Leslie Lafoy (34 page)

But without Tristan’s lovers in hand … What did the woman have to work with? Her driver, maybe one of the working women at the inn, maybe a drunken customer … But getting them all into place without arousing suspicion, and so quickly … Surely Lucinda had to know that her time was running short, that she and Sarah would have headed straight to Tristan to warn him. Unless—

“No,” she said firmly. “Stop making yourself crazy.”

The sound was small but close and telltale. She yanked her skirt to the side, sent another rat flying back into the darker shadows of the alley, and then turned back to her vigil, muttering, “Filthy ro—”

Her heart hammering, she leaned closer to the wall, deeper into the protective shadows to watch as two men carried a rolled-up rug along the side of the inn and toward the street. A third man stepped out the door behind them, called out something, and then ducked back inside as they continued on their way.

A bit of dirty white cloth hung limply out the front end of the roll.
A sheet?
she wondered, watching their progress.
A sheet inside a rug?
The inn wasn’t the sort of place where housekeeping or decor mattered. Hell, the rugs had probably never ever been taken out for so much as a good beating. Why would they—

The men turned the corner of the building, clearly heading toward the delivery wagon. And just as clearly, now that she could see the full length of the roll, a sheet wasn’t the only thing wrapped up inside it. Lumpy and bumpy, it was just the sort of odd shape a rug would take if it were wrapped around a body.

The men stopped at the side of the wagon, shifted their burden, and then rolled it off their shoulders to drop it unceremoniously into the bed. A cloud of dust rose as it hit the wooden planks with a dull and heavy thud.

Even as the dust still swirled upward, one of the men climbed into the box and took up the reins. The other walked to the rented hack, paused at the door to speak to someone inside, and then slapped the side to rouse the driver before going on to the Townsends’ carriage. As he climbed up into the box, the driver of the wagon moved it out of the line and into the traffic. The hack followed immediately in its wake.

Simone left the shadows, darting toward the alley entrance, her heart racing. For a second the light was blinding, but she shielded her eyes from the worst of it just in time to see the hack turn the corner. As it disappeared from sight, the carriage rolled away from the inn as well.

Simone watched it make its way up the street, following not the hack but the delivery wagon with its gruesome cargo. Who was dead? she wondered. The Townsends’ driver? Her heart lurched at another possibility.

Slamming her eyes closed, Simone ignored the frantic hammering of her heart and summoned the image of the rug from her memory. No. Thank God, no. Tristan hadn’t arrived in the time it had taken her to make her way back to the inn. It would have taken three, maybe four, men to carry his body out and dump it. And the dead man was the Townsends’ driver only if he were a small man. A really small man, a man about the size of … Emmy.

Simone swallowed down her stomach, opened her eyes, and deliberately forced her mind in another direction. Lucinda had to have been the passenger in the hack. Where was she going? And why hadn’t she taken the family carriage?

It didn’t matter, Simone assured herself. What did matter was that, against all the odds, Lucinda had given up the game and fled. The danger was over. Maybe it would come again; maybe it wouldn’t. But for now …

Simone swallowed down the thick lump in her throat and forced herself to breathe. The day wasn’t done and there were difficult things yet to do. Sarah couldn’t be that far ahead of her. If she hurried … Stepping into the street, Simone raised her hand.

A hack rolled to a stop up the block to let out its passengers and Simone sprinted for it, determined to get there before anyone else could claim it. She reached it just as the man inside stepped down onto the walkway. Grasping the door handle to claim the ride, she nodded to acknowledge his tip of the hat and caught the inside of her lower lip between her teeth to keep from smiling. His bowler hat was of cheap, thin felt, but brand-new, and his suit was the uniform of very respectable clerk in the world. She had to give him credit for trying to be fashionable. If only his tailor hadn’t robbed some poor horse of its plaid blanket for the effort.

He turned and extended his hand into the cab. Simone swallowed back a groan of frustration.
C’mon, Madam Clerk,
she silently railed,
let’s rustle a bustle. I’m in a hurry
.

The foot that emerged first from the dark interior of the hack … Simone arched a brow. High-heeled mules, huh? At midday in Whitechapel. No stockings. No petticoats and skirt of lace-covered lawn. Well, everyone had their uniforms on.

Staring down at the pavers, Simone gritted her teeth and resisted the temptation to shove the two of them out of her way.
Time is money, madam,
she silently reminded the woman practically snaking her way out of the cab.
And you’re wasting both.

The very second there was sufficient space between the woman’s skirts and the cab, Simone slipped into it, vaulted onto the step, and looked up at the driver.

“Same time next week, Roger?”

Simone froze as the voice registered in her memory. She whipped back. “Diana? Diana Dalea?”

The eyes that looked back at her were heavily painted and kohl-lined. And wide with shocked recognition.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Simone offered dryly. “I wish I had the time to visit, but…” She shrugged. “Do give my regards to your mother and tell her that since my sister’s had her baby, we’ll be able to have lunch sometime next week. Personally, I can’t wait.”

Diana didn’t say a word. Not that there was much she could say, Simone allowed as she looked up at the driver again, supplied the address of Tristan’s town house, and promised him a double fare if he flew. Diana—looking horrified—was still standing there with her customer, who was thumbing through his pocket calendar, when Simone popped inside the carriage, closed the door behind herself, and kicked the wall.

The hack rolled out instantly, carrying her away from a world gone entirely too ugly, too bizarre. She scrubbed her hands over her face, then leaned back into the seat to stare up at the roof. Kidnapping and murder, rats, and brothels and whores. A regular, not all that notable day in the world of London’s poor streets. How far she’d come in only six years. If there was a God … No, even if there wasn’t, she was never again in her life going to come back here.

*   *   *

“Pardon the intrusion, Your Lordship.”

Tristan whirled about at the sound of his butler’s voice to find the man standing in the study doorway, a scrap of paper in his gloved hand. “That just arrived?” Tristan asked, his heart hammering as he strode over to take it.

“Yes, Your Lordship,” he supplied while surrendering it. “A messenger presented it at the kitchen door, saying that it was of great importance.”

Tristan opened the folded scrap of paper to find an address scrawled in an unfamiliar hand. There were no instructions, no threats or promises. None were necessary. He unclenched his teeth and handed the note over to the duke. “Thank you, French,” he said, his mind racing forward. “Please tell John that I’ll be leaving within the moment.”

The butler bowed and departed as Tristan crossed the room to his desk and the duke quietly observed, “It’s in Whitechapel.”

“Do you know the building?”

“Not from personal experience.”

“No matter,” he replied. Taking a revolver from the desk drawer and checking the cylinder, he added, “I’ll find it. If you’d be so kind as to take that note to Lord Noland at Scotland Yard and ask him to meet me there, I’d appreciate it.”

The duke folded the note closed. “One of your staff can do the running. I’m coming with you.”

Tristan understood the man’s motives. Were he in the duke’s shoes, he wouldn’t accept the role of messenger, either. But there was a great deal of difference between being a party to a rescue and being a party to vengeance. He tucked the revolver into the waistband of his trousers and retrieved his jacket from the back of the desk chair.

“My stepmother is going to be dead at the end of this,” he announced matter-of-factly as he shoved his arms into the sleeves. “If you’re there when it happens, you’ll be considered an accessory, at best. At worst, an accomplice. A scandal is even more certain than a trial.”

“Scandals fade and pass. As for the legal aspects … The sworn testimony of a duke carries considerable weight. If there’s a trial at all, it will be a very short one.”

Tristan nodded his acceptance, took the note from the duke, and went to the doorway. “French!”

*   *   *

Simone darted behind the trunk of an old oak tree and then carefully peered around it, blinking in disbelief. Even as she tried to deny the certainty of what she was seeing, her heart sank. Bits and pieces of conversation, fleeting expressions and gestures, careened from her memory, pushing the pieces of the dark, twisted puzzle into undeniably perfect place. Angry tears welled in her eyes, but she swiped them away and bent down to lift her hems.

The hilt of her knife palmed, the blade resting against the underside of her forearm, she made her way along the side of the house, looking for an open window. There was no other choice, no avoiding the truth. What had to be done, had to be done. And done right. She could be heartsick about it later.

*   *   *

“French!”

His summons was still reverberating down the hallway when the front door burst open. For a second he wondered why the hell his butler was outside; in the next his heart soared with relief.

“Em!” he cried, throwing open his arms. “Thank God!”

She started and looked up from the foyer floor, her eyes wide in surprise to see him waiting there for her. For a second only the hems of her skirts moved, and then her face scrunched up as she squeaked and flung herself into his arms, crying his name and burying her face in his chest. He hugged her tight and then took her upper arms in hand and put her out far enough that he could look up and down the length of her.

“You’re all right?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she breathlessly assured him. “But Mother has Simone. And that Sarah woman, too. I can’t tell you where. I don’t know the streets. But I can take you there.”

“If I might intrude to ask … How did you get away?”

Em gasped and looked past him, the blood draining from her face. “This is the Duke of Ryland,” Tristan hastily assured her, stepping aside so she could fully see the man. “He’s Simone’s brother-in-law and guardian.”

“M-M-Mother let me go,” Emmaline supplied haltingly, her breathing ragged and her gaze darting all over the foyer. “She put me in a hack and told me to go home and pretend that I didn’t know anything or she’d kill me.” Seizing a deep breath, she brought her attention squarely to Tristan and swallowed hard. “She’s mad, Tristan. Stark raving mad. You have to stop her. You
have
to.”

As though doing so was on his list of maybe things to do that day? He tamped down his irritation, reminding himself that his sister was delicate and that the strain of her ordeal had battered her sensibilities. “Are Simone and Sarah all right? Has she hurt them?”

“They were fine the last time I saw them. Tied up, but fine.”

“Ah, French,” he said as his butler rounded the corner. Tristan released his hold on Emmaline and went to meet his man halfway, handing the note to him and saying, “Have one of the staff run this directly to Lord Noland at the Yard. He’ll know what to do. Also have them tell him that Lady Emmaline has been recovered safely.”

As the butler left, Tristan heard Ryland ask, “How many men does Lady Lockwood have in hire?”

“I don’t know,” Em answered, an edge of frustration in her voice. “How could I know?”

Tristan went back to them, asking for the same information in a different way. “How many men took you from the conservatory, Em?”

She looked back and forth between them. “Two,” she supplied, the pitch of her voice rising, her breathing suddenly quick and shallow. “And what does it matter? You’re wasting time asking me all of these silly questions. We have to go—”

“You’re staying here, Em,” he said, taking her by the arm. The duke stepped aside and back to let him guide her into the study and toward one of the leather chairs. “Just sit down, take a deep breath, and collect your wits. I’ll have the staff bring you a pot of tea and we’ll be back with Simone before you’re done with it.”

She pulled her arm from his grasp, took two full steps back, and fisted the fabric of her skirt. “But I have to take you there.”

“No, Lady Emmaline, you need not risk yourself any farther,” the duke assured her, his voice calm and soothing as he leaned a hip against Tristan’s desk. “We have the address. Your mother sent it. That’s what’s on its way to Noland.”

“I didn’t…” She gulped a breath and fisted her skirt tighter. “But…”

Deep in his brain, an alarm dully sounded. Why was Em on the verge of panic? Why was she insistent on holding to her course? They’d explained. They’d reassured. She was safe. He glanced over at the duke. All right, that made two of them puzzled.

“But what, Emmaline?” Tristan pressed gently. “You didn’t what?”

“Give her a moment to think about it.”

His heart skipped a beat in delight as his knees went weak in relief. “Simone!” he cried, his gaze arrowing to the slim, dark-clothed figure in the doorway. “Thank—” He froze in mid-stride, his pulse racing and his blood suddenly as cold as the look in Simone’s eyes.

“What she didn’t know,” Simone said softly, slowly advancing into the room, her gaze riveted on his sister’s, “is that her mother had sent for you already and the
but
is to buy time.”

He looked over at Emmaline. Her face was absolutely bloodless. Her gaze, fixed on Simone, sparked with feral panic.

“She’s having to come up with a new plan on the spot,” Simone went on, still moving toward them. “She didn’t expect to find Drayton here, either, which has really complicated things. It’s all falling apart and she’s scrambling, trying to think of a way to salvage it.”