Gilding the Lady

by Nicole Byrd

  Then the man darted around a building and disappeared from sight.

  Swearing beneath his breath, Dominic followed, but he had enough caution to duck slightly as he rounded the corner, hoping the man was not carrying another blade.

  The air exploded.

  Fourteen

  For an instant, the blast seemed to blind him. Dominic felt the sting on his shoulder and fell back a step, then he lifted his own weapon. Even though he still blinked against the detonation of gunpowder discharged at such close range, he fired, too.

  At first he thought he had missed, then he heard, despite his ringing ears, a muffled thud as a body fell. Hoping he had not hit the heart or any vital spot, Dominic hurried forward, tucking the now useless gun into his waistband.

  The man lay chest down at the edge of the grass, one hand folded beneath his body. His face was toward the dirt, and it was too dark to make out much about him. But he was the right size and form to be the dancing tutor. . . .

  As Dominic knelt to turn the thief over and see how badly he was wounded, he heard footfalls behind him as another man ran into view.

  “There you are!”

  Dominic had twisted and raised his fists, but now he lowered them and drew a deep breath. “I have shot him, I think, but have yet to see his face. He has fired at me and thrown a blade, so he’s a dangerous bastard.”

  “Let’s see him!” Matthew Fallon said, his tone eager. “We have taken most of his men, though a couple slipped from our net.”

  He reached to turn the body, but beneath his touch, the fallen man twisted of his own volition. The arm that had been hidden rose, and it was not empty.

  “Look out!” Dominic shouted. As the gun barked, he grabbed Fallon’s arm and jerked him to the side.

  The bullet hit the captain, anyhow, and he fell back against Dominic. Dominic tried to support him, but swore again as he saw the thief jump up and take to his heels once more.

  “Damn and blast!” Dominic lowered Fallon to the ground.

  “Go after him!” the other man said.

  But as Dominic patted the wounded man’s chest, he felt the wetness of blood. He could not allow Clarissa’s brother to bleed to death in the darkness, just as he would not have abandoned one of his soldiers.

  “No, we must take you back to the house and staunch the bleeding,” he said, hearing the defeat heavy in his own voice. “There will be another time for Monsieur Meidenne.”

  But he felt the same deep chagrin that he knew Captain Fallon was experiencing. Damn and damn again! To come so close and yet lose him—

  Frowning, forcing his frustration and anger into icy resolve, Dominic helped support the captain as they slowly made their way back to the countess’s house.

  Clarissa had been unable to sleep, knowing that all the men she cared about were risking their lives for her sake. She had gone up to her room when she was bidden but had not bothered to undress. She picked up a book and tried to read, but when at length she cast the volume aside and found herself pacing up and down her bedchamber rug, she gave up and went downstairs.

  As she had suspected, Gemma was awake, too. Clarissa found her not in the drawing room but in Matthew’s study, as if closeness to her husband’s books and papers was somehow comforting during this long night of waiting.

  Gemma jerked when Clarissa appeared in the doorway, then drew a deep breath. “Oh, it is you.”

  “I’m sorry to startle you,” Clarissa told her. “I could not sleep, either.” She crossed to where Gemma sat behind the big desk and bent to hug her sister-in-law. “I suppose I’m unsettled, as well.”

  “I know,” Gemma said simply. For a moment, they shared an embrace.

  It was comforting, but still—Clarissa straightened and swore briskly for an instant, making her sister-in-law jump again. “Bloody hell, why must women be forbidden to do so much?”

  “Such as risk one’s life in the middle of the night facing a gang of murderous thieves?” Gemma’s tone was dry. “I would be happier if no one felt constrained to do such a thing.”

  “If it weren’t for me, no one would,” Clarissa pointed out, her tone grim.

  Gemma shook her head. “Not you, too! Matthew is almost drowning in his guilt, and you cannot start, as well. Sometimes we face a difficult fate; we must face it well and overcome it, that is all. Recriminations do no one any good.”

  Gemma’s tone was severe, but then, she had not exactly had an easy life, herself, Clarissa recalled. Gemma had spent years not knowing who she was and who her real family might be. Clarissa flushed at the recollection. “I’m sorry.”

  Gemma nodded in understanding. “No, I am the one who should be contrite for speaking harshly. I didn’t mean to lose my temper.” She reached out again and clasped Clarissa’s hand, and they sat for a few minutes in silence.

  Presently, Gemma suggested. “Should I wake a servant and ring for some tea?”

  “No, don’t trouble them,” Clarissa said. “They work hard; they need their sleep.”

  Gemma’s glance softened, and Clarissa looked away. When a light knock sounded at the front door, both women jumped to their feet.

  Clarissa ran more swiftly and was the first to reach and pull open the big door. She paled to see her brother, his shoulder bandaged, supported by the earl and an unknown man.

  “Oh, Matthew!”

  Behind them, Gemma gasped.

  “It is not as bad as it looks,” Lord Whitby said quickly. “We need to get him upstairs and in bed, however.”

  Gemma guided them up to the main bedchamber and supervised as her husband was put to bed. Clarissa followed and hovered in the doorway, looking away as her brother was efficiently stripped and clothed in his nightshirt.

  “He has seen a doctor and had the wound dressed,” the earl assured them, his voice as calm as always. “The villain’s bullet grazed a rib and scored his side; it could have been much worse.”

  Looking pale but composed, Gemma nodded.

  “And it would have been, except for Whitby,” Matthew told her. “He pulled me away from the villain’s line of fire. Really, it’s only a slight graze. I will be fine.”

  “If he stays in bed a few days,” the earl added. “The worst part was that he lost a good deal of blood.”

  “I will see to it,” Gemma said, clasping her husband’s hand. “Thank you, my lord, with all my heart.”

  The glance she exchanged with her husband made Clarissa’s eyes fill. She blinked against the tears and said a quick prayer of thanksgiving that both the men she cared so much for had returned safely.

  The earl sent his man back to the waiting carriage, and Clarissa had a moment to come inside and press her brother’s hand. “Thank you, Matthew,” she told him.

  He twisted restlessly against the pillows, wincing as the movement pained him. “The devil is, the man got away. But we will find him, Clarissa.”

  “I know you will. Just rest now,” she urged him. To Gemma she added, “I will see the earl out.”

  And thank him, too, she thought, although when she tried, Lord Whitby waved aside her words.

  “They are premature,” he said. “I am deeply disappointed that, although we captured four of his men, Meidenne and two other of his henchmen escaped. He was the one responsible for the attack on your brother, so that is another debt he owes us.”

  “Are you sure that it was him?” Clarissa asked.

  To her disappointment, he frowned. “I could not swear to it, I fear. The scene was dark. I never got a clear look at his face, but the shape of the man fits his height and form, from what you have told me.”

  She wrinkled her nose. They had gone down the stairs together and now she paused in the front hall. “Did he smell of pomade?”

  The earl looked at her in surprise. “Yes, in fact, now that you ask, I remember that he did. I could detect the odor in the study before he fled.”

  She nodded. “I have danced with him, and it’s impossible not to smell it. He wears so much
of it on his hair, to keep his curls in place, I suppose. I think he’s rather vain about his looks.”

  To her surprise, he took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “You are quite brilliant, Clarissa. Your quick wits will yet see us to the end of this quest.”

  Flustered, she did not know what to answer. “I think your courage and initiative have been much more significant,” she said after a moment. His touch on her hand, the soft brush of his lips—she found her heart beating fast.

  There were no servants in the hallway, and his own man had gone out to the carriage. Gemma was upstairs and unlikely to leave her husband’s side. Such a moment should not be missed.

  Clarissa stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.

  He responded with a passion equal to her own. He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him, and she threw her arms about his neck.

  His mouth was firm against hers, and the pressure only sent her blood pounding more loudly in her temples. Feeling rushed through her, a river of sensation, taking her once again to exotic and delightful territories. She returned the kiss with all the fervor inside her.

  Time seemed to have stopped. She pressed herself against the hard form of his body, the firm chest, thighs—and more! Startled for an instant, Clarissa relaxed her hold, then tightened it again. She wanted to become one with him, wanted the heat inside her to rise and consume them both, like a mythical phoenix reborn through flame. Through this growing new passion, this wonderful rush of sensation she would be reshaped, changed forever. . . .

  And still they kissed. She felt the touch of his tongue and allowed her lips to open, savoring the sensation. Her body was almost aching now, and she felt stirrings inside her that seemed to come from her deepest level of being.

  Suddenly, he pulled back, and she stared up at him in disappointment.

  “My dear, you are too innocent—I have been selfish—we cannot do this.”

  For an instant, she felt as if she had been slapped. Then she realized that the earl was breathing hard, as if he had been running. He was not unaffected, rather the opposite. Had she not felt the firmness of his body responding to her own? Nor was his expression revolted, as he could have been by her boldness.

  “Too hell with propriety,” she said. “I want—”

  “I want the best for you, and this is not the wisest choice,” he told her, his voice this time under better control. But his eyes betrayed him; the flame simmering inside them matched the fire inside her own soul. She smiled up at him.

  “Are you so sure?” she whispered, taking a step closer.

  She put out one hand to lightly touch his mouth and traced the outline of his firm lips with her fingertip.

  He drew a deep breath, and she felt the rush of air against her fingers, but to her regret, he did not weaken. He took her hand, kissed it quickly, then relinquished it. “Yes. If you do not know it, I must be resolute enough for us both.”

  Then he turned and left quickly, before she could even ask him when they would confer again about the dancing master and the gang of thieves.

  As the door shut behind him, Clarissa touched her own lips, still hungering for his contact. Sighing—she had meant to set limits, too, she remembered belatedly—she knew he was right. She had to focus on the baseless charge of murder. She still had to safeguard her life and liberty, and if her heart ended up empty—best not to think of that just now.

  The next day, Gemma called for their own physician to visit and check Matthew’s condition.

  He told the women that he found the patient doing well, on the whole.

  “Most surgeons would advise bleeding him, but since, to my mind, he suffers now not just from the shock of his wound but from the blood he has already shed, I will not, unless he becomes feverish,” the man told them. “I will return on the morrow and check on his condition.”

  He added admonitions to her brother to lie abed and drink plenty of beef broth and red wine to restore the blood he had lost. Gemma promised that she would see to it that Matthew did so.

  By the time the doctor had taken his leave, a note had come from the earl.

  It was addressed to Matthew, but Gemma took it from the footman and carried it up to their bedchamber. Clarissa followed and waited to hear the contents.

  Sitting up in bed, his arm in a sling, Matthew broke the wax seal and quickly scanned the letter. “They have had the gang members up before the magistrate at Queen Square. One of them has admitted to dealings with the late Mrs. Craigmore, but no one will confess to any connection to or knowledge of her murder.”

  Clarissa frowned, and he looked at her.

  “Do not worry, my dear. This is more evidence that you are not involved, it must be seen as such! I am almost sure that the magistrate would not now dare to bring you up on charges, when we have given him a more likely suspect.”

  “I would be happier without the ‘almost,’ ” Clarissa admitted. “And if we could produce Monsieur Meidenne for the magistrate to see.”

  Gemma nodded, but she added, “We will find him.”

  Clarissa thought of the rabbit warren of streets and alleys that made up the poorer areas of London and could not be so sanguine. But she did not wish to trouble Gemma or especially Matthew, whose expression was twisted.

  “We will,” he agreed. “I just wish I could be up and about! Drat this stupid wound—it’s really nothing. I’m sure I’m strong enough to get out of bed.”

  Gemma put one hand out to stop him. “You know what the doctor said! The earl will keep searching, my love; we will waste no time. It’s a pity that Louisa and Colin are still on their honeymoon trip. I know he would help, too, if he knew what was happening at home.”

  Matthew grumbled a little more, but his wife stood firm. Clarissa thought it better to leave them alone to argue the point, so she went downstairs to think.

  She found Miss Pomshack in the drawing-room.

  “Your poor brother,” the lady said. “I have heard the news of his injury. So much crime in London this season! It’s really dreadful. I blame the government.”

  Clarissa agreed absently and allowed the good lady to ramble on until Miss P suggested that she go to the kitchen and make up a healing tisane of her own invention for the invalid.

  Unwilling to subject her brother to Miss P’s famed, if ill-tasting, herbal remedies, Clarissa looked up. “I’m not sure that is wise, Miss Pomshack, although I know he appreciates your concern. The doctor left orders—”

  “My healing draught will only aid his recovery,” the governess declared and took herself off to the lower floors.

  She could mix it, but he didn’t have to drink it, Clarissa told herself. Her thoughts drifted to the thieves her brother and the earl had entrapped, now no doubt crammed into crowded cells with other felons, and she shivered. It could have been her, if her family had not been so determined to clear her, if she had not taken steps to help herself. . . .

  The next afternoon Gemma was upstairs with Matthew and Miss P had retired for her afternoon repose, so Clarissa was sitting alone when Lady Gabriel Sinclair was announced.

  “Oh, do come in,” Clarissa said, rising and dipping a curtsy. To the butler, she added, “Please inform Lady Gemma that we have a caller, and bring tea.”

  Lady Gabriel came in and pulled off her gloves. “I received Gemma’s note. How is your brother?”

  “He’s doing well. The physician returned this morning to see him, and he says there is no sign of infection. The injury itself was slight, thank God,” Clarissa told her. “Although I think our villainous tutor intended otherwise! But Matthew is very impatient to be back on his feet, even though he knows that Lord Whitby will continue his efforts on our behalf.”

  “Does Monsieur Meidenne know that he has been unmasked?” Lady Gabriel’s blue eyes were, as usual, bright with intelligence.

  “We’re not certain,” Clarissa admitted. “And would much like to know. He sent a note excusing himself from our lesson today, claiming an illness. Is tha
t because he knows we know he is a thief and the mastermind behind the break-ins, or does he only suspect that we might have suspicions? Or is he, in fact, not well? The earl fired at him that night, but we don’t know if the bullet hit its mark in the darkness.”

  Lady Gabriel nodded, and then greeted her friend as Gemma came into the room. They discussed the situation at length.

  “With your husband confined to bed, I think I shall have to ask Gabriel to put aside his own search until later and return to help us,” Lady Gabriel told them.

  Gemma looked torn, but then she agreed slowly. “I suppose we must, although I know how important his quest is to him.”

  And to Gemma, too, Clarissa thought, feeling a tinge of guilt. Must everyone’s life be disrupted because of her peril?

  Gemma looked over and patted her hand. “It is only a temporary setback,” she said. “Gabriel can return to Yorkshire and continue combing the North Country after we have found and have arrested our elusive tutor.”

  Clarissa nodded, but privately she wished she could be so certain of such a happy outcome.

  Lady Gabriel had news of her own, which she broached with some hesitation. “I have had a note from Lady Sealey. I sent her word yesterday that her house was safe, and that, except for a few pounds from the desk, her belongings have been recovered.”

  Clarissa waited; that news could not be why their guest looked so grave.

  “Today she summoned me to her house. She has returned early from her house party, using the robbery as an excuse, and she told me—”

  Gemma raised her brows. “What is it?”

  “The countess has heard the first glimmerings of gossip, perhaps after the arraignment yesterday of the criminals. The earl’s presence was noted in the magistrate’s court, and a few people are whispering about Clarissa. The link is not yet firmly made between the matron’s murder and any connection with Matthew’s sister, but—”

  But it might soon be. Clarissa felt her heart sink. In some ways, her reputation seemed a small thing besides her life. But if her good name were tainted, it must surely make the earl hesitate about pursuing any real connection, assuming he had any interest in her as more than a good deed he had committed himself to. She swallowed a few words of which neither of the other ladies would approve, but she knew that she had grimaced.