Tiger's Eye (29 page)

He was broad-shouldered, powerfully muscled—and in his present condition, as defenseless as a babe. The knowledge brought all Isabella’s protective instincts to the fore.

Anyone who wanted to harm him would have to get through her to do it!

The key rattled again, quivered, jolted. This time whoever was out there succeeded in dislodging it. It hung on the edge of the lock, poised to fall.…

Isabella snatched up a pistol, leveled it at the door, closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

The resulting explosion nearly deafened her. The kick from the pistol sent her stumbling back to land heavily on the edge of the bed. From the other side of the door came a howl, then the sound of running feet. Isabella’s eyes flew open. She had blown a hole neat and round as a schilling through the center panel of the door. Other than that, it was still intact, still closed, and, she hoped, locked. The key now lay on the floor.

Alec still slept. If the sound had penetrated the opium mists that held him in thrall, he gave no sign of it.

Beyond the door there was silence. Were all the inhabitants of the inn deaf? Did they all sleep in the drugged blissfulness that claimed Alec? Or were they in on the plot? Could she expect a contingent of men to storm the door at any minute, all considerations of stealth now abandoned?

Heart in throat, Isabella picked up the second pistol and ran to the door. She tried the knob. The lock still held, Fingers trembling, she snatched up the key and inserted it in the lock to block any second key’s access. Then she bent and put her eye to the hole she had blown.

Beyond the panel nothing stirred. The dingy passageway, barely lit by a single candle drowning in its own wax in a wall sconce, was deserted. There was not a sound to be heard. All was precisely as it should be in a country inn in the wee, dark hours of the morning.

If it were not for the hole in the door, and her own racing pulse, Isabella might almost have thought that she had dreamt the whole thing.

Straightening, she moved from the door to stand beside the bed. Alec slept unknowing beneath her guardianship. She listened to the even tenor of his breathing, listened to her own heartbeat, listened for a sound more ominous than either.

But there was nothing. Nothing beyond the homely melody of a man sleeping.

When she had fired the pistol, someone had cried out. Clearly she had hit whoever had been on the other side of that door. Had she wounded him seriously enough to deter him from coming back? Or did she have to wait in frozen fear for another try at the door?

A hideous thought occurred to her. If Tim Hull was in on this, her message to Paddy had most likely never been delivered. And she had only one pistol, with one ball in it, left.

The chair was of the hard wooden upright variety, and for the first time that night, Isabella was glad of it. She could not, would not, allow herself to fall asleep until Alec was alert again. Dragging the chair behind the bed so that she could watch both Alec and the door, she sat in it, stiffly erect, pistol in hand, as she strained to hear every sound.

For a long time she sat there, listening to Alec’s breathing and her own. If there were other sounds beyond those in the small bedchamber, she never heard them.

Gradually dawn broke. As muddy orange light crept through the windows, Isabella allowed her grip on the pistol to relax. Only as her spine slumped did she realize that she was drenched in nervous sweat.

XL

“I
sabella?”

The groggy syllables were the most welcome sounds she had ever heard. She leaned forward eagerly, hovering over the bed.

“Alec?”

“Is there water?”

His eyes were open, but barely. The golden irises were cloudy, the lids with their stubby gold lashes fluttering. Isabella felt a sudden pang in her heart as she looked down into that beautiful, dishevelled face. Last night she had saved his life. This morning she felt as if he belonged to her.

“Yes, of course.” She placed the pistol carefully on the side of the bed, and stood up to get him water. When she came back, his eyes were closed again.

“Alec?”

“Hmmm?” His lids lifted. For just a moment he seemed not to register why she was bending over him. Then he muttered, “Oh, the water. Christ, my mouth is dry.”

She lifted his head, helped him drink. Then he fell limply back on the pillow, his eyes closing again.

“Alec?” There was a panicked sound to his name this time.

“Hmmm?”

“Don’t go back to sleep. Please.”

His eyes opened at that. “Is ought the matter?”

“Someone … someone tried to get in here during the night.”

“What?” His eyes opened more fully, and his voice grew fractionally sharper.

“Someone was at the door, trying to get in. I … I shot him.”

“You what?” From the sound of it, he was now fully awake.

“I shot him.” She pointed toward the door, where the hole in the middle panel was clearly visible. Alec stared at it.

“Good God.” His eyes focused back on Isabella. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

Isabella gave him a wry look. “If the shot didn’t wake you, do you think I could have? I tried, of course.”

He said nothing, just looked from Isabella to the door and back in thoughtful silence.

Eventually he said. “Tell me exactly what happened. Everything.”

Isabella complied. When she was done he shook his head. “Countess, my admiration for you grows with every passing hour. You continually amaze me.”

Isabella blushed with pleasure at his words. Compliments had been a rare commodity in her life, and such a one from Alec she knew she would carefully store in her memory and treasure forever.

“But what do we do now?” The question was almost plaintive. Alec frowned.

“I don’t think Hull would be stupid enough to have me murdered beneath his own roof, even if he is involved in this, which I don’t believe he is. He’s been away from London too long to have any stake in who’s running things. However, anything is possible, and to completely rule him out as a suspect could be a fatal mistake. John Ball knows I am here, and would be happy to see me in the ground. But we didn’t cross paths until after that bloody sawbones had been here and given you the laudanum, so that would tend to argue against him being the man at the door. Unless the administration of laudanum was just a happy coincidence for whoever wants me dead.…”

His voice trailed off. Isabella watched him silently as he stared, lost in thought, at the wall. Now that he was awake and aware again, she felt as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Alec would know what to do.…

He threw the covers back, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat up. Immediately he groaned, and dropped his head in his hands.

“You shouldn’t try to get up! You know the doctor said you were to stay in bed for at least three or four days, preferably a week.” She came around the bed to stand over him.

“I know what the bloody sawbones said. I also know that someone is trying mighty hard to kill me—and will probably be quite happy to kill you as well. We’re not safe here, not safe anyplace where the men surrounding me are not handpicked for loyalty. I think our best choice is to head for Amberwood, without letting anyone know we’ve left. Check the innyard, will you?”

Isabella went to the window and looked down. The sun was just peeping over the horizon, but already a serving girl was feeding a noisy flock of chickens, and a lad was lugging a sack of grain into the stable. A farm cart was hitched in front of the inn; a farmer probably had just gone inside to make a delivery of some kind. Isabella related all that to Alec.

“Well, it won’t get any quieter. We’d best be making our move.” He got to his feet with obvious effort, holding on to the footrail for support, his face going a ghastly shade of white that was only a degree less pale than the bandage around his head.

“We could wait for Paddy.”

Alec looked so unsteady that Isabella had to offer the halfhearted suggestion. He rejected it with a shake of his head.

“If Hull is involved in this thing, your message was never sent. Paddy won’t come.”

“But—”

Isabella was interrupted by the sound of a galloping horse. Curious, she turned back to the window. Alec’s eyes swung in that direction as well.

“ ’Ull! ’Ull! Wake up, wake up! Get out ’ere, you overfed suet bag!”

The rider was a tail, thin man on a puffing horse. As he clattered into the innyard, chickens scattered noisily in every direction. The serving girl looked up; two boys emerged from the stable to stare. A mangy dog barked, making daring sorties at the horse’s thin legs. Apparently oblivious to the commotion he had created, the rider pulled his horse to a rearing stop just as Hull came hurrying out. From the soap covering half his face, Hull had been in the process of shaving. His wife was behind him, still tying her apron strings behind her back.

“What the devil ails you, Dickon?” Hull boomed up at the rider. His wife muttered irritably.

“Boney’s abdicated! The war’s over! Praise God, it’s over!”

“What?”

“The Frenchies’ve got the Bourbons back! Louis’s on the throne! The war’s over, do you ’ear me? Boney’s gone and quit!”

Isabella’s hand went to her throat. The war that had been going on for nearly as long as she could remember was finally over? The horrifying spectre of France’s Little Corporal launching an invasion of England need no longer lurk constantly at the back of her mind? Would that it were true.…

“Alec, they’re saying Bonaparte has abdicated.” Her voice was faint. She barely glanced at him. Her attention was on the activity in the innyard below the window.

“The devil you say!”

Weak or no, he moved swiftly to stand beside her, looking down on the scene below. Liddy was weeping into her apron, while Tim Hull’s broad face was wreathed in a beaming smile.

“Are you certain sure?” Hull asked the question as if he wanted badly to believe the good tidings but couldn’t quite let himself.

“ ’Tis all the talk in London! Ring the bell, man!”

The rider turned his mount about and clapped his heels to its sides. The horse bounded forward, with the man in the saddle bobbing up in ungainly counterpoint to the animal’s frenzied gallop.

“The war’s over! Honey’s quit!”

Hull embraced Liddy, kissed her cheek, swung her around, all the while yelling the news into the inn. Last night’s celebrants came staggering out in singles and bunches, to stand milling about in the innyard. Behind the inn, one of the stable lads began to ring the big iron bell erected to summon help in emergencies.

“Ale for all!” Hull’s expansiveness was rewarded with a rousing cheer. Someone rolled a big keg of ale from the inn; someone else created a lug hole by the simple expedient of blowing a hole through the barrel’s side. Mugs were produced, thrust under the golden stream. Toasts were drunk. Cheers filled the air. Over all sounded the incessant, joyous clanging of the bell.

“God in heaven, think what this will do to the rates on the Exchange,” Alec said pensively. This was such a prosaic reaction to the thrilling news that Isabella stared at him in disapproving surprise. At her expression, his face broke into a slow-dawning smile. “I do have quite a few legitimate business interests, you know. I would be a fool if I didn’t consider how a Bourbon restoration is going to affect them.”

She continued to stare at him. Even with a bandage wrapped around his head, dirty and unshaven as he was, he was handsome enough to take her breath. His tawny hair, unconfined, was wildly tousled around his face. His eyes gleamed gold with excitement. He was bare-chested, his muscles taut and hard-looking beneath satiny bronze skin, the sun picking out golden glints in the soft wedge of hair on his chest. His breeches rode low on his hips, exposing most of the board-flat abdomen to her view. His feet were bare. Looking at him, it occurred to Isabella that there was no one else in the world with whom she would rather have been at that moment, no one with whom she would rather have shared the momentous news.

“The war’s over, Alec,” she whispered as the impact of it sank in at last. By way of answer he held out his arms to her. Isabella went into them as if she belonged there. They closed about her, rocking her against him, hugging her tight against his warm, bare chest while he nuzzled the top of her hair with his face. Clinging to him, she closed her eyes. The musky scent of him enveloped her, made her dizzy. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to lift her face for his kiss.

It seemed almost as though he hesitated. Isabella opened her eyes to find him looking down into her face, his expression both unsettled and unsettling. Then, as he met her eyes, the gleam in his suddenly heated. He bent his head, touching her lips with his, drawing her up on her tiptoes so that the entire length of her was molded to his body. Isabella’s arms slid around his neck, her fingers twisted in the tangles of his hair. She opened her mouth to his, kissing him with a greedy hunger of which, once, long ago, she never would have believed herself capable.

The sudden escalation of the commotion caused Alec to lift his head. Still held close to his heart, her hands still locked behind his neck, Isabella took a deep, shaken breath and turned her head to see a contingent of men, some on horseback, some in carriages, gallop into the inn-yard. The carriage in the lead rolled right into the center of the crowd with scant regard for the lives and limbs of the celebrants. Almost before it stopped a man jumped from the interior. He was huge and frowning menacingly, a pistol clutched in his fist. The other men tumbled off their conveyances to form a tight band at his back.

“It’s Paddy.” Isabella recognized him with a tremendous surge of relief. “Paddy’s come.”

XLI

S
afe at Amberwood. Forever afterward, that was how Isabella thought of it. As soon as she saw the imposing Georgian house, she fell in love with the place. Consisting of thirty-two rooms plus servants’ quarters, divided into three wings shaped into a U, the house was large and handsome, built of stone with a symmetrical facade and dozens of multipaned windows. It was set well off the road leading from Horsham to Tunbridge Wells, with many acres of parklike grounds surrounding it. The drive leading up to the front door ended in a circle at the steps.