by Deb Marlowe
She sat, palms stinging, in the gravel. And she cried.
* * *
Tru woke to stabbing pain in his chest and sobbing in his ear.
“He said you were dead. He said you were dead.”
He swam up through a haze, trying to reach the surface, where Callie bent over him, tears streaming down her face.
“Am I dead?” he asked thickly. Why couldn’t he remember?
That stopped the tears. She stopped doing whatever she’d been doing to his chest, which was a relief, because it hurt. She gave him a dark look. “Not yet.”
That was good. It must not be so serious, if she could resort to bitter irony.
She bent close again and the pain returned. Eventually he came awake enough to realize she was trying to rip the shirt from him. He groaned louder than the tearing sound as she succeeded.
She shook her head. “You have the damndest luck. The way you bled, it looked like you’d been shot through the heart.” It felt like she stabbed him with a hot poker when she lifted his arm, even though she was being careful. “The bullet went wide and passed through your muscle and out underneath your arm.” She tsked. “It’s going to hurt like the devil while it heals.”
It hurt like the devil now. Yet he felt strangely . . . disconnected. He watched her sit back with her hands on her knees. Vaguely, he thought about summoning the strength to sit up.
He took a sudden leap a little closer to reality. “Where’s Marstoke?”
Her face closed. “Gone.”
“And the girl?”
“The blonde, you mean?” Her expression didn’t change. “She’s sobbing her heart out in the dressing room. I locked her in there. She needs more help than I can give her right now.” She stood and headed for the door.
“Wait.” He pushed himself up on an elbow and instantly regretted it. “Where are you going?”
“For supplies.” She detoured suddenly and stopped at the bedside table to pour a glass of water. “Drink that. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
He wanted something stronger than water, damn it all. He struggled to sit up while she was gone, using his good arm to prop himself up against the bed. He heaved a sigh as he leaned back, and then another as he started to bleed again.
Callie came back, her arms full, but he focused on the bottle of brandy dangling from her fingers. “Yes, I’ll take that, if you please.”
“Take a good swig or two. There’s another, but I couldn’t carry both.” She busied herself setting out her supplies. After a moment she took the brandy back and gave him a leather strap in its place. “Here. You’ll want to bite on this.”
He eyed it with trepidation. “What are you going to do?”
“What needs done.” Grimly, she tore a strip from a linen sheet. “It’s not going to be pleasant.”
It wasn’t. But near an hour later he’d had both sides of his wound doused in fine French brandy and his left side wrapped as tight as an Egyptian mummy. The whole side burned, like he was a haunch left unturned over a high fire, but he had the start of a fine drunk going, so he hoped to care less for it, very soon.
Heaving a tired sigh, Callie shoved all of her materials out of the way and leaned back against the bed beside him. She didn’t say a word, but sat breathing deeply.
She felt warm against him. He closed his eyes and savored the feel of her. He knew there was much to discuss and more to worry about, but he thought he’d give himself a few minutes before he tackled it.
“It’s the look of him that fools you at first, isn’t it? He looks like someone’s favorite uncle. Almost affable, when he smiles and the heavy lines on his face shift. You think he’s going to be kind to you. Friendly. And then something happens and you see the truth of it in his eyes.”
He knew exactly what she was talking about.
She heaved a great sigh. “Now, my father is the opposite. He wears his sour, mean-hearted disposition all over him.” She shrugged. “At least he did, the one time I’ve seen him face to face as an adult.”
Tru got his mouth to work. “What happened?”
He didn’t think she was going to answer, she took so long about it. “My mother had passed away. Letty and I no longer had a place in the house where we’d grown up. She was working as an understudy and opera dancer and I had already begun my work with Hestia.” She closed her eyes. “I had a grand idea. I wanted to run my own house, a companion to Half Moon House. In honor of my mother, I wanted to help the girls who found themselves with child and nowhere to turn. Crescent House, I was going to call it.”
“You told him about it?”
“Yes. My mother kept that house immaculately for years. She waited on him and his guests when he was in residence. He never paid her a sou, past our room and board. Never bought me so much as a pair of shoes. My mother never stopped working. She wouldn’t use the household money to provide for us. She sold her simples and solutions to get us what we needed.” She looked at him. “Other royal by blows move in Society or they are given a position or a living. I didn’t think that a little, out of the way house was too much to ask for.”
“It wasn’t.” He thought he might have slurred his answer. But she must have understood.
“Apparently it was. He laughed at me. Told me I was a fool to think I could change anything. That he wasn’t going to let me wait hand and foot on a bunch of pregnant harlots. I was pretty enough, he said, that he might be able to find me a husband. And that would be the end of it.”
“Bloody bastard.”
“I agree. I’ve heard similar taunts over the years. Men telling me to find my place. To stop interfering in the natural order of things.” She turned away. “I thought you were different.”
That hurt nearly as much as getting shot. The edges of his vision faded and went a bit grey. He couldn’t answer. His tongue was huge and he was thirsty again, and even his good arm didn’t seem inclined to obey him.
Beside him, Callie sniffed. He turned and realized she was quietly crying again. With Herculean effort, he lifted his good hand and let it fall over hers.
Quickly, she pulled away and wiped her face. Rolling away from him, she got to her knees, and then her feet.
“Goodbye, Tru.” Just a breath, really, more than words. He wondered if he had been supposed to hear it.
“Goodbye?” he repeated dumbly.
“I’ll send Edgar back for you. I assume he’s fine, although I thought I’d sent him and that dragon-lady halfway to Rennes. She turned back up here, though.” She wiped her hands on a leftover piece of linen. “Drink the water, if you please, not the brandy. At least until Edgar gets you safely back to the inn.”
He marshaled his thoughts, pushed the grey away and pushed himself straighter. “Where are you going? And what are you talking about? Dragon-lady?” He stared at her stricken face. “What did I miss?”
“I almost killed him. Marstoke.” Her lip began to quiver. “But I missed.”
She shocked him right into clarity. “Good God, Callie. Tell me. All of it.”
She did, sitting again and growing more agitated as she talked. He listened in horror.
“And now here we are,” she said, wiping her face. “And you are not dead.”
“Here we are,” he repeated, still absorbing the blow he’d deserved and all the implications of what she’d told him. “And you can’t seem to stop crying.”
“I’ll stop now that I’m able to do something.” She spoke shortly. She started to rise again. “Which is why I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?” He struggled to his feet, made awkward by booze and blood loss. “You’re going without me?”
“Yes. I’m going after Letty. If I hurry I could still make that packet tonight.” She paused. “And you? You have an advantage. Marstoke believes you dead. Use it, if you can.”
“But, you can’t mean to leave me here?”
“I am leaving you here, Tru. It’s time. Time we went our separate ways.” She headed for the door.
“Wait. Callie.” The anger on her face stunned him, along with the resentment showing in the stiff lines of her body. “What exactly is happening here?”
She turned. “This was a mistake.” She gestured between them. “It’s over now, though. I wish you luck in the your pursuit of Marstoke.”
“A mistake?” he asked quietly. Pain, exhaustion and brandy had loosened his tongue. “What we did together, created together—was not a mistake.”
She pulled herself straight. “It was for me.”
He’d never known her to be cruel before. There was something deep going on here.
“Then I failed you.”
“Failed me?” Her laughter rang out, at home with the bitter mood of the room, before she turned and walked to the balcony door. She didn’t stare out at the woods for long. She turned to face him squarely, safe from a distance. “You didn’t fail me. You ruined me.”
Perhaps he’d gone fuzzier than he thought. “Ruined you? Nobody here knows your real name. Nobody from England knows anything of what we got up to. Not Stoneacre, not Hestia, not even—”
“Pssht.” She cut him off. “Did you ever listen to me? As if I give two damns for what people think.” She snapped her fingers. “I’m talking about what you did to me.”
At a loss, he merely stared at her.
“What am I supposed to do with myself now? With this—” She pointed to her head. “Or this—” She cupped her breasts. “Or worst of all, this?” She made a fist and thumped her chest, where her heart beat. “You’ve ruined me because you changed me. And it’s as much my fault as yours, for I allowed it. I asked for it, thinking it wouldn’t touch me. And yet, I let it happen.”
Shaking her head, she started to pace. “I shouldn’t have asked. I was fine before.”
“You were alone before.” The words came out as soft as a butterfly’s wings, and he felt as fragile.
“I’m alone now,” she snapped. “Don’t let half a bottle of French brandy tell you anything different, Lord Truitt Russell! We both knew it was at an end. And you never planned to take it any further. You know you did not, or you would have told me about Letty’s plans when you discovered them. You would not have cut me out of the only reason I came here and took part in this mess!” She opened her mouth to say more, but cut herself off and turned away.
He was grateful. There were plenty more words she could throw at him, more than enough blame to share between them. He held out a hand. “Callie, I’m sorry. It was wrong. And worse, I knew it was wrong, even as I planned it.”
Another tear slipped down her cheek. Such a small, shining drop—and yet the weight of it crushed him.
He shook his head. “I don’t know how to explain it. My feelings for you have been such a whirlwind.”
She made a harsh noise of agitation.
“When I first learned you were coming along on this mission, I was irritated. All I wanted to do was to find Marstoke, to put away my mistakes, hide from them and make them disappear, just as I’ve been doing forever. And I thought you would stand in the way. That I might never be able to look in the mirror again.”
She looked as if she might say something, but thought better of it.
“Then I got to know you a bit. I learned to respect you, to like you. And I thought, even as I feared I might never change the world’s opinion of me, that I would feel better, that it might go easier, if I started with you.”
She closed her eyes.
“And then we . . . grew closer. We shared our stories, bits of ourselves. You began to look clear-eyed and close—to really see my flaws and foibles, as you put it. I panicked. How long could it be before you discovered the awful truth? That there’s really nothing to me.” He hung his head. “Little more than doubt and uncertainty behind the shell of flippant charm, money and a good family name. I couldn’t let it happen. If you saw the truth, then everyone might.”
He swallowed and raised his head. The least he could do was to meet her gaze as he told her the sad truth. “I had to choose quickly—and I chose the path that led me closer to Marstoke—and away from you.”
“You chose poorly.” Blunt to the end. And the amusing thing was, he liked her that way. “For it led you straight to the man—and look at the result.” She waved a hand.
Wiping her eyes once more, she walked to the door, pausing to look at the splintered spot where his bullet had hit. “I wish you luck, for we’ve made things worse.” She looked back at him. “I will find Letty and free her—and then we will both find a way to start over.” She sighed. “I hope you do find Marstoke. I hope you kill him.” Her chin fell. “And I hope you find the man behind your facade—and I hope you can live with him.”
Trailing a finger along the shattered wood, she walked away.
Chapter Nineteen
I’d never seen Pearl even remotely angry before. She’d been a whore, she informed me. And her life had been a hard one, but a good one, too. She’d been careful. She’d kept control of her own destiny. Chose her protectors with care. A regular customer had set her up here and when the place closed, he’d bought it for her outright. There is a certain power, she told me, to being a whore.
--from the Journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright
Two days passed before Tru got aboard a packet bound for home. Two days in which he spent his time cleaning up the mess they’d made in St. Malo and cursing himself for a fool.
The inn had been in an uproar when he finally made it back, with Edgar’s help. Letty’s dragon-lady had roared in, hauled the still-cup-shot Penrith and Rackham out of their beds, forced them to kick in Letty’s door, and bundled the whole company of them away in a rented traveling carriage. Hours later Callie had returned, but offered no explanation. She’d only packed a few things, asked Victoire if she’d like to learn to cook in an English kitchen, taken the girl and sailed for home.
Tru was left to make explanations and calm nerves. He’d told the truth, mostly. He’d assured each of them that there would be continued employment in some capacity or another. He’d sent men looking for Nardes, and the man had been found locked in the basement of Marstoke’s main villa.
“That squat toad of a woman found me riffling through Marstoke’s papers,” the erstwhile rat catcher said with regret. “My own fault.” He shook his head and pitched in, helping Tru calm the uproar. He knew a gentle, quiet couple in the area, and he took the unhappy blonde girl to stay with them until Stoneacre could work out who she was and what to do with her. He proved a dab hand at keeping Tru’s wounds clean and bandaged too.
“You’re not really a rat catcher, are you?” Tru asked, while he was being rebound after another fiery dose of spirits to his inner and outer layers.
“I am, occasionally, among other things,” Nardes said with a shrug. “I do what Stoneacre needs done.”
Tru had found a missive from the earl waiting for him. Stoneacre had discovered that Marstoke meant to return to England and had departed right away, intent on beating the marquess there. He hadn’t been aware of the man’s detour to St. Malo.
He found out quickly, though, and both Tru and Nardes received further instructions before the sun had set on the new day. Nardes was to stay and take over the inn for the time being, and to watch for the return of any of Marstoke’s people. Tru was to get himself home as quickly as he could.
He already had tickets on the first packet to Portsmouth, and he walked a rut on the deck, according to the captain, as he paced his way across the English Channel. He smiled at the joke, ignored the pain in his side and went back to ferociously plotting the many things he was going to do and say to Callie Grant.
He was first off the slip, striding through the docks. They’d put up in the east end, amongst coastal huggers and other channel packets. He’d have to walk a ways to find transportation. He hoped like hell he could find something well sprung, because he didn’t relish the thought of being jostled in a bumpy coach all the way to London.
The crowds grew thi
cker as her neared the main docks. He pushed through the throng, then paused to make way for a crested coach to pass.
It didn’t. Instead it pulled up next to him. The window went down and a hand beckoned him. He looked down to find his brother’s crest on the door, and opened it to find Hestia Wright inside.
“Come along, Lord Truitt. We’ve no time to lose.”
He had to admit to a certain amount of nerves, but he heaved a sigh of resignation and climbed in.
She knocked on the ceiling and the coach began to move. Silence reigned for a bit while the two of them sat and observed each other.
“I’m disappointed, sir,” she said at last. Her voice lilted even when she admonished him.
“No more than I, I assure you.”
She gestured to the bench beside him. “I don’t expect the ride to be easy on your injury. Please use the pillows and blankets to make yourself comfortable.”
“You are all thoughtfulness.” He was sore—and likely to be worse if he did not take her up on her offer. With her help, a rolled blanket and a pillow propped in the corner looked to do very well, though.
“Let’s get the worst of it out of the way first, shall we?” She sat back on her bench. “I have to ask you not to present yourself at Half Moon House. She’s not ready to see you.”
“I hadn’t meant to show up on your doorstep, actually. I’m not ready, either. I have some work to do before I should see her.”
“Well, that does sound promising.” Sighing, Hestia shook her head at him. “You’ve wounded her.”
“I know.”
“The most interesting thing is, I don’t know whether to make you pay for it or to applaud you.”
“Oh, I’m paying for it,” he assured her.
She smiled. “I’ve watched them try, over the years. No one else has budged her an inch, let alone cracked her open far enough to get in a blow.”
“It was a blow,” he acknowledged. Hell, if there was anyone to confess the whole ugly truth to, it was Hestia Wright. She might just help him, for Callie’s sake. If she didn’t knock him senseless and drop him back into the Channel. “But I intend to make it up to her—every day, for all of her days.”