Too Dangerous For a Lady (32 page)

Beth suggested they all sit and offered tea, which was declined. Hermione saw that Porteous had not improved over the past months. He wasn't enjoying his wealth at the table, for he was even thinner and his hair had retreated even more.

“As head of the family,” he said, “I felt I must enquire as to your welfare.”

“That's very kind of you, Cousin, but as you see, I am quite well.”

“I have come to offer you the protection of my house.”

“I assure you, Cousin, I'm well situated here with my friends.”

“All the same, it would be more suitable if you were to remove to my house.”

She remembered past conversations. Politeness never worked. “No, thank you.”

He turned to Beth. “Lady Arden, you must see the propriety of it.”

“Must I?” Beth asked amiably. “Please, Carsheld, don't attempt to deprive me of my dear friend's company.”

“My mother is most anxious to have Cousin Hermione's company.”

“I'm so sorry to disappoint her,” Hermione said, trying for Beth's tone. “But for now I must stay here.”

“You will remove to my house soon, then? Or should I say,
our
house.” His expression was probably intended to
suggest a loverlike innuendo, but it made her think of a particularly nasty cat outside a mousehole.

“I'm afraid that won't be possible,” she said, doing her best to hide her glee. “I'm pleased that you will be one of the first to know that I am betrothed, Cousin. I have accepted an offer from Viscount Faringay.”

His thin cheeks flared red. “Faringay? Who is he?”

“A very suitable gentleman,” Beth said. “He was in the army, and subsequently involved in delicate diplomatic work, but now he intends to settle on his estates.”

“And he takes you without a dowry, Hermione? The man's a fool.”

“Then you're a fool,” Hermione retorted, “for you tried to do the same.”

He rose. “I come to do my duty to you as family and receive scorn in return. You and your sister will get no more kindness from me. Not one penny.”

Hermione rose, too. “We have no need of it, Carsheld. A relative on my mother's side has provided for us most generously. Good day to you, and do give my warmest regards to your mother.”

He picked up his hat and gloves and stalked out of the room.

“My, my,” Beth said. “I see why you wanted a companion.”

Hermione blew out a breath. “Mostly to stop me from murdering him.”

“He wanted to marry you?”

“He's been trying to force me to it by offering assistance to my sister and her family. If not for Edgar, I might have had to give in.”

“I would have stopped you if I could. I assume he's not invited to the wedding?”

Hermione slapped a hand over a giggle. “I'm tempted to invite him in hopes that he would choke. Probably I should,
but he's the sort to attend and play the specter at the feast, bringing his mother with him, dressed in mourning.”

“It's almost worth it.”

“No. Do you know, when he inherited, he never offered us any extra items from the various houses? We'd taken what we were entitled to, but there were other things that held meaning to us and could have no significance to him. I hinted to him once about two miniatures. He replied that they would be wedding gifts.”

“We can only hope that he marries suitably,” said Beth.

It took a moment for Hermione to catch the meaning. “Oh, yes indeed!”

“Come to my boudoir so we can discuss your very suitable wedding. Who you want to invite and all other details.”

“There's too much going on to think of that now.”

“There is nothing going on here and now. Your part is done.”

“Thayne—”

“Quite likely he's left.”

“No. He'll want to know I'm all right. I must speak to him, but then I'll discuss wedding plans, if you wish.”

“You're a very unusual bride.”

“Were you all in a tizzy over your bridals?”

Beth's smile was wry. “After a fashion, but perhaps your way is best.”

Hermione hurried in search of Thayne, and found him alone in the library. “I knew you'd want to know.”

He took her hands. “Was there any difficulty? I watched him leave. A sour skeleton.”

She chuckled. “Very sour. I refused to move into his house and refused his implication that I would soon be his bride, informing him that I was to marry you. I crowned the moment by telling him Polly and I were well funded and free of his screws. It was, all in all, very satisfactory.”

He drew her to sit on a velvet-covered bench. “I wanted to act as your protector, but I see there was no need.”

“Do you mind? Remember, I have no physical courage, so I'll accept protection there willingly.”

“I pray you're never in danger again.”

“And I you.” They couldn't help but kiss, again and again. “But my prayers won't work.”

“Pray for my safety, love. I do intend to be as careful as I can.”

“Only until we're married.”

He didn't deny it. “That will take a day or two. By then this might all be over. We're clearly near the end.”

She pushed for more. “The other revolutionaries? Hunt and Thistlewood. You'll leave that fight to others?”

She thought he'd deny that, but in the end he said, “I'll help, but from the sides. I've become aware of my other responsibilities to Faringay. But that makes me regret that I trapped you with me last night.”

“Trapped? I was willing in every way.”

“But you have no escape.”

“Nor want one!”

“You haven't experienced life as my wife yet.”

She put her fingers over his lips. “We'll find a way, love. We have to, for you will always do your duty, and I must always be at your side.”

“I'd have it no other way.” He rose. “I must go. There's much to be done.” She thought he might have forgotten the license, but he added, “Arden's offered to go with me tomorrow to the archbishop of Canterbury's office. With his glittering power we might be able to marry late tomorrow.”

She'd take the blessings of that and push aside the fear. As she went with him to the door, she said, “I wish I could do more to help find Mrs. Waite. As it is, Beth wants to talk about guests and a wedding breakfast.”

“It'll be our only wedding. A shame to have a scrambling affair.”

She was surprised. “Do you want something grand? I've asked Edgar to give me away, so I thought we'd marry in his room.”

He smiled. “You, me, a clergyman, and witnesses. That's all we need for perfection.”

“Yes.” She could see he shared her reluctance to part, so she steered him out into the corridor, and went down with him to the hall. She managed not to say anything more about him keeping safe. She knew he would. Until they were married, at least.

H
ermione was crossing toward the stairs when she heard someone knock at the door. She turned back and heard a man say, “Dr. Grammaticus for a Mr. Peake.”

The porter opened the door somewhat grudgingly and directed the man to a reception room.

Hermione hurried over. “Dr. Grammaticus. Welcome!”

As she saw him more clearly, however, her excitement deflated. His sober black was appropriate for a doctor, and his old-fashioned gray bob wig could be excused, but shouldn't a good doctor present a picture of health? He had spindle legs, but was round as a ball in the belly and had the swollen nose and red face of a drunkard.

He smirked and bowed with too much of a flourish and the creak of a corset. “At your most devoted service, my dear lady! Do I have the honor to speak to the Marchioness of Arden?”

“No. I'm Lady Hermione Merryhew, your patient's great-niece.” She felt inclined to take him into the reception room, but it wouldn't do. She wasn't going to take him to Edgar yet, however. She took him up to the library. It wasn't quite as welcoming as the drawing room, but no insult. Once there, she invited him to sit and went right to the point. “We understand you have a cure for kala-azar, Doctor.”

“I do, your ladyship.”

“Then how is it not widely known and available?”

His eyes narrowed at her tone, and she felt they were decidedly shifty. “I have not been able to prove its effectiveness, your ladyship. I cured people in Egypt and then in Algeria, and brought home signed testimonies, but the government dismisses them. They will not pay me without proof, and I do not trust them to pay me once they have the details of my treatment. I need a patient with the disease so I can demonstrate, but there are none in Britain. Until now, I gather.”

“Why not travel to India, Doctor, where I understand the disease is common? You could demonstrate your cure there, under the eye of military doctors.”

He spread his hands. “So everyone asks, your ladyship, but I am a broken man. I was a ship's surgeon during action, and then I was plagued by the climate of North Africa. I dare not visit the tropics again, so I need your relative as much as he needs me.”

He could be a clever mountebank, but she sensed true desperation in his words. “I gather your cure depends on a particular fungus, Doctor. You have a supply?”

“I have the preparation ready, your ladyship, but in a secret location.”

“You are very intent on secrecy. People are rewarded for inventions and cures, even when the details are known.”

“I have enemies. I have been tricked in the past. I need my one case here in Britain, and then I will reveal all.”

He was half-mad, but that didn't mean he was a fraud. Hermione realized she was again trying to protect Edgar in a way that would infuriate her if anyone tried to do it to her. She rose. “Come and see my great-uncle.”

He rose eagerly. “He is the patient?” But then he added, “He will pay?”

“I'm sure he'll be generous to one who cures him, Doctor. Come with me, please.”

When she introduced the doctor to Edgar, she saw the
same assessment in his eyes, but he listened to the story without comment.

“So you want paying to cure me,” he said in the end. “That's fair enough, but I need to know what you're dosing me with.”

“Antimony and fungus mirabilis.”

“Aye, but you admitted that you made up that name, and no amount of searching has found it.”

“Of course not. That's my secret. My key to a fortune.”

“You expect me to swallow whatever you give me without question?”

The doctor's lip curled. “I'm sure you've taken many medicines without question, sir. You have no other hope. I know this disease, and death marks you already.”

“My great-uncle has improved since coming to London,” Hermione protested.

“But the effects are inexorable. He will soon die.”

“How much?” Edgar asked.

“A thousand guineas.”

“That's outrageous!” Hermione protested.

“For a life?” the doctor replied.

Hermione suddenly remembered what Nolly had said about doctors being paid for treatment, not cure. “How do we know it will be a life? I propose that you be paid when Mr. Peake is cured.”

“What? What?” Grammaticus spluttered. “What sort of business is that?”

“A sound one,” Edgar said with a chuckle. “We'll make a trader of you yet, my dear. I'll pay you a hundred now for your expenses, Grammaticus, but the rest when I'm restored to health.”

“Absurd!” Grammaticus protested. “I'm not offering you an elixir of youth, sir.”

“Pity. I'd pay a great deal more for that. I expect to be able to get around in a normal way for a man of my age and have my innards behave as they should. That's a low enough
standard, isn't it?” When the doctor remained in scowling silence, Edgar asked, “What's the problem? Debts? Duns at the door?”

“A few temporary embarrassments. I need at least two hundred now.”

“Very well.”

“And at least two doctors to see you before treatment so that no one will be able to doubt the cure.”

“More poking and prodding,” Edgar grumbled. “But I agree. There's a Dr. Onslow in the Wirral who can say how I've been, and a ship's doctor, Aaron Johnson, as well. But make the others quick, or you'll have no one to try your potions on.”

Edgar wrote a draft on his bank and gave it to Grammaticus, whose hand shook as he took it. A good thing he wasn't a surgeon. Hermione escorted Grammaticus out of the room, but at the door she looked back. Edgar had sagged down. He, too, thought Grammaticus a fraud.

Once the doctor had left, she went to her own room, wishing Thayne were here to discuss the matter. What was the best thing to do? She tried to concentrate on that, but her mind flitted elsewhere.

She and Thayne had been apart so often, but now it felt intolerable not to have him here or at least know exactly where he was. She needed to know he was safe.

Beth knocked and entered. “We do need to talk about the wedding. . . .” But then she said, “What's the matter?”

Hermione told her about Grammaticus.

“I can't say whether the man's a charlatan or not, but our doctor is an excellent man. I can summon him tomorrow to be one of the witnesses.”

“Thank you. I want Edgar to be able to at least try the cure, though I must confess my mind is full of Thayne.”

Beth smiled. “A bride is supposed to dream as her wedding approaches.”

“I'm not dreaming. I'm worrying. Or rather, I'm fretting
because there's nothing I can do.” She couldn't stay still and rose to pace the room. “The poster could take days to prepare and print, but that mad Frenchwoman is planning to blow up London, perhaps this very day!”

“I thought the plan was for Drury Lane.”

“I don't think they're sure of that. I'm not sure they're sure of anything!”

“And you want to solve all the problems.”

“I certainly would if I could. Wouldn't you?”

“Of course. But there probably isn't the urgency you see. You have no more reason for thinking something will happen today than the men have for thinking it will happen later. Come to the nursery. Children are an excellent distraction.”

That proved true, and after lunch with Edgar, Hermione agreed to sit with Beth and discuss the basic necessities of a wedding. The matter of which gown and what accessories did capture her interest, and then what clothes she would take on her honeymoon. Beth had offered the Ardens' country home, Hartwell.

“It's what's called a cottage
orné
. Somewhat large for a cottage and very
orné
, but it's a place for simple living.”

As time passed, the lamps were lit so Hermione could write lists. She had to admit that planning her honeymoon was delightful, because she'd be there with Thayne. A whole week or more with nothing to part them, day and night.

When Lord Arden joined them, she asked, “Is Thayne with you? Faringay, I mean.”

She blushed at the others' amusement, but couldn't help her eagerness.

“I'm sorry, no,” Arden said. “I left him at Braydon's room many hours ago.”

“So you don't know what's planned?”

“No.”

Beth said, “We could invite him to dine. And Braydon as well, of course.”

“We could,” Arden agreed.

Beth went to her desk to write the note.

“I could take it,” Hermione said. She went even hotter, but sanity seemed to have escaped her. “I'm so restless. Perhaps he might need persuading. And we could discuss the wedding on the way back.”

Beth looked at her husband. “Is it safe?”

He was looking somewhat exasperated, but he said, “I can make it so. A closed carriage, with armed attendants.” He looked at Hermione. “My footman will have instructions to bring Faringay out to you. Don't leave the carriage.”

That seemed excessive, but Hermione had won what she wanted, so she hurried to summon Nolly and put on spencer, bonnet, and gloves. They went down, but had to wait until the carriage came to the front door, by which time she was feeling all the eccentricity of her impulse. She couldn't back out now, however.

The carriage was quite plain, and as well as a coachman, it had a groom at his side and a liveried footman at the back. She climbed inside feeling well guarded indeed. It was no great distance and the gaslit streets made it especially safe. They soon drew up outside a fine brick building and the footman went to knock. Hermione twitched to go with him, but she'd promised.

Time passed and she began to worry, but then Thayne came out of the house in hat and gloves and the footman swung open the door.

Hermione leaned forward to smile, but then a shape hurled forward, slamming the footman aside and barreling on into Thayne, howling,
“Bloody murderer!”

The brute's brother!

“Thayne!” she screamed, stumbling out of the carriage because she couldn't stay inside. Not when Thayne looked so slender in the massive arms. She clung to the doorframe of the rocking coach. “Help! Someone!”

The footman was sprawled on the ground unconscious.
She looked up to see the coachman struggling with his horses, but the groom had a pistol ready.

“I can't shoot, milady! I could hit either of 'em.”

The brute seemed to be trying to break Thayne in two. She heard voices calling, but no one was going to be here in time.

Just then, Thayne twisted free and drove a fist at the Boothroyd's throat, but the brute lowered his chin to take it, then grappled again, getting an arm around Thayne's neck that looked likely to break it.

Kris!

Hermione dragged it out and ran toward the brute's rocklike back, despairing that the delicate blade could even make a dent.
Stick it in hard,
Edgar had said.
Go through leather, flesh, and even some bone.

Neck.
She wrapped both hands around the hilt and drove the blade with all her strength into a spot between collar and hair. It went in!
Like a knife through soft cheese.

The brute made an odd gargling noise and then crumpled, taking Thayne with him. They fell together, just as she'd fallen with Nathan when he was shot. Darkness threatened and she staggered to some railings and clung to them, her trembling legs almost too weak to hold her. Nolly rushed over to put an arm around her.

She watched Thayne scramble to his feet. Thank God he was all right. He came quickly to take her into his arms. “Don't say anything.”

Say anything? She was struggling to breathe, but at last people were all around, babbling and exclaiming.

“What happened?”

“Attack.”

“Madman!”

“What's the matter with him?”

“Madman indeed,” Thayne said. “He attacked me. Thank God I got a knife into him.”

“That's the truth, sir!” There were other supporting
voices, but none of them could have seen. Not with how fast everything had happened and the darkness between the pools of gaslight.

“I must take care of the lady,” Thayne said. He picked her up and carried her into the house. She was glad of it, for she wasn't sure her legs could hold her unassisted. He took her into a luxurious room, where he placed her on a sofa, then knelt beside her. “Are you all right, my darling?”

She found her voice at last. “Yes, I think so. But . . .”

“Not now. Say at little as possible. I must go back down.”

“No!”

He freed himself from her clutching hands. “Just for a few minutes. Look after her.”

“I will, milord!” Nolly said.

“Yes, sir,” said another hovering servant. A male.

“Sweet tea with brandy,” Thayne ordered, and then he was gone.

Hermione slumped back—and heard the straw of her bonnet crumple. “Not another one.”

Nolly took the damaged bonnet off and stroked her hair. “There, there, milady. Such nasty goings-on. I don't know what happened, I'm sure I don't. That madman attacking your gentleman, and then you running at him screaming.”

“I screamed?”

“Well, more yelled, I suppose, and you trying to hit him. Perhaps he collapsed from the shock.”

Nolly hadn't seen the knife?

Hermione's wits were returning, in scattered bits but still coming together enough for her to understand. Thayne had claimed he'd had a knife in order to protect her. It probably wasn't a crime to attack someone who was attacking someone else, but a lady striking an attacker with a blade? Killing an attacker? That would be a nine-days wonder.

Nine days? The story would dog her all her life, and not to her credit. Many would think her mad. She grasped the offered cup and drank hot, sweet, brandied tea. It tasted
marvelous and settled her nerves a bit, but as her mind cleared completely, she realized something terrible.