The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (26 page)

He would be free.

With the arrival of the man below, though, he knew he’d have to give up on taking his pleasure from one of the girls at the school. Fine. Meaghan would serve well as the receptacle of his anger. Were it not for her, he’d already have the papers and passed them by now. She was the one responsible for placing the papers into that bumbling idiot Lady Marchman’s hands. Three times she’d dropped the papers, and three times they’d been lost. Lost!

Not that he gave a flaming fig about them. The Frenchies alongside the English. No, all Brian cared about was his reward, and, though he did not intend to kill Meaghan, he would be sure she knew how much trouble she had been to him.

On the other hand, if Meaghan were dead, then there would be no one demanding a share of the gold . . ..

Suddenly, he heard a loud thump downstairs and just below him. A piece of heavy furniture toppled, crashing to the floor, and a high-pitched voice welled up from the second floor.

“Owee! Owee! Owee-
me
!”

Chapter Nineteen

N
IGEL RECOGNIZED THE
sound instantly, for he had heard it twice before. It was Titania, his fairy queen. Rose, he amended. And there was only one explanation for her being here.

Rose, Titania, and Kitty Davidson—
Kathryn
. They were all the same woman.

He drew a stunned breath. What kind of fool was he? How could he have been so blind? He ground his teeth together to stop himself from issuing an oath.

He had noted the resemblance between the fairy and Kathryn. The same halo of golden curls, the flashing blue eyes . . . and angry words which stung like a magic wand applied to one’s backside. Why had he never considered they were one and the same? He cursed himself.

And yet, even now that his knowledge was certain, now that he knew who she was—who she’d been—he still found it nearly impossible to reconcile her different personas into one being. She was a schoolgirl and a woman grown, a spy and Ophelia Palin’s close friend. A gallant rescuer, and a traitor to her country. She was a tiny, fiery bundle of contradiction, and he had a hard time believing both sides of her could coexist.

Perhaps they could not. Perhaps she was somehow being coerced into passing the secrets. She was not a very practiced spy. The front door was unlocked and open when she arrived, yet she had loudly broken a window to gain entry. Why?

Did it mean she did not know her accomplice was already in the house? Or did it mean she was entirely innocent? That she was here for some other reason?

He had to find out. If she were taking part in all of this against her will, he must save her. But he had to find her first—find her, silence her without killing her, interrogate her . . . and still deal with the other spy. Swearing silently, Nigel hid his pistol under the cushion of the couch and then moved off toward the front stairway. He could not afford for the gun to go off during a struggle.

And his fairy turned hellcat would struggle like a demon, he was sure.

KATHRYN’S TOE WAS definitely broken this time. “Damn it to bloody, deuced, devilish hell!” Her parents would be shocked at her language, but then her parents would be shocked at most of what she had done since she came to London, and why shouldn’t they be? Kathryn herself was shocked at all she had done.

She’d run into a heavy dining chair and knocked the thing over, tumbling with it. She tried to stand, but pain shot up her leg. How could a thing as small as a toe cause such big trouble? She pulled off her shoe and yelped in agony. Gingerly, she felt her toe. Her fingers came away wet, for her stocking was soaked with blood from her lower leg downward. It was more than a toe this time.

The school was completely dark. Because all of the servants were at Vauxhall, every hint of flame had been extinguished for fear of fire. There was no way, barring flint and steel, for Kathryn to light a candle except for the lamp, which, by law, burned at the front door and lighted the street.

Slowly and painfully, her leg throbbing and aching more with each step, Kathryn made her way to the front door, a heavy candlestick in hand. The door was slightly ajar. The light of the moon shone through. That was odd—she was certain she remembered Lady Marchman locking the door with her great ring of keys before they left for Vauxhall.

Which meant someone else had beaten her to the house!

She gripped the candlestick as “Monsieur Revelet’s” fiendish features came to mind. Madame Briand had visited the school that day. If she had left something for him today, why of course he would take advantage of the vacant house in order to retrieve whatever it was. Or perhaps she had left nothing at all. Perhaps he was still looking for the plans Kathryn found and hid last night. Suddenly, Kathryn heard a nail squeak in a loose tread on the front stairs—step number ten. After traversing them several times at night, she knew them by heart. Number ten was just inches from her head.

Kathryn’s heart pounded in her ears, her leg stung and ached, and she shrank back into the deep shadows under the staircase.

What was she going to do now? If Revelet saw her, he would kill her, she was certain. She could not run on her injured leg, and how could she even think of leaving when all of England depended upon her? She could not let him seize those plans! She had to retrieve them from the drapery lining, where she’d hidden them and either destroy them or carry them away with her. Anything to stop him from getting to them. She had to do something, but what? What could she do when she couldn’t even see her own hand held six inches in front of her face?

Carefully, slowly, she backed against the wall just as she sensed a stealthy movement directly in front of her.

Gripping the candlestick even harder, she brought it down upon what she hoped would be the villain’s head. The heavy brass made solid contact and, to her amazement and joy, a large, heavy body fell at her feet. She had done it!

Kneeling, she reached for Revelet. Her hands made contact with his torso, and she patted her way up to his neck. Untying his cravat might have been much more trouble, but the man wore a rather unconventional mail-coach knot. “Yes!” Her fingers worked furiously. Loose and uncomplicated, the mailcoach was not as much of a challenge as an Oriental or a Mathematical would have been, she thought. Suddenly, her fingers stilled. Blackshire wore a mail-coach.

Forgetting that Blackshire was a traitor to their country, forgetting that she had resolved not an hour before to turn him in to the authorities, her fingers flew to her victim’s hair and face.

She knew every contour.

She snatched her hands away as though they had been burned. “Oh, my . . .” she said aloud. “You are not Monsieur Revelet, are you?”

Had she killed him? Had she killed the only man she would ever love? Lowering herself to the floor, she cradled his head in her lap, and leaning over him, caressed his cheek. “Do not die! Do not die, my love, for I could not bear it!”

Laughter welled up from the darkness down the hall, and Kathryn gasped.

“You are correct, my darlin’!” The Irishman’s voice piped with an uncanny cheerfulness. “He isn’t Monsieur Revelet—and, come to think on it, neither am I!”

Frantically, Kathryn groped for the candlestick.

“Ye’re between me and the light under the front door. I can see your silhouette. Move another muscle, and I’ll kill him. If ye haven’t done the job yerself already, that is.” He laughed again.

Kathryn’s arms tightened reflexively about Nigel’s broad shoulders. The Irishman must not know it was his accomplice who lay inert on the floor.

If Nigel was his accomplice!

“Monsieur Revelet, this is Nigel Moorhaven,” she said. “Are you not working together?”

“I wish we were,” the dancing master answered. “He is a worthy opponent. But he works for England. To think he was felled by such a puny chit! I can’t wait to tell ’im. The knowledge will prick his puffed-up English ego. It’ll be amusing. And don’t call me ‘Monsieur.’ The French are no better than you filthy English. My name is O’Flaugherty. Brian O’Flaugherty.”

A thrill of dread coursed through Kathryn as she realized O’Flaugherty wouldn’t have told her his true name unless he intended to kill them both. She had to stall him somehow. Perhaps Nigel would come to and spring to action. Perhaps someone would discover them both missing and come looking for them.

Sure, and a mackerel would be crowned Lord Mayor tomorrow. No one would come. And she had incapacitated Nigel. Even if he came to, his head would be spinning, his thoughts scrambled.

“I . . . I don’t understand,” she said to keep O’Flaugherty talking as she tried to form a plan. “I thought you were working for France.”

“I work for meself. No one else. I am free, as all of Ireland will be someday. Don’t move. My pistol’s pointed right at yer head.” He moved past her to the front stoop, where he held a candle to the outside lamp. He did indeed have a pistol. Kathryn held still. She dared not provoke him into shooting Nigel. Nigel . . . who was not a spy for France after all, but a true English hero! Her hero. Kathryn’s heart soared and then plunged.

He would be a dead hero unless she could do something about O’Flaugherty.

O’Flaugherty nudged her away from Nigel with the barrel of his gun. She complied and then watched as the Irishman ripped open Nigel’s coat, waistcoat, and shirt and then searched him roughly. He took two knives from Nigel’s person. One was quite large and not very well concealed in a small, narrow scabbard Nigel had sewn inside his boot. The other was much smaller. Nigel had worn it strapped to his waist underneath his shirt. O’Flaugherty backed away, tucking the knives into a leather pouch that hung about his waist. He waved the gun at Kathryn again. “Finish untying his cravat.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do it!” he cried, and Kathryn moved to comply, but when she tried to kneel, pain streaked through her injured leg. She cried out and fell against Nigel heavily, but went to work without delay. When the yard-and-a-half of white linen was undone, O’Flaugherty ordered Kathryn to bind Nigel’s hands and feet, directing her movements as she did so. When she tried to roll Nigel’s inert body over in order to gather his hands behind his back, Kathryn did not have the strength. O’Flaugherty drew back his arm and backhanded her across her cheekbone, knocking her over. With his heavy boot, he savagely kicked Nigel’s ribs, turning him over onto his belly. She crawled back to Nigel and bound his hands, then O’Flaugherty tied her hands. Leaving her feet unbound, he disappeared into the gloom, returning with a large pitcher of water and a kitchen towel, which he used to gag Nigel. Then he threw the water onto Nigel’s head.

Nigel gasped and sputtered. He came to, shaking himself and looking wildly around him. “Easy, easy!” Kathryn soothed, “It’s all right.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say, and he looked pointedly about them and then back over at her before grunting and rolling his eyes. Everything was clearly not all right. “Yes. I know,” she said quietly.

“Enough!” roared O’Flaugherty. “You will now tell me where the books are—all of them—or I will begin cutting off his fingers.”

“Go ahead,” Kathryn said blithely. “I do not care a whit about him. Hand me the knife and I will do it myself.” She spared a glance at Nigel.

It was that moment that Kathryn realized he loved her.

O’Flaugherty sneered. “Oh, come. Do not insult my intelligence. I heard you crooning to him.” And in a high-pitched voice, he mocked Kathryn: “‘Do not die, my love, for I could not bear it!’” He laughed cruelly. “The books or his fingers. Yer choice.”

Kathryn threw him a venomous look and clamped her mouth shut

“Very well then.” He shrugged. “If you do not care about his fingers, perhaps you care about your own.” He pulled the longer of Nigel’s knives from his pouch and twirled it expertly in his hands. Nigel growled low in his throat and lunged explosively upward, trying to free himself. He struggled for a moment, then a moan escaped him and he collapsed, his head rolling limply to one side. His breath issued from his throat in a weak hiss, and then he was still.

The candlelight glinted off the cold, smooth metal of the dagger and Kathryn felt her stomach lurch. She looked away. “Please, Mr. O’Flaugherty, I . . . I don’t know what books you are talking about. I told you that before.”

He approached her, his mouth shaping itself into a grin. “I grow impatient.”

“If it is money you want, I have almost ten guineas upstairs, in my valise. They are yours.”

He shook his head and took a step closer to Kathryn and Nigel, caressing the handle of the dagger. “Sorry, me girl, but it isn’t enough. I’ve been promised a lot more, ye see, upon completion of me job. Now, where are the books?”

Kathryn watched him approach. She feared him, but she would not tell him where the plans were no matter what he did to her. O’Flaugherty knelt beside her and reached for her. His bare fingers caressed her neck before trailing down her arm and grasping the linen that bound her wrists together. Kathryn tried to be brave as he brought the knife down and laughed, an unearthly sound that echoed through the house.

Just before the steel touched her skin, Nigel propelled his powerful legs upward with deadly accuracy, kicking O’Flaugherty in the face and knocking him to the floor. The knife flew through the air and skidded across the floor--not that it could do Nigel any good, with his hands bound behind his back. Frantically, he worked at the knot as Kathryn dove for the blade, but O’Flaugherty was upon her in seconds, and the other knife he had taken from Nigel appeared at her throat.

“Another move and I’ll kill her!” O’Flaugherty cried.

Nigel stilled. O’Flaugherty pushed Kathryn roughly aside and kicked the second dagger, which spun away across the floor from Nigel’s bound hands. O’Flaugherty approached Nigel and raised the dagger he still held.

Time seemed to stretch crazily as he brought the dagger down and stabbed Nigel with it. The blade entered Nigel’s chest under his left shoulder. Kathryn heard herself scream as Nigel’s body jerked convulsively back and his face contorted in pain.

O’Flaugherty wrenched the blade out of Nigel, who grunted and gasped for air through clenched teeth. “Now then,” O’Flaugherty turned to Kathryn with menacing civility, “ye’ll tell me where the plans are, or I’ll kill him.”

Still gagged, Nigel shook his head violently. His eyes implored Kathryn not to comply. She looked away from him. Steadily holding O’Flaugherty’s gaze, she said, “The first room on the right on the second floor. The papers are in the hem of the drapery. I burned the book I found them in. I do not know where the other book or papers are.”

Without a word, O’Flaugherty scooped up the long knife and calmly climbed the stairs, taking the candle with him. Kathryn watched Nigel close his eyes and, exhaling forcibly, let his head drop to the floor, as the circle of light receded upward. Before they were plunged into darkness, she saw a great fall of blood gush from the gaping wound in his shoulder. “Oh! Nigel, do not move. You are bleeding profusely.”

Nigel mumbled something as they were plunged into darkness once more. Kathryn scooted along the floor toward Nigel and leaned over as far as she could. “Hold still. I’m going to get that gag off you.” She leaned a little further and toppled on top of him as she knew she would. He groaned. “I am sorry, Nigel!” He was warm and solid and so full of life! It was mad to believe he was going to be dead soon. But Kathryn did believe that. They were both going to die.

Walking her way upward with her chin, she maneuvered her face next to his, and with her teeth pulled the gag free.

“You should not have told him where the plans were.”

“I am sorry,” Kathryn whispered. “I could not let him kill you.”

“He will kill me anyway. He will kill us both, if he can.” As they worked to free themselves, the silence of the house bore down upon them. Finally, Nigel stilled. “Listen!” he hissed, and Kathryn did.