Page 8 of Weave me a Rope
Richport glared at Cordelia. “She is standing right there.”
Mrs. Walters came hurrying, almost running, around the curve of the path. Spen smiled at her and told the villain, “You are mistaken, Richport. Mrs. Walters and Miss Milton were strolling with me in the garden when we heard you scream. As if you were knifed. By an unknown woman. One smaller than you, to look at the position of the knife. I daresay people will be interested to know why you were back here, and fascinated at how this unknown woman was able to get close enough to you to stick a knife in your thigh. But, of course, with your reputation, I imagine they will find it easy to leap to a correct conclusion.”
Richport went still as Spen’s innuendos sank into his sodden brain. Cordelia shifted so one side of her face was hidden from Richport, and Spen saw that corner of her mouth tilt up.
“We were strolling in the garden?” Mrs. Walters wondered. “Yes. The three of us. All together. That is what happened, LordSpenhurst. Certainly. We were strolling in the garden when we heard His Grace scream.”
“HisDisgrace,” Cordelia muttered under her breath. Spen suppressed a chuckle.
Voices heralded the arrival of other people. Cordelia did something to make the gun disappear. Spen suspected a pocket under her gown and admired her wisdom. He called out, “Over here! The Duke of Richport has been wounded!”
In moments, the clearing was full, with more people gathering all the time. Spen heard the duke explaining he had been about to enjoy a cigarillo in private when someone leapt out of the bushes and struck him. “A woman or a young boy,” he said. “I could not see clearly. Now for God’s sake, someone help me to my coach.”
A buzz of contrary opinions suggested to Spen that someone was going to have to take charge to get the despicable man some medical attention. He sighed. “You,” he said to one footman, “run and order His Grace’s coach brought to the side garden.” He ordered another to organize a search of the garden, and the third to fetch the duke’s doctor to the duke’s townhouse.
On Spen’s direction, a couple of the gentlemen formed a chair with their arms to carry the duke, who had ceased bristling and had become alarmingly pale and quiet. “We need some light,” Cordelia suggested quietly. “If he is losing too much blood, he cannot be sent home. The doctor must attend him here.”
“I am used to battlefield medical emergencies,” said a bluff fellow in a military uniform. “I’ll take a look at it if someone has a knife to cut his pantaloons away from around the wound. Dear me. What is London coming to?”
Spen, content the duke would get the help he needed, stayed back with Cordelia and Mrs. Walters and then led them in thedirection of the house by another path. “If it is all the same to you, ladies, may I order your carriage and conduct you home?”
“Please, Cordelia,” begged Mrs. Walters. “I am quite shaken.”
“Yes, Lord Spenhurst,” Cordelia agreed. “Please do.” She was clinging to his arm as if he was a fixed point in a string wind, and he could feel a shudder run through her.
Spen could sympathize, for he had only just managed to hold back another of his panic attacks, as one doctor called them, when the crowd began to gather, all talking at once. He could not afford to flee as he normally did. He had to protect Cordelia. In desperation, he had donned the mask he usually wore and given orders. It had worked. People had done what they were told, and the panic had receded. Food for thought.
Nearly everyone must be following the duke, for the garden was deserted, but when they reached the better-lit area by the terrace, they were stopped again and again by guests who wanted to know what was happening. Spen repeated their story several times but was supplanted as others began drifting back from farther down the garden, which saved him from having to assert himself again to get himself and the ladies out of there.
The duke was injured, but not bleeding badly, they said. Major Petersham predicted the wound would gush when the knife was removed, so it had been left in place, and the duke had been loaded into his carriage with another gentleman to watch him until he was safely at home.
Wasn’t it terrible what the world was coming to, all the bystanders agreed?
*
Cordelia sat backagainst her seat in the coach and began to shake. She couldn’t forget the sensation of the knife going intothe duke’s flesh and the sound of his scream.I had to defend myself. I had to.
Lord Spenhurst showed how attuned he was to her feelings by saying, “You did the right thing, Miss Milton. You had every right to stop the fiend. I only wish we could see him further punished without causing any harm to your reputation.”
Cordelia couldn’t answer. Tears were running down her cheeks, and if she tried to speak, she would lose the battle to keep her sobs from becoming audible. Her effort to remain silent must have been a failure, for Aunt Eliza embraced her. “There, there, darling child. It has been a difficult evening.”
A typical Aunt Eliza understatement. Cordelia gave a watery chuckle.
“It is a reaction,” she explained to Spen, her voice quavering on another sob. “I am good in a crisis, Uncle says, but afterward…” she flapped a hand. He could see for himself what she was like afterward. She must have given him a complete disgust of her.
Yet it didn’t seem so, for he came with them into the townhouse Uncle had taken for the Season, followed them into the drawing room, and suggested to Aunt Eliza, “I am certain Miss Milton could do with a cup of tea. Would you organize that? And perhaps something sweet to eat?”
Even upset as she was, Cordelia realized he had just masterfully removed Aunt Eliza from the room to leave them alone. She watched him, eyes wide, as he spread his arms.
“May I give you a hug?” he asked. “I have never felt so frightened in my life as when I guessed the duke had something to do with your disappearance. And when I heard that scream—!” He shuddered, shutting his eyes as an anguished expression moved over his face.
Cordelia walked into his arms, and he closed them around her.
They stood for a moment, each taking comfort in the other, for even as she relaxed and let go of her own fear, anger, and stress, she could feel the tension draining from him.
A touch on her head made her look up. His face was just above hers, his lips still forming the kiss he had just given her. She stretched so her own mouth met his, and the brush of his lips sent a shiver to her core. Then his mouth closed over hers, took possession and all her consciousness narrowed in on the sensations coursing through her body from the points where they touched—mouths, torsos, one of his hands cupping her head and the other cupping her behind, her hands doing their best to burrow under his waistcoat.
When the door opened, he pulled back. She let go, but not quite quickly enough.
