I Kissed a Rogue (Covent Garden Cubs) (2 page)

Crouching down, she sidled forward, wanting to see what lay beyond her prison. The closer she got to the window, the clearer the voices she had heard earlier became. Finally, she stood to one side of the window and chanced peeking around. The glass, if there ever had been glass, had long been broken or removed, and the window was open to the cold of the early morning. Outside the window was not a street at all, as she had thought, but a small courtyard or square—though that description was far too grand for the small, rubbish-strewn area she glimpsed.

She could not hear the music on this side of the building, but now she knew the origin of the voices. Four men stood in the courtyard, speaking in low tones. One man, the one who faced her, wore a long greatcoat and a beaver hat. He was quite portly, much heavier than any of the other men. That was not saying much as the others were small and scrawny and not dressed for the chilly night.

Except for one.

He was the one who’d taken her, and that realization sent Lila cowering in the shadows.

When the men’s conversation went on as before, she looked out again. The man who’d taken her wore a ragged, thigh-length coat and gestured with purpose. He was the leader of these rogues, and watching him, Lila realized he argued with the wealthy gentleman.

The pounding of her heart and the blood in her ears quieted enough that she could hear snatches of the conversation.

“—didn’t do yer part.”

“Now wait just a minute. Who do you think you are?” That from the gentleman. She could hear the cultured accent in his voice.

At a signal she wouldn’t have seen had she not been watching from a distance, the rogues moved closer to the gentleman, stepping into position until they surrounded him. The leader still stood in front of the blubbering gentleman, who did not seem to realize he was in any danger.

“Want to know who I am?” The leader cut the gentleman off. “I’ll show ye.”

Lila gasped at the flash of metal in the dim light and almost screamed when two of the rogues caught the gentleman and held him fast. All was over and done so quickly that Lila hadn’t had time to look away. The knife flashed and a gash of red opened on the gentleman’s neck. Then he’d crumpled to the ground, a dark pool growing around him.

Dead, dead, dead
. Lila’s brain would not stop repeating the word.

“Take care of him,” the leader said to the others, gesturing carelessly to the dead man.

Dead, dead, dead.

Would she be next? Would he put that knife to her throat and open her up like a fish to be gutted? She crumpled her fist against her mouth and stared at the leader in horror.

It was then she realized he was staring back at her.

Their gazes met, and the leader shook his head and started for her.

“Ye’ll wish ye hadn’t seen that.”

Lila stumbled away from the window in terror, but it was too late.

* * *

“Sir.”

Someone shook his shoulder, and Brook opened his eyes. He was instantly awake and alert, his body tensed and ready for action.

“Sir.”

“What is it?” He sat, scrubbed his face once, and stared at Hunt. Part valet, part secretary, part inspector, Hunt was a veritable jack-of-all-trades. Brook found him indispensable.

“A footman has come from Derring House. You have a caller.”

Brook absorbed the information even as the woman in bed beside him groaned and rolled over, pulling a pillow over her head. Hunt’s eyes never strayed from Brook’s face. The yellow light from the candle the servant held flickered over his cleanly shaven jaw, dark eyes, and chiseled features. Brook didn’t know how the man managed to look so bloody awake at—

“What time is it?” Brook asked.

“Half four, sir.”

Brook paused in the act of setting his bare feet on the floor. “In the morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who the hell wants me at four in the morning? Tell him to come to my office at a decent hour.”

“I would have given those instructions, sir.”

Brook waited. Hunt was no fool. He would not have pulled Brook from Arabella’s warm arms if he didn’t have a reason.

“But?” Brook asked with a longing look at Arabella’s slim form, naked under the bedclothes.

“The footman says the man calling for you is the Duke of Lennox.”

Brook heard the word
duke
and rose, but at the rest of the title, he paused.

“Lennox?”

Hunt nodded, his expression one of chagrin.

“What the devil does he want?”

“The footman didn’t say, sir.” Hunt held out Brook’s dressing gown, which he donned before making use of the chamber pot behind a screen.

While Hunt silently dressed him, a thousand possibilities raced through Brook’s mind: the duke had been robbed; his new wife had been accosted; his prize thoroughbred had been poisoned.

He wouldn’t allow himself to think of
her
. He wouldn’t allow himself to acknowledge the clench of his belly when the image of Lady Lila arose in his mind.

He hadn’t thought of her for years, and that was not by accident.

“Let’s go,” he said, waving away his rumpled cravat. He used this flat on occasion when he wanted privacy from his mother and the rest of the family at Derring House. He kept only the bare essentials here. Hunt could probably find him a clean, starched cravat, but Brook didn’t want to bother with it. Some contrary part of him wanted to greet the duke without it.

At the bedroom door, Brook looked back at Hunt impatiently. Hunt cleared his throat and nodded to the bed. He’d forgotten Arabella.

She’d been onstage at the theater until late last night; then he’d taken her to dine before bringing her back here. She wouldn’t wake for hours. Brook looked about for pen and paper. Finding neither, he started for the parlor and the desk there, but Hunt produced a sheet of foolscap and a pen and inkwell.

Brook gave the items a long look. “What else do you have hidden in your coat?”

“Oh, this and that, sir.”

“Huh.” Brook penned a quick note to Arabella, set it on the pillow where he’d been sleeping less than a quarter of an hour before, and followed Hunt out of the flat.

Twenty minutes later he stood in his mother’s drawing room. Crawford, his mother’s butler, offered him tea as though it were a reasonable hour instead of half five in the bloody morning.

“Where is my mother?” Brook asked Crawford, declining the tea and noting the way Lennox sat with his back rigid against the chair he occupied. He balanced a full, untouched cup of tea on his knee.

“She has gone back to bed, sir,” Crawford said. “I am to inform Edwards if you require her ladyship’s attention.”

“Very good, Crawford. Leave us.”

When the butler had closed the door and Lennox and Brook were alone, Brook crossed to the mantel and leaned one arm negligently against it. The action caused his shirt, open at the throat, to gape slightly. He hadn’t taken a comb or brush to his hair and, though it was short, he hoped it looked rumpled.

“This is a surprise,” Brook said. “How kind of you to grace our lowly home.”

The duke said nothing, simply stared at his tea. He was obviously distraught, and Brook almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

Finally, the duke looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face looked haggard. The dark hair streaked with gray that he always wore combed back from his high forehead fell in unkempt waves over his brow.

“I didn’t know where else to turn. I know you must hate me—”

“Hate is far too strong a word. It implies an emotion, and you inspire no emotions in me, Duke. I care not whether you live or die.”

The teacup rattled and liquid sloshed over the rim as Lennox set it roughly on a table. “This isn’t about me.” He stood, rising to his full height, which was very nearly equal to Brook’s. “I came because I thought you might be able to put aside the past, and because I hear you are the best.”

“The best?”

“You found the missing Flynn boy and the daughter of the Marquess of Lyndon. If you won’t do it for me, do it for Lila.”

“What has she to do with any of this?”

“She was abducted earlier this evening, just after midnight. My coachman and one outrider are dead. Another is hanging on to life by a thread.”

Everything in Brook went very still then—the crackle of the fire behind him, the clip-clop of the horses pulling carts to market, the chime of the tall case clock in the corridor faded into the distance.

Lila had been taken. She might be injured, raped, dead. He hadn’t seen her for seven years, and still the knowledge that something might have happened to her ripped through him. Brook tamped down the fear fiercely and clenched one hand behind his back. He must be calm, rational, precise.

“Tell me the details.”

For the first time that night, the duke’s shoulders squared. “Then you will help?”

“I’ll find her. Where is this outrider?”

“At my house. I’ll take you to him.”

“On the way, you can tell me the events of the night as you know them.” Brook started for the door, but the duke’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“I cannot say how much I appreciate this, Derring. I’ll pay you whatever you ask.”

Brook blew out a disgusted breath. “You have
nothing
I want.”

By an hour after daybreak, Brook stood in the place the coach and four had been waylaid. The spot was just a few streets from Seven Dials and the thieves and criminals there had wasted no time stripping the conveyance of every adornment. Even the door with the ducal crest had been pried away. The horses were gone. The injured outrider had taken one to make his way back to Lennox House, but the other three had either run off or been stolen.

The coroner had come to examine the bodies and several constables milled around, watching Brook circle the wreck of what had once been a fine coach and four. The attack had been planned, and planned well. The fact that it had happened here certainly pointed to one of the gangs inhabiting Seven Dials as the likely culprit. The rooks might have been brave, but they weren’t known for abducting grown women in protected conveyances.

If it was a woman they wanted, the rookeries teemed with them. Blunt had to be the motive. So why hadn’t a ransom note been sent?

“It’s cold enough to freeze my balls off,” a man said, approaching the carriage. His hands were shoved in his greatcoat and a hat rode low over his temple, concealing a scar.

“Dorrington,” Brook said with a nod. “You going soft?”

“Say that again and you’ll see just how soft my fist feels when it connects with your teeth.”

Brook smiled. The other inspector had been working with him for almost two years now, and he hadn’t changed a bit. He was still foulmouthed, cunning, and sharp as a blade. But he knew this area better than anyone else Brook could think of, probably because he had once lived here under another name.

“Hunt gave you the particulars?”

Dorrington nodded, then crouched down to study the blood-spattered ground. “Duke’s daughter on the way home from a ball with a coachman and two outriders. Coach is waylaid. She’s taken and two of the men were shot dead. One was stabbed multiple times. Probably won’t make it.” He looked up at Brook. “Did you talk to the survivor?”

“He wasn’t much help. Said there were four men, couldn’t describe any of them. Two of them had pistols, and the others, knives that they used on him. The lady was dragged from the carriage and taken that way.” Brook pointed toward Seven Dials, where a sickly yellow fog had rolled in. “He thinks. He was on this side of the coach, bleeding all over, and he says she wasn’t carried off past him.”

“So this is his blood?”

Without waiting for an answer, Dorrington crossed to the other side of the vehicle. When he didn’t return right away, Brook joined him. Dorrington stared in the direction of Seven Dials, now shadowed in mist. “Not much hope of finding her if they took her in there. No one will snitch, and there are a thousand places to hide her or dispose of the body. We can’t narrow it down, unless…”

“We know who took her.” Brook stuffed his icy hands in his pockets. His face was frozen, but he ignored the burn of his chafed skin. “If they are in Seven Dials, your old cronies are the most likely suspects. They run Covent Garden, and Beezle’s just ambitious enough to try something like this.”

Dorrington lowered his head, shielding his face in what was probably an entirely unconscious attempt to hide his features. “He’s done it before.”

“We don’t have proof of that.”

“The cove he took described him right down to the freckle on his arse. That’s all the proof I need.”

Brook didn’t argue. He’d thought of the case last year as well. The son of a viscount had been slumming in the rookeries one evening when his friends lost track of him. His parents hadn’t been too concerned. The father figured his boy was holed up enjoying himself in a brothel. But when the ransom note had come, they’d called for Brook.

Unfortunately, they’d already paid the ransom, and the boy was delivered home—unhurt but for a few scrapes and bruises—before Brook could do much of anything. He and Dorrington had interviewed the lad, but he’d been hooded and tied, and hadn’t seen anything except for the face of the man who’d taken him.

His description of a tall, skinny man with dark hair and a hawk-like nose was a far cry from the detailed description Dorrington made it seem.

“But if Beezle did it, where’s the ransom note?” Dorrington asked.

“That’s my question.”

“Suppose we sit back and wait until it turns up.”

Brook shook his head. “No, we go in and start searching.”

“If Beezle’s involved, I’m out. He recognizes me as”—Dorrington lowered his voice—“Gideon Harrow, and it’s more than my arse hanging in the wind. There’s Susanna to think of.”

“We’ve risked it before. You’ve never been recognized.” Sometimes Brook didn’t even recognize the man for the thief he’d once been—not with his hair neatly trimmed, his clothes pressed, and a few more pounds on his lanky frame.

Dorrington stared at him. “Why the risk? Who is this Lennox mort? She mean something to you?”