by Gaelen Foley
His heart pounded with primal thunder as he whipped the horses through the tight, jagged streets of the rookery. After a wild run past the Tower of London into the rough dockside area of Shadwell, he brought the carriage to a halt between two abandoned warehouses.
The rain continued to drum steadily; there was not a soul around.
He jumped down from the driver’s seat and walked back to open the coach door. He pulled the big, burly drunkard out, tossing him, bound and gagged, into the alley. Hawk picked up his length of lead pipe and walked slowly toward him. Fairness mattered to him not at all in this fight. Had it mattered when the man had overpowered a defenseless girl?
The warden glanced at the metal bludgeon, then looked up at him in horror.
“Recognize me?”
He shook his head.
Hawk sank down onto his haunches before the man. “I have only two words to say to you: Belinda Hamilton.”
Spluttering with fright behind his gag, the warden tried to get up. Hawk kicked him in the chest and sent him flying back to the wet cobblestones again. As though watching himself from somewhere outside his own body, Hawk saw himself raise the lead pipe, then he struck him.
Again.
The contact as metal hit bone reverberated down into Hawk’s soul.
Belinda.
The rain fell; the blood flew.
Cascades of rain poured from the eaves.
Nothing in his life had prepared him for the savagery that came out of him as he unleashed his vengeance on the man who had violated his woman. In the darkness, with his rain-soaked hair flying in his face and a snarl on his lips, he turned into something, someone he didn’t know, and it was terrible and glorious. Hawk was talking to him between blows, circling him like a predator toying with its kill. The warden blubbered on his knees. Hawk kicked him again in the ribs and in the face, cursing at him, but then he stilled his brutal weapon, knowing that if he didn’t stop now, he was going to kill the man.
Trembling, he threw the lead pipe aside and stood with his chest heaving, the rain plastering his black hair to his face, his blood-flecked shirt molded to him. Shaken by his own barbarity, he walked coolly to the edge of the dock while the warden writhed on the ground, groaning.
He looked out at the black, slick river. There was a ponderous convict ship moored at the final checkpoint, bound for the prison colony of Australia. Hawk’s eyes glittered with satisfaction at the poetic justice of bribing the ship’s keepers into taking the warden aboard and throwing him down among the convicts. No doubt a number of the prisoners in the hull would remember the warden and would repay him for his brutality from the Fleet.
At the foot of the dock stairs, a fisherman’s little dinghy bobbed. He looked again at the convict ship. What the name of the duke of Hawkscliffe could not accomplish among these underworld river rats, that of Lord Jack Knight, his privateer brother, easily could. If all else failed, he could simply dump the warden over the side of the dinghy and let the Thames take him.
He returned to the warden and dragged him across the dock and down into the rowboat, then unwound the line that moored it to the post. He set out, rowing hard against the sweep of the current.
By the time he got back to shore, the rain had already washed away the blood from the cobblestones.
Still feeling the jittery intoxication of pure wild instinct in his veins, Hawk tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and let the rain fall on his face.
“Gentlemen, you have two minutes,” intoned Dolph’s second, checking his fob watch.
Bel watched Robert confer with Lord Alec a short distance away.
In a remote grove in Hyde Park, amid the gray predawn mist, they met for the duel.
Dolph was pacing by his coach. The physician and surgeons whom Lord Alec had obtained waited impassively, leaning against their carriage. The earl of Coldfell had arrived, too. He sat in his luxurious black coach, shrewdly watching everything while his bony fingers slowly drummed upon the head of his cane.
Alec left Robert with a nod and went to Dolph’s second to make sure the foes’ bullets carried equal charges of powder.
Bel was distraught as she stared at Robert walking toward her. She hated every minute of this ordeal but would not have missed being here with him for anything. At least this was one advantage of being a fashionable impure; a lady could never have attended a duel. It was small consolation also that the seconds had agreed that the duelists should fire at the same time. She didn’t know how she could have borne it to watch Robert stand there and offer himself to Dolph as a target, only waiting for his turn to shoot.
She couldn’t bring herself to ask where he had gone while she slept; deep down, she knew. He had returned with flecks of blood on his clothes. As he sauntered toward her now, he slipped the flask she had given him out of his waistcoat and took another swig from it. He offered it to her with a little, teasing smile meant to coax a smile out of her, in turn, but she shook her head. He put the flask back in his waistcoat, then captured her hand and led her beneath a large oak tree.
He gazed down at her, holding her hands in his. They stared at each other.
“Robert,” she uttered, willing herself not to cry nor to beg him again not to do this. She knew he really had no choice.
He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them, one by one. “No tears, bonny blue. Just a kiss for luck.”
She threw her arms around his neck and drew him down to her, kissing him for all she was worth, trying to hold him when Alec came and told him it was time. She clung to him. Bel felt her tears brim and rush hotly down her cheeks as she tasted him, savoring the brandy on his tongue, memorizing the silk of his ebony hair and the scratchy texture of his cheek in need of a shave. He ended the kiss, caught her face between his hands and stared fiercely at her, his dark eyes ablaze. “You are my lady and I fight for your honor.” Releasing her almost roughly, he withdrew.
Stifling a cry Bel watched him walk away, her body trembling. That one small word— lady—he had to know it meant the world to her. The sky was beginning to pale in the east and Venus gleamed blue-white above the trees.
Robert went to the center of the grove where Dolph waited. Lord Alec came to Bel and tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, escorting her over to the coach. She couldn’t fathom how the blond archangel managed to look so cool headed at a time like this.
“Rob’s going to be just fine, Miss Hamilton, I assure you. He’s too bloody minded to bow out knowing Jack would inherit his title.”
Pistols in hand, Dolph and Robert stood back-to-back in the center of the grove as the first blood red rim of the sun showed through the black trees.
Bel felt sick to her stomach as the first notes of the morning’s birdsong lilted through the grove. She began to pray again very hard in her mind.
Lord Coldfell hobbled forth on his cane, having been chosen to do the honors of dropping the white handkerchief to mark the start of the duel. Standing on the edge of the grove, he held it in his bony hand and waited.
Dolph’s second gave another signal and the two men began walking off the measured distance, twelve paces each.
Dolph and Robert turned. Both stood sideways to present the slimmest target. They raised their pistols like cruel mirror images of each other.
Then the earl released the white silk handkerchief. Bel stared, stricken, the blood roaring in her ears. The white silk square seemed to take an eternity to flutter down gently to the wet dewy grass.
The split second it touched the ground, their fire exploded. Bel could only stare in horror, her hand clapped over her mouth. She couldn’t seem to move, bumped and jostled by the flurry of doctors rushing by her.
He’s hit.
Chaos broke out on the field of honor. Dolph’s curses of pain filled the air along with the shouts of the surgeons. Both men were down. Suddenly in motion, Bel ran to him, her breath stuck in her throat.
“Robert!” she screamed.
“Belinda!” He was consciou
s, looking for her through the crowd of doctors around him.
She hurtled into their midst and dropped to her knees by his side just as the surgeon pulled back Robert’s coat, seeking the wound. Everything was a blur. She kept asking him if he was all right and he kept saying he was fine; she blocked out the sound of Dolph’s groaning and calling for her, then suddenly the surgeon exclaimed.
“Look!”
The surgeon pulled Robert’s silver flask out of his waistcoat. It was grotesquely bent, but it had stopped the bullet. Bel and Robert both stared at it in disbelief.
Then he looked at her incredulously. “I knew that shot didn’t sound right. . .”
“A ruined flask and a button shot off your waistcoat, Your Grace,” the surgeon said with an astonished grin. “Somebody was lookin‘ out for you.”
“Let me see!” Bel wasn’t satisfied until she had bared Robert’s chest and seen with her own eyes that he had suffered nothing more serious than perhaps a bruised rib from the impact of the flask intercepting the bullet.
She stared at him again in utter shock, then threw her arms around his neck and flattened him back onto the wet grass with a giddy screech of relief.
Pulling her atop him, he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her as the light from the rising sun began filling the grove. Heedless of the surgeons and others present, they jettisoned propriety, kissing in joyous abandon, but Bel ended their kiss with a soft, scratchy laugh when she felt his manhood stirring beneath her.
“Some paragon you are,” she whispered, running her fingers through his hair. “Duels and demireps and black-market brandy. What ever would the Patronesses say?”
“Devil take the Patronesses, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”
They pulled each other up. Robert put his arm around her shoulders and they began walking wearily toward the town coach. Beaming, Bel held onto his waist and gazed up at him.
Lord Alec fell in step beside them. “You should take up gambling, with your luck.”
“How’s Breckinridge?”
Alec glanced toward the other end of the grove. “He’s dying, actually.”
Bel stopped. “Dying?” She became aware then of Dolph calling for her in a voice that was truly too pitiful to ignore. Hesitantly she paused and looked back at him.
Dolph was on the ground in a pool of his own blood, resting back against his friend’s steadying embrace. His face was deathly pale.
“Robert, please give me a moment,” she said.
“Belinda, don’t—”
“I have to do this,” she murmured, releasing him. She walked over to where Dolph lay.
Dolph’s eyes filled with tears when he saw her, but his mouth was dry and pale. He wet his lips weakly. “Bel.”
The surgeons had opened his waistcoat and shirt to expose the chest wound. His scar from the bear’s claw was overrun with his life’s blood. Bel felt slightly faint at the sight.
“I don’t want to die until you have forgiven me,” he rasped. “I’m sorry I put your father in the Fleet. I did it because—you know why. Here.” He lifted something in his blood-stained hand. Bel went down on one knee beside him and accepted it—his necklace with a tooth of the bear who had scarred him. “I do love you, in my fashion.”
“I know, Dolph.” She laid her hand on his forehead. “Try to relax.”
He gripped her other hand. “I’m not scared,” he ground out, shaking as he attempted to look scornful. “Uncle! Where is my uncle?”
“Is there something you wish to say to me?”
Bel looked up and saw Lord Coldfell step forward with his cane. He looked entirely unmoved by his heir’s imminent demise. She exchanged a wary look with Robert, who had joined the small assembly around the dying young man.
Dolph’s grip on Bel’s hand tightened as if for strength. “The fire at Seven Oaks. Uncle, I started it. It was I.”
“Yes, Dolph, I know,” the earl said in cool satisfaction.
Dolph suddenly began to wheeze and choke.
His second cried out and looked in panic at the doctor. The head surgeon swept to Dolph’s side, but there was nothing to be done. Bel stared at her tormentor as the spark of life vanished from his eyes and his grip on her hand slackened.
He was gone.
She stared, frozen, for she had never been this close to death before. Robert parted the crowd and came to get her, drawing her to her feet. He slipped his arm around her waist and steadied her as he led her away from the crowd. She leaned her forehead against his chest, taking shelter against him.
“Hawkscliffe!”
They turned and found Lord Coldfell pursuing them. Bel felt Robert’s posture stiffen beside her.
“Well done, Robert,” the old man said in a low, hearty tone when he reached them. His pale blue eyes gleamed. “You’ve done justice this day, Robert. Your father would be proud. I won’t forget it. There’s a great deal I can do for you.”
He shook his head wearily. “It’s not necessary.”
Bel tightened her hold around Robert’s waist, appalled by the earl’s satisfaction at the death of his own heir. “My lord, if you’ll excuse us, His Grace needs to rest. Come, darling,” she murmured.
Robert nodded farewell to the earl and draped his arm over her shoulders. Together they walked back to the coach, but when she stole a quick look over her shoulder, Lord Coldfell was still standing where they’d left him, staring at Bel with a sharp, calculating look of displeasure.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
About an hour later Hawk lay holding a scantily clad Belinda in his arms as they both attempted to rest after the night’s ordeal. The morning sun filled her bedroom and danced on her warm, silky skin, which he stroked as he pondered the events of the past twelve hours. Her right arm was thrown across his bare chest; her head nestled in the crook of his neck. The fragrance of her hair wafted up to his nostrils and every now and then he kissed her head, breathing her scent, savoring her softness.
His body was weary but it was his heart that was emotionally exhausted after the extremes of rage and anguish, guilt and love that he had experienced within the past twelve hours—her shattering confession, the uneasy aftermath of the barbaric violence he had unleashed on the warden, the sharp taste of his own mortality left over from his battle with Dolph. Yet the vengeance he’d exacted could not erase what Bel had suffered and all of it left him feeling rather empty and sad, but for the treasure of her in his arms.
The fear that surged through him at the thought of any future harm coming to her made him enfold her lithe body more snugly in his embrace. Their agreement was complete, but he could not bear to think of her leaving him. He could never let her go back to that courtesan’s mode of life with all its dangers, but who was he to tell her what to do? She was, as ever, “free and independent.”
“Robert?” she spoke up, breaking into his tangled thoughts.
“Hmm?”
“I’ve been thinking.” She came up and braced her elbow under her, propping her chin on her hand. He gazed at her in silent, mystified delight. “I’m still a little confused about Lady Coldfell. Was her death an accident, then, like the coroner said it was?”
He shrugged. “That’s the best that I can make of it.”
She frowned with perplexity, her eyebrows knitted. “I still don’t understand why she seduced Dolph, if it was you she wanted.”
“Having judged her so completely wrong, I daren’t even venture a guess as to her motives,” he sighed as he toyed with a length of her pale flaxen hair.
“Well, I have a hypothesis, though you’re not going to like it.” At his questioning glance, she continued. “Dolph said Lady Coldfell aspired to become your duchess.”
“Yes.”
“But what about Lord Coldfell? He’s advanced in years, but aside from his limp, his health appears good.”
He lifted his eyebrow skeptically.
“I know it’s farfetched,” she continued, “but suppose Lady Coldfell was genuinely desiro
us to be rid of her elderly husband as quickly and expediently as possible so that she could snare you for a husband before you turned your attention to someone more eligible. At the same time, she has Dolph at her beck and call—an expert killer, eager to come into his inheritance. Now, I’m sorry, but I simply don’t believe Lady Coldfell wanted Dolph merely for her pleasure. Women aren’t like that. When we seduce a man, it is for a purpose.”
“Are you suggesting . . . that they conspired together to kill Lord Coldfell?”
“Just think on it for a moment. With the earl laid to rest, Lucy would have been free to marry the man she truly wanted—you—while Dolph would have come into his title and fortune. Didn’t Dolph mention something just before he died about setting a fire at Seven Oaks? Perhaps Lucy put him up to it.”
He shook his head, chilled by the ruthless scenario she posed. “If you had known Lucy, you would realize how impossible it is, what you’re suggesting. She was no murderess—”
“Yes, she was virtuous and demure, too, for all you knew,” she retorted. “With all due respect, my dear, I don’t think you knew Lady Coldfell at all.”
This silenced him briefly. “Lucy might have had a secret life of conquests and affairs, but I cannot believe she would even contemplate murder. As for old Coldfell, I’m certainly not going to tell him the truth about Lucy’s affair with Dolph. Some secrets are better taken to the grave.”
“What if he already knows? That’s what I’m saying, Robert. Coldfell is the one who started all this, by coming to you for help, as you told me. Frankly, I don’t trust the old schemer.”
“Belinda, Coldfell has been a friend of my family since I was in leading strings. He knew my father. He wouldn’t lie to me.”
Sighing away her exasperation, she reached up and gently petted his hair. “Darling, you have so much honor in you that you can’t believe anyone you care for would be capable of wickedness. You are too generous with your trust. You saw how happy the earl was today when Dolph died of his wound. Didn’t it strike you as unnatural?”