She shot Ralph a sharp glance, but he was gazing off into the distance, lost in a happy memory. “You knew we were a love match before we knew it ourselves,” he said.
“I don’t see what this has to do with me and Alexander.”
“I didn’t say it had anything to do with you.” He chuckled. “But, since you bring it up…”
“Ralph, stop!” she cried. “I can’t bear it, I really can’t. I don’t want to hear anything about love. Not while things are so uncertain.”
“The man cares for you, Daisy,” he said gently. “He looks at you in ways that make me want to run him through. He ran into a burning building to save you.”
“Oh, that.” She sniffed as though handsome dukes saved her from certain death on a daily basis. “Alexander is too noble for his own good. He would have done that to save a kitten.”
Ralph laughed and shook his head. “All I am saying is that if you want to fall in love with him, you have my blessing. He is a good man, and I can see how much he cares for you. I will refrain from slashing him in half with a broadsword the next time he gives you one of those smouldering glances.” He winked. “Though he had better marry you before he attempts anything further.”
Daisy blushed, thinking of the kisses she had shared with Alexander. “As if I would tell you if anything else had occurred.”
“No, no!” Ralph covered his ears. “No more, I beg you! I cannot bear to think of my little sister grown up and doing all the things lovers do.”
Daisy tossed her head, made a noise of disgust, and spurred her horse into a gallop. Ralph’s laughter chased her as she rounded a corner and came to a cool, tree-lined avenue.
His teasing had hit too close to home. If he kept it up, she would likely cry.
Of course it all looked wonderful from his point of view. He had overcome so many obstacles to win Jemima’s heart that he must surely think no problem was insurmountable. He had no idea of the dark secret that still held Alexander in its clutches.
For that matter, neither did she. All she knew was that, deep in her heart, she did not believe Alexander was capable of committing the sin he had spoken of.
She let her horse wander idly through the trees and over the grass until they reached another path. Her mother would be disappointed that she had slipped Ralph’s supervision so swiftly, but Daisy was tired of being coddled. She wanted nothing more than to be alone, to cool her burning cheeks with sober thoughts, and to puzzle over her wounded feelings.
“Miss Morton!”
A dreadfully familiar voice pulled Daisy out of her reverie. She clutched at the reins.
“Mr Kettleburn!”
A nasty smile twisted the lawyer’s mouth as he drew a pocket pistol from his riding coat. “Don’t scream.”
Daisy clapped a hand over her mouth. She had never been at the wrong end of a pistol before. The experience was even more unpleasant than she had always imagined. Prickles of terror scuttled over her skin as every inch of her begged to flee.
But the barrel of the pistol stared her straight in the eyes, and she could not move.
“This is an unexpected pleasure. I hoped that following you from your home might prove useful, but I never dreamed I would catch you alone and unchaperoned.” Mr Kettleburn glanced to the left and right. There was no one within view. Daisy did not know whether she was praying that Ralph would find her, or that he would stay far out of sight of Kettleburn and his weapon. “You certainly are a modern young lady. Now, there is no need to look so unhappy. I have as little desire for unpleasantness as you do.” He held out a hand, keeping the pistol trained on her with the other. “There is something you have that is worth a great deal of money to me. Hand it over.”
“The vase?” She lowered her trembling hand from her mouth. Why would Kettleburn imagine that she had brought it out riding? “It has been destroyed. I don’t have it any longer.”
“But you saw it broken?”
She nodded. His eyes narrowed.
“Then you know what was inside it. A key, Miss Morton. Turner found nothing in your rooms, so you must keep it on your person. Give me the key.”
“I know nothing about…”
But a memory stirred in her mind, too sharp and too sudden to keep from her face.
The burn of frozen breath in her chest as she hid underneath Alexander’s bed. The sound of men’s footsteps entering the room. And a key hanging precariously at the edge of a gap in the floorboards, only to tumble through her fingers and fall…
“You are a poor liar,” Kettleburn sneered.
“I don’t have it. I swear.”
“Then where is it?” He jerked the pistol and Daisy flinched. “Quickly, now. I have no desire to be caught in Hyde Park with my pistol trained on one of society’s darlings. Where did you put the key?”
She focused her gaze on the pistol and imagined it turning from her own chest to Alexander’s. To Selina’s. To Edith’s.
No. She could not possibly give Kettleburn any information that would lead him to the Balfours’ house.
“I don’t know where it is. I threw it away with the rest of the vase.”
Kettleburn’s nostrils flared. “Ah, Miss Morton. How dearly I would love to believe you.” He kicked his horse into a walk, moving closer to her. “Let me escort you back to my offices. You have some urgent business to discuss with me.” He struggled out of his coat, passing the pistol from one hand to the other, and draped it over his arm so that only the barrel of the gun was visible. “If you call out – if you spur your horse on too quickly – if you do anything to attract attention to yourself – I will shoot.”
Daisy looked around desperately, but Ralph was nowhere to be seen. He knew her too well. The time alone she had wanted had been freely given.
“Where are you taking me?” She was pleased to hear her voice still cool and steady. It turned out that burning buildings were not the only perilous circumstances in which she could remain calm.
“To my offices. Where I will keep you until you tell me where I can find that key.” His red tongue darted out and passed lasciviously over his lips. “And if you remain stubborn, I shall be forced to search your clothing.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Kettleburn laughed cruelly. “Do you think your virtue is worth more to me than five thousand pounds?”
Daisy was about to tell him in no uncertain terms that Mr Turner no longer believed Alexander would keep the money from him. Kettleburn would not receive a penny. She longed to see his face when he discovered that he had ruined his good name for nothing.
But, on reflection, it was better not to antagonise the man currently threatening her with a pistol. Daisy kicked her horse into a walk slow enough not to arouse any suspicion and followed Kettleburn’s muttered directions out of the park. Every time she glanced behind her, she saw the gleam of the pistol peeping out from beneath his coat.
14
Alexander stood close beside Mr Turner as they entered the offices of Mr Kettleburn’s law firm. They were every bit as opulent and overbearing as he expected from a lawyer who only worked for society’s finest. Mr Turner’s hands were clasped stiffly behind his back, his eyes darting from the thick carpet to the gilt-edged portraits on the walls. Alexander knew that the shopkeeper’s son felt out of place. Which, of course, was precisely what the décor was intended to achieve.
Alexander himself was in no mood to even feign respect for Kettleburn or his cronies any longer. He fixed the young clerk at the desk in the waiting room with his best ducal glare.
“I am the Duke of Loxwell,” he announced, noticing with satisfaction how the clerk’s eyes widened, “and I am here to see Mr Kettleburn, without delay.”
“Of course, Your Grace!” the clerk gasped, leaping to his feet and then looking about helplessly on finding nothing more to do. “I am so sorry – Mr Kettleburn is not in at present.”
“We will wait for him,” Alexander declared, taking a seat on the high-backed armchair in
the corner. Turner took up position at his side, still straight-backed and wide-eyed. At least, in that pose, he resembled some form of hired security. The clerk was certainly impressed. He swallowed so heavily that Alexander could see his Adam’s apple bobbing from the other side of the room.
“May I offer you something to drink, Your Grace?”
“No, I think not.” Alexander was not naturally supercilious, but he hoped he had managed to give the impression that any beverage the clerk might offer him would be so common as to insult him. The young man flinched obligingly. “When is Kettleburn expected to return?”
“Imminently, Your Grace, imminently, I assure you!”
“Good.” His tone implied it was anything but. Alexander settled his hands on the clawed arms of the chair, one set of fingers drumming lightly. The clerk eyed the movement nervously for a full minute before deciding it was safe to take his seat again.
“Courage,” Alexander muttered to Turner, once the clerk’s attention had returned to his work. “Kettleburn is the one who has done wrong, not you.” Turner shot him a sideways glance of anguish, and Alexander clarified his statement. “Well, Kettleburn has done the most wrong, and was the instigator of it all. You and I may consider ourselves avenging angels.”
“Avenging angels,” Turner repeated, muttering the words low like a prayer. He straightened his shoulders and resumed his stiff-backed pose at Alexander’s side. “I have never believed in angels.”
As if on cue, the dark wooden door creaked open and revealed a face which Alexander, if he were prone to poetry, might have described as angelic indeed.
Though angels were traditionally depicted as radiant and serene, rather than cross and as windswept as a half-blown dandelion.
Daisy was standing in the doorway of Kettleburn’s law firm in her red riding habit, her dark hair tumbled as though she had ridden into a stiff breeze, and the flush of anger in her cheeks. Alexander had never been more astonished.
Close behind her, so close that he entered the room before Alexander could even leave his seat, came Kettleburn himself. One of his black-gloved hands was fastened on Daisy’s upper arm, squeezing so tightly that his fingers nearly met around her slender arm. Bile rose in Alexander’s throat.
“Daisy!” he said, getting to his feet and striding towards her. When she saw him, her eyes widened and her lips formed a circle of shock. She gave him a barely-perceptible shake of her head that stopped him in his tracks.
“Your Grace!” gasped Kettleburn, losing his grip on Daisy’s arm. She remained frozen in place, not making the slightest move in Alexander’s direction.
“Kettleburn,” growled Mr Turner, taking his place at Alexander’s side.
“Turner,” Kettleburn hissed, his clever eyes taking in the scene in a moment. “You turncoat wretch –”
In his anger, he moved towards his erstwhile accomplice, and the motion revealed the barrel of a gun pressed into Daisy’s back.
“Mr Kettleburn!” shrieked the clerk, scattering his sheaf of papers into the air as he jerked away from his desk in shock.
Alexander’s focus narrowed to that steel cylinder forcing itself against the stiff red fabric of Daisy’s riding jacket. The rest of the world – Turner, the wailing clerk, Kettleburn himself – faded into a grey blur.
A series of frantic sums calculated and recalculated themselves in his mind. The distance between him and Daisy. The distance of Kettleburn’s finger from the trigger. The time it would take him to leap across the room and knock Kettleburn to the ground. The angle the gun would take if Kettleburn, once tackled, should fire.
But Daisy had a habit of throwing Alexander’s calculations into confusion, and today was no exception.
The second Kettleburn’s grip loosened on her arm, she ducked, twisted away from him, and drove her boot-clad foot back into his shin.
That was all the opportunity Alexander needed. He launched himself towards Kettleburn, striking him in the shoulder and bringing them both crashing to the floor.
A loud retort rang in Alexander’s ears as the gun discharged. Kettleburn’s bony body had broken his fall, but the breath had still been knocked out of him. He struggled to take hold of the wriggling old man’s wrists and pin them to the ground.
“Daisy,” he called, unable to tear his attention from his struggling captive, as desperately as he wanted to hear her voice. “Daisy, are you hurt?”
“Are you?” Her rising hysteria matched his own. Alexander got the better of Kettleburn at last, knelt on his chest and pinned his arms to stop him escaping, and looked up to find Daisy staring at him in horror.
“I am not hurt at all.”
“He fired!” This shriek was far too pathetic to spring from Daisy’s lips. The young clerk was clinging to the side of his desk, white-faced and looking as though he were about to faint. “He fired at me!”
“Ah…” The low groan came from Turner. He was clutching his arm with one hand, and let go briefly to inspect the blood staining his torn jacket.
“Mr Turner, you’ve been hurt.” Daisy’s return to practicality was instant. She stepped around Kettleburn’s twitching legs, pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it to Turner’s arm as the room began to fill with open-mouthed lawyers and clerks.
“Mr Kettleburn has gone mad!” announced the hysterical clerk. “He tried to murder His Grace the Duke of Loxwell!”
“Madness would be more easily forgivable,” said Alexander. Now that he knew Daisy was unhurt, he found the ring of authority returning easily to his voice. The atmosphere in the room altered, relief and anticipation overpowering the confusion. Someone was in charge of this mess, and that someone was Alexander.
“You there,” he said, jerking his head towards two of Kettleburn’s colleagues. “Come and help me restrain your employer. We will lock him in an office until the Bow Street Runners arrive.”
Kettleburn’s face had taken a nasty crack in the fall. His nose had burst open, and the blood was threatening to seep into the cuffs of Alexander’s top coat. He hoisted the burbling lawyer up by the lapels and thrust him into the custody of his employees.
“Excuse me, Your Grace!” A bent-backed old man whom Alexander recognised as Kettleburn’s second in command bustled towards him. “Allow me to extend my sincerest –”
“Later.” Alexander swept past him and went straight to Daisy, who was helping the white-faced Mr Turner into a chair.
Alexander’s own concern was reflected in the depths of Daisy’s dark eyes. He stood close to her, closer than he rightfully should, and let his eyes hold hers for a long moment. His hand moved towards her arm, but she glanced down at Turner, breaking their shared gaze, and moved slightly but noticeably out of his reach.
“There is no need to look at me as though I am a wounded soldier,” she said calmly. “I am perfectly well. I never truly thought he would shoot me. What purpose would that serve?”
“How did he take you?” Alexander’s voice was hoarse as sandpaper. He coughed, turned his attention to straightening his cravat and his rumpled clothes. “Has he been following you?”
“He said as much, though I believe my own recklessness gave him the opportunity to strike. I was riding in the park with Ralph. I cantered off alone, as I am sadly prone to do, and was unlucky enough that Kettleburn found me first.”
“Your brother will be worried sick.”
Daisy grinned ruefully. “He is too used to my wayward habits to worry much when I ride off. I’ll be back for luncheon, and he’ll be none the wiser.” She bent to check on Mr Turner. “Now, sir, breathe deeply and steadily. Is the pain very great?”
Turner lifted the handkerchief to check his wound. The blood was already slowing. “It is only a scratch. It was a shock, that’s all.”
“Keep that pressure on it,” Daisy advised, taking his hand and pressing it back to the wound. “Gentlemen! Will someone call for a doctor for Mr Turner?”
Her cool composure even in the face of kidnapping, gunfire, and b
leeding injuries stole Alexander’s breath. Had he admired Daisy before? What he felt in the past paled to ashes compared to the flaming adoration that threatened to consume him now. His own heart was still racing, yet despite all that had happened, Daisy looked as though she had endured nothing more than a pleasant morning ride.
“Perhaps Kettleburn did go mad,” suggested Turner, looking less pale by the moment. “I can’t think why he would go after you so, Miss Morton.”
To Alexander’s astonishment, Daisy laughed. The cheerful sound brought several disbelieving looks from the clerks bustling about to clear up the mess Kettleburn had made in his own waiting room.
“He was kind enough to tell me what he wanted!” Daisy shook her head, half-fallen waves of dark hair bobbing. “It turns out the vase really was the key to it all – or rather, the vase contained the key. When it was smashed –”
“When Edith smashed it,” Alexander interjected. Daisy’s mouth snapped closed in alarm. She stared at him wide-eyed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her calm voice a complete mismatch to her expression. “I smashed the vase.”
It was Alexander’s turn to laugh. He wished the blasted lawyers would clear out of the room – Turner, too – and leave him free to kiss the red flush of guilt on Daisy’s cheeks. “And you used to have such a skill for pretence, Daisy.”
She looked down, swallowed hard, and continued as though he had not spoken. “When the vase was smashed, the key fell to the floor. Underneath the bed, in fact. I was trying to retrieve it when…” Glancing up, she caught sight of Alexander’s expression and responded with a stony glare. “Really, I don’t see what is so funny!”
“Nothing,” said Alexander, with an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. “Only I have just now discovered that Lady Shrewsbury had the wrong of it all along.”
Daisy’s glower could have cut through steel. “Did you ever suspect she was correct?”
“A man can hope.” Alexander grinned shamelessly. Perhaps the rush of fighting an armed man was going to his head. Or perhaps he simply could not resist sparking that light of outrage in Daisy’s eyes.
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