Sweet Awakening (43 page)

He smelted so awful that Clare had to breathe out of her mouth. He had no obvious bruises on him, although she knew better than anyone that didn’t mean there weren’t any. But she hoped his fainting spell was from shock and lack of food or water, not from injury.

When they pulled up in front of the house, she had to wait for Henley to open the door, for her hands were still wrapped around the pistol. She climbed down awkwardly.

“Get the coachman to help you,” she said. “Lord Whitton is still unconscious.”

The door opened before she was even up the steps, and Andrew was by her side in a second.

“My God, Clare, where have you been? We have been out of our minds with worry since Martha told us of your visitor. And your ‘shopping trip,’ ” he added, glancing down at the pistol.

“I can’t seem to let it go, Andrew,” she said, giving him an ironic smile as he reached down and gently released the hammer. “But otherwise, I am fine. Help Henley with Giles.”

Sabrina, who had been right behind Andrew, put her arms around Clare and led her into the hall, where Clare’s hands finally relaxed and the pistol dropped to the floor with a clatter. Clare looked down at it and then her hands, and finally giving in to the pent-up emotions of the day, shook uncontrollably from head to foot. Her teeth were chattering so, she could hardly give coherent directions as Giles was carried in.

“Take him upstairs, Henley, and strip those clothes off before you put him to bed. Sabrina, we will need the doctor.”

“Yes, I will send for him immediately.”

Andrew watched as they carried Giles upstairs and then led Clare up to the library where a fire was roaring. He sat her down in the wing chair next to the fireplace, and poured a glass of brandy.

“Drink this, my dear.”

Her teeth where chattering so hard that he thought she would bite through the glass, but he managed to get some down her throat. As the warmth of the liquor hit her stomach, her shivering slowly subsided and some color returned to her face.

“Here, have a little more, Clare, and then we will find out what you have been up to.”

“Don’t push her, Andrew,” said Sabrina, who had come in after them.

“No, I am all right now,” said Clare, starting to get up. “It is Giles I am worried about.”

“Sit down, my dear. There is nothing you can do right this minute.”

Clare sank back down. “I couldn’t wait any longer, Andrew. I was afraid once they found out they had the wrong man, they might harm Giles.”

“I have been afraid of that, too, I must confess, but couldn’t think of anything to do.”

“There wasn’t much you could do, Andrew. To show yourself would have endangered Giles. But I realized that none of them would recognize my name immediately, so I sent for Oldfield, telling him I wanted to settle my younger brother’s debts.”

“But you don’t have a younger brother, Clare,” said Sabrina.

“You and I know that, Sabrina, but he didn’t. And it got him here where I wanted him. Then, when he found out I was the notorious Lady Rainsborough, I had no trouble convincing him I was willing to kill again.”

“My God, Clare, were you mad?” Andrew exclaimed.

“A little, I think, Andrew,” she admitted, looking down at her lap. She still could not open her hands completely. “I kept seeing Justin’s face flashing before me, threatening Giles ...” They were all still a moment. “I think that helped me convince Mr. Oldfield, however,” she said with a shaky laugh.

“Could you have killed him, Clare?” Sabrina asked in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” Clare admitted. “But I told him I would summon one after another of them until one took me to my husband.”

“Where is Oldfield now, Clare?”

“Back in some filthy alley of St. Giles,” she said. “And I hope he has to walk all the way back to St. James Street.”

* * * *

When the doctor arrived, Clare insisted on being present when he examined Giles, who was still unconscious.

“Aside from being dehydrated and exhausted, I believe Lord Whitton is all right, my lady.” He gave Clare an inquiring look. “I don’t suppose you can tell me just how a peer of the realm came to be in this condition, Lady Whitton?”

“He was in the hands of two ruffians for a few days, Doctor. But I would rather not say why.”

“He has no bruises or injuries, so I believe he will be conscious by morning.”

“Then I will sit with him,” said Clare.

“You are looking very worn yourself, Lady Whitton, if I may say so.”

“One more night with little sleep won’t make any difference, now that Giles is safe,” said Clare with a grateful smile as she showed the doctor out, and then pulled a chair close to her husband’s bed.

Giles’s hair was lank and greasy, and there was a faint trace of the smells of the cellar hanging about him, for his valet had only stripped off his clothes and put him in a clean nightshirt. There were dark circles under his eyes, and Clare guessed that he had lost half a stone as she had watched the doctor examine him. But he was safe at home, thank God. She looked down at her hands and made herself open and close them repeatedly, until she was able to straighten out her fingers. She glanced at Giles and then back down at her hands. Whatever would Giles think of her now? If he could not allow himself to see the Clare who had killed her husband, how on earth would he be able to tolerate a Clare who had been willing to kill again, even if it had been for his sake?
Especially
since it had been for his sake.

Clare sat very still as tears began to slip down her cheeks, releasing all the tension of the past few days. She could cry for weeks, she thought, and never run dry, for here she was, so in love with a husband who could only care for the girl she had been, not the woman she had become. Her own exhaustion caught up with her, however, and she finally slept.

* * * *

Giles had been dreaming. In his dream, Tall Man and Squat Toad had pulled him up the stairs into the light, and in that light floated Clare’s face, set and grim. “Does he know me yet,” she asked his jailers and they shook their heads. “Then take him back to the cellar.” Giles opened his mouth to protest, but no words would come out. It was clear his captivity would never end until he could tell his wife he loved her for herself. And he had lost his voice.

He awoke to the semi-darkness of early morning. But the cellar wasn’t usually this light when he woke, he thought. He was even more disoriented when he became aware that he was in a comfortable bed, his own bed, in fact. He turned his head, and by the light of a guttering candle on the bedside table, saw his sleeping wife. Slowly, very slowly, to keep the room from spinning, he pulled himself up into a sitting position.

Clare was still in her walking dress, and as he watched her, he began to remember. Clare
had
been there when they brought him up from the cellar. But to bring him safely home, not to keep him her prisoner. He had a vague memory of being thrust into the chaise and looking up into her set white face. But it had been a face set with fear and determination, not hostility. Somehow, his Clare had set out and rescued him. The lady had accepted a quest and rescued her knight, not the other way around.

Her hands had held a pistol, that much he also remembered. She had looked quite capable of killing someone. She
was
capable of killing someone. She
had
killed someone, his brave wife. To save herself from certain death, and him from the possibility of it.

He lay back, head resting on the pillows, turned toward her, learning every curve and line of her, his courageous wife. He had been so blind for so long. And afraid. Afraid if he admitted to himself that Clare Dysart had hurt him terribly and then gone on to a horrendous marriage that she couldn’t be the Clare he loved anymore. And since he did love her, she
had
to be the old Clare. For how could he love a woman who had hurt him so, suffered so, and bought their present marriage with such a bloody deed.

But he saw now that his Clare was this Clare. Circumstances and her own inner strength had combined to transform her. But not beyond recognition. And please God, not beyond the possibility of redeeming their marriage.

The door opened slowly, and Giles lifted his hand in greeting as Sabrina tiptoed in.

“You are awake, Giles,” she whispered. She sat down on the edge of the bed and put her hand on his. “It has been a horrible five days. If I didn’t love Andrew so much, I would have hated him for getting you into this.”

Giles shook his head. “It wasn’t his fault, Brina. I was just too stubborn to tell them who I was.”

“Thank God for that,” she answered. “I suspect your life would have meant very little to those men.”

Sabrina had spoken aloud, and Clare started and opened her eyes. Her face lit up when she saw that Giles was awake, then shut down as she remembered what she had done.

“Giles,” she said evenly, “I am glad you are awake.” She stood up stiffly. “I will get Henley and have him bring you some barley water.”

Giles made a face, and Sabrina said: “It is what the doctor ordered for the first day. So bear with it, Giles.”

“Plain water. Plain, cold water,” he requested. “And some porridge, Clare?”

“All right, Giles,” she said with a quick smile, and was gone.

“And some hot water for a bath as soon as you get your strength back,” teased Sabrina, wrinkling her nose.

Giles ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe even a fine-tooth comb,” he said, and laughed as Sabrina jumped back. “Now
I
am teasing, Brina. There are no small residents, as far as I know.”

“I will order lye soap, just in case, Giles,” said his sister.

A few hours later as Giles lay in his bath, he thought that he had taken far too much for granted in his life. Water, gruel, and a hot bath ... simple things, really, but he’d take them over any luxury offered him.

Sabrina had sent up lye soap and a fine-tooth comb. Which was lucky, said his valet, for he was sure he had seen a louse or two in his master’s hair.

Giles only laughed. “Comb them out, then, John.”

He slept away the rest of the day and only awoke again in the late afternoon when the doctor came by again.

“You are feeling better, my lord?”

“Much, thank you, Doctor.”

“And drinking a lot of water?”

“Cool, clean water, which tastes like champagne to me,” said Giles with a smile.

“I am not surprised. You were dehydrated when I saw you last night. You may start eating solid food tomorrow.”

Sabrina came in after the doctor left and uttered a protest as Giles climbed out of bed.

“I am not ill, Sabrina.”

“No, and we wish you not to be.”

“Hand me my dressing gown, Brina.”

Sabrina helped him slip his arms into the burgundy silk and gave him her arm as he walked slowly back and forth around the room. He was muttering something under his breath.

“I beg your pardon, Giles?”

He looked down and smiled at her and said something rhythmically in Greek. “Now you, I suppose, would have been repeating mathematical formulas, but I kept sane with Aristophanes.”

“Oh, Giles,” his sister cried, and threw herself into his arms.

“No, now, Brina, I was not made a galley slave. Five days in a cellar isn’t really all that bad.”

“They might have killed you.”

“So they might have. But they didn’t. Thanks, I believe, to my wife?”

Sabrina pulled herself out of his arms.

“Clare was magnificent, Giles.”

“So I guessed. And where is she? She hasn’t been in to see me since morning.”

“She has been sleeping, too, Giles. To make up for the last four nights.”

Giles let go of his sister’s arms and walked slowly over to the wing chair.

“I am still a bit shaky, or I would go in to her. Will you have her come in when she awakes, Sabrina?”

“Of course.”

“Now tell me the whole story.”

Sabrina perched on the bed and told him what she knew.

“I will have to get Clare to fill me in on the details,” Giles said with a smile.

“Indeed. You have a valiant wife, Giles,” said Sabrina as she was leaving.

“I know that,” he said softly as she closed the door behind her.

* * * *

Clare approached Giles’s bedroom apprehensively. She found him in his dressing gown, seated in the wing chair with a book in his hands. His head was back and his eyes were closed, and for a moment she thought he was asleep. But as she walked slowly toward him, he opened his eyes and smiled directly into hers, which made her legs feel as shaky as they had yesterday.

“It is my lioness wife come to visit,” he said in an affectionate, teasing voice.

Clare blushed. “Hardly a lioness, Giles,” she replied. “I am pleased to see you up.”

“Yes, I am feeling much more myself. Except for my eyes,” he added. “They are more tired than I am now. I suppose it was the lack of light in the cellar.”

Clare shuddered. “It must have been awful, Giles.”

“Well, it was,” he admitted. “But not unbearable.”

“Why did you not tell them who you were?”

“And ruin Andrew’s case? Four or five days in that hole seemed like it would be easy.” Giles paused and gave her a crooked grin. “At first.”

“We were frantic.”

“I know. But I think I made the right decision,” he continued in a more serious tone. “I suspect it would have been very inconvenient for Tall Man and Toad to have a viscount on their hands.”

Clare nodded. “Andrew didn’t seem to think you were in danger, but they could have killed you and dropped the body anywhere. That is why I did what I did, Giles,” said Clare in a tight voice. She was still standing, and Giles motioned her to the bed.

“Come, sit down, and tell me your story, Clare.”

Clare sat on the edge of the bed and kept her eyes on the floor as she began.

“I was so afraid that once they saw Andrew in court and knew they had been tricked, they would get rid of you to save themselves. Andrew couldn’t go to them, of course.”

“So you went to 75 St. James Street?”