Anne Barbour (34 page)

Justin turned and as his gaze lighted on Catherine, he seemed to come to himself. Reaching for her hand, he clasped it tightly while Robbie hastened him toward the other carriage that waited in the street. He did not let go as he assisted Catherine into its interior, nor did he release her during the short journey to the house in Caroline Street.

Catherine exchanged a worried glance with Robbie, sitting opposite them in the carriage. Despite the chaos the events of the waning night had generated within her, her sole concern was for the man next to her. He had been through a living nightmare during the past few weeks, and now to learn that the man who had been friend, mentor, and substitute father to him was responsible for all the woes that had befallen him ... Justin was a strong man, she told herself, but how could he possibly survive as a whole person after this upheaval in his life?

And, she wondered dismally, would there be a place for her in that life?

Responding to Justin’s crushing grip on her hand, she tightened her fingers around his. Lifting her head to face Robbie, she smiled uncomfortably. “Robbie, I am so sorry for—well, you know ...”

Robbie grinned. “For suspecting me of treason? And of trying to do away with my best friend?”

“Yes, and bludgeoning you on the back of the head. I don’t know how I could have thought you guilty of such terrible things.” She flushed. “And then to go peltering off to Justin’s rescue, when he already had the situation well in hand.” She turned to Justin, who was still staring ahead of him, unseeing. “I am so sorry for my maladroit interference, Justin. Justin?” she repeated, when he made no response.

He started, his head jerking around to look at Catherine. For the first time since they had left Charles’s house, a spark of animation lit his gaze. “Actually, the memory of your rushing to my supposed rescue with no thought as to the possible consequences to yourself will be a highlight of my declining years.” Disregarding Robbie’s presence, he lifted her fingers to his lips. “I forgot to ask you. Were you responsible for Caliban’s abrupt entrance into the proceedings?”

Catherine blushed hotly. “Well, yes. When I arrived, I thought it better not to knock on the front door, so I crept around to the side of the house. There, in the light of the window, I could see Caliban, ambling about in the garden, munching on the flowers like a duchess sampling lobster patties at an alfresco party. Then I remembered his behavior on the day you rescued Will from those ruffians. I didn’t know what signal to give him, so I simply turned him about so that he faced the French doors and pushed him forward with a great slap on his rump. Caliban did the rest.”

A shadow still lingered on Justin’s features, but at Catherine’s words, he laughed. The sound lifted Catherine’s heart.

“I might have known,” he murmured.

Robbie, watching interestedly, cleared his throat. “And you, Justin?” he asked awkwardly. “It is not to be wondered at that Catherine would suspect me of being the evildoer in the case. She does not know me very well, of course, and it appears that a great bit of evidence pointed in my direction.” His voice became constricted. “Did you, too, believe I might be guilty of such a piece of work?”

“Not for a second, you great Scottish gowk,” replied Justin instantly, suppressing the memory of the wisping, unworthy suspicions that had come to him earlier. “I knew you to be, as you’ve always been, my own strong right hand.”

For a moment, Robbie eyed him sharply, then abruptly relaxed. “That’s all right, then. I wonder, could we tell the coachman to deposit me at my lodgings? I would love to natter with you over the coffee cups, but as you said, it’s been a long night.”

“Of course,” responded Catherine. Thumping on the roof panel, she relayed Robbie’s directions to his home.

When Catherine and Justin eventually arrived at the house in Caroline Street, they were met by a worried Mariah and Lady Jane, who, not unnaturally demanded an explanation of Catherine’s mysterious disappearance from her home in the middle of the night.

“My stars and garters!” exclaimed Lady Jane when they had told their story over breakfast. She and Mariah had listened, open-mouthed, with much gasping and interruptions with questions. “And it is all over now? You are exonerated, dear boy? You no longer need to pretend to be dead? Oh, I am so happy for you.”

“And I,” chimed Mariah, clasping Justin’s hand in a speaking gesture. “But how dreadful for you to discover the perfidy of a man you had respected and admired for so long.”

At this, Catherine glanced apprehensively at Justin. The blind look had left him, but his shock and grief were still apparent in his face. However, he merely replied slowly, “Yes, I am having difficulty coming to terms with his loss.”

“What will you do now?” inquired Mariah.

He turned a bewildered gaze on Catherine, and her heart twisted within her.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. He straightened. “I must leave here, of course.”

“Leave!” cried Lady Jane. “Nonsense. I know I speak for all of us when I say you are welcome here for as long as you wish to stay.”

“No.” Justin’s eyes were still on Catherine. “It would be much better if—” He drew a long breath. “What I think I will do is move into Sheffield House for the nonce. I do not believe St. John will mind. In fact, I shall send to him today, asking if he would consider coming to London. He will be called to the inquiry, I should imagine.”

He held to this course of action through the chorus of objections raised by Mariah and Lady Jane. Catherine remained noticeably silent. At last, Mariah, with a significant glance at Lady Jane, declared her intention of departing from the breakfast room.

“I have some correspondence that I simply must attend to. And I believe, Grandmama, that you had some matters to attend to as well, did you not?”

“Eh? Oh! Yes—matters to attend to.” She rose with a rustle of skirts. Pausing to drop a kiss on Justin’s cheek, she exited the
room on the arm of Mariah, who turned to wink at Catherine before scurrying out the door.

There was a long silence in the sunny little breakfast parlor.

Justin rose at last. “I—I suppose I’d better pack.” He moved toward the door.

Catherine stood as well. “Not until you’ve slept for a few hours,” she said with some asperity. “And after you’ve allowed me to look at your wounds. They don’t appear to be serious, but they should be washed and bound in a real bandage.” She moved to lay her hand on his arm.

He turned to her so abruptly that his eyes were brought disconcertingly close to hers.

“Catherine,” he began awkwardly. “I wish—that is, I am sorry—” He sighed, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I have created such a monumental upheaval in your life.”

“What?” asked Catherine, uncomprehending.

“In addition to the deception I perpetrated on you, I caused you to pull up stakes, very much against your inclination, to come to London, becoming embroiled in my difficulties—and now you must face an inquiry and a lot of poking and prying by the press. I do not want to have you—“

“What nonsense, Justin.” Catherine smiled. “All of it was my own choice, and I would not have missed any of it for the world. It is I who should thank you, for if you had not charged into my life, I would still be cowering in the Keep, afraid to face my past and the world at large.”

He was still very close to her, Catherine realized, and her heart was thundering like that of a trapped rabbit, but she made no move to distance herself.

“Are you going to be all right?” she asked at last.

It was Justin who stepped back. The smile that had begun to form on his lips faded, to be replaced by the expression of mockery that had come to be only too well-known to Catherine.

“Of course. I always land on my feet. I will admit this whole experience has been painful in the extreme, but I should have expected something of the sort. Indeed, it might be said that I have come to my just desserts. I simply was not born to become mired in tiresome relationships. I seem to have escaped, at least temporarily, the bad end predicted for me by my father, but I have learned my lesson. Other people form ties with family and friends. I enter into brief associations. I have become accustomed to that way of life, and, God knows, I deserve nothing more. No
matter,” he concluded softly, his gaze sinking into hers, “how much I might regret the fact from time to time.”

He smiled then, briefly, but Catherine thought she had never seen such desolation as she perceived in those gun-metal eyes. Dear God, she had to do something before—  She drew herself up.

“How dare you?” She fairly spat the words, and as Justin stiffened in shock, she advanced on him. “I have never heard such self-serving, self-pitying drivel in my life! Yes, you have lost a friend—more than a friend—a mentor and a man who was more a father to you than your own ever was, and you lost him in the most painful way possible, but—don’t you see? You have found so much more.”

“W-what?” stammered Justin, white-faced.

“For one thing, you have regained a brother—and, in a way, your own father. You and St. John may never grow close, but now you know that, deep in his heart, he cares about you, as did the old duke. You have something you can build on now. And you have affirmed your friendship with Robbie. He has proved—as he has many times before—that he is willing to risk his life for you.”

She paused, and continued softly. “And you have found love.”

Unthinking. Justin raised his hand to her cheek. “Catherine, you are—  But, you must know—  You cannot possibly consider a liaison with someone like me.”

“There you go again,” snapped Catherine in exasperation. “I wish you would rid yourself of this highly romantic but completely buffle-headed vision of yourself as a villain. You have shown yourself over and over again to be a man of goodness and decency. In addition,” she finished triumphantly, “you are now a genuine, bona fide hero.”

For a long moment, Justin simply gaped at her, until at length a mischievous smile lit his eyes. “By God, I am, aren’t I?” Slowly, he lifted both hands to her shoulders.

“Of course you are, and—oh, Justin—” Catherine could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, and she could hardly speak for the knot of panic that rose in her throat. “I love you so very much.”

Justin, whose head was descending slowly toward Catherine’s, halted abruptly. “What did you say?” he asked in amazement.

Appalled and exhilarated by her own temerity, Catherine rushed on. “I love you, you great looby. And you love me!”

Justin’s hands stilled in the delicious circles he was making on her back. He gazed at her in startled bemusement. “I do, don’t I?” he murmured at last, stroking with infinite care the tendrils of hair
that brushed her cheek. “I’m not so sure about all the rest—the decency and all that. On the other hand, I suppose if I tried very hard, I could achieve a certain degree of respectability. In any event—I do—love you. Dear God, I love you so!” He stepped back again, but just for a moment. “You might have told me,” he said, his voice husky.

Catherine knew an urge to immolate herself in the blaze that flared in his eyes, turning them to molten silver. She laughed softly. “I might have, but you were having such a wonderful time being a scoundrel, it seemed a shame to spoil your fun.”

Gently, Justin pulled her toward him. He pressed his lips against the curls he had been caressing a moment before, and Catherine settled into the lean curve of his body. She trembled as his mouth moved along her jawline, and she breathed in the wonderful, leather-and-spice smell of him. When at last his mouth covered hers, she felt the kiss down to her very toes. Everything she had thought she’d known of love vanished in the magic of his touch, and a storm of happiness washed over her in great, pulsing waves.

Justin’s hands once again stroked her back, beginning with that exquisitely sensitive spot at the nape of her neck and moving along her spine. Eagerly, he pressed her to him until she thought her bones would melt into his. She uttered a tiny gasp of dismay as his mouth lifted from hers for an instant, only to feather kisses down her throat to the place where the ruffles of her neckline met the heated line of her skin.

His fingers brushed her breast, and Catherine thought she would shatter with wanting. At the small sound she made in the back of her throat, Justin stilled suddenly and drew back.

“You are going to marry me, aren’t you?” His voice was a jagged rasp.

“Yes. Oh, yes, my darling, but—can’t we begin now?”

A shudder passed through Justin’s frame, but he dropped his hands from her shoulders.

“No. No, we cannot, you unprincipled wench. You forget, you are now talking to a pillar of propriety.” He grew serious, and his gaze kindled once more into the crucible she had been drawn into a moment earlier. “The thought of making love to you has occupied my thoughts for some time now, but I—I want it to be right. You deserve more than a tumble on the breakfast room floor.”

“Ah.” Catherine gazed at him innocently. “Then, perhaps we should repair to your bedchamber.”

“What?”

“So that I may re-bandage your wound, of course.”

With hands that trembled only slightly, Catherine, reveling in her new rights, unfastened his top shirt button. Gently removing her fingers, Justin kissed her once more, slowly and lingeringly.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he whispered hoarsely.

This time it was Catherine who stepped back.

“I must say,” she murmured peevishly, “I did not expect such a drastic reform so quickly. I thought I was making an offer to a declared villain—that would be you—of an unexceptionable opportunity for the ruination and despoilment of an innocent maiden—that would be me, of course—and all you do is prose on about the proprieties.” The effect of this admonition was diminished somewhat by the soft kisses she feathered along his cheek.

“Hussy,” said Justin unsteadily. “It was you who spoke of my innate decency and all that drivel. However,” he concluded, an unmistakably anticipatory gleam flashing in his gaze, “it would not do to plunge headlong into respectability, would it? I doubt if my system could stand the shock.”