To Seduce an Angel (32 page)

“Emma is no murderess.” The duchess turned to Dav. “You can't believe that of her.”

“I don't.”

She looked at her husband. “I've been to see the king, Wenlocke. He signed Emma's pardon.”

“That's unfortunate, Aunt. Emma is no longer of use to us.”

“Wenlocke.” The duchess looked at her husband. “I warned you not to harm Emma. Call Aubrey off.”

The duke and his duchess exchanged a long stare. Dav gripped the bronze piece in his pocket.

“Oh, you stubborn man.” She spun on Aubrey and dealt him a ringing slap to the face. At the duchess's sudden move, the dogs sprang up, tangling themselves between the two. Aubrey swung his pistol arm at the duchess, and she went down with a cry under the blow. The baffled dogs yelped and leapt over one another, knocking a table over. Aubrey backed away, cuffing the milling dogs with his pistol.

Dav lunged for duke's cane. Aubrey freed himself from the dogs' chaos first. Once more he aimed at Dav.

“Now listen, everyone, and listen carefully. Don't move, Aunt. No one leaves the library. We have an intruder to be dealt with.”

“Wenlocke,” the duchess cried. “Stop him.”

The duke leaned against the desk, looking down at his fallen duchess. His mouth had a twisted look and his left hand worked spasmodically open and closed. Aubrey watched him, waiting for a sign.

Dav held the cane along his left side, concealed from Aubrey. It felt light as a foil in his hand after months with the heavy sword.

The duke turned from his wife to his desk. As if suddenly unsure of his purpose, he picked up the paper with Dav's terms.

“The pistol, Uncle. The pistol! Shoot him!” Aubrey cried.

The duke dropped the paper and fumbled the pistol from his left to his right hand. The hand didn't seem to cooperate. But as he turned, he steadied the gun, his brow furrowed, his puzzled gaze on Aubrey.

“For God's sake, Uncle, shoot.”

Dav hurled the bronze piece. It knocked the duke's pistol aside. The gun went off.

The dogs howled.

The gun slid from the duke's grip. He tottered to one side and collapsed in his chair. A harsh tremor shook his body.

Dav had already shifted the cane to his right hand. He lunged for Aubrey, whipping the heavy crown of the cane down on Aubrey's wrist. He heard a snap and the pistol's discharge. Aubrey staggered back, the pistol slid from his lax grip while his other hand clutched for a hold and found only air. He collapsed on the floor, his smooth face contorted, his gaze fixed on the missing toe of his boot. Blood oozed from the blasted leather. The room filled with the acrid smell of blood, spent powder, and burned leather. Aubrey shouted curses.

Dav stepped over Aubrey and lifted the fallen duchess.

Shouting voices filled the corridor, and footsteps pounded nearer.

Aubrey clutched his boot below the knee. Dav stood over him and pressed the tip of the duke's cane to his throat.

“Where's Emma?”

Aubrey moaned. Dav pressed harder on the man's Adam's apple until he choked. Dav released the pressure.

Aubrey swallowed. “Your little murderess is in Horsham Jail.”

The duchess gasped.

“The local magistrates have orders to see that she gets swift justice. She'll hang by nine tomorrow.”

A murderous tide of bile and hatred rose in Dav. It burned his throat like molten coal in one of Xan's gasworks furnaces. He swung the gold head of the cane up for a blow that would smash Aubrey's head, but Aubrey's face had the look of satisfied malice he remembered seeing on March's face. Killing March had been necessary to save others; killing Aubrey would not save Emma. Emma was all that mattered. If he saved Emma, he beat Aubrey.

He turned and hurled the black cane down the long room. It smashed against the tall windows, shattering glass.

The duchess touched Dav's sleeve. “Come. It's forty miles of good road. We'll reach her.”

Vickers stood in the doorway with two footmen. The duchess spoke first. “Vickers, His Grace needs a physician.” She nodded to a footman and sent him running with an order for her carriage.

The voices in the corridor came nearer, and Dav recognized his brothers' voices among them. The next instant Xan and Will shouldered their way through the gawking servants.

 

 

WILL took in the carnage at a glance, the Earl of Aubrey moaning on the floor, clutching one bloodied boot, and the Duke of Wenlocke frozen in a chair halfway down the long room. Pistol smoke and blood filled his nostrils. A pistol lay on the carpet beside Aubrey, and another lay to the right of the duke in a pile of glittering shards from one of the great windows.
Damn it, but Dav was a bleeding dangerous fellow.
There was a cool detachment in him that neither Will nor Xan could match.

Will had no sooner registered these details than Dav headed for the door. Will caught his arm but his brother's sharp glance made him let go at once.

“Aubrey's put Emma in jail.”

“You're unhurt?”

Dav nodded. “Emma.”

Xan immediately protested. “You can't leave us behind again.”

Will put his hand on Xan's shoulder and spoke to Dav. “Go. We'll handle the damage here and follow when we can.”

And Dav was gone. Will could only wish him speed and luck. He exchanged a look with Xan. They both knew what it was to have the woman you loved in danger from Wenlocke's hirelings. He turned back to the magnificent library and the huddled duke.

The man seemed to have been seized in some way. He sat frozen in his chair. Will put a careful hand on his shoulder. The duke's eyes turned to him, a puzzled frown on his brow. He opened his mouth. Will could see the throat working, but no words emerged, just a strangled moan.

Vickers, the butler, came up beside Will. He gently took the old man's hand. “Your Grace?”

Again the duke's throat worked. His mouth opened and closed. No sound emerged. Will smiled grimly at the justice of it. Vickers turned an agonized face to him. “His Grace can't speak.”

LORD Philoughby gazed at the crowd. He straightened his black robes and long judicial wig. The effects of his uneasy night still troubled him. When he'd retired for the evening after studying the documents in the fair prisoner's case, he had attributed his unease to a bad bit of beef at supper. He had spoken to the landlord and given directions about the future of meat during his stays at the Queen's Head. In spite of the landlord's profuse apologies and a stomach-soothing tea, Philoughby's unease had persisted through the night.

The constable entered the court, leading the prisoner, while the onlookers strained to get a look at her in a way that troubled Philoughby. She did not look up. Her manacled hands hung down as if she had no power to raise them.

If ever a prisoner needed someone on her side, it was this sad girl who wished to sell her gowns to bury her corpse. It was rather the common practice for anatomists to take possession of the bodies of the hanged. Philoughby's queasy stomach rebelled at the thought as the constable read the writ.

The reading of the evidence in court seemed to incite the crowd to more bloodthirsty curiosity but made the case no less troubling. The court turned immediately to the evidence Lord Aubrey had provided. The dead man was reported to be a recruiting sergeant for the Ninetieth Regiment of Infantry, but another place in the documents listed the dead man as unnamed. Philoughby slowed the proceedings repeatedly to Crutchfield's annoyance, to make sure the jurors noted contradictory passages. In Philoughby's experience no regiment sent an unnamed man to recruit. There were other anomalies as well concerning where the man was likely killed and where his body was discovered. In one place the testimony described the sergeant as a man of great bulk and in another place, the undertaker observed that the dead man's uniform was too large for him. Again Philoughby asked a question to call attention to the discrepancy.

But Crutchfield had admitted a noisy crowd to the hall. The spectators' benches were jammed, and onlookers continued to squeeze into the standing room at the rear of the hall under the gallery, their noise unseemly for a courtroom.

Philoughby banged his gavel. He was a tough judge disinclined to leniency, but he found the bloodthirstiness of a mob distasteful. He had been quite a young man when France had convulsed in the violence of the guillotine and the drownings at Nantes. Reports of those events had made a strong impression, and he had favored English restraint over continental excess ever since.

Restraint seemed particularly necessary in this case where the accused was a stranger. The townspeople of Horsham had a reputation for enjoying a hanging or two. And Philoughby knew how keenly the sympathies of the spectators could be felt in the courtroom. Crutchfield had made very sure that Philoughby's black cap was on the table next to his gavel.

They were an hour into the proceedings when it became clear to him that the girl could not have done the murder. She could not have overpowered a large man in a public room or moved him from a private one without aid. He settled his wig more firmly on his head. He was ready to demolish the case.

The doors at the rear of the hall burst open, and a disturbance rippled through the crowd, displacing people and raising a buzz of noise.

Philoughby banged his gavel sharply, but the commotion grew as it came closer. A tall young man with a blackened eye and an open shirt emerged from the crowd. In his upraised fist he clutched a paper. People gave way before him as he strode to the bench.

Philoughby blinked. His gavel stopped mid-swing. Almost he expected to see a fiery sword, not a battered face and sealed document. Cool gray eyes met his. The man's authority was palpable. The crowd grew quiet.

The stranger slapped the paper on the table. “The king's pardon for Emma Portland.” He did not look at the prisoner.

Whispering erupted into a loud babble.

“Wait a minute now.” Crutchfield drew himself up. “Who might you be to interrupt these proceedings?”

“Daventry. The Marquess of Daventry.” The young man did not so much as flick a glance in Crutchfield's direction.

The babble died. The crowd seemed to hold its breath now, straining to see the young man. Philoughby felt the weight lift from his shoulders. He took the offered document, broke the seal, and read. A full pardon with the king's own signature and seal, a hard thing to come by.

Philoughby looked up and raised his gavel high. He let it fall one last time with a resounding bang. “This court is dismissed.”

The stunned spectators did not move at once. But Philoughby signaled to the constables to move the crowd along, and a grumbling exodus began.

The young man with the gray eyes turned to the dock. “May I release the prisoner?”

“You may.” Philoughby removed his wig, noting an immediate relief to the churning of his unsettled stomach.

Emma stood in the dock watching him. Dav thought the blue in her eyes was like the first hint of dawn, a promise of the day to come. “They didn't kill you.”

He climbed over the rail into the dock with her and lifted her ironbound wrists to kiss her hands. “Forgive me.” He dropped to his knees.

The iron at her wrists clinked as she lifted her hands to his bowed head. He felt her fingers uncurl to touch his hair. “I thought they would kill you because of me.”

“Never because of you.”

“I tried to let you go, but I couldn't keep away. Wallop knew you would go to that fight, and I thought . . .” He felt the shudder run through her.

“If you had not come, if you had not cried out, I would never have known the truth.”
I would have lived without knowing you loved me. It would have been no life at all.

The constable fumbled the key, but at last the manacles opened.

The crowd outside the town hall let them pass through and kept a distance from the duchess's coach. Her liveried footmen and outriders had a stern magnificence that silenced onlookers.

Dav laughed as they stepped into the light, and scooped Emma up off her feet and carried her into the morning sun. It made them both blink. One of the duchess's servants opened the carriage door at once, and Her Grace stepped down.

Dav put Emma on her feet, and the duchess dipped into a deep curtsy. “Your Highness.”

In the duchess's gesture and Emma's response Dav realized another truth about Emma Portland. He had known it and denied it from the first moment of noting her regal posture in the shabby gown in the bare schoolroom. The king's pardon was the courtesy of one royal person to another. He had assumed she was a penniless waif, his for the taking. He'd been wrong.