Honour's Redemption Page 5

  “Mr. Scruggs?” Ruth puzzled.

  “Him the Capt’n hired to take care o’ us. There be a right good number.” Mistaking Ruth’s surprise, he confided, “We don’t mind sharin’ beds. Most o’ us ne’er had one afore the Capt’n found us.”

  * * *

  In the alley, mindful of Ruth’s entreaty, Lucian halted several yards from the old man. The abject slump of the shoulders, bowed head, and wringing hands belied everything Merristorm thought to find in Miss Clayton’s father.

  “Mr. Clayton,” Lucian called calmly. To his puzzlement the old man raised his hands to his face and turned away. “Sir–Mr. Clayton.”

  The old man ignored Lucian. He lowered his hands and began moving his hands as if washing them while spewing a frantic mumble of nonsensical words. His behaviour reminded Lucian of a trooper he once knew who had gone mad during heavy cannonade after a particularly nasty encounter with the French. Drawing on that experience he walked up to the old man and clasped one of his shaking shoulders.

  “Do I have the pleasure of Mr. Sampson Clayton?” Tightening his grip, Lucian cleared his throat and waited.

  “I’ve lost them, that’s what I’ve done. Lost them. God help me, lost them,” Sampson said frantically wringing his hands.

  “Have you seen them?” Mr. Clayton continued. “My two little girls. Ruth with her mop of red curls and tiny Marietta. Only a babe is she and Ruth barely twelve.”

  “Twelve,” repeated Lucian in surprise.

  “My wife dead that many years or more,” Sampson babbled. Slowly he raised his head and turned to look at Merristorm. Tears brimmed. “She died too young.”

  A second later Lucian saw the tears were gone. The man’s eyes grew puzzled and then there was nothing but emptiness. “Sir,” he said giving the old man’s shoulder a slight shake. “Ruth is very worried about you. Let me take you to her.”

  “I don’t know any Ruth,” Sampson whined. He pulled free and backed away.

  Lucian whistled two short bursts. While he waited for the lad to bring Miss Clayton he pondered the enigma of the old man and his daughter.

  * * *

  Ruth halted at the mouth of the alley and motioned the boy back. She approached her father at a sedate walk. In slow and careful fashion she laid a hand on his arm. “Father, you gave us such a start.”

  Mr. Clayton’s brow creased in puzzlement. “Yes, miss?”

  “You need to come with me, Father. Marietta will be very worried about our long absence.”

  Sampson turned wide vacant eyes to her. “Who are you?”

  “Come, sir. Your daughter has been worried,” Lucian urged at Ruth’s side.

  “Daughter? I have none,” the old man said quizzically.

  Ruth flinched but reached for his hand. “Come with me, Father. Marietta is all alone.”

  “Marietta?” Sampson slapped at her hand. “Leave me be woman.”

  “Sir,” Lucian warned and moved to intervene.

  “No,” Ruth pleaded. “He does not always remember things as he should.” She reached again for her father’s hand and this time he let her hold it.

  “We are in London, Father, on our way to Whitby. You are to serve at St. Mary’s there.”

  Clayton’s eyes narrowed, closed. After a long moment he opened them. “Why do you shout, daughter? Must you bruise my hand thus?”

  Ruth sighed with relief. “I am sorry, Father.”

  “Who is this young man?” Sampson asked turning a steady gaze on the dark stranger beside his daughter.

  “Lucian Merristorm,” he said offering his hand. “Your daughter has been very worried about you, sir.”

  “Have you, Ruth? That is too bad of you,” Sampson told her. “You can see that I am hale and hearty.”

  “Marietta has been too long alone, Father. We should hurry back to the inn,” Ruth said drawing him forward.

  “Let me secure a hackney for you,” Lucian offered.

  Discomfited, Ruth said, “Father, we mustn’t impose upon Mr. Merristorm.”

  “You can’t deprive me of the opportunity to perform a good deed to save me from perdition?” he teased.

  Ruth put a hand over her heart to shield it from the deep velvet timbre of his voice. “We could not,” she began.

  “How kind of you, young man,” Sampson said and continued in Greek, “but the lord shall provide.”

  Lucian stared at him and then smiled grimly. It came back to him more easily than he thought possible. “The lord has provided me,” he answered in the same language.

  Ruth stared from one to the other as the two men smiled at one another.

  “Take the young man’s arm,” Mr. Clayton admonished. “We shall accept his kind offer.”

  Lucian shot a smile at Ruth.

  That and gratitude rendered her tongue-tied and exceedingly warm.

  “I did not realize you were so shy, daughter,” Mr. Clayton chuckled. He took Ruth by the hand. “We are at your pleasure, Mr. Merristorm.”

  Lucian motioned them to go before him. “We best walk back to Drury Lane.” He turned and found the lad before him. Pressing the expected coin into the boy’s hand, he said, “Go tell the others all is well.”

  “Aye, Capt’n,” the boy said with a salute and ran away.

  Mr. Clayton eyed Merristorm speculatively. “The cavalry?”

  “15th Light Dragoons,” Merristorm begrudged with reluctant pride. “The 14th in Spain after the 15th were sent home.”

  “And now you are home?”

  Ruth sensed rather than saw Lucian wince. “That hackney, Mr. Merristorm? We really must rejoin my sister.”

  He nodded and strode ahead of them. Lucian awaited them beside the open hackney door when they caught up with him.

  “Have you read Aristotle in the original,” Sampson asked.

  Lucian lip curled. Then he saw Ruth’s startled expression. “Yes, at university.”

  “But not much since,” Mr. Clayton said, his eyes sad. He shook Merristorm’s hand and then climbed into the hackney.

  Ruth watched him enter, too conscious of Lucian and of his effect on her. She tried not to draw in too deep of a breath–too much of his scent–as she offered her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Merristorm. I am grateful for our precipitous meeting.”

  “Don’t hold my bad manners against me,” he said baldly, his nerves on edge at this parting.

  “I can forgive much for anyone who is kind to my father,” Ruth said and smiled. Her heart jumped to her throat when he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

  I shall throw myself into his arms if he keeps looking at me like that. When he released it with an apologetic grimace, she blinked back a tear. “You have no need of regret,” Ruth whispered.

  Far too many regrets, Lucian thought. He pulled himself momentarily back from the black pit yawning before him in his mind’s eye. He offered his hand and helped her step up and into the hackney.

  “Safe journey.”

  “God be with you,” Mr. Clayton told him.

  Lucian bit back a sharp retort and shut the hackney door none too gently. God hadn’t been with him for many years. He still wasn’t.

  Ruth watched him stride away. The taut angry line of his body deepened the ache in her heart. Was it Shakespeare, she wondered, who said, parting is such sweet sorrow? Looking at her hands she swallowed the taste of bitterness. There is no sweet to it.

  Chapter Four

  October 15th Late Afternoon

  Lucian Merristorm watched the hackney until it was obscured by other coaches. Dear God, who will protect Ruth?

  He savoured her name, almost spoke it aloud. So much in that one syllable. Lucian’s throat went dry and a tremor shook him. He had not thought of any woman in this way for a very long time. Desire was part of it but there was much more. A dangerous more. With a mental jerk he returned to his original question.

  Safeguard Ruth. Not her father. He’s not even whole-minded. Do they really travel to a new preferment? What will she
do if he goes completely mad?

  “Merristorm!”

  Lucian turned to see who called his name. A Cyprian with whom he had cavorted before serious drinking had claimed his attention waved and blew a kiss from a passing phaeton. Her breasts were bare almost to the nipple and her face was garishly painted. Her behaviour brought the taste of bile to Lucian’s mouth.

  That is the kind of woman I am fit to keep company with. Not a lady like Ruth Clayton. Her father wouldn’t have permitted me within hailing distance if he knew what I am.

  Besides you haven’t exactly succeeded in protecting anyone, his demon taunted.

  The nightmare images of Jasmine and Magelhaes flashed to mind. An overwhelming wish to drink those images and Ruth’s to oblivion rocked Lucian.

  Hailing a cab Lucian hurled his body into it and ordered it to head for his flat. His mouth was dry as the Spanish sand in the July heat. His head throbbed as much as his heart ached for what could never be.

  Mayhaps this time I’ll drink enough to ne’er wake. What a blessed relief that’d be.

  And the brats? his conscience whispered through the dark haze clouding his thoughts.

  Lucian stilled. His will had been made. The monies resulting from the estate his grandmother had left him would be put in trust for the home he had established. But that would take time.

  Slamming his hand on the ceiling of the hackney, Lucian shouted for the driver to take him to Couts Bank first. At the bank his mood darkened further as he waited to be served.

  Lucian was unaware and past caring that his melancholic features teemed with a dangerously irritated tension when the hapless clerk appeared. He growled out the sum he desired to transfer into the account Eleazor Scruggs drew on for the expense of his boys’ home. With an oath Lucian snatched up the quill the clerk dropped.

  When the man nearly jumped out of his skin, Lucian looked at him as if aware of him for the first time. He made an ungracious apology as he scrawled his signature. Jabbing the quill back in its stand Lucian rose and stalked away.

  The bank’s door opened as Lucian approached it. The sight of the too-well remembered figure halted him.

  “Good day, Gilchrist,” his father greeted him quietly.

  A muscle twitched along Lucian’s jaw at the use of the honorary title he had long since rejected. The inspecting sweep of the dark eyes stiffened him. Hatred surged through him. A red haze clouded his vision. For a second after it began to clear Lucian thought he saw anguish in his father’s eyes but vehemently denied the possibility.

  “Anyone who encourages you in the glut of excess you have embarked on since your return to Town is not a friend,” Marquess Halstrom said slowly. “I cannot–”

  “Exactly,” snapped Lucian impervious to the stares now being directed at him and his father. “You cannot for even a moment think I would give credence to anything you say. You damned yourself long ago.”

  “From what I have heard,” Halstrom challenged in a low voice, “your life is but a mirror of mine.”

  Lucian trembled. “I have never killed an innocent.”

  “Nor have I,” his father rebutted.

  Fury seared Lucian. His arm reared back, his hand fisted before he thought to do it. The sudden thought of Ruth Clayton halted the punch half way to his father’s jaw.

  The marquess lightly touched the tip of his cane to his son’s fist. “Go to Dorset. Set your mind to tending the estate your grandmother so unwisely left you.” With that he strolled away from his son.

  Lucian slowly lowered his arm. He forced his fingers to unclench. With a muttered oath he stormed out the bank’s doors and leaped into his waiting hackney. “Damme you,” he snarled and would have been hard put to know whether he meant his father or himself.

  * * *

  October 15th Evening

  Ruth Clayton’s face framed by tendrils of her luxurious burnished red hair, her eyes the mix of a stormy sea and emeralds danced before Lucian. He longed to trace the provocative arch of her eyebrows and cup her almost dimpled chin. Those lips. How sweet their taste.

  Lucian reached out. The vision evaporated.

  What might have been if I had met Ruth instead of Jasmine those long years ago?

  The thought fleetingly disconcerted Lucian’s certainty about the truths that ruled his life. He longed to hang onto the disloyalty of it rather than see it as an insight too revolting to consider.

  Ever’thin’ I believe is true,” he swore and took a gulp of brandy. It was too large and he choked, coughed. His throat closed, rebelled. For long gagging seconds, Lucian thought he could cast up his accounts.

  Gasping for air he heard his father’s voice again.

  Your life mirrors mine.

  He had imbibed three bottles since returning to his flat with a dozen in hand. They had proven a hollow failure in quieting, much less, silencing those dismal damning words.

  Your life mirrors mine, it insisted.

  Lucian swore and swung his hand in an arc to find another of the bottles he’d set about his chair. He’d empty the dozen if that is what it took to silence his father’s voice.

  Your life mirrors mine, it persisted.

  Lucian’s hand shook as he attempted to fill his glass. The tremor was so bad that he paused, waiting for the worst to pass.

  Your life mirrors mine.

  Each time it peeled louder. The thought harder to deny. Lucian managed to get the glass full and downed it. He leaned back hoping it wouldn’t prompt another urge to vomit.

  Unconsciously Lucian began a vague examination of his life. Where to start?

  That black day when he had failed Jasmine had to be one of the worst of his sins, he reasoned.

  Not challenging his father, another.

  Women?

  Lucian’s gut clenched at a vision, so vivid he’d have sworn it was in the here and now. His father in the Blue Boar, each arm about a whore. His invitation to join them.

  He gagged. Clenching his teeth he drew in a long, slow breath through his nose. Then he returned to listing his sins.

  Drink?

  He unclenched his teeth, defiant unreasonable pride rising in how different he was in this from his father. Then an uneasy qualm stirred. Have you ever seen him foxed? Heard of it?

  Lucian refilled his glass and drained it again as the litany he had so carelessly begun marched on under its own power. But then it stuttered on Magelhaes.

  When I love they die. I’m dammed to live.

  The muted image of the red-haired beauty shimmered before him. He could smell the faint floral scent that mingled with, enhanced her own and realized what it was. His grandmother had worn it all her days. Lily of the valley.

  Lucian poured another glass and then dropped the empty bottle to the floor unaware the door to his flat had opened.

  Before he could lift the glass to his lips a figure loomed over Lucian.

  “Bloody hell,” swore Sir Brandon Thornley. “How long have you been at this?”

  “Not long ‘nuf,” Lucian slurred.

  Thornley clenched his fists. He resisted the urge to strike the drunken sot. “You’ll not cheat me by drinking yourself to death,” he muttered.

  “Wha’s th’t?”

  “We’re promised to Lade’s to sup,” Thornley said tightly. He glanced around, then strode into the bedchamber. When he returned he touched Lucian’s night candle to the guttering flame and set it beside it. Then he stalked to Lucian and held out the towel he had wet.

  “You’d need to freshen up a bit before we leave.”

  “Not goin’.”

  “You gave your word,” Thornley lied. “Is it worth so little?”

  * * *

  The Wise Owl Whitby October 15th

  Peace watched the men welcome the Preventive Officer and then look back at her. From the laughter and tone of the jests she gathered that they asked if they’d won the wagers cast two weeks ago. Jenkinson dead little more than six weeks and they bet I’ll take another man into my bed
. The fools.

  You are the fool, an inner warning belled.

  Snatching her thoughts away from Geary’s lean figure, Peace tried unsuccessfully to deny her attraction to the man. She turned and slipped through the door behind the bar that led to her private quarters and began to pace.

  Dally with a Riding Officer? That is too great a risk. The men welcome him, but who is he? What is he about? He has played a close game since his arrival but I feel like a mouse hunted by a cunning cat.

  Peace halted by the fireplace. Her gaze went involuntarily to the age darkened brick hearth. No one ever saw the blood, she told herself. Just as no one here knows of my past. Geary cannot ferret out what no one but I know. I’ll not let him. The thought calmed Peace. After a few deep breathes she returned to the tavern. The meeting he requested this eve would go as she wished it.

  Much later that evening, after everyone but Geary had left, Peace locked the tavern’s door. She walked slowly toward the tall lean figure watching her.

  Geary rose with the deadly lithe grace of a lion. She had once seen such a beast charge its keeper. When he bowed and held out a chair, Peace furiously blinked back the threat of tears at such simple gestures so lost in her past. Drawing on the discipline gained in the horror of the days of her escape from France and desperate marriage to Jenkinson, she concealed how much they affected her.

  Before the guillotine changed everything I would have flirted with the man. The thought warmed and then chilled Peace. Why does this Englishman inspire such a memory?

  “You are suspicious, madam,” Geary said as he studied her. “Shall I show you my orders?” he asked with a grave air.

  “The men who frequent the Wise Owl do not welcome Riding Officers,” Peace said coldly but held out her hand. “Why do they continue to abide you?”

  “Was the tavern named after you? You are very wise,” Geary said. He handed over a piece of stained, folded parchment; its seal broken.

  Peace read the few words quickly. She handed the paper back. “You knew Damler before you came here. The men welcomed you. Why pretend you do not know about this tavern?”