Gareth: Lord of Rakes (34 page)

“We could wait until dark,” one man volunteered. “Maybe sneak in…”

Nobody took up the idea, and when Gareth wanted to tuck Felicity against him, she instead turned to address his men.

“So we wait, and what do you suppose will happen to Astrid while we wait and her captors become more confident of their success? They’re no doubt drinking, and she’s pretty—also too outspoken for her own good, and she knows nothing of men.”

This was the argument Gareth could not have made.
Time
was
of
the
essence
, but he also could not ask of these fellows more than they were willing to give, lest they waver when he needed them steadfast. Felicity’s gaze touched on each man, while Andrew took to swearing softly in French.

“Do you have a plan, then, miss?” the old fellow who’d spoken earlier asked. “None of us want the young lady to come to any harm. Any more harm.”

Felicity regarded Andrew, who was glaring murder at his boots. “They snatched her out of the park without anybody raising a hue and cry,” she said. “They think they’ve won, and they won’t be expecting problems—not now, when they have her halfway across London, and nearly two hours have passed. If there are three entrances, then we create a distraction from the direction they’re least expecting one, and that leaves two other ways into the building.”

Andrew looked up from his boots. “It’s already nearly black as pitch in there, given how few windows the place has. Felicity’s idea has merit. If there are six of them, we have the numbers and the element of surprise.” A few murmurs of assent followed, but not the unconditional support any desperate plan needed.

Gareth considered the woman he loved, and considered the likely harm to Astrid if the girl weren’t freed before darkness fell.

“What if… Felicity and I stumble in the back door?” Gareth proposed. “A doxy and her mark would be looking for privacy in an alley, and the door is to Astrid’s back. She won’t see us, and the other doors should soon be in deep shadow so you fellows can slip in.”

The men liked that idea, though Andrew was back to scowling. “I foresee a problem. As soon as the kidnappers know they’re under attack, one of them will simply hold a knife to Astrid’s throat and threaten her murder if we don’t surrender.”

Felicity pinned him with a look. “Then your job, your
only
job, Andrew, is to free Astrid. You slip in first, knife at the ready, and get her away while the rest of these fellows do the fighting.”

Thus ensuring both brothers were not equally at risk of harm. Gareth could have kissed her. “Andrew?”

“Of course I’ll take that assignment.”

“Then the rest of us are tasked with providing you safe passage to do that, and bashing as many heads as possible in the process—preferably not our own, right, gentlemen?”

A chorus of agreements followed, which was the predictable result of Felicity’s courage added to their own better intentions.

“Weapons?” Gareth queried, provoking a reassuring display of pistols and knives. “Ye gods, what have I been harboring in my stables?”

“Best fetch that brandy bottle, your lordship,” Parker reminded him. “No self-respecting sailor drags his doxy into an alley without appropriate libation—particularly when said bottle can also knock a man out.”

Gareth managed a smile at the suggestion then held up a hand for silence. “David Holbrook was in this vicinity not long ago, but we’ve seen no sign of him. This could be a trap, or in the alternative, the kidnappers might have found him and done him harm. He’s tall, well dressed, blond, and has mismatched eyes. Don’t do him injury unless you must to protect the women. Felicity?”

Gareth shed his coat and cravat; she wrestled her décolletage lower and took his proffered arm. In no time, they were in the alley, surrounded by gloom and the stench of rotting offal.

This was the last place he’d seek to bring her, the last role he’d ask her to play, and yet, a kind of ferocious satisfaction coursed through him too: Felicity had come to him, and by God, he would not let her down.

“C’mere, love,” Gareth drawled, stumbling against the unlocked back door. “I wanna little kish.” He pinned Felicity up against the door, lifting the latch so when he leaned into her for his “kish,” the door gave and they tumbled in, Felicity doing a creditable job of squealing like a doxy enticing a customer.

“Now there, no kissin’ until I gets me blunt,” she scolded even as Gareth wrapped an arm around her waist and half fell on her again. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Astrid across the cavernous interior, tied to her chair, all six men standing in a dimly lit circle around her.

“No blunt until I gets me kish,” he argued. “I don’t buy a skiff without makin’ sure she’s seaworthy, loove.” He puckered up and chased her chin around with his lips.

“Here now!” a voice boomed. “Out, you two, this building is in use.”

“Whaddya mean in use, guv?” Gareth asked, blinking owlishly at a burly fellow who’d brought a lantern over to the door. “There ain’t been no cargo stowed in here, and all I wants is a little private-sy,” he enunciated carefully. Then he smiled beatifically at Felicity. “A lady needs her private-sy when she entertains, right, loove?”

“I’m talking to you, man! You take the bitch and get out, now.”

Felicity pasted a smile on her face and sauntered toward the man trying to chase them out, perusing him up and down as the fellow’s gaze riveted on her.

“Now why should I give the admiral here a quick poke in that stinkin’ alley, when we can be done with our business here in five minutes? I’ll be happy to compensate you for the use o’ this splendid facility, me fine man. What say you?” She draped an arm around his neck and leaned in to flash her cleavage at him. “I think he likes what he sees,” she said, wiggling the brandy bottle at Gareth.

“Goddamn it,” a male voice bellowed from across the cavernous room. “Ames, get back here, we’re under attack!”

Before Ames could respond, he got the business end of the bottle on the back of his head, the blow no doubt propelled by every ounce of strength and anger Felicity possessed.

“Go!” Gareth hissed, shoving her toward the door, and she was off like a shot for the safety of the coach. He blew out Ames’s lantern, and sprinted toward the fight ensuing with the other five men. When the remaining abductors realized they were outnumbered, they held up their hands in surrender.

“Where’s Astrid?” Gareth yelled.

“I’m over here,” came a feminine reply, “but he has Andrew!”

Gareth turned toward the voice and saw Astrid was right. At the back door where he and Felicity had come in, Andrew stood next to another man, unmoving.

“Walk toward your brother, Lord Andrew,” came the cultured, sardonic command, “so we might have this discussion in the light like the gentlemen we are.” Andrew took slow, cautious steps toward Gareth’s end of the room, his face devoid of expression.

Gareth turned to the nearest groom. “Get the young lady out of here, please.”

He melted away, taking Astrid by the arm and drawing her out of the light, while Andrew and his captor walked ever closer.

“Good-bye, sweet Astrid,” called her abductor. “Dream of me,” he taunted, coming to a halt a good dozen feet from Gareth.

“Riverton,” Gareth spat. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“You have no honor,” Riverton retorted pleasantly. “And thanks to you, I have no heir, so this was to be a small compensation to me. I think the intimate company of the young lady might have had a salubrious effect on my ailing health, don’t you? Not to be, I suppose, so I am off to the Continent, courtesy of your worthless self.”

In all of his disporting, Gareth could recall no misbehavior that would have affected Riverton’s succession, suggesting disease had taken a toll on the man’s reason, at the least.

Gareth folded his arms and widened his stance, trying to give every impression of a man settling in for a distasteful negotiation. All he could think to do was stall Riverton, and perhaps one of the grooms could angle around in the shadows and clobber the bastard from behind.

“How am I to get you to the Continent, and why would I do such a thing, when all you have to inspire my complicity is the welfare of my wastrel younger brother?”

Whom Gareth loved to distraction, and who had a double-barreled pistol aimed point-blank at his head.

“Oh, you’ll do it,” Riverton replied. “Your wastrel brother is your only heir, and you would never be able to face your mother if his blood were on your hands
too
. I’ve studied you too long, Heathgate, to be wrong about this. In fact, I like this better than disporting with that little bitch. I could have had a lot of fun with her, but this will hurt you more.”

“Riverton, this grows tedious. You apparently took a fancy to an unwilling female. You needn’t kidnap a hostage to slink off to Italy, if that’s your game. You may simply leave. I’m sure I can control my brother long enough to give you a reasonable head start.”

Riverton guffawed—and kept the pistol snug against Andrew’s temple.

“Oh, that was creative, Heathgate, as if I would pursue any female who had caught the eye of an Alexander, simply for sport. Not bloody likely,” he concluded, his voice turning ugly. “Now enough of your pontificating. You will hire me the fastest ship on the docks, to depart on the evening tide, and it will have on board enough gold to buy your brother’s life.” Riverton emphasized his demands by giving Andrew’s temple a solid tap with the gun barrel.

Gareth forced himself not to look into his brother’s eyes, but returned Riverton’s sneer.

“You are an ass, Riverton, or perhaps disease is affecting your mind. You expect me to charter you a boat and stock it with gold at a moment’s notice? We are on the
London
docks
. Without coin, nothing happens. With too much coin in evidence, one’s life is forfeit. Now be reasonable and take yourself off. You are beginning to aggravate me.”

Gareth took an experimental two steps forward, but halted when the hammer clicked back on Riverton’s pistol.

“You take yourself off!” Riverton retorted. “You won’t get what you want this time, Heathgate. You get the title, you get the stinking fortune, you get the women,
and
you
got
my
woman
, but this time, I get what I want! Nothing,
nothing
would give me as much gratification as spattering your brother’s brains all over this warehouse, unless I could also blow off your balls in the process.”

Andrew was going to die. If Gareth couldn’t parlay with this madman, Andrew was going to die.

Gareth spread his hands, leaving himself open to one of the two bullets Riverton might aim at any party he chose. “Riverton, if that’s how you feel, why not take me instead?”

“Gareth, no!” Andrew interjected.

“Silence, damn you!” Riverton used the pistol barrel again, preparing to deliver a punishing blow, when he crumpled, clutching his side and gasping. Andrew wrenched the gun from his hand and grabbed Riverton’s wrist, bones crunching as Andrew spun from the man’s grasp.

“Christ!” Riverton gasped on the floor. “You’ve killed me! Fetch the surgeon, for the love of God, somebody…”

David Holbrook emerged from the shadows.

“My man of business has often admonished me that a knife carried in the boot should be more than a fashionable pretension,” he said, jerking his knife from Riverton’s side. “Perhaps if you shut up, Riverton, we might see about finding a surgeon.”

A collective sigh of relief went up from the stableboys, while Gareth snatched his brother into a back-pounding hug. “Damn you, Andrew. Damn you and your bravery, and your nerve, and your…”

Andrew pulled away. “Damn me later, Brother. I’m off to find a certain young lady—and a surgeon.”

Which left Gareth face-to-face with David Holbrook. “Took your bloody time saving my brother’s life, Holbrook.”

“Took your bloody time getting out of my line of sight,” Holbrook replied, and then his face broke into a smile—an astonishingly winsome, warm smile. This smile eclipsed the man’s natural reserve, his mismatched eyes, the surroundings, everything. Gareth dropped Holbrook’s hand as a suspicion welled up from that place in his mind where his best hunches, his keenest intuition, and his clearest insights sprang.

He held out a snowy white handkerchief to Holbrook. “Would you be good enough to join my brother and me at my town house? I’m sure the Worthingtons will want to thank you for your role in averting tragedy for Astrid, and I have some questions as to what Riverton thought he was about.”

Holbrook took the square of monogrammed silk and wiped off his blade. “I will be happy to accept your invitation, my lord, but I will repair to my own quarters first to make myself more presentable.” He spared Riverton a glance before bowing and walking into the darkness.

And like a thief in the night, Holbrook was going to steal Felicity away. Not exactly in the manner Gareth had feared, but she’d again be lost to him nonetheless.

Tomorrow. Tonight, Felicity and Astrid would enjoy his hospitality, and that was as far as Gareth’s tattered nerves could plan.

When Andrew and Gareth returned to the coach, they found both sisters had indulged in a bout of weeping, but had been cheered back to rights by Parker, Brenner, and the other men. Riverton’s cohorts were bound and gagged, while Astrid looked pale but composed. Gareth distracted her by offering her his flask. “A restorative, my lady?”

Astrid batted the flask away and flung her arms around his neck. “You are an awful man, arrogant, stuffy, old, pigheaded, and odious… thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said, her voice growing wobbly.

If this lively, irreverent, insightful, lovely, pigheaded, odious young lady had come to any harm—

“What?” Andrew asked beside them. “No hug for me?”

Astrid withdrew from Gareth’s embrace and turned to face Andrew. Rather than gawk, Gareth handed Felicity up into the coach and took a seat beside her, closing the door behind him.

“They will either kill each other or make peace,” Gareth said, taking Felicity’s hand.

“Tonight, they will be at peace,” she predicted, lacing her fingers through his as if they’d not gone for weeks as strangers. Gareth looked at their joined hands in the gloom of the coach lanterns and realized this might be the last time they’d be alone.

“Felicity, there are some things—”

But his thought was not to be finished, because Astrid and Andrew piled into the coach. When Astrid reached for Andrew’s hand, Gareth met his brother’s gaze and saw humor, resignation, and bewilderment in Andrew’s eyes.

Also sorrow, though Andrew did not withdraw his hand.

When they reached Gareth’s house, they found the staff already apprised of Astrid’s rescue. A clucking, fussing Lady Heathgate ordered a keg tapped below stairs for the grooms and stableboys, while trays were sent to the library for the family. Gareth found a quiet moment to make a trip to his study, retrieving a document with a black ribbon around it.

By the time he returned to the library, Holbrook had arrived, looking dapper and severe, and not at all like a man who could aim a lethal blade accurately in the dark. When everybody but Holbrook had found a seat, Gareth gestured Brenner into the room.

“You need to hear this, Brenner,” he said as the man found a perch on the hearth. “You are nothing if not a friend to this family, and you’ll find it interesting.” Brenner blushed, even his ears going pink, his smile bashful.

“Friends, Romans, countrymen,” Gareth said over the buzz of multiple conversations. He came around the front of his desk and hoisted himself up to sit, leaning on his hands, facing the room.

“Whom are we burying?” Astrid asked.

“None of our own,” Andrew said from right beside her. “Thank God.”

“Thank God,” Gareth said, “and thank Mr. David Holbrook, late of Kent and elsewhere.” Silence fell as all eyes turned to Holbrook. “Holbrook, don’t you think it time you let your sisters thank you properly?”

Holbrook’s face suffused with pain as he set his plate aside.

“Our brother?” Felicity gasped. “Mr. Holbrook?
David?
” She rose to stand in front of him. “Look at me,” she said quietly. When Holbrook did not comply, she said it again, more fiercely. “Look. At. Me.

“You,” she said wonderingly, “have Papa’s nose. You are my brother. Astrid, we have a brother! Oh, a brother…” She went from elated disbelief to delighted squealing, throwing her arms around Holbrook and squeezing him until Astrid joined the embrace—and the squealing—while Gareth sat across the room, awash in a sense of naked, burning loss.

And joy—for Felicity deserved to have family to love her, at least.

“Why, this is wonderful,” Lady Heathgate chimed in, cooing and fussing, calling for champagne and reaching for her handkerchief.

“It is,” Gareth said. For Holbrook, possibly for Felicity and Astrid. “But it’s also difficult, isn’t it, Holbrook?” The squealing died down as all eyes turned to question Gareth, but he only repeated himself. “It’s difficult, isn’t it?”

Holbrook slipped away from his sisters. “It’s very difficult.”

“Why should it be so difficult?” Astrid interjected. “We have a brother now, and that can only be a wonderful thing. And I don’t care one bit that Papa was indiscreet.” She glared at Gareth to make her point.

“Tell them, Holbrook. The truth need never go further than this room, if that’s what the three of you decide,” Gareth said gently. “We would all protect Felicity and Astrid with our lives. You’ve seen that.”

His eyes said the rest: You’re safe here; your sisters are safe here. You owe them the truth.

Holbrook moved to stand in front of the hearth, turning so he faced his sisters.

“Papa was indiscreet, indeed. He attached the affections of my mother, one of the Holbrook sisters, knowing his family would not approve the match. She was but the daughter of a baron, and Fairly, being early in his succession, was expected to look higher. His parents were looking, and in fact had negotiated an engagement for him to your mother. But by then it was too late.”

Felicity finished for him. “For he’d already quietly married your mother, making you legitimate, and us”—she waved to encompass Astrid—“the bastard issue of a duplicitous, bigamous relationship.”

“My heavens,” Astrid said, sounding, if anything, pleased. “This is a pickle, indeed.” When Andrew slipped his arm around her, she stayed right next to him.

Felicity turned a worried expression on her brother. “Mr. Hol—
David
, you should have the title.”

Holbrook speared her with a chilly glare. “I will not be the cause of distress to my sisters. I’ve handled this whole situation so poorly, I refuse to make bastards of my own sisters into the bargain. I was supposed to see you never wanted for anything, and I wasn’t even aware you’d been orphaned until long after it happened.” He dropped wearily to the hearth, rubbing a hand over his face. “I travel a lot, and dear cousin Callista was supposed to keep an eye on things while I was absent. I can see now she was in no position to do that.”

What emerged as Holbrook offered further explanations was a picture of a young man torn by differing familial obligations. His very existence posed a threat to his sisters’ standing, so he traveled abroad extensively. Callista—his cousin as well—was to have ensured Felicity and Astrid were adequately provided for in his absence.

“She assured me you were managing, but I saw, when I entered your house, she hadn’t looked closely enough—and really, how could she have? I suspected her will had thrown you together with Heathgate, but feared you were associating with him for financial purposes, either to make an advantageous match, or worse. And then it seemed to me both trouble and gossip were following you too closely. I became even more concerned.”

“So you became our friend,” Astrid said, beaming at him. “How lovely. I have a brother who has never once teased me or bashed my doll about.”

“But you knew Riverton,” Felicity said to her brother, “and he was apparently the source of our trouble. What was going on there?”

“That,” Holbrook said with a grimace, “was sheer, blasted bad luck. My father… our father, wanted to transfer the unentailed properties to me without attracting notice, so he recruited his social acquaintance, Riverton, to accomplish that. Papa ‘lost’ the land to Riverton in a rigged card game. Riverton then sold it to me, keeping a share of the proceeds for his silence and returning the rest to Fairly. You inherited what little remained on his death. Riverton did not know I was anybody’s legitimate issue, or I suspect he’d have made even more trouble with that information.”

Holbrook pinned Gareth with a look. “When I was hiding in the warehouse, Riverton did a lot of talking, a lot of muttering and ranting. He said something to the effect that, because you killed the Ponsonby girl and deprived him of his heir, it was only fitting he deprive you of your heir. What was that about?”

Lady Heathgate fingered a string of jet beads around her wrist. “So it was Riverton who got Julia with child,” she murmured. “How extraordinary—and how unfortunate.”

On the sofa, Andrew went into such a coughing fit Astrid had to pound him on the back.

While Gareth felt a particular form of sorrow only accessible through hindsight.

“I literally carried Julia onto the boat when she would have stayed ashore and harangued me yet further on matters we’d disagreed over for days,” Gareth said. “I gather Riverton was too far gone with disease thereafter to get any woman pregnant, hence his fixation on that child—if it was indeed Riverton’s. I’ve wondered why Julia didn’t marry him—he was a viscount, and not poor, while I was not even an honorable.”

Brenner cleared his throat. “Er, begging your pardon, my lord, but he was poor. I got to visiting with young Mr. Willard about this and that, and he complained the quality were shoddy customers at best, and he’d rather work for the merchants any day. Riverton was his example of a titled client who had no money and less integrity. The man was flat done up and had been for years.”

“And Julia told us the child belonged to Jeffrey, who was in line for the title,” Lady Heathgate interjected. “You were only under consideration as the family’s sacrificial groom because the little baggage threatened such scandal. One concludes poor Riverton was smitten, else he might have seen her self-interest more clearly.”

“Interesting,” Gareth said. “So perhaps Riverton was after the brothel as a source of income, and then decided Callista’s will made a fine way to discredit me instead.”

Holbrook looked distinctly uncomfortable at the mention of the brothel. “I believe Riverton’s knowledge of that whole situation is my fault,” he said, staring at his hands. “Callista asked me to name a fellow I’d find utterly beyond the pale, and having had dealings with Riverton, I picked him. I had no idea she was drafting a will, or that Riverton had her solicitors in his pocket. Thank God Callista chose you, Heathgate, and Riverton was only intended as the compelling counterexample.”

Lady Heathgate frowned thunderously from her chair by the window.

“Young man, do you mean to tell me you approve of your sister depending upon the good offices of a notorious rake?”

“Mother!”

“It’s all right, Heathgate,” Holbrook said mildly. “Lady Heathgate, it will not shock you to know that Callista Hemmings was quite familiar with the notorious rake in question, and in hindsight, I see that Callista never intended for Felicity to cross paths with Heathgate, but rather, intended that the marquess and I should make each other’s acquaintance. If I’m to assume my father’s title as an obscure heir, then nobody is better suited than Heathgate to guide me in such an undertaking. Having studied Callista’s will, I can only conclude Riverton’s influence with her solicitors—or perhaps his unpaid accounts with them—inveigled them into his prurient schemes, despite what Callista wanted for her family.”

Silence greeted his pronouncement, broken by a question from Felicity. “You knew Callista?”

“I did, both of us being estranged from the family proper. Very likely she assumed I’d take an interest in her estate, as her only male relation, except I’ve been traveling for much of the past year. She was dying, Felicity, and from her perspective, family was worth any price, even bastardy and scorn. She knew I would welcome you both into my life on any terms, and being legitimate could only stand me in good stead. In truth, I care not whether I am a bastard or a viscount, but in another year, the decision will be moot. It has been six years since our father died, and as a missing heir, I have only one more year to turn up.”

Felicity still looked confused. “So the will was intended to pass the business on to you, rather than me?”