She had almost continued straight onto Northgate, following the four figures who were talking and laughing and making no attempt to conceal their presence on the street. But then she had spied Aidan—mist or no, she would recognize the cut of his figure anywhere—slipping from the shelter of a doorway and rounding the corner toward Pulteney Bridge.
She could not see his quarry, but she knew he would not be wasting his time, as she had almost done, pursuing the wrong suspects. If she could only creep close enough to observe the evidence he managed to gather. He, of course, need never be the wiser. If he knew what she was doing, he would undoubtedly send her straight back to the Guildhall.
She lost sight of him in the swirls of fog. Up ahead, a man’s voice drifted on a wisp of breeze. “Spare a shilling, mate?”
The rasp of that voice chilled her through, and goose bumps swept her back. Sharp with defiance, Aidan’s reply followed. The first voice came again, spilling words of murderous intent thinly veiled in amusement.
She could not see the men, but she heard a series of thuds and grunts that twisted her stomach in knots of dread. Breaking into a run, she struggled to open her reticule. In her haste she nearly dropped the beaded purse, then managed to tug it wide. She shoved a hand inside, rummaging to the bottom.
Aidan’s shout of pain filled her with a terror that nearly immobilized her. She only just managed to close her shaking fingers around the item she sought, the gift Victoria had given her back in London, on the night she had appealed to Laurel for help.
Raising the sleek silver percussion pistol, she fired high into the air.
From within a haze of pain, Aidan felt his shoulders being tugged from the pavement. A moment ago the report of a gun had pierced his eardrums.
Had the bloody bastards shot him?
God, it felt like it. Every muscle in his body, every limb, and every rib shrieked in pain. He wished they would leave him to die in peace, wished they would cease pulling and pushing at him. He supposed they were harvesting everything of value on his person before they let the rushing river current erase the evidence of their crime.
He suffered bone-shuddering misery when he was unceremoniously rolled onto his back. But when he expected a pair of rough hands to grab him beneath the shoulders in preparation of hauling him over the bank, cool, petal-soft fingertips swept across his brow instead.
“Aidan . . . Aidan? Oh, please, can you hear me? Be alive. Oh, God, please let him be alive.”
A gentle weight pressed against his chest, followed by a butterfly’s touch against his throat. A soothing, flowery scent mingled with the metallic taste of blood at the back of his throat.
“Laurel?” Her name came as a croak. He swallowed and drew a painful breath. “Go. Not safe. They . . . may . . . be back.”
“They ran away. But don’t speak. I’ll . . . I’ll go and find help.”
He raised a hand, closing his fingers around the first thing within reach—a fold of her dress, he thought. “Stay. Have I . . . been shot? Do you see—”
“No,” she insisted before he could finish the thought. “It was my gun you heard. I fired into the air and frightened them off.”
What? A gun, in Laurel’s possession? No, he was delirious. “Help me up,” he said.
“Do you think you should?” She sounded desperate, distraught. He must look ruinous.
Releasing whatever fabric he’d latched on to, he tried again and this time grasped her arm. She in turn managed to get a firm grip on him. She let him use her for leverage as he sat up. He tried but couldn’t quite suppress the groan that accompanied his effort. Releasing her, he dropped his head into his hands.
“You need a doctor.”
He shook his head and reached for her again. No matter her reassurances that the fiends had run off, he wanted her gone from there straightaway. “Help me to my feet.”
She got her own feet beneath her and encircled him with her arms. “This is foolish.”
“Can’t . . .” A stab to his side momentarily cut off his words. “Can’t sit here all night.”
But when she attempted to help him up, a realization held him immobile where he sat. He regarded his hand, then felt inside his coat.
“My ring.” The faceted sapphire on his smallest finger flashed darkly in the lamplight. “My watch.” He tapped the fob across his waistcoat, then felt for his diamond cravat pin. “They didn’t steal them.”
“No, I told you, I frightened them away before they had time to pilfer anything.”
That might have been true, yet another theory came to mind: that they weren’t thieves at all, but hirelings charged with guarding the entrance to the boat slip . . . employed, perhaps, by the men Aidan had followed there.
The next minutes were a blur of fog and darkness, of the sudden glare of streetlamps, of leaning his weight on Laurel, an arm slung across her shoulders, and attempting to walk a straight line.
At times nearby voices sent his thoughts swimming in panic. Had his attackers returned? But even as his pulse threatened to pound through his wrists, she whispered assurances.
“Only people on their way to their next engagement, and they appear more in their cups than you do. I doubt very much they’ll remember us.”
Her observation made him laugh in spite of himself, an act made regrettable by the spear apparently twisting in his left side.
God, how he hated broken ribs.
“We’re here. Hold on to this while I fetch the key from my purse.” Her arms slipped from around him, and she guided his hands to the cold length of an iron railing.
His surroundings whirled in his vision, a kaleidoscope of creamy building fronts, a bright red door, and the rattling, night-blackened reach of a sizable oak. They all seemed familiar. . . . “Where are we?”
Her arm returned to his waist. “Abbey Green. My lodging house. Be very quiet. If anyone happens to see us, you are my brother newly arrived from Fernhurst. And perhaps we should say you have been in a carriage accident.”
“I feel as though a carriage ran me over.”
“Shh. Steady, now. Mind the steps.”
Minutes later, his body bathed in icy sweat from the effort of mounting the stairs to her room, he collapsed across her featherbed. His eyes fell closed. He must have slipped into an immediate doze, for the next thing he knew, a cool, moist cloth draped his brow. Another dabbed at his lip, and Laurel’s sweet scent surrounded him with the comforting knowledge that he had survived, that he had not merely dreamed of her coming to his rescue.
“You saved me,” he murmured.
He heard a soft chuckle. She continued pressing the cool compress to his lips and cheeks; her warm fingertips grazed his skin.
He risked the pain of a smile. “I like that.”
He drifted off again, and was awakened suddenly by a nudge at his shoulder and the whisper of his name. “I have to leave for a while.”
No. Not safe out there. Realizing he had only thought the words, he tried again. “You can’t . . .”
“I must. Melinda will be frantic if I don’t return to the Guildhall, and it is only a few minutes’ walk from here. Besides, I must see that Dr. Bailey is summoned.”
He caught her hand. “No doctor. Tell no one what happened.”
“But—”
“I’ll speak to Melinda myself when I see her. No one else must know what happened.”
She shook her head, her beautiful face hovering temptingly close. If only his own face didn’t hurt so devilishly. “I don’t understand,” she said.
He smiled again, feeling the sting where his bottom lip was split. “Yellow dress, remember?”
Wariness and exasperation warred across her features. Yes, that yellow dress she wore last summer had become a sort of code between them: Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies. It meant they both harbored secrets neither was willing to divulge.
He couldn’t be certain, but he believed she swore at him under her breath. Conversely, she laid her palm eve
r so gently against his cheek. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Laurel awoke to the prod of dawn through the diamond-paned window beside her and the startling proof that nothing about last night had been a dream.
Aidan lay sprawled faceup in the middle of her bed, his soft snores filling her with an odd sense of contentment. When she had returned from the Guildhall last night, she had managed to remove his coat, collar, neckcloth, and shoes and covered him with the counterpane. He had awakened only briefly to catch her wrist and hold it to his lips before tumbling back into a deep slumber.
Rising from the overstuffed chair in which she had slept, she tiptoed across the room to lean over him. She had expected his face to be a mass of welts, but to her surprise, the bruising appeared minimal. A relieved sigh escaped her at the confirmation that his nose had not been broken, that it remained as firm and straight as ever. Purple shadows stretched across a cheek and beneath one eye, and a swelling protruded above his left temple. A bit of a gouge marred his bottom lip, but with the dried blood wiped away it wouldn’t be terribly noticeable.
Of course, that didn’t account for all his injuries, and she could only imagine the wounds hiding beneath his shirt. The very notion caused a stirring inside her. The counterpane had fallen to his waist, and unable to resist, she grasped the open neckline of his shirt between two fingers. Gently she lifted the garment and angled a peek lengthwise down his torso.
Her breath quavered. His chest was replete with rugged, rippling planes and hollows, a sprinkling of dark hair, and—goodness—two dusky spheres rather like her own, yet nothing at all like her own.
“By that look on your face, my dear, I assume I’ve passed muster?”
With a cry, Laurel released his shirt as though it were made of hot coals instead of linen. “You might have warned me you were awake.”
“You might have warned me you were a Peeping Tom.”
“I most certainly am not! I was merely inspecting your injuries for infection.”
His grin, however shaky, said he didn’t believe a word of it.
Laurel couldn’t suppress a rueful smile, either. “How are you feeling?”
“I believe ‘like hell’ fairly well sums it up. How do I look?”
“Not quite like hell. Like purgatory, perhaps.”
He chuckled, a sound cut short by a wince. “I suppose I should send my apologies to Melinda rather than have her see me like this. She had invited us to luncheon, remember? God, how long ago that seems now. Tell me, what happened when you returned to the Guildhall?”
“I made it back during the intermission, and a good thing, too. Melinda had been about to send a brigade out to search for me. I apologized and pleaded an unsettled stomach, whereupon she sent me home in her carriage.”
“While you were there, did you notice the return of Fitz or Rousseau, or any of the others who slipped out early?”
She shook her head. “No, and when I remarked on their disappearance to Melinda and Lady Devonlea, their utter lack of concern seemed highly curious to me. Oh, I know gentlemen typically find those sorts of affairs a dreadful bore and are likely to make an escape, but the ladies seemed to want to change the subject as quickly as possible. Aidan, what is this all about? Has it anything to do with the Summit Pavilion? And what prompted you of all people to follow them?”
“Me ‘of all people’?” He raised his eyebrows in a show of innocence.
“Yes, you,” she insisted. “What is your interest in their actions?”
“I could ask you the same. Do you wish to explain your inclination to follow me, not once now, but twice?”
Oh. Drat him for turning her inquisitiveness around on her like that. “No,” she said, then attempted to turn the tables again. “Do you wish to explain why you went to Avon Street in disguise the other day?”
“No. Do you wish to tell me why you wore yellow when you should have been in black?”
She threw up her hands. “That again.”
“Yes, the impasse we cannot seem to breach.”
They glared at each other. With a groan, Aidan pushed up higher onto the pillows. He grasped her hand and gave it a light tug. “Sit. Please.”
Wary, she perched at the edge of the bed.
“Truce?”
She narrowed her eyes.
He destroyed her composure utterly by pressing her hand to his lips, then turning it over and nuzzling her palm. His lips were warm and moist and softly persuasive, with the power to make her fall into his arms and tell him everything he wanted to know.
Almost.
The touch of those lips also delivered a sobering dose of reality. She had secreted a man in her room all night long, a man presently lying in a scandalous state of undress in her bed, with her sitting close beside him. True, she had exchanged her evening gown for a muslin day dress rather than a nightshift, but that would not prevent tongues from wagging should they be discovered. Somehow, she must find a way to convey him away from Abbey Green without anyone seeing. She must. . . .
His tongue swirled over the tip of her middle finger, sending a tingling wave of heat up her arm.
Then, abruptly, he froze, his mouth stilling over her finger. His eyebrows knotted as he breathed in through his nose.
His gaze rose to meet hers. “Powder. I can smell the traces of it. You fired the gun that drove off my attackers.”
“Yes, I explained that last night.” Laurel pulled her hand away and gripped it with the other in her lap.
“You mentioned it, but you explained nothing.” He sat up straighter, until his considerably taller frame loomed over hers. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me why a lady feels the need to carry a lethal weapon?”
“No.” She got up from the bed and retreated to the window, only to hear him in halting pursuit behind her. Although his infirmities slowed him down, by the time she turned around, he was there, inches away.
“I’m afraid denials will no longer do, Laurel.” A strange menace rode his murmur and sent a ripple of warning down her back. “The stakes have become dangerous.”
“Aidan, I—”
“No more lies.” He reached toward her, but his arm dropped as a grimace claimed his features. Laurel gripped his shoulders and guided him into the chair.
“You aren’t well. I wish you would allow me to send for Dr. Bailey.”
“There isn’t much a physician can do for bruises and a broken rib.”
“What about the authorities? Will you report the attack?”
To this, too, he gave an adamant shake of his head. “They’ll call me a fool for wandering along the riverbank alone at night. And they would be correct.”
“So the events must remain cloaked in secrecy.”
“Indeed they must.” Without warning and with surprising strength considering his condition, he spanned her waist with his hands and pulled her down onto his lap. He winced again. Between gritted teeth he said, “I hereby swear you to secrecy.”
“Oh, but I’m hurting you.” She started to stand up, but he wrapped his arms around her. As though she were balm for his injuries, he held her in place and leaned his forehead against hers.
“Will you swear?”
In his condition, how could she deny him anything?
“Of course, if you wish it. I swear.” Reaching her arms around him, she held him close and gently rocked him as she had once rocked her sisters.
But no, this was vastly different. Mingling with the heat of the rising sun against the windowpanes, the heat of their contact filled her with contentment edged with a sensual promise . . . a promise to be kept once he had recovered. For now, however, this closeness was enough. It made her happy as she had never dreamed possible.
Outside, only the birds twittering in the massive oak broke the silence of Abbey Square. From the streets beyond the square came the thumps and jangles of shops opening for business. Laurel wished the city would never awaken, never intrude upon their quiet, pleasurable companionship. She w
ished she could remain in the circle of Aidan’s arms, against his formidable chest, forever.
I believe I am beginning to love him.
Aidan’s head came up, his eyes holding her in their indigo depths, his generous lips parting. “What’s wrong? Why did you just flinch?”
“Did I?” She knew she had. Heaven help her, she was tumbling irrevocably in love with the Earl of Barensforth, and the knowledge shook her to the core.
It was knowledge she would hold close to her heart, to hoard and protect as she did all her other secrets. Though Aidan might not be the rake Victoria had warned her of, and while she believed he desired her, love was another matter entirely, one wrapped in vulnerability and uncertainty. She could afford none of those risks, at least not until she had fulfilled her promise to Victoria.
Seizing upon a change of subject, she said, “About today’s luncheon with Melinda. You had something important to speak to us about. Do you wish to tell me what it was?”
His shoulders bunched beneath her hands, and his expression turned somber. “The elixir, Laurel. I believe it is dangerous, capable of making people do things they ordinarily wouldn’t. And shouldn’t.”
A blaze climbed to her cheeks at the memory of their carriage ride following the picnic. A sinking dismay filled her that he would attribute their passion to unnatural influences, rather than mutual desire. No outside force could have propelled her into his arms if she hadn’t wished to be there.
He, apparently, believed differently. Thank goodness, then, that she had given no hint of the direction her thoughts had taken moments ago.
Breaking free of his arms, she slipped from his lap. She began pacing the room, pretending to tidy up by opening drawers needlessly and shutting them again. All the while, she fought a quelling disappointment that pinched her throat. “And to what properties do you attribute our untoward behavior?”
She felt his gaze upon her. “Are you angry? I thought you would be relieved to discover there was a cause, and that we hadn’t simply lost our heads.”
“Relieved. Yes. Wildly so.” She slammed a cupboard door. The sharp sound fractured the tension that had built up in the room and made her realize how absurd she was being. The tidings Aidan had imparted were vital in nature and deserved her focus.
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