big enough for twenty more children. It was the
largest and most luxurious of his hiding places.

The finer the neighborhood, the better doctors
were to be found. He brought Elise here knowing she had a better
chance of survival.

He placed a cool compress on her forehead and
sat at her bedside, wondering who James was. She kept saying the
man’s name. It was probably her child’s father, he surmised. Again,
it was none of his affair.

Caspian picked up her hand and marveled at her
long, elegant fingers. She had a pianist’s hands, he thought in
appreciation. He held her hand up to his, marveling her fingers
were nearly as long.

Elise was lovely in both face and form. She was
tall and willowy, with the most perfect breasts and legs. Yes, he
had looked under the sheet against his better judgment.

He got an eyeful of what lie beneath her filthy
gown. She had the most beautiful legs, a dancer’s legs, he thought
in satisfaction. He could only imagine how those long supple limbs
would feel like wrapped around him.

If she lived, perhaps he would find out. Again,
it was not his affair. It wasn’t up to him this time. She was held
in the grasp of fate.

The maid returned to sit with her and he left,
taking one last look at the ravishing redhead before he left the
room.

###

Gabriel didn’t see the man approaching him on
the street as he left for his appointments. He was distracted by
his own troubles, and his doubts in how he handled the issue with
Catherine.

It had been weeks since their confrontation and
she had not been back. Not a word. She was not going to fight him.
The wind went out of his sails as a result.

Now he just wanted to forget her, thankful she
stayed away. Jaime and Cullen left within the month to an exclusive
preparatory school.

He fought with them daily over it. The
incorrigible brats made his life miserable these days, vowing to
make it worse should he send them away from their sister. What a
bloody mess!

Gabriel didn’t see the man until he was five
feet away at most. He turned, his dark eyes widened in alarm as the
pistol was pulled out of the man’s vest.

The pistol went off and Gabriel felt the bullet
hit him in the chest. He felt burning pain ripple through him as he
stumbled against the side of his coach, staring at the assassin in
surprise.

His footmen were shouting as he crumpled to the
street. People were screaming. He felt cold all over. He looked up
and saw Higgins face above him, and then Maggie’s aggrieved
countenance.

He heard pandemonium all around him, and the
sound started to fade. He heard nothing now, just the slowing beat
of his own heart.

He was now in the gardens behind his townhouse.
The day was sunny and lovely. He saw Catherine there. She was
wearing the pale rose gown as she cut flowers in his garden.

She smiled at him as he came forward to embrace
her, throwing her up and catching her, swinging her around. Her
laughter and love-filled gaze made his journey here easier to bear.
He would stay as long as she was here with him.

###

Nicholas got the message from Maggie that Lord
Iverleigh had been shot outside his residence. He shouted for
Teighan. The man came running. He looked worried as he saw the
thunderous expression on Nicholas’s face.

“Gabriel’s been shot,” he said in a clipped tone
as he joined him the foyer, his blue eyes filled with concern and
unease. “I am going to Iverleigh Manor. Stay here with Catherine.
Say nothing until I know how bad it is.”

“Should I send for Chumley?”

“No, let him finish his errand today. My wife
needs her daughter back. I would not spoil this for her.”

Nicholas left for Gabriel’s residence with a
heavy heart and deep-seated worry for his friend. If Gabriel died,
Catherine might never hope to see her son or brothers again. Lilly
would see to it.

He knew Gabriel well enough to know his anger
would pass. He would relent in time. He didn’t tell that to
Catherine out of pure selfishness, basking in his wife’s love
now.

It pained him to think of Gabriel dead, despite
their differences this last year. Thinking of every selfless thing
the man had ever done for him, made him realize how much he cared
for him. He was like a brother to him, even if they were currently
at odds over Gabriel’s spiteful handling of Catherine.

He arrived at the manor and didn’t bother
waiting for Higgins to answer. He rushed inside and was grateful to
see Maggie coming down the stairs.

“How is he?” Nicholas asked in dread, seeing the
sadness in Maggie’s face.

“The physician is here with him now,” she said
softly as she approached. “He sent for a surgeon. We can only wait,
Captain.”