by The Impostor
“Where did I …” She stopped. “Perhaps I don’t want to know.”
“No, you don’t,” he wheezed.
Free to clutch his bruised privates in the fog, Dalton suppressed a moan of pain. Bloody hell, the little idiot had nearly unmanned him! He was definitely not going to pursue an affair with the woman. She had a grip like a vise!
“Are you better now?” came a hopeful voice a few seconds later.
Only a woman would ask that at a time like this. Then Dalton forced down his irritation with a pang of guilt. It wasn’t her fault they were in this position. He never should have agreed to this outing, knowing there was likely someone after him.
“I’m sorry I shouted at you. Yes, I’m much better now.” He felt for the railing and pulled himself upright. Immediately his vision darkened and he swayed under the attack of a blinding headache. Taking stock, he realized that he wasn’t all right.
He’d taken a bad knock to the head at some point. Now the pounding in his head combined with the swirling fog to completely disorient him. Dizzily he slid back to sprawl on the planks. Even with the solidity of the bridge beneath him, he couldn’t seem to steady himself.
“I—my head—”
“Shh.” Soothing cool hands came to cup his cheeks, then softly felt through his hair to find the tender spot. There must have been a lump indeed, for the fingers immediately moved away to gently and efficiently travel down his body searching for other injuries.
He didn’t think there was anything seriously wrong elsewhere, but his voice didn’t seem to be responding well enough to tell her so. And her touch did feel good.
His mind began to wander. He pulled himself back. Fog. They were in the fog, which may have been more aid than hindrance to him in the attack. Things had been so confusing that half the time he’d been convinced the two men were fighting each other. Then one had landed in the lake below and the other had run for his life. Dalton was sure he himself had suffered a slight concussion, nothing more.
Unless one counted the damaged family jewels.
Clara tried to keep her objectivity as she ran her hands over him to search out further damage. There was no denying the fellow was very nicely put together. Not a tailor’s padding thickened his chest and shoulders, but hard muscle. Not whalebone and lacing made his waist fit and flat, but it was ridged and hard of its own merit.
There was no sign of a wound on him, not a tear in his clothing, not the sticky welling of blood. Still, she knew that a bad blow could injure without a sign. Worry began to spike through her, and she wondered how much longer the fog would last.
What if there was something seriously wrong with him? He might be a liar and a fake, but he had placed himself between her and the footpads without hesitation. She very likely owed him her life.
Drat it.
Finished with her examination, she felt her way back up to sit where he leaned his head upon the hard railing of the bridge.
“I think I can do better than that,” she said. Gently she coaxed him to lay his head upon her lap. He came willingly enough and collapsed limply upon her. This worried her. She knew from volunteering at the hospital that those with head injuries should not be allowed to sleep until all danger of unconsciousness had passed.
“Sir?” He didn’t respond. She patted his cheeks lightly. “Sir Thorogood? Sir, please answer me.”
Real alarm was beginning to join with the dismay in her stomach. “Oh, do wake up. You mustn’t sleep now.” She patted him again, this time more firmly.
He stirred, rolling his head on her thigh to lean his cheek against her waist. “You smell good,” he murmured.
Relief made her laugh. She was so happy that he wasn’t unconscious that she only stroked his hair once more. “Stay awake, please. I should have a great deal of difficulty explaining how I came to be sprawled on this bridge with an unconscious man.”
She could feel his chuckle against her torso. “Tell them that I expired … from an excess of devotion.”
She snorted. “Romantic twaddle. I’ll simply tell them that you tried to take advantage and I was forced to defend myself with my parasol.”
He nestled closer, pressing his cheek intimately into her. “Ah, but where is this great weapon of yours? You brought no parasol with you.”
“Hmm. True. I shall have to say that it fell into the river. Actually, I could solve the entire matter by pushing you in right now.”
“A crime of passion. How … theatrical of you …”
His voice faded. Alarmed once more, Clara patted his cheek. “Do wake up, sir!”
He didn’t respond. “Sir Thorogood!” She gave his cheek a right wallop in her fear.
“Ouch.” His hand came up to cover hers on his face. “Careful … I’ll start to think you like me again.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course I like you. I’m saving your life, aren’t I?”
“Oh, is that what you’re doing? I thought … I was going to end up in the river.”
“I was simply teasing,” she said softly. “You took this blow defending me. I should be an ungrateful wretch to let you go now.”
“My head … is it bad?”
“There’s a lump.” She took his hand to cover the damage. “I should think you’ll be right as rain tomorrow. In the meantime, it’s important that you remain awake.”
He shuddered. “God, yes. I must stay awake. Someone I know took a bad blow to the head a few months ago … he has yet to wake from it.”
Compassion welled in her at the dread in his voice. His predicament would seem doubly grim then, with his friend’s situation foremost in his mind.
It seemed as though she’d heard of such a case herself at the hospital not too long ago. A gentleman had arrived with a cartload of wounded soldiers, so badly beaten that they hadn’t expected him to last the night.
The man had lived, but hadn’t awakened in the remainder of his time there. Eventually someone had claimed him, she supposed.
Who would claim this man? If she were to take her impostor to a physician, she would not even be able to give his real name. She knew nothing about him at all.
She’d been going about this all wrong, she realized. She should have been gaining his confidence, charming him into sharing his purpose with her. She‘d seen him admiring her figure on occasion. If she exercised her little-used feminine wiles, perhaps she could finally determine whether he was truly a threat or not.
His head lolled on her thighs and she realized that he was fading out again.
She rummaged in her reticule for the smelling salts that she had begun carrying after her unfortunate experience with the overly tightened corset. She found pencil stubs, scraps of foolscap, a ribbon from Kitty’s bonnet that she’d promised to sew back on, and sundry other items, but no salts.
In his haze of semi-consciousness, Dalton found he rather liked lying on a woman’s lap. It wasn’t something he’d often had opportunity to do. Fuzzily, he decided to seek out more opportunities to do so in the future.
He could hear Mrs. Simpson rummaging through her reticule directly over him. Something plopped from her bag to nestle softly in his eye socket.
He reached up to fumble at the item on his face. A small cloth bag of some sort. The word sachet wandered through his cloudy mind, but that didn’t seem quite right. Sachets were smelly in a good way. This was smelly in a sharp herbal way that wasn’t pleasant at all.
“What’s in here?” he mumbled. “Is it tea?”
“Oh, good, you’re awake again! No, that isn’t tea, it’s catnip.”
He pondered that for a moment. “Why do you carry catnip?”
She was still rummaging. “For the cats, of course.”
That made sense. Rose liked cats, too. “Do you have many cats?”
“Oh, no, none at all,” she said absently. “Beatrice won’t allow them in the house.”
Dalton tried to figure that one out, truly he did, but it was simply too difficult. He fumbled for his jacket
pocket and dropped the small gathered pouch inside. Wouldn’t want to lose the catnip.
“Aha! I found it!”
The reticule came to rest on his brow. If it hadn’t been for the beads dangling into his eyes, the cool weight of it would have felt soothing on his throbbing head. Then someone drove a spike through his nose into his brain and he forgot all about the bag.
“Bloody hell!” He sat up abruptly, knocking away the reticule and the offending hand that hovered before his nose. “What’d you do that for?”
“I had to wake you up.”
“I was awake. At least, I think I was awake. Now I wish I wasn’t!” His nose burned and the pounding in his head had increased until he worried that his eyeballs were being knocked from his skull with every beat of his heart.
How he hated this woman. He could quite confidently vow that he had never hated anyone more in his life, with the possible exception of that pimple-faced boy from school. The one who had nicknamed him Dolly Dalton and had pushed him down at every opportunity.
That is, until Dalton had grown two inches taller and had sat on the boy once for an entire afternoon while he studied his lesson book. When the boy had finally agreed to choose a more pleasant nickname, “Monty” had been born. Thus had begun a brief period of acceptance from the other boys at school.
Of course, he’d left Monty behind many years ago. There was no room in his life for boyish distraction and amusement. Life was far too serious a matter to waste on such unimportant things. Liverpool’s voice echoed in his head, from the occasion of his being called to discipline a young Dalton for the single boyish prank of his life.
“There’s too much to be done to spend time on frivolities. When you are ready to take your seat in the House of Lords, you must remember this. A man is only as good as his mind. School the mind and you school the man!”
So Dalton had put away his heart and his soul the way that he had put away his cricket bat and his skates. Monty had gone into a storage trunk as well, never to be heard from again.
Until two nights past.
“Sir? Sir, are you still with me? Shall I apply the smelling salts again?”
Dear God, no. With difficulty, Dalton pulled his wandering mind from the past to find that he was once again comfortably ensconced on a nicely padded lap. She was the perfect level of softness, he decided dreamily. Too thin and he’d feel her bones. Too plump and he’d not have room to roll his head so luxuriously into her midriff, where he could press his aching forehead into her pliant belly.
“Ah, Sir Thorogood?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Are you—are you nuzzling me?”
Nuzzling. What a perfectly charming word. “Yes, I believe I am.”
“I see. Are you sure that’s quite proper?”
Proper. Proper was not a charming word. Proper was a stifling, cold word. In fact, proper was very likely his least favorite word of the King’s English.
“Sir? Don’t go back to sleep, sir.”
“Then talk to me. Tell me … about your husband.”
Cool fingers on his throbbing head. “Very well, if it will help you stay awake.”
“How did you meet him?”
“I’d known his sister for some time, for I’d been volunteering at the hospital. She invited me to dinner on several occasions where I met her younger brother Bentley.”
“And you took a fancy to him?”
He felt her shrug. It did delightful things to her midriff.
“Not at first, though most considered him handsome enough. I’d had so little attention from men that I certainly didn’t expect any from him. He seemed friendly, that was all.”
“How did you come to marry him, then?”
“Just before my father… died, Bentley’s outfit was called up. He was off to war and full of fire and romance at the thought. At the funeral, Bentley asked me to marry him before he left for the Peninsula. I think I accepted out of sheer surprise. And relief.”
“Relief?”
Her fingers continued to trace through his hair. He wondered if she even knew she was doing it. She seemed very different in the fog, more … agreeable. Kind, just as Agatha had described her.
“Relief that I would have a home of my own, I suppose, some chance at a future. A family.”
“And then he was killed?”
“Yes. And I was left dependent upon Beatrice’s kindness.” She remained silent then. Dalton missed her soft voice, for listening to her made the pounding in his head ease and his mind sharpen.
‘Tell me about your drawing.”
She seemed to stiffen briefly. “There’s little to tell.”
“But you are so interested in drawing, and your niece told me that you are quite good. How did you learn to draw?”
He felt her body relax beneath his head and shoulders and her fingers took up that lovely motion once more.
“My mother loved to draw and paint. My earliest memory is of her holding my hand while I held a pencil, helping me draw a flower. When she died, I drew because it helped me remember her. Eventually, I drew because I had no choice in the matter. Drawing was a way to leave my life for a while. A way to dream.”
“And what did you dream of?” he whispered.
She didn’t answer. “I believe the fog will lift soon. I think it is growing brighter already.”
Dalton opened one eye, then promptly shut it once more. The light was indeed brighter, and therefore even more painful to his damaged brain. He began to lose his train of thought. The fog had left the landscape and clouded his mind instead.
He felt a cool hand cup his cheek. Cool hands and a warm lap. How he loved this woman. What was her name again? Rose?
“Sir, do you think that the footpads are still out there?”
Footpads. No, he must tell her—
He stirred, reaching his hand to hers once more. “When the fog lifts … call for John … get out of the park and send someone back for me …”
“Shh. I’ll do no such thing.”
“You don’t… understand. I think someone is trying to … you’re not… safe with me.”
“Those men were after you specifically? I thought they were simple thieves.”
“Even … footpads stay home … in these conditions.” He gripped her hand earnestly. “I think… it’s the cartoons. Someone wants them stopped. I can’t… my head … if they’re waiting, I can’t… fend them off.”
Guilt rushed through Clara. This was her fault. Then the real truth struck her. Oh, dear God. They weren’t after him. They were after her?
Someone wanted her dead.
Chapter Twelve
Mrs. Simpson took her footman’s hand and alighted from the carriage before the Trapps’ house. With a worried expression, she turned to regard Dalton still seated inside.
“Are you sure you will not come in and allow me to call for someone? What if you lose consciousness again?”
She and John had managed to get him on his feet and back to the carriage when the fog had lifted. He’d remained conscious the entire way while John drove her home, but he remembered the alarming way he’d faded in and out on the footbridge.
He looked at her, for a moment having trouble placing her name. “Why would I do that?”
She stepped forward and removed the reins from his unresisting hands. “I insist that you stay. John can fetch one of your people back here in no time.”
He nodded. “My people.” Then his gaze sharpened on her suspiciously. “My… people?”
Dalton pulled himself back from the brink of revealing the truth about himself. He must concentrate! What should he do? How could he reach James?
“My… friend Mr. Cunnington.” Focus, damn it! “He can be reached at the gentlemen’s club that I… frequent.” Had he given too much away? No, no, there was nothing unusual about having a friend at a club.
Mrs. Simpson nodded briskly. “Excellent! John, help me bring Sir Thorogood into the house.” She turned back to Dalton.
“Will you let me bring in a physician, as well?”
Dalton shook his head vigorously. It made his head throb worse. Damn, he did need a doctor, but not one of Mrs. Simpson’s choosing. She’d likely bring in some quack who’d bleed him dry and ask too many questions, questions that he couldn’t afford in his suggestible state.
“My friend… please, just fetch my friend.” John was practically lifting him from the carriage. Dalton shook him off and descended on his own. The dizziness was easing, but he knew he should not be driving.
Inside the house, he was forced to endure the fluttering of Mrs. Trapp and her daughters until Mrs. Simpson shooed them from the drawing room. Dalton closed his eyes, grateful for the silence.
A cool hand settled on his temple, then laced gently through his hair to check his lump. He flinched, but not much, for the soft touch felt wonderful.
“Does it hurt you very much?”
The soft question was uttered from quite close by, and warm breath feathered across his ear. Suddenly Dalton was overcome with longing for more soft voices and gentle touches in his life.
All of its own, his hand crept up to capture the smaller one in his hair. He brought it to his lips briefly. The fingers in his fluttered slightly like a captured moth, then slowly pulled away.
Dalton sighed and let his head fall back to rest on the sofa’s cushioned back. His head pounded still, but was settling into a bearable throb. “I think I should very much like a brandy.”
A quiet laugh came from the booming silence. “And I should like a pair of wings, but I think neither of us will win our wish today. Spirits would be a very bad idea at this moment.”
Dalton nodded carefully. She was quite right. “You are being very kind to me, Mrs. Simpson, especially after I was such horrid company on our drive.”
“Were you? I’m sure I didn’t notice.”
That bothered him for some reason. He’d come to rather enjoy her flattering attentions, he mused, but now he seemed to have lost her interest.
What difference does it make? You have a mission!
Startled from his fog, Dalton opened his eyes at that thought to find Mrs. Simpson regarding him steadily. She tilted her head and gave him a tiny smile. “Your eyes are entirely too beautiful for a man. Why are all the gentlemen I meet prettier than I?”