TheCharmer (37 page)

Forsythe patted his pockets absently. "I put them somewhere…"

Rose narrowed her eyes at him. "Mr. Forsythe, if you are trying to stall me for some reason, I wouldn't recommend it. Besides, wouldn't you rather I use one of your fine pistols than some cheap thing I might obtain in the city?"

He shuddered. "You'll blow your lovely hand right off with that rubbish." He sighed, giving in. "Oh, very well." He handed her a doeskin pouch that held everything she needed.

She thanked him and turned back to the door. He followed her nervously. "Are you sure you know how to use it?"

"Yes, Mr. Forsythe, I've been trained by the best."

"It's pretty, but it's still a very deadly thing."

Rose wrapped her fingers around the carved butt. It settled into her palm, nestling there like a part of her hand. A perfect fit. "Not as deadly as I am," she murmured.

«
^
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As Rose left Forsythe's workshop, she turned to close the door carefully behind her. She paused to rub her tired eyes for a moment. Her spectacles had been lost in the flood. Even though she'd managed without them for most of her life, she missed them dreadfully now. Perhaps when all this was over, she could obtain new ones—

Of course, there was a very real chance that when all this was over, she'd be quite beyond the need of spectacles ever again.

So be it
. Louis Wadsworth must be stopped. If the Liars weren't up to the task, then someone must clean up the mess. Who better than a housemaid?

When she dropped her hands and turned, she saw Collis leaning insouciantly against the far wall, watching her.

He had his left arm tied beneath his shirt and open coat and his right hand on his hip, looking for all the world like a beau tolerantly waiting for his lady to finish her shopping.

He smiled at her wryly, but with hesitation in his gaze. "Hello, Rose."

Disgusting
. The word lashed through her memory like a whip. Collis thought she was disgusting, nothing more than a whore.

She covered her surprise with a slowly indrawn breath and the act of folding her arms over her breasts. "Nice work, Collis. Did it take you all night to figure this out?"

He straightened, raking her with a shadowed gaze. "What were you doing at Forsythe's, Rose?"

She laughed bitterly. "Something dangerous and illegal, of course." She raised her chin. "You needn't bother to try and stop me, Collis. You know I'll only toss you."

To her astonishment, he grinned, a fierce flash of white in the dim passage. "If you are talking about eliminating Louis Wadsworth once and for all, I have no intention of stopping you." He stepped forward until she could see the approving light in his gray eyes. "In fact, I am here to help."

The ice that she'd wrapped her heart in threatened to melt. No. She could not allow herself to believe in him. She stepped back slightly. There was still room to maneuver, if she didn't allow him to get too close.

Never, never would she be close to him again
. If she weren't made of ice, she'd be finding it very difficult to breathe at this moment. "Why would you do that? Why would you risk your precious place with the Liars to help me?"

"Because I—" He stopped. He seemed oddly cautious. Rose tried to read his face in the shadows. She wished she had her spectacles.

Collis could scarcely bear the suspicion etched into the delicate planes of her face. Yet a mere apology seemed so worthless. "We are partners, you and I, remember?" he said in a low voice. "Because I trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone in my life." He wanted to drop to his knees and beg her forgiveness, but he was fairly positive she wouldn't believe a word he said. Words. His gift—but words had always failed with Rose. More substantial proof was required.

So he ignored his yearning heart and simply favored her with that cocky grin of old. "Besides,
I
know where Louis Wadsworth will be having dinner this evening."

Rose followed Collis through the service entrance of Etheridge House. He breezed through the kitchen with a flirtatious word to the cook, who slapped at him playfully with a plump, floured hand. Then he led the way up the service stairs to the servants' passage outside the dining room.

"Why don't you give me that pistol?" he whispered to her when they had paused at the plain door marked only D for dining room.

"Why don't you take a flying leap over the Thames?" retorted Rose. She pressed the catch and allowed the door to open a tiny slit.

There, at a lovely table set with the finest of everything Etheridge House had to offer—which was finer than anything Rose had ever seen—sat the Prince Regent, his bruised face highly powdered, the Prime Minister, Lord Etheridge, Sir Simon Raines… and Mr. Louis Wadsworth.

"What's your plan?" Collis whispered in her ear.

"Plan?" She was watching Louis with disbelief. He was laughing carefully at something the Prince Regent said as the Sergeant, resplendent in his military-style livery, bent to offer him something savory and expensive from a salver.

Louis was being
feasted
?

That was beyond all she could bear. Rose brought the pistol from her dress pocket and stepped forward. Leveling the barrel directly between Louis Wadsworth's eyes, she stopped within a yard of him. No chance of missing at this distance.

"Confess," she said.

"Wh-what?" Wadsworth nearly choked on his beef.

The royal guards in the room leaped forward but dared not touch her while she held the pistol. Collis waved them back.

Liverpool jerked in shock. "Dare you pull a weapon in the presence of His Highness?"

George burped delicately and patted his royal lips with a piece of snowy monogrammed linen. "What weapon? I see no weapon."

Wadsworth flicked a gaze from the barrel of the pistol to the Prince Regent, then back to a now-silent Prime Minister. Dalton moved to stand but halted when Simon shook his head.

"Confess," whispered Rose.

"You're mad," Louis sneered. Then he blinked and looked closer. "Who are you?"

"I'm no one." Rose smiled. "No one at all—with nothing left to lose."

"I'll have you brought to justice for this! You'll be hanged!"

Rose tilted her head. "You won't be there to see it."

"You're dead already."

"Am I? When it is I who hold the pistol?" She waggled it. Wadsworth's eyes followed the movement and his jaw worked. He let his eyes flicker around the table, but Rose guessed he saw no help there.

"What was it you said the other day, Louis?" mused George. "Ah, yes." He leaned back, the fingers of one hand gingerly exploring his bruised mouth. "You are pressing your luck, Mr. Wadsworth."

Louis's eyes flicked to the fading bruises on George's face, to the more battered Collis, then back to the hole in the barrel of the disturbingly pretty pistol aimed unerringly at his brain.

"Confess," Rose sang softly.

Louis, obviously still hoping to salvage something, shrugged ruefully. "It was my father who made the deal with Arch-Chancellor Talleyrand. Wadsworth Munitions was built with Napoleon's money. Then the favor came due. I was only afraid—they threatened me! I had to fulfill the bargain, don't you understand?" He turned insistent eyes on the Prime Minister and the Prince Regent. "They said they'd break me!"

Liverpool narrowed his eyes. "You're a fool, Wadsworth. A bit of bankruptcy is nothing next to treason."

"No! Not treason—you can't prove that!"

Rose cleared her throat. "Pardon me for the interruption, but I should like to point out that I needn't prove a thing. All I need to do is tighten my finger the slightest bit…"

"Rose. No." Collis's voice was just a breath, but Rose closed her eyes momentarily at the sound of her name on his lips. Then she eased her trigger finger.

She turned her head to gaze at Liverpool. "He ought to pay. He tried to have us assassinate you."

Liverpool slid his gaze sideways to take in Dalton and Simon. "Interesting."

"He forged your name on a manifest, to make it seem as though you were behind a plot to have George declared as mad as his father."

The Prince Regent also raised a brow at Dalton and Simon. Dalton managed a cool smile, as if he'd never believed a word of it.

Lord Liverpool's gaze flicked back to Louis. "Did he now?"

"Who
are
you, woman?" Louis snapped.

She tilted her head and regarded him without emotion. "I wasn't a woman when we met. Don't you remember seducing the housemaid, Louis? Don't you remember twisting her up in knots to get her into your bed, only to beat her nearly senseless when your own equipment eventually failed you?"

Shock paled his features. "
You
?"

She nodded calmly. "Me."

He stuttered for a moment, then his gaze sharpened. "Then—then, Your Highness, my lords—this is simply a bit of female vengeance—"

"This isn't revenge, Louis. I don't care one way or the other about you anymore." She let the candlelight shimmer from the lovely pistol, reflecting it into his eyes. "I could kill you, I'm sure. I'm quite capable of it now. However, I don't
yearn
to kill you." She gazed at him serenely. "Unless you force me to."

Louis appeared to be close to breaking. Rose could almost hear the panicked, plotting thoughts swirling through his mind. It would be best not to let him think overlong. "Louis, confess. My hand grows tired. I daresay my finger will slip soon."

"Very well," he spat. "I forged the manifest!"

Rose eyed the other four men at the table. "Do you gentlemen have any more questions for Louis? He seems to be in a talkative mood."

Dalton gazed at her appraisingly. "Thank you, Miss Lacey. I believe we can take it from here."

Wadsworth protested. "You cannot put faith in a confession at the point of a pistol!"

Rose shook her head. "I don't give a rotten fig, Louis." She glanced toward the Prime Minister. "Do you?"

Lord Liverpool quirked his lips. "Not particularly."

Rose released a breath. Then she carefully handed the pistol to the Prime Minister. "It's a very nice pistol, my lord. I recommend its maker highly."

"Indeed." Liverpool regarded it for a moment before training it quite purposefully on Louis Wadsworth.

George leaned back from the table and bent a kindly smile on Wadsworth. "Louis, dear boy. It seems the responsibility of such an important industry has become too much for you. Might I recommend an extended stay in the Tower? At His Majesty's pleasure, of course. No need to worry about your factory. I'm sure the British government would be happy to confise—relieve you of such a tremendous burden."

Rose faded back, away from the table. It was over at last Louis had cost her dearly, but it was finally over.

Wadsworth was spilling everything in a rush, obviously desperate to get back into his patron's good graces. Collis stepped up to corroborate the facts of the matter.

Rose saw Collis turn his head to look about the room. She ducked quickly behind a fascinated footman and calmly escaped the dining room.

It was time to disappear.

As Rose made her way through the fine halls of Etheridge House, heading out a side garden door she was fairly sure would be unguarded, it occurred to her that she had nowhere to go.

Perhaps she could work at Mrs. Blythe's, she thought wryly through her pain.

Then she heard Collis calling out to her. Quickening her pace, she ducked down the heavily carpeted gallery. High, wide windows punctuated the length of the chamber along one side, and life-size paintings of past Etheridges hung upon the other.

A hand came down heavily on her shoulder. "Rose, please—"

Thud.

Rose squatted down next to a prone and panting Collis, shaking her head. "You never learn. Did that hurt?"

"Yes," he wheezed.

She eyed his splinted and bound arm worriedly. "Did I jar your broken bones?"

"Probably."

"Good." She stood to gaze down at him in exasperation, her hands on her hips. "You deserve it for spoiling my perfectly good clean getaway."

"So sorry." His breath seemed to be coming back to him. "But I must talk to you."

She folded her arms. "I can't imagine what we have to talk about."

He sat up slowly, wincing. "I don't think I can stand at the moment. Would you mind terribly coming down here?"

She couldn't help a short laugh. Damn him for making her laugh when she hated him so! Dropping to her knees next to him in the hall, she made sure there was more than an arm's length of floor between them. "I'm listening."

He took a deep breath. "You cannot leave m—us. You cannot leave the Liars."

The Liars. Of course. "Watch me." She moved to stand again. "If I don't want to be found, no one will find me. Kurt and the others trained me as well as you, you know."