Twice Tempted (31 page)

“Diddled us as sweetly as a second-story man,” Chuffy agreed beside him as they looked into the tidied rooms.

Except Chuffy didn’t sound like Chuffy suddenly. He sounded like every other man who had been deserted by a woman. He sounded the way Alex felt; bereft, confused, angry.

“What have you done?” Bea sang, her voice wavering. “Why did they go?”

“She must have heard me,” Alex admitted, dragging his hand through his hair. “She must know.”

Chuffy turned. “Know what?”

Bea sputtered.

Alex took her hand, the pain in his own chest threatening to choke him. “We’ll find them. I promise. And when we come back, I will try to explain.”

Lady Bea lifted a hand to his face, but her expression didn’t ease. “Don’t…fail.”

Alex’s gut twisting, he kissed her hand and turned. “Chilton!” he yelled.

“Know
what
?” Chuffy demanded, his hand firmly on Alex’s arm.

Alex looked down at his friend. He wasn’t certain he could feel worse. “I’ll explain once we get the search started.”

“Yes,” Chuffy answered, suddenly not vague or bumblish at all. “You will.”

Chilton and half the staff ran up the stairs. “Sorry, milord. We…er, slept a bit late. Only woke ’cause there was a messenger at the back door.”

Alex glared. “Thick heads?”

Chilton straightened like a shot. “It wasn’t the drink, sir. No one got more than a mug of ale.”

What had she done? Because she had surely done something. This was a staff that was up to all rigs and rows. “And nobody heard anything untoward.”

“Nothing, sir. Not ’til Davers showed up. I’m sorry, milord.”

But Alex was already distracted. “Davers?”

“Says he’s from Lord Drake. I was just comin’ to get you.”

Alex felt a headache begin to form behind his eyes. “Bring him to the library then, Chilton. Then find Finney’s man Ben for me. And don’t take no for an answer. Lady Bea, I would appreciate it if you would sit with my father. He is not to know that there is any kind of problem. All right?”

“Where will you look?” Bea sang as Chilton charged back down the stairs. “Where could they go?”

“Those Herbal people live nearby,” Chuffy offered.

“Herschel.” Alex shook his head. “She’d know we’d head there first.”

“Milord?” Mrs. Chilton interrupted, her chapped hands tucked in her sharp white apron, her narrow face creased. “Don’t know if it means anything, but that Lennie’s gone as well.”

“Regular exodus,” Chuffy groused.

Alex’s head came up, disparate pieces fitting together. “They’ve gone to ground.”

“Ground?” Chuffy echoed. “What do you mean?”

“The slums, Chuff. They’re going to lose themselves in the London slums, and let Lennie guide them. After all, they survived the Edinburgh slums. These can’t be worse.”

“Different. London.”

“A slum’s a slum, you pardon my sayin’, sir,” Mrs. Chilton spoke up. “Long as you look the part and know y’r way around. And that Lennie’d do that f’r ’em.”

Look the part.
Suddenly Alex remembered Fiona’s smiling critique of his attire the night he’d been at the Blue Goose. She’d told him he never would pass, no matter what he wore. He knew without even thinking that she would blend in like a shadow. But he and Chuffy needed help.

“Where is Thrasher?” he demanded. “Find him.”

“Right after we talk to Drake’s messenger,” Chuffy said.

Alex rubbed at his eyes. “This has turned out to be a busy morning, hasn’t it?”

He couldn’t escape the sense of impending doom. Drake wouldn’t contact them unless it was important. And Alex could think of several important things Drake could have found out.

Well, he thought, if it had really been bad, Drake would have come himself.

*  *  *

He had underestimated Drake’s good sense.

“Treason?” Chuffy demanded. “You practicin’ treason, old thing?”

Alex fought down the panic that lodged in his chest. “Not that I know of. What else did Wilkins say, Davers?”

Davers, a scrawny jockey of a groom, twisted his cap in his hands. “’e said as ’ow you should warn Sir Joseph, too. An’ if you learn somethin’ you was to send y’r messages through me, y’r lordship. He’d get ’em passed along. Lord Drake’ll work on ’is end, but says it’s better if ’e don’ know what y’r up to quite yet.”

Alex noticed that Chuffy failed to react this time.

“Good of him,” Alex muttered, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. “Do they have any idea where this mysterious warrant originated?”

“Naw. Lord Drake spent all night lookin’. Somebody ’igh up, Mr. Wilkins says.”

Alex nodded. It would have had to be, someone like, perhaps, a marquess. Hell, they’d just sent the coach and the threat. Why would they change tack so soon?

It was more imperative than ever that he get into that safe at Hawes House.

After he found Fiona. After he made sure she was safe and whole and tucked away somewhere secure. “Thank you, Davers. Mrs. Chilton will feed you. Where will I find you if I need to relay a message?”

“Been given a week off, sor. Stayin’ with me mum in Soho.”

Alex nodded. “In that case, be handy. And find me five men you can trust. Ask Wilkins. He’ll know. I need you to meet us at the Peacock in Islington in the morning.”

“The Peacock?” Chuffy echoed. “You think they went there?”

“I think that if they want to get to Edinburgh, they’ll have to go past it, since it sits at the first tollgate on the Great North Road. Besides, no one would ever think to look for us there. In the meantime, we’ll have Thrasher help us search London.”

“Happy to,” Thrasher piped up as Chuffy ushered the groom out.

“Go get a muffin,” Chuffy told him and closed the door in his face.

Silence fell. Chuffy turned, leaning back against the door. “Don’t seem surprised,” was all he said.

Alex gave the brandy decanter a longing look and turned instead to the fireplace. “Neither do you,” he said.

At first Chuffy looked away. “I am about you.”

Alex came to a halt. “And Sir Joseph? You can’t imagine he would be involved in something treasonous.”

Still Chuffy didn’t face him. “There were some odd rumors going around. Year you were on the continent. Lost and found money and all. Some odd friendships.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

Finally Chuffy met his gaze with implacable blue eyes. “Rather like you’re not telling me what’s going on now, I’d say. It’s not like I haven’t wondered.”

Chuffy had been with Alex when he had failed to protect Ian Ferguson. Chuffy had never asked why.

“Blackmail?” he asked gently now, hands in pockets.

Alex looked up to see an amazingly benign expression on Chuffy’s face. If it had been he, he would have been raging. Alex had betrayed the Rakes, and Chuffy knew it.

“It’s complicated,” Alex finally admitted, then laughed, a dry, sour sound. “Well, if that isn’t the most banal statement I have ever made, I don’t know what is.”

“Your wife was involved, too?”

Alex’s head snapped up and he stared at his friend. “You knew?”

Chuffy shrugged. “After she died. There were some odd coincidences.” For a moment he looked down, as if his boot-shod foot were the most interesting thing in the room. “Unfaithful,” he said without looking up. “Not a secret.”

Alex sighed, once again rubbing at the headache behind his eyes. “I know. I’m not sure it was her fault, though, Chuff. She was broken.…”

“Unfillable,” Chuffy said succinctly, finally looking up again. “Happens sometimes. Especially with orphans who changed hands. She did.”

Alex met his gaze, wondering why he was surprised at Chuffy’s insight. Chuffy saw more than anybody gave him credit for. “Good way of putting it. I thought I could save her.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “How could I have ever been so bloody young, Chuff?”

“Everybody is, sometime or other. Picked a winner this time.”

Alex halted, stricken. “Yes,” he finally said, suddenly certain. “I did. And I don’t plan on losing this one. She deserves better than what she’s had, and I mean to give it to her.”

Funny. He’d said that before. How could this time be so different? Because the two women were so different. Because he suspected Fiona had disappeared to prevent harm to his father. Because he knew that Fiona had fought tooth and nail to survive, to protect her sister. And because she had not needed him to complete her. He hoped, however, she would let him shelter her.

“What about the blackmail?” Chuffy asked. “Need to get on with it.”

Alex nodded. “The affairs weren’t the secret,” he said, lifting a small crystal vase from the mantel. “The secret was that she had been sending letters to Smythe-Smithe containing all manner of government information. He was her last lover. The one she broke herself over.”

The one she killed herself for.

“Man’s a bounder.” The man was also, at least temporarily, out of their reach on the continent. “You were going to turn her in.”

So certain. Alex shrugged, still not certain after all these years. “They have letters from her with information Sir Joseph allegedly shared. Troop numbers and movements. Diplomatic information. It’s enough to ruin him.”

Chuffy nodded. “You don’t believe they’re true?”

“I can’t. If I did, it would mean there was no honor left anywhere.”

Alex noticed how the fire glinted off the segmented glass in his hands. He had the most unbearable urge to heave the thing, just to see it explode against the marble.

Chuffy blinked as if faced with a bright light. “Didn’t you ask him?”

“You saw him. How could I put more strain on his heart?”

“Seems you did. Warrant out for his arrest.”

Alex set the vase down before he destroyed it, his patience suddenly gone. “Which is why I have to get to Hawes House before anyone else. If there are more letters, I think that is where they are. I need to get that evidence.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Alex faced Chuffy, but he didn’t answer. Because, of course, he didn’t know. “I was threatened by Ben last night. The Lions have threatened his old dad. I was told to hand over the girls.” He couldn’t bear the rest. “Fiona must have heard and thought I’d hand them over to the Lions.”

Chuffy’s gaze was unwavering. “Was she right?”

And for the first time Alex admitted the whole truth to himself. “I don’t know.”

*  *  *

How could stunning redheaded twins who stood as tall as any man simply disappear? And yet it seemed that they had. There was no trace of them anywhere along the route to London. Alex even traveled the Thames, just in case they had taken a water route to throw him off.

Alex and Chuffy finally checked into the Peacock Inn on Islington High Street and plotted to search London. Thrasher went shopping in the stalls of Seven Dials, and Chuffy took their horses around to his parents’ mews, exchanging them for less showy hacks. Alex left word where he could along the north route to report the passing of redheaded twins.

And then he received a message from Willowbend. One of the sculleries had discovered two thick red-gold braids in the trash pile and two bath towels smudged with black stain. That beautiful flame-bright hair, sacrificed to necessity and fear. Alex felt sick at the desperation of such an instinctive action.

Standing in the drab, close quarters he had taken in the Phoenix, he shut his eyes. Suddenly he could see it again, that moment four years earlier, when he had had to saw off that glorious banner to free her from the brambles. He could smell the sunlight and feel the lush flaming silk in his fist, lifting in a chill breeze like a battle pennant. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And yet she had done it again without hesitation, just to escape him.

Suddenly he wasn’t so certain of success.

“You sure you wanna come?” Thrasher asked an hour later as they readied to face the slums.

Buttoning the last button on the stained, crumpled pantaloons Thrasher had provided, Alex grabbed the patched broadcloth coat. “You’re going to show us how to blend in, Thrasher. I’ve been told I don’t.”

Thrasher tilted his head. “Oh, y’r worshipfulness, you jus’ don’ belong there.”

Alex frowned. “I know that. You know that. How do I keep them from knowing that?”

After a moment’s consideration, Thrasher shrugged. “First, don’t look like you got someplace important to go. ’n y’r too awake. People in the Dials’re tired. Real tired. Walk tired. Think tired. Move tired. Nobody looks anybody else in the eye. That’d be dangerous, like with dogs.”

Behind Alex, Chuffy shoved a flat cap on his thick curls. “Act tired. Can do that. Haven’t slept in days.”

“Not that kinda tired,” Thrasher said, wrapping a tattered gray wool scarf around his throat. “Tired like ya got nuthin’ and you ain’ getting’ nuthin’, and ya still have ta feed y’r kids. Tired like ya wanna give up.”

“I can’t imagine Fiona acting like that,” Alex mused.

Thrasher huffed in amusement. “If she survived the streets, she did. She didn’t jus’ act it, neither.” Another unconscious indictment on them all. “You got a barkin’ iron, y’r worship? And not one o’ them fancy pieces you wave around in the park.”

Alex pulled out the pistol he had gotten from Finney, a scratched, battered old thing Finney swore shot straight.

Chuffy pulled on a tweed coat that looked as if it had been plucked from the river and pocketed another of the guns, wrinkling his nose. “Well. Ready as I’ll get.”

“An’ you got no idea where they’d go,” Thrasher said. “There be a lotta places ta ’ide in them streets. Like I already tole you, all I know is Lennie tole me ’e lived in Lime’ouse and Seven Dials.”

Alex checked the priming on the gun. “Our searchers have already scoured every business and boardinghouse between here and the river.”

His own fear had mounted with every negative report that had come in. He needed to find her. He needed to beg her forgiveness and then beg her to stay.

“Which leaves the places you ’ope the ladies don’ go,” Thrasher said.

Alex looked up. “What kind of places?”

Thrasher shook his head. “Boozing kens, f’r a start. Flash ’ouses. Then worse.”

Worse.
Suddenly Alex found himself laughing. It couldn’t be that easy. Could it? He swore his heart was suddenly skipping like a child’s. “Not boozing kens,” he said, clapping Chuffy on the back. “Thrasher, take us to some whorehouses.”