Chapter Seventeen

Bloody hell!

Cornelius couldn’t believe his eyes as Samantha sank beneath the dark surface of the Serpentine, tossed in the water as if she’d been little more than rubbish.

He’d arrived at Hyde Park in his own carriage so it would look as if he’d come alone, but Hedgecomb and Strathfield had followed in another carriage at a discreet distance if anyone had been keeping a watch. They’d planned to split up in the park and attack the countess on three angles, and if he threw his own shot, there was comfort in knowing the other two men had been sharpshooters in the war.

Yet none of that helped him in this moment.

“Samantha!” With his heart in his throat and his pulse hammering in his temples, Cornelius darted to the water’s edge. Lady Stover anticipated him. She got off a shot of her own that thankfully only grazed the side of his shoulder and didn’t do much more than tear a hole in his sleeve and perhaps leave him with a scratch that burned like the devil.

But she wasn’t his immediate object of revenge. Instead, it was the damned Mr. Arbuthnot, the same man who had hounded Samantha even after she’d rejected him, the man who had threatened her and Annabelle on the street in front of the shops. And he’d been responsible for pitching Samantha into the water. With the shackles, chains, and what had looked like a weight in the darkness, she stood absolutely no chance of survival.

“I am going to kill you,” he said in a shaking whisper as he skittered to a halt at the mud at the water’s edge. Bubbles surfaced, but otherwise there was no sign of Samantha.

“Do what you must, but I love her more.” Pain rang heavily in the other man’s voice as he cast his gaze between Cornelius and the water. “Save your woman or take down the man who will have essentially killed her? Or rather go after the woman who is orchestrating the dismantling of your club and going after your brothers-in-arms?”

“Shut your damned mouth.” He could either rescue her or let Lady Stover vanish into the night to do more harm. If he didn’t capture the countess, she would continue to wreak havoc on his friends but if Samantha died, how could he live at all?

For one fleeting second, her head broke the surface, and she gasped for breath. “Help!” Sputtering sounds followed while she fought valiantly to stay afloat. “Mr. Arbuthnot, if you care for me, help me. Only then can I see the depth of your regard.” Then the water and weight ensured she went under again.

What the devil?

Why did she call for Mr. Arbuthnot? Had she played him for a fool just like his previous fiancé had? Threw him over for another? Even if their engagement was naught but a fiction. Then he shook his head and cleared his mind of thoughts. There was no way of knowing until he talked to her. And he would , damn it. Dismissing the other man, he moved through the mud at the river’s edge. It was already deuced cold, and that water had to be freezing. It wouldn’t be long for hyperthermia to set in.

Saving Samantha was the only choice he could make. Without her, he had no future. He had to trust that his friends would take care of Lady Stover.

Before he could make the first move, Mr. Arbuthnot dove into the water, leaving Cornelius staring into the murkiness. Only then did he understand why she’d called for the other man. If he’d gone into the water after her, Mr. Arbuthnot would be waiting for him on the bank, no doubt with a loaded pistol and would have killed them both. Now, with the other man doing the rescue on the ridiculous hope that Samantha would choose him, he’d find himself freezing and exhausted. Cornelius could dispatch him and keep himself as well as her alive.

How much do I love her?

Vowing to tell her at the first opportunity, he willed them both to surface as he stared at the dark water that threw ripples up every few seconds. There was no waterfowl nearby, and the longer he stared, the colder he grew. Where were they? His pulse pounded. Would the man truly rescue her, or did he mean to pull her down until the last breath left her body and his in some demented hope of a romantic ending?

Fear twisted up his spine even as he knew that he had to trust.

A masculine shout echoed from somewhere nearby. No doubt either Hedgecomb or Strathfield had caught up to the large thug who’d attempted to waylay him earlier. The rattle of carriage wheels on a street not far off drifted to his ears, and still he monitored the water.

Then Mr. Arbuthnot’s blond head broke the surface of the water, quickly followed by Samantha’s glossy dark tresses that were plastered to her skull. Yet only Mr. Arbuthnot sucked in lungsful of air as Cornelius knelt in the mud with his free hand outstretched.

“Does she live?” He could hardly force the words out of his tight throat.

“I don’t know.” Annoyance wove through the other man’s voice. “Help me get her to land, you idiot,” he muttered while he shoved her body into Cornelius’s arms.

Dear God. She was far too still and pale. “Samantha?” He hauled her to safety but left her lying on her side on the crunchy, frozen grass perhaps six feet from the water’s edge. “Breathe for me, sweeting,” he said to her, but she remained unmoving.

There was nothing for it. Promising himself to return as quickly as he could and hoping that resting her on her side would help any water she’d swallowed come out, Cornelius returned to the riverbank where Mr. Arbuthnot had scrambled out of the water. He buried a fist in the man’s collar and yanked him away when he would have gone to Samantha’s location.

“You will not touch her again.” He wanted to throttle the man, to kill him for the part he’d played in her abduction and her murder if she didn’t recover. Yet a sweet, sweet sound reached his ears—Samantha’s coughing. Then she took a ragged breath followed by more coughing. It was the most glorious confirmation he could have heard, but he forced himself to ignore her. “You’ll hang for your crimes.”

“I’ll tell you everything about Lady Stover and her gang if you keep my out of Newgate.”

“That would make things far too easy for you, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m a desperate man.” Mr. Arbuthnot lunged. “Miss Marchington and I will marry and disappear. You heard her. She asked for me , not you.” He plowed his head into Cornelius’s ribcage, and the force knocked them both onto the cold, hard ground.

Cornelius landed heavily on his back. “Over my dead body.”

“That can easily be arranged. What’s one more death?” The other man’s body shook, no doubt from exposure and the cold. If he wasn’t treated soon, he would go into shock. “You have no idea what I’ve done for that woman to keep my family safe.”

“That doesn’t make it right.” He lashed out with a powerful uppercut that clipped the other man’s chin. When Mr. Arbuthnot stumbled and tried to gain his footing, Cornelius swung out a foot and caught his adversary in the stomach. It stung because he wore shoes instead of his customary boots, but it was just as effective.

Mr. Arbuthnot went flying and landed on his side, but he didn’t stay down for long. As the grass slipped beneath his boots, he wrestled himself into a standing position, yet he was shaking on his feet due to cold. Cornelius followed suit, and once more they came at each other, locked in a tangle for supremacy, both with everything to lose.

“She’s mine, Arbuthnot. Always has been.” He had to believe that.

“Hardly. Your engagement isn’t real.”

“Perhaps not but the sentiment is.”

“That doesn’t matter!” Mr. Arbuthnot’s strength was borne from madness or perhaps desperation, while Cornelius struggled to keep the upper hand. A wild punch from his opponent caught him in the gut, winding him. He doubled over and struggled to catch his breath.

Bang!

The report of a gunshot echoed in the cold, clear night.

“What the devil?” Surprise reflected on Mr. Arbuthnot’s face. He hopped on one foot while clutching his other leg in his hands. Then he fell face forward onto the grass with his breath clouding about his head. Blood seeped between his fingers from a busted kneecap—Hedgecomb’s signature shot.

Cornelius glanced about, easily spotting the earl in a stand of trees. As of yet, he hadn’t seen the duke. Lifting a hand in acknowledgement, he sucked in a breath.

With a cry of rage, Mr. Arbuthnot surged to his feet and would have closed the distance had not Cornelius used the remainder of his strength to punch the man in the nose. The crunch of cartilage echoed in his ears. Blood gushed down Mr. Arbuthnot’s face as he toppled once more to the ground. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this! I was going to move to Rome and thrive there with my new bride!”

“Sometimes you have to take the loss, Arbuthnot.” Tired of the man’s blathering, Cornelius delivered a hard punch to his temple where the jawbones connected.

Immediately, the man slumped to the muddy ground and this time he didn’t move.

When Cornelius looked about the immediate area for Lady Stover, but it was as if she’d vanished into thin air. Damn, damn, damn. Since there was nothing he could do about that and hoping the duke would find her, he rushed to Samantha’s side where he fell to his knees. “Samantha, dearest, can you hear me?”

Her eyes were closed with the light brown lashes forming perfect arcs on her pale cheeks, but her chest moved as she drew breath, shallow though they were. It mattered not; she was alive. Every so often, deep shivers wracked her body and as he stared down at her, a blue tinge took hold of her lips.

“Samantha?” Wrenching off his greatcoat, he tucked it around her and hoped it might provide much needed warmth.

In the distance, the report of a pistol echoed through the night. Had Strathfield come upon Lady Stover? Which one of them had shot first? A whistle soon followed, which meant the earl was going off to investigate. Cornelius had served half a year with that man and had never forgotten his peculiarities.

“Cornelius?”

Moisture immediately sprang into his eyes, for he was so bloody grateful to hear her voice. He bundled her into his arms and lap, holding her close even as the shackles and chains clanked together. Dear God , she was so cold! And completely drenched. “Stay with me, sweeting. I’m going to take you home and get you warm, but you must hang on. Do you hear?” Rocking her back and forth, he peered down into her face as her eyes fluttered open. “There are things I would say to you, but you need to survive.”

“I need…” Her teeth chattered together so badly she couldn’t talk. “S-s-so c-c-cold, but I w-w-want to…” Then she frowned. Panic reflected in her eyes before the lids fluttered, and with a sigh, she went pliant in his arms as she once more succumbed to unconsciousness.

December 25, 1818

Late Christmas night

“Lord Timelbury! She has woken!”

The excited utterance by a maid wrenched him from the exhausted dose he’d fallen into on a low sofa in the drawing room. For a few seconds, he was disoriented, but when he saw the flickering flames in the fireplace, felt the weight of the wool blanket someone had thrown over him after he’d fallen asleep, reality came roaring back to him.

“I beg your pardon?” He could hardly allow himself to believe what the maid had said.

The young woman nodded. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Miss Marchington has woken and has asked for weak tea.”

For a second, his knees almost didn’t support his weight, but then he nodded, and relief washed over him. “Then by all means, go make some for her. I’ll be up directly. And please, don’t wake anyone else in the household. It’s nearly midnight. They can wake to the joyous news in the morning.”

“Of course, my lord.” Then she dashed from the room.

He briefly closed his eyes and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving, for he hadn’t truly believed he would be standing here suddenly with possibilities ahead of him.

As he left the drawing room and headed for the stairs, thoughts swirled through his mind.

After the contretemps at Hyde Park and because Samantha required immediate attention, he’d taken her to his house. She needed constant care and looking after, and he wasn’t about to leave her side when he didn’t know if she’d live or die.

Of course, the household was in chaos, for the rout had ended an hour previous, and though most of the guests had left, his mother and aunt were still in attendance. Once they’d been appraised of what had happened to Samantha and the reason they’d both been missing for the bulk of the event, they became dual mother hens, which had surprised the hell out of him, especially in his mother’s case.

Regardless, he’d sat by her bedside in the spare room while his diligent staff plied her with blankets and hot water bottles and encouraged warm broth down her throat in the hopes she would come back to consciousness.

Then he reached her room and stood in the doorway while the maid came in with a tea tray containing a pot of tea with all the accompaniments and a few slices of dry toast. Once she left the room, only then did Cornelius venture into the room.

“Samantha?”

A single candle burned at the bedside table, and her blonde-brown hair shimmered in the low illumination. At some point, one of the maids must have combed out the tresses, perhaps during a bath they’d encouraged her into during a brief stretch of consciousness in an effort to warm her body. The mass flowed over her shoulders in a softly curling waterfall. A night dress and matching wrapper of pale pink lawn covered her form. Lined with satin ribbon in a darker pink, it gave her an air of sultry innocence, but it was her eyes that held him captive. The blue pools were clear and the darker blue ring that rimmed the irises was very evident.

Never had he been so damned speechless as he was in this moment.

A slow smile curved those highly kissable lips. “Hullo, Cornelius.” If her voice was a tad graveled, he couldn’t blame her, for swallowing copious amounts of Serpentine water and then vomiting it up would do that to a person. “I think I missed Christmas.”

“Ah, dearest, you certainly did.” By the time they’d arrived here last night, the clock had already struck midnight… which it was doing again just now.

And again, it’s my birthday.

The soft chime from the longcase clock on the floor below filtered to his ears. “In fact, you were out for the better part of twenty-four hours.” Suddenly unsure of himself, he perched on the chair at the side of her bed where he’d spent most of his time on Christmas.

“But I am here now.”

“You are, and just in time to wish me well on my birthday.”

“How lovely. Many happy returns of the day.” She poured out a cup of tea for herself since the tray rested on the other side of the bed, then with a sigh, she sat back against the pillows. When she held his gaze with hers, he wanted to throw himself onto his knees and tell her…everything. “Please tell me you captured Lady Stover.”

“We did not.” His chest tightened at the distress in her expression. “In the confusion surrounding getting you rescued and then subduing Mr. Arbuthnot, she somehow slipped away. However, the Duke of Strathfield did get off a shot that found purchase in her hip. Through and through, I believe he said, so she will live and will no doubt need only a couple of weeks in bed to recuperate.”

“I’m so sorry.” She sought refuge behind sipping her tea. “If it weren’t for me—”

“Stop.” Reaching out, he took her free hand. “I would gladly have you here with me over seeing Lady Stover dead or in Newgate. There are other days to fight for that.” Since it was impossible to order his thoughts, he would just talk to her. “Regardless, Mr. Arbuthnot has agreed to tell the rogues as well as Bow Street everything he knows regarding Lady Stover’s organization in exchange for remaining out of Newgate himself.”

“Do you think he’ll tell the truth?”

“That remains to be seen, but the Duke of Edenthorpe has written to one of his friends, an Alexander Burgess who used to work with Bow Street, asking him to come to London from the Lake District sometime before the New Year to question Mr. Arbuthnot. It’s the best leverage we’ve had on Lady Stover and hopefully it will gain us the upper hand.”

She nodded. “Yet I know a few things about Lady Stover that will allow the rogues to chip away at her weaknesses.”

“Oh?” One of his eyebrows went up. “You can tell Edenthorpe in a few days. He’ll want to know.”

“I’ll do it. At least something good came out of this.” After a sip of tea, she continued. “When I said those things to Mr. Arbuthnot, I didn’t truly mean them.”

“I know.” As moisture rose in his eyes, he rubbed the pad of his thumb along her knuckles. “You wanted him to risk himself to retrieve you so that I wouldn’t be shot.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I care nothing for him.”

“I know that too.” Why the devil couldn’t he say the words that were on his heart?

“You’re bruised and battered again.” It was a statement of fact.

“It would appear that ever since I’ve met you, being beaten has become a matter of course.” And he would do it all over again for the love of her. “Oh, and I was shot last night. Don’t forget that.” When she appeared alarmed, he squeezed her fingers. “It was nothing.” He showed her the tear in his sleeve at his left shoulder where only a tiny trace of blood had seeped through. “Just a scratch, but it was my favorite jacket. That I can’t forgive.” His attempt at a joke fell flat when she didn’t laugh.

“Is that why you’re in such a state of undress?” As she raked her gaze up and down his person, he shifted when awareness swept along his skin.

At some point during his vigil, he’d stripped down to his satin evening breeches and fine lawn shirt, that he’d rolled up to his elbows. “That, and also I was so concerned about you that I couldn’t spare the time away from your bedside to attend to grooming.”

Then she gasped, and his musings scattered. “Is that what I think it is?”

Turning to follow her line of vision, he chuckled, for the dim candlelight sparkled off a bracelet that sat on the bureau top—a diamond and pearl bracelet. “That is my Aunt Beatrice’s bracelet we assumed stolen.”

“Clearly, it’s not.” One of her light brown eyebrows rose. “I told you I didn’t take it.”

A grin curved his lips. “Apparently, this was all my mother’s doing. She took the bracelet to cause chaos in the hopes I might find you attractive enough to take a chance on.” As heat went up the back of his neck, he shrugged. “I hate that she knows me so well.”

When Samantha giggled, he put a hand over his heart. Never had he thought he would hear that sound again, and never would he take it for granted. “Well, I’m glad it has been returned.”

“As am I. No doubt Mama felt guilty, especially after you came in last night half-dead.”

“Did she stay the night?”

“God, no.” He shook his head. “She went home, but Aunt Beatrice is here. She’s in the room across the hall, said I needed looking after, but she dropped into dreamland from exhaustion, no doubt, as soon as she went up to change after the rout ended.”

“I rather like her. She reminds me a bit of my mother.” Once she drained her teacup, Cornelius took it from her and set it on the tray. “Do you think Lady Stover will make good on her threats to kill you and your friends? Because I must tell you, I don’t know how all of you go through your lives knowing there is someone out there who wishes you dead.” A trace of panic skittered through her expression. “How can you go on, live your life, plan anything without terror holding you captive?”

The time had come to have that much-needed talk with her. “Some things in life require a fair degree of trust, sweeting. And sometimes, though we feel that fear to the core of our being, we must live our lives anyway. That’s where courage is formed. I have found the best things in life we want to keep with us require hefty degrees of bravery, and to that end, I have thought over what I want to say to you, but first, a dance.”

This would either be the best night of his life or the most dismal, and he couldn’t decide where the needle would land just now.