Cupid's Dart (19 page)

Andrew swallowed a gulp of his brandy. "I do not wish to talk to you about my sister," he said, in tones that were somewhat slurred. "And to blazes with your better nature, and for that matter, with you! I came here to steal back the emerald—whatsis!—but I can't seem to find the blasted thing. Or perhaps I
could,
if I got up from this chair, but I've hurt my blasted leg."

Magnus recalled that young Lieutenant Halliday walked with a limp. He glanced around the library, which was in considerable disarray. "You didn't find the thing because I am not so addlepated as to have it here. My man didn't tell me I had a visitor. How did you get in?"

Andrew waved the pistol toward an open window. "If the bubble-brain could do it, then why shouldn't I?" he said obscurely, causing Mr. Eliot to try and remember if any lovelies had scaled the walls of his rented house to enter through a window, which would have been very strange behavior, in light of the fact that he would gladly welcome them properly through the front door.

Andrew was still talking. "Even with a curst lame leg. 'Twas nothing like scaling the walls of the fortress at Badajoz. Huge ochre walls and angular bastions thirty feet high. Kestrels nesting in the castle towers. Frogs croaking nearby. Did you know that Badajoz was wrested from the Moors in 1229?" The room swam around him. Why was he sitting in this chair? Andrew remembered that his leg had given out. "I had to break the glass."

Magnus didn't make the mistake of thinking all that ailed his visitor was an overindulgence in fine brandy. The boy looked very ill. The pistol was a danger of the pistol, not because he feared its owner, but because Lieutenant Halliday's hand was shaking so badly that the damned thing might go off by accident.

Magnus removed himself from the line of fire. "How long have you been here?"

Andrew shook his head, which was grown very heavy. "We sacked the town. Men dressed themselves up in silk gowns, garlanded themselves with strings of pretty Spanish shoes, carried off hams and tongues and loaves. Where have you been, Eliot? I wondered if you would ever come home."

Magnus fervently wished he hadn't. He very much disliked the wild manner in which his uninvited guest was waving that damned pistol about. "Having failed to rob me, you decided to talk to me instead?"

Andrew frowned in an attempt at concentration. "Something like that."

"Good!" Magnus availed himself of some badly needed brandy. "In that case, do you think you might put away that damned barking-iron? It's a trifle disconcerting to look at you over a gun barrel." He quirked an eyebrow. "Unless you mean to call me out for conversing with your sister the other day?"

Andrew put down the pistol, which he had forgotten he was holding. "I don't want to call anybody out. It's a bloody stupid custom. If people wish to kill each other, they should go to war. Although war is like a duel, isn't it, only it's between countries. This war started because the Spanish Royals were quarrelling among themselves, and Napoleon stepped in, and look at us now." He raised his empty hand to wipe perspiration from his face. "Anyway, I daresay it wasn't
your
idea to speak with my sister. Knowing Georgie, she probably spoke to you first."

"So she did." Magnus glanced at the brandy snifter which his guest still held, and looked like he might momentarily drop. "I don't think you should be drinking that."

Andrew, too, glanced at the snifter. "Why not? You might be surprised at some of the things I've drunk. Not now, but in the Peninsula. Why—"

"Never mind!" Magnus was less interested in the Peninsula than in his uninvited guest's obvious ill health. "Dammit, man, you're as sick as a dog."

Dog? Andrew peered around for Lump, who he didn't think he'd brought along. Lump could hardly have scaled the fortress wall. Maybe he had left the beast outside. No, that wouldn't serve. Lump would have raised a ruckus before now. Maybe the dog had run off. Georgie would be made very unhappy if she lost her pet again. Therefore, Andrew was very sure he hadn't brought him along. He shook his head. "No. No dog," he said.

His guest had let go of his pistol. Prudently, Magnus pushed it aside. "You meant to rob me," he remarked.

Had he? Andrew could not remember. "That would be dishonorable," he said, just before he closed his eyes and slid unconscious to the floor. Magnus swore a great oath, and rang for his servant, and ordered his carriage brought around.

Thus it came about that Tibble was roused so abruptly from his slumbers that he answered the front door clad in his night shirt and cap to find yet another strange gentleman demanding to see his mistress. Tibble was shocked. Surely Lady Georgiana and her admirers must know it wasn't at all the thing to be knocking up a lady at this hour of night.

"Cut the cackle!" snapped the stranger, and strode toward his carriage, only to return with the semi-conscious Andrew under his arm. Tibble abandoned his apprehensions, along with his nightcap and his dignity, and helped the stranger carry Andrew into his chamber, and lay him on the bed. "I'll get Mistress Georgie," he said, and ran to do so, and awaken the rest of the household.

And thus it also came about that Magnus Eliot met with Miss Halliday in a bedchamber, his clothing in disarray, and she in her nightrail. Under other circumstances Magnus might have enjoyed the encounter very well. However, they were not alone. Tibble and Agatha and Janie, each in nighttime attire, clustered around the bed. Tibble held a basin of cool water, while Janie wrung out damp cloths, which Agatha applied to Andrew's feverish brow. Lump, recovered now from his adventure with the apple tart, had to be restrained from leaping on the bed. Only Marigold was absent, not only because Tibble had omitted to inform her of this latest disaster, but because Agatha had liberally laced her negus with laudanum. "I've sent for a sawbones," Magnus said to Georgie. "You can't deal with this yourself."

Georgie agreed. She had never seen Andrew so ill. "I don't understand. How did you come to—'" Her gaze flew to Magnus's face. "Oh, no."

"He broke into my house looking for that damnable doohickey." Even in his current frame of mind, which was made up of equal parts annoyance and exasperation, Magnus could not help but appreciate the manner in which Miss Halliday's hair curled wildly around her head. She looked as though she had just got out of bed. Yes, and so she had, and Magnus would like to get back into bed with her, and not because he was so very tired.

This was hardly a fit moment in which to be thinking of such matters, but Mr. Eliot was incorrigible. "It is very fortunate for young Lieutenant Halliday that I hold his sister in such high regard," he said, with a hint of his dimpled smile. "Else I would have had the young whelp up before the magistrates. He meant to rob me."

What had Andrew been thinking? Georgie stared at the still figure on the bed. "He was also talking a great deal of nonsense about the Peninsula," Magnus added. He held out the dueling-pistol, which caused no small consternation in the room, and recalled to Tibble his desire to knock down a certain gentleman's applecart.

"Stubble it!" said Magnus, and handed the gun to Georgie. "I assume this is yours. Your brother also mentioned twelve-pounders and limbers and caissons."

Georgie sighed, and accepted the dueling pistol, which was one of a set that had belonged to her father. "Yes, I know. Corpses that stayed warm all night. Fiery lakes of smoking blood. I don't know what we are to do for poor Andrew. Nor do I know what to say to you about my brother's behavior, Mr. Eliot. Had Andrew been in his right senses he would never have tried to—to do what he did! I offer you my apologies, sir, in his behalf. And I thank you for returning him to us. If there is anything I can do to make it up to you—" Magnus's blue eyes twinkled. Georgie recalled to whom she was speaking. "Never mind!"

Regardless of the audience, Magnus clasped Georgie's bare hand and raised it to his lips. "I am a marvel of discretion, my darling," he murmured softly, against her palm. "When the stakes are high enough." The doctor arrived then, and Mr. Eliot took his leave.

Chapter Twenty-four

Upon his return to Brighton, Lord Warwick paused only long enough to remove his travel-dirt and take a bite to eat before proceeding to Miss Halliday's house. The streets were crowded with pedestrians and traffic, and his progress was slow. Therefore he arrived on Georgie's pristine doorstep in an exasperated mood.

Tibble opened the door. Lord Warwick prepared to explain yet again who he was. Instead, the butler— whose wig was perched rakishly to one side—greeted Garth as though he were an old friend. "Lor', sir, it's that glad I am to see you! Master Andrew has come within ame's ace of turning up his toes. No need to go on the fidgets—he ain't gone off yet to kingdom come, for all the sawbones' brains are in his ballocks, or so Agatha says. I'm afraid we'll have the quacksalver back here for Mistress Georgie afore long, because she's fretting her guts to fiddle-strings. Maybe
you
can get her to take some rest afore she wears herself down to a nubbin." So saying, Tibble led the visitor to Andrew's bedchamber, and threw open the door.

The room was small, dominated by a heavy wooden wardrobe and a large, carved four-post bedstead. Despite the warmth of the day, a fire burned in the hearth, and the windows were closed. The air smelled of juniper oil and peppermint. A young man lay sleeping—at least Garth hoped he was sleeping—on the bed. Georgie sat watching him from a chair by the window. Lump sprawled like a great deflated pillow in one corner of the room.

Upon glimpsing her visitor, Georgie rose. "Garth! You have come back," she said, and then grasped Lump's collar before the hound could launch himself at the newcomer, whom he recognized as his liberator from the small tack room at the inn. "Lump, lie down!"

The dog collapsed again into a dejected posture. Georgie hurried across the room and flung herself into Garth's arms. He held her to him and frowned at the goggle-eyed butler. Reluctantly, Tibble withdrew and repaired to the kitchen, where he would tell Agatha and Janie that Mistress Georgie was apparently falling arsy-varsy in
amours
with a lowly groom.

Georgie clung to Lord Warwick as if he were the only stable force in an increasingly chaotic landscape. Andrew had been terribly ill, and she had been very much afraid. Through the night he had alternated between unconsciousness and periods of wakefulness that were almost more terrible, because he raved about the Peninsula. Fuentes, Almeida, Wallace and the wild Connaught Rangers, the sudden hailstorm at Albuera—all were as distinctly in Andrew's memory as if he were still there. And also as vividly in Georgie's imagination, alas, for she could have happily foregone the experience of going into battle with bayonet drawn, amid regiments with not enough men left alive to bury their dead. Nor would she herself ever have imagined a breakfast of beer and onions. She pressed her face against Lord Warwick's chest.

If Georgie did not look, as Tibble might have put it, like a death's head upon a mop-stick, her gray eyes were still shadowed, and her lovely features drawn. "My dear," Garth murmured, "I am so very sorry that I had to leave you alone." This was clearly no fit moment to tell her of the reasons for that departure, though he longed to do so.

This comment, unfortunately, reminded Georgie of the reason why Lord Warwick had left town, which in her mind had to do with Lady Denham's gardens, and the embrace they had shared there. Here she was, clutching at him like she was drowning. Did she not let go, Garth would probably leave town again.

Georgie did not want Garth to leave town again, even if he was determined to keep her at arm's length. She removed herself from his chest.

"There was nothing you could have done," she said. "Andrew has been prey to recurrent fevers ever since he came home from the Peninsula, though I have never seen him so ill as this. I confess that I have been frightened almost out of my wits." She gazed at the bed. "The doctor has bled him, over Agatha's protests. Agatha does not approve of the application of leeches. She prefers her own remedies, such as lemon water and sage tea and borage syrup, and heaven knows what else. The doctor was most insistent, and so I agreed. Andrew's illness is prone to recur when he is distressed. Garth, I cannot help but blame myself for this."

"Don't be absurd
.
" Georgie had not moved so far away from him that Garth could not draw her back into his arms. He did so, and smoothed down the wild mass of curls that tickled his nose. "It was good you had the sawbones in."

It was also good that Georgie had so comfortable a chest to rest against. "That was Magnus Eliot's doing," said Georgie, and then could have bit her tongue, because she felt Garth stiffen. "Don't bother to tell me I shouldn't know Magnus Eliot, Garth, because as it so happens I do know him already, and Andrew was, er, with him when he became so ill, and Mr. Eliot was very kind."

Garth had not reached the point of scolding, yet. He was still in shock. "Your brother was with Eliot?" Surely young Lieutenant Halliday wasn't such a flat as to fall into the clutches of a Captain Sharp. "Georgie, what has become of your family's fortune? Your father was a wealthy man. Although I know it is not my place to ask."

"The money is in trust for Andrew. He will have the means to someday set up his own household." Reluctantly, Georgie stepped away from Garth. "If you are thinking Andrew a pigeon for Mr. Eliot's plucking, you misjudge them both. For one thing, I have not yet told Andrew of the trust, because I know he will cut up stiff, and insist I share the money with him, which I will not do. For another, Andrew has no taste for gaming. If you must know the truth, Andrew was attempting a robbery. Mr. Eliot could have had him up before the magistrates, but instead he brought him home."

"Attempting a
robbery?"
Garth sat down abruptly in the chair. "Let me guess. This is to do with the bird-witted Mrs. Smith."

"Lower your voice." Georgie gestured toward the bed. "It was not Marigold's doing, precisely. Andrew came up with the notion all on his own, which makes sense if you think about it, because the idea of robbing Magnus Eliot is clearly the workings of an overheated brain, and that Marigold has a brain at all we have come to doubt." She sighed. "I should not have said that. Truly, I do not wish you to concern yourself with this nonsense, Garth. You have enough troubles of your own."