Page 44 of The Rake
“It caught me by surprise. But it is no more a reflection on you than it is on Pip. It took me too long to realise this about my brother, but I will not make the same mistake with you.”
Her frown vanished and she moved forward softly, cautiously, until she had reached his side of the bed. “Are you certain?”
He nodded, watching her, and when she wrapped her arms around his neck, he felt relieved.
“I wanted to tell you sooner,” she said. “Truly I did, but it was not entirely my secret to tell… And then…”
Soothingly, Silvester’s hands moved up and down her back as he held her tightly, waiting for her uneven breathing to relax and return to normal. Waiting until she seemed calm. This embrace was not a heightened sexual or even sensual act, nor one laden with any innuendo, but there was a reassurance to theembrace, one of ease, something that Silvester had not expected to feel, but there it was. She was still Margot, his Amazon, and something as insignificant as her parentage when compared to everything else was unimportant. This idea brought a soft smile to his lips and suddenly he had to get out of this chamber and on to a bigger distraction, because if they stayed for too long like this, he’d go mad.
“Let’s get you back to Bolton Street. Mrs. Bowley has been worried, and I am certain she will want to hear that I have not kidnapped you, see you safely restored, etcetera, etcetera.”
This abrupt movement and speech uttered after such closeness made Margot look a little startled, but she nodded in agreement. So, she turned away and set about righting her dress and dishevelled hair, which had been entirely rumpled.
Silvester followed suit, trying to make his movements and remarks familiar to match his previous experience. But there was a difference, he knew this instinctively, and that fact made him uncomfortable.
“Are you ready?”
She certainly appeared to be. All her earlier wanton abandon had vanished now she was neatened.
Offering her his arm with as much stately grandeur as he could, Silvester escorted her down through his brother’s house and outside to the waiting carriage. It was still early, and the area of Bloomsbury not as fashionable as she was used to, so the risk to her reputation was minimal. Once she was inside the vehicle, Silvester turned back to his waiting brother who stood on the steps watching.
“Any bill to send to me?” Silvester stepped closer. He did not want to make a scene, to drag this out in any way, and yet he wanted Pip to know how grateful he was for the care that had been given to Margot.
“There is no charge for family,” Pip said, his expression clouded but unreadable. Silvester realised in the cold light of day that he did not wish to know what his younger brother was thinking. Some emotions were too great, too overwhelming to piece together in public, and in private they would be all-consuming. “But you are both welcome to call round. No emergencies are needed for that call.”
Unable to acknowledge the idea of making a social call in the future, Silvester just nodded briskly and hurried off to the carriage. It rattled away, and he was grateful for the companionable silence in which Margot and he sat for the short journey across Town to Bolton Street. With instructions given to the driver, they were taken around to the rear of the properties and disembarked at the stable entryway.
“I will see you inside, if only to see Mrs. Bowley’s face, and reassure her.” Silvester made his comment lightly, but the truth was he was loath to let her go. He took hold of Margot’s arm and ushered her through the stables, and then onwards through Ashmore’s gardens. The idea of her murdered father and the horror of witnessing that reared its head again, and Silvester marvelled at the strength she had shown in charging after the attacker and confronting him.
They reached the edge of the steps, and Margot was about to start her ascent upwards, when she gasped and pointed out towards a small outcropping of shadowy trees. There was a man sprawled there, bloody and beaten. Silvester dropped her arm and rushed towards the injured man. As he drew nearer and dropped to his knees beside the body, the familiar garb of the man reared its head once more. Silvester knew as he turned the man over into the sunlight that this was the intruder, the murderer, returned it seemed to the scene of his first crime.
“Oh, my lord.” Margot had come to stand close behind him, her voice weak as she gazed down over his shoulder atthe sprawled attacker. She reached out and touched Silvester tentatively. “Can you tell if he is dead?”
For a moment, Silvester hoped the man might be. That, he thought brutally, would at least resolve the matter once and for all.
CHAPTER 21
The last few hours had been a whirl of emotion, from the most thrilling erotic experience in Margot’s life, to the subsequent reveal of her darkest secret, to now the injured man laid out on the grass in front of the townhouse.
To keep as much as she could steady in her mind was difficult, especially since she had Langley so close to her. Part of her almost wished him away so she could straighten her spiralling thoughts, although she feared soon, she would have to accept the truth of the situation: she was falling for him. No, more than that—she was in love with him. After all, she had trusted him enough with the secret she had thought she would never tell a soul.
Making their way into the fresh, warm gardens alive with the promise of spring, despite her injury and the revelation of Ashmore’s death to theton, the world continued to renew itself and begin again. At her feet, bright green grass sprang up, dotted through with tulips, and the air was heavy with apple blossom, so sweet that it stung her eyes. Margot wanted more than anything to halt her steps, simply sink into the luxurious sensation that this little garden offered. But time would continueto turn, and those precious snatched moments, the ones with the person she loved, could be gone before she knew it.
She was doubly grateful for his presence when Langley marched forward and examined the injured man lying at the steps leading up to the Ashmore abode. They were so near to the house that for a moment Margot wished they could just continue inside the building, to whatever conversation they needed to have—surely it would be better than checking the attacker over?
A tiny aspect of her feared this was a trap, and that at any moment the assailant would roll over and attack them once more. Margot braced herself for the move, prepared to hit, fight, and defend Langley and herself, if required. She was not about to let anything occur to her lord now she had finally realised the extent of her feelings.
“His pulse is weak.” Langley pulled back and looked up at Margot. “I think, not that I am expert, that he has a fever. Either way, he needs a doctor.”
“Caton,” Margot said, the memory fresh in her mind. Besides, Pip could be trusted implicitly. “Your brother can help us. Ask him to come.”
“Here.” Langley stood and drew her away from the slumped figure on the ground. He pulled from his jacket pocket a small pistol, which he pressed into her palm. “I will send a servant for him. Stay here and watch him. If he moves, shoot. I will be back.” He placed a kiss on her forehead and strode off down the garden towards the stables.
Turning, Margot levelled the pistol at the attacker. She had her own reasons for loathing the man—he had attempted to kill her, scarred her and then finally of course, he had killed her father before she had a chance to know the duke. It hurt. Less her cut up shoulder and more for what she had lost in that brief and violent shooting weeks ago. But looking at the man in this moment, his skin pale and sickly, with a greenishtinge, he did not seem to be such a threat. His hair was dark but greasy, and almost looked like it was falsely attached to his scalp. Finally, she studied his face, taking in the arched brown brows, the crinkle that framed his lips and freckled forehead, and she wondered what she had done to earn such enmity from a person she had never truly spoken to or known. It was such a contrast to the beauty of the spring garden, the presence of this poisonous, dangerous man. As she watched him, a strange fear rushed through her. His eyelashes were fluttering. He was rousing himself awake.
Margot straightened her spine, suppressing all those painful memories. “I am armed. If you come at me again, I will shoot you.” She was pleased by how steady her voice sounded, even if it did not match the fear within her soul.
A frown creased the man’s forehead, and she saw his arm twitch.
