Once Upon an Accident 02 - Lessons in Seduction (23 page)

He cursed, his finger flexed and the gun went off. The bullet pierced the glass, shards of it falling on the two of them. She kicked him in the shin, and he dropped to the floor, taking her with him. He landed on top, pushing her against the broken glass.

As they struggled, she heard the door open.

“My lady?”

Betsy
. “Run, get Sebastian!”

Cicely felt a short spurt of relief when she heard Betsy’s footsteps retreating. Cummings immediately sprang up and tried to reach for her.

Cicely scooped up the diary and attempted to get away. He grabbed her by the ankle, his fingers digging into her flesh. With what little strength she had, she kicked at him. His fingers slipped away as he stumbled back to the window, losing his balance. She heard the thump of footsteps approaching down the hall and watched in horror as Cummings lost his footing completely and struggled with the drapery. It was of no use. As he fell out the window, the drapes went with him.

“Cicely!” The terror in Sebastian’s voice made her realize he could not see her.

“On the other side of the bed, Sebastian.”

He rushed over and sighed when he found her. “You can come in, Colleen, it is all clear.”

He gathered Cicely in his arms and rose to place her on the bed.

Fitzgerald and a number of servants came pouring into the room.

“Send someone around to the magistrate, and get someone down there with Cummings.”

Colleen sat beside Cicely and took her hand between her own. “All will be well.”

The tears she had held at bay during the brief ordeal gushed out. All of the fear she had been able to ignore came rushing back and she started to shake.

“What the bloody hell is going on here?” Douglas’ voice cut through the chatter of people working to clean up the mess.

She turned, her heart warming at the sight of him, but her shaking increased. He hurried to her side as Colleen, clearly reading his intent, slid off the bed. The anger and fear that contorted his handsome features caused another well of tears to overflow.

Without a word, he leaned forward and gathered her into his arms, pulling her onto his lap. She felt his lips brush her hair.

“Don’t worry, love.” No one said a word for several moments while Douglas rocked her. But she knew that she needed to tell them.

“He was Noir’s son.”

“From the diary?” Sebastian asked.

“Yes.” She took the handkerchief that Douglas offered and blew her nose. “He said so when he showed up. He planned on stealing the diary and making it look as though I had gone mad.”

Bridgerton came through the door, his clothes drenched, signaling he had been outside. He took one look at her on Douglas’ lap and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing about it.

“What did you find?” Sebastian queried as Bridgerton accepted a towel from Colleen.

“Not much. He didn’t survive the fall. I take it he was after the diary?”

She nodded and looked down at the vile piece of history with aversion.

“I wish I had never found the stupid thing.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “Who cares about people who plotted against the Crown a generation ago?”

“I can assure you the Crown does, Lady Cicely,” Bridgerton remarked.

Before she could ask just what he would know about it, Anna came running into the room, all the color drained from her face. “What has happened here?”

Everyone began to talk at once, their voices rising to a painful level.

Cicely closed her eyes and laid her head on Douglas’ shoulder. She shivered and he pulled her closer.

Sebastian took control of the situation. “I think that maybe we should allow Cicely some time to recover. Fitzgerald, get a bath brought up to the blue guestroom. Cicely will not be able to stay in this room tonight.”

Douglas carried her down the hall to the blue room. After settling her on the bed, he brushed his thumb over her eyebrows. She smiled slightly, her eyes still closed. He knew she was dozing.

The blinding rage squeezing his heart, not to mention the fear that had almost unmanned him, started to fade. Love warmed him as he watched her snuggle into the pillow, wanting more than anything to join her there. It was his duty, his right to comfort her, but he knew society rules would never allow it.

“Douglas.” Colleen’s soft voice cut through his thoughts and brought him out of his trance. He turned and found her waiting by the door.

Betsy, who had recovered from her own crying jag, stood ready to assist if need be and the message could not have been clearer. This was not his place. He was not needed.

Even though it hurt his heart, he left her and followed his cousin out the door. With one more look over his shoulder at Cicely, he vowed that before too much longer, he would not only have the right to be there with her, he would demand it.

In which Lady Cicely gives an ultimatum.

Two weeks after Cummings’ death, Cicely thought she might very likely kill her entire family. Their gentle reassurances and tender care had been just what she needed immediately following the attack. She had been fragile at that point, and their attention had helped her through those first few days. Never in her life had she felt so loved and comforted. Even Douglas had been conscientious and gentle, but if they all did not stop she swore she would strangle each and every one of them.

“You look a little flushed, my dear,” her aunt said. Cicely pointedly ignored her and watched several young debutantes giggle as Douglas walked by on his way back to her. “Cicely?”

She sighed. Her family meant well, but the need to kill them might overwhelm her better judgment.

“Aunt, please do not worry. The ballroom is a little warm, that is all.

And here is Douglas with refreshment. I will be fine.”

Douglas handed her a glass of champagne and studied her with concern. “I think Lady Victoria might be right. It was too much to expect you to come back into society so quickly.”

She should have been happy. The attention he had shown her was everything a woman could want. Every wish she wanted had been filled, even before she thought of it. But the novelty had worn off quickly. The one thing she could not stand was being treated like she were made of glass.

“I am fine.”

She noticed her aunt and Douglas share a speaking glance. Irritation had her lifting her glass of champagne and downing it in one gulp. She ignored the interest of the bystanders and handed the glass back to him.

He took it, brow furrowed in worry.

She needed to get away. “If you will excuse me?”

Her aunt and Douglas again looked at each other, but said nothing as Cicely turned and walked toward the hallway that led to the retiring room. Several people tried to engage her, but she rudely snubbed them.

She was sick to death of playing a role, of pretending she was someone she wasn’t. Sick to death of being hovered over. She loved her family, and their behavior since the attack had been understandable. But, while she recognized their need to attend her, she could not accept it anymore. If she did, it would be accepting the fact that she was not strong, that she could not handle herself. She could and had before. This was not the most terrible thing she had been through. She had seen and weathered much worse and if one more person said she was in frail health, she would do harm to their body.

After finding the retiring room practically empty, she took a moment to compose herself. It would not do to have a screaming fit in the middle of the ballroom. People tended to notice when you went completely insane like that.

She knew they thought her in a delicate state and each and every one of them assumed it was because of the attack. While that had been decisively unpleasant, it paled in comparison to the way Douglas was now treating her. Since the altercation, he had remained by her side, but there was something missing, some distance he put between them. It was as if a stranger had taken over his body. She ached to have the man who had teased her, who had opened his heart to her about his childhood…

She was in no physical pain, but this loss was greater. Her heart was breaking. Cicely had known it would come, had known that some day he would retreat. But she had not expected it so soon, or for it to hurt so badly. His offer of marriage had been because of what they had done, not because of love. Granted, if she had said yes, he would have married her.

But each day, she would have died a little. His attention would not have stayed fixed on her and he would have strayed from their marriage.

Knowing if she did not pull herself together and return to the ballroom soon someone would show up and herd her back, she shook herself free of her morose thoughts and decided to get back to the ball.

She patted her hair and put her handkerchief back in her reticule.

Seeing the tattered diary there, she sighed. She should not be carrying it around, but she had forgotten to leave it behind. The small book fit in the confines of her small reticule, but now she knew why it had been so heavy. Shaking her head, she closed the clasp. As she stepped out into the hallway, she stopped short, finding Douglas leaning against the opposite wall.

“What are you doing here?”

He smiled. “I was waiting to get you alone.”

Her heart danced as excitement threaded through her. “Oh, really?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “We need to talk about marriage again.”

All her ideas and fantasies dissolved with that one demand. So cold, so unloving, so…well, not what she wanted.

“No, we do not.”

He frowned. “Why are you being so stubborn about this?”

“Because, I do not want to marry.” Not without love.

“It is an obligation, one we both have to each other.”

Anger and pain pierced her heart and left it to bleed. “I do not want to be an obligation.”

She was close to tears. They burned the backs of her eyes and clogged her throat. She refused to lose all in front of him. Brushing past him, she convinced herself she could make it back to the ballroom without further embarrassment.

Douglas would not let it go. His fingers curved around her arm and stopped her. “Cicely.”

“I need the one thing you cannot or will not give. If marriage is the only option, I regret to say that our affair is at an end.”

With a jerk of her arm, she pulled away. Thankful he did not pursue her, she kept walking. When she saw Lady Catherine approaching her, she blinked, trying to stave off the tears. Lady Catherine stopped by Cicely’s side, concern darkening her fair features.

“Lady Cicely?”

Cicely shook her head and brushed past her. Pain sliced at her heart and she could not speak, especially with one of Douglas’ former lovers.

Happy when the woman decided to leave her be, she turned a corner and walked into a solid wall of a man. Looking up, she recognized the features of the boy—not to mention the smell—from the day in the alley.

At first, her mind would not work, her body frozen. But she gathered her wits and opened her mouth to scream. Before the sound could escape, she felt a hard whack against her head and she sank into darkness.

Douglas’ mind was still reeling from his argument with Cicely. He could not see why she was being so stubborn. A marriage between the two of them made sense.

What was it she wanted from him? He had made his intentions clear.

He wanted marriage and he would not back down. The attack a couple of weeks ago had made him more resolute in his belief. She needed to be protected and he wanted to be the one who gave that to her.

It was not as if she did not know he loved her. He had showed her in every way possible. She was innocent to many of the ways of the ton, but she had to know his actions the last few weeks had not been normal— especially not for him. He had ignored any overture and waited for the one woman he wanted. The one who offered everything he wanted, but held back the one thing he needed.

Cicely could not be so thickheaded that she did not realize he loved her, could she? She was much too bright not to discern his feelings. But he thought of her expression, the trembling of her body. He’d heard the tears in her voice, the pain of her defiant position.

Cicely had no idea that she held his heart in her hands.

With that revelation, he turned back to the ballroom and ran into Catherine. The air rushed out of both of them and he had to steady her.

“Douglas.”

After making sure she was okay, he released her and said, “I would like to chat but I have someone—”

“Someone took Lady Cicely.”

That stopped him. “Someone? Who?”

“I have no idea. I heard something, but could not quite make it out, so I decided to return. She had been crying”—she shot him a dirty look as if she knew it was his fault—“and I wanted to check on her. She was being taken away by some man, young, with another one, dressed well enough. I yelled but there was no one around.”

“Where were they going?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

They both hurried down the hall to the foyer of the house. They reached it, just as Bridgerton was walking through the front door, an expression of intent etching his features.

“Your Grace.”

“Not now, Bridgerton, someone has taken Cicely.” He pushed past the earl but the man stopped him.

“It’s Dewhurst, and I have a lead about where he might be.”

Cicely’s head pounded as she licked her dry lips. She opened one eye, then the other and looked around the room. Rising up, she realized she was sitting on a moth-eaten settee. As she glanced around the dark room, she noticed broken bits of wood, trash and more dirty furniture.

Two doors, on opposite sides of the room, were closed. The stench of rotted fish filled the air. Needless to say, she did not recognize her surroundings, but her gaze fell upon one man she did. She blinked, wondering if she truly saw who she thought she did.

“Dewhurst?”

He looked over at her and smiled. “At your service.”

“What? Why?”

Her brain still throbbed from the hit she had taken and she raised her hand to rub her temple. It came away sticky with blood.