The lame leg was a hindrance on the narrow staircase with wet feet, and he approached the Runner gingerly. Biggins stood motionless until Simon was almost upon him, and then swung the length of chain-trailing manacles at him again. Simon ducked, and it struck him in the shoulder this time, but the impact threw him off balance, between the dizziness, the blood in his eyes, and the stiff injured knee. The shackles glanced off Simon’s hand on the downswing, and his other pistol discharged at close range. For a suspended moment, Biggins froze on the step before his hand gripped his chest and he fell backward, head over heels down the staircase in a cartwheel. He tumbled all the way to the bottom.
Simon staggered down the stairs and squatted over the Runner’s inert, twisted body, his eyes flung wide to the shuddering chandelier above. Whether the pistol shot had killed him, or the fall, was irrelevant. The Runner was dead.
“Bloody hell!” Simon roared. He set the dueling pistols down on the step, and slumped beside the corpse. There went his hope of liberating Jenna; Biggins wasn’t going to be of any use to him now. And he crouched there numb over the Runner’s corpse with his bleeding head in his hands until a shadow fell across him through the drifting haze of smoke ghosting down the spiral stairwell from above.
Ridgeway.
“I knew I never should have left you alone with the blighter,” he said. “Good God, Simon, what have you done?”
“Nothing that didn’t want doing,” Simon said with a dangerous tremor. “But, believe it or not, it wasn’t deliberate. I gave him fair warning. The maw-worm set fire to the place, Nate—deliberately set off the bedclothes in the four-poster I’d chained him to upstairs. It was a setup, and I played right into his hands. I was turning him loose when he gave me this.” He gestured to his gashed forehead, still oozing blood.
“That needs a surgeon, Simon.”
“It’ll mend without that. I needn’t tell you I’ve had worse,” he responded, waving the man off with a hand gesture. “To make short of it, he got away from me. I grabbed my pistols and went after him. At first he kept running despite my warning, then he stopped and let me get close enough to swing those damned chains again. In the process, the shackles hit my hand. The pistol went off, and the bounder toppled over backward and tumbled all the way to the bottom. His neck is broken. I don’t know if the pistol ball killed him or the fall. I certainly wasn’t aiming.”
Ridgeway crouched down and went through the useless motions of feeling for a pulse in the Runner’s throat.
“He’s dead all right,” he said, surging to his feet.
Simon eased himself onto the bottom step, and dropped his head in his hands.
“Did anyone see? Were there . . . witnesses, any of the staff?” the lieutenant probed. “Where’s Phelps?”
“No,” Simon replied. “The servants were all occupied putting out the damned fire. I assume they’ve succeeded, since the place hasn’t gone up in flames around me. I haven’t seen any of them since I took off after Biggins here, and God alone knows where Phelps has got to. Nobody’s seen him.”
“You’re going to have to have the bailiffs. The man is dead, and he’s a Runner, Simon. That isn’t going to bode well.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve . . . failed her.”
“No, you haven’t,” Ridgeway said softly, tapping him on the shoulder with a pistol barrel. “Would this be the proof you’re after?”
Simon’s head snapped toward the gun, and he vaulted to his feet, snatching it in trembling hands.
“W-where did you find it?” he murmured, running his fingers along the barrel and stock. They paused over the notches and initials carved there, and he gasped.
“At Moorhaven Manor,” said Ridgeway. “You were right on about old Wilby. Marner sent it back with him for safekeeping after he paid the Runner for it.”
“H-how did you ever . . . ?”
“Let’s just say I was creative, and leave it at that, shall we? I’ve brought Wilby along just in case there’s any doubt. He’ll not be much use to you yet awhile, though—not till he comes to.”
“Nate, I don’t know how I shall ever thank you,” Simon groaned. “I’ll take the pistol ’round to Serjeant’s straightaway, and send for Wilby if he’s needed.”
“Hold there, ship oars!” Ridgeway called, arresting him with a quick hand. “What about him?” he said, nodding toward the corpse at their feet.
“I hate to ask, old boy, but can you have a surgeon and the bailiffs in and deal with this till I return? He isn’t going anywhere, but Jenna is if I don’t get to her with this in time.” He brandished the pistol. “Straight to Tyburn.”
An hour later, Simon was pacing in the courtyard at Newgate Gaol when a bailiff ushered Jenna through the great doors. The instant their eyes met, she called his name, and he streaked up the stone steps past the man and took her into his arms. Clasping her to him, he groaned, and her heart nearly burst with joy to be in those arms again.
“Simon . . . what’s happened to you—to your head?”
“It’s nothing. You’re free. That’s all that matters.”
“Can you ever forgive me?” she moaned, clinging to him as he helped her down the roughly hewn stairs. “I’ve been such a fool.”
“Shhh,” he soothed, crushing her closer. “There is nothing to forgive, and I am the fool, not you. I don’t care who you confide in.” He pointed to a dusky figure perched on the roof. “Confess to that chimney sweep up there if the mood strikes you,” he said, gesturing toward the man plying his trade aloft. “I nearly lost you!” He held her away and took her measure. She was still wearing the highwayman costume, and he frowned. “Where are the things I sent from the Hall—didn’t Phelps deliver them?”
“What things?”
“I had him pack a portmanteau for you, and instructed him to deliver it to the gaol. He didn’t?”
“No . . . no one came.”
“No one at the town house has seen him, either. Something must have happened to him,” he said, helping her into the waiting coach. “One more thing for Ridgeway to deal with.”
“Ridgeway?” she said, nonplussed.
“I’m sorry, my love; so much has occurred since that deuced ball. I’ll catch you up, but first you need tending.” He ran his hand lightly along her shoulder to her wound, crudely doctored and bound. “Butchers,” he snarled, pulling her close in the custody of his arm, meanwhile rapping on the carriage roof with his walking stick to signal the driver to move on. The coach sped off through the cobblestone streets toward Hanover Square.
“Simon, you’re trembling,” she murmured. He had such a tight hold on her that she could scarcely breathe, and his whole body was shaking.
“I passed the pardon through the aperture in that blasted door nearly an hour ago,” he murmured. “When you didn’t come out straightaway, I thought . . . Never mind what I thought.”
Her lips silenced anything else he might have said. She melted against him, and they clung to each other in total abandon as the carriage tooled through the streets. His hands roamed her body through her black highwayman’s garb like those of a starving man turned loose at a banquet, just as they had when he’d held her in the dock. Even now, his embrace shot waves of drenching fire through her loins. She hadn’t slept in days—really slept; she hadn’t dared, with so many mad and ruthless creatures cast about her. That terror hadn’t left her yet; neither had the stench, nor the melancholy hopelessness that permeated the very walls of Newgate Gaol. And yet, Simon aroused her. Had she heard him correctly? Had he really forgiven her for . . . ? She couldn’t even remember what had ever separated them.
During the short drive to the Square, in between the kisses he lavished upon her, taking her breath away—kisses full of longing and promise and passion—he told her about the duel, about Robert Nast’s injury, about Ridgeway and his desperate attempt to find the pistol that finally set her free. Then, to her horror, he told her about the Runner lying dead at the town house.
; When they reached Hanover Square, Simon lifted her down from the coach, swept her up in his arms, and carried her over the threshold, only to pull up short. Three bailiffs, a surgeon, a representative from Bow Street, and Ridgeway were engaged in a heated discussion. Simon put Jenna down and limped nearer the confrontation, only to be seized by two of the bailiffs, who disarmed him.
“What the deuce is going on here?” he thundered. “Take your hands off me! Don’t you know who I am?”
“We know who you are, my lord,” said the Runner. “Don’t look to your title to save you.”
“I’m sorry, Simon,” Ridgeway put in. “There was nothing I could do.”
“Are these your pistols, my lord?” the Runner barked, pointing to the dueling pistols Simon had left on the step earlier.
“They are,” Simon snapped.
“And you gunned down Biggins here with this one, did you?” the Runner returned, exhibiting the weapon in question.
“Hardly,” Simon retorted. “I gave him fair warning. He set my house afire, and was trying to escape before you found him out a renegade. I fired a warning shot over his head, and moved to restrain him when he struck me with the manacles, and my pistol discharged. He fell over backward. He was dead at the bottom of the stairs when I reached him. I think his bloody neck was broken.”
“What say you, Dr. Smythe?” the Runner inquired of the surgeon.
“I’d be hard put to say for certain which injury did him in,” the man observed. “’Twas a mortal wound, but so was the fall fatal—but one is related to the other after all, so I expect which came first is a moot point, actually.”
“Why is the deceased shackled, my lord?” the Runner inquired.
“Because he had knowledge that the pistol you took from me when I came in was the proof that would free the countess,” Simon explained. “He and Rupert Marner were responsible for its disappearance from the scene of a crime that saw her ladyship wrongly accused. The Earl of Stenshire here just retrieved it from Marner’s groom, who was privy to the transaction. He’s brought the man along as witness—”
“Where is he, then?”
“Indisposed at the moment,” Ridgeway said. “But he’ll be fit enough in due course.”
“I still don’t see—”
“This has just come to light,” Simon interrupted. “When Biggins refused to tell the truth about the evidence, I decided to have him before the bench as living proof instead—hence the manacles and this whole unfortunate situation.”
“I see my lady has been freed,” the Runner observed.
“Yes,” said Simon, “thanks to Lieutenant Ridgeway, who brought the pistol on just in time. She was given a pardon. Nate, didn’t you explain all this?”
“I did,” Ridgeway replied, “but the blighters refused to see reason.”
“The deceased was a Runner, my lords,” the official clarioned. “I shall require more than the word of two earls who are obvious collaborators. I shall want—no,demand—proof, gentlemen, and in the meanwhile—”
“I-is that?” Jenna interrupted, gesturing toward a blanketed mound at the foot of the landing.
“Good God, Nate, how could you leave him there to greet her?” Simon railed.
“They wouldn’t let me move him,” Ridgeway defended.
Jenna couldn’t take her eyes from the corpse. Her head was spinning. Exhaustion and her badly healing wound sapped her strength without this new press. Simon was still tethered to the bailiffs. Why wouldn’t they let him go? It was all perfectly plain. Why couldn’t they see it?
“Meanwhile,” the Runner was saying, “you’re off to New-gate Gaol till we’ve sorted this muddle out.” He cleared his voice. “Simon Rutherford, Earl of Kevernwood, I arrest you in the name of the Crown, for the murder of Matthew Elmore Biggins.” He nodded to the bailiffs. “Take him away,” he commanded.
Jenna found her voice and screamed. Rushing to Simon, she threw her arms around his neck and clung fast.
“No!” she shrilled. “Simon, no!”
“For God’s sake, see to her, Nate,” Simon thundered. They dragged him away, her hold on him notwithstanding.
Ridgeway took her in hand. She was too weak from the ordeal of Newgate, and this horrifying new development coming on the heels of their reconciliation, to prevent him. Though her fingers grasped with all their strength, Simon slipped away. And she screamed again as the bailiff’s rough hands propelled him through the open doorway.
“You’re in charge here in my absence, Nate,” Simon called over his shoulder, as they hauled him down the steps. “Take care of her!”
Jenna strained against the lieutenant’s grip. Was he speaking? Who were all these unfamiliar people—all these servants gaping at her, and at the shrouded corpse? She didn’t know a one. What was she doing in this strange man’s arms? Simon was gone. They were taking him to that awful place she’d just come from, and her last conscious thought was that she would never see him again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The kindly housekeeper, who introduced herself as Mrs. Wells, took charge of Jenna in Simon’s chamber once she regained consciousness. After the surgeon examined her and instructed the housekeeper in the makings of an ointment for her wounded arm and rat bites, the woman filled a French porcelain hipbath with lavender-scented water and helped her into it. But would she ever wash away the stench of Newgate Gaol, or purge it from her nostrils? Not even the reeking odor of scorched, water-soaked wood and bedding seeping from the gutted chamber across the way could overpower it.
When she asked after Ridgeway, Jenna was informed by Mrs. Wells that the lieutenant had gone out straightaway once he’d delivered her to the master suite and the doctor’s care, promising to call upon her as soon as he returned. But the surgeon dosed her with a sleeping sachet, and she drifted off the minute she crept between the sheets in Simon’s enormous bed.
The sun was sliding low over the London skyline when she woke to a light tapping at her chamber door. A plump little maid in attendance who answered to the name of Nell hurried to answer, and admitted Lieutenant Ridgeway and Mrs. Wells, whose protests echoed along the corridor as they entered.
“I shan’t disturb her long,” the lieutenant insisted. “His lordship has asked me to act in his stead. That is all I am about here.”
“Did you know she was bitten by rats in that place?” the housekeeper shrilled. “And now the master’s shut up in it!” She burst into tears then, and he swept her into the adjoining sitting room and sat her down on the chaise.
“We don’t want to upset her ladyship,” he soothed. “It’s unfortunate about her incarceration, but his lordship is well able to fend for himself, I assure you. In his present state, heaven help the rats.” She almost smiled at that, and he gave her hand a reassuring pat. “Now then,” he continued, “shall we go back in? I’ve come to put her ladyship’s mind at ease, not to drive her farther into the dismals.”
The woman nodded, and he handed her back over the threshold into the bedchamber.
“Is there news of Simon?” Jenna begged. They hadn’t closed the door between when they spoke, and the bit about reassuring her had lifted her spirits somewhat.
“No, there is not,” Ridgeway said. “Forgive the intrusion, my lady, but the surgeon has insisted that you remain abed, at least until tomorrow, and I agree. There is other news that I have come to tell.”
“Please sit, Lieutenant,” she offered, motioning toward the Duncan Phyfe lounge beside the hearth.
“Firstly, I have sent word to Kevernwood Hall that you have been released,” he said, taking his seat. “It was Simon’s wish that they be informed of that at once on the coast—particularly your mother.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Ridgeway. She must be beside herself with worry.”
“Quite so,” he replied. “There has been a communiqué from the Hall, meanwhile, that you need to be made privy to. It was sent by Lady Jersey—”
“Is she still there?” Jenna interrupted. She
was incredulous.
“Yes. Simon left her in charge, and the missive was sent to inform him that Vicar Nast is much recovered. Since Simon left me in charge here, I took the liberty of opening it.”
“Recovered? Recovered from what? I . . . I don’t understand.”
“Ah! Of course! You wouldn’t. Forgive me, dear lady. So much has transpired since I came into this that I’m afraid I tend to loose perspective. That bit might be too distressing for you at the moment, however.”
“No. Whatever has occurred, I should like to know. Please, Lieutenant, continue.” She was almost sorry she’d suggested it by the look of him.
“Very well, since you insist. The vicar engaged in a duel with Rupert Marner, which is where I come into it. I acted as his second.”
Jenna was wide-awake now, hanging on his every word, stunned, the aftereffects of the sleeping sachet notwithstanding.
“Marner and Biggins—the Runner Simon . . . shot—staged the little trap that got you flung into Newgate. Simon came here to London to try and free you at once. Meanwhile, the vicar tracked Marner to Plymouth—”
“Plymouth? Whatever was Rupert doing there?” she interrupted.
“He had booked passage on a ship bound for the Channel Islands. He knew Simon would run him to ground, and he was attempting to escape when the vicar arrived and challenged him on Simon’s behalf. Well, that and to defend the honor of Lady Evelyn St. John.”
“Robert was injured?” Jenna was afraid to hear and anxious to know all at once, and exceedingly glad that she had the four-poster underneath her.
“He was back-shot. Marner didn’t conduct himself as a gentleman. Acting as the vicar’s second, I brought Marner down. He’s dead. I would have done so in any case. Couldn’t have the vicar with that blighter’s death on his conscience.”
“And . . . the vicar?”
“It was touch and go for a time. He was in a coma when I left Kevernwood Hall. Evidently, he has rallied, and is much improved under the Lady Evelyn’s care, my lady.”
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