The Wolfe Wager (25 page)

She recoiled from his fury. Even the Wolfe temper was dimmed by the rage burning in his eyes. Quietly, she said, struggling to keep her voice even, “You are the one who forgets yourself with such cant, my lord.”

He gave a mocking bow in her direction. “Then I beg your pardon. And may I say that you have become blind to the truth? You discount what I say to you, so why should I tell you that you have listened unwisely to those who have reason to hurt you?”

“Eveline would never hurt me.” She pressed her hands to her mouth when she saw how her answer stunned him. Her hand started to reach for him, but she pulled it back. Longing to ease his pain was want-witted when he was the source of hers.

“Miss Clarke has been carrying these bangers to you?” He locked his hands behind his coat and walked to the window. “I suppose that she heard these stories from her lover. Odd, that Edward would think—” He sighed, and she could not mistake the genuine regret in his voice. “You have had your revenge, Vanessa, if you yearned for me to suffer as you have, because I have in truth been wounded by one I believed to be a bosom-bow.” Fury blazed again in his eyes as he faced her. “However, I have not betrayed you. I have just been aboveboard with you about that witless wager. Would I have been so forthright if I had wished to continue to bronze you?”

Slowly she sat and rubbed her numb fingers together. No matter how he might be twisting his words, she must be honest with him. “I do not know. I have no idea which of your words are on the square any longer.”

He swore so viciously her face burned. Having no pity on her delicacy of mind, he crossed the room to take her hands and bring her back to her feet. “You have been seeking what you want for so long that you cannot see what you need is here in front of you.”

“And you are what I need, my lord?” She lifted her chin again, so the tears in her eyes did not course along her cheeks. “Do I need a rogue who risks my heart on the turn of a card?”

“You need me.”

Vanessa was astonished when he added nothing more. Then she realized there was nothing more to be said. This was the truth. Picking up her glass, she sipped slowly, but the wine’s warmth could not lessen the chill within her. She could not make her dreams come true by wistful thinking.

“Lord Brickendon,” she said, finding it ever more difficult to keep her voice from quivering, “I bid you good day.”

As she walked toward the door, he said to her back, “Perhaps before you have me ejected as you did Franklin, you might wish to hear what I learned from the Prime Minister.”

She turned. “I wish to hear it all.”

“All? There is no all.” He took a deep drink of his wine and leaned his elbow on the back of her aunt’s favorite chair. “There is only the same. The government fears making any bargains with Napoleon at this juncture. They believe the war will come to an end before the year does, although I think they are being optimistic. If they were to strike a deal with Boney, the English people would be furious.”

“Even to rescue a fellow Englishman?”

He sniffed with disdain. “My dear Vanessa, there is nothing the English love better than a martyr. No one denies Nelson was a hero at Trafalgar, but how much more acclaim he received because he died while protecting English interests! Becoming a dead hero will enshrine your brother in history along with Nelson and Richard the Third’s nephews in the Tower. Alive, he is only a bother to this government. I have pestered and exasperated every man I know in the government, but they seem as obdurate as you.”

“Thank you for your help.” She reached for the latch.

“So what will you do now?”

Vanessa owed him no reply, for he had not apologized for the wager nor had he defended himself by speaking of love. Yet she said before she could stop herself, “I have not decided, but I shall not sit on my hands and weep while my brother faces death.”

“What you mean is that you will sneak away again to try to rescue him.” He finished his wine, then put the glass on the sideboard. When he faced her, his expression was as blank as Quigley’s. “You leave me no choice. I shall go to France and dig your brother out of whatever hole that dirty Corsican has imprisoned him in.”

“
You
are going to France?”

He shrugged. “Why not? I was looking for something to entertain me for the rest of the Season. Fool that I was, I thought I would find the wager and your company diverting. That has come to an end, so why shouldn’t I cross the Channel in your place?”

“But Corey is
my
brother.”

“A fact no one contests.” He laughed coldly as he closed the distance between them until she had to tilt her head back against the door to look up into his eyes. She was aware of every inch of his strong body, although he did not touch her. “My dear Vanessa, you have been looking for a knight of yore from the moment your aunt fired you off. A dashing air-dreamer who will risk his last breath to obtain you your heart’s desire. So often I have jested with you on that very matter, little perceiving that you would settle for nothing less. Now I stand before you ready to embark on this cockle-brained crusade.”

“No.”

His eyebrows rose in an unspoken contradiction.

“It is my place to get Corey,” she said quietly. “It is right that I risk my life for my brother.”

“You cannot believe that I will allow you to send yourself on a quest that will take you into Napoleon’s domain?”

“I shall not argue with you about the sense of this journey, but the fact remains that
I
should go.”

He settled his hands on her shoulders. “And the fact remains that I shall not let you go.”

His hands did not imprison her. He would release her if that was her wish. It was not. When he drew her to him, so her head rested over the gentle thump of his heart, two tears edged along her cheeks. She still was unsure of anything about him. She wanted to trust him as she had wanted nothing else in her life. Even her yearning to apologize to her brother was dimmed by her craving to trust Ross.

Softly she said, “If you are going, I must go with you.”

“You?” He stepped back and edged her face with his broad hands. “Are you truly off the hooks? I shall be blowed before I allow you to cross the Channel into the hell of war.”

She put her hands over his. Sorrow stabbed her as she drew them away. “Ross, you have no choice. If you do not take me with you, I shall go alone.”

“You are a blasted stubborn woman.” He strode across the room. Pouring himself another glass of wine, he raised it to his lips. He put it down without taking a drink. Slowly he turned to look at her. “Very well. It is clear I cannot bring you to your bearings on this. Perhaps you are right. We may have a better chance of reaching him and setting him free if we work together. You will have to trust me, Vanessa.”

“I will try.”

The glint returned to his eyes. “I suppose I can ask for nothing more. Meet me at the Appletree Inn on the Dover Road by six tomorrow morning. The Mail coach leaves from there for Dover.” He lifted his glass in her direction. “May good fortune continue to grant both of us her favors.”

Chapter Sixteen

A stable boy ran forward as Vanessa entered the stable yard behind the Appletree Inn. Grinning, he scratched one side of his ragged shirt.

“Take yer ’orse fer ye, milady?” His words whistled through gaps in his teeth.

She gave him the reins, but held her breath. The lad must have been sleeping in droppings, for he stank as much as the stable behind him. Handing him a coin, which she had taken from her purse before she entered the inn’s yard, because she wanted no one to suspect how much money she might be carrying, she motioned for him to take her bag from the back of the horse.

Searching the inn’s yard, Vanessa was startled it was so empty. An upended wagon sat in the thick shadows below the tiers of galleries on the building’s four stories. Stacked next to it were barrels and bundles wrapped in canvas. Something dripped on her head, and Vanessa looked up to see one of the inn’s denizens hanging wet linen over the uppermost railing. She took a step back, but was careful to avoid the trough beside the pump.

She had expected to see dozens of people and packages waiting to board the Mail. Squinting, she tried to determine where the coach could be hidden in the murky stable.

“I am looking for a gentleman,” she said when the stable boy handed her the small bag.

“Anyone in particular?” He eyed her with renewed interest. “The Appletree ain’t no academy, milady, but there be gents who ain’t really no gents. They always be lookin’ fer a bona roba.”

Vanessa drew the length of her blue pelisse closer to her as she said, “Young man, I am no Cyprian! I am looking for a gentleman of my acquaintance.”

“Then why can’t ye see fer yerself if ’e be ’bout the yard?”

Owning to the uselessness of this conversation and the fact the lad was right, Vanessa pointed to a half-open door set beneath the inn’s trademark sign of a blossoming apple tree. “May I wait in there?”

“The master don’t take to naturals usin’ the inn without givin’ ’im a cut.”

“I told you I am not—Oh, cut line!”

The lad laughed as Vanessa hurried to the door. She peeked in, but the room beyond the door was lost even more to shadows than the stable. Ross had said he would meet her at the inn, not inside it, but she took a tentative step inside, although it went against her pluck.

The scent of sour ale mixed with the odors from the stable. Rushes crunched beneath her feet, but she doubted if they had been changed since the beginning of the year. Each step raised more offensive smells until she feared she would gag.

When her eyes adjusted to the stygian bleakness of the room, she noted a keg set on a table at one end. Stained tankards hung from the low rafters, and a quartet of men, who sat near the table, were watching her with a variety of expressions from leering admiration to apathy. The man, with an indifferent expression, wore an apron, and she hoped he was the keeper of the inn. She edged toward him, glad to keep a trestle table between herself and the man with the lustful grin.

“’Elp ye?” grumbled the man in the apron. He glanced at her and away.

“Can you tell me where I should wait for the Mail for Dover?”

“’Ere.”

“Right here?”

He splashed water perfunctorily in a glass and placed it on a dirty shelf behind him. “In the yard be best. But ain’t no use in waitin’ now. It left.”

“The coach has departed?” Vanessa put out a hand to steady herself, but pulled it back from the filthy table. “When?”

“Most of an hour past.” He paused to fill another mug for one of the shadowy creatures. “If’n ye want to stay, ye need to order.”

Vanessa was sure her stomach would rebel if she ate anything on one of these filthy tables. The reek of the dirty room blocked out the odor of the unwashed bodies, but added to the discomfort in her middle.

“How long before the next coach?”

“Midday.”

“But that is too late. I need to get to Dover right away.”

He shrugged with indifference, the sleeves of his shirt clinging to his thick muscles. “The coach leaves at midday. Ye stayin’ or no?”

“Can I rent a carriage?”

“’Ave to talk to them in the stables on that. I don’t tend to carriages.”

More laughter followed Vanessa as she went back out in the morning sunshine. Not just the laughter from the suck-pints inside, but the memory of Ross’s deep laugh. The innkeeper’s few words told her that Ross had bleared her eyes with her own trickery and must be in a fair way to Dover by now. By playing—with much more success—the prank she had tried to pull on him yesterday, he had managed to delay her from taking the Mail with him.

By the elevens, she would not let him spend the day chatting to his fellow riders about her gullibility! She had been a widgeon to trust him again, but she would show him that she would not be left behind.

“Boy!” Vanessa called.

“Yes, milady?” The stable boy popped out from behind the pump. “Can I ’elp ye?”

“I must rent a carriage.”

“None to be let.”

Vanessa frowned. “None?”

“It be let, milady.”

“Then bring my horse.”

“’E be gettin’ ’is feed now, milady.”

With a sigh, she pulled another coin from her purse and dropped it into his hand. She had no idea where he hid it among his rags. With a tip of his cap, he urged her to wait while he got her horse.

By now, Aunt Carolyn might have discovered her absence. She could not return to Grosvenor Square for a carriage. There was no choice but to ride to Dover. She winced at the thought of traveling seventy miles on horseback, then smiled. If she galloped hell-for-leather, she would easily catch the Mail, unless some young blood had paid to drive it at a neck-or-nothing speed. Once she overtook the coach, she would insist that she be allowed to ride, even if she must sit in the rear box.

She gasped as her own thoughts scandalized her. No lady of quality rode in the rear box, but her reputation was of little import now. She was too close to finding Corey to turn back.

The lad brought her horse. Giving him her bag, she asked him to tie it in place again behind her saddle.

“Lady Vanessa!”

She whirled at the familiar voice and stared into the triumphant face of her tiger. The lad leapt from his horse and ran toward her.

“What are you doing here, Albert?”

“My lady, you must come back with me to Lady Mansfield’s house. Bang-off!” He grabbed her horse’s halter. “You mustn’t delay.”

“I am riding to Dover.” She climbed onto the mounting block and settled herself into the saddle. Frowning when she saw Albert still held her horse, she said, “If you wish to ride with me, you may. If not, step aside.”

He lowered his voice. “My lady, I urge you to come with me posthaste.”

“I—”

“There are pad-thieves lurking here.” He glanced toward the stable. “They’re eyeing your horse and your purse. My lady, I beg you to come away from this place with me.”

“How did you know to find me here?”

“The note from Lord Brickendon, my lady.” Guilt lengthened his face. “He sent a note asking your aunt to send someone for you at the Appletree Inn by six this morning. Said he would be away from London for a few weeks, but would call when he returned. Thank goodness, Lady Mansfield found his note. Your aunt was ready to search all over Town for you when—”