Undercover Cavaliere

by Judith B. Glad

When Chambers entered, Jonathon said, "Some coffee, please, and perhaps cakes. Or..." He raised a brow. "I imagine you're famished?"

  "No. I couldn't eat. But coffee would be good."

  Peter said, "I could eat. And sleep. I'll speak to you later, my lord."

  Regina sipped from the glass she'd held untasted, more to be doing something than from thirst. The brandy stung the lip she'd chewed as she'd vacillated about boarding the ship. "You've never been to America." She knew he hadn't, so she meant it as a reminder, rather than a question.

  "No, but that doesn't mean I'm unaware that Gabe will face a certain amount of prejudice there. The challenge might be good for him. He will never be one to drift." He replenished his drink and raised an eyebrow in question.

  She shook her head. "I doubt it. He's not the crusader Lulu is."

  "Ah, yes, Luella. A remarkable woman, I'm told. I look forward to meeting her someday. It's a pity she and young Dewitt don't feel they can travel with the babes yet." Jonathon set the decanter down. Without turning to face her, he said, "You realize that Gabe's experiences make him a powerful candidate for a university position somewhere. His knowledge of Eastern Europe is unparalleled."

  "But a spy--"

  "Regina, Gabe was never a spy. He was an operative, yes, but he dealt as often with kings and presidents as with slavers and opium peddlers. The Coalition does much besides catch brigands and rescue captive maidens."

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. A little niggle of guilt made itself known. "Like what?" Perhaps it was time to listen instead of jumping to conclusions.

  For the next hour he told her of international intrigue, of plots and chicanery, of governments toppled and shored up, of lives changed and wasted, of fortunes squandered and fame turned to infamy. She learned how Gabe had been instrumental in saving a small country from being overwhelmed by a powerful neighbor, how her own brother had foiled a plot to assassinate a man who just might be the next prime minister of France, how Peter had saved the daughter of a ruling monarch from a scandal that could have brought down the throne.

  "Oh, my," was all she could say when Jonathon's voice finally faded into silence.

  "Indeed. I think you may have undervalued Gabe."

  "Oh, Jonathon, I did worse than that. I made fun of him. I'm so ashamed."

  "He loves you, you know. That may be the only thing that will save him."

  Her feelings were in such a turmoil that she could find no answer. She knew Gabe loved her, but would he be able to forgive her?

  Would he remember he loved her when he woke up with only one leg?

  Or would he want to die?

  * * * *

  "Damn you." Gabe knew his words struck Jonathon like a blow. "You knew. You knew, and you still let them--"

  "You'll thank me someday," Jonathon said, but there was no courage of conviction in his tone.

  "No. I won't. Not you, not Regina. You had no right--"

  "We had every right to notify your parents. Great God, man, you were dying. We had no choice."

  "My father would have understood," he said, wondering if he was right. Would William King truly have understood choosing death over dismemberment?

  "Go away. Leave me be."

  He heard Jonathon's muted footsteps across the oriental carpet, waited until the door catch clicked before opening his eyes. Only then did he lift his forearm and stare into the underside of the elaborate bed canopy. He knew he'd been here for some time, but the days and nights had woven together in a mélange of light and dark, sound and silence, pain and euphoria. Now he recognized the dry mouth, the lassitude, and the depression that was a common aftermath of extended laudanum use. Pray God they haven't given me so much my body needs it.

  His toes itched. All ten of them. He wiggled them, knowing full well that only five were there to move.

  He had seen the stripes, the scars on his father's body. How many times had Papa been whipped? What had it felt like when he'd been branded? And when Mama, using a knife blade heated to red hot in a campfire, had cancelled that brand, leaving a twisted, ugly scar on his thigh, how much had that hurt?

  William King--the young escaped slave who'd called himself Weeyum--had found his solitary way almost three thousand miles across a continent, always hiding, usually hungry, and finally close to freezing to death before he reached his goal. A place where he could live free.

  Where had his courage come from?

  "Wherever it was, I can't find that place," Gabe whispered to the empty room. "Papa, I can't do this. As soon as I can find a gun, a knife, I'll end it."

  He covered his eyes again, feeling the weakness in his body as he lifted his arm. "I can't live one-legged. A cripple."

  A coward.

  * * * *

  "You're fortunate. We were able to save enough of your thigh so you can be fitted with an artificial leg."

  Gabe kept his gaze on the vista outside his window. The doctor's voice mattered less to him than the buzz of a green fly against the glass.

  "Mr. King, you can live a normal life. Losing a leg is not the end of the world."

  "How do you know?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "How many legs have you lost, doctor? Do you know what it feels like, to have your toes itch when they aren't there? To feel cramps in a calf muscle that's somewhere on a dung heap?" Gabe closed his eyes and turned his head toward the wall. "Get out."

  "Mr. King--"

  "Out!" He reached blindly to the bedside table, caught up the first object that came to hand. Threw it.

  Glass shattered and water splashed. He must have missed the doctor, because the crash was louder than if his missile had stuck flesh. "Tell Jonathon to get the hell in here."

  He kept his eyes closed, even after the door closed. Sooner or later Jonathon would have to show up. And when he did...

  * * * *

  "He wants to go home."

  "Thank God." Regina sank onto the sofa, her knees weak with relief. "I'll take him there."

  "Sorry, I should have made myself clear. He wants to go to Italy. He has a small estate in Tuscany. I thought you knew."

  She sat, her legs unable to support her. He'd never spoken of the estate as anything more than a place he stayed when he was in Italy. "Yes, he has mentioned Castello di Re, but I didn't realize he thought of it as home. His parents want him to go to them."

  "I suggested that, rather strongly. He's adamant, Regina. He won't be a burden to them. In Italy he can hire people to care for him."

  "Oh, good grief. What an absolute idiot. As if Flower and William would even for a moment consider him a burden."

  Jonathon stood and staked to the window and back. "I think it's not so much what others would consider, as what Gabe believes they would feel. I do believe he's past the suicidal stage, but he still sees himself as a burden. A cripple. The last place he will want to be is where his parents would have to care for him."

  "That's insane."

  Jonathon resumed his seat, slumping deeply into the overstuffed chair. He steepled his fingers and regarded her over the tips. "Perhaps. And perhaps not. Part of me understands. If I were in his shoes--"

  "His shoe." When he looked blank, she said, "Only one shoe." And then her mind caught up with her tongue. "Oh my God, Jonathon. What am I thinking? It's not funny. Gabe has only one leg. How will he bear it?" How could she have made a joke of it? Her eyes burned, and she blinked rapidly to hold back the tears.

  "He will bear it because he must. Gabe is no coward, and he's not one to deny the truth. In a few days or a few weeks, he'll come 'round. Give him time."

  She saw that he truly believed what he was saying. But he hadn't known Gabriel King all his life. He didn't know how important it was for Gabe to be in command of his fate. To be in control of his life.

  "I wish he'd go home first. To Cherry Vale."

  "In time he may. But for now, perhaps he's right in thinking he should go to Italy. Castello di Re has been home to him for ten
years and more. He told me once that it was the only place in the world where he could find peace and contentment without others being concerned with the color of his skin. We must pray he will find what he seeks there."

  "I guess so." She wiped the unbidden tears from her cheeks. "Jonathon? Do you think he will see me before he goes?"

  His head slowly turned from side to side. "He said again today that you should go back to America. He doesn't want to see you."

  Jonathon's tone spoke of his regret. Worse, it spoke of his pity.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The only bright note in the next week was the letter that arrived from Mr. Tomlinson. Two letters, actually, one to Regina and one to Jonathon. Hers was effusive in its praise of her care of his daughter and went a long way toward relieving her guilt. She still believed that she could have prevented their capture by keeping the girls more closely under her wing, but knowing their parents didn't blame her was balm to her battered emotions. He passed on expressions of gratitude from Pamela's parents, and a message from both girls. "They say they'll write you soon. Both of them are still talking about what a grand adventure they had."

  Thoughtfully she folded the two sheets of monogrammed stationery and slipped them into her lettercase. I suppose it does seem like a grand adventure, now that they are safely home. They simply had no idea of the danger they were in.

  "Good God!"

  She turned to see Jonathon sitting at his desk, an expression of amazement on his face.

  "What?"

  He handed her his letter from Mr. Tomlinson. "Second paragraph." There was strain in his voice.

  Again she had trouble deciphering the back-slanting script. But the words "ten thousand dollars" stood out clearly. She went back to the beginning of the paragraph and read more carefully.

  "He's giving you--"

  "The Coalition. Yes. Ten thousand dollars. And a promise to find others willing to support our fight against white slavers." Leaning back in his chair, Jonathon swiped one hand across his mouth. "Regina, that's going to make a tremendous difference. What a generous contribution."

  "I daresay he's quite fond of his daughter," she said, impressed and determined to look past Mr. Tomlinson's pomposity and bluster in the future.

  "And of you. He credits you with the fact that he still has a daughter in good health and spirits. The fact that those girls came through this whole experience with both their virtue and their spirits intact is to your credit."

  "Pooh. I did little enough. Peter and his men were the real heroes." Still, there was a warm glow of satisfaction somewhere in her middle. She had managed to keep the girls from giving way to despair, and that had been no small task when she was so close to it herself.

  * * * *

  A week after his surgery, Gabe still wouldn't see her. And he still insisted on going to Italy. He had requested that Jonathon find and hire a doctor to accompany him and remain with him until his stump was fully healed.

  "You can't let him go yet. Who will take care of him?"

  Regina, he has servants. A full staff, unless I'm mistaken. I've never been to Castello di Re, but Rob...one of our agents spent a few weeks there last year. He told me he was treated like royalty. Wouldn't have had to lift a finger if he'd chosen to be so idle."

  She strode across the room and stood in front of the shelves opposite the windows. At eye level, the books were bound in dark blue leather, with titles in gold. And in Greek, if she wasn't mistaken. "How many languages does Gabe speak?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  She turned to face Jonathon, whose brows were still drawn together in the slight frown he'd worn ever since she'd entered the library. "How many languages does Gabe speak? European languages, I mean? Besides Italian?"

  "Hmph. I don't know. His French isn't good, He may speak German, but again, probably not well. But he could pass for an Athenian or a Turk. I know he's fluent in Farsi, and perhaps in Hindi. Most of his work has been well east of here. Why?"

  "Just curious. When we were children, he picked up the Indian languages faster than anyone. Pa and Uncle William always took him along on their trading trips." She returned to the chair across the desk from him. Instead of seating herself, she leaned on its back. "Jonathon, are you sure Gabe is no longer likely to..."

  She didn't need to continue, for his face told her he'd asked himself the same question.

  He swept both hands across his face, as if wiping away a veil covering his eyes. "He...could. I want to believe he will not."

  "Then it is up to us to make sure he does not. What can we do? What can we offer him to make life worth living?"

  "You said you and he--"

  "Not any more. I don't think he'll soon forgive me for insisting that his parents be notified. I think he's convinced himself that his body would have conquered the infection if it had been given a chance."

  "And he was willing to bet his life on that belief."

  She let her chin slowly drop in a semblance of a nod. "Gabe was only severely injured once as a child. The rest of us who grew up in Cherry Vale bear scars from clashes with half-tame livestock and wild animals or from encounters with assorted sharp or abrasive objects. My brother Merlin has been in blind in one eye since he was fourteen. I don't know how many times Aunt Flower stitched one of us up, or set a bone. But the only time Gabe was ever injured, he was little more than a baby. He fell off the shed roof and broke a leg." She closed her eyes, trying to remember what she'd heard. "His right leg, I think. The same one--"

  "The same one that was shot. The same one Heureaux's goons smashed."

  "I don't know that matters so much as the fact that he never learned to deal with injury or illness. When a passing trapper brought measles to Cherry Vale, Gabe somehow didn't catch them. The rest of us spent the first year we were in civilization sick, because we'd never been exposed to all the nasty little ailments most children outgrow by the time they're ten or twelve. All except Gabe. Again, he seemed to be charmed, because he never caught the sniffles, never contracted mumps, never got laid flat with influenza. I'll bet if you were ask him, he'd claim to have never been sick a day in his life."

  "If he'd speak to me at all." Jonathon tossed the pipe he'd been playing with but had never lit on to the desk, where it skittered across and fell onto the thick oriental rug, scattering tobacco widely. "I wish--"

  A discrete knock at the door had them both turning toward it.

  "Enter," Jonathon called.

  "The mail has arrived, m'lord." The silver salver the servant held was piled high with envelopes, some of them well stuffed.

  "Put it on the desk, Egbert. Thank you."

  When they were alone again, Regina said, "I suppose we can't simply incarcerate him here."

  He replied with a short, cynical chuckle. "Oh, yes, we could. It might even work, until he suborns one of my servants or gets his hands on a pair of crutches. Gabe is not one who listens to NO."

  * * * *

  "You'll find me a difficult patient, Doctor Ferguson, if you expect me to behave as an invalid."

  "Frankly, Mr. King, I would find someone who chose to behave as an invalid a difficult patient. You I expect to be a trying patient, because you will continually attempt to do more than you should."

  Gabe couldn't stop the twitching of his lips. It was the first time he'd felt the merest twinge of amusement since... Since when? How long has it been since I've felt like laughing?

  Unbidden a face swam into his memory, a smiling face, surrounded by tangled hair the color of a summer dawn, eyes the shade of a desert sky in spring.

  A face belonging to the only person in England he'd trusted to follow his wishes. To protect him from the butchers.

  The face of betrayal.

  "When can we leave?"

  Dr. Ferguson removed his pince-nez and rubbed his eyes. "I'd like to give you another week's practice with the crutches before risking the uncertain footing on a railcar, let alone on a boat. What say you to Wednesday week?"
>
  "I say it won't come soon enough." He was sure he would manage the crutches if they left tomorrow, but he'd be trying Dr. Ferguson's patience soon enough. "Choose your battles," his papa always said. "That way you have a better chance of winnin' the ones you fights."

  As soon as they were in Italy, he was going to war.

  * * * *

  "Are you going see him off?"

  Regina couldn't resist giving Jonathon an are you insane? look. "Of course not. He thinks I'm already on my way home." Gabe had become so incensed at the idea of her staying in England in hopes of seeing him, of convincing him to return to America with her, that Peter had assured him she was all but on her way out the door.

  "Oh, yes, I'd forgotten. Regina, are you certain...?"

  She went to the window, twitched the drapery aside, Even though she knew she couldn't see the wide front steps or the curving drive that led away from the manor house, she still hungered for one last glimpse. "I've come to accept that he'll be better off in Italy. There won't be reminders...at least not of those of us who contributed to his situation. In time... In time he will heal."

  She hoped so, at least. A few days ago she had recalled something her father had said to her just-older brother. The memory had given her hope for Gabe. If only he had the same strength Merlin did.

  Pa might not have known she was tucked into the corner of the library at the big house in Boise, but even if he had, she was sure he wouldn't have minded her hearing what he'd said...

  "A man does what he has to do," Emmet Lachlan had told his son, who was still recovering from life-threatening wounds. "No matter what it costs him, he does it. And he lives with the consequences."

  "It was just a lamb, Pa."

  "And you could have let the cat have it. Trouble is, who's to say what she might have taken next, once she got the idea that pickings were good in the vale. Would you have risked Rhys? Or Iris? "She's not much bigger than a lamb."

  "Pa! 'Course not. But who's to say--"

  "A body never knows," Emmet said. "All you can do is make your choice with what you know, what you see. That cat was after a lamb, and that lamb was ours. You fought her off, and next year your ma will sew you a shirt with wool from that sheep."