Engaged in Sin (34 page)

He wasn’t badly hurt … he could see now … he would be all right. She tried to make herself believe it, repeating those words as she raced through the woods. Now that he could see, he would be safe and happy. He could find a wife. He could find love. He could have everything he deserved.

Every fiber of Anne’s being wanted her to turn and go back and ensure he was safe.
Devon, please be all right
.

She heard a roar of fury behind her. Then crashing. Dear God, he must be running after her. Relief and fear clashed inside her. If he could run, he must not be badly hurt. He could see now. He should be able to catch her. But somehow he didn’t.

She ran like wild through the woods. Just when her legs wobbled beneath her like rubber and she was ready to collapse, she heard crowing, barking, shouting—all the sounds of a village waking with dawn.

Then she saw it. There was a small farmhouse ahead, and in the lane beside it stood a cart filled with baskets of apples. There was no one around. She ran to the cart and squeezed between the baskets, slithering her way to the back. She was cramped, and rough wood scratched her, but she was hidden.

Minutes later, the cart jiggled as a man leapt up to the driving box, then he called out a command to his pony. With a lurch, they set off.

How had she managed to vanish into thin air?

Devon stood on the muddy road. The breeze had whisked away the rest of the mist, so he could see up and down the road and across fields. He could see so much it made his head hurt.

But he couldn’t see Anne.

What had possessed the foolish woman to run from him? He knew exactly what he was getting into. He had faced cannons and rifles, but Anne Beddington thought she should protect him.

He had to squint as sunlight filtered through the sky and landed on the wide strip of road. It was searing for eyes that hadn’t seen for three months.

How had she escaped him? Admittedly, he’d been unsteady
on his feet, disoriented because he could now see. At first when he was running, he’d tripped over every blasted root in the forest. He’d been worse than when he was blind. But he should have been able to catch her.

He swung around in a circle. Instinct warned him he was in the open and vulnerable. He shook his head—that was a remnant of battle. Now he was hunting a damsel in distress, one determined to evade his help. Leaves rippled around him. Sheep dotted a hillside to the right, behind a quiet stone farmhouse. Every detail of the farm loomed at him—the time-mellowed edges of the stone, the golden thatch on the roof, the pink of late roses rambling up a wall. On the other side, the woods stretched to a meadow, following the hill downward toward the village.

The one detail he couldn’t see was a slim woman in a wet shirt and breeches running down the road, through the meadow, or across the fields.

The farm would be filled with hiding places. More than he could effectively search. He needed to return home. Bring out a band of his servants and scour the farm, the woods, and the fields from top to bottom. He had to send a man to the village inn. If Anne made it that far, if she could find another hat to disguise her head—she’d dropped his at the stream—and made herself look convincingly male, she might try to get on a stage. But she would need money to buy a ticket.…

Devon’s heart gave a strange, hard kick in his chest. Anne had worked in a brothel. He now knew how lovely she was. Any man she approached would want her—certainly with her wearing that wet, almost transparent shirt.

God, the thought left him reeling more than the onslaught of color and images that came from regaining his sight.

Two days later, Devon strode down the steps toward his waiting mount. His groom held the reins of his fastest horse.

“Are you certain you should ride alone so soon after taking a serious blow to your head?”

He jerked around to see Tristan coming down the steps, his courtesan following on his heels, the plumes of her extravagant bonnet waving in the wind. “Dev, why not ride with us?”

“A horse will travel faster than a carriage. I feel perfectly fine.” Fine, but impatient.

Two days of searching and he still had not tracked Anne down. In hours, she had fashioned an escape plan of her own, one worthy of a general. Worthy of Wellington. He could imagine the praise the Iron Duke would have heaped on her for this clever plot.

“So she didn’t vanish into thin air after all? Treadwell told me you had reason to think she’d gone to London. I thought she’d want to avoid Town at all costs.”

“It’s a long story.”

Tristan grinned. “Give me a summary. I want to hear how she outwitted you.”

Devon scowled. He’d found a young boy who had seen a “gentleman” sneak out from the back of an apple cart. But after that, the “gentleman” had disappeared. However, Devon had discovered his clothes neatly bundled up behind the stables of the Black Swan. Like Tris, he’d been certain she wouldn’t take a stage to London.

He’d been wrong.

He briefly explained that to his friend. “It was a chance comment by a maid at the Swan that finally made me realize what Anne did. One of the girl’s dresses was missing from her wardrobe, along with an old straw hat. I questioned the innkeeper, and, indeed, a woman in
plain servant’s style of dress had bought a ticket on the London stage two days ago.” He also had his men searching for Mick Taylor, who had effectively disappeared.

“She bought a ticket? How did she get the money?”

That question haunted him.

“So you’re going in pursuit?”

“Of course.”

Tristan crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. His expression implied he knew something Devon did not. “Why are you going to chase her down, Dev?”

“Obviously, I—” He paused. It seemed … natural for him to pursue her. “She could be in danger. I can’t abandon her.”

He mounted Abednigo and took the reins. Barely aware of his servants or Tris and Miss Lacy watching, he set his horse trotting. Anne had gone to London. Why? Had she done it because she guessed it would be the last place he—or anyone—would look for her? Or was it because of Kat? She had been terrified that Mick Taylor had badly hurt her friend.

That would be his Cerise. She would risk her own neck to ensure Kat was safe.

As he rode out onto the road, he urged his horse to a gallop. He was two days behind Anne, with no hope of overtaking her now. But some instinct made him want to move quickly.

This morning, he’d realized that, even though he could now see, he hadn’t actually taken a look at himself. He’d finally faced the mirror in his bedchamber. And discovered he wasn’t at all like the man who had gone to battle. He had been mourning Rosalind then, and he’d looked grim, empty, ravaged.

Now he wore every mark of mourning, loss, and fighting on his face. A bayonet scar gouged his temple. His nose had been broken in a fall from his cavalry horse—it
was no longer perfectly straight. Various scars from blades had left a trail of white lines over his jaw and his forehead. He hadn’t shaved in days, and black stubble shadowed his face. He looked … like hell.

Anne Beddington had lived through a hell of her own. She had lost her home. Lost her father and mother. She’d ended up in a brothel that should have claimed her soul.

But she had not looked like a haunted woman. She had still looked pure and lovely, every inch a lady, no matter what she had seen, what she’d been forced to do. To do that after what she’d endured … it showed how strong she was. Was she strong enough, clever enough, to evade him in London?

No, she wasn’t. He hadn’t commanded a regiment of men for nothing.

Just as she’d done more than a fortnight ago, Anne crept up the mews behind Kat’s house and used a tree to help her scramble over the back wall. She stole to the kitchen at the rear and slowly pushed open the door. Kat’s plump cook, Mrs. Brown, turned quickly from the stove. “Miss Beddington? Let’s get you upstairs to the mistress. She has been worried about you!”

Anne’s heart lodged in her throat as she followed the cook to Kat’s sitting room. She was so afraid of what she would see. Mrs. Brown cried, “It is Miss Beddington. She’s returned safe.”

Kat rose slowly from her chair and turned. Fury toward Mick Taylor burned in Anne’s heart. “Oh, my goodness, Kat!” Bruises blossomed on Kat’s cheeks and jaw. A scab had formed on her lip, where Mick had obviously split it. But, despite that, Kat held out her arms in welcome.

Anne embraced her dear friend. “Oh, Kat, were you badly hurt?”

“Nothing worse than I’ve endured before. But I’m so sorry, Anne. I couldn’t hold out, though I tried. I told Taylor you’d gone to the Duke of March, to his hunting box. I sent you a letter to warn you, but I feared it would arrive too late. Did he find you?”

“Yes.” Her stomach gave a fierce growl.

Kat’s brow arched. “You can tell me everything that happened while you eat.”

Anne did, speaking swiftly between mouthfuls of delicious steak and kidney pie. Kat’s large brown eyes widened at every twist and turn of Anne’s tale, including her revelation that she hadn’t killed Madame after all. “The Duke of March rescued you from Mick?”

Anne nodded. “He wanted to help me. It was his plan to hide me while we searched for Madame Sin’s true killer, but I couldn’t let him take such a risk for me.”

“He must have cared for you very much to offer such a thing.”

“I’d helped him before he regained his sight. I assume he felt obligated to help me.”

“If you went to Bow Street, could you convince them you’re innocent?” Kat asked.

“I don’t know. Without Mick’s story, how could I? I’ll be arrested. And Mick Taylor could withhold the truth and give evidence
against
me. I’d hang for certain then.”

Kat set down her wineglass, frowning. “Anne, you are a viscount’s daughter! You can’t believe your cousin would let you hang. Surely he will help you. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to find you—he must want you back very much.”

“That’s what frightens me. Oh, Kat, he was always horrible.” Anne felt her lip wobble. She gathered her strength. “I have to leave England. I’ll get money somehow. Enough to buy passage on a ship.”

Kat swept to her feet, hurried over, and embraced her. “I have money, Anne.”

“Kat, I can’t—”

“You can. What good is money if you cannot use it to help a dear friend? This doesn’t begin to repay the debt I have to your mother.”

Kat had once lived in the stews beside them, in a small, dingy room like theirs. Without funds and desperate, Kat had finally got employment on the Drury Lane stage. One night she was returning home after a performance and a man attacked her. Mama heard the screams, ran outside, and rescued Kat by fighting off the man with a frying pan.

“It does, Kat,” Anne said softly. “For you would be saving my life.”

OW MUCH FOR
these?” Anne asked, drawing a small velvet pouch from a pocket in her cloak. Grime coated the windows of the cramped shop, situated on a narrow street off Petticoat Lane—a place where money was handed over for all kinds of goods, whether obtained legally or not. She spilled out two necklaces: a modest one with small rubies and a second with a pear-shaped sapphire. Kat had given her these. Somehow, in some way, she would repay her friend.

She watched the door nervously, as if by magic Bow Street would catch her here.

The slender man behind the counter, Mr. Timble, picked up the rubies first, his face carefully impassive. He studied them, grunting. Then he gave his assessment and she gasped in disappointment. “They’re worth far more,” she protested.

“It’s all I’m willing to pay for them, my dear.”

“What about the other?”

Timble named a second figure, also depressingly low, but it was enough for her to buy passage and start a new, frugal life in a different country.

“All right.” She pushed the jewels across the counter.

He put a small stack of notes in front of her. Five-pound notes—large and colorful, something she had not seen in years. She pushed the money into her bag and slipped out of the shop. In a fog-laden lane, she found a hackney and instructed the driver to take her to the London docks.

Katherine Tate gracefully arranged her curvaceous form on a Grecian chaise. “Your Grace, how wonderful to see you, and how unexpected. Unfortunately, I had no time to dress. I am wearing nothing but my silk robe.”

Devon rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what Kat’s game was. He knew her from the time he attended Cyprian balls, when he used to keep mistresses, before he met Rosalind. He knew that her seductive play was intended to buy her time and distract him. She was staring at him curiously. He had ridden straight to London, stopping only at the inns along the Kings Highway for fresh horses, and had come directly to Kat’s without even bothering to stop at his London house. He was aware that his clothes were disheveled and coated in road dust.

“I can see you, Kat,” he said. “Miss Beddington helped me regain my sight.”

Kat’s kohl-darkened eyes opened wide in surprise that he didn’t believe. She laughed in silvery delight. “How wonderful! Impetuous Anne did heal you, after all. But where is she? I thought she hoped to make this affair with you into one of a longer duration.”