Marry The Man Today Part 21

"It's the most frustrating case I've ever worked on. Utterly useless evidence."

She felt like a traitor asking the question. "Useless?"

"Our serial kidnapper has used the same manufactured glove in each of his three crimes. Made by a factory in Manchester. As undistinctive as a copper penny." He dropped into the desk chair, looking weary and pained by his shoulder.

Which made her feel even more guilty. "Did you hurt yourself?"

He snorted a laugh. "A little over a year ago. Took a bayonet across my shoulder, and it sometimes stiffens u p."

"A bayonet?" Dear Lord, she'd forgotten he was a soldier. In constant danger. "How did it happen?"

"Carelessness on my part. I put myself in a sticky situation and I lost. Well, nearly so."

Feeling like she ought to do something for the man's obvious pain, she put down the pot of brandied cherries and went to his side. "Can I try something?"

He cast her a doubting look. "Be my guest."

"It might hurt at first." She stood behind him, fit her hands around his shoulder, and the first squeeze of his muscles bucked him backward with a groan of obvious relief.

"Oh, G.o.d, thank you!"

"My pleasure." Distinctly so. She smiled as she worked at the muscle, amazed at the power contained beneath her hands. Ashamed of prodding him about the abductions, but unable to stop herself.

"I'm sorry the culprit has given you such trouble."

"Trouble is putting it mildly, my dear. The blackguard uses a standard mixture of chloroform, obtainable in large quant.i.ties from any one of a thousand chemists in London alone."

She kneaded slightly deeper, lower on his arm, and her patient let out a long, low groan, went lank and loose, then slumped and stuck his legs out in front of him.

"A pity, my lord." But all for the best. "Is the other evidence as troublesome?"

"As for the Wallace ha 't - o h, G.o.d, that feels good." He sighed and rolled his head. "There's not a shop within a fifty mile radius of the city that will lay claim to its apparently unfashionable design. The same goes for the hats from the other crimes."

Because Jessica makes all the distinctively ugly hats in the workroom of the Abigail Adams, not three dozen steps from where they were.

"We do, however, know tha 't - o h, yes, right there, Miss Dunaway." He groaned and sighed and made her want to kiss the back of his neck and his temple.

But she had to keep her senses about her as she quizzed her opponent.

"What is it you know, my lord?"

He roused some, tried to sit up, but slumped again. "We know that the feathers of the Wallace hat were pheasant."

"Well, that's something, my lord."

This time he groaned in exasperation. "But only if our kidnapper happens to be a pheasant."

"We'll just have to hope for the best then, won't we?"

Though she hadn't the faintest idea what the best could possibly be.

In the course of the next three days, Ross made dozens of trips between the Russian Emba.s.sy, the Austrian Emba.s.sy, the French Emba.s.sy, and the Foreign Office, and the world was still on the brink.

His own world had come to a halt. He'd seen Elizabeth all of four times in pa.s.sing. Each time leaving his thoughts more battered and bruised than the time before.

She'd begun to fill his dreams and the quiet part of his days. He craved her touch and her scent. Looked for her around every corner.

And prayed that she wouldn't do anything foolish while this madman was still on the loose.

Now he was sitting in the map room of the Huntsman, preparing still another report for the late night session of Parliament. Where he would spend hours in a stifling room, just off the Commons, on call with nonsecret facts for the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Admiral about French and Russian ship movements in the Mediterranean. The ministers would then use these facts as they were needed in the open debate over the possibility of war in the Crimea.

A war that seemed ever more probable as the tsar played his games so near the brink.

And the Austrians dithered.

And Napoleon watched with glee.

By eight o'clock he was finished and gathering up his reports when Pembridge appeared at the door, his collar and cuffs as crisp as morning.

"Excuse me, sir, but there's a young lady here to see you."

Elizabeth! He steadied his rocketing pulse and tried to sound cool-headed. "Green eyes, Pembridge? Hair a reddish-blond, unruly?"

"Bluish eyes, sir. Hair tending toward the golden from what I could tell from beneath her bonnet."

Not Elizabeth? "Did she give her name?" Ross stuffed his portfolio with the ship reports.

"She did, after I calmed her down and put her into the receiving room."

"Calmed her down?"

"A Miss Jessica Fallon, from the Abigail Adams, sir. In quite a panic. Said something about a Miss Dunaway needing your help."

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!"

Ross arrived at the receiving room at a dead run, terrified to find the normally unflappable Miss Fallon, wringing her hands inside her ap.r.o.n.

"There you are, sir!"

Ross grabbed her by the upper arms. "Where's Elizabeth? Is she all right? Please tell me she hasn't been abducted."

"That's it exactly, my lord!" Tears welled, then streamed out of her eyes, spiking her lashes. "Stolen right out of the tea room at the Adams!"

Christ! Resisting the urge to bolt after the woma n - which would do no good without more informatio n - Ross plunked the startled Miss Fallon into a chair. "Sit. Now, tell me exactly what happened."

She snuffled back her fear and spoke clearly. "We were closing up the shop about an hour ago when three officers from Scotland Yard came bursting through the front door, demanding to see Miss Elizabeth."

From Scotland Yard? Or were they kidnappers in disguise. "Are you sure the men were actually policemen?"

She narrowed her eyes as he'd so often seen Elizabeth do. "Oh, yes, sir, they were definitely policemen. We demanded to see their identification before they went a step farther. Then one of them asked for Miss Elizabeth again, and when she came out of the kitchen, he stuck a piece of paper into her hand and told her she was under arrest."

"Arrested?" Not abducted. "Arrested for what?"

Surely not for marching in the street.

"She didn't say, my lord; it all happened so quickly. But she went white as a ghost when she read the warrant. And then they just took her away. In handcuffs! Though she didn't resist at all."

d.a.m.nation! "Please, Miss Fallon, are you absolutely certain these men were from Scotland Yard?"

"Believe me, my lord, I know what a policeman's uniform looks like close up. Besides, Skye and I followed the cart all the way into Whitehall. And that's where they took her."

Thank G.o.d for resourceful young women.

And for the strong cell doors in Scotland Yard, because, for the first time in the few weeks that he'd known her, Elizabeth Dunaway was safe from herself.

And doubtless she was spitting mad.

Which made him ask, "Did she tell you to find me, Miss Fallon?"

"Not likely, my lord. She wouldn't then, would she? Not you. But the three of us thought you'd know just what to do for her. Whether she likes it or not." Indeed. "Thank you for coming to me, Miss Fallon." He picked up his nearly forgotten report case and headed toward the door. "Come along with me."

She followed on his heels. "Are we going to go break Miss Elizabeth out of jail?"

He had no doubt the charming young woman would jump at the chance to try. "I'm going to drop you at the Adams, my dear, and then I'm going to pay a call on Miss Dunaway."

"You'll make them release her, won't you? Please, sir!" The girl grabbed two bold fi stsful of his lapels and held him in place with a strength he couldn't have imagined. "She's done nothing wrong!"

Nothing, except to taunt authority with a march down Whitehall in front of hundreds of witnesses. As well as that dust-up in Parliament.

Someone in power might just be trying to teach uppity women a lesson in humility. And he d.a.m.n well wasn't going to let that happen.

"Miss Elizabeth will be home tonight, Miss Fallon, if I have to saw through the bars myself."

"Oh, thank you, sir!"

Though the real question was: where would home be?

Should he let her stew in jail while he was attending the debate in Parliament, or rescue her immediately, permanently, as he yearned to do.

In any case, just to be safe he made a quick visit across the Thames to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And by the time he left Lambeth Palace for the debates at Westminster, he was armed to the teeth with all the tools he would need to deliver his bewitchingly troublesome rebel from the evil clutches of Scotland Yard.

Right into the hands of her worst enemy.

Chapter 13.

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.

Abigail Adams, to her husband, John March 31 , 1 776 "Excuse me, please! I'd like a blanket." E l izabeth clutched at the familiar bars in the cell door, her fingers as bloodless and cold as the iron rods. "Anyone there?"

But her voice carried down the empty, dimly lighted hall like a reedy echo, spending itself long before it could reach the front desk.

Not that rousting one of the officers would help. It was well after ten and there was a small but watchful contingent of men on guard against her escape. No one had offered a single shred of compa.s.sion or concern when she was brought in. Why would they care now if she was a little cold? A little scared. For all they knew, she was just another woman picked up off the street for selling herself to keep food in her children's bellies.

At least that would be a simpler crime to explain than the litany of legal trouble she'd stuck into her pocket. A warrant so long that she might never again see the light of day.

Worst of all, she would never see Blakestone again.

Except possibly if he ever felt charitable enough or curious enough to come visit her in prison after her multiple convictions.

Disturbing the peace!

Bank fraud!

Distributing salacious materials!

Charges that were complete exaggerations. Merely her petty efforts to enlighten the ignorant and emanc.i.p.ate the imprisoned.

And yet here she was, imprisoned herself, her teeth chattering with the cold. In sore need of one last chiding by her unforgiving earl, one last chance to look into those coal dark eyes.

But one thing was certain: she'd never survive if she allowed herself to succ.u.mb to this sudden weepy feeling. She banished it and climbed up on the narrow plank bench for a glimpse out the window.

The gla.s.s was cracked beyond the bars and filthy. But she could still make out a single star through a wedge of open sky, could smell the velvety moonlight pouring in on the chilly air.

Freedom. It seemed so terribly remote just now. So very precious.

"Disturbing the peace, madam?"

"Blakestone!" she whispered. Her heart took a soaring leap as she whirled around on the bench.

He was standing at the door, in the same place he'd been the very first time she'd seen him. Every inch as large, now a profound presence in her life, a warmth in her belly.

And more thunderously angry than she'd ever seen him.

"Bank fraud?" The charge bl.u.s.tered from him, rattling the iron fittings and the stone flags that stretched out between them.

"Good evening, my lord." Her voice had gone as creaky as her joints.

"Distributing salacious materials? By G.o.d, woman!" He was bellowing now like a bull elephant in full rut as he dragged a cowering policeman into view from behind him. "Dammit, officer, open this b.l.o.o.d.y door immediately!"

"What are you thinking, Blakestone?" She ran to the door. "No, officer, don't listen to him!"