Wicked, My Love (23 page)

“You mean start preparing for our graceful ruin.” She tugged at her sleeves, trying to peel them off her skin. “We've been running for days. We haven't found Powers. We don't have a hard case against Harding. Oh God!” She pressed her hand to her mouth and began backing up, until her back hit the wall. “Oh God!”

“I swear by every bit of breath left in my body, I will let nothing happen to you.” He reached for her. “If Harding does his worst, we will have each other.” Splat! The dangerous words fell out. He felt exposed as he studied her face, searching for the tiniest flicker of love. Surely, it was there. He thought he had felt something stirring in her body as she kissed him by the canal.

“Lord save me,” she whispered.

Damn that woman! His pride and heart took a strong punch. “Is being with me so terrible? Do you realize that most unmarried ladies in society would—”

“It doesn't concern you. Look around!”

He pivoted. Ladies sporting large white ribbons that read “The Mary Wollstonecraft Society—Manchester Chapter” packed the station. They weren't the harsh, sour women who enjoyed tossing eggs and rotting vegetables at him, but ladies of all social spheres, smiling and chatting together, Isabella's book in their gloved hands. Again he felt that ugly sting of envy.

If only he had such passionate supporters. If only these women could vote.

If he were Isabella, he would be introducing himself, basking in their love. Instead, she had collapsed onto a bench, her face buried in her hands, trying as much as humanly possible to be invisible.

“They like you,” he whispered, sitting next to her, bumping her shoulder with his. “Don't be scared. Go talk to them.”

“I wish I hadn't written that book.” She shook her head. “They think I'm someone I'm not. What will happen when my bank fails? They will see me for the fraud I am.”

“You're not a fraud, Isabella.” He rested his hand on her shoulder. “Why do you have such a low opinion of yourself?” Before the words had left his mouth, the ghosts of hundreds of mean insults he had uttered through the years and nasty pranks he had played came back to haunt his conscience.

“Can you ask the ticket master if a private carriage can be arranged?” she pleaded. “Please. I'll pay whatever I have to.”

He rose. “Are you going to be all right?”

“No!” she cried, her arms wrapped at her waist as she rocked back and forth. “Not unless some stray bolt of lightning puts me out of my misery.”

“Very well, then. Just stay huddled like a scared ball. I'll be quick as possible.”

Ten minutes later, he returned with the grim news. “The train broke down. Everyone is trying to get on the next one, which arrives two hours from now. You go ahead to first class. I must go back.”

“I'm sitting with you. You can't leave me.”

Warmth flooded his heart, but still he said, “The rain is coming down like it's the end of the world. I don't want you to catch a chill.”

“I don't care. I'm sitting with you.”

Passengers were packed in second class, shoulder to shoulder. Isabella quivered as the damp wind blew through the open cabin as the train sped down the track. Under the spread of her skirt, she held Randall's hand. He didn't have a coat any longer, having lent it to cover a cold infant a row up.

The child's young mother chatted with her companion. “Well, it's been hard after Alfred went off to India. Months pass before he sends money. Of course, he has a problem with the bottle. But I'm not going to let one terrible mistake ruin my life. But like all the members in my chapter, I've started an account in Miss St. Vincent's bank and put what monies I have in it.”

Oh
God!
Isabella's life was going to financial hell, and she was taking the entirety of the Wollstonecraft Society with her.

By the time they reached London, it was dark. Randall kept a hand clamped to Isabella, afraid the human current would carry her away. Her brows were creased, lips slightly puckered, her eyes sharp but staring at a place in her own mind. She moved with the flow of foot traffic, but she wasn't present.

The crowded station was humid and steamy from rain and sweat. The stairs to the lobby were narrow, and when he let Isabella step ahead, another covey of ribboned Wollstonecraft zealots slipped between them and then invited more of their kindred along.

Randall stayed on their heels, trying to keep close to Isabella, but she was pushed further ahead. When he couldn't see the top of her bonnet anymore, his pulse quickened. “Izzy,” he called, not wanting to alert the ladies that their patroness saint was among them, but his words were lost in the unintelligible cacophony of chatter, and the melodic sound of newspaper boys calling the headlines.

As he stepped into the main lobby, he heard the female screams. “It can't be true!” a woman shrieked. Another cried, “No, it must be wrong!”

The first thought that rushed through his head was that Queen Victoria had died. Then he heard the newspaper boy ring out:

“Examiner special edition! Examiner special edition!

Fraudulent stocks Lord Randall and Miss St. V
incen
t did sell,

Leaving the Bank of Lord Hazelwood to fail,

Now lord and lady do fly,

Without kissing their clients good-bye,

Hazelwood, a name you can't trust,

With your monies or your government.”

Randall's heart thundered. What the hell? Now he and Isabella were the villains? They were the ones who sold the bad stock? He dug his fingers into his chest as pain shot down his left arm. They were being framed—and no prizes for guessing who was behind it.

Where was Isabella? He staggered forward, finding her amid a thick crowd of wailing Wollstonecraft Society members. Her hand was pressed to her mouth as she gulped panicked breaths. Her eyes latched on to his, her fear shooting through him.

“Izzy May!” he cried, trying to break into the crowd. A rather substantial society member in front of him fainted. Instinctively, he reached out to catch the woman before she slammed into the hard stone floor.

“Forget that old bird,” a man hissed. “Where's Isabella?” In the strain and confusion, Randall thought he had uttered the words himself until, out of his periphery, he glimpsed a familiar, prawn-like body clad in dark clothes. Randall turned his head to find himself staring into the perspiring face of An
thony Powers.

“You,” Randall hissed, almost dropping the woman. “Bloody hell, I'm going to kill you.”

Isabella was falling apart a good twenty-five feet away from Randall, a huge supporter of the Mary Wollstonecraft Society was unconscious in his arms, and, worst of all, he had dressed so hastily that he had forgotten his gun, else he would have shot Powers between his vacant puppy eyes. Then Randall could complement his fraud allegations with murder.

“We have to get Isabella,” Powers cried, grabbing Randall's elbow. “We haven't any time to lose.”

“I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment,” Randall hissed through his gritted teeth as he hefted the soc
iety member.

Powers scanned the crowd and panic darkened his features. “Oh, damn, they're here.” He staggered backward, spun on his heel, and tore off, sprinting along the far wall.

“Cock,” Randall muttered. Then, in the most spectacularly unchivalrous moment of his life, he rested the fainted woman on the floor. “I'm sorry,” he told her companions, holding up his palms. “A thousand pardons and more.” He broke into a run.

“Disrespectful male swine,” he heard one of the society followers call after him.

Isabella, love, just keep it together for a few minutes,
he thought, hoping that there was some mystic power in the universe that could plant his thoughts into
her head.

He rushed after Powers, dodging through travelers, leaping over baggage, until both men were out of the station and into the night. The air was thick with drizzle. Huge, hazy orbs circled the gaslights lining the entrance where the black hackneys were sitting in a line. The swollen moon glowed behind the low clouds. Several yards ahead, Powers's coattails were flapping off his hindquarters as his feet slapped the pavement. At the corner, he turned and stopped. Randall dove into the air, catching the man's shoulders in a hostile embrace. Both men fell to the ground.

“What the hell are you doing?” Powers shouted.

Randall's knees slammed the pavers, but he didn't register any pain. He wrapped his hands around the rapscallion's neck. “I don't know yet. I'm making it up as I go.”

“Get Isabella,” Powers choked.

“You are not going to touch Isabella ever again. Do you understand me?”

“Harding…w-wants…h-her.” Powers clawed at Randall's hands. “That's why he…is…here. To…t-trap her. He…suspected you…were…coming.”

“How? How did he know?”

“Harding…tipped…papers…police. They said…you left…with no bags…this…morning. Round…tr…trip.”

Oh, damn
. Isabella was alone and vulnerable in the station with Harding and police converging.

Again Randall regretted leaving his gun at his flat. He didn't have the time to neatly kill Powers with his bare hands; plus he was bound to be seen by those policemen rounding the corner in the distance. He released the cove, rose, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I'm going to find you and you're going to pay for everything you took from us, and if you don't have enough, I'm selling your fresh, steaming, prawn-like body.”

Randall started to sprint back, muttering a stream of violent curses. In front of the station, people clustered about carriages as porters loaded or removed trunks. A shiny black clarence crossed the street and pulled up to the walk. The door opened.

Two of Harding's flash men broke through the crowd that waited for hackneys. In between them, their hands clamped on her arms, was Isabella.

“Stop those men!” Randall roared as he flew down the pavement. “She's being held against her will. H
elp her.”

She turned her head, searching the night, her eyes finding his. “Rand—” She was lifted by the waist and tossed into the open carriage. Something flew over her head, sparking in the lamplight and then falling into the gutter. The two men jumped inside as the clarence rolled away.

Hot, dizzying terror shot through every vein, muscle, and internal organ in Randall's body. The entire street turned to black silence in his head, except for his scream. “Isabella!” His mind burst with a dozen different scenes of her hurt, crying out for him. Not his precious, beautiful Isabella. Take anything from him, but not her.

“You bloody bugger!” he shouted, sprinting down the street after the carriage. As he passed, he scooped her glasses from the muddy gutter. “Fuck! Fucker! Fuckery! You let her go, you goddamned blo
ody cove.”

The gifted orator, the smooth, silver-tongued politician, launched into a detailed description, interlaced with colorful profanity, of exactly how he planned to remove Harding's genitals and in which of the man's orifices he would shove them, if the scoundrel dared to touch her.

All around him, he could hear the echoes of shocked gasps. In his periphery, two policemen bolted from the station. “Stop, Lord Randall!”

“He took my woman!” Randall yelled back. “That railroad pile of shit kidnapped my woman.”

A four-wheeler pulled up beside him. The door opened, slamming Randall in the cheek. “Dammit!”

Powers leaned out. “Get in the carriage.”

Up ahead, Harding's clarence rounded the corner. The walks were crowded and the street thick with muck. Behind him, the policemen continued ordering him to stop.

Randall grabbed on to the carriage. “Follow the shiny black clarence seven carriages up,” he growled at the driver, and leaped inside.

He seized Powers by the cravat. “What the hell is going on?”

“I'm not talking unless you unhand me.”

The carriage turned and both gentlemen crashed into the door.

“I'm trying to help you,” Powers hissed, pulling himself onto the seat.

“Where have you been?”

“The scoundrel wants Isabella. He's wild for her.”

“Answer my damn question.” Anger edged Randall's voice.

“Harding's house. I've been there the entire time. He had me working like some damn stone mason.”

“Harding kidnapped you too?”

“What? No! Look, I had some problems…some monetary problems…”

Randall drew back his fist, ready to improve Powers's ugly face. “And now Isabella is paying. What did she ever do to you? All she wanted was to marry you, and this was how you've treated her.”

Powers's nostrils flared. “I said I was trying to help you. I escaped. Harding doesn't know I'm gone.”

“And how did you get out?”

“I—I don't want to talk about it.”

Randall shook his head, muttered a curse. He opened the coach door. Peering over the top of the carriage's roof, across lines of congested traffic, he spotted Harding's clarence. The carriage turned in the direction of the man's home and disappeared from view. The viscount glanced back at Powers, the man he had been chasing for the last week.
Bloody
hell
with
it
all.
If Harding touched Isabella, Randall would lose his mind. “May you rot in hell, Powers,” he growled, and jumped.

“Wait, you don't know what you're doing,” the man called out. “You're going to need my help. Harding is ruthless. He will destroy you.”

His warning only made Randall run faster.

***

Isabella slammed onto the carriage floor. She could see nothing but blurs of gray and black. “Randall!” she screamed. “Randall!”

“Boys, that's not how you treat a lady,” a baritone barked. Harding! “My sincerest apologies, Miss St. Vincent.” His large, warm hands clasped her arms, his gold ring pressed into her skin.

“I can't see,” she cried. “Where's Randall?” She was lifted onto a warm leather cushion. Harding's honed, muscular body leaned against her arm. His exotic sweet and musky scent clogged her nose.

The carriage lurched forward. “No!” She beat at the window with her hand. “You said you would wait for Lord Randall. You must stop. Stop!”

“Boys, did you tell Miss St. Vincent that you were retrieving Lord Randall? You shouldn't have misled her like that. You apologize immediately for that and for pushing her in the carriage. I am appalled at you both and considering letting you go.”

“We're sorry, Miss St. Vincent,” the men said in the singsong voices of recalcitrant school boys.

“I want out now.” She continued to pound the glass. “I won't speak without Randall present.”

“Calm down,” Harding said, anchoring her back against his chest. “I hope you don't think I'm going to harm you. I would never hurt a hair on your beautiful head, even though I'm a bit put out by your deception, calling yourself Izzy May and an unat
tached courtesan.”

“Well, I didn't kidnap you! I'm a little put o
ut myself.”

“Kidnapped? No, no, I'm saving you, Miss Isabella. All those police in the station were searching for you. There are dangerous rumors flying around London tonight that you and Lord Randall committed fraud. I'm trying to protect you, my chickadee.”

“So, you left Lord Randall to be arrested?”

“Arrested?” Isabella felt the man's chest rumble with quiet laughter. “My little dove, you should know that he's not like you or me. We made our fortunes by our own talents and hard work. He's a handsome viscount who, I'm sure, will charm the magistrate just as he charms those empty heads in Parliament who don't know better.”

“My father made a fortune. I did not.”

He clicked his tongue. “I never like to contradict a lady, but I asked my friends around the exchange about the enigmatic Isabella St. Vincent—by all accounts an old, withered spinster. But I knew better. She likes to play games and confound expectations. To tantalize.” He stroked her cheek, letting his finger trace her jawline.

She swatted his roving fingers. “I think you are confused. I'm not the lady from last night. I really
am
an old, withered spinster. I usually wear frumpy clothes, and I own an ornery black cat named Milton. Sometimes I cradle him like a baby, but then he gets cross and scratches me. Not very tantalizing.”

The other occupants of the carriage snickered.

“More games.” Harding chuckled, a dark, intimate sound. “Well, my stunning spinster, I put together a few numbers here and there, and figured out that you had tripled your inheritance and expanded a tiny rural bank into a large, profitable institution. I even read your book. Very clever, my sparrow, except for the examples; rather melodramatic claptrap.”

“I thought so too,” she said absently, twisting to look out the back window, but she couldn't see anything but the haze of glass, lights, and night. Where was Randall?
I
need
you
desperately
, she beckoned with her mind, making a childlike wish that he could hear her silent plea.

“How clever of you to cater to the weak and easily influenced minds of your female readers,” Harding continued. “But we both know that you are not moved by emotions, but calculated risk. You are just brilliant. Brilliant! For a woman, that is.”

Isabella gave Harding—or whatever that fleshy blur was beside her—a leveled glare. “And you are treacherous, regardless of sex, that is.”

“I'm sorry if that is the impression I gave you.” He raised her hand and kissed it. She snatched it back. “You must give me another chance. I can change your mind. I think you will find I'm quite easy to work with.”