Evelyn Richardson (21 page)

They would know that he had been there now, Fogle thought ruefully. Even if he were fortunate enough that the lady remembered nothing of the incident, she would be very much aware for some time to come that she had been dealt a solid blow on the head. If only he had not slept so late this morning, but tired out by his long ride and kept awake a good deal of the night by the unfamiliarity and the discomfort of his surroundings, Fogle had at last fallen asleep well after midnight and well after his usual bedtime.

Sighing heavily, he straightened and stepped gingerly around the body. There was nothing for it but to continue with the task he had set out to do. He scanned the page of the register that the lady had been reading and found the name he had been told to look for. Pulling out a pocket knife, he slowly, delicately, began to cut the page out of the register when he suddenly became aware of the sound of approaching hoofbeats.

He paused for a moment, waiting for them to continue on past, when much to his dismay, they stopped in front of the door. Hastily, he tore the knife down the edge of the book’s spine, snatched up the page, thrust it into his pocket, and darted out the door to the side, congratulating himself on having had the forethought to tie his horse in a concealing clump of trees well beyond the churchyard.

Carefully pulling the door securely shut behind him, Fogle could just make out the sound of footsteps echoing down the aisle and a muffled exclamation before he scurried off toward his waiting horse, threw himself on its back, and galloped off across the fields in the general direction from which he had come.

* * * *

“Catherine!” Lucian sank to his knees next to her. Gently lifting her hand, he slid off her glove and searched desperately for a pulse. It was there, faint but steady. Overwhelmed by a relief so strong it took him completely by surprise, he continued to kneel there for a moment, staring down at her, the delicate arch of her brows over fragile translucent lids, the dark sweep of her lashes against the pale cheeks, the beautifully sculpted lips that parted slightly as the faintest of breaths whispered between them. He had had no idea how worried he was about her until he saw her lying crumpled and helpless on the floor in front of the lectern.

“Catherine, my poor girl, my dearest girl, wake up.” Gently, carefully, he slid one arm under her shoulders and drew her to his chest, cradling her there, warming her, hoping desperately that somehow she would be aware that someone had come to look after her.

The ghost of a smile twisted his lips. Looking after was the last thing Lady Catherine Granville wanted. The Countess of Morehampton had been abundantly clear on that point when he, in response to her note, had been admitted to her drawing room the previous day, travel stained, but eager to do whatever he could to help.

“She won’t thank you for your interference, you know—or mine, for that matter.” The countess had greeted him with the easy familiarity of an old and trusted friend. “She is determined to handle this situation all on her own. And she needs to handle it all on her own in order to prove to herself and to Lord Granville that she can stand up to him, that she is a force to be reckoned with in her own right, but, oh, Lucian, I am afraid for her. He is not a nice man, and she has been tempting fate for some time now by refusing to recognize any authority he might have as head of the family.” She glanced anxiously up at her visitor. “Does he have any authority? Legally, I mean.”

“I do not know, Miranda. I would have to look at her husband’s will and her marriage settlements. But legally he does not have the right to resort to fraud and subterfuge as your letter seems to suggest he is doing. Now, what is it you would have me do?”

“I hardly know. I would like, for her sake, to have her extricate herself from her predicament all on her own, but I know the world, Lucian, and I know that no matter how clever or how resourceful Catherine is, as a woman on her own, she is at a severe disadvantage. She needs someone with your knowledge to help her, someone who commands the universal respect that will give her claims validity in the face of Granville’s bullying.

The countess’s blue eyes twinkled. “I do believe that she understands that, but where you are concerned, she is particularly loath to accept any assistance whatsoever, which is precisely why I wrote to you. Furthermore, if my instincts are correct, which they usually are. I do believe she is not indifferent to you.”

“Ah.”

The twinkle deepened. “Nor do I believe that you are indifferent to her. In fact, when I mentioned the name Lucian Verney, her reaction led me to suspect that she had once been quite familiar with that name. She only betrayed herself by the faintest of blushes, a barely perceptible shortness of breath, but a woman notices these things, especially a woman who has spent much of her life upon the stage.

“What would I have you do?” The countess tilted her head consideringly. “Follow her, of course, but discreetly, rendering her assistance only if necessary. If she needs none, why, then I shall just have to think of some other way to bring the two of you together. Now, be off with you. You have a journey to Oxfordshire to make and I know that you are longing for rest before you leave.”

He had taken her suggestion and made an early night of it, leaving the White Hart on horseback early the next morning well before daylight with instructions to his valet to follow at a more leisurely pace in his carriage. He arrived at the George and Dragon only to discover from the landlady that Catherine had gone to the church, and he quickly followed her there and arrived…too late.

A faint moan brought Lucian abruptly back to the present.

Catherine’s lids fluttered, and for a moment she gazed up at him blankly. Then recognition dawned. “You! What are you doing here!”

“Hardly the welcome that one who finds you alone, knocked senseless, and helpless might reasonably expect.” Lucian replied sardonically. But his words were belied by the warmth in his eyes. In the brief moment when she had first recognized him he had seen, or hoped he had seen, the gladness in her eyes. For one brief second he had felt, or thought he had felt, her hand grasping his for strength and reassurance.

She struggled to sit up. “No…I mean…how did you know that I was here?”

“Gently, my girl, gently.” Still holding her close, he eased her into an upright position. “You have had quite a knock on the head, and redoubtable though you may be, I feel sure that, along with whatever preceded it, it must have had some ill effect on you. Here.” Carefully, he undid the ribbons of her bonnet, lifted it from her head, and ran gentle fingers through her hair.

“Ouch!” She winced uncomfortably.

“Quite a bump. It is a lucky thing you did not do yourself further injury when you fell, for I feel certain that it must have been quite a blow to render you unconscious.”

“I…” She frowned in an effort to recall the events before the world had gone black around her. “I don’t know what happened. One moment I was standing there reading the register and the next… The register!” Catherine struggled in his arms. “I must get the register.”

“Easy, easy. You are not as completely recovered as you might think.” Slowly, still holding her close, Lucian raised her to her feet.

The accuracy of his words was quickly borne in on her as the world revolved dizzily around her for several seconds before righting itself.

“Now, what was it about the register?” One arm around her waist, the other clasping her hand, he led her over to the lectern where the register still lay open.

Catherine glanced eagerly at it. “I was right, after all. See, here…” Her eyes fell on the few remaining bits of torn page still left in the spine of the book and she burst into tears. “Oh, no! I have lost the proof. I have nothing to show for it now.”

Lucian gathered her in his arms. “Hush, my poor girl. Hush now.” Ever so carefully, he pulled her head against his shoulder and gently stroked the back of her neck until the sobs that shook her had subsided.

At last she looked up at him and, fiercely dashing away the tears from her cheeks with one hand, she fished for her handkerchief with another.

“Here.” He pulled in immaculate square of linen from his own pocket.

“No. It is bad enough that you found me helpless on the floor. At least allow me the dignity of using my own handkerchief.”

“Very well, then.” He grinned. “I am relieved to see that you seem to have suffered no permanent ill effects from your unnerving experience and remain the damnably independent woman you always were.”

Catherine sniffed disdainfully, but her eyes filled with tears. “Whatever am I to do? I cannot let that man win! He is a… He is…”

“I know. I know.” Lucian led her to a convenient pew and sat down with her. “He is a villain of the worst sort, for he hides a thief’s heart under the trappings of respectability, and now he has the title to make it even more respectable. Believe me, Catherine, I know about these things. I have been fighting against such things with all my might these past six years or more. And that is why the Countess of Morehampton sent for me. She knows what the world is; she has seen what it takes to win against men like Lord Granville, and she knows I can help you. Together, you and I can find the evidence that will prove the falseness of his claims. Together, we can establish your irrefutable right to what was always yours, and he will never be able to threaten you again.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Together. The word warmed her heart. He had not said “I,” but “together.” And he had not said he had come to “rescue” her, but to “help.” The distinctions were small, but to Catherine they made a world of difference.

In fact, he had rescued her. How long had she lain unconscious on that cold stone floor, and how much longer might she have lain there if he had not appeared? She had no notion. But he had arrived, strong, comforting, and infinitely reassuring in a world where the ground seemed to be constantly slipping out from under her feet, a world where she always seemed to be taking one step forward and two steps back. Yet he had not asked her, as so many would have, why she had not asked for help, why she had not consulted with someone older or more experienced. He had simply accepted the fact that she had taken the investigation on all by herself as though it were the most natural thing for a single woman to do. And now that she had failed, he was offering her his assistance.

Catherine smiled tremulously at him. “I expect you are wondering why I did not ask for help, or…at least bring someone with me.”

“On the contrary, I know precisely why you did not. In general you are used to relying on your own resources, and in general you are absolutely right to do so. There are few people so well equipped to handle whatever life may throw in their paths as you are.”

The words brought a hot flush of gratitude to her cheeks. “I had no idea ‘Ugolino’ would ever threaten me in any way. I thought he was nothing but a greedy, pompous fool who worshipped respectability and the honor of the family name.”

‘True. But even pompous fools can turn dangerous when threatened with loss of respectability or when they see the opportunity to indulge their greed.”

“And yet you were prepared to try to talk Lady Catherine Granville into changing the name of her academy in order to preserve that respectability, or at least Lady Granville’s.” Catherine wondered what devil had prompted her to mention that unfortunate episode, but she could not say. Surely she neither knew nor cared what Lady Granville was to the Marquess of Charlmont or he to her? But an insistent little voice in her head told her that she cared very much.

“Touché,” Lucian grinned as he led her back down the aisle of the church and out into the sunlight. “You never were one to let a fellow get away with inconsistencies of any sort.” His face grew serious. “Truthfully, though, I felt sorry for her.”

“Sorry for her! Sorry because she was so beautiful and enchanting, no doubt.” What had come over her, Catherine wondered. Why, she sounded almost acerbic!

“In a way.” He remained thoughtful. “She was so worldly in her ambitions, yet so ingenuous at the same time, for she truly believed that her beauty and her charming manners alone would give her the entree to the
ton
that she so desperately craved. Yet there was a certain gallantry as well in her determination that I quite admired. It was rather touching, really. And then, you know me, I never had the least use for it all anyway, so it was rather amusing to beat them at their own game. When I left town to visit the academy the first time she was on her way to becoming fashionable and I was free again to do as I pleased, and, in the course of it,”—he paused to look deep into Catherine’s eyes—“I found you again, and for that alone I am forever indebted to her.”

It was not at all the answer she had expected. Catherine had been waiting for some cynical denial of the relationship, some reference to Lady Granville’s being indistinguishable among the scores of other beautiful women he numbered among his flirts, but the sheer honesty of his answer caught her off guard and made her believe him when he told her he was glad to find her again.

She stood there mesmerized by the look in his eyes, which was both heartwarming and frightening, heartwarming because the light in them told her how much she meant to him, frightening in the intensity of feeling behind that look. Suddenly shy and unsure of herself, Catherine tried to pull her hands away, hands she had not even realized he was clasping in his until that moment.

But instead of letting her go, he pulled her to him so that she could feel the beating of his heart against her cheek. “I did not know how much I had lost until I found you again,” he whispered against her hair.

He held her a moment longer and then, sensing her uneasiness, sighed and let her go. “But now, my girl, there is work to be done, and I am a boor for distracting you from it. Come, let us speak to the landlady at the George and Dragon.”

“The landlady?” She hated her voice for squeaking the way it did, as though she found being held in a gentleman’s arms most unnerving, which indeed she did. It was a relief to have him return to the normal half-teasing, half-businesslike tone of voice he normally used with her.