The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (27 page)

“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered back.

“What do you smell?”

Kathryn inhaled deeply. “Smoke!”

“Exactly,” Nigel said. “O’Flaugherty has left--likely by the back door--and he has set the school on fire!”

A tide of dread licked at Kathryn’s remaining courage. “Then this is how it is to end?” She shivered.

“Nonsense. We have many minutes before the flames reach us. Evidently, O’Flaugherty thought my wound mortal. We’ll make it out alive. Such a pessimist! How bothersome you are!” he said, laughing.

“You didn’t seem to think so last night in the glasshouse!”

“I did not say I did not like you. I simply said you are bothersome. You cannot deny it, now can you? Even more so than Jane. How can one eighteen-year-old cause so much havoc?”

“You like me?”

“I did not say that either. You have much explaining to do before I’ll admit to liking you.”

“And so do you.”

“Men do not have to explain things to their women.”

“Not all men feel like that. Just the self-centered, bad-tempered men like you. Especially you, you— She stilled. “
Their
women?” She swallowed reflexively. “Am I yours?” she asked softly.

“No, you are not, for I do not like pessimists,” Nigel said. He grunted and Kathryn felt him twist his body to one side. He stifled another groan of pain. “Damn it to hell! I cannot get to my knife. You’ll have to extract it for me.”

“
You have a knife
?!” Kathryn cried. “Why did you not tell me sooner? We have wasted precious seconds. Extract it? Extract it from
where
?”

“You are not going to like this,” Nigel said, and he told her where.

Minutes later, Kathryn felt the knife’s handle against her hesitant fingers. “Why,” she asked through her clenched teeth, “must you keep your knife
there
?”

“At least the metal is nice and warm,” he said

“You are grinning,” she accused.

“How can you tell?”

Kathryn did not know how she knew, but she was certain of it nevertheless. He was smiling broadly. “I am guessing, you beast,” she said. “You cad . . . you . . . you . . .
man
!”

“How pleased I am you noticed my gender. Do have a care when removing the blade from the scabbard, Miss Davidson.”

“I ought to yank it free and attempt to conduct an orchestra on the way! “

He laughed softly, then fell into a spate of coughing.

“I’ll never free this knife!”

“Come now! It will yet take a few minutes for the house to become an inferno, and you may almost have worked the knife free by then.”

“Optimism, thy name is Nigel,” she remarked.

At that moment, the front door burst open, and Jane’s clear voice sailed through the darkness. “Nigel? Kitty!”

“Her name is really Kathryn, dear,” a gravely, tremulous voice corrected her.

“Auntie!” Kathryn called, frantically trying to work her hands free of Nigel’s breeches. “Are--are Mama and Papa with you?”

John’s baritone boomed through the entry hall as he peered at them, unseeing, through the gloom. “Your mama and papa remain blessedly ignorant of your adventures, Miss Kathryn. They are sound asleep in their beds in Grosvenor Square. The old dragon here told them you are visiting friends of hers in Scotland.”

“John?” Nigel muttered. “Mama and Papa? Aunt Ophelia! You have a great deal of explaining to do,” he told Kathryn.

Kathryn groaned and continued to struggle. “She is my Great-aunt, actually. And why,” she whispered fiercely, “do you wear your blasted breeches
so blasted tight
?”

Ophelia’s voice wailed into the darkness, “Oh, Kathryn, I am so sorry. I was mistaken about the diary. I did not leave it here at the school at all. I would have sent you word as soon as I found out, but little Thomas stopped coming to Grosvenor Square with your messages.”

Nigel put his head to Kathryn’s. “Diary?” he asked. “That is why you are here? To find Ophelia Palin’s lost diary?”

“Did you think I was a spy?” Kathryn asked.

“For a time, yes. But you thought the same of me, did you not?”

Kathryn knew he felt her head nod, for he chuckled softly.

With a lantern held high, Jane approached. Upon seeing their forms stretched out side by side on the floor under the stairs, she exclaimed and moved toward them. “There you are! Oh, poor dears! Are you hurt?” Then she reached them and held the lantern over them, illuminating them completely. “Oh!” she cried with raised eyebrows.

Ophelia puffed up beside Jane, with John close behind. “I was mistaken,” the old lady said. “The diary was never—oh!” Her eyes widened as she, too, absorbed the sight in front of her. “Oh, my!”

“
No
!” Kathryn cried, still up to her wrists in Nigel’s private domain. “You do not understand! This is not how it looks! I am just—”

A ghost of a smile traced Auntie’s lips and she clapped her hands together, but she lowered them almost immediately and then she gasped—a little too dramatically, Kathryn thought. “Blackshire,” the old lady said sternly, “I shall expect an announcement to appear in the newspapers on the morrow!”

“No!” Kathryn cried. “You do not understand. “You see, when you arrived I’d just gotten my fingers around his--”

“Kathryn!” Ophelia cried, covering Jane’s ears.

Jane, for her part, was grinning.

John scowled. “I’ll see an announcement, or I’ll see you at Bethnel Green at dawn the very next day,” he said, his voice menacing. “Pistols, swords, knives—
fists
!—it don’t matter; I’ll have your hide!”

Kathryn sputtered and tugged at her hands, frantically shaking her head. “That’s just it, John! I was feeling for his--”

But Blackshire cut her off. “Yes sir. Now, if you will be so kind as to untie me—”

“I have it!” Jane pulled from a carefully concealed slit in her dress a dagger with a jeweled handle, causing everyone to goggle at her. With an amazingly expert flick of her wrist, she had freed Kathryn and moved on toward Nigel, but Kathryn said, “Give me your dagger, Jane. The school is on fire.”

“Fire?!” Ophelia wailed, looking about her wildly.

Kathryn ignored her. “Help Auntie to a place of safety outside, Jane, and I will cut Nigel loose. Then alert the neighbors and send someone for a physician. Nigel is hurt!”

Her tone brooked no argument, and Jane and the slow-moving Ophelia hastened to comply.

“Mr. Robertson,” Nigel ordered, “make haste to the War Offices and insist on speaking to Sir Winston. Tell them The Blue Devil sent you. They will let you inside. Tell them what you know. Tell them the name Brian O’Flaugherty. You hear? Brian O’Flaugherty.”

“The Blue Devil and Brian O’Flaugherty,” John repeated. “Yes sir. Anything for Kathryn’s fiance,” he said meaningfully and quit the school.

Nigel struggled half-way to his feet, his head obviously swimming. “We must get you to the door, dearest. Can you walk?”

“Can you?” she returned, severing the knot that bound his feet.

“Touche--cut me loose!” he said, holding out his bound hands, but Kathryn started to unwind the clean, linen cravat instead.

Nigel protested. “Hurry, Kathryn. Hurry! Losing time is bad.”

“Losing blood is worse.” She kept working, tearing his shirt open even further and reaching around him to tie his cravat around his bleeding shoulder. “You’ll be no good to anyone if you collapse. And if you are dead”—she cinched the knot tight, and he winced—”then you shall not be able to tell me the truth. All of the truth,” she said meaningfully.

Nodding his understanding, he lifted her with his one good arm, helping her to the street. Ophelia and Jane were already out of sight, and they stood together for a moment on the front walk.

“Nigel, there is something I must say to you.”

“There is no time. O’Flaugherty is getting away, and if he does, all of England is in peril. You must believe me. I promise you complete truth as soon as I return.”

“As soon as you return!” Kathryn cried. “From where?” But Kathryn knew the answer. He was going after O’Flaugherty, and she was afraid.

Kathryn bowed her head and pressed her face into his chest. She inhaled, taking in the scent of him, and then she spoke softly. “Nigel—” She pushed down a sob. “Nigel, promise me . . . promise me that you will be safe.”

Nigel took her by the shoulders then and kissed her. Roughly, hastily, yet gently and with an urgency that had nothing to do with time. “I promise that I love you,” he said, “and that you will know the truth,” he said. “All of it. Whatever happens.” Then he was gone.

“Oh, please, Nigel,” she whispered into the night. “Please return to me!”

WHEN NIGEL LIMPED back into Silver Street three hours later, he carried several more wounds. A light rain had begun. His clothes were covered in half-dried blood, though he was unsure of whose it was. When he’d found O’Flaugherty, the Irishman wasn’t alone. He was on a dock, passing the plans to a ship’s mate. The pair were in Sir Winston’s hands, now. Nigel almost felt sorry for the bastards!

Baroness Marchman’s School was a blackened skeleton of glowing timbers against the cloudy night sky. He pushed his way through the sea of people who had come to watch the fire consume the old house or to take part in the fire brigade. Their faces glowed orange against the remaining pockets of fire, and some of the poor were already braving the heat and the danger from falling debris to scavenge through the perimeter of the burned hulk. Seeing Nigel, many of them offered whatever meager assistance they could provide, for he was obviously hurt, but he waved them away. The only salve he needed was Kathryn. Suddenly, a small hand touched his shoulder and Nigel turned. It was Kathryn. Her tears announced her relief at his return.

“The plans?” she asked.

“Safe,” he answered. “Some men . . . friends of mine,” he whispered enigmatically, with a meaningful glance at the crowd gathering around them, “are looking for Mr. O’Flaugherty’s acquaintances. Everything will be taken care of by morning.”

Kathryn nodded her understanding. “And your shoulder?”

“I was lucky,” he said. “There will likely be no lasting damage.” Nigel’s eyes flicked over her shoulder. “There is your aunt.”

“I told her all I know,” Kathryn said.

Nigel nodded his understanding as Ophelia emerged from the crowd.

“I sent John to Palin House with your Jane, my boy. I thought the excitement too much for her,” she said, eyeing Nigel’s bloodstained shoulder.

“Very wise, ma’am. I thank you.”

“I asked John to tell my parents everything,” she said with a meaningful glance at Nigel. “for I cannot bear to keep secrets from those I love. Can you?”

“Not any longer than I can help,” he said. And, leaning close, he whispered, “Soon.”

“Poor Agnes,” Ophelia said, staring at the burned-out school. “What a shock it will be when she returns from Vauxhall to find her place burned to the ground! She will have nowhere to live.” Tears of genuine sympathy brimmed in her eyes.

“My dear lady,” Nigel said, keeping his voice low and shielding his words from the ears of the crowd with his body, “you needn’t worry about where Lady Marchman will sleep. There is a bed waiting for her at Ludgate, though I am sure it will not be to her liking.”

Kathryn’s eyes widened. “Lady Marchman? In gaol?”

Nigel nodded gravely. “She soon will be. She has been receiving large payments for forty years from an unknown benefactor. It is very likely she was a French sympathizer all those years.”

“Oh,
my
!” Ophelia said. “Blackshire, my boy, you . . . you may want to tell your . . . your
friends
to hold off on arresting her, my boy.” Her face reddened, and she looked embarrassed. “You see,” she explained, “I am afraid
I
am Agnes Marchman’s benefactor!”

“But Auntie! I thought you disliked Lady Marchman!”

Ophelia gave a sheepish half grin and a shrug. “We have been great rivals,” she said as though that explained everything. She suddenly appeared to find something of intense interest on the ground several paces away and knelt there.

Nigel smiled after her. “The old shammer.” He turned back to Kathryn and looked deeply into her eyes. “I see love in your heart,” he said as he framed her face in his hands. “But I also see mistrust. It is time to answer your questions. Ask them.”

Kathryn chuckled. “There is really little need. Jane told me what she knows, and of course—”

“And of course Jane knows everything,” he finished wryly and sighed. “That chit is a sneak.”

Kathryn grinned. “At least she comes by the trait honestly.” She stepped closer to him and looked into his eyes.

“Aw, go on . . . kiss ’er!” someone called from the crowd, which surged closer.

Though they could not hear Nigel and Kathryn’s private words to each other, they could easily see the love that flowed back and forth between the two like leaves swirling in the wind.

Nigel smiled. “These people”—he gestured toward the circle of faces that ringed them—”are my friends.”

“I know,” Kathryn said. “I have spoken with many of them this night. The children, especially, seem to love you. They tell me you carry sweets for them in your pockets. And it is no wonder you do not travel to your estate in Northumberland, for it must be overrun with the puppies, kittens, and magic frogs they have sold you.”

Nigel shrugged.

“’At ain’t no way to treat a lai-dee, me lord! Kiss ’er! She wants you to. Any bloody fool kin see ’hat!”

“Kiss ’er . . . kiss ’er . . . kiss ’er!” The gathering crowd took up the chant and pressed even closer. Nigel and Kathryn no longer had any privacy, even for words. Kathryn lowered her eyes. He did not need to see her face to know she was blushing.

“Well then,” he said loudly, “I mustn’t disappoint her, right?”

“Right!” “Right-o!” Whistles and catcalls broke out spontaneously as the crowd realized he was playing to them, and that the pretty lady was obviously embarrassed—but willing.

The rain was pattering down a little harder now, but the crowd continued to swell, and Nigel’s heart with it. These people were his friends. He had fought for them in France. He had fought for them in Parliament. They protected him on the streets, they cheered him when he passed. They had been his family when he’d had no other. It was fitting that they should be here with him on this occasion.

Nigel spotted Ophelia Palin at the edge of the mob.

“Kiss her,” she mouthed silently, her eyes sparkling.

Nigel frowned dramatically. “Well now . . . I cannot kiss her,” he said.

The crowd booed and moaned, then quieted, sensing he was only jesting.