Dance of Seduction (27 page)

“
Bon Dieu
, he could have killed you! I’ll wring his damned neck, I will!”

He started up from the bed, but she pushed him back down. “It wasn’t like that. Not exactly.”

“Then tell me ‘exactly’ how it was.” The realization that it could be
her
sitting here wounded staggered him, made the hair rise on the back of his neck. “Why did he threaten you? What did he want from you? What was he saying?”

She sat on the bed beside him and uncorked the bottle. “It was very odd. He seemed concerned about Johnny, of all things. He told me to give you a message about him.”

When she poured brandy on the wound, he swore a foul oath, then snatched the bottle from her, temporarily distracted from their discussion. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing? Trying to kill me, for God’s sake?”

“Why do you think I wanted the brandy? To help stop the bleeding. Mrs. Carter swears that cleansing a wound with strong spirits will help it heal faster.”

“Mrs. Carter is entitled to her opinion, but I’d rather not have it tried out on
my
leg.”

She tipped up her chin. “She said her brother, the surgeon, used it in the navy.”

“We didn’t waste good brandy on a scratch like this in the navy, I promise you.” Lifting the bottle to his lips, he drank several gulps, then set it down again. “
That’s
what we used brandy for in the navy.”

“Fine. Use it for whatever you wish. I’m done with it anyway.” She stood and glanced around, hands on her hips. “Do you have anything I can use for bandaging?”

“Here, use my cravat,” he said as he removed it.

When he handed it to her, she scowled at him. “This is silk. I’m not going to ruin silk by wrapping it around your wound. Besides, silk isn’t absorbent enough. Don’t you have any clean sheets and a scissors or a knife to cut them with?”

He reached behind him for the sheathed knife he sometimes wore inside his coat when his pistol was inconvenient. He’d had to leave it off for the ball, since evening clothes made it difficult to hide.

He handed it to her. “You can use my knife, but the only sheets are on this bed, and I’m not letting you tear them up.”

“All right, I’ll use my petticoat. It’s made of cotton, perfect for bandaging.” Taking up the knife, she marched off to the front, apparently to preserve her privacy.

“Wonderful,” he called out behind her. “Wouldn’t want to have my wound dressed in anything but the latest female fashion.”

“Sorry,” she called back from the front room, “that’ll have to wait until the next time you’re shot. This petticoat is out-of-date—I never dress in my finest for Spitalfields.”

“I noticed. Just as I noticed that you changed into a black gown for your little escapade this evening. I assume you thought that would make it easier for you to snoop about without being detected.”

There was a long silence from the front room. Then she said in a small voice, “Something like that.”

He would have lectured her again, but the rustling of her skirts distracted him. He tried not to imagine her lifting them to cut strips from her petticoat. Tried not to imagine the filmy, calf-length chemise she’d be wearing underneath, the silky stockings clinging to her eloquent thighs and dimpled knees and…

Need roared through him with typhoon force, and he swore under his breath. He should have sent her to fetch a doctor after all. Anything would be better than this torture.

Especially when she returned to the room with strips of cloth in one hand and the ruined petticoat in the other. As she tossed the piece of clothing aside, he couldn’t help staring at her skirts, which now clung to her legs, though the black bombazine was too impenetrable to allow him to see much.

Too bad he didn’t have more wounds. Then she’d have to cut up her gown and her chemise to bandage all of them. Not
to mention her drawers—to get her out of those, he’d shoot the damned pistol at his leg himself.

A tantalizing image of Clara naked rose in his fevered brain, and he squelched it ruthlessly. He had more important things to deal with right now than seducing Clara. “You said the Specter gave you a message for me. What was it?”

“That was the odd part. He said he wanted you to kick Johnny out. He was very adamant about it. He didn’t like that Johnny’s sister is friendly with a policeman.”

Morgan turned that over in his mind. Why would the Specter care about that, especially if he really did have connections in all the police offices? It made no sense. None of this made sense.

His eyes narrowed. What if the man who’d attacked her hadn’t really been the Specter? The man who’d fled the alley tonight hadn’t been husky and broad-shouldered, like the man who’d fled last time. And there’d been no horse waiting in the street when Morgan approached—tonight’s attacker had fled on foot.

“Something else I forgot about,” she said as she came to his side. “He dropped the pistol after he shot you. I imagine it’s still lying in the alley.”

“Damn it, Clara, that’s important! I’d better fetch it and bring it in here.”

He started to rise, but she shoved him back onto the bed. “You’re not going anywhere until I’ve bandaged you, Morgan.”

“Bossy wench,” he muttered.

“Besides, he’s probably already returned for it himself by now,” she said matter-of-factly as she sat down and propped his leg over her knee so she could bandage him.

She had a point. What fool left their weapon lying in an alley? But that reinforced his suspicion that her attacker hadn’t
been the Specter. And if it hadn’t been, then the real Specter might even now be lurking about.

He watched impatiently as she folded a towel into a thick square, pressed it firmly against the wound, and then wrapped the petticoat strip around his thigh.

When she tied it off, he set the brandy bottle on the floor and took her hand. “Clara, I need you to give me a moment-by-moment account of what happened in the alley.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he pressed two fingers to her mouth and added, “No, not yet. Not until I’m sure we’re alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll explain in a moment.” When he was sure the real Specter wasn’t listening in.

He rose from the bed, and she cried, “Morgan, what do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s all right. I can walk.”

“But you might injure your wound further!”

He smiled down at her. “I once fought a battle with a bullet embedded in my arm,
ma belle ange
. Trust me, this is nothing.”

He limped through to the front room and checked the door to make sure it was still locked. Coming back into the room, he closed the door between the shop and his bedchamber. Then he climbed to the second floor to search the storage room, ignoring Clara’s cry of protest. Other than Johnny’s meager belongings and the few stored boxes, there was nothing upstairs, thank God.

When he came back down, she stood at the bottom, hands planted on her hips and eyes flashing. “I swear, if you make your wound bleed again, I’ll…I’ll make you dress it yourself!”

“What? And miss torturing me with brandy?” He reached her side and chucked her under the chin. “Relax, angel, I
know what I can handle.” He headed back to the bed. “Now tell me exactly what happened tonight. Start at the beginning. I want to know everything you saw, everything your assailant said. All right?”

She stood there with a mutinous look on her face until he sat down again and leaned back against the wall. Then she hurried over to check his bandage. Satisfied that no fresh blood seeped through, she sat down beside him and began to talk.

In a surprisingly calm voice, she recounted the incident, so fully describing it that he smiled. The woman ought to be a spy herself. She had a fine attention to detail, even down to describing a hint of clean-shaven chin that she’d glimpsed beneath the hood. But the more detail she related, the more convinced he became that she had
not
met up with the Specter. The ill-educated accent, the erratic behavior…none of it fit.

He stopped her from time to time to clarify something, and when she finished, he leaned forward, scowling. “When you say that the pistol shook,” he asked, “what do you mean? The man was trembling? Perhaps even frightened?”

“At first. But later he was clearly just agitated, waving the thing wildly about and—”

“That wasn’t the Specter,” he said firmly.

“But he was wearing the cloak, and he acted like—”

“It wasn’t him, I tell you. For one thing, he speaks excellent English. And though I’ve only had a glimpse of him, he’s a hulking brute, very husky. Not the slightly built fellow you describe. Besides, no one with an ounce of knowledge about pistols would ever wave it around. It gives the person’s intended victim too many chances to snatch it or knock it aside. The Specter’s too clever to let himself be that vulnerable.”

“He was angry.”

“He doesn’t get angry. Or not angry enough to make that
many big mistakes. Besides, he never uses a pistol; he prefers a knife.” The Specter liked to threaten his lackeys by coming up behind them and holding a knife to their throats. And Ravenswood’s last spy, Jenkins, had been found stabbed, not shot. “No, this sounds like somebody with little experience in weapons and even less sense.”

“Somebody who wants Johnny gone.”

“Yes, but who could that be?”

They both fell silent, thinking. Finally Clara said, “Lucy. Johnny’s sister.”

“What? But he told me she didn’t care about him.”

“She cares more than he gives her credit for. She’s been trying to get him to leave, but he won’t.” Clara slanted him a dark glance. “He says he prefers living with
you
.”

Morgan shrugged but felt absurdly pleased.

“And the person who assaulted me did say that he—or she—wanted to speak to you. The message was certainly designed to scare
you
off, not me.”

“True, but a woman threaten somebody with a pistol? It doesn’t seem likely.”

“You haven’t met Lucy,” she said dryly.

He considered that. “There’s another suspect we’re ignoring—Lucy’s Mr. Fitch.”

“How do you know about Mr. Fitch?”

“Johnny told me. And he said the man doesn’t approve of him or his brother.”

“Well, that’s true, but then why would he want Johnny gone from here?”

“Because it damages his reputation to have the brother of his lady friend consorting with a known criminal.”

She nodded. “He did say as much to me at the police office.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose we won’t figure it out tonight. I’ll talk to Lucy tomorrow and see how she reacts. We
could always be wrong, you know. It could still be the Specter himself.”

“It’s not, of that I’m certain. If Johnny’s presence here bothered the Specter, the boy would be dead by now.”

She shuddered. “Wonderful. You’ve chosen a fine associate—a man who would kill children if it suited his needs.”

His gaze shot to her. She now watched him with a darkly accusing expression that tore through his defenses.

“Clara, you don’t underst—”

“I won’t let you put me off this time, Morgan. After what happened, I deserve answers.” She drew a shaky breath. “You expected him to come here tonight, didn’t you? That’s why you didn’t want me here. That’s why you were railing against him when you found me.”

He hesitated, then sighed. “Yes. He said he would come for his answer.”

“And I suppose you were all ready to promise your allegiance to him.” Bitterness laced her words. “I don’t understand it. I don’t understand
you
. You obviously have dealings with him, given how well you seem to know him. But how can you work with a man like that? You’re not his sort. You’re a baron’s son—”

“As if that matters,” he growled. “You’re like all the rest of those fools in society—thinking that all it takes to create a gentleman is to put a man in impeccable evening clothes and give him a titled father. But you don’t know what I really am.”

Her eyes were huge in her face, but she thrust her chin up stubbornly. “I know what you’re not. You’re not a murderer like him. And God help me, but I don’t believe you’re a fence, either. So why are you here?”

Dragging his hand through his hair, he glanced away. Af
ter he’d left Clara with Winthrop, he’d tracked Ravenswood down and demanded to know what the man had discussed with Clara. Ravenswood had been evasive, but he
had
given Morgan free rein to tell Clara what he felt was necessary.

How the hell did he know what was necessary? And did he dare reveal everything?

Then again, did he dare
not
reveal it? She could have been killed in her confounded quest for answers tonight. He would shoot himself in the other leg before he’d risk that happening again.

The trouble was, she wasn’t a sailor who’d blindly follow orders without knowing why. And she was right—she deserved to know why. Why her life had been turned upside down. Why he was here so close to her Home, providing ample temptation for her children. Why Ravenswood refused to do anything about it.

With a sigh, he leaned back against the wall. “All right, damn you, all right. I suppose you do deserve answers.”

Chapter 16

Thus youth without Thought,
Their Amours pursue,
Though an Age of Pain
Does often accrue.
A Little pretty pocket-book,
John Newbery

C
lara listened as Morgan related the whole story from start to finish. She didn’t find his explanations particularly amazing—she’d already guessed he wasn’t what he seemed.

Still, it was vastly reassuring to learn that he was a man she could be proud to know. Her attraction to him hadn’t been unwarranted, and her instincts had been right, however much her mind had chided her for them. He was indeed a fine and honorable gentleman.

Perhaps
too
fine and honorable. He was risking his life, for heaven’s sake! From what she’d heard, no one had ever crossed the Specter and lived.

Her heart leaped into her throat. Her attacker tonight might not have been the Specter, but his pistol had been just as terrifying, just as dangerous. She’d hated being cornered, hated the dread and helplessness that had rocked her. Even though it was over now, she started at every sound, her pulse still raced, and the sight of Morgan’s poor bandaged leg closed a cold fist of fear around her heart.