Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) (31 page)

Peregrine shuffled over to join them, his
shirt points wilted, his green-and-white striped waistcoat open
beneath his greatcoat. “What are you talking about, hmm? You know,
I’m getting rather peckish. Does Goodfellow have any food with him
out there? I already finished the strawberry tart I found in my
pocket.”

“In your pocket? Your
pistol
is
supposed to be in your pocket,” Marcus hissed.

Peregrine rolled his eyes. “I know that,
Marcus. The pistol is in my
other
pocket. I have more than
one, you understand.” He leaned across Marcus to whisper to
Cassandra. “You’d think he’d grasp that, wouldn’t you, Cousin, him
being so smart and all? If being in love makes a normally rational
man this bosky, I’ll remain heart whole, thank you.”

Cassandra giggled. “I agree, Perry. At least
you were smart enough to remember to bring a strawberry tart. Are
you sure you don’t have another one in your pocket? Any of your
pockets?”

“If you two are quite through,” Marcus said
coldly, “I suggest you take up your posts once more. Perceval could
appear at any moment. Hello, what’s this? Perry—over there, right
where you were standing. Where did that man come from?”

Perry whirled about, to look in the direction
Marcus had pointed. “What man? Where?”

“Oh, my God,” Cassandra said, springing to
attention, her throat suddenly dry, her heart beginning to pound.
Her fingers closed around the pistol in her pocket. She had begged
Marcus to allow her to shoot it, for practice, but he had refused.
Could she fire it now, or would she dissolve into feminine
hysterics at the vital moment? Her expression hardened as she
thought of Marcus’s fate unless, today, this very moment, they
could alter history. Could she fire the pistol?
Damn right, I
can,
she thought resolutely, slipping her finger around the
trigger. “Marcus, I hear voices. Perceval’s coming!”

Peregrine, as planned, raced for the doors
leading into the chamber, to position himself in front of the Prime
Minister as he entered the foyer, hopefully blocking Perceval from
view, while Marcus pushed Cassandra aside and lunged at the
strange, wild-eyed man who was in the process of reaching into the
pocket of his worn greatcoat.

It all happened so quickly.

One moment their end of the foyer was empty,
and the next it was full, the members of the House of Commons all
seeming to have decided to take their leave at the same moment. The
foyer was alive with conversation; busy men strode toward the front
doors while harried clerks, carrying sheaves of important-looking
papers, tagged along like loyal puppies in their masters’
wakes.

Cassandra could not take her eyes off Marcus.
He had positioned himself directly in front of the strange man and
was glaring down at him, as if daring him to move. The man seemed
to shrink before her eyes—his weak smile was accompanied by nervous
shrugs and wringing hands as he spoke to Marcus, who had begun to
frown.

“What a crush of people. I say, lad,
frightful day, isn’t it?”

Cassandra wheeled about to see a
pleasant-looking, well-dressed man of indeterminate years standing
behind her. His frock coat glistened with raindrops as if he had
just stepped into the foyer from the street.

“Yes,
um
, yes, it is,” Cassandra
answered, remembering to keep her voice low, and hopefully
masculine, while continuing to shift her eyes toward Marcus. Did he
have to stand so close to the murderer? The guy killed Perceval
because he couldn’t find his real target. What was Marcus
planning—to change history by having the man kill
him
instead? “Frightful weather.
Um,
will you excuse me?”

She left the rain-soaked gentleman where he
stood and skipped across the foyer to Marcus. “Are you nuts?” she
whispered hoarsely, pretending to bump up against him “Why don’t
you just paint a target on your chest? ‘Aim here, jerk.’ Step back,
for crying out loud.”

Marcus silenced her with a took and turned
away, watching Peregrine bravely walk no more than two feet in
front of the Prime Minister as Perceval and his party headed for
the front doors and the safety of the street. “Wrong man,” he said
quietly, scanning the faces in the crowd. “He’s a petitioner, come
to plead his case to one of the members.”

Frowning, Cassandra looked at the man, who
was holding the scrap of paper he had just taken from his pocket.
“Christ,” she mumbled, feeling suddenly sick.

Marcus inclined his head toward the front
doors. “Who’s that?”

“Over there? Just some guy. He’s harmless.”
Cassandra turned about, just in time to see the pleasant-faced,
well-dressed man of indeterminate years reach into his pocket and
pull out a pistol. “Oh, my God! It’s the shooter! Perry!
Look
out!
”

Cassandra hadn’t yet been born when President
John Kennedy had been shot, but she had watched all the news
stories shown on television on the anniversaries of the
assassination, first because her parents had told her it was a part
of history and she should know it, then because she had become
fascinated with all the mistakes, all the errors of omission and
moments of absolute stupidity that, if only one of them could have
been averted, would have altered the course of the nation’s
history.

One of the most intriguing segments, to
Cassandra’s mind, had been the ease with which Jack Ruby made his
way to the basement of that Texas courthouse and shot Lee Harvey
Oswald while the whole world watched.

Now, as she stood, openmouthed, unable to
move, it was as if she was watching that scene all over again, in
agonizing slow motion.

The pleasant-faced man stepped into the
center of the foyer raising his arm, the deadly pistol pointed
directly at Spencer Perceval—and directly at Peregrine Walton.

He didn’t shout, didn’t say a word, this
pleasant man with neck cloth tied pristinely, boots polished to a
high gloss, who looked more like a banker than a crazed killer. He
had spoken to Cassandra, his voice educated and well modulated. How
could he be a killer? How could she have known? Why hadn’t she
known?
Oh, God, why hadn’t she known?

All these thoughts raced through Cassandra’s
mind as Peregrine stepped squarely in front of the Prime Minister,
his arms outflung, willing to sacrifice himself in the name of
English patriotism. That silly, lovable little man, who hadn’t
bargained on any such thing when he agreed to this scheme, was
about to become a hero. A dead hero.

It was too crowded now for Marcus to chance
firing his own pistol at the would-be assassin without possibly
harming innocent bystanders. To Cassandra’s mind, there was nothing
they could do now but watch as their friend fell.

“
No!”
Marcus’s shout echoed in the
high-ceilinged foyer as he threw himself forward, tackling
Peregrine just as the pistol sparked fire and a single shot rang
out, the sharp report reverberating throughout the chamber,
drowning out the sound of Marcus’s desperate denial.

It had all happened so quickly.

~ ~ ~

It was still raining as the small group
gathered in the drawing room of the mansion in Grosvenor Square. A
fire burned in the fireplace to ward off the chill, and several
candelabra were lit to help dispel the gloom.

“Poor Perry,” Cassandra said, shaking her
head. “He was so brave.”

“I never thought he had it in him,” Aunt
Cornelia admitted. Fanning herself with her handkerchief, she took
a seat beside the fireplace. Goodfellow had not as yet come into
the room to position the fire screen. She could do it herself, or
ask for her nephew’s assistance, but she had already announced that
she would much prefer to wait for Goodfellow. “Peregrine Walton, a
hero. Who would have believed it? How cruelly I misjudged the
boy.”

Marcus busied himself at the drinks table.
“Not a boy, Aunt. A man. A very brave man.”

“A man, maybe, but being brave had nothing to
do with it. Cousin Cassie, stop it,” Peregrine protested
impatiently from his reclining position on one of a pair of settees
that faced each other. He brushed away Cassandra’s hand as she
tried to feel his forehead, as if checking him for fever. “And I’m
not a hero. Not bloody well likely, pardon me for being so frank.
Perceval’s dead, ain’t he, just as that book of yours said he would
be? Now, if he was still alive, that would be different. Put a
whole new light on the business. All I did was end up on the floor
with Marcus sprawled all over me, and people either stepping on me
as they ran to pelt that John Bellingham fella what shot the PM or
running to catch poor Perceval as he fell.” He shook his head.
“Nope. I’m not a hero. Always wanted to be one but there it is—I’m
nothing of the sort. Pity.”

Marcus handed his friend a generously filled
snifter of brandy. “You did more than anyone could ask, Perry,” he
said, seating himself in a nearby chair once Cassandra who was
still clad in those outrageous breeches, had collapsed on the
second settee, across from Peregrine. “Knowing full well that you
could die, you threw yourself into the breach. I cannot begin to
tell you how much I admire your attempt. You are a man among men,
Peregrine Walton, and I salute you.”

Perry bobbed his head from side to side,
smiling sheepishly, “Yes, well, if you say so, Marcus,” he said,
looking at Cassandra. “Sorry, Cousin. If you and Aunt Cornelia wish
to call me a hero, I suppose I shouldn’t be so cold as to naysay
you. Go on,” he said, waving his hands in a shooing motion as if
urging them into speech. “I’m listening.”

Cassandra looked over at Marcus, her violet
eyes dancing, watching as he rose and began to pace. “Then it’s
settled, darling. We shall commission the statue tomorrow. Perry,
you will consent to pose, won’t you?”

Peregrine frowned, his chin collapsing into
his wilted neckcloth. “Now you’re making a May game out of me,
aren’t you, Cousin? I should have known you wouldn’t be nice to me
for long. Nobody is.”

“And well they shouldn’t be, you jackanapes,”
Aunt Cornelia scolded him. “A true hero is modest, Mr. Walton.”

“I wonder what will happen now,” Marcus said,
looking into his snifter as he moved it in a lazy circle, watching
the brandy swirl inside it like a small whirlpool. “Perceval wasn’t
a brilliant man, but he worked very hard, and he had the best
interests of England at heart. Cassandra, do you think you could
remember who is chosen to replace him? The Whigs are going to be
running hotfoot to Prinny to convince him that fate has handed him
a grand chance to trade a dead Tory for a live Whig, although I
doubt Lord and Lady Hertford will allow it.”

Cassandra frowned, shaking her head. “One of
my authors went into a lot of detail on government figures, but I
had to edit most of it out. That stuff’s pretty boring unless you
feed it to the readers in small doses. But I think I remember
something about beef, or lamb, or—wait a minute! Liver! That’s it.
Liverpool. He was always around in Regency times. Could it be him—I
mean
he?
”

“Liverpool?” Aunt Cornelia’s handkerchief
came into play once more. “Well, if that isn’t above everything
stupid! Why didn’t the Prince Regent name Castlereagh in the first
place and have done with it?” She turned to Cassandra. “You
wouldn’t understand this, my dear, but Liverpool is a stickler of a
High Tory, but a born puppet, while Castlereagh is a master
puppeteer. And quite possibly mad into the bargain,” she added
quietly, “although you did not hear me say that.”

Marcus stifled a grin, enjoying his aunt’s
descent into gossip. “It is not that Lord Castlereagh is a bad man,
Cassandra,” he explained, tongue in cheek. “He works long and hard,
studying each problem that comes before him, and then he comes down
on precisely the incorrect side of every important argument. It’s
almost uncanny, how infallibly fallible he is. I believe I shall
sleep nights thanks only to your information that we do eventually
emerge victorious from this terrible war with France. Perhaps we’ll
be second-time-lucky, and Castlereagh himself is assassinated next
year?”

Cassandra rose from her chair, to stand close
beside Marcus, one arm slipped around his waist. “Bloodthirsty,
aren’t you? But I don’t remember that happening. Sorry. Marcus—poor
Perry still looks pale to me. Don’t you think he should go upstairs
and lie down on his bed? All in all, it’s been a long day.”

“Pale?
Me?
Nonsense,” Peregrine
blustered, jumping up to go and inspect himself in the gilded
mirror that hung over a Sheraton side table. He grinned at his
reflection, then lifted a hand to run it through his disheveled
hair. “What is there to be pale about, I ask you? Heroes are never
pale. Look at me—the picture of health! I say—what’s this?”

As Peregrine began inspecting the skirt of
his burgundy satin evening coat, just below the waist, Cassandra
joined him in front of the mirror, leaning forward to see what was
bothering him. “Perry!” she exclaimed, grabbing the material.
“That’s a bullet hole! My God, are you hurt?”

“Hurt?” Peregrine repeated, looking confused
as he strained to see the hole. When he couldn’t quite reach it, he
pulled off the coat, turning the sleeves inside out in his rush. A
moment later he was standing in front of Marcus, his pudgy index
finger stuck straight through the hole. “Do you see this? Brand
new, Marcus. Brand new from my tailor just last week—and not even
paid for—and now it’s ruined! Do you know what this coat cost? Oh,
foul, foul! And Brummell complimented me on it just last
night.”

Marcus looked at his friend. “Beau
complimented that coat?”

Perry pulled a face. “You know Beau, Marcus.
He doesn’t exactly go out of his way to make pretty speeches about
anything. So, no, he didn’t exactly
compliment
me. But he
did say he greatly appreciated that I wasn’t wearing that green
thing m’tailor talked me into last month. It’s almost the same
thing as a compliment. And now,” he added, waggling his index
finger up at Marcus’s face, “it’s ruined!”