A Lady Most Dangerous (Helen Foster) Read online

  “Edward!” Katherine said, outraged at the threat or the treasonous talk, maybe both.

  “I didn’t say it was Charles,” Amelia said defensively.

  “Who else would have spoken about it? He’s young and hot-headed; no doubt finds it exciting to think of the world differently, of it changing. But it’s dangerous. Tell him, no I’ll tell him, he needs to cease this or else.”

  Even in the dim light he could see that Amelia had gone pale, that tears shimmered in her brown eyes. “You’d lock me away? Shut me up to be a spinster? Alone for all my life? You’d do that to me, Edward?” Her words were choked out, half sob, half question.

  “Don’t test me. Yes, to keep you safe. To protect you. I won’t repeat mistakes, Amelia. You are my responsibility. I won’t let you get hurt because Charles is a fool.” Was this the reason that Amelia eloped with Charles? Because he forbid it and she defied him?

  “He’s not a fool! He’s smart and he cares for me! Isn’t that worth something?”

  “If he’s talking treason? If he can’t put aside his whims for your protection? Then yes, he is a fool and as your guardian, I’ll make sure you never see him again.”

  “Not everyone is like you, Edward. And I thank God for it!” Amelia said, hurling the words at him.

  Edward didn’t respond. This conversation was over. He looked out the window. Where the hell were they? Surely they should be there by now? He wouldn’t ask her what she meant when she said, ‘not everyone is like you’. Edward felt the blood rushing through his body, felt almost sick with it and swore he wouldn’t ask. Didn’t she understand that he was trying to protect her? Did she really not see how dangerous it was to talk of revolution?

  He turned back to his sister; Katherine a silent, horrified presence across from them. “And how am I?” he asked, ice in every word, asking despite himself, wanting to hear her judgment, a woman he loved, an opinion he trusted. There was no one else who cared for him, the real him, besides his sister. No one who knew who he really was, and understood that he was more than his title and a set of rules.

  For a moment there was silence, and he thought she wouldn’t answer. He deserved an answer. Deserved for someone to tell him, didn’t he? And then she did speak, and he wished she hadn’t.

  “Loveless. Cold and alone. I can’t be like you, Edward. I don’t want to. If something doesn’t fit with your worldview, you cut it out. No one can live up to your exacting standards. Not everyone can be perfect like you.”

  “And I wouldn’t ask you to be like me!” he said, horrified to realize his voice was near a shout, reverberating oddly in the enclosed carriage. “I know you want him. And if you can be happy, if I can give that to you, I will. But Christ, Amelia!” Dammit, now he’d sworn in front of the women. So much for perfection. “You tell me he’s a radical, that he’s saying things that could get him hung outside Newgate or transported, and you want me to do nothing? You may hate me for it, Amelia. And frankly, I don’t care if you hate me so long as you survive.”

  She laughed miserably. “And that’s the most important thing to you, isn’t it? Living. Going through the motions. Duty. I want more from life than that, Edward.”

  He picked up his gloves from the seat beside him, setting one down on his crossed leg as he pulled on the other, preparing to arrive at the damned opera.

  “Did you hear me?” she said finally, watching with a sort of horrified fascination as he covered himself up, shielded himself away from her and her emotions, using each moment to tamp down his frustration.

  “We will never have this conversation again,” he said. Edward didn’t recognize his own voice; a mixture of grief and exhaustion lacing through every word. “You are my responsibility. No one else’s. Do you know who knows what’s best for you? Me. I control your money, who you see and where you go. You stay in London and go into society on my sufference. I am the head of this household, and my word is law. For you, for me, for everyone who bows to you, serves you food and cleans your clothes. They do it because I nod, or give a glance of approval. I can take everything away from you, Amelia. I can lock you in a room and keep you like a doll and do you know who would stop me?” Tears shimmered in her eyes and he knew he was going too far, knew he should shut up, but he couldn’t. “No one would stop me. Be grateful that I know my duty and love you, that I want you to be happy, that it is the most important thing in the world to me and do not push me. I will keep you safe if you cannot do it for yourself.”

  “I hate you.”

  Silence. Edward drew in a shaky breath. It was over. This conversation and argument were done. He’d pushed, had wanted to know what she thought of him, a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

  Amelia’s angry words came out of the darkness, punching him in the gut and stealing his breath. “Who was she? Who was the woman who came to the house last month? Why was the house crawling with Bow Street Runners? You even had the Pinkerton’s looking for her, and they didn’t find her, did they? Who was she?”

  “Enough,” he growled. The carriage stopped. Not a damned moment too soon. He moved out of the carriage to help his fiancée and sister get down. Katherine was white as a sheet, a smile pasted on her mouth. As if she’d heard nothing.

  His sister put her hand in his, and he wished he could go back – five minutes, ten, two weeks – when Helen was still alive. Fuck, he wished he could go back and do everything differently.

  Amelia stared into his eyes, hovering in the carriage door, passing judgment on him and looking the wisest she ever had. The most grown up. Because of him. They’d been more than siblings; they’d been friends. Amelia was the one person who dared to question his judgment. And he needed that. He knew what power did to men. How his father’s absolute authority over their lives had given him license to be cruel and violent. Was he doing the same thing? Not with his fists but with his words and actions? Was he just like the man he hated after all? Repeating his father’s mistakes and making sure that all those he was supposed to care for hated him?

  How the hell could they go and sit through hours of caterwauling after the row they just had?

  “Whoever she was, Edward. She left you. Your money can’t find her. The people you hired can’t find her. She left you, and I can too,” Amelia said, the words more powerful than his father’s fists. He deserved that. Grief and failure covered him, settled on him like a heavy mantle made of chain, weighing him down, dragging him under like the weight of a dress soaked with sea-water.

  Chapter 4

  Helen grimaced as the singer on stage screeched out a sour note. She couldn’t believe people paid money to listen to this noise. And it was a lot of money. They had paid a fortune for their tickets and were as close to the stage as possible. The prince had a box above them, and from what they knew, a gunman would try to kill the prince.

  They supposed the gunman might be seated anywhere, but it really only made sense for him to be down on the floor. Not only would he have a good shot, but the best possible chance of escape. Everyone was expensively dressed, Helen and Mary included. Helen wore a gown the color of deep red garnets, the color so dark it was almost black; her black cape covering her from head to toe completing the outfit. Mary was dressed in blue, the color also dark so that they could hopefully disappear when the night was over. There was a pistol in her coat pocket as well as another in her reticule.

  Fear coiled through Helen, making her feel antsy and heightening her senses as she prepared for the event to come. They couldn’t mess this up.

  But there was another added level of stress she was feeling because Edward was here with his sister and fiancée. The duke had a box—of course—two over from the prince, and as Helen gazed around the theater, looking for the gunman, she couldn’t help but see Edward. He wore a stony expression and looked handsome and irritated at once.

  He was dressed severely as usual. Black on white; his thick, dark hair ruthlessly styled in an attempt to keep his wavy hair obedient. His fiancée seemed to glow
in a pale blue shimmery dress. She wasn’t watching the show, but was constantly peering through her opera glasses and examining everyone as if she were at a fashion show.

  Edward looked different than the man she had known, which was stupid since she really hadn’t known him for very long. She found it hard to believe that somewhere in that cold and hard exterior was the same man who had laughed with her – maybe it was at her – but it was a start, and who had been desperate to take her to bed.

  And then Edward turned his gaze away from the stage and looked down, seemed to look straight at her, as though he could feel the weight of her gaze caressing his face. Her heart pounded and she lowered her head, turning to face the stage. He wouldn’t have seen her. It was too dark and the lighting was wrong, but she still felt a sense of anxiety that he might have known she was there—watching him.

  Mary was on the next level, getting a different angle and close enough to force her way into the prince’s box if she had to. They’d decided it was too risky for Helen to go, afraid she might somehow run into the duke. And as much as Mary might hate to admit it, Helen was better at hand-to-hand combat. Especially now with Mary sick. Helen couldn’t think about it now. Could only deal with one problem at a time. Not the duke, not Mary, but the gunman.

  Since her encounters with Edward and Colchester, she’d been practicing kicking and running in her damned Victorian skirts and corset. She’d even had the corset modified so that she could bend and breathe easier. She didn’t have a fashionably tiny waist, but she wasn’t trying to be fashionable.

  The next few minutes passed quickly as Helen surreptitiously scanned the crowd, becoming more and more uneasy as the performance went on. What if the plan had changed? Helen examined every person she could see around her. She was looking for someone out of place, ideally someone with a sign over their head that said, ‘Nazi, here!’

  Helen rose up from her seat, half standing so she could get a better view, making judgments of people and discarding them as suspects as quickly as she could. Old man, old woman, man asleep, young couple, rich middle-aged couple and on and on. No one gave any indication that they were about ready to fire a gun at the prince. Helen’s gaze was drawn back to the sleeping man slouched down in his seat. She couldn’t see his face very well, but he couldn’t be older than thirty. How could anyone sleep during this? Especially someone under the age of eighty. He was alone; one hand tucked into his jacket. It was conceivable that his hand was resting on a gun.

  His eyes opened and he sat up straight, suddenly awake. He shifted in his seat, stood, and Helen saw the weapon in his hand. The woman next to him gasped. “Gun! The prince!” Helen shouted and the panic began.

  ***

  Edward wouldn’t say it was a particularly good performance. Half the people were at the opera to get a view of the woman singing her aria slightly off pitch. She was the prince’s new paramour, and he was squiring her all over town, spending money on her that he really didn’t have.

  His attention was dragged away from the stage to the audience below. A woman was half standing from her seat as though she couldn’t decide if she was staying or going. She was wearing her opera cloak, which was rather odd as it was not only warm in the theater, but it just wasn’t done. Women came to the opera in their finest clothes and wanted to show them off. He told himself that was why he was watching her, why he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

  A deep sense of foreboding washed over him as another man stood, separated from the hooded woman by twenty feet. The man raised his arm and the cloaked woman shouted, “Gun! The prince!”

  People began to shout and scream, pointing at the man with the gun, watching in horror as he took aim at the prince’s box. Two boxes over was another scream, a woman with a flat American accent shouting, “Get down!” loudly as she suddenly appeared next to the Prince Regent. Katherine was sitting in her seat dumbly, staring at the spectacle uncomprehendingly.

  “Get down!” Edward repeated and put his hands on her shoulders, moving her off of her seat and pushing her to the floor. Amelia moved on her own, sliding to the ground with a squeal of fear. The sound of a gun went off and pandemonium broke out, the whole place erupting into chaos. He turned to the prince’s box, but the curtains had been drawn and he could see nothing. Down below, people were frantically rushing from their seats and into the aisles, streaming towards the exit like rats trying to escape a sinking ship.

  “Stay where you are!” he said to Katherine and Amelia, having to shout the words to be heard over the cries of people down below and the noise of hundreds of people stampeding out of the theater. The box he was in shook with the force of their movements, and his heart raced. Amelia grabbed his hand, wanting him to get down to the ground too, but he had to see the woman in the cloak, had to see her one more time. Ridiculous and irrational as it was.

  She’s dead.

  Incredibly, the woman was still hooded, standing her ground while people pushed around her. The man who’d raised the gun was there too, out of his seat as he jumped forward over the row of chairs to the aisle in front of him that was empty. He thought he heard her scream, “No!” as the man came close to making his escape. The hooded woman stood on a chair, momentarily wobbling before she stabilized. She extended her arm, the gun glinting in the lights. “Stop!” she shouted, and the sound of her voice made him feel lightheaded.

  He heard the loud report of her gun as she fired in the crowded theater. She shot the man in the back, and he jerked forward, his body bending at the waist as he draped over a seat. She gathered her skirts in both hands, raising them high enough to show her calves and stepped up along the top of the seats, her steps confident and sure, making it look easy to do something so acrobatic and unstable. Blood bloomed from the man’s side, but he righted himself, turned, and Edward thought he could almost hear the man’s snarl as he turned to face the cloaked woman.

  Whistles sounded sharply, and policemen poured in from the back of the theater, shoving the last of the people out of the way as they rushed towards the cloaked woman and the assassin, who’d managed to get up and was rushing towards the stage, trying to escape. The woman turned, looking to the policemen who were only a hundred feet away, pistols waving in the air, before she jumped down to the aisle, racing after the assassin, her hood falling back and revealing dark hair that was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  She’s dead.

  He wanted her to turn around, needed her to turn so he could see her face, but she didn’t. And then she was gone, through the curtains to the back of the stage and the theater, following an assassin, the police right behind her.

  A policeman entered their box, asking if everyone was alright, and Edward was surprised to hear Katherine’s voice, shaky with hysteria, answer the man. His mind latched onto one thing—there had been two of them. One woman who’d left via the stage, and the other who had gone into the prince’s box shouting a warning. He moved on instinct, ignoring the policeman’s question and pushing through the waiting crowd who hovered outside the prince’s box.

  “Can’t go in,” a man said, his voice nasal. Edward wasn’t sure who he was. Policeman, employee of the theater, it didn’t matter. The man would get the hell out of his way. Edward had the advantage of height and looked down at the man with superiority. “I am Somervale,” he said sharply, and the man winced and licked his lips. Edward pushed past him and into the prince’s box, hearing the man splutter in confusion behind him. The box was remarkably uncrowded.

  “Somervale!” the prince boomed and Edward sketched a brief bow, taking in the people around him. “Damned exciting evening,” the prince said.

  “Too exciting, perhaps.”

  The prince had the audacity to chuckle. The man was popular, the people liked him, politicians liked him; he was even doing his best to woo the French. Why would someone try to kill him?

  “I’m glad to see you are unharmed.”

  “As am I,” he joked, and Edward wondered how much th
e man had had to drink. He was taking the assassination attempt very well indeed.

  “What happened?” Edward looked at the people in the box intently, recognizing everyone except the policeman by sight. The prince’s cousins, a few friends and toadies. “Where is the woman who warned you?”

  The prince frowned. “The American? The police took her for questioning. You just missed them.”

  “Your Highness,” he muttered, and hurried out of the box, not caring if he was being rude or not. He pushed through the throng of people, taking an elbow or two and getting his foot stepped on as he forced his way through and to the staircase. American. The prince had said the woman was American. The confirmation shocked him. He had gotten a look at the woman briefly, but enough to know she wasn’t Helen. But she had that same...he wasn’t even sure he could describe it. It was knowledge or confidence, maybe even strength. She was from the future; he damn well knew it.

  He thundered down the stairs and stopped abruptly at the bottom, unsure what he was seeing. A puddle of black fabric. The woman’s cloak. He picked it up, folding it under one arm as he hurried to the exit. The policemen’s coach was in the way, blocking his line of sight as he burst into the back alley. He saw the bodies first – three policemen groaning in pain. One was on the ground unconscious but alive, another leaning heavily against the vehicle, his hand protectively cradling his ribs. Edward would guess the man had been kicked. The last officer’s eye was already swelling shut and blood running down his chin. The man who had attempted to assassinate the prince was dead at his feet, a pool of blood around him. He’d clearly been dragged outside from the theatre, the thick brushing of blood on the ground an obvious trail.