I Kissed a Rogue (Covent Garden Cubs) (13 page)

“Yes?” she managed, her voice shaky.

“Sir Brook and I are coming in. Beezle is gone.”

She felt her shoulders slump, and she would have crumpled to the floor had it not been covered with perfume and broken glass. The door slammed back against the wall, still blocking the doorway but leaving a wide enough gap for Hunt and Brook to enter.

Brook’s jaw looked red and he stood hunched, hand pressed to his side, but otherwise he appeared unharmed.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice low and quiet.

She thought about her broken nail and the glass digging into her foot. “No. But you are.”

“Nothing serious. We have to go. Now. Tonight.”

She looked from Hunt to Brook. Hunt’s forehead was creased and his brow furrowed with worry. Brook’s expression might have been carved from stone.

“Where?” she asked. “To Derring House?”

“No. Somewhere else. Away from London.”

She didn’t want to argue. Now that the threat was over, she wanted to cry. Over the years, she had become an expert at
not
crying.
I will not cry
had become a mantra. Not crying came easily, but she couldn’t stop her body from shaking.

“Hunt, the blanket.” Brook gestured toward the brown velvet coverlet, and Hunt pulled it off the bed, unseating several pillows, and handed it to Brook. One-handed, he wrapped it around her shoulders then pulled her away from the broken dressing table so she might sit on the floor.

“I’ll look in on the O’Dwyers,” Hunt said, darting into the common room and leaving them alone.

“Oh no. Are the O’Dwyers hurt?” she asked. Selfish of her not to have asked before. “I thought he”—she nodded toward the common room—“was Mr. O’Dwyer. That’s why I opened the door. But then he didn’t sound Irish, and I tried to close it again.”

Brook closed his large, warm hand around hers. She had the impulse to rub her cheek on it. She must have been more shaken than she realized.

“It’s not your fault. Beezle’s crony followed Hunt here. Then he went to fetch Beezle, who came for you.”

“But the guards—?”

“Dead.”

The shock of the word pulled her breath from her lungs. Finnegan, dead? Big, gruff Finnegan who hadn’t complained once when she asked him to position the new furniture not once but half a dozen times? Dead, because of her.

“How?” she whispered.

“Slit their throats. He would have done the same to you. He
will
do the same to you if I don’t take you away from here.”

“But I thought—”

“I failed you,” he interrupted, seeming to read her thoughts.

She’d thought she’d be safe here. She’d thought this would all be over in a matter of days. She hadn’t truly been concerned. After all, she was the daughter of the powerful Duke of Lennox. No one could hurt her.

She’d been wrong.

“I won’t take more chances. My family owns land, and there’s a small gamekeeper’s house—a cottage really—about a half day outside of London. It’s in disrepair, but it’s livable. The main advantage is that it’s relatively secluded. We have a few tenants farming the land there, but there’s not much of a village or anything else nearby.”

In other words, no chance of refurbishment. She looked at her beautiful bedroom. She’d have to leave it all behind. They would go to this cottage, and they would be safe from Beezle.

“For how long?” she asked. “How long do we have to stay there? How can you arrest this Beezle if you’re in the country with me?” She twisted her hand to catch his wrist and hold it. “Do not say you’ll leave me there alone.”

“No. At the moment, I’m a liability. I led Beezle to you, so I go too. I have men who will track Beezle for me, men who know the rookeries as well as he. They’ll find him and send word when he’s been taken. We’ll be at the cottage a few days. A week at most.”

A week with Brook in the middle of the countryside. Just the two of them. Alone…no. She would not think about that. And she wouldn’t think about what Brook meant when he said the house was in “disrepair.”

She would think about a week. Seven short days. It would pass quickly and easily.

Only a week. What could go wrong?

* * *

“This is not a cottage,” she said when she looked out of the carriage window at the structure before them. They’d traveled all night and most of the morning in a nondescript coach that desperately needed new springs. She had jounced so much, her head rattled.

Even Brook looked pale and wan, and the journey had obviously upset his stomach because he had his arm wrapped about it the entire journey. Hunt had driven them. He would be the only one who knew where they were and knew how to reach them. Lila would not be permitted to write to her friends—what few there were—or her family.

She would not attend her cousin Rose’s wedding. No hardship in that. She’d never enjoyed weddings, as they took place much too early and were solemn, tiresome affairs—her own included. She did enjoy the wedding breakfast—again, not her own, but those of others—and she thought of all the wonderful delicacies she would have to forgo in this dilapidated, old building that had probably never even heard of a chocolate tart.

She glanced at Brook. “You said it was a cottage.”

“I said it was in disrepair.”

She’d thought that meant weeds had grown up in the garden and the ivy on the brick walls needed to be trimmed back. She’d imagined a stone structure with large, rectangular windows, flowers boxes bursting with color, and a pretty vista curving behind it where she could take long walks when the urge struck her.

Of course, the flower boxes had been a bit of fancy, considering this was the middle of winter. She hadn’t been wrong about the stone. The house was constructed of stone, and that was the only reason it still stood. No ivy grew on the dirty exterior and the windows had been covered with wood that looked to be rotting away. She was not in the habit of examining a structure’s roof, but she cautiously studied the one on this building, hoping against hope it did not leak.

The structure was tiny and only a single story. If it boasted two bedrooms, she would be surprised, and the kitchen was almost certainly in a separate structure in the back.

Thinking of the kitchen made her stomach growl. She had not eaten the dinner Mrs. O’Dwyer had brought the night before—for which she blamed Brook—and now she wondered where the servants would bed.

A sense of dread covered her like a wet cloak. “Are the servants expecting us?”

Brook gifted her with a look that could only be described as disgust, which was all she needed to know.

No servants. No flower boxes. No charming cottage.

The conveyance rocked as Hunt jumped down from the box and came to open the door for them. She waited for Brook to alight first, but he waved her ahead. Slumped in the seat as he was, he did not look well at all.

Taking Hunt’s hand, she stepped down, her slipper immediately sinking into mud. She was too slow to save her skirts, and the hem was also dipped in mud and grime. With some effort, she extricated her foot and navigated the field of sinkholes until she reached the door of the building. A light drizzle fell, and the gray clouds matched the gray of the stones before her. She waited for Hunt to open the door for her, but when he did not, she turned and noted he stood at the carriage, speaking to Brook, who remained inside.

Well, if they wished to remain outside in the cold and wet to hold their tête-à-tête, that was all well and good, but she was ready for a warm fire and a bed.
Please God, let there be both inside
.

She tried the door, found it locked, but when she pushed on it, it creaked open. Obviously the Derring family had not been concerned about intruders if the house was this poorly secured. She pushed the door open, pausing as the stale smell of an old fire and the musty scent of a place long since forgotten wafted over her. She’d smelled it before in rooms closed up for a season or so and once when she toured an ancient castle.

Lila stepped inside and had to force herself to continue. Without any light from the windows, the interior was dark, but not so dark that she could not see the bare wooden floors. Indeed, there was a great deal of floor to see, considering the only piece of furniture in the place was a scarred table with a broken chair at the head. The chair lolled drunkenly to one side as she stepped over the threshold and stifled the rising panic. She saw no bed or bedroom. The back door most likely opened to the path leading to the kitchen, separate to protect the main structure from fire.

Lila doubted the path would be covered, which meant every time either she or Brook made the journey to the kitchen, they would be subject to the elements. And it would be the two of them going to and fro since the place was not large enough for one person and certainly could not accommodate a staff. Was she expected to prepare her own meals? She’d never done anything more in the kitchen than make a request of the cook. She did not even know how to prepare tea.

Not that there would be any tea in the kitchen. How would they eat? She glanced at the cold, dark hearth. How would they keep warm? A fat drop of water plopped on the floor in front of her, joining its brothers in the puddle at her feet.

Lila whined softly and pressed the heels of her hands to her burning eyes. She would not cry. One week. Seven days. Could she live seven days without food or heat?

She turned at a shuffling sound in time to see Hunt ushering Brook inside. It took a moment for her to understand what she saw, but Hunt supported Brook, whose face was a mask of pain.

Lila quite forgot about the fire and the tea and rushed to Brook’s other side. “What is wrong?”

His coat was not buttoned, and it gaped, giving her a view of the red stain on his light-colored waistcoat. She inhaled sharply.

“You’re injured.”

“Nothing serious.” He’d said that before, but clearly it was quite serious if Hunt had to drag him inside.

“I saw blood.”

“Dried now. It stopped bleeding a few hours ago,” Hunt informed her.

She stared at him. Had he known all along his master was injured? Why had no one told her?

“But when did this happen? How?”

“Racer had a dagger. He meant to plunge it in me, but he only gave me a scratch.”

“You’re lucky, sir.”

“Story of my life.”

Hunt dragged Brook toward the back of the cottage. Lila hadn’t paid much attention to it, but now she saw a moldy blanket hung, cordoning off a small area. Hunt pushed it aside, revealing a sizable bed nestled in a nook. He shoved Brook against the wall for support, then disappeared back out the door. A moment later, he returned with two thin mattresses and clean linens. He unrolled the mattresses and took down the moldy blanket. Brook didn’t wait for assistance. He lurched like a drunkard to the bed and lay down.

Wide-eyed, Lila stared from Hunt to Brook, who had curled into a ball and did not move.

“I’ll fetch the luggage,” Hunt said.

Lila stared at Brook’s back for a moment then ran after Hunt. She caught up to him outside, where the drizzle had turned into a fine, wet mist. “Shouldn’t we call for a doctor?”

Hunt paused and looked down at her politely. “There isn’t a doctor anywhere nearby. He’ll be fine after a day or two of rest.”

“But surely he needs medicine.”

“I offered him laudanum, but he won’t take it.” He reached into his coat and withdrew a flask. “He drank some whisky. You might pour some on the wound to make sure it doesn’t fester.”

Lila stepped back. “
I
should pour? What about you?”

“I have to return to London.”

Lila stumbled backward as though punched. Her face must have mirrored her feeling of betrayal because Hunt’s expression softened.

“I do apologize, my lady. Sir Brook was quite specific about his orders.”

She wanted to grasp Hunt by the coat and implore him to stay. She wanted to ask what she was supposed to do with an injured man and no help. Instead, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin into the mist. She’d nursed her mother for two years while the duchess had coughed and wasted away from the consumption. She could nurse a strong man with a minor knife wound.

Of course, she’d had servants to help her at Blakesford. She’d called for tea or a tonic or warm water, and it had appeared. She would not have that luxury now.

Hunt trudged past her, his arms laden with the luggage. Brook had only allowed her to pack her valise. She’d had to leave most of her more formal gowns at the flat. She would definitely not need them. Even the peach one she still wore was far too fine for this place. She would have to see if Lizzy had packed any of the dresses she’d worn to tend her mother. Most of those had been from several seasons ago or in colors she didn’t think suited her.

Hunt went back to the coach and made another trip inside, this time carrying a large basket. Lila eyed its progress, for it looked promising. When he returned, Hunt paused before her. “I’d stay longer, my lady, but I don’t want the horses to stand.”

She nodded. They’d only changed horses when necessary the night before, and these were probably tired and ready for a rest. Hunt would change them out at the first posting house on the return journey.

“The basket contains a bit of bread and cheese, some wine, and a few apples. It’s all I could find on short notice.”

“Thank you, Hunt.” The mist on her face numbed her skin and her feelings of despair.

“I will be back as soon as I can to look in on you. If anything should happen…” Here he paused. He waited until her gaze locked on his. “Mr. and Mrs. Longmire are about a mile and some that way.” He gestured toward the south. “Go to them and have Mr. Longmire ride to Derring House. I’ll come and bring help.”

Lila nodded, though how she was supposed to walk a mile and
some
in that direction and find the people she sought was beyond her. She might easily be lost and never find the Longmires. She might break her leg and die in the woods alone.

Not that there were many woods about. The land had been cleared for farming, and she imagined it pretty and green in the summer. Now the rolling hills were brown with dead vegetation. Still, she could make out patches of wooded areas in the distance, havens for deer and rabbit and fox.