A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (38 page)

"Anguish—relieve our friend Jules of his burden, if you please," Spencer said, ignoring the Frenchman's delight. "Jules? You should have no problem with allowing a one-armed man close to you. Even a cowardly cur like yourself could overpower a one-armed man."

"Oh, here now, sir, it's not as if I'm entirely helpless," Aloysius complained. "And it's Aloysius, if you'll please remember."

"You'll leave your man behind, Jules?" Spencer asked, gesturing toward the deceased Renard. "His father might not be happy with you."

Jules glanced down at Renard's body. "You're right, damn it all. Raoul, Pierre—take hold of his legs and drag the stupid bastard, if you will." He then staggered slightly under Mariah's weight, for he'd been holding her up against him for some time now. "Here, take her," he commanded now that his men, four in all, had joined him. He aimed his pistol at Spencer's head. "Now, if you've no other requests, little sprout, I think we'll be leaving."

Mariah moaned softly as Aloysius caught her clumsily, the two of them falling to the ground, and Spencer had the satisfaction of knowing she was not dead, thank God. Now to make Clovis understand what he needed everyone to do.

"Everyone, remain where you are, stay with Mariah. Obey me, Clovis, Anguish, just as you know I always obeyed General Proctor," he told his men and then allowed two of Jules's men to each take hold of one of his arms as they retreated from the scene.

Aloysius scratched at the side of his head. "Now, when did the lieutenant ever obey the—Clovis?"

But Clovis had understood Spencer's words, just as he had realized what his lieutenant had been about, worrying over one dead froggie. And Clovis could add: two men dragging the dead frog by his heels, two men holding on to the lieutenant, which left only the pig who'd been using Miss Mariah as a shield free to use the pistol in his hand.

Not a single movement without a surety of success.
That's what the lieutenant had said. Well, it wasn't a surety, but the odds weren't too terrible.

"Forward!" Clovis yelled as he sprang to his feet with all the agility of a man who'd never see fifty again, and Aloysius and the men from Becket Hall picked up his shout, repeating it as they charged, weaponless, at the small knot of Frenchmen.

The two men dragging Renard's body let go of his legs and fired their weapons directly at the men running full tilt at them.

Spencer rammed his elbows out at either side, catching one of the men holding him in the ribs hard enough to have him let go his grip on Spencer's arm long enough for him to plow the fist at the end of that freed arm into the face of his other captor, neatly breaking the man's nose. He was getting very good at breaking noses....

Jules was already running, leaving his men to their fate, and Spencer took off after him. He couldn't let the bastard get away, return to Edmund Beales, tell him that Geoffrey Baskin and his men still lived. But Spencer didn't want the man dead, either, for he had to know where Beales was, know all of the man's plans.

Jules, for all his age and bulk, braced his hands on the railing at the end of the bridge and vaulted over it onto the bridge itself, then ran toward the Chinese pagoda.

Good.

Trapped animals always climb. That's their fatal flaw.
Spencer heard Ainsley's voice, one of the many lessons he had taught his children, and he followed Jules slowly, giving the man time to well and truly tree himself high in the pagoda. He spared a moment, a very quick moment, to look down from the bridge to see how his men were faring.

Clovis was in a fistfight with one of the men while Anguish, bless him, sat astride another. Young Johnny Keeler was down, holding on to his left shoulder. The other men from Becket Hall were having some difficulty subduing the other two, but they seemed to be getting the upper hand, and the rest of the Becket Hall men would be on the scene soon, leaving Spencer free to take on Jules by himself.. .which was just the way he wanted it.

What he didn't want was to have the last thing he saw in this world be Mariah, lying motionless as she was now on the night-wet grass....

The pagoda was a fairly flimsy construction, as hastily erected as the rest of the structures ordered by the Prince Regent, all flash and bright paint on, the outside, its interior all but hollow, a set of twisting, turning stairs taking up the center and rising the full seven stories, planking around the inside of the walls serving as a way for servants to light the gas lights shining in each of the multitude of windows.

"Nowhere to go, Jules!" Spencer called out, holding on to the first section of banister as he peered upward, blinking against the fairly intense light reflected off the whitewashed walls inside the pagoda. "You say Beales will have questions for me? Think of the answers Geoffrey will want from you—and the way Jacko will make sure you answer them, one way or another. Poor bastard, you might be happier dead."

"You think so?" Jules called down to him, and Spencer strained to catch sight of the man's feet, something, high above him. "I stand at this window, sprout, my pistol aimed at the ground. No, not the ground, sprout. At the woman lying on the ground. Would I miss from this distance? Anything is possible, sprout. But do you want to take that chance?"

Spencer cursed under his breath, then yelled, "You always hide behind women, Jules?" He sat down on the bottom step and pulled off his boots, not without considerable effort, and carefully laid them aside. "You should wear skirts, Jules, if you long to hide with women. But that ugly face would give you away, wouldn't it? And that smell you carry with you."

"You smell your own death, sprout," Jules called down to him as Spencer carefully made his way up to the next level of the pagoda, still straining to locate the Frenchman by the sound of his voice.

The staircase twisted again, winding its way upward, Spencer reaching each new level and then pressing his back against the wood, trying to peer first left, then right, toward the planking that ringed the inside of each floor. He wouldn't speak anymore, hot willing to give away his own location, and only wished that he couldn't hear himself breathe; he wondered if Jules could hear him breathing, as well.

"Coming, sir! You get him yet?"

"Anguish, no!" Spencer called out, willing Aloysius back down the steps he was climbing in his enthusiasm to be in on the final capture.

"It's all right, sir. Missus Mariah, she's sittin' up now, askin' for you, and I figured I'd fetch you. Still good for somethin', with my one good arm. Got a brace of pistols with me, too, iffen you were to need them. Step out, sir, where are—"

The soldier's question was cut off by the sound of a pistol shot and Spencer was on the move again, climbing, praying Jules didn't have another pistol, but not much caring if he did.

He'd reached yet another landing when Jules' empty pistol sailed past his head, followed quickly by the man himself, and together, Spencer and Jules tumbled down to the lower landing.

Spencer regained his feet first, his hands balle^i into fists as he waited for Jules to rise just far enough so that he could knock him down again. But Jules didn't try to stand. He flew forward from a low crouch, tackling Spencer below the knees, so that once more the two of them were locked together, rolling along the planking that was all that separated them from a four story fall to the base of the staircase.

Jules did not fight like a gentleman, but Spencer had been taught at the gentle hand of Jacko, who had shown him tricks that could make a grown man blush—if he wasn't fighting for his life.

When Jules got his hands around Spencer's neck, grinning at him as he head-butted him, then squeezed his fingers tight, Spencer answered by reaching between the Frenchman's legs and grabbing the man's testicles, giving them a violent twist.

Jules called out in agony and let go his grip on Spencer's neck, staggering back toward one of the windows, knocking into a precariously balanced gas lamp, smashing the glass around it, catching the sleeve of his coat on fire.

He stripped off" the loose coat and flung it away from him, then gave a guttural growl and ran at Spencer once more, even as Spencer still struggled to regain the breath Jules had nearly choked out of him.

The fight continued; Jules bit deep into the back of Spencer's hand even as Spencer, knowing he was in the fight of his life against a man who obeyed no rules, ground one of his fingers into the Frenchman's ear.

They rolled together, nearly falling from the planking, Spencer having the upper hand one moment, Jules the next.

Spencer was well aware of the knife tucked up his sleeve, but he needed Jules alive. A dead man couldn' t tell him where Edmund Beales was hiding. At the same time, he knew he couldn't allow Jules to best him, kill him. He had too much to live for—
his wife, his son, their future.

There was an explosion behind them, the force of it rolled them over yet again, followed by the fierce heat of the flames now licking at the wooden structure. Within seconds the staircase was on fire, the only escape from the pagoda.

"You can't kill me, not if you want me to tell you where Edmund is, remember? You want to cook, little sprout?" Jules asked, grinning down in Spencer's face as he freed one arm enough to clamp a hand around Spencer's neck yet again. "Let me kill you first, so the burning will not hurt. And you think I have no kindness in me?"

Spencer, fighting the panic that had robbed him of some of his strength, brought up his knee, but Jules had been a street fighter too long to have the same trick work twice. He had more than twenty years on Spencer, but those were twenty years of experience, and he had a lack of fear born of a life led without scruples, without conscience.

Spencer had made a nearly fatal mistake. He'd been thinking of Mariah, of William. Ainsley seemed to speak to him again.
I expect you home here in one piece. To be too careful is to invite disaster.

"Not today, Jules," Spencer said, his voice hoarse and whispery as Jules pressed down on his windpipe. "I'm not the one who dies today. You can take your damn secrets with you to hell." Spencer squeezed the muscles of his arm against his side once, twice, a quick third time; the knife slid into his palm. A push on the button and the blade shot free, even as Spencer felt himself losing consciousness between the pressure cutting off his air and the smoke and heat of the fire. With one last surge of strength, he sank the blade into the side of the Frenchman's neck, to the hilt.

Jules's eyes widened in shock even as his tight grip on Spencer's neck relaxed and a moment later Spencer's face was covered with the blood gurgling hot and fast from the Frenchman's mouth.

Spencer pushed himself free of the body, rolling over the planking to the stairwell that was now almost entirely wrapped in flames. He grabbed on to the bottom of the railing, swinging himself free of the planking, hanging suspended four stories above the ground. He kicked out, trying to find purchase on one of the lower stairs.

Once.

Twice.

The third time he felt the wood of one of the treads beneath his stockinged feet and he began moving his hands, first one, then the other, lower on the twisting banister.

The fire chased him down, intensifying as more of the gas lamps exploded, the hiss of gas warning him to hurry,
hurry.

When he reached the landing on the second level, he was able to swing up and onto the stairs and was only one floor from safety when a loud pop was followed by a rush of hot air that hit him squarely in the back, throwing him off the stairs and down onto the hard floor ten feet below.

Or it would have, if Clovis hadn't been standing there. As it was, Spencer landed half on his loyal friend and their worst injury was that the wind was knocked out of them both, so that they were helpless to do more than allow themselves to be dragged out of the pagoda as Mariah called out orders.

Spencer half staggered to his feet, supported by one of the men from Becket Hall, and they all fought their way off the bridge, dodging flaming bits of the Chinese pagoda that was rapidly breaking apart. By the time they were clear, standing in the trees, the pagoda was collapsing on itself, slowly, almost gracefully, to the cheers and whistles of the throng in St. James's Park, all of whom seemed to think the fire was simply another part of the Grand Jubilee.

"Ang—Anguish," Spencer managed before bending nearly in half to cough up the smoke he had swallowed.

"Gone, sir," Clovis said sadly. "He was gone when I found him." He looted toward the hungry flames. "He's still in there. We can't help him now, sir."

"Sweet Jesus," Spencer said as Mariah stood close beside him, rubbing at his back.

"Spencer, we have to get away from here," she said, hating that she had to be sensible. "Someone will come investigating soon, when they figure out this fire was not part of the celebrations. We have to go back to Upper Brook Street, and hope Chance is there soon, with good news."

"I know, I know," he told her, taking her hand in his. "How's your head? That bastard hit you fairly hard."

"Not really" she told him, trying to push thoughts of Aloysius away, at least for the moment. "I was stunned, I agree, but I think the entire time that Jules person was holding me I was awake, and trying to make myself as heavy as possible. I think he hurt me more when he threw me at... at Aloysius.
Oh, Spence..."