Damn Harry Watson. What was he up to? However, the man’s perfidy shouldn’t prevent John from stopping Bates and Stickney. The prime minister and Sidmouth were safe inside the theatre. If John attempted to get them to leave, he might miss Bates and Stickney, and God knew what kind of havoc those two might cause. So, he followed the carriages into Broad Court, where they pulled up along the south side near a young lad selling chestnuts.
David’s cronies should arrive at any time. John roved the length of the mews, looking for any sign of them. Unlike on the main street, there were no gaslights here. Darkness shadowed everything—the quietly nickering horses, the creaking carriages, the groups of coachmen huddled together chattering. The only sources of light were the chestnut-seller’s small fire and the lamps hung on the outside of the coaches.
He didn’t catch sight of his quarry until he returned to other end of the lane. Their wagon, loaded down with its perilous cargo, came to a halt behind Liverpool’s carriage.
After the two men jumped down, John slipped up beside Bates, grabbed his arm and shoved a pistol into his ribs. “Move quietly and tell Stickney to follow us.”
The two of them stepped away from the wagon and the carriages. Bates began to shake, but John gripped his arm more tightly. Finally the corporal found the courage to say, “Stickney, here!”
Stickney loped over. He broke into an easy smile when he saw John. “Mr. Donner, good evenin’. Did Cahill send you to help us?”
Bates was shaking his head violently, but Stickney took no notice until John, with a slight movement, showed him the gun.
“No, I’m here to stop you from implementing David’s deadly plot.”
Stickney’s easygoing manner disappeared, replaced in an instant by one of burgeoning dread. “We aren’t… We haven’t…”
“David has already been arrested,” John said, knowing those words would sap what courage remained in the criminal pair’s veins.
“Oh, Gawd.” Bates’s legs went out from under him.
John tried to hoist him up, but a pair of distinguished men striding urgently into Broad Court caught his eye. Liverpool and Sidmouth. What in Creation?
Momentarily surprised, John let Bates slip out of his grasp. The corporal hit the ground like a sack of flour.
John aimed the pistol at Stickney and growled, “Don’t move.”
Sidmouth and Liverpool neared their carriages. Everything would be fine if they simply left. The gunpowder was still stashed in the wagon.
A shot rang out, and Stickney grabbed his chest, crumpling to the ground beside the limp Bates.
Chaos reigned, with men shouting, ducking and scattering, but John held still and scrutinized the area, looking for the shooter.
There.
Harry Watson stood across the way, calmly raising a second pistol.
John dipped behind Liverpool’s carriage before the second shot exploded from the pistol. The ball shattered the carriage lamp, sending shards of glass hurtling through the air.
The horses hitched to Bates’s wagon bucked violently and tried to dash away, but there was nowhere to go. The front wheel caught on the rear wheel of Liverpool’s coach. The wagon tipped, hung in the balance…
John lunged forward instinctively, as if he could right it, but the wagon crashed to the ground. The horses flailed. Gunpowder cascaded out of some of the wooden boxes. Straight into the chestnut-seller’s fire.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The frightened whinnies of the horses pulled at his conscience, but John knew what he must do. As the fire spread, the boxes on the wagon would blow up one after the other in deadlier succession.
He scrambled around the front of Liverpool’s carriage and caught Sidmouth trying to climb up into it. “No!” He yanked the older man back. “Run! Back toward Bow Street.”
Sidmouth hesitated, his gaze narrowed. The prime minister, already in the carriage, stared out at them, his eyes glazed with shock.
Then one of the boxes exploded. Pieces of wood rained across the carriage like arrows from a troop of archers, and John grabbed Liverpool by the arm and pulled. “This way, sir!”
Sidmouth ran as another box burst. A stingingly sharp projectile stung John’s temple. He pushed Liverpool ahead of him, and they both ran.
Around the corner, protected by a building, John asked, “Are you all right, sir?”
“Y-yes. I—”
John whirled and took off, leaving the prime minister and a stunned Sidmouth together.
The fire blasted the gunpowder-laced boxes about every thirty seconds. Bates had been alive; Stickney probably not. But there might be others.
John turned back down Broad Court. Many of the coachmen had fled on foot; others were desperately trying to unhitch their horses and escape toward the far end of the lane. Flames turned the smoke-filled air orange. John covered his head with his arms as another box went off. The deafening explosions muted the sounds of screaming men and shrieking horses.
Plunging into the madness, John darted toward the spot where he’d left Bates and stumbled upon the lad who’d been selling chestnuts. The boy was bloody and burned but alive, so John scooped him up and ran out of the lane, handing him off to a constable who’d approached the scene.
Then he went back once again. He shrank away from another blast, ignoring the fragments of wood that assaulted him, and after a moment he looked up again and saw Bates still lying on the pavement. John reached for his arm, intent on dragging him out, when a series of detonations sent him flying off the ground.
He crashed back to earth and plummeted into darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Four
As Claire embroidered one last stitch onto the handkerchief, completing the letter J, she glanced over at the sofa for the hundredth time that hour. This time she was rewarded.
The counterpane-covered figure propped up by pillows shifted and groaned, and John’s eyelids fluttered open.
She looked to the corner of the room and nodded once at the maid sitting there. She and Mary had already agreed on their course of action for when their patient returned to consciousness, so the maid slipped out the door and Claire rushed to the end of the sofa.
“How do you feel?”
John grimaced. “As if Marden is playing his drum inside my head.”
Claire hummed sympathetically, her eyes devouring him. He was awake and alive and talking. She’d feared the worst, feared she might have lost him as she’d lost her father—before she could tell him how she felt. Not that John was anything like her father; that much she trusted now. “I imagine so. You have a large gash on your temple and a good-sized knot behind your ear.”
He reached up and fingered the white bandage wrapped around his head. His gaze slid back to her. “Why am I in your sitting room?”
“When you first arrived last night they wished to install you in your bedchamber. However, when I informed the family I would be keeping watch over you, they decided to bring you to a more public room.” She smiled, finally feeling alive again herself. “Apparently I have a reputation as a ravisher of unconscious men.”
The corners of his mouth lifted, but he didn’t fully smile.
Just then Mary returned with a tea tray. She set it on the table in front of the sofa, dropped a curtsy and left again. John watched her depart, seemingly uneasy.
Claire knew she had only a limited amount of time before their tête-à-tête was interrupted. “Would you like a cup? There is toast as well.”
“Please.” He sat up gingerly, tossing off the counterpane. Swinging his stockinged feet to the floor, he rested his unshaven face in his hands. His filthy breeches had numerous rips in them but his linen shirt was pristine; Allerton’s valet had changed it while cleaning his wounds.
Claire prepared the tea and sat next to him, holding out his cup. She couldn’t help staring at the scratches on his hands and chafing on his wrists as he accepted it. He always seemed to be injured, but he never let those injuries hinder him.
“Y
ou’re a hero,” she said, despite knowing how much he would hate the appellation. He was the hero of her heart, too, but that declaration would have to wait a few minutes longer.
He looked askance at her.
“The newspapers aren’t naming you, though.” She pulled the Times off a side table. “They are, however, vilifying a man named Harry Watson. It seems he shot at Liverpool. Was he involved with David?”
“No. He was my liaison with Sidmouth.” John sipped his tea. “He was supposed to make certain Liverpool and Sidmouth didn’t show up at the theatre, but they did anyway. I don’t believe Watson was shooting at the prime minister. That’s not in his character.”
Claire glanced at the newspaper again. “Well, it says he lured Liverpool and Sidmouth out of the theatre by telling them they were needed at an urgent meeting.”
John took a bite of the buttered toast she handed him. “Probably true. I think he altered one of my earlier reports too. I would guess he wanted to play the hero. I told him when and where the assassination was to take place. I was getting Stickney and Bates away from their wagon when Watson fired and hit Stickney. His second shot set off the gunpowder.”
Claire hesitated before recounting the rest of the newspaper article, knowing the information would upset him. But what was the point in denying it? He had been there and would suspect as much as she was going to tell him. “Bates and Stickney are dead. Two others are injured. David is in custody And”—she sighed—“Kensworth is wretched. I don’t know how he will go on.”
“I feared for him just as much as you did.” John rubbed his eyes. “Do you know where my spectacles are?”
Retrieving his spare pair from the side table, she unfolded them and slid them onto his face herself. That way he had to look at her. She stared into those blue eyes and whispered, “You must be wretched too.”
He shrugged and stared at his tea cup. “I botched the mission.”
She reached for his hand. “Don’t be ridiculous! Liverpool and Sidmouth are safe. As for David, this Watson fellow and the others, they brought their troubles on themselves.” Gently, she swiped her thumb back and forth across his knuckles. “Not that I don’t pity them, but…you and Kensworth are the innocent ones, and yet you are injured and he is inconsolable.”
Pushing his tea cup away with one hand, he snatched the other away from her. “I don’t understand why you are here. Why I am here.”
Willfully she grasped his hand again and slid to the floor, on her knees, unmindful of her skirts. His round-eyed expression almost made her giggle, but this was serious. “Because I wanted to ask you a question. John, will you m—”
“Stop! Claire, get up,” he beseeched her. “You cannot propose to me.”
“Sometimes, John” —she leaned in—“you are an astonishing prude! I most certainly can ask you, and I think it is time I did. Things have not worked out well the previous two times when you did it.” She waggled a finger at him, eyes teasing. “You, however, are full of common sense and will not be so foolish as to say no.”
Or, she hoped he wouldn’t say no. If there was anything she’d taken from their argument, from the night they’d shared, from all the time they’d spent together, it was that he loved her. She was risking everything, as he had done.
In silence he lifted her about the waist and positioned her back on the sofa. She tucked her knees up under her and leaned sideways against the velvet-cushioned back, no longer feeling quite so blithe. “Let me put the question off for a moment and tell you something. You broke my heart all those years ago, John.”
His blue eyes searched hers. “I know.” Then he let his bandaged-covered forehead come to rest against hers and whispered, “Because I broke mine too.”
Warm tears slipped down her cheeks and she was unable to speak for a moment. Finally she kissed him on the forehead and said, “No, I think I broke your heart. With my unthinking words and my romantic expectations. I thought I had grown up in the last five years, that I had put all those fanciful ideas aside. But I hadn’t. I still wanted you to be my hero and sweep me off my feet.”
“I want to be your hero.”
“Hush.” She leaned closer, taking his hand again. “You are my hero and no further action is required on your part. I love you, John. Another thing I realized—I never stopped loving you. I don’t think I ever could. You are the only man I’ve ever wanted, and I will love you no matter what you do, no matter how many times I have to tend your injuries, no matter where we’ll live or how many times you’ll have to run off—”
He squeezed her hand. “You say I talk too much?”
Very well. “Honest answer. Will you marry me?”
His eyes shone brilliantly, and his smile threatened to turn into a grin. “Yes.”
He was so beautiful. And he was hers. Grasping his shirt, she drew herself against him and kissed him. A crushing, intimate kiss that made him groan the way she liked. His arms snaked around her and, as he fell back against the pillows, she came too, stretched out against the length of him.
He broke off the kiss for a moment. “You might not want to hear this, but I think it’s a good thing we’ll have a nice long engagement. We need time, Claire. Time to court, however secretly, to get to know each other more deeply, to enjoy each other’s company.”
“This might be the only time I say this, John, but you are absolutely right. I love you, but…I’m still a little afraid.”
“I know.” He swept a loose strand of hair behind her ear and kissed her tenderly. “Our future is still uncertain. But whatever it holds, we’ll be together. I’ll find hundreds of ways to smother that little doubt in the back of your mind.”
“Hundreds?”
“Yes. For instance, I was serious about intending to stand for Parliament on my own.” He nibbled on her earlobe.
“Oh, please don’t do that for me. I’m not my mother, you’re not my father. I will be fine during your absences.” She was certain of as much, and she held his gaze. “John, you are an excellent spy, and I don’t want you to give it up. I want you to be who you want to be.”
“Ah, but I want to give it up. That is my choice entirely, and the only thing you have to do with the whole business is having to suffer my presence day in and day out.”
“I can do that.” She grinned like a fool and kissed him madly, letting herself melt against his hard body, thrilled by his rough, unshaven kiss.
The click of the door opening only registered in her mind afterwards. The dowager duchess’s gasp first brought her back to the present. Then Allerton and Emily began speaking at the same time.
Claire buried her face in John’s neck and felt him smile against her ear. “They were right. You are a ravisher of bedridden men.” Louder, he said, “No need to worry; I’ve agreed to make her the happiest of women.”
“You’ve made a good start,” Emily muttered.
“Would it be so difficult for the two of you to wed without an attendant scandal?” Allerton complained.
With John’s help Claire righted herself and sat primly on the edge of the sofa, her cheeks heated to near boiling.
“Children!” the dowager duchess reprimanded them in her best maternal voice. “It appears your brother is sufficiently recovered and in need of our felicitations.”
***
John stood long enough to embrace his mother and receive a hearty handshake from Allerton before subsiding to the sofa once again. As Claire was taken into her sister’s arms, he patted the seat next to him. “Will you sit a moment, Allerton?”
“Of course.” He flipped his tail coat up and sank heavily next to John. “I cannot believe you didn’t tell me you were trying to stop the prime minister’s assassination.”
John’s head still pounded, but he had things to say. “I appreciate, Allerton, more than you can imagine, your taking on the role of father for me all those years. It must have been trying for you since you had lost Father as well. However, I’m grown now and I have my own life. My own.
I’ve made my way in the world and I will continue to do so, as I see fit.” He turned to look at Allerton. “What I need now is a brother. Someone to confide in. Someone with whom to discuss the issues of Parliament. Someone to mock my choice of waistcoat. I—”
“You want me to stop telling you what to do?” Allerton asked, black eyebrows rising.
“Well, yes.” John grinned. “You can always start in on Marden, you know. He is your son.”
Allerton looped an arm around his shoulder. “I’ll do my best, brother.”
“Even if I’m a Whig?”
“Yes,” his brother answered on sigh. “You may even try to bring me round to your side before you take your arguments to Parliament, though you shan’t succeed.”
“Emily, Allerton…I think we’d best let John rest.” John’s mother fussed over him, settling the pillows behind his back and adjusting his bandage. “There. Now, Claire, do be mindful of his injuries.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Her words were polite enough, but John noticed she hurried everyone out of the room and closed the door firmly.
“Lady Claire,” he said when they were alone. “I don’t believe I’ve told you I love you. At least not today.”
She rushed back to the sofa and sat on the edge. “I know it anyway.”
He took her hand. “May I ask you a question?”
“By all means, but I’m afraid I’m already betrothed,” she joked.
“Honest answer,” he made her promise. He tugged on her hand, and she fell against his chest. “May I kiss you?”
“Anywhere you wish, sir.”
Epilogue
Four months later
John hurried through the sweltering corridors of Bellemere. August had swept in on a hot westerly wind, turning his brother’s Hertfordshire estate into one huge greenhouse. He prayed the weather would break before the wedding.
His destination now was any place outside in the shade. He meant to recline against a tree trunk, with Claire by his side, and read the novel Emma to her. If he could bestir himself, he might even pick her a posy of wildflowers. For the time being, it was pleasant to have absolutely nothing to do.
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