Time's Fool (28 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

The night air was chill but dry, the sky a moonless blue-black but lit by great low-hanging stars. Naomi shivered, drew her cloak tighter about her, then woke up. “My heavens!” she exclaimed, turning to Rossiter who stood tall and silent beside her. “Whatever are we doing?”

“You came to my rescue,” he said urbanely. “Now I return the favour.”

“I am in no need of rescue,” she lied. “So you had best tell the boy to cancel your carriage.”

“But surely, ma'am, you do not mean to keep poor Smythe and his friends and Mrs. Golightly and
her
friends in such fearful suspense? 'Twill take but a few minutes at this hour to reach Falcon House. You can change your slippers and—Ah, here is my coach.”

He took Naomi's arm, and even as she argued she was somehow swept up the steps, Rossiter gave swift instructions to the coachman and climbed inside, the door was slammed shut, and they were rolling away.

“For a man in his cups,” she said bitterly, “you move fast, Captain Rossiter. I had thought to have offered you a dance.”

“You should be glad, ma'am, that I escort you to change your slippers rather than subject you to embarrassment on the dance floor.”

She gave a small sound of impatience and he smiled into the dimness. “You—ah,
do
have at least one of the famous slippers, I trust?”

“What?” With a surge of hope she asked eagerly, “Do you say you know where the other—” She heard his soft laugh then, and drew back. “Oh! Horrid! You tricked me!” Tears stung her eyes. “Well, you may gloat over your shabby victory, and instruct your coachman to turn back. You do but waste our time.”

His hand came up to grasp her averted chin and turn her face. “You really judge me base, don't you.” He saw the glitter on her cheeks then, and said in a gentler voice, “Now, whatever our differences, be a good girl and answer me. Have you the one slipper?”

“Y-yes,” she gulped. “But what good is—” His fingers covered her lips.

“When we reach Falcon House, run and get it. I will bring you the other, and—”

Tingling with excitement, she pulled his hand away. “No! An you know where the other one is, I go with you to find it. Then we will get mine.”

He frowned. “Very well. But on one condition. You must tell me—truthfully—how and where you lost it.”

“Hah! As if you need to be told! In a bedchamber, of course. Where I was dallying with—with August Falcon!”

He said contemptuously, “You cheapen yourself with such rubbish! Whatever else, Falcon is a gentleman. Besides, he was not there. And despite all I have heard of you, madam, I most certainly do not believe you were dallying in a bedchamber. With anyone! Now let us cry truce for this one night. Is it agreed?”

She fought a sudden and infuriating need to burst into tears, and to conceal this weakness, said tartly, “Agreed. You acquit me of dalliance in one of Lady Dowling's bedchambers. I acquit you of arriving to escort me when you were foxed.”

Silence. Then he said, “As you have doubtless heard, my father is convinced his financial catastrophe was contrived. My efforts to prove it have evidently offended someone, because this morning I was, not very politely, requested to desist.”

She gave a gasp. “How dreadful! And I imagined—”

“Oh, I am aware. Your imagination is well developed, my lady. Will it stretch, I wonder, to an interesting account of the loss of your slipper?”

“If that is your notion of a truce, Captain Rossiter—” she began stormily.

He reached for the checkstring, and when the coachman opened the trap told him to disregard the first destination and proceed at once to the second. Settling back against the squabs, he said, “You are very right, my lady. Pray accept my humble apologies, and let us try again. How
did
you lose your pretty slipper?”

She shrugged. “Very well, but I fear your sensibilities will be offended.”

Five minutes later, Rossiter confirmed her fear. “By heaven!” he exclaimed, horrified. “I cannot believe that a well-bred lady would do so crazy a thing! You should have broke the window at once and cried for help! Did it not occur to you that the
ton
would be disgusted by such an escapade?”

“It occurred to me,” she said, bristling, “that many prosy and prim individuals might regard it as such.”

Swept by a searing wrath, he seized her shoulders and shook her. “Prosy and prim, my eye! You are a lady of Quality! I cannot credit that despite your upbringing you would take such mad risks only to—Yes, devil take it! I can! You were ever a tomboy despite your lovely fragility.”

She closed her lips over the furious set-down she had been about to deal him. “Lovely fragility” was quite acceptable. “Perhaps you will be so good as to remove your hands from me at once, sir! And instead of censuring me as though you had the right—which you do not—tell me where in the world we are going.”

Rossiter frowned at her for a minute, then released her.

“To Snow Hill. And you may count yourself fortunate that the gentlemen had left that room before you reached the ledge.”

“Which was not a bedchamber,” she pointed out. “And why Snow Hill? Oh, Lud! You live there now! Do you say 'twas
you
found my slipper and have kept it from me?”

“But of course,” he sneered. “I had intended to blackmail you with it, as you suspected! Which you richly deserve in return for your assistance in finding me so—unique a valet!”

He could all but see her mischievous little smile. Her voice was full of mirth as it came out of the darkness. “The Guttersnipe Domestic Registry. At your service, Captain.”

A silence. Then he said, “I wish you will have the charity to forget I said that. It was very bad. And you did me a great service, indeed. I could not wish a finer valet.”

“La, but I think you quiz me, sir! Besides denying me the satisfaction of hearing a litany of grievances.”

“Then
assurement
you shall have them. He threw my brother into a state of paralysis; left my father at a loss for words, for the first time in living memory; has, I suspect, done battle with our few male servants so that although they despise him they are frigidly polite to him, and—above all, he infuriated August Falcon by addressing him as ‘mate.' Ah, what would I not give to have seen it!” Smiling to hear her lilting laughter, he added quietly, “He also risked his neck to extricate me from a rather sticky corner this morning. So you see he is truly—”

The carriage gave a lurch and he was flung back. Naomi squealed and reached out instinctively, and he grasped her hand and held it strongly.

“This confounded toboggan ride,” he grumbled.

She asked uneasily, “Can the horses climb to the top?”

“They manage, poor brutes. But I doubt they like it any more than do I!”

“I can readily apprehend you would not like it, for 'tis steep as any mountain!” With a chuckle, she said, “Do you recollect when we found the old tree house in the woods and you'd not admit you were afraid to climb up?”

She saw the white gleam of his smile through the darkness. He said, “Yes. And having used the last of my courage to prove I was as bold as you, I was too scared to climb down! I thank you for reminding me of my intrepid boyhood!”

She laughed. “Well, I thought it very gallant, for when my petticoats caught on that splintered branch, you overcame your fears and rescued me.”

“Hmm. And then all but fainted! A fine hero!”

“Far more heroic than had it been done by someone with no fear of heights.”

Surprised by the kindness in her voice, he turned to her. The flambeaux outside a house they passed shone into the carriage. Naomi was leaning back her head, smiling at him, looking almost ethereally lovely …

They were both startled when the door was flung open. The carriage had stopped, and the lackey had run from the house to assist them.

Rossiter came back to reality. “I shall be but a moment, ma'am.” He climbed down the steps and called to the coachman to drive along to where the street became a little wider. “You can make your turn there.”

The coachman nodded and whipped up his team, grumbling about mountains he'd take care never to go to again.

Limping towards the house, Rossiter asked the lackey if Sir Mark was at home.

“No, sir. He and Mr. Newby took Miss Gwendolyn to—”

There came an odd sound like a tree branch splintering. A startled shout rang out. Rossiter swung around. The horses were rearing, neighing their fright. He saw the coachman leap from the box and had a brief bewildered thought that the man had lost his wits. In that fragmentary second, he realized that the coach was jolting oddly. It started to lurch backwards. ‘My God!' he thought. ‘The pole has split!'

He was sprinting even as that terrifying realization dawned. He drew level with the coach and the door was flung open, but before Naomi could get out there was a sharper crack. The pole snapped off short, and the coach began to roll backwards down the hill leaving driver and team behind. Racing in frenzied pursuit, Rossiter saw the coach hit one of the many ruts in the road and slew sideways. One wheel bumped up onto the flagway and sent a link boy leaping for his life. The carriage rocked and spun. Rossiter was sure it would overturn, but the splintered pole crashed against an iron fence and scraped along the rails with an ear-splitting clanging. The wild plunge was slowed. A small respite, but it gave Rossiter the chance to draw alongside. Sobbing for breath, he gasped, “Jump!”

To do so was a physical impossibility. Clinging to the door frame, Naomi had all she could manage to prevent herself being flung back onto the seat again. The coach teetered crazily. Rossiter sprang at the door, grabbed Naomi's arm and wrenched with the strength of desperation. She was torn from the coach. He caught her, staggered, and fell backwards.

The carriage was rolling again, gathering speed. It thundered down the hill, barely missed a solitary horseman, crashed into a brick wall and overturned to lie upside down, one wheel flying off, and the remaining three spinning madly.

Rossiter dragged himself up. Naomi sat beside him, looking dazed. He gasped, “Are you all right?”

She said tremulously, “I think…'tis not safe to be nigh you, sir,” then threw herself into his arms. “Oh … Gideon…!”

He held her very tight, whispering, “Thank God! Thank God!”

*   *   *

The bootblack had been sent to the stables to hire another carriage; Tummet and the butler were down the hill with the driver of the wrecked vehicle; Naomi had been ushered upstairs to be ministered to by the cook; and the lackey was brushing Gideon's uniform coat. Having washed, put on a clean shirt, and tidied his disordered hair, Gideon donned his dressing gown and went slipper hunting.

Monsieur Delatouche was snoring by the fire in Newby's parlour while awaiting the return of his employer. When Gideon marched in without benefit of a knock, went straight into the bedchamber and appropriated the dainty slipper from atop the chest of drawers, the valet started up and launched into an anguished protest. Gideon instructed him to refer Monsieur Newby to Captain Gideon, and left the man wailing.

The lackey had worked wonders with his coat, and in no time he was downstairs again. He went into the withdrawing room, poured himself a glass of cognac, and stretched out in a chair, reliving the moments when two soft arms had clung about his neck and a warm and shapely little body had been pressed tight against him. Magical moments, made the more precious by the awareness that Naomi had escaped almost certain death. He closed his eyes for a second. Suppose he'd not been in time? Suppose she had been swept down that hill? How would he be feeling at this moment? And he knew, and trembled. What a fool to ever have thought he could forget her! How could he have been so stupid as to envision life without her? She was his, and always would be, no matter what had come between them, for without her there would be no life.

He heard the whisper of feminine draperies then, and came at once to his feet, turning to her eagerly.

She came into the room looking a little pale but otherwise none the worse for her ordeal. There seemed, in fact, to be a glow about her that enhanced her beauty, so that he was awed, and stared at her speechlessly.

Gazing at him in turn, she thought that he looked haggard and tired, with dark smudges under his eyes. But the tenderness in those eyes set her heart to pounding wildly, and she blushed and hurried to give him both her hands. “Well, sir,” she said rather shakily. “On your first day home you rescued me from highwaymen, and tonight you have saved my life once again. I trust you do not mean to make a habit of such behaviour? Faith, but I doubt I could support any more of these exciting episodes!”

“'Tis said things always happen in sequences of three,” he answered, smiling, and bending to kiss her fingertips. He stepped closer, still holding her hands, enchanted by the sudden shyness in her eyes. “Naomi, are you really all right? My God, but I was scared!”

“And I,” she confessed. “I thought I was doomed. Had it not been for you coming up so fast … For a man who could scarce walk, you fairly flew, Gideon.”

He said whimsically, “For a moment I feared I would pass you by and be unable to stop! A fine figure I would have cut!”

She put a cool finger across his lips. “No. We must not make light of it. I have to thank you for—”

“For hiring that stupid coach?” he interrupted, frowning. “I should have made certain it was safe before I entrusted your precious self to it!”

They were still standing very close together and the old magic was at work, so that the lost years and all her bitter griefs melted away. Looking up at him, she half-whispered, “Am I really precious to you, Gideon?”