Realm 06 - A Touch of Love (17 page)

Carter reached for his jacket, which he had hung on the back of his chair. “I will send Monroe to the mews to saddle my horse. A Realm courier will bring you news of my progress.” As he slid his arms into the sleeves, he regretted the interruption, which would keep him from Mrs. Warren’s company. It was foolish to miss those few moments they had shared. After all, he was only her… Her what? Her savior? Not likely. He had learned little of her circumstances. In
fact, since returning to London, he had spent his time chasing after information on Cyrus Woodstone, on his attacker, and on Jamot, but not on the lady’s dilemma. He had safely absconded her away, but he could not keep her there… in the country…in his home forever. She belonged with her family, not with him. Shaking off his rampant musings of blonde curls wrapped about his fist, Carter said, “Hopefully, this time Jamot will not slip away before I arrive.”

Lucinda looked up in surprise when Mr. Vance presented her a silver salver with a letter resting upon its surface. She had been at Huntingborne Abbey a fortnight, but other than the one note from the baronet, she had corresponded with no one beyond the servants and the Duke of Thornhill. She frowned as she accepted the letter from Sir Carter’s butler. “Is something amiss, Mrs. Warren?”

She blushed thoroughly. “Certainly not, Mr. Vance. I was simply considering who might know of my residence in Kent.”

“I could not say, Ma’am.”

With his exit, Lucinda broke the wax seal to unfold the page. If the message was from Sir Carter, the baronet had not bothered to use his seal upon the wax. Anxiously, she opened the page to read another brief message: “Bring the boy to the Rising Son Inn on Friday. I have information regarding the child’s parents.” Lucinda frowned. The message left much to be explained.

“That is all?” she mumbled as she turned the paper over several times as if something had been omitted. “Nothing regarding how I might travel so far nor the nature of the information the baronet has discovered. Has Sir Carter found Simon’s missing mother? Am I to turn over the child to a stranger?” The thought of parting with the boy squeezed her heart in anguish. She would not wish to place Simon in a home where he was not fully welcomed. “And where is the Rising Son Inn? It is not as if I am aware of each hostelry in England.” Lucinda read the note a second time. She snorted her disapproval. “The baronet did not even include a salutation or a closing signature. I never thought of him as a man of so few words.”

Lucinda sat heavily against the hard leather seat. The duke had hired a hack to transport her and the child to an inn somewhere north of the Essex border. Thornhill had wanted her to use either Sir Carter’s coach or one of his smaller ones, but Lucinda had adamantly refused. She had also declined his offer to escort her. “I shall have none of it. Your kindness has already created a riff between you and the duchess. I would not add flames to the fire.”

Of course, Thornhill had declared he would not permit his duchess to speak for him, but Lucinda was certain he would be satisfied not to witness his wife’s displeasure. She did graciously accept the services of Sir Carter’s coachman, Mr. Watkins.

The boy had not been happy to leave the comfort of Huntingborne Abbey nor his new friendship with Sonali Fowler. She suspected Simon as lonely as she. “Perhaps, Sir Carter has found your mother,” she encouraged, but Simon had turned his head away. In silence, the boy wiped at a tear rolling slowly over his cheekbone. Lucinda wished he would share with her what little he knew of his parents. Any bit of information might prove the difference. As the shadows gathered, they rolled on. Mr. Watkins declared they would arrive in time for a late meal.

The duke had provided her with enough coinage to purchase a room for her and the boy. “For a man known to tend strictly to details, Sir Carter is sorely lacking in this matter,” Thornhill had proclaimed, and Lucinda was very much in agreement.

A sharp whistle announced their arrival. Mr. Watkins slowed the coach and reined in before a well-lit inn. She heard the scurry of feet as men rushed to secure the coach. Within a minute, Mr. Watkins opened the door to assist them down. “We’ve arrived, Ma’am.” He set the steps and reached for Lucinda’s hand. “I don’t see the baronet’s horse, but it may already be in the stable. I’ll look for Prime. If’n he not be within, I’ll come to watch over ye and the boy.”

“Thank you, Mr. Watkins.” She did not like the looks of the inn. It was not a place for a woman alone. A shiver of dread ran down her spine. “Stay close, Simon.” Lucinda caught the boy’s hand. It felt so familiar in her grasp.

A rotund man with a jovial countenance rushed forward to greet them. “I am Mrs. Warren. The boy and I require a room for the evening.” Her gaze slid across the common room, searching for Sir Carter’s familiar countenance. She
realized belatedly she knew nothing of how they were to make contact. Lucinda had assumed the baronet would greet her upon her arrival.

“I have a small room facing the back of the inn, if that would meet your requirements, Ma’am.”

Lucinda’s eyes made another sweep of the main room. Should she instruct the innkeeper to direct Sir Carter to her upon his arrival? She certainly would not wish to appear to be expecting an assignation. “The room shall be acceptable. Please have someone bring a meal for the boy and me, as well as provide one for my driver.” She hoped Mr. Watkins would inform the baronet of her presence.

A few minutes later, she had paid the innkeeper and stood in the middle of a starkly simple room. “It is not much,” Simon said with disapproval.

Lucinda’s opinion mirrored the child’s, but she held her tongue. She thought of the simple touches she and Mrs. Shelton had added to the rooms at Huntingborne. They had enlivened the rooms without making them overly ornate.
This room could use some of what she had left behind
. “We have been spoiled by the baronet’s generosity,” she declared. “Unfortunately, this is our reality.” She gestured to the plain furnishings.

He had followed Jamot’s trail for three days, and with each frustrating dead end, his temper had grown tighter. An informant had claimed Jamot frequented an inn on Surrey’s southern border, and so Carter and Monroe had donned their working clothes to assume a familiar role as ex-soldiers searching for gainful employment. Carter had tethered their horses in the woods behind the inn, and they had approached on foot. He feigned a limp as they entered the open room. The movement was not so foreign a feeling. After Waterloo, it had taken him several months to walk normally after a surgeon had dug a French bullet from his thigh.

He and Monroe pushed past the hovering innkeeper and sought a table in a dark corner. When the busty barmaid arrived with two beers for which neither he nor Monroe had placed an order, Carter slid a coin across the table. “What if we wished yer best brandy?” he asked caustically.

“You, Gents, kant ‘ford no brandy,” she said saucily. “Besides, the brandy be watered down.” She smiled a toothy grin at Monroe. “Ye be requirin’ anything else, ye ask fer Nell.”

When she strolled away, purposely twitching her hips, Monroe leaned Carter’s way. “I would be afeared of what I might take with me from the fair Nell’s bed.”

Carter chuckled. “Aye, a man must be careful with whom he shares his time.” Immediately, he thought of the “fair Lucinda Warren” and knew he would gladly share whatever she offered.

Monroe jabbed Carter in the side with his elbow. “Is that Jamot at the bar’s end? Beside the man with the gray hair.”

Carter’s heart rate jumped: Monroe’s keen eyes had cut through the shadows and the tobacco smoke to discover their man across a crowded room. It was the closest Carter had been to Jamot in over the year. Unfortunately, there were some two-dozen people between him and the Baloch. His eyes searched the room for possible escape routes, as well as for accomplices. For a year, he had investigated Jamot’s associates in the opium ring, but this was a new group of compatriots. The majority of England’s smugglers were villagers and farmers. Few were harden criminals: Most wished only to supplement their meager incomes. Some thought they had a right to the goods denied them by embargos and treaties and political maneuverings. Despite their lack of training and motivation, Carter held no doubt Jamot’s latest companions would fight to protect the Baloch.

“I will attempt to move closer,” he said under his breath. “There are too many innocents between Jamot and us, and the Baloch has never been ashamed of placing others between him and a bullet. Stay alert and watch for my signal.” Monroe nodded. Carter rose slowly, giving any watchful eyes the impression he had had too much to drink. Keeping his back to the room, he staggered between the tables, pausing occasionally to slap one of the locals on the back in a friendly manner and to motion to Nell to bring a round of drink for a table he had jostled.

Throughout his antics, he kept one eye on the Baloch. Jamot had yet to look up at him. The Realm’s enemy appeared deep in conversation with a man who was dressed a bit too finely for those who regularly patronized the Rising Son. Within fifteen feet of a man he had sought for more than two years, Carter leaned heavily on the lip of the bar. With his head down, he reached into an inside pocket to ease a specially crafted pistol into his palm. Now, it was a
matter of waiting. He would wait until the three men arguing over the price of grain shifted from the line of fire, and then he would make his move.

However, the farmers tarried, and Jamot had become irritated with his companion, and before Carter could react Jamot sat his mug heavily upon the bar’s marred surface and turned toward the exit.

Carter snapped into action a second behind the Baloch. “Jamot!” he called over the din of voices as he lifted the gun for a safe shot. Shouts of dismay filled the air while people scrambled from the way, but Carter’s focus remained on the Realm’s long-time enemy.

The Baloch froze and lifted his hands in the air in casual surrender. Too casual for Carter’s liking. “Monroe?” he called without turning his head.

“Aye, Sir.”

“Search Jamot, but be wary. Our friend is known for his caginess.” Monroe cautiously knelt behind the Baloch and bent to run his hands over Jamot’s person. To the room, Carter announced, “I am an agent of the King, and I mean no one harm. I have searched for this man for more than two years. He is charged with murder and kidnapping.” Carter would not mention Jamot’s dealing in illegal goods. Those who crouched in anticipation of what would occur next could construe his words to mean the unlawful brandy easily found in eastern English homes.

Jamot flinched when Monroe fished a pistol from his jacket pocket, but, otherwise, the Baloch did not move, and neither did anyone else in the room. The tension clung to Carter’s shoulders, and he was glad when Jamot spoke. It brought life to a terrible tableau.

“Your disguise was most effective, Sir Carter,” the Baloch said with an ironic sneer. “I must remember your ability to assimilate for when next we meet.”

Carter said defiantly, “There will be no next time, Jamot. Your mission for Shaheed Mir has reached its end.”

Jamot snorted his contempt. “It is only over when I discover Mir’s prize.”