by Jan Constant
He laughed, swaying a little. “After tonight, you will have no choice!”
Still smiling, he came round the table, hands out toward her, and Emma scrambled to her feet, dodging away from his clutching fingers. Long ago she had fixed upon a weapon for just such an eventuality, and now she slipped round the table, determined to keep it within reach.
Instead of pursuing her, Lord Devern made a sudden grab across the table, his fingers hooking into the neck of her dress as he dragged her roughly toward him.
“Now, my girl—now!” he muttered thickly, crushing her against his body, brandy fumes making her head swim.
Behind her, Emma’s questing hand found and grasped the brandy bottle, and raising it above her head, she paused for only the faintest moment before bringing it down with all her strength. At the last moment her assailant must have suspected something, for he glanced up and instead of hitting the back of his head as she intended, she struck him above his left eye. For a second nothing happened, and, the bottle having smashed into a thousand pieces, she was looking round for another weapon, when Lord Devern gave a groan and slowly slid downward to lie facedown on the floor at her feet.
Emma gave him a heartless kick, but when he rolled over to reveal a white face and blood welling from a gash on his forehead, she dropped to her knees with an exclamation of dismay.
“Dear God!” she cried. “I’ve killed him!”
Reaching up to the table, she found a napkin, folded it into a pad, and held it to the wound, wondering the while what her next move could be. Gradually she became aware that for some minutes there had been the sound of a noisy arrival in the yard, voices hurling questions and finally feet pounding up the stairs. Suddenly the locked door was shaken violently.
“Emma—Emma! Are you there?” a familiar voice shouted urgently, and at her glad cry, Sir Julian put his shoulder to the door and burst the lock.
The look of wild anxiety on his face as he charged in dispelled any doubts she had as to his regard for her, and her heart gave a great leap of joy, but recollecting the listeners, she said quite calmly, “Dear Ju, pray help me, for I am afraid that Lord Devern has met with an accident.”
Having ascertained that she was unhurt, Sir Julian went down on his knee, taking the unconscious man’s wrist between his finger and thumb. After a moment, he reported briefly: “He’ll live.” Then, his fury getting the better of him, he turned to Emma. “Goddammit, woman,” he snarled. “Why did you have to wound the blackguard—now, how can I call him out?”
“I consider it a very good thing that I did, if you are so blood-thirsty,” observed the Beringer Heiress, sitting back on her heels, “for only think how I should feel if you were to meet at dawn!”
By now an interested crowd filled the doorway, excited faces and goggling eyes struggling for the best view.
“Joe!” called Julian Leyton, and the little figure wriggled through the legs of the watchers and presented itself, quivering with eagerness. “Put your hand to this pad,” he was commanded, and Sir Julian turned his attention to the landlord.
Soon the room was cleared of sightseers, the unconscious lord ensconced on the bed under the ministering attention of the landlady, a doctor had been sent for, and Sir Julian and
Miss Beringer were settled in the innkeeper’s own comfortable parlor.
To her annoyance, Emma had suddenly come over “all missish,” as Maria would have put it, and had had to be revived with a cup of tea. Sir Julian’s arms had been satisfyingly strong as he carried her to the settle, and despite her halfhearted protests she had been firmly treated like an invalid.
“What I do not understand,” she admitted, having finished her tea, “is how you found me.”
“There you must thank Joe,” she was told. “He saw you creep from the house and followed. When he saw that damned fellow take you up in his carriage, he had the sense to hare back and insist upon my being woken. ” Julian paused and turned her face up to his before going on. “He also made me acquainted with the facts behind the episode at the gate of my house. I am truly sorry for my misunderstanding.”
Emma hastened to take upon herself most of the guilt, and for a moment it looked as if an argument would take place, but realizing where it would lead, they both broke off in some embarrassment.
“Do, pray go on . . . Joe has only just awoken you ...”
“I thought that you’d gone to Hodge Hall and was about to take the Hampshire road but, upon inquiry, found that no one had seen Devern’s rather noticeable outfit, so headed back into town.”
Relieving her of the teacup, he possessed himself of her hand and carried it to his lips, an action which Emma found very pleasant, allowing him to kiss each finger before inquiring:
“And, then?”
“Then, I happened upon Freddie—slightly bosky, but able to tell me that he had seen you in the tilbury heading for the Great North Road—so I knew what that devil was up to? And the carriage was clearly visible from the road.” He gritted his teeth. “To try the same trick twice! And you, my darling, with only a bottle to defend yourself.”
“Oh, I had a pistol, too,” she told him composedly, “but I’d hidden that under the pillow—as a last resort, so to speak. I decided that to shoot him would cause such a scandal that it was only to be thought of in extremity!”
For a moment he looked at her in wonder before his shoulders shook, and giving a choked laugh, he gathered her into his arms. “By all that’s marvelous! My brave girl! I begin to feel a modicum of sympathy for the wretch—he didn’t have a chance!”
Emma nodded in agreement. “I did not care for him, you see,” she said simply.
A thought struck them both, and for a moment their eyes locked as a wild notion entered both their heads.
“What would you say—what would your answer be . . . if someone else were to . . . ?” He broke off in some confusion, searching her face. Reading the humble uncertainty in the usually self-confident black eyes, Emma let down her own guard and allowed him to see into her heart. A glad smile transformed his face. “Dearest Emma—kitten,” he said. “Will you come with me to Gretna?”
“Gladly, sir,” she answered, putting up her face for his kiss, “but only think how confused the gossips will be!”
“The gossips, kitten, may go hang,” Sir Julian replied.