“Are you dead?”
There was no welcoming answer.
“My lord! You must wake up!”
Again no answer, so Miss Hampstead ripped open the greatcoat and put a hand on the tattered shirt. It was stained with blood. She could feel it warm and sticky, though the barn was too dim to see the red.
She leaned over to look at the dark, angular face. Long lashes fluttered over those disdainful eyes, but in his neck there was a pulse. Tessie uncertainly extended her hand, for she wanted to be sure. Everything was so damnably shadowed, it was hard to tell. Suddenly it really mattered. More, even, than Hampstead Oaks and Grandfather’s bequest, it mattered. Fagan was crawling toward her, and Grange was muttering something about a dagger, but she cared naught for this.
Her hand rested on the neck. It was warm and pulsed quite noticeably. For a strangled moment Miss Tessie felt herself blush.
“Wake up, will you?”
There was a long silence in which Nicholas’s features became etched in Miss Tessie’s consciousness. It seemed as if she had known him forever, a lifetime, not a moment, a mere few hours, indeed only a half hour if one counted their exchanges and not the lifetimes in between. He was undoubtedly exasperating, disturbing, odiously annoying, but Tessie knew if he did not live to insult her horribly, just one last time, all the Granges in the world could do their worst. It simply would not matter. Nothing, she supposed, would.
“Wake up, dammit! There is a room full of villains!”
“How appealing. Yes, definitely an inducement.” The voice was a murmur, but audible enough.
“You are alive! I knew it!” The triumph in Tessie’s voice was unmistakable. The murmur, now, was stronger.
“I believe it is customary, in such instances, to kiss the victim.” Lazy blue eyes opened below her, amazingly—bizarrely—quizzing.
Tessie caught her breath, spellbound, despite Fagan’s approach. Now it was her pulse she felt. She ignored it.
“You are lost to all propriety, my lord.”
“And you are not, my little hoyden?”
“Not if I can help it.” How curious that her heart should burst with a sudden flutter of extraordinary lightheartedness at a time like this. She supposed it was the triumph, really, of knowing that Nicholas’s bored indifference—so skillfully feigned—was merely skin deep.
She continued. “But we are about to be killed, so I suggest we leave. Can you move?”
“I believe so.”
“Watch out!”
Nicholas sat up and grasped Fagan’s hand. It held a long sliver of a blade. It looked distinctly unwholesome. Fagan lunged, but Nick was swift, pushing both the blade and Fagan’s wrist above him. Then it was a contest to the death, for if Fagan’s wrist dropped any closer, the blade would have pierced Nick most horribly. Tessie did not dwell on the point, for Grange’s hands twisted around her ankles. He sought to trip her again, knowing that this time, her pistol was empty.
Drawing every bit of strength she could, she wriggled herself free and brought her boots down hard—crunching, cracking, crisply hard—down, down on Grange’s elegantly gloved hands. The doeskin was too fine and too thin to withstand such calculated onslaught. Consequently, the Monsieur le Duc screamed such as would have woken bedlam and very likely roused some of the midnight occupants of the taproom.
There was a clatter of steel upon cobbles and Fagan’s blade dropped just inches from Nicholas’s abundantly endowed head. Fagan scrabbled to fetch it, but Tessie was swifter, kicking the glint of metal far out of sight.
Then, miraculously, there was Joseph and the moonlight prisoner entering through the stalls, and she watched with satisfaction as they bound Mr. Grange efficiently while he screamed about fingers and curses and horrible oaths that were patently unsuitable for maidenly ears. When they approached Fagan, she begged them to beware, for his pockets were plentiful and he seemed to favor the blade. Joseph, no longer surprised by the wench’s bloodthirsty knowledge of such unmaidenly facts, merely nodded and frisked Fagan thoroughly. He withdrew an ivory-handled dagger and another of those lethal little blades that was clearly not honorably intended. Then it was a matter of finding sufficient rope for Fagan, for he was bulkier than Grange, and there had been only one coil.
“Here!” There was a loud rip in the darkness. Then another, and another. “Take these.” Miss Tessie’s voluminous nightrail was being torn to shreds. Oh, she was still perfectly respectable if one disregarded the boot-clad ankles and the glimpses of flesh one could just catch below her knees—if one was sitting in the correct position. Nicholas, on the floor, most certainly was—his eyes were not above gleaming, despite some evident pain.
Miss Hampstead hardly noticed, for having provided ropes, she now used the remainder of her linen strips for his lordship’s wounds.
“I believe I can manage, little Miss Nobody.”
“Oh, do stop calling me that ridiculous name!” This, in a hiss, for Tessie was fearful some of the Luddites would return.
“You are right. Under the circumstances, I believe I shall revert, once more, to Charity.”
“Wrong again, for this is not charity, this is payment. I always pay my debts.”
“What a strange female, to be sure. How terribly odd! And what debts are you repaying, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
“Oh, the dinner tab, for I lost not a sovereign over it and I believe it must have been prodigiously expensive despite the cod’s eye. . . .”
“. . .which is a delicacy . . .”
“. . . a revolting one . . . now, where was I?”
“Payment, I believe. Ouch!” Nicholas flinched.
“Did that hurt?”
“Damnably, but since I’ve already disgraced myself by swooning, I shall make no complaint.”
“How heroic. No, this should not take much longer. Try to relax.”
“Perhaps if you were to kiss me . . . medicinal purposes. . .”
“I believe I have paid my shot, my lord. The cost of dinner and access to the posting house. We are quits now.”
“Oh, do you think so?” Nick’s eyes were limpid, and his tone was so low, it was almost a murmur, but it held both a threat and a promise that made Tessie shiver, whether from delight or from sheer apprehension, she could not say.
Seven
How infuriating that Nicholas should not allow the matter to rest but should challenge her further still! She rolled up the remainder of her makeshift bandages and refused to be drawn. But when he asked again, his voice provocative and infuriatingly low, she answered him.
“Quits? Indeed. Quite quits. And kisses, my lord, are not for ladies. They are for tavern wenches.”
“How instructive. I might never have known, else. Direct me immediately, if you please, to a tavern wench with hair as black as tar.”
“There are any number of them, I believe.”
“What a broad education you have, most curious. Do these wenches also have lips as ripe as berries?”
“My lord!”
“I shock you? Good God, you blush!”
“Only because you are—”
“A sadly rag-mannered rogue. Yes. You repeat yourself. Did I mention limbs? Do those tavern wenches have long, long legs that seem to go on forever. . . ?”
Tessie felt guilty again. Other young ladies, no matter how desperate, did not scramble down trees in nightgowns, then proceed to rip even those inadequate coverings to shreds. If she had shown a smidgen of sense, she would have stripped the revolting Grange of his neckerchief, for it was still neatly bound about his throat in a passable imitation of Brummell’s famous “waterfall.”
Still, she would not admit as much to Nick, who seemed bent on shamelessly regarding those tantalizing glimpses of forbidden knees.
“Stop staring, if you please. If I can’t rely on your natural decorum, then think on this. If the moon changes, you will go squint.”
“Ah, but in such a cause!”
Tessie severely admonished her
self not to smile at the rogue. Instead, she smoothed down what little skirts, if she could call them such, she had, and frowned.
“Unfair! Ripping the length of my nightgown was a severe sacrifice to my dignity. You should not tease me about it. A gentleman wouldn’t.”
“But I am talking of tavern wenches. You seem such an expert upon the subject.”
“Oh! You are the most odious, exasperating . . .”
“Children, children . . .”
The prisoner—or so Tessie thought of him—ap—proached. Apparently, Joseph had released him after she’d run off toward the dim light of the barn. He now towered over Nicholas, who, despite coming around some moments before, was still lying upon the cold—and I daresay pungent—barn floor.
“I believe I owe a lump the size of a crow’s egg to you, my lord.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“I am talking about my good Joseph here, who coshed me over the head and very kindly gagged and bound me. Strictly your instructions, I am told.”
“You are not Murray Higgins.”
“No, and I rather think you are not either.”
“My head hurts, I have lost blood. I rather think my heart too—” Here a swift look at Tessie, but she was gathering a horse blanket from one of the stalls.
“My sympathies.” The prisoner grinned. “I assume you are telling me you cannot make head or tail of the night’s events.”
“A most distressing confession. My usual omnipotence deserts me.”
“It always does when there is a female involved.”
“How sage. And you are . . . ?”
“Christopher Lambert.”
“The name rings a bell. . . .”
“Oh, possibly. My illustrious bloodlines, I suppose. I am Atwater’s third.”
“Ah, yes. A hell-raiser, I recall.”
“Not in your league, my lord.”
Nicholas rose to his feet, grimaced a little in pain, then effected a mock bow. “Shall we remove to the inn? I rather think our little adventures are over for one night. Joseph!”
“Me lord?” However disrespectful Joseph might be in private, he was always perfectly subservient in public.
“Take my horse and ride off to Stipend, will you? I shall scribble you a note to the local magistrate. I fear, after my injury, the ride will be too taxing. Unless you can procure me a glass of blue ruin, of course.”
“Which you won’t, for nothing can be more injurious to my lord’s health than scrambling his brains with alcohol.” Miss Hampstead had returned with the blanket, which was now draped decorously—and voluminously—about her person.
“Revenge, Miss Nobody?” Nicholas smiled sweetly.
“No, common sense. Though if it goes hard with you not to drink, I daresay you deserve it.”
“When I am well, you shall get what you deserve.”
“I quake with fear.”
Miss Tessie felt rather courageous as she said this, for in truth, the meaning behind his steadily emphasized words had not escaped her. Or, rather, the intent behind them, for she was maidenly enough not to know anything precisely of Nick’s proposed methods.
Retrospectively, she blushed, glad of the concealing dark. Nicholas’s eyes were too observant—and damnably overbearing—by far. Now, however, he concerned himself with the work of the moment, his velvety tones becoming crisp and starkly efficient.
“Joseph, hop on that horse and go! Those bonds will not hold for long.”
“Fortunately, you seem to have incapacitated both quite admirably, Miss . . . Good God, I cannot keep calling you Miss Nobody, and Charity Evans sticks in my gullet! You must have a name?”
“Yes, but I need not reveal it.”
“Beggin’ pardon, miss . . .”
“Yes, Joseph?” Tessie smiled upon the valet with utter sweetness. Nick was fascinated as he watched her pink lips part, revealing perfectly straight little white teeth that sent his grizzled old servant into a spin.
“Must I go now? Oi’d raver stay, yer ken. The fun is just begginin’ like. Those nobs might bleedin’ ransack yer chamber ’gin.”
“I fancy they will not, however. Go, Joseph!”
“Aye, miss.” Without a word to his master he began to turn on his heel.
Lord Nicholas Cathgar, with a faint hint of amusement playing around his mouth, drew him back. When he spoke, it was with that slight drawl that Tessie detested.
“Since when, my good man, did you start taking orders from anyone other than my illustrious self?”
Joseph blushed to the tips of his ears. “Since wot the little mistress got a rare bleedin’ ’ead on ‘er shoulders she ’as, gov.”
“Elegantly put. You are dismissed, Joseph.”
“Aye, me lord.” Joseph grinned a little ruefully, doffed his cap, and scampered out into the mists. The last Tessie heard was the piebald horse neighing a little before settling into a simply spanking great pace.
“You have forgotten the note to the magistrate.”
“So I have. It shall have to be the blue ruin, then, and the innkeeper’s best stallion.”
“I believe I may offer assistance here, having no small interest in the outcome of tonight’s endeavors.”
“Ah, Christopher. Almost I had forgotten you.” Nicholas’s tone was dry.
“How flattering! But I collect your wits are wondering.”
“Indeed.”
“Then may I offer you my compliments and my assurance to see to the matter myself. The fat one is of no consequence, but Grange we must have. And the skinny one. Margate, I think he is called. But Grange is the ringleader. He has his bony fingers in too many pies by half.”
“Fortunately, judging by the crunch I was gratified to hear, they are now really rather mangled fingers. I believe you speak, chiefly, of the French pies, or should I say soufflés?”
Lambert smiled. “Chiefly. With rumors of Napoleon such as they are . . .”
“Indeed. Am I to understand that you, too, were sent by the Foreign Office?”
Christopher Lambert grinned. “Circuitously, yes. I am an envoy direct from the great man himself. Lord Castlereigh is my second cousin once removed, or some such thing. But apparently, lines were crossed somewhere. Two impostors are really rather overkill. Classic.”
“So it seems. Convey my compliments to the minister.”
“I shall. And now, good people, I must fly. Dawn must not be far, and I must needs find that valiant little valet of yours. Does he shine one’s hessians, one wonders, as well as he delivers a flush hit? The mind boggles.”
Lord Cathgar nodded.
“He does. And you can eat your heart out, Lambert, the man is mine. Apart from his impertinence, he is perfection itself.”
Then, without further words, and certainly without a glance at the prisoners, who were sullying the air with language unfit for the gutter, he tucked Miss Hampstead’s hand—the one not holding the pistol—into the sleeve of his greatcoat and strode, at last, from the barn.
“I shall sleep in your chamber tonight.”
“Over my dead body, little Miss Nobody.”
“Well, it just might be if I do not, Lord Cathgar.”
“Nick.”
“Lord Cathgar.”
Tessie regarded his lordship quellingly. Her scrape was quite bad enough not to commit the further social solecism of calling him by his given name. In the light of the events of the evening, she knew her scruples were ridiculous, but old habits died hard, and she was, after all, still a lady.
“I shall not die tonight, Miss Nobody. I am like a cat. I have nine lives.”
“And you’ve probably used up eight! You are still bleeding.”
“It is a trifle. I loathe women who fuss.”
“Then you shall loathe me at your leisure. You may need to be leeched.”
“You minx! You want me to suffer!”
Tessie suppressed a bloodthirsty grin.
“Not at all. I am merely informi
ng you of your options.”
“Wait till I start informing you of your options.”
“You will need to be fully recovered to do that, so I rest my case. I shall spend the night in your chamber.”
“Joseph . . .”
“Joseph is at Stipend. He may relieve me when he returns.”
“I am not an invalid!”
“No, but your walk is unsteady, and you have fainted once this evening.”
“I shall never live that down.” The words were faintly rueful.
“I, too, am not a tattletale, Lord Cathgar.”
They stopped walking for a moment and turned to face each other in the gentle moonlight. There was no sign of the rabble that had furtively disbanded earlier. Trudging home, one shouldn’t wonder, or drinking ale in the tavern, or warming some wench’s bed . . . neither Tessie nor Lord Cathgar knew or cared. They were staring at each other.
Then, in response to the smallest constriction of Tessie’s throat, Nicholas had her in his arms, and his lips, at last, were crushing down upon her own. When he was done, Tessie had no more to say, a state of affairs Nick apparently found most satisfactory.
“. . . So you see,” he continued in a conversational tone, just as if they had never digressed from their topic, “you shall be safer, Miss . . . Evans . . . in your own bed.”
“Did I tell you my chamber has been ransacked?”
“For your forty-two gold sovereigns?”
“Indeed. And my virtue.”
“But that, I collect, remains intact.”
“Yes, by dint of shinning down an apple tree with a loaded pistol.”
“You are a remarkable woman, Miss . . . will you not trust me with your name?”
“No, I will not.”
“Miss Nobody, then.”
Tessie shrugged. Her lips were still warm from his kiss. She ached to confide to him, yet, perversely, could not do so.
His eyes shuttered once more. “We are at the entrance. I shall be perfectly well.”
“You are pale. I shall attend you. At least till Joseph returns.”
A Rag-mannered Rogue Page 8