The Mandarin of Mayfair (14 page)

"All to myself?" she interposed in desperation. "But of course. You are so diverting a companion. Happy one moment, fighting like a Roman gladiator the next, murderous the next!"

He said through his teeth, "If you do not want to see just how murderous I can be, madam, you'd best use whatever influence you have to keep my sister away from Lieutenant Dolt Morris!"

* * *

Contrary to Falcon's expectations Sir James Knight arrived at Great Ormond Street within minutes of their return. A tall, spare gentleman of middle years, with a thin face, narrow hazel eyes under bushy brows, and a fierce manner, he nodded tersely to Pearsall. "Bad this time, is it?" he barked in a harsh voice, marching toward Mrs. Vanechurch who waited at the foot of the stairs.

Pearsall answered, "I pray not, Sir James. A knife thrust in his upper arm."

Mrs. Vanechurch said fervently, "Thank heaven you are come, sir. He is in a proper rage and will not let us help him."

"Typical!" snorted the doctor. "Another duel, of course."

"They were attacked by street ruffians, as I understand it."

Sir James paused with one hand on the banister. "They?"

"Miss Rossiter was with him, sir."

"Was she, by Gad! Safe home, I trust?"

"The lady is in the small withdrawing room, Sir James."

"And should be laid down upon her bed," put in the housekeeper, wringing her plump hands nervously. "Shaking like a leaf the poor young lady was when they come home. But she is as stubborn as the young master. If you could look in on her afterwards, sir?"

Sir James nodded and stamped up the stairs, to pause, scowling, as a lackey flung open the door to Falcon's suite.

The injured man was reclining on a chaise longue, fully dressed save for his coat and waistcoat, his left shirtsleeve gruesomely blotched with crimson. Katrina knelt beside him, a bloody rag in one hand and tears on her pale face, and Tummet hovered in the open door to the bedchamber, managing to look at once glum and exasperated.

"… know perfectly well it will not do," Falcon was saying, his voice low and furious. "You do him a disservice by encouraging his advances and leave me no alternative but to—"

"You'll leave me no alternative but to have you hauled to your bed and chained there if you do not curb that abominable temper!" The doctor walked briskly to the side of the chaise, thrust his bag at Tummet, and assisted Katrina to her feet.

"How glad I am that you have come, Sir James," she gulped tearfully. "My brother has taken a horrid wound and will not—"

"Oh, have done, madam," snapped Falcon. "Send her away, Knight. She is beside herself."

"While you are doing all in your power to calm her, as usual," said the great doctor acidly. "The kindest thing I can do for you, my poor little lass, is to agree with your lunatic brother. I believe Miss Rossiter waits in what you people facetiously call the 'small' withdrawing room. She will likely benefit from a little comforting."

Katrina nodded and Sir James opened the door for her, then returned to Falcon. "If you expect me to tend you while you lie on that stupid chaise, you are mistaken. I wonder you allowed it, Tummet."

"Lor' almighty," protested Tummet indignantly. "You know what he's like when—"

"Oh, he fussed enough for two," said Falcon with a gesture of impatience. "The devil's in it that I'm surrounded by gloom merchants."

"You may be thankful that with your charming disposition you're surrounded by anyone at all! Are you able to walk to your bed, or shall I order that you be carried?"

Falcon said with a flash of his brilliant grin, "You would, damn you! No, really, James, I'm not playing the noble hero. I've a clean cut in my arm, and to please you I'll own it hurts like fury, but 'tis scarce a matter of life and death. There was no need for you to be called from sick folk who need you, so as to come and pinch at me, and then favour me with one of your stupendous bills."

"I've not yet begun to pinch at you! And a mosquito sting can be a matter of life and death." The doctor took Falcon's wrist and felt the pulse, then muttered, "Tumultuous, naturally. Added to which you are flushed, your eyes glitter more balefully than usual, and you are in a fine sweat."

"How very crude of me," drawled Falcon. But after a pause he sighed and asked quietly, "Do you really judge me a lunatic, James?"

Glancing up, Knight's narrow hazel eyes were suddenly very kind. He said in a surprisingly gentle voice, "She is a grown lady now. You must let her choose her own path, lad."

"She is a babe! A lovely, sweet-natured… simpleton. I only pray that, someday, the right man will come—a man worthy of her."

Knight laid down the captive wrist, and asked, "From whence will this paragon come, pray tell? Another world, perhaps?"

Falcon stared at him, then said with a wry smile, "Would you trust Katrina to choose her own mate, Solomon? Or my sire to do so?" Knight frowned, and hesitated. Falcon uttered a derisive snort, then called, "Very well, Tummet. The great man is determined to make an invalid of me. Lend me a hand to my bed. When he's done with his butchery I'll likely stand in need of it!"

"Jove, but you're doing well, old lad!" James Morris eyed his companion admiringly, and adjusted his stride to match Sir Owen's slower pace. They had met in the Strand and been glad to keep each other company on this blustery afternoon. "Out trying your legs, eh?"

Furlong was cheered by the words of praise. He said, "I do think I'm making progress, and I'll never get my strength back while I lounge about in my house. It's not as if I was down at Tunbridge Wells, you know, and could take old Chaucer out for a walk every day. I feel stifled indoors, so when the rain stopped I decided to drop in on Gideon. Is that where you're bound?"

"To say truth, I don't know where I'm bound." Morris said ruefully, "Just got my weekly set-down. From Falcon."

Sir Owen glanced at him sharply, and stepped aside to allow a lady with enormous skirts to pass by. "I've no wish to pry," he said then, "but did you perhaps speak to him at last?"

"Well, he's seemed a little less—er, unforgiving of late, so I'd intended to put my hopes to the test again. As it chanced, I didn't have the opportunity. August and Miss Gwendolyn were set upon in Bloomsbury Square, of all places, and—"

"Good God! In broad daylight? The League?"

"He says not." Morris gave a brief sketch of the incident, and concluded, "By the worst possible luck, their coach turned onto Great Ormond Street at precisely the same moment Katrina and I rode up. She had just confessed she—er," he flushed, and went on shyly, "well, that she returns my affection, but she insists our situation is hopeless. I was trying to convince her 'tis not so, and— Oh, I fancy 'twas clear enough for any fool to see we are in… er, in love."

"Whereupon Falcon, being a proper fool, went straight into the boughs."

"Yes. Well, he was a trifle testy anyway. Had just took a knife in his arm, y'know."

"Hum. And what sayeth your fair lady?"

"That's the rub, Owen. She agrees. With him. It's the very deuce of a pickle."

Furlong's lips compressed, but he restrained his instinctive reaction and said quietly, " 'Twould seem we're both in the same barrel, Jamie."

"Oh. Are we? I'd thought, perhaps—"

"That I would have turned 'gainst Maria because she shot me down? I know everyone is of that opinion. My brother thinks me quite demented, but—" Sir Owen hesitated, then said, "Having found love at last, I find also that—that it cannot be turned on and off at will. And—she was fairly caught, don't you see? She adores that famous brother of here. He'd signed the Agreement with the League, and—"

"Did you read it, then?"

"No, but Travis Grainger did when he carried the Agreement here from Ceylon."

"Well, I know that. But he couldn't decipher much of it."

"He couldn't read the other signatures, but he saw Barthelemy's name clear enough. Had I succeeded in delivering the Agreement to the authorities, they'd have soon identified the other signatures, which would have destroyed the League, of course. Barthelemy would have been condemned as an enemy spy, and if he was acting on his personal ambitions, without the consent of his government, 'twould have doomed him in France also. How can I blame Maria for striving to save him? My only hope must be that I'll shortly forget the lady."

Morris pursed his lips. "Aye. 'As shortly as a horse will lick his ear!'"

Sir Owen smiled wryly, and they walked on together, the distress they shared forging a deeper bond between them. When they reached Conduit Street and the magnificence of Rossiter Court, they were shown up to the apartments now occupied by Captain Gideon Rossiter and his bride of seven months. Here, they were given into the care of the captain's new butler, a thin and mournful-looking Italian, who bowed and with a grand gesture advised them he was "Travatorri! The Capitaine's excessive-new gentleman. Madame," he added sighfully, "she is in bed with the doctor." This pronouncement which set Morris reeling and restored the twinkle to Sir Owen's blue eyes, was followed by an invitation to "Come this away, for the Capitaine is entertaining for a friend, but he have say you are to be omitted."

Following him along the wide and luxuriously appointed corridor, Morris clutched Furlong's arm and gulped, "Did you hear… what I heard?"

Sir Owen grinned, and nodded. "Gideon has a taste for variety," he whispered.

Travatorri flung open a door and roared, "Arrived they have! A moment!" He threw up one long arm, swung to confront the new arrivals causing them to step back hurriedly, and demanded, "Your names, if you pleasure, I must denounce!"

Gideon Rossiter had risen from a chair in the spacious and sunny withdrawing room. He saw Morris' face, and intervened hurriedly, "That is quite all right, Travatorri. Come in, gentlemen!"

The butler looked stern, and closing the door behind the new arrivals, held it open a moment, watching them suspiciously.

A slim young man wearing the uniform of a naval sublieutenant, had stood also, and waited, his dark eyes glinting with amusement.

The door clicked shut, and Morris attempted to stifle a whoop of laughter.

Sir Owen said unsteadily, "Good day, Skye." Grinning broadly, he sank into the nearest chair. "I think I must sit down, Ross. I'm easily overwhelmed these days."

"Ye Gods!" chortled Morris, shaking hands with the lieutenant, "Where the devil d'you find him, Gideon? First Tummet, now this!"

Rossiter groaned and went to pour two glasses of wine. " 'Tis Naomi's doing, not mine! He is a
count
, if you will believe it! Not a louis to bless himself with, but his family was kind to my wife whilst she lived in Italy, so…" he shrugged helplessly.

Wiping tears from his eyes, Morris said, "Owen, shall we tell him what his 'excessive-new gentleman' said of Naomi?"

"Better not," laughed Furlong. "Ignorance is bliss, in this case."

When the bantering died down, Furlong asked, "Dare we hope you're here in your official capacity, Skye?"

The lieutenant, who was nephew and aide-de-camp to Lord Hayes of the East India Company, turned his glass in his fine-boned nervous hands, and answered, "I'm afraid not, Owen. I chanced to see the little flurry Ross got himself into just now, so I came—"

Morris interrupted sharply, "Flurry? Gad, 'tis an epidemic! Came after you again, did they Gideon?"

Rossiter sobered. "Yes—and no." He set his glass aside and leaned forward in his chair. "I'd paid an early call this morning, and decided to walk home. I turned a corner and there were four of the rogues. I snatched my sword out, but I knew from the look of him that 'twould be a trifle grim. Then"—he frowned—"be dashed if I can understand the business. One of them howled, 'No! It's Rossiter! Shab off!' And they ran."

"Did they now?" muttered Furlong.

Perplexed, Morris watched Rossiter in silence.

Lieutenant Skye said, "You're well known, Gideon. Undoubtedly 'twas a pack of footpads who recognized you and know something of your reputation as a swordsman."

Rossiter shook his head. "At four-to-one odds? I'm not that formidable!"

The lieutenant stood, and said with a grin, "No, but they saw me running up. And I
am
formidable." They all laughed dutifully, and he left them, saying whimsically that he must get back to his desk or be flogged at the mainmast.

The door closed behind him and they settled back into their chairs. "Nice fellow, that," observed Morris. "What did he want, Gideon?"

"Or has he decided to help us?" asked Sir Owen hopefully.

Rossiter said, "I may be fair and far off, but I think Skye and his mighty uncle are a deal more interested in our activities than they admit. Skye's a master at turning the conversation the way he wants it to go. I started by asking him for any new information on the League, and suddenly found we were discussing the Stuarts!"

Morris was gazing rather glumly at the window. His head jerked up at this, however, and he exclaimed, "The Stuarts? Jupiter! Does Whitehall believe Bonnie Prince Charlie has joined forces with the League?"

"Dashed if I know. Certainly, Skye was fishing. And I'd nothing to give him, for I know precious little of the Prince's whereabouts, save that he's somewhere in Paris and King Louis is striving to push him out of France."

Sir Owen said dryly, "He'll have his work cut out for him. Not a country in Europe will offer sanctuary to Bonnie Charlie, for fear of offending King George. Especially now that the War of the Austrian Succession is done with. Besides, Charlie's mad for his new mistress, I hear."

His green eyes very round, Morris asked, "Stuart is after King George's mistress? Why, he must be wits to let! How could he—"

"Not
George's
mistress, you gudgeon," said Rossiter, laughing. "His own. The Princesse Marie Louise de Talmont."

"Oh." Morris blinked. "I saw her once. A handsome lady, but—er, I don't mean to criticize, but—surely she must be many—er, several years his senior? And she seemed rather— ah, fierce."

"That's her reputation," agreed Furlong. "But she's also very clever and witty, 'tis said, and knows how to keep a gentleman entertained. So long as her husband looks the other way…" He shrugged. "Ross, there was more to that attack on you, I think?"