Barely a Lady (21 page)

From the back of the crowd, Gervaise Armiston saw the little exchange and grinned. “Well, well, well.”

He had been in the box next to Kate at the opera when she’d received the urgent message to return home, and he’d never been one to waste an opportunity. Wouldn’t it be a bit of a lark if he could separate Olivia from her friends and maybe imply that he’d started the fire? She’d believe him, of course. By now she undoubtedly thought he was responsible for everything but the king’s madness. She’d be terrified and, very possibly, pliable.

But this was even better. She’d had enough, had she? He chuckled. It was nice to have the upper hand again. With what he’d just learned, he would have it all. Livvie, real wealth, Jack’s demise.

The flask. Gervaise couldn’t wait to see who wanted it.

Venice,
he thought.
Maybe Rome. Yes. Livvie would love Rome.

Whistling, he slipped his hands in his pockets and walked off like any other buck about town.

Olivia followed Lady Kate inside to find Lady Bea comforting a distraught Lizzie.

“What’s this?” Lady Kate demanded. “Tears? You didn’t drop that lamp, Lizzie. Besides, sobbing is bad for the baby.”

“That’s not the problem,” Finney said, stepping up to them. “I think you’d better come upstairs.”

Lady Kate exchanged glances with Olivia, but she followed in Finney’s wake.

“We found it when we was checkin’ the rooms f’r damage,” Finney was saying, climbing the stairs to the second floor.

He reached Lady Kate’s suite and threw open the doors, and Olivia gasped.

The ornate little boudoir was in ruins. Furniture was tossed over, paintings pulled from walls, clothing tossed about as if a high wind had swept through. The pillows had even been eviscerated, feathers still drifting over the room like snow.

“So far there’s four bedrooms and the library look like this,” Finney told them.

“You’ve checked for intruders?” Lady Kate asked.

“Sergeant Harper asked f’r that duty particular-like. He seems right upset.”

“As am I. I don’t suppose my jewel box remains unscathed.”

“Well, that’s what’s off,” Finney said, scratching an ear. “Bivens says as how nothin’s missin’. Not so much as a brooch.”

Olivia dropped to search for her portmanteau, where she’d hidden Jack’s ring and snuffbox. They were all sitting safe in the middle of the floor. She felt a coil of dread snake through her. “Someone was here while we were in the garden.”

They might have been waiting in the house as she and Thrasher struggled to get Jack down the stairs.

“What could they be looking for?” Lady Kate asked.

“Me,” Olivia heard, and turned to see Jack standing behind them in the doorway. He had arrived with Thrasher, listing and soot-stained but looking very much in command.

“Not unless you can fit in a pillowcase,” Finney retorted. “This was as thorough a job as I seen.”

“Axman Billy,” Thrasher piped up. “Bears ’is stamp.”

Lady Kate actually paled a bit. “We’ve been burgled by someone named
Axman
? I’m not at all certain I like that.”

Olivia was more than certain she didn’t like it. She found herself looking around, as if expecting the intruder—
Axman—
to materialize from beneath the beds.

“How do you know?” she asked Thrasher.

It was Jack who answered. “Thrasher has been doing some investigating for me. He told me today that this Axman Billy was looking for me. He and somebody named the Surgeon.”

And Olivia had thought she couldn’t feel more frightened.

“The Surgeon?” Lady Kate echoed, eyes wide. “You’re being followed by someone named the Surgeon? Is this someone you know socially, Jack, or have you been dabbling in vivisection?”

Jack sighed. “I have no idea. I’m sorry, Kate. I’ve put you all in danger.”

“Don’t be absurd,” she retorted. “A little excitement once in a while keeps the blood flowing.”

“But what did he tear the house apart for?” Olivia asked.

He shook his head. “Was I carrying anything when you found me? Something small, I’d have to guess.”

Turning away, she retrieved his snuffbox and signet ring and handed them to him. “These,” she said. “And a flask.”

One warning look from Grace was enough to keep her from mentioning the dispatch to General Grouchy.

“A flask?” Jack’s eyebrows rose as he turned to Kate. “Must have been mine after all.”

“Do you want it back?”

“No. I doubt somebody would destroy a house just to get his hands on my brandy.” He stood there a moment, shaking his head as he turned the snuffbox this way and that. “I can’t see how any of these would be of interest to anyone.”

“The question is what to do about it,” Lady Kate said.

“Blockade,” Lady Bea piped up, her voice a little thin.

Lady Kate immediately walked over to put an arm around her friend. “We won’t let anyone else in, darling. I promise.”

“Me ’n Harper’ll set the lads to watchin’,” Finney said. “Maids’ll clean. I’ll get repairs started.”

“And I’ll leave,” Jack said. “Kate, is Diccan Hilliard in town? He’s attached to the embassy here, isn’t he?”

Everybody seemed to stop breathing. “Diccan?” Lady Kate asked with admirable nonchalance. “Whatever for?”

Jack’s smile was old and knowing. “Because he specializes in the discreet removal of problems. And I’d have to say that right now, I qualify as a problem.”

Her arm still around a pale Lady Bea, Lady Kate nodded absently. “Probably an excellent idea. I’ll send someone out for him in the morning.”

“No, Kate. I need to leave as quickly as possible. I won’t risk your safety another moment.”

Kate straightened, and Olivia couldn’t help smiling at how the tiny duchess seemed to meet towering Jack Wyndham eye-to-eye. “It must be an excess of smoke distorting your reason, Jack, or you’d consider the fact that someone named
Axman
is undoubtedly right now waiting in the shadows for you to come scrambling out my back door. Besides, I refuse to move without at least five hours of sleep. We might be desperate, but we are not barbaric.”

“I don’t think we can say the same for Axman,” Jack suggested.

Lady Kate shook her head. “We’re all safer right here until we speak with Diccan. Besides”—she cast a telling look at her butler—“Finney would never let you out the door. Would you, Finney?”

The hulking butler smiled. “Not ’til Y’r Grace told me to.”

Jack considered the duchess for a long moment. Finally, he seemed unable to do more than shake his head. “All right,” he agreed, and bent to kiss her hand. “First thing in the morning, then.”

He must truly have been exhausted, because he allowed Thrasher to help him to his new bedroom.

Jack had no sooner disappeared into the master suite than Lady Kate spoke up. “It would seem Diccan has lost his chance to remain anonymous.”

“Paphian,” Bea said, startling Olivia back to attention.

Lady Kate gave a thoughtful nod. “Diccan’s mistress? Yes, I agree. Finney, we need to find one Madame Ferrar. A tiny blond relict of some Belgian colonel, if memory serves. I believe you’ll find our Diccan worshiping at her dainty feet. We’ll see him at eight.”

Finney’s eyes disappeared into his grin. “I’ll put Thrasher on it. The boy needs to be doin’. He’s feelin’ a mite low.”

“He didn’t see anything at all?” Lady Kate asked. “It’s why I left him behind.”

“Aye, so he did, Y’r Grace. Was him give the alert when he heard the glass break. He tried to help everybody out, but then he smelled the smoke….”

“Poor little beast. His whole family.” She nodded. “Go ahead and send him, then.”

“I’ll tell him,” Olivia said, still trying to comprehend the scope of the disaster. “I need to check on Jack.”

If Lady Kate’s room was ornate, the master suite was obscene, a veritable explosion of gilt, from Fragonard paintings to pedimented doorways to robin’s-egg-blue walls festooned in ornate plasterwork. It was one room Axman had failed to destroy.

Olivia followed the raspy sound of Jack’s voice into the bedroom, where she found him sitting on a gold brocaded settee speaking to a much diminished Thrasher. Just the sight of them brought back the terror of those endless minutes in the dark stairwell, and she found herself trembling again.

“I shoulda tole the ladies,” Thrasher was saying.

Olivia saw the real distress in the boy’s eyes and knew it wasn’t time for serious intent. “Please don’t tell me there’s more. Someone named Blackbeard, maybe?”

Both of them looked up, their faces almost comically soot-stained. But what caught Olivia was how pale and drawn Jack looked. He’d definitely used up his budget of energy tonight.

“Blimey, guv,” Thrasher whispered. “We’s caught it now.”

“Exactly correct, you scamp,” Olivia retorted. “Now, off you go. Finney has a particular mission for you, and Master Jack has to get his rest. As for me, I’m proper knackered.”

Giving her a bright giggle, Thrasher took himself off.

“You really must stop hanging about with street urchins, Liv,” Jack said with a shake of his head. “Your language.”

She gave her best grin, even as she clenched her hands to still the trembling. “Don’t be silly. I got that from the duchess.”

Stepping up, she brushed back his hair. “Now come along. It’s bed for you, my lad. You have performed quite enough heroics for one evening.”

Before she could step away, Jack took hold of her hand. Clutching it in both of his, he raised a troubled face. “Stay with me, Liv.”

She froze, a great hollow opening in her chest. Why hadn’t she anticipated this? Not making love. Even more dangerous—comfort.

It was as if he’d heard her. “I won’t touch you, Liv. Not like that. I don’t have that right, and I’m sorry I let things go so far earlier. But, Liv, how can you bear to sleep alone? Don’t you need me anymore?”

How dare he? In one fell swoop, he set loose all those emotions she’d battened down like a ship in a storm. Did she need him? Of course she bloody well needed him. Just as she’d needed him when he’d been with her, when he’d condemned her, when he’d disappeared as if he’d never existed.

Of course she needed him. She wanted him. She feared him. She hungered for him.

She
hated
him.

And yet, standing in this absurd room with her hands clutched in his, she couldn’t muster the strength to leave him. Not this time. Not when she was so cold and so afraid, and he was hurting. For just a moment, she closed her eyes, terrified Jack would see every roiling emotion, every pain and sin. But her greatest fear was that he would see the inevitable despair of surrender.

“Yes, Jack,” she said, gently disengaging her hands. “I’ll sleep here tonight. But there is still too much between us for me to simply pick up our lives where we left off.”

She truly almost laughed at that. At which point would he pick up? When he’d called her a slut, or when he’d slammed that great door in her face and watched her disgrace from the window?

For a very long few minutes, she was terrified she would let all that rancor loose on him. But this Jack still wouldn’t understand. And he needed her. Even worse, she needed him.

She wished with all her heart she could have said that she hated the long hours of that night. She wished she could have at least held on to her fast-dissolving pride by waiting for Jack to fall into an exhausted sleep before disentangling herself from him so she could retire to her own bed.

She didn’t. She lay wrapped in his arms, her ear against his chest, where she could soak in the hypnotic rhythm of his heart, and she watched the shadows crawl across the wall until they were chased away by the first pearlescent light of dawn.

She held perfectly still, lest any movement woke Jack. She bathed in the warmth of his embrace like a window cat soaking up the sunlight, and she called herself every kind of fool for enjoying it.

She knew better. She was being inexcusably weak, and she had no excuse. And yet, she didn’t move until she heard the house begin to stir.

Even then, Jack slept on. Olivia stood at the foot of the bed, seeing the warming light creep across the angles and planes of his handsome face, and she held her fist to her chest, suddenly sure she would simply crumble beneath the pain. She dreaded having to face everyone else in the house, certain they would never understand.

It took only one step into the breakfast room to make her realize there were far bigger threats to her than embarrassment.

They were all there: Lady Kate and Grace and Bea, and even Harper. But they were gathered in a cluster near Finney, who was standing hunched over as if he’d just lost a bout. Lady Kate was pressing a glass of whisky on him, and he was shaking. Olivia thought he might have been crying.

It brought her to a dead halt. “What’s wrong?”

Lady Kate stepped forward. “Sit down, Livvie.”

Olivia looked around at the grim expressions and shook her head. “Oh, no. I think I’d better take this standing. What happened? Did you find out something bad? Is it about Jack?”