by Zana Bell
Tom moved closer still. She tried to distract him.
‘But why are you trying to help me find Charles? Surely you see there’s no point because I didn’t marry Jasper.’
‘No, but I’ve been hoping you might marry me. Then I could become your brother’s partner.’
She could smell the smoke on his breath as he placed a large hand on the railing either side of her waist, trapping her.
‘I didn’t want it to come to this,’ he said gently. ‘If only you’d agreed to marry me. It would have been the ideal solution.’ His hands moved closer. His arms, strong as iron bars, pressed against her ribs. ‘I like you, Sarah. I really do. We could have been happy together.’
‘We still could be.’ She hated that her voice shook.
‘No,’ Tom was regretful. ‘You know too much, now.’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t know anything. Besides, I’d never say a word about—’ She stopped, but too late. In her panic, she’d said too much.
‘A word about what?’ he whispered in her ear.
Georgiana strained backwards. ‘Nothing.’
He transferred one hand so it lay on her neck. His large index finger caressed her cheek. ‘About?’ he prompted quietly. ‘What do you know? It’s curious, you see, that you should have chosen the name Trent. A man called Trent was causing a spot of bother for Lord Walsingham until I dealt with it.’
She could barely swallow. ‘How?’
A modest smile. ‘Strategically placed evidence, that’s all.’ Then Tom’s eyes fixed on hers. ‘Why did you choose that name?’
‘No reason,’ she protested and his fingers tightened. She should have screamed earlier – not that it would have been any good in this deserted park. Now she could make no sound at all beyond a muffled squeak. She lashed out with a fist but could not reach around those broad shoulders to his face.
He tightened his fingers and she could only breathe in gasps.
‘Tell me.’ His voice stayed low, but the normality of his tone made her blood run cold. She suddenly remembered his calm offer to kill Muffin. Her hands clawed at his fingers then raked down his cheeks. He swore, jerking his head back. Then there were running footsteps and a blow caught Tom behind the ear. His hands dropped from her throat, and Tom lunged at his attacker.
In the dark, Georgiana could barely make out the two men locked in deadly embrace. They staggered, hit the low railings of the bridge and suddenly both tipped over the edge. There was a huge splash and Georgiana leaned far over the bridge to see. In the water they grappled and fought. Tom had the advantage of weight but the other was lithe and clearly equal in strength. Suddenly he got one arm free and dealt a ringing blow to Tom’s jaw. Tom slumped and a rasping voice called up, ‘Georgie, are you all right?’
‘Harry! I thought it might – but then knew it couldn’t – oh, fine, fine.’ Wild bubbles of hysterical laughter threatened to overwhelm Georgiana as she ran down to the river bank to where Harry was dragging the unconscious body. With a heave, he managed to haul Tom half out of the river.
‘I’ve a good mind to drown the bastard.’
‘Harry, you can’t!’
‘No,’ he agreed, ‘but I’d like to.’
He threw his wet hair back from his face and looked at her crouching down, extending a hand to him. ‘I don’t need a hand,’ he said, ‘but you could give me your stockings.’
She gaped at him.
‘To tie the man up,’ Harry said impatiently. ‘He could come around any minute and I don’t fancy having him coming at me in a rage.’
As Georgiana hastily turned and pulled off shoes and stockings, Harry wrestled Tom’s inert body up the bank and under the bridge. Georgiana passed him the stockings and Harry laughed. ‘Good governess wear! Not from Consuela I take it.’
‘No,’ she retorted, ‘and aren’t you glad. Tom would make short work of silk stockings.’
‘Very true.’
In a few minutes Harry had trussed Tom up, hands and feet neatly bound. He’d pulled Tom’s jacket halfway down his arms to make struggling more difficult. Then he removed Tom’s boots, flinging them into the night where they landed with a crash among some bushes.
‘That’ll slow him down,’ said Harry with satisfaction. To finish, he removed Tom’s handkerchief from his jacket pocket and crammed it into the unconscious man’s mouth.
‘Won’t he suffocate?’
‘No and it’ll prevent him calling out for help. Mellors is on his own so hopefully no one will see his body here until at least sunrise, longer if we are lucky. Now,’ he said, turning to Georgiana, ‘we must get you back to your hotel and while we go, you can tell me why yet another fiancé should want to wring your neck.’
‘He wanted to know—’ she couldn’t go on, and to her horror, she began to cry. Harry, oblivious of his wet clothes, pulled her into his arms and held her. She could feel the strength in his arms, the lean muscles running down his back and she relaxed into his embrace as her knees gave way.
‘There, it’s over. I’m here. But Georgie, for once in your life, tell me the whole damned truth.’
Her reason had played her false. Now she let her heart take over. ‘Tom wanted to kill my brother for Lord Walsingham – they’re in business together.’
‘What?’
‘And Harry,’ she said, lifting her head to look at him. His face, inches above hers, was beautiful in the dim light. ‘He must be the one who killed Lord Iver.’
Harry shook his head, his brows drawn together as he tried to make sense of her words. She wanted to put up a finger, smooth the line between them. ‘For God’s sake Georgie, what on earth are you talking about?’
‘Walsingham ordered a man to kill both Iver and my brother. I overheard him telling my cousin Jasper one night. What’s more, Tom was the one who framed you. He’s just admitted to planting the handkerchief.’
Harry gave a low whistle. ‘Can you prove it?’
She shook her head and pressed her forehead against his chest. Though he was soaking wet, she could feel his reassuring warmth, the strong, steady beat of his heart. ‘Tom knows Jasper.’
‘There! I did tell you!’
‘I know. I should have believed you when you said you saw them together. Only he’d said the same about you—’ she broke off in shame for having ever doubted Harry. He only laughed and tightened his arms about her for a minute before letting her go. ‘Come on, we’ve got to move fast. We’ll talk as we go.’
He drew her hand through his arm and set off swiftly down the path. She was grateful for his cat vision for now the park was in complete darkness and she pressed close to him. She could feel the damp seep into her dress but didn’t mind. Relished it, in fact. This really was Harry, in flesh and blood, and soaking wet.
‘When I saw them walking away from each other in Cape Town, it seemed very strange for men who’d been fighting just minutes before. I’d guessed something was up with that silly threat of Tom’s to “Kick him around the market square at noon.”’
For a second Georgiana was blank. ‘What? Oh, Market Square, of course. How clever of you!’
He grinned. ‘Wasn’t it? But it’s not flattering to hear such surprise in your voice, Georgie.’
She couldn’t help laughing. ‘I’ve underestimated you,’ she admitted. ‘But how on earth did you find us tonight?’
‘I’d been looking for the man who drew me to this country in the first place and had learned he’s moved away to Dunedin.’ Georgiana gave a small exclamation and Harry nodded, continuing somewhat grimly. ‘Ah, you’ve heard that one before. When I learned that, I enquired as to where I could buy a horse. It turned out there was one just around the corner for sale. You can imagine my surprise when, on completing the purchase, I chanced to see Mellors at the same door I’d been at half an hour earlier.
I decided to follow him and saw you meet up in the park.’
Georgiana blushed in the darkness. ‘It was forward of me but I didn’t like to be alone. But he wasn’t – isn’t my fiancé, you must know,’ she added in a rush. ‘He did ask, but I refused him.’
‘But let me think otherwise.’
‘I thought you might have been the one after my brother,’ she explained.
‘What?’ Harry’s head jerked back as if she’d struck him. ‘What the hell—?’
And so the whole story came tumbling out as they made their way through the park: of Jasper, of Walsingham’s plan and Harry’s implication in Iver’s murder. Harry heard it all out in silence, but at the end he stopped short and grabbed her by the shoulders to face him. His fingers dug into her skin. Even in the dark she could see the intensity of his gaze. ‘Did you honestly believe I was capable of such things?’
‘No, that’s what made it all so confusing,’ she said, hanging her head for a second. Then she lifted her chin, looking into the dark face above her. ‘But you yourself told me you were searching for a man in New Zealand because Walsingham had sent you.’
He laughed shortly. ‘Yes, I can see that. But you silly goose, I said I was going to New Zealand as a result of my visit to Walsingham, not that he had sent me.’
‘Does it make any difference?’
‘All the difference in the world,’ he retorted. ‘I loathe the man.’
For a second they stood looking at each other although there was barely enough light to make out each other’s features. ‘Oh Georgie,’ said Harry roughly, ‘I could have killed Tom even before he began strangling you.’
‘Why?’ Then she realised how it must have looked. ‘Oh.’
‘Oh indeed. He was your fiancé. He was entitled to flirt with you on the bridge. When I saw him come close, I nearly left. But then when I saw you hit out—’
‘I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life. I really think – think he was going to kill me.’
Harry looked grim. ‘Well, I’m not leaving your side now, no matter what you may think, until I can deliver you safely to your brother. Is that patently understood?’
How could such a severe tone flood her with rosy happiness? For once she had no argument. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Now is this your hotel? Meet me at the back in half an hour with your bags.’
‘Right.’
She turned to go into the hotel, but he caught her arm and spun her around to look at him. ‘And Georgie, no more slipping off alone. I want your word on that.’
‘I promise.’ There were no crossed fingers this time. ‘I’ll be waiting right here for you.’
And this time, when he left, she knew he’d come back.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the hotel room, Georgiana pulled everything out of her bag to find, hidden at the very bottom, Charles’s shirt and trousers. Within minutes she had transformed back into a young man and she smiled. Tom would be seeking a woman. Then she crammed her few dresses back into the bag, not caring about creases in her race to be gone.
Out on the balcony, Georgiana paused. No one was about. She leaned over the railing as far as she could then dropped the bag, wincing as it crashed into the bushes. Would the noise bring people running? But the only sounds were the raucous voices and laughter coming from the barroom on the other side of the hotel.
Reassured that no one was about, she swung her legs over the railings, hung for a moment and then let herself drop, landing in a crouch in the dust below. She looked into the shadows to see if anyone was there. All was still and the boisterous sounds from the bar seemed at odds with the stillness of the night air. She picked up her bag and withdrew into the sanctuary of the oak tree’s deep shadows. This is how it all began, she thought. My hiding in an oak on a soft summer’s night.
How long ago it all seemed now. She felt a different person – was a different person. At that time, she hadn’t been out of England, hadn’t walked foreign lands, hadn’t worked as either woman or boy – hadn’t met Harry. Events had moved so swiftly this evening that she hadn’t had a moment to think, but now, as she waited, she was aware of a warm happiness welling up and filling every inch of her. It was as though the frozen core of loneliness that she had carried inside her had been finally burned away. Harry was not Walsingham’s man. Harry had saved her not once but twice, and now he was going to help her find Charlie.
For a moment she thought of Tom lying trussed under the bridge. Very likely even now, he was struggling to free himself. How could she have ever been so misled? She closed her eyes in mortification. Fancy Julia being right in her mistrust.
The muffled sounds of horses’ hooves caught her attention and she peered around the broad trunk of the tree. There, in silhouette, was a man on one horse, leading a second. She knew by the height, the easy grace, it could only be Harry. As she slipped out from behind the oak, he saw her and dismounted, putting out his hand to take her bag. When he saw her clothes, he nodded. ‘Good idea. Tom never knew of your masquerade, I take it?’
‘No, and I’m sure it’d never enter his head. He only knew me as the conscientious governess.’
‘The lying conscientious governess,’ Harry corrected, and she heard the smile in his voice. ‘He knew there was more to you than your demure act suggested. There.’
As he’d been speaking, he’d fixed her bag to the second horse and now he looked down at her, the moonlight enhancing the slanting planes of his cheeks. Pirate king and white knight. ‘Need to be tossed up?’
‘No!’ Indignant, Georgiana sprang into the saddle, gathering the reins in a manner that told the horse she was clearly mistress of the situation.
Harry laughed as he mounted. ‘Of course, your mother. I can see you take after her.’
‘Oh no,’ Georgiana assured him. ‘She was superlative.’
He just smiled, but she saw approval in his face as he checked her hands and seat.
‘Where did you find this animal?’ she asked as they picked their way down the dark road. Hotel bars were lively and lights glimmered behind curtains in houses but there were surprisingly few people in the streets.
‘When I went to my hotel I saw a very drunk young man trying to mount his horse. I offered him a sum of money which made him think he was even drunker than he was, but when I pushed the notes into his hand, he was happy to pass over the reins. I only hope he doesn’t lose it all before he sobers up. It’s not the best animal I’ve ever seen, but it looks strong.’
Georgiana laughed. ‘You did well to get one at all. I thought we might have to take turns riding one mount.’
‘The thought occurred to me, too, but we need to put as much distance between ourselves and Christchurch as possible. Now, we take this road. The hotel owner told me we can’t go wrong – only one road going south, apparently.’
They’d cleared the small town centre by now and were moving along a road which had only a sprinkling of houses, each well spread from the other. Fortunately the fat-bellied moon was gaining height and it was easy to see the way. In unspoken agreement, they kicked their horses into a canter, covering the next miles at a good speed. Glancing sideways at Harry, Georgiana saw that his style, though graceful, was unusual.
‘Where did you learn to ride like that?’ she demanded when they drew up, letting their horses walk again.
Harry lifted an eyebrow at her. ‘Don’t you recognise it, Miss da Silva?’
‘It reminds me of my father in some way – yet it’s not the same.’
‘Close. I worked for some time with gauchos in South America. They are the finest horsemen I have ever encountered.’
Georgiana was intrigued. ‘Tell me more,’ she said, and their journey passed affably as he engaged her in stories of the wide South American plains, the strange animals and the banditos that he
’d encountered. The moon passed its zenith and began slipping back towards Earth. They came to a wide braided river and splashed their way through to the other side where Harry reined in.
‘I think we’ve made enough headway tonight. We’ll stop and camp for the rest of the night.’
‘Here?’ Georgiana looked about her. The mountains were only just discernible in the far distance and the plains stretched wide and empty about them.
‘Yes, it’s a good spot. We’ve water for the horses and ourselves and we’ll be on our way again at dawn. With any luck, Mellors won’t be discovered until later. Why so dubious? Have you never camped out before, Miss Intrepid?’
Georgiana shook her head. ‘Never. It’ll be a new experience.’
‘It is one I suspect you’ll have to get used to,’ said Harry as he swung down from his horse and began removing the saddle, ‘if you plan to track down your brother in the middle of nowhere.’
While it was Georgiana’s first camp, Harry was clearly at home. In less than no time, he had the horses loosely tethered and a fire going, with a billy filled with water over it.
‘Tea?’ he asked.
‘Oh Harry! How clever of you. Where did you get all this stuff? I didn’t give food any thought at all while I was packing, but now I could kill for a cup of tea.’
Harry laughed. ‘I bought it all this afternoon. I knew I’d be off exploring as soon as my business in Christchurch was concluded. Only problem is I thought I’d be travelling alone. We’ll have to share the cup. You go first.’
He passed her the metal mug and she wrapped her fingers around it with a sigh of pleasure. It was black, strong and very refreshing. She realised it’d been hours since she’d last eaten. Harry stirred the flames, the light playing on his cheeks and making dark hollows of his eyes.
‘Harry?’ He smiled up at her. Her heart flipped but she quelled it. There were things she needed to know. ‘What was your business in Christchurch and how is it that you and Tom both landed up at the same house?’