Fates for Apate

by Sue London

  George smiled but she couldn’t help wondering if she had done the right thing in marrying him. If he was being honest about his desire to be with her or if she was a convenient path to something else. The fear of it was starting to claw at her, starting to drive her mad with doubts.

  “Do you know, before Sabre’s wedding I should deliver this letter you gave me.”

  “You have time?”

  “I will if you take the carriage and wait for me at the church. The church is actually outside the city, you see. And I can take a smaller conveyance into town, deliver this letter so that we have it off our hands, and meet up with my friends for the wedding.”

  “And I meet you at the church…”

  “With the carriage. That has all my things. Stop looking so dubious.”

  “I came to protect you, not your luggage.”

  “I’ll be fine. We’ve not seen one sign of trouble.”

  “We could send the driver with the luggage-”

  She laid her finger on his lips. “I can’t take you where I’m going, so don’t ask.”

  “And you’re sure you’ll be fine?”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine. Somewhere around here there is undoubtedly a curricle with an ambitious driver to be hired.”

  “Why don’t I get out to stretch my legs while you find that curricle?”

  “You’re going to be one of those husbands, aren’t you?”

  “What kind is that?”

  “Intrusive.”

  His eyebrows flew up. “You call that intrusive?”

  “Meddlesome.”

  “Now I think you’re just taunting me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  George alit from the carriage, Casimir behind her. They spoke with their driver about their plans and confirmed it would be another few minutes before the horses were changed. The morning was cool and damp and the ground muddy. George heard her boots squelching in the muck as they made their way among the crowd of carriages in the yard. It was still early and few people were about.

  The early morning quiet and muddy yard turned out to be a saving grace as she heard two sets of footsteps rush them, one from the side and one from behind. She heard Casimir turn behind her, so addressed her attention to the figure coming out from between the carriages to her left. The man rushed her with his arms up, seeming focused on capturing her. She drew two knives and ducked to deliver upper cuts to her assailant. Casimir used the reflexes she’d suspected he had to sweep his attacker and send the man crashing into the side of a carriage.

  She heard a small popping noise and felt a pinch in her side, but wasn’t concerned as she followed through on her attack to slice through her enemy’s coat and possibly into his skin. She heard a crunching noise that she hoped was Casimir dealing further damage to his opponent while she let her own attacker’s momentum carry him past her and followed up with a jab to his side, her blade sliding in a little better than an inch before he was out of arm’s reach. The man turned, staggering against another of the carriages, his hand held to his bleeding ribs. He cursed her in German.

  Casimir grabbed the lantern post of the carriage and swung up, his knee catching George’s opponent in the face, rattling the man’s head hard against the wood. The man went down in a boneless heap. Casimir’s original opponent was running off as quickly as his boots could carry him in the slippery mud.

  “Are you all right?” Casimir had grabbed her shoulders and turned her towards him. He was looking her over. “I heard his flintlock go off, did it hit you?”

  “I’m fine. We’re letting him go?”

  “Gina, look at me.”

  She looked at him, seeing concern and perhaps a bit of anger in his expression. “Stop that,” she said. “I could have handled them.”

  He gave an incredulous laugh. “You could have handled them?”

  She finished wiping off her knives and tucked them back in their sheaths. “Yes. Am I going to have to fight you to prove it?”

  “No, we’re not fighting, but if you think I’m letting you ride off alone-”

  “It’s even more important now. If they sent men to track us this far then this is a very important letter.”

  “How do we know these weren’t just cutthroats looking for an opportunity?”

  “Who curse in German?” She toed the downed man. “Unlikely.” She turned back to her husband. “I know this is hard for you, but I have to do this. Instead of a curricle, I’ll take a horse. It’s faster.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No. Stay with the carriage. Please.” She kissed him. “Watch to make sure the other one doesn’t follow me.”

  “Ukochany, I could not bear to lose you.”

  “You won’t. In an hour I’ll have this letter in the right hands. Two hours after that we’ll be at Sabre’s wedding.” He didn’t look pleased with her plan, but let his arms drop as she pulled away.

  “What should we do with this one?” he asked, pointing to the unconscious man.

  She shrugged. “Hopefully he will slink off on his own. It would be too complicated to try to take him to the proper authorities.” She stopped before walking between the carriages to seek the stable master. “How did you learn to fight like that?”

  He gave her a ghost of a smile. “All diplomats fight like that.”

  “You mean dirty?”

  He bowed his head in sardonic acknowledgment.

  *

  Casimir wrapped his hand around the lantern post to keep himself from following Gina. What if she were to be waylaid again? What if something else were to happen? There was a reason why young women, especially richly dressed young ladies, didn’t ride alone. There could be any sort of unsavory man between here and her destination that would try to take advantage of what seemed an easy target. And what if… what if she had decided to shake loose of him here and he wouldn’t see her again? It seemed odd to come this far and then separate with that intention, but she was something of an odd girl. Evasive, filled with her own agendas.

  His heart, it seemed, always made poor choices.

  He quickly rifled through the pockets of the unconscious man. It was tempting to slit his throat, ensuring he couldn’t threaten Gina again. Although Casimir was unfamiliar with British law, he was fairly sure that murder would be frowned upon. Even if it was a no-good, thieving, murdering low-life that everyone could no doubt do without. He had the presence of mind to laugh at himself. Here he was taking the man’s possessions and considering murder. Irony.

  He rose to make his way silently out to the main stable yard to watch Gina ride away, making sure that no one rode in pursuit. She had secured a dapple grey and she cut quite an arresting figure on it in her plum colored pelisse. Certainly a riding habit would have been more dashing, but there was something even more alluring about seeing her riding off astride when she had no call to look as confident and comfortable as she did.

  As the horses had been changed out, he boarded the carriage to ride more slowly toward London himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  After a few miles George felt a twinge in her side, a sort of sharp discomfort. She took off her glove and ran a hand over her side to discover an odd hole in her pelisse. Bloody hell, had she actually been shot? Surely it would hurt more than this. She stopped the grey and dismounted before getting to the populated outskirts of the city. After removing her pelisse she ran her hand over her side. She hit a spot that made her suck in a breath, which in turn hurt even more. Oh lovely. There was no possibility that she could dig under all these layers of wool, muslin, and silk to bind it properly on the road. She donned her pelisse again and struck out for Robert’s house in the hopes that she would reach him before she started to bleed or pass out or whatever other inconveniences this injury was going to cause.

  When George arrived at Robert’s house it was still early enough that she was confident he would be home. Provided Sabre hadn’t sent him on some errand for the wedding, of course. But certainly he wou
ldn’t be at the office. She had only been here once before, but felt that it would be best to deliver the letter and then track down Sabre so that her friend knew she was in London.

  Her side had hurt more and more as she rode into town. She was suspicious that the ball was moving around in there somehow, which wasn’t a comforting thought at all. But she still hadn’t bled much and hoped that was a good sign.

  She knocked on the door and Robert’s man Bobbins promptly opened it. He didn’t even look surprised to see her. “They’re waiting for you upstairs.”

  They? Waiting? No one knew she was here. She ascended the steps and heard murmuring, followed by a familiar voice exclaiming, “Oh my!” Sabre was here! Sabre was here and had left word with Bobbins to expect her very good friend George Lockhart. Of course she had. If anyone could force reality to conform to her own wishes, it was Sabrina Bittlesworth. George almost wanted to cry from the familiarity of it all. Much like seeing the cliffs of Dover, she was overwhelmed with how much she had missed all this. How much she had missed her friends. She heard Jack say, “Now put it away before someone sees it.”

  George rounded the corner and could see her two friends with their heads bent over something in Sabre’s hands. “Even a fellow Haberdasher?” she asked.

  Her two friends screamed in excitement and they all rushed together to meet in the middle of the room. As they hugged, George was pleased that neither of them grabbed her around the waist, because quite honestly she felt like she might die if someone were to do that. Sabre’s mother and future mother in law joined them and she thought she heard Jack say something about Lord Lucifer. Then they were rearranging the bouquets and Sabre was proudly pointing out that she’d had a dress made up for George because she was just sure both of her best friends would be at her wedding. Jack shrugged and held out the soft yellow gown. George insisted she didn’t need any help putting it on and took the time behind the dressing screen to finally investigate her wound. Yes, it was painful now, but not much blood to speak of. Perhaps the layers of clothing and corset had kept the wound from being more serious. She stripped the flounces from one of her petticoats and used it as binding. The shot had hit her high in the abdomen, on her left side. Binding it hurt quite a bit, but was better than just waiting to see if it started to bleed. Surely she could make it through the next few hours, find Robert, deliver the letter, and then figure out what one did when shot with what seemed to be a rather weak and ineffective weapon.

  *

  Casimir waited outside the church that Gina had directed him to. He sat in the carriage and watched as guests slowly began to arrive. Finely dressed guests. As he still wore the same clothes he’d left Vienna in almost a week hence, he thought it best to stay here until after the wedding. It was awkward enough to show up to a wedding not knowing anyone, but to mingle with a duke’s guests while wearing a thousand miles of travel dust might be beyond even his capacity.

  Unable to contain his curiosity, once he suspected the wedding was underway he snuck into the church and lingered against the shadowy back wall. He saw his Gina at the front of the church, standing in attendance to the bride. She wore a yellow silk gown that matched another girl standing near her. These must be her friends, then. One marrying a duke, the other already married to an earl. Today’s bride was small and dark haired, her groom tall and fair. Gina’s other friend was quite tall, tall enough that they’d had the girl stand on a lower step and she was still taller than the bride. Her hair was a pale brown and the way she kept smiling at the best man one had to hope that behemoth of a specimen was the earl. An odd collection of women, really, his Gina and her two best friends.

  But at least Gina was here, so he could lay that fear to rest. She hadn’t left him. She was just unobtainable for the moment. He went back to the carriage to wait. Surely she would recognize their conveyance when the wedding was over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  George felt naked. The thin silk of the dress demanded light petticoats and fewer weapons than she was normally accustomed to carrying. It was unnerving after all the months of wearing heavy dresses and all the knives she could be clever enough to hide. She turned to smirk at Jack when the vicar mentioned “obey” in the vows, and could tell that she had moved… wrong. A sharp pain ricocheted through her left side and almost made her gasp. She clutched the bouquet of flowers tighter and focused on taking breaths without hurting herself more. Rather than the dull ache of the last hour or so, she was experiencing a stabbing pain. Apparently once balls were in there they kept moving around until they could find something to hurt. And hurt badly. She told herself over and over, ‘Just get out of the wedding, just get out of the wedding’.

  The vows were finished. The couple kissed. Yes, good. Move it along, please. Finally the happy couple was walking out of the church, followed by Jack and her earl, and then it was George’s turn to walk out with the duke’s younger brother, Jeremy. He offered his arm, but she would have to take it with her left. Something she wasn’t willing to do since the arm was curled in tight and protectively. She shook her head, which served to make him raise his brows and then wave her ahead to precede him. She walked up the aisle, feeling fresh pain with each step. She needed to get this letter to Robert. Robert who was too far away from the aisle to speak to as she walked passed. She tried to signal him but wasn’t sure he’d seen. Why would he suspect she would be in distress at his sister’s wedding? She had to hope that, well, he was Robert. Robert who saw everything. Knew everything.

  She felt something warm trickle down her ribcage. Blood. It had to be blood seeping through the makeshift binding. She tried to make sure that her bouquet was held at a clever angle to cover anything that was seeping through the silk of the dress. But the distraction of trying to move the bouquet proved to be her undoing. Someone waved their arms when she wasn’t expecting it, making her take a deep breath of surprise. The pain of it brought her to her knees, the bouquet exploding into petals and stray stems where she dropped it as she stumbled forward onto all the flowers, barely keeping her hands beneath her to catch her fall. Sweet Lord, falling like that was even worse. Her vision darkened and came back with dancing lights. She could hear a dull buzzing in her ears. She heard Jack. Jack was kneeling near her, asking her what was wrong. George didn’t want to take a deep enough breath to speak. But she had to speak.

  “I think I’m going to faint,” she rasped. “Get Robert.”

  After Jack rose the fecking earl reached down to scoop George up like a bit of kindling. She braced herself to feel excruciating pain but the change in angle turned out to be an improvement. Jack was talking to Sabre and the earl stepped back into an alcove to be out of the way as guests began to pour out of the nave. Once Jack was close enough, George grabbed for her. “Get Robert. I need to talk to him. Now.”

  Jack went back into the nave and George watched the guests streaming out. She didn’t see Casimir. She wasn’t sure quite what she would do with him when she found him at this point, since she didn’t want to spring the marriage on her friends just yet. But she wanted him. He friend’s husband was being wonderfully chivalric, most likely getting blood on some of that snowy white linen of his, but she wanted her own husband, thank you very much. First she needed to deliver this letter. And not pass out. That was the order of things. Letter to Robert, don’t pass out, find Casimir. Right now she would focus on ‘don’t pass out’. She let her eyes flutter closed for a moment. Jack’s husband had yet to utter a word to her. Apparently he excelled at standing quietly and holding things. Sterling qualities in a husband, really. She would need to compliment Jack on her taste later.

  “What have you done, sweeting?”

  Robert. Excellent.

  He pulled her hand aside and inspected her. “I see blood but this fabric isn’t rent. When did you get this wound?”

  “This morning. I thought it was bound properly, but…”

  “I’ll take her,” Robert said to the earl. A look passed between Jack and her hus
band, then George was transferred to Robert’s arms. Being Robert, he immediately told everyone what to do. He sent his brother Charlie for a carriage and the Harringtons off to the wedding breakfast. He assured them all that George was tougher than she looked. For the first time in her life she was seriously doubting it. This pain was beastly.

  Within moments Robert had her secured in his carriage and rolling to their destination. She struggled to sit up a bit.

  “What happened?” he demanded. Cool, clinical, withdrawn. Real Robert, not the smiling man who had sent everyone off with reassurances.

  “I have a letter for you. I was warned that someone might come after me for it, but I didn’t really believe it until this morning. Until,” she waved a hand over her side, “this.”

  “Knife?”

  “Pistol. A small one, I think. I barely smelled a whiff of powder in the air. It only felt like a pinch at first.”

  Robert studied her for another moment, giving her the chance to study him. He looked tired. Older. Older than eight months had any right to make him. Robert had always been the oldest of them all, of course, and wore that mantle like a fine coat of armor that was both honor and burden. But now he looked aged. Nothing in the brief reports they had exchanged had led her to expect that. As though he had lived five years in her absence.

  He surprised her with his next statement. “You’re different, Georgie.”

  “I’ve been shot,” she pointed out.

  He shook his head. “Not that. Something else. Did you enjoy your time in Vienna?”

  “Very much.”

  “Would you like to go back next week?”

  She hesitated before she answered. She couldn’t help herself. Did she want to go back next week? No. She’d just gotten home. Robert’s eyes narrowed.

  “Of course I’d love to go back. However,” she demurred, “someone there wants to kill me now.”