just cold, my dear,’ Stephen said soothingly to Rosalie. Solicitously he placed a plaid rug across her knees. ‘We’ll soon be at my house, you and your little daughter.’
Katy hid her face from him. Rosalie tried to say, ‘She’s not my daughter.’ But something choked in her throat and her head was swimming. ‘I need fresh air now. I must get out …’
Suddenly she realised that the carriage had indeed come to a juddering halt, but not at Stephen’s bidding. As Stephen exclaimed, ‘What in God’s name—?’ Rosalie was already on her feet and heading unsteadily for the door with Katy in her arms. It was opened before she could reach it by a tall, rain-soaked man who looked blazingly angry.
Alec Stewart was here. Alec Stewart, from Two Crows Castle, had stopped the coach. She saw suddenly that his horse was close by, held by none other than Eyepatch, who looked at her balefully. Stephen’s driver up on his box was swearing, but Alec rapped out a few choice words that silenced him utterly.
Rosalie’s stomach was roiling. With Katy still in her arms, she stumbled down, swaying. Alec grabbed the child and held her very tight as Rosalie leaned her hand against the side of the carriage and vomited into the gutter.
The gin, thought Alec. He cursed under his breath. Garrett had warned him that Stephen had doctored her drink. But no one had warned Alec that she had the child with her. At a poetry reading? What the hell was going on? He held the infant close, protecting her from the distressing sight of her mother being sick. She reacted by reaching up her chubby fists to his cheek, instantly smiling through her fretful tears. ‘Tick-tock man,’ she said.
And now his damned brother was climbing out of the carriage, his face livid with rage and, yes, fear as he growled out, ‘Alec. What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’
‘I’ve come to see what you’re up to, Stephen.’ Alec’s voice was harsh. ‘It’s not your usual style to be conveying a sick woman and her infant in your carriage.’
‘Do you know,’ breathed Stephen, ‘it’s absolutely none of your business. Now, I know you fancied this little blonde slut that night at the Temple of Beauty …’ he glanced swiftly at Rosalie, who, still leaning against the carriage with her head bowed, was beyond hearing anything ‘… but if you’ve come to try to blacken my name with her, don’t expect her to believe a word you say!’
Alec didn’t, especially as last time they had met, he’d locked Rosalie in the basement of Two Crows Castle. She was an interferer. A troublemaker. But she didn’t deserve this.
She was turning towards him, white but resolute. ‘Give me the child, Captain Stewart!’ she declared rather desperately.
Dark rings shadowed her eyes. Dear God, she was scarcely fit to stand, but still defiant! ‘No!’ he snapped back. ‘Not until you can show you’re fit to be in charge of her.’
She wasn’t. She knew that and he knew it. Alec Stewart, her enemy. He looked vitally, frighteningly male, in his greatcoat and boots, his white shirt all crumpled, his neckcloth loose. His over-long hair, almost black in the rain, was all askew. His lean jaw was already dark with stubble, and his eyes were narrowed to angry slits.
The man Linette denounced on her death bed, thought Rosalie with a shudder. The man who was most likely responsible for the destruction of Helen’s house. Why was he here, with Eyepatch? Somehow she summoned up the last of her strength and lifted her head to blaze resistance. ‘How dare you interfere like this? Give me the child!’
Stephen smirked. ‘Well, well, Alec. Think you’ve really overstepped the mark this time.’
Alec, ignoring him, said curtly to Rosalie, ‘Did you let this man buy you a drink?’
‘Yes! But it was only lemonade!’
‘Only lemonade. You surely don’t intend, considering the state you’re in, to let him take you and your child to his house?’ Alec knew Stephen’s acquaintances. Their ways of passing the night-time hours made the Temple of Beauty look like a haven of respectability.
She was gazing fiercely up at him, but her face was white as a sheet. ‘I—I had no alternative.’
‘You could have made him take you to your home!’
‘I couldn’t!’ She clenched her hands. ‘The house where I stay has been burned to the ground!’
He was stunned. ‘Burned to the ground … Deliberately?’
But she’d bent over to be sick again. Alec held Katy tight—’Mama?’ the child was saying uncertainly. Dear God, this woman’s home had just been burned down. And now she was going to Stephen’s house, with her child—when Stephen had as good as poisoned her!
He couldn’t stand seeing her there, so wretched. So damned foolish as to trust his brother. Alec swung round, Katy still in his arms, to fix Stephen with a steady, burning gaze of contempt. ‘That’s it, Stephen. Take your fancy carriage and leave—now.’
Stephen glanced angrily at Rosalie. ‘You forget. Rosalie and her child are under my protection. Give me the infant—’ He reached for Katy, who began to scream and clung to Alec even tighter.
‘Your protection! That’s a joke,’ breathed Alec. ‘Do you value your inheritance, Stephen? Do you value your life? If so, then you’d best get the devil out of here!’
Stephen paled. Then he squared his shoulders and turned to a trembling Rosalie, murmuring, ‘My dear, you’ll observe that the matter is out of my hands. But I suggest you think carefully about believing anything this man says, especially if it relates to me. I’ll see you again soon, I hope. And as for you, Alec—I hope to see you in hell.’
With that Stephen barked orders to his driver, climbed back into his carriage and it rattled away down the street.
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