Indiscreet (24 page)

But Copley was a rapist. He had raped Catherine and very probably Horatia too. Possibly other women as well. If he lived, even if the events of this morning could persuade him to take himself into perpetual exile from Britain, he would be alive to do it again. To make other women suffer as Catherine and Horatia had suffered.

Up to the very moment he fired, Lord Rawleigh was not sure whether he would raise his arm into the air at the last moment and show his contempt for the worm that was Sir Howard Copley by wasting his bullet on the air, or whether he would hold his arm steady and kill him.

He kept his arm steady.

And then he strode toward his friends and his clothes and dressed himself with unshaking hands, not even looking at what the surgeon and Copley's second were doing over the dead body of Sir Howard Copley. But he did have to take several hasty steps away after a few moments in order to vomit onto the grass. He was dizzy with the knowledge that he had killed. But for perhaps the first time he felt no remorse.

Catherine had been avenged. And all other women were safe from the bastard who had caused her suffering.

“Breakfast,” he said resolutely to his friends, turning back to them. He felt as much like eating as he felt like jumping into a fire. “At White's?”

“At White's.” Nat clapped a comforting hand on his left shoulder. “He would not have lived anyway, Rex. I would have done it if you had not.”

“Perhaps my house instead of White's,” Eden suggested. “A little more privacy and all that.”

“I will have to leave immediately,” Ken said. “I have to return to Dunbarton.”

The other three looked at him in some surprise. Lord Rawleigh noticed that the look of tension and the ashen color had not left his face as they had Nat's and Eden's.

“To Dunbarton?” he said. “Now, Ken? This morning? Even before breakfast? I thought you were here for the rest of the Season.”

His friend's face looked ghastly. “There was a letter waiting for me when I arrived home last evening,” he said. He tried to smile and failed. “It appears that I am to be a father in six months' time.”

The duel was forgotten for the moment. His three friends stared at him.

“Who?” Eden asked at last. “Anyone we met when we were there, Ken? A
lady
?”

“No one you met,” Ken said grimly. “A lady, yes. I have to go home to marry her.”

“Dare I comment on the fact that you do not appear thrilled?” Nat said, frowning.

“Her family and mine have been enemies for as long as I can remember,” Ken said. “I do not believe I have ever disliked a woman more than I dislike her. And she is with child by me. I must marry her. Wish me joy.”

He did smile then, and Lord Rawleigh found himself feeling pity for the unknown bride-to-be.

“Ken,” he said, frowning, “what are we missing?”

“Nothing that I care to divulge,” his friend said. “I have to be going. I am glad things turned out as they did this morning, Rex. Have that arm seen to before you leave here. I am glad you did not reprieve him. I feared you would. Rapists do not deserve to live.”

And without another word he strode away in the direction of his horse. He did not look back. None of them called after him.

“Poor Ken,” Nat murmured.

“Poor lady,” Lord Rawleigh said.

“We had better have that arm looked at, Rex, before you bleed to death,” Eden said, turning from their departing friend, his voice brisk. “The surgeon is free again, I see.”

Yes, Lord Rawleigh thought, looking down at his arm. His sleeve was soaked with blood from shoulder to elbow.

Catherine, he thought then. He had lived to see her again. To tell her himself that he loved her.

•   •   •

THEY
both heard the outer door being opened and the sound of voices from the hall, even though they sat upstairs in the drawing room. But there was no hearing whose voices they were.

She sat stiff and upright on her chair. She could not get to her feet as she wished to do to run onto the landing and peer down the stairs or call down. Her legs felt alternately like lead and jelly.
She guessed that Daphne was feeling the same way. They did not exchange any words—they were both listening too hard.

Who would come? she wondered. Who would be elected to break the news to her? Papa? Harry? Lord Pelham or one of his other friends? A stranger?

And then the door opened quite quietly and he stepped inside. For a moment her brain would not even accept the knowledge of who it was standing there. He was looking quite pale. The right sleeve of his coat was empty. His arm was in a very white sling. He was wearing what looked like someone else's shirt.

There was a curious silence. Daphne was on her feet, clinging to the back of a chair.

“Ah,” he said quietly. “I see there is no point in telling my story about being tossed from my horse's back, is there?”

“Rex,” Daphne said, her hand spread over her womb.

“I am all right, Daphne,” he said. “A mere flesh wound in the arm. Nothing but a graze. But the fool of a physician insisted on the sling. I think it looks rather impressive.” He grinned.

“If you only knew,” she said, “what we have been through. Waiting is the most abominable activity in this world, Rex. And women are called upon to do so much of it.”

Catherine felt rather like a disembodied spirit observing the scene but not really present in it. She could neither move nor speak. But he turned to her then and came across the room to her. He went down on one knee in front of her chair and took her hands in his despite the sling. His right hand was colder than the left.

“He will not trouble you or any other woman ever again, my love,” he said gently.

“You killed him?” It was Daphne's voice.

“Yes,” he said.

But the door had opened again and someone else came striding in. A moment later Daphne was crying noisily.

“Oh, Clay,” she was saying. “Oh, Clay, you promised me after that dreadful Battle of Waterloo that I would never have to suffer this again.”

“Yes, love,” he said. “I just heard. You were not at home. I guessed where you were especially after discovering that Catherine had been at the house. This excitement will do you no good, you know. It is to be home and to bed with you without further delay. Rex and Catherine need to be alone, anyway.”

Catherine had not looked at them. Neither had Rex. They gazed only at each other, their hands clasped. After a minute or so there was silence in the room. Neither looked to be sure they were alone.

She found her voice at last. “I could have endured having him in the world far more cheerfully than having you out of it,” she said.

“Could you?” With his left hand he raised her right to his lips. “It had to be done, my love. I did it.”

“There is no one to hear it,” she said. “It does not need to be said.” Her mind could seem to latch only onto trivialities.

“To hear what?” He looked mystified.

“‘My love,'” she said.

“You are my love.” He was smiling at her. “Perhaps it is
something you do not wish to hear, Catherine, but I plan to spend the next eternity or two earning the right to say it again and again. My love.” He kissed her hand again. “What? Tears? Is it quite that bad?”

She bit her upper lip hard, but it was no good. Her face crumpled ignominiously and she hid it against his right shoulder. She jerked upright again when he noticeably winced.

“If you love me,” she cried, “how could you have done something so stupid, stupid,
stupid
? I hate you. Do you think I wanted you dead just because of your foolish sense of honor? How could I have loved you if you were dead? How could I have told you when it was too late?”

He was still smiling. She could see that with her clearing vision. “Catherine,” he said softly. “My love.”

“All I could think of,” she said, “was that I had not
told
you.”

“Told me what?” he asked her.

“That I
love
you,” she said, and remembered to use his left shoulder this time.

She looked up again when she could feel that there were unmistakably two arms about her. He had slipped the right one free of the sling.

“To hell with it,” he said, grinning at her. “It was merely for theatrical effect anyway. So we find ourselves in a love match after all, do we?”

She nodded, gazing into his eyes, realizing anew how close she had come this morning to losing him. A bullet had been fired at him and had hit him. She knew that the reality of that fact would haunt her for a long time to come.

“And alone.” He drew her closer and set his lips to hers. “No one would dare enter unbidden, even though the door is unlocked. I am suddenly feeling decidedly amorous, my love. It comes after danger has passed, you know. Life reasserting itself, I suppose.”

But even as he spoke the door was opened a crack from the outside by an unseen hand, and a mere second or two later an ecstatic little bundle hurled itself at them, barking loudly.

“Down, sir,” Viscount Rawleigh said sternly.

“Oh, Toby,” Catherine said, “you came home.”

Toby sat down beside his new master, panting and thumping his tail on the carpet.

“We are going to have to teach that terrier something about good manners,” Lord Rawleigh said.

“No, we are not,” Catherine said. “I love him just as he is.”

“Well,” he said, “perhaps I will try exerting my authority to more effect when it is a child we are discussing. And talking of discussions, shall we continue this one in your bedchamber?”

“Your arm?” she said.

“Is still attached to my shoulder and can still hold you,” he said. “Shall we go?”

She nodded.

But before either of them got to their feet, he kissed her very thoroughly. For both of them it was a kiss of uninhibited, unconditional love. A kiss full of awareness of the fact that the moment must be seized, that life is too short and unpredictable in its course for love to be delayed.

“I am
so glad
,” she said during a momentary lull, caused by
the necessity of breathing, “that for the merest moment once upon a time I mistook you for Claude.”

“Mm,” he said. “For which error you are forgiven, my love—provided it does not happen again.”

Toby rested his head on his outstretched paws, his eyes on them, and yawned loudly and contentedly.

Dear Reader,

For a number of years many of you have been telling me that you have read and loved
Irresistible,
Book 3 in the Horsemen trilogy, but cannot find the other two books. I know as a reader myself how annoying that can be when a series is involved, but yes, they have been out of print and it has been beyond my power to bring them back. That has now changed, to my great delight, and, almost twenty years after they were first published, all three books will be out again in 2016 with gorgeous new covers. Indeed, when I first saw the cover of
Indiscreet
, Book 1, I loved it so much that I told my editor I wanted to live in the cottage. Both she and my agent said they would join me there for tea and scones. Perhaps you will drop by too and enjoy the three stories, as I know readers did in the past.

If you are familiar with my recent Survivors' Club series, you will note the contrast in my treatment of men (and one woman) returning from war. There I chose to concentrate on the wounds, both physical and psychic, that the Napoleonic Wars caused my main characters. In the trilogy, however, I chose to tell the stories of four young cavalry officers (two of them are combined in Book 3) who have returned from war unscathed and eager to enjoy life to the full and forget about responsibility for a while. Life intervenes for them all, of course, and leads them through adversity to romance and the sort of happiness they had not anticipated. I hope you will enjoy reading or rereading their stories in these lovely new editions.

Mary Balogh

TURN THE PAGE FOR A LOOK AT THE SECOND BOOK IN MARY BALOGH'S BELOVED HORSEMEN TRILOGY,

U
NFORGIVEN

AVAILABLE FROM THE BERKLEY GROUP IN JULY 2016.