The Romantic (24 page)

“Bitch!”

She backed up in shock, staring at the weapon aimed at her.

Then suddenly the gun was gone, and so was Mr. Jones. In a flash, he simply flew away.

Another figure stood in his place. One she recognized.

The sweetest relief flooded her.

Julian had found her.

•••

Julian was not alone.

Two other men entered the cottage after him, carrying an unconscious Mr. Jones.

“Quite a blow you gave him, sir,” the elder of the two strangers said. A middle-aged man with longish gray hair under his felt hat, he peered down at Mr. Jones. “Found them like you said. Smart to check the surgeons in the county as you suggested. A man can’t ride far or fast with a hole in his thigh.”

This particular surgeon stood at the kitchen door, flushed and dismayed. “Are they criminals? I had no idea.”

“You can be explaining later, sir, but an honest man would have wondered about that leg in there and this woman out here,” the man said.

“This is Mr. Fletcher and his son,” Julian said, introducing his companions. “Mr. Fletcher is a county justice of the peace.”

Mr. Fletcher and his son had come well armed. Each had two pistols belted to his chest under his frock coat. The son, about twenty years of age, appeared disappointed that the night’s hunt had ended without the chance to discharge his firearms.

“We’ll be needing your carriage to get them to gaol,” Mr. Fletcher said to Julian.

“A secure gaol, I hope,” Pen said.

“Oh, he’ll be secure. We’ll hold him until the quarter session. You will be needing to come and swear evidence against him, madame. The other woman, too.”

Pen opened her mouth to object.

“Of course she will do her duty,” Julian said.

It took them an hour to transport her abductors to the
gaol, and another one for Julian to deal with formalities and legalities. Dawn was breaking when he climbed into the coach and they rode away.

She embraced him in gratitude and relief.

“Thank God you are safe,” he muttered between kisses.

He closed the curtains and kept his arm around her.

He did not speak for a few miles. She did not pretend it was his normal silence. Despite their embrace, she sensed his disquiet. The air inside the coach trembled.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you for hitting him on the head. It made quick work of it for us.”

“Catherine?”

“She is on her way to her daughter.”

“Will I really have to return to testify? I do not see how I can.”

“Fletcher saw enough to put Jones and Henley on a ship to New South Wales. If you testify, it would only complicate things, since the innkeeper and Fletcher think you are Mrs. Monley. You will have to write to Dante and explain that you used his wife’s late mother’s name, I expect.”

“It was the first one that came to my head at the first inn. Yes, I should probably explain that.”

Their conversation did nothing to clear the air. He still sat there darkly displeased, the depths churning.

“Are you going to scold me?” she asked. “You do not have to. I already know what you want to say. That I was reckless, and it was dangerous, and that—”

“You cannot even begin to know what I want to say, madame.”

She expected him to remove his embracing arm. When
he did not, she waited for the brittle vehemance of his comment to pass. After a few more miles, the silent turmoil seemed to ease.

“Do you think Jones has been our shadow the whole way, Julian?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Glasbury must have guessed that you would seek out Cleo to have someone to support your accusations.”

“He has not only been following me, then. He has been one step ahead of me all along. For years.” A larger worry instantly occupied her. “If Mr. Jones followed, Glasbury knows that you have been with me since we left the cottage.”

“Mr. Jones probably sent him reports by mail. That is the least of our concerns, however.”

She did not agree. Her relief at being saved was instantly drowned by the worry that had sent her off to Liverpool. Not for her own safety, but for Julian’s.

If Mr. Jones had sent reports, the earl may have assumed the truth about those nights at the inns.

Mr. Jones might be in gaol, but there would be others taking his place. Glasbury was rich, and such men could always find those who would do their bidding for the right pay.

She fell asleep in the coach. When she woke it was late afternoon, and they were stopping in a small village in front of an inn.

“We will stay here in Bruton tonight,” Julian said. “With equipage like this we will be noticed wherever we go, but there are fewer here to do the noticing.”

He took two rooms for them. As soon as their trunks were deposited and the second level of the inn was quiet, he came into her chamber.

The expression on his face made her swallow hard.

“I knew it was too much to hope that you would not scold eventually.”

“You have made it clear that I do not have the right to that, or anything else. You are also smart enough to know the risks of your plan. You did it anyway. I just want to know why.”

“I already told you. I cannot beat him. He will win, one way or the other. I decided that my first plan was my best one.”

“That does not explain why you left before I returned.”

“I chose not to delay.”

“Why?”

“I am not going to be questioned like a criminal. Tell me I was stupid if you want, but do not interrogate me.”

“I am not interrogating you. I am not speaking as your solicitor, damn it. I am a man to whom you gave yourself, and I want to know why you chose to flee without so much as a word of farewell.”

She had never seen his expression so dark and hard. It affected his whole being and the entire chamber. She half expected lightning bolts to fly from his head.

“I do not think Cleo killed herself. That changes everything, Julian. I looked in my heart and admitted Glasbury could do that. To her. To me. To …” She busied herself unpacking toiletries in order to hide how the last thought distressed her.

“To me,” he said.

“I did not know we were being followed. I thought if I just left, disappeared, that …”

She felt him behind her.

“You thought that I would not be harmed.”

“If you are now, I will never forgive myself.”

He turned her around and gazed in her eyes. He still looked angry, but no longer hard. “All of your life you have done this, Pen, and you must stop it.”

“I realize I have not always been a paragon of good judgment, Julian, but you are not being fair. I did not think this little journey would be dangerous. Not yet.”

“I do not speak of the danger, or of your judgment over the years, but of how you sacrifice your own security and happiness to protect others. To spare your family, you did not divorce. You even married Glasbury so that others would not be hurt.”

The last accusation shocked her. “I did not marry him for that reason.”

“Didn’t you? Did your mother never explain the large sum that Glasbury gave her? It kept things afloat for several more years when the family finances were a disaster.”

“She explained no such thing. She
did no
such thing. I married him because I was young and stupid. He was an earl, and such things matter to ignorant girls.”

“Your mother threw you at him. Even your brothers did not like it.”

She had to take deep breaths to contain a spinning indignation. “You are lying. You are—”

“I have seen the accounts, Pen. Nor do I think you were completely ignorant.”

“What a horrid thing to say. How dare you accuse my mother of … of …”

She came close to smacking him.

Instead she grabbed a shawl and ran from the room.

She flew down the stairs and out of the inn, mind red with resentment. She strode down the street, impatient to find some privacy where she could curse Julian for impugning her family. Shops and homes blurred past as she mentally put a certain man in his place, and castigated him for such bold and unfair accusations.

She found her way to the churchyard where the village eyes would not see her. She paced out her anger amidst the grave markers and along a little garden’s paths.

Slowly the fury abated. A miserable fact kept blunting her righteous denials.

Julian
would have
seen the accounts. As family solicitor, he would have access to all the financial records, even the ones from when she got engaged to Glasbury.

She sank down on a bench beside a bed of dying plants. Confusion replaced her anger, and sadness her indignation.

A shadow fell on the ground in front of her. Julian had followed her.

She glanced to where he stood at the other end of the bench.

“Mama did speak well of Glasbury. She encouraged the match even before I came out,” she admitted. “When I suggested that I would perhaps like to wait until my second season to decide, she said we could not afford that. I knew how much my presentation cost, and my season. She often spoke of my father’s impracticality, and how we lived on credit.”

“And your duty. I am sure she often spoke of that, too.”

“Yes. Often.” She looked over at him. “I will admit
that I ignored my misgivings because of all that. If what you say is true, about the money, it is not so unusual. She did not know what he was, Julian. She could not have suspected.”

“I am sure she did not suspect. It was not your mother’s motivations that I spoke of, but yours. Now, once more, you have taken a path to protect others. Your family. Me. It is a sign of your good heart, Pen, but I am very angry. I will decide for myself what I will risk and what cost I will pay.”

He reached in his coat and withdrew a stack of folded papers. He set them down on the bench.

“What are those?”

“Your future, if you want it. Bank drafts and letters of introduction. You can go to America, but not destitute. It is all there, even the means of passage.”

She opened the documents. The bank drafts and letters were signed by her brothers and her dearest friends. There was more than enough to live comfortably for years. She need only go to Liverpool and sail away to find herself safe, at least for a while. One sheet was a letter from St. John giving her free passage on any of his ships.

She unfolded the final letter.

“What is this, Julian?”

“A letter of transfer.”

“Your bank and your account? So much? I do not need it, dear friend. Not with the other—”

“That one is not for you, but for me.”

His response stunned her.

“I cannot permit this, Julian. I do not need the protection you think to give. I am not helpless in any case, and especially not with these drafts and letters.”

“It is not your choice to make, but mine.”

“I truly do not need your protection on the voyage, especially if it is with one of St. John’s captains. You must not remove yourself from London for so long, just to see me established in America safely. You would be gone for months.”

“Longer, I expect. Unless Glasbury dies.”

The calm resolve of his voice delayed her comprehension of what he was saying. The implications of his words astonished her.

He did not intend merely to see her safely to America.

He planned to stay there, too.

“This is foolhardy, Julian. What will you do in America? Their laws may derive from ours, but I doubt they are the same. Will you become a clerk again, and start over?”

“I will do what I have to do. I will become a fisherman or farmer if necessary.”

“You are not being very sensible at all.”

“I am being most sensible.”

“No, you are not. You are being honorable in the same way that honor leads men to duels. You feel responsible for me now, because of what has happened. The result is that the ruin I feared you would face here will follow you to America, and be worse there.”

“I told you that it is my decision whether to pay the cost.”

“We will both pay. Do you think to continue an affair? If I use these letters, everyone will know who I am. I will still be a married woman. We will be seen as adulterers. I doubt that is more acceptable in America than here. Less so, to hear Bianca speak of their mores.”

“I am not doing this so that we can continue an affair.

You can ignore me on the crossing. You can refuse to receive me in America. You can never speak to me again.”

“I do not want you to do this,” she said firmly. It was a lie. Her heart grabbed at the notion that she would not be alone, that he would be there with her.

He did not see her thoughts, but he heard her words. His expression sharpened. His isolating reserve fell like a barrier.

“I am still coming.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Normally, I would agree. However, your situation is far from normal, and I will be watching your back now.”

His voice was calm. Too steady.

Suddenly she understood.

He was not joining her because of the passion of the last few days, but because of the friendship of many years. Not because of obligations created in bed, but because of a chivalry learned as a boy.

She gazed down at the letter of transfer in her hand. He was going to throw over his whole life. Walk away from it.

There was only one reason he would take such a rash, irrevocable step.

“You, too, think he had Cleo killed, don’t you?” she said.

“Yes.”

“You do not believe I will be safe in America, either. You once said Glasbury could follow me there, and that is what you think will happen.”

“I expect he never forgave the humiliation of your leaving. Also, he wants his heir. Such men always do. I think he will do whatever is necessary to have one.”

Whatever is necessary. Force his countess to return, or find a way to have a new countess.

“When did you conclude he was capable of this, Julian?”

“After I met with him in London.”

Before that first kiss, then.

“Julian, I want to ask Mr. Hampton something. Can you be him again, for just a short while? I need his advice, and I want to know that it will be objective, and the advice he would give any woman in my situation.”