by Liz Carlyle
He caught her tear-dampened hand and lifted it to his lips, saying nothing. He hardly knew where to begin. There was so much, really, that wanted un-saying.
Lisette saved him from his introspection.
“Thank you,” she said on a snuffle. “Thank you for saving me.”
“I was terrified,” he said.
“I was not,” she answered. “I knew you would save me. But then I saw the blood. Oh, you were bleeding so much.”
The silence fell around them again. Not awkwardly, no. So often with her, he had no wish to fill the void with unnecessary conversation. And she—well, she was weighing her next words. He knew it, for he knew her. And this time, he would wait.
He still held her hand, small and warm, in his own. He wanted to kiss it again, to press his lips to the back of it and swear his undying devotion. But he did not.
“How long were you standing behind me?” she finally asked.
“Long enough,” he said.
“Ah. Well.” She made a little sound in the back of her throat. “So you know.”
“And so I do.” He did kiss her hand then, holding her gaze as he did so.
She gave a faint, thready laugh. “And so you’re destined to let two murderous criminals waltz away today, I gather?” she said with feigned lightness. “I confess, you’re not quite as advertised, Roughshod Roy.”
He shrugged. “You killed a man who deserved it,” he said. “I know I ought to be more troubled by it. And yet I seem unable to summon any moral outrage. And I think, my dear, you’ve suffered enough remorse.”
“I think of it every day,” she whispered, her gaze falling.
Napier didn’t understand. “I hate to pry,” he said, “since it’s thus far netted me nothing but heartache. But do you want to tell me how you came to shoot him?”
“Well, I meant to shoot Lord Lazonby,” she said.
“Oh, well,” he said. “I’m not sure I’d have stopped you.”
She gave a feeble laugh. “Of course you would have,” she said. “You have a frightful temper, but you never let it best you.”
“Well, thank you for that,” he said.
“As to how it happened—well, I daresay it was because I’d got in the habit of carrying Papa’s pocket pistol,” she said, her brow knotted. “I wanted to shoot Lazonby, true. But I carried it because . . . well, at the Chronicle, one had to frequent some vile places . . . and I was . . .” Her breath had caught oddly.
“Lisette,” he whispered, “forget about it. All of it. Because it just doesn’t matter.”
She shook her head, shut her eyes, and set a finger to his lips. “And I was Jack,” she finally said. “There, it’s said. I was Jack Coldwater. It was just . . . a name. A name I’d used over the years.”
He squeezed her hand. “I know that,” he said. “But someday, if you feel like it, I should like to hear how it happened.”
Lisette drew a deep breath. “It just . . . happened,” she said. “I had a knack for writing, I suppose.”
“It’s never so simple as that,” he countered. “You clearly have a classical education.”
“I just read a lot,” she said. “And helped out in the shop. Then Uncle’s drinking worsened. One night there was a terrible accident in the harbor. A ship caught fire.”
“Is that what you and Sir Philip were talking about over dinner?” he asked. “Did you write that article?”
She lifted her gaze to his. “There was no one else,” she said simply. “Ashton was drunk as a lord, and hadn’t paid the staff. I’d written up other people’s notes before. So Aunt begged me, and I just . . . well, I pulled on a cap and some breeches and went down to the harbor to see what might be done. That’s where I learned about arsenic, you see.”
“Was it?” he said, surprised.
“One of the passengers was just dripping in green worsted,” said Lisette. “She was pulled from the water early on, perfectly safe. But she refused to get out of her wet things until they found her husband, and it took hours to row everyone ashore. By then, however, the damage was done.”
“And after that,” said Napier grimly, “your uncle piled more responsibilities on good old Jack, I don’t doubt.”
Her only response was a short nod, and her hands thrown up as if in surrender.
A part of Napier was deeply angry, though he tried not to show it. Angry she’d had to face such an awful situation. Angry she’d been forced to carry too many burdens at too young an age—and carry them more or less alone.
It was just as he’d always suspected. There had been no one in Lisette’s life that she could trust, or even depend on. Instead she’d been stuck with a scoundrel of a father and an inebriate of an uncle, while quietly going on about the business of keeping life afloat.
“It was not right that your uncle put you in such a grim and dangerous position,” he said honestly. “By comparison, it must have made you miss your father all the more.”
Her eyes widened. “I missed my entire family,” she said. “Yes, of course I miss my father. What child would not?”
He leaned over and set his lips to her forehead. “I know you loved him,” he said. “I know you did. But a part of him failed you, Lisette, and it is not wrong to resent that fact.”
She was silent so long he feared she might not answer.
“Well,” she said after a time, her shoulders falling. “We have got off our subject, haven’t we? I was explaining about Sir Wilfred. But save for the truth about Jack, it happened pretty much as Lazonby told you. Even in that, the man did not lie. It pains me to admit how honest he is, really.”
But one thing had never made sense to Napier. “And were you following Anisha?”
“Oh, yes. Because I saw her from a distance slipping around to the back gardens, and got this odd notion she meant to meet Lazonby.”
“A logical assumption,” he acknowledged.
“But when I caught sight of Sir Wilfred dragging her through that door, I knew something terrible had happened,” she went on. “I crept up by the open window, and saw she was injured. And when I heard what he said about having framed Lazonby, and wanting rid of Papa, something inside me . . . it just snapped.”
“Anyone would have been distraught,” said Napier soothingly.
“But I leapt down the stairs and told him I was going to kill him,” she said. “I was not distraught. I was crazed. And Royden, I meant it. I made him get on his knees and put his hands behind his head.”
“Let me guess,” said Napier. “That’s when Lazonby turned up?”
Lisette nodded. “He tried to talk me out of it at first,” she said, “but after a while, he said—cool as could be—that I should just go ahead and shoot Sir Wilfred. He just wanted to come down the steps and get Lady Anisha out first, in case my shot went wild.”
“Very wise,” remarked Napier dryly.
“So I stepped back, you know, to let Lazonby pass between us,” she whispered, “and somehow—somehow, just as Lazonby scooped her off the floor and turned, Sir Wilfred leapt up and attacked me. I slammed into that marble counter. And the gun just . . . went off. But I killed him. I did. And I meant to.”
“Lisette,” said Napier firmly, “that is called an accident—or self-defense, at the very least.”
“That’s what Lazonby kept saying,” she whispered, staring down at her open hand. “But I knew the truth. I knew what was in my heart. And I knew I had only Lazonby—a man I’d made my mortal enemy—to defend me.”
“Not Anisha?”
Lisette shook her head. “She’d been struck nearly insensible. And her face—it was buried against Lazonby’s coat. She couldn’t have seen. And that’s when I think I started screaming . . . and screaming. I couldn’t stop. It was as if the gun—even my own hand—didn’t belong to me anymore.”
“Because it was an accident,” he said again, more emphatically.
“Only by chance,” she said, lifting an abject gaze to his. “Royden, I wanted to kill hi
m. I truly did. And I think . . . I still think I would have done it. I think, in that moment, I was utterly mad. No better, really, than Diana today. And I wonder—how does that happen? How does life turn you into that sort of person? And are you that person ever after?”
Even now, however, she looked frightened. Frightened, he realized, of herself. Of what she could be capable of.
But all people had it in them to do brutal things, under certain—and usually horrific—circumstances. He’d learned that much from his police work.
“Lisette, come here.”
He shifted around on the bed, and patted the spot beside him. With a withering smile, she joined him, tucking her slender length along his, and nestling her head in the crook of his arm.
Bending his head, he pressed his lips to her temple. “Lisette, I think it likely you wouldn’t have killed him,” he said. “That in the end, you’d have broken down like Diana. But I don’t care.”
“But Royden, you are—”
“I don’t care,” he repeated. “Do you understand? I know you’ve feared I would—that I would judge you. That I’d keep silent because I love you, then live to regret that silence. But I meant what I said to Duncaster. There’s no black and white in life, and more’s the pity.”
“But I really meant to—”
“Besides, am I any better?” he interjected. “I’m keeping silent to protect my father’s legacy and my family’s good name. Is that right? Perhaps not. But unless I see a harm I can undo—something I can somehow set to rights—then I’ll go to my grave with my lips sealed. As to Sir Wilfred, he was evil and venal and patently cruel, and if you hadn’t shot him, he would surely have been hanged.”
“Well,” she said in a small voice, “I have not grieved him. But I’m sorry to have been the instrument of his death.”
He realized Lisette had been through a terror, and it was little wonder she didn’t want to relive it. “Sir Wilfred sealed his own fate,” he said grimly. “And it makes me angry you were ever left alone and unprotected. You should never have been placed in such a position.”
He was still irrationally angry with her father, he realized—and she was not. But so it often went with handsome scoundrels, Napier knew. They eschewed duty, died young, and were then practically canonized, the family wishing to believe that, if only their beloved had lived, he would have turned his life around. But it would never have happened with Sir Arthur Colburne, and Lisette had paid the price for his weaknesses.
As usual, it was as if she read his very thoughts. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Royden,” she warned, her voice grim. “I’m not a fool. I know that, had Papa lived, I’d have been more parent than child in the end. Ellie would have ended up Lady Percy, diamond of society, and I’d have ended my days rowing Papa’s boat and bailing out the water.”
“It’s called the curse of the competent, Lisette,” he said. “Those that can do are ever called upon by those who cannot—or will not.”
She gave a little shrug. “No, the curse, Royden, is that we do it and yet we cannot resent them for it,” she said. “I loved my father, even knowing his shortcomings. Don’t you? Even knowing—?”
“Knowing what Sir Wilfred accused him of?” He sighed. “Yes. A part of me does.”
Though in his case, Napier considered, he’d at least had the luxury of being a man grown when the scales had fallen from his eyes. Even now, he had little more than a mere suspicion of what Nicholas Napier had been.
But in his heart, he knew the truth.
“Perhaps I suspected what my father was even before Sir Wilfred’s ugly accusation.” It was the first time he’d been able to say the words aloud. “For much of my life, Lisette, I worshipped him—despite the fact that he was distant, even forbidding at times. He was, for good or ill, my idol. My understanding of all a man should be.”
“It is an admirable thing to idolize one’s father,” she said. “To wish to be like him.”
“And I succeeded,” said Napier. “Even to the point of taking my father’s old post. And I wonder . . . I wonder if I began to suspect the truth? And Lazonby—so bloody vehement!—even after his conviction was overturned, the bastard wouldn’t back down. So if you want to talk about the black pit of human nature, Lisette, how’s this? What if part of the reason I refused to listen to Lazonby is that, somewhere deep in my soul, I feared facing the truth?”
She shook her head, her mass of red curls shimmering in the afternoon light. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “You are a better man than that.”
He shrugged. “I think my father was bought, Lisette, and not just once or twice. Oh, he did his job—did it well enough to win accolades aplenty. But when it suited him—for whatever reason—yes, I think he let criminals go. And once—just once, I pray—he let an innocent man be convicted. That should be unforgivable.”
When he fell quiet a few moments, Lisette spoke again. “And yet it isn’t, quite, is it?” she suggested. “Unforgivable, I mean. Don’t you see, Royden, that perhaps it’s a part of what’s brought us close? These past few weeks—ever since Sir Wilfred’s death—we’ve had to face the truth of what our fathers were. And face the fact that we love them still. That we always will love them.”
“I wish that I could believe that,” he said grimly.
“It is true,” she said. “Whatever else he was, Nicholas Napier was your father. He held you as a child, and picked you up when you fell. He berated you, perhaps, but he also challenged you to better yourself.” Here, she smiled, and cupped his face with her hand. “And he protected you from the frightful . . . what was her name again?”
He managed a smile. “Minter,” he said. “The bounteous Mrs. Minter—though really, a gentleman ought not kiss and tell.”
Lisette looked up, and shot him a little wink. “Your secret is safe with me.”
He turned on his side then, and let his gaze drift over the perfect oval of face. Those wide, blue-green eyes now soft with affection, those extraordinary cheekbones. And that full Cupid’s-bow mouth that begged a man to suck and nibble for hours on end.
But it all paled in comparison to what lay beneath that porcelain-pale skin: a heart that had sustained a world of disillusionment, and yet remained stalwart, pure, and perfect.
“Lisette, I don’t think we have any secrets left,” he said quietly. “Now, are you going to make me—and, apparently, my grandfather—the happiest of men? Are you going to marry me? Or must I chase you to the ends of the earth?”
She looked up at him in shock. “Marry you?” she said. “Oh, Royden! Have you fully considered—”
This time, it was his turn to set a finger to her lips. “I have fully considered how empty my life will be if I cannot win you,” he said firmly. “I considered it very thoroughly this morning whilst you were hanging off that bloody ledge. Indeed, I’ve been considering it ever since we left London—and for a good deal longer than that, perhaps.”
She blinked innocently. “What do you mean, ‘a good deal longer than that?’ ”
He tapped her lips with his finger. “All I need from you now, Lisette, is a yes or a . . . well, a yes. I’m afraid those are the only alternatives left to you—or I’ll be compelled to arrest you for Kissing With the Intent to Defraud a Man of His Heart,” he offered, “or perhaps even an outright violation of the Larceny Act of 1827—since you’ve already succeeded in stealing it.”
“I believe I hear your heart beating very firmly in your chest,” she countered.
“Well then there’s always Teasing With Intent to Cause Grievous Bodily Harm,” he said. “I could tie you to the bed for weeks on that charge alone.”
“Grievous bodily harm?” she said incredulously. “I am not responsible for your arm being sliced up.”
“No, but you are responsible for this chronic, throbbing erection I’ve been suffering ever since you unbuttoned your bodice in my office.”
“You are never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“I nee
d a yes,” he repeated.
“And I am oddly disposed to give you one, and damn the consequences,” she admitted. “But I would like to know, I think, how long you’ve been stewing in this unremitting lust?”
He cursed softly beneath his breath, then reached over her with his bandaged arm to yank open the drawer of his night table.
“Have at it,” he said, “if it will get me what I want.”
Her brow drawing into a pretty knot, Lisette rolled back onto her elbow, and looked into the drawer. “I see your knife,” she said, “and I’ll allow as how there may be days ahead when I might be tempted to stab you with it.”
“Thank you, but I’ve had enough of that to do me a while,” he murmured. “Just lay it aside.”
The knife landed atop the night table with a heavy thunk! “Good heavens!” she said, extracting a long piece of cream-and-emerald cording.
“Don’t carry it off again,” he said darkly. “The next time I have my way with you I’ll be needing it.”
“Yes, I see,” she murmured. “Well! What else have we in here? Someone’s been playing finders keepers, haven’t they?”
Her tiny satin slippers followed—the ones she’d toed off by his hearth—and then half a dozen hairpins. After that came the white tie that threaded through her drawers—he seemed to recall extracting that one with his teeth. Tangled in it was a gold earbob set with a small red stone.
“My garnet earbob!” she said. “I don’t even remember losing that.”
“It caught in my cravat,” he said a little sheepishly, “the day I ripped off your wig—along with two of those hairpins.”
“Ah! Now, what is this? Hmm. Might these belong to another lady altogether?” She drew out a pair of gloves, and gave him a little slap across the wrist. “Cream-colored kidskin? I have never owned such a thing.”
“I assure you, my love,” he said a little awkwardly, “that you did. I am not in the habit of collecting items of a personal nature from other women.”