A Gentleman Undone (35 page)

The man went staggering backward, arms windmilling for balance, blood already running from his nose. He’d nearly regained his footing when one more shot sounded, and he jerked, and crumpled like a scarecrow cut down.

For a disorienting instant it was like being back in the little room upstairs at Beecham’s, struggling to bend his brain to some principle of odds that made no intuitive sense. Two ivory-handled pistols; two shots. Then how to account for the third?

He swung his gaze leftward and saw her, kneeling by the body of a fallen bandit, the man’s own smoking pistol clutched in both her hands. Her wide eyes met his with no recognition whatsoever. She let the gun fall, and twisted to look at the lifeless form beside her. Her shoulders rose with a mighty inhalation, and her fists rose too, and of a sudden she was flailing at the man as though he stood between her and her next breath.

One quick glance around the clearing: they’d felled four. The fifth was gone, and the horses with him. “Cathcart.” The viscount stood arrested, staring at Lydia the way he might stare at some banshee dropped into their midst. “See if any of them are still alive, and bind any that are. Your men can cut the rope from the trunks.”

He went to her. She didn’t look up, or slacken in her grim exertions, so he crouched. “Lydia.” This near, he could hear that she was panting. She gave no sign of having heard him.

“Lydia,” he said, more forcefully. He might as well have been whispering into a whirlwind. He shifted
behind her and wrapped his arms round, pinning her elbows to her waist, then stood, lifting her right off her feet.

“Smash him.” Her voice shook with passion. She twisted, struggling to get free, but his grip was too solid. “Smash his face like you did those others.”

“There’s no need.” No inclination, either. His appetite for violence never did outlive a threat. But he’d seen reactions like hers before, among his fellows in battle, and he’d heard of worse. Several of the more senior in his regiment had been at Badajoz, and come away with tales that could curdle a man’s blood. He bent his head to bring his voice closer to her ear. “He can’t hurt you, this man. You’re safe from him.”

“You don’t
know
.” It sounded like a sweeping and final pronouncement on his character, and to be sure there were many, many things he didn’t know.

Nevertheless he held her. Ignorant as he was, he stood with his arms locked fast, absorbing all her residual fury. His kneecap ached and his knuckles stung and his whole body felt the effects of two largely sleepless nights. But he was alive, and so was she, and so was the viscount. Easily it might have been otherwise.

She didn’t speak again. Her body, too, went quiet at last, and he set her on her feet—she would want some time alone to collect herself—and went to see how Cathcart got on.

“The one whose face met with your knee is the only one still breathing.” The viscount jerked a thumb toward where his footmen were just knotting a length of rope round the ankles of the form in question. “Well, that one and the bloody coward who ran away with the horses.” He laughed, a bit manically, passing the back of a glove across his forehead. “Thank God Miss Slaughter proved aptly named.”

“One of the shots was yours, I think. I owe my life to you both.”

Cathcart shrugged, and gestured imprecisely at one of the fallen figures without turning his eyes that way. His complexion wore a grayish tinge that Will had seen on other men more than once.

“They would only have gone to the gallows, you know, if we’d left them alive.” Sometimes you put a hand on a man’s shoulder, in this moment. But the viscount was his elder, halfway in years between him and Nick, and possessed of a rather delicate dignity. Will flexed his fingers but kept his hand where it was.

“Oh, I know. They deserved what they got. If one of them rose up alive I’d shoot him again. And still it’s …” He hesitated, jaw working as though to find the proper word. “… odd … to know you’ve ended someone’s life.”

That it was. No getting round it. In this one matter, he had a great deal more experience than his older friend. “That you say so is testament to your humanity.” His hand lifted after all, just to glance lightly off Cathcart’s shoulder. “And I won’t do you the disservice of trying to persuade you into callousness. I’ll only suggest you turn your thoughts to Lady Cathcart and everyone else who would have been grieved if it were you instead of these villains lying facedown in the dirt.” He dusted his hands together. “Now let’s move this last fellow nearer the road. If he’s lucky his friend with the horses will come back and find him. If he’s less lucky it will be the law.”

He couldn’t help glancing back at Lydia on the word
lucky
, just to see what might be her response.

She didn’t respond. She stood just where he’d set her, arms wrapped round her midsection as though to steady herself in the absence of his grasp. For all her bravery, she’d surely been harrowed by the past quarter hour. They’d best finish up here and get her home.

H
E’D RELOADED
the pistols, shaken powder from the horn into both pans, wrapped them in their flannels and put the whole box neatly away by the time they pulled into the outskirts of London. He had not found the proper words to say to Lydia in that time.

I’m so sorry to have brought you into danger. I’m grateful beyond measure for your courage. Will I ever see you again after tonight?
That their acquaintance might close this way—a near encounter with death followed by a polite farewell not twenty-four hours after he’d finally found release in her arms—made him want to put a fist through the nearest window. For pity’s sake, might he really fight a duel at the end of this week over a woman who’d be nothing but a vivid memory by then?

The carriage swayed going round a turn, and her body leaned briefly into his before she was able to pull herself away and back upright. She’d brushed aside his and Cathcart’s every attempt at solicitude, insisting she had no need of brandy or a seat to herself. She was fine, she’d assured them, and then she’d pressed herself into the seat’s farthest corner and stared out into the dark.

Clearly she was not fine.

Well, why should she be? With everything she’d undergone in this one day it was a wonder she wasn’t curled up and raving on the carriage floor. So why the devil wouldn’t she let him help her?

“Is there a friend with whom we can leave you?” Did she have any, besides the two ladies they’d left behind in Essex? “I fear your maid will be caught unprepared by your early return. She won’t have had a chance to light all the fires, or see to supper.”

“She’s not there. I sent her to visit her family for the week.” She turned from the window. The carriage-lamps shed scarcely enough light to show her face, and of
course her face showed him nothing. “And you’re not leaving me anywhere. I’m going to your rooms with you.” She sent her attention back to the dark outside, not waiting for his response.

Her words gutted him, or rather the combination of her words with that flat, brook-no-dissent timbre he remembered so well. Devil take it all, were they really here again? After what they’d just borne together, after the honest intimacy they’d attained this morning, after he’d engaged himself to a duel with her damned protector on her behalf, could she really think to drag him through another antagonistic coupling?

Cathcart watched him, one eyebrow raised. The viscount’s eyes cut to Lydia and back.
She’s not well
, said his face with mute eloquence.

Yes, I know. And that’s exactly why I can’t just set her down at her empty house and drive off
. He turned his hands palm-up, a gesture of quiet resignation. “Did you catch that, your lordship? My lodgings. One less stop for you.” He angled away to look out his own window. Lord only knew what would happen when they reached his rooms and she found out he wasn’t going to give her what she wanted. Doubtless they were in for a long night.

S
OMEWHERE IN
the bustle of unloading the trunks and directing the porter, Cathcart pulled him aside. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he muttered, throwing another significant glance to where Lydia stood, arms folded, surveying the facade of Lewes Buildings.

“I’m almost sure it’s not.” A thoroughly inappropriate spasm of laughter threatened; clearly the events of the day were taking their toll on him too. “Only I don’t know what else is to be done. I’d have gone mad with worry if I’d left her off in Clarendon Square in this state.”

He mightn’t have said so much, had he been in fuller possession of his faculties. Going mad with worry suggested a stronger attachment to Miss Slaughter than he’d so far owned, and the viscount’s expression made it clear he hadn’t missed that nuance.

So be it. He was too weary to dissemble with a friend, particularly a friend who’d proved his worth more than once today. “Write to me when you’ve arranged matters with Roanoke.” He put out his hand, and the viscount shook it, and in another minute he was gone. Three or four minutes more, and Will was slipping a shilling to the porter in gratitude for his discretion as well as the work of hauling trunks and lighting the lamps and fires.

Quiet descended as he shut the door and turned to put his back against it. Lydia stood facing away from him in the middle of the … parlor, one might call it. Sitting room. The room that was not the bedroom. He could imagine the sweep of her gaze across the plain curtains, plain unpapered walls, plain cabinet, and single stout armchair.

He’d never been ashamed of his lodgings. Lewes Buildings was a bit on the Spartan side, perhaps, when compared to the Albany or any other first-rank bachelor-quarters, but there was nothing shabby in these rooms. Still, the rooms numbered only two. No pantry; no place to house a personal servant. If she’d harbored delusions of his keeping her, those fancies must be crumbling like slipshod plasterwork.

“It’s nothing very grand.” He crossed to the table and set to clearing away the ink and paper, the few letters that sat there. Somewhere in the cabinet he had a tablecloth. Didn’t he?

“It’s as I imagined.” He could see her face now, taking in his living quarters with keen attention. “Modest and well maintained.”

It was exactly that. And of course she hadn’t harbored
delusions. No hint of disappointment intruded on her quiet approval of his rooms. He put his papers and ink in the cabinet and came back for his jar of sand. “Are you hungry? There’s a public house round the corner that makes a fair pigeon-and-mushroom pie. I could fetch us a pair, and some ale.”

“I’m not hungry.” Her expectancy rippled outward to fill the small room. “I presume that door leads to your bedroom?”

Damnation. He’d hoped for a few peaceful minutes more. “It does. But Lydia.” Now for it. He put away his sand and faced her. “I’m not going to bed you tonight.”

“Yes, you are.” Not even the slightest pause to absorb his refusal, nor any trace of uncertainty in her features.

“I’m not. It’s been a long and trying day, and you, in particular, are in no condition for such—”

“Neither was I in any condition last night, as I recall.” She shrugged. Her eyes hardened and left him altogether as she began to tug down her right glove. “Maybe you ought to have a drink. Claret seems to overcome your scruples quick enough.”

One flash of temper, one quick knife-twist of guilt; then he recovered his resolve. “No.” He folded his arms and put his back to the wall. “I’ll stand here all night if you like, listening to every angry thing you can think of to say. I will bear as much acrimony as you care to deliver, if that does you good. Out here, though. Standing up. Fully clothed. I will not couple with you.”

“You ought to have left me at my house, then.” She was starting to crumble. He’d taken away her plan of action and she clearly had no idea how else to proceed. Her glove slipped off her right hand and hung limp in her left. She stood still, blinking and pressing her lips tight together.

It was all coming down on her now, he knew. The fear she’d held at bay in order to play her part with the pistols.
The shock and humiliation of having been struck across the face by the man who kept her. The question of where she was to live, in a few days’ time, and how she was to provide for herself. Probably the old familiar losses were joining in as well, adding their practiced voices to the general dirge.

He pushed off the wall and went to where she stood. “I think you ought to get into your nightgown and go to bed.” He took the glove, put it in his pocket, and started easing the second one off. Soothingly as he could, he spoke. “There’s nothing more to be done tonight. You’ll feel better when you’ve had some rest, and in the morning we can consult about what to do.”

Her hand closed convulsively on his. “I
won’t
feel better. I won’t ever feel better again.” She stared past his shoulder, her words barely clearing a whisper.

He waited for her to say more, and when she didn’t, he pried her fingers gently loose and drew off the glove. “It’s natural to think so, after such a day as you’ve had. Fear, in particular, has a kind of residue. But it does lose strength over time. Soldiers couldn’t very well come back to marry and raise families if that weren’t so.” Glove in his pocket, he moved round behind her. “With your permission I’ll unbutton your gown and unlace your corset. Only so that you may dress for bed. My intentions regarding your person haven’t changed.”