This Earl Is on Fire (20 page)

“W
olford, what brings you here this morning?” Vale asked after Liam cleared his throat from the study doorway. The duke was on his knees, tinkering with the gears and the pendulum. “Ivy was feeling a little peaked, and so I thought I could cheer her by finishing the automatic cradle.”

“Uncle Albert asked me to meet him here this morning to look over his latest acquisitions, but according to your butler, he left a short while ago. So I thought I'd stop in here and tell you my news.” Liam took a deep breath, ignoring the sting of betrayal he now felt. “Miss Pimm and I are to be wed.”

Vale frowned and stood, dusting his hands together. “And yet this announcement comes from a rather severe-looking countenance. Shouldn't you be elated?”

An hour ago, perhaps. But he'd been proven a fool. “When you first knew you were marrying Ivy, I don't recall your being happy about it. In fact, you were downright terror-stricken.”

“For good reason. My
Marriage Formula
was on the line, if you'll recall.” Vale shrugged and laughed to himself, as if that were his favorite memory. “Everything I'd worked to achieve, all of my longstanding beliefs—they all meant nothing. Not if I couldn't have Ivy.”

Liam wanted that luxury of having his longstanding beliefs—that no debutante was trustworthy—disproven in the face of an honest love. And for a brief time, he thought he'd had that, so he knew what he was missing.

For now, he'd rather not think about it. Distracting himself, he picked up a figurine on the desk. “What is this?”

“A gift from Albert for allowing him to stay while his own house is unavailable. Apparently, this was found in a tomb of the first pharaoh to build a great pyramid.”

“Khufu's tomb?” Liam shook his head. Poor Albert. He'd been swindled again. “Did he say from whom he purchased this?”

Vale lifted his brows. “No. He said he unearthed this himself.”

“That isn't possible,” Liam said, walking over to Vale to show him the reasons. “This pottery is too new, likely forged within the past year. Here, you can see that the patina has been fabricated. And if you draw in the odor, there are remnants of a distinctive mossy creosote, likely used to make it appear ancient.”

Vale took the figure in hand and scratched his thumbnail over the surface to confirm Liam's suspicions. “Such a pity. I'd actually held out some hope that it was genuine.” He clucked his tongue. “Albert has been obsessed with artifacts for such a long time that one would expect him to know the difference.”

“True,” Liam agreed. “Though it surprised me to learn that he knows of the symposium I'm giving to the Royal Society. He said that Edith had mentioned it to him.”

“That doesn't sound like Edith. After all, she was the one who asked us to conceal what we could about the bust to keep both Albert and Gemma from embarrassment.”

“Those were my thoughts as well, nonetheless . . .” Liam shrugged.

“Come to think of it,” Vale continued, “he recently asked me if I'd ever seen the head of Aphrodite in your collection. I evaded the question, mentioning something in regard to the head of one goddess being equal another.”

Goddess . . . The mention abruptly brought back the memory of Liam's dream this morning.
Where is the goddess? If you let her go, we could end this.

An inexplicable chill stole over him.

“When Albert visited me last week, he never once mentioned Aphrodite.”

“I've often wondered if he ever suspected he was swindled. Perhaps that was the reason he asked about it.”

“We should hope, for his sake. Yet if he suspected as much—especially considering the topic of my lecture—I doubt he would want to draw attention to it. Likely, he would speak to either of us directly, instead of all this skirting around.”

“Not unless . . .” Vale scratched the patina from the figurine again. “Uncle Albert isn't as naïve as we'd thought.”

They exchanged a look. Liam felt a peculiar tension spread through his shoulders. He didn't like where his thoughts were taking him.

“If that were true then he wouldn't have wanted me to lecture on the topic of forgery at the Society. He might have gone to great pains to ensure that I no longer possessed the marble he sold me.” At the mention of pain, his memory took him to the night of his attack and then to the dream that woke him this very morning. What if those men truly were asking for the head of Aphrodite? What if this dream had been some amalgamation of the truth?

Vale began to move about the room, pacing, his brow furrowed. “Considering how odd Albert has been behaving as of late, and how we have witnessed his dishonesty, it is a fair assumption that he would not want his reputation sullied by the exposure. Just think of all the artifacts he has sold.”

“That
is
how he earns his living,” Liam added.

“To be certain, he would want to know where the goddess was. He might even search your houses.”

“He's only visited one of which I'm aware. Of late, the only other uninvited guest has been a burglar.” Liam blinked, eyes wide with sudden clarity.

“Normally, I would caution you against such a leap of imagination,” Vale added in understanding. “However, I'm not entirely certain it is too far a leap.”

It did not take long before the pieces began to fall in place.

“The burglaries. The Turkish dagger through the sketch of the Elgin marbles.” Liam went still. “No wonder nothing of great value had ever been stolen. They were only searching for the goddess.”

“He wasn't in town for those thefts, but it's possible that he hired some disreputable men to do the work. Others houses were ransacked as well, perhaps in order to keep you from figuring it out.”

“Inspector Hollycott always thought the burglaries were linked to my attack.”

Vale gritted his teeth. “And when those men grew tired of searching, they took a more direct approach.”

“I am ashamed that I missed it all this time—” Liam broke off, remembering Albert reading over the invoice in his study. “Albert knows where the head is.”

“The forgery is in a crate at the Royal Society already.”

“No, the
real
Aphrodite. He likely thinks that is his copy. In fact, he might have sent his men to Sudgrave Terrace or even has gone there himself. After all, why would he ask me to pay a call—and then not bother to be here—unless he wanted to ensure he knew precisely where
I
was going to be?”

Liam started toward the door, Vale close behind.

F
ortunately, Adeline discovered that the doors between their adjoining houses were still unlocked. Instead of darkness greeting her this morning, sunlight filtered in through the window at the end of the hallway. It made it much easier to locate the letter.

Picking it up, she held it to her bosom. She still felt every tender wish and promise she'd written, but those words were too revealing now. If Liam read this letter after what had transpired between them, then he might even think she was trying to manipulate him into marriage. She couldn't risk it. Speaking to him was the better option anyway. She needed him to understand that she wasn't trying to trap him, nor was she going to marry him.

Note in hand, she made her way to the room they'd shared last night, practicing how she would begin their conversation.

“After careful consideration . . .” No, no, that was far too dry and formal. He deserved more tenderness than that, and so did she, for that matter.

Then perhaps a simple, honest “I love you, but I won't marry you” would be better? She frowned, not liking that at all either. Telling someone you love him should never be followed by
but
. . .

She hesitated at the door, listening carefully. When she did not hear anything from within, she peered through the opening, but he wasn't there. She needed him to know that marriage had not been her goal last night. In fact, she hadn't even had an end in mind. When he'd kissed her, all her thoughts tumbled out of her head. Likely, she should have discussed it with him this morning
before
he sought out her father. Now everything was in a muddle.

A murmur of voices from below caught her attention. Thinking that he might be in his study with his solicitor—or worse, telling his family—Adeline quietly descended the stairs in search of him.

On the main floor, she heard a noise coming from the study and continued onward. Hesitating only long enough to draw in a fortifying breath, she rapped quietly on the door and nudged it open.

In the same moment, however, she discovered that it was not Liam in the study.

A strange, burly man in a bowler hat and brown coat stood near a crate. Because he held an iron lever bar, she assumed he was a footman sent to unpack Liam's things, and offered a polite smile. “Pardon me, but I was looking for Lord Wolford. Is he in, by any chance?”

Curious, she glanced down at the contents of the crate and saw the profile of a large, pale marble head.

“Nah,” the man said, taking a step closer and effectively blocking her view. With a grin of his own, his gaze shifted from her to a point over her shoulder.

She looked back, surprised again, but this time to see Liam's uncle walking steadily toward her. “Oh! Mr. Desmond, how nice to see you again.”

He touched the brim of his hat in greeting. “Miss Pimm, a pleasure indeed. But I'm afraid you've caught me at quite an inconvenient time,” he said rather cryptically and offered a nod to the man behind her.

“I'm not certain what you mean, sir. I only came to see if I could find Wolford. Is he about?”

“He is not. In fact, no one was supposed to be here. Which is rather unfortunate for you, now that you've seen Aphrodite.”

A terrible icy chill rushed down her limbs at the sight of his peculiar smile and the eerie brightness in his dark brown eyes. Then, without warning, a large hand clamped over her mouth and nose as an arm cinched around her waist, seizing her and trapping one of her arms by her side.

She screamed, panic and terror overtaking her.

What was happening?

She clawed at the hand, trying to pull it away, trying to catch her breath. Her lungs started to burn, her throat raw. She kicked. Punched. Scratched, but to no avail. None of her blows earned even a grunt of pain. Her limbs were starting to feel slow and weighted.

All of her struggling was only making her tired . . . so tired. And all the while, Mr. Desmond just stood and watched.

Her last thought before everything went black was sadness for Liam. He couldn't even trust his own uncle.

L
iam spotted the missing crate the instant he strode into the study. Damn, he was too late to catch Albert in the act.

Vale followed him. “For a head of that size, they would have needed a dray and likely would have gone out the back.”

They both turned to rush down the hall, toward the rear of the house. But then Liam caught sight of a note on the floor at his feet, his name written in a looped feminine scrawl. He paused to pick it up, knowing it hadn't been there before.

A sense of unease filled him and only grew as he read.

My dearest Liam,

After thirty years have come and gone, and you have at last met your young bride, please spare a thought for me—the one who loved you without expectation. For I will be thinking of you all the days of my life. And each night I will whisper your name in a prayer that you find more happiness than you ever have imagined.

All my love,

A

Liam's hand trembled, the words blurring on the page. Adeline was here. But when? Had she left the note early this morning, before the burglary? Clutching the note to his chest, he hoped that was the case.

It was only when he looked down at the straw strewn over the floor that he noticed the shoe. A green satin-covered half boot with a three-inch wedge of cork.

He went cold, shaking his head in fervent but necessary denial, even as he bent to pick up the boot. Perhaps she had meant to leave the note on his desk and—in her rush to run back home—it slipped out of her hand at the same time her boot fell off. Or she could have lost it simply fleeing to safety when she happened upon the intruders . . .

But he knew better. The men who attacked him, who beat him to near death, would not have let her escape.

“They have taken her.” Terror like he'd never known before turned his body to ice but put fire in his veins too. He bolted out the door.

Without knocking, he rushed into Boswick's house and asked Finmore if he'd seen Adeline. Just then, Boswick himself appeared, descending the stairs.

“I just came from her room,” Boswick said. “Bunny said she was ill. But when I went to check on her, she wasn't there.”

Liam held up the note. “I believe she meant to leave me this in my study, but encountered”—his voice was shaking now, dread clawing at his throat—“burglars. I think they've taken her.”

Dear Lord,
he prayed that was all. If anything happened to her . . . he would murder every person responsible, family or not.

Boswick went white. “Finmore, send for Gladwin. We need the carriage.”

Vale came running up behind him just then. “I spotted Albert hailing a hack around the corner. He was alone. We can't be too far behind. No more than a quarter hour.”

A quarter hour. A lifetime. “Then we have to find the dray. They have taken Adeline,” Liam said, desperate, fisting his hand in his hair. “I don't even know which direction to look.”

If she encountered Albert and his henchman, then what could they want with her? Ransom? No. They wouldn't need ransom if they already had the head of Aphrodite.

“Albert would want to dispose of the evidence as soon as possible, believing there will be no other link to him and the forgery,” Vale said, reading Liam's thoughts.

Albert might even want to
dispose of
anyone who'd caught him in the act.

“We are in Knightsbridge, so the closest and easiest way would be to”—a sudden wash of clarity and newfound terror hit Liam—“throw it into the Thames.”

Briefly, Vale put his head in his hands as if he'd come to the same conclusion.

“There isn't time.” Liam couldn't wait for Gladwin to bring the carriage around. “I'll move faster on horseback.”

They both looked through the open door to find the streets filling with carriages and high-steppers.

With one purpose in mind, Liam ran straight out in the thick of it. “Ho, there! You! I need a horse.”

“Is that Lord Wolford?” a woman in a feathered hat asked her companions from atop a phaeton. “What sort of scandalous deed is he up to now?”

Similar jeers followed, his past sins coming to haunt him at the worst possible moment. Didn't they know a desperate man when they saw one?

“You need a horse?” a man said from behind him.

Liam whirled around to see a somewhat familiar face beneath a gray John Bull. “I do. Please.” He didn't even care that his voice broke.

The man—Viscount Ellery, if memory served—dismounted immediately. “Take care of her, Wolford.”

“I will. Thank you.” No doubt, Ellery was speaking of his mare, but Liam only had one thought. He had to find Adeline.

Wasting no time, he mounted the horse and headed toward the Thames.

A
deline awoke with a horrendous headache. She groaned. Her neck and body stiff, something hard digging into her back. And a wall pressed against her forehead. The air around her was dry and filled with debris, sticks poking her face, making her cough. She tried to lift her hands to brush it away from her mouth and nose, but her efforts were hindered by the confined space.

It took her a moment to realize that they weren't sticks, but piles of straw. And it wasn't a wall either. It was a box.

She was inside Aphrodite's crate.

The rocking motion beneath her forced the marble head to shift closer and made Adeline aware that she was moving, likely on the back of a cart.

Well, at least the men hadn't killed her.

She wondered where they were taking her. It was then that she noticed the sounds around her—traffic noises, horse hooves on stone, the jangle of carriage rigging, the echo of a bell near water.

Water
.

“They didn't take care to make sure you were dead before, Adeline,” she said, choking back tears, “because they are getting rid of the evidence . . . and you.”

E
ven at this early hour, there were dozens of drays on the bridge, as well as men and women on foot and on horseback. Carts were everywhere, filled with wares to sell at market or stacked with the worldly possessions of those looking for a chance at a better life in London.

But there was only one dray driving out of town as if hell were on its heels. The crate had familiar markings too, but from this distance, Liam couldn't be certain. He had no fixed reason for following that cart in particular, just instinct.

“Do you see her?” Vale shouted. Having
borrowed
a two-horse carriage, he was close behind, sitting beneath the folding top over the driver's seat.

Liam didn't see her, but he knew she was there. Somehow he
knew
and prayed that he was right. “Up there. The fellow with the bowler hat heading south.”

His voice must have carried, because the man turned sharply, looking over his shoulder at Liam. Abruptly, the memory of his attack returned. That was the man who'd beaten him. In fact, Liam likely would have died if not for the good crack he got at the thug's nose.

Then the man turned back to his horse, using a whip to spur it forward, faster.

The cart was close to the edge of the bridge where there was nothing but a small, upraised layer of brick to keep it from tipping over the side. Liam knew he had to hurry.

He didn't know this horse well enough to know if it was skittish, but so far she'd been steady under pressure. Weaving through the hoard, Liam kept his focus on the crate. It was jostling around far too much. One rough rut and it could bounce over the edge.

But as he watched, he saw something amazing. The corner of the lid began to lift, gradually at first, and then it shot upward all of the sudden. He caught a glimpse of a slender leg and a single green half boot as the lid tumbled over the side and down into the water below.

Relief and terror filled him simultaneously when he saw a bedraggled Adeline emerge from the straw. She was alive! But now the man driving the cart knew it too.

The henchman reached back for her with one hand, grabbing at whatever he could, taking hold of her hair. Adeline's head snapped back, and she cried out.

Twisting, she managed to free herself, but only just. She was still trapped on the back of that cart with nowhere to go.

Liam rode faster, Adeline nearly within his reach.

T
here was one good thing about being underestimated, Adeline thought. Her attacker had not thought to bind her arms or legs. Nor had he taken the time to secure the crate properly. There were gaps above her that let in plenty of light, enough to see how the lid shifted up and down on the nails with every bump they hit. She'd simply needed to give it a swift kick.

And once she was free, she took a moment to feel pleased by her accomplishment. Unfortunately, she'd celebrated too soon, and found herself within her captor's reach.

She wrenched her hair free, the shortened locks slipping through his fingers. Then, scrambling up on her knees, she made it to the opposite end of the crate where the marble head stared at her with blandly interested eyes, as if waiting to see what would happen next.

Adeline contemplated jumping, but then she saw where they were. The cart was on the very edge of the bridge. One slip of the wheel and she would go down a very long distance to the water.

“Adeline!”

Liam!
Her heart leapt when she looked up and saw him riding pell-mell. He found her! “Be careful!” she shouted, hating how close the horse was to the edge.

He seemed to take care, because he came around to the other side, wedging between the cart and the crowd of people lining the bridge. It was so strange to see that no one paid much attention to them or even moved out of the way. They were so determined to get into the city that they likely wouldn't care if the dray went over the side.

Her captor seemed to think the same thing and veered the cart closer to the edge. At the same time, he reached for something beside him, but whatever it was fell to the floor. So he used the coachman's whip in his hand instead.

Turning, with only one hand on the reins, he lashed back at Liam. The crack split the air around them. Liam's horse threw her head back, careening to the side. The whip flicked again, but with less force because he had his wrist locked. Liam gained control of the horse and rode back up to them.

On a curse, the man dropped the whip onto the bed of the cart and turned, hunting beneath his seat once more. This time, he came up with a gun.

Pointing it at Liam, he cocked the arm with his thumb.

“No!” Adeline reacted on instinct. Reaching over the edge of the crate, she grabbed the abandoned whip. Years of practice told her that this man had underestimated her for the last time.

With a single strike, she lashed the henchman's fingers. He screamed, dropping the gun, a stub of crimson flesh where his finger had been.

Adeline was stunned for an instant, staring in horror as the man released the reins to clutch his wounded hand. The horse and cart careened toward the edge.

Numbly, she turned her head to Liam, whose face went stark white. Reaching out, he called out her name, but she couldn't hear him. All she heard was the sound of blood rushing in her ears. Not knowing how she managed, she stood up on the moving cart, one foot in the straw and the other on Aphrodite.

Then, without hesitation, she'd leapt off the side and into Liam's arms.

B
y the time Vale had caught up to them, Uncle Albert's henchman was at the bottom of the Thames. Along with Aphrodite's head. But the most important part was that Adeline was safe.

Now, they'd crossed the bridge, Vale beside them. Liam was still traumatized and shaking from the events of the morning. He held Adeline in his arms, unable to think about how close he'd come to losing her.

When it started to rain, he tucked her safely into the carriage and spoke with his cousin. After a negotiation, he traded Vale's borrowed carriage for Ellery's horse and asked his cousin to settle up with the owners of both.

“I'm heading to Arborcrest,” Liam said, looking forward to returning home at last. For him, London had lost its luster. All he wanted was a simple life that was pure and honest. “Please inform Boswick of his daughter's safety and whereabouts. I imagine they'll follow shortly thereafter.”

Of course, it would be a wet ride, with the driver's seat exposed to the rain.

Vale clutched Liam's shoulder in something of an embrace. “You will need a special license, I imagine. I can help with that.”

With a glance toward the carriage, Liam nodded. Waiting for the banns to be read was not an option any longer. He planned to abscond with a debutante, and nothing but a hasty marriage would save both of their reputations.