Will glanced down at her, one searching, scorching stare. ‘Thank God I’ve found you. I did not expect to find you here.’ He touched one finger to her cheek. ‘He had his hands on you. His mouth.’ Then he pushed her gently into the arms of the man who had followed him into the room and took a step forward.
‘Will!’
‘Never fear, Lady Dereham, you are safe now,’ the man holding her said. He tried to bundle her out of the door but she stuck in her heels.
‘Major Frazer?’ How on earth had he got here? ‘No, please stop pushing me, I must stay with Will.’
‘There will be violence, ma’am,’ the major said pedantically. ‘It is no fit place for a lady.’
She simply ignored him. The Priors were standing together close to the bedchamber door, their faces white. Jonathan had backed up as far as the table and stood at bay, his hand at his side as though trying to grip the sword that was not there.
‘You think that even if we had weapons I would duel with you as though you were a gentleman, a man of honour?’ Will’s voice dripped contempt.
‘Julia ran back to me of her own free will,’ Jonathan said. ‘Why do you think she is here? Your quarrel is with her.’
‘You seem to have a death wish,’ Will observed. He pulled off his gloves, finger by finger, tossed them on to a chair, shrugged out of his greatcoat, laid that on top and added his hat, for all the world as though he was settling down for a comfortable chat. But Julia could read him now and what she saw was cold, focused fury.
‘Don’t kill him,’ she gasped.
‘You see?’ Jonathan’s sneering voice was at odds with his white face. There was a nerve twitching in his cheek and he did not seem to know what to do with his hands. ‘She would protect me.’
‘Lady Dereham appears to think that you are not worth hanging for. She is probably correct.’ Will took a step forwards. ‘So I will just have to deal with you some other way. Frazer, get her out of here.’
‘No!’
‘I am very sorry, Lady Dereham.’ Major Frazer picked Julia up bodily and marched out of the door, pushed it shut with his shoulder, then leaned against it when she lunged for the door handle. ‘I apologise for the liberty, but that is no place for a lady.’
‘There are three of them in there and Jonathan Dalfield will not fight fairly,’ she panted, trying to reach the door handle, but the major was almost as solid as Will. There was a crash from inside the room.
‘Will won’t be fighting fairly either,’ Major Frazer said with a grin that faded as he took in her distress. ‘You forget I knew him in his army days. He duels like a gentleman, but he fights scum like a gutter rat. There is no cause for alarm, I promise you. Ah, landlord.’
Julia turned as the man came running up the stairs. ‘What is going on, sir? I’ll not stand for fighting and my rooms being smashed up! I’ll call the constables, I warn you.’
‘Excellent idea,’ the major said. ‘Send for them at once. Your guests have set on this lady’s husband in an unprovoked manner—I can only hope they have sufficient money to pay for the damages.’
‘But if the constables come they might arrest Will,’ Julia protested, as the man turned and ran downstairs, shouting for the pot boy. The door at the major’s back was hit with a massive crash that had him rocking on his feet.
‘When they come, if we are still here, they will be met by me, in my capacity as a London magistrate, investigating a case of extortion and the forcible imprisonment of a lady. With any luck, we’ll be away before it comes to that.’
‘You are a magistrate?’
He nodded, his head half-turned as though listening. It had gone very quiet. ‘Will knew I was at my town house. Ah, here we are.’
He stepped away from the door and Will came out. One eye was half-closed, there was a cut on his right cheekbone and his lip was split. ‘Right, come on.’ He clapped his hat on his head, shrugged into his greatcoat and took Julia’s arm. ‘My thanks to you for your support, Frazer. I owe you a good dinner, but you’ll forgive me if we leave at once.’
‘Will, your face—’
‘Not here.’ He took her arm and went briskly down the stairs and out onto the forecourt.
The major tipped his hat to Julia. ‘Obedient servant, ma’am. Dereham.’
Will hailed a passing cab, bundled Julia into it without ceremony and called up, ‘Grillon’s Hotel’, before climbing in beside her.
The vehicle rattled away down Ludgate Hill and Julia, speechless, simply stared at her husband. He was here, she was safe. She had killed no one. Julia dug her handkerchief out of her reticule and sat with it clenched in her hand, waiting for the tears of sheer relief to come. Strangely, they did not, nor did the rush of relief she experienced when she dreamed that everything was all right.
Will tossed his hat on to the seat beside him and took the handkerchief when she held it out to him. He dabbed at his cheek with some caution. ‘Are you all right, Julia?’
‘Am I all right!’ She found her voice in a flood of anger that encompassed fear, anguish, anxiety and shocked relief all in one muddle of feeling. ‘Yes, of course I am. Will, you might have been seriously injured, even killed.’
He raised one eyebrow, gave a wince at the unwary gesture and grinned, somewhat lopsidedly. ‘That is not very flattering, my dear. Your Mr Dalfield is licking his wounds and contemplating the warning I gave him and your cousins: go back to where they came from and never speak of this or approach you in any manner. If they do not comply, they will have a respected magistrate to vouch for their attempts at extortion.’
‘Then it is really all over.’ It did not seem possible that the nightmare that had haunted her waking and sleeping for over three years had simply dissolved into thin air.
Will nodded. ‘I am hoping this is the last of your deep dark secrets, my love.’ His face was serious, but his eyes smiled at her.
‘I promise.’ Had he really said my love? Most likely it was a careless endearment, or wishful thinking on her part. She was certainly feeling very strange. Light-headed, in fact, although with that came a certain clarity of thought. ‘You were not surprised when you came into the room just now, were you? You said Jonathan’s name without even having to think about it. How did you know?’
‘I realised he was not dead in the early hours of this morning.’ Will got up and changed seats so he could put his arm around her. Julia tried not to lean into him, anxious about cracked ribs, but the warmth of his body was like a balm to her own aching one.
‘It was all about surprise, that was what had been niggling at the back of my mind ever since your cousins came to Grillon’s. Their purpose was to blackmail us, of course. But all they threatened us with at first was scandal about your elopement and the fact that you had struck Dalfield. Violence, they said. Not murder, not killing. No one said anything about death or murder until you blurted out your confession. They mentioned Jonathan’s poor head, not his dead body.
‘They had come all prepared with a shocking tale of a woman who had lost her virtue and assaulted, and probably scarred, a man. They threatened to paint you as a woman who had run away from home, one whom society would be appalled to find as a baroness. They expected me to pay up simply to preserve our good name from unpleasant slurs.
‘And then you said what you did. I was stunned. But so were they and that must have registered with me without my grasping the significance, fool that I am.’
‘You could hardly be expected to notice nuances when you had just been told your wife had killed a man,’ Julia said.
‘I suppose not,’ Will agreed. ‘But Mrs Prior gasped and Prior was struck