His Lady Midnight (11 page)

He held out his hand to aid her to her feet and asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” It was a lie. Her knees wobbled, and her head swam alarmingly. As she started to step out of the stall, she stumbled. He caught her elbow and drew her closer to the undeniable strength of his firm body. She stiffened.

“Come now, Phoebe. Didn't I just rescue you?” His voice was uneven. “Have some faith in me!”

She tried to move away, but her legs sagged beneath her. She leaned against the door of the stall. “I don't know why I should trust you when you were the one who got me into all this.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you and your plan to give me an alias. The alias you chose was the name of the very woman who ruined that man's brother's life. Please release me.”

“I don't think that would be a good idea.” His voice had become oddly breathless. Or was it just that her ears were so filled with the echo of her rapid heartbeat that she could not hear him well?

“At this moment, I care little what you think!” she retorted. She should not be thinking of how enticing his fingers were, but how furious she was at him for getting her into this predicament.

“You have made that very clear.”

“I was abducted,” she said as they walked out of the stall.

“True.”

“I could have been killed.”

“True.” His retort was terse.

“I could have been—I could have been—” She shivered and hid her face in her hands.

Taking her hands, he drew them down. His face was strained, but he struggled to smile. “I know you blame me, Phoebe, but I devised the plan only to protect you.”

“True.” She smiled, then laced her fingers through his. “Forgive me, Galen. I know you were trying to help. I appreciate you being so heroic tonight.”

He offered her a wry smile. “Playing the dashing hero tonight was not my intention. Let's continue this conversation somewhere else.” He tilted toward her. “I am sorry that I put you in such danger.”

A tremor swept through her as his words rustled close to her ear. “Nothing has gone as it should since I last left my house. Every good intention has dissolved into disaster.”

“It would be a disaster if your pursuers had found you.”

“How did you find me?”

“Tate saw your friend come out of the inn and was suspicious when he noted that the rolled blanket on the man's shoulder moved as if it were alive. He alerted me. We followed.”

Phoebe tightened her arms around Galen's arm as he led her cautiously through the cluttered building. His foot hit something. At its metallic clang, he cursed. When she laughed at his original turn of phrase, he grinned but weakly.

They emerged into the night. A shadowy, amorphous object became, as they neared it, a carriage. His smile grew even more brittle as he opened the door. A thousand questions battered at her lips, but she said nothing as Galen took her fingers to hand her in.

“Tate,” he ordered, “take us to …” His voice became a groan. He shivered, then collapsed to the ground, his fingers pressed to his side.

She knelt beside him. When he moaned, she put her hand over his hand. She gasped when she saw blood on her fingers. Carefully she peeled his hand away. His waistcoat was blotched near his left side. The man's knife must have struck him. Why hadn't he told her?

“Tate!” she called.

The lad ran from the front of the carriage to where Galen was lying. He swore, not bothering to curb his tongue. She did not chide him.

“Shall I put him in the carriage, my lady?”

“Yes.” She faltered, then asked, “Can you?”

Tate nodded. When he lifted Galen from the ground, flinging Galen's arm over his shoulder, Phoebe put one hand against Tate's back and the other on Galen's to steady both of them. She bit her lip to say nothing as Tate fought for each step to the carriage. Somehow, the lad hefted Galen inside.

“Thank you,” Phoebe said. “Thank goodness you are stronger than you appear.”

“A coachee needs to make sure his passengers get home, no matter what condition they are in,” he said with a proud smile. It wavered as he stared at Galen. “Will he be all right?”

“Yes,” she replied, wishing she had the confidence that was in her voice.

“Where do you wish us to go?”

“To Thistlewood Cottage.”

“Can Lord Townsend travel that far?”

“I hope so.” Her voice broke. “I hope so, because he must.”

Eight

Could it be possible? Galen wondered if he had again climbed out of the nursery window on the uppermost floor of Townsend Hall and slid down the huge tree, unable to halt himself. Then he had jarred every rib and left his skin raw. He had been a hero among his friends when he returned to school to show off his injuries, and he had never let any of them know how much he hurt.

As much as he did now.

He touched his side and winced. Through his covers, thick bandages were wrapped around him, the heaviest part directly over the convergence of the pain that ached through every breath.

“Take care,” came a soft voice.

Phoebe's voice!

Was she hurt, too? No, that made no sense. She would not be so close if she was injured. Or would she be? He could not form a single rational thought.

Just pain.

A cool cloth dabbed at his brow, and Galen relaxed back into the soft mattress. Straining, he turned his head to see a slender arm right in front of his eyes. He followed the arm to even more pleasurable curves. It took more effort than he would have guessed to raise his gaze past them to a determined chin and exquisite lips. He groaned and closed his eyes before his gaze could meet hers.

“Take care,” Phoebe whispered again, and he was startled to hear what sounded like amusement in her voice.

“I am glad you find something humorous in all of this.”

“What?” Her astonishment sounded sincere. She continued to brush the damp cloth against his forehead as she said, “I can assure you, Galen, that I do not derive any diversion from anything that happened last night.”

“Last night?” He sounded like a blasted echo, repeating everything she said, but his own thoughts remained too scattered for him to trust them. “Where are we?”

Phoebe walked away from the bed, and he was tempted to shout after her. Just the very idea of raising his voice sent another throb of pain through him. He forced his eyes to remain open and looked to see where she had vanished to.

He was in a small bedchamber. The furniture was simple, but fitting for a room with stone walls and floors. Open rafters above had no sign of dust or birds, and he could see the crisscross pattern of the boards that supported the roof. A pair of windows, one in the wall on either side of the bed, were hidden behind thick drapes. Even so, a hint of starlight peered through, and he knew it must be approaching midnight.

At the clatter of glass, he turned his head the other way to see Phoebe had crossed the room to a table where a tray was waiting. She was pouring something into a glass, which she carried back to where he was lying.

“This is Thistlewood Cottage,” she said, handing him the glass.

Galen took a careful sip. Wine. It was just what he needed to rid himself of the disgusting flavor left in his mouth by … By what? He could not recall what had happened before he woke up here.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

He lifted his gaze from the wine to her. By Jove, he had let himself forget how beautiful she was. He had been concentrating so much on keeping her out of harm's way that he had closed his eyes to how hers twinkled or how the color in her cheeks seemed to be brushed on by a mere zephyr.

“Should I be hungry?”

“You have not eaten since last night at the inn in Ledge-under-Water.” She smiled. “The doctor gave you some powders in wine while he tended to stitching the wound in your side. You slept all the day.”

He looked at his glass. “Does this glass have powders stirred into it?”

“Do you need something to ease your pain?”

“I would rather have the answers to some questions.”

She nodded, and he noticed her hand trembled as she lifted her own glass to take a sip. He wanted to take her fingers and offer her some silent comfort. When he started to shift to reach for it, pain lashed him. He groaned out a question.

“Tate and I managed to get you back into the carriage,” Phoebe replied, “and we drove here at top speed.”

“I owe you an apology, I fear.”

She waved aside his words. “You did nothing wrong. All your actions, even your unfortunate choice of a name for me, were aimed at protecting me. For that, I cannot fault you.”

“If I had had any idea that Miss Jane Tate was such a lusty wench, creating all sorts of trouble, I believe I would have selected another name.” He took another sip of the pungent wine. Its heat seemed to add strength to his wobbly limbs.

“I believe you would have.” She laughed and sat on the chair by the bed. Her expression grew somber. “However, I must assume that the hullabaloo you created at the inn when you and Tate raced off to my rescue gained much attention.”

“Yes, I am afraid so. To own the truth, Phoebe, I was not thinking of protecting your secret when I feared for your very life.”

She patted his hand. “I know.”

His fingers captured hers, not letting her draw them away. “You should know that if that cur had hurt you, I would have seen him dead.”

“That would have created even more of an unforgettable scene.”

Galen stared at her in disbelief, for he had not expected her to respond with a hint of humor in her voice. “By Jove, Phoebe, you make it difficult for a man to play your hero.”

“I do not want a hero.” Coming to her feet, she pulled her hand out of his. “I want to return to the work that I have pledged to do. I want to know if my household is unharmed. I want to learn if Jasper was able to escape from those chasing us.”

“Your household is unsettled, but fine. Your man is recovering at your country house.”

Phoebe whirled to face Galen. “How do you know this?”

“Alfred gave me the note you had written to your household.”

“But he promised it would be delivered.”

“
I
delivered it. To the flames, so it would not betray you.”

“You should not have done that. I needed to warn my household—”

“They were warned. I told Alfred to make inquiries as soon as he reached London, but to leave no sign of why,” he said quietly. “He sent word to me, which arrived at the inn last night just after you retired.”

“And you did not tell me?”

“When would I have had time? When I was teaching your erstwhile admirer a lesson in good manners?”

She rubbed her hands together uneasily. “I am sorry. This has been so distressing.”

He frowned. As his gaze settled on her soft lips, he saw two crystalline tears glistening at the corners of her eyes. Berating himself for thinking of her inviting mouth when she had been treated so cruelly, he could not keep from imagining the pleasure to be found in arousing the desires she kept so tightly restrained. He imagined as well that doing so would reward him with a slapped face.

“I did not want to have you fly off into a pelter when you learned that your message had not been delivered.”

“Flying off into a pelter is not something that I do.” She grasped the back of the chair, and he noticed she was not wearing the silver bracelet she had worn since she had entered his carriage near the Pool. “By all that's blue, Galen, I have been able to rescue nearly tenscore people from being banished from England, but you think me incapable of common sense.”

“Common sense? I believe you have an abundance of that, but, Phoebe, for someone who is defying the law and has been labeled a traitor, you have too much trust. If anyone—anyone at all—had chanced to find a note from you in your house on Grosvenor Square, then this sojourn to Thistlewood Cottage would have been for naught.”

“As long as they are forewarned, I guess you have done no damage.”

“It was not my intention to cause me damage in your eyes. I had wanted only to help.” He took her left hand. “Where is your bracelet, Phoebe?”

“It was left behind, along with my bonnet, at the inn.”

“I can send a messenger to—”

“No need. I doubt if it is still there.” She rubbed her hands together. “If I had known that you had sent a message to my house, I would not have made the arrangements I did for tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?” He pushed himself up to sit, then feared he would be sick in front of her. He pressed his hand to his stomach and groaned again. If there was any spot where he did not hurt, he had not found it yet.

“Yes. Vogel told me—”

“Vogel?”

“The butler here.”

“There is a butler here?” He frowned as he looked around the simple room again as she walked to the door and back. “I thought you said we were at Thistlewood Cottage. Where are we really?”

“We
are
at Thistlewood Cottage.” She stopped pacing and faced him.

“Really?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Lying to my only ally would be foolish, especially when it is something of such insignificance.”

“A butler does not fit with my image of a
cottage.
”

Putting her hand on the post at the foot of the bed, she laughed wearily. “Nothing about this place fits with
my
image of a cottage. We are on the edge of the city of Bath, not in some pastoral setting. This house must have been built when Good King Hal was a boy, and it has wings wandering in every direction as well as a full staff.”

“A full staff?” He swore under his breath.

When color rose up her face, she turned away to go to one of the windows. She drew back the drapes, letting moonlight flow onto the floor.

“Forgive me,” he said, “for speaking so.”