Marry the Man Today (22 page)

Indeed. "Thank you for coming to me, Miss Fallon." He picked up his nearly forgotten report case and headed toward the door. "Come along with me."

She followed on his heels. "Are we going to go break Miss Elizabeth out of jail?"

He had no doubt the charming young woman would jump at the chance to try. "I'm going to drop you at the Adams, my dear, and then I'm going to pay a call on Miss Dunaway."

"You'll make them release her, won't you? Please, sir!" The girl grabbed two bold
fi
stsful of his lapels and held him in place with a strength he couldn't have imagined. "She's done nothing wrong!"

Nothing, except to taunt authority with a march down Whitehall in front of hundreds of witnesses. As well as that dust-up in Parliament.

Someone in power might just be trying to teach uppity women a lesson in humility. And he damn well wasn't going to let that happen.

"Miss Elizabeth will be home tonight, Miss Fallon, if I have to saw through the bars myself."

"Oh, thank you, sir!"

Though the real question was: where would home be?

Should he let her stew in jail while he was attending the debate in Parliament, or rescue her immediately, permanently, as he yearned to do.

In any case, just to be safe he made a quick visit across the Thames to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And by the time he left Lambeth Palace for the debates at Westminster, he was armed to the teeth with all the tools he would need to deliver his bewitchingly troublesome rebel from the evil clutches of Scotland Yard.

Right into the hands of her worst enemy.

Chapter 13

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.

Abigail Adams, to her husband, John

March
31
,
1
776

“Excuse
me, please! I'd like a blanket." E
l
izabeth clutched at the familiar bars in the cell door, her fingers as bloodless and cold as the iron rods. "Anyone there?"

But her voice carried down the empty, dimly lighted hall like a reedy echo, spending itself long before it could reach the front desk.

Not that rousting one of the officers would help. It was well after ten and there was a small but watchful contingent of men on guard against her escape. No one had offered a single shred of compassion or concern when she was brought in. Why would they care now if she was a little cold? A little scared. For all they knew, she was just another woman picked up off the street for selling herself to keep food in her children's bellies.

At least that would be a simpler crime to explain than the litany of legal trouble she'd stuck into her pocket. A warrant so long that she might never again see the light of day.

Worst of all, she would never see Blakestone again.

Except possibly if he ever felt charitable enough or curious enough to come visit her in prison after her multiple convictions.

Disturbing the peace!

Bank fraud!

Distributing salacious materials!

Charges that were complete exaggerations. Merely her petty efforts to enlighten the ignorant and emancipate the imprisoned.

And yet here she was, imprisoned herself, her teeth chattering with the cold. In sore need of one last chiding by her unforgiving earl, one last chance to look into those coal dark eyes.

But one thing was certain: she'd never survive if she allowed herself to succumb to this sudden weepy feeling. She banished it and climbed up on the narrow plank bench for a glimpse out the window.

The glass was cracked beyond the bars and filthy. But she could still make out a single star through a wedge of open sky, could smell the velvety moonlight pouring in on the chilly air.

Freedom. It seemed so terribly remote just now. So very precious.

"Disturbing the peace, madam?"

"Blakestone!" she whispered. Her heart took a soaring leap as she whirled around on the bench.

He was standing at the door, in the same place he'd been the very first time she'd seen him. Every inch as large, now a profound presence in her life, a warmth in her belly.

And more thunderously angry than she'd ever seen him.

"Bank fraud?" The charge blustered from him, rattling the iron fittings and the stone flags that stretched out between them.

"Good evening, my lord." Her voice had gone as creaky as her joints.

"Distributing salacious materials? By God, woman!" He was bellowing now like a bull elephant in full rut as he dragged a cowering policeman into view from behind him. "Dammit, officer, open this bloody door immediately!"

"What are you thinking, Blakestone?" She ran to the door. "No, officer, don't listen to him!"

She didn't know what she wanted just now, but it wasn't to be rescued by this bear of a man with dark fire spitting from his eyes.

"Sorry, ma'am." The timid young man was reaching for the lock with the huge ring of keys in his quaking hands. "Orders from the Lord Mayor. I'm to release you to your husband here."

"The Lord Mayor? My
what?
"

Husband?

The door clanked open and she backed away as Blakestone came through it like a war wagon. "When I get you home, wife, I'm going to paddle you good."

Wife?

"Paddle me? Like hell you are, Blakestone! Don't you come a step closer!" Elizabeth dodged out of his long reach, leaping back onto the bench and pressing herself against the cold stone wall.

Which only gave him better access to her to break her out of jail!

"There's a lesson in all this, lad," the blackguard earl said to the officer, ignoring her protests and her battering hands as he wrapped his arms around her hips and flung her over his shoulder like a sack. "If you want a happy home, keep your woman barefoot in the kitchen, and large with child."

"Oh,yessir!"

"How dare you! I'm not your wife, Blakestone!" She kicked out at him and squirmed. But he had clamped one arm over her backside, and was holding her legs flat against his chest with the other, leaving her to look backward into the face of the policeman. "He's not my husband!"

"There you go sassing at me again, woman!" Blackstone swatted her bottom with the gentlest hand, then held it there, his fingers spread possessively, intimately. "Give your wife a sniff of freedom, lad, and she's likely to start disowning you in public."

"Cor, I'll remember that, sir!" The officer was trailing eagerly after them, staring up at Elizabeth perched on Blakestone's shoulder, his eyes wide with admiring awe at the domineering treatment she was receiving from her conquering warlord.

"And I'll remember this outrage, Blakestone!" she said, whipping back to him.

"I should hope so, wife."

Wife, again!

"Damn you, I'm not your wife! Don't believe him, officer! Now let me go!"

But the lout was already stomping down the stairs into the courtyard, leaving the young officer waving at them from the stoop, defying the law!

"Keep still, madam, or I'll leave you right here in jail where you belong!" He stood her for an instant on the carriage step then pressed her backward into the darkness and onto the upholstered seat.

"Then please leave me here, Blakestone! I have to stay!"

"No, you don't." He slammed the door shut.

"You just broke me out of jail!"

"You're welcome, madam." He knocked on the side of the carriage and it plunged forward.

"Don't you understand, Blakestone? Thanks to you, I'm now a fugitive from Scotland Yard!" Hoping for a chance to right this horrible gaff, she waited until he turned to take the bench opposite before she reached across to grab the door latch. But he was there first, his hand a vise around hers.

"You're staying here with me, madam." He removed her hand and drew her back onto the bench beside him, then wrapped his arms around her, holding her fast, hip-to-hip, her back fit against his chest. "Now, sit still and behave yourself."

"Me
behave myself? What about you? You just told that gullible young officer a bold-faced lie and then snatched me from the custody of the Metropolitan Police under false pretenses."

"Actually, I didn't." He was staring out the window in the carriage door, watching for something, his chin raised and squared off in his resolve.

"Are you mad, Blakestone?" She twisted in his arms and glared up at him, still stunned that the law-abiding earl would have actually broken her out of jail. "I've been charged with three serious felonies."

"Yes, I know, love."

"When Captain Robins learns that I skipped out in the middle of the night with an accomplice who claimed that I was his wife, and that the Lord Mayor had ordered my release into your care, they'll come looking for me. And when they find me, they're going to throw away the key."

He dropped his gaze to hers, his mouth wolfish as he turned her chin toward him with the end of his finger. "No one will come looking for you, Elizabeth, because the charges have been dropped."

Her heart went racing like the wind, riding a miracle. "What do you mean? How do you know that?"

"I know because I arranged your release with the Lord Mayor."

"You did . . . oh, you blackguard!" She ought to be throwing herself around his neck and kissing him for the relief that flooded her. Instead she wanted to throttle him! "You think you can just walk into my life and sweep up after me!"

"Believe me, it badly needed sweeping!"

"Then I
will
do
it."

"Actually, madam, the deed has been done. Or will be done before the night is over. Come hell, high water, or an ill-tempered suffragist."

"What do you mean by that?" The man had tangled his fingers in the ends of her hair, was looking at her with a good deal of heat and hunger. "Do you and the Lord Mayor plan to hang me in secret before dawn?"

"We considered it."

"But you'd rather humiliate me instead." Then something in the unusual rocking of the carriage made her struggle out of his arms and put her face to the window. "Wait a minute! This isn't the way to the Adams."

"No, it's not."

"And that was St. Paul's Cathedral." She whirled back to him. "Where are you taking me?"

He smiled. "To a wedding."

"A what? A wedding?" She pressed her nose against the window, just to prove the darkness to herself. "But it's after midnight!"

She turned back to find him smiling at her with a lift of that rascal brow.
"
Rather last minute, I admit. But it's a special wedding."

But that was impossible. "But I can't attend a wedding, Blakestone. I'm not dressed for it." She held up the skirt of her kitchen apron, with its huge pockets and blotches of blackberry stains. "Just look at me!"

"Oh, I am." He was leaning casually against the carriage wall, studying her.

"I'm sure the bride won't appreciate me showing up dressed like a rag doll."

That made him laugh heartily and sit forward as the carriage slowed and turned a final corner before it came to a stop in front of a huge building. "Believe me, the bride won't even notice."

The carriage door popped open and, before she could get a good look at the attendant's livery, Blake-stone leaped down the steps.

"
Then she's not much of a bride." Elizabeth stepped forward into the carriage doorway as he reached up to encircle her waist with his huge, hot hands. "After all, who gets married in the middle of the night?"

He stopped. Held her there suspended in time, his eyes glinting as they searched her face until he said finally, softly, "Indeed, madam, who?"

But there seemed to be so much more to his evasive answer, an inference in his dark eyes. Something he seemed to have decided in that instant to hold back from her. That set her heart knocking around between her ears.

"Come, love, the Lord Mayor's waiting." He lifted her out of the carriage and set her on her feet, then caught her hand inside his elbow and started toward a set of stairs at the side entrance to this imposing building.

"The Lord Mayor!" Dear God, that's where they were! At Mansion House, the Lord Mayor's residence.

For a wedding?

An impossible image wobbled through her head: the Lord Mayor getting married in the middle of the night. A clandestine, candlelit ceremony, a mysterious bride, and a sea of attending policemen.

And a man who had just called her
love.

Possibly a symptom of a sudden madness.

Perhaps the madness was hers. Her pulse was feathery and fast, and she'd begun to imagine even more impossible things.

Another wedding.

Hers.

To him.

But before she could sort through that terrifying absurdity, her inscrutable earl was leading her up the steps, past two liveried guards and right on into the Court of Justice.

"Blast it all, Blakestone! You and the Lord Mayor have proven your point. I am thoroughly rebuked. I don't need to see the man in person."

"It's the only way, my dear."

"The only way to what?" He wasn't making any sense, but she followed him on her unstrung legs, over the marble floor and down a dimly lighted corridor toward some unknown fate that had something to do with a wedding. "Please take me home."

"You're not going home, Elizabeth. It's too late for that."

"Then it's certainly too late for a wedding."

"Unfortunately for both of us, a wedding is the only way to keep you out of prison for the next twelve years of your life."

How could her attending a wedding keep her out of prison? She planted her heels against the slick marble floor, but Blakestone's momentum merely skated her along behind him. "Are you mad, Blakestone?"

"Probably. But for some bloody reason that I can't fathom, I've decided to save you from yourself. At great cost to myself."

To himself? "You needn't bother, my lord, I don't need saving."

"Bloody hell!" He stopped abruptly in the middle of the corridor and turned her around to
fa
ce the brunt of his fury. A roiling heat that had filled his eyes with a dark alarm, that rattled in his throat as he spoke. "Don't you understand?"

"I do." At least she thought she did. "And I'm very grateful that yo
u
—"

"Listen to me, Elizabeth. The Bank of Englan
d
—
t
he most formidable financial institution the world has ever know
n
—
h
as charged you with fraudulently opening an account with them. Do you know what that means?"