Always a Temptress (11 page)

“It’s insane!” Edwin shrilled. “And now it’s stopped. Here. I have the papers.”

She stared at the writ as if it were a snake. He wasn’t just destroying her. He was destroying Eastcourt. Bea took hold of her hand, but she could barely feel it. By the door, Thrasher and George made a move to defend her, but Harry held them back.

“You can’t commit her,” Harry told Edwin. “Not even you.”

Edwin turned a glare on him. “I can do anything. And I will, to save my family.”

Kate thought she might choke. “I don’t think your reputation will survive committing a duchess to Bedlam.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Edwin snapped. “I would never allow you to be so treated. There are excellent private facilities. You can come along, or these men will take you.”

“Get out of here,” Harry suddenly growled, stepping between her and Edwin.

“How dare you interfere in a private matter, Lidge?” Edwin demanded.

“I dare because this is a grave miscarriage of justice.”

Edwin snorted. “She’s not being arrested. But for her own sake, she must be…protected from herself. After all, that painting might only be her first real outrage.”

“Bollocks,” Harry snapped. “You know damn well that painting isn’t of your sister. Somebody paid a second-rate artist to put her face on someone else’s body.”

“You’ve seen the painting?” Edwin demanded, poking Harry in the chest with the folded writ. “If you’ve seen it, you can’t tell me it isn’t her.”

“Of course I can. And I can prove it.”

Kate’s ears were buzzing. She was holding on to somebody; she wasn’t sure who. But she heard Bea give a little moan next to her.
No, Harry, no. Even for this.

“How?” Edwin countered, his eyes narrowed. “How can you prove it?”

Kate closed her eyes again. She couldn’t look. She couldn’t listen to Harry blurt out the truth. She wanted to curl up and hide. She wanted to run. She wanted, oddly, to weep. She hadn’t wept since her sixteenth birthday.

“I assume you mean to tell me that you’ve seen my sister unclothed,” Edwin spat, his voice sounding more triumphant than angry. “Which means that she has not even confined her revels to men of class. She is now disporting with common soldiers. All you have done is cement the judge’s verdict of insanity.”

“Disport?” Harry countered, leaning over Edwin like a hawk. “I disported with no one. I
married
her.”

H
arry heard the words coming out of his mouth and couldn’t believe his own ears. What the hell was he doing? Any other time he could have come up with a better defense. But he was exhausted, he was distracted, and the only idea that ran through his head was that the authority of a husband superseded a brother’s, even if that brother was the Duke of Livingston.

“Don’t be absurd, Lidge,” the duke sneered. “Even Kate wouldn’t lower herself to marry the second son of a squire.”

“The son of a squire who is now a baronet,” Harry corrected, his eyes steely. “Knighted for conspicuous gallantry on the field of battle. It is said I took out thirty men and recovered an eagle. I don’t remember. I was too…distracted at the time.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing Edwin swallow and the two constables exchange nervous looks.

“It’s a lie,” Edwin squeaked.

“That I’m a baronet? Well, you might ask the Prince of Wales, since he was the one who conferred the honor. That Kate married me? Why not ask her?”

Please, Kate
, he thought,
don’t contradict me
. He shot her a warning look, but she wasn’t attending. Her eyes had gone glassy and flat.

The duke bristled. “I won’t allow it.”

“You have no say in the matter.” Reaching out, Harry took Kate’s hand, only to find it limp and clammy. “She is of age and independent. She doesn’t need your consent.”

“Where is her ring?”

“At the jeweler’s being sized. I brought it back from Spain.”

“And the marriage lines?”

Harry tried to look bored. “Contrary to Minerva Press novels, Your Grace, I don’t carry my marriage lines in my pocket on the off chance I might need them.”

Edwin snorted. “You are no more married to her than I am, Lidge.
You
have no say in the matter.” Turning, he glared at Kate. “Like it or not, you’re coming with us.”

Still Kate didn’t react. Harry looked over and felt his heart stumble. She was just too still. She looked like she had when he’d taken her to the ground, hollow and lifeless. It made him furious for her. It scared the hell out of him.

“Kate.” He took hold of her other hand.

By the door Finney and Mudge were looking back and forth, waiting for a cue from Harry. Thrasher was reaching over to pick up the bust of Athena from the bookcase by the door. The constables had their focus on the duke.

“Your Grace, take her to Livingston House,” Harry suggested. “I’ll meet you there with the marriage lines.”

Edwin’s smile was thick with disdain. “Don’t try my patience. You’re the last person who’d marry her. Now out of the way before you suffer the consequences.”

The duke grabbed Kate’s arm; then everything happened at once. Bea jumped up to intervene. The duke got tangled in her feet and pushed her down. Kate’s staff charged in, yelling, which signaled a free-for-all. All the men were scuffling in an attempt to protect Kate or save Bea. Kate shoved her brother aside in an attempt to get to Bea. Her brother, red-faced, swung at her so hard he knocked her back against the fireplace.

Harry’s vision went red, and there was a roaring in his ears he hadn’t heard since Waterloo. The next thing he knew, his hands were around the duke’s throat and he couldn’t stop squeezing.

“No!” he heard Kate yell. “Harry, stop!”

The duke’s face had gone purple; his eyes were beginning to bulge. Harry couldn’t let go of that scrawny, bobbing neck, even when the duke began to gurgle. It was only when he felt a small pair of hands pull at his wrists that he realized what he was doing.

“Harry, no,” Kate said, her voice unbearably gentle.

Something about her voice cut through the miasma of rage. Shuddering, he opened his fingers. The duke, sputtering and wheezing, fell back on the carpet.

“I’ll see you hanged for this!” Livingston squeaked, hands to swollen throat.

Kate kept her hold on Harry for just a moment longer. He shook his head and gave her a dry smile.

When Kate saw it, she let go and dropped down to where Lady Bea lay curled at her feet. “Dearest, valiant Bea,” she murmured, pulling the old woman into her arms. “Are you hurt?”

Harry helped Kate lift Lady Bea to the couch. The old woman tried to smile, but even Harry could see the bruise rising beneath her eye. “Slippery,” she said in a quivery voice.

“Get her out of here!” Livingston told the constables, who were righting furniture.

“Your sister has friends,” Harry said, standing by her. “We won’t let you take her.”

One of the constables stepped forward. “I’m that sorry,” he said, looking it. “But we’ve no choice. We gotta take ’er. It’s the law.”

Clumsy with discomfort, they moved to either side of Kate. “And take Lidge in,” Livingston insisted. “For attacking a peer.”

It was odd; in that instant Kate turned to Harry, and he swore she was the girl he’d once loved, eyes bright with emotion, heart open. But then, in a blink, she was shaking her head and smiling, and the smile was as old as artifice.

“Let it be, Harry,” she said, standing. “
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit
.”

“What?” Edwin demanded, pushing forward. “What did you say? Damn it…!”

“I said I’m going with you,” she told her brother. Harry couldn’t believe it, but she was straightening her rumpled dress and tucking up her hair, as if preparing to go on morning calls. “But only if you drop the nonsensical charge against Harry.”

“I will not!”

She faced off with him, a queen before a lumpkin. “You will if you don’t want all of London talking about how you attacked an old woman just so you could lock up your sister.” She didn’t wait for his blustering, but turned back to Harry. “Please, Harry. Care for Bea. She can’t be alone. See to my staff.”

“We see to ourselves,” Finney announced, sounding suspiciously teary.

Lady Bea reached for Kate’s hand. “Conciergerie,” she sobbed.

Dropping back to the couch, Kate took her tearful friend into her arms. “Ah, Bea,” she whispered, her voice thready. “I'm hardly Marie Antoinette. Don’t cry. Everything will be all right. Harry will see to it. Won’t you, Harry?”

“I’ll come get you myself.”

Kate nodded without looking at him. “Of course.”

With one last kiss to her friend’s bruised cheek, she rose. “Keep Bea safe, Harry.”

He nodded, suddenly angry and uncertain. “I promise.”

Her expression never changed as she turned back to her brother. Harry saw something bleak and empty, though, and suddenly he couldn’t bear it. He did the only thing he could think of. He enfolded her in his arms and kissed her. And for a moment, oddly, everything else went away; Kate’s brother and Kate’s dilemma and the Lions and revenge. There was only Kate; supple, soft, sensuous Kate, in his arms again, her head tilted back, her lips pliant beneath his, her hands resting against his chest.

Past and present collided, met, melded, and Harry was back in their private glen, where the trees whispered secrets and the river rushed by. She was his girl, and he was her hero, so much taller than she, so much stronger, so certain he would save her.

Too soon, though, someone coughed and broke the spell.

Pulling back, he looked down into her troubled eyes. “I promise,” he repeated, and dropped a final kiss on her forehead.

Without another word, she accepted her pelisse from Finney’s massive hands and followed her brother out the door. Left behind, Harry battled a terrible sense of déjà vu. He’d parted from her once before with a lingering kiss. He’d promised her, just like now, that he would rescue her. And he hadn’t.

What would have happened if he had? Would she have escaped those scars on her breasts? Would she have made him happy, no matter the lies she’d told? Or would their lives have been an even worse disaster?

No. He’d known then, and he knew now. He couldn’t possibly have done what she asked. He could this time, though. He would. If not for her, then for the safety of the nation, which might just rely on her.

Beside him, Lady Bea suddenly began to sob. “Oh, my girl, my girl. Persephone.”

Harry felt bloody miserable, but he put his arms around the old woman. She laid her head on his shoulder and wept.

“We’ll get her back,” he promised rashly, patting her on the back.

“Was that Latin Lady Kate spoke?” Mudge asked. “What did she say? Why did she leave?”

“She told me it wasn’t prudent to piss into the wind.” Harry battled the unfamiliar sting of emotion. “Guess we’ll just have to plan our attack from a different direction.”

He looked around the tumbled room. He needed help, and he needed it right away. “Mudge? You’re in charge of securing this house. Finney? I need somebody to bring Lady Kate’s friend Grace Hilliard here to be with Lady Bea. The last I saw of her, she was at Oak Grove in Sussex. Schroeder? See to Lady Bea until she comes.”

“What about me?” Thrasher asked.

“You’re coming with me,” Harry said, already walking from the room.

“What do you mean there’s nothing you can do?” Harry demanded an hour later as he faced Marcus Drake in the library of Drake’s Charles Street town house.

Harry knew he should have been more circumspect in approaching Drake. But Harry didn’t have time to be clever. Either Drake came to him, or he went to Drake. So while his staff was securing Kate’s home, he crept into Drake’s house like a sneak thief.

“I mean there’s nothing the government can do.” Pouring two drams of whisky, Drake handed Harry one before settling into a brown leather armchair. “This is a private family matter, Harry,” he said, resting the glass on his crossed leg. “It has nothing to do with us.”

Harry measured the dark Indian carpet in impatient steps. It was as if he could hear the tick of every second since Kate had walked out her front door. “Of course it has to do with us,” he retorted. “Do you really think it a coincidence that her brother had her committed the same day assassins tried to murder her?”

“It actually might be. Livingston has been threatening it for a while, you know. And what good would it do the Lions to have her protected in an asylum?”

“Who says she’s going to be protected?” he snapped, stopping to glare at Drake. “Can you think of an easier place to quietly do away with someone? Hell, man. Who says they have to kill her? They can simply wait till she goes mad. That’ll take care of it.”

“A little melodramatic, don’t you think?” Drake asked. “Do you really think the Duke of Livingston is a Lion?”

Harry started pacing again. “I think anybody could put a suggestion in his ear of how to control his sister, and he’d do it. But she won’t be able to tolerate it, Marcus. You didn’t see her after she was locked up in that cellar.”

God, Kate would use one of Mudge’s knives on Harry if she knew what he was revealing to Drake. He didn’t care. Drake had to be made to realize the urgency of the situation.

“There are some very enlightened asylums being built,” Drake reminded him.

Harry laughed. “And you consider the Duke of Livingston as the charitable and forward-thinking type.”

“Not really, no. But I’m afraid the government is in no position to interfere in a private matter. First of all, it would tip the Rakes’ hand. If we come charging in wielding the power of the government, we can hardly remain anonymous. Second, the duke, like him or not, is a very powerful man.”

Harry stopped by a mounted globe. “Then what can we do?”

His gaze never leaving Harry, Marcus took a sip of his whisky. “Considering how you’ve always spoken of her, you do seem unnaturally concerned.”

“She left me in charge of Lady Bea Seaton. Do you want to care for her?”

“Gads, no. Can’t understand a word the woman says.”

“She’s even harder to understand when she’s sobbing.”

Drake contemplated his drink. “Kate really didn’t sit for the painting?”

“No. I can prove it, but I won’t unless things get desperate.”

“Do you think the Lions were the ones who had it painted?”

Harry gave the globe a shove and sent it spinning. “Who knows? I can certainly see somebody in her family having done it to force the issue. Especially if, as she says, the duke has always coveted her country estate. But it would be just as effective for the Lions, if they wanted to get her out of the way without showing their hand.” He watched the countries pass in a blur as the globe whirred on. “I don’t think it’s a matter of her having something they want anymore, Marcus. I think it’s a matter of her knowing something they just don’t want her sharing.”

Marcus looked up. “What?”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know, and neither does she. I do know that if we don’t get her back soon, it won’t matter.”

“Kate’s a pretty tough girl.”

Harry watched the globe spin. “I’m not so sure.”

He had begun to suspect the truth when he’d seen that brand. The suspicion had solidified into terrible certainty when he’d stood in front of that psyche mirror in her boudoir. It had been just as she’d boasted, long and wide enough to catch her complete reflection as she passed. The perfect opportunity to savor her own beauty, to show it off for all around her. Except that for all the time she’d spent in that room, she had never once looked into it. In fact, she’d seemed to purposely avoid it. She might have bought the mirror to outrage, but she couldn’t bear to look at herself in it.

Harry had realized, standing there as Kate rocketed around the room, that the mirror was an illusion. In fact, her whole life was. He’d seen how she’d reacted when he caught sight of that brand on her breast. She had been ashamed, humiliated. Smaller, somehow. If she hadn’t wanted Harry to see, if she hadn’t even wanted to accidentally catch sight of her scars herself, how on earth would she have blithely bared them to every second man in Britain?

And if she actually had done that, how could it not be the greatest
on dit
of the decade? There wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t dine for months off that little tidbit. “
Disgusting, don’t you know. Right there atop those glorious teats, where you can’t miss them. Barbaric things. Turned m’ stomach.
”