The Lady Seals Her Fate (The Langley Sisters #5) (14 page)

“I did touch them earlier, so forgive me if what I’m about to say is offensive, but you have lovely—”

“Alex!”

“Skin,” he added. “Soft and warm and silken to the touch.”

“I cannot believe you are actually speaking to me this way, and in a public setting.”

“You would rather I did so in private? Surely that would be no good for either of us, considering what took place in the carriage on the way here.”

He couldn’t help teasing her. It was wholly inappropriate, Alex knew that, but he saw the answering smile in her eyes. She was enjoying their flirtation as much as he was, no matter how much she denied it.

“I have no wish to continue this conversation anywhere,” she said, and as the music chose that moment to finish, he escorted her back to where Phoebe still sat, looking stunning in a burgundy gown.

“I simply must know who made that dress, Lady Levermarch,” Alex said loudly, drawing looks from the women standing closest.

Phoebe rolled her eyes but played along. “Yes, it is from Madame Alexander’s. I will allow no one but her to clothe me now.”

“It’s the price you pay for being clothed for free, sister-in-law,” he whispered before bowing to Hannah and Phoebe then taking his leave to seek his next dance partner, which he was loath to do, because if he was honest, he wanted to dance with Hannah again and have her in his arms for the remainder of the evening. What the hell was happening to him?

He knew he and Hannah were the current talk of the town, and also knew that would not last long, as someone else would do something to usurp them in the eyes of society soon.

Alex danced, smiled, and tried not to look for Hannah as the evening wore on. The problem was, he couldn’t seem to stop. He knew who she danced with and when, and her expression told him if she was happy with her partner or not. At least she did not have to contend with McDonald.

“Alex.”

“Ben,” he said when his brother appeared at his side.

“I was with Hannah when a servant appeared with a note, and then she said she had to go, but didn’t leave by the doorway. Instead she headed for the terrace, which is odd, don’t you think?”

“When?”

“About fifteen minutes ago.”

“And you are only telling me now?”

“I couldn’t find you, but in my defense I kept looking.”

Alex started toward the doors that lead to the terrace. “Did you not think to follow her?”

“Tried that also, and lost her. She was there on the terrace and suddenly gone. So I searched the grounds, then back inside to the rooms off the terrace, and they yielded no Hannah.”

Alex grunted his thanks as the panic started to slither up his spine. Where was she?

“If that is your pitiful attempt at thank you, then I think you could try harder, as I missed my dance with Miss Keaton because I was searching for your beloved.”

Ben’s fringe flopped over his forehead and his shirt collar had started to curl. He had never been what you would term an elegant dresser, but Alex knew of no better man than his twin.

“Something is a foot with Hannah, Ben. This is the third note she’s received that I know of. The first she tried to hide from me and fell in the Serpentine, the second she put down her bodice, then when I threatened to remove it she fled, running out of Madame Alexander’s so I would not take it from her, and now this.”

Once on the terrace, Alex studied the guests out there, then walked the length, checking corners and shadows, but he did not find her.

“You tried to remove something from her bodice?”

“Concentrate, Ben, we must find Hannah.” Alex battled the tension mounting inside him. Was she in danger even now? “I will take the stairs and start looking around the grounds, while you continue to look here and then go back inside to check she has not returned.”

“You fear for her, brother?”

“Aye,” Alex said.

“If I do not find her up here, I shall follow you into the gardens.” Ben ran one way, Alex the other.

The paths were lit with torches but it was still hard to distinguish one guest from another. The further he walked, the fewer guests he encountered, until there was just the sound of his booted feet crunching on the stones. Around him torches flickered, forming shadows among the bushes and trees. Where the hell was she?

The path opened into a courtyard. In the middle was a small fountain. Alex walked closer and peered in for no other reason than he could, while he thought about Hannah’s disappearance. Was she in danger?

A sound made him turn, but something hit him hard on the back of the head. Staggering slightly, he did not go down, but feared he was about to be hit again when he heard more footsteps.

“Alex!”

“Ben.” He managed the word, and then stumbled to his knees. His brother reached his side as he lost consciousness.

He woke to a cold cloth resting on his forehead and the worried faces of his brothers and Hannah looking down at him.

“Hannah!” He lifted a hand toward her as he tried to sit up. His relief at seeing her told him he needed to ask her something, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

“Alex, sssh, don’t talk, please.” She squeezed his hand and he subsided back onto the sofa.

“If you will ride home with your father, Hannah, I will have the carriage called and Phoebe and I will take him home,” Alex heard Finn say in a tight angry voice. He heard the rage his elder brother was battling to contain. “I want whoever is responsible for this, Lord Gemmell.”

“I shall of course start asking questions of both my guests and staff at once, Lord Hetherington.”

“Finn.” Alex reached for the hand Finn had braced on the back of the sofa he lay on. “I’m all right.”

His fingers were gripped hard before Finn released them. “You could have been killed, Alex, and I want the culprit found.”

Alex was too tired to argue, so instead he reached for Hannah. She moved closer, resting her hand on his shoulder, which gave him more comfort than the simple gesture should. She was becoming important to him, but right now he could not manage to think further than that.

“If you will alert my father, please, that I will be accompanying him home,” she said to someone. Her voice sounded weak, as if it were she who had suffered a blow to the head.

“Hannah, I will be all right,” Alex tried to reassure her.

“Sssh now, Alex, be quiet and still.” The cool touch of her fingers felt wonderful on his aching head.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered. “We need to talk tomorrow.”

“Yes.” She bent to brush a kiss on his cheek, then push the hair from his forehead. Alex felt her fingers tremble, and then she was gone, and he had no strength to call her back.

His brothers helped him to the carriage, and by the time he rested inside he was nauseous.

“If I wish to be ill, can I use your hat, Ben?”

“What’s wrong with yours?”

“It’s new.” Alex tried to sound outraged but instead sounded pathetic.

“Well, if you are sick in mine I shall simply take yours.”

“You may be sick in my shawl, Alex; it’s a hideous color and I have no idea why I let you convince me it went with this dress,” Phoebe said, trying to smile but failing. She’d been crying, and her face was pale, and her love for him humbled Alex.

“I’m all right, sister-in-law, I promise you… all of you,” he said, looking at Finn’s gritted jaw and Ben’s clenched fists.

“Do you remember anything, Alex?”

“No, but I saw that man again earlier, Finn, the one who I had believed was following me.”

“Then it is him we will find,” his brother said as he reached for his wife. “Come here, my love, let me hold you.”

Alex heard Finn murmur to Phoebe, telling her all would be well, telling her of his love, and he thought of Hannah. Why did he have a terrible feeling that what had happened tonight in some way involved her?

CHAPTER NINE

Three days after someone had hit Alex over the head and knocked him unconscious; Hannah left her house with her maid to do some much-needed shopping. He was well, because she had received word from him saying he would call on her later that day, and her father had said that when he saw Finn, Lord Levermarch had been happy with his brother’s progress. Hannah had not visited him, because she feared she would dissolve into tears. The thought that he had been hurt because of her had wormed its way into her head and taken root. How and why, she had no notion, but she was now certain that was the truth. If she had not implicated him in her charade, he would not have been struck down.

She had left the ballroom the night of the Gemmell ball after receiving a note, and walked into the gardens as it had directed her to do, but the blackmailer had not shown and when she returned to the house it had been to find a distraught Phoebe, and Alex lying on a chaise, pale and unconscious. Seeing him so lifeless had shocked her, and with that shock had come realization. She cared for him, deeply, and she must end this now, before he was hurt any more.

Imagining a world that Alex did not inhabit was horrifying and not something she wished to contemplate.

“We are to visit the milliner, Miss Wooller?”

“Yes, that will be our first stop, Mary.”

She let her maid chatter about what they needed while her mind returned to Alex. Lord Levermarch had started investigations as to why Alex had been attacked, and by whom, but as yet no lead had been found. She knew he would not stop until his brother’s attacker was found, and she hoped he was successful.

Sending her carriage away, Hannah and Mary entered the milliner’s. After walking the length of the street and purchasing three pairs of gloves for Bridgette and herself, and a new parasol for her sister, they started their return journey toward the carriage.

“Miss Wooller?”

A boy appeared before her.

“Yes, I am she.”

He thrust a note at her and then fled. Hannah’s hands shook as she opened it.
Meet me in Pickle lane, now.
The words were in black ink, the letters a ragged scrawl across the page, and the spelling terrible, and they sent a wave of terror up Hannah’s spine.

“Do you know where Pickle Lane is, Mary?” Hannah asked her maid.

“About a fifteen-minute walk from here heading east, Miss Wooller. Off Little Lane, then a right turn halfway down brings you out into it,” Mary said. “But it’s not a place for a lady. It’s frequented by some nasty folks.”

“I’m not going there, I have just heard it spoken off.” Hannah waved a hand about and then opened her reticule and pretended to look inside.

“Mary, I seem to have left my coin purse in one of the shops, could you fetch if for me?”

“Of course.” The maid hurried away, and Hannah quickly headed in the opposite direction. Following Mary’s directions, she walked as fast as she could without drawing too much attention to herself. Arriving at Little Lane, she turned down it and then right into Pickle Lane. It was narrow, the buildings rising high on each side, blocking the light. Straightening her shoulders, she ignored the huddle of young men gathered around something. What was she to do now she was here?

“You needs to go into that building, Miss.” The same boy who gave her the note appeared, pointing to the end of the lane.

Hannah nodded and started toward it. Trying not to wrinkle her nose at the unsanitary smells emitting from God knew what, she arrived at the building the boy had indicated and tapped on the door. It swung open immediately.

“Come inside, Miss Wooller.”

Hannah did, and it closed behind her. Spinning, she looked at the face of Bridgette’s father.

“I can pay you no more than what we originally agreed, Mr. Jacobs,” she said in a firm voice that she hoped hid her nerves.

Lionel Jacobs was a horrid man who had married her father’s sister and treated her terribly. The Wooller family had rescued Bridgette after her mother had died giving birth, and from that day forth she had been raised as Lord Wooller’s youngest daughter. No one but Phoebe, Hannah and her father, knew differently.

Jacobs had approached Hannah and told her he would make trouble for Bridgette and her father if she did not pay, so she did, and for a while that had worked. She hadn’t told her father simply because when she was first approached, he was bedridden due to his heart condition, but eyeing Jacob’s long narrow face and nasty sneer, she thought now was the time to do so.

“It’s not enough, I want more now.”

“No, I would rather go to my father and tell him the truth,” Hannah said. “I could manage the payments at our original price, but cannot if you increase it.”

“But he’s not alone now, so the price has gone up.”

She could do nothing to stop the gasp as a man stepped from the shadows. It was him, the one she had seen at the Gemmell ball; the one Alex had questioned her about.

“Who are you?” He was not overly tall, about her height, and his blond hair was brushed back from his forehead. His clothes were those of a gentleman. In his hand was a thin-bladed knife, and that caught and held her eyes.

“It matters not who I am, Miss Wooller, only that I am now the one you will be paying, and as of this moment you will follow my instructions, not those of Mr. Jacobs.”

“I will pay you not a penny more than was the original arrangement with Mr. Jacobs,” Hannah said, trying to sound firm when her knees were shaking under her skirts.

“The original arrangement has now been revised,” he said, moving to where Mr. Jacobs stood looking nervous, his eyes darting from Hannah to the man with the knife. “I shall apprise you of the details in due course.”

Hannah shook her head. “I don’t have more money to give you.”

“Miss Wooller, three nights ago I attempted to kill your friend Mr. Hetherington. Had he not moved I would have succeeded, so it would be in your best interests to listen carefully to what it is I require from you.”

Hannah’s body started to shake as he confirmed her worst fears. “That was you?”

“It was, and had his brother not appeared when he did, I would have struck him again and then he would have most assuredly been dead.”

“But why would you do that? It is me you want, not him, and as yet I have not denied you anything.” Hannah swallowed down the terror that clawed her throat, threatening to choke her.