Sweet as the Devil (33 page)

That worst-case scenario allowed only a narrow window of opportunity.

So then, first things first: a good supply of morphine and coca leaves from their traveling pharmacology was in order—morphine for the pain, cocaine to counteract the opium sleep. He needed all his mental faculties operating at full capacity in order to slip into Vienna undetected, contact Katia, find the Albanian, and see Von Welden dead.

Christ
—a daunting task even under the best of conditions with the city crawling with secret police. And his arm semiuseless.

Fortunately, he was ambidextrous.

He’d flay Von Welden with his left hand if he had to.

And afterward, if he lived, he could afford to be human.

Perhaps even consider a future.

 

 

T
HAT EVENING, THE troop stopped in a forest clearing invisible from the road and set up camp. After a tasty meal was prepared and eaten, a night guard was posted and everyone retired to their tents. Jamie and Sofia’s accommodations were simple but comfortable; the ground was covered with a carpet, and a large camp bed held center stage, flanked by a folding washstand and two chairs. Dropping into a chair, Jamie visibly winced as he bent over to pull off his boots.

“Oh dear,” Sofia cried, moving toward him. “Let me help you.”

“Be a good girl and bring me another draught of morphine,” he said, nodding toward the washstand.

He was white-faced and resting against the chair back, his boots off, when Sofia returned with the uncorked bottle. Taking it, he poured a large dose down his throat, handed it back, murmured, “Thank you,” and, shutting his eyes, sat very still as the harrowing pain washed over him in waves. Hours of jostling in the carriage had been hell on his shoulder.

“Could I help you into bed?” Sofia whispered, terrified to see him in such agony.

His eyes opened marginally. “Give me a minute.” He smiled faintly. “If you’ll excuse me tonight. I’m afraid I won’t be much good to you.”

“Heavens, I’m not so unfeeling. Your dressing really should be changed.” It was wet and bloodstained, the bleeding having resumed whenever he moved too much. “Let me do that for you.”

He shook his head. “Douglas will. He’s better than any surgeon. But thank you. It should be much improved by morning. I heal quickly.”

“Oh, good,” she said with such obvious relief he would have chuckled if he’d dared. “It looks ever so painful.”

“The first day’s always the worst. Don’t worry, darling, I’ll be fine soon.”

“I never did properly thank you for saving my life. Thank you a thousand times. You were enormously brave.”

“My thanks as well, darling.” He grinned. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me.”

“Don’t tease. I’m serious. You saved my life.”

“Allow me to say in all sincerity then, you’ve brought me great joy.”

“As soon as you’re mended, I’ll see that I bring you additional joy,” she brightly said, charmed and smitten, her heart filled with tenderness.

Jamie smiled. “Now there’s incentive.”

 

 

B
UT WHEN MORNING came, she woke up alone and immediately knew Jamie was gone. Quickly dressing, she flew out of the tent and tore into Robbie, who’d been left in charge and was calmly waiting for her.

He faced her furious displeasure with unvarying courtesy, meeting her angry barrage of questions with polite evasion, deflecting her insistence on following Jamie with a mild, repetitive refrain. “Sorry, miss, I have me orders.”

Finally, after ten minutes of overwrought female rage and affront while her tent was being disassembled behind her, Robbie quietly said, “If ye’d be so kind, miss, as to climb into the carriage, we’ll be off.”

“And if I don’t!” Frustrated and cross, choleric at having been left behind, her scream rose into the trees.

“I have me orders, miss.” Those orders clearly defined by Jamie last night before he and Douglas had ridden cross-country to catch the night train to London.

Her temper at fever pitch when faced with such obstinacy, Sofia swore like a fishwife while Robbie stood motionless, his face a mask. “Jamie’s going to pay . . . for this outrage . . . damn him!” Sofia finally gasped, bringing her tirade to an end out of sheer necessity, like a child who’d screamed too long.

“Yes, miss.” Robbie glanced at the open door of the carriage, drew in a breath of restraint, and said, “If ye please, miss.”

She flounced toward the carriage, knowing she was being childish and pettish, well aware that Jamie was only doing what he considered his duty. But the sad, awful truth was she already missed him terribly for no good reason and a thousand innocuous reasons. It suddenly felt as though the sun had gone out of her life, her world was utterly cheerless, and what was worse, she had to worry about Jamie dying not just at the hands of some murderer but possibly from his wound. It had taken a terrifying amount of morphine last night to bring him relief.

The moment Sofia entered the carriage, Robbie slammed the door shut as if having lured a wild beast into its cage.

Quickly shoving down the window, Sofia said, “I know Jamie’s gone after Von Welden. You don’t have to tell me, just nod your head. He can’t chastise you for that.”

Robbie didn’t answer for a moment, then he nodded and immediately signaled the driver to move off. He didn’t want to chance it that the rash young lady might take it in her head to bolt. He had his orders and he’d discharge them if it meant tying her hand and foot until they reached Blackwood Glen.

But he breathed more freely as he threw himself into the saddle; the carriage was bowling away at a good clip.

Huddled in the corner of the seat, Sofia could feel her heart beating wildly against her ribs. She was terrified for Jamie’s safety—although she’d probably known all along or suspected at least that he’d turn and fight. Pray God he had sense enough to summon his men from Dalmia before he faced Von Welden with only Douglas at his side—or better yet, he should rouse an army to face the evil fiend.

She silently bewailed her fate, trapped in a carriage, surrounded by armed men, being hied off to Scotland like so much baggage. It was grossly unfair, completely unjust, and flagrantly discriminating. Why should men make all the rules and expect women to simply comply? Why couldn’t she have gone, too? She could ride, she could shoot—well maybe not very well, despite Ben’s tutelage when she was a child—but certainly, she could be plucky and brave.

Although, in all honesty, she had to admit that she’d rather fallen apart that first night at Ernst’s in London; she hadn’t been particularly valiant screaming her head off in Ben’s office yesterday either. Faced with the unflattering truth, she made a wry face. Perhaps, she conceded with a sigh, there were some things men could do better than women. Or at least men like Jamie Blackwood who were resolute and bold and about to fearlessly walk into the cannon’s mouth.

Her tears spilled over in dribbling drips and drops at first, sliding down her heated cheeks, splashing onto the printed linen fabric of her gown, unbidden and unwanted.
Just like a woman
, she thought, quietly sobbing. Like a stupid woman, fearful of losing the man she loved. At the word
love
, the floodgates inexplicably opened and the drizzle turned into a veritable deluge.

Sniffling and sniveling, she soon decided it really couldn’t be. She’d known Jamie so few days and so slightly—sex aside, of course. Furthermore, she wasn’t inclined to fall in love. In fact, she didn’t actually believe in love beyond those commonplace endearments men were likely to utter in the midst of passion.

And sex surely wasn’t love.

There, that was better—reason was restored.

She drew in a calming breath.

But emotions weren’t so easily repressed or dismissed, she discovered, and as the advancing miles separated her from Jamie, her fondness and affection, her lovesick longing only intensified.

Dear Lord, keep him safe
, she prayed when she hadn’t prayed since childhood.
Heal his wounds, merciful God, bring him back to me—don’t let him die.
That she prayed for most.

And she couldn’t stop crying despite her disgust of weeping females.

By the time they stopped to make camp that night, red faced and bleary-eyed, she realized that whatever constituted love, however love was defined, by word or deed or aspiration, she had the ill fortune to love a man who not only didn’t love her, but also might never return.

T
HREE DAYS LATER, traveling under forged documents collected from Ernst’s house in London, Jamie and Douglas arrived in Vienna. They’d entered Europe at Ostend rather than Calais to avoid Von Welden’s sentinels, traveled to Munich, then south by local trains since Von Welden’s spies would more likely monitor the express trains. Outfitted as farmworkers, the two men melted into the crowd of peasants from the countryside who were bringing their produce to market and slipped away down a narrow alley before reaching the market square.

Making their way across the city with the streaming influx of laborers on their way to their daily toil, they reached a tree-lined street in a bourgeois neighborhood. Maintaining a reasonable distance, they followed a group of chattering seamstresses down a private drive leading to the back of a dress shop that served only the crème de la crème of Viennese society.

Midway down the drive, one young girl who was a few steps behind the others glanced back and nervously quickened her pace. Two very large workmen shouldn’t be making their way to Madame Szogyenyi’s establishment at this time of day or perhaps ever. Her employer retained her own laborers and craftsmen, and none of them wore garb more customarily seen on the farm.

But as the group of women were entering the shop, Jamie called out in a voice pitched only for the ears of the pretty laggard, “Mitzi, wake Flora for me, will you?”

The girl spun around at the familiar voice and saw Jamie with his finger to his lips. She nodded, acknowledging his warning, and with a quick smile she turned and followed her companions into the shop.

Jamie led Douglas to an inconspicuous black door in the corner of the three-story Baroque-style mansion. They waited perhaps five minutes in the shade of a large ivycovered topiary before the door opened and a female voice murmured, “Come in. Quickly now.”

Both men silently followed the slender woman in a violet silk dressing gown up a narrow staircase to the main floor where she hurriedly conducted them down a short hallway and waved them into a small, elegant sitting room.

“Are you
mad
?” Madame Szogyenyi exclaimed as she closed the door and collapsed against it. “Clearly you are,” she said, answering her own question. “You must know Von Welden has every spy in Vienna looking for you.”

“We noticed. The two across the street in particular.”

“Odious creatures,” Flora said with hearty contempt. “It’s your fault of course that I’m being harassed. Were they busy with their morning coffee?”

He nodded. “They didn’t even see us.”

“Herr Reuss serves them their breakfast with my compliments. Although the poor man has lost customers since they took up their posts outside his café. The blackguards are really too obvious.”

“I do apologize for bothering you,” Jamie said, taking a small breath against the excruciating pain gripping his senses. “I thought perhaps you might not mind if we use your attic for a few days.”

“Of course I mind, you callous rogue. Anyone with half a brain would.”

“The question is,” he politely said, “how much do you mind?”

Her eyes rested a second on the cool, self-contained man who stood very still by dint of his considerable will, she suspected. She softly sighed. “How can I refuse you anything, you darling man.”

“As ever, I thank you.” Jamie smiled faintly. “I’m more than happy to pay you a fortune for the accommodations.”

“Pshaw. As if I need money.” The dressmaker tut-tutted softly. “You look terrible.”

“I look better than I feel.” His face was marked with stresses, his eyes dark shadows.

Straightening, she briskly said, “You need a doctor. I’ll have Kasper come over. Someone shot you, I presume.”

“Von Metis.”

She quickly shuttered her startled look. “Did he survive ?”

“No.”

“Good riddance,” she said, wishing she could kill Von Metis again for what he’d done to Jamie.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” His pallor was marked, his hands suddenly clenched to deter their trembling. “We’ve been traveling for three days.”

“Tut. And you in that state,” she murmured, moving toward him with outstretched hands. “Sit anywhere, darling. Here, lie on the sofa,” she said, gently touching his arm. “Help the poor boy, Douglas. He’s practically ready to topple over. And you needn’t use the attic, Jamie dear, when my apartment is perfectly safe. Von Welden wouldn’t dare accost me or invade my premises. His wife would cut off his balls if he offended me.”