A Fine Passion

by Stephanie Laurens

  Still giddy, Clarice watched as they wrestled. This was no clean fight; even she could see the difference. Neither was averse to using any means they could to win. They grunted, and staggered; Jack was too experienced to let the other have space enough to use his legs. Inexorably, Jack bent the man’s wrist back, farther…

  Suddenly, Jack let the man’s other hand go and drove his elbow back into the man’s chest. The man wheezed, and nearly collapsed on Jack.

  Jack staggered. He might have been as strong, but the other man was heavier.

  With a huge effort, the man wrenched himself free, flinging Jack away. He staggered, but quickly regained his balance.

  They faced each other, two wrestlers looking to close, a few yards between them.

  Before Jack could move in, the man abruptly fell back.

  His eyes went to Clarice. He lifted his arm.

  Jack couldn’t reach him in time.

  He flung himself at Clarice.

  He caught her, let his weight carry her to the ground, didn’t truly care when he felt the sharp sting of the knife, followed by blossoming pain as it lodged in the back of his shoulder.

  Behind him, the man swore foully with a thick accent, European but from nowhere that bordered the sea.

  Jack heard the man’s footsteps as he started toward them, felt Clarice’s arms wrap about him and hold him, felt her warm and safe beneath him.

  Ruthlessly focusing his senses, he gathered his strength to push free at just the right moment; it would take more than a knife in the shoulder to stop him.

  The man’s footsteps abruptly halted. He was still too far from them for Jack to make any sensible move.

  Shouts reached them, followed by footsteps rushing down from the major path.

  The man swore again, more softly, then swung on his heel and fled.

  Jack groaned and swore, too. “Damn it! He’s getting away.” He started to struggle up, but Clarice tightened her hold.

  “There’s a knife in your back.”

  He bit back his “I know”; there was a strange note, an odd quality in her voice. He reminded himself she wasn’t used to fights and knives and death, but he was nowhere near dead. “It’s all right. I’m not that hurt.”

  “But—”

  He pushed back enough to sit up, disentangling from her as Nigel and Alton came pounding down the path. With his head, Jack ordered them on. “After him. I’ll survive.”

  Clarice had already scrambled to her feet; hunkered down, her attention was fixed on him. After the briefest of glances her way, glances she didn’t even register, Alton and Nigel raced on.

  They were young and fast; there was a chance they might catch the villain.

  Other revelers were gathering at the head of the path, but no one else had yet ventured down.

  Clarice twitched the hems of her skirts from beneath Jack’s legs, and scrambled around him to view the damage. Her heart seemed to have lodged in her throat, choking her; the sight of the blood oozing from around the blade made her reel, not with faintness but with a medley of emotions so powerful she had to slam a door on them just to function. “What can I do to help?”

  She laid her hand lightly on Jack’s shoulder; he was obviously in pain.

  He met her eyes as she peered around his shoulder. “Can you pull the knife out?”

  She blinked. She was thankful the path was so shadowy; he hadn’t seen the blood drain from her face.

  “It hasn’t touched anything serious. It’s lodged in muscle, but it’ll do less damage if I don’t move until it’s out.”

  She shifted back to face the knife. “How?”

  “Just grab it and pull it slowly out. I’ll try to relax so it comes out more easily.”

  She dragged in a huge breath, held it, closed her hand around the hilt, and did as he said, careful to exert only enough force to draw the knife slowly free…then it was out, in her hand. She blew out a breath, and slumped to sit beside Jack.

  He offered her his handkerchief. “Use that to press on the wound.”

  She did. Just as she pressed the linen pad down hard, a shot rang out.

  They both looked down the path in the direction of the sound.

  Jack closed his hand around hers. “It won’t be your brothers.”

  She looked at his grim face. “How can you be sure?”

  He started to rise. She scrambled to her feet, then helped him up, keeping one hand pressed to his wound.

  “Let’s go and find out.”

  Others had now ventured down. A few gentlemen, seeing Jack’s injury, offered their handkerchiefs to help staunch the blood. Clarice accepted them, adding them to the wad beneath her hand as, followed by a small procession, they headed down the path.

  They traveled more than half the length of the huge gardens before they reached the scene of the shooting. It wasn’t on the path, but a little way off it, in a small clearing surrounded by bushes. A shocked group of revelers, including, Clarice noted with relief, Alton and Nigel, stood staring, silent and stunned, in a wide circle around the round-faced man.

  He lay on his back, arms wide, staring, sightless, up at the night sky.

  A large hole in his chest bled sluggishly. On the grass beside him lay a nondescript pistol.

  There was no question that he was dead.

  Halting beside Alton, Jack sighed.

  “I don’t understand.” Frowning, Alton turned to Jack. “We’d gone past on the path, then heard the shot. But who shot him?”

  Jack looked down at the pale, round face. “His master—our last traitor.”

  Using Alton and Nigel as assistants, Jack gathered what information he could.

  Nigel found a young lady who had seen a man leaving the clearing immediately after the shot had rung out; he convinced her parents that she should talk to Jack, and escorted the party to where Jack sat on a bench beside the central avenue, Clarice at his side still holding the wad of handkerchiefs tightly to his wound.

  A few gentle questions confirmed that the young lady had indeed seen the murderer. Unfortunately, she was in the grip of incipient if not actual hysterics; Jack wasn’t sure how to proceed.

  Clarice shifted, drawing the girl’s startled gaze. “Come now. This gentleman was injured trying to catch the man. You’re not injured, just frightened, but you’ll feel much better after you’ve told us all you saw. Where were you standing when it happened?”

  The girl blinked, and replied, telling them she and her group were strolling the lawns just beyond the small clearing. Clarice’s calm questions, asked with the transparent expectation of receiving coherent answers, steadied the girl; she responded increasingly freely. When the shot had rung out, she was the best placed of their group to see the gentleman who had walked, calmly and unhurriedly, away from the scene.

  Unfortunately, beyond describing him as tall, with a well-cut evening coat and fashionably styled dark hair, she couldn’t identify him. She hadn’t seen his face.

  “He didn’t look around at all. At first, I thought he couldn’t have heard the shot. Indeed, I wondered if it was a shot I heard, given he was so calm.”

  Jack summoned a smile and thanked the girl, her parents, and escort. Relieved, the parents ushered the small group away.

  Alton looked down at Jack. “Should we search?”

  Jack grimaced. “For what?” Slowly, assisted by Clarice, he stood. “Whoever it was is indistinguishable from the majority of male guests.”

  “If he’s even still present,” Clarice said.

  Jack glanced at her. “Oh, he’ll be here. Leaving, doing even that much to draw attention to himself, let alone cutting short his evening’s entertainment, isn’t his style. Especially now he knows that our last chance of identifying him”—he glanced back at the clearing where the garden’s attendants were dealing with the dead body—“just died.”

  At Jack’s insistence, Clarice took him back to the Bastion Club.

  “Gasthorpe knows how to contact Pringle, and he know
s more about stab wounds than any doctor in London.”

  She did as he asked and kept the emotions bubbling inside her carefully suppressed. For the moment. At least until the doctor had pronounced Jack fit enough to withstand them.

  At the club, she swallowed her protests, respected their rules, and agreed to wait in the parlor.

  Gasthorpe whisked Jack away; noting the majordomo’s unruffled efficiency, Clarice surmised he was used to dealing with peers sporting stab wounds and the like. She humphed and paced the parlor. Dr. Pringle arrived, a sharp-featured gentleman who bowed and assured her that Jack had the constitution of an ox. He also promised to stop by on his way out and inform her of his opinion of Jack’s injury.

  Mollified, she sat; when a footman appeared with a tea tray, she was absurdly grateful. She sent her compliments to Gasthorpe and settled to wait.

  Upstairs, Jack winced as Pringle probed the wound.

  “Clean as a whistle.” Pringle opened his bag and rummaged for bandages. “One benefit of dealing with professional killers.”

  Used to Pringle’s graveyard humor, Jack merely grunted. He gripped the edge of the table against which he was leaning and kept his lips shut as Pringle rebathed the wound, smeared it with some unguent, then laid gauze across it before bandaging him up. The bandage had to wind over his shoulder and across his chest, but Pringle was experienced enough to leave him room to move reasonably freely.

  Pringle was tying off the bandage when the door opened, and Dalziel walked in. Jack let his surprise show; like him, Dalziel was in evening dress.

  Dalziel closed the door behind him, nodded to Pringle, then studied Jack. “There’s a story flashing around the clubs of a gentleman rescuing a fair damsel in a dark walk at the Vauxhall Gala, then the villain being shot dead.” Dalziel raised his brows. “I take it that was you?”

  Jack grimaced. “Yes to the first, but I don’t know who shot him.” Concisely, he recounted the events of the last hours. “So in terms of appearance, the last traitor could be you or I. The other detail you can add to his file is that he’s high enough in society to garner vouchers to a Royal Gala. The watch at the gates was strict, entry by voucher only. Our ex-courier-cum-informer couldn’t have got in without one.”

  Dalziel nodded. “Duly noted. As to our late friend…” His voice hardened. “I can confirm that he was a Pole, known to have a secret loyalty to Napoleon’s cause. Curtiss and the Admiralty have been watching him for years, but he’s never shown any interest in military secrets, nor has he been traveling. He’s been in London since ’08. Unfortunately, I only learned all that this evening.”

  Jack blinked. “So if he had lived, you would have been speaking with him tomorrow morning.”

  Dalzeil nodded. “On that you could have safely staked your estate.”

  “So he had to die tonight.”

  “Indeed. That, I assume, is why he was summoned to the Gala.”

  “A place in which he would have imagined he was safe.”

  After a moment’s pause, Dalziel mumured, “I fear, like many others, he underestimated his master.”

  There was a quality in Dalziel’s voice that made Jack shiver. Even Pringle blinked.

  Dalziel shifted, and the sense of menace dissolved. He looked at Jack, then smiled, and turned for the door. “If I were you, Warnefleet, I’d retire to the country forthwith. After this latest act of heroism, you’re going to be at the top of the young ladies’ lists.” At the door, Dalziel looked back, smiled cynically, and saluted him. “And for once, their mothers will agree.”

  Jack blinked, stared, then closed his eyes and groaned.

  Clarice had heard someone arrive, then heard him leave, but it wasn’t Jack. She couldn’t summon enough interest to look out.

  She’d finished her cup of tea and was starting to drum her fingers on the chair arm when she heard two sets of footsteps descending the stairs. A moment later the door opened. Pringle entered, Jack followed.

  She rose and offered her hand.

  Pringle came forward to take it. “Just a deep cut. Nothing that won’t mend soon enough, as long as he doesn’t aggravate the injury.”

  That last was said with a quizzical look at Jack.

  Who met it blankly.

  She thanked the doctor. Jack shook hands with him, and Pringle left.

  “Now”—Clarice hitched her evening cloak over her shoulders, and picked up her reticule—“it’s time we headed back to Benedict’s.” So she could share her thoughts, her emotions, with him.

  To her surprise, Jack frowned; he made no move toward the door. “Rather a lot of people saw us together tonight. Again. After last night, and tonight, perhaps it would be better if I remain here. I probably won’t sleep all that well, and Gasthorpe’s an excellent nurse.”

  She fixed her eyes on his, drew in a deep breath, and managed, just, to keep her temper, to keep her swelling emotions in check. “My dear Lord Warnefleet, please understand this—there is no way on earth I am letting you out of my sight. Not tonight, not for the foreseeable future. Furthermore”—she drew in another huge breath—“regardless of Gasthorpe’s efficiency, I defy him to be better able to nurse you than I, and as for you suffering from any difficulty sleeping, I’m quite sure I’ll be able to find something to distract you from the pain in your shoulder, to exhaust you enough for you to fall asleep.”

  Her voice had gained, not in volume but emphasis; to her horror, it threatened to quaver. She had to draw in another breath and hold it for an instant before she could ask, pointedly, “Are you ready to leave now?”

  Jack blinked, studied her, and realized she was almost quivering, that a species of fine tension was thrumming through her. That she was seriously, deeply upset. “Yes. Of course. If you’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  She may be sure, but he wasn’t, not at all sure just what she was so upset about. It could be simple reaction, even compounded reaction to the events of the last two evenings. In what he suspected was typical Clarice fashion, she might have been bottling it all up inside, trying to be her usual tower of strength for everyone else.

  In the front hall, he slung his coat over his shoulders, called a farewell to Gasthorpe, then took Clarice’s arm and guided her outside. In the street, he helped her into the carriage, then joined her, easing back against the squabs, aware of her watching him closely.

  “It’s only painful if I press on it, or lift my arm above the shoulder.”

  The wound truly wasn’t bad, more a nuisance, and none of the rest of him was injured in any way. However, as they rattled around to Benedict’s, he did wonder what the rest of the night might have in store for him.

  As they turned into Piccadilly, he recalled Dalziel’s visit and mentioned it; without being asked, he related all Dalziel had said.

  They passed close by a street flare as the carriage turned a corner; in its glare, he saw she was frowning.

  Suddenly, she looked up at him, her face clearing. “Royce.”

  He frowned. “Royce who?”

  Her frown returned. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever did know. But that’s Dalziel’s Christian name, the one he goes by—Royce.”

  Jack considered; after a moment, he shook his head. “Tracing one of the nobility on the basis of one Christian name is simply too hard.”

  But he made a mental note to tell the others. One day they’d learn the truth, the whole truth, about Dalziel. Now, however, he had another, more immediate, equally difficult member of the nobility to deal with.

  By the time Clarice had succeeded in bullying him up to her sitting room—directly, with no detour via the secondary stairs—he’d decided how to deal with her.

  Directly, as direct as she usually was. In the instant he’d seen their late adversary poised to hurl a knife into her heart, he’d had a revelation sharp enough to qualify as Cupid’s dart.

  In contrast, the impact of the knife had been rather anticlimactic.

  Life was too shor
t not to reach for love, not to seize it. If she’d changed her mind and decided to remain in London…she’d simply have to change it back.

  In the carriage, he’d recalled her advice to Alton. People giving such advice usually spoke from their own perspectives.

  So be it. He’d thought showing her how much he loved her would be enough, but…perhaps not. And if not, then…unfortunately, it was one thing to show her, another entirely to tell her. To say the words aloud. Doing so might well qualify as the hardest task he’d ever faced, but he would do it.

  He had to; he had no choice.

  It was that, or risk losing her, and the latter wasn’t an option.

  Closing the door, he walked to the fireplace while she shrugged off her cloak and set her reticule aside. In the carriage, he’d debated letting her speak first, letting her release whatever it was that was so clearly brewing inside her, but then he’d remembered how she could rant and rave; very likely she’d distract him. Best if he grasped the nettle and spoke first.

  He swung to face her as she neared, and trapped her gaze with his. “Before we get distracted with anything else, there’s something I want to say.”

  She blinked, surprised, but then he saw a certain wariness creep into her dark eyes, eyes whose expression he could now often read.

  He drew breath, and spoke quickly. “The truth is…I love you to distraction, and will move heaven and earth, and anything between, to make you mine.”

  She blinked, no doubt recalling what were almost exactly her own words, but now he’d taken the plunge, he found the rest came more easily.

  “I know that your family—Alton, Roger, Nigel, and all the rest—need you, that that need is real in its way, but I need you more.” He held her gaze steadily, and dropped every shield he possessed, every veil he’d used through the years to hide behind, something at which he’d grown exceedingly adept. “I have a manor house that’s been empty for too long, a rose garden with a bench that hasn’t had a lady to sit on it, to look over the blooms and play with her children, not for decades.