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Caroline Linden (30 page)

BOOK: Caroline Linden
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His father turned, one finger to his lips. Obediently silent, Stuart came up beside him, and listened for a moment. Charlotte’s voice, in clear, ringing English, and a man’s voice, soft and foreign.
The Italian
, he thought in a mixture of elation and alarm. They had found the kidnapper! And Charlotte was in that room with him. Terrance waved one hand, and Stuart leaned forward.
“There are two ladies,” whispered Terrance, his lips barely moving next to Stuart’s ear. “He is threatening them, I think. Your friend is speaking clearly, but I cannot make out what the man is saying.”
“He’s Italian,” Stuart breathed in reply. “How long have you been here?”
“I followed your friend from the house.”
Stuart made a note to wonder about that later. “Have you any idea how he’s armed?”
“I saw him arrive. A pistol.”
Stuart nodded. “We have to get him out of there. Once he’s away from the ladies—”
“Did you bring a pistol?” interrupted Terrance.
Stuart grimaced and shook his head. Terrance frowned, but not in irritation. “What will we do when he comes out?”
Stuart glanced down. Terrance carried his ebony cane, as usual, his long bony fingers wrapped around the lion’s head knob. “Does it have a sword tip?”
Terrance followed his gaze. “Yes.”
“I’ll make a disturbance. There’s a tall clock at the top of the stairs, I can shove it over the railing. Conceal yourself behind the door; when he comes into the hall and starts toward me, take him from behind with the sword. Mother said Charlotte brought a pistol as well. If she’s able, she’ll no doubt come out with it drawn.”
“He has a pistol!” Terrance whispered harshly. “What if he simply shoots you?”
“Take him from behind with the sword,” repeated Stuart grimly. “Do it. I’ll take care of myself. Just make sure he doesn’t get back into that room.”
Terrance stared at him for a moment, almost incredulously. Stuart realized he had just had a serious conversation with his father for the first time in years, and he jerked his head toward the door, unsettled.
Think about that later, too
, he told himself, moving quietly back down the hall to the carved clock. It had stopped, its weights hanging motionless, its warped back sloping against the wall. He managed to squeeze his hands behind it, and braced himself to pull it over. With any luck, it would crash over the railing and fall to the ground floor of the hall; in the worst case it would tip over and still make a tremendous noise. He tensed to pull, and looked up to give Terrance the signal ...
Only to watch in horror as Terrance pushed open the door of the room and stepped inside, his cane outstretched.
 
 
“Stop, you!” To Charlotte’s shock, Terrance Drake charged into the room, his gray hair standing up, his eyes wild. He brandished his cane at Dante, and a sword tip flashed in the sunlight. “How dare you assault these women?”
Dante stared in amazement for half a second, then raised his pistol and fired. The gunshot almost drowned out Susan’s scream, and she collapsed, dragging Charlotte down with her. Terrance cried out. His cane clattered to the floor as he pivoted on his good leg and crumpled into a heap. Down on one knee, tangled with a weeping Susan, Charlotte couldn’t see where he had been hit. Dante lowered his pistol and smirked at her. “Old fool,” he said.
“What the—?” Stuart appeared in the doorway, taking in the scene in a second. With a curse, he charged Dante even as Dante lifted the pistol to smash Stuart’s face. Charlotte surged forward, seizing the tea pot from the table and flinging it straight at the Italian. It hit him in the back of the shoulder, jarring the pistol from his hand, and fell to the floor with a burst of shattered porcelain just as Stuart clipped Dante in the waist, taking them both to the floor.
Susan screamed again, and Charlotte shoved her down behind the tea table, diving for her own pistol. The two men rolled over, and Charlotte saw the glitter of polished metal as Dante raised a knife above Stuart’s back. With one fluid motion, Charlotte cocked her pistol, sighted down the barrel, and fired.
The blast almost broke her wrist. Faintly, her ears ringing, she heard a man screaming. She dropped her pistol and turned to Susan, who was sprawled in the broken crockery, her hands over her ears. “Are you hurt?” Charlotte cried. Wide-eyed, Susan gave a tiny shake of her head. Charlotte was already scrambling over the remains of the tea dishes and the table toward Stuart and Dante, choking on the lingering smell of gunpowder.
Dante was lying in a fetal ball, sobbing. Blood dribbled from between his fingers where he clutched his lower arm. Excellent: she had hit him. A small, lethal dagger glinted on the other side of the room, several feet away. She ignored him and kept going.
Stuart was lying flat on his back, arms thrown wide and eyes closed. Charlotte stopped cold. “Stuart,” she gasped. “Stuart, no!” She hauled his head into her lap, leaning close to see if he still breathed, pulling frantically at his jacket and waistcoat to see if his heart still beat. Her hands were shaking too badly to tell. “No!” she wailed.
His eyes fluttered opened. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you have nerves of iron,” he said in a raspy voice.
“Oh!” Her voice caught on a sob, and she kissed him, hard. Although he still lay motionless across her lap, he returned her kiss, until Charlotte had to stop for another sob. “I thought I’d killed you!”
“No,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position and rubbing the back of his head. “Although you may have deafened me. I’ve never had a pistol fired within a foot of my head before.”
“Don’t tease me now,” she cried, clinging to him. “I can’t bear it ...”
His face changed. “Shh.” He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly against him. “I’m fine,” he whispered. “You saved the day.”
“I didn’t,” she wept into his shoulder. “If I hadn’t been so harsh to Susan, she wouldn’t have been so susceptible to him. If I had listened to you, there would have been guards around the house and he never could have broken in and carried her away. If I hadn’t been so suspicious of you—”
“Then you never would have kidnapped me at gunpoint and brought me back to London, and we never would have found her,” he finished for her. “Remind me to thank you later for not shooting me on the way to town. I didn’t think you had the nerve, but I admit my mistake here and now.”
“Oh!” She slumped against him, then almost immediately sat up. “Susan? Susan! Where—?”
“I’m here,” said Susan from her other side. She was still pale, and avoided looking to where Dante lay in a sobbing heap. Charlotte folded her niece in her arms as Stuart pushed himself off the floor. She heard the murmur of his voice as he talked to his father, and the deeper rumble of Mr. Drake’s reply.
“Aunt Charlotte? I’m sorry.” Susan’s voice was muffled. “I can’t believe I was so stupid and believed him. I’m sorry I thought so ill of you.”
“Hush, it doesn’t matter.” Charlotte cradled her close, shaking with delayed terror. She was dimly aware of Stuart turning Dante over, and strapping up his arm with something. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and loud voices. People filled the room slowly, the neighbors who had heard the shot, the watchman they had summoned, a bunch of curious passersby, and a surgeon who happened to live nearby. Somehow Stuart sorted it all out, got rid of the curious and the neighbors, sent the watchman for help to take Dante away, and set the surgeon to tending both gunshot wounds. Through it all Charlotte held her niece, who didn’t seem inclined to let go, either.
When the furor died down, Stuart came back to them, his boots crunching on the broken tea service. “Are you all right?” he asked, kneeling down beside them.
Charlotte nodded, smoothing Susan’s hair with one hand. “Now I am.” She looked up at him, alive and well and unhurt, his face taut with concern. Susan’s limp figure was draped over her lap and shoulder, making her back ache. Her ears still hurt, and her wrist throbbed. She couldn’t recall being so happy in all her life, and tears stung her eyes. “Now I am perfectly fine.”
C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN
Stuart bundled Charlotte and Susan into one cab, and his father into another with the surgeon, staying behind himself to see to Dante. Charlotte could only give him a grateful look; there were too many people around to say anything. “I’ll see you shortly,” he said, rapping on the roof of the carriage. Charlotte smiled in reply as the driver snapped the whip. Stuart would take care of this as well as he had managed everything else, and she hoped Mr. Drake had gotten a good view of his son handling everything so competently.
By the time they arrived, Mr. Drake had already been taken upstairs to his rooms, and the house echoed with Mrs. Drake’s cries of alarm and the running footsteps of servants. The hall was deserted, and Charlotte simply led Susan up the stairs to her own room. For now, all she wanted was peace and quiet.
Susan let go of her long enough to look around when the household uproar was muffled behind the closed door. “Aunt Charlotte? Is this ... is this Mr. Drake’s house?”
Charlotte nodded. “His parents’. We came to London as soon as I realized you were gone, and his mother invited me to stay.”
“Oh.” Susan looked at her sideways, as if uncertain how to take that. “I thought you did not like him.”
Charlotte flushed. “I accused him of running away with you. I thought, after the way you went to him at the Martins’. . .” She paused to steady her voice. “I blamed him for your disappearance, and when I realized my mistake, he proved himself a greater gentleman than I ever expected.”
And a better man than I deserved
, she added to herself.
“Well.” Susan cleared her throat. She sat on the chaise beside Charlotte, but an arm’s length away. “It is terrible to be so wrong about someone, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” They sat in silence for a moment. Charlotte was resolved not to press Susan for an explanation yet. She hadn’t gone through two weeks of hell just to make the girl hate her again. “Are you truly unhurt?” she asked hesitantly at last. “He didn’t ... harm you in any way, did he?”
Susan fiddled with a fold of her skirt. “No. We told people I was his sister whose husband had died.” She stopped with a shuddering breath. “But he didn’t do anything to me. Nothing.”
Charlotte closed her eyes. “Thank God.”
“Aunt Charlotte?” Susan’s fingers shook as they pleated and creased her skirt. “Are you terribly angry at me?” She sounded like a small girl, lonely and unsure, and peeked up uncertainly.
Charlotte shook her head. “No. Your actions I ascribe to youth and inexperience. I know, all too well, how it is to be young and feel as though no one understands you or respects you. I know how easy it is to fall under the spell of someone who offers to take you away from your quiet, circumscribed life and show you a world of excitement and wonder.” She paused. “I blame myself more than I blame you. I never suspected the thief would use you to get what he wanted. I had warning after warning that he wanted something of mine, yet I ignored them all because I couldn’t face opening those crates and dragging out the ghosts of a life I wanted to forget. I never ...” Her voice faltered. “I never dreamed he would touch you.”
“He said you would send me away to school,” said Susan, beginning to sniffle. “That night, when we argued, he heard us. He climbed up the trellis after you left, and told me he had traveled in Italy and had heard stories of you, that you you were a cold-hearted woman who never tolerated anyone who opposed you. I began to be frightened, for I had said very unkind things to you, and you had been so angry with me at the Martins’! He seemed so kind and sympathetic, and when I said I did not want to go away to school but had nowhere else to go, he said he could help me. He told me ...” Her voice began to waver. “He told me I was the loveliest girl he had seen in England, and he felt so terrible that I would be shut away in some terrible school where the girls were all required to do embroidery and make soap all day. He made it sound as if I would be in prison, and I—I had been so cruel to you ...” She scrubbed her eyes. “I didn’t know how I could face you again, after the things I had said, and I was sure I would be punished for being so rude. He was very handsome, and he knew all Romeo’s lines, and somehow, before I knew it, I was climbing down the trellis with him.”
“Oh, Susan,” whispered Charlotte, putting out a tentative hand. “I could never send you away! It’s more awful than you can know, to be alone in the world at your age. I would never do that to you ... as my father did to me.”
“What?” Susan looked up, her eyes red-rimmed.
Charlotte bit her lip. “When I was your age, much the same thing happened to me,” she confessed. “A handsome man, very elegant and charming, proposed to me. He said he would take me away from my strict father and we would live in grand style in London. But when my father offered him money, he left me without a backward glance. And my father was so furious that I had run away, he sent me to Paris with instructions that I was not to come back until sent for.”
“But Papa said ...” Susan’s voice trailed off, bewildered. “He said you liked traveling.”
Charlotte hesitated. “I suppose I became used to it. And I did enjoy some of it immensely. But it was not the life I would have chosen. I never saw my brother or my father again.”
“Oh.” Susan’s eyes were round. “Never?” Charlotte shook her head. Tears streaked down Susan’s cheeks. “You’re really not going to send me away? Even after I was so spiteful and ran away and caused you so much trouble? You don’t want to go back to Italy or France and not be bothered with me?”
“Oh, Susan, never,” declared Charlotte passionately. “I left all that for you, the moment I got word of your father’s death. All I wanted to do was be a good aunt to you, and hopefully, your friend.”
“I’m sorry,” whispered Susan. “I’m very sorry. I never thought you would stay. When he said you would send me away to school, I believed him because I had thought all along that you would get tired of me and want to go back to Paris or Rome or some other exciting place and I would be left with a governess or sent to some dreadful finishing school.”
“I’m staying,” vowed Charlotte, hugging her again. “Even if we don’t always get on very well.”
Susan sniffled some more, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Did you really kidnap Mr. Drake at gunpoint when you thought he’d run off with me?”
Charlotte smiled a little. “Oh, yes. He was very difficult to frighten, though.”
Susan gave a watery, uncertain smile in reply. “I imagine so. Was he very angry with you?”
Charlotte cleared her throat. How on earth was she ever to tell Susan about Stuart? And what
should
she tell her? Perhaps that was better left until another time. “I expect he’s got over it by now.”
“You did shoot Daniel, when he would have stabbed Mr. Drake.” Susan grew quiet again, her face very pale. “Thank you, Aunt Charlotte. For looking for me.”
Charlotte folded her into a fierce hug. “You don’t need to thank me.”
 
 
It took some time to get everything sorted out. Dante was finally taken away; he had shot a gentleman, if nothing else. Stuart didn’t know how far Charlotte would want to pursue kidnapping charges, now that she had Susan back safe and sound. Perhaps it would be best to keep it quiet for the sake of the girl’s reputation. Dante, who still didn’t even know just what he had been seeking, raved to the authorities about his stolen treasure, but Stuart had dismissed it all as the ramblings of a madman. Once the constable hauled Dante away at last, Stuart walked back across town, back to Charlotte.
When he finally reached his parents’ home, no one opened the door. Stuart rang twice, then knocked, and finally a maid threw it open, looking flustered. “Oh, Mr. Drake, sir,” she said, bobbing a curtsey. “Mr. Brumble told me not to admit anyone but you.”
“I think the danger has passed.” Stuart closed the door behind him. “How is my father?”
“La, sir, he’s fine. Mrs. Drake’s already quizzed the surgeon, who said it wasn’t fatal—” A sharp voice echoed down the hall, and the maid flushed. “Your pardon, sir, but I’m to fetch a poultice.” She curtseyed once more and scurried toward the kitchen. Stuart climbed the stairs, hesitating at the top. His father had been shot; he should inquire after his health. A door opened, and he heard his mother’s voice, firm and brisk, directing servants. Stuart deliberated, then turned toward Charlotte’s room. Terrance was in good hands, and there was nothing Stuart could do for him anyway.
“Come in.” Charlotte and her niece were sitting side by side on the chaise when he opened the door.
“I came to see you were both well,” he said, then stopped. Charlotte had her arm around Susan, who looked tired and subdued but happy to be back with her aunt. It gave him a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach; Charlotte didn’t need him anymore. What if her joy at Susan’s return eclipsed her feelings for him? What if Susan’s presence made their whole relationship awkward and uncomfortable for her? If she had to choose between him and Susan ...
“We are,” Charlotte answered his question, turning a brilliant smile on him. Every trace of anxiety had been wiped from her face; she was radiantly happy, fairly beaming. And Stuart knew then that whatever it took to win her, he would do, because he wanted her looking at him that way for the rest of his life.
“All thanks to you.”
He cleared his throat. “Not all, I assure you.”
“Aunt Charlotte,” said Susan, lifting her head from Charlotte’s shoulder. “May I have a word with Mr. Drake?”
“Oh ... of course,” murmured Charlotte, surprised. Stuart braced himself, wondering what the girl wanted to say. She crossed the room, motioning him aside.
“Mr. Drake,” Susan began, then paused, blushing.
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said in a rush. “I owe you a great thanks for all your help—I was really so stupid—and I can never repay you.” Stuart tensed as she glanced at him under her eyelashes, then back at Charlotte, who watched them with ill-concealed curiosity. Susan lowered her voice even more. “But I think I owe you another apology for the way I acted in Tunbridge Wells. My behavior was ... well, childish. And it was partly because I was jealous of my aunt.” Stuart started in surprise. Susan flushed. “I could tell you thought she was very beautiful the first night you met her, and it just didn’t seem fair. So I threw myself at you, at the Martins’ party, and I realize how foolish that must have seemed to you.”
“Impulsive,” said Stuart gently.
Susan grimaced. “I shall have to overcome that tendency, I suppose. But thank you for helping Aunt Charlotte.”
“It was my honor,” he said. “I owed it to you, for making an offer of marriage when my heart was not fully engaged. You deserve more.”
“I didn’t want to believe she was right about that, too,” whispered Susan.
“Miss Tratter ... it is worth waiting for,” Stuart murmured. She glanced up uncertainly. “Someone who loves you. That’s what your aunt wanted for you all along.”
She turned bright pink. “I realize that now. Thank you, Mr. Drake.” She tugged a thin chain from under the high neckline of her dress. His mother’s ring dangled from it. Susan unclasped the necklace and handed the ring to him, blushing even harder. “I meant to give this back to you.”
Stuart took the ring with a rueful sigh as Charlotte came to them. Susan turned to her aunt. “May I go sit in the garden, Aunt Charlotte? I would like to—to be alone for a while.”
“Of course,” said Charlotte at once. “I’ll be here.” Susan nodded and slipped out the door, head down, leaving them alone.
“I think we shall get on better now,” said Charlotte, watching her go. “I shall try to remember more what it is like to be young and full of dreams, and she might appreciate some of my caution, having experienced rashness.”
Stuart nodded, suddenly at a loss. “I am sure she will.”
Charlotte bit her lip, seemingly as uncertain as he was. “She ran off because she thought I would never stay in England. She was afraid I would send her to school, or leave her with a governess and go back to Italy.”
“Ah.” Stuart cursed his tongue, whose glibness had gotten him in and out of trouble his entire life, for falling mute now. Now that he finally knew what he wanted, he couldn’t find the words to express it. “It must be an enormous relief to you,” he said. “Having her back, that is.”
She smiled again, that beaming smile of pure joy. “And it is all thanks to you. I could never have found her without your help, Stuart, and I could—” She stopped, uncertainty flickering in her face. “I could never thank you enough,” she finished quietly.
He forced a quick grin. “Your happiness is all the thanks I need.” His grin faded, and they stood there staring at each other for a moment. Then Stuart took a deep breath, and plunged ahead. He had meant to wait, but suddenly found he couldn’t. “Charlotte.” He took her hand and studied it. “I’ve been thinking of us, and how we shall go on.”
Her smile faded. “I see.”
“It would be wrong for us to continue as lovers,” he said. “With Susan in your house, it wouldn’t be proper. I commend you for stepping in to raise her, and fully understand that you must adhere to respectability for her sake, as well as for your own.”
BOOK: Caroline Linden
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