Rule might have dared a lot of things, but he wasn’t going to touch Julian’s last statement with a barge pole! In the end, it was academic anyway, for just as they came into three feet of their destination, Lucy turned about to face them, fear and relief showing on her face.
“Oh, dear, I’m in the suds this time, aren’t I?” she asked, wincing a bit as she saw the scowl that had begun to furrow Julian’s brow. “I’ll beg forgiveness later, really I will, and I am prodigiously sorry, for it does begin to seem that this was a harebrained idea, doesn’t it, though if you had made the smallest push, Julian, I would have confided in you, even if Mary were not already in full flight with her scheme, but for now I must tell you that I am quite concerned about Mary. I—I think she might require some assistance.”
Julian shot a quick look at Tristan, who was becoming alarmingly red of face, and grabbed his wife by the arm to lead her back out onto the flag-way. “You’ve had a second communication from Jerome, haven’t you? You promised to tell me if there were any further developments. I’m exceedingly put out with you, Lucille.”
“Oh, Julian, don’t go all stuffy on me.” Lucy pouted, thrusting out her chin. “Just say you’re mad as fire with me and have done with it. I—what did you say? Jerome? You know who the blackmailer is? Jerome who?”
“Jerome Toland, Kitty’s brother,” Tristan ground out, whirling his cousin around to face him. “The man’s desperate for money. This isn’t a game any longer, Lucy. Mary could be in grave danger.” Lucy’s determined chin began to crumple as a prelude to tears and he relented a bit, urging softly, “An address, pet, just give us some direction.”
Wiping roughly at her tear-wet cheeks, Lucy, who would not have been so squeamish if it were she herself who were in danger, but whose tender heart was now filled with dread for her friend’s safety, said in a rush, “Jennie’s three servants are with her, Tris. You know even Mary and I would not think to capture the blackmailer on our own. It seemed so simple, you know. We would just hang back and wait for the man to show himself, and then Tiny would crack his skull or some such thing and the deed would be done. It was to be a bit of a lark, you see, and then you would have to apologize for causing the whole mess by being such a gloom-and-doom merchant in the first place. We—”
“An address, Lucille, or I’ll turn you over my knee myself!” Rule threatened, having run out of patience.”
“Julian!” she cried, appealing to her husband. “How can you let him talk to me like that?”
The Earl of Thorpe looked at his distraught friend, smiled slightly, and said, “I am afraid I must disappoint you, Tris. It is I who shall have that pleasure.” Turning back to Lucy, he ordered sternly: “An address, madam, if you please. Now!”
NOTHING WAS GOING as she had planned. In the first place, Lucy was not with her, which cut down on her enjoyment by nearly half. Having caught a glimpse of Tristan as his curricle had shot by, and seeing his dear, intense face again just before entering the bazaar, had succeeded in destroying the remainder of her spirits, although she took great pains not to look downpin around Ben, who she could see was ready to grasp at any straw in order to cancel the scheme entirely.
The house the blackmailer had designated for their meeting was a depressing sight as well, and a far cry from anything Mary had imagined when she had dreamed of capturing the fellow. For one thing, it was situated on a particularly nasty-looking narrow street, crowded with other tumbledown houses and more than a few low gin shops whose drunken, slovenly patrons spilled out into the gutters to either sprawl there unconscious or become sick in the puddles.
Mary had thought she could remain outside and let Tiny and the others take care of the actual apprehension of the blackmailer, but she could now see that there was no way to avoid entering the house herself if the man were ever to show himself.
She and Ben had just completed a battle of wills, all fought in whispers, that had resulted in Mary’s decision to cross the street and enter the house alone while the three servants found their way into the building through the back door or a convenient window. Once inside—and after, she was sure, being observed entering by the blackmailer—she would stand there until she counted to twenty and then return to the street, out of harm’s way until Ben signaled her that everything was all right. The deed would be done, according to Ben “afore yer ken say Jack Robinson.”
Mary, her back stiff and straight, her ridiculous ostrich plumes bobbing in the slight breeze, walked swiftly across the street to enter number sixteen without knocking, stopped just inside the door, closed her eyes tightly, and began counting aloud in a brave, if rather shaky voice: “One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three—”
The hand that snaked around her waist from behind squeezed tightly, robbing her of air, while the second had clamped down tight over her mouth before she could give voice to the scream that had already formed in her mind.
Obviously, she thought wildly as she felt herself being lifted off her feet and half dragged up the stairs, the blackmailer has plans of his own. Her eyes popped wide open in curiosity partly to see her surroundings, awful as they might be, and partly in the vain hope that she could see her attacker, who still held her from behind.
Thankfully for her battered heels that had banged sharply against every riser as they mounted the stairs, the man did not climb to the very top of the tall, narrow house, but stopped at the first floor, kicking open a door and roughly pushing Mary inside the room ahead of him. Catching herself against the side of a rickety table, she took a moment to catch her breath, and then turned.
“You!” she exclaimed unbelievingly as Jerome Toland closed and locked the door behind them.
Toland busied himself adjusting his lace shirt cuffs, which had been disarranged by his recent activities, and then made his captive a mocking bow. “One must make a living, Miss Lawrence,” he said, shrugging. “Especially if one’s idiot sister persists in falling in love with penniless men. You must understand I didn’t set out to use you, but you played so easily into my hands that I found I couldn’t resist. I apologize for causing you any trouble, and I’m sorry if you have suffered any upset.”
“Oh, aren’t you just!” Mary sniffed, remembering that she had never been very much enamored of this man, whose own sister did not seem overfond of him. “May I say, sir, that your concern leaves me totally unmoved.”
Toland indicated the single chair in the room and suggested Mary sit down, but she shook her head and stood her ground. “I forgive you for those harsh words, Miss Lawrence, as I know this must be very unpleasant for you, but I believe we can conclude our business in short order. Have you brought the papers?”
The papers? Mary had to think for a moment before she remembered that she was to have brought some of Sir Henry’s papers with her. Stupid! She berated herself silently. So sure had she been of the success of her plan that she had not even considered bringing along a false set of papers. She had nothing with her save her small reticule.
Tilting up her chin, she improvised quickly: “What sort of clothhead do you take me for, Mr. Toland? Of course I did not bring any papers. After all, what assurance do I have that once the papers are in your possession, you will make good your promise not to make public my—er—indiscreet behavior on a certain occasion?”
“You stupid chit!” Toland exclaimed, slamming a fist down on the table, shaking the oil lamp he had placed there, and making Mary back up three paces and sit in the chair she had shunned earlier. “What the devil do I care what you do or who you do it with? You could ride stark naked down Bond Street for all I’d care! I need those papers! I already promised them to—”
Toland cut off his tirade as he saw Mary looking hopefully toward the closed door as if she believed it would come tumbling in on them at any moment. “You didn’t come here alone, did you?” he asked in a low, hard voice. Crossing over to where Mary sat huddled in the chair, he grabbed her arm and gave it a mighty shake. “Who did you bring with you? Rule’s no
t in London. I checked. Who is it?”
He shook her again, and she thought she could hear her teeth rattle in her head. “No-nobody! I swear it,” she cried, beginning to feel real fear creeping down her spine. Where were Tiny and Goliath? And Ben, where was he? He had promised her! She could have counted to a thousand by now! “Your note said to come alone.”
Just as if the fates had set out to make a liar of her, there came the sound of running feet approaching outside in the hallway. “Bitch!” Toland cursed, and still holding tight to her arm, he swept a backhanded slap across her face, knocking her to the floor just as the door crashed open and Tristan burst into the room.
One look at Tristan Rule’s face was enough to have Jerome Toland raising his hands in surrender, but Rule wasn’t about to settle for turning the man over to the authorities. Toland had dared to touch Mary! He had hit her, hurt her.
Only one thing stood out clearly in Tristan’s mind: Jerome Toland had to die. Tristan’s hands bunched tightly into fists that ached to turn Jerome’s handsome face into mush. “Defend yourself, you bastard!” he fairly growled.
Mary didn’t know how Tristan had found her, and at the moment she didn’t much care. All she could do was remain sprawled on the floor, staring in amazement as his beloved face turned into a dark mask of hate. So this is the man they call Ruthless Rule, she thought, at last understanding that Tristan’s reputation was no trifling thing. When enraged, Tristan Rule would give pause to the devil himself.
Toland backed toward the wall, his head shaking slowly back and forth in the negative, until he was stopped by the edge of the table as it came up against the back of his legs. Reaching behind himself wildly for any weapon he could find, he grabbed up the oil lamp and sent it winging straight at Rule.
“Tristan, look out!” Mary screamed helplessly, scrambling to her feet as Rule ducked, and the lamp crashed against the wall. Immediately the straw pallet that lay against the wall was turned into a blazing pyre.
The old house was nothing more than tinder, and the fire, once begun, fed on it greedily. In mere moments one side of the room was transformed into a raging inferno. Tristan knew it wouldn’t be long before the fire reached the doorway, effectively cutting off their only means of escape.
Toland must have realized it as well, for he made a mad dash for the safety of the hallway, slamming the door shut behind him as he went. Tristan only spared a moment to hope that Julian and Kit’s three servants, whom he had browbeaten into staying outside, would not let the man escape before turning his full attention on Mary.
If Mary had been shaken at the sight of Rule in a rage, it was nothing to the fear that raced through his veins as he looked at her now. For Mary was backed against the far wall, cowering in abject panic, staring unblinkingly at the rapidly spreading flames. She was more than frightened. She was terrified, frozen with horror.
“Mary!” Tristan shouted above the roar of the fire. “Come to me, sweetings! We have to get out of here!” As Tristan spoke, he tried to open the door, which had jammed shut.
She didn’t move, except to slip down closer to the floor. Whimpering, she covered her head with her arms.
Again and again Tristan pulled on the door, but it was no use. “Damn it!” he cursed, giving the door a kick before turning back to Mary. Smoke was rapidly filling the room and he had trouble finding her in the dim light. Pulling off his jacket, he held it about his head and upper body as a shield as he made his way to her, then draped it around her hunched body. “Mary,” he crooned, sensing now the full depth of her terror even if he couldn’t fully comprehend the real reason for it, “you’ll be all right. I promise. Let me help you.”
But Mary had retreated from the room—from the fire. Feeling Tristan’s arms wrapping around her, she began to rock rapidly back and forth on her heels, like an animal in pain—or a child in its mother’s protective embrace.
Tristan lifted her unresistingly into his arms and stood up, moving toward the single window in the room. Kicking out with his booted foot, he splintered the last of the panes that remained in the already-broken window and looked down into the street. He closed his eyes a moment in silent relief as he saw Julian and Tiny standing below him looking up at the window. Jerome Toland lay on the ground beside them, Goliath perched on his back, as Ben stood over the captive, a nasty-looking club in his hands.
Putting Mary down for just a moment, he wrapped his jacket around his arm and hit out the spindly strips of wood that clung to the window frame. The heat coming from behind him was nearly unbearable, and the smoke rushing toward the open window caused him to choke and cough, as stinging tears threatened to blind him.
Mary was once again cowering on the floor, holding on to his leg like a terrified child. He had to use considerable force to pry her loose from her tight hold on him in order to haul her to her feet. Putting a hand under her chin, he raised her face to his, trying to make out her features through the smoke that swirled all around them. “Mary? Mary! Listen to me! I’ve got to lower you down outside the building, and then drop you. Tiny is waiting down there—Julian too. They’ll catch you, darling, I swear they will.”
She looked at him then, her eyes wide and unblinking, even in the dense smoke. “Maman?” she breathed, tentatively reaching out a hand to touch Tristan’s cheek. She shook her head in the negative. No. This was not her mother. Who was this strange man? Where was her mother? She wanted her mother!
Mary felt herself being lifted, her body being moved toward the open window. The man was going to drop her out the window. No! She didn’t want to fall; she knew the feeling of falling, that awful sense of hurtling helplessly through space. She wrapped her arms tightly around the man’s shoulders, holding on to him for dear life, refusing to let go. “Non, maman! Non!” she pleaded over and over again as she burrowed her face against the man’s neck.
Tristan felt his blood run cold. He didn’t know what was happening, what had turned Mary into the little girl now clinging to his neck sobbing for her mother. All he knew was that they were both going to die in this burning hell of a room unless he could break through to Mary somehow, make her understand that they had to get out of here—now.
Instinct guided him, instinct and love. “Marie,” he crooned softly, into her ear. “Mon pauvre enfant, je t’aime. Allons!”
“Maman?” Mary asked, tilting her head to one side, her arms relaxing a bit, allowing Rule to breathe more freely. She looked into Tristan’s face for a long moment, clearly fighting to understand, and then suddenly, her face crumpled in sorrow. “Maman is dead. Oh, Tris, my mother is dead!” she cried, as her memory, and complete realization of what had happened finally hit her. And then she fainted.
Tristan clasped Mary to him tightly, thanking every deity he could think of for the joy of hearing his name once more on her lips. Tears streamed down his soot-darkened face as he rained small kisses against Mary’s cheeks and neck, until the loud crash of a ceiling beam breaking away and hitting the floor behind him brought him back to his senses.
He gave Mary one last kiss, then holding her limp, unconscious body by the wrists, he lowered her out the window as far as possible before dropping her to the street below, where Tiny stood waiting. The gentle giant caught her neatly as she fell and quickly handed her over to Julian before turning his attention once more to the first-floor window.
“I be waitin’, milord,” he shouted in his big voice. “Jump!”
EPILOGUE
July 1815
“CRISTOPHER WILDE, you come back here at once!” Jennie’s only acknowledgment from her offspring came in the form of a childish giggle, before the boy was off again, running as fast as his chubby legs could carry him, his nursemaids, Tizzie and Lizzie, huffing and puffing along behind in hot pursuit.
“Let him go, dearest,” Kit said lazily, not moving from his lounging position up against the base of a comfortable shade tree.
“Only a man would say such a thing,” Jennie retorted. “He’ll get gras
s stains all over his new outfit—and he looked so adorable in church too.” Turning to her cousin Lucy, now carrying her first child and more likely to be sympathetic to Jennie’s motherly pride, she said, “He made the perfect ring bearer, didn’t he?”
Julian Rutherford, who had been busying himself arranging a pillow at his wife’s back as she sat in a soft, upholstered chair he had ordered carried out onto the lawn for just such a purpose, replied tongue-in-cheek, “He certainly did, Jennie. I especially liked it when he refused to turn over the ring to the vicar.”
Kit chuckled deep in his throat as he lay with his hat tipped front over his eyes, earning himself a playful jab in the ribs from his wife’s slippered foot. “Hey!” he protested, raising the brim of his hat an inch to smile up at Jennie.
Lucy patted her protruding abdomen and said soothingly, “Don’t worry, sweetings, your aunt and uncle are only funning.” Pretending to be stern, she warned her cousin and her husband that they were setting their as yet unborn relative a bad example.
“They don’t have to, Lucy, with you as the poor child’s mother,” Rachel quipped lightly, just then walking up to the group arm in arm with her brand-new husband. “Why do you think I married Henry in such a rush after Waterloo? The mere thought of having to bear-lead your sure-to-be harum-scarum offspring had me begging the poor man to give me the protection of his name.”
Sir Henry Ruffton, his cherubic face beaming with pride as he gazed at his bride, refused to be insulted and merely pulled her more fully into his embrace and kissed her on the cheek. “We could have been wed months ago if it weren’t for that devil Bonaparte breaking loose from Elba just after Mary and Tristan returned from their wedding trip.”
The group was silent for a few moments, each reliving the horror of those awful “hundred days,” when Bonaparte roamed Europe again and it seemed that another long, hurtful war had begun. The three women exchanged looks, each remembering the long months when their men, along with Tristan, were gone from their sides, off defending their country.
The ruthless Lord Rule Page 19