Angel Rogue

Chapter 18

Robin never wholly lost consciousness, but for a time he was very disconnected from his surroundings. His body and mind became reacquainted in time for him to see Simmons put Maxie over his knee. Robin wanted to warn the Londoner that spanking her was not a wise idea, but his voice didn't seem to want to work. With dizziness and near blackout, he slowly pushed to his knees.

Maxie's war whoop gave an electrifying jolt to his system. He raised his head to see her swinging her knife at Simmons's jugular. Swearing, the Londoner dodged back. The glittering blade barely missed his throat, grazing his shoulder instead.

Before his bloodthirsty comrade could try again, Robin managed to croak, "Stop it, Maxie!"

Her wild brown eyes shifted to him. She hesitated, rage and reason warring in her expression.

In a moment before something worse could happen, Robin staggered over to Simmons, coming from an angle where the Londoner couldn't see him. Then he rendered the other man unconscious with the bloodstopping hold he had used before. It was dangerous, but Simmons's chances of survival were greater if he was knocked out this way than if Maxie was the one to end the fight.

Simmons made a choking noise, then keeled off the wall, almost taking Robin down with him. Maxie caught Robin swiftly, her hands supplying muchneeded support. Her words, however, were tart. "You should have let me take care of him."

Robin clung to her as his eyesight darkened around the edges. For once, he scarcely noticed the delicious feel of her. "Sorry," he said unsteadily, "but I really don't like seeing people killed."

She made a sound that suggested both disdain and that the conversation would be continued at a more suitable time. But with an admirable focus on the immediate, she asked, "Can you walk? The others will be back soon."

He folded down on the wall and buried his face in his hands, trying to think his way through the shattering pain in his skull. "I'll need help."

She briskly resheathed her knife and helped him into his coat. Then she retrieved the striking stick, slung both knapsacks on her own back, tugged Robin to his feet, and pulled his arm over her shoulders.

As they wove their way down the street, he reflected with dizzy appreciation on how much strength was in her petite frame. Still, it was fortunate that the canal was only on the far side of the warehouses.

The question was, what would they do when they got there?

As soon as they entered the inn, Giles ordered a private parlor, with brandy immediately and food to follow. Lady Ross was still shaken by her narrow escape, and she let herself be escorted to the parlor with a docility that Giles did not expect to last long. Her face was gray beneath the flamboyant red hair.

After guiding her to a chair, he inspected her upper arm where the ox horn had gored. The pale skin visible through her slashed clothing was lacerated, but the wound was superficial, with little blood. "No serious damage done, though you'll have heavy bruising."

A maid brought the brandy. Giles poured a glass for his companion. She choked on the first mouthful, but color began to return to her face. "There will be bruising in a number of less mentionable places as well," she said with a crooked smile.

"You would know that better than I."

She pushed her loose hair off her brow with fingers that were almost steady again. "Give me a few minutes to go to my room and make myself presentable. Then I want to hear about the men who were after Maxima and Lord Robert."

Lady Ross restored herself to thunderous respectability very quickly. When she returned, her hair had been tamed and hidden under a cap, she had changed into another dress as drab as the previous one, and her full figure was swaddled in a shawl. Giles preferred her disheveled; nonetheless, her restrained appearance did nothing to slow the steady beat of sexual awareness.

The meal that had been ordered was brought as soon as she reached the parlor. By tacit consent, they ate before addressing the serious issues. When they had reached the stage of coffee, Desdemona cocked a brow at the marquess. "About those men?"

"One of them I recognized, and I suspect that he is the agent your brother sent after Miss Collins." Wolverton explained how he had aided the man called Simmons several days earlier. "So not only are you and I hot on the trail in our separate ways, but apparently Simmons and his helpers as well."

"There is an element of farce to this." Desdemona's mouth quirked in an unwilling smile. "But from what little I could see, I didn't like the looks of Simmons and his associates."

"Men who do such work aren't drawn from the most genteel ranks," the marquess said dryly. "If they had been hired to take Miss Collins back to Durham, I don't imagine they will hurt her, but they might not be so careful of my brother."

"From what you've told me, Lord Robert seems to have won every round so far." Desdemona took a deep swallow of scalding black coffee. "You said that he has been out of England for a number of years. Was he a diplomat or in the army?"

Wolverton sighed and toyed with his own cup, visibly weighing how to respond. "I'll tell you on the condition that you speak of it to no one."

"His behavior was that disgraceful?"

The marquess lifted his head, his slate eyes colder than she had ever seen them. "Quite the contrary. But what he did was highly confidential and there may be ramifications for years, even decades, to come. Nor is the story mine to tell."

"Your brother was a spy?" The deduction was not difficult. She added with heavy sarcasm, "One can see how he developed his notions of honorable behavior."

Wolverton's eyes narrowed at her tone. "Yes, he was a spy. A practitioner of the most dangerous and unrespected kind of warfare, utterly essential and utterly secret. Robin was hardly more than a boy, traveling on the Continent during the Peace of Amiens, when he stumbled over something he thought the Foreign Office should know. He was asked to stay on, and for the next dozen years he risked his life and sanity a thousand times over to protect his country and end the war sooner."

The marquess stopped, his silence gathering menacing weight, then finished in a soft, hard voice, "And so that people like you could sit safe and smug in England and judge him."

Blushing was the curse of the redhead, and Desdemona was true to her breed. Waves of hot, humiliated color spread from her hairline to her collar and below. "I'm sorry," she said painfully. "No matter how angry I am about what your brother has done to my niece, I should not have spoken as I did." She was more than ashamed; she also felt bereft at the withdrawal of Wolverton's usual warmth. To her relief, his expression eased.

"Your reaction is not unusual," he said. "Spying requires nerves of steel and a number of skills a gentleman shouldn't have. Robin was very, very good at it, or he would never have survived. He has been tested in ways that would break most men, and that very nearly broke him."

"Is that why you're so protective of him?" she asked quietly.

"I would be anyhow. He's the only family I have left, and even though I know he's ferociously competent, he's still my little brother." Wolverton sighed. "I know very little beyond what he has chosen to tell me since he returned to England, and I am devoutly grateful that I wasn't better informed during the years he was abroad. God knows it was bad enough wondering if I would ever see him again, or if he would simply disappear, one of the nameless unmourned dead, and I would never know how or when."

The marquess broke off abruptly, his face tight. Several heartbeats passed before he continued. 'To give you an idea of the sort of thing he accomplished in his 'disgraceful' career, last year he helped frustrate a plot aimed at blowing up the British Embassy during the Paris peace conference."

Desdemona gasped, thinking who might have been killed in such an explosion. Likely the Foreign Minister, Castlereagh, perhaps even Wellington. The political ramifications were staggering, not only for Britain, but for the whole of Europe.

Wolverton smiled wryly. "You see why I said this must be confidential? That's only a sample of what Robin accomplished. I'm told the powers at Whitehall are considering making him a baron for services rendered, only they don't know what to say that could be made public knowledge."

"Being made a peer for espionage might be a first."

"Robin has been breaking new ground his whole life. As a boy there was no harm in him, but he could be mischievous in amazingly inventive ways." The marquess's expression lightened. "For example, I believe he was the only boy ever expelled from Eton on his very first day of school."

Desdemona chuckled. "A dubious honor. How did he do that?"

"He introduced six sheep into the headmaster's drawing room. I never did learn how he managed it. It was a calculated act, performed because he wanted to go to Winchester, not Eton." Wolverton smiled reminiscently. "Even if a title is offered, I'm not sure he would take it. Once when we were boys, we were swimming in the lake at Wolverhampton when I got a vicious cramp. I almost drowned. He dragged me out, an impressive feat considering that I was twice his size and thrashing like a reaper. When I recovered, I pointed out that he could have left me in the water and been the next Marquess of Wolverton."

"And?" Desdemona prompted.

His eyes twinkled. "Robin said that was the best possible argument for fishing me out of the lake."

Desdemona bit her lip. "The more I hear about your brother, the more dreadfully likable he sounds."

"Robin got all the charm and dash in the family. And despite what you think, he's honorable as well."

Desdemona surveyed the marquess's substantial frame, a faint smile on her face. "You seem to have inherited an adequate share of all three traits."

Wolverton stared for a moment, color rising in his face. Then he got to his feet and wandered to the window to avoid her eyes. It was the first time she had seen him disconcerted.

Served him right, she thought with satisfaction; he had been disconcerting her from the first moment they had met. Deciding that it was time to leave the personal, she asked, "Do you suppose Simmons and his men caught up with our fugitives?"

The marquess's glance outside had been idle, but his gaze sharpened. "Perhaps he did. There are two very batteredlooking fellows walking down the high street. Since I saw one of them with Simmons earlier, my guess is that they tried and failed to take Robin and your niece."

She joined him at the window and incredulously surveyed the two mauled bruisers. "Your brother did that?"

"Probably. He was small and almost girlishly attractive as a boy. Such are the horrors of the English public schools that he had to choose between fighting or groveling. If he'd stayed at Eton, I could have looked out for him, but as it was…" Wolverton's voice trailed off.

"Obviously your brother had no taste for groveling." Suddenly aware of how close she was to the marquess's very large, very masculine frame, she unobtrusively edged away. "What now, my lord? I doubt they will return to the drovers."

His brow furrowed. "I agree. Now that our fugitives have been alerted, it will be almost impossible to find them on the road. There are too many routes, too many ways for them to disguise themselves. Perhaps the time has come for you to go to London and wait for your niece to call."

She eyed him suspiciously. The sense that they were allies was eroding rapidly. "You've something else in mind?"

"A possibility has occurred to me." He forestalled her question with one hand. "I promise that if I guess correctly, I will bring both of our runaways to you in London."

Avoiding the question of whether she would give up searching, she asked, "What if they don't wish to come?"

"I will use sweet reason to persuade them." He gave a half smile. "Using force on Robin would not be advisable."

Remembering the battered ruffians who had just passed, she had to agree.

Wolverton picked up his hat and prepared to leave, then paused. "Why were you named Desdemona?"

"It's a family tradition to give the boys Latin names and the girls Shakespearean ones," she explained.

"But your niece's name is Latin."

"There are occasional exceptions. My brother Maximus was named after GreatAunt Maxima, and passed the name on to his daughter. Aunt Maxima died a few months back, ripe in years and wickedness. I'm going to miss her."

"Do you mean Lady Clendennon? She was the only Maxima I ever met." When Desdemona nodded, he said, "Forceful females are clearly another Collins family tradition. Less and less do I think your niece could have been persuaded to stay with Robin against her principles."

"That remains to be seen," Desdemona said dryly. Recalled to a sense of her mission, she tugged her shawl close, collected her reticule, and prepared to leave.

The marquess stood aside, but before opening the door, he halted and looked down at her, his gaze intense. As if mesmerized, he raised a hand to her face, tracing the lines of temple and ear, brushing across her cheek, caressing the curve of her throat. His touch was very delicate, as if he were trying to memorize the tones and texture of her skin with his fingertips.

She stood stock still, fighting to maintain her composure. Everywhere he touched blazed with sensation. She had never known gentleness in her marriage, and it was shocking to realize how vulnerable she was to it.

She raised her eyes to Wolverton's and was immediately sorry. The warmth she saw there was far more dangerous than a blow. He was so large, powerful not only physically but in his air of authority. In another moment he would bend over to kiss her, and if that happened…

She jerked away and opened the door herself. "I shall hope to see you and our errant relations in London, Wolverton." Then she bolted.

Giles gazed at the door that had slammed in his face. Why would a strongminded woman of the world become as skittish as a convent bred virgin when he showed interest in her? The simple explanation was that she had taken him in aversion.

He had no doubt that in this case the simple explanation was wrong. It was not distaste he had seen in her eyes, but fear.

The Marquess of Wolverton had a well deserved reputation as an easygoing man, but when he decided on something, he was immovable. As the sound of her swift footsteps faded away, he resolved that he was going to learn what lay at the root of Lady Ross's distress. Then, perhaps, something could be done about it.