Dangerous to Kiss (17 page)

If Quentin’s health had been more robust, she would not have hesitated to take him to his uncle in person. As it was, she did not wish to chance that long sea voyage, not yet. But she would, if it became necessary.

Sinking onto the bed, she touched her fingers to his hair, brushing it away from his forehead. His lips turned up in a smile.

“Deb?” he said, and his eyes opened.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“And I thought you were Aunt Nan until I smelled you. Where have you been? You didn’t come on Wednesday.”

There was no reproach in his tone, only a matter-of-fact curiosity, and Deborah felt a rush of gratitude to the Moffats for the care they had so obviously lavished upon him.

“I told you how it would be,” she said lightly. “I can’t get away from school as often as I would like. What happened to your tooth?”

He touched a finger to the gap in his front teeth, then diving under his pillow, he came up with a small porcelain tooth. “Look,” he said.

Deborah examined it closely. “There’s blood on it,” she said.

Quentin beamed up at her. “Uncle John tied a string from my tooth to the doorknob, and when Aunt Nan opened the door, she pulled the tooth out. It was
agony.
Uncle John said I was as brave as a lion.”

“Did he, indeed? And why is the tooth under your pillow?”

“Oh, you know. It’s supposed to change into a penny when I’m asleep. But I know there’s no such thing as magic. That’s why I stayed awake. I was sure Aunt Nan was going to take away my tooth and leave a penny in its place.”

His grin was magic. It wrenched at her heart. “You don’t believe in magic?”

“Of course not! I’m not a baby.”

She smiled at this, then her whole body went rigid as a terrible thundering came from below. Paralyzed with shock, she stared at the open door. When she heard voices raised in anger, she rose quickly, crossed to the door, and crept to the head of the stairs. What she saw made her fling herself flat against the wall. Lord Kendal, as sober and fierce as a judge, was tapping his riding crop against his thigh. Behind him stood Nick. The Moffats were wringing their hands, obviously trying to placate him. Deborah did not wait to see more. Though she felt the shock of discovery all through her body, she did not give in to it. Her thoughts were already leaping ahead to Quentin and how she could get him away.

“Deb, what is it?” Quentin was already out of bed and pulling on his breeches.

There was no key in the lock. “We are going on a journey,” she said. “You remember, I told you it might come to this? No, leave your nightshirt on, and tuck it under your breeches. You’ll need your coat and your shoes.
Hurry, Quentin.”
As she spoke she dragged a small upright chair to the door and set it at an angle against the doorknob. That should delay their pursuers for a moment or two.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Quentin’s voice held a betraying wobble. “The man who is after us? The man who murdered my father?”

Her blood was humming, and every sense was razor sharp. Her voice was low and controlled. “Yes, it’s him. Go stand by the window while I blow out the candle.”

No sooner had she blown out the candle than she heard feet taking the stairs. Forcing down her panic, she quickly crossed to the dormer window which gave direct access to the roof. “I’ll go first. Don’t worry, darling. Nothing will happen to us. Uncle John will send for the magistrates. All we need do is stay on the roof until they get here.”

She didn’t know where the soothing words were coming from. She didn’t believe a word of what she said. If it had been only herself, she would have been screaming
her head off. “As brave as a lion,” she whispered to him softly, and clambered over the sill.

He took her hand with all the confidence of a child who believes that those watching over him possess the powers of demigods. Deborah was well aware that she was far more frightened than he. She pointed to the row of chimneys standing high on the roofline, and he nodded. If they could make it to the other side of the stacks before Lord Kendal thought to look on the roof for them, they might yet stand a chance of evading capture.

When they were both on the roof, she slid the window shut, then, crablike, they crawled toward the smoking stacks. It was much worse than Deborah had anticipated. The rain had made the slates slippery and the wind gusted about them like a mad dervish, tugging at their clothes, stealing their words before they were half out of their mouths. If she’d had time to prepare, she would have roped Quentin to her. As it was, she held on to his hand for dear life.

They heard the noise of a door shattering and Lord Kendal’s voice raised thunderously, demanding that they show themselves.

“Don’t look back!” shouted Deborah, and she tugged on his hand, urging him on. They had almost reached their goal when Quentin was overcome by a fit of coughing. They dared not delay. Murmuring words of encouragement, she slipped an arm around the boy’s waist, and with the remnants of her strength, dragged him the last yard or two, till they were sheltering on the other side of the stacks. The bricks were warm to their touch, and they huddled against them, catching their breath.

“Deborah? Quentin?” Lord Kendal’s voice reached them from the other side of their hiding place. “I know you are out here. You barred the door. There is nowhere else for you to go. Answer me, damn you!”

Cursing herself for that foolish mistake, Deborah looked around wildly. So he knew they were on the roof, but he didn’t know which way they had gone. With luck, Kendal would go in the opposite direction.
She must find a way to get them off the roof, perhaps through one of the other dormer windows or …

Her glance was caught and held by a depression in the roof only three or four yards farther on. She rose to her feet to get a closer picture. It wasn’t a depression. It was a skylight into the attics of one of the other houses. Excitement shivered through her. All was not yet lost. Motioning Quentin to remain where he was, she slowly edged her way toward it. The wind whipped at her, almost overbalancing her.

Quentin’s cry of alarm had her spinning on her heel. The boy had risen to his feet to face the man who stalked them.

Gray held out one hand. His voice was soft and as soothing as he could make it in that near gale. “Come to me, Quentin. It’s Uncle Gray. Don’t you remember me?”

“You are not my uncle,” warbled the boy. “You can’t be. Deb!” he cried out, and lunged for the safety of her arms.

She was already edging back toward him, reaching for him. Their fingers touched, but rain-slicked skin slid over skin and she could not hold him. She shrilled his name as he slipped away from her. Aghast, she sank to her knees and went after him, desperately grabbing at empty air.

“Get down on your knees, boy!”

Quentin obeyed Gray’s terse command, but it could not save him. Whimpering, he slipped closer to the edge of the roof. Deborah was paralyzed with terror. Her mouth opened, but the scream in her head came out as a moan.

As in a dream, she saw Kendal dive for the boy. They rolled, and came to a stop on the one place on that long ledge where there was a decorative pediment.

She was sobbing quietly as other shadows moved into her line of vision.

“I’ll take the boy, Gray.” Nick’s voice. “Come along, Quentin. Don’t you remember your uncle Nick? That’s the way, son. Put your arms around my neck. You’re safe now.”

“Is it really you, Uncle Nick?”

The voices faded as man and boy passed behind the chimney stacks. Then
he
was there before her, and she slowly lifted her head to look into his face.

He held out his hand and she grasped it, blinking away tears and raindrops, trying to clear her vision. She couldn’t see his face, but his voice left her in no doubt of his sentiments.

“I have never been more tempted in my life to thrash a woman,” he said.

“You thought
what?”
roared Gray.

Deborah reached for her cup and took another sip of tea with the reviving measure of brandy Gray had insisted on adding to it. She coughed to clear her throat. “I thought you had murdered Lord Barrington,” she said.

Her voice shook almost as badly as her fingers, and it wasn’t only in reaction to the catastrophe that had almost overtaken them on the roof. The intimidating man who towered over her visibly quivered in masculine outrage. She was afraid to look him in the eye.

Gray glowered down at her. Her eyes darted up to meet his, then quickly dropped away. Her mouth trembled, and she shrank into the folds of her warm dressing gown in an unconscious attempt to make herself look smaller.

“Drink your tea,” said Gray, and reaching for the fire tongs, he turned aside to add several lumps of coal to the embers in the grate.

Deborah was relieved by his altered tone and, at the same time, anxious about the coal he was adding to the fire. It looked to her as though the interview with Lord Kendal were far from over. It would be another hour before the fire died down and they could all troop off to their beds. Having bathed and changed into her night
clothes, she longed for the oblivion of sleep in a soft, comfortable bed.

Her eyes strayed to the closed door, willing someone to enter the little parlor and distract Lord Kendal’s attention from her. There was little hope of that happening. Quentin was sleeping in his bed, and Mr. and Mrs. Moffat were ensconced in the kitchen with orders to wait there until his lordship could question them also. She wasn’t sure where Nick and Hart were. They had fetched her portmanteau, and after spending some time with Quentin, they had gone off on some errand or other for his lordship.

Gray seated himself on the chair facing Deborah’s. “Now,” he said, “shall we go through this again? You ran off with Quentin in Dover because you were convinced I had murdered his father and would do the same to the boy?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and sniffed.

“You thought that I was the murderer?”

She nodded once and edged into the corner of her chair. Her enormous eyes were brimming.

“The murderer,” said Gray, forcing his voice to remain neutral when what he really wanted to do was yell at her. His legendary control was slipping away from him, and he knew why. Those few minutes on the roof had shaken him badly. For one heart-stopping moment, he had thought he was going to lose both of them. He hadn’t understood her panic, hadn’t guessed at the lengths she would go to evade him. Now that she had given him the reason, it didn’t put him in a better frame of mind.
Murderer.
His whole life had been devoted to serving his country. No one had ever questioned his integrity. True, in the last few days he had deliberately tried to intimidate her. But murderer? That was going too far.

He surveyed her intently. She was very pale and she couldn’t seem to stop shaking. “I told you to drink your tea,” he said.

She hastened to obey him, and took several long swallows, eyeing him warily over the rim of her cup.

“You didn’t act as though you thought I was a murderer,”
he said moodily, recalling those moments when she had melted in his arms, and other occasions when she had given him the sharp edge of her tongue.

“No,” she said in a constricted tone, then tilted her cup to drink the dregs of her tea.

He drummed his fingers on the wooden armrest. “Do you still think I am a murderer?”

She shook her head vigorously. “Oh no. When you saved Quentin out there on the roof, when I couldn’t hold him,” she gulped, “I knew I had made a ghastly mistake.”

Just remembering what she had put him through when she had slid toward the edge of the roof as she reached for Quentin revived his fury. His voice rose alarmingly. “Do you realize you might both be dead by now? Can you imagine how I would feel? I would hold myself responsible for the rest of my life, and I would never know why—” He broke off as her mouth began to work and fresh tears flooded her eyes.

Sighing, he reached in his coat pocket and produced a handkerchief. She accepted it gingerly and dabbed at her eyes.

When she began to twist his handkerchief into hopeless knots, he plucked it from her. “Let’s start again, shall we?” he said gently, and managed a forced smile. “Tell me what happened that night.”

She nodded her compliance. “There was a thunderstorm, and Quentin’s bed was empty. I saw a light under the library door and went to investigate, thinking, you see, that Quentin was playing a trick on me.”

When she paused, he said quietly, “As I understand it, Lady Barrington left a few days before, to return to England, but you stayed on because Quentin was not fit to travel?”

“Lord Barrington had arranged for the three of us, that is, Lady Barrington, Quentin, and myself, to travel with the Capets. But when Quentin came down with a fever, I stayed behind to look after him.”

“I see. So whoever came that night to meet Gil had no way of knowing that you and Quentin were still there?”

She thought about this for a moment. “I shouldn’t think so. With Quentin feeling so poorly, Lord Barrington rarely left the house, so I don’t think he had the opportunity to mention it to anyone. But I can’t be sure.”

“Go on. You saw a light coming from under the library door? Then what?”

“Then I heard voices.”

“What did you hear?”

She swallowed as the memory came back to her. “Lord Barrington, pleading with you”—she sucked in a breath when his eyes flashed—“pleading with someone to spare the boy’s life.”

“I don’t understand. Where was Quentin?”

“He was there, in the library.”

“So Quentin witnessed the murder? Is that what you are saying?”

She gave a little hiccup and nodded.

His tone rose sharply. “And the boy said he saw
me?”

“No, no. You don’t understand. Quentin has no recollection of what happened between the time he entered the library and the moment he found himself on the packet that brought us home to England. The physician says he may never remember. The shock of seeing his father murdered before his eyes was too much for him. He doesn’t want to remember.”

He stared at her for a long interval. “We shall return to this later,” he said. “Go on. Tell me exactly what Gil said.”