The Deception (35 page)

Danger.

I realized in a rush of panic that I had been a fool to answer this mysterious summons alone. My heart began to pound, and then I heard behind me the sound of a footstep crunching on gravel. I whirled around, hands extended to protect myself, just as a heavy blanket was thrown over the entire upper part of my body, catching my hands helplessly within its folds. Strong hands wrapped the blanket tightly around me, lifted me like a sack, and began to carry me, even though I fought as ferociously and uselessly as a trapped cat.

We did not go very far. I was still struggling when I was flung to the ground. I landed hard and lay still for a moment, the wind knocked out of me. As I struggled to catch my breath, a hand grasped the end of the blanket, gave it a vicious jerk, and tumbled me out of it onto the hard-packed dirt floor of the garden shed.

“Get up.” The voice fairly vibrated with hatred and fury. The line of light that had caught my attention earlier had come from the lantern that, when I raised my eyes, cast enough light in the shed for me to see the Marquis of Stade standing over me—with a pistol pointed at my chest.

Oh my God,
I thought.
Oh my God,

My heart was hammering as I cast a quick look around the shed, trying to see if there might be some way out of this.

“You little bitch,” he snarled. “Get up.” He called me other unspeakable names as I got unsteadily to my feet, my eyes now riveted on that pistol. The rage poured from him in waves that were almost tangible.

I gained my feet. My mouth was so dry I didn’t know if I could speak, but I had to try. “You won’t get away with this, Stade,” I managed to croak. “You got away with killing Papa, but you are a suspect now. You won’t get away with killing me.”

His neck muscles were swelled like a bull’s. “Yes, I will,” he said. “They may suspect me, but they won’t be able to prove anything. No one has seen me this time either.”

My hands had involuntarily spread themselves in front of my stomach in a futile gesture of protection.

My baby,
I thought.
I
can’t let him kill my baby.

Once again my eyes desperately searched the shed. There were some garden tools leaning against the far wall, but I would never have the time to get to them.

“You won’t get away with this,” I repeated.

“I’m going to kill you,” he said, and raised his pistol so that it was once more trained on my chest.

At that moment the door behind him swung open. He heard it and started to swing around, but he had already begun to squeeze the trigger. His hand jerked, and the shot boomed out and buried itself in the wooden wall behind me.

Through the black smoke given off by the pistol, I saw Harry standing in the doorway, a fireplace poker in his raised hand. He was in the act of bringing it down on Stade’s head when Stade once more got his double-barrel pistol pointed. It went off at the same moment that Harry’s poker connected, and both men fell crashing to the ground.

“Harry!”
the bloodcurdling scream of Harry’s name came from me. There was blood streaming from Stade’s forehead as he lay sprawled motionless on the ground. I stepped on his stomach as I frantically scrambled to get to Harry.

There was blood all over his shoulder, but his eyes were open and his voice was clear as he said to me, “You all right, Kate?”

“Oh my God, Harry,” I said, “you’ve been shot!”

I thought I heard Stade beginning to move, and I turned around to check on him.

Another voice spoke from the doorway. “Kate! What in the name of God is happening here?”

It was Adrian.

“Thank God!” I said. “Adrian, Harry has been shot!”

He was down on his knees next to his brother in an instant. I looked around for a weapon in case I needed it, and grabbed a spade as the most useful tool available. I stood next to Stade, ready to bash him again if he started to wake up.

Adrian had pulled off his neckcloth and was using it to stanch the blood from Harry’s wound. I felt intense relief when I heard Harry groan. At least he was still alive.

“You took a nice pop in the shoulder, lad,” Adrian was saying to his brother. His voice was perfectly calm. “It’s going to hurt like bloody hell when the sawbones gets at it, but you’ll survive.”

“You got... the note?” Harry gasped.

“I did. Thank you, Harry. You did everything right.”

They were such simple words, and they were spoken simply too, but I know that my throat closed down with emotion, and I saw the way Harry’s fingers closed around his brother’s hand.

Chapter Twenty-six

Adrian sent me back to the house to fetch help and to send someone for a doctor. I waited in the hall, and when they carried Harry in the front door on a hurdle, it brought back with a flash of painful intensity the day my father had died.

I huddled against the wall, looked at Harry’s white face and closed eyes as he was carried by, and prayed.
Please God, not Harry too. Please, please, please. Not Harry. Don’t take Harry. Please...

The four stalwart footmen who were carrying Harry’s makeshift stretcher headed for the stairs. Adrian came over to me and put his arm around my shoulders. “He isn’t going to die, Kate,” he said quietly. “It’s just a shoulder wound.”

I pressed into his comfort and his strength. “You’re not just saying that?” I whispered.

“I am not just saying that. Now, I want you to come along upstairs with me. You’ve had a terrible shock and you need to rest.”

I let him move me toward the stairs. When we reached the first step I stopped and said, “They carried Papa in like that after Stade shot him.”

“Your father was shot in the chest,” he said in that same quiet voice. “Harry’s injury is in his shoulder.”

Slowly we began to climb the stairs. Four steps up, I stopped again and looked searchingly into his face. “Are you sure he is going to be all right, Adrian? You are not just saying that to make me feel better?”

He returned my look, his dark gray eyes level and grave. “Trust me, Kate. I have seen all kinds of wounds, and you may believe me when I say that Harry is not going to die.”

I did believe him. My eyes closed and my knees buckled with the intensity of my relief. He felt me sway, lifted me off the stairs and into his arms, and carried me the rest of the way to our bedroom.

“Take care of her ladyship,” he said to a startled Jeanette as he deposited me on the bed. He looked down at me. “I’ll come back after the doctor has seen Harry,” he said, and departed to see to his brother.

I let Jeanette undress me and I told her to make up the fire before she left. Then I wrapped myself in a satin quilt from the bed and curled up in the big rocking chair in front of the fire. I prayed for Harry.

It was several hours before Adrian returned. His first words when he saw me peeking around the back of the rocker were “You should be in bed.”

“I couldn’t sleep until I heard what the doctor had to say.”

He crossed the room slowly and leaned his shoulders against the mantelpiece so that he was facing me. He looked so very weary, and my heart went out to him. “The doctor dug the bullet out,” he said. “Harry was very brave. I gave him rather a lot of brandy and he’s sleeping now. I’m going to change my clothes and spend the night in his room in case he wakes and needs something.”

I said in a rush, “Adrian, I am so sorry. It’s all my fault that Harry was hurt. If I had not been so stupid this would never never have happened.”

He looked at me out of shadowed eyes. “It
was
a stupid thing to do, Kate. How could you have been so foolish as to go tearing off on your own like that?”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking very clearly,” I said small voice. “How did Harry know where to look for me?

Lines of weariness bracketed his mouth; he looked like a man who has not slept in days. He said, “You took Miss Ellsworth’s cloak. She and Harry were going to go for a stroll in the gardens, and when they went to get her cloak, it was missing. In its place Harry found Stade’s note. Apparently you put it down when you picked up the cloak. It is nothing short of a miracle that Harry read it.”

My eyes clung to his face. “Why did he?”

He shook his head slowly. “We’ll have to ask him that when he is feeling better. The information I have given you thus far I garnered from Miss Ellsworth.”

“So when Harry read the note, he grabbed a poker and came racing to my rescue?”

“Yes. And he instructed Miss Ellsworth to take the letter to me.” The shadows around his eyes and the lines around his mouth seemed to deepen. “Thank God he did not take the time to look for me himself, Kate. If he had, we would have been too late.”

I said, “Stade just wanted revenge, Adrian. He wanted to hurt me because I had exposed him to the Jockey Club.” I clutched the quilt closer against the sudden chill that made me shudder. “What an evil, evil man he is.”

“Yes,” he said bleakly, and was silent.

I longed, with an ache that was almost physical it was so intense, for him to hold me. But the distance between us was more than just physical. My thoughtless stupidity had almost killed his brother. How could I ask him to comfort me? How could I dare presume to offer comfort to him?

I tightened my grip on my quilt until my knuckles were white and said again, “I am so sorry “

He frowned at me. “What I cannot understand is why in God’s name you did not send for Harry as soon as you got Stade’s note.”

As upset as I was, I didn’t fail to notice that he had not questioned as to why I had not sent for him. The gulf between us was yawning wider and wider.

“I just didn’t think, Adrian,” I said wretchedly. “Once I was in the garden I realized I had made a mistake, but Stade caught me before I could return to the house for help.”

“He took you into the garden shed, I gather?”

“Yes.” My voice got a little stronger. “He was going to shoot me, Adrian. He did actually squeeze the trigger, but Harry came in behind him and made him miss. Then Harry hit him over the head with the poker, but Stade managed to get a shot off before he went down. That was the shot that hit Harry. They both fell to the ground at the same time.”

Silence. He rubbed his hand over his face.

“I am so very very sorry.” I said, repeating myself like a parrot that knows only one phrase.

He lowered his hand and gave me a strained smile that did not touch his eyes. “Well, at least one good thing can be said to have come out of this night,” he said.

“And what is that?” I asked in utter bewilderment.

“I believe you once told me that Harry wanted to be a hero,” Adrian said. “Well, he most certainly was that tonight, Kate. He saved your life.”

I blinked. “I had not thought of that, but you’re right, Adrian. If Harry had not come along when he did, I would most certainly be dead.”

“He was even wounded. Give him a day or two and he will be delighted.”

I stared into his unsmiling eyes. “Harry isn’t going to die, is he, Adrian?” I could not keep my voice from cracking,

“No, he isn’t going to die, Kate.” He pushed his shoulders away from the wall. “I am going to sit up with him tonight, however. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he developed a fever.”

“I would be happy to keep you company,” I offered tentatively.

He rejected me without a moment’s hesitation. “Go to bed, Kate. You look like a ghost. You’ve had a terrible shock, and you don’t want to run the risk of miscarrying the child.”

“No, of course I don’t want to do that,” I said woefully.

“Then get into bed,” he repeated. “You may safely leave Harry to me.”

* * * *

When Harry awoke just before dawn, he did have a fever. The doctor came back and prescribed some kind of a brew for him to drink. He suggested bloodletting, but Adrian wouldn’t allow it.

The day dragged by interminably. I went in to sit with Harry for two hours in the afternoon, while Adrian caught some sleep, and Harry’s fever-bright eyes and flushed skin frightened me badly. His brain was clear, however. He knew me, and he even made a joke about all the attention he was getting.

“I feel so bad that you were hurt, Harry,” I said. “It was all my fault. But I am so grateful to you. You saved my life.”

“The bastard was going to shoot you,” he said.

“He certainly was. I was never so glad to see anyone in all my life as I was to see you.” I repeated, “You saved my life.”

His eyes glittered. He said, “Could I have some water, Kate?”

“Of course.”

I sat beside him, and held his hand, and talked softly of this and that, but after a while his attention wandered. I saw his eyes going again and again to the door.

When at last it opened and Adrian came in, the relief on Harry’s face was unmistakable.

“How are you doing, lad?” Adrian asked as he came to stand on the opposite side of the bed from me.

“Good,” Harry said. “Kate is taking good care of me.”

“I thought she would, but you are going to have to put up with me for a while. Kate is going to go for a walk in the garden with Lady Mary.”

Walking with Lady Mary was absolutely the last thing I wanted to do, but I said, “That will be nice,” and got to my feet. Adrian put a competent hand on Harry’s forehead.

“I’m still hot,” Harry said.

“This kind of fever very often accompanies a gunshot wound,” Adrian said. “I’ve seen it hundreds of times. You’ll be right as rain in a few days, Harry.”

Harry’s eyes were clinging to Adrian’s face. Adrian grinned at him. “Don’t complain, little brother. You are in a nice warm house, in a nice warm bed, with a beautiful woman to tell you what a hero you are. Let me tell you, it’s a great deal better than a muddy tent in Spain!”

“I wasn’t aware that I was complaining,” Harry retorted.

Adrian glanced at me and nodded his head toward the door. I bent to kiss Harry’s forehead; it was too hot. “I’ll look in on you again later,” I said.

He nodded.

“Time for another dose of medicine,” Adrian said.

Harry groaned.

I went out.

* * * *

Lady Mary was indeed waiting for me at the head of the stairs. I decided it would be too much trouble to try to think up an excuse as to why I couldn’t walk with her, so I went. We were joined on the terrace by Mr. Bellerton.