The Wild One (22 page)

The alleys were already dark, already
dangerous, and it was up the narrow passageway between Mrs.
Bottomley's and a neighboring pawn shop that a shadowy figure
moved, as silent and sinister as a phantom.

He reached into his pocket, his eyes
gleaming as he fingered the money with which he'd bribe Mario. If
the money didn't work, the sword at his thigh would. Mario did not
frighten him. London after dark did not frighten him. Nothing
frightened him as much as the man who had paid him to follow Lord
Gareth, and he had no wish to rouse that devil's ire.

He gave the door three sharp raps with his
knuckles. He flashed the money, asked his questions, and got the
answers he sought.

Yes, they were here. All three of them.

Satisfied, the figure melted back out into
the darkness, the oil lamp in its decorative iron bracket above the
brothel's front door trying, unsuccessfully, to find his face and
form. He stood for a moment, the cobbles hard beneath his fine
shoes, well pleased with himself. And then he tilted his head back
to regard the high, second floor window, where a slit of light
showed between heavy drapes.

Lord Gareth and his little family would not
be going anywhere tonight.

A thin smile stole across his face, and he
turned and melted back into the shadows from which he had come.

Chapter 17

Juliet, standing at the washstand and
scrubbing the dust from her face, was so tired that she wanted to
collapse. As she picked up a towel and patted her cheeks dry, she
silently watched her husband, removing his sword and placing it
atop the mantle. Behind him, the rich crimson velvet with which the
walls were hung made a perfect backdrop for his natural,
aristocratic elegance.

He was not himself. His shoulders were set,
his expression as severe as she'd ever seen the duke's. He was not
only unhappy, he was downright furious — though for the life of
her, she couldn't figure out why. Obviously, his being an
aristocrat meant he did not understand, had never needed to
understand, did not want to understand, the meaning of frugality.
Perhaps he resented having it forced upon him. Perhaps he resented
the fact that if he hadn't had her and Charlotte to look after, he
would still have the rich lifestyle to which he was accustomed. Or
perhaps he really
did
resent the fact that she'd been the
one to take charge and accept the abbess's offer, after all.

But she'd had no choice but to take charge.
Earlier, while standing outside the church, Juliet had realized
with a sinking sense of resignation that responsibility for not
only herself and Charlotte but also her aristocratic husband was
going to fall on
her
shoulders. Now, however, that
realization was teamed with fatigue and, in conjunction with the
way her husband was acting, making her feel annoyed. Burdened.
Angry.

The warnings had all been there, and she had
ignored them. There were his family's cryptic comments, for a
start. From Andrew —
Gareth may be a rake, a wastrel, and a
scourer ... The villagers call him 'the Wild One'
— and from
the duke —
Indeed, whoever would have thought Gareth would go
and make anything of himself.
An impulsive marriage
proposition, an attitude toward money she found both frightening
and immature, and, of course, this morning's spending spree at the
vicar's, when he'd thrown away so much her head had spun. Juliet
put her fingertips to her suddenly throbbing brow. It was obvious
that
she'd
have to be the one to control the money — and
where it was spent.
She
was going to have to be the one to
make major decisions, locate a place for them to live, and, in all
likelihood, find work so that they could survive. She could not see
Lord Gareth de Montforte, with his elegant hands and even more
elegant blood, lowering himself to something so base as
work
. Charming and pampered he might be, but he was as naive
and directionless as a five-year-old.

Stupid woman,
she rebuked herself.
She had allowed her desperate situation, his handsome face — and
the fact that he was Charles's brother — to annihilate her good
sense. Had she been thinking correctly, she would never have
married a man who proposed marriage from a tree branch. Had she
been thinking correctly, she wouldn't have let his charm override
her judgment. It was her own damned fault.

Disgusted with herself, she yanked the pins
from Charlotte's napkin and tossed them into a nearby bowl.
You
have no one to blame for this but yourself. He cannot help the way
he's made, the fact he's nothing like Charles. You married him, and
now you'll just have to make the best of things.

Make the best of things.

She had weathered many storms in her life;
she would weather this one, too. If she had to go out and work as a
seamstress in one of those squalid places in Spitalfields, then so
be it. If she had to be a wet nurse for some rich woman's babe,
then so be that, too. She had a good brain and two capable hands,
and she would do what she had to do for their survival.

She picked up Charlotte, who was fussing and
kicking, and set her down on the bed. Out of the corner of her eye
she saw Gareth hefting her trunk onto a chair. He popped the lid
and rummaged about, pulling out a square of clean linen. Then he
looked up and met her gaze.

He smiled, tentatively, trying to ease the
tension between them.

Juliet ignored him and returned her
attention to Charlotte. She removed the infant's wet, dirty napkin
and tossed it into the chamberpot for washing later. Though soiled,
the baby was still forgiving, managing to bestow a smile as sweet
as heaven's sunshine upon her mother. Juliet felt a sudden stab of
guilt. Of shame. Not only had she betrayed Charles by marrying this
less-than-capable brother of his, but her poor little baby, as
well.
Her poor little baby who should've been changed hours
ago.

Angry tears stung her eyes. Tension built
and boiled inside her. Her cheeks grew hot with suppressed anger,
her movements became jerky and abrupt. She shoved an errant strand
of hair out of her face, stormed to the washstand —

And collided with her husband.

He had been coming toward her with a piece
of wet linen and a bowl half-filled with water. As he and Juliet
bounced off each other, some of the water spilled onto the carpet,
the rest down the front of his waistcoat. Ignoring it, Gareth held
out the damp rag like a truce offering. "Here."

"What's that for?"

"She needs washing, doesn't she?"

"What do you know about babies?"

"Come now, Juliet. I am not entirely lacking
in common sense."

"I wonder," she muttered, spitefully.

He summoned a polite though confused smile —
and that only stoked Juliet's temper all the more. She did not want
him to be such a gentleman, damn it! She wanted a good, out-and-out
row with him. She wanted to tell him just what she thought of him,
of his reckless spending, of his carefree attitude toward serious
matters. Oh, why hadn't she married someone like Charles — someone
capable, competent, and mature?

"What is wrong, Juliet?"

"Everything!" she fumed. She plunged the
linen in the bowl of water and began swabbing Charlotte's bottom.
"I think Perry was right. We should go straight back to your
brother, the duke."

"You should not listen to Perry."

"Why not? He's got more sense than you and
the rest of your friends combined. We haven't even been married a
day, and already it's obvious that you're hopelessly out of your
element. You have no idea what to do with a wife and daughter. You
have no idea where to go, how to support us — nothing. Yet you had
to come charging after us, the noble rescuer who just
had
to
save the day. I'll bet you didn't give any thought at all to what
to do with us afterward, did you? Oh! Do you always act before
thinking?
Do you
?"

He looked at her for a moment, brows raised,
stunned by the force of her attack. Then he said dryly, "My dear,
if you'll recall, that particular character defect saved your life.
Not to mention the lives of the other people on that
stagecoach."

"So it did, but it's not going to feed us or
find us a place to live!" She lifted Charlotte's bottom, pinned a
clean napkin around the baby's hips, and soaped and rinsed her
hands. "I still cannot believe how much money you tossed away on a
marriage license, no, a
bribe
, this morning, nor how annoyed
you still seem to be that we didn't waste God-knows-how-much on a
hotel tonight. You seem to have no concept of money's value, and at
the rate you're going, we're going to have to throw ourselves on
the mercy of the local parish or go begging in the street just to
put food in our bellies!"

"Don't be ridiculous. That would never
happen."

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Juliet, my brother is the Duke of
Blackheath. My family is one of the oldest and richest in all of
England. We are not going to starve, I can assure you."

"What do you plan to do, then,
work
for a living? Get those pampered, lily-white hands of yours dirty
and calloused?"

"Juliet, please. You try my temper."

"Well, what use is a rich and powerful
brother if you won't go to him for help? This is not a game! This
is a serious matter! I'm a young mother with a baby to consider,
and I must know how you plan to support us!"

"I don't
know
yet. But I shall think
of something." He turned away. "Have a little faith in me, for
heaven's sake."

"I'm
trying
to, but ... it's just
that ... oh, this has turned out to be the worst day of my entire
life, and I don't see it getting any better." Tears gathered in her
eyes and she shoved the heel of her hand against her temple, her
bottom lip quivering.

He was there, immediately. "Ah, Juliet
..."

"Leave me alone."

"I cannot stand to see you suffering
so."

"Then go away. Please."

He shrugged out of his frock, tossed it over
the chair back, and tried to gather her close. "Is it so bad?"

"Yes."

"Worse than the day you left Boston to come
here?"

She waved him off, turning away to hide her
sudden, angry tears.

"Worse than the day you got held up by the
highwaymen?"

She took a steadying breath and bit savagely
down into her tremulous bottom lip.

"Worse," he murmured, gently, "than the day
Charles died?"

She choked back a sob and pushed her fist
against her mouth, trying to shove the tears back, to keep the
great, gulping sobs at bay. "Nothing could be worse than when
Charles died," she whispered, meeting his sympathetic blue gaze.
She turned her back on him and walked a little distance away.
"
Nothing.
"

He came silently up behind her, too near,
too close, and she felt the tender brush of his hand against her
cheek as he caught the stray tendril of hair and tucked it back
behind her ear. "Then I guess this isn't quite the worst day of
your life, is it?" he asked, softly.

Tremors rippled through her body. Her nose
burned and her throat ached and she balled her fists at her sides,
but she would not cry in front of him. And she would not lean back
against that strong, solid chest and let him shoulder her burden of
pain, fear, and worry. At the thought, a bitter laugh nearly
escaped her lips. He, who was incapable of figuring out where to
bring them, what to do with them, how to support them! She jerked
away, putting a safe distance between them once again and, sweeping
up the baby, pressed her close to her chest. "You've made your
point, Gareth," she said sharply. "Now, please leave me alone."

He looked suddenly weary. "And you, madam,
have made yours. In future, I shall be more careful about where I
spend our money."

His tone was one of polite and formal
stiffness. Her cheek resting against Charlotte's downy head, she
watched him move across the room to light another candle against
the gathering gloom. They stood there in silence, she holding the
baby, he staring at the candle. From downstairs came the distant
sound of laughter.

Finally, her shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry,
Gareth."

He shrugged, but didn't turn around. "Yes. I
am, too. You deserve better than this. Both of you do."

"I suppose we'll just have to make the best
of it."

He nodded, his gaze still on the candle as
its light danced and flickered across his face, the wall behind
him.

"I didn't mean to be cruel," she explained,
her words sounding lame even to her own ears. She came tentatively
up behind him, rested a hand on his arm. "It's just that I'm tired
and — well, scared. You, on the other hand, don't seem worried in
the least, and your total indifference about our predicament rather
got to me, that's all." She gave an apologetic little smile. "I
guess I just want you to be as worried about things as I am."

He turned then, taking her hand within his.
"Ah, Juliet. Of course I'm worried," he admitted. "But I'm not
going to dwell on it. I mean, how will it help us if I worry? It
won't find us a place to stay tomorrow, put food in our bellies, or
keep us free from want."

"No, I suppose it won't."

They were silent for a moment, heads bent,
bodies close, hearts reaching to comfort and console one another.
Her hand was still within his, and as his thumb tentatively stroked
her knuckles, warm shivers hurried through her.

Shivers she was determined to ignore.

His mouth curved in the beginning of a
sudden smile. "Know something, Juliet?"

"What?"

"I
was
terribly angry with you, but
now that I think about it, it's all rather funny."