Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (43 page)

It seemed to take forever before his lashes lifted. Lights flickered. Shapes advanced and retreated. He frowned as he willed everything to come into focus. He was staring at a bed, and the half-clothed body of the young woman who lay on top of it. Lucy.

He thought his lungs would burst as he tried to scream his protest. This should never have happened. She was innocent. Her only crime was that she had known him. She was a prop in this grotesque drama. That’s all she was to her killers, a prop to make his own murder seem more plausible.

It was all coming back to him. The bastards had stuck a knife in him, then they’d dumped him in this chair in a corner of the room and had left him to bleed to death. His hand was splayed against his chest, and something warm and sticky oozed between his fingers. He looked down. A large crimson stain was spreading across his shirt. If he didn’t do something soon, it would be too late.

He couldn’t pull himself to his feet, so he sank to the floor, on his knees, and used one arm pressed tight against his chest to stanch the flow of blood. Now that he was more awake, sensation was coming back, and his chest felt as though a red-hot poker was lodged in it. Ignoring the pounding inside his head, he propelled himself forward on his knees, inch by painful inch, till he came to the edge of the bed.

He groped with his free hand and found the pistol he had hidden between the mattress and the footboard. He had very little strength left, and though he knew it might be the death of him, he took his arm away from his chest and used both hands to cock the gun. Bracing his back against the bed, he aimed for the window and squeezed the trigger.

The report of the shot sent waves of sound echoing from wall to wall. There were shouts from below, then the thundering of footsteps on the stairs. He had no way of knowing whether he’d summoned help or his would-be murderers. Either way, things did not look good for him.

The mist was becoming thicker and he had no more will or strength to fight it. It sucked him under like a great black wave.

He was dreaming. He was in his grave and his friends had come to pay their last respects. Their faces swam above him, their expressions somber as befitted the occasion. There was one person there who wasn’t a mourner. He brought her face into focus. Lucy. She was reaching her hand into the grave, trying to draw him back to the land of the living.

Then the wave rolled over him and he knew nothing.

W
hy do you want to marry me, Michael?”

No sooner had she asked the question than she regretted it. There was no point in prolonging the conversation. She knew she was going to refuse him. Now she would have to appear interested in his answer.

“Prince Michael,” he corrected automatically. “Because, Lady Rosamund, I think you’ll make a perfect princess.”

A perfect princess
. The words grated on Rosamund.
That’s what they were calling her in the newspapers—the perfect princess—ever since Prince Michael of the diminutive principality of Kolnbourg had made her the object of his attentions. And the depressing truth was, she probably
would
make a perfect princess.

She was the daughter of a duke. She’d led a sheltered existence. From the day of her birth, she’d been trained in all the feminine arts, the ones that were essential for the wife of some gentleman from her own exalted sphere. She’d never been to school like other girls, or had beaux, or been kissed, or had adventures. That wasn’t precisely true, but the one adventure in her life was an aberration, a small ripple that had left no lasting impression on the smooth surface of her uneventful days, not to mention her uneventful nights.

She exhaled an inaudible sigh. There must be something wrong with her. Prince Michael of Kolnbourg was the embodiment of every young woman’s dream. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was charming; he was titled. Legions of women had tried to lead him to the altar and failed.

The trouble was, much the same could be said of her. She was tall, dark, and handsome. She was charming; she was titled. But she had one asset that made her stand out from the crowd: She was, in her own right, as rich as a nabob. The result was no end of suitors for her hand in marriage, suitors who were all rigorously scrutinized by her father and her older brothers. And her father was becoming desperate because time was passing, and she wasn’t getting any younger. In another month, she would turn thirty, and the supply of eligible suitors might very well begin to dry up.

She wished it would. What she wanted was a beau, not a suitor, someone who would like her for herself. Suitors, in her experience, were bookkeepers. Every asset was noted in their mental ledgers before they made an offer.

Michael—
Prince
Michael—was definitely a suitor. He was only fourth in line to the throne and, if rumor was to be believed, hadn’t a sou to his name, a tragic circumstance
when one considered his expensive tastes. Marriage to her would solve all his problems.

Obviously, he wasn’t going to elaborate on the answer he’d given her. The thing to do now was to let him down gently and tactfully. Well, she’d had plenty of practice in turning away suitors.

They were in the circular greenhouse of Twickenham House, the ducal mansion in Twickenham, just outside of London, and Rosamund took a moment or two to set the mood by staring at the vista through one of the long windows. Summer was in full bloom, and the gardens were ablaze with color.

“I’m an English girl,” she said. “I could never be happy transplanted to a foreign shore.”

She looked over her shoulder and caught him in the act of studying his watch. Evidently, she bored him as much as he bored her. That didn’t surprise her. Lady Rosamund Devere was a boring sort of person. That’s what came of being a duke’s daughter. She’d been raised to be as bland as a blancmange. And that’s exactly the kind of wife Prince Michael wanted.

The perfect princess, the bland blancmange, who could be counted on never to put a foot wrong, say a wrong word, or have an original thought.

If he knew what she was really like, he would run screaming from the room.

Without awkwardness or embarrassment, he slipped his watch inside his vest pocket and gave her one of his engaging smiles. “I have no objection to your remaining in England after we are wed,” he said. “In fact, I may decide to make England my home. The climate agrees with me.”

So did the actresses, but she wasn’t supposed to know about them. She gave him one of her own engaging smiles. “I’m almost tempted, but …”

“But?”

“You can’t play chess, your Highness. And I could never marry a man who cannot play chess.”

And that was that.

Mrs. Calliope Tracey put the teapot down with a thump. “Chess?” she said. “What has chess to do with anything?”

Rosamund gazed at her friend over the rim of her teacup. They were in the breakfast room in Callie’s house in Manchester Square, where Rosamund had taken refuge the night before in the interests of self-preservation. The duke, her father, had not been amused when she’d told him that she and Prince Michael would not suit. There had been a scene, if one person ranting and raving could be called a scene. And her brothers had not got off scot-free either. It seemed that His Grace had raised three thankless children, if persons of their advanced years could possibly be called “children.” Not one of them was married. At this rate, their line would die out. Then where would they be?

As was their wont, she and her brothers had listened to Papa in sympathetic silence, then made their escape to do precisely what they wanted to do. With Caspar and Jack, it would be chasing petticoats, racing their curricles to Brighton, dueling, gaming, or whiling the hours away in their ubiquitous gentlemen’s clubs. There wasn’t much a duke’s daughter could escape to, but she could always count on her one and only friend to put her up for a few days, and lend a sympathetic ear. So here she was.

That was another consequence of being a duke’s daughter. She had legions of acquaintances, both male and female, but they were not friends. They were so intimidated by her exalted station in life that they treated her with a deference that made her squirm. They never contradicted anything she said. Whatever she suggested was always accepted without argument. It was such a bore.

Callie was the exception. Her late father had been the duke’s steward, and Callie and Rosamund had known each other from the cradle. They’d even been educated together, not at school, but by Rosamund’s governess in the schoolroom at Westmount, the seat of the dukes of Romsey since the reign of Queen
Elizabeth. This arrangement had suited both the duke and his steward, since Callie would have the advantage of a superior education her father could not afford, and Rosamund would have the benefit of Callie’s company. Though the idea was that they’d both be treated equally, it hadn’t worked out that way. Callie had always been allowed more freedoms than Rosamund.

“Roz?” Callie slapped her open palm on the table to get Rosamund’s attention. “Hallo? Hallo?”

Rosamund blinked. “What?”

“Where do you go when that look comes over your face? What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking that ordinary girls have an easy time of it. They have so many choices. They can do what they want or go where they want. Look at you.”

Callie laughed. “Nonsense,” she said. “The sad truth is no female has an easy time of it. We are tied to some man’s leading strings from birth, first a father’s, then a husband’s or a brother’s. It’s only when a woman becomes a widow that she is truly free. You should follow my example.”

Rosamund obligingly smiled. This was one of Callie’s oft-repeated jests, that life for a female began only when she became a widow, and in Callie’s case, it was true. When her unlamented tyrant of a husband died in a hunting accident, Callie had come to live with his uncle in Manchester Square, and she’d found her true vocation as Uncle Edward’s hostess. She was amusing; she was outrageous. An invitation to one of her parties was highly prized, and she was invited everywhere. Callie had no shortage of beaux either.

She was the kind of woman, Rosamund thought, that would appeal to men. She had expressive brown eyes and dark brown hair that curled naturally to frame her face in tiny ringlets. And she was as dainty and finely sculpted as a porcelain figurine. God forbid that she should alight from a carriage without some male rushing to her assistance, or that she should carry a hatbox or drop a handkerchief. It wasn’t that Callie expected these courtesies. It was simply that men thought
she was fragile. And nothing could be further from the truth.

It was true that men showed her, Rosamund, the same courtesy, but that was because they wanted to curry favor with her father. Behind her back they called her the “Amazon.”

If they only knew how much of an Amazon she could be when the occasion demanded, they would bite their tongues.

“Why are you smiling?” asked Callie.

“I was thinking of Prince Michael.”

“You still haven’t explained what chess has to do with anything. What did the prince say after you told him that you could never marry a man who does not play chess?”

“Not ‘does not play chess’, but ‘cannot play chess.’ There is a difference. What could he say? I’d beaten him at chess, you see. If he hadn’t looked at his watch, I would have let him down gently. But after he slighted me like that, I didn’t care how brutal I was.” To Callie’s blank stare, Rosamund elaborated, “He’s a chess player. He fancies himself an expert. But I let him know he was no match for me.”

“Then what happened?”

“He clicked his heels and took off like one of Congreve’s rockets.”

Callie stared, then hooted with laughter. At length, she said, “You chess players are a breed apart. I never had the patience for it.”

“I remember.”

There was an interval of silence as Callie replenished their teacups. Without looking up, Callie said, “All this talk of ordinary girls and leading strings makes me think that you’re finally thinking of establishing your own home.”

“I’ve thought about it, but I don’t know what good it would do. I’d no sooner move in then so would my father and brothers. Or, if they didn’t move in, they’d visit me so often I wouldn’t know the difference.”

Callie sighed. “I’m sure you’re right. Your father and
brothers are too protective of you. If they were my relations, I think I’d shoot them or shoot myself. Thank God my male relations know enough to keep their distance, except for Uncle Edward, of course, and he’s a dear. I’ve never regretted my decision to come and live with him.”

“And I’m sure he feels the same.”

This was no exaggeration. Edward Tracey had invited Callie to make her home with him after he’d suffered a mild stroke. Though there was an unmarried sister, Frances, who lived with him as well, she was as scatty as a bat, and had no idea how to manage a household or care for a semi-invalid. Callie soon became indispensable because Uncle Edward was an outgoing person, and without Callie there would have been no parties and nothing to look forward to.

Callie rested her chin on her linked fingers. “You know, Roz,” she said, “if I were you, I would get married. No, no, hear me out. It could be the ideal solution. Maybe you were too hasty in refusing Prince Michael. From what I hear of him, he’d make an ideal husband.” Her eyes danced. “He’d marry you and forget about you. You’d be free to come and go as you please. No more leading strings. What more could a woman want?”

“How about the right man?” responded Rosamund drily.

“The right man?” Callie laughed. “Roz, he doesn’t exist. If he did, you would have met him by now.”

“Now just a minute! I’m not exactly in my dotage.”

Callie sat back in her chair and studied Rosamund’s lowered brows. Finally, she said, “I’m all ears. Describe this romantic figure who can do what no other man has done and lead you to the altar. But I’m warning you, Roz, if he’s anything like Lord Byron, I shall laugh myself silly.”

“You think Lord Byron is a romantic figure? I think he’s a slimy toad.”

“Stop hedging!”