Dancing with a Rogue (52 page)

She looked back at her captor. Rage transfigured his face.

Only one thing might force him into letting her go for even a moment.

“I will tell you,” she said suddenly, going still. “If you wish to know so much, then let me go and I will tell you why I wanted to meet you.”

“You will tell me anyway.”

“No.”

“Damn you.”

She did not flinch. Did not move.

He suddenly released her hand. His eyes bored into hers.

“Do you remember a woman named Mary Anders?”

Recognition flickered in his eyes, then his face paled.

“Do you?” she insisted.

“Yes.” Stanhope's words were little more than a whisper.

“She was my mother.”

Monique allowed the words to sink in.

His face went from white to gray. “She could not …”

“Why? Because you tried to kill her. And me. You thought she was dead.”

“Oh my God,” he uttered. “You … cannot be …”

“I am your daughter. My mother survived your attempt. But in doing so, she lost everything. Her dignity. Her health. Her life …”

He was staring at her as if she were a ghost. Then, “You are wrong. It was not me. My father … he told me she had died. I …” Then his gaze went to the bead bracelet on her wrist. His face hardened as he apparently understood what had happened.

“You,” he said. “Then it
was
you. How long have you and Manchester …?”

“It was not Manchester. It was myself alone,” she said. “I wanted justice. You destroyed her. Not immediately. It was a long painful death, instead. One man after another, each sapping her strength, brutalizing her. She lived in fear, and so did her family.”

His face hardened. “My father said it was best that your mother, and you, died. He was right, damn it.”

“No!”

Monique heard the cry from above and turned to look at the stairs. Pamela stood there. So did Dani.

Stanhope turned that way, too.

It was time enough to pick up a lamp. If only she could set it in the window. The two men she'd hired to kidnap Gabriel would go to the back and come in. They would be prepared to forcibly take a man to a ship.

But just as she moved toward the window, Stanhope grabbed her again with one hand.

The other held a pistol.

The fog cloaked much of the house. Gabriel had waited as the lights went on inside. Then he saw two men lurking across the lane. They were trying to look as if they were just talking, but they did not look quite right for this respectable section of London.

He moved closer. From an angle he saw Stanhope inside, a pistol in his hands.

Keeping an eye on the two men across from him, he went to the front door. He had his burglary tools with him, since he had not known whether he would need them to get inside Stanhope's home.

Weapons. He had a pistol in the saddlebags of his horse, tied to a hitching post not far away. Did he have time to fetch it? He wasn't going to risk it, nor the two men loitering nearby. He had a knife in a sheath in his waistcoat. That would have to suffice.

Using his back to disguise his movements, he tried the door, finding it locked. He reached inside his waistcoat, and in seconds the lock opened.

Straightening, he sauntered inside as if he had his own key and belonged there. His right hand was close to the knife. He saw Pamela on the steps. How in the hell did she come to be here? And Dani?

His gaze went to Stanhope, who turned in his direction, the pistol moving away from Monique and toward him.

Stanhope's eyes were wild. “Manchester! I knew it. I knew you were in with the bitch.”

Stanhope's pistol had only one shot. Gabriel would far rather he expend it on him than either Monique or Pamela.

“It took you a while, though, did it not?” he said conversationally. “You are not nearly as intelligent as you believe you are.” He stared at Stanhope. “There is evidence of your crimes now. Unless you flee now …”

Stanhope's arm wavered slightly as it moved between him and Monique. It was difficult to determine which he wanted to shoot more.

“You have one shot in that pistol,” Gabriel continued. “You cannot kill everyone in this room. Even three women, I believe, can stop you, and you will hang. On the other hand, you can run now. You have a chance. You can leave the country.”

“Exile.” Stanhope spat it out.

“I expect that is better than a hangman's noose,” Gabriel said calmly. He knew Stanhope's fingers were itching to shoot. He was betting on the man's sense of self-preservation.

“There is evidence,” Gabriel said again. “I expect authorities are checking the cargo of the
Peregrine
as we speak. You have little time.”

“You did this,” Stanhope said in a forced whisper.

“I did. And alone. Oh, Miss Fremont was a convenient foil, but I have planned this for years, my lord,” he said mockingly. “Everything. Even as I captained an American ship during the war. I wonder if I sank some of your ships.”

“God damn you.”

“Go, if you want to live,” Gabriel said in a low singsong voice. “Go.”

“Not before I kill you,” Stanhope said, steadying the barrel of the pistol in Gabriel's direction.

“No!”

He heard Monique's voice at the same time he saw her lunge toward Stanhope. She literally flew the few feet to knock his arm just as the pistol discharged. Pain ripped through Gabriel's arm even as he lunged for Stanhope. The man avoided his grasp and slipped away from him toward the door.

Gabriel went after him, slowed by the pain.

He caught him at the door. Stanhope whirled around and hit his wounded arm with the butt of the pistol, dropping the weapon as he did so. Stunned, Gabriel sank to his knees as Stanhope tore open the door and fled.

Monique rushed to him, but Gabriel shrugged her aside, rose, and staggered to the door, only to see Stanhope mounting Specter and disappearing into the fog.

Home. The man had to be going home. He would need money. Weapons. Clothes.

Gabriel ran to the corner, searching for a hackney. Blood streamed from his arm. He felt it dampening his clothes and running down his arm. But he refused to allow Stanhope to escape.

He was only partially aware of the two men he glimpsed earlier coming toward him, and he heard Monique scream out, “No!”

He pushed past them. Monique followed. He turned. “Send someone for Baron Tolvery. On Greene Street. Tell him to go to Stanhope's.”

“No,” she said. “Your wound …”

But he ignored her words. Instead, he stood in the way of an oncoming carriage. As it stopped, he opened the door and peered inside. An obviously inebriated lord stared back at him.

“An emergency,” he mumbled to the occupant of the carriage. “Lord Stanhope may be in desperate danger. Take me there.” He said it with such command that the man stuttered through the window to the driver.

Monique had reached the door. “Tolvery,” he shouted again at Monique. “Reach him.”

The carriage lurched forward before she could answer. The jolting of the carriage caused more pain to shoot through him. Blood, he noted, was dripping on the floor of the coach, but the lord was so drunk that he did not seem to notice. “By Jove! Stanhope, you say?” his startled host said.

“Aye,” Gabriel said, wishing he had more than the knife with him. Stanhope had left his pistol in Monique's residence, but he undoubtedly had more weapons. He was not going to get away, though.

“I'm Ridley,” his host said. “Don't know Stanhope well.” He looked down at the floor. “Say, you are bleeding, sir.”

“It is nothing,” he said.

But the young lord looked less in his cups now. His eyes went to the blood puddling on the floor of his obviously expensive carriage. “I think I should find a police officer or a Charlie.” He started to rap on the back of the carriage, then saw Gabriel's face and sat back.

Seconds later they pulled up in front of Stanhope's town house. “
Now
you can get a magistrate or police officers,” he said and jumped out.

Stanhope had a lead of perhaps ten minutes if the earl had raced Specter.

Gabriel didn't see the horse in front. Stanhope had probably ridden into the mews. To go to the front would mean awakening the servants.

Only one light shone from the house, and that was in Stanhope's study. Ignoring the growing pain in his arm, Gabriel strode to the back of the house. His horse was there. He tried the door. It was unlocked. He moved inside and went to the study. The door was closed.

He opened it as quietly as possible and heard the sound of drawers being pulled out. Gabriel stepped inside and saw Stanhope going through the drawers. A valise sat at the doorway.

Stanhope whirled around. “You!”

Gabriel looked at the bottom drawer, where he had placed the forged papers. It had not been opened.

Then he saw a pistol on the desk.

Just then he heard the shouts from outside. Time to gamble a little, to gamble for time.

“It is over,” he said.

“I can take you with me,” Stanhope said.

“Then you most certainly will have a public hanging.”

A pounding was heard at the door. “You have no friends now,” Gabriel said. “Just like my father had none. You drove them away. Do you know Baron Tolvery? He is at the
Peregrine
now.”

Stanhope reached for the pistol and Gabriel lunged for it as well. But he was weaker than he thought, and Stanhope reached it first.

More pounding at the door. Alarmed shouts of servants.

Clutching the pistol, Stanhope looked toward the door. It opened. Anxious and frightened faces peered in.

Stanhope stood there. Pistol in hand. His eyes fixed on the servants staring at him from the door, then at Gabriel.

The pounding outside was louder.

Stanhope lifted the pistol to his temple. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

Chapter Thirty

Gabriel leaned against the wall.

The scene was familiar. It had haunted so many days and nights.

He wanted to feel satisfaction. He did not.

Then men pushed inside. Stanhope's hand was still around the pistol. His eyes were open and appeared to be staring.

One man, obviously in charge, stepped forward, “Wha' 'appened 'ere?”

“His lordship shot hisself,” a footman, a long shirt hanging outside his trousers, said in awe.

The man who had asked the question looked at Gabriel. Gabriel nodded.

“A young lord said someone planned to kill Lord Stanhope,” the policeman said.

“I told him that,” Gabriel said. “But Stanhope tried to kill me, and I wanted to stop him from escaping. It seemed simpler to say he was in danger than to try to explain.”

“Your name, sir?”

“Manchester. The Marquess of Manchester.”

The man's eyes narrowed. “I heard of you.”

“I am sure you have,” Gabriel said, aware of the hollow-ness in his voice. “Excuse me but I must sit down.”

He stumbled to one of the chairs. He'd been wounded before during a sea battle. He knew there was a period during which pure energy or excitement kept a wounded man going, and then …

“Sir?”

Voices began to fade.

“My God, he has been shot.”

“Call a physician.”

“Help lay 'im down.”

His eyes started to close, and he suddenly smelled an aroma he remembered. Loved.

Loved.

A cool hand touched him. He tried to force his eyes open, but they could … could … quite …

He felt someone lift him, and then his world went black.

Monique sat by his bed. She prayed.

She had not prayed in a very long time. She only hoped her prayers would be accepted.

The physician called to Stanhope's home said Gabriel had lost a great deal of blood. His remedy, after pulling out a bullet, was to bleed him to remove the poisons.

Smythe, whom she had sent for, would not allow it. He had seen too many men die. Alcohol, he said. Pour alcohol over the wound. He had seen it work before. And rest. Gabriel needed rest. Nourishment.

Care.

Monique could provide the last. She had sat by her mother for days, watching her die. She did not intend to watch another person die.

She'd had him moved to his own residence after authorities assured themselves that Stanhope had indeed taken his own life. She determined that Gabriel was going to live.

And at least Mrs. Miller was safe. She had been found bound and bleeding, but was soon indignant and ready to see justice done. She'd not been mollified to realize it
had
been done.

Smythe helped Monique keep vigil as Gabriel sank into unconsciousness after the bullet was removed from his arm. He woke for a brief period to ask as to her welfare, and Pamela's. Then he lapsed back into unconsciousness again, his body apparently depleted. Then the fever took over.

He tossed and turned, muttering unintelligible words, evidently returning to that day when as a boy his own father shot himself. Monique bathed his face and body, as his body seemed to radiate heat, then covered him with blankets as he shivered. She forced broth down his throat during brief periods of consciousness and tried to tempt him into drinking water.

His wound was all her fault. If she had left when he'd asked her, if she had been able to spirit him away sooner. If she had not been hell-bent on revenge. Perhaps then he would not be lying in this bed.

“You should get some rest,” Smythe said as he entered the room with fresh water and clothes. “I will dress the wound.”

She shook her head. “I cannot leave him.”

“He is strong and has a will like iron,” Smythe said.

“It is my doing.”

“No, miss. He knew what he was doing.”

“I should have—” She stopped suddenly.

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.