A Much Compromised Lady (25 page)

Her stare was drawn to the other man in the
room. Casually, as if he were at a shooting range, St. Albans stood
near a desk, his back to the door, with a smoking pistol in his
hand.

“You shot him,” Glynis said, her voice dull.
She did not know if it was relief that weakened her arms and legs,
or terror that not even an earl could escape hanging for
murder.

At the sound of her voice, St. Albans turned.
He glanced at Dawes, irritated. Bad enough to have Dawes bursting
in on this scene, but he had brought Glynis with him. Well, what
was done, was done. He glanced back down at Nevin’s body.

“Well, Gypsy?” St. Albans asked, turning to
the troublesome brother.

Christo rocked back on his heels, and shook
his head.

St. Albans nodded. “I thought as much.” He
turned to Bryn Dawes. “My condolences, and my congratulations, Lord
Nevin. The shot will take some explaining, but you may leave that
to me. However, a physician of some sorts must be called upon for
an official verdict of death.”

Grim faced, Bryn nodded. He glanced at
Glynis. “You had best come with me.”

“No. My place is here. With my brother.”

He glanced at her, worried, but he left
without looking back into the room.

Glynis also did not look at the body on the
floor as she stepped into the room. “Now I want to hear the truth.
Why did you shoot him?”

“
Phen
,” Christo said, rising to his
feet. “No one was shot.”

Frowning, Glynis glanced at her brother. “But
I heard...”

“You heard a pistol report,” St. Albans said.
“I presume we are all interested in getting through this as easily
as possible. So it had best be a bet to shoot the wick off a
candle—that will explain the shot and the hole in the wall. The
rest is honest enough for most—the late Francis Dawes’s heart
seized and failed, and he died.”

St. Albans glanced over to find his Gypsy
frowning at him. “What, disappointed that I did not murder him,
after all?”

Glynis shook her head. She put a hand up to
rub her temple. Nothing seemed to be what it appeared. A shot
fired, but no one had been hit. Francis Dawes dead, but of natural
causes. Christo came over to St. Albans, and she watched, her head
spinning now, her brother put out his hand.

St. Albans glanced down at it, moved the
pistol to the other hand and took Christo’s grip.

“I never forget a life debt,
gaujo
.”

“Life debt?” Glynis repeated, then glanced
from St. Albans and back to her brother again. “What is not being
said here?”

St. Albans dropped her brother’s hand and
turned to her. “Nothing you need bother about. You heard the story
that you must repeat if you have any interest in ever claiming any
respectability for your family and—”

“Claiming! Christo, I almost forgot.” Glynis
reached up her sleeve to untuck the paper she had hidden there. She
thrust it at her brother, and glanced at St. Albans. “Our cousin,
Bryn, found it years ago—hidden in the box.”

She had the satisfaction of seeing surprise
flicker in St. Albans’s eyes for an instant, before his expression
blanked. “Well, it seems I have congratulated the wrong Lord
Nevin.”

Christo glanced up, his expression dazed. “Is
it real,
phen
?”

She nodded.

Before she could say more, their cousin came
back with servants and a physician, bringing chaos with him. Glynis
found herself swept aside at first, with servants leading her first
one place and then the next, and finally she was led outside to a
carriage and bundled in next to St. Albans.

Numbness weighted her arms and legs as if she
had been swimming against a river’s current and could swim no
longer, but this day was not over. Leaning back against the velvet
cushions, she stared at St. Albans through half-closed eyes.

“He tried to shoot Christo,” she said, her
voice sounding flat to herself and as hollow as she felt. It was
not a question. She knew the answer. Just as she knew St. Albans
did not care for her brother—but he had saved her brother’s life.
He had taken the gun from Francis Dawes—it had been the struggle
over that pistol that had made the man’s heart fail. She knew it,
just as she knew she owned this man who sat beside her far too
much.

The horses trotted past the great houses of
Mayfair with their burning lights, so that she saw St. Albans in
brief glimmers. She could see his profile, and that he lazed
against the coach seat as if nothing out of the ordinary had
happened.

He lifted a pale hand. “Your brother has an
uncanny ability to inspire the desires in others to bring out
pistols, so it was not an unexpected reaction.”

She frowned at him. “You knew this would
happen?”

“Let us say, rather, that I anticipated the
possibilities.”

She thought about this a moment, her feelings
tangled. Without St. Albans, it would have taken Christo much
longer to reach London. But he would have gone. She had no doubt he
had intended a confrontation with Francis Dawes--Christo had
planned it from the moment he had seen that the box lay empty of
any marriage lines. And if St. Albans had not taken Christo to
London, would she have gone to her cousin for aid? Would she have
found the marriage lines?

St. Albans’s actions had saved more than
Christo’s life. He had given her what she wanted. But still she
wanted more. She wanted to why he had done what he did. His reasons
were important.

“You knew Christo would be in danger if he
went on his own, and so you went with him. Even though you do not
like him, you went. Why?”

His voice sounded clipped and irritated as he
answered, “Because I rather thought it would upset you to have your
brother dead, and that was not part of my design.”

“So you admit it? You actually considered
someone else’s feelings?”

“No, I considered your feelings. I do not
intend to make this a habit with every person of my acquaintance,
but I seem to have made it a habit with you.”

In the darkness, she glared at him. “You do
not sound very happy about that.”

He sat silent for a moment, his expression
hidden. When he answered, it was with a sarcastic drawl. “And what
should I be happy for? For your brother? It certainly seems as if
he and your cousin shall work something out about his inheritance,
but I would not wish the legal nonsense he will have to face on
even my worst enemy.

“Or should I be happy that I managed to
wrestle a pistol loose from a man’s hand tonight just before he
dropped dead at my feet. Oh, yes, that was a rare treat.

“Or perhaps I should simply be happy that you
have within your reach your respectable cottage in your respectable
village. Well, I am far too selfish a person to be happy for any of
those reasons.”

Exhausted as she was, annoyance flickered
inside Glynis. Ah, but this
gaujo
never made anything
easy—not even the truth.

“Selfish? Yes, that is what you want me to
think. What you want everyone to think. You want to ruin the good
in what you did tonight by twisting it until it breaks, and then
you can say to yourself that you knew all along that is how the
world is—hard and cruel. But you cannot erase that you saved my
brother’s life tonight. I owe you more than—”

“Will you stop acting as if I am some
dim-witted hero? You owe me nothing.”

Her mouth tightened. She would have him admit
what she knew, no matter what it cost her. With her body aching,
Glynis moved so she now sat next to him in the carriage.

St. Albans stiffened, wary about this new
tact of hers, disliking that she seemed intent on forcing some
ridiculous notion she had about him onto him. But her hand only
sought his and covered it.

“Bah, much you know about anything,
gaujo
! We Romany know a debt when we see one. Christo and I
both owe you.”

He glanced down at her. She leaned back
against the upholstery, and now raised her free hand to hide a
yawn.

Shifting, he moved his hand out from under
her touch and settled it over her shoulders. She did not resist as
he pulled her against him. He smiled and relaxed. About bloody well
time she softened towards him.

“Perhaps I do not,” he told her, leaning
closer to her, the scent of woods and summer roses in her hair. Its
dark softness brushed his cheek. “Perhaps I have been wrong, and
there is something to this fate that you believe in. Perhaps this
is how the design was always meant to be woven. Perhaps we were
meant to be this way together—do you believe that?”

Deep, even breaths answered him.

She had fallen asleep in his arms.

For a moment, he could only stare at her,
frustrated and annoyed. Then he gave it up.

His arm tightened around her.

Fate. It had to be cursed fate, right enough.
Here she was at last in his arms, willing—and insensible. He could
wake her. With kisses and soft touches, and he would have her in
his bed by dawn. But he had seen her face in the light at Nevin
House, how drawn it was with dark smudges under her eyes. He would
not begrudge her sleep now. And he could not resist running a thumb
across her closed eyelid now, as if he could rub away her
exhaustion.

She made a small sound and burrowed closer to
him, one hand stealing up to his chest.

Oh, blazes, what did he do with her now? He
had dealt with reluctant ladies, prudish ladies, shrews, and ladies
who were that in name only. However, he had not the faintest clue
as to what to do with a woman who slept in his arms, trusting and
vulnerable. He’d never had such a thing.

His body had demands of its own, but he found
himself curiously reluctant to exploit this opportunity.

The devil of it was he’d actually been
pleased by her gratitude. And so very tempted by that belief she
wanted to foist onto him that she thought good of him.

As if he had done anything.

She had been the one to prove him wrong. She
had found her respectability, and he found he had not the heart to
take it from her.

“You will tire of it, you know,” he told her,
and she gave a soft sigh as if she had heard him.

“We are two of a kind, you and I, and not
made for the laws that bind others. But I suppose you must learn
that for yourself, if you do learn it that is.”

The carriage slowed to a halt, and a footman
opened the door. St. Albans gave a curt order, the door closed and
the carriage moved forward.

“It has to be madness,” he told his sleeping
gypsy, his hand closing over hers. “A passing madness. And God help
us both if it is not.”

* * *

Glynis woke to brilliant sunlight that stung
open her eyes, and a gathering humidity that stuck the sheets to
her legs and arms. Sitting up, she stared around her. She did not
recognize the room.

Nor did she remember how she came to be
here.

Memories began to drift back to her, like
images from a dream. The long, hard ride. That nightmare in Nevin
House, with Frances Dawes dead. The carriage ride to...

To where?

Throwing back the covers, she realized she
wore only her shift and corset. Someone had undressed her. She had
vague memories of strong arms lifting her, carrying her—had it been
St. Albans? But this was not Winters House, or it was at least not
any room she had seen before—it was not her room. So where was
she?

Throwing off the bedding, she rose and padded
to the window. Below seemed to be a bustling street, not the quiet
green of Grosvenor Square. Where was she?

Quickly, she turned and started looking for
her clothes.

The green traveling dress hung in an
otherwise empty wardrobe. She blinked at it and pulled it out. Not
a stain lay upon it, not a smudge of dust, not a wrinkle. Clean,
pressed, it smelled now of rose water.

With a frown, she scrambled into it.

She had just sat down to lace up her boots
when a soft knock sounded on the door.

St. Albans
, she thought, frowning. Ah,
but that
gaujo
had to stop learning to think he could send
her where he pleased, and keep her where he liked. She would have
words with him about that—as well as about a few other things.

With her boot laces half done, she strode to
the door, her heart quick and light. But a stab of disappointment
caught at her when she saw only her brother at the door, scowling
at her.

She tried to summons a wide smile.
“Christo!”

He strode into the room, frowning. “He is not
here?”

“Who is not?”

“Who? Who else. That earl of yours. I
thought...” He thrust a note at her.

She scanned the lines, recognizing St. Albans
dramatic slanted hand, and read aloud, “Gypsy, I have left your
sister at Dorant’s Hotel, not much compromised but in need of
gowns. I will send your mother to her there.”

Glynis looked up from the note. “What does he
mean send
Dej
to us?”

“I was more interested in the
not much
compromised
—what did he do to you?”

Glynis glowered at him. “That is my business,
but if you must know, he did—”

A knock interrupted. Christo opened the door.
With the flash of a wide grin, he swept up a dark-clad figure into
a hug.

“
Dej
!” Glynis shouted, running to
enfold her mother and brother in a hug.

It took hours for everyone to tell their
stories to everyone else.

Their mother had left the camp in Bado’s care
when St. Albans’s coach had arrived for her—the Earl of St.
Albans’s had had men following their mother’s whereabouts for some
time it seemed, keeping a discreet eye upon her. Glynis warmed at
the idea that he had taken some effort to look after the safety of
her mother, but she was not sure that was his true reason. St.
Albans might just have wanted to know where he could find her if
she’d run back to her mother.