I've Got My Duke to Keep Me Warm (The Lords of Worth) (29 page)

“I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about, my lord,” Jamie said as evenly as he could.

Valence swept the neatly stacked china and crystal from the table, the deafening crash causing the orchestra to falter, then stop altogether again. An apprehensive silence fell across the ballroom.

The Duchess of Worth approached then in full mettle, flanked by her son and Malcolm. The Earl of Boden and Lord Huston also materialized out of the stalled dancers at the sound of Valence’s raised voice.

Eleanor met Jamie’s eyes briefly before narrowing her own.

“Just what is the meaning of this, Lord Valence?” she demanded.

“He has her!” Valence howled.

“Has who?”

“My wife! I saw him. He had his fucking hands all over her.” The last slithered out like poison.

“My lord!” Eleanor gasped loudly.

“I will rip this house apart until I find her!” Spittle flew everywhere.

The Earl of Boden had gone a ghastly gray. “Lord Valence!” he pleaded. “What is wrong with you?”

Huston was looking on with a savage satisfaction, knowing the events unfolding were effectively ending any alliance between his family and the marquess. He met Jamie’s eyes with wondering conjecture and a slight inclination of his head.

“There is nothing wrong with me!” Valence yelled. He grabbed at Jamie, who dodged back, the crowd behind shrinking away from the two men. “This man has stolen my wife!”

“Lord Valence, I must remind you that it is my daughter—”

“Shut up!” he screamed at the earl. “I don’t want your daughter no matter how much money you’re willing to pay me. I want Gisele back. And he has her!”

The crowd gasped in unison.

“Your wife is dead, Valence.” Eleanor’s voice cut through the crowd like a knife. “Most of the people in this room saw her die.”

“She isn’t. She isn’t, isn’t, isn’t.” He pointed a trembling hand at Jamie. “He has her.”

Jamie watched Valence dispassionately. The marquess was sweating and shaking, in either rage or confusion,
it mattered not. His clothing was disheveled, as was his hair, one side of his face was swollen and bruised, and he was breathing like a winded racehorse.

“If your wife were still alive, my lord, one would wonder why she would be hiding from you.” Jamie finally spoke.

That brought Valence up short, and his eyes narrowed. “So you admit my wife is alive.”

Jamie barked something resembling a laugh. “Of course not. But it is a concern to everyone that your wives don’t seem to survive long.”

Valence lunged at him again. “I love my wife,” he wheezed. “And she loves me. She is mine. Gisele is mine! No one else’s.
Mine!
”

“Is that why you used your crop on her?” Jamie asked tonelessly. “Is that why you used your knives and your twisted mind and brought her to within an inch of her life?”

“I never gave her a punishment she didn’t fucking deserve!” Valence screamed. “And she knew it. But I love her!” Abruptly he stilled, his mind registering the implication of Jamie’s words even if he didn’t recognize the consequences of his response. “You fucking bastard. You have her. You’ve seen her.”

Jamie stared at the ruined man, knowing nothing he said now would make a difference either way.

“I’ll kill you.” The marquess reached into his coat, and suddenly there was a pistol in his hand.

Jamie forced himself not to react, even as the room erupted into panicked screams and shouts. He cursed himself for not having anticipated this.

“Dear God, Valence, put that thing away before someone
gets hurt,” the duchess demanded, shoving her way past onlookers who were doing their best to shrink as far away from the two men as they could without missing a word.

“There is no need for this!” Worth moved to protect Eleanor. “Lord Valence, stand down!”

Jamie knew it wouldn’t make any difference. He had taken away the one thing that mattered to Valence, and they both knew it. Only one of them was walking away from this. And Jamie was willing to risk everything for the woman he loved.

“You’re going to shoot me, Valence?” he asked tiredly. “Go ahead. The French have been doing it for ten years, and they haven’t had much luck.” A few nervous titters rippled through the crowd.

But it would be hard to miss from this distance, Jamie knew, even given the pistol’s unreliability. He was watching carefully for an opening. The last thing he wanted was to tackle this man only to have the pistol discharge and injure or kill someone else.

“I want her!” the marquess roared, the pistol swinging wildly. “You can take me to her and live. Or you can die right here and I’ll find her anyway. Choose, Montcrief.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Valence,” Jamie said. “I’ll not play your games.”

Like a viper the marquess spun and lunged forward and grabbed a girl who was cowering at the edge of the crowd. With a strength born of desperation, he twisted the girl’s gown in his fist, dragging her up against him. Very deliberately he turned the pistol and let the barrel rest on the temple of the terrified girl.

Jamie froze, and the girl began sobbing softly.

“I said choose,” Valence rasped. “My wife or the girl.
Or I’ll choose for you.” The barrel pressed harder into the girl’s skin.

“It’s not his choice, Adam.”

Gisele’s voice carried across the space like a gunshot and Jamie died inside.

Chapter 29

G
isele hadn’t gone upstairs as she’d promised, to lock herself in the safety of Breckenridge’s vast rooms. She had circled back at the top of the stairs, creeping along the upper hallways where, in between the columns, she could see the ballroom below her. Standing alone in the shadows, she’d heard the shouting and the screaming. Then Valence had produced a pistol, and she’d watched in growing horror as he waved it first at Jamie and then at the sobbing girl who had nothing to do with anything. Another innocent victim who would be hurt at the hands of the marquess. And Gisele knew then she could no longer stay in the shadows.

This fight was no one’s fight but hers. It was not Jamie’s, though he might argue with her. But there was a little boy who needed Jamie more than he might be able to understand or imagine at the moment, but Gisele understood. Adam Levire, Marquess of Valence, could not be permitted to ruin any more lives. This was hers to finish, and she had always known there might come a time when she would need to stop hiding. And this was it.

“No,” she said more loudly this time, and she saw Valence’s eyes widen as he finally saw her and heard
the buzz of the crowd as they pulled back, allowing her access.

She walked up to Valence, who had frozen, and pushed the barrel of the pistol away from the shaking girl’s head.

“You don’t need her anymore, Adam,” she said. “You need me.”

“Don’t do this,” Jamie said behind her.

It was everything she could do to ignore him.

“Adam,” she whispered again, “take me home.”

“Who are you?” he gasped, suddenly uncertain now that she stood before him.

“I’m your wife, Adam. How can you not remember?” She beseeched him with her eyes through her mask.

He was motionless for a second more before he shoved the girl from him and reached instead for her. Gisele allowed herself to be pulled up against him.

“It’s you,” he hissed, his breath hot and foul on her neck. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her closer to him. The gun caressed the side of her face. “You left me.”

“No,” she said. “I never did.”

“Yes you did!” he screamed, half sobbing. The barrel of the gun banged against her ear.

“Valence, put the gun down.” Jamie was advancing steadily on them, his voice even but his expression feral.

“Or what?” Valence demanded wildly.

“Leave the lady out of this.”

“She’s not yours.”

“She’s not yours either.” Jamie had stopped.

“Yes, she is. She’s mine. But if I can’t have her, no else will.” The edge of hysteria had abated, and now Gisele heard only desperation. “Come one step closer and I’ll
kill her.” He began backing up, dragging Gisele with him. “I’m leaving with what is mine, and I’ll shoot anyone who tries to stop me.”

“Do what he says,” Gisele said. She needed to get Valence out of the crowd, where he couldn’t hurt anyone. And away from Jamie.

Jamie was shaking his head, his face pale and his eyes wild.

“I’ll be fine,” she told him. “But no one else can get hurt.”

Valence managed to maneuver the two of them to the doors, backing away from the horror-struck crowd. Valence waved his pistol at a terrified servant, who sprang to open the door, and then again at a coachman who was lounging at the bottom of the steps, waiting for his master with his equipage.

“Get the hell away from the carriage,” he snapped at the coachman, pointing his pistol at the man’s face. The coachman stumbled back.

“Where are we going?” Gisele asked, hoping the servants could hear her. Or, more important, Valence’s answer.

“My sweet Gisele. My perfect, perfect Gisele.” Valence was crooning to her. “I’ve missed you. You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you.” He pressed his lips to her throat, his hands still pulling her hair painfully.

Gisele flinched. “I’m here now. Can we go home?” She tried in vain to look behind her.

“Maybe,” he murmured. “But not quite yet. You left me,” he said, fury bleeding into his words suddenly. “You left me, and now you need to be punished.”

A blinding pain struck the side of her head, and in an instant, her world went white and then black.

Jamie had barely reached the doors as the carriage careened into the night.

“Get me a horse,” he yelled at the stunned coachman still standing at the bottom of the stairs.

The man stood dumbly before him, but a young footman was already running in the direction of the long line of carriages still waiting in back of the manor. Sebastien burst out into the night, looking as though he might throw up. Huston and Malcolm were hard on his heels.

“Where is he taking her?” Jamie demanded. “Where would he go?” The carriage would be out of sight by the time he got to the end of the drive.

“Back into the city.” Sebastien was making a monumental effort to remain calm.

“Where?” Jamie was nearly coming out of his skin. “Dammit, I need a horse!”

“To his town house. Or…”

“Or where?”

“He owns a warehouse. Or what’s left of one. On the docks near Battersea Fields. West of the marshes. It’s wretched, suitable only for trolls and rats—it’s impossible to miss. It’s not far from here at all.”

“Why would he take her there?”

Sebastien looked at Jamie, and he had his answer with a sick certainty.

“Take Lord Huston and go to his town house in case he changed his mind,” Jamie ordered. “Tell Malcolm to follow after me as soon as he can.”

“Find her,” Sebastien begged, even as he headed toward the stables.

The footman had returned with a sleek horse as dark as pitch dancing at the end of its reins, its nostrils flared and its ears pricked at the commotion.

“I will beg you to reconsider your willingness to accept the stallion,” the Duke of Havockburn urged, hurrying down the stairs behind Jamie. He took hold of the horse’s bridle, and Jamie realized the footman wore the Havockburn livery.

“Yes,” Jamie gasped.

“He hit her, my lord,” the servant said. “Not so to kill her, but she’s not sensible, aye?” The man made a disgusted noise. “I was too far away to stop him.”

Jamie hissed in fury before nodding his appreciation, both for the information and the man’s practical anticipation.

“Godspeed,” Havockburn said grimly, and Jamie vaulted onto the horse’s back, not allowing the startled animal a chance to react but immediately driving it into the night after the fleeing carriage.

He was too terrified and furious to wallow in self-recrimination and regrets. No one could have predicted what had happened tonight, and none of it mattered anymore. All that mattered was that Valence had Gisele, and he had to be stopped.

Jamie had a rough idea where the docks were, just east of Battersea Bridge. He pushed the horse recklessly, straining to catch a glimpse of the carriage, but it had disappeared into the darkness. The stallion’s muscles bunched and stretched beneath him with seemingly inexhaustible stamina. The first two miles passed in a blur, and then the ground ahead of him opened up, the marshy scent of rotting vegetation rising in the air to couple with
the ever-increasing smell of the Thames. It had started raining again in spurts, clouds scudding across the sky, just enough to give Jamie brief intervals of weak moonlight before the land around him was again swallowed by blackness. The ground beneath the horse’s feet became a quagmire of mud that sucked and splashed with each step, and Jamie was forced to slow the stallion. Against the slight shimmer of the river, looming black structures were taking form. He must have reached the westernmost docks, but it was nearly impossible to see anything.

His horse suddenly pricked its ears and called. Jamie immediately allowed the stallion to stop, trusting the animal’s senses. An answering whinny cut through the air, startling a handful of marsh birds from their roost, and Jamie could have wept with relief. They were close. Jamie gave the horse its head, relying on the stallion to lead him to its mates, still in the traces of a stolen carriage.

Desperately hoping he would not find Gisele too late.