by Brenda Hiatt
“That’s right,” Lynton said. “I remember now my uncle saying that. How did you know?”
Vayle closed the box and set it gently on the table. “I recognized the style, the Oriental influence. Dragons are—were a popular image then.”
Max cut this discussion short by opening the door. Its shriek woke Vayle from his reverie and got him moving. As the two of them emerged into the damp night, Max decided that Gwen was right about Vayle’s erratic memory. Imagine remembering snuffbox styles and not your own name.
But one glance at his companion’s face reminded Max of his resolution to stay out of altercations tonight. Vayle looked to be spoiling for a fight, and Max knew better than to give him one.
Still it was outside of enough, he thought resentfully, to have a blood like Vayle disapproving of him. Max Sevaric was known among his regiment and indeed the entire army as a man who could be counted on to play fair at cards, steer clear of his brother officers’ wives, treat his mistresses generously, and keep his given word. A man of honor, in other words. And yet Vayle, who had proved to be a cardsharp and a gallant, was stalking down Storey’s Gate, righteous as a rector.
Waving away a hackney driver, he caught up with the tight-lipped Vayle. “You were the one who called it dishonorable to buy Lynton’s markers.”
“So you fleeced him instead?”
“Fleeced him? Fleeced him? By God, if you hadn’t saved my sister’s life, I’d—” Max broke off, took a deep breath, and got firm hold of his temper. “I did not cheat him. He can’t dice any better than he plays cards, that’s all.”
“You took advantage of his drunkenness.”
“If not me, it would have been someone else. The man is begging to be ruined, and I might as well have the pleasure of obliging him.”
“You insulted him, too, telling him you’d had enough of his markers and wanted real property.”
“He hasn’t anything to back up his markers. Nothing left but the lodge. You heard what his sister said.”
“Ah, yes.” Vayle’s voice was heavy with meaning. “His sister. Who came to you in secret, and asked for your word as a gentleman that you would not betray her.”
“I didn’t betray her,” Max said sharply. “I never told Lynton how I heard of the lodge.”
“No. You just used the information she gave you to deprive her of her home.”
It was a low blow, and Max felt it hard. He walked on in silence for a block or so. “I haven’t deprived her of her home. I’ll—I’ll—” He hadn’t considered what precisely he would do about Miss Caine, but an image of her face came up in his mind, and he spoke impulsively. “I’ll lease the place to her. On favorable terms.”
Vayle shrugged skeptically, and Max was moved to add, “Very favorable terms. I promise you, I shall be a better landlord than that no-account brother of hers. Did you see the way he kept his rooms? Is it likely he’s kept Greenbriar Lodge any better? At least I’ll maintain the property.”
The only answer was a jerk of Vayle’s head, which said, plainly enough, that he would believe that when he saw it. Max was about to take issue with this doubt, but then he heard a tinkle of glass and the street went dark.
At last. A fight he didn’t need to avoid.
He still had a soldier’s instincts. In the instant before the street lamp went out, he’d memorized his surroundings, St. James’s Park ahead, the dark rowhouses lining the street, the four shadows veering up out of the alley to the right.
His hand went to his belt, but he wasn’t uniformed, so his sword wasn’t there, nor his sidearm either. From a few feet away, he heard the surreptitious slide of metal. Vayle must have a swordstick in his cane. “Good man,” he said under his breath, and dropped into a crouch, his fists at the ready.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but a bit of light came from a lamp in a nearby window, and eventually he made out the street ahead. The shadows blocked their way a dozen feet away, darker than the darkness.
Max considered retreat, but discarded it. A four against two, the odds weren’t great enough to merit running. Vayle must have had the same thought, for he stepped forward brandishing his short sword. For a moment, they all stood there, a tableau of threat, and then came a shout and the shadows leaped at them.
One landed full on Max, but he took the blow on his shoulders and straightened out, hurling the man off. He saw a flash of steel and threw up an arm to block it. As soon as he felt the blade slash through his sleeve, he chopped down with his fist, striking leather.
With a muffled cry, the attacker fell to the ground, moaning and holding his arm.
Immediately another footpad took his place on Max’s back. Though he reared, Max couldn’t dislodge him, nor the hands that tightened around his throat. His vision went red, his breath came choked and useless, and in the clarity of the moment, Max considered the irony of having survived six years of war only to die on a London street.
But then he heard a scream—not his own, he was almost sure—and the hands released their killing grip. Max stumbled back against the discarded body of his attacker. He bent low, grabbing for air, and heard the man’s low moan, “I’m cut, lads!”
Alive, then. But no longer a threat, thanks to Vayle, who calmly wiped his blade on his breeches. The two remaining footpads retreated into the shadows, but Max knew better than to relax his guard. So did Vayle. He held the blade chest-high, flashing a warning in the dimness.
But it wasn’t enough. Over the rasp of several exhausted breaths, a shot rang out. The bullet whistled past them and ricocheted against the stone stoop across the street, then clattered into silence.
Diving toward the nearest house, Max readied himself for the next one. But Vayle just stood there in the middle of the path, his blade out as if it could ward off a bullet. He didn’t respond to Max’s warning shout. Cursing Vayle’s habit of going off into trances, he launched himself just as a muzzle flashed red. The bullet went over his head as he knocked Vayle to the ground.
He listened hard, his face pressed against the dirt. When he heard the clatter of a retreat, he looked up cautiously. Only the attacker wounded by Vayle’s blade remained behind, curled up in the gutter.
Vayle rose then and held out a hand to Max. Wearily, Max used it to haul himself to a stand. “Good work there,” he said. “I owe you.”
“No,” Vayle said. “You paid me back quick enough. I heard the bullet ricochet. Didn’t know there would be another after it.”
“In my experience,” Max replied, “bullets always come in pairs.” He crossed the street and knelt beside the footpad. The man’s breathing was ragged, but he heard no death rattle.
In the light from the nearby window, the blood was dark on the man’s dark green shirt. Max felt in his pocket for a handkerchief, wadded it up, and pressed it to the wounded shoulder. The footpad groaned but came out of his faint and opened his eyes.
“You’ll live,” Max said. He took the man’s hand and placed it against the bandage. “Just keep that tight on the wound. It’s not bleeding too badly. They’ll be back for you?”
“I think so. Once you’ve left.”
“Right.” He pulled off his greatcoat, draped it over the prone figure, and started to walk away. Then he turned back, leaving Vayle behind, and dropped his purse—all he had won from Robin Caine—on the ground beside his coat. The coins clinking on the pavement woke the man again, and he turned a puzzled face toward Max.
“Steady, trooper. The other lads will be here soon.”
Vayle was silent for a street or two, but Max knew it wouldn’t last. And it didn’t.
“Others might have called in the watch.”
It wasn’t exactly a criticism, nor a suggestion. Max shrugged.
“You gave him your purse.”
Max’s throat was sore, and anyway, explanations never came easy for him. He only said, “Did you see his shirt?”
“His shirt?”
“Rifle green. He was in the 95th Riflers. That’
s a Light Division regiment, like my own.” After a moment, he added, “The troopers, the men in the ranks, they didn’t have much to come home to, you know. Most only ever knew the army. And once the war was done, the army was done with them.”
“Still, he tried to kill you.”
He could feel Vayle’s questioning gaze and flushed. “What else does he know, but killing? That’s what we trained him to do. Not that I condone highway murder. Maybe now, with that bit of a stake, he’ll find some other occupation.”
They walked in silence the rest of the way home. But as they approached Sevaric House, Max stopped short at the sight on his doorstep. He couldn’t see the face, but he knew the slight figure all too well. Wrapped in her cloak, hunched down on the stone step, Dorothea Caine awaited him.
Vayle laughed quietly. “Now you have a real fight on your hands.”
Chapter Eleven
“What the devil are you doing here?”
Vayle watched, stunned, as Max jabbed an accusing finger at the small figure on the doorstep.
“Have you no sense whatever? It’s blasted cold!”
“An excellent point, my lord.” Vayle used his cane to push Max aside, bent to one knee beside Dorie Caine, and took her hands. They felt like two small chunks of ice even through his gloves and hers. “Open the damn door,” he told Sevaric harshly.
While Max felt in his pocket for the key, Vayle lifted Dorie to her feet. “You’ll be right as a trivet, once we get you warm again.”
She could hardly stand, so he put his arm around her and supported her into the foyer. Even as he spoke his meaningless reassurances, he heard her teeth chattering and knew she couldn’t reply. His heart went out to her, so cold and so vulnerable, a pawn in the murderous game already lost.
He hugged her to his side, cursing himself for playing a part in her ruin. He had wanted this to happen, wanted Max to win because it suited his own purposes. Or so he imagined at the time. Now he couldn’t remember why Max’s victory was necessary.
Max had resumed his air of command and led them to the study. The fire had nearly died out. He tossed wood onto the grate and stirred the smoldering embers with a poker as if his life depended on it. “Get some tea,” he said over his shoulder. “She needs to drink something warm.”
Vayle raised his hands in a helpless gesture. Get some tea? He was about to ask how when Max spun around, scowling at Dorie.
“Why were you sitting outside?” His voice cracked, at odds with a jaw set harder than rock. “It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
Dorie drew herself up proudly. “No one would let me in. I was informed by a man named Clootie that the gentlemen were not at home and that Miss Sevaric was occupied with a guest. Then he slammed the door in my face.” A long silence followed that pronouncement.
“You mustn’t blame your footman for turning away a stranger at midnight, Lord Sevaric,” she said in a more subdued voice. Now the fire was blazing, and she moved closer and held out her hands to the warmth. “I ought not have come at all, especially at such an hour. But I had hoped that if we could talk again, one more time, you might agree to put an end to this feud.”
Her small body, silhouetted by the flames, was shaking with cold. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her. “Stupid of me, I know, to dismiss the hack and wait for you to come home. It’s only that I felt desperate all of a sudden, as if I must prevent something terrible.”
Too late, Vayle thought as he drew a chair and urged her to sit close to the fire. “Clootie is my valet,” he said, settling her into the seat, “and had no right whatever to turn you away. I’ll see that he regrets it.” He glanced meaningfully at Sevaric, a warning to treat her more kindly, before turning back to her.
How lovely she was. All the Caine beauty, passed on for generations, culminated in this woman. He felt a thrill of pride just looking at her. Her gaze met his, and he revised his initial impression of Dorothea Caine as a helpless victim. Despite hours alone in the winter night, she remained fearless and determined.
With genuine respect, he bowed. He almost pitied Max for the confrontation to come. ’Struth, she was more than a match for him. “I expect our host has something to explain to you, my dear. Meantime, warm yourself while I brew a pot of tea.”
Max shot him a furious look as he headed into the passageway. Tea. That meant the kitchen, wherever the devil it was.
He spent several minutes looking for it, and more time examining the place when he got there. He had never been in a kitchen and didn’t know what to expect. The large room was dimly lit with a pair of wall sconces, and a banked fire glowed in an enormous flagstone hearth. Mysterious metal contrivances—stoves, he supposed—stood adjacent to sinks fitted with odd devices to emit water. Exactly how, he didn’t dare guess.
Vayle feared he would make major trouble here if he truly set out to produce tea. He might set a fire, or start a flood. Max wouldn’t appreciate that. Clootie would surely know the technique for making tea, but Vayle wasn’t yet ready to face him. Not while rage churned in his veins, as it had since Max gulled Robin into wagering Dorie’s home. The sensation was so unfamiliar it alarmed him.
He could kill—had killed—with the lethal calm that assured victory. But temper was alien to him. He considered it vulgar, a waste of the energy best devoted to pleasure, and was astonished to discover this wholly unexpected vice in his nature.
Restless, he prowled the kitchen, opening cupboards and finding contraptions that looked for all the world like instruments of torture. A dented tin caught his eye, and he was pleased to discover an assortment of biscuits inside. Popping one into his mouth, he carried the container to a trestle table and lowered himself on the bench.
When Proctor told him about the feud, Vayle thought it a great piece of silliness, even if, in some measure, it was meant to avenge him. Initially, he considered ending a quarrel sparked by a century-old duel to be no challenge at all. In his experience, such matters were gossip fodder for a week and forgotten when the next scandal inevitably took center stage.
Vayle himself could not remember sustaining an emotion of any kind longer than a week. If desire, the most compelling of human passions, flowered as briefly as a rose, surely hatred could not endure a hundred years.
But it did, in Max Sevaric. The same man who gave his cloak and purse to a footpad was willing, without a blink, to destroy Robin and Dorothea Caine. It made little sense, at least as Vayle understood the man and his morality.
Robin was a pathetic, harmless sot, and Dorie an unsophisticated girl, unequal opponents to a skilled and experienced soldier. Max could take no triumph in defeating these two by taking the last thing of value they possessed. Indeed, he had been bristling with defensiveness all the way back from Robin’s, and his rage at Dorie must have been inspired primarily by guilt.
Yet Vayle sensed that if the Caines acquired anything worth owning, Max would resume his criminal course. It was as if his honor and virtue had been corrupted by hatred, and victory only encouraged him.
He bit into his third biscuit, which tasted like the ashes of his foul mood. Damn! What should have been a simple task had become so complex he could not imagine a solution. And if he failed, it was back to the Afterlife and an eternity playing shepherd to dung beetles.
And another century, perhaps, of hatred between the Sevarics and Caines.
With a sigh, he propped his chin on his wrists. Then again, he thought, ending the feud might be easier than that other task, bringing happiness to Gwen Sevaric. He wished he could merely prescribe marriage for her, as he had with Dorie. But even dowry-less Dorie could make a man lose his head. Gwen had the dowry, but to get it, a man would have to put up with her sour disposition and plain appearance.
That wasn’t entirely fair, he supposed. Gwen had pretty eyes, sad eyes, almost haunting. Still, no man took a woman to bed because he liked her eyes.
Gwen’s fate must wait, he decided. Thinking about her made him oddly uncomfortable. Meantime, h
e had the faint hope Dorie could restore to Max some semblance of Christian charity. Her strong will and his sense of honor must be clashing even now, and perhaps that conflict would force Max see the error of his ways.
It might help that Max so clearly wanted her. That must be disconcerting for him, to desire her even as he defended himself from her charges. Honor, guilt, and lust were a volatile mix, and Max was ripe for a detonation. Just as well. As he was the most virulent of the feuders, he must be brought down first.
Vayle devoured another biscuit, and this one was sweet on his tongue. He still had more than three weeks before his deadline, and a better sense of the weapons at his disposal. There was Max’s honor, and Dorie’s beauty, and Gwen’s—well, he would find something to do with Gwen later. For the time being, he might be able to use what he had learned about human nature to his advantage.
But he was accomplishing nothing here in the kitchen. With renewed confidence, he removed his boots, set them under the table, and put out the kitchen lamp. Then he tiptoed upstairs and crept down the hail to the open doorway.
There was no sound from the study.
Had Max tossed Dorie back into the streets? Unaccustomed rage swept through him again, until he peered around the doorway and caught sight of her. She was standing half-turned in his direction, holding a piece of paper as if expecting it to burst into flame.
“It’s over, then,” she said in a voice edged with pain. “You took my home. Oh, God.”
Crouching in the shadow of a grandfather clock, Vayle watched the paper drop from her hand onto the hearth. Max swept it up before a cinder could set it ablaze.
“You needn’t worry that I’ll put you out.” He folded up the deed and tossed it onto his desk. “I don’t care to hunt, and have no use for another house.”
“Then why did you—Oh. Now I see.” Dorie was quiet for a moment, then continued with eerie calm. “It was because I told you we had nothing else left. You wouldn’t have gone after my home if I hadn’t told you that. I never expected you would use that against me.”