Rules for Being a Mistress (41 page)

“What?” Dante looked at them, perplexed. “Rose?”

“I’m sorry, Dan,” said Rose. “It would not be respectable.”

“You’re fecking codding me!” said Dante, throwing up his hands.

“I am not accustomed,” Rose said frostily, “to such language as this.”

Westlands climbed into the carriage with Rose and closed the door.

“You said you loved me!” Dante cried, running after the coach as it raced off into the night. “I’m away without leave because of you! I gave up
everything
for you!”

As the vehicle turned the corner, he succeeded in clambering up Lady Rose’s luggage on the back step. He heard Rose shriek from within the coach, and then the curtains of the back window opened, and Rose’s pale face looked out.

“You bitch!” he howled. “How could you do this to me?”

The next moment, he was being dragged from the back of the carriage. He fell to the cobbles and his attackers began beating him with blackjacks. No stranger to the Law, Dante realized at once that he had run afoul of the Night Watch. He managed to get a blackjack away from one of the constables. He fought like a demon, and cracked his share of skulls, but, in the end, he was overwhelmed by their superior numbers. Blood ran into his green eyes as he fell to his knees. “Bastards,” he muttered as he began to lose consciousness.

He woke up in the roundhouse. He was tied to a chair, his hands behind his back. He looked up into the face of a fat, sweating constable, and said, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

The constable raised his blackjack to strike.

“Not yet,” said a freezing English voice.

“Yes, my lord,” said the constable.

Dante did his best to sneer as a tall, slim, aristocratic-looking man approached him. Dressed all in black, the aristocrat was smoking a long, slender cigar. His close-cropped hair glinted with silver in the light provided by a single lantern hung from a hook in the ceiling. Only belatedly did Dante notice that the aristocrat’s right arm had been amputated. This did nothing to lessen the man’s aura of absolute, ruthless power.

“You dirty old bastard!” Dante roared, recognizing him as Lady Rose’s erstwhile dancing partner. His hair had been jet black then, but Dante was sure it was the same man.

The fat constable swung his blackjack at that, striking the young man in the lower back. Dante collapsed to his knees. “Is that any way to talk to Lord Oranmore, you Irish filth!”

“Thank you, Constable,” Lord Oranmore said. “That’s enough, I think.”

“It’s no trouble, my lord,” the constable assured him. “I’d just as soon kill an Irishman as look at one. Dirty buggers. Always up to something.”

“Untie my hands, Mary; we’ll see who kills who,” Dante said.

“Constable!” Benedict said sharply as the blackjack swung across the young man’s knees. “May I remind you that this man is part of a vast Irish conspiracy to bring down the government, blow up the Houses of Parliament, and assassinate the Prince of Wales!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” screamed Dante, enraged.

“You’re under arrest,” Lord Oranmore explained.

“Is that all, then?” Dante sneered. “Sure I thought it was serious! On what charge?”

“Charge?”

“I have the right to know the charge against me!”

“Actually,” said Benedict, “you don’t. Habeas corpus has been suspended. You have no rights at all. You stand accused of treason, Mr. Vaughn. I, Lord Oranmore, accuse you. And, I’m afraid, that’s enough to send you to Australia for the rest of your natural life.”

“
And
he’s Irish, my lord!” the constable said. “Don’t forget that!” He kicked Dante savagely. “Scum! You’re not fit to lick the boots of an Englishman.”

“You, sir, are a dirty liar,” said Dante, concentrating on the real enemy, the lord with the cold gray eyes. “You can’t prove shite against me.”

“I don’t have to prove anything,” said Lord Oranmore. “There will be no trial. You’ll never see a magistrate, Mr. Vaughn. They will simply lock you up and throw away the key.”

“The only good Irishman is a dead Irishman,” said the constable darkly.

“We need the names of his fellow conspirators, constable. They will want to interrogate him in London. Unfortunately, he’ll have to be alive for that.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Go and see what is taking so long,” Lord Oranmore commanded. “I would like a moment alone with the prisoner.” When they were alone, Benedict said simply, “You should never hit a woman, Mr. Vaughn.”

Dante snickered. “I’ve better things to do with women.”

“In particular, you should never, ever hit
my
woman.”

Dante thought the bastard was talking about Rose. “She says I hit her? That lying bitch!”

The next moment, he was flat on his back, with the hot end of a cigar a quarter of an inch from his eyeball. The aristocrat’s knee was pressed against his throat.

“That sort of behavior, Mr. Vaughn, simply cannot be tolerated in the civilized world.”

The constable entered the room at that moment. “The wagon’s here, my lord, to take the prisoner to London.”

“Very good, constable.” Lord Oranmore climbed to his feet and straightened his clothes. Noticing a little blood on his shoe, he took out his handkerchief and gently wiped it away.

The sky over Bath was painted scarlet by the dawn. Nora answered the door, but Miss Vaughn came flying out of her mother’s room, her blonde hair pulled back simply with a ribbon. “Ben! Thank God!” she cried throwing her arms around him. “Did you find him?”

Instinctively, he began disentangling himself from her grasp, but he paused suddenly. Tears glistened in her green eyes. She looked exhausted, and she was shaking like a leaf.

“I did.”

She groaned. “Married?”

“No. It would appear that the lady changed her mind.”

“Oh, thank God! Was he very angry with me?”

Benedict shrugged. “Your brother seems angry at the whole world, Miss Vaughn.”

“Aye! That’s him.” She laughed shakily. “Where is he?”

“On his way to London. I had him arrested. That ought to teach him to hit women,” he said with grim satisfaction.

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean, Ben? Dan never hit me. I hit
him,
to tell you the truth. He was trying to take my pearls, so I broke the washbasin over his head, poor lamb.”

“He hit Cherry,” Benedict snapped. “I saw him. He pushed her so hard she cracked her head on the door. I hope he’s beaten every day for the rest of his life.”

Cosima’s hand crept up to her forehead. Underneath the fringe of her blond wig, a sizeable goose egg had formed. “Oh, that,” she said crossly. “That was nothing.”

“Nothing!” Benedict said angrily. “Cherry had a nasty cut on her head. Where
is
Cherry? I want her now. I am taking her away with me, and you will never see her again.”

“Oh, Ben,” she said miserably, hanging her head. “How did it ever come to this? Cherry doesn’t exist. She never did.”

“You little bitch,” he said coldly.

She had fantasized many times about telling him the truth. This was not how she imagined it. “
I’m
Cherry, Ben. I made her up.” She pulled off her wig and faced him defiantly.

He stared at her in disbelief. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, man,” she said crossly. “I only did it to drive you mad.”

“Was it worth it?” he snapped.

She winced. “It’s not true, Ben. I wanted to be with you,” she said simply. “I fell in love with you like an eedgit, and I just had to have you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why play games?” he demanded. “I would have married you!”

“
I
can’t just up and marry at the drop of a hat,” she protested. “I’ve my mother and my sister to think of! Besides, I’d already turned you down. I didn’t want you to think I was…changeable.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“I must look awful,” she said, rubbing her hair. Her roots were growing out white. “Say something! Did you never guess? Did you not know me, in your heart of hearts?”

There was a deadly pause.

Then he touched the bruise on her forehead. “I must have wanted to believe it,” he said.

“You wouldn’t have taken me to bed if you knew I was Miss Vaughn,” she said softly. “You’re too honorable a man to ruin a well-born young lady. I’m not sorry I did it. God help me, I’m not.”

“This is terrible,” Benedict said grimly.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked him.

“I’m going to marry you, of course.”

She shook her head impatiently. “You can’t marry me. You’re engaged to—to
her.
Anyway, I was talking about Dan, not ourselves. You can’t leave him to rot in gaol, Ben. He never hit me, I swear!”

“I think Dan is right where he should be,” Benedict said stubbornly.

“I have one brother left to me in this world,” she said fiercely. “If any harm comes to him, Benedict Redmund, I’ll have your hide for it! I’ll never forgive you!”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” said Benedict.

The last time he had seen Dante Vaughn, he had been tied to a chair. Both of his eyes were swollen shut, his nose was broken, and blood was running down his chin from a split lip.

“Of course,” he added reluctantly, “if it will make you feel better, I’ll just go and see about getting him released.”

“Thank you, Ben,” she said gratefully.

She was shocked and horrified when Dante crawled into her kitchen a few hours later. He was doubled over in pain. His eyes were swollen shut. His nose was broken. His lips were split. She hardly recognized him. “Oh, my God!” she cried, running to him.

“I’m fine,” he croaked. “I’m all right.”

“You’re not fine,” she said, easing him into a chair.

He told her what had happened to him while she cleaned him up.

“I’ll kill him,” she said.

“You stay away from Lord Oranmore,” Dante told her. “He’s a desperate man altogether. I thought I was dead. Fortunately, he left me to his flunkies. I made short work of
them.
”

“You didn’t kill anyone?” she asked fearfully.

He laughed scornfully. “Didn’t have to.”

She made him something to eat. “What are you going to do now?” she asked him while he shoveled thick slabs of bacon into his mouth.

He shrugged. “I’ll go to India. I’ll need money,” he added.

“Of course,” she said instantly.

She ran upstairs to her bedroom and pulled the tinderbox from its hiding place beneath the floorboards. Grabbing the roll of bank-notes, all the cash she had, she ran back downstairs. Dante snatched it from her and began to count it.

“It’s all there, what I owe you, boy!” she said with angry sarcasm.

Her brother had the grace to blush. “You always manage,” he said gruffly, by way of thanks, and pocketed the money.

“What about Lady Rose?” she asked him.

“That bitch,” he said impassively. “I’m off women forever.”

He finished his meal, kissed his sister good-bye, and left.

“Did you find him?” Cosima asked Benedict when he called later in the day.

“Oh, yes,” he assured her. “He’s fine. He’s gone to India.”

“You saw him?”

“Yes. He asked me to tell you good-bye.”

She struck him across the face as hard as she could. “Liar!”

Benedict sighed. He really ought to have guessed the boy would go to his sister the moment he escaped from the roundhouse.

“I saw what you did to him!” she accused. “My own brother!”

“He’s lucky it wasn’t worse,” Benedict grumbled.

“Get out!” she said. “I never want to see you again.”

“I simply cannot understand,” said Lady Matlock, as she poured out the tea for her guests, “why your son neglected to tell you he was engaged to my daughter. Young people these days!” She held out the cup and saucer for the footman to take to Lord Wayborn.

Earl Wayborn was seated only a few feet away, but he preferred to have his tea brought to him. He was a good looking, imperious man with a natural inclination to be stout.

“I daresay Marcus knew we would not approve!” Lady Wayborn said in the unpleasant, piercing shriek of a female fishmonger. One could tell at a glance that she had been married for her money. There could be no other reason.

Lord Wayborn looked at his wife with contempt. “We, madam? No one asked for your opinion.” He gave Lady Matlock one of his charmless smiles. “My wife,” he said, “is a stupid woman. I cannot seem to break her of the habit of speaking out of turn.”

“My lord,” whispered his lady, “I beg—”