Chapter 32
Friday afternoon.
Six hours to go before the fight with Scotland's dreaded Butcher.
And no Lucien.
Gareth had spent the morning pacing the floor like a caged lion, jumping at every sound of voices outside, wondering if he was overreacting. After all, he had no hard proof, only suspicions, and it would be damned embarrassing if Lucien came charging in, only to find that Gareth had built a mountain out of a molehill ...
He stalked to the window and glanced nervously outside. Juliet was there in the vegetable garden, squatting down and planting seeds in the narrow furrow she had dug. He let out his breath with relief. He must've checked her ten times in the last five minutes at least. Must've checked Charlotte, who was crawling around on the floor playing with the rattle he had made for her out of a hollowed out piece of wood filled with coins, ten times more than that.
He resumed his pacing, and Charlotte looked up at him with her big blue eyes, watching him go back and forth, back and forth like an inmate at Bedlam.
Gareth paused. What are you worrying so about? those eyes, so like Charles's, seemed to say, and he suddenly relaxed, feeling like the biggest fool in the world. Two apparently drugged fighters and the word of a chemist and he was off like a ball from a cannon. Shaking his head at his own skittishness, he let out a sigh and dropped down beside his little girl. Immediately, she scrambled over to him as fast as her hands and knees could take her and climbed happily up into his lap. He picked her up. Her very presence was a balm to his nerves, a reassurance that purity and innocence still shone in a world that had, of late, seemed dominated by wickedness and evil.
But it soon became obvious that Charlotte wanted more than just a cuddle. Eventually, she began to get restless, and Gareth had learned enough about her to recognize immediately what she wanted.
"Hungry, Charlie-girl?"
Raising himself to his knees, he picked up the bowl he'd excitedly prepared a few minutes ago and sat down, anticipation lighting up his face. Charlotte was beginning to eat solid food now, which delighted him beyond words because that meant he could have a hand in feeding her. Still, Juliet had looked dubious when she'd left him with the baby an hour before. Mash up her food carefully, she had instructed him, explaining the procedure with as much care as if she'd been advising an overeager two-year-old, going on and on while he'd stood there and nodded and nodded and nodded. Make sure there are no lumps in it, and don't make her eat it all if she doesn't want it.
He realized his first mistake as he dug the spoon into the bowl and eagerly began to feed the baby. "Hmmm … perhaps I should have mashed up the peas or even the carrots, instead of these red beets left over from supper last night," he mused, aloud. Indeed, it soon became difficult to know who was faring worse in this new venture — his daughter, now smeared from head to toe in red beet pulp, or her papa, who had it all over his fingers and in his lap. Charlotte looked up at him and smiled through the mess. Gareth guffawed. Ah, hell. They were both laughing and having fun.
They were half-way through the bowl when a loud hammering at the door nearly caused Gareth to jump out of his skin. Lucien. Scooping up the baby and holding her easily in one arm, he went to open it — and found Perry and the rest of the Den of Debauchery standing just outside.
"Bloody hell!" Perry's jaw nearly hit the floor. "What on earth have you done to her?!"
Gareth looked at Charlotte and fully comprehended just what a mess the two of them had made. Huge red blotches stained the delicate skin of the baby's face. Her hands were bright red, her dress was ruined, and bits of crimson pulp clung to her chin. Oh, hell, he thought wildly, Juliet's going to kill me!
He grabbed up a napkin from the table and began scrubbing at Charlotte's face, to no avail. "Damnation!" he cried, much to Perry's amusement and the guffaws of the others.
"Playing papa to the hilt, are you, Gareth?"
"So much for your days of debauchery!"
"I say, next thing you know, he'll be changing napkins — ha, ha, ha!"
"Sod off," Gareth said, realizing how much he had not missed their immaturity. He was in no mood for their silly antics, their teasing, nor Chilcot, who had grabbed Charlotte's rattle and was shaking it in his face with relentless obnoxiousness. He seized Chilcot's wrist and all but ripped the rattle from his fingers. "What are you all doing here, anyhow?"
"Why, we've come to see you fight tonight."
"Yes, there are posters up all over Ravenscombe: 'Will the Scotsman Butcher the Wild One?' Oh, they're playing this up big, Gareth. You're a celebrity!"
Gareth swore under his breath. "Listen," he said, "I'm glad you're here because I believe something evil is going on, and I may need your help."
"What are you talking about?"
Hurriedly, he explained to them what he had learned and what he suspected.
"Yes, but Gareth, you can't prove any of this —"
"No, I can't. Yet. But I will. A man has died, and I shan't rest until I expose the snake who murdered him."
The Wild One Page 70