Leslie Lafoy (19 page)

The fact that Honoria had paused for longer than necessary to take a breath seemed to suggest that she was expected to say something. Sera swallowed and politely offered, “I’m sure he’ll have a lovely evening.”

Honoria beamed and practically squeezed the blood from her hands. “He wasn’t as certain about the prospect so I suggested that he ask you to attend with him. The mere idea considerably brightened his mood. You did order some suitable evening gowns from Mr. Gauthier, didn’t you, dear?”

“She did,” Carden growled before Sera could sufficiently emerge from her shock to answer. Honoria was arranging her social life? Pairing her with one of Carden’s friends? Good God.

“Wonderful,” Honoria declared, again squeezing her hands. “How perfect. I should think that Mr. Terrell will be calling on you sometime today to beg the favor of your company that evening. He was concerned about the shortness of the notice, but I assured him that you would understand and forgive the lapse just this once.”

Then, without warning, she released Sera’s hands, took a step back, and made a rather limited attempt to glance around her while asking, “And where are my darling nieces? Surely you didn’t come strolling without them. That would be too scandalous even for Carden.”

A rather ominous sound came from low in Carden’s throat and Sera hastily turned toward the grass between the river and the path saying, “They’re…”

The girls weren’t where she had last seen them. She looked a bit farther up the bank and then back along the way they had come. A bubble of panic was building in the center of her chest as she quickly looked along the park side of the path. “Carden, where are they?” she cried softly, turning back to scan the riverbank again. “Do you see them?”

“You have lost the children?” Honoria asked incredulously.

“They were rolling their hoops over this way as you arrived,” Carden offered in her defense. “They couldn’t have gone far.”

But apparently they had and she couldn’t see them anywhere. “Oh, Carden. How could I have been so irresponsible? What if they’ve fallen into the river?”

“All three at once and without a hue and cry that would wake the dead?” he posed, also scanning the bank and the lines of people strolling along the path beside it. “No, they haven’t fallen in the river. Even if they had, someone would have seen them and hauled them out. Don’t worry, Sera, they’re here somewhere. We’ll find them.” He took her by the elbow and with a curt bow to his sister-in-law, said, “If you’ll excuse us, Honoria.”

They were already moving past her when she replied, “I shall have my driver take me down and around the Serpentine to look for them. I’ll return shortly.”

His hand cupped around her arm, Carden could feel Sera’s trembling. Fear rippled through her voice as she asked, “What if someone has taken them?”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” he countered, hoping she’d be soothed by his relative calm and rational approach.

“I don’t know. For ransom. To do unspeakable things to them. The world is full of crazy people, Carden. Haven’t you noticed?”

Yes, he had, but admitting it wasn’t going to make her feel any better in the short term. He continued to make their way up the walk, his gaze darting among the passersby in search of three smaller ones who looked confused and lost.

“The general lunatics confine themselves to Speakers Corner on the other side of the park,” he offered Sera by way of reassurance as they went. “The truly dangerous ones are locked up in Bedlam. No one’s taken the girls, Sera.” When they found the girls he was going to lock
them
up. And he wasn’t going to let them out until their husbands came to beg for them.

Sera stopped without warning and turned to look back. The haunted, anguished look in her eyes tore at his heart. He’d often heard the fathers who belonged to his club threaten to kill their children and he’d always considered it an appalling thing to say, a hallmark of a man who lacked reasonable self-control. But now he understood them and just how they could be driven to the brink of sanity.

Still holding on to Sera’s arm, he strained up on his toes and stretched his neck to see as far as he could. There were people on the bridge, others walking down the paths on either side of the river, a few picnicking with hampers along the banks on the far side and— He heaved a sigh of relief and pulled Sera around, slipped an arm around her shoulder, and leaned close so that she could sight along his extended arm.

“Look, Sera!” he commanded. “Up by the bridge, just this side of it, a bit off the path. Do you see them? They’re standing together. All three of them and they appear to be perfectly fine.”

“Thank heavens,” she whispered, sagging into him before apparently remembering where they were. She instantly straightened and stepped from his embrace to gather her skirts in hand and set off in the direction of the bridge.

“Of course,” Carden said, as he strode at her side, his gaze fixed on his errant nieces, “they’re not going to be perfectly fine for very much longer. Whatever it is that’s enthralling them isn’t excuse enough for frightening you. They were told very clearly not to wander off.”

“I certainly expected Amanda to have better sense and to take care of … Carden? What is that man on the bridge doing?”

He looked up from the girls to see a rag-dressed man holding a burlap bag over the edge of the bridge. A large, reddish dog was beside him, paws on the railing, frantically barking at the sack. As he watched, the man shoved the dog aside and released his hold on the sack. Sera faltered and choked on a cry.

“Jesus Christ.”

The bag hit the water with a splash even as Sera, hems held high, dashed toward the horrific scene yelling, “Amanda! No! Don’t!”

Carden looked past her just in time to see Amanda knife into the surface of the water, her hooped crinoline and skirts a huge bell billowing behind her. It was only a matter of time before they flipped up over her head. And once they did … His heart rammed high in his throat, he took off running, precious seconds clicking away in his head.

Sera fought back tears and burgeoning panic. With every step she took, her dress grew heavier, her corset tighter. She couldn’t draw breath deep enough or fast enough and the world was going gray around the edges. Reality came in fractured snippets; the smooth surface of water where Amanda had disappeared, the girls’ abandoned hoops in the grass, the sound of Beatrice and Camille screaming, a dog barking, uneven ground beneath her feet. Carden.

Carden was there, ahead of her, on the bank, flinging aside his walking stick, his boots, his coat. Then he arced out over the water and was gone. Her heart hammering against her breast, her pulse thundering in her ears, Sera reached the bank and stopped, greedily dragging all the air she could into her burning lungs and willing the tendrils of fog from her vision. She had to find Beatrice and Camille, had to be ready to help Carden bring Amanda out of the river and onto the bank.

“Miss Sera!”

She whirled toward the sound of Beatrice’s voice, grateful to hear it as strong and confident as always, even more grateful to see the child and her younger sister—both apparently unharmed—being dragged toward her by a huge red dog tied to one end of a rope Beatrice held in her hand.

She’d barely managed to take a single, mercifully steadying breath when both girls looked out into the river. Sera spun about and then nearly collapsed in relief. Two dark heads had broken the surface of the water. Carden immediately brought his arm up, the sack clutched tight in his fist, then turned on his side and struck out for the bank. Amanda, unburdened by anything—including, apparently, the lower half of her dress—yelled for him to hurry and then followed, her strokes the sure and strong ones of a child who had grown up at the water’s edge.

Dropping down on the bank, Sera leaned out as far as she could and took the bag the instant it was within reach. Turning, she placed it on the grass and frantically struggled to untie the swollen cord binding it closed.

“Get the puppies out of the sack!” Amanda cried as Carden shoved her up onto the bank. “Hurry! They’re drowning!”

Tiny, weak yips came from inside and the dog tore free of her young handler, rushing forward to nuzzle the sack and pound Sera with its tail. “Beatrice,” she called, desperately trying to hold on to the loosened knot while pushing the dog out her way, “come get her. She’s not helping. Carden, are you all right?”

Water streaming down his face, he nodded crisply, climbed up onto the bank beside her, and instantly produced a short sword from the back of his waistband. “Let me at the sack, Sera.”

She obeyed and watched, wide-eyed, as he seized the top of the bag with one hand, drew it taut, and then lopped it off with a single swipe of the blade.

As Sera and Amanda began the grisly task of sorting the living from the dead, Carden tossed the top away and sat back, sucking deep breaths and knowing just how damn lucky he was. If he hadn’t been drawn into that little shop in Natal that morning … If he hadn’t been intrigued enough with the secret sword to pay a king’s ransom for it …

“This one’s moving and breathing,” Sera cried, pulling a wet but wiggling mass of red fur from the bag and setting it in the grass beside her.

Amanda lifted out a second puppy and gave it a cursory examination. “So’s this one.” She quickly placed it with its litter mate in the grass and reached back into the sack.

“This one makes three,” Sera cried happily, setting it aside while reaching for another. The look that came suddenly to her eyes … Carden knew before she got the animal out of the bag. “Oh, God, this one isn’t,” she said, her voice brittle as she held the limp little body up in front of her face. “Breathe, sweet pea,” she begged. “Breathe for me, please.”

“Give him here, Sera.”

She handed the puppy to him as Amanda lifted another limp pup from the bag and wailed, “This is one isn’t breathing, either!”

“Like this, Amanda,” he said calmly, gently holding the puppy up and covering its muzzle with his mouth. He blew a bit of air into the creature and then he eased back to add, “Very light and short. Just a puff. Remember that their lungs are tiny. Give them a chance between breaths to cough out the water.”

Amanda nodded and followed his instructions as Sera reached back into the sack, pulled out another still pup, and brought it to her mouth.

“Miss Sera, are they going to be all right?”

“We’re doing our best, Camille,” Sera replied between breaths.

Amanda’s puppy spewed water, coughed, spit out a few more drops, and kicked its feet. “He’s breathing, Uncle Carden!”

“So is this one,” he declared, grinning as it gave a good, hard, healthy sneeze. “That’s a good girl,” he said, leaning over to put it among the others squirming in the grass. “One more back from the dead. How many more, Sera?”

“Just this one,” she said tightly, her eyes clouded with dread. “I can’t—”

“Merciful heavens, Carden! What are you doing?”

Honoria. Christ. Couldn’t she make a reasonable deduction? Sera handed the limp puppy to him, blinking back tears.

Blessedly, Camille bounded forward to provide her aunt with an explanation. “A mean man tried to drown puppies, Aunt Honoria! He put them in a sack and dropped them in the river. We saw him do it!”

“And Amanda jumped in to save them,” Beatrice contributed every bit as passionately. “Camille and I ran up and hit the man with our hoop sticks and took the mama dog away from him and he ran away.”

“And Uncle Carden came in after me and the puppies.”

“Some of them are drown-ded but Uncle Carden’s making them breathe again and they’ll be all right.”

He wasn’t sure he was going to produce the full miracle they expected. The puppy in his hand was the smallest of the bunch and it wasn’t coughing out the water as the others had. He tried again to force some air into its lungs.

“Where is your skirt, Amanda?”

“In the river,” she replied matter-of-factly, watching him intently. “Uncle Carden had to cut it off me. It kept coming up over my head and I couldn’t swim. Not that I was doing very well at it anyway with the bag in one hand.”

The color drained from Sera’s face. Tears welled along her lower lashes and spilled down her cheeks. She didn’t make a sound; she just closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands. He watched her rock back and forth as he tried one more time to bring the puppy back to life.

“Is it breathing yet, Uncle Carden?”

Damn, he hated to admit defeat. Knowing when to do so had been one of the hardest lessons in life he’d ever had to learn. That he was going to have to be the one to teach it to the girls … “No, Bea, it isn’t. I’m afraid that we weren’t able to save this one.”

“It’s dead?” Camille asked, her voice quavering.

He heard the desperation in her question and wished with all his heart that he could give her the miracle she wanted. He remembered all too well how it felt to have hope crushed. “Yes, sweetheart, it’s dead,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m so very sorry.”

Amanda took the lifeless body from him and cradled it in her arms. “Poor little puppy,” she crooned, smoothing the wet, rumpled fur. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Carden silently cursed the bastard who had created such suffering and sorrow. Wanting with every fiber of his being to give the son of a bitch a sound and thorough beating, he looked around, hoping to find the man lurking about. But if he was there somewhere, he was well hidden in the crowd of onlookers that had gathered around them. The bloody ghouls, Carden silently railed. Willing to gawk at tragedy but too proper and genteel to step in to avert it. Heaven forbid they should summon any courage. They’d left it to a child.

“Bea,” he heard Sera say softly, “you may let the mama go now. She needs to be with her babies.”

Beatrice did as instructed and the dog instantly went to her surviving puppies, sniffing them, nudging them. Camille and Bea quietly went to their sister’s side, knelt down, and reverently touched the lost little soul. Bea’s eyes blazed in silent rage as they welled with tears. Camille’s lips quivered for a second and then parted to emit a wracking sob. Sera rose to her knees and gathered them into her arms and held them tight.