Julie Anne Long (27 page)

A long, feminine scream followed by a torrent of cockney curse words suddenly captured the attention of the crowd, and the cluster of people that Connor had been moving through halted and massed in the direction of the noise.

And just like that, Connor was exposed.

They stood for a stunned instant, the three of them, within ridiculously clear shooting distance of each other. And then John and Edgar reached into their coats for their pistols.

In the space of a second, sights and sounds raced past Connor like detritus caught in a floodtide, the sun glinting off the barrels of the pistols, Pierce mounting a bay horse, the steady clop of hooves and the grind of the rolling wheels of an approaching hackney coach. Connor made what seemed the most logical choice at the moment.

He threw himself under the hackney coach.

Dive, tuck, roll; from the recesses of his memory of war and pugilism, the sequence of motions returned and served him. Connor remained coiled in a tight ball, watching in a state of suspended reality as the coach wheels rolled to a complete stop inches from his nose, the horses whinnying shrilly and dancing in their harnesses. He became dimly aware of a swelling hubbub surrounding him; it seemed a good portion of the crowd was now captivated by what might well prove to be a gory coaching accident. A crowd meant protection. But a crowd also meant curious eyes on his face. Connor waited, motionless, barely daring to breathe.

A minute or so passed, and then a large face peered underneath the coach. The face stared at him for a moment with deep anxiety, which subtly evolved into astonishment, and then split into an enormous, delighted, gap-toothed grin.

“Why, yer
lordship
!”

It was Chester Sharp.

Little Thomas had the colic. Alice had a nasty cough. Nicholas Heron’s gout was plaguing him, and Uncle Louis complained of loose bowels. All day, Leonora peered into eyes and down throats, felt foreheads and examined tongues, poked and prodded and asked questions, and then administered her cures. And all day, Rebecca leaped to do Leonora’s bidding; once, without being asked, she handed over the tincture of meadow saffron. Leonora had gifted her with a smile. It was just the thing for Nicholas Heron’s gout.

Their last patient, Raphael’s Great-uncle Louis, was an elderly widower, and mostly just wanted someone to listen to his complaints. After ascertaining that he had no fever or other ailments that might cause his bowels to misbehave, Leonora teased him and told him he should count himself lucky, as most men his age could not move their bowels at all. He laughed appreciatively and accepted a concoction of tormentil, and threatened to return to bother all of them if it had no effect.

Throughout the day, Rebecca would occasionally lose herself in a task, or in the knowledge that Leonora imparted, or in gratitude that Martha was absent—no doubt she was off greedily collecting admiring stares from a broader array of Gypsy boys than her own
compania
provided. But eventually the cramp of anxiety in her stomach reminded her: Connor was gone. Connor had left without even saying good-bye.

She’d been patient with him, patient with the secrets, the half-truths, with the unknowns. She was certain that anyone who’d known her from birth would be incredulous if they knew just
how
patient. But because she loved him, and because he seemed to need it, she had given Connor not only patience, but trust, with hardly a question—well, at least, fewer questions than she would normally have asked. And
still
he would not trust her with the truth. What, precisely, was he afraid of? Did he think she would fly into a rage, or burst into tears, like a child?

Evening yawned chasmlike before Rebecca. There would likely be the stew, which she doubted she could choke down again, and possibly more heart-scalding songs sung by bloody Martha Heron. And laughter and chatter in Rom, which Connor could understand and she could not, and he had left her here alone. Because he was afraid to tell her the truth, whatever that truth might be.

Leonora stretched languidly when Uncle Louis finally left the tent. “What would ye like to do this evening, little
Gadji
?”

Throw something very hard at Connor Riordan, and possibly at your daughter, too.

“Ye’re welcome to join us at the fire,” Leonora added when Rebecca did not answer.

And then Rebecca had an inspiration. “Do you have any herbs you need . . . crushed? With a mortar and pestle?” Crushing something seemed like a very appropriate way to spend the evening.

Leonora looked at her for a long silent while, then the corner of her mouth lifted. “Certainly. Something always needs to be crushed. I’ll bring a meal to ye in a bit.” She turned to leave, then paused at the threshold of the tent. “Welcome to love, Rebecca,” she added wryly.

The tedium was almost like a gas; Connor swore he could feel it pouring out of the huge double doors of Lady Wakefield’s London townhouse, much like the noxious fumes that poured off the Thames on sweltering summer days. He’d always loathed balls, throngs of people in finery that was bound to be sweated in and spilled upon packed together like pickles in a jar, nattering about nothing in particular to people they saw virtually every day during the season, hopping about like lamed frogs during ridiculous reels, although waltzes
were
now allowed and were, in Connor’s opinion, somewhat more tolerable. On the whole, balls offended Connor’s sense of the practical. Normally they were not accounted a total success until some maiden fainted from lack of air and was hauled dramatically out to the garden.

He thanked God once more for the practical redheaded girl waiting for him in Cambridge. Rebecca would much rather snare a hare or swim in the nude than squeeze herself in among the fools at Lady Wakefield’s ball. Suddenly a vivid and highly distracting image of Rebecca nude, covered in little pearls of water, filled his mind. Connor took a deep breath and forced himself to refocus on the matter at hand. The sooner he accomplished his mission, the sooner he could return to her.

Mercifully enough, Lady Wakefield seemed to be leaving the doors open to invite in the night air. She had apparently purchased every candle in London. A rectangle of lamplight extended several yards beyond the front steps of the house, nicely illuminating her pair of liveried footman, who were there as much for decoration as to direct the guests to the ballroom. Ironically, the bold light merely enhanced the shadows, and Connor found a perfect vantage point for viewing the arrivals while remaining almost completely hidden, sandwiched between the Wakefield townhouse and the house next door.

Chester Sharp had, no questions asked, taken Connor back to his quarters in Cheapside, loaned him a razor, fed him, and agreed to take him to the ball and return for him again at midnight. He had even liveried the horse Connor had left tethered in Bond Street.

“Think naugh’ of it, yer lordship. Things were right dull before ye came along,” was Sharp’s response when Connor attempted profuse thanks.

Coach after coach rolled up to the townhouse and disgorged groups of women resplendent in silks and turbans and jewels, and men in crisp white shirts and billowing cravats, their somber-colored coats over adventurous waistcoats.

Connor recognized some of the people who disembarked from the carriages, but he did not feel one whit nostalgic; it was like watching a battle from a distance, one that he had retreated from gratefully. Tiny battles would take place tonight inside Lady Wakefield’s house, he knew, and the weapons would be silken barbs and insincere compliments in the name of social ambition. Real war, Connor thought, was a good deal more honest.

He could hear Sedgewick, Lady Wakefield’s ancient and semidaft butler, announcing guest after guest in his sonorous, deliciously indifferent voice: Sir Gregory Markham. Lord and Lady Bryson. The Earl and Countess of Courtland. Dr. Erasmus Hennessey.

And at last, stepping out of a hackney coach, was Colonel Pierce, dignified and slightly unfashionable in a black coat and gray waistcoat. Connor watched Pierce for a breathless moment, praying. His prayer was answered as the coach Pierce arrived in rolled away. Pierce was alone.

Colonel Pierce hesitated in front of the Wakefield place, an expression of bald dismay on his face as he took in the liveried footmen and heard the buzz of hundreds of voices and the squalling violins. Connor smiled crookedly. He sympathized immensely. Resignedly, Pierce squared his shoulders and took a step forward.

“
Pierce!
” Connor hissed from the shadows.

Colonel Pierce stopped abruptly and his head jerked up. He gazed about him, frowning quizzically, then shrugged to himself and continued up the walk.

Connor cursed softly under his breath. He took a risky step forward, into the light.

“
Colonel Pierce!
” he said, just slightly louder than a whisper, imbuing the words with all the resonance, if not volume, he could muster.

Pierce halted and frowned again, swiveling his head about impatiently.

And then he went rigid.

Recognition, joy, fear, bewilderment, flickered across Pierce’s face in rapid succession. He took a hesitant half step forward, then stopped and gave his head a little shake, and stared again. It was clear that he was not convinced that Connor was more than an apparition.

Another coach pulled up before the townhouse, regurgitating a half dozen or so drunken young men who immediately began listing merrily up the walk. One of them collided with Connor, teetered a bit, then clamped both his hands on Connor’s arm to keep from falling outright. He gave Connor a bleary, affectionate smile.

“
S’ank
you, old chap. You’re myfren for life, you are.”

“
Get off me!
” Connor hissed, horrified. He tried in vain to peel the man’s fingers from his arms; they were clamped as tight as pincers. The man swayed a bit, gazing up at Connor limpidly and with the faintest sort of surprise, as if he could not recall precisely how he came to be there. He remained clamped.

The rest of his young friends were suddenly upon them in a drunken, noisy, pushing, teasing, jabbing clot, all wriggling arms and legs and swinging walking sticks.

“Come now, Farnsworth, don’t tarry, the young ladies await us,” one strapping lad bellowed, and they pushed Farnsworth up the walk. And because Farnsworth was loath to relinquish his savior, Connor was dragged along with them, right past the footmen and up into the house.

Pierce gaped after him.

Nearly gagging with alarm, Connor managed to uncurl the young Farnsworth’s fingers from his arm and turned to bolt out the door, but the jungle of young men proved nearly impassable. Connor took a deep breath and ruthlessly shoved and squeezed his way through them, ignoring the protesting, “I say, old man, have a care, now,” until he found himself on the threshold of the doorway once more.

But the Baron and Baroness Leighton-Hyde were just making their entrance, a limping, leisurely sort of entrance, as the baroness was immense and the baron suffered from the gout. The baron was an old friend of his father’s, a bluff friendly sort. Connor was forced to flatten himself against the wall, eyes lowered, chin tucked into his cravat, until they cleared the hallway.

He craned for a view out over the footmen to see if Pierce was still standing on the walkway, but another mass of people were now sauntering up it.

Two of those people were Sir Henry and Lady Tremaine.

Connor looked about wildly, seeking an escape route, and jumped when a familiar set of fingers gripped his arm again.

“Come t’ the
ball
, olman,” Farnsworth encouraged slurringly. He dragged Connor over to where Sedgewick was dutifully, stoically announcing each of the rowdy young men.

“And you are, sir?” Sedgewick said to Connor.

“He’sh my goo’friend,” Farnsworth enthused.

“Lord Goodfriend?” Sedgewick asked.

“No!” Connor blurted, writhing to free himself from Farnsworth’s viselike fingers. “God no!”

“Sir Godno?” Sedgewick suggested helpfully.

“Roarke,” said a voice softly behind them.

And before he could think to stop himself, Connor turned to the voice. Colonel Pierce stood there, shaking his head wonderingly in confirmation, a small smile of genuine joy playing about his lips.

“He’s the Duke of Dunbrooke,” Pierce said.

“His Grace, the DUKE OF DUNBROOKE!” Sedgewick bellowed, before he could plumb the recesses of his own mind and recall that the Duke of Dunbrooke had been dead for years. Farnsworth gave Connor an encouraging push into the center ballroom.

The violins playing the reel screeched to a halt, the chattering voices faltered to a dead silence, and finally, as the hundreds of eyes in the ballroom landed on Connor like so many greedy bees, the only sound that could be heard was the soft plop of a woman fainting.

Chapter Twenty

I
do not,” Connor said slowly, because it seemed as though everyone expected him to say
something
, “feel very much like dancing at the moment, if that is quite all right.”

His words, spoken in a conversational tone, nevertheless reverberated in the silent room. No one else moved, breathed, or spoke. The bows of the musicians hovered, frozen, above their instruments. Silence ticked by, while faces, unanimously incredulous, remained fixed upon Connor.

Finally, a tiny woman dressed in gray silk and lace detached herself from the crowd and moved purposefully toward him, the click of her heels echoing throughout the ballroom.

Lady Wakefield stopped before Connor, lifted her quizzing glass, and peered up into his face.

“Why it
is
you, young Roarke,” she breathed finally. “I’d know the Blackburn eyes anywhere. You’re the spit of your father.”

“It is indeed I, Lady Wakefield,” Connor admitted.

His words sent a buzzing throughout the ballroom.

“. . . looks like my
groom
,” came a puzzled voice through the crowd. Good God.
Sir Henry.
Connor resisted yet another urge to bolt.

A movement in the crowd, as subtle as shifting light, caught Connor’s eye. He would have known her anywhere; after all, the way she moved was what had first drawn his eyes to her so many years ago.

“Don’t go anywhere, Pierce,” he murmured to the colonel, who had stepped up to his side.

He was in front of Cordelia in three long strides.

Slowly, as though her head was in danger of toppling from her neck unless she took great care with it, Cordelia lifted her eyes to Connor’s face.

“You can either take my arm and come quietly,” he hissed under his breath, “or I will drag you with me through the crowd. Choose.”

She hesitated a moment, and then her gloved fingers came up and landed, light as a butterfly, on his arm. A smile, slight and quivering, but a smile all the same, found its way to her pale lips, and she lifted her chin.

“Nicely done,
Cordelia
,” Connor murmured. His body was nearly rigid with fury. He led her, with deliberate and almost cruel nonchalance, through the silent, staring crowd. He stopped when he reached Lady Wakefield again.

“Lady Wakefield,” he said quietly, “perhaps there is a room the duchess and Colonel Pierce and I can retire to momentarily? I must attend to business before I can consider pleasure, you see. We have much to discuss.”

“Why, of course,” Lady Wakefield said. “The library is up the stairs and to the right.”

“Thank you for understanding.” He gave her his crooked smile.

“You will share your story with me later, my boy,” Lady Wakefield said coquettishly, and tapped his arm with her fan, a triumphant smile playing about her lips. Her place in history was now assured. Not only was the king expected to make an appearance tonight, but Lady Wakefield’s soiree would now be forever known as the occasion of the long-dead Duke of Dunbrooke’s resurrection.

Connor kicked the library door shut behind him and shook Cordelia’s fingers from his arm.

“
Sit
.”

Cordelia, with admirable composure, settled herself on the edge of one of the large library wing chairs, her spine erect, and folded her hands in her lap. Colonel Pierce leaned against the mantel and watched the two of them impassively.

If anything, Marianne Bell was even more beautiful now that the blur of youth had left her face; her bones seemed more finely etched, which made her mouth seem as soft as a pillow. She held herself very still, but Connor thought he detected a slight trembling, like a breeze disturbing the surface of a pool of water. He sincerely hoped she was terrified.

Odd to think that he had once wanted her so badly, pursued her so ardently. He looked at her now. She might have been a vase for how profoundly she moved him.
Rebecca
. He clung to the thought of her like a talisman. And as he looked at Cordelia he felt only purpose.

And rage.

Rage fought for control of his voice. He finally took refuge in his breeding in order to speak. His words were soft, polite.

“Cordelia, have you by any chance been looking for
this
?”

He extended his closed fist and uncurled his fingers. In his palm lay the gold locket.

Cordelia drew in a sharp little breath through her nose.

Connor sprang the catch and handed the locket to Colonel Pierce. “The
duchess
, here, once upon a time, was my mistress. This locket was meant for me years ago, but I left her before she could present it to me. A recent twist of fate put it in my hands, and when she discovered I had the locket—that I was in fact alive—I do believe she decided to have me killed.”

By way of illustration, Connor shook himself out of his coat. Colonel Pierce and Cordelia stared speechlessly at his tattered, bloodstained shirt. Granted, the shirt wasn’t bloodstained courtesy of either of the highwaymen sent by Cordelia, but it did help make his point rather eloquently.

“If you read the inscription, Pierce, you’ll understand part of her motive.”

Pierce studied the locket, then glanced up at Cordelia.

“Ah. An actress, were you? And all the while you had the
ton
believing you were a half-French aristocrat. Very impressive. Yes, I can see how the reappearance of Roarke, not to mention this locket, might rather . . . ruin things for you.”

Cordelia ignored Pierce.

“You were living as a groom,” she said to Connor, in the soft, low voice he recalled so well. “With the family of Sir Henry Tremaine.”

“Yes.” Out of the corner of his eye, Connor saw Pierce’s eyebrows go up.

“Sir Henry Tremaine was under the impression that you were Irish.”

“Yes.”

“’Tis a funny thing,” Cordelia said, pensively, her eyes traveling about the room, taking in the library’s expensive fixtures, the gilt and ormolu, so much like the library in the Dunbrooke townhouse. “Perhaps it is mere laziness, or lack of imagination. But I’ve found that, on the whole, people prefer to believe exactly what they are told.”

“Perhaps it has something to do with the skill of the teller,” Connor said.

Their eyes locked; a brief and peculiar understanding sparked between them, then died. Connor almost admired Cordelia’s achievement. She had used the skills at her disposal—beauty, acting, and an intimate knowledge of the Dunbrooke world—to marry his brother Richard and become the Duchess of Dunbrooke. He had underestimated her; more accurately, he had never estimated her at all. He had merely partaken of her. What had he ever really known about Cordelia, apart from the topography of her naked body? She had loved him once, or so the locket said.
My dearest love
. And yet . . . he looked at her, at the coronet in her gleaming blue-black hair, the mulberry satin gown corded in gold and scooped low at the neck to show much of her white bosom, the rubies at her throat . . . all of it purchased with Dunbrooke money. And he fully comprehended that regardless of whatever love she might once have felt for him, she would have killed him for all of it. Rebecca’s life had been threatened, and Connor had nearly been murdered, for dresses and jewels and a position in society. And his rage nearly choked him.

“Cordelia, tell me—how did my brother die?”

“His throat was slit by a footpad,” she said evenly.

Connor nodded once, thoughtfully.

“How tremendously convenient—oh, forgive me, I mean
wrenching
—that must have been for you.”

Cordelia stared at him in silence, her dark blue eyes huge and nearly black in her face. He could see her pulse beating in her throat.

“Clearly it was wrenching for
you
,” she said finally, ironically.

A devastatingly skillful play on his own guilt. Connor inhaled audibly.

Cordelia smiled slightly at the sound.

“Knowing Richard and his . . . predilections,” Connor said slowly, when he was able to speak again, “I can imagine that life with him was not easy. And I can almost understand why you would want to kill me. Perhaps you wanted revenge—I left you without a farewell, which, believe it or not, I am not proud of, and I do regret. And then you must have worked hard for the life you fraudulently won, a life as Richard’s wife and the Duchess of Dunbrooke. I can almost understand why you would do anything at all to preserve it. But you sent highwaymen—cutthroats with guns—after
Rebecca
. A highwayman put his
hands
on her. And for that, I would happily see you hang.”

It seemed to Connor that Cordelia swayed a little then, but perhaps it was a trick of a light. Only her hands truly betrayed her state of mind: they were twisted into a tight white knot in her lap.

“Could it be that you intend to faint, Cordelia? I expected more originality from you.”

Cordelia gave a low scornful laugh.

“You know nothing of me, do you, Roarke? You never did. If you had any idea of what I have survived in my life, any idea of the things that I have lived through, you would know that nothing
you
say or do to me could possibly cause me to faint.”

Connor regarded the beautiful woman before him, half awed, half repulsed. She had the pride of an aristocrat, the soul of a criminal, and the heart of . . . ? Possibly she merely had the heart of a woman. It mattered little now. The only thing that truly mattered at the moment was the love of a redheaded girl. As long as Rebecca loved him, he felt he could forgive nearly anything. And all at once, his rage drained away.

“I want you to witness, Pierce, that the duchess denies nothing,” Connor said, tearing his eyes from Cordelia. “She very likely had my brother killed, and attempted to kill me.”

“So witnessed,” Pierce said in a deceptively bored tone. “Although, Roarke, as a price for such, I believe you owe me your entire story. An Irish
groom
? For five
years
?”

“Ah, yes, er . . . that. You’ll know my story soon, I promise, but first I must go to the Cambridge Horse Fair. Immediately.”

“The Cambridge Horse Fair?” Pierce’s brow furrowed. “Why the devil—”

A tap on the library door made all of them jump.

Connor jerked the door open. Lady Wakefield stood there, her face flushed from an excess of excitement.

“You missed him! You missed him!”

“I beg your pardon, Lady Wakefield?”

Lady Wakefield was staring at Cordelia.

“I say, Your Grace, are you quite well? You look—”

“Lady Wakefield,” Connor interrupted as Cordelia opened her mouth to speak. “Who did we miss?”

“The king! He was here but a few minutes. But he learned of your return, and he wants to see you. He
demands
to see you. Tomorrow evening for a private dinner.”

“
Tomorrow
? No. I simply cannot. Tell him—”

“Roarke,” Pierce interjected quietly. “He is the king.”

Connor absentmindedly shut the door in Lady Wakefield’s very surprised face and turned back to Pierce.

“You do not understand.”

“You best explain then, lest I decide you’ve lost your wits,” Pierce said

Connor inhaled deeply. “Rebecca Tremaine,” he said. “It’s Rebecca. My fiancée. I’ve left her with an old friend, Raphael Heron, at the Cambridge Horse Fair, and I promised to return for her by morning. I
must
return for her. I originally intended to take her to my aunt in Scotland and then leave for America on my own, and . . . well, my plans changed.”

“
Rebecca Tremaine
? The mysterious sister that Lorelei refers to as ‘indisposed’?”

“So it’s ‘Lorelei’ is it, Pierce, and not ‘Miss Tremaine?’ ”

Pierce, usually unflappable, looked flustered for a moment, and Connor almost laughed.

“The subject is you and Rebecca Tremaine, so please do not attempt to divert me from it. By ‘indisposed,’ did
Miss Lorelei Tremaine
by any chance mean ‘missing’?”

Connor nodded.

“And did you, when you were a groom to Sir Henry Tremaine, assist Rebecca in becoming ‘missing’?”

He nodded again.

“And no one knows?”

“You and the lovely murderous duchess. And one other friend who does not move in the circles of the
ton
.”

There was rustle, a restless sound: satin against satin. The heretofore statue-still Cordelia had shifted in her chair. Connor and Pierce swiveled to stare at her.

“Perhaps the
lovely murderess duchess
objects to her new . . . sobriquet,” Connor said to Pierce.

“Taunting your captive,” Cordelia mused. “How gallant of you, Roarke.”

“My apologies, Cordelia,” Connor said in mock contrition. “But my finer qualities have never before been challenged by the presence of a murderess, and it seems they are not equal to the test.”

“Roarke,” Pierce interrupted gently. “Is Rebecca safe with your friends?”

“As safe as if she were with me.”

“Then she will be safe for one more day. You’re the Duke of Dunbrooke, Roarke. And the King of England has requested your presence tomorrow.”

The words sucked the breath out of Connor. He was. He
was
the Duke of Dunbrooke. And it would be deucedly difficult to escape now, given that all of London, not to mention the
king
, knew he had returned.

“Will you help me secure the . . .” Connor almost facetiously called Cordelia “the duchess” again, until he realized that Rebecca would soon be his duchess, and suddenly it was no longer amusing. “Will you help me discreetly secure my brother’s widow until I return from Cambridge? I will decide her fate then.”

They both looked at Cordelia, who, though white-faced, gazed back at them levelly, her chin high.

“Oh, happily,” Pierce said. “House arrest, a few armed Bow Street Runners, a word dropped to Lady Wakefield that the duchess is feeling unwell . . . leave it to me.”

Connor’s hope for a discreet and hasty retreat from Lady Wakefield’s townhouse was quickly dashed: a small crowd had gathered at the foot of the stairs awaiting his exit from the library.

And planted at the very foot of the stairs was the unmistakable, very solid form of Sir Henry Tremaine.