The Golden Season (39 page)

“Wait!” he cried as Lockton grabbed hold of his throat. “She needed money. She needed fifty thousand pounds by four o’clock this afternoon. She was to meet Cod at the bottom of the Tower Stairs at the docks.”

Lockton dropped him and spun around, heading out the door.

Lydia’s pelisse was no help against the raw wind blowing in off the Thames, carrying with it the stench of fish and brine. Sewage from the ships anchored farther out in the river sloshed against the bottom steps of the ancient stone stairs leading down from the street to the wharfs. Green weeds undulated in the wash. Overhead, gulls keened and wheeled and a lean cat slinked by, eying her as an interloper.

She shivered, looking about for Cod. He said he would meet her here at the bottom of the Tower Stairs at four o’clock. It was quarter past that time.

Emily waited with the coachman some little ways down the street above. She hadn’t wanted Emily to come, but the older woman had been downstairs in the hall when she’d left, the sad little nosegay of scarlet primrose she’d worn to the wedding wilting on her bodice, her eyes red-rimmed. Lydia had brought her along when it became clear how desperately uncomfortable Emily was in this stranger’s house but made her promise to stay in the carriage, purposely keeping her mission a secret. She didn’t want Emily to know about Cod.

“Sorry to keep a lady waiting.”

Lydia jerked around. Cod was coming along the mold-slick embankment. He made her side and tipped his hat. “Got the money, then?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s have it.”

Wordlessly she reached into her reticule and withdrew the check Childe had made out to her and handed it to him.

“What’s this?”

“A personal check to me from Childe Smyth. I have already made it over to you.” She stared at it with anguished eyes. As soon as it was cashed, Childe would have fulfilled his part of the marriage settlement.

He took it with a smirk and raised it to the sky, eying it carefully. His tongue flicked out and wet the corner of his mouth and his gaze fell on her, amused and cruel. “Now, then, that weren’t so bad, was it? Likely to hurt even less next time.”

She froze. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Just meaning that should I ever run into trouble, it’s nice to know I have friends I can count on to help me out.”

“You said there wouldn’t be a next time,” she said. “You promised.”

“Did I?” he asked innocently. “What was I thinking?”

“You can’t do this.”

“Sure I can.” He smirked.

And of course he could. He would. He’d lied. There were no men waiting for him in other countries. No one had recognized him here. It had all been part of his patter, to make her feel confident that if she gave him what he wanted, he would be gone from her life. From Emily’s life. But he wouldn’t be gone. Not ever. He would always be there, a threat hanging over them.

And what would happen should—no,
when
—Childe finally refused to pay?

She stared at Cod. He
had
committed crimes here. The reports that had led Lydia to Emily had stated as much. So she could have Cod arrested. . . . His lips were twisted in cruel amusement. No. She couldn’t because he would not hesitate to make good his promise to send Emily to Bedlam if she did.

They were not safe from him. It had all been for nothing. She’d married Childe for nothing. Ned . . .

Darkness crowded the edge of her vision and her head swam with the implications. She had given up Ned just to put herself in this vile creature’s clutches. Rage such as she had never felt rushed through her, making her limbs shake and filling her vision with a dark mist. She wasn’t going to let this happen. She wasn’t going to lose Ned only to be subject to this vermin’s blackmail.

“Not going to wish me
au revoir
, then?” he asked and chuckled.

“Rot in hell,” she spat in a voice vibrating with anger.

His smirk turned to a nasty snarl. “Well, then, I guess I’ll just settle for a kiss good-bye. And you won’t protest, now, will you? No, you wouldn’t dare.”

She backed away from him, reviled. He stalked forward, matching each of her retreating steps until her back banged into the stone wall behind her. He thrust his face up close to hers and using the check to lift her chin, leaned in close. She glared at him. His breath stank of cheap liquor.

“Just consider it an advance on future proceeds.”

Without warning, she snatched the check from his hand and ripped it in half, crumpling the pieces and hurling them into the Thames before he even realized what she’d done. His mouth gaped as he watched the pieces swirl and dance away on the murky water. A sense of elation filled her. At least she was free of one mistake!

He stared after the ripped check, a string of vile, spittle-punctuated epitaphs issuing from his mouth. Then he turned toward her, a vein bulging in his neck.

She would not show this creature any fear. “What’s wrong, Mr. Cod?” she sneered. “Don’t you know how to swim?”

“You bloody bitch!” His hand swung up as quick as a striking snake and his backhanded blow knocked her to the ground, hard against the bottom of the stairs leading up to the street. Lights splinting and rocketing across her vision, pain exploding in her head. She looked up, dazed, and saw him towering over her, his mouth a red gash. He gave a snort and stepped toward her again, but something caught his eye and she saw him lift his head, looking behind her. Whatever he saw caused the color to bleed from his ruddy face.

She slumped against the stone step, biting back against a wave of nausea and looked around. A tall, broad-shouldered figure was coming down the embankment, his open coat billowing behind him, his shirt half-unbuttoned over his bare chest. His gold head was bare and his face set in dark, savage lines. The wind ruffled his hair and flickered his collar, and now he was close enough she could see his eyes gleaming like liquid silver, both hot and cold.

Ned.

This is who the men who’d fought against him saw
, she thought muzzily.
This is who led men into battle. This terrible avenging beauty.

He made her side, scooping her up in his arms and setting her on her feet. “For the love of God, tell me you are all right,” he said thickly.

She nodded, bracing herself against the oozing stone wall. His shivering hand raced over her head, shoulders, and arms. And then he turned his head.

Lydia did not see what Cod did. She saw only his reaction. He stumbled back a step, then another, then turned to run. Too late.

Ned surged forward like some infernal machine, his long legs eating up the distance between them in seconds, his boot heels striking the pavement like a hammer on an anvil. He did not stop, he simply raised his arm and seized Cod by the neck and with a savage roar, half lifted him, propelling him back and slamming him into the wall.

Cod hung from Ned’s one hand while Ned pummeled his face with his other. Blood exploded from Cod’s nose. He seized the wrist of the hand pinning him to the wall, digging his nails and twisting, striking out with his boots to kick savagely at Ned’s legs.

If Ned felt any of it, there was no sign. He just kept backhanding Cod’s face, punishing him, battering him, his teeth bared in a feral half snarl as the fight slowly drained from Cod and the clawing hands grew weak.

“Help! Help!” Cod choked out, and when no help came sobbed, “For the love of God, he’s killing me!”

Only then did Lydia realize Cod was speaking the truth:
Ned was killing him.
The very reason she hadn’t gone to Ned in the first place was coming nightmarishly true before her eyes. She would not lose him now to the murder of this vermin!

Lydia pitched herself at the men, grabbing at the steely arm still holding Cod upright and pulling. “No, Ned! No! You mustn’t!” she pleaded. “Please, Ned! Stop!”

She pushed her way under his arm and pressed between him and Cod. She flung her arms around his neck and cried against his chest, “Stop, Ned! He’s not worth it. Stop!”

She felt him draw a ragged breath. A shudder rippled through his big body and then Cod was free, gasping and choking as he scrambled up the Tower Stairs.

Ned pushed her away from him, starting after Cod just as a shout came from the top of the stairs. Lydia turned to look up toward the street.

Emily stood at the top, her eyes stark in her bloodless face. Cod had grabbed hold of her and as Lydia watched, Emily’s mouth opened in a soundless scream and she shoved the burly man back with all the power of her hate and fear.

For a second, Cod teetered on the top step and then his arms were flailing wildly as he sought to regain his balance. Blindly, he reached out but only managed to grab a fistful of Emily’s thin jacket. All Emily would need to do to save him was to seize his wrist and jerk him forward to safety.

Time held suspended. Emily stared at his white-knuckled fist, clutching the lapel with its sad nosegay of flowers. Then, with a movement Lydia would never be able to say for a certainty was a conscious act or one of instinctive revulsion, Emily recoiled. With a roar of fury, Cod pitched backward.

Lydia gasped at the sound of his head striking the stone and Ned snatched her away from the bottom of the steps as Bernard Cod tumbled down. Lydia had a brief glimpse of his head twisted at a grotesque angle, eyes bulging, a single red flower still clutched in one hand. Then Ned was pulling her away, turning her from the horrible sight.

He looked down at her. “You have to leave. Now.”

“I won’t—”

“You will!” he ground out. “You will let me protect you from scandal and the only way I can do that is if you leave now.” He pushed her away. “
Go
!”

He was right. With a sob, she stumbled up the Tower Stairs. Emily stood waiting for her. Her face was pale, her expression dazed but also subtly relieved, like that of a woman waking from a nightmare. Which she had. Whether her flinching back had been purposeful or not, whether even Emily could answer that question and whatever the answer might be, Lydia had nothing but sympathy for her friend. Fate could not have provided a more fitting or just end for Cod.

Emily searched her face, her eyes fearful and worried. She needn’t be. Lydia didn’t say a word, only put her arm around Emily’s shoulders and led her away

In a semiprivate room of Boodle’s club, Ned had commanded the drapes be drawn against the bright sun whose rare appearance this summer he could only view as some form of celestial mockery. He sat sunken into a deep chair, his hands curled around the end of the arms, his chin on his chest. At a table beside him sat a decanter three-quarters filled with brandy. The level had not appreciably changed in the week since he had taken up residence here.

He regretted that. He would certainly have been drunk had he found solace there. He didn’t. No amount of spirits could obliterate the blithe phantom that danced and laughed and yearned in his mind’s eye. Instead, he was forced to live through each interminable minute and see clearly the long empty progress of those that awaited him.

Lydia was married.

One would think he would have grown used to the idea by now. He hadn’t. The realization lived in him like a cancer, eroding his ability to concentrate, to act. In one short day, she had been taken from him as effectively as if she had dropped to the bottom of the ocean. Only this was worse. Because gone though she was, she was not absent. If he stayed in London, he was certain to read about her and . . . Smyth.
See her
.

God help him, he could not.

So, for the first time in his life, Ned Lockton played craven and hid from what he could not bear. He knew himself to be a strong man. A durable man. He’d sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and chased down pirates. And he had done so with cool presence of mind and resolve that had netted him the nickname “Oak-hearted Ned.” But Lydia Eastlake had brought him to his knees.

He steepled his fingertips under his chin, staring broodingly at a small pile of unopened letters. They were from her and he could neither bring himself to read them nor fling them into the fire. So they stayed taunting and tempting and tormenting him.

Did she explain herself? He didn’t want to hear the explanations because nothing she said could make him forgive what she’d done.

Did she apologize? Worse.

Or did she grieve over her choice?

Worst of all.

Because if one word she penned betrayed a single note of suffering he would tear down Smyth’s door to get to her and nothing would be able to stop him: not honor or morality, no principle or prince, no law of man or church.

So they piled up by his hand, day after day. A footman most often brought them, laying them quietly on the table, never commenting on their unread state. He allowed no one else in his lair, shutting the door against all and any company.

He would leave soon. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the next day. He’d written the company that had previously offered him the captaincy of one of their long-ranging ships and accepted. There was nothing left in England for him but pain.

A commotion broke out somewhere in the club’s front rooms. Someone’s horse won a race or some politician’s latest bribe was revealed, he thought without interest. He poured a single finger of brandy and set it down untouched, tilting his head. The shouts outside did not have a celebratory quality. They sounded outraged, dumbfounded, incensed.

He sat forward, preparing to go out and meet whatever threatened his sanctuary, however temporary. A thief or some jug-bitten would-be Gentleman Jackson, eager to prove himself.

“The sooner you would simply tell me where he is, the sooner I will be gone!” he heard a woman declare in autocratic tones.

A woman?
The
woman.

Her.