Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (46 page)

      
He dressed hurriedly, then went downstairs to his library and composed a note for her, promising to return by Christmas. That should give him time enough to learn what Bourdin was up to and deal with him...not to mention Liam Quinn. In the meanwhile, Beth would be out of the line of fire and, if all went well, after Christmas he could spend those last bittersweet months with his wife before she left him forever.

* * * *

      
For several days after Derrick left Beth moped about, unable to muster enough energy to do anything. True to his word, he had instructed Lloyd Harris to see to it that she was not permitted to ride anywhere. Since she had learned how to handle tack as a girl on her parents' plantation, she considered slipping into the stables while everyone was asleep and rigging up the gig herself. But where could she go in the middle of the night? That would indeed be reckless, and she would do nothing that might endanger her child, no matter what its father believed.

      
There was one matter to which she could attend: She fired Mistress Campbell. The vile old crone reminded her of Fatima as she stared implacably at Beth with fathomless glowing dark eyes, saying stiffly that once his lordship returned, he'd soon enough deal with his foreign wife and restore his faithful employee to her rightful place in Lynden Hall.

      
Beth breathed a sigh of relief when the old harridan was gone and found that many members of the household staff immediately became friendlier to her, actually daring to smile and perform tasks cheerfully. She sent inquiries to the vicar in the nearby village and soon located a new housekeeper with excellent references. Mistress Widlow was plump, with a lusty laugh, but she knew how to run the manor with no nonsense.

      
All of this freed Beth's time to consider what she would do for the six weeks until Christmas. She'd read Derrick's note and prayed that he would indeed return to spend the holiday with her. Perhaps she would give him the portrait as a Christmas gift. He had never seen it. Would he like it? It recalled a far happier time in their lives. Perhaps remembering it would bring him closer to her.

      
In the meanwhile she busied herself doing sketches of the servants and, on the rare sunny days, drawing the bleak hills and river valley, even the old stone monstrosity in which the Jamison clan had lived for centuries. As she worked at such mundane endeavors, thoughts about doing the seraglio paintings teased the edge of her mind, but she refused to consider them. That would drive a wedge between Beth and her husband that could never be breached. No, she would wait for the holidays and see if they could make some sort of peace for the sake of their child.

      
She received a post from Bertie saying he would be arriving at his estate within a week. Mercifully, Annabella would not be coming until a few days before Christmas. Beth hoped her sister-in-law and husband did not decide to travel together, then dismissed the idea as silly jealousy. Derrick did not suffer fools gladly.

      
Biting off her pride, Beth sat down to compose a letter to her husband, assuring him that she was staying close to the Hall. She gave a glowing report of Mistress Widlow and the changed demeanor of the staff, asking him to forgive her for dismissing the former housekeeper. She told him she was looking forward to their spending a quiet Christmas away from London.

* * * *

      
As soon as he arrived in London, Derrick set out to locate Evon Bourdin. The Frenchman was living in rather elegant quarters on Chapel Street. How the devil did an unemployed professional soldier afford such luxury when his cousin the Count d'Artois could not?Derrick intended to find Bourdin's source of income. He hired a Bow Street Runner to watch the Frenchman's movements and report to him. Sooner or later, Murat's old comrade in arms would make a mistake.

      
Liam Quinn was nowhere to be foùnd, although the Runner continued to search. Derrick was dismayed to learn that many of the city's literati had actually found the corsair dashingly romantic. Beth had been given the cut direct because she had been Quinn's victim while the bastard was feted for despoiling innocent women. He itched to deal with the Irishman just as he'd dealt with enemy agents.

      
Did he miss the excitement of his former life as a spy? No, the rush of danger no longer lured him. Ironically, he, too, was feted by the ton, a sought-after celebrity who cut a dashing figure of mystery and romance. A patriot. A spy. What would his father think about it? he wondered sadly. He was not at all certain the old earl would find his method of serving their country totally acceptable.

      
The Earl of Lynden immersed himself in business affairs and politics. He attended social engagements only if they were essential for political purposes. At one such event, a scant two weeks after returning to the city, he chanced to encounter his cousin Bertie, who informed him that he was leaving for the country shortly.

      
Since the day he'd ridden away from the Hall, leaving Beth sleeping with so much left unsaid between them, he had tried not to think of her. And, of course, failed. She was in his dreams nightly. He ached for his wife and knew no way to express his feelings for her. She was doubtless still furious with his high-handed methods of keeping her safe, although she could not know his motives. Perhaps he would oil the waters a bit in preparation for his return at Christmas. He even dared to hope some reconciliation might be possible as he composed a letter...

* * * *

      
The fog was thick as molasses, swirling in eddies so dense with foul-smelling smoke that it brought home to Derrick again the necessity for appropriate legislation to improve conditions in the city. He had just left a soiree at Lord Buckingham's house, where he had made several converts to his agenda. Immersed in thought, he took the reins from the groom outside the stable and swung up on Dancer. Kicking the big stallion into a brisk trot, he headed for home.

      
Home. Where was that? Certainly not in the empty city house where every room bore Beth's imprint. It was tasteful and lovely and utterly empty without her presence to light it. What would he find when he returned to Lynden Hall? He mulled over the situation, his preoccupation dulling long-honed instincts. He did not see the two men materialize from the fog behind him. A third leaped from the top of a carriage, tumbling him from his horse as the other two ran up. One seized the reins of the black and the other joined the melee on the ground.

      
Derrick had the knife from his boot drawn before they hit the hard cobblestones. The thug who had jumped him felt it bite deep, striking his heart before he could cry out. But the dying man's weight pinned Derrick. Through the noisome swirl of the London fog a stiletto gleamed as it descended. He felt the icy slice of the blade, then the impact of a pistol ball tearing into his gut.

      
They were professional and quick. Someone spoke in a familiar accent, instructing the two assassins to strip his body. Then he heard the swift pad of their feet and the clop of Dancer's hooves vanishing into the darkness. He lay in the street as the shrill sound of a Charley's whistle rent the cold night air.

      
Then the fog closed in and he felt nothing at all...

Chapter Twenty-five

      
Keening moans and wracking coughs were interspersed with muttered curses and frantic pleas, but the stench of excrement blending with that vilest of human offal, putrefying flesh, wrenched Derrick gagging to consciousness. He tried to move, but his body screamed in protest. With a gasp, he inventoried the origins of the agony. Both his chest and lower abdomen were afire, while his right arm merely throbbed.

      
When he managed to pry open his eyes and look about, he ascertained he was in a huge room with small, high windows ringing three walls. They were so grimy from the accumulation of city air, almost no light penetrated. Row after row of small, lumpy pallets lined the floors, leaving only narrow aisles between for walking. On these rude beds lay the patients.

      
At first the scene from hell surrounding him made no sense, but then the fog-drenched street, the three thieves attacking and robbing him, stripping his clothing and valuables, all came back to him. He was in a charity hospital.

      
Strip him of anything of value.

      
Bourdin! Telling his minions to be certain the death looked like a robbery. His thoughts swirled as he reached up to touch his itchy face...and found a heavy growth of beard. How long had he been lying here?

      
Then a husky female voice said, “So, ye've finally come ‘round, 'ave ye? Me nursin' ain't been wasted.”

      
A tall robust brunette with the pale complexion and apple cheeks of an English schoolgirl stood at the foot of his pallet, looking down at him with a smile that revealed several missing teeth. Other than that defect, she was pretty in a wholesome countrified way. Heavy eyebrows arched over deep brown eyes that had seen more of human misery than most people three times her age. “Me name's Peggie, 'n' I be given yer charge,” she continued, still smiling.

      
“How long have I been here?”

      
“It be three weeks yesterday, sor. The very devil’s luck yer alive after them cutpurses tried to finish ye.” She knelt by his side and added in a whisper, “The leech, ole Kitchner, 'e weren’t goin' ta bother stitchin' ya after 'e dug the ball out'n yer gut, seein' as 'ow ye were cut so bad. Said it weren't no use, but I told 'em ye were Quality. Even if 'e laughed at me, the ole fool did ‘is sewin'. After that I kept yer wounds clean like I were showed, 'n' give ye plenty o' water whilst the fever took ye.”

      
Derrick realized he owed the young woman his life. Even in decent hospitals many patients died from lack of proper attention, and in a dumping ground for the impoverished such as this, his chances of survival without this woman's diligence would have been nil. “I'm profoundly grateful, Peggie...but what made you think that I was Quality?”

      
”Aw, cor, ye talked up a storm in yer fever, ye did, talked like an apothecary...” She flushed brightly and looked down. “Sides, ye 'ave that look about ye, refined 'n' ‘andsome. I knowed ye 'ad to be a gentleman, sor.”

      
“I'm Derrick Jamison, Earl of Lynden.” At that announcement her eyes grew enormous and her jaw dropped in awe.

      
Peggie bathed his face with cool water and gave him a drink, assuring him that she'd been taught to boil the dirty water by the physician who had trained her, a nobleman who had given his life in service to the poor of London. The last thing he remembered was asking her to send word to his house on Pall Mall.

* * * *

      
Liam Quinn replaced the glass in his saddlebag and cursed in frustration, then turned his mount and rode carefully from the elm hedgerow where he had hidden as he watched Beth sketching. He had pursued his quarry back to Naples only to find that she had wed Jamison and sailed for England. Kasseim would not be pleased. But abducting an American female wandering the streets of an Italian city was far easier than kidnapping a countess. When he was told that she would be a guest at Lady Holland's soiree, he had been certain he could accomplish his assignment. The new Dey of Algiers had become obsessed with recapturing her and offered the last of his dead father's corsairs an exorbitant reward for bringing her back.

      
Either she had been utterly remarkable in bed...or else Kasseim had not yet had her. Although the arrogant young prince would never admit such a thing, the Irishman knew it was the latter. He'd heard rumors from the palace that the night she'd been presented to Kasseim a large amount of opium was found missing from a secret hiding place in the women's quarters. He grinned, thinking of the haughty prince waking up with a brain clouded by opium-spun cobwebs.

      
“Ah, colleen, what a pair we'd make...if I could but afford to keep you,” he murmured to himself. Of course he could not. It was ironic that he and Kasseim wanted a woman who had bested them both.

      
But he would have her first.

* * * *

      
Bertie arrived early just as he'd promised, and Beth considered his visit a gift to save her sanity. The boredom of her confinement in the manor had been intensified by the worst winter in memory. Snow piled up until the dead shrubs in the gardens were white shapeless humps and the roads were all but impassable. Derrick's cousin managed to get through between storms and bring a ray of cheer into what had been the gloomiest December of her life. At her entreaty, he remained at Lynden Hall instead of proceeding on to Wharton to open up his manor. It made sense for all the Jamisons to spend Christmas here.

      
“Never fear. He'll be along,” Bertie assured Beth as she sat disconsolately staring out into the gathering darkness.

      
“Christmas is only three days away, Coz.” She had explained about the numerous letters she'd sent Derrick. The first had been conciliatory. The last beseeching. He had not deigned to reply to any of them. “I do not believe he will come.”

      
“Don't do no good to be all Friday-faced, m'dear,” Bertie replied with false heartiness. “Why, my cousin is a man of such unbending principle, he'd never give his word, then break it.”

      
Unable to think of what she would do if Bertie proved wrong, she changed the subject to another almost as unpleasant. “When will Annabella arrive with Constance? I am so looking forward to seeing how much my niece has grown.”