Islington had been left behind and open country now flew by them on either side. Since there had been no rain for weeks, Frog Lane was easily passable although the lightly sprung curricle bucked and pitched in an alarming fashion over the uneven ground flying beneath the wheels.
Theo pointed ahead. “Look, there he is! We’re closing on him.”
It was true. The distance between the two carriages was diminishing fast. Peregrine could be clearly seen, his arm flailing above his head as he whipped his horses in an attempt to outrun his pursuers.
“The fool is going too fast,” muttered Luc. “He’ll never make it safely over at this speed.”
He cupped his hand and shouted a warning, but either it was either lost on the breeze before it reached Peregrine’s ears or he chose to ignore it. The curricle continued unchecked towards the new canal crossing and, moments later, disaster struck. One of the wheels of Peregrine’s carriage struck a stone. Theo and Luc watched helplessly as he fought to keep his seat and in the process lost control of the horses. They veered suddenly to the left and, instead of negotiating the bridge, the carriage left the road and plunged down the steep embankment which marked the east portal of the tunnel.
“By Jupiter, he’s gone into the canal!” cried Theo, giving a whistle of consternation.
It seemed to take an age to reach the spot where Perry’s carriage had disappeared from view. Luc pulled his team up as near to the edge as could be safely managed, and they both leapt down to peer below.
The sight that met them was a chilling one. The water level was low in the cutting, the water not being fully admitted as the canal was not yet open. Both curricle and horses had pitched into in the canal basin, the distressed screams and snorts of the bays now piercing the air. Theo knew at once their efforts to escape would be futile and under his horrified gaze, the carriage sunk lower. It was already half submerged. Even if he had the means to make the attempt, there could be no hope of rescuing the thoroughbreds. Trapped in their harness, they would drown when they were dragged beneath the surface.
A deafening report rang out, startling him. He turned to see Luc standing nearby, a smoking pistol in his hand. With speed and unerring accuracy, he had shot the animal with its head furthest above the water line in order to hasten its death.
Peregrine had either jumped or been thrown clear and now lay motionless on the embankment. Theo scrambled down the steep slope toward him. His stomach lurched violently as he approached the tumbled, sodden figure lying on the ground. Peregrine’s right leg was twisted at an impossible angle to the rest of his body. His boot had been ripped off and the impact had broken both bones which now protruded through the skin below the knee, creating a wound that was a dreadful combination of damaged tissue and jagged bone. And blood. There was plenty of blood. It had seeped onto Peregrine’s breeches and stained the tops of his boots, and was already trickling onto the ground. He was moaning faintly, his ashen features twisted in agony, still conscious—just—although his eyes were closed.
Luc knelt down and assessed the extent of Peregrine’s injuries with calm efficiency. “Blow to the head—nothing too bad there—and a few cuts and bruises, but the break to his leg is serious.”
“Pity he didn’t break his neck!”
“He might have cheated death this time, but the outlook is not promising,” said Luc. Taking out his handkerchief, he tied a rudimentary tourniquet around Peregrine’s twisted leg. “He may yet lose the limb or die from fever. We need to get him back to The Angel and send for a surgeon.”
By now a group of navvies who had been working on the tunnel had come rushing over to investigate the commotion. A few gave incredulous gasps at the incongruous scene in the canal while others retched at the sight of Peregrine’s injury. Within a few moments, Luc had ordered one of the work carts to be brought to the embankment and for Peregrine’s inert form to be lifted onto it.
“Take my curricle and go on ahead,” he advised Theo. “I’ll drive the cart.”
Theo nodded and hurried back up the slope.
He soon arrived back at The Angel. In the entrance parlour, he dashed off a note to Sir Seymour and, after ordering a waiter to see it was delivered without delay, sought out the landlord. He asked him to send for a surgeon and make ready one of his bedchambers for a badly injured man who would arrive shortly. He would, Theo promised, be well paid for his efforts and his discretion. The landlord blinked and swallowed the questions that rose in his throat, then went away to carry out these instructions.
Meanwhile, Theo strode to the room where he had left Sophie. He hesitated for a moment outside the door and then, after tugging nervously at his cravat and running his hands through his hair in an attempt to tidy it, he went in.
Sophie, who had been talking to the maid as she laid out some bread and butter on the table, jumped to her feet as Theo entered. The maid bobbed a curtsey and left, and Sophie felt suddenly shy and apprehensive. She wondered if she would ever get used to the thrill of seeing him. She studied his face as he came toward her, noting with surprise the faint, dark smudges under his eyes. Despite her delight at his return, she found herself tonguetied.
“Thank goodness you are unhurt,” she said at last. “Did you find him?”
“We did,” confirmed Theo, going on to explain the whole. “There was nothing else for it but to bring him here,” he added. “I’m sorry, you must want to be as far away from him as you can, but he’s in no condition to harm anyone now. He’ll be taken straight to one of the bedchambers. You need not see him again.”
Sophie shuddered. “I think I ought to go back to London as soon as possible.”
“Yes. No doubt you want to see Verney.”
At this, she glanced up. “Well, I…er…Shall I get you some tea?
“It’s not tea I dashed well need!” Theo strode towards her, exclaiming, “It’s no use, Sophie! I came back to tell you I can’t let you marry without confessing what is in my heart. You may laugh at me, even despise me for speaking plainly, but I must tell you how I feel. Verney’s elegance and fortune are beyond my touch, but there is one thing I can give you that he cannot—my love, now and always. He doesn’t care for you the way I do. He never will. I’ve loved you almost from the moment we met and I can’t live without you. I want to take care of you, make you happy. I want you always at my side because I will always love you. I should have told you before, but I was honour bound to get you to London and believed I could not abuse that position of trust.”
Sophie clutched at the edge of the table, thinking she might be a girl for swooning after all. This felt like one of her dreams, but it was real...his restless masculinity was vivid, as was the scent of him, clean, summery with a hint of outdoors and a trace of sandalwood on warm male skin. “B-But I thought you wanted to be rid of me,” she said, staring up at him, her lips parted in surprise.
“You said so yourself, at The Castle.”
He gave a groan. “Must you fling those dreadful words back in my face just now? I suppose I deserve it. What a fool I was! Deuce knows what prompted me to speak so. I can only blame the raging emotions experienced by a man falling in love for the first time in his life and unable to express it. Then, when you told me you were going to marry Verney, I was devastated. The prospect dismayed me, but I cherished the hope you and he had changed, that when you met him again you would find you did not care for him. In any event, I could not speak…not then. It would not have been right to intervene until you had met Verney again. You would have hated me if I had.”
“So you let me go to him without a word?”
“It may have been the right thing to do, but it was pure agony!” he replied, his mouth twisting in a crooked smile. “And when I found out he was rich, with the face and figure of a Greek god, hope faded and jealousy took its place. You had admired Verney as a youth so why should you not love the handsome man he had become?” Theo’s eyes, dark as midnight, held hers. “I drank myself into a stupor afterward. I tortured mys
elf, imagining you with him. I cursed the scruples that had kept me silent, yet knew I’d had no choice. Reasoning you needed time to make your own judgement about Verney, I forced myself to go down to Chenning where I received some advice from my family.”
“Oh. And what was it?”
“To tell you how I felt at once because there was a chance you had mistaken my reticence for indifference.”
“I-I see. They sound very insightful. So you were unhappy after you left me?”
He uttered a hoarse laugh. “An understatement—I thought I was going out of my mind.”
“I felt the same.”
He stared into her now flushed countenance, an arrested expression on his face. “What?”
“Theo, I was utterly miserable after you left me in Brook Street,” she said, a smile hovering on her lips. “Lady Verney’s welcome was warm and generous, but James was aloof from the outset. I thought he was annoyed with me for arriving unannounced on his doorstep, which indeed he was, but there was another reason for his irritation. And it did not take me long to realize I had changed and so had James. He was not the man I thought he would be.”
“So you are not going to marry him?”
She shook her head, her gaze locked with his. “Only then did I see how stupid and naive I had been,” she murmured. “I don’t think I truly knew myself until that moment. For years I had loved—thought I loved—an ideal. The reality did not match the illusion. It probably never could have, but there was much more to my decision than disappointment. James is handsome, and rich, but he is pompous and conceited too. He is also engaged to marry someone else, which does not matter at all because I don’t love him. My unhappiness was not because of what I had found, but because of what I had lost. Despite the attractions London offered, the world suddenly seemed a duller place and I could find no pleasure in it. Something vital was missing. Lonely, unsettled and more than
a little dispirited, I examined what was in my heart.” A second passed, and another.
Then, stepping closer still, his gaze searched her face. “And what did you find?”
“You,” she said simply.
A guttural sound escaped him as caught her roughly to him. His arms closed around her as his lips sought out the tender skin of her cheeks, her chin and finally her mouth. And then he was kissing her. His long fingers cupped her jaw, angling it until his mouth could move over hers in supple, intimate strokes.
“Why didn’t you tell me...write to me?” he whispered at last, his breath searing her lips.
Sophie clasped her arms around his neck to stop herself from falling to the floor, weaving her fingers through his dark locks. She felt a fierce tremor run through him.
He was holding her so tightly it was difficult to breathe, but she didn’t care. His face was intense and passionate above her, his kisses, deep and impatient, turning her blood to fire. Her fingertips stroked the nape of his neck as she clung to him. “Because I thought you were glad to be rid of me,” she managed to murmur. “I was unwelcome disruption in your life. How could you prefer an idiotic, unsophisticated girl like me over the elegant ladies of the ton?”
“You adorable idiot,” he muttered, ravishing her lips again.
She smiled against his mouth. “I didn’t think I was the sort of woman you wanted.”
He pulled her against him until she could feel his need for her. “I hope you are rapidly revising that opinion,” he whispered into the shell of her ear.
Pleasure sliced through Sophie. The pressure and intimate warmth of his body, the look in his eyes, his familiar scent and his voice, low and vibrant, dazzled her senses. Heat and sensation swept over her. She felt almost feverish. This was not how she had imagined being in love would feel. She assumed it would be pleasant, enjoyable, but this sensual intimacy, new yet as necessary as her own heartbeat, was earthy, emotionally charged and very, very intoxicating. It was like a new language, one more primal than words, where every touch held a reverent promise, every kiss an avowal of greater pleasures to come.
“Yes.” Her voice seemed to come from far away.
“Good, because you, my darling, are the only woman I will ever want. A lifetime with you is not nearly enough!”
Sighing, she wound her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. “You said I was impulsive to leave Ludstone as I did—”
“Did I say that too?” he asked thickly. “I’ll have to learn to think before I open my mouth. Deuce take it, Freddy’s right—I’m useless where women are concerned!”
“Who’s Freddy?”
“Never mind, I’ll explain later.”
“Whoever Freddy is, I can’t agree with him,” whispered Sophie, gasping as his mouth traced a molten path down her neck.
He gave a husky chuckle. “I may be useless with words, but you’ll find me more than capable of showing how much I love you.”
“I-I’m going to enjoy finding out,” she replied unsteadily, another shiver chasing over her skin. “Escaping was an impulsive thing to do, but I could never regret it because I met you, and fell in love with you. The hours we spent together were the happiest of my life.”
“And that’s only the start,” he promised, tilting up her chin, his lips possessing hers once more in a kiss that was both savage and tender.
Luc arrived back at The Angel with his injured cargo a short time later. Peregrine was transported with difficulty up the narrow stairs and ensconced in one of the bedchambers. The surgeon, after he had arrived and examined Peregrine’s injured leg, debated at some length whether to amputate or try and fashion a splint.
He declared the break to be one of the worst he had ever seen. Having made his decision, he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and called for help to hold down the patient. Peregrine, despite having been heavily drugged, writhed and moaned during the next half hour and screamed out several times during the procedure.
When it was done, the doctor mopped the sweat from his brow and collected his things before going to speak to Theo and Luc who were conversing in low tones on the far side of the room. He shook his head over the severity of the injury, pronouncing a permanent limp was the best that could be hoped for. It was to be hoped fever would not set in which might yet cause a bleaker outcome, but it would be some days before that would be known. In the meantime, the patient must not be moved.
“I sent word to Sir Seymour earlier,” Theo told Luc when the surgeon had left, “and the two Bow Street Runners he sent are waiting downstairs to watch over our guest. Do you think he’ll die?”
Luc stood over the bed, regarding the unconscious Peregrine through narrowed eyes. “There’s a chance, but more likely he’ll survive. He’s young and healthy, and he received better attention than he deserved. He’s lucky not to lose his leg.” He glanced at Theo. “You realize there’s little hope of a conviction, or even charges? The only evidence we have is that of his accomplices…it’s not enough.”
“So he can’t be charged with abduction either?”
“Miss Devereux has said she accompanied him of her own free will,” pointed out Luc.
Theo sighed. “He deserves to be punished somehow, although from what I have seen his injuries go a considerable way towards retribution. I ought to get Sophie back to London before dusk.”
Mr Grey agreed, adding, “Do you plan to return her to
Verney’s tender care?”
“No, dash it!” exclaimed Theo.
Luc smiled. “I suspected that was how matters stood. Where do you intend to take her?”
“To a hotel, I suppose. I don’t like the idea though.”
“Why don’t you take Miss Devereux to Grosvenor Square? I’m sure Sir Seymour and Lady Dinniscombe will be happy to have her stay until other arrangements can be made.”
“An excellent notion!” said Theo, with a grateful look. “But what about you?”
“I’ll join you shortly. I’m staying here until Sloane wakes— there are some things I need to say to
him.”
The grim set of Grey’s features and his implacable gaze as it rested on the man in the bed sent a shiver up Theo’s spine. He would not care to be in the injured man’s place when he regained consciousness. The pain from his mangled leg would be the least of Sloane’s concerns then.
When Theo and Sophie arrived in Grosvenor Square, they were greeted by Stamford, Sir Seymour’s butler, who did not turn a hair when informed Miss Devereux would need a bedchamber for the night. He bowed as if it were an everyday occurrence for a young lady to arrive unannounced and without any baggage, and informed them that Sir Seymour and Lady Dinniscombe were in the drawing room with Miss Sloane and her mother.
“Her mother!” echoed Sophie.
“Indeed, miss. I understand Mrs Sloane arrived earlier today. She is staying at Fenton’s hotel but, upon sending a note to her son at Limmer’s to inform him she would like to see him, she received word that he was not there. She therefore decided to visit Miss Sloane.” Stamford sniffed disparagingly. “Miss Sloane had accompanied Lady Dinniscombe to Bond Street and Sir Seymour was at his club, but Mrs Sloane insisted on waiting. They have all been in the drawing room for a short while only.”
“Oh dear,” whispered Sophie, as she walked towards the drawing room with Theo, “Much as I dislike Eudora, I’m not looking forward to telling her about Perry.”
“There’s no avoiding it and, if she has any sense, she’ll acknowledge he’s fortunate not to have broken his neck or be gallows-fodder,” he replied.
Mrs Sloane was sitting on one of the sofas placed either side of the fireplace. She sat next to Lady Dinniscombe and Olivia and Sir Seymour sat opposite. A tea tray lay on the table between them. Sir Seymour raised his quizzing glass when they came in, observing,
“Evening, Miss Devereux, Theo. I have been anticipating your arrival this past hour. Sit down and tell us your news.” He waved a hand in Eudora’s direction. “As you see, Mrs Sloane has arrived unexpectedly. This is not how I would have planned it, but no doubt she would like to hear what has happened to her son. I did not think it right to say anything until you returned.”
Three Secrets and a Scandal (Regency Secrets and Scandals Book 2) Page 22