Someone to Romance

by Mary Balogh

  “We know what cannot be done, Marcel,” Lord Molenor said. “But what can be?”

  “He cannot be allowed to go completely free,” Dirkson said. “Even though he would probably die of disappointment and live in abject misery until then. The whole business cries out for some sort of justice.”

  “I plan to beat the stuffing out of him,” Gabriel said. “For what he was about to do to Mary Beck. For what he has already done to a number of the faithful servants at Brierley. For what he did to Penelope Clark. For what he did to Orson Ginsberg.”

  “And for what he did to you,” Bertrand Lamarr added.

  “And for what he did to me.”

  “How?” Riverdale asked. “You have an idea, Lyndale?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said. “I would have written a note before leaving the hotel, but I wanted to get out of there before Jessica recovered sufficiently to . . . complicate matters. Perhaps I may write it here, Netherby. I will invite him to meet me in Hyde Park today, this afternoon, to discuss how we will proceed from here. I will inform him that I and my wife’s relatives are seriously considering having him arrested for rape and murder and attempted murder—of me. I will invite him to come and tell me why we ought not to do that. I will imply that I am willing to let him go unmolested if he can come to some sort of agreement with me—to keep out of my sight for the rest of his life, perhaps.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Weak,” Hodges said. “He will know perfectly well that no solid case can be made against him.”

  “But there may be enough doubt there,” Riverdale said, “to make him nervous.”

  “I will emphasize,” Gabriel said, “that there are to be no weapons, that it is not a duel to which I am challenging him.”

  “If he believes that,” Boris Wayne said, “he has feathers for brains.”

  “There will be no weapons,” Gabriel said, “except my fists.”

  “He would still be an idiot,” Peter Wayne said, looking him up and down. “If I were in his shoes, I would bring some weapon. Probably a gun.”

  “So would I,” his father agreed. “He has every motive to get rid of you, Lyndale, if he possibly can.”

  “I will not be going alone, though,” Gabriel said. “If one or more of you can be persuaded to go with me, that is. There would be too many witnesses. He would not dare risk being taken up for a hanging offense.”

  “But what if he does?” Boris Wayne asked.

  “I believe,” the Marquess of Dorchester said, “there must be more of us with you than will be apparent to the eye.”

  “Slinking in the bushes?” Hodges asked. “Armed to the teeth, Marcel?”

  “There is to be no shooting,” Gabriel said. “There are to be no deaths. No violence except what I plan to mete out with my fists—and what he may choose to return with his.”

  “That is the ideal,” Riverdale said. “Sometimes, however, reality is different. Shall we agree that there will be no unprovoked shooting?”

  “I suppose that is the best we can aim for,” Gabriel said. He knew it was essentially a weak plan. So much could go wrong. But something must be done. Of that he was determined.

  There was a brief silence, during which no one came up with any more brilliant ideas.

  “Write the note,” Netherby said, getting up from his chair behind the desk. “I shall give myself the pleasure of delivering it in person.”

  “Heaven help the man,” Boris Wayne said, laughing.

  “Where shall I suggest we meet?” Gabriel asked as he walked behind the desk. “Hyde Park is rather large.”

  “There is a handy clearing among the trees on the eastern side of the park,” Riverdale said. “Netherby fought a duel there some years ago. That did not involve pistols either. Or swords. Only Netherby’s lethal feet. Bare feet, I might add.”

  “Mine, alas,” Gabriel said, “are capable only of conveying me from place to place. I believe my fists are handy enough, however. Give me specific directions. Manley Rochford will be as unfamiliar with the park as I am.”

  “Will he come?” Adrian Sawyer asked.

  “Of course he will,” Lord Molenor said. “Netherby will be delivering the note, will he not?”

  And so it was that a few hours after leaving his hotel, Gabriel was standing in a largish clearing of level grass in an area otherwise of rather dense trees on the eastern side of Hyde Park, awaiting the arrival of Manley Rochford. Bertie was with him, as was Riverdale. Most of the other men who had gathered in Netherby’s study had been persuaded to stay away, though it had gone much against the grain with all of them. Dorchester, his son, Dirkson, and Netherby were somewhere out of sight. Well out of sight. Gabriel had not caught a glimpse of any one of them.

  “Will he come?” Bertie asked when it was five minutes past the appointed time.

  “It will be a bit of an anticlimax if he does not,” Gabriel said, strolling away from his two companions to the other side of the clearing. “But if he does not come to me, then I will go to him.” He peered through the trees to see if anyone was approaching from that direction.

  And it was just at that moment that a shot rang out from somewhere behind him, quickly succeeded by another.

  Twenty-two

  Down, Lyndale. Down, Vickers!” the Earl of Riverdale yelled. “Devil take it!”

  It was advice he did not immediately apply to himself. He came hurtling across the distance between himself and Gabriel and brought him down with a flying leap.

  If he had been shot, Gabriel thought, both the warning and the tackle would have come too late. But he did not believe he was dead. Pain registered all over his body, and for a few moments, while the breath was still knocked out of him and most of the sense out of his head, he tested the pain to discover if any of it was attributable to a bullet wound. And, if so, if it was fatal. He did not believe he was at death’s door. But he was bound to be in shock, and shock, he had heard, could delay one’s reactions for a considerable time. His ears were certainly ringing. He could hear voices even so—neither Riverdale’s nor Bertie’s. Nor his own, though he did consider the possibility that one of the voices at least was his.

  Someone was wailing in a demented sort of way. Not him.

  Someone else was warning that although he was down, he ought to be careful. Neither he was identified.

  A third voice was saying with perfect clarity, “You do not have to hold me. I have no intention of running away.”

  And then, unmistakably Netherby’s voice—not his usual bored voice, but one of far greater authority. “He is dead.”

  The wailing voice acquired words. “You killed him. You murdered him. Papaaaa!”

  Riverdale eased off Gabriel and cautiously raised his head. Gabriel pushed himself to his feet and absently brushed himself down. One detached part of his mind observed that his right boot had suffered what might be irreparable damage in the form of long scuff marks. Horbath would not be pleased.

  “Who is dead?” Bertie was demanding of Netherby, who had just stridden into the clearing, not looking anything like his usual indolent self. Bertie was also brushing at his clothes.

  “Manley Rochford,” Netherby said, his words clipped, a hardness in his face Gabriel had not seen there before. “He was about to shoot Lyndale in the back. Had you no more sense, Thorne, than to move away from the other two? Had you no more sense, Riverdale, than to let him? Or you, Vickers?”

  “Who killed him?” Gabriel asked, wondering if the buzzing in his ears was entirely attributable to the gunshots. “You?”

  “I had no clear line of fire,” Netherby said. “It looked as though he was approaching with his son in all good faith. Dorchester saw otherwise and got off a shot. Though his was not the first, and if I am not much mistaken, it merely grazed Rochford’s gun hand and forced him to drop the pistol. We did agree there were to be no
deaths if they could be avoided.”

  “Who, then?” Bertie demanded as they all strode off into the trees. “Egad, but that man has a loud voice.”

  That man, Gabriel could see, was Anthony Rochford, bent over the body of his father, and clearly distraught.

  “It is time we discovered the answer to that question,” Netherby said, and Gabriel looked toward three men standing on the far side of the body, two of whom—Dirkson and Bertrand Lamarr—had a firm hold upon the arms of the third man, who stood tall and proud between them, a pistol at his feet.

  “Mr. Ginsberg,” Gabriel said.

  “I am not going anywhere,” the man said, shaking off the hold of the other two men. “I will take my trial. And I will die like a man. I will die satisfied, knowing that I have been preceded from this life by the scoundrel who debauched my daughter and murdered my son.” His voice was firm and distinct even though Anthony Rochford was still wailing and sobbing.

  “He murdered my father,” he said. “He killed my father.”

  “He felled a man who was about to murder the Earl of Lyndale,” Netherby said in that same cold, authoritative voice. “And there were four witnesses. This was not murder, Mr. Ginsberg. This was a shot fired to save the life of an innocent, unarmed man.”

  “But for you, Mr. Ginsberg,” Dorchester said, “Lyndale might be dead now, killed in the same way as your son was killed.”

  “You will not hang, Mr. Ginsberg,” Riverdale said. “You will not even stand trial. After the inevitable inquiry, which will very probably not take long at all, you will be able to go home to your daughter and live in some sort of peace at last.”

  “Was that your man who was watching Rochford’s house last night?” Netherby asked him.

  “Not my man,” Ginsberg replied. “Me. I spotted your man in time to duck into a better hiding place. I followed Rochford here today.”

  Gabriel went down on one knee on the grass beside the body of his second cousin. He spread a hand across the back of Anthony Rochford. “You will need to be brave for your mother’s sake,” he said. “She is going to need you, Anthony.”

  The wailing stopped. The sobbing did not. Gabriel patted his back, closed his eyes, and swallowed against a lump in his throat. There was Jessica’s family. And then there was his own. But it included other cousins—female ones. First cousins, daughters of Uncle Julius. And his family included Marjorie Rochford. And Anthony himself. Perhaps . . .

  But these were strange thoughts to be having while he was kneeling over the body of the man who would have murdered him in cold blood.

  He continued to pat Anthony’s back while he sobbed and hiccuped.

  “I d-did not kn-know,” he managed to say, “that he h-had b-brought a g-g-gun with him.”

  * * *

  * * *

  They had duly visited the Tower of London and spent all of half an hour there. They spent more time at Westminster Abbey, partly because they sat down for a while to rest. They conversed without stopping, commenting with great enthusiasm upon all they saw. Mary declared more than once that her breath was quite taken away, and Great-aunt Edith observed that it was really quite delightful to see such national treasures through fresh eyes that had not grown a bit jaded from seeing them so much. Grandmama injected a note of reality by reminding them of some of the grim history behind those breathtaking places, especially the Tower. Jessica agreed wholeheartedly with everything that was said. She was having a wonderful time, she assured everyone whenever she was silent too long and her grandmother looked at her with a frown.

  Oh yes, everyone agreed, they were all having a wonderful time.

  There was to be no duel.

  No guns.

  No deaths.

  No one even whispered any of those things, of course. They were too busy having a wonderful time.

  And then they arrived at the tearoom, which was to be the climax of their day out, with its fine china tea service, its delicate crustless sandwiches, its scones and strawberry preserves and clotted cream, and its dainty pastries and cakes of all kinds.

  “What a wonderful banquet!” Mary exclaimed. “Oh, I am being spoiled.”

  Yes, wonderful, they all agreed. And Grandmama nodded graciously to the other occupants of the rooms, mostly ladies.

  It had perhaps not been the best choice of tearoom, Jessica decided within minutes of arriving. For of course most of the members of the ton now present in London had attended that costume ball last evening. And any who had not would have read about it in the morning papers. Any few who had missed both would have been exposed to gossip all day. Their story must be at the very top of everyone’s list.

  Everyone wanted to smile and nod at Jessica. A few bolder souls approached their table with the same basic message—“I will not interrupt your tea, Lady Lyndale, but do allow me to congratulate you and tell you how delightful it is that the earl, your husband, has returned as though from the dead. I knew from the first time I saw him as Mr. Thorne, the American gentleman, that there was something very special, even aristocratic, about him.”

  Everyone’s smiles and nods had to be acknowledged. Everyone who approached had to be thanked. Never had Jessica been more thankful for her Lady Jessica Archer persona, though she had not even known until very recently that such a thing existed. Perhaps she had realized it only at Richmond Park when Gabriel had wanted to marry that person and she had been upset that he had had no idea who the real Jessica Archer was.

  There was to be no duel.

  No guns.

  No deaths.

  The mantra had run through her head without ceasing since before she left the hotel. Her head believed it. Her stomach knew it all to be a blatant lie.

  Each of them took one tiny sandwich while Great-aunt Edith poured the tea. Each of them looked at her tiny sandwich, and each of them dutifully bit into it.

  Each of them, perhaps, was hearing that same mantra repeat itself to the point of utter weariness.

  The famed tearoom sandwich felt and tasted like cardboard in Jessica’s mouth. She chewed and swallowed, half expecting to choke. She did not.

  “Ah,” Mary said at last, interrupting some historical feature of Westminster Abbey that Grandmama was recounting for their edification. Her face lit up with a smile. “Gabriel!”

  Jessica turned her head sharply and then leapt to her feet, tipping her delicate chair to the floor as she did so. He was striding across the tearoom, narrowly missing a few tables that stood in his way. His eyes, burning hot in a pale face, were focused upon her. And he caught her up in a tight hug—or she caught him up. It was impossible to say which of them was the more guilty of causing such a scandalous public spectacle. For the moment she did not care—or, indeed, even think of such a triviality as propriety.

  “I am all right,” he murmured against her ear. “I wanted you to know that as soon as possible. I have only just been able to get away. I am safe. You can stop worrying.”

  She lifted her face to his. He was deathly pale. And he kissed her, very briefly, on the lips.

  She was jolted back to reality by the burst of applause and laughter all around them.

  “Oh,” she said.

  Gabriel had a little more presence of mind. He released her, looked about the room, and removed his hat. “I do beg your pardon,” he said, including the whole clientele with a sweeping glance.

  His words were met with more laughter. Someone—surely one of the few men present—whistled through his teeth.

  “Gabriel,” Grandmama said as he leaned down to pick up Jessica’s chair—it was undamaged, she was happy to see. “Do join us.”

  And someone rushed up with another chair and someone else appeared with another place setting, and within a minute at the longest he was seated at their table. The general hubbub died down, though Jessica did not doubt they were the focus of avid scrutiny from
all sides and would be the subject of numerous conversations for at least the rest of the day.

  “We have had a wonderful time, Gabriel,” Mary said. “And now it has become more wonderful, especially for dear Jessica. You have had a good day too?” She was smiling her sweet, placid smile, giving everyone, both at their table and at all the rest, time to settle down to a semblance of normalcy.

  He spoke very quietly, for their ears only, as Great-aunt Edith poured him a cup of tea. “There has been a spot of bother,” he said, smiling. “Nothing for any of you to worry about. I am delighted you have had a good day. The weather has certainly been your friend.”

  His smile succeeded only in making him look paler.

  “A spot of bother?” Grandmama asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “It delayed me for a while, ma’am. But it is being very competently dealt with by Netherby and Dorchester and Riverdale. As soon as I judged my presence to be no longer essential—at least for the present—I came to set your minds at rest. I hoped I would find you still here.”

  “With what are they dealing competently, Gabriel?” Jessica asked. She was chewing the second half of her sandwich. It tasted only marginally better than the first.

  “Manley Rochford is dead,” he said, and his hand closed tightly about hers on the table.

  She lifted her chin. She was not going to faint again.

  “Oh, Gabriel,” Mary said. “How?”

  “I arranged a rendezvous with him in Hyde Park,” he told them. “I intended to . . . punish him before allowing him to leave London and return home. There is no proof, you see, that he murdered anyone. And the other charge would merely drag the name of an innocent woman through the mud and would probably not result in a conviction. So I knew there was really no legal recourse for achieving justice. I decided instead to confront him myself. But not in a duel. I sent him a message simply asking him to meet me in Hyde Park. I had people with me and others keeping an eye upon any route he might take to join me. I did not expect any real trouble, but unfortunately I underestimated him. He brought a gun with him and would have shot me in the back with it had not Mr. Ginsberg shot him first—and killed him. Ginsberg is the man whose daughter was ravished and whose son was murdered. I do beg your pardon. But I saw no way of not letting you know.”