Chapter Eight
“And you’re sure you don’t want to stay here?”
“It’s just a walk, Lucy—Lady Lucy.” Bernard cleared his throat, doing his best not to notice that Cawthorne had noticed how he’d spoken to the daughter of the house in such a manner.
Affectionately.
It was not exactly a crime, but it might just as well have been, the way the butler was glaring from across the hallway as Lucy—as Lady Lucy, he quickly adjusted even in his own mind—twirled a lock of dark hair that framed her face around her finger and a footman handed him his hat.
Well. Her father’s hat.
“I just want to stretch my legs, that’s all,” continued Bernard, doing his best to sound distant and polite when all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and be most unpolite.
“Forgive me for saying this, but staying cooped up in here, resplendent as it is… Well, it’s a tad like a prison.
” He grinned. “And I know what I’m talking about. ”
It was a terrible joke, and he wasn’t surprised that Lucy rolled her eyes instead of laughing. “I am so sorry for imprisoning you in this gilded cage!”
“Apology accepted,” Bernard quipped, ramming the hat on his head and wishing to goodness he could invite her to come with him.
Lucy did not look convinced. She was biting her lip in a way that brought his attention to her mouth, and he didn’t really need the excuse. “But it could be dangerous out there.”
“Dangerous? Brighton?” Bernard scoffed, without mentioning that yes, almost everywhere could be dangerous if one met with the wrong person. “From what I’ve observed, don’t you sometimes go out unaccompanied yourself? You, a lady, in far more danger than I?”
Her mouth gaped. “I usually take a carriage.”
“But I see you won’t deny that you’re sometimes out without a chaperone,” he said, chuckling. Cawthorne sniffed rather loudly and Bernard stopped. “It’s just a walk, Lucy. Lady Lucy.”
Blast.
The worry had caused a puckering furrow to appear on her brow. Bernard wanted to kiss it away, which would almost certainly cause a riot from Cawthorne, who was carefully pretending to stare straight ahead, despite his eyes constantly flickering toward Bernard.
And still they had not talked about the kiss.
He hadn’t expected to, yet every moment that passed without discussing it, Bernard felt a small part of himself fade away.
It had meant…everything. It had transformed his life, radically altered the direction he wanted it to take…and Lucy had said not a word about it.
“And you will come back, won’t you?”
Bernard’s heartstrings were tugged, even if she did not mean to. She wants me to come back.
Because whatever her stance on me being her ward or not, Judge Bonner put her in charge of me, obviously, he reminded himself sternly. For no other reason.
Reaching out to brush her cheek with her knuckles, Bernard barely remembered in time that such an action would be inadvisable—that, and the butler cleared his throat meaningfully.
“I am sorry to hear that your Cousin Benjamin has managed to get himself entangled in a scandal about a fight at the docks,” said the butler severely. “I am glad you Lindow Chances don’t do anything like that, Lady Lucy.”
Resolutely not looking at the man, Bernard smiled at the woman before him. “Don’t you worry. I’ll be back before dark. I just need to stretch my legs.”
Which is mostly true, he thought ominously as he stepped lightly down the steps before the Lindow townhouse. He thrust his hands into his pockets as he started to slowly walk down the street.
He did need to stretch his legs. He had forgotten, as one forgets over the years, just how sedentary the life of the nobility was. Lots of sitting around, plenty of standing around, but not very much doing.
But that was only the first reason why Bernard started to whistle loudly as he meandered down a randomly chosen street.
No, the most important reason was that Hovell had not written in days. Weeks. Months!
Fine, not months or every multiple weeks, Bernard corrected as he continued to whistle the national anthem as he slowed his pace. But the point was that Hovell was supposed to have made contact again, and he hadn’t. That meant something was wrong.
So all he had to do was meander through the town momentarily darting down an alleyway and whistling their code song, Bernard told himself, and the blasted man would appear from the woodwork.
Or, as it turned out, Bernard would be attacked. Violently.
Bernard never saw it coming. The first crash against his head came from behind, after all, so it would have been rather difficult to see in advance, but when he twisted and lunged at his attacker, it was to discover three things.
Firstly, that he could see stars thanks to the knock on the head he’d already received.
Secondly, that he could not lunge at his attacker. There were four of them.
Thirdly, that he’d been foolish enough not to bring his knife.
Dear God, what was wrong with him that he could forget something like that?
The man who’d whacked him with the iron bar still in his hands offered up a toothy smile. “Monsieur?”
Ah, the French. Bernard felt his shoulders relaxing, even as his head ached. At least there was a reason for the man’s attack; singing “God Save the Queen” was never popular with the revolutionary types.
“Get ’im,” announced the iron bar holding man.
Bernard groaned. Oh, dear. And it was such a nice day, too. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone.
He tried to minimize the thrusts of his fists, but it became very clear from the way the tallest Frenchman kicked that these men weren’t going to play fair, and so neither did he.
Bernard grabbed the tall one and spun him round, the unrelenting force launching him into the smallest one with a black eye, the two of them toppling to the ground.
It was a relief that the alleyway was particularly wide, for as the iron bar was swung whistling past his ear, Bernard lurched back and used the momentum to thrust an elbow into the bald Frenchman who smelled, delightfully, of garlic.
It’s always nice, Bernard thought dreamily as he punched the bald one on the nose as he turned, to have some stereotypes confirmed.
“Grab ’is arms!”
Now that was something Bernard could not permit to happen. So he did not. The boxing training he’d received as a youth always came in handy in situations like this, though his tutor would have been appalled at the sloppiness of the subsequent uppercut.
The small man with the black eye didn’t seem to like it, either, but for quite a different reason.
Down he went and down he stayed, bettering the odds slightly, though Bernard had to admit, he would much rather fight one-on-one than one-against-three.
Some things couldn’t be helped, he supposed.
It’s strange, Bernard thought reflectively as he twirled around and punched the Frenchman holding the iron bar, which was dropped into Bernard’s waiting hand, that I’m able to stay so calm in situations like this.
A normal man would surely be intimidated, concerned, perhaps that he would lose his life.
Or at least a tooth, as the tall Frenchman appeared to have done when Bernard had twirled the newly possessed iron bar and accidentally hit the man as he’d been about to lunge for the Englishman.
The tall man went down. That left the bald Frenchman, nursing a jaw that would ache for a week by Bernard’s reckoning, and Iron Bar Man, who looked distinctly peeved that he had lost his weapon.
“Ready to surrender, chaps?” Bernard said cheerfully, pulse racing and spirits soaring.
Yes, this was why he continued to serve; not so that he could be violent, but so that he could redirect the violence that was meant for others. Who knows what poor sod could have come this way and found themselves at a painful disadvantage?
No, better that he take on the varlets.
Take them on? Take them out.
Bernard swung the iron bar expertly from one hand to the other, and the bald Frenchman licked his lips and looked instinctively to the now-weaponless Frenchman beside him.
Ah, so we have a leader.
“You,” Bernard said, pointing with a jerk of the iron bar at the man, making sure to pull it back swiftly enough so the man couldn’t grab a hold of it. “What do you want? Money? I don’t have any, so you can just leave.”
“We want ’ovell.”
Bernard’s whole body went still.
Hovell.
What the—how the hell did they know about Hovell? That was his handler’s name. No one but loyal Brits was supposed to know that name.
So how did a quartet of ruffian Frenchmen on the streets of Brighton?
When Bernard looked up to meet their eyes, satisfaction was burning in them. He had been ruffled, and they had taken pleasure in it. But he mustn’t lose concentration. That was how a man could lose an eye.
“I don’t know who you—”
“Do not lie, monsieur. The truth, she is written all over your face,” snapped the apparent leader of this little band. “Tell us where he is.”
Well, even if they had beaten him black and blue, tied him up, shipped him to France, and gotten creative with his fingernails, Bernard would not have been able to betray his country.
His shoulders sagged at the relief, as he spoke the truth. “I don’t know.”
The man’s scoff was so entirely French, Bernard could have spotted him from a mile off. “Ach, but you are lying! If you do not tell us where ’ovell is, I’ll be forced to—”
Precisely what he would have been forced to do, Bernard did not know. The man was not bluffing with a great many cards, though naturally, he technically had the advantage of numbers.
But the Frenchmen turned and scarpered along the road as a clear, strong, and above all female voice called down the alleyway, “Excuse me, what on earth are you doing?”
Bernard’s pulse skipped a beat. Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Oh—
Lady Lucy Chance came marching along the alleyway, alone, arms crossed and expression furious. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dixon?”
Dixon. He had lost the right to Bernard, then, he realized with a twist of pain. Though what he could have done to deserve…
Ah. Yes.