How to Master Your Marquis (25 page)

“Is that a pistol?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer. With his other hand he pulled her along behind him, until they reached the bushes next to the first bench. He paused, as if scenting the air. “We’ll wait here,” he said, drawing her onto the bench next to him, as if they were two lovers enjoying a discreet midnight rendezvous.

The sound of carriage wheels rattled into her ears. Stefanie’s body tensed. Hatherfield laid his hand over hers, a heavy and reassuring weight.

The carriage went past without a pause, receding into the night. Her shoulders slumped with disappointment, and Hatherfield curled his fingers more snugly around her hand. “Don’t worry. We’re early,” he whispered.

She felt tender and exposed, here in the black night with Hatherfield, waiting for her sister. She turned her face to his. She could just make out his features in the dimness.

He lifted his other hand and took off her round bowler hat. “In case anyone’s watching,” he said, and he lowered his face to kiss her.

Stefanie made a shocked noise, low in her throat, and then understanding dawned and she opened her mouth and took his kiss deep, playing her part with enthusiasm. A pair of forbidden lovers on a dark Chelsea park bench: What could be more ordinary? Less deserving of anarchist suspicion? She raised her hand to caress the back of his neck, for good measure. One had to make things convincing, after all. Hatherfield’s lips traveled over hers, warm and soft, tasting faintly and familiarly of brandy. His tongue brushed like quicksilver against hers, and she murmured a delighted
oh!
that didn’t quite make it out of her throat at all, and she gripped his collar with both hands and yanked him against her chest.

This time, she didn’t hear the carriage wheels rattle to a stop on the nearby pavement. She only dimly recognized the sound of footsteps on cobbles, and only then because Hatherfield had torn his delicious mouth away, the cad, and sprung with a leopard’s grace to his booted feet.

“Holstein.” The word carried low across the damp air, from the direction of the footsteps.

Hatherfield, in reply: “Huhnhof.”

Stefanie stood and gripped the top of the bench with one hand. Hatherfield’s agile body moved forward like a shadow. She craned her neck to see around him.

“Ashland, by God!” he said.

“Hatherfield?” A man’s voice, deep and rich, coming from an enormous human shape that blocked out all light behind it, except for a slight bobbing figure above one broad shoulder.

Emilie.

Hatherfield was speaking. “She’s right in the bushes behind . . .”

But Stefanie was already flying past him, launching herself at the sister-shaped hole in the shadows.

Emilie let out a little cry as she took her in her arms. “Stefanie!” she gasped. Emilie wrapped her hands around Stefanie’s shoulders and set her away. She put her cool gloved hands against Stefanie’s face, and her round eyes gleamed in the distant gaslight, lurid and beautiful. “It’s you!”

“It’s me, it’s me,” Stefanie said, laughing and hugging her, taking her back and squeezing her to assure herself of the essential Emilie inside that thick wool coat, that round bowler hat identical to her own.

“Shh,” said one of the men, rather harshly. Emilie’s duke, no doubt, who radiated taciturn impatience and general ill humor. Even in the darkness, Stefanie could tell that his arms were crossed against his massive chest.

Stefanie took Emilie by the hand and dragged her to the bench.

“Fifteen minutes,” Hatherfield called out.

“Yes, yes,” Stefanie said, and she took Emilie’s hands. “You have a quarter hour, my darling, so tell me all about him.”

“About whom?” Emilie said innocently.

“This duke of yours. This Ashland. Hatherfield says he’s legendary. Have you kissed him yet? Of course you have. You’re engaged. What’s he like?”

Emilie was laughing. “Oh, you’re just the same, aren’t you? He’s wonderful, he’s . . . well, he’s rather taciturn at first . . .”

“I gathered that already.”

“But inside he’s loving and tender and . . . oh, Stefanie!”

Stefanie squealed. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”

Emilie squealed back and squeezed Stefanie’s hands. “I am!”

“Oh, look at you!” Stefanie took off her sister’s hat and fingered her golden hair. “Where are your spectacles?”

“I left them in the carriage. I was too excited.”

“You look lovely. You’re radiant. Are you really going to marry him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s to be done. I suppose we’ll have to marry.” Emilie ducked her head.

Stefanie clapped her hand to her mouth and squealed again. “You’re . . . you’re
not
!”

Emilie whispered, “I am. I think I am. It’s terrible of me, isn’t it? But . . .”

“Oh! Oh! I don’t know what to say. Are you happy? Oh, I don’t believe it. You, of all people!”

“Shh! Stefanie, do be quiet. They’ll hear you.”

Stefanie leaned close. “What, doesn’t he know?” she whispered fiercely.

“No! Not yet. I’m not even quite sure yet. That is, I am, but I’m not. Do you know what I mean?”

A queer pang struck Stefanie’s ribs. “Well, no,” she said.

“You must think I’m awful.”

Stefanie gathered herself and held her sister’s hands as tightly as she could. “You’re dreadfully wicked, and I couldn’t be happier. You beautiful thing. You broke free, you acted for yourself. Was it wonderful?”

Emilie leaned into her ear. “It was wonderful. He’s wonderful. I never dreamed it would be like that. Oh, Stefanie. And we haven’t . . . not since Yorkshire . . . and I miss it so. I miss him so. I want it all back. Isn’t that strange? And we have our engagement ball tomorrow, and I should be thrilled, and all I want is to go back to Yorkshire and . . . and
sin
with him.” She said the word
sin
with relish, in a way that made Stefanie’s toes tingle with longing.

The duke’s voice called out. “Five minutes.”

They looked at each other and burst into a sisterly giggle.

“I’m glad, Emilie. I’m so glad. And I’ll be an aunt!”

“Shh!” Emilie glanced at the men and back again. “Don’t say that. You’re scaring me to death. I can’t even quite believe it myself yet, and everything’s still so . . . oh God. I can’t think about it. Tell me about this fellow with you. What’s his name?”

“His name is James.” The word sounded strange in Stefanie’s ears. “The Marquess of Hatherfield.”

“And . . . ?” Emilie’s voice was rich with meaning.

“And what?”

Emilie nudged her. “And. Tell me about him. You can’t hold back now; I’ve just bared my soul to you.”

“Well, he’s beautiful. That’s what you notice first. Rather difficult to ignore.”

“And?”

“And . . . well, he rows.”

“Rows a boat?”

“Yes, a racing boat.”

“Scull or sweep?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. He rows a boat. With oars. Very fast. A sort of champion. That’s all I know.”

Emilie sat back, mouth agape. “You’re in love with him.”

“Nonsense. He’s beautiful, that’s all. Well, quite extraordinarily beautiful. And I suppose his figure is admirable, if one happens to admire that sort of brutish abundance of muscles. A needlessly impeccable physique, when you come right down to it, though only to be expected with all that tiresome physical exercise, rowing and rowing, up and down, over and over.” She paused. “Oh, and I suppose he’s honorable and all that, I’ll give him his noble character, a bit of the old-fashioned gentleman about him, really quite tedious to a modern thinker, as I am. And perhaps he drops the occasional witty line, when pressed, though he naturally expects a great deal of applause when he does. But no. I certainly haven’t fallen in love with him.”

Emilie burst into laughter.

“Two minutes!”

“Oh, Stefanie,” said Emilie. “I miss this. I miss you.”

“I wish I could be there tomorrow, to see you all dressed up and happy, on his arm.”

“Well, it won’t be like that, exactly. Olympia and Ashland planned the ball to . . .”

A shout rang out. “Hatherfield, secure the women!”

Stefanie half rose, just in time to see a blurred shadow race past the bench and into the bushes. In the next instant, a loud bang exploded the air nearby.

“Get down!” Hatherfield’s hand connected firmly with her back, pushing her into the ground next to the bench. Emilie stumbled next to her.

“Where’s Ashland? I’ve got to find him!” her sister screamed.

“Stay down!” shouted Hatherfield, planting his legs protectively before them, and even as he spoke the air filled with leaping shadows. He swung an expert punch into a jaw, whirled about, and delivered a fierce blow to another man’s gut.

“There’s too many!” Stefanie said. And too close—Hatherfield’s pistol was useless.

Her blood fired. Anger filled her: fury at this group of men, linked undoubtedly with those who had killed her father, who now threatened Hatherfield. Threatened Emilie.

She was just beginning to rise when a hand grabbed the back of her collar and jerked her upward. She craned her neck and caught a glimpse of a hard face, a scar above a thick eyebrow, before the arm closed around her throat and drew her up against a stone wall of a chest and began to drag her toward the river.

Somewhere nearby, Hatherfield roared. A hard thump shuddered through her, and the hand loosened. She wrested herself free and spun about. Someone reached an arm about her neck, and she snapped her head to one side and bit the outstretched hand just in time. A howl of pain split her ears.

Emilie was shouting something in a strangled voice. Stefanie spun about, trying to find her sister in the shadow-crossed darkness, and for an instant that beloved white face floated into view between a pair of shoulders, braced at the jaw with a large wool-covered arm.

Ashland’s massive body blurred past, swinging his fist in a fury. A loud grunt, and the man holding Emilie toppled backward. Ashland seized him with a knife to the throat—good God, how it glinted in the gaslight—and a hand closed around Stefanie’s arm, spinning her around.

She raised her fist to strike, and saw it was Hatherfield. “You’re all right?” he demanded.

“Yes.”

Bang.

In a flash, Hatherfield gathered her under his own body and turned her away from the river.

“Damn it to hell!” Ashland shouted. “To the carriage!”

Emilie screamed her name.

“She’s right here,” said Hatherfield. His arms were still snug about her. “Shot came from the river.”

Ashland drew out a pistol from his jacket. “Take the women to the carriage. I’ll cover.”

Hatherfield’s arms fell away. “Right-ho. This way.”

He urged her forward. She and Emilie ran hand in hand to the street, where a large four-wheeler stood waiting by the pavement. Another shot rang out. “Hatherfield!” she called, from her straining lungs.

“Right here,” he said, behind her. “Keep going, damn it!”

She pounded on, legs stretched to their utmost, almost flinging Emilie along with her. The carriage loomed before her. Hatherfield’s hand was at her back, his arm was reaching around her to spring open the carriage door.

“In you go,” he said, and he threw the two of them inside and braced himself above them like a shield.

“Get in!” Stefanie screamed, tugging him away from the door.

Emilie squirmed out from under her. “Where’s Ashland?”

“Here,” said the duke, swinging himself inside, and the carriage lurched forward, and Ashland lifted Emilie into his lap, and Hatherfield’s arms closed so tightly around Stefanie she could scarcely breathe.

A long and wordless moment passed, while the carriage jounced over the cobbles and the wet London houses flew past the windows. Stefanie breathed in the woolen scent of Hatherfield’s jacket, clutched the material between her fingers. His shoulder lay under her cheek. His solid knee knocked against her leg at every bounce, but she didn’t care. She hardly even noticed.

He was alive.

Emilie was alive.

“Where to?” asked Ashland quietly.

“The Brompton Road, if you don’t mind.” Hatherfield’s voice rumbled against Stefanie’s ear; she felt the words, rather than heard them. “I’ve got a hansom waiting there.”

“Have you got somewhere secure to take her? Somewhere that won’t give you away?”

What a voice the duke had, dark edged and baritone. Stefanie stole a glance at Emilie, who was curled up quietly against his chest, her hand on his lapel, as if she never meant to leave.

The carriage jolted around a corner. Hatherfield’s arms loosened a fraction as he settled her more comfortably against his side.

“I believe I’ve got just the place,” he said.

NINETEEN

T
he river fog had enclosed the row of boathouses so thoroughly, Hatherfield could only just make out the sallow glow of the lone gaslight outside his own club. He opened the window trap at the back. “This will do,” he said brusquely, and the hansom stopped almost on the spot.

Stefanie leapt to the pavement the instant the doors had sprung. Hatherfield followed and turned to the driver. “The usual time tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir.”