by Edith Layton
19
“The trouble with females,” the Lion grumbled, “is that they’ve no senses of humor. If Eve had laughed in the serpent’s face, what a happier place this miserable old world would be.”
“The serpent,” Susannah replied from the depths of her mug, “was a male.”
“Exactly,” the Lion said, giving her an approving glance to cover the smile he’d almost given way to. “How was he to know the silly wench didn’t have an ounce of humor in her body—it comes with the original rib, you know—and so couldn’t appreciate his jest?”
“Genesis according to St. Lion. Interesting,” Susannah commented as she put the tankard down and settled back in her chair. She yawned and then asked, all at once, sitting bolt upright and staring at him, “Whatever was in there, Lion? Are you trying to make me bosky?”
“It’s only enough rum for a mouse to paddle his toes in, the rest’s all juices. I wouldn’t dare toy with you,” he said smoothly, “for if Mr. Jones didn’t come for my skin immediately after, with the handsome viscount tripping over him to get to me first, then you’d be sure to do the job for them.”
“You quake,” Susannah observed wryly, settling back again.
“In a way, my dear, I do,” he answered, gazing at her reflectively.
She knew it for a compliment, and found that she couldn’t jest at that. It hadn’t been very long since she’d come back to consciousness, the Lion chafing her wrists, and damning himself under his breath three times over. Then he’d ordered one of his men to get her a mug of something bracing as he settled her in a chair to hear her story. She’d told it briefly, as it wasn’t a thing she wished to linger on, and he’d frowned. Then he’d called for another man he’d whispered something to, even as he hastily scrawled out something on a sheet of paper. Whatever he was about, Susannah felt secure in the knowledge that it would all be to her benefit, and so she could relax for the first time since morning, content and safe and grateful to be in the company of the greatest villain in London.
“You’ll send to Gloucestershire for Warwick?” she murmured groggily, all the frights and diversions of the long day interacting with the mouse’s jot of rum to make her pleasantly sleepy.
“No need,” Lion answered briefly, as he sanded another note and handed it to another minion. “It goes to his London address. If I know my man, if he’s not there at this moment he’ll doubtless be there before long.”
She nodded, trusting herself to him completely, and he smiled at her bravery as he gazed at her. He was amused at her faith in him and very impressed with her courage at the hands of Lord Moredon’s hirelings. He knew few women, and no ladies, who would have kept their heads so well. But then, in both instances, although he didn’t mean to demean it, any more than he’d ever tell her of it, he wondered how much of that courage came from ignorance.
Could she know, for example, that in this part of the city she was far more than delicious-looking, she was a profitable piece for anyone to get his hands on in any sense? Fair, shapely, and beautiful, there wasn’t a part of her that couldn’t be sold or enjoyed, from her lovely body to the clothes that covered it, from her masses of bright hair to the slippers on her feet. In a world where there were those who scratched out brief existences by every low means known to man—from selling the teeth from a dead man’s mouth, to creating him—even her lifeless form could be used for profit, provided one knew where to sell it. Only her cleverness, wit, and courage were worthless, extraneous to the matter, except to herself and those who loved her, like the song of a lark meant to be prepared in a pie.
“I was startled, that’s why I behaved so badly,” she suddenly said reflectively, although he’d thought she was done with that. But she’d been so brief in her account of her travails that he’d known she’d come out with more when she’d recovered herself further, so he sat and listened, being a man who knew there was always some profit in listening closely.
“Lord Moredon said the worst things, I won’t repeat them, those I understood were too awful to mention, those I didn’t, I think I didn’t want to. He hates Warwick and Julian so much he only wanted to harm me to harm them. Can it be that such hatred can turn a man’s mind?” she wondered aloud.
“Aye, that, and reverses on the ’change. Yes,” Lion said, “it’s true enough, though it’s been kept close. I think he himself doesn’t want to believe it, but the baron’s been losing his fortune at the same rate his wits have been going. Now, what’s a toplofty gent like that to do when he sees all his funds slipping away? Not every nobleman’s as daring as your viscount, willing to soil his hands with work to keep body and soul together. Some turn to selling off family treasures, sisters included,” he added dryly, “some sell themselves in marriage, some turn to gaming, some find that all those things won’t help, perhaps that’s what turns their wits. A few swallow their pride and leave the country, a few try to swallow their pistols when they get to point non plus, and some, like our friend Moredon, find other ways to escape the reality of their predicament.
“Added to which, his dear sister was defying him, and at that, with someone who’d always troubled him, and then Warwick Jones trounced him soundly in front of all his world. That turned the trick nicely, I think.”
Susannah sat very quietly, digesting all the new information. She almost felt sorry for Lord Moredon, until she remembered his eyes, his touch, and his words. Remembering those words precisely now, she sat up straight.
“Did I tell you?” she asked excitedly. “He was going on about ‘the Highwayman riding again’ and ‘all the king’s men looking for Gentleman Jones’s ghost’ so that Julian should take care because he drove a coach? He found it funny, but it didn’t make sense to me. Has he gone so far that he makes no more sense? Perhaps then they’ll see how badly off he is and put him away before he can do further harm.”
“No,” Lion said thoughtfully, rising and pacing, “no, there is, as the fellow said, method to his madness. It’s a cold, calculating mind that’s been turned. He knows what he’s about well enough, too well, in fact. How else do you think he knew enough to get your protectors away, and lure you to London? Mr. Jones’s uncle was sick, true enough, he died the other day, you know,” he commented, pausing in his pacing to note her surprise, and nodded as he continued, “but I’ll eat your best flowered bonnet if the viscount had a real invitation from the coaching company, and have a pair of your gloves on the side with it, if your contessa has any inheritance coming to her this side of the grave. No, he must have had a spy in Brighton, a kitchen wench or a stableboy, it doesn’t take skill, anything with ears and an open palm will do for such. I know he’s been paying what little’s left of his coin for information all over the kingdom. He believes settling with your two gentlemen will settle his own troubles, and so he’ll spend every last shilling and effort to do it.”
It was late, the room was dim, she was weary, but something in the Lion’s resumed steady pacing and thoughtful expression kept Susannah alert so that she might hear every word he uttered.
“The part about the highwayman’s true enough,” he said at length. “Some fool’s trying to revive the trade on Hounslow Heath and sometimes Blindley Heath, but the outcome will be the same, only faster, than it was in the Gentleman’s day. Bow Street’s horse patrol’s cleaned those places up, and the only good pickings to be had at the game are far up north now. But that bit about the viscount, ah,” he sighed, “I don’t understand it, or maybe I’ve gotten to be like you, and just don’t want to.”
She watched him carefully. He was a burly, barrel-chested man but still he moved with certain natural bearlike grace. He was intimidating, in fact the aura of great power he emanated had concealed what she could see now that she believed herself to be his friend: which was that he wasn’t an old man at all, and though his wasn’t an easy face to read, he might actually not be too many years senior to her own gentlemen. He caught her looking at him, and grinned, with almost as effective a leer as he’d greet
ed her with this evening. But now she didn’t fear him, though a sudden thought made her very fearful indeed.
“Lion…” she asked slowly then, hesitantly, and he sighed, dropping her a few inches in his estimation, wondering, from the way she’d dropped her gaze at the look he’d teased her with, if she was about to say something about how long she could stay with him unchaperoned. That would have occurred to her about now, he thought disgustedly, since with all her courage she was styled a lady, and she suddenly sounded unsure and fearful again.
“Lion,” she asked soberly, raising grave eyes to him again, “do you think Lord Moredon can harm Warwick? And Julian? He thinks he can.”
“He can,” Lion agreed, pleased with how wrong he’d been about her question.
“How can such a man run tame in society?” she asked, shuddering.
“He can’t, not really, not anymore. Eccentric and amusing behavior is acceptable, even admirable, but the man’s gone too far, he’ll present a problem to the ton now. He’s too dangerous and disturbing to be let in polite company, but too noble to ignore, still too influential to be transported, and it’s too embarrassing to trot him off to Bedlam just yet. In the end it’ll be all pure profit for me; arranging a nice fatal accident for him will bring in a healthy sum. Ah yes, the Lion does have teeth, Miss Logan, don’t look so shocked,” he said coldly, annoyed at her sudden recoil and grimace of distaste. “With all my talents, I do occasionally act as a rubbish remover for society.”
She put back her head and stared at him.
“The lion,” she said, angrily, “does not deal in carrion. That is the jackal you’re thinking of.”
He tensed. The amused and tolerant expression left his face, letting her see the quick fury beneath. Seeing his reaction, she knew at once she’d done a foolish, thoughtless thing; there was good reason this man was so feared. But that wasn’t all she saw. She’d cut him badly, and it had been selfish to do so, for it wasn’t strictly his morality she protested. Her anger, she suddenly perceived, was more at herself than him. Because he’d never lied to her. She’d only been too much an idealist, or maybe just too much of a child, to want to believe that a man she could like and trust could kill for hire. It was never his fault she couldn’t see him as he was because she needed her own comfortable illusions, it was never his fault, she then explained shamefacedly, that she hadn’t been able to see that before her rash remark.
He shrugged off her apology, too amazed at the fact that her insult had stung to be angry with her, too astonished that her apology bothered him as well. However prettily put, it wasn’t pleasant to know she wasn’t angry at him for his crimes, as any decent woman should be, but because she’d been disappointed in her estimate of him. He was boggled, and didn’t know if it was because it had been so long since any decent female had rated him high, or because it was that she now promised to rate him so low, and so he told her in his turn, laughing at himself to cover his astonishment at his own new estimation of her.
“You’ve changed, Miss Logan,” he said with admiration. “This isn’t the correct lady I met in Mr. Jones’s drawing room.”
“I know,” she said sadly, deliberately misunderstanding. “Just look at my hair, my gown, I look a sad romp now. Abduction, imprisonment, and escape do nothing for one’s looks,” she said sadly, a little smile peeping out as he laughed with her.
“But what could have happened to you?” he persisted. “Mr. Jones is an extraordinary fellow, but no miracle-maker. And until recently the viscount was hotfooting it after his lady. I doubt it was the Sussex air, or I’d bottle it and make my fortune from the noble gentlemen that way, turning all their proper ladies into real women for them.”
She tilted her head to one side, as someone she knew often did, taking his jest seriously, because she found she wasn’t at all offended that he no longer termed her a lady.
“I think,” she said, pondering deeply, before she grew a look of amazement, finding the truth and then bringing it forth newborn, “…I think it is that I grew up.”
“My dear Miss Logan,” he said sincerely, “if you ever decide to give up respectability, I am yours, completely.”
“Thank you,” she said just as sincerely, “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Then here’s another thing to remember,” he said seriously. “Keep your gentleman away from Lord Moredon. Dissuade him from seeking revenge. Go home and stay there, and keep him at your side until it’s settled. Moredon’s a madman, and that lends him more cunning and cleverness than even your gentleman has.”
She didn’t ask which gentleman he meant. Because a man like the Lion, she thought nervously, might very well know.
*
They would travel by night. It was a dangerous time to be on the road, and it would be slower going as well. But neither of them would sleep this night anyway, both were men of action and both found it equally unthinkable that they should go to their beds while Susannah was missing, while she might be in danger, and while their lovely little friend, as they both thought, but neither dared say, might already be beyond their help.
Their only disagreement was as to their mode of travel. In the end Julian prevailed through logic and the press of circumstance. For it was an overcast night, just as he pointed out, and so the moon and stars wouldn’t show their mounts the byways as quickly as a coach could be driven up the Brighton Road by someone who was well used to it. By someone who, as Julian argued, knew the road back and forth from its least gully to its worst turn, having driven it so often, drunk and sober, day and night, that he could do it in his sleep.
But sleep was the last thing from both gentlemen’s minds as they rode through the opaque night, the carriage lamps fore and aft the only illumination on the road, the steady beat and jingle of the horses’ hooves and harnesses, the creaking of the coach, and the occasional snap of a pebble thrown as the wheels spun over it, the only manmade sounds in the deep cricket-filled summer dark. Until Julian spoke.
“There’s no sense springing the cattle, you know,” he explained defensively after many miles of silent concentration on his driving, although his companion on the high hard coachman’s seat hadn’t spoken a word. “That’s all flourish, done for an extra coin from the topside passengers, impressive, but to no avail, and no good coachman will do it unless he needs the money badly. They’re only animals, and they only have so much in them, and what you take out now for a burst of speed you’ll lose later in the long run. I suppose if you could change teams every five miles there might be a point to it, but then there’s the changing that would eat up time. No, springing them is all show and no go, so don’t fret, Warwick, we’re going as fast as we can even though we’re not racing to the wire.”
“Never have I seen such horsemanship, my boy,” Warwick said gently. “My silence came from the depths of my admiration, not vexation, believe me. There’s no way we could get to London town faster tonight, and I’m grateful for your expertise, don’t doubt it.”
They drove on in silence, and then in concert they turned and looked at each other as best they could in the swaying, wavering yellow glow of the carriage lamps, and then they both laughed for the first time since they’d been handed the note when they’d arrived at Greenwood Hall that afternoon.
“Very nicely done,” Warwick agreed. “You reassured me, I complimented you, and we’re both comforted. But there’s truth to it, Julian. There’s good in it as well, since there’s nothing else we can do but keep each other’s spirits up just now. I’ll confess I don’t remember when 1 ever felt so helpless,” he said with barely suppressed agitation, “so much at a loss, or so much at the mercy of time. And I don’t like to be at anyone’s or anything’s mercy. I realize I’ve never been. It’s a new sensation, and so much as I’ve sought novelty all my life, I don’t think I care for this particular feeling in the least.”
“It’s what you get for loving people, Warwick,” Julian said, turning his attention to the leaders of his teams just then, and so mi
ssing the sudden grimace of surprise his words caused his friend to make, “but I’m glad you care for Susannah so much, you’re a close fellow and I know you don’t take up with many people. I’d hate to think you disliked the one woman I intend to spend the rest of my life with.”
“One?” Warwick said in more normal, aloof tones. “Dear Julian, last week you were ready to open a vein for the sake of your lady’s smile, now you plight eternal love for little Sukey? Who shall it be next week, I wonder.”
“Susannah and Susannah and Susannah,” Julian replied calmly.
“And all your yesterdays have lighted you the way to loving her?” Warwick misquoted coolly. “I wonder.”
“Have you never loved?” Julian demanded angrily, “that you mock me for finding it?”
“Patience,” Warwick sighed, “I only jest because you find it so very often, my friend. And it’s a wonderment to me. I’d caution you to take care of where you next place your heart, or if not care, then at least careful counsel before you do.”
“Why, there’s your problem,” Julian retorted, “you take too much counsel. Love’s not a dry, debatable thing, it’s not a thing you can reason out or decide intelligently.”