One Unashamed Night (14 page)

The carriage ride home was full of Emerald’s chatter with her husband adding his say on the highlights of the evening. Taris remained silent, lost in his own thoughts, Bea imagined, though when they reached her town house he got to his feet and helped her down the two small steps.

‘I am certain that Lucy’s indiscreet chatter will have been put to rest.’ The wind snatched away his words even as he turned against its force, inadvertently shielding her reply from the ears of the others.

‘Thank you for making certain that my reputation remained safe.’ Bea could not think of even one other thing to utter. Her reputation? Last night’s loving lay between them like an unspoken shout.

‘Come in. Hold me. Lie down beside me and show me heaven. Again.’

Not quite what one could say to a man who looked almost desperate to be gone, and a plethora of other transports wending their way home behind him, the occupants craning their necks to watch the antics around the Wellingham conveyance.

Manners. Protocol. Exemplars and precedents. The world here was full of what was expected and what was acceptable and walking into the private residence on the arms of even a plain-looking widow in the wee hours of the morning was patently not one of these things.

‘Goodbye.’ His farewell contained no notion of intimacy, though he waited as two of her servants came to escort her in.

When she reached her front door and looked back she saw that the horses had already been called to walk on.

Chapter Eleven

‘’
T
is only a hand cream that I have a need of, Elspeth. I should not wish to take up too much of your time.’

‘Oh, Beatrice, it is lovely just to be walking on such a fine day. Besides, we promised ourselves an outing at the new tea shop last time we ventured out this way.’

Bea laughed. She felt surprisingly relaxed after the party last night at the Cannons’. Perhaps she had come to terms with the fact that at least in friendship she would be able to see Taris Wellingham; besides, there was little use dwelling on the sort of happy endings that she knew, for her at least, would never come to pass.

‘Shall we go to the apothecary first and then—?’

Her words were snatched into a scream as a heavy shape from behind connected with the small of her back and pushed her forwards. Her arms came out to try to break the fall, but the heels of her boots had tangled with the hem of her skirt and she could not keep her balance. Tipping towards the road, the clatter of horses and the shout of a driver alerted her to the presence of danger even before she felt it, and she attempted to twist and roll away from the flailing hooves.

The wheels missed her face by a whisker, though her wrist and head hit the cobbles with a whacking crunch and the pain that radiated outwards made her feel nauseous, a receding blackness pushing away light. As she struggled to catch her breath, the shaking that she was engulfed in left her dizzy.

‘Sit still, ma’am.’ Sarah’s voice was so insistent that she did as she said, Elspeth’s sobbing behind making her wonder whether the accident was even worse than she had thought it. Wriggling her feet in her boots, she was relieved she could feel pain, for it meant that she was not paralysed.

The warmth of her maid’s hand came across her own. ‘I do not think anything is broken, ma’am. I think if you tried to sit up.’

Another man had now joined them and another. When Bea did as Sarah had directed and sat upright, she saw a whole group of people now ringed them. The back of her head throbbed in agony and the blood on her grazed arms soaked into her sleeves.

‘Wh…whathappened?’ She was still shaking and her heartbeat was so fast she wondered if she might have an apoplexy and simply expire, here on this road, with the thin spring sun on her now hatless head.

‘I think somebody pushed you, though I cannot be sure.’

‘Can you lift m…me up?’

The two men who had knelt down beside her now took her arms on each side and carefully helped her to stand. The weight hurt her ankle and she pressed her knuckles into the skirt of her gown.

‘This shopkeeper says that you can lie down to rest in his back parlour and wait for the physician to come.’

Beatrice nodded her head, regretting the motion as soon as she did so. To get away from all the stares of a growing audience would be most appreciated.

Suddenly she felt like crying and all she could think about was that she wanted Taris Wellingham, wanted his confidence and his arms about her, wanted the feeling of safety he gave her, and his reason and his careful logic. When she was inside the parlour she would send a missive to his town house and ask him to come to her, for suddenly she did not care who might see them together, who might gossip about it or wonder. The tears she had tried to hold in fell in big drops down her cheeks.

All she wanted was Taris Wellingham to come!

The note arrived as he was about to sit down for a late lunch. Bates at his side read it out.

‘It is from Mrs Bassingstoke, my lord, and there is an address in Regent Street. It says, “I have been in an accident. Hurt. I need you.”’

Taris came up from his seat before the missive was even finished and called out for his butler.

‘Morton. Get Berry to bring the carriage around immediately. I need to be in Regent Street.’

‘But, my lord…your lunch.’ Bates’s voice petered out as Taris picked up his cane and strode from the room.

The shop was tiny but warm, and the blanket the wife of the furniture maker had placed over her knees was welcomed. Her hat sat on the table, a for-lornly crushed shape with no hope of resurrection. The wheels had run straight over the feathers, the shopkeeper had said, and Beatrice was acutely aware that her head had only been inches away from being in exactly the same condition.

Lord, how fragile life was. A second earlier, an inch further, a grander coach or a faster conveyance and the whole outcome could have been so much different. Elspeth was still wailing noisily and she wished she would just stop, for her headache was worse.

A constable spoke to those who had witnessed her fall and Bea held her arms against her bodice, the throbbing ache easing only when she raised them up.

She felt dislocated and scared, the memory of the hooves and the horses and the violent push leaving her nervous that someone else might try to hurt her, and her shaking had not abated in the least.

A louder chatter had her looking up as Lord Wellingham walked into the shop. He came straight over to her, his hand resting on the sofa as he knelt, his cape falling into a ring of fine black wool.

‘Are you all right, Beatrice?’

She could not answer, could not say even yes as a wave of relief washed across her. When his fingers came into contact with hers, she knew he could feel the terrible shaking.

‘Where are you hurt?’

Because sound was such a part of how he viewed his world, she tried her hardest to answer him.

‘M…my head hit the g…ground and Elspeth said the c…carriage came very close.’

He turned at that. ‘Surely a doctor has been summoned?’ Hard. Harsh. Impatient. ‘Why is he not here?’

Watching the autocratic and imperious way he addressed the room, Bea understood power in a way she had not before. It was in bearing and expectation and in the sheer essence of history.

‘He has been called, sir,’ someone answered from behind.

‘Then call him again. Bates?’ His man stood next to him. Bea had not seen him when Taris Wellingham had first arrived in the room, but of course someone would be there to help him with the lay of the land. ‘Send Liam for my physician and make sure he knows the gravity of the situation.’

As the man hurried off with his orders Bea, feared that Taris might go too and she clung to him fervently.

‘Don’t worry, I shall stay here with you,’ he returned, and she felt his breath. Warm and real, no longer just her!

‘You p…promise?’

When he placed their joined fingers against his heart and smiled, she lay back against the cushion and closed her eyes.

He was here! Now she would be safe.

Taris felt the moment that she relaxed, his fingers measuring the beat of her pulse at her wrist and finding it reassuringly steady and strong. The sticky blood he had felt on her arms was mirrored on her forehead and neck when he ran his touch upwards.

Where the hell was the doctor and what the hell had happened? A woman he presumed to be Elspeth Hardy was sobbing incessantly at one end of the room and the quiet questioning of a constable at the other told him that this was no simple accident. When Bates returned and relayed the story of Beatrice being pushed on to the road and of how she had narrowly missed being run over by a carriage, he felt a roiling sense of disbelief.

Who would try to hurt her?

Who had nearly succeeded in killing her? His anger escalated as he felt the remains of a hat on the small table beside the sofa.

Ruined like her head could have so easily been!

MacLaren’s arrival a little time later took his mind from such suppositions. The family doctor had always been the sort who muttered, a trait that Taris had found useful so that he knew exactly where he was in a room.

‘My lord,’ he offered, and Taris felt his arm next to his, the quiet click of a doctor’s tools telling him that he was measuring Beatrice’s vital signs before making a judgement on her condition.

The astringent odour of smelling salts filled the space around them and then Bea’s voice. Confused. Embarrassed. Flustered.

‘I…I…should sit up,’ she said, her fingers creeping back into his hand as she held on tight.

But the doctor wanted her to stay still and through the grey haze Taris could see that he felt around the lump on her head.

‘A nasty accident. Do you remember if you lost consciousness at the time it happened?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Good. Good.’

‘Lord Wellingham, could you lift her and bring her out to the carriage? I think it may be more beneficial to the lady’s healing to treat her at home.’

‘Of course.’ He was certain that the doctor had long since guessed his eyesight to be weakening, but had never in any shape or form alluded to it. Taris was pleased to step forwards and lift Bea in his arms, the presence of Bates making it an easy pathway out to his conveyance.

Bea barely moved, the heat of her body melding into his, the soft abundance of her breasts against his cloak.

When they came to the doorway she curled in against him so it was easier to negotiate the portal and once outside he counted his footfalls to the kerb. His carriage stood where he had left it and, mounting the steps, he sat with Bea in his lap.

The trip home was completed in silence, Beatrice’s friend opposite sharing the seat with the doctor and Bates to his left. The small stern-faced maid named Sarah completed the party.

An hour later he was finally alone with Beatrice.

‘Doctor MacLaren said you were lucky not to have broken anything and that the grazes will feel a lot better by morning.’

‘Thank you for asking him to see to my injuries, my lord.’

He heard the wariness in her tone, but he was in no mood to ignore the larger question. He also wished she might just call him by his Christian name.

‘Who pushed you, Bea? Did you see him?’

He felt her shaking her head. ‘Sarah said he looked like a pauper and that he ran off into the backstreets as soon as I fell.’

‘A paid assailant, then?’

‘I would guess so.’

‘God. Who would hate you enough to do that?’

‘The same person who might have sawn through the axle of the carriage, perhaps?’

Said without any artifice at all and with a great deal of frank openness. Taris stiffened as something began to tug on his mind. A smell. A certain fragrance he had noticed as he had stepped into the town house this evening. Bergamot. Scattered bits and pieces began to fall into place.

‘The man James Radcliff? You said he was a lawyer?’

‘The junior partner in the firm who looked after my husband’s accounts. Why?’

‘Has he been here again today?’

‘No. I have not seen him since yesterday afternoon when you were here with the Duchess of Carisbrook.’

Such a smell would not linger, would not carry in a space for so very long. A sense of danger began to form and Taris felt as he had in Spain all those years ago before charging into battle.

Then, however, he had had all his faculties and the ability to catch sight of the slightest movement from a great distance away.

Could he protect Bea here if the man should choose to play his hand? The knife tucked into the specially made sock in his boot would help, as would the ring he wore. By turning the gold circle he clicked the edges into place and the heavy bauble changed into a lethal collar of diamond spears. Enough to surprise anyone. His cane would do the rest.

He tilted his head to listen and the silence in the house was comforting. At a guess he would say the lawyer had gone, but why had he been here in the first place? And had he come alone?

‘Did Mr Radcliff ask you for anything?’

‘He wanted to see some ledgers that were sent to me. He asked after them.’

‘And where do you keep them?’

‘Well, that is the strange thing—I do not remember having them.’

‘Does your door have a sturdy lock on it?’

‘I think so.’ Her answer held worry and hope strangely mixed.

Standing, Taris made his way over to it and threw the bolt, testing the door when he had finished doing so.

After listening for a further few moments he crossed to the bed, realising as he came closer that she was fast asleep.

She came awake instantly and fully, with the fright of one who did not quite understand where she was or what time of day it was.

Taris sat in a chair next to the bed, his long legs stretched out before him and the stubble of lost hours shadowing his chin.

Not quite asleep. When she stirred his amber eyes flicked open, unfocused and then alert.

‘What is wrong?’

When he moved his hand she saw a circle of diamond points coming from his ring. A knife lay in his lap, the other fist curled about it, easily, familiarly, in the way of a man who had long courted peril.

But as she frowned both the knife and ring were gone. A short illusion, a little fancy, and then gone; the accoutrements of battle disappearing from the everyday life of an aristocrat who walked the delicate pathways of the
ton.

Secrets and menace and something more charged again, sensuality the other side of a dangerous coin.

The jeopardy of today’s accident made risk more accepted, made the fear of rejection less concerning, made the moments she had been given with him here in the night a chance that was to be taken and not lost.

She placed her hand across his and pressed down.

‘Thank you for coming today.’

‘How could I not have?’

‘Easily,’ she answered back, years of coping alone a burden she was more than used to. ‘I thought the carriage was going to run me over.’

‘As it did your hat?’

‘You saw it?’

‘Felt it.’

‘Could the person who did it come back here tonight?’

‘No.’ She liked his certainty, liked the way he did not even waver. A man who would protect her against everything.

‘Will you kiss me?’ Hardly even a question.

‘Could you stop me?’ His was not either.

‘I want to forget everything else save what is here, now, between us.’

‘Flesh?’ This time he ran his finger across her breast, easily distinguished under silk.