A Dangerous Man

by Connie Brockway

  He grasped her shoulders in his big hands, gave her a little shake. His blue eyes were stark in his face. “That’s before I knew where he was going. Before I knew what he was doing. He’s an opium eater, Mercy. The Peacock’s Tail is an opium den.”

  “No!” She gasped. “Will isn’t like that. He’s not much more than a boy. He’s gotten in with a bad lot, but as soon as I—”

  “Can’t you see? You can’t do anything,” he cut in. “You never could. You aren’t to blame for your brother’s actions. Now or ever.”

  “Yes, I am.” Her head bobbed in jerks. “I wanted Will and my father to be at odds. I didn’t want them to like each other. It’s all my fault and I have to make it right.”

  “Mercy,” he whispered, brushing his knuckles against her cheek, “you were a little girl looking for approval. You give yourself too much credit. You can’t fix what you didn’t break.”

  “Oh, God, that’s rich coming from you. You’ve spent a decade trying to make reparations for your father! Trying to make it right for your sisters!”

  He didn’t recoil from the accusation. “Then we’re both wrong. Let him go, Mercy. Before you get hurt.”

  “I’m not going to get hurt.” She tried to jerk away, but his hold was too firm.

  “Will isn’t the same boy you knew, Mercy. You don’t know what he’s capable of now.”

  “You’re talking nonsense,” she said, fright making her voice strident.

  “An addict doesn’t have a conscience, he only has an insatiable animal that lives where his soul used to be. When it gets hungry, the addict can’t control it, he can only feed it, by whatever means necessary.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying.” She wanted to plug her ears, to shut her eyes, but his voice went on, cruel in its sympathy.

  “Will needs money, Mercy. Opium is expensive and the amount it takes to satisfy the animal is always growing.”

  “What the hell are you saying?” she demanded shrilly.

  “If you die, who inherits your father’s money?”

  She stared into his eyes. She could see her own face mirrored in his black irises, her mouth twisted with anguish, her lips chalky.

  He’d taken everything, her peace of mind, her body … damn him, even her heart, and he hadn’t left anything to fill the emptiness … except his sense of obligation and his bloody coronet.

  And now he was taking Will.

  She slapped him hard across the face. He didn’t even blink; he just held her with his hard, implacable gaze as she stared in horror at the red imprint of her hand on his cheek.

  “You can strike me as many times as you like. It isn’t going to make it any less true. I wish it would.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know Will.” She panted, her back stiff, her eyes glittering. “You’re lying.”

  He shook his head. “No. You’ve been shot at. You narrowly escaped a serious, perhaps even fatal, injury when your gun exploded.”

  “Accidents!” The word rang out too fast, betraying the fact that she, too, had questioned those incidents. That somewhere in some dark corner of her mind, Will’s name had risen in connection with them. Pain clouded her vision. She nearly hated him for making her admit it to herself.

  “You’ve been here ten days, Mercy,” he went on. “Ten days and two ‘accidents.’ There is no one who would benefit from your death besides your brother.”

  “Annabelle,” she whispered. “Lady Acton. Either of them would do anything to protect their precious Duke from me.”

  “Mercy, you don’t believe that,” he answered.

  “Don’t I? Why is that so much harder to accept than your assertion that my brother is a coldblooded, heartless fiend?”

  “Because Will is an addict.”

  She raked her hand through her hair, turning away from him. “I won’t believe that. I won’t believe anything you say. You’ll see. When I find him—”

  “No!” he shouted.

  “Yes!” Then the tears began, spilling from her eyes and blinding her.

  “Mercy.” He caught her damp chin between his fingers and forced it up. “Don’t try to find him.” She tried to twist away but he wouldn’t let her. His voice was low, urgent. “I’ll look. No, wait. Listen to me. I swear I’ll find him for you, bring him to you. Just do not risk yourself. Promise me. Promise!” he demanded.

  “Why should it matter to you?” she flung out.

  “Because if you are hurt, Mercy, I …” He closed his eyes and his mouth shut for an instant, barring her from seeing what his gaze held.

  “Because you’re the only one allowed to hurt me?”

  His eyes snapped open. He stared down at her, through her, and when he spoke, it was with a deadly calm. “Yes. I’m the only one,” he said, and spinning around, left as though chased by devils.

  Chapter 26

  “My heavens, Hart,” Beryl exclaimed as he pulled her into an anteroom and closed the door; “whatever is going on? I just left Annabelle. She is working herself into a conniption fit.”

  “Impossible. She doesn’t have enough real emotion in her for a pique, let alone a fit.”

  “The same has been said of you, Hart,” Beryl said. “And, like you, she has very strong emotions indeed. Occasionally she gives voice to them. Like now. She claims you’re about to ruin her by forming a mésalliance with Mercy Coltrane.”

  “I’ve asked Mercy to marry me,” he said. “Whether she’ll accept or not is another matter.”

  “Marriage?”

  “Yes, Beryl, marriage.”

  “Oh, dear.” Beryl let out a little whoosh of breath and sank onto a chair. “I’d supposed from the way Annabelle was carrying on that you’d intended to set the girl up as your mistress. But marriage …”

  “You can save the protestations for someone who is willing to listen to them. Annabelle has already made quite clear how disastrously she expects this will reflect on all of you.”

  “Oh, Hart—”

  “No,” he broke in, unwilling to listen to her beg him to reconsider. “You will listen. And then you will relay this information to Annabelle, and after that you and Henley will repair to whatever hotel Mercy is presently hieing herself off to and act as her damned chaperone whether she wants it or not!”

  “Yes, Hart.”

  “If I can convince Mercy to have me, have me she will.”

  “Do you love her, Hart?” Beryl asked.

  “Love?” Her question took him by surprise. His mouth twisted around the word.

  “Does she make you happy? Can you imagine life without her?”

  He paused and for one brief instant considered describing for her what he imagined life without Mercy would be like. But he had no words for what he envisioned and, being ever a private man, kept that imagined anguish as his own burden.

  “If you’re asking whether I can live without her, yes.” I can survive without her.

  Beryl’s brow knit. “Then why would you risk so much? Society will be severe in its judgment. Oh, certainly there are those who would accept her simply because you are the Earl of Perth, but there are those who will not.”

  “Society be damned,” he said. “If you or Fanny or Annabelle chose to attach your happiness to society’s whims and dictates, then the more fool you. I have tried to give you everything and in doing so I have robbed you of that which is ultimately invaluable. The truth.”

  She twined her fingers in her lap and he went on then, determined to tell her everything. When he was done, Beryl would have at her disposal every fact, every bit of history, that affected her, whether directly or indirectly. She could then determine her own actions.

  Mercy was right. He had been arranging his sisters’ lives, he’d made a bloody mess of it, and he was done with it.

  “First, our father did not die in a boating accident,” he began, and, once started, he spoke for over an hour.

  Mercy descended the grand staircase into the lobby of Browne
’s Hotel and restrained a surge of frustration. Beryl Wrexhall rose from her station near the door.

  “Miss Coltrane?” The tentative smile on the older woman’s dark face nearly undid Mercy’s resolve to act cool. Whatever Hart had said or done to force Beryl into shadowing her every move had been effective, she would grant him that.

  She could not leave her suite without bumping into Mrs. Wrexhall. She could not appear on the avenue without a shiny carriage, the Perth coat of arms emblazoned on its side, lurching to a stop beside her and a liveried driver leaping to her side and asking where she would like to go. She could not walk down a street without Hart himself—ridiculously and improbably attended by the maid Brenna, of all things!—pacing silently behind her.

  Hart she could, and did, ignore. Beryl with her worried and conciliatory air was beginning to trouble her conscience. It was not Beryl’s fault she’d been bullied into acting as a duenna.

  She sighed. “Mrs. Wrexhall.”

  The woman’s smile brightened so much at that scant encouragement that Mercy felt another tug of guilt.

  “Miss Coltrane, would you … could you care to take tea?” Beryl asked, pitifully eager.

  With a silent curse for Hart, who’d placed them in such an onerous position, Mercy nodded. She allowed Beryl to take her by the arm and lead her to a discreet alcove where a silver swan-necked teapot and delicate china service awaited them.

  They took their seats and Beryl poured out tea as a waiter slipped a plate of cakes and sweet breads in front of them and disappeared. For long minutes they sat in strained silence, munching and sipping and regarding each other covertly over the rims of their cups.

  “This is most unnecessary,” Mercy finally said.

  “Miss Coltrane?”

  “I don’t know what pressure Hart is using, but you really needn’t concern yourself with me.”

  Beryl gave her a gently dissenting smile. “Miss Coltrane. You are alone, unchaperoned, and possibly, from what Hart says, my future sister-in-law. It is my duty to see that you are not made the topic of conversation among polite society.”

  “I don’t give a—”

  “Exactly what Hart said you’d say. But, might I add, my duty is also my pleasure.”

  Mercy drummed her fingers on the linen-clad table. “Mrs. Wrexhall, let us be candid. I remain in England for one reason and one reason alone. To find my brother. As soon as I am successful in this I shall return to America, where I shall endeavor to forget all about London, polite society, and your brother.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Beryl’s brows dipped in consternation. “You won’t marry Hart?”

  “No. I will not. There is … no need.” She felt her face grow warm.

  “I see.” Beryl sat back in her chair and dabbed at her perfectly clean lips with a napkin. “Well, I suppose I can understand your aversion to marrying him.”

  “How perceptive of you.”

  “I mean what with him shooting you and all.…”

  Mercy gaped at her, caught completely off-guard. “You know?”

  “Oh, yes.” Beryl nodded, helping herself to another slice of bread and generously slathering it with butter. “He told me all about it. And about Father’s blackmail. And the title. Yes,” she went on in response to Mercy’s stunned expression, “it was initially rather overwhelming, but it makes sense of things I’d wondered about for years: why Hart never settled down, his isolation, his aloofness. He’s had rather a burden to carry, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Mercy snapped, unable to keep herself from responding to the unfairness of it.

  “Just imagine,” Beryl ruminated, “all those years of trying to do what was best for us and never considering himself.”

  “Apparently it’s a hard habit to break.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “He’s doing it again, with me. That is what your presence here is all about, don’t you see? Trying to make things right?”

  “Really?” Beryl tipped her head, considering her remarks. “I don’t know that I agree. I think Hart is finally doing something for himself. But then if you must hate him for having shot you—”

  “I don’t hate him for shooting me,” Mercy denied hotly, sitting forward in her chair, her hands palm flat on the table. “He saved my life.”

  Beryl raised one black brow, making Mercy immediately aware of the belligerence of her pose. She settled back and lifted her teacup to her mouth. The liquid shivered across the surface. She banged it down on its saucer, furious anyone could think Hart’s actions less than heroic.

  “Oh,” said Beryl. “Then why do you hate him, my dear?”

  When had they gone from “Miss Coltrane” to “my dear”? Mercy wondered an instant before realizing what Beryl had asked.

  “I don’t hate him,” Mercy protested. “Not at all.”

  “Oh.” Again that slightly puzzled frown. The expression was suddenly replaced by one of enlightenment. “Ah! Then it is a matter of your heart not being engaged. I understand. You cannot force an affection where there is none. Please, allow me to finish. I have to admit I was rather hoping it might be otherwise. I asked Hart if he loved you, you know.” She glanced at her.

  Mercy had stopped breathing. She couldn’t have spoken had her life been threatened. Could Hart love her?

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to hear what he said.”

  Mercy blinked.

  “I will tell you. Perhaps it might prove instructional for you in regard to some future relationship.” She smiled. “Hart said he wouldn’t know what the word meant.”

  A dark, chilling despondency settled over her thoughts. She tried to reach for her teacup but her hand refused to act. It lay limply in her lap. She could only stare, numb and despairing, at Beryl.

  “I find that rather amusing, don’t you?” Beryl continued blithely on. “I mean, here is a man who has endured things I doubt he’ll ever relate, who has sacrificed his childhood and much of his adulthood, who has struggled to give so much, saying he does not know what the word love means. You know what I think?” Beryl leaned forward confidingly.

  Mercy managed to shake her head.

  “I think Hart knows quite well how to love. I don’t think Hart knows how to be loved.” She sat back, smiling as though quite pleased with her assessment, as though it were no more than a curiosity that had plagued her and now was settled, as though what she’d said did not mean more to Mercy than any few words she’d heard in her life.

  “I mean,” Beryl went on, chattering as though they were discussing a play or a book and not a living, breathing man, “when do you suppose was the last time Hart heard the words I love you? I wonder if he ever has.…” She screwed her mouth up. “Mother was always so involved with Father: adoring him, hating him, berating him, and later mourning him. We girls had each other to bolster. But Hart …” She shook her head. “He was the eldest and a male. He was sent to school when he was eight and then he went to war. He wasn’t more than a boy when he enlisted, but he was a man when he came back.

  “As far as I know, there has never been a paramour or even a mistress who would have said those words. A shame. But then, knowing Hart, I’d imagine that purchased words would have repelled him. You know, I don’t believe Hart would know how to ask for love. I don’t believe it would ever even occur to him to ask.”

  Please, Mercy thought, please, let that be the reason he didn’t ask me about my feelings: He was afraid of my answer. For a man like Hart to have let down his guard so far he’d lost control over his emotions, his subsequent actions would have been horrifying. That could be why he hadn’t said anything to her in the library, in his bed, in her room. He’d assumed she was as appalled by his loss of control as he.

  If only she was right. The thought, having found root, took hold. If only Hart wanted her love as much as she wanted his.

  “But I’ve bored you long enough. Please, allow a fond sister to indulge her doting br
other. He wants to protect you, my dear. Is it too much to ask that I be granted your company now and again? It isn’t that much of a sacrifice, is it?”

  “No,” Mercy mumbled, shaken.

  “You’ll doubtless soon find your brother and be off.” She smiled her sweet, sad smile. “I’ve just rediscovered mine. I’d like to please him in some small way, if just for a while.”

  Hart waited in the dark interior of a hired hack and watched the front door of the brothel. It was in a very respectable, middle-class area of town, one hardly to be suspected of housing a high-priced bordello. But then, that was the greater part of its appeal.

  Already Hart had seen a judge, an alderman, and two conservative lords make use of its plain front door. He didn’t give a damn for them. He was waiting for another, the man he’d seen leaving Browne’s Hotel and had followed out of an idle curiosity that had turned into a cold anger. He settled back in the seat.

  It must be nearing midnight, he noted, his thoughts turning unerringly to Mercy. He hadn’t yet been able to keep his promise to her. Try as he had, hire as many private detectives as he had, he’d yet to find her brother. Until he did he wouldn’t be able to rest, knowing that somehow Mercy’s brother and Mercy’s accidents were connected.

  God, but he was tired, though. Three days of making sure she was never alone, never without protectors—whether himself or the men he’d hired to watch her. And, he smiled ruefully, three days of viewing her fair back.

  She treated him as though he did not exist. She refused to acknowledge him. He couldn’t blame her. He’d taken her maidenhead and then threatened her desperate illusion that her brother was still her darling, affectionate sibling. She’d clung to that illusion, he knew. She needed it to make reparations for some long-ago guilt. Well, he knew all about guilt and he knew all about atonement.

  A movement at the door of the brothel caught his attention. The man exiting looked half done, Hart noted with disgust. He lurched as he started down the icy steps, pulling his long coat closed with one fist.

  Hart left the carriage and made his way to the opposite side of the street, waiting beneath the orange glow of the gaslight until the man was within a few feet.