CHAPTER 25
The Major
Connor was seriously impressed by what he had just witnessed. Upon his return from walking Wellington out, he had caught only the tail end of the row in the drawing room, but, by Jove, he hadn’t thought the girl had it in her.
First she had stood up to Delia in Hyde Park; now she had defied the dragon lady herself. I fear I’ve created a monster. He could not suppress his grin while the rest of the drawing room looked confounded—except for Aunt Lucinda, whose lined, doughy face was puckered up in rage.
This defiant outburst from a social inferior had not just shocked the duchess; it had veritably roused the dragon from her cave and brought her forth ready to breathe fire.
It seemed Aunt Lucinda had just met her match in the unlikeliest of places.
She even made the effort of rising from her chair in grand indignation, but as the murmur of astonishment began to spread throughout the drawing room, Connor sent the matriarch a hard look of reproach for starting this.
She would answer for it when the party was over.
How would she react, he wondered, when he also told her he had found out about her past as Lucky Lucy Bly? Maybe the ton had forgotten who she’d been fifty years ago, but Connor had realized that most of Her Grace’s bluster was but a façade.
She might fool others, but she wasn’t fooling him. Her outrageous rudeness was meant to help cover up her own sense of inferiority, after having clawed her way up from the gutter to join the aristocracy.
How she must hate these highborn maidens of the ton, whose quality was never questioned. That would explain why she made it her business to put them all in their place.
Well, he thought, it had not worked on Maggie.
Already in motion, Connor went after her, pardoning his way past his guests. He rushed out onto the upstairs landing and looked over the banister just in time to see her flitting off down the hallway.
He ran down the steps, ignoring the guests just arriving, except for his trusty new friend, Major Peter Carvel, who had just walked into the crowded entrance hall with the Duke and Duchess of Netherford.
“Amberley!” Carvel looked amazed, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “We just saw Wellington leaving!”
“Aye.” Connor flashed a taut smile at his fellow veteran, who was likewise in uniform. “He stopped for a quick visit, can you believe it? Sorry—can’t talk at the moment. Minor emergency. I’ll be right back.”
“Need any help?”
“Ah, not at all, thanks. Glad you all came,” he added distractedly, then hurried after Maggie. He could not imagine what she was feeling at the moment.
But it was no mystery to him why she had exploded like that, never mind that Delia was no prize for a sibling. Nobody needed to explain clan loyalty to a three-quarters Irishman.
Still, he was startled and rather tickled by it all. After seeing how Society cowered from his aunt, little Maggie Winthrop was the last person in the world he would’ve predicted to stand up to her.
Amazing, how this woman continued to surprise him.
He strode down the hallway that led off the entrance hall, glancing around for her in every room he passed. When he saw the French doors in the morning room at the back of the house left slightly ajar, he realized she must’ve gone that way.
He crossed the room in a few swift strides and went outside. After pulling the door shut behind him, he spotted her wandering aimlessly a few yards down the central garden path with her hands pressed to her head.
“Lady Margaret!” he called, aware of a few guests standing on the balcony above.
Maggie looked back at him, her eyes as round as those of a spooked horse. She sent him only the briefest of glances over her shoulder, as though too ashamed to look at him.
“Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer, and kept her back to him, walking faster down the graveled path. Connor followed.
His aunt’s garden spanned the luxurious width of the terrace house and was bound by an eight-foot stone wall. Wrought-iron furniture was arrayed around a square flagstone terrace that overlooked the greensward, emerald and flat.
Here and there throughout the garden stood decorative pillars topped by stone busts or urns burgeoning with flowers. Connor passed sculpted topiaries, blooming flowerbeds, and a few small, ornamental fruit trees in blossom as he strode after her.
“Maggie, it’s all right. Come back.”
“Leave me alone!” she said in a shaky voice, sounding forlorn. “I’ve caused enough trouble for one night. I…I just need to collect my composure for a moment. Then I’m going home.”
She walked under the trellised archway, at the end of which sat a small, gurgling fountain with a curved stone garden seat across from it.
Connor briefly deliberated on what tack to take with her. With all his heart, he did not wish to see her cry. He was bursting with pride in the girl.
Cheer her up, he decided.
“There, there, Lady Maggie,” he said as he, too, passed under the trellis, approaching the fountain and the stone bench, where she had sat, looking routed.
“You cannot join me out here, obviously,” she said with a sniffle. “It’s not proper!”
“Why start now?” he murmured as he reached the fountain.
She looked up at him with an air of desperation as he stood there, and the moonlight caught the panic glittering in her wide, stricken eyes.
“What have I done?” she whispered.
“Darling.” Everything in him wished to comfort her.
“I can’t believe I just did that.”
“Neither can I,” he said with a chuckle, sitting down beside her. “Who are you, fearsome young spitfire, and what have you done with my meek, mild-mannered Maggie Winthrop?”
“Oh, please, don’t tease me!” she begged him, tears in her eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just trying to put a smile back on those lovely lips.”
She covered her face with both hands and shook her head. “I’ve made an utter fool of myself.”
“On the contrary, darling, you were magnificent.”
“Oh, hang your Irish charm,” she whispered, turning her whole body away from him, trembling.
Connor gazed at her creamy shoulder with tender concern. “My aunt is the one who acted badly, not you.”
Maggie trembled. “I should not have risen to the bait. Why on earth would I throw away my reputation for my stupid sister’s sake? Delia hates me!”
“No, she doesn’t. She’s your sister. That’s just her way.” He pulled his clean, pressed handkerchief out of his breast pocket and tapped her gently on the shoulder.
She glanced back and accepted it with a grateful nod.
As she dabbed at her eyes, still half turned away from him, Connor leaned closer and kissed that pearly shoulder. “Don’t cry, love,” he whispered. “All will be well. I promise.”
Maggie sniffled, wiping her nose. “You should go back inside. You really should.”
“I can’t,” he said. “Not until you feel better.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said woefully.
Connor stayed planted, resting his arm along the back of the bench and stretching his legs out before him.
Idly, he crossed his ankles, with no intention of leaving until she had fully regained her composure. It was pleasant out, starry. The spring night wrapped around them in dark, silky serenity.
The fountain bubbled and arced, its waters silvered by moonlight. The frogs sang, tucked away in their green hiding places. The cool night air smelled of lilacs.
“Your aunt’s garden is beautiful,” Maggie said in a weary tone after a moment.
“Almost as lovely as her temperament,” he drawled.
She let out a low snort of laughter, then turned around and finally gazed at him. “Should I apologize?”
“God, no,” he said. “She’d lose all respect for you now if you did.”
“Respect?” Maggie echoed.
“Aye. That’s how you earn it with her kind. They shove you; you shove back harder. Believe me, I’ve seen this sort of thing a million times. Besides, she had it coming, I daresay. So I repeat: you were magnificent.” He caressed her shoulder with one knuckle. “You made me proud.”
“You would say that.” She smiled uncertainly, then glanced toward the house. “They can probably see us from the balcony, you know, so you’d better behave.”
He shook his head. “Not from this angle. Blocked by the trellis. We’re safe.” As a rifleman, after all, he understood the geometry of a clear shot.
“Humph, it’s probably worse if they can’t see us,” she mumbled, sounding resentful. “Then they’ll just make up whatever they want instead of reporting what they think they saw. Not that it matters anymore. I’m sure I’ve just become an outcast, anyway.”
“Don’t be silly. I wager you’ve just become a heroine in the eyes of countless people in the ton. But who the hell cares what they all think, anyway? You’ll soon be my duchess, remember? Then you, too, shall have the luxury of behaving however you please.”
“Which would never include treating people like that.” She looked askance at him, a sulk on her plump, tempting lips. “Are you sure you wouldn’t be better off with one of those other young ladies after that?”
“Absolutely not! I want my future sons to be fighters. And my daughters, too. You’re clearly the lass for the job.” He grinned.
“Hmm.” She gave him an arch look. “All those babies you mentioned, eh?”
“Aye. Lots of ’em. Screaming, wild, happy, bald babies.” He nudged her. “What do you say?”
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I already told you I would.”
“Good.” He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. “Don’t worry, sweeting. It’ll be all right.”
She gazed wistfully at him, mere inches away. “How are you so sure?”
“Because I love you.” Connor stared at her, his heart pounding. He hadn’t expected to tell her that tonight, but the words just came out, and besides, it was true.
Her eyes widened with tender amazement. She breathed his name.
“I love you,” he whispered again, more forcefully.
“I love you too.” Laying a hand on his cheek, she studied him.
Connor nestled his face against her palm, craving her touch more than she knew.
He leaned in to kiss her—when she suddenly gasped. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
Without warning, she threw her arms around him and pulled him down violently on top of her. Connor was quite amenable to her sudden burst of passion—except that the sound of a gunshot cracked through the night, and a bullet slammed into the stone wall behind the garden bench, making a hole and a little puff of dust.
Right where his head had been seconds ago.
Maggie shoved him aside, jumping up to point frantically. “He’s there! There! I see him!”
“Stay down!” Connor roared as he rolled down off the bench and spun into a crouch. A curse escaped him when he saw her on her feet; he went to retrieve her.
“He had a long gun—a musket or rifle!” she cried, still pointing toward the high garden wall. “He was right up there! On the wall!”
“Damn it, stay down, Maggie, there could be more of them!” He shoved her down behind the low stone wall of the fountain.
She tumbled onto all fours.
“Where?” he demanded.
“By the cherry tree! I only saw one figure—dressed all in black. He was p-perched on the wall! I saw the flash of his gun!”
“Thanks for saving my life. Now stay the hell down.”
“Connor!”
“Stay back!” he ordered, already on his feet, tugging loose the black stock around his neck and striding toward the garden gate.
“What are you doing?” she yelled.
“Securing our future, my love,” he said wryly under his breath, nostrils flaring as air flooded into his lungs and fury pounded, red-hot, in his veins. Let’s finish this, shall we, John Smith?
He must not give him time to reload. He flung open the gate, glanced up and down the narrow cobbled mews, and caught sight of a black-clad figure racing off through the darkness with a rifle slung across his back.
“Get back here, you son of a bitch!” Connor bellowed, then ran.
* * *
As the seconds ticked by, Maggie was still in shock, her heart pounding, as she debated what to do. She remained where Connor had put her, crouched on all fours behind the low fountain wall, dazed with the aftermath of pure panic.
Every time she blinked, she kept seeing the dark silhouette of the sniper perched atop the garden wall, the shape of his gun emerging from the cherry blossoms—and then the muzzle’s flash.
Thank God I saw it. What if I hadn’t seen it? Oh God, she could not let herself think about that or she might throw up.
That had been much too close a call. A true brush with death.
And now Connor had gone chasing after it.
Was he mad? He must be, she thought, her chest heaving. Just a little.
Her mind was spinning, and she wasn’t sure how many seconds passed. Time had lost all meaning. Only vaguely did she feel how hard she’d bumped her knee when she had fallen to the ground—or, rather, been pushed by her fiancé.
She could not believe he had run off alone into the night.
With utter irrelevance, she then noticed absently that she had torn her ball gown a bit. A rosette by the knee of her skirts hung limp. As she lifted her hand, having landed hard on her palms, she saw she’d got moss and gravel on her white satin gloves from the cracks in between the flagstones.
All the while, the fountain lilted, as though nothing was wrong.
Somebody, help! she wanted to scream. But she dared not make a sound. She did not know where the killer was at the moment.
Surely, though, the guests up in the duchess’s house heard the shot. Rather wild-eyed, she glanced up toward the balcony.
Somehow the music played on, spilling out from the ballroom. They must have started the dancing, never mind the absence of the guest of honor. It would have been a way, she supposed, to smooth over the awkwardness after her public fracas with the Duchess of Amberley.
Well, what the devil do I do now? Just wait here? Staring toward the alley from her undignified position, she listened for all she was worth to any sound from the mews that might indicate what was happening with Connor.
She had heard his footsteps pounding off into the darkness, but then he did not return.
Maggie gulped, trying to steady herself. Shouldn’t I go get help? She risked a quick peek over the edge of the fountain.
The garden was empty. The gunman had fled. Chest heaving, she glanced again toward the balcony, but her view was blocked by the trellis. Any minute now, she expected some of the men from inside to come running.
Surely they would. They were probably standing around inside even now, asking each other, “Did you hear something?”
But in that nerve-racking pause of indeterminate length, Maggie swept the garden with a fearful glance, her eyes wide.
Worry for Connor consumed her. How could anyone help him if nobody knew where he’d gone? She realized that in order for her to bring him assistance, she had to get at least a general sense of which way he’d run.
He had told her to keep her head down, true. But Maggie simply had to do something to help him. The man she loved was out there alone with a murderer—and what if he was right? What if this viper had brought henchmen with him, waiting somewhere nearby?
Connor might be outnumbered. Led into a trap or an ambush.
With that, Maggie rose with caution from her hiding place, inching up onto her feet.
Glancing constantly toward the house, she was rather sure she heard voices of male guests who’d come out onto the balcony, but not knowing where the killer now was, she dared not yell to them for help.
Now that it was truly sinking into her bones that she—she!—could have also been shot moments ago, she had no desire to offer herself again as a target.
As for Connor, she did not even know if he was armed. Will had said he always was, and maybe that explained why he’d gone racing off alone like a lunatic. She hoped so.
Fighting back sickening fear, Maggie peeled off her gloves and trailed her hand through the fountain as she passed, lifting her hand to bring a bit of chilly water to her face.
It helped clear her head. Then she crept on toward the garden gate, and, ever so cautiously, peered out into the mews.
The darkness was empty, but she could hear Connor’s footsteps pounding in the distance, as well as his voice.
“Get back here, you son of a bitch!”
Slipping through the waist-high gate, she stole silently down the cobbled passageway until she reached the corner. She poked her head out past the plane of the alley, risking a glance north toward Hyde Park.
No, they hadn’t gone that way. Then, peering southward down the street—she did not know the name of it—she saw her love running at top speed after the still-fleeing shooter.
The gunman clearly wanted to avoid the glowing street lanterns, so he darted around the next corner to his right, into a side street. Connor raced after him.
What are you doing? she thought frantically. Come back! I don’t want to lose you!
She was afraid to call out to him, though—and afraid to call attention to herself. She glanced over her shoulder once more, torn between going back to fetch help or following them.
He could die. I can’t leave him.
Instinct took over, deciding the question on her behalf. The man she had already set in her heart as her mate was in danger. She had to be there in case he was hurt. Ignoring all protests of reason and logic along with her terror, Maggie turned the corner and began running down the street.
She resolved that if she saw anyone along the way, she would plead for their help. Perhaps some kind stranger might come driving by. Or a night watchman, though they were known to be useless. Usually drunken old men.
For now, Connor had no one but her to come to his aid. Not in a million years would she abandon him.
A dog barked in the distance. She strove to listen past its angry clamor for the sound of her quarry. Every step of her sprint jarred her hurt knees. To be sure, her little dancing slippers were not made for running down hard, paved streets.
Her breath rasped through her teeth as her stays clamped tight around her ribcage, restricting her lungs. At least the hem of her ball gown skimmed her ankles, the right length for dancing. Otherwise, she might have gone tripping down the street.
The pins in her hair began coming loose, but no matter. Maggie pressed on. Mere moments later, she reached the corner around which both men had gone. She slowed, panting as she approached it.
I hope he’s armed. Please, let him be armed.
She had this terrible feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that the happiness they had just found together was about to be snatched right out of her hands.
Please, God, be with him. Don’t let this man take Connor from me. I need him. Her heart thumping like it would burst out of her chest, Maggie pressed her back against the corner where the street met the alleyway. She could feel her fine, watered silk skirts catching on the rough bricks behind her.
Tamping down dread, she ventured a glance around the corner.
The dark, narrow alley led away from the streetlamps and into the blackness. But now she could hear things. Curses and shouts.
There was no motion at all in the alleyway, so she realized the two men had merely passed through it. Pressing her lips together, Maggie forced herself to follow.
Shaking, she went closer, setting one foot after the other, nigh tiptoeing down the black alley.
With each step, the ugly noises grew louder. It sounded as though Connor had caught up with his quarry on the next broad, illuminated street that the alley connected to.
Her stomach churned at what she might find when she reached the far end of the passage. A cold sweat formed on her brow, and the hairs on her nape stood on end.
Curses bounced off the pavement. A scuffle of boot heels.
“Don’t you dare!”
A cry and a clatter of metal—and then a dull thud.
“Son of a bitch,” Connor said.
“Let me go!” someone thundered.
Maggie hesitated, not sure if she really wanted to see this.
“Let’s have a look at you, shall we?”
“Damn you, Amberley!”
She swallowed hard. Upon reaching the corner, she leaned out ever so carefully, barely beyond the length of her nose.
Oh…it’s Park Lane. For across the wide, elegant avenue stood the tall fence that girded Hyde Park. She spotted a horse hitched to its wrought-iron rails in the shadows of a massive oak at the park’s edge.
Perhaps the would-be assassin had left the horse there as his means of escape. But he hadn’t made it that far.
For the major had captured him.
“Mr. John Smith, I presume?”
“Oh, go to hell.”
She winced, closing her eyes at the sickening thud as Connor dealt him a sledgehammer punch; she heard a low cry of pain.
“I know who you are,” Connor informed him.
“No, you don’t.” The voice sounded vaguely familiar: low-toned and sly, still mocking, even in pain.
But whomever he’d captured, she could not see the man very well when she dared look again. It was dark in between the streetlamps, and both men were in profile to her, less than ten yards away.
“You’re the whoremonger’s son. Why are you after my family?” Connor demanded. He slammed the lean, black-clad figure once more against the Portland stone wall of some opulent town house overlooking the park. “Did your father send you or was this your idea?”
As Maggie looked on, not daring to interrupt, her relief to find Connor unharmed was quickly infused with another emotion.
He was brutal, her lover. By the glow of the streetlamps, she could see how he’d trapped the man there and was beating him senseless.
With ease. Nay, with relish.
He was vicious, quite in his element. The thought of his revelation earlier this evening sliced through her mind.
Over a hundred kills, by his estimate. Tonight it seemed likely that he might add one to that number.
Maggie looked on with a sort of confusion, uncomprehending. For it was one thing to fall in love with a warrior, and quite another to see his talents in action.
Blood crimsoned his fist. She winced as if feeling the blows, lowering her head a bit, hunching her shoulders.
Unable to look anymore as he used his forearm like a bar, pinning his enemy by the throat against the wall, Maggie lowered her gaze, chilled to the marrow.
Weapons littered the pavement. She realized he must’ve torn them away from the man. A pistol lay a few feet away on the ground.
Its mate had been thrown out into the street. There was a nasty knife near Connor’s boot.
As for the rifle, the would-be assassin had been stripped of that, too, somehow. It had fallen longwise against the wall where they were brawling.
Maggie gripped the bricks on the corner, steadying herself against the realization that the man had probably tried wielding each weapon against Connor while trying in vain to escape him.
Another fierce blow to the gut, and the man started coughing.
The final object she saw on the ground near their feet was a length of black cloth. She stared at it until she realized it was a mask that Connor must’ve ripped off his enemy’s face.
“Did you kill my kinsmen? Why? What the hell have you got against my family?”
Silence.
“Why are you trying to kill me, damn you? At least have the courage to tell me!”
Let him breathe, Maggie thought. And don’t break his jaw if you want him to talk.
Connor picked up the knife. “If you won’t answer my questions, I have no reason to spare you. Now, I’m not goin’ to ask you again. Why are you persecuting my family?”
“Ask your aunt!” the man shouted bitterly. “Ask your aunt, you stupid sod.”
“Why? What about her?”
“She killed my brother.” The man’s voice was garbled with rage—and pain, considering the blood pouring down his face.
“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s an old lady.”
“She sent hirelings, idiot.”
“And why would she do that? Answer me or you die. I don’t need you, you know.” Connor menaced him with the blade, still holding him fast. “I can kill you and still get truth from your father. I’ll find him, and I’ll rip his throat out. What say you to that?”
Maggie covered her mouth with her hand.
“Let him be. This doesn’t concern him,” the man fairly whispered.
“Oh really?” Connor seemed to think he’d found a weakness. He tapped the flat of his blade against the man’s cheek. “What if I don’t believe you? Perhaps I should kill your father. Aye, maybe I will. You want to wipe out my line? What if I do the same to yours first?”
“He knows nothing about this. But suit yourself!” the man said boldly. “It won’t go well for you, duke. The old man’s survived worse enemies than you.”
“You think so?” Connor seemed to be having increasing difficulty reining in his temper. Maggie could hear the rage building in his voice. “All right, then. Let’s talk about Richard. Did you kill him, too? Tamper with his curricle? Maybe one of those times you hid in the coach house, waiting to use my servant girl like she’s your whore?”
The man laughed coldly, as if he was past caring what happened to him. “She is my whore.”
Connor punched him for that with a massive right hook; the man spun toward Maggie with the force of the blow and fell onto all fours on the pavement.
When he lifted his head, she drew in her breath, recognizing him now that she saw him straight on by the lamp’s glow.
It was the dragoon who had offered her a ride that day in the rain.
He shook his head to clear it, and when his dazed eyes focused after the blow, he looked up and saw her standing there, four or five yards away.
Maggie stared back at him, her heart in her throat.
Connor had not yet noticed her. “I’m warning you,” he snarled, closing in once more, looming over the man, “I don’t give a damn for your life.”
A low, almost drunken laugh escaped the dragoon as Connor took hold of him again. “But, Your Grace, surely you wouldn’t kill me in front of your lady?”