Twice Tempted (36 page)

“Only for England.”

When Fiona saw all that was in the little safe, her fingers began to itch. Enough money for her to build another school for Mairead, velvet jewelry boxes, official papers. And that was in addition to what Alex pulled out and stuffed into various pockets.

“Is this what you wanted?” she asked, making herself look away.

He closed the safe and returned the portrait to its precise position. “More than I could have hoped for. Now let’s go.”

Good
, she thought, her stomach curdling with dread.
Now we will have time for the truth.

As it usually did, the truth came at the worst moment. They were walking down Oxford Street a little later, Alex with his hand raised to hail a cab like any intoxicated soldier. Suddenly the hair went up on the back of Fiona’s neck and she found herself drawing her stiletto.

“Alex, I need to tell you something,” she whispered, her head on a swivel.

When she saw Alex’s was, too, she knew her instincts were correct.

“What?” he asked.

“I committed bigger crimes in Edinburgh than pickpocketing.”

A jarvey was just pulling his hack to a jangling, creaking halt next to them when the men came out of hiding. Four, five, with cudgels and knives. Alex turned to Fiona. “What were they?” he asked, already pulling his gun.

The leader of the group pulled a gun of his own and pointed it at Alex.

“I murdered two men,” Fiona said and threw her knife.

The man dropped like a stone onto the cobbles, a knife in his throat. The last thing Fiona saw before the rest of the men came at them was the look of horror Alex turned on her.

Chapter 21

I
t wasn’t Fiona’s admission that rocked Alex to the core. It was the flat, purposeful expression in her eyes when she sent that knife flying at the attacker just as he lifted his gun. Suddenly the assailant was on the ground, twitching his life away, blood pumping from his throat. The gun clattered across the cobbles, and Fiona was pulling another knife from her sleeve.

“Just so you all know,” Fiona announced.

Alex didn’t wait for a reaction from his attackers. He ran at them.

“Stay here,” he yelled at Fiona, and wasn’t surprised at all when she ran after him, her long legs unfettered by skirts.

He couldn’t think about what she’d just said. What she’d just done. He couldn’t react, even though it felt as if a ball of ice had lodged in his gut. He could think of nothing but the fight because if he didn’t, his intrepid Fiona would be dead.

From the start, the fight was a melee. Quick and silent and deadly. Alex stopped only long enough to retrieve the attacker’s gun and Fiona her stiletto before wading in.

“’ere, gov!” the jarvey yelled, and Alex looked up to see a telltale red band around his top hat as he scrambled off his perch. Could Chuffy have notified Drake and gotten help?

He got his answer when the jarvey pulled out a couple of guns and tossed one to Alex. Alex swung back to the oncoming rush and fired point-blank, dropping a man three steps away. He wished, suddenly, that he had a sword to go with his elaborate uniform. Two other men reached him, one with a cudgel and one with a knife. He pulled his own knife, spinning, lashing out with his feet. The cudgel went down. The knife didn’t.

Fiona was dealing with her own assailants. In the brief snatches he could spare, he saw her dancing about, agile and quick, knife in one hand, a recovered cudgel in the other, a deadly smile on her face he thought he would see every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life.

“Here, jarvey!” he yelled. “To my batman!”

“Don’t be mad,” Fiona retorted. “We’ll all fight together.”

And they did, the three of them back to back. The fight was silent except for the grunts of exertion and gasps of pain, a shout or two of warning, and finally, down the street, the shrill whistle of the Charlie, who had spotted them.

“Now, go!” Alex commanded of Fiona. “I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

She gave him a lopsided grin. “I feel the same about you,” she said and sent a knife skimming into a man’s thigh. He went down screaming and lost his cudgel. Another man picked it up and ran in.

There were three attackers left. They ignored the Charlie’s warning and bore in on Fiona, as if they knew she was the vulnerable link.

“Here!” Alex yelled and tossed her the empty blunderbuss from the coach.

She wielded it like a club.

If Alex weren’t so busy trying to get to her to protect her, he would have been mesmerized by her. She was agile. She was deadly. She was magnificent.

She was scaring him to death.

The jarvey was down, blood streaming from his head. The attackers were out of shots. They came on anyway, with cudgels and knives and fists and feet. Alex was grappling with one when he saw another attack Fiona, taking a knife to the shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her straight into the air. Fiona battered at him with her fists and feet. She yanked the knife from his biceps and fought to plunge it into his chest. He wrapped his massive hand around hers, where he still held her up in the air and squeezed. She took her other hand and gouged at his eyes, and he screamed, just before he threw her hard to the ground. Her knife went flying. Her mouth opened, her head snapped back, and she gasped like a landed fish trying to get air into frozen lungs.

Alex saw the behemoth lift his cudgel high and ran right at him. Fiona was rolling over, trying to get away. Taking his nearest attacker out with a roundhouse punch, Alex tackled Fiona’s assailant at the waist, sending them both flying back against the wheels of the carriage. The horses skittered about, dragging the coach forward. Alex’s attacker pushed hard, trying to force Alex’s head beneath the moving wheel. Alex was panting from the exertion, his hands wrapped around the bastard’s throat and his legs wrapping round the brute’s knees until he could manage to get leverage. As quick as a blink, he flipped him, smashing the bastard’s head against the street. He saw the man’s eyes glaze and fade, and pulled himself up.

One more left. The jarvey was beginning to stir, but Alex was out of weapons. Then he turned to help Fiona, only to freeze. Standing before her, a gun lifted in his one hand, was Thomas Mitchell, the one-armed soldier who had pushed her into the street. He was aiming straight down at Fiona’s chest where she still lay sprawled on the cobbles, and Alex didn’t have time to get to him. He thought in that moment that he died, his heart simply crumbling.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas Mitchell said, and looked it.

“Let me stand,” Fiona begged. “At least give me that.”

The soldier just stared at her, as if he couldn’t understand. But she got to her feet, standing as tall and beautiful as any Scottish queen. Alex would have gladly died for her. He gauged his distance and edged closer.

“Put the gun down, Mr. Mitchell,” Fiona said gently. “Go away from here and never come back, and we need never speak of it.”

Alex wanted to scream at her. How dare she forgive this beast? He began to slowly bend, intent on the knife protruding from a still chest at his feet.

Then Alex saw what Fiona had. There was flat, hard despair in Thomas Mitchell’s eyes.“What for?” the man asked, letting the gun sag. “I got nothin’ to go to. Nothin’ left. At least they helped me eat.”

Alex couldn’t believe it. He was about to do something that could get him hanged faster than his father’s letters. “
Can
you read and write?” he asked the man.

Mitchell swung his head toward Alex, the surprise stark. “I said I could.”

“Are you attached to your name?”

The man shrugged. “Me da was a right bastard, and me ma died ’fore she saw me. I can do with another.”

Alex nodded and surrendered. “Then there is work for you on an estate I just inherited. You can help me find jobs for other men tossed ashore from the war.”

He couldn’t help seeing the shining approval in Fiona’s eyes and knew he would make this decision again for that look.

Mitchell looked around at the bodies strewn across the street. “What about this?”

“If you know any names, you’ll give them to me. Unless you like to talk when you drink, no one will know.”

Mitchell drew himself up to a dignified height. “I follow John Wesley, sir. We don’t hold with drink.”

Fiona laughed, her voice high and breathy. “I think John Wesley probably didn’t hold with murder, either, Thomas.”

“And
you
,” Alex accused, swinging her way. “Did I not tell you to stay out of this?”

She shrugged. “You needed help. I have experience. I think I told you that.”

“You told me you stole things.”

She shook her head. “I protected Mairead.”

His gut crawled. “But it’s been eight years.”

She looked up then, and he saw a terrible bleakness fill her eyes. “Mairead still needs protecting.” Straightening, she wiped her knife on her leg and slipped it back up her sleeve. “Now, could we retrieve our jehu and go home before the watch gets here?”

Alex desperately wanted to kiss her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her so he knew she was safe. She looked like an ensign with her chopped brown hair, broad cheekbones, and bold steps. Her face was sweaty and pale, and blood marred the blue of her costume. She was trembling with delayed reaction, her eyes still dark, her hands restless. He had never seen a more erotic woman in his life.

Which was not a thought he had time for at the moment. He bent to collect the jarvey instead. That gentleman was sitting up holding his head in his hands and not looking fit to drive. Thomas Mitchell pocketed his own gun and walked up to help.

“Did Chuffy send you?” Alex asked the driver, pulling him to his feet.

The man nodded. “Lord Drake. Said you might need help. Much help I was.”

“You know him?” Fiona asked Alex, stepping forward and wincing. “Oh, heavens. I think I shall ache for days.”

“See the red band?” Alex asked, lifting the jarvey’s hat to hand back to him.

Fiona stared at it a moment, as if she was not comprehending very quickly. “Why, I remember. The coachie who was hired to take Sarah home from school that day wore one of those. Are they…?”

“Yes.”

She nodded and turned to the jarvey. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise, miss. Devil of an aim with that knife. Should be in a circus.”

She laughed again, a high, breathy sound, and again she winced.

Alex frowned. “Are you all right?”

She looked up. “Oh, yes.”

Then she took a step and wobbled. She had her hand at her waist as if pressing against a cramp.

“Miss?” Thomas Mitchell asked, stepping up.

Alex pushed him back. “Fiona…”

She lifted her hand and looked at it. It was splotched and dripping. Alex swore his heart stopped.

She looked up at him, surprise written on her suddenly ashen face. “Oh, the devil. I knew I was sore.”

And then her knees gave out.

Alex caught her before she reached the ground, lifting her in his arms. “Damn you, Fiona Ferguson.
Damn
you!”

Suddenly everyone was in motion. Alex ran for the coach. Mitchell pulled open the door and the jarvey jumped for his seat. “Where we goin’, gov?”

Alex froze at the door, his head spinning, unable to breathe past the rock lodged in his chest. How could she do this to him? How could she risk herself so blithely?

Where should they go? His first instinct was to go home, but there was no doubt it was being watched. He wanted to go to Willowbend, where Michael O’Roarke waited, but he could feel how wet her side was and fought down panic.

“Drake’s,” he snapped and climbed in, trying so hard to keep from jostling Fiona.

“Hey!” the watchman yelled as the coach lurched forward. “Stop! What’s going on here?”

The jarvey never even paused. They hurtled down the street as if being chased by highwaymen.

“I’m sorry,” Fiona apologized, her voice even breathier, as if she didn’t have enough life force left for volume or, please God, it just hurt to inhale.

“What did you think, exactly?” he demanded, pulling her as close to his chest as he could, trying to warm her. “Did you think that it was going to ease my mind, knowing you had experience committing murder? Did you enjoy it as much this time, or has it become old hat to you?”

He was ashamed at his outburst, but he couldn’t seem to stop, fear fueling a rage such as he had never known. Rage at her family, at her struggle, at her isolation when she should have spent her life wrapped in comfort and certain that she was the most precious thing in a person’s life.

How dare she risk the chance to know that by trying to save his bloody life? After all, who was he? Just another person who had failed her.

“If you
ever
do anything so monumentally stupid again,” he shouted, “I swear I will lock you up in Bedlam and keep your sister away to protect her from your influence. But then, I won’t have to worry about locking you up, will I? You just took care of that all by yourself by confessing to murder in front of witnesses who will be more than happy to testify against you. It’s a damn good thing Chuffy came along so your sister has somebody to take care of her, because you certainly won’t be in any position to.”

“Here, y’r lordship,” Thomas Mitchell protested from the opposite seat, his face thunderous. “Who do you think you are, yellin’ at her?”

“The man who saved her from you,” he snapped at Mitchell. “So shut up.”

He kept rocking her back and forth, his breath wheezing in his chest, too afraid to look down at Fiona, certain she would be dead and he would be lost, no matter what happened from here on out.

“I didn’t…mean it,” Fiona whispered. “I mean to…to reassure you that I could…help.”

Help? She’d saved his bloody life. Damn her.
Damn
her. He remembered suddenly the moment he had walked into Amabelle’s room and found her floating in that obscene red water. He remembered the crushing weight of guilt, the gouging loss, the futility of such waste. He had always remembered it as being unbearable.