Page 56 of The Bachelor
But no sooner were they in Gunter’s than Gwyn said, “Oh, dear, I left my shawl in the glover’s shop. I shall just run back and get it while you order. Do make sure you order an ice for me, too.”
She turned to go, and Joshua hurried to her side. “I’ll go with you.”
“Please don’t,” she whispered. “I have to purchase Mama’s birthday gift there. It’s a darling pair of gloves made of gray kid, which she can actually wear throughout her half-mourning. But I need you to keep her occupied so she doesn’t find out what I’m doing.”
“Very well,” he said, watching closely for her reaction.
She looked inordinately relieved, and that convinced him that he was right—this subterfuge had more to do with her note to Malet than with her mother’s birthday. He let her leave and gave her time to reach the glover’s shop. Then he walked out and scanned the street. He was just in time to see her dart right past the shop and then disappear.
He walked as swiftly as he could to the glover’s shop, then heard raised voices coming from the alley that ran next to it. Halting at the end near the street, he hid himself to eavesdrop on their conversation. Gwyn was definitely arguing with Malet. Joshua recognized the bastard’s voice from before. And what he heard chilled him.
“You asked for fifty pounds, Lionel, and I agreed,” Gwyn said.
Lionel?She called Malet by his given name? Damn it, shehadknown the fellow before their recent encounter! And what was this about her giving the scoundrel money?
“Then you doubled it,” she went on, “so I’ve brought you a hundred pounds. Now you wish to havemore? Do you know what I had to do to get this to you? How many lies I had to tell, how many subterfuges I had to arrange?”
“And who were you lying to, dearest Gwyn?” Malet said, his very voice a sneer. “That cripple of an officer, Wolfe?”
Joshua nearly bit through his tongue trying to keep his anger in check.
“Don’t call him that!” Gwyn cried.
“Ah. So you have a tendre for the oafish major, do you?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Gwyn said, sounding desperate now.
Or was that just his wishful thinking?
“I wonder, is he aware of how sweet your lips are or how tender your tits? I wonder how much you would pay to keephimfrom knowing about—”
“This has naught to do with him!” Her voice hardened. “I have paid you all I intend to pay. Go ahead, tell the world whatever you wish.”
Blackmail? Was the woman paying for Malet’s silence? But for what?
“Just remember that Thorn will have your head if you say a word,” she went on. “He gave you a fortune ten years ago to leave me be. So if you renege on your bargain with him, he will call you out.”
The conversation in the carriage on the way to London leaped into Joshua’s mind. But she’d said that the fellow Thornstock had paid off was named Hazlehurst.
No. Hermotherhad said it. Gwyn had merely gone along. It had to be Malet, unless Thornstock had paid offtwoof her suitors. And what was Malet holding over her head that necessitated her giving the scoundrel more money?
Joshua had a sickening feeling he knew the answer to that.
“I’m not afraid of your brother, dear girl,” Malet said. “I’ll fight a duel with him any day of the week.”
“No!” she cried. “You will not. I will turn you both in to the magistrate before I allow it. You have your hundred pounds, so we are done, I tell you. Done! And if you don’t like it, you can go to hell.”
“We are not remotely done, my sweet.”
“Let go of me, Lionel!” she cried. “Stop it!”
Time to intervene. Joshua would have preferred to preserve her secret by not letting her know what he’d heard, but clearly that had become impossible. He headed down the alley toward them, fire erupting in his blood as he saw that Malet had her pinned against a wall and was fighting to kiss her. She shoved at him and tried to hit him, but was clearly losing the battle.
The bastard! How dared he?
An unholy fury overtaking him, Joshua rushed up to hit Malet with his cane. The devil howled and pushed away from her to come at Joshua, but Joshua braced his bad foot against a barrel and started striking Malet with his cane, over and over—in the head, the chest, whatever he could hit. Malet attempted to defend himself and got in a punch or two, but no one was a match for Joshua in a temper.
Joshua struck Malet until the man dropped to his knees and started shielding himself with his hands. Blood ran down Malet’s face from an open wound on his head, and even that did not keep Joshua from his course.
