Harry plowed around the wide corner into the crush of Piccadilly and finally caught sight of the Doncaster carriage. The street was busy, and traffic moved slowly. He stopped, flooded with relief that all seemed well, and braced his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Thank God he hadn’t been wearing Wroth’s shoes. He raised his head and tracked the carriage through the street as it rolled toward Carlton House. With a spy’s eye, he scanned the crowd and picked out potential troublemakers at once, men who wore the clothing of various tradesmen but were oddly out just walking in the street instead of making candles or butchering. But still, everything seemed normal.
When the carriage stopped, he tensed and began moving more purposefully through the crowd. Hands reached out to shove at the carriage, and the driver flicked his whip at them, sparking more hands to push. On the back of the carriage, a footman—Brandon?—was waving people away, trying to clear a space around the vehicle. Harry broke into a trot, shouldering aside everyone in his way. A coal wagon had drawn up next to the carriage and also stopped, seemingly blocked by the crowd. Harry dodged a dray going in the other direction and waited for two horses to pass. The men in the coal wagon were standing, yelling at the crowd.
Except one. One slim fellow slid off the back of the wagon and disappeared between the wagon and the Doncaster carriage. Harry couldn’t quite see him, but then the footmen leaped from their positions and he realized Mariah and her father were alighting. He craned his neck and caught sight of her, as beautiful as spring in a pale green dress and straw bonnet. Doncaster was speaking to the people, hands raised in placation, while Mariah stood close behind him. Carlton House stood only a little ways down the street. Some of the King’s Life Guard were already approaching, in fact, hustling down the street and barking at the crowd to stand aside. Doncaster was clearly expected.
His muscles were burning. He paused to let another wagon go by as he sucked in a deep breath. He was beginning to think he had worried over nothing, that everything was fine, when the wagon drove by and the crowd parted, just for a moment affording him a clear view of the short man from the coal cart. He was crouching almost under the Doncaster carriage, setting light to what looked like a small powder keg between the rear wheels.
Harry bolted. The street was full of people, innocently going about their business. “Fire,” he shouted as he ran, waving one arm. “Fire!”
People cried out and jumped out of his path. He hoped they would flee the street entirely as he caught another glimpse of the Doncaster coach. The earl was still standing beside it with his daughter, the royal guard too far away. And above the carriage, drifting on the lazy breeze, a thin, faint puff of smoke.
“Brandon!” he roared. “The carriage! Under the carriage! It’s a bomb!”
One of the footmen, just about to jump down from the back of the coach, whipped around in his direction. For a moment Brandon seemed frozen, then he sprang into action, disappearing around the side of the carriage.
His lungs burning, Harry ran harder, sprinting along the street, in front of horsemen and pedestrians without regard for the curses called after him. The men on the wagon had seen him, and most of them leaped off and disappeared, scattering in all directions. The little fellow who had placed the powder key remained, grimly guarding his deadly work and standing between Harry and his target. A thin knife shone in one hand, the barrel of a pistol in the other.
Harry charged right at him, ducking the swipe of the knife. He grabbed the man’s arm in one hand, forcing it high as the pistol discharged, and kicked hard at his knee at the same time, bashing him across the face with the hilt of the dagger he didn’t even remember drawing. And then he ran on, leaving the man to crumple in a bloody, screaming mess on the street, or to die, or walk away; Harry didn’t even care.
At the sound of the gunshot, pandemonium broke out, everyone suddenly running and screaming, some toward safety, some unwittingly toward danger. The thin trail of smoke was just barely visible beneath the rear wheel. Harry knew it could explode at any moment—there was no time to move the keg, and no safe place to move it to. Mariah was glancing around in alarm, unaware of what was really happening, turning instinctively toward the supposed safety of the coach. He refused to look toward the bomb as he rushed forward—just ten feet more—the muscles in his legs aching and about to give out as he shoved people aside and down—
The blast was deafening. Harry felt his ears go numb just as he slammed into Mariah, bowling her flat to the ground and throwing himself on top of her. Debris rained down on his back, and he closed his arms around her, tucking his own head down. Something heavy hit him in the shoulder, but then rolled away. A mangled coach door landed with a thud mere inches away from his head. Grit and splinters and dust showered down on them for what seemed an eternity, then finally stopped. All was eerily quiet.
As his hearing started to return, he heard dim screams and shouts, felt the pounding of running feet. Nothing else had struck them. Cautiously, he lifted his head a few inches.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, giving Mariah a gentle shake. She hadn’t moved since they hit the ground. Her eyes were wide and unfocused with shock, her lips parted. He must have knocked the breath out of her. Blood oozed from a small cut on her forehead, but otherwise he could see no injury. At his anxious question, she slowly turned to look at him.
“What…? Oh, my dress,” she muttered, struggling to raise her head. He cupped her cheek and restrained her.
“There, love. You may be hurt. Lie still a moment.”
“Oh,” she said weakly, then abruptly her gaze fixed on him, sharpening and clearing. “Harry?” she whispered incredulously.
He grinned, incapable of doing anything else. His heart seemed to have just resumed beating. “Yes. Are you hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so. But what”
People were tugging at his arms, trying to pull him off her. “I’m glad,” was all he managed to say before servants in royal livery yanked him to his feet and swarmed to Mariah’s side. One asked if he were hurt, in a cursory sort of way. Harry shook his head even as he was pushed farther back by the swelling crowd and the Life Guards attempting to control them. He lost sight of her, then caught another glimpse; she was sitting up, one hand on her head, and scanning the crowd. Their eyes met, and he smiled just a little, then took a step back as the earl shoved his way through all the people around her, calling his daughter’s name in a panic-stricken voice.
Harry allowed himself to be pushed back. Now that it was over, he felt weak, his knees shaking, his back aching, and his lungs straining painfully inside his chest. But she was safe, Doncaster was safe, everyone—
Abruptly, he jerked around. There was a smaller cluster of people a few feet away, bent over another figure. A pair of legs extended from their midst, clad in footman’s stockings and shoes, and utterly still. Harry felt his blood turn cold. He edged closer, trying to see—
Someone moved aside, and he caught a glimpse of Alec Brandon, lying on his side, his face covered with blood. His footman’s wig had fallen off, and his entire head was scarlet with the blood that pooled under his cheek.
Good God.
Harry was still standing there, stunned, when someone took his arm. “Come,” Stafford muttered in his ear, pulling him away.
“Brandon,” he said, resisting.
“I’ll see to him.” Stafford pushed him toward a nearby carriage. “There’s nothing you can do. Are you hurt?”
“No. Is he dead?” Harry demanded.
Stafford hesitated, glancing back before pushing Harry again, through the open carriage door. “I think not; they are calling for a doctor. Go back to Fenton Lane. Angelique will meet you there.”
Harry leaned out the window, trying to see Brandon again.
“Sinclair.” Stafford’s firm tone recalled his attention. “Well done,” said his employer with a ghost of a smile. “I’ll inform you as soon as possible. Now go,” he called to the driver as he slammed the door closed.
As the carriage lurched forward, away from the mayhem and confusion and cries still filling the street, Harry scrambled to the other window and caught one last glimpse of the earl, embracing Mariah. She was pale, but seemed otherwise unhurt, on her feet and moving about. Thank God for that much.
But Brandon…The crowd around him had only grown, and the expressions were grave. Harry’s elation was poisoned by fear. What had happened to Brandon?
The belated shock of it bore down on him. He kept seeing that lone puff of smoke above the coach, the unsuspecting look on Mariah’s face as she turned to climb back into the doomed coach, the blood running down Brandon’s face. He heard the terror in Doncaster’s voice as he called Mariah’s name. Too late. He had almost been too late.
He bent over until his forehead touched his knees, his hands shaking uncontrollably, and didn’t look up until the carriage reached Fenton Lane.
Chapter 24
I will never allow it.
Her father’s stern words echoed in Mariah’s mind as she made her way to the servants’ rooms. Of course Papa didn’t know the truth about Lord Wroth, but she didn’t think that would matter. Would he be more likely to approve if he knew Lord Wroth was really Harry, a nameless young man, probably a commoner? Not if she knew her father at all. If Lord Wroth were what he seemed, Papa might at least expect her to be left a widowed Lady Wroth in fairly short order. But she could be married to a poor young fellow for a long time, and she didn’t think Papa would find that any more acceptable, even if the young fellow had saved her life.
That meant it was up to her to do something. Harry was the man she wanted, and she had been raised to get what she wanted. Since she wouldn’t get him if he came to call and asked her father in the usual, proper, way, she decided it was time to resort to other methods. Sneaky and even underhanded methods, but infinitely more likely to succeed.
The uproar of the previous day had died down only a little. Footmen were now standing at every door of the house that wasn’t barred and chained shut, and members of the Coldstream Guards were on the grounds, at her father’s request and the government’s agreement. Her parents were badly shaken; Mama had insisted that Mariah sleep in her dressing room that night, with the door open and Sally on the floor, even though she had not been hurt beyond a cut on her temple and a bruise or two. The servants flitted around with frightened expressions and hushed voices, as if more bombs might be tossed through a window at any time. Papa was closed up in his study again with government men, and this time their air was angry as well as alarmed. He had not been hurt when the carriage exploded beside him, much to Mariah’s and her mother’s relief. A footman—a man named Jameson—had leaped from his perch and dragged Papa to safety, shielding him with his own body. Just as Harry had done when he threw himself on top of her.
Mariah rapped at a narrow door at the end of the long bare hall. “How is he?” she asked when a maid opened the door.
The maid shook her head. “Resting, my lady. The doctor was here not half an hour past.”
Mariah stepped into the darkened room, which had the still, apprehensive feel of a sickroom. She looked at the figure lying propped up in the bed, gazing vacantly into space. Jameson had been hit on the head by a splintered piece of the carriage axle, and the doctor told her father it was a miracle he survived at all. “You may go,” she told the maid. The girl nodded and slipped out, drawing the door partly closed. Mariah pulled a stool close to his bed and sat down, watching him intently.
“Jameson?” He turned his head, fixing startlingly blue eyes on her. “I hope you are feeling better,” she began awkwardly. A bitter smile bent his mouth.
“Of course,” he said without a trace of the deference she was accustomed to hearing from her servants. Mariah flushed, feeling as though she had somehow insulted him.
“I can never thank you enough,” she said softly. “For what you did. It was…heroic. It was more than heroic.” She wet her lips. “You and Harry both.”
He said nothing, just looked at her with unnerving directness. She resisted the urge to squirm. “I must find him,” she went on. “Harry. Can you tell me how? What is his true name? Where does he live? If you could help me at all, I…I would be forever in your debt.”
He made no response.
Mariah bit her lip and forged on, aware that she was pleading, and that she would sink to begging if necessary, just before she got to bribery and blackmail. “I know you are not just a footman. I know he is not just a secretary.” Jameson showed no response to anything. “I love him,” she blurted out, unable to keep the desperate longing from her voice. “Please help me.”
The small window under the eaves admitted only a little sunlight. It fell across his bandaged head, the dark hair cut short to allow his footman’s wig to fit. She wondered who he really was, what he really was. What had made him pose as a footman, then throw himself in front of a bomb to save her father? That was not the act of any mere footman, no matter how loyal. Whatever his true purpose, Harry’s must have been the same, for Lord Crane. That must be why he’d worked for the viscount. And if not for Harry, she would be dead now.
“You’re a fool,” Jameson said bluntly.
Her blush was painfully hot. “Perhaps. Please help me.”
He looked away, turning his face to the ceiling again. “Fenton Lane,” he said in a low voice.
“Fenton?” Mariah seized on it. “His name is Fenton?”
A sharp shake of his head. “Fenton Lane. Number twelve.”
“He lives there?”
A long moment of silence. “You can reach him there. Send a message on plain paper.”
“Plain paper,” she repeated. “Should I address it to Harry?”
“To H.S.” A frown came and quickly went. “An answer may not come immediately. If he answers at all.”
“H.S.” At last—an initial! Impulsively, she clasped Jameson’s hand. “Thank you,” she said fervently. “Thank you.”
His fingers twitched in hers before he pulled free without another word, his expression closed and remote, and turned away from her. Feeling dismissed, Mariah slipped quietly from the room, forgetting any pique in her excitement.
“Fenton Lane, number twelve,” she repeated over and over to herself as she hurried through the house to her room. At last she knew how to contact him, a way to find him. If he answered, Jameson had said! Of course he would answer her; she simply couldn’t conceive of him not answering. He loved her, she loved him, and now that he was a bona fide hero, there was nothing at all to separate them—save, perhaps, her father, which was why she was taking drastic action.
Back in her room, she rummaged through her desk until she found a sheet of perfectly plain paper. Why plain paper? she wondered. Would any special marking cause the letter to go astray? For a moment she tapped the end of her pen on her chin. Now, what to say…
It mustn’t give too much away. Jameson had only said she could send a message to him. That could mean someone else might be opening and reading letters first. She was not about to pour out her heart for a stranger to read, particularly a stranger who might not be all that sympathetic. Harry had said he was breaking the rules to see her, and the last thing she wanted was to cause him trouble. But it must be specific enough that he would know who sent it and what she meant by it. After a few false starts, she thought it was good enough.
Dear H—I have something of the greatest importance to tell you, if you would be so kind as to return to our usual meeting place at the usual time. M
Now she only had to have it delivered without anyone finding out about it. She giggled nervously as she folded and securely sealed the note, writing the direction on the front. Her parents would know for certain if she had one of the servants take it. How did one deliver secret messages?
She decided to ask Joan’s opinion. Even if Joan were no help, visiting her cousin would at least let Mariah work off some of the nervous energy building inside her. She slipped her note into
her reticule and headed for the Bennet home, this time with a muscular footman at her side.
“Mariah! We were so worried when we heard the dreadful news!” Aunt Marion swept her into her arms the moment she arrived. “Your father? Your mother?”
“Both are well. Papa was unharmed almost entirely. Mama will recover from the fright, in time.”
“Not quickly, I should think.” Aunt Marion studied her, taking in the cut on her temple. “And you, dear?”
“My dress was quite ruined and I lost one of Mama’s pearl earrings, but I am quite unhurt, as you see.” She made herself smile. Behind her aunt, Joan grinned back with a relieved expression.
“That is very good news. Your mother sent me word of the incident and that you had both returned home, but nothing more.” Aunt Marion shook her head, embraced her once more, and then released her to Joan.
Joan, of course, wanted to know every detail, and Mariah obliged, leaving out only the identity of the man who had burst from the crowd and shielded her from the exploding wreckage of her father’s town coach. She had promised not to tell anyone about him, not even Joan, and if she mentioned him in any way, her cousin might guess what she planned to do. Joan likely did anyway, from the odd pursing of her mouth as she revealed that she’d discovered where to contact Harry and wanted to send him a message.
“Are you certain?” Joan asked, completely serious for once. “About him, even after…?”
Mariah took a deep breath. Yes, she was. She had thought long and hard on everything about Harry and what he’d done. He had never hurt her; he had never coerced her. She still didn’t know all the answers, but she knew she could trust him with her life. “I am.” She hadn’t spoken a word to Joan about him since that disastrous day in the Plymptons’ garden, and Joan hadn’t asked. For a moment it seemed her cousin would protest; her forehead wrinkled and she appeared to be biting her lip very hard.
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