The Last Hellion (40 page)

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

He told his story concisely. He was sure that Her Grace knew more about Mad Dorrie than she let on. "She made sure to slip out before I could ask any more questions." he said. "If Coralie did kill the old woman—and the signs do point to it—we both wondered why. I can't help thinking the duchess knew the answer. I assumed the old woman was a threat to the bawd. Knew where she was hiding, perhaps, and made the mistake of opening her mouth about it. Or threatening to do so."

"Or else she had a fine hiding place that Coralie wanted," Tamsin said. "Lydia must have had a definite destination in mind. She wouldn't have run off in such a hurry otherwise." She frowned. "Yet I don't understand why she hasn't sent word of her whereabouts, as she promised."

Vere did not want to think about the reason his wife wouldn't—or couldn't—

send word. This whole day had been a nightmare, ever since he'd received her last message. Mars, exhausted, had stumbled from the carriage during the first stop to change horses. He'd sprained his ankle and had to be left at the inn. Then one of the horses had gone lame. Ten miles from London, a drunkard driving a dormeuse had passed too close and damaged one of their wheels. An exasperated Vere had walked to the next change, hired a horse, and ridden at breakneck speed the remaining distance. Then, when he finally reached home, Vere found his wife wasn't there.

The waking nightmares that had plagued his mind all the frustrating way to London now carried his wife's image as well as his wards'. She'd sent for him.

She needed him. He'd come, as fast as he could, as he'd done for Robin.

Too late
, the refrain played in his mind.
Too late
.

"Your Grace?"

Vere came out of the nightmare, made himself focus on Constable Bell.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

"The name 'Mad Dorrie' appears to strike no sparks of recognition in present company," Bell said.

"A river-finder, according to Grenville," Vere said. "Last seen in the vicinity of the Ratcliffe Highway." He wracked his brains, to no avail. "If I ever did see her there, I was too drunk or too busy brawling to notice."

"If Jaynes were with you, mebbe he noticed," said Bertie Trent.

Vere turned a blank look upon him.

"Also, he's London born and bred, didn't you tell me?" Bertie went on. "If Miss G

—meanin' Her Grace—heard of Mad Dorrie, I'd think Jaynes would've, too.

Sounds like the old woman were kind of famous once."

Vere's astonished gaze shifted to Tamsin, who was beaming at her intended.

"How clever of you, Bertie," she said. "We should have thought of Jaynes immediately." She rose from her chair and went to the library table. She drew a paper from one of the neat piles there. "He will be starting his evening route in half an hour. You should be able to find him at Pearkes's oyster house, if you set out right away."

The three men and the dog were on their way out of the house a moment later.

Lydia had managed to elude Constable Bell, but she did not elude Tom. When she turned back into High Street, the ragamuffin popped out of a side street.

"Where you goin'?" he demanded. "Yer fancy coach is back that way." He gestured with his thumb.

"Where I'm going, I can't take a fancy coach," she said.
Or constables
, she added silently. The denizens of London's underworld could detect a "trapp" or

"horney"—a thieftaker or constable—from miles away. Upon which discovery, Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

criminals vanished and their acquaintances inevitably had "never heard of 'em."

At present, Coralie might be aware she was being sought, but she would think herself safe. Lydia preferred not to dispel that illusion. In the ordinary way, Coralie was dangerous enough. Cornered, she would turn rabid.

Lydia frowned at Tom. "Did Miss Price tell you to follow me?"

The boy shook his head. "No, Miss G, I tole myself. On account if you got into trouble, it'd be my fault, on account how I lost 'em."

"If you hadn't spotted them in the first place, I shouldn't have a single idea where to look," Lydia said. "But I shan't argue with you. I'm going to need help, and I reckon you'll do."

A hackney was approaching. She summoned it, directed the driver to Ratcliffe, and climbed inside with Tom.

Then she explained the situation. She told him about Mad Dorrie, and her suspicions that Coralie had wanted the old woman's abode as a hideout. Mad Dorrie being a troublesome creature to have about, Coralie had doubtless murdered her and thrown her into the river.

"The house is important. It's isolated, on a stretch of riverside only the rats seem to like," Lydia explained. "But Dorrie had a boat, which is also important. I think what Coralie means to do is send a ransom note, summoning me there. It's bound to be a trap. I've had no word so far from Miss Price about a ransom note, which tells me Corrie means to wait until dark. It's easier to lay an ambush then, and she'd have no trouble getting away right after, on the boat. My best chance of foiling her plans is to arrive before she expects me."

"It looks to me like yer best chance'd be to bring along the big fellow you married. And some other big fellows, with cudgels."

"His Grace wasn't back by the time I got to Shad-well," Lydia said. "There's no Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

telling when he'll get back. In any case, there isn't time to send for him—or anybody—and wait for them to come. It's growing dark already. We haven't a minute to lose if we want to take her by surprise. We'll have to make do with any reinforcements we can collect in Mad Dome's neighborhood. The kind who look like they belong there."

"I know some fellers there," Tom said. "And some game gals."

Meanwhile, within Mad Dorrie's filthy house, Nell was rapidly succumbing to blind terror.

Ever since Annette had left, Nell had become Corrie's chief girl. She had all of Annette's frocks, which were by far the prettiest, and all of Annette's special customers, who were not so pretty. But they paid the most, and Nell got to keep half, and if the work was often disagreeable in the extreme, there was less of it.

Today, Corrie had promised that Nell would hardly have to work at all anymore, because they were going to be rich and go to Paris. They'd catch Annette, and get back everything she'd stolen, and be even richer.

The more time passed, the less Nell was liking the plan. They'd be making the first part of the trip in the slimy, filthy boat tethered a short distance away at a broken-down wharf. Nell had no affection for boats, especially small ones, and especially ones that had been used for collecting dead bodies from the river. She didn't know how Corrie had come by the boat, or the house, which, filthy as it was, bore all the signs of having been lived in very recently.

At present, darkness was settling in, and wind blew in from the river through numerous chinks. Corrie was down at the boat, loading some necessities for the journey. The two gentry morts were locked up in the storeroom, but they were precious quiet, and Nell felt very much alone. Every time the wind blew, it Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

sounded like human moans, and the house creaked and cracked, as though someone walked about in it.

Nell knew the house had belonged to a river-finder, because the notices offering rewards for recovery of the bodies were tacked up on the walls. It wasn't hard to figure out that this house had held more than its share of corpses. To her, it smelled like death. Shuddering, she stared at the note on the table.

Corrie had spent hours writing one note after another on the back of old handbills, and with each new note, she demanded more. In between, she amused herself by going into the storeroom and telling the girls what she would do to them if the Duchess of Ainswood didn't do exactly as the note told her to.

The trouble was, Nell was .becoming surer by the minute that Coralie Brees was going to do what she threatened just for spite. She hadn't any reason to leave the girls alive, and it wasn't like her to leave behind anyone who might tell tales.

She'd have her ransom money, and a boat, and she could slip away easy as anything in the night Why leave anyone alive who might peach on her?

Including Nell.

The door opened then, and Corrie came in. She took Nell's bonnet and shawl from a peg and threw them at her. "Time to get goin'," the bawd said. "It's ten minutes to the gin-shop and back, and if you dawdle one extra minute I'll send Mick after you to make you sorry."

Nell was to take the note to the gin-shop, give it and a coin to the boy who swept the floor, and have him deliver it to Ainswood House. The boy, knowing nothing, would have nothing to tell anyone there. Corrie obviously didn't want to risk Mick's or Nell's being bribed into betraying her.

Slowly, Nell put on her bonnet and tied the strings. Slowly, she drew on her shawl. Once she stepped out the door, she'd have but ten minutes, and she Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

couldn't decide which was worse: to come back and take her chances with Corrie, which chances by now seemed about as dim as the two girls'; make a mad run for Ainswood House, with Mick on her heels and likely an army of constables and magistrates at her destination, if she made it that far; or run instead for the boat and take her chances on the treacherous river.

By the time she crossed the threshold, her mind was made up.

At the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, Lydia ducked behind an overturned boat. A moment later, she heard the footsteps turn toward the river rather than the path leading to the road. Peering out from behind the boat, she saw a feminine figure stumble down over the rocks close by the rotting remains of a wharf.

She drew out the knife one of the prostitutes had lent her and stealthily approached the figure, praying it was Coralie.

Frantically engaged in unlooping the rope tied to the pier, her prey didn't hear her approach.

An instant later, Lydia had the knife at the woman's back. "Cry out and I'll have your kidneys," she whispered.

One gasp, and her prey went utterly still.

It wasn't Coralie, unless she'd shrunk a few inches in all directions.

That was disappointing, but it might have been worse.

This turned out to be Nell, and she must have come from the house, which meant she knew what was going forward there.

Lydia drew her toward the slippery stones under the wharf. "Cooperate, and I'll see that no harm comes to you," Lydia told her in an undertone. "Are the girls Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

alive?"

"Y-yes. Leastways, they was when I left."

"In the river-finder's house—not a quarter mile east of here?"

"Yes'm." Nell was shaking, her teeth chattering. "Corrie's there with 'em, and Mick's watching outside. I was to send off the ransom note and come right back

—they'll be lookin' for me any minute now."

"She's going to kill them, isn't she?"

"Yes'm. Them and you. She weren't goin' to do like the note says. Goin' to wait to spring on you 'n' kill you first and get the money from you. 'N' I expect she'll kill the gals once she gets the money. 'N' she said she'll take me to Paris, but she won't, I know. She'll do for me in the boat and throw me over." Nell began to sob. "I knew it were goin' to be bad," she gulped out. "Soon as I seen she weren't bringin 'em back quick, like she said she would. She hates you, worse than anythin' in all the world."

Lydia moved away, untied the boat, and let it drift. Whatever Coralie accomplished this night, she would not escape that way.

"I've got to get Ainswood's wards," Lydia told Nell. "You can come along or try to make it to the Bell and Bottle. Once you get there, you'll be safe enough."

"I'll come," said Nell. "I won't never get to the Bell and Bottle in one piece.

Mick's as bad as Jos and Bill."

Then Mick would have to be disposed of first, Lydia decided. And disposed of quickly and quietly. That was not going to be easy. Her allies consisted of three street arabs, none more than ten years old, and two of the sorriest specimens of prostitutes she'd ever encountered. But that was the best she'd been able to round up on short notice, even with Tom's help.

Everyone else immediately available in the environs was either too drunk, too Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

broken-down, or too villainous.

She would have given anything at this moment to have Ainswood at her side.

But he wasn't, and all she could do was hope Nell was right: that Coralie truly meant to wait until after she got the ransom to take her vicious revenge on Elizabeth and Emily.

And so Lydia hoped, and prayed, as she set out with Nell for Mad Dome's abode.

Since their hostess had given them a detailed description of what she meant to do with them, Elizabeth and Emily had no trouble grasping the meaning of the sound they heard not many minutes after the door slammed behind Nell.

In the silence, it was easy enough to detect the sound of breaking glass. They'd already seen the bottle. Coralie had waved it in their faces several times.

Swallowing her revulsion, Elizabeth picked up the squirming sack she'd hidden under a decaying heap of straw, and slightly loosened the strip of petticoat she'd torn off to tie it with. She pushed Emily toward the door. Emily flattened herself against one side of it.

"No heroics," Elizabeth whispered. "Just
run
."

Biting her lip, Emily nodded.

They waited what seemed like a year but was only about two minutes before the door opened and Coralie started in, the broken bottle in her hand.

Emily screamed, Elizabeth flung the sack in their captor's face, and the bawd screeched when a terrified rat caught hold of her hair. Elizabeth hurtled at the witch, knocking her down. Emily ran out the door. An instant later, Elizabeth scrambled up and raced out after her.

She heard Emily screaming, saw the ogre Mick chasing her, heard the bawd Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

screeching obscenities.

She ran to save her sister.

Lydia had been about to go after Mick, who was hot on the girl's heels, when she saw Coralie burst from the house.