The Mandarin of Mayfair (24 page)

Gwendolyn crouched in the far corner, her eyes very wide, her shoe upraised in one hand.

"Now," said Falcon through his teeth, "to attend to
you
, madam!"

"If you think to br-brutalize me, as you did poor Tummet—" began Gwendolyn, lifting her shoe higher.

Falcon interrupted ruthlessly, "You'll likely never understand how near you came to being truly brutalized when you flaunted yourself about The Madrigal after dark. What in
Hades
did you think you would achieve by following me—"

"Following…
you?
" Outraged, she sputtered, "Why, you
conceited
, p-puffed-up great—great
stupid
! I wasn't following
you
!"

There could be no doubting her sincerity; resentment fairly radiated from her grubby face. Perversely his fury doubled. He growled, "
Who
, then?" and pounced to tear the shoe from her hand and seize her by the shoulders. "What tulip of the
ton
has so captivated you that—"

With a sob of wrath she clawed at his hand, and as he gave an instinctive gasp and drew back, she slapped his face so hard that a lock of hair bounced down across his forehead.

For a second he looked dazed, then it seemed to Gwendolyn that blue daggers darted at her from his narrowed eyes. He swore, soft and viciously. Instead of fear, she experienced a stab of really acute pain and, closing her eyes, lifted her face. "Very w-well," she said. "Prove yourself a real English gentleman, and strike me back. It's what I deserve for trying to help Gideon."

He stared down at that small upturned face, very pale between the streaks of grime. The thought of striking it made him feel sick. Frustrated and confused, he flung her from him and took out a handkerchief to dab at the scratches.

A stifled sob brought his head up. By the glow from the carriage lamps he saw tears creeping down her cheeks, but she made no attempt to wipe them away. It was as much as he could do not to pull her close and comfort her. Overcoming that weakness, he thrust the handkerchief at her, and conjured up a sneer. "Typical! A cunning but infallible woman's weapon."

Gwendolyn wiped her eyes with a corner of the handkerchief, then snatched his hand and peered at the scratches. "Oh, how dreadful," she said shakily, winding the handkerchief around the damage.

"Don't pretend to be sorry," he grunted.

"No, I won't. You deserve much worse for ruining everything!"

Despite himself, at this his jaw dropped. "If
that
don't beat the Dutch! You've more than your share of effrontery, madam! What have I ruined, pray tell? Your venture into prostitution?"

She made a sound that put him in mind of a small puppy trying its first growl. Her little nose was thrust under his chin and she said in a voice that quivered with renewed wrath, "My brother would kill you for
that
foul remark, August Falcon! And you will live to be ashamed of it, I am very sure!"

He was already ashamed of it, and he muttered, "If Ross ever discovers how I failed to protect you whilst you were under my roof—"

"He would be proud!" She threw up her hands and wailed, "I tried so
hard
! And I was so
frightened
! But I triumphed at last! I
triumphed
! And then the mighty conquering hero, August Nicolai Falcon must come galumphing into my adventure and let them get clean away! Oh, the
pity
of it! When Gideon hears
that
—"

"Hold up! What are you talking about? Who got away?"

"Maria Benevento or Barthelemy, or whoever she is! And someone called Mr. Penn!"

"
What
?' he roared. "Why the
devil
didn't you say so?" He sprang up and lowered the window to howl, "
Tummet!
"

"I tried to tell you, horrid wretch that you are, but—"

The carriage slowed.

"Which way did they go, Gwen?" demanded Falcon.

"Back toward Town. Tummet knows, poor dear thing. But it's too late now, thanks to—"

He said grimly, "You don't know my team!" He leaned from the window. "Miss Gwen says you know the coach and which way it was going. Try if you can follow them."

A hoarse croak answered, "I am, Guv. But they got a good lead on us."

Falcon glanced westward. "The moon's coming up. Can you see their coach?"

"No. But I'll reckernize it if we get near enough."

"Good man. Then spring 'em!"

The coach lurched. Falcon closed the window and sat down.

"All right," he said sternly. "Tell me the whole. But—first, did you see this Mr. Penn?"

"No. It was too dark and I was too far off. But I once heard Miss Barthelemy read at a party, and I recognized her voice when she called to him. She got into a coach, and a big man ran over and climbed in and they drove away. I thought it might be important so—"

"So you came to me and I behaved like the world's prize dunderhead! But even so, that don't excuse your shocking—"

"Is it important?" she interrupted impatiently. "Who is Mr. Penn?"

"Would that I knew. And 'tis very important indeed! We first heard of him early in September when Morris and I were in Cornwall trying to help Johnny Armitage. Jennifer, she was Miss Britewell then, overheard Lord Kenneth Morris talking high treason with a man named Penn."

Gwendolyn's lower lip sagged. Aghast, she echoed, "Lord Kenneth
Morris
! Not—not Jamie's uncle?"

He'd supposed Gideon would have told her the details, else he'd not have mentioned the matter. He thought, "Damn! Too late now," and said, "Not exactly. Some sort of cousin to his father, I believe. But he's the head of the Family Morris and up to his ears in the League of Jewelled Men. With luck, our mysterious Mr. Penn and Maria are going to one of their secret meetings. If we can just come close enough to find out where they rendezvous! Jove, what a piece of luck that would be!"

Caught up in his enthusiasm, she clasped her hands and said eagerly, "Oh, how grand if we could think we had helped a little."

"We?" he asked with a faint smile.

She nodded. "Katrina and me. You cannot know how—"

"
Katrina
? The devil! Do you say my sister also wanders London's streets at night disguised as—"

"You may un-knit your eyebrows, sir! Katrina wanted to help but she was afraid that—"

"Yes, of course. She is such a gentle soul."

Gwendolyn gritted her teeth and drew a deep breath. "—But she was afraid that she would be recognized. So she helped Amazon Rossiter don her disguise and arranged for a chair to come to the back door to take me up, and—"

"And must have been suffering a softening of the brain to have agreed to so outrageous and reckless an escapade! Furthermore, I did not say you are an Amazon. I merely—"

"Implied it. And if my—our—
plan
was reckless and outrageous, 'tis my impression that we are faced with a possible national disaster, which would seem to me to warrant taking a few chances." He started to respond, but she leaned to press a hand across his lips and went on fumingly, "At least be sufficiently generous to admit that I have learned something of value this afternoon. What have you accomplished since you arrived?"

He pulled her hand away but said nothing, and she peered at him suspiciously. "Why is your face so red? Did you—"

She was interrupted by a shout. Falcon started up and in that same instant the coach swerved wildly so that he was thrown to the side. A jolting rocking confusion; the shrill neighs of terrified horses; a sense of falling. He made a desperate lunge for Gwendolyn and clamped his arms about her just as a violent shock wiped everything away…

"How is your father… by the way?"

Falcon blinked as those words echoed in his ears. It was dark. He couldn't see who had spoken. He seemed to be quite alone. He was stiff and uncomfortable, and his left arm hurt. Puzzled, he sat up and banged his nose on the seat of a carriage. He stared at it stupidly. It was tilting at a most peculiar angle. If it didn't straighten out, he thought, it would probably fall. Memory returned with a rush, and with it a heart-stopping terror.

He whispered, "Gwen?" And then was shouting her name frenziedly, and fighting his way to the door that hung at an angle and wide open, above him. He became aware that the coach had come to rest against the base of a great oak tree and that one of the lamps was still burning. It was a distant awareness, for the only thing that really mattered was that he find her. And that she—
please
God!—be alive. He was outside, and running about, still calling her name distractedly as he sought for any sign of a small figure… a forest green shawl. "Where are you?" he cried wildly. "Gwen! Answer me!"

The glow from the lamp shone on something pale in the grass. He ran to it and dropped to his knees beside that still face. She lay without any sign of life. Small, motionless, pathetically broken; and precious beyond the power of words.

His hands went out to snatch her up, then recoiled. Trembling, he felt her cheek. It was warm. Scarcely daring to touch her, he lifted one limp little hand, stroking it as he begged sobbingly, "Gwen? Oh, Gwen you
cannot
be dead! Gwen—my precious… Smallest Rossiter… My darling, my darling! For the love of God—
speak
to me!"

She murmured faintly, "What… do you want to… talk about?"

He gave a strangled cry, and pressed her hand to his cheek while the sly murmur at the edges of his mind became a shout that he could no longer ignore or refuse. It was there:powerful, unconquerable. It had claimed him at last, and he surrendered with a great surge of gladness and gratitude.

Gwendolyn murmured wonderingly, "Are these… tears I feel?"

"No," he said gruffly. "Yes! My dearest most cherished creature! I thought—I thought I'd… lost you! And—Lord! What a fool I am! Gwen—are you hurt? Can you move?"

Breathless with anxiety, he watched her tentative movements.

"I think I have… some bruises," she reported. "But if you will be so kind as to help me up."

If he would be so kind! With the greatest caution he slid an arm under her shoulders and lifted gently. She gave a stifled exclamation as she sat up, and he shrank in terror. "What? What? Don't move! Why will you not tell me? Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere," she said with a breathless laugh. "I think when I was thrown from the carriage I must have landed most ungracefully. I shall be very stiff tomorrow, but—nothing worse, I believe. If you will help me, I can stand, and—"

He gave an impatient snort and helped her to her feet.

She swayed dazedly, then uttered a startled cry as she was swept up in arms of steel and cradled close against his heart. It seemed a perfectly satisfactory arrangement. She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder until he set her down with her back against a tree.

"Lie quietly and rest for a minute or two," he said gently, his fingers caressing her cheek. "I must find poor Tummet."

Mortified because she had not at once enquired for the faithful man, she exclaimed, "Oh, what a muddle-head I am! And the horses, August!"

He begged her not to move, and went off, limping stiffly, and discovering some new bruises of his own. Tummet was extricating himself from a gorse bush and swearing with force and fluency as he picked thorns from his person. He got to his knees as Falcon came up. "Tree acrost the road, Guv," he said with no little apprehension. "Didn't see it in time, sorry to tellya. I hopes as Miss Gwen—"

"She is bruised and shaken. Nothing worse, thank God." Falcon extended a helping hand. "What of you, my poor fellow?"

It was an improvement, thought Tummet, over being named a "scheming, traitorous hedgebird."

"Never mind abaht me, Guv. We gotta find the team."

By a great stroke of luck the oak against which the coach had come to rest had snapped the pole cleanly, and the horses were discovered grazing peacefully a short distance down the hill. One appeared to have suffered a sprained hock, and the other was cut about the knees but not so severely as to prevent its being ridden. The two men freed the animals from their harness, and then righted the coach. Two wheels were sprung, the windows shattered, and the side smashed in. Viewing the wreckage, Falcon could only marvel they'd not all been killed.

Tummet said wearily, "Will I go and fetch help, sir?"

"Not before I apologize for handling you so roughly. I shouldn't have allowed my temper to overmaster me. But I'll want an explanation, even so."

"I c'n see why you'd a'been put abaht, Guv. Thinking I'd bin a party to Miss Gwen's larks. Wasn't."

"We'll sort it all out later. Are you sure you're able to ride? If not, I'll go and you can stay with the lady."

Tummet insisted he was "writ-as-a-riddle," adding that it must be only a few miles back up to the London-to-Dover turnpike where he was sure to find help. He didn't look "fit as a fiddle," but Falcon's own head was none too clear, and the violent episode had done his arm no good at all. He helped Tummet mount up, then returned to the tree and sank down beside Gwendolyn.

It seemed perfectly natural for his arm to go around her, and that she should snuggle against him in so trusting a way. They were both bruised and battered, they had survived a narrow brush with death, and they were sitting all alone on a dark and chilly heath. Yet no two lovers drifting in a gondola under a summer Venetian moon could have been more blissfully content as they shared a comfortable silence.

Gwendolyn thought mistily of those wondrous words she'd never thought to hear him say, "My darling… My dearest most cherished creature." And the knowledge that she was loved as deeply as she loved, was so great a happiness that she was almost afraid to believe it.

Falcon was reliving that nightmarish moment when he'd thought to have lost her, and the wonder of this love that had crept upon him so quietly, so gradually, to spring at last, with such awesome power that in this one short hour his life was changed forever. Only it was not one short hour, of course. For some time his inner voice had been warning that his feelings toward her were changing, only he'd fought against it and denied it. He tried to think of just when, during the many occasions that the Smallest Rossiter had teased and argued with him, she had managed to take possession of his heart. He found he could not even recall their disagreements with much clarity, for tonight there seemed to be a soft haze over everything.