by C. J. Chase
“Now give me the orders, Somershurst.”
Kit tensed as he heard, nay, felt someone moving across the dark orlop deck.
Friend or foe?
He glanced at Julian, then at Baxter. His brother’s eyes flickered, then stilled again.
“Mattie?” A small, dark head slid around the doorway. Nicky.
Mattie’s breath caught in her throat. She stared at the door where Nicky stood. London’s finest pickpocket. The little boy who’d stolen her heart.
Baxter spun around, pistol winking malevolently.
“Nicky, move!” a voice screamed. Her voice.
Nicky froze.
A flash of movement swirled next to her. Then Julian, Viscount Somershurst, crashed into Baxter at the moment a pistol shot—nay, two pistol shots—exploded in the small space.
Bodies ricocheted against the ship’s hull and thudded against the wooden deck. The stench of gunpowder bombarded the small space and stung her eyes.
“Jules!” Kit dropped his still-smoking pistol and lunged to his knees, allowing Mattie an unimpeded view of the writhing limbs and spurting blood where Somershurst and Baxter lay tangled on the deck. He touched the inert form of his brother. “Jules?”
Somershurst’s eyes flickered, then focused on Kit. “Just a flesh wound.”
Mattie’s legs folded and she sank to the floor beside the men. “Let me see it.”
“Mattie,” Kit warned. “Stay back.”
Too late. She had already seen the cavern where Kit’s bullet had tunneled into Baxter’s chest. An expanding circle of crimson saturated the clerk’s once-white shirt. The bright red blood gushed across the deck and polluted the air with its acrid metallic odor.
Somershurst’s groan ripped Mattie’s gaze from Baxter’s sightless eyes to Kit’s brother. The feeble lantern light emphasized his pallor. He pressed a hand against his upper arm, but the blood flowed freely between his fingers. Blood from the bullet Baxter had meant for her, from the bullet Kit had intended to take for her.
She retrieved her handkerchief from her pocket and brushed Somershurst’s bloodstained fingers away. “Let me.” She pushed the cloth against his wound.
A whisper of a smile tweaked his pale lips and one pain-filled eye winked at her. “I’ll warrant you never thought you’d patch me up after a bullet wound, Miss Fraser.”
“I have a soft spot for fools who are crazy enough to charge an armed man.”
“Yes, well, remind me to duck lower next time.” He glanced at Baxter’s lifeless form. “By the way, good shot, Kit.”
“Of course it was a good shot.” The unfamiliar voice floated to them from the carpenter’s-walk entrance. Muffled footsteps eased across the deck, then a fourth man joined them in the narrow passageway. “I taught DeChambelle everything he knows.”
The sloshing in Kit’s stomach intensified. He rose and shielded Mattie as he stared at Alderston. His old mentor’s arm wrapped around Nicky, the deadly end of a pistol pressed against the boy’s temple.
Kit had feared it would come to this the minute he’d seen Baxter. Alderston wouldn’t leave to chance a situation of this magnitude.
“I guess Baxter’s failure means you can’t slip away, leaving another with the bloody hands.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Alderston said.
“But you will.”
“Only if I have to. Now step aside.”
“You can’t shoot the boy, Alderston.” But Alderston would. Even as Kit gave voice to the denials, his heart recognized the ruthlessness—the frightening absence of compassion—in his mentor’s eyes. Alderston’s single-minded devotion would dare anything. To think, Kit had at one time admired such dedication—until it had nearly robbed him of his humanity.
“He’s only a street urchin, Kit.”
“But he’s one of ours, not French or American.”
“I don’t want to shoot the boy, but it isn’t my decision. Miss Fraser? Which is it to be? You or the boy?”
“Don’t move, Mattie.” Kit kept his gaze glued on his former idol. “He can’t kill us all.”
“How do you know I didn’t bring an army, DeChambelle?”
“Because every additional person increases the likelihood that some rumor escapes your control and finds its way to our enemies.”
Alderston’s lips curled in a deadly smile as he cocked the pistol. “Miss Fraser?” He tightened his arm around the boy with enough force to squeeze out Nicky’s stoicism and force him to gasp in pain.
“Stop!” With a sob Mattie slid to the side, out from behind Kit, her fingers stained with Julian’s blood.
Alderston’s grip on Nicky relaxed. He leveled the pistol at Mattie’s heart, just as Kit’s own stuttered to a halt. If only—
Nicky whipped out a knife and slashed. His indiscriminate attack—more desperation than design—sliced down Alderston’s cheek like a trail of red tears. Alderston’s roar echoed off the hull, then broke off, buried beneath an explosion of gunshot.
“No!” Kit whirled, heart racing and stomach heaving. “Mattie!”
But she just stood there, eyes blankly staring at some frightening apparition behind him. Kit glanced over his shoulder as Alderston slumped to the deck, a stain of scarlet blooming in the middle of his chest.
“Sorry, Kit.” Julian’s reedy voice whispered from the deck. “Know the man was a friend of yours.”
Kit sank again to his knees beside his brother. A curl of smoke yet wafted from the barrel of Julian’s pistol—the one he’d thrown to the deck on Baxter’s order. The same blood that coated Julian’s hands now stained the gun’s stock. Love for this brother welled in Kit’s eyes, in his soul. “Thank you. As you said, he’d been a friend. I don’t know—”
“Some things a man shouldn’t have to find out.”
Kit gently removed Julian’s coat, then disentangled the cravat from his brother’s neck and pushed aside his shirt. “Looks like the bullet went through the muscle. So far as I can tell, it didn’t hit the bone, so it didn’t lodge in your arm.”
“Just a scratch.”
“An ugly one. You need a surgeon, Jules.” He folded the cravat and flattened it against the wound.
“Mattie.” Nicky’s voice was little more than a whisper but it screamed in Mattie’s conscience.
She leaped from the deck and ran to him. She wrapped her arms around him, his face crushed against her shoulder. His small body shuddered with his sobs.
“Shh, Nicky. It’s over,” she whispered against his head.
“I—” he hiccuped. “I was so scared for ye, Mattie.”
“But you acted with courage despite your fear. That’s bravery.” She stroked his hair, dark against the pale skin of her fingers.
“Put me down, Mattie.” He squirmed again and she surrendered to his desire for independence. He pointed to Baxter’s prone form. “That’s the bloke what threw me in gaol.”
“Him? But … why?” She looked to Kit for confirmation.
“Nicky saw Fitzgerald’s body, remember? Baxter may have feared he witnessed more than that.”
“You mean, Fitzgerald’s murder?”
“Baxter went to great pains to hide the evidence. No doubt Alderston didn’t want Fitzgerald’s family inquiring into his death so long as the orders were still missing. Now, let’s get Julian out of here.”
“I’ll check for the carriage, gov’na.” Nicky’s words were strong, despite the absence of his usual cockiness. He stepped over Alderston’s prostrate body and slipped out of the narrow passageway.
“Can you walk?” Kit asked his brother.
“It’s my arm, not my leg, Kit. Of course I can walk.” Julian pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly. Once he’d secured his balance, he glanced again at the orders still clutched in his fist. “Technically, these belong to our government. Do you want to give them to the Regent?”
“No. He gave up that consideration when he ordered Alderston to kill Mattie.”
Julian nodded. “Thought so.
” He made his way up the ladder that led to the upper decks.
Kit motioned to Mattie and she climbed toward the fresher air above. Julian might claim his legs were fine, but her feet trembled as she placed one after the other on the rungs.
Once at the carriage, Kit helped the three of them—Julian, Nicky and her—into the cab, then snapped the door shut.
“Kit?” Mattie said.
But he looked past her to his brother, his mouth set in a grim line. “I’ve got some final business.”
Somershurst’s lips thinned. “You needn’t wish him well on my regard.”
“You will find a secure location for those orders?”
“I’ve even less desire than the Regent for their existence to be known. But I will if I must. The scandal at their disclosure will hardly fall on my shoulders alone. After all, I was merely the courier, not their author. Remind him of that for me, will you?”
“I’ll see he gets the message.” Kit stepped back, and the carriage lurched forward.
Tense silence hung between Mattie and the man in the rear-facing seat for several awkward moments.
“Now what happens?” she asked at last.
“Uti possidetis, Miss Fraser—each side keeps what it holds. Kit and I keep the orders and our silence, and our government leaves us in peace. It behooves no one to disturb the balance. And so, Miss Fraser, we are at what chess players term a stalemate.”
She glanced at the orders in his hand. Blood ran down his arm and stained the parchment. “Would you really publish the existence of those orders?” For her?
“I don’t wish to, but I will if I must.” His lips thinned with grim determination.
Publishing those orders would forever tarnish his reputation, and by extension his family’s, but Somershurst had already proved he would go to great lengths to protect those dear to him. If she needed confirmation about the rightness of her decision to leave, she read it in his hard, weary eyes. After all, Alderston had claimed she was the threat. With her gone, perhaps the DeChambelles could live in peace. “Can you get me a ship?”
“A ship, Miss Fraser?”
“To America. I’m afraid I can’t pay you immediately, but I will reimburse you in time.” Eventually.
The carriage bounced across a rut. Somershurst’s face paled and his mouth tightened with the pain of the jolt. “Have you spoken to Kit?”
“It’s the right thing to do, considering all that has happened.” A lump lodged in her throat, one that would remain a very long time. She prayed her new faith would give her strength and peace in the months and years ahead. “Kit will live in constant fear for me so long as I remain.”
“Perhaps having a purpose for one’s life is no very bad thing.” Did he speak of Kit? Or himself?
“He needs to find that purpose for himself, without me.” Like she had. “I’m only human. I cannot be his savior.”
Silence thickened in the carriage like the heavy fog outside the windows that shrouded them from the city. “Very well, Miss Fraser. When do you wish to leave?”
“Soon. Preferably the next ship leaving for America.”
“If ye is going to America, Mattie, I want to come, too.”
Dear, precious Nicky. “But Lord Chambelston promised you a position—”
“No.” His lower lip protruded stubbornly. “I don’t want a position. I want ye, Mattie.”
Warmth filled her aching heart. She didn’t know how she would support herself, let alone a small boy, but if he was threatening to return to his life on the streets … “Very well. Lord Somershurst, can you procure us two passages to America as quickly as possible?”
“You give precious little consideration to an injured man, Miss Fraser.”
“Oh. Yes, I’m sorry. I—”
“Never mind. I will send out inquiries immediately when we arrive, before the surgeon has a chance to thread his needle. But I wish you would speak to Kit before you make your final decision.”
“I’ve already made my final decision. But if I promise to let him know, will you give me your word you’ll not interfere?”
“My word? After what lies between us, you want my word?” His brows arched above impassive blue eyes. “Very well, Miss Fraser, I give you my word that I will not be the instrument of Kit’s further misery.”
Kit paused by a streetlamp and perused the note again—somewhat unnecessarily as the words were already engraved on his heart. Mattie’s words. Words of heartfelt simplicity and heartbreaking finality.
Dawn had begun to blush above the roofs of nearby tenements and the light fog had already started to lift, unlike the clouds in his head that darkened all thoughts but despair. Alderston was dead and Mattie was leaving. Kit had arrived home after his late-night meeting with the Regent to find the note in his room. Mattie’s farewell.
An unsettling quiet filled the streets and exacerbated Kit’s feeling of solitude. The vices that thrived by night had retreated, yet few of the workers and tradesmen had thus far ventured forth to begin their day’s toils.
Despite the early hour, the happy racket of waking children reverberated through the walls of the Harrisons’ new home. Loneliness coiled through Kit at this reminder of all he was about to lose. And yet for the first time in long months he no longer wished to forget. He wanted to remember.
He refolded the note and gathered the courage to walk to Harrison’s door. And to knock.
The door swung open to reveal Harrison’s befuddled face. “DeChambelle? Is something wrong?” Yesterday’s stubble still shadowed his jaw and spikes of his sleep-tangled hair projected in all directions.
“Alderston’s dead.” And Mattie was leaving.
Harrison glanced over his shoulder to where Alice watched them through wary eyes. He nodded to his wife, then slipped over the threshold and eased the door shut. “Come. Let’s walk.”
Kit fell into step beside his old friend as they strolled the narrow street.
“I’m sorry about Alderston. Whatever else one may say of the man, he was devoted to his country.”
“Perhaps too much so.” Kit clasped his hands behind his back. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About my pride.”
A smile wisped across Harrison’s face. “And does your pride make it difficult for you to admit this?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” A sparrow scolded them from a nearby rooftop. “The events of the past few days have forced me to reexamine some unpleasant aspects of my character.”
“Growth often produces pain, but it also brings great potential for taking us to a better place.”
“God knows, I don’t like the place I’m taking myself.” Small wonder Mattie preferred a life alone in America to a future in England—with him. Or rather, the man he’d been working to become.
Harrison paused and tilted his head. “You dropped God’s name into that sentence rather effortlessly. Does that mean …?”
“Yes.” Kit pondered an approaching dray cart. “As I stood there, looking at Alderston, I realized that to preserve my sanity, I would have to continue forth in either of two directions. I could either enslave my body to drink in order to forget the past, or I could harden my heart against human emotion in order to discount the past.”
“Like Alderston.”
“He was going to kill Mattie, you know. And he wouldn’t have suffered a twinge of regret. To him, she was merely an obstacle.” Whereas to Kit, she was … the future. He shook his head to free himself of the terrible images. “I want to choose a third way, Lawrie. I want forgiveness from the past. Would you help me? I’m ready to listen now. I’m ready to change.”
Ready to surrender.
A tentative knock tapped against the door of the yellow chamber. “Miss Fraser?”
Mattie glanced up from the Bible on her lap. “Yes?”
A shy maid—not Betsy, of course—stepped into the room and curtsied. “Viscount Somershurst asks if you would attend him.”
The ship. Mattie set the Bible on
the armoire’s polished surface. “Of course. Could you escort me to the room?”
“This way, Miss.” The maid guided Mattie’s heavy feet through the halls and paused at a door. “Here.”
“Thank you.” As the maid left, Mattie rapped on the door.
“Enter.”
“My lord?” She cracked open the door to the room where Kit’s brother convalesced. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the window panes and bathed the room in a peaceful glow. “You have news for me?”
Somershurst looked up from where he reclined on the bed and frowned. “Egad, Miss Fraser, don’t start.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to press about the ship. I—”
“Not the ship. That ‘my lord’ nonsense. I’d hoped for better from an American, especially after all we’d been through. You know my name. And all my secrets.”
Mattie forced a light smile to her face though her heart felt heavy. “I doubt all of them … Julian.”
“To tell the truth, when I hear anyone say ‘my lord,’ I still look over my shoulder for …” His lips flattened and shadows darkened the blue of his eyes.
“Your mother told me about your brother and nephew.” She waited while he regained his composure.
“Well, come in, Mattie.” He gestured to her with one bare arm. White bandages swathed his other sun-browned shoulder, but the color had returned to his face. “And close the door behind you. Your being in the room is scarcely more scandalous than standing in the doorway, and a great deal less likely to attract notice.”
She slipped into the room, fighting to appear nonchalant despite his provoking comments. “Did you—”
“Yes, I did.” He scooped a paper off the bedside table and passed it to her. “Here are the details. The Gallant. She’s an American ship so she won’t offend your sensibilities. But she leaves tomorrow, so you’ll need to board in the morning. The captain is expecting you.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you spoken to Kit?”
“Not since he left the ship last night.” But she’d learned all she needed to know yesterday. She couldn’t tie herself—let alone a child like Nicky—to a man bent on destruction.
“He deserves to know.”