Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel)

chapter 24




London

Fog descended with the gray light of evening, swathing the streets of Cavendish Square in a cloak punctured only by the occasional gleam of a streetlamp. Most of the homes lining the elegant avenues already had their curtains drawn for the night, as families inside gathered for supper. Smoke billowed from every chimney, thick tendrils rising to curl greedily around the sun, which hung suspended like a burnished gold pocket watch over the rooftops.

Nicholas rode alone through the streets, paying little attention to the wealth displayed all around him, even less to the half-finished cheroot smoldering between his fingertips. His stallion clopped along at a walk. Now and then, a carriage clattered past or a harried servant, arms laden with packages, crossed the street in front of him, but he barely noticed. Though he felt a clammy chill in the air, he didn’t bother to button his greatcoat.

The cold and darkness closing in around him matched his mood perfectly.

It had been two days since he’d left Merseyside. Alone. Samantha had been long gone by the time he located her room. She hadn’t needed his help after all, had apparently taken care of her problem herself. All he had found were a swarm of lawmen and her uncle, dead. Evidently she had killed the lecherous old sot herself and escaped.

His gaze fell to the worn cobbles beneath his horse’s hooves. By now, she was no doubt on her way to Venice.

He should feel happy and relieved about that... but he didn’t.

The fact that he would never see her again left him feeling as dark and empty as one of the chimneys that spat smoke into the gathering twilight. He hadn’t realized the truth until it slapped him in the face: part of him had been racing to Merseyside to save her...

But part of him had been racing there, risking everything, just to see her again.

And now she was gone. Out of his life. Forever.

He scowled, hating the pain that idea brought. He lifted his head, watched the red-gold sun melt over a distant church spire. Damn it, he had never wanted to feel anything for Samantha Delafield. What was the point? What was the bloody point in learning just how much he could feel for her, now after it was too late?

Except to drive home a lesson he’d already learned decades ago: that God took from him whoever he cared about.

And to exact further payment for the sins he had committed, remind him that he would never be forgiven.

Closing his eyes, he stuck the cheroot between his teeth again, exhaled the hot smoke. “I get the point already,” he muttered under his breath.

The hell of it was, he knew he had no one but himself to blame. He didn’t deserve the sweetness and warmth that Samantha had brought to his life. A woman like her had not been made for a man like Captain Nicholas Brogan.

And he never could have revealed his secrets to her, told her the truth about his past, his crimes. Could not have asked her to forgive the unforgivable.

Could not have endured seeing hatred in her beautiful golden eyes.

It was better this way, for them both. A clean break. Clean and final.

He kept telling himself that as he arrived at the town house on Sussex Street, noting with only fleeting interest that Clarice had indeed done well for herself. The place all but reeked of money, from its polished windows and soaring brick facade to the neatly landscaped yard complete with a dozen red rosebushes. He rode around to the back and stabled his horse, then headed for the rear entrance, doffing his hat to rake a weary hand through his matted hair.

It surprised him somewhat that no one was waiting to meet him. He had thought Masud would be keeping watch.

Unless Masud hadn’t arrived yet.

He knocked at the back door. No one answered. Leaning against the door jamb, he knocked again, frowning. The cheroot in his hand made a tiny red beacon in the fog and gathering darkness. He had to use the polished brass knocker a third time before the door was opened—yanked right out from under his fingers.

“If you expect me to bid you welcome,” a familiar feminine voice snapped, “you’ll be waiting the rest of your miserable life.”

The greeting was almost enough to make him smile despite his bleak mood. Some people never changed. “I can see you’ll make a most pleasant hostess, Clarice.”

“Well, don’t stand there attracting attention.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside, closing the door only after she looked around to make sure nobody had seen them.

“You don’t appear pleased to see me.”

“Oh, I’m thrilled.” She locked the door and rounded on him. “Absolutely thrilled.”

The years had been kind to her, he noticed by the light of a crystal chandelier glowing overhead. There wasn’t a dark curl out of place in her elaborate coiffure, her figure was still perfect, and whatever lines time might have drawn on her skin had been artfully concealed with cosmetics. Clarice could still outshine half the beauties in London.

What surprised him was that he felt not a single stirring of the old fires that had burned between them, all those years ago. Time, it seemed, had permanently banked those flames.

Time and a golden-eyed lady who had branded him forever.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Clarice said with exaggerated politeness, folding her arms over her chest, “but I don’t remember inviting a bunch of stray fugitives to take a holiday under my roof. What makes you and that arrogant friend of yours think you can just stroll in and take over after all these years? I am not running a home for wayward ex-pirates here!”

Nicholas removed his tricorne and greatcoat, tossing them over a nearby chair. “Masud and I just need a safe place to hide for a couple of days until our ship can be repaired. Is he—”

“This is not a safe place. And give me that foul-smelling thing.” She snatched the cheroot from his fingertips just as he was about to take another puff. “I have enough trouble on my hands without having to explain why my house smells like the back room of a Spitalfields tavern. I’ve got myself an arrangement with a rich widower—”

“A merchant banker, I’m told.” He watched with dismay as she disposed of his last cheroot in a pretty lacquered dustbin. “Congratulations.”

She ignored his sarcasm. “He’s a very kind, generous gentleman.” She drew out each word, especially the last one, her hazel eyes boring into him. “Who likes to visit me frequently. Sometimes daily. I’ve had to go through all sorts of hell—”

“Watch it, Clarice. You’ve been around me less than five minutes and already your language is slipping.”

“—to explain to him why he can’t call on me at the moment. He doesn’t know anything about my past.”

“And I sure as hell am not going to tell him,” Nicholas assured her. “I have no intention of interfering with your affairs, Clarice. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I thought it wise to get off the streets and out of the public eye before I end up full of bullet holes. I’ve made the papers, you know.”

“It’s not the first time.” Her voice and demeanor softened—so imperceptibly that someone who didn’t know her well wouldn’t have noticed. “And that’s the whole point. You’re not safe anywhere in England. Certainly not in London. Not even here.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So you do still care.”

She scowled at him. “Blow it out your scuppers, Brogan. All I want is exactly what I wanted six years ago—you out of my life. As quickly as possible.”

“We’ll be out of your way just as soon as the ship is ready. Now then, can I talk to Masud?” He turned and headed down the corridor. “I assume from your pleasant good humor that he’s arrived ahead of me.”

“Upstairs.” Taking a candelabra from a polished table, she followed him. “He arrived this morning.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

She pushed past him to lead the way up a curving, gilded staircase. Nicholas couldn’t help noticing the richly appointed rooms, the gleaming marble floors. Despite all the verbal daggers he and Clarice always threw at one another, and all the past wounds inflicted, he felt genuinely glad that she had found the happiness she had always sought. “I take it the servants have the night off?”

“Servant. I can only afford one. My housekeeper manages to do the work of ten women. And yes, I sent her on holiday.” She cast a glower over her shoulder. “Since my third floor has been converted into an inn for outlaws.”

They went past the second floor and up to the third. At the top of the stairs, she turned a corner and stepped aside.

And there sat Masud, in the hallway, asleep in front of a door.

Nicholas looked down at him in bewilderment. Clarice woke him unceremoniously with the toe of her slipper. “Wake up, Masud. The prodigal pirate has returned.”

Startled from his sleep, Masud rubbed at his eyes and stood up. “Cap’n. Glad to see you at last. We were getting worried.”

“You were getting worried,” Clarice corrected. She shoved the candelabra into Nicholas’s hands. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had enough of the good old days for one day. I’ll leave you lads to hash this out.” Turning, she headed back down the stairs.

“Hash what out?” Nicholas glanced from Clarice’s retreating figure to Masud. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“Fine, fine.” Masud rubbed at his temples as if he had a headache.

Nicholas waited a moment. “So?” he prodded impatiently, when his friend didn’t say anything more. “What happened? Did you take care of the blackmailer?”

“Aye, Cap’n.” His voice sounded odd, as if he were either exhausted or drunk. “That I did. Just follow me.” Masud led the way down the corridor to another room.

Inside, he picked up a package from the table beside the door.

Nicholas breathed a long, slow sigh of relief as Masud placed it in his hands. It was the package he had sent from America, addressed in his own hand, with South Carolina tax stamps on it.

And one side was soaked with blood.

He closed his eyes, shook his head in disbelief. It was over. It was finally over. “You killed him, then.”

When Masud didn’t reply, Nicholas’s eyes snapped open.

His friend stood there in silence, his expression uncomfortable.

A sense of foreboding spread through Nicholas. “Don’t tell me you disobeyed orders again.”

Masud blew out a breath. “Aye,” he admitted at last.

“Damn it, Masud, you swore—”

“Let me explain, Cap’n—”

“Explain what?” Nicholas demanded angrily. “Why the devil didn’t you kill him? If he’s still alive, where—”

“You’ll understand in a moment, Cap’n. I... uh, wanted to try and explain things first, but...” He muttered a curse. “Maybe it’s best if you just see for yourself.”

“See what?”

Masud led him out the door, down the hallway, and back to the room he had been sitting in front of. “Brace yourself, Cap’n. This may come as a shock.”

He opened the door.

Nicholas felt the package slip from his hands but never heard it hit the floor. Shock didn’t begin to describe the feelings that slammed into him, the deafening roar of his pulse in his ears.

Sitting on the bed on the far side of the room, Samantha glared back at him.

Samantha.

Samantha Delafield.

It took a moment for his brain to resume working, for the fact that she was here to stop crashing into the fact that she didn’t belong here. In this situation. In this house.

Because she was, in fact, here. Wearing a charming gray riding habit. Her hands bound in front of her, a gag knotted at the back of her head—her golden eyes ablaze with fury.

And in the middle of all the shock and confusion pouring through him was another feeling.

Absolute, undeniable pleasure. Something frighteningly close to joy. His heart was beating too hard. He couldn’t catch his breath. He hadn’t even realized how badly losing her had torn him up.

But he felt it now. Now that he saw her again. He had to press one hand against the door jamb to steady himself.

When he finally could speak, his voice sounded dry and strained even to his own ears. “What the hell is she doing here?”

“She’s the one who picked up the package.”

Nicholas looked from his friend to Samantha sitting on the bed and back again, feeling as if he were in a dream. Some kind of hallucination. He shook his head, uncomprehending. “That’s impossible. It’s insane. She was in Merseyside. She couldn’t have anything to do with—”

“She was the one, Cap’n. I was about to do what you ordered, but she turned around just as I was coming up from behind her. And when I saw her face...” He shrugged helplessly. “She looked exactly like the description of the lady in the newspapers, the lady you’re in... uh, that is, the lady you were with.”

Dazed, Nicholas could barely make out what his friend was saying. He felt as if the roof had just come crashing down on his head. Was she in league with his enemy? Had she been from the beginning? Had it been no accident that she’d been placed in the cell next to his that dark night in gaol?

No, he thought furiously, staring at her. God, no.

“I asked her name and she refused to tell me,” Masud continued, “and then she started making a fuss—and I thought it best to get her out of there. I didn’t know whether she was the blackmailer herself or somehow working with the blackmailer, so I figured it was best to just... hang onto her. At least until you got here and could decide what to do with her.”

What to do with her? That was one of a dozen questions Nicholas couldn’t begin to answer.

“She fought like a hellion,” Masud noted ruefully, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a bandage around his arm. “Afraid the blood on the package is mine. I ended up getting cut with my own knife, so I finally knocked her out, loaded her into a hackney coach... and brought her here.”

“And what was her explanation for all this?” Nicholas choked out.

“She wasn’t very forthcoming with any information, Cap’n. But I think she knows more than she’s let on.” Masud fell silent a moment, shifting uncomfortably. “So what are your orders?”

Nicholas couldn’t answer for a full minute, could barely see her anymore, his vision blurred by a haze of confusion and hurt and betrayal.

Then he held out his hand, jaw clenched. “Give me your knife.” As soon as Masud slapped it into his palm, he headed for the bed, gripping the hilt in his fingertips. “And leave us alone.”