Dance of Seduction (26 page)

“Whatever you ask.” A message was good. A message was
very
good. She couldn’t pass on a message if she were dead. “Wh-what’s the message?”

“I don’t want him keeping that boy around anymore, you hear?”

She blinked. “What boy?”

“That boy of yours! You know, the Perkins boy!”

“Why not?” she blurted out, surprised that the Specter should even know about Johnny, much less care what happened to him.

“Because that boy’s sister is friendly with a police officer, that’s why! And I don’t want the magistrate hearing all the ins and outs of my business from a loose-tongued lad, you ken?”

“Yes, I ‘ken’,” she snapped. “But Captain Pryce can’t very well just throw the boy out.”

“He’ll do whatever I say. He’ll send him back to that Home of yours or to his sister. That’s what should be done with that boy anyway. He don’t belong here.”

Remembering how Johnny had insisted on remaining at Morgan’s, she flinched. “What if the boy won’t leave? What then?” Surely the Specter wouldn’t kill a child for so frivolous a reason as a loose connection between Lucy and the police. Would he?

“He’ll leave. He ain’t gonna cross
me
, is he?” The man loomed up close, brandishing the pistol rather recklessly before her. “Your friend Pryce won’t neither.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Somehow she couldn’t see Morgan bowing easily to the dictates of anybody, even his cohort in crime. And if Morgan wouldn’t do as the Specter said…“He’s very attached to the boy. H-he might not do what you want.”

The Specter waved the pistol in the general vicinity of her chest. “You tell him he’d better! Or I’ll make him regret it!” He cocked the pistol and added in a menacing growl, “And if you don’t persuade him, I’ll make
you
regret it, too!”

A new voice sounded from the top of the alley. “Damn it, Samuel, I told you two not to come back tonight—”

“Morgan!” she cried. “Run!”

Cursing, the Specter whirled to face Morgan, and the pistol went off. Clara watched in stricken silence as Morgan staggered back against the opposite wall.

“Godamercy, I’ve kilt him!” cried the Specter. “What have I done?” Then he dropped the pistol and fled the alley at a dead run.

Clara darted forward just in time to see Morgan slide down the wall. “Morgan!” she screamed as she raced over to him. “Oh my word, Morgan!” Her heart ground to a halt as she dropped to her knees beside him. “Speak to me. Tell me where you’re hurt.”

“Clara?” he rasped. “Is that you?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here.” Frantically, she searched his slumped body, trying to find where he’d been hit.
Please don’t let him die, God
, she prayed. “I’m right here with you, my darling. What can I do? How can I help?”

He lifted his face to hers, and the moonlight shone fully on eyes that looked surprisingly lucid for a dying man. “You can start running,
cherie
. Because when I get my hands on you, you won’t be able to sit down for a week.”

Chapter 15

…the clock struck nine, yet no Beast appeared.
Beauty then feared she had been the cause of his
death; she ran crying and wringing her hands all
about the palace, like one in despair…
“
Beauty and the Beast” from
The Young Misses Magazine,
Jeanne-Marie Prince de Beaumont

M
organ could tell from the way she blinked that he’d surprised Clara. But then the reckless woman seemed to think he was dying. He should let her go on thinking it after the fool thing she’d done by coming here.

He’d lost ten lifetimes when he’d realized that it was
her
the Specter had been confronting,
her
who’d nearly gotten shot before Morgan had scared the arse off. He still reeled from his terror.

And the searing pain in his thigh. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he used her to heft himself to a stand.

She rose and slid her arm swiftly around his waist. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re hurt!”

“You’re damned right I’m hurt!” He steadied himself on his feet, relieved to find that standing wasn’t much of a problem. “And why the devil are you here? Don’t you ever listen, for God’s sake?”

“Never mind all that now. You shouldn’t stand until I fetch a doctor.”

“I don’t want a confounded doctor!” He could hear voices in the street now, people calling out about the pistol shot, questioning where it had come from. And the last thing Clara needed was to be found here with him at night. Draping his arm about her shoulders, he ordered, “Get me inside the shop before anybody sees us, all right?”

“I-It’s your leg, isn’t it?” she said when he leaned on her. “He shot your leg?”

“Either that or wild dogs ravaged me while my back was turned. Of course it’s my leg!”

She sniffed. “You don’t have to be surly about it.” She helped him limp toward the door. “It’s not as if
I
were the one to shoot you, for pity’s sake.”

“You’re going to wish you’d shot me by the time this night is over,” he grumbled. “I swear I’ll take you over my knee—”

“Oh, hush, and give me the keys to the shop. Even if I’d let you take me over your knee, which I wouldn’t, you’re in no condition to do it.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you.” But he handed her the keys anyway. She unlocked the door, then helped him across the threshold.

He shut the door behind them quickly and locked it, relieved that they’d escaped the alley before anybody had seen them. Releasing her shoulder, he limped forward.

She hastened to his side. “Wait, let me help you.”

“I’m fine. I just need to sit down.” He suspected the wound wasn’t very serious or he wouldn’t be able to walk, but it hurt like the devil, and he figured he should examine it.

The shop was black as coal dust, but Morgan was used to moving about it in the dark. Clara wasn’t. She nearly walked into the stairway banister before he jerked her back.

“Should I call Johnny to come down with a lamp?” she asked.

“He’s not here. I sent him off with Samuel for the night.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? For the same reason I didn’t want
you
here!”

“You were expecting the Specter, weren’t you?” she accused as he grabbed her arm and led her through the shop to the back.

“That isn’t the point. I told you to stay away tonight, so you should have listened. Why didn’t you listen?”

“I might have, if you’d actually explained things instead of barking out orders.”

“I thought you had more sense than to come here alone at night.”

When she answered, contrition filled her voice. “Looking back, I’ll concede it wasn’t a very bright idea. But I knew you were up to something. And I was right, wasn’t I?” She was so intent on accusing him that she nearly stumbled over his bed.

“Whoa, angel, hold up there before you break your shin. Then we’ll have two injuries to deal with.”

Sighing heavily, he dropped onto the bed, then reached for the lantern he always kept beside it. He lit it, and instantly a warm light filled the room. As he reached behind him to hang the lantern on a hook, he heard her gasp and glanced back to find her staring at his leg in abject horror.

“Heavens, Morgan, there’s so much blood.”

Damned if she wasn’t right. Blood stained the entire left
leg of his breeches. But that didn’t daunt him. He’d seen too many wounds to be much surprised that this one was bleeding. “I doubt it’s as bad as it looks.” He examined the side of his thigh carefully. “No holes and only this tear here…the bullet must have just grazed me.”

“But the blood—”

“Sometimes the mildest wounds bleed the most. It burns like hell, but flesh wounds often do.”

“But you must see a doctor.”

He glanced up at her. “And who’s going to fetch me one? You? And have it be known that you were with me when I was shot?”

“I don’t care about that.”

The hell of it was, she probably didn’t. “But
I
do. Besides, I can handle this myself. I’ve done it before.” When she started to protest, he added, “If I need a doctor, I’ll send Johnny for one when he returns in the morning. But I don’t think I will. All it needs is a dressing—”

“Oh, you can be so infuriating!” Removing her cloak and tossing it over his dresser, she took off her gloves as she turned and scanned the room. “People die of ‘mild’ wounds all the time, you know.” She looked frantic, her gaze darting this way and that. “Where the devil am I to find water in here? And bandages and—”

“Calm down, Clara, it’s all right.” Her concern for him both touched and amused him. He gestured behind her. “The washstand is over there. And there’s clean linen underneath—you can use that.”

Turning on her heel, she headed with a purposeful stride toward where he pointed.

“You have dressed a wound before, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Once or twice at the Home, when a child was hurt and we couldn’t wait for the doctor.” As she knelt to search the
washstand, she shot him a panicky look. “But never one so serious.”

“I keep telling you—it’s not that bad. I can do it myself if I have to. I’ve done it before.”

“I shan’t make you dress your own wound, for pity’s sake.” But her face was the color of chalk as she jerked out towels and tossed them onto her shoulder. “I’m the one who got you into this, and I’ll be the one to take care of you.”

He eyed her skeptically. “If you insist. But you look like you’re about to faint.”

“I am not the fainting sort, I assure you. I can handle this.”

“Nobody said you couldn’t,
ma belle ange
.” He bit back a smile. Having Clara fuss over him went a long way toward diminishing the pain in his thigh.

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’ve seen plenty of horrific sights in Spitalfields, you know—men shot in cold blood, a woman battered by her lover, some gin-loving matron emaciated from lack of real nourishment. This is no different.”

She was babbling now, but he let her talk. If his experiences in battle had taught him anything, it was that people reacted differently in times of crisis. Some of them grew morbidly quiet. Others, like Clara, talked to keep their minds off the difficulties at hand.

While she poured water in the basin, he removed his boots, then rose and stripped off his skintight breeches and stockings. The cloth was already starting to stick, and he cursed as he pulled it free of the wound. Removing his coat and waistcoat to keep them from being further soiled by blood, he tossed them aside. Then he hitched up his shirt and sat down to examine his leg.

A sudden clatter of metal against wood made him jerk his head up. Clara stood there mute, having dropped the basin of water she’d apparently been carrying to him.

He raised an eyebrow. “Something wrong,
cherie
?”

“You’re not wearing any…um…breeches.”

The blush rising in her cheeks made him chuckle…until he saw her staring at his bared legs in clear fascination. Despite all that had happened, he felt a stirring in his drawers. With a curse, he leaned forward, hoping his shirt would cover his annoying reaction. “I figured the breeches would get in the way of your dressing the wound.”

“Oh, of course. Yes. Certainly.” Kneeling to pick up the basin, she poured more water in it and brought it to the bed. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Forgive me, I’m not used to seeing grown men…well—”

“Half-naked. No, I don’t imagine you are.”

When she set the basin on the floor and knelt down, all flushed and angelic, he stifled a groan. The one time he’d imagined her kneeling at his feet she’d been performing an entirely different service for him. Unfortunately, his cock remembered the fantasy only too well.

Quickly, he turned his attention to his wound. “Looks like it’s just superficial.” He almost wished it weren’t. Then he’d be focusing on his pain instead of his pesky arousal. “I expect it will heal all right.”

“Thank God!” she said fervently as she soaked a towel in the basin.

When she began to wash away the blood, fire leaped up his thigh, and he swore under his breath.

Two spots of color stained her pretty cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. For everything. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Remember that the next time you go snooping where you’re not wanted.”

She ignored his grumbling, apparently too intent on cleaning the wound to argue with him. “Have you any strong spirits here? Brandy? Whisky?”

“Good idea.” He could certainly use some brandy. “Look
behind the towels in the washstand.” As she rose and headed in that direction, he added in a teasing voice, “I thought it wasn’t proper for ladies to drink strong spirits.”

She arched one elegant eyebrow at him. “I somehow think watching a man get shot is an acceptable excuse for flouting the proprieties. Unless you have a problem with that?”

“Not me. Women should always flout the proprieties. Makes life more interesting.”

“You
would
think that.” She found the bottle and pulled it out. “It’s strange, but I don’t think the Specter meant to shoot you at all. I think it was accidental. After it happened, he said, ‘Godamercy, I’ve kilt him!’ as if he were surprised.”

“I’ll give him a surprise, all right,” Morgan said grimly. “That arse will
not
get away with this. I’ll tear him limb from limb for daring to assault you.”

“Me? I’m sure he didn’t mean to assault me at all. Even though he threatened me some, he—”

“What? He threatened you? I thought you’d just come upon him while he was waiting for me, and you’d accosted him.”

She drew herself up, stony with offense. “I’m not an idiot, you know. I would never have accosted a stranger in your alley.”

“You accosted me a week ago.”

“That’s different. It was broad daylight, and I wasn’t alone. And you weren’t draped in a black cloak.” She came toward him with the bottle. “No, I was here knocking on the door when he came up and demanded to know where you were. When I couldn’t tell him, he pulled out that pistol and started waving it around—”