His Improper Lady--A Historical Romance

by Candace Camp

  “Wait.” Tom took her arm. “You don’t mean to jump across that street.”

  “We can jump it. It’s only three feet.”

  “Three feet of empty space!”

  “Don’t worry. It’s safe. We’ll make it. I told you—my ‘talent’ came in quite handy for thieving.”

  Tom dropped his hand and watched, heart in his throat, as Desiree backed up, then ran forward at full speed and leaped across the strip of nothingness, landing on the balls of her feet and springing up. Tom moved back, reminding himself that it was a distance he could easily jump and that the height made no difference. He took a breath, then raced forward, jumping the gap and landing on the other roof with a good deal less grace than Desiree.

  Desiree looked at the rooftops around her as Tom picked himself up, panting.

  Her eyes gleamed as she said, “They made a mistake. This is my patch.”

  Once more she set off across the rooftops. The area was a warren of buildings, a hodgepodge of heights and styles. They had to crawl across the midpoint of a steeply pitched roof at one point and scramble up the less slanted side of another to reach a higher roof. The streets and buildings twisted and turned. Then, the street along which their pursuers ran came to a dead end, a warehouse blocking their way.

  Desiree vaulted over the low parapet onto the roof of the warehouse and kept running, followed by Tom. At the other end of the warehouse was a large block and tackle, a rope running from the pulley to the lift platform. The rope had been tied off, holding the empty lift at the top. Desiree went to work on the knot, and Tom reached in to help. Tom played out the rope, letting the platform down to the ground, then retied it to keep the rope taut.

  Using her skirts to protect her palms, Desiree grabbed the rope, wrapped her hands and legs around it, and slid down the rope to the street. Tom followed suit. They crossed the rough ground to the street on the other side of the warehouse. They were now on the street parallel to the one they had traveled earlier. The men, if they were persistent enough to follow them, would have to backtrack to the last cross street and come around, too, putting them a good distance behind them.

  They trotted down the street, a little breathless from their exertion. Everything was silent around them, making it very noticeable when a few moments later their pursuers emerged onto the same street. One of the men let out a shout, and they charged after Desiree and Tom. Tom cursed. Desiree grabbed his hand, taking off across the street and through the door of a building.

  Bolting up a set of stairs, they ran down a hallway and out onto a gallery on the back side of the building. Below them, Tom could hear the lap of water, and looking down, he saw that the river was below them. They rounded the wooden walkway and ran back toward the front of the building, where they climbed another set of stairs.

  With anyone else, Tom would have questioned the strategy of running upward, but he trusted Desiree and stayed on her heels. They came out on a higher gallery. Next to them was an obviously abandoned building. The roof had caved in, leaving only the walls. The front wall was the same height as the building on which they stood, and it stretched all the way to the next building.

  Desiree swung her leg over the railing of the wooden gallery and Tom said, “Desiree, wait...you expect us to walk across that?”

  “You can do it,” Desiree told him encouragingly. “It’s wider than the beam you walked on in our exercise room.”

  “Yes, but that was a foot off the floor, not thirty feet,” Tom pointed out.

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s more than twenty,” Desiree replied. She gazed at him for a moment, then nodded. “Stay here. I’ll go across and draw them off. You head back down the stairs and come out after they’ve passed.”

  “And leave you to face them alone? You really are insane if you think that.” Tom sighed and gestured at the wall. “Lead on. I hope to hell this thing isn’t about to fall in like the rest of it.”

  “It won’t. Trust me. I can ‘see’ it, just like with people.” Desiree smiled and leaned over to give him a soft kiss. Turning, she stepped onto the wall and walked across. Tom swung his leg over and stepped down onto the wall, his hand still clenched on the railing. He looked down and sucked in a breath. On the right lay the street two floors below. On the left lay the debris of the collapsed roof. He’d never thought of himself as being scared of heights, but there were heights and then there were heights.

  “Don’t look down,” Desiree said. “Just walk to me.”

  Lifting his head, Tom set his feet straight on the wall—it was wider than he needed, but somehow that fact did little to reassure him. Heart pounding, he released his hold on the railing and extended his arms to either side, as she’d showed him the other day, and began to walk toward her. He wanted—so much—to cast his gaze down at the street below, but he refrained. One step and then another. Don’t go too slowly. Don’t think about the ground. Just walk to Desiree. It lasted an eternity, and he could feel the cold sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

  But then he was there, taking her hand and jumping down to stand on the roof beside her. Desiree took his hand and said, “You’ll like this—there’s a ladder down from here.”

  “Thank God.”

  There was indeed a ladder at the other end of the roof, and even though it was just as long a drop to the ground as the wall had been, Tom had no qualms about climbing down it. All it took was strength, and that was an entirely different matter. The rungs ended a few feet above the ground and Tom jumped to the dirt below, then turned back to reach up and catch Desiree as she let go. He set her down beside him, and they leaned back against the building for a moment, panting.

  “Where the devil are we? The docks?” he whispered.

  She nodded. “But it’s not terribly far from the Strand. If we can just make it there, we’ll be able to grab a cab.”

  They edged over to the corner of the building and peered around. The street was empty in either direction. Slipping out from behind the building, they walked quickly and quietly down the street, staying in the shadows of the buildings. They passed a tavern, but neither of them felt like going into a dockside pub for help.

  Turning onto another street—now Tom was beginning to recognize where they were, as well—they saw two men walking toward them. The men broke into a trot when they saw them. Desiree and Tom came to an abrupt stop.

  “There are more of them?” Tom exclaimed in disbelief.

  Whirling, Tom and Desiree fled back up the street. Darting into a side street, they ran on, turning corners frequently. The maneuver lost their most recent pursuers, but just as they slowed to a walk, they heard a shout. “There she is!”

  Tom looked over to see the original three men running toward them. Tom and Desiree took off again. Desiree scanned the buildings around them as they ran, looking, no doubt, for a way to scale one, but they were all warehouses—large buildings with flat brick walls, void of ornamental doors, stonework, trellises or porches. There were no wooden galleries or trees. Streetlamps were few, just enough to see where one was going, creating pools of shadows.

  Tom could see that Desiree was flagging; hell, he was, too. However athletic and agile Desiree was, the running and climbing they had done was very taxing, and the burst of energy that their fear and excitement had released was beginning to wane. Before long, both of them would come crashing back to earth.

  Too late, Tom realized that they had run into a dead end. A loading dock lay at the end of the street, with only the river ahead and warehouses lining the sides. They skidded to a halt and turned, but the three men were too near. There was nothing for it but to stand and fight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  TOM DIDN’T NEED to look at Desiree to know what she wanted to do. Tom squeezed her hand, and the two of them rushed forward, taking the fight to their enemies. The men skidded to a stop in surprise. One of them slipped and fell to the ground
. Tom swung his fist, hitting the largest man in the stomach, and the man doubled over. Tom followed up with a blow to his jaw.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Desiree go into a cartwheel, kicking the third man in the face as she went by. He let out a yowl and staggered backward. Desiree whirled as soon as her feet touched the ground and hurled herself at his back.

  Tom’s opponent staggered but came back. He was less agile than Tom, but his big fist packed a wallop. The third man, who had fallen at the beginning, jumped up, and Tom glimpsed a short metal bar in his hand. He rushed at Tom, swinging the bar. Tom grabbed his opponent’s jacket and jerked him between Tom and the man with the weapon, so that the blow landed heavily on the other man’s back. He fell against Tom, carrying Tom down with him. They rolled across the street, grappling. The fellow with the bar followed, swinging at Tom, but he wound up in the street instead as the combatants rolled first one way and then the next.

  Tom slammed his opponent’s head against the bricks of the street, stunning him, and jumped to his feet as the man with the bar swung at him again. Tom blocked the blow with a raised arm, sending a shock of pain through him up to his shoulder, and punched the man in the jaw with his other fist. The man staggered back, and Tom grabbed the bar, wrenching it away.

  As he’d fought, Tom had seen Desiree out of the corner of his eye only as a blur of movement, dodging, kicking, whirling, ducking under the other man’s wildly swinging fists. She was holding her own, but Tom knew he had to get to her and disable her opponent.

  For the moment, the man he had been fighting first was out of the battle, rolling away and struggling to his feet. So Tom went after the second attacker, who had recovered his footing and was moving forward. Tom slammed the metal bar into the man’s arm, following up the blow with a hard kick to the side of his knee. The other man cried out and crashed to the ground, his hands grabbing his knee.

  Tom whirled in time to see Desiree scramble halfway up a lamppost and swing her feet out to clip her opponent in the jaw. Tom ran to her side, shoving her would-be attacker into the wall of the building behind her. Desiree jumped down from the lamppost, and they ran back up the street. Behind them their foes staggered to their feet and began to pursue them.

  At that moment, the two newcomers they had seen earlier turned onto the street ahead of them. Spotting Desiree and Tom, they started forward at a run. Tom let out a curse and pushed Desiree into the nearest doorway. It was set far enough into the stone wall to provide a bit of an alcove, and Tom placed himself in front of her, bar raised. Desiree gave him a push to the side and came up beside him in the doorway. She yanked the sharp-pronged hair ornament from her waistband and took up a fighting stance.

  Her hair had long since come undone and tumbled riotously around her shoulders, and her eyes were blazing, her face fierce. She looked utterly wild. And utterly beautiful. Tom knew he would kill if he must in order to protect her.

  Raising the iron bar, he roared at the trio of original enemies, who came to a halt a few feet away. One of them was limping badly, and they looked warily at the weapon in Tom’s hand. In the next instant the two newcomers arrived.

  The two men launched themselves at Tom’s and Desiree’s enemies.

  Tom and Desiree stared in astonishment at the melee. There were only two of the new arrivals and three of the others, but the attackers were fresh, and within only a few moments, the original three broke and ran. The two rescuers were hot on their heels.

  “What in the world?” Desiree gazed uncomprehendingly after the fleeing men.

  “I have no idea, but I suggest we take advantage of it.”

  Tom took her hand, and they walked swiftly down the street. Tom kept the metal rod with him, but no one else popped up to confront them, and within a few minutes the area around them began to improve, and eventually they emerged to the Strand.

  At first they walked, leery of hailing a hackney after their previous experience, but both of them were exhausted. Finally, Tom raised his hand to hail a passing cab. The driver looked askance at the iron rod in Tom’s hand and sped up.

  “I think perhaps we look a mite disreputable,” Desiree said.

  Tom turned to her. Desiree’s hair was down and thoroughly tangled, and her skirt was smeared with dirt and God knew what else. No doubt he looked substantially worse, with a cut beside his eye that had bled down his face, a large tear in his trousers, and a jacket pocket that had torn halfway off and hung flapping. The bar in his right hand probably hadn’t added anything trustworthy to his appearance.

  He began to laugh, and after a second, so did Desiree, until they were roaring hysterically. As their riotous laughter slowed to a halt, Tom dropped the iron bar and pulled Desiree into his arms, wrapping his arms around her, and squeezed her tightly to him. He bent his head to kiss her hair.

  “I was so scared you were going to get hurt,” he told her, his voice throbbing with emotion. “It makes me shake, just thinking about it.”

  “I know.” Desiree buried her face in his chest, her arms locked around his waist. “I was, too. It’s easier when you only have to be afraid for yourself.”

  They stood that way for a long time, unmoving, just holding on to each other. Finally, Tom stepped back and took out his handkerchief to wipe as much of the blood and dirt from his face as he could. Desiree managed to pull back her hair and wrap it in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, securing it with her hair ornament/weapon. They dusted off their clothes, and Tom simply tore off the hanging pocket on his jacket. He hailed the next hackney that passed.

  This one stopped and they climbed in. Tom pulled Desiree onto his lap. All the frenzied energy of the chase had drained out of her, and she leaned against him, closing her eyes. Tom could feel her body begin to sag and knew she was drifting toward an exhausted sleep.

  All Tom wanted to do was to take Desiree back to his flat, to care for her and cuddle her. To lie down with her and hold her as she slept. To know she was safe and secure.

  But of course, that was impossible. Even though they had left the club early, it was now late, and Desiree’s brothers would be alarmed that she hadn’t come home. Tom could scarcely justify worrying them even more just because he didn’t want to leave her. He had no right, no standing, to protect and care for Desiree, however much he ached to.

  Tom gave the driver Desiree’s address. When they pulled up in front of her house, Tom kissed Desiree on the forehead, murmuring, “We’re here. I started to carry you to the door, but I thought that might cause some consternation.”

  Desiree smiled up at him tiredly. “Thank you. It would indeed. Though if I’m lucky, Brock won’t be home yet.”

  They left the cab and walked into the house. Desiree’s luck held, for Brock was still closing the club, but Wells saw them from his chair in the parlor, and he got up and crossed the room quickly.

  “Desiree? What happened?” Wells’s piercing blue eyes swept a comprehensive glance over the two of them. “You look as if you’ve been in a fight.”

  “That’s only reasonable, since we have been.” Desiree attempted a light tone, but her voice betrayed her weariness.

  “What in the—No, never mind.” Wells gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “You can tell me in the morning. You clearly need to go to sleep.” He turned to Tom. “I must say, you look just as dead on your feet. Come on.” Wells nodded toward the staircase. “You can sleep in the guest room. No need to haul yourself back home.”

  Tom wavered only a moment before giving in and following Wells upstairs.

  * * *

  WHEN TOM AWOKE the next morning, he lay for a moment in confusion, uncertain why he was sleeping in a soft bed with luxurious sheets and a canopy over his head. Desiree. He was in Desiree’s house. He sat up, raking his hands back through his hair and trying to bring his disordered thoughts into focus.

  It felt extremely odd to be here. He wasn’t ent
irely unaccustomed to being anywhere but his own bed—after all, he had to travel now and then on business and he’d even stayed in one of the Moreland houses on occasion—but this was where Desiree lived, and that made all the difference. It brought up a number of decidedly lustful thoughts, but at the same time there was something so natural, even familial about it that it was disconcerting.

  Tom got out of bed, every ache in his body making itself known. The soles of his feet burned; his cheek throbbed; and there didn’t seem to be a muscle in his body that hadn’t been strained. He found his suit, cleaned, repaired and neatly pressed, on a stand, his cleaned and polished shoes beneath it. There was even a fresh, starched shirt folded on the dresser; he presumed it must belong to one of her brothers. An open door showed the tiled room beyond, which he had discovered last night was a small but modern water closet. It boasted all the necessities from a comb to a shaving razor.

  Sometime later, he emerged from his room, clean, shaved and dressed. The upper hallway was quiet, so he went downstairs, where the sound of voices led him into the breakfast room.

  All three of the Malones were sitting at the table, and they looked up as Tom came into the room. Desiree jumped up, smiling, and came to take his arm and lead him to the chair beside her. He had hardly sat down before their efficient butler was there, pouring him a cup of tea, then dishing out a variety of eggs, sausages and pastries onto the plate before him.

  “Desiree was telling us about your adventures yesterday evening,” Brock said. He seemed, Tom thought, somewhat friendlier than before—or, at least, less antagonistic. “It’s very fortunate you were with her. Thank you.”

  “I think Desiree helped me more than I helped her.” Tom grinned at her, realizing a shade too late that perhaps his look held more affection than was seemly. “I couldn’t have escaped them if she hadn’t been there.”