Page 23 of Lord Heartless

One punch and the man was down. Instead of getting up to return the blow, Phillip put his hands to his bloody nose and cried, “No more!"

"What, you only fight women and dogs?” Lesley's heart was still pounding from seeing this dastard laying his hands on Carissa. He was ready to take on the entire French army, much less one sniveling skirter. “Get up and fight like a man, you lily-livered coward, you ., .” His eyes narrowed. “You're alive?"

Phillip mumbled that of course he was alive, but his nose was broken, no thanks to madmen attacking innocent strangers in the park.

"Cantwell? It is you, isn't it?"

Phillip's face drained of color, except for the claret pouring from his nose. He held a handkerchief over it and said, “I don't know what you're talking about."

Lesley hauled the man to his feet. “No? Well, I am sure the army will be more than happy to straighten things out, Lieutenant Cantwell."

"You are dicked in the nob, man. Tell him, Carrie. Tell your protector friend who I am."

Carissa's wits had gone begging. She looked from Lesley, who'd come hurtling out of nowhere, to her husband, who'd come back from the dead. She did not know what they were talking about, but Lud, this was not how she wanted to tell the viscount about Phillip.

'Tell him, Carrie,” Phillip begged when he saw Hartleigh's fist clench again.

Looking as if he wanted to commit mayhem on her next, Lesley drawled, “Yes, Carrie, why don't you tell me who this useless scrap of offal is, so I can tell the army what to write on his grave after they hang him?"

"He is my husband, Phillip Kane. I don't know any Cantwells."

"And just when were you going to mention his existence, Widow Kane?"

Carissa waved to Pippa to stay near Maisie. “You have every right to be angry, but I was going to tell you, I swear. I just hadn't gotten around to it. You were gone so much, and we were never in private."

"We were deuced private when I asked you to marry me,” he almost spit out while Kane was busy mopping at his nose. “You could have told me then, instead of letting me think it was myself you were rejecting!"

She'd file his hurt feelings away to examine later. “He said he was rejoining his regiment, but he never did. He abandoned me when I was increasing, and I was destitute. I had to give some excuse to people, so I said my husband was lost in the war. Phillip stayed gone, so I assumed he'd never come back. In a few years I could have had him declared dead, and no one would have known any different. Then he showed up in Kensington, that day you saw him. I swear I thought Phillip was dead until then. And I was too ashamed and too afraid to tell anybody."

"You weren't the only one he abandoned. The army has been looking to court-martial the dastard since before you met him, if they don't just shoot him out of hand."

"He's a deserter? I thought he'd invented his whole army career when the regimental office had no record of him."

"That's because he was using a different name. Phillip Cantwell left his comrades to die in battle."

Phillip had stopped the bleeding by now. “We were cannon fodder, nothing else, meant to hold the line until the blasted cavalry showed up. Should I have died along with the rest?"

"It would have saved the army the cost of a trial."

"If you hand me over to the authorities, you can be sure I'll tell them all about your little paramour, my loving wife. You won't like your dirty linen aired that way, Hartleigh."

"It will be worth it to see you hang, Cantwell. Then she'll be a widow in truth."

Phillip laughed. “Only till they put a noose around her neck for aiding and abetting a known criminal. I'll swear on my deathbed that Carrie knew I was wanted and knew I was alive the whole time."

"I never did!” Carissa cried. “I swear!"

"Why, you saw her give me the money yourself, Hartleigh. Helping me stay one jump ahead of the magistrates."

"I gave you the money to go away, nothing else."

He turned to her, curling his lip. “Who's going to be believed, darling? You saw a chance to snabble a title if you were a widow, so you paid me to disappear. I saved you from committing bigamy, is all."

"I saved myself because I always feared you'd be back. That's why I didn't marry Sir Gilliam, or accept your offer, Lesley.” She turned back to Phillip. “And I don't care what you say or who you say it to. I hope they hang you!"

The footman had looped the reins of Hartleigh's horse around a bush, then returned to Maisie and the children, but he was keeping a careful watch. Careful enough to hear a word or two. So Lesley drew Carissa away a bit and asked, “Are you sure? If I hand him to the army, he will spew every drop of poison he can think of. I could have him impressed into the navy. He'd be gone long enough to be declared legally dead, if he survives at all. Many do not."

"No, he'd survive, and I would know he was alive. I'd never be free. Pippa would never be safe."

"You're right. I could, ah, dispatch him myself, though, before he spouts his filth. It would be a pleasure."

"What, become a murderer?” She pulled on his arm. “You must not! I would never forgive myself if you had that on your conscience the rest of your days. Besides, then you could go to jail, for everyone would know he wouldn't fight back. No, it is better for the army to handle this if he was a deserter. I will leave London before any of the ugliness lands on your doorstep, or Her Grace's. I only pray Pippa never finds out what her father was."

Lesley patted her hand, on his sleeve. “Very well, Carissa, he goes to the army. But you are not going anywhere."

"And neither are you, Hartleigh,” Phillip shouted. While Lesley's back was turned, he'd pulled a pistol out of his pocket and now bashed the viscount over the head with it. Lesley went down and Carissa started to scream, until Phillip warned, “One more sound and I kill him. They can only hang me once.” He snatched up the reins to Lesley's horse and jumped into the saddle. He called to her as he galloped past, “I'll be back for what's mine, darling."

Sue and Pippa were both crying, the footman was running after the armed madman on the stolen horse, so Maisie was shrieking, and Lesley lay on the ground with his head in Carissa's lap, bleeding all over her new gown, while the dog licked his face. It was a good thing the duchess had warned them there must be no hint of impropriety.

Tears were streaming down Carissa's cheeks until she saw the viscount's eyes open. The rogue had the nerve to smile at her, after frightening her nearly to death. She jumped up, letting his poor broken head fall back into the dirt, and shouted at him, “I told you I didn't belong in London!"

* * * *

"Never turn your back on a jackal, Cap'n. How many times have I told you that?” Byrd shook his bald head, the seagull tattoo flying from side to side, he was that angry at missing the set-to. He should have been there, defending his master. For sure the viscount had made mincemeat of it. And his noggin. “You had to be the fine gentleman, expecting everyone else to play by the rules. You deserve to have your skull cracked."

Byrd was clipping the matted hair away from the wound on Hartleigh's head so he could clean it. Lesley was cringing with every snip of the shears. “Damn, go easy with the scissors. It'll never grow back."

Carissa had sent for Byrd the second they were back at Hammond House, figuring that the old sailor would know better than any sawbones what the viscount needed, having been in so many brawls himself. She was standing by with clean towels and warm water. She knew her complexion was turning green as the water in the basin turned red, but Byrd nodded approvingly. “You've got bottom, at least, missus. Not like that silly chit Maisie. She set up such a screeching, ‘twould be a wonder iffen the infant's milk don't curdle."

The duchess was prostrate with her smelling salts, and Aunt Mattie had swooned altogether at the first sight of Lord Hartleigh, as the footmen half carried him into the house.

The Bow Street investigators had been by, and the sergeant major of the local army barracks. Carissa had given them Phillip's portrait, telling Pippa that since the bad man in the park looked so much like her papa, the miniature would make their job that much easier.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Kane,” Inspector Nesbitt had assured her. “We'll find Cantwell, by George."

Carissa was not convinced. She would not let Pippa leave the house, no matter how many extra guards and footmen Lesley hired, nor would she herself go out. The man was unsteady, but he was not stupid. After all, he'd avoided capture all these years, hadn't he? He could grow a moustache or wear a wig, and walk right past a watchman holding his picture. No, they were not safe, and neither was the viscount now.

"Besides,” she told Lesley, trying to convince him to let her leave, “if they catch him, there will be a dreadful scandal. I would not bring such a disgrace on your house."

"There will be no scandal,” he said through clenched teeth as Byrd poured spirits in the wound.

"No scandal? You must be concussed after all if you think this is a simple matter of some deb running off with her groom. The only way people will stop talking is if I am not here for them to dissect."

"Lassie's got a point, Cap'n."

"And no one asked your opinion, Byrd. Ouch! Dash it, Carissa, just where would you go, where you and Pippa could be protected, where a bumblebroth won't matter?"

"I have been thinking, and I've decided that my father will just have to take us in. Not here in London, of course, but at Macclesfield Park in Somerset. The dower house is empty, so he wouldn't have to look at us. A groom or two with pistols would be enough of a guard in the country, where no stranger can go unremarked."

"He might not be unnoticed, but a bedlamite like Cantwell won't be stopped by a farmer with a pitchfork, either. And I'd wager that's where he'll look for you first, chickens returning to roost. That's why the fox is seldom hungry, Carissa. No, you'll stay right here until my head stops spinning and I can figure what's best to do."

"There is no reason for me to stay, I tell you. You've proved to the ton that I am a lady. That's what you wanted, isn't it? Now he'll prove you foisted an imposter on them, a liar and a cheat and a fortune hunter."

"Deuce take it, you are none of those things! You were a victim, by heaven. And I tell you, there will be no disgrace. You mightn't have been married to the rotter in the first place!"

Even Byrd stopped his patchwork to listen more carefully.

"That's right,” Lesley explained. “Cantwell was the deserter; you married Kane. If it turns out that his real name was Cantwell, or something else entirely, then your marriage vows were invalid in the eyes of the law. And you weren't with him long enough to be considered a common-law wife, either. I have men checking on the legalities right now, along with parish records and Cantwell's enlistment papers. If you weren't married to him, you cannot be tarred with the same brush."

"Not married? You mean I was never legally wed?"

"Exactly. Phillip Kane never existed,” he said with a pleased grin, until Byrd started stitching his scalp back together.

Carissa was horrified. Not that the big man was taking bigger stitches with her best sewing needle, but over the viscount's words. “But that makes Pippa illegitimate!"

"Only until I can change her name to mine."

"Change her name?"

"When we marry, Carissa. Haven't you been listening? I am the one with the battered brain box, not you. You are free to wed, or will be as soon as the legal chaps get the mess straightened out. We'll get a special license. My name will protect both of you from any gossip, and then I can make sure you're safe."

Free to wed? To wed Lesley? For a moment she caught a glimpse of heaven, then fell back to earth with a crash. “Safe on account of a special license? What makes you think that a scrap of paper will bother Phillip Kane? You are as cork-brained as he is. A marriage certificate did not keep him with me; it will not keep him away. Besides, no court can deny that Pippa is his child. What if he decides to claim her as his own?"

"He cannot claim anything, goose. He is a wanted man, a criminal. He'd be up on charges simply for striking a peer in the park."

"Yes, but I am not so certain I wish to declare my daughter born out of wedlock."

"My daughter was."

"But I am not a light-skirt, my lord."

He shook his head, then groaned. “No one said you were, dash it. Hell and damnation, I should have killed the cur when I had him."

"And what if he'd killed you? He was the one with the pistol, not you, Lesley. And you heard Byrd. Phillip would not have fought fair. I'd rather be his wife than have you dead."

"You are not that dastard's wife, blast it!"

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