If the Viscount Falls

by Sabrina Jeffries

  Then a shot sounded from the house, and her heart jumped into her throat. Seconds later, a man darted from the house. He was running right toward her, so she got a good look at him.

  Samuel. Sweet Lord. Somehow he’d gotten past Victor. And he had a pistol in his hand. The blackguard had probably shot Victor, or worse, Dom! And he was getting away!

  Not on her watch, he wasn’t.

  She didn’t stop to think. As he came abreast of the carriage, she swung the door of the carriage open, directly into his path.

  It knocked him right off his feet. As he lay there, stunned, she leapt out and marched over to him. A red haze filled her vision at the thought of everything he’d done, and she dug the heel of her half boot into the wrist of the hand holding the gun. As Samuel let out a howl, she wrenched the pistol from his hand. Then she backed up and aimed it at him, praying she could pull the trigger if she had to.

  Not that she was likely to hit anything if she did; she’d never shot a firearm in her life. But he was not escaping, drat it.

  Samuel stumbled to his feet, then blanched. “Jane!”

  “Yes, it’s Jane, you . . . you . . . vile . . . horrible . . . arse!”

  “Give me the gun, Jane,” he said hoarsely, fixing his gaze on it. “You don’t want to be playing with that.”

  With her blood beating a fearful tattoo through her veins, she steadied the pistol in the general direction of his heart. Though she could think of better places to shoot him, frankly. “I’m not playing. And you’re not going anywhere.”

  Samuel lunged at her, and the pistol went off.

  Which was odd, because she couldn’t remember pulling the trigger. But she must have, because smoke came out of the end of the pistol and he cried out and dropped to the ground at her feet, grabbing his thigh.

  As Samuel rolled there, clutching at his leg and howling, Victor skidded to a halt beside him.

  “Good shot, Jane!” The grin he flashed her reminded her instantly of Max. “I saw you hit him with the carriage door, too. Excellent work. We’ll have to make you an honorary Duke’s Man.”

  “Over my dead body,” Dom growled as he ran up beside her. He tried to divest her of the pistol, but she had a death grip on it. “Let go of it, love,” he said, his tone gentler. “You got him. You’re safe now.”

  Releasing the gun to him, she began to shake. “I-I wasn’t worried about m-me; I w-was worried about you. I heard that shot and saw him with the pistol and I . . . I just knew . . . h-he’d killed . . .”

  Dom pulled her into his arms. “We’re all fine, I swear. The prizefighter who answered the door lunged at Victor with a blade when he realized what was up, and Victor shot him. The man’s inside. He’ll live.” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “Samuel was with Nancy when Tristan and I broke in the back, and he tried to use her to escape. Held that pistol to her head, then pushed her at us right before he ran out the door.”

  She stared up at him. “So . . . So Nancy is—”

  “Jane!” cried a voice from near the house, and she looked up to see her cousin following Tristan, who was shoving a bound fighter ahead of him down the steps.

  “Oh, heavens, Nancy!” Jane cried. “You’re all right!”

  Tears started in her eyes as she ran past Samuel toward her cousin. They met in a tight embrace, both of them crying and laughing and babbling all at the same time.

  Jane held Nancy at arm’s length to look her over and be sure she was okay. Her cousin was pale and dirty, with dark circles under her eyes, but she didn’t look seriously harmed. “He didn’t . . . Samuel didn’t . . . force you to . . .”

  “No,” Nancy said. “No, not that.” Her voice hardened as she gazed past Jane to where Samuel still writhed on the ground. “What happened to him?”

  Dom came up behind them. “Jane shot him.”

  “She missed his privates by only a couple of inches,” Victor said in an admiring voice.

  “A pity she didn’t hit them.” Nancy darted past Jane to stare down at Samuel with her hands planted on her hips. Then, to Jane’s shock, she kicked him in the ribs. “That’s for lying to me.” She kicked him in the knee. “And that’s for kidnapping me.”

  “Nancy, darling—” he choked out.

  “Don’t you ‘darling’ me, you worm!” She ground her heel into his wounded leg. “You held a pistol to my head, you disgusting, reprehensible—”

  “Enough,” Victor said, pulling Nancy away from Samuel. “I think he’s got the point.”

  “You bitch!” Samuel cried after her. “I could have made you a rich woman! We could have had the whole thing, you frigid little—”

  Jane kicked him herself. As a choked howl escaped him, she glared down at him. “Now, you listen to me, Samuel Barlow. Next time you come near my family, I’ll make sure I hit your privates! And furthermore—”

  “Perhaps you should take the ladies home,” Victor told Dom, “while we bring the three scoundrels to the magistrate’s and have them held until charges can be brought. I begin to think they’ll be safer with me and Tristan than with the ladies.”

  Dom chuckled. “I believe you’re right.” He slipped an arm about Jane’s waist to pull her away from Samuel. “Come on, sweeting, time to go.”

  The last thing Jane saw of Samuel before Dom helped her and Nancy into the hackney was Tristan and Victor hauling him into a massive carriage. Dom climbed up onto the box and pulled away from the house.

  And that’s when Nancy fainted.

  22

  TWO HOURS LATER, Dom sat with Jane and her uncle in the Sadler house drawing room as they waited for Max’s personal physician, Dr. Worth, to come down from Nancy’s bedchamber. The man was taking an awfully long time, which concerned Dom immensely.

  He took Jane’s hand and squeezed it, alarmed by her pallor. Ever since Nancy had fainted in the carriage, Jane had been out of her mind with worry, although Nancy had come to shortly afterward and insisted that she was all right.

  But Jane wouldn’t rest until her cousin was examined by a competent physician. So Dom had sent for Worth, knowing that he was the best. Fortunately, Sadler had acquiesced to his choice.

  “I do hope she’s all right,” Jane said for the fifth time. “She’s been through a great deal.”

  “Yes,” was all Dom could manage.

  They weren’t even sure what she’d endured. According to Jane, Nancy had claimed Samuel hadn’t assaulted her, but that was all they knew. The time spent since rescuing her had been taken up with concern for her physical well-being.

  Dom swallowed his guilt. He should have listened to Jane from the beginning, should have moved more swiftly. But he’d been so convinced that he was right. As an investigator, he should have known better. He needed to work on trying not to let his biases get the better of him, even though he wasn’t going to be returning to that business.

  Though he still wasn’t absolutely certain about that. Despite what Meredith had told Jane, he couldn’t be sure Nancy had lost the babe until he heard it from her own lips. Yes, she’d been through a great deal, but fainting was also something a pregnant woman might do if she’d been hauled from here to beyond with no care for her well-being.

  “She’ll be all right,” Sadler said, as if to convince himself, though his face looked like ashes. “My girl’s stronger than she looks.” He flashed Jane a wan smile. “Besides, she has to be. She’s got a wedding to help you plan, eh?”

  “Yes,” Jane said, with a shy smile at Dom. “And she’ll be my bridesmaid, of course.”

  At least waiting for the doctor had given Dom the chance to ask her uncle formally for Jane’s hand. To his surprise, the man had been eager to accept Dom into the family. Either he’d figured out that she would never marry Blakeborough, or he was still so stunned by the turn of events concerning his daughter that he would acquiesce to anything.

 
; Regardless, Jane would be his. Which was all Dom had ever wanted.

  Dr. Worth appeared in the doorway, and they jumped to their feet.

  “How is she?” Sadler asked. “How’s my girl?”

  Dr. Worth smiled. “She’s fine. A little rattled is all. But in time, she’ll be her usual self.”

  “And the baby?” Jane asked.

  The doctor’s smile faded. “She lost it, I’m afraid.”

  Sadler sat down abruptly, his eyes haunted. “My poor girl.”

  Dom slipped his arm about Jane’s waist. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. He meant it, too. “I’m so sorry, sweeting.”

  She gazed up at him with a forced smile. “It’s for the best,” she said, though tears shone in her eyes. “And not a great surprise.”

  With a nod, Dom glanced at Dr. Worth. “Can you tell when she lost it?”

  He had to know if Samuel had brought on the death of Nancy’s child. It could alter the charges against him considerably.

  Since Dr. Worth had done quite a bit of work for Manton’s Investigations, he apparently guessed why Dom was asking. “Given what she told me about her previous history and the bleeding she had a week ago, I’m fairly certain the babe was already gone by the time she set out on this trip.”

  “I see,” Dom said tersely. “Thank you for the information.”

  “I do believe the child was her husband’s,” Dr. Worth added. “There’s no way of being sure, of course, but given what she told me about when she stopped having her menses, she was probably four months along when she lost the child. So it was almost certainly conceived when he was alive.”

  Jane choked back a little sob. “Like the others.”

  “Yes.”

  It hit Dom suddenly that if Nancy had borne three children, he would have had nieces and nephews long before now. And George would have had an heir. It was only because of Nancy’s difficulties that Dom was even getting a chance to be viscount—to run Rathmoor Park—at all. A sobering thought.

  Sadler was staring at the doctor. “Will she . . . that is . . . can my Nancy ever . . .”

  “I don’t know. But there’s always a chance. There’s nothing obviously wrong to prevent her from bearing children.” Dr. Worth smiled kindly. “Some women simply cannot. That’s merely a fact of life.”

  “So I may never have grandchildren,” Sadler said. “I mean, assuming my girl even marries again.”

  Marries again? Good God. Dom had completely forgotten that Barlow had been aiming to be Nancy’s husband. “Can we see her?” Dom asked the doctor. “I have some questions for her, and it’s better to get the answers while they’re still fresh in her memory.”

  “Yes, you can see her,” Dr. Worth said. “Just don’t overtax her. She’ll be weak for a while from the combination of having lost the baby and then having been dragged across the country shortly thereafter. I’ll wait down here in case you have any more questions for me.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Jane said. “It’s most appreciated.”

  Dom headed for the door with Jane at his side. When Sadler remained seated, Dom paused. “Sir, are you coming?”

  Sadler shook his head. “I don’t think so. I-I just can’t bear to hear what she . . . what he . . .” He trailed off with a moan.

  “I understand.” Dom tucked Jane’s hand in the crook of his elbow and headed for the stairs.

  It was probably better that Sadler not be there. Fathers always saw their daughters as children, and the thought of something terrible happening to their little girls filled them with such guilt over not protecting them and such anger at the perpetrators of the crime that they could hardly be rational.

  But rationality was what was needed if a prosecution against Samuel were to be attempted. Assuming that it even could be attempted.

  As soon as they entered Nancy’s room, Dom couldn’t help noticing how blatantly girlish it was, with painted cupids on the ceiling, fashion dolls displayed in one corner, and pink frilly things everywhere.

  It was more the bedchamber of an immature chit than the sly deceiver he’d thought her, and once more, he wondered how he could have been so wrong about her.

  Nancy smiled wanly as Jane approached the bed. “You see? I said I was all right.”

  “Yes, dearest, you did.” Jane sat down beside Nancy and took her hand. “But the doctor says you need to rest and get better. So I’m here to make sure that you do.”

  Nancy dropped her gaze to the counterpane. “I suppose he told you that I lost the baby.”

  Jane nodded, but said nothing. Dom resisted the urge to speak. Better to let Jane handle this for the moment.

  “I was already almost sure that I had,” Nancy went on. “That’s why I hurried off to York to see a doctor.”

  “Wait—you went to York to visit a doctor?” Jane asked. “Not to see Samuel?” When Nancy blanched, Jane added, “We know about your shopping trips to York. That you always visited Samuel.”

  “Not visited,” Nancy said defensively. “Not exactly. We just shopped together.” She sighed. “Oh, Jane, what a fool I was, fancying myself in love with him. All the time he was flirting with me and professing his great affection, he was bedding my maid. And I didn’t even know it!”

  Jane patted her hand. “We talked to Meredith. She fancied herself in love with him, too. So you were both duped.”

  A hurt look crossed her face. “Yes, but Meredith knew how I felt about him. She never revealed that she was in love with him.”

  When Nancy fell silent, Dom held his breath, wondering if the woman would go on.

  Jane clearly wasn’t waiting for that. “When did Samuel start talking about marriage?” she asked bluntly.

  Nancy plaited the counterpane with her fingers. “After George died. He wrote to me about it. I mean, I didn’t go see him or anything—I couldn’t, without someone wondering about it. A grieving widow doesn’t merrily go off on shopping trips. It wouldn’t look right.”

  Nancy slanted a nervous glance at Dom. “And then Dom moved onto the estate, and you came, and I thought I was pregnant and . . . well . . . I didn’t know what to do. I was just so flattered that he asked. I took it to mean that he really was in love with me, since my dower portion is hardly enough to tempt a man.”

  “No,” Jane said dryly, “but the prospect of being stepfather to a baby viscount certainly was.”

  “He didn’t know about that!” Nancy paused. “Well, I thought he didn’t, anyway. I never told him I might be carrying George’s child.” She scowled. “Of course, that traitor Meredith did. Probably while she was letting him have his way with her. She just spilled out all my secrets to him.”

  “Which only shows how thoroughly he’d deluded her, too,” Jane said softly.

  Dom snorted. “In what way?” He couldn’t believe she was defending Meredith. Jane had already told him that Samuel had threatened the maid, but still . . .

  Jane flashed him a sad look. “She probably thought that telling him Nancy was bearing another man’s son would dampen his attraction to Nancy. Samuel has an amazing ability to disguise his mercenary streak. He presents himself as a hopeless romantic.”

  Ravenswood had said something similar, so perhaps Jane was right.

  “I thought he was in love with me,” Nancy said petulantly. “I truly did.”

  Jane let out an exasperated breath. “You knew he’d been disinherited. Didn’t that give you some pause?”

  “Yes, but . . . well . . . he told me it was all that girl’s fault. That she’d led him on and spun a tale to deceive his father and—” She grimaced. “I suppose that was all lies.”

  “To say the least,” Dom muttered. More and more, he began to see why Jane had defended the woman. Because she realized just how dim-witted her cousin could be about men.

  “You said you went to York to see a doctor about t
he baby,” Jane prodded. “Why not just use the doctor you’ve always used?”

  He had to admit that Jane was rather good at the interrogation part. Perhaps the “honorary Duke’s Man” thing wasn’t so far-fetched after all.

  Nancy thrust out her chin. “He would have gone straight to Dom with the news. I wanted . . . someone unrelated to the family.”

  Jane’s eyes narrowed on her. “But why not ask me to take you before I left? I can see why you didn’t want to involve Dom, given the sticky nature of the situation, but I wouldn’t have told him, and I could probably have found you a doctor.”

  “Yes, but . . . well . . .”

  “You also wanted to see Samuel,” Dom said cynically. “And you could hardly do that with Jane around to disapprove.”

  Nancy shrugged feebly. “I figured I would already be in York to see a doctor, anyway. And Samuel had asked me to marry him. What would be the harm in it?”

  Jane glanced at Dom and rolled her eyes heavenward. It made him wonder how often she’d had to deal with such nonsense from her cousin in the past.

  “But when he met me at the inn,” Nancy went on, “he started working on me about running away to get married. He said we’d go right to Gretna Green. I-I told him I couldn’t, that I had to speak to Papa first at least. That I had to be sure I hadn’t lost the baby . . .”

  She dropped her gaze to the counterpane again. “He got all strange then. He started asking me all these questions about the baby and why I thought I’d lost it. After I told him, he stopped talking about running off to Scotland and started saying how he knew an excellent doctor in London. That we would go there straightaway, and then go to Papa.”

  “Because he’d realized you’d probably lost the baby, given your past miscarriages,” Dom said in a hard voice. “So, before he jumped into marriage with you, he had to get you to London and make sure he had a plan in place to provide you with a child.”

  When Nancy paled and Jane glared at him, Dom realized he’d been a bit too blunt.

  “You must think me quite the fool,” Nancy mumbled.