Prelude to Love

by Joan Smith

  He would also have failed to see a constable, surely arriving by now. Why wasn't Mrs. Euston here? She would be awaiting below, with the carriage set to bolt. Carlisle was going to keep herself propped in front of him till he got out, then he would either push her aside or kill her. In either case, she had been a hindrance to Landon again, when she had wanted so much to help. He would have handled Carlisle very competently by himself. That body hitting the door when she arrived showed clearly which way the fight had been going. Now he was held helpless at gunpoint, unable to make a move, for fear of getting herself killed. His eyes focused on the small black hole of Carlisle's gun, reminding her of a snake readying itself to strike its victim.

  The gun shifted, taking careful aim at Landon. She saw Landon's eyes shift with it, and had an intuition what was about to happen. There was a debt to be settled between the two men; Landon had not only kept the letter from him, he had given him a sound thrashing into the bargain. He was right to have said he should have killed him while he had the chance. Now the chance was in the other hand, and it was not an opportunity that would be passed up. What could be done about it? Nothing.

  She gazed at Landon, helpless, horrified, paralyzed with grief and anxiety. She noticed he still followed the gun, his eyes steady, with some fear perhaps, but more of anger. He lifted his gaze to direct one short, sharp, commanding glance at her. What did he mean her to do? Carlisle held her, helpless, the gun not six inches from her—but not pointed at her. She had about three seconds between making a move and being shot. She looked back, understanding his meaning. She gave one sharp nod of her head to show him she understood, then jerked suddenly sideways, violently, pulling Carlisle and the gun with her. A loud retort rang out, echoing hideously in the chamber, and at the same instant, Landon leapt forward to tackle Carlisle. She closed her eyes, shivering uncontrollably. When she opened them, Landon lay at her feet, the blood trickling from his temple onto the carpet. Elleri groaned and slumped away in a faint.

  So much happened within the next few seconds that her head was spinning, looking first to the doorway, where sounds were coming in, running, shouting sounds. A constable and the footman who had gone after him were there, both carrying guns. The uppity clerk and the other footman were also there, also with guns. Soon other heads popped up behind them, but she was not aware of this. Elleri opened her eyes, looked around and shrieked. Carlisle was escaping—halfway out the window already.

  With a quickness born of desperation, Vanessa ran to the window and slammed it down on his leg, pinning him to the spot while the constable ran to grab hold of his boot.

  "Somebody run around to the balcony and get him. He's wiggling out of his boot," the constable ordered.

  A footman ran out, the gun waving dangerously in the air.

  "If there is a carriage waiting below, stop it! It is his accomplice," Vanessa called after him. The other footman ran out, happy to be involved in such excitement, now that the great part of the danger was past.

  She went to bend over Landon's prostrate form, to feel his pulse and heart for signs of life. Elleri ran to her side to stare in disapproval at the inert form. "If he's dead ..." Vanessa said, then stopped. Her mind refused to continue, would not accept the unacceptable.

  "I hope he is!" Elleri said, with the greatest relish.

  "Someone—call a doctor," Vanessa said, sparing a moment to look up at the throng around the door. It was swelling to a crowd. A man went off to do as she asked, a patron of the inn, she thought.

  More chaos followed. Men she had never seen before pushed their way through the crowd, making important sounds of "Stand aside!" They were stalwart, compelling gentlemen, wearing the face of officialdom. They took charge of the shambles, put out the mere curiosity seekers. They were efficient, unemotional, reassuring types. They lifted Landon onto her aunt's bed, told her unequivocally he was not dying. They outlined briefly that they had come with him from London, had been waiting at various spots outside to apprehend Carlisle if he tried to escape.

  "His female accomplice is already in custody," they told her.

  "Everything was under control till your unexpected entry," one added with a rebukeful glance.

  "Why didn't you come in with him? Why did you let him come alone?" she retorted.

  "Lady, you don't give Colonel Landon orders; you take them, if you know what's good for you."

  "It didn't seem necessary," the other explained. "We saw from the window that Carlisle was in the room alone, rummaging through drawers and furnishings. He'd left the window open, to escape quickly if he heard Miss Simons at the door. We saw the carriage waiting below, took command of it and arrested the female. Colonel Landon took the decision to go in by the door and arrest him, but the instant he sneaked in, the lady came back to her room."

  "I was only gone down to demand some service," Miss Simons said. "I rang and rang the bell for a quarter of an hour, and no one came to tend me, so I went downstairs to give them a piece of my mind. When I returned, the place was a shambles. Landon had rummaged through my most personal items," she added, stiff with disapproval. "The whole affair is his fault, and I for one am happy to see him rewarded as he deserves. He was beating poor Mr. Carlisle again, Nessa." .

  "No, it was our fault," Vanessa told her. "If we had done as Father asked, none of this would have happened. It was stopping at the assembly hall that did the damage."

  "Well, then it is Henry's fault for sending us in the first place. Was I to make a trip without a vinaigrette? I am sure I have done nothing but what I thought for the best."

  "No one is blaming you," Vanessa said.

  "You just did! You may be sure Henry will try to dump the whole in my dish as well. My vinaigrette—I must have it before I swoon away from nervous exhaustion."

  "It would be best to take the lady to another room," one of the officials suggested, with an impatient look at the jabbering lady.

  "An excellent idea! I do not mean to share a bed with a man who is bleeding all over the pillows," Miss Simons replied, between sniffs from her vinaigrette. "We shall go to your room, Nessa."

  Vanessa lingered by the bedside, disliking to leave. "Take her along. It is for the best," he advised.

  "I am not leaving Colonel Landon," she announced, her firm manner making it clear she was not going to be balked.

  Landon's eyes fluttered open. "Don’t kill him," he said. She thought he was delirious. "Don't let them kill Carlisle."

  "I hope they do!"

  "I want to question him," he said, his voice weak, then he closed his eyes again, giving a good impression of a dead man. Even half dead, he was planning. She shook her head with a rueful smile.

  "Did you hear him?" she asked the closest official.

  "Yes, I'd best run along and see they do as he says. There'll be the almighty devil to pay if he's disobeyed."

  "How did you all get here so early?" she asked the one remaining. "I hurried straight from London as fast as I could. I made sure I would be the first to arrive."

  "We rode our mounts, ma'am. The colonel thought it would be faster, as it was, of course, though I must say it was a hard gallop."

  "I'm surprised they let him into the inn. He—caused a little commotion last time he was here."

  "He often does." The man laughed. "I fancy that is why he went straight from the stable to the balcony. I wondered at the time, but I figured he'd done his reconnaissance in advance, and he don't like to be pestered with questions when he is busy. ‘We'll check out the stable to see if Carlisle's or the woman's rig is here, and if it is, I'll go in by the window,' he told us. He changed his mind and used the door, in the end. It's awkward going in by the window unless the room's empty, you see. It gives the other a chance to have at you while you're off balance."

  "He cannot have spent long at Whitehall."

  "Just long enough to tell his story and make sure they knew what to do on the coast—in case he didn't come back, you know."

  "He would think of that
. He thinks of everything."

  "He did not think you would be coming here," the man said with a quizzing smile. "He sent a brace of Guards over to Belgrave Square to look after you when he learned you'd scampered down to the stage stop without telling him. He feared Carlisle might have spotted you there and followed you to your aunt's home. Well, I guess you had given the Euston woman your address in any case. You must have left already by the time they got there."

  "Yes. I dread to think what my aunt will think when the Guards land in. She will make sure they plan to take me to the Tower for beheading. I would have done better to stay put."

  "One is generally better off to do exactly as the colonel says," he agreed. "I took the notion, from little things he said, that you were not at all anxious to come up against Carlisle again. Funny he would have misunderstood your intention. He don't usually, but then, he more usually deals with men. They don't change their minds," he added simply.

  "One hesitates to utter a word of criticism, but I believe he has something to learn in the handling of ladies."

  "He's learning fast. Hounding the poor mortal to death in London. It's because of his being a hero and all."

  "Why doesn't that doctor come?" she scolded, finding she did not care at all for the official gentleman.

  "He'll live, ma'am. It will take more than a scratch to stop him."

  The doctor arrived very soon after, at which time Vanessa was told politely to wait in the next room.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When she went to the other room, she found her aunt had been preparing a list of sins against her over the past day. She lay stretched out on the bed, with the vinaigrette at the ready in her hand, a handkerchief in the other and a very wounded expression on her face. She launched into a sea of complaints.

  "I should like to know, miss, why you went sneaking off on me in the middle of the night, without so much as a note left to inform me of your whereabouts. Have you any idea what my day has been like? Finding you gone, I went to call on Carlisle, to find he also had fled. Kiley the same. I even ventured to tap on his door. I made sure you had eloped to Scotland with Harvey, for you remember we had spoken of it. I particularly cautioned against it. I sent our carriage off to the north, looking for you, which left me stranded here alone, without even a carriage, and with a constable asking all manner of impertinent questions I could not answer. Why had Carlisle left, after calling him in the middle of the night? Where was Kiley? What was our relationship with the pair of them? I was never so humiliated in my life. You must not breathe a word of it to Henry."

  There was a good deal more of the same, a whole litany of grievances. She could not like to walk on the streets of a strange town unaccompanied, the servants at the inn were insolent, she had the choice of eating alone in her room or rubbing elbows with cits and commoners belowstairs. "And furthermore," she finished in a final burst of anger, "you broke my good traveling clock before you left."

  "Are you not curious to hear why I left so suddenly?" Vanessa asked, when she could get a word in edgewise.

  "Have I not been asking you for the past half hour?"

  "No, Auntie, you have been telling me how unpleasant your day was, with no carriage and no company. Mine was much worse, I assure you."

  "You lost Henry's letter?" she asked, relegating it in importance several degrees below her own trying day.

  "Its contents have been delivered to London."

  "You evaded Kiley, then, did you? That troubled me as much as all the rest, worrying he had got hold of you."

  "He did get hold of me. It was Colonel Landon's idea to take it to London instead of Ipswich. I agreed with him."

  "Colonel Landon!" she spat out, then had recourse to a long draw from her vinaigrette. Her eyes watered from the pungent vapors of the smelling salts contained within. "I declare, these salts are years old. There is not a bit of power left in them. It is Landon who is to blame for the whole of our miseries."

  "Did you not listen to what was said in the other room? It is Carlisle who is the spy."

  "One is as bad as the other. It was not civil of Carlisle to enter my room when I was not there. He left the window open as well, to fill the room with that unhealthy night air. Whatever you have endured this day, Vanessa, it cannot hold a candle to my woes."

  "If you would have preferred being kidnapped, drugged, stripped and tied up a prisoner to being without a carriage, then I wish we might have changed places."

  "Stripped?" she asked, rising to a bolt upright position on her bed. "Which of the bounders did it? He must marry you."

  "I don't know that it was done by a man at all. It might very well have been Mrs. Euston."

  "Pray do not confuse me with any more names. If you were stripped by anyone but Mrs. Euston, the man must certainly marry you, and I hope you are not going to tell me it was Kiley. He'll beat you regularly."

  "Colonel Landon is his name."

  "So it was him. I might have known. If you are forced to marry that blackamoor, Vanessa, pray do not tell me you mean to make your home at Levenhurst, or I shall move direct to London."

  "I am afraid you will be seeing Colonel Landon whether I marry him or not. He is replacing Forrester as the commanding officer at the local garrison."

  "We are losing that nice Colonel Forrester? Oh, this is too much. And you never even got to stand up with him at the ball. I should not be the least surprised to learn Miss Pischer got an offer from him."

  "I hope she did," Vanessa said, as the lady spoken of was a prime piece of competition.

  "I knew how it would be when we had to miss the ball."

  "There will be other balls."

  "Not with Forrester at them. Well, Nessie, it seems to me you have done a poor job of accounting for yourself. Why did you leave me here all alone to deal with those scoundrels?"

  The story was told, with many interruptions and animadversions from Miss Simons that the girl was not only ruined but depraved to have allowed herself to be used so poorly.

  "The upshot of it is that you must marry one of them, to save your name from disgrace," she concluded.

  "Marrying aspy would not do me much credit."

  "I do not count on Landon to do the proper thing. He will try to squeak out of it by blaming it on Carlisle."

  "Landon always does the proper thing," Vanessa answered hotly.

  "Calling himself Kiley—is that your notion of proper, to be changing your name?"

  "His name is Stanier Landon."

  "Stanier? You never mentioned that before. Would he be one of the Dorchester Staniers?" she asked, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

  "Stanier is his Christian name, not the family name."

  "Stanier is not a Christian name in the least. In fact, I believe it is French. You may rest assured it is his mama's family name. He is some kin to Jessica Stanier, certainly. He has a look of her about the eyes, now I come to think of it."

  "He has very nice eyes," Vanessa said, in a pensive way.

  "Yes, if you have a taste for gypsies."

  "Who is Jessica Stanier?"

  "Viscount Dorval's eldest daughter. Very good ton. She made her bows the year I did in London. She got picked off early in the season."

  "Did she marry someone called Landon?"

  "She must have," was the foolish answer. "If the colonel is Jessica Stanier's son, he is at least well bred. There must be some fortune there; Jessica had a good dot, whatever about the husband's fortune."

  "It is not clear he is Jessica's son."

  "Rubbish. Who else could he possible be? Stanier is not a common name. And he is coming home to take over command of the garrison there, you say?"

  "Yes, but he will be delayed due to his injury. I hope it is not serious."

  "Run along to his room and see what the doctor has to say. Go at once, goose, before some other chit snatches him away from you. Wait till I tell Mrs. Fischer. She'll be green with envy. Forester to be fired, and Landon taking over in his stead.
He is young to be a colonel, too. Henry was not promoted till he was fifty. Run along, before he changes his mind."

  With a deep sense of alarm at this peculiar warning, Vanessa ran toward the door.

  "Wait, come back, Nessie. You must not let him see you like that. You look a perfect nightmare. Your trunk is halfway to Scotland by now, but your small valise is still here. Why did you not take it with you? We shall try if we can make you half presentable, at least. There is no point thinking to attach Colonel Landon, looking like a witch."

  The dame's migraine was forgotten. They got out the small valise, to repair the ravages of the day. Hot water was ordered for a bath, the hair was brushed and arranged, a russet sarsenet gown selected, appropriate jewelry discussed.

  "Pearls are good for an invalid's room," Miss Simons said, cocking her head to one side to ponder her own pronouncement. "They have a calming quality, don't you think? I never wear a sparkling gem in a sickroom. It shows a lack of consideration."

  Even this absurdity was accepted. "I shall go with you," Miss Simons declared, her face set in lines of concentration for the polite puzzle she was considering. "Ten minutes," she said, after due deliberation. "Ten minutes will be the proper duration of my visit. You may stay twenty—ten with me, ten alone with the colonel. As he is wounded, there can be no vice in it. He must have an opportunity to do the proper thing. Now, be sure you don't let him off the hook, Nessie."

  "He is not on the hook," she answered, gliding to the mirror to assess the bait. The excitement lent a sparkle to her eyes. Oh her cheeks rode two rose spots that looked unnatural, but attractively so. She looked different somehow, in a subtle way she could not pinpoint. It was the expression of resolution that accounted for it, perhaps. She looked like a lady with a mission, one she did not intend to fail. That dreamy, irresolute, pouting face so admired by Forrester had taken on the first impression of character.

  "Now, stop making faces in the mirror and go," Elleri ordered. "If he does not consider himself caught, I shall just put a little bug in his ear."