Surrender to a Wicked Spy (30 page)

Mrs. Huff nodded. "It's a blessing, really. If she'd lost overmuch blood, she'd not be able to run a fever." Mrs. Huff wiped her hands on her ruined apron. "I'll have Cook send up broth and brandy. She may wake up and it'll go easier on her if we can spoon the brandy down before the physician comes."

The doctor would be digging out the bullet. The agony would be excruciating. Dane felt sick. She was so damaged already, but it was necessary.

There was a tap on the door. Dane opened it to see Marcus in the hall.

"Dane, we found the carriage. It was abandoned just outside of Gretna Green."

Dane stared at him. "You continued the search, against my orders."

Marcus gazed back evenly. "You weren't thinking clearly. You were too close to the case."

It was true. In fact, if he wasn't much mistaken, he
was
the case. Or at least the target.

It was all over, at any rate. Sumner and whoever he was working with would have crossed this venture off as a failure. Dane was on to their plan to manipulate him, the Prince Regent was safe, and the Cheltenhams had been exposed. The game was up.

All that was left was for Dane to see to the Prince Regent's safety, now and always.

Dane turned to look at the door to Olivia's bedchamber, now closed against him. She was still as much of a problem as she'd been this morning before Marcus had pounded on the cottage door…

The door opened. Petty stuck her head out. "My lord, she's awake!"

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Olivia found herself safe and warm and clean—blessedly clean. Her thigh still throbbed horribly under the bandage Mrs. Huff had hastily wrapped about it—"No need for you to see that, my lady!"—and Olivia's head felt as though a knife was repeatedly slicing through her brain.

Her bandaged hands were wrapped about a mug of broth that stung her sore throat when she swallowed. Other than that, she was quite thoroughly a mess.

Over the bandages that covered her hands to her wrists, her arms were scraped and bruised. Her unbandaged leg looked much the same. Her back muscles ached horribly, and she was fairly sure her nose was running.

Petty wiped it for her matter-of-factly. "Picked up a bit of a chill while you were out there, my lady. Doctor will put you right, straightaway." Petty was obviously very happy to see Olivia awake, which made her wonder if there'd been some doubt about that event.

"Look, my lady! His Lordship's here to see you!" Obviously Petty wasn't nearly as glad to see Dane, although the lady's maid put up a good front. "See, my lord, she's right as rain."

Olivia kept her gaze on her broth. Lord Gargoyle could go rot in the stable dung heap for all she cared. She'd been drifting in and out over the last hour, but she'd heard a few things when people had thought her unconscious.

She wasn't sure what was true and what was fever dream, but she knew that Dane hadn't bothered to search for her.

She heard Dane say something quietly to Petty, then heard the rustle of skirts as Petty bustled from the room. The door closed and blessed silence reigned. Olivia adored Petty, but the girl did not understand how to be silent.

Dane, however, was bloody good at it. He was trying to outwait her; she could tell. She could see his boots at the edge of her vision, planted sturdily and stubbornly on her carpet.

Bloody Dane and his bloody boots could bloody wait.

She slowly sipped her broth. Her inclination to hang on his every word, her puppyish—and undeserved—loyalty, her tendency to dissolve when he was about… well, that was yesterday.

She gave the last swallow of broth a little swirl in the bottom of the mug. She was probably hungry, for it had been more than a day since she had eaten and she'd lost most of that on the ground. She'd not touched a thing since before the Hunt Ball—

Good heavens, was that only last evening? It seemed a month past.

Dane cleared his throat. Olivia shot him a sour glance. If he was waiting for her to speak, he was going to have a long wait. She'd spent her voice screaming for him. She had nothing left, in more ways than one.

Petty came back in carrying a fresh cup of broth and a flask. "Mrs. Huff thought you might need the brandy, my lady. For when the doctor comes."

Olivia finally turned to look at Dane with alarm in her eyes.

"You've a bullet still in you, Olivia," he said quietly. "The physician must dig it out."

Oh… oh… she didn't know a word bad enough for that. She took the flask from Petty's tray between her two cloth paws and upended it, tossing back a mighty swallow of brandy.

It hit her sore throat like fire, but she clapped a bandaged hand over her mouth and coughed it down. She was about to do it again when Dane's big hand wrapped about both of hers.

"You might want to go easy on that," he said mildly. "You wouldn't want to see it again."

It was the one thing he might have said that could stop her. She let him take the flask and relaxed back against the pillows. The single swallow of spirits was already beginning to vague away the pain.

He eased his big body onto the mattress at her side. He was clad in stained shirtsleeves and filthy trousers. His hair had fallen around his shoulders and his face was lined with strain.

He looked absolutely beautiful.

Olivia's eyes began to fill with irrational tears. The world was so unfair when he could be such a mess and such a bastard and look so wonderful, while she was clean and truehearted and she knew she looked just putrid.

Go away
, she mouthed at him.

He clasped his hands over his bent knee and leaned back. "I cannot. I must know what happened."

"You left me out there." She wished she could scream it instead of whispering soundlessly.

He nodded. "I did. I offer my apologies for underestimating you, not that I expect you'll accept them right now."

She raised a brow at him.
If ever
.

He caught that, too, for he nodded again. "That is your prerogative, of course." He tilted his head slightly and his gaze warmed. "I don't know how to tell you how glad I am that you were not leaving—"

One of her pillows struck him in the face. He thrust it away and frowned at her.

"What—"

Olivia gestured to Petty, pointing at her writing desk with an urgent hand. Bless Petty, for she understood instantly. "Oh! Yes, my lady!"

In a moment, she was back with paper and a pencil. "I thought that might do better, my lady."

Olivia held out her right hand and Petty unwound some of the ridiculous muffling bandages. Finally, Olivia's individually bandaged fingers were partially released. She pulled away, trailing a long banner of white from her wrist, and began to write furiously, large and clumsy and with great pressure.

She thrust the sheet at Dane. He took it and read aloud. " 'You'd rather I be injured and lost and nearly dead than safe and sound and with another man?' " He looked up, confused. "Well… yes… I mean, no, of course not! But…"

She was writing again. She threw it at him.

" 'But yes,' " he read aloud, although he needn't have. " 'Go away. I don't fancy you anymore.' "

Dimly Dane heard Petty turn and leave the room. Looking at Olivia's bleak expression, he couldn't blame the maid. He felt desperation rising within him. He'd done everything wrong with his sweet Olivia, from the very beginning.

And now he was losing her. He knew it, felt it as she gazed at him, her eyes more than sad, more than grieving. Her eyes said that she was done. Done with him, done with any chance they had.

Words threatened to choke him, words he knew he could never say. The truth stood between them, a secret that could never be told, knowledge that would only endanger them all…

And yet he spoke.

"Olivia… there is something you must understand. There is a reason why I have been so unwilling to trust you… I cannot trust anyone outside a select few… I should not tell you this—"

She scrawled something.

" 'Then don't. If you have so little faith in me, then don't.' "

He looked up at her, startled. She met his gaze and he went very still. Those were not Olivia's eyes looking back at him. Those were the eyes of a woman who believed in nothing and no one. His shock must have shown on his face, for she laughed sharply, a gasping, bitter sound.

" 'Everyone has their secrets, everyone has their uses for me, everyone has their hoops for me to leap through like a circus animal.' " She seemed to have no trouble putting her thoughts to paper. " 'Yet you had no faith in me. Now I am supposed to have faith in you?' "

She was going to leave him and he deserved to be left. Even now, with all that he knew, he could not quite dismiss his reservations.

" 'You made a mistake, my lord. I am tired of paying for it. All I have ever tried to do is please you, yet I am never enough. It is an impossible task. Frankly, I'm weary of trying. So please, tell me nothing. Do not burden me with more of your insurmountable requirements.' "

Dane sat there, inches from her, holding pages and pages of her pain in his hands, unable to meet her eyes again. What had he done to her?

He'd drained her, devoured her generosity and heart and sweetness, then turned around and asked for more. More proof, more evidence, more security that she was good enough for him. She'd taken her anguish to Marcus and Dane had blamed her for it. She'd made a friend in the Prince Regent and Dane had thought the worst of her.

She'd done for him what no other woman had ever dared, and he'd suspected her of treason.

She'd even tried to bring back his traitor and he'd thrown her away, discarding her pitilessly.

Her parents have admitted to the plot. She was meant to win you over. You must question her.

He closed his eyes against the voice of suspicion that still lived within him. Yet it was possible that everything she'd done was meant to make him throw everything he was away, all for love.

Love.

He stood as if he'd been burned by her nearness. "I shall disturb you no longer, my lady." Was that his voice, so strained and tight? He forced himself to look at her. Her head was dropped back on the pillows and her eyes were closed, but the tension within her told him she was not sleeping. She was only waiting for him to go.

He obliged, quietly closing the door on his own silent damnation.

Olivia slumped wearily when she heard the door latch click. Then she rolled carefully over, reaching beneath her mattress for her diary.

The pencil was making her fingers ache, but she forced her eyes to focus on the blank page before her.

Every moment he was in the room, a part of me longed to throw myself on him and weep away my fears and longing. I love him so…

The pencil faltered. The problem was, she was beginning to believe that the man she'd fallen in love with had never truly existed. She'd dreamed him into being, fooling herself with her own fantasy of some valiant lord of old, a man who would love and treasure her forever, a man who would never hurt her.

What a ridiculous idea. The world was full of pain. There was no such thing as love that lasted forever.

She'd been a silly child. Silly children believed in magical tales. Olivia felt solid, cold reality filling her, hardening her former wispy dreams into strength and resolve.

She snapped the diary shut and flung it across the bedchamber, the pages fluttering with the force of her rejection. She missed the fire, but the book hit the mantel with a satisfying thud and fell out of her sight.

I am not powerless. I am not a princess locked in a tower. I am Lady Greenleigh.

Then the door opened and the doctor entered, his bag of instruments in his hand.

And Dane had taken the flask.

Dane paced the hall outside Olivia's bedchamber. Her hoarse, broken cries of pain had barely been loud enough to penetrate the solid door, yet each one had stabbed through him like a sword.

He stopped and pressed his forehead to the cool wood. He couldn't bear another, he thought, then scoffed at his self-absorption. He wasn't the one with the knife digging in his leg, was he?

Yet no more cries came. That made him more worried than ever. Why had she stopped? Was the doctor done? Or had she—?

The door opened before him. The physician stood there, coat on, hat in hand, bag strapped up, and ready to leave. "The bullet is out and her concussion is becoming less serious. Her ladyship will be fine," he said cheerfully. "Provided she does not develop more fever and die."

Dane stared at the man, who nodded briskly and passed him by. Physicians existed on a separate plane of Society, it seemed. Well aware of their necessity, they rarely paid due respect to high birth.

Then Dane's weary brain took in the man's words. Olivia was going to be fine.

Fever.

Fear of that mysterious ailment filled him. He ran through the sitting room to Olivia's bedchamber, bursting through the door.

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Lady Reardon was there, bathing perspiration from Olivia's pale face. "Shh," she ordered without turning. "She finally passed out, thank heaven. Bloody damned ham-handed doctor." Her voice was tight. "I feared he was going to take forever."

"What of fever?"

Lady Reardon shook her head. "She's very strong, not like I expected at all. There's a bit of heat in her, but nothing that won't pass now that we've the bullet out."

Dane sank to the chair that had been pulled up on the other side of the bed. "Oh, thank God."

Lady Reardon shot him a disbelieving glare. "Hmph. Nathaniel told me you still have her mother and father locked up. You haven't even allowed them to visit her."

Dane didn't back down. "Lord and Lady Cheltenham have been in the employ of a very dangerous French intelligence agent—"

"Who coerced them into this." Willa put down the damp cloth and tucked the covers more tightly around Olivia. "Have you never been at someone else's mercy, my lord?"

I love you, you phenomenal ass. All I ever wanted was to be your lady.