Chapter 28

W hen Crispin opened his eyes to find Sophie hovering over him like a celestial angel in a filmy white gown, he knew he must still be dreaming. Her blue eyes were quizzical and a gentle glow haloed her short golden curls.

Grinning sleepily, he reached up to draw her into his arms, eager to travel wherever this dream might take him.

A pair of hard hands jerked him out of the bed and slammed him against the nearest wall. His cousin's face loomed in his vision, its rugged features set in ruthless lines. "Where is she?"

Crispin blinked frantically, trying to figure out how his beautiful dream could have turned into a nightmare with such bewildering speed. He was still half drunk from sleep and all the champagne he'd imbibed after Sophie had doused him in the stuff. Shortly after she'd stormed out, he'd left the ballroom with a full bottle in each hand. He had made short work of them in the solarium, then stumbled off to his chamber to fall into bed with his clothes still on.

He was still incapable of forming a coherent thought—much less a word—when Connor slammed him into the wall a second time, making his already pounding head pound even louder.

"Where is she ?"

Crispin gave Sophie a perplexed glance. "Why, she's right there beside you. Can't you see her?"

"I'm not talking about Sophie," Connor snarled. "I'm talking about Pamela. Where in the bloody hell is she?"

"How in the bloody hell am I supposed to know? She's your fiancée, isn't she?"

Crispin's nightmare worsened when a hulking figure separated itself from the shadows. He was wearing a long nightshirt and a tasseled nightcap. Copper braids poked out from beneath the nightcap like a writhing horde of Medusa's snakes. A gold tooth winked from the front of his mouth.

He leered at Crispin, cracking his massive knuckles as if he wished they were Crispin's spine. "Give me ten minutes alone with the lad and I'll make him talk."

Flummoxed anew, Crispin clutched at the front of Connor's shirt. "Isn't that your valet?"

Sophie blew out a sigh. "You two are hopeless. Why don't you let me talk to him?"

She was forced to edge under Connor's arm when he refused to relinquish his grip on Crispin's cravat. Despite his befuddled state, Crispin had no trouble focusing on her lovely face.

"My sister Pamela is missing," she said, enunciating each word as if speaking to a child. "We have reason to believe she may have been taken against her will."

"Your sister? Ah ha! I knew you weren't her maid!"

"Yes, I'm afraid that was a bold-faced lie. Now we were hoping that you—or perhaps your mother—might have some information as to her whereabouts. Unfortunately, we can't question your mother because her bed is empty."

A helpless giggle escaped Crispin as he imagined them bursting into his mother's bedchamber and manhandling her in such a manner.

Connor shook him until his teeth rattled, forcing Sophie to beat a hasty retreat. "If you can't tell us where to find Pamela, then I'd strongly suggest you tell us where to find your mother."

Crispin snorted with laughter. "She's probably out collecting eye of newt or skinning some kittens to make a new pair of gloves."

Growling beneath his breath, Connor lifted him clean off his feet. For a dizzying moment, Crispin feared he was about to go sailing through the nearest window—without the benefit of having it opened first. But Connor simply tossed him back onto the bed before raking a hand through his hair in disgust.

Crispin's dream grew even stranger when a breathless footman in full livery came charging into the room. "There you are, my lord," he said, sketching Connor a hasty bow. "We've been searching the entire estate for you. This missive just arrived. The man who delivered it claimed it was urgent—a matter of life and death."

Connor snatched the folded piece of vellum from the servant's hand. While he scanned the lines scrawled on the paper, the footman eyed their odd little party with some trepidation. Connor's valet winked at him, which only seemed to worsen his agitation.

Sophie stood on tiptoe to peer over Connor's shoulder, a frown clouding her pretty brow. "I know this address. It's the Crown Theatre on Drury Lane. The one where Maman died."

Ignoring the throbbing protest of his head, Crispin sat straight up in the bed. "I know that address as well. I took my mother there once so she could see Marianne Darby on the stage. Mother went to take tea with her a few times after that. I believe she saw her last on the very day she died."

Crispin finished his cheerful recitation to discover they were all looking at him as if he'd sprouted a second aching head.

Even after all these months, the smell of char and ruin still lingered in the air. Connor stepped over a crumbling timber, marveling that such a wasteland could have once been a thriving theater. The roof had collapsed in the flames that had devoured the building, leaving three towering walls still open to the sky.

Dawn would be coming soon, but judging from the dark bellies of the clouds brooding over the theater, it would bring with it not sunlight but rain.

Connor edged his way around a blackened column to find himself staring into the hollow eyes of a plaster cherub, its once elegant gilt veneer now blistered and peeling.

From behind him, Brodie let out a low whistle. "If e'er there was a place for ghosts, laddie, this is it."

Connor glanced back at the cloaked girl gingerly picking her way after them, knowing she had more reason to fear the ghosts that haunted this place than they did. He'd brought Sophie along against all of his best instincts. The note he'd received had warned that Pamela's life would be forfeit if he notified the duke or the authorities that she was missing and Sophie had threatened to throw the tantrum of all tantrums if left behind. He could only pray that Pamela would have a chance to yell at him for letting himself be bullied by such a spoiled slip of a girl.

A footfall sounded to the left of them. Connor swung around, drawing his pistol.

Crispin slowly emerged from the morning mist that was creeping through the shattered beams of the collapsed galleries. He lifted his hands in the air, looking sober in more ways than one.

"What are you doing here?" Connor asked without lowering the pistol.

"I want to help. She's my mother. I might be able to reason with her." When Connor cocked a skeptical eyebrow, he added, "There's always a first time."

"Are you armed?"

Crispin nodded, opening his coat to reveal a rapier and two dueling pistols.

Sophie sniffed. "What? Was the greengrocer all out of rotten cabbages?"

Disregarding Connor and the threat of his loaded pistol, Crispin lowered his hands to glare at her. "So you're willing to overlook the fact that my mother may very well have burned your mother to death in her bed, but you won't allow me to forget that bloody turnip, will you?"

"It was a tomato ." Folding her arms over her chest, Sophie presented her back to him, her slender shoulders stiff.

Connor slid his pistol back into his belt with a sigh. "You can stay. But I'll expect you to do as I say." He nodded toward Sophie. "And if you get in my way, I'll let her shoot you."

Crispin nodded grimly, then fell into step behind them. When he tried to help Sophie over a splintered board, she jerked her elbow out of his reach.

As they ventured deeper into the blackened heart of the theater, measuring each step as if it would be their last, Connor could feel his own heart begin to pound in a painful rhythm. Since watching his par ents die, he hadn't known a moment's fear over his own well-being—not even when the hangman had slipped that shoddily knotted noose over his head. No matter how desperate the situation, his hands had always been steady, his aim ever keen. But now there was something more precious at stake. Something he valued far beyond his own misbegotten life.

They were nearing the front of the theater when Sophie gasped as if she'd just seen the shade of her dead mother. Connor and Brodie instinctively drew their pistols.

It was no wraith that had materialized on the stage in front of them, but Lady Astrid. She no longer looked like the perfect lady. Her hair was as wild as her eyes and her white dress was rumpled and stained. Connor could only pray the stains were soot and not blood.

"Lady Astrid," he said coolly. "Or would it be Lady Macbeth?"

She lifted her chin to give him a smile that was almost flirtatious. "I believe it was Shakespeare who said, ‘All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.' I'm guessing that would include you and your pretty little whore."

His finger twitched on the trigger. "Where is my fiancée?"

She crooked a pale finger toward stage left and a squat man wearing a crude burlap mask came shuffling onto the stage, shoving Pamela in front of him. Her hands were bound behind her and a man's cravat had been used to gag her beautiful lips. When Connor saw the ugly bruise marring her creamy cheek, it was all he could do not to shoot Lady Astrid and her henchman dead right then and there.

But he couldn't take the risk because Pamela's captor had his burly arm locked beneath her breasts and the mouth of his own weapon rammed against the tender underside of her jaw. It was a delicate one-shot pistol—nearly identical to the one Pamela had used to take him hostage. Judging from the terrified glint in her eye, this one was no toy.

Connor had expected her eyes to light up with hope when she saw him, but instead they darkened with dread. She shook her head frantically, moaning around the gag.

Crispin stepped out of the shadows, his own pistol held at the ready and his face taut with revulsion. "What have you done now, Mother?"

Lady Astrid looked briefly surprised to see her son, but she recovered quickly. "What I've always had to do, my dear boy. Look after your best interests."

"My interests? Or yours? You know damn well I never gave a flying fig for Uncle's title or his fortune. I would have gladly traded them both for an approving pat on the head every now and then."

Her lips twisted in a sneer. "Then you're every bit as witless as your father was, aren't you? He hadn't a drop of ambition in his entire body. But he had an ample supply of brandy flowing through his veins, didn't he? I've always wondered if it made him burn faster when I left that cigar smoldering in his bed."

Sophie blanched but Crispin didn't even flinch. Connor knew in that moment that Crispin had been hiding his mother's terrible secret for most of his young life. That she must have somehow convinced a petrified young boy that he had to keep his silence because she had done it all for him. That he was to blame for his father's death.

Sophie edged nearer to Crispin, reaching out to gently touch his arm as he gazed up at his mother and said softly,

"Even as a boy I never knew whether to pray that you weren't mad or to hope that you were."

"We'll have plenty of time to sort out whether she belongs in Bedlam or Newgate after she frees Pamela," Connor said grimly. "What do you want from me?" he asked her.

Lady Astrid's voice was deadly calm. "You're a Highlander. You should understand barter. The equation is simple. Her life for yours."

Connor snorted. "What are you going to do, woman? Shoot me dead in front of all these witnesses, including your own son? That's not really your style, is it? You don't usually like to dirty your lily-white hands."

"Nor will I have to."

Pamela began to struggle even more frantically, her tear-filled eyes silently pleading with him.

"I know just how squeamish the London authorities can be, especially when under the thumb of a man like my brother," Lady Astrid said. "Antici pating that tonight might not go as planned, I took the liberty of contacting an old family friend—a man who has always respected the letter of the law and the responsibility bestowed upon him by the Crown."

Connor's hand tensed on his pistol as two dozen English soldiers came melting out of the ruins, muskets at the ready. Before long, he and his party were surrounded on all sides by those hateful red coats. Their ranks parted just long enough to let their commanding officer through.

"I'm sure you remember Colonel Munroe," Lady Astrid said as if she were introducing the two of them at a tea party. "From what I understand, you made quite an impression on him at your last meeting."

As Connor eyed the gloating officer, he remembered standing in a sunlit meadow with Pamela by his side. Remembered how she had boldly defied the colonel and passionately defended him, even though he'd done nothing to deserve it.

The colonel locked his hands at the small of his back, taking up his familiar bowlegged stance. "I must say it's a pleasure to see you again."

Connor bared his teeth at the man. "I'm afraid I can't say the same."

Lady Astrid beamed at them both. "Colonel Munroe has graciously agreed to escort you back to Scotland, where you will stand trial for your many crimes."

Brodie growled beneath his breath.

"And if I were you," she added, "I wouldn't expect my brother to save you. Even his arm can't reach as far as the Highlands. But don't worry—I'll make sure your little strumpet gets the reward she was promised. I'm sure she earned every half-penny of it on her back."

Connor turned in a broad circle, sweeping his gaze and the mouth of his pistol over the steely-eyed redcoats who surrounded them—weighing his options, weighing the odds.

"Oh, you can fight if you like," Astrid assured him with an airy wave of her hand. "But I should remind you how easy it will be for your poor fiancée to get caught in the crossfire."

Connor knew there would be no crossfire. Just Lady Astrid's henchman pulling the trigger of his pistol and blowing Pamela's brave and bonny head clean off.

By the time his gaze returned to Pamela, there was no Munroe. No redcoats. No Lady Astrid. There were only the two of them.

Connor smiled at her the same way his mother had smiled at Davey Kincaid in the moment before she'd pulled the trigger that had ended her life. With all his heart, with all his soul, and with every expectation that someday they would be together again—if not in this life, then in the next.

Pamela was keening low in her throat now, tears streaming down her cheeks to soak the gag. She shook her head and strained against her captor's grip, silently begging Connor not to do what he was about to do.

He heard Brodie groan and Sophie gasp as he laid down his pistol and slowly raised his hands. The redcoats swarmed around him, wrenching his powerful arms behind his back and clapping them in irons.

He did not look at Pamela again but simply stared straight ahead as they marched him from the theater and out of her life.