Chapter Eighteen

Michael hated each raindrop that obstructed his vision, for he wanted to look everyone standing on that dock straight in the eye before he put them down. Tucked in the waist of his breeches was a loaded pistol, and there was a thin knife hidden in his right boot. To say nothing of the fellow rogues he hoped were already positioned at strategic places around the area.

But what he despised even more were the cuts and bruises decorating his wife's face and the hand of the man holding her arm as her wrists were immobile behind her back. Whoever had hurt her would pay for every damned mark.

The breeze played with Charity's blue skirting—God, that would have been a beautiful gown had it not gotten ripped and torn, and was that blood? —as well as the marigold of Lady Stover's skirts. With a glance at the three men all standing in an arc around the countess with his wife's captor at the top of the arc nearest to the open warehouse door, he promptly dismissed them .

They didn't matter. Only the treacherous countess did.

"Send your dogs away, Lady Stover. This is between you and me." The full authority of his title and his life experience rang in his voice. He didn't care that she held a higher rank than he did; this was personal.

"I can't do that, Lord Winteringham, for I don't trust you." She gestured with the pistol. "Come closer. I don't care to shout this whole conversation."

"And I certainly don't trust you." Though he came a handful of steps closer, he glanced at Charity, and his heart squeezed before a wave of hot anger swept through his tight chest. Those big, expressive eyes of hers told the whole story of what had happened to her, and he vowed to put every one of the criminals on the dock down this evening. "Have they hurt you?" he asked, ignoring everyone else for a few precious seconds.

"A bit, but nothing I can't overcome." When she tried to wrench away from her captor, rage shot through Michael's being as the man pulled her toward the warehouse. "They mean to give me to a ship captain, to sell me as human cargo!" The terror in that shouted admission went straight to his gut.

He shook his head. "I'll have to be dead before I allow that to happen."

"Oh, it's a certainty I intend to arrange," Lady Stover said with a laugh, as if she were on the dance floor in a ballroom instead of this dismal place. She gestured with her pistol. Slowly, the two other men drew their own weapons. "Did you bring the diamonds, Winteringham?"

"I did." But he refused to give them over without incident.

"Show me." When he didn't immediately move, she pointed the nose of her pistol at Charity. "Show me the necklace or I will put a ball through her chest."

"Fine." As he delved a hand into the interior pocket of his jacket, the slightest of the three men closed the distance between them. Even in the overcast afternoon and the gentle rain, the diamonds glittered like mad. "Here it is."

"Give it to Mr. Denton. He is one of the men who buys and sells jewels and antiquities for my organization."

"Don't do it, Michael!" The entreaty from his wife gave him pause. Of course, he didn't wish to lose such a valuable piece either, but if it meant having Charity back unharmed, there was no question of what he would do. "She'll take the diamonds, sell them, and kill us anyway."

An expression of annoyance crossed the countess' face. "Lord Markleson, keep your little plaything quiet." Then she slammed her gaze back to Michael while Charity's captor forced her into the warehouse, temporarily hidden.

Plaything? Surely that man hadn't violated her. The thought, the knowledge that Lady Stover would callously trade lives for favors had sour bile rising at the back of his throat. He ignored Mr. Denton's presence in favor of speaking directly to the countess. "The necklace for my wife. That is the deal."

She chuckled as if was the most amusing thing. "Why do you care, Winteringham? The whole of London knows you only married her as a matter of protection and because you felt sorry for her." The tsking of her tongue grated over his nerves; each sound threw more fuel on the already raging fire in his chest. "Poor Charity, all alone in the world, left with nothing except a paltry sum of funds and a pawn shop that will go to her uncle."

When Mr. Denton attempted to yank the necklace from Michael's fingers, he darted away, keeping the item safe for the moment.

"It matters not why I married her; she is my wife, and I will do anything for her." As he spoke, he skimmed his gaze along the windows of the weathered buildings that lined the docks. If fortune was on his side, a few of the Rogue's Arcade men had already sneaked to his whereabouts and were even now watching from hidden locations.

"A wife who means nothing to you, correct?" Lady Stover kept on, as did Mr. Denton, which meant Michael continued to elude the man. "You were so lost in grief when your first wife died that you couldn't possibly contemplate taking another into your bed."

He kept his own counsel, but the memories of coupling with Charity were bright and bubbly in his mind, infusing him with hope and courage. Even now in such dire circumstances, the remembrance of her lips against his, the tentative explorations of her fingertips as they glided along his skin filled him with joy.

Truly, she had come into his life to help him out of the darkness.

Lady Stover continued her one-sided discussion. "Mr. Stanton, perhaps you should give our dear viscount some incentive to follow orders." Again, she gestured with her pistol.

"Gladly." The hulking man who had no doubt tried to kidnap Christopher walked into the warehouse. After an angry exchange with the man known as Lord Markleson, he returned with Charity thrown over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

Lord Markleson was fast on his heels. "Lady Stover, you said no harm would come to the girl. That she was mine."

"Yes, after we eliminate Winteringham, but for now, she is his motivation." She waved the pistol at the three. "Into the water, Mr. Stanton. We are running out of time."

"No!" Michael and Lord Markleson cried out together.

But the inevitable happened. The hulking man went to the edge of the dock and tossed Charity over without concern or care. With her hands tied behind her back and the skirting that would weigh her down, it was a certainty she would drown.

"The necklace, Winteringham. Now. I'll wager your nothing little wife has perhaps three minutes before she succumbs to drowning."

Torn between wanting this bad Drury Lane production to end and rescuing his wife, Michael froze as he contemplated his options. Then fate decided for him.

Bang!

The report of a pistol discharging echoed in his ears seconds before intense pain lanced through his upper right chest and shoulder. As he fell to the wooden boards of the dock, the necklace was knocked from his fingers to slide over the boards. Immediately, Mr. Denton scooped it up with a grunt of alleged triumph.

But Michael's attention was on the immediate danger he was now in. Damned fool woman! The countess had shot him, and he'd seen enough of these types of injuries in the war to know that a man could easily bleed out if he wasn't given proper medical treatment and soon. Already, the metallic scent of blood threatened to pull him into a frozen state, but he fought against it.

For him. For Charity. For their future—together.

"Perhaps you will follow orders when I give them next time, Winteringham," Lady Stover said as she came closer to his fallen position. Smoke rose from the nose of her spent pistol. Splashing water and Charity's frantic cries rang in his ears. It would take a Herculean effort, but he had to try.

Ignoring the pain as best he could, Michael grunted as Mr. Denton gave the countess the diamond necklace and took her pistol in exchange.

She smiled. "Go bring the carriage around to the street. We are almost done here."

As the man loped off, Michael struggled to his feet, nearly vomited as the world tilted around him. "Retrieve my wife." With every second that passed, Charity's chances of survival grew slimmer.

With a jerk of her chin, the countess gave an order. Lord Markleson immediately dove into the water. As Michael tugged and pulled on his cravat, he watched as the peer shoved her onto the boards and soon followed. She lay curled on her side, gasping for breath, her black hair plastered to her head, but she lived, and that renewed his own hope. Lord Markleson shot Lady Stover a withering glance then worked to untie Charity's wrists.

It seemed there was a bit of dissent in the criminal organization. "What the hell do you want the diamonds for? Don't you have enough coin?" he bit off as he pressed the wadded length of silk to the wound in his shoulder. If luck favored him, it might stem the flow of blood until he could finish this fight. Keeping his feet would prove a problem as lightheadedness assailed him.

"Any enterprise needs continual funding, Winteringham, even this one. So many people to pay or bribe, so many plans to make." She held up the necklace. "It's a pity."

He couldn't help himself. "What?"

"If Mr. Maitland had only sold my cousin—the Duke of Winthrop—this piece years ago, none of us would be here now."

"Why didn't he?" Risking a glance at Charity, relief twisted down Michael's spine, for she had gained her feet, albeit dragged there by Lord Markleson's hand.

"Who can say?" Lady Stover blew out a breath. "Perhaps Maitland had a change of heart. To be fair, Winthrop was a vastly unlikable man even if he was a duke, and he was far too weak as the head of this criminal ring. If fate hadn't already seen fit to eliminate him, I would have put a ball in him myself." A shrug lifted her shoulders. "There has been much to keep my attention occupied, but when I came across a journal of his, he'd mentioned this necklace. Of course, I was intrigued."

"Yet you killed an innocent man," he managed to gasp out as his heart went to Charity. Her father was murdered for absolutely no reason.

"There are many degrees of innocence, don't you think? And sometimes, if people who are nothing in this world don't cooperate, I simply must do what I have to in order to gain what I want."

"Every person in London—in the world—is important in some way."

"I beg to differ, Winteringham. Which is why I will eventually remove said people." She smiled as she contemplated the diamonds. "Every one of these stones will help me snuff out a member of the Rogue's Arcade."

He shook his head. "You are quite mad if you think we'll just stand by and let that happen."

"Perhaps to be in a position of power, one must have a bit of insanity in their blood, don't you think?" With another chuckle, she closed the distance between them. "Power is the only thing worth living for, my dear viscount. Without that, there is nothing." With a fist, she punched him in the wounded shoulder. "I also want the accolades for my cleverness. I have had precious little of that in my life, so now I will demand it. "

"Ah!" Renewed hurt slammed through his being. Michael lost his balance and once more fell to the wooden boards. Nearly incapacitated with agony, he strove to clutch the cravat to his wound.

But the countess wasn't done. Lifting her skirting, she put a slipper-covered foot to his shoulder and pressed her weight down on it. Pain unlike he'd ever experienced jolted through his body. It was all he could do to maintain consciousness.

"I'm starting with you, Winteringham. You will not leave the docks alive, I can assure you, and I can also say your wife will fetch a princely sum once my agent strikes a contract with a sultan in the desert countries for his harem, or perhaps a maharaja in India will covet her pale skin and offer me countless treasures for her."

The pain was too much. He coughed, turned his head, and then cast up his accounts, all over himself but also on Lady Stover's foot. Immediately, she jumped away, and the agony in his shoulder eased slightly. "I am not dead yet, so there is still hope."

That was how it had always been.

The countess spat on him, stared down at him with nothing but hate and contempt reflected in her eyes. "By the end of next year, I will have succeeded in killing each and every member of the Rogue's Arcade. After that, nothing can stop me from controlling London and everyone in it, including the government." Then she gestured to presumably one of her thugs. "Put her in the packing crate and nail it closed. The captain will come by to pick it up and load it onto his ship." The tap tap of her heeled slippers indicated she retreated. Damn it, she would slip away in her carriage. Once more she would elude justice.

But he could hardly move. His last hope was that his brothers-in-arms would take up the mission where he'd failed.

Charity's weak protest filtered to Michael's ears followed by her scream. No doubt the larger of the two men had gotten to her.

Then everything seemed to happen at once.

Bang!

The report of a pistol had him rolling onto his left side in an effort to make sense of the sudden melee on the dock. Gratitude shivered down his spine as Timelbury came into view, engaging Lord Markleson in a fist fight while Alexander Tattingham and the Earl of St. Vincent worked at cornering the hulking Mr. Stanton.

With nothing to do except bear witness to the scene, Michael's heart leapt into his throat when Charity staggered out of the warehouse with bits of straw clinging to her wet hair and clothing. She uttered a cry that was magnificent in its primal sound. Before he could wonder what her intention was, his wife rushed over the wooden boards and then launched herself at Lady Stover.

The two women slammed to the dock, wrestled for dominance in a flurry of skirting and flowing hair. A flash indicated that the necklace had been knocked from the countess' hand. At one point, Charity straddled the other woman, got off a decent punch to Lady Stover's cheek, but seconds later, she was pitched off. The blonde woman scrambled to her feet, casting about no doubt for the diamonds, yet Charity was there. She lashed out with a stocking-covered foot and caught the countess in the back of her knee.

Once more, Lady Stover hit the wooden boards, and Charity pounced again. Michael would have yelled his encouragement, but it took all his concentration to breathe. He watched in horrified fascination and prideful respect as his wife took the countess to task.

Eventually, another man ran over to the women. Of course, Lady Stover would have more people waiting for her than the thugs already engaged in fighting. He grabbed Charity by her shoulder and threw her off the countess. She landed hard with a sharp cry and went sprawling. In short order, the man assisted Lady Stover to her feet, and then spirited her around the corner of the warehouse.

Michael huffed in annoyance. They wouldn't see her again this day, which meant the threat against the rogues remained strong.

Daring to close his eyes, for his strength was flagging, the pounding of feet over the boards had them popping open once more, and he couldn't help but produce a weak grin. Charity came toward him, rather worse for wear, but the most beautiful sight he could ever hope to see.

She tumbled to her knees. "Michael, oh God, Michael, what happened to you?" Then gently, his wife dragged him to her, encouraged him to lean his back against her chest as she pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "How bad is it?"

"Well, let's just say if I don't receive the attentions… of a surgeon to dig the ball out…" It was too much to breathe and talk at the same time. "…this will be our last conversation."

"No." She shook her head and wet tendrils of hair came over her shoulders. "I refuse to accept that."

How much did he love her in that moment?

Pain pushed through Michael's body to the point where he thought he might succumb to the darkness hovering around the edge of his vision. He couldn't move his right arm, and it was becoming a more impossible task to stem the loss of blood. That metallic scent infiltrated his nostrils and scrambled his brains; it was a constant fight to remain in the here and now instead of being trapped in a fugue state somewhere in the war.

"I don't know that we have a choice." The only thing keeping him semi-upright and conscious was the warmth of Charity's body at his back as he sprawled half-upright on the wooden boardwalk. She held the folded length of his cravat to his shoulder, but it was only a matter of time before all was lost.

Once before had he felt that this might be the end of his time on this mortal coil, and it was on a battlefield in Portugal, the same one where the Duke of Strathfield hauled him behind the supply line by his foot while the burn of a ball in his side split his sanity. At the time, he'd begun dictating his last will and testament to the man, making him promise to tell Sarah that he loved her because he feared he hadn't said it enough when he'd been with her.

Strathfield had told him to buck up, straighten his spine, and hold the damned cravat to his wound, for he wouldn't have another death on his conscience. He'd looked right at Michael from over his shoulder and said he wasn't anyone's damned secretary, so he could spout those sentiments to his wife personally.

Only a handful of weeks later, that same duke dragged Lord Rockwell off yet another battlefield, where he'd procured the wound in his leg that meant he would walk with a permanent limp and a cane.

Now, circumstances were different. There was no one who could save him—Michael—and he was losing far too much blood.

"Charity, there are things I must say to you. I won't have another opportunity." Catching her free hand in his, he tugged her down until their eyes met. Hers were filled with tears as well as fear and sadness. "This past week or so with you has been…" Damned breathing that was labored and weak. "It has been beyond my wildest expectations. You have brightened my… outlook."

"Oh, stop. I don't want to do this here." When her voice broke, his whole world tilted. He winced when she pressed the wound on his shoulder too hard. "You are going to survive."

"You and I both know… that is growing more and more unlikely." The sounds of fighting and of pistols discharging drove home the fact that his friends still tried to defend against the thugs. A splash nearby indicated someone had either fallen or was pitched into the water. "Please take care of Christopher."

"I will, of course, but—"

"Listen," he implored in a ragged whisper. A few of her tears fell to his face. "The paperwork for my man-of-affairs is in the study." It was becoming more difficult to draw breath without severe pain. "I provided… for you. And I… Because, I l—"

"Winteringham, watch out!"

The warning from Timelbury caused Michael to jerk his head up as best he could as he slipped farther onto the dock and out of Charity's arms. The man who'd taken his wife captive at the beginning of their association was bearing down on them in the rain with a pistol in his hand. It would seem that Lord Markleson wanted Charity in his life as much as Michael did.

"When will this nightmare end?" she whispered, and then bit back a sob. "He wants to do… things to me… he kissed me against my will."

If only I could make him pay for that effrontery.

"Quickly." He panted. "There is a knife… in my right boot…" It hurt to breathe, to swallow, to talk. "If you were ever… skilled at throwing… a blade, now is the time, sweeting." Little by little, the darkness at the edges of his vision encroached closer. It would envelope him shortly, and then it would be fate's design if he survived.

"Right." One of the things he admired about her was that when it counted, when there was real danger afoot, Charity jumped into action without a second thought. As gently as she could, she laid him down, crept around him dragging her skirting through the muck and blood, to feel about the inside of his boot. With a cry of delight or frustration, she withdrew the blade from the slim leather sheath, then rising on her knees, she lifted the hand that held the knife. In her nimble fingers, the blade appeared even more deadly. "This ends now, Lord Markleson. I am not yours; now and forever, I am Lady Winteringham."

So damned brave.

Michael groaned as he rolled onto his left side just as she released the knife. The blade flashed as it flew through the air in perfect arcs. Seconds later, the pointed end found purchase in the left side of the peer's chest, which immediately halted his forward momentum.

Except the bastard staggered ever closer, step by step, with surprise on his face and in his eyes. Just when Michael assumed he would fire the pistol anyway, his hand shook. He yanked the knife from his chest, and as blood spurted from what was no doubt a deep, mortal wound to the heart, he toppled, falling to the wooden boardwalk with a mighty thud. The pistol clattered from his hand to skitter a few feet away, but the man didn't move again.

"Oh, dear God, I killed someone." Tears were evident in her voice. She half-crawled half-darted over to the dead man's side to check for vitals, but there it was obvious that he'd left this world, for the puddle of blood around him only grew. "I'm so sorry," she whispered to the corpse. "If you had only made better choices…"

Even now, even after everything the man had done to her, she would speak kindly over his dead body. Michael's heart squeezed; he was enormously proud of her, fiercely protective of her. When she returned to his side, he released a breath of relief. "That will sit on your conscience for a time." Even to his ears, his whisper had grown weaker.

"I would do anything for you," she whispered back. "I promised Christopher I would protect you."

"Ah, darling girl…" Michael scrambled for her hand with his free one. "Charity…" The thoughts had flown out of his head, and the pain made it impossible to think. Insistent sounds of bootheels hurrying across the boards echoed in his ears; he felt the reverberations in his back.

"Hold on, Michael. Help is coming." She kneeled at his side, resumed putting pressure on his wound as she implored him with her eyes. Bits of straw clung to the damp tendrils of her hair as she leaned over him. "Summon all your strength. We have much to say to each other, and I refuse to utter mine at your graveside."

Then Strathfield's face swam into his vision as the duke peered down at him, looking for all the world as if he'd just left the club. Not a hair was out of place. "I'm growing weary of rescuing your sorry arse, Winteringham."

"I promise this will be the last time," he managed to say as his strength ebbed.

Charity touched his cheek. "If you can joke, then all is not lost."

Though it hurt to laugh, he did it anyway. Tears filled his eyes, seeped to his cheeks, and rolled toward his ears as he looked at her. "Bloody hell I love you to distraction…"

There was so much else he wished to tell her, wanted to pour out the contents of his heart, spend days singing her praises and thanking her for being in his life, but there was no more time. Darkness crept over him, taking over his vision, beckoning to him to tumble into that void where there was the blessed surcease from pain…

"Michael!" Charity's panicked scream propelled him deeper into that inky cloud then he gave himself up to that vast nothingness.