Valentine

Chapter Twenty-two

"Is Lady Theo in, Foster?"

"I'm afraid not, Lady Emily." The butler held the door as Emily and Edward walked past him into the hall.

"Then we'll wait," Emily said. "We're probably a little early."

"Her ladyship was expecting you?" Foster sounded doubtful.

"Yes, we're engaged to call upon Mrs. Lacey. Lieutenant Fairfax is going to escort us."

"Did she say what time she'd be back?" Edward asked, tossing his hat onto the pier table.

"No, sir. Will you wait in the library?"

"Yes, and bring some tea, please," Emily said. Foster might be officially employed by the Earl of Stoneridge, but the Belmont girls continued to treat him as their own personal butler, just as they treated Belmont House and Stoneridge Manor as their own.

Foster bowed. "Claret for Lieutenant Fairfax, perhaps?"

Edward smiled. "Thank you, Foster. Did Lady Theo say where she was going?"

"No, sir." Foster backed out of the library and went off to fetch the required refreshments.

"Don't you think that's a little strange?" Edward said, going over to the window looking out onto the street. It was a sunny afternoon, and a small girl was bowling an iron hoop along the pavement under the eye of a nursemaid.

"Not to tell Foster where she was going?" Emily frowned. "Not necessarily. Theo's always going off on her own business."

"This isn't Lulworth, Emily. Theo doesn't have business to do here." He remained at the window but turned back to the room as Foster came in with the tea tray and the claret decanter. "Did she go on foot, Foster? Or in the barouche?"

"On foot, I believe, sir." Foster poured a glass of claret.

"With her maid, or with a footman?" He took the glass with a smile of thanks, reasoning that if Theo was going for some serious exercise, she'd take the footman.

Foster frowned. "I don't believe anyone accompanied her, sir."

Edward whistled, an uneasy sense of foreboding building as he turned back to look out the window, hoping to see Theo hurrying up the street. "Stoneridge won't be pleased to hear that."

"What won't I be pleased to hear?" Sylvester inquired from the doorway. His many-caped driving coat was dusty, a handful of whip points were thrust into the top button hole, his long driving whip was curled in his gloved hand.

"Oh, there's just a conspicuous absence of Theo," Emily informed him blithely. She wasn't about to tell Stoneridge that her sister was roaming the streets of London unaccompanied.

The earl turned to his butler, raising an eyebrow. "Since when, Foster?"

"I couldn't rightly say, my lord." The butler had been covering for his young mistress since she was a small girl and slipped easily into the accustomed role, without questioning why he should be doing so on this occasion.

"An hour? Two?"

"Perhaps half an hour, my lord."

"Is there something strange about that?"

"We were engaged to drive out together," Emily said, "Theo doesn't usually forget engagements."

"I see." He shrugged. "Well, I'm certain she'll be back soon. What do you think of that claret, Edward?"

"Excellent, sir." Edward's mind was whirling as foreboding became conviction. He knew exactly what had driven their engagement from Theo's mind. He knew where she had gone, unaccompanied and presumably in a hired hackney.

He put his glass on the table. "Emily, I must ask you to excuse me. I… I've suddenly recollected a most urgent appointment, with… with my tailor." Under Emily's astonished gaze he pushed past the butler and almost ran from the house.

"Now what in the world is going on?" Stoneridge demanded of his butler and sister-in-law, both of whom were looking confused.

"I couldn't say, sir." Foster bowed and left the library.

Emily regarded her brother-in-law somewhat nervously, but she could think of nothing to say. She had the feeling she should improvise some reasonable explanation for Edward's odd departure, but she wasn't a quick thinker at the best of times, and under Stoneridge's penetrating gray gaze she was completely tongue-tied.

"Tell me something, Emily," Stoneridge said, deceptively casual. "Does Edward often recollect appointments in that fashion?"

"Occasionally," Emily mumbled.

"Mmm." He stroked his chin, frowning. "But would I be right in thinking that those occasions generally have something to do with Theo?"

Emily's quick flush was answer enough, although she tried to think of some disclaimer.

"So just what did he suddenly guess my wife was up to?"

Emily shook her head. "I don't know."

"But you'd agree with me that he'd suddenly had a flash of insight?"

"Possibly. They… they're very close. They always have been." She was beginning to feel like one of Rosie's pinned butterflies and thought bitterly of her fiance and her sister, who'd abandoned her to this seemingly gentle but nerve-racking interrogation. She didn't even know what she wasn't supposed to say.

Sylvester strolled across to the window, where Edward had been standing a minute earlier. Maybe the position would bring him the same inspiration. Lady Belmont's barouche stood at the door, the coachman dozing on the box, his docile carriage horses standing quietly in the sunshine.

"May I ask where you were going with Theo?"

"To call upon Mrs. Lacey," Emily said, happy to answer this unproblematic question. "Edward was going to invite Jonathan to accompany him to Tattersall's tomorrow. He's intending to purchase another riding horse and thought that Jonathan might meet some useful people."

Another instance of Edward evincing family solidarity, Sylvester reflected. And presumably he'd just gone hotfoot to Theo's assistance?

Prickles of unease ran up his spine. Why would Theo need assistance?

And then it came to him, crystalline in its clarity. Could she have taken Edward into her confidence about the visit to the Fisherman's Rest?

What did he mean, could she? Of course she would have done so. About that and all her private speculations – whatever they might be. Not for one minute did he believe that just because he'd refused to discuss his own plans, Theo had ceased to speculate. She'd yielded to his silence easily… too damn easily. He could see the obstinate set of her mouth, the lift of her pointed chin that always meant: You may believe what you wish, but I have my own ideas.

Theo had returned to the Fisherman's Rest.

He'd told her as clearly as he knew how that he would not tolerate another such reckless excursion, and she'd taken not a blind bit of notice of him. But it was his own fault. How the hell had he ever been fool enough to trust that Theo would obey orders?

The strength of his fury astounded him. By disobeying his direct injunction and interfering in his private affairs, she had recklessly put herself in grave jeopardy. Without a moment's reflection she had plunged alone into the rat-infested sewer that was Dock Street, where the desperate face of poverty informed the brutalized souls of its inhabitants. They would kill her for her kid gloves and toss her body into the Thames without a qualm.

And as if that weren't enough, she was wading hip deep into the quicksand of Vimiera and right into the path of a dangerously desperate man.

"Emily, permit me to escort you to your carriage," he said abruptly, turning toward her.

Emily quailed before the blazing countenance. The scar that she thought she'd become so used to she barely noticed it anymore stood out, a livid white line. The cool eyes were now liquid fire, and his mouth was a taut line.

"There's no need," she said. "Foster will escort me."

He ignored her words. "Come."

Emily rose immediately. What had Theo done to cause this terrifying transformation? On the whole, these days Emily was quite at ease with her brother-in-law, but at the moment she thought he was the most frightening man she'd ever met… even more so than her grandfather in one of his rages.

She practically ran ahead of him out of the library and out of the house. His large hand under her elbow almost lifted her into the barouche so that she felt as fragile and vulnerable as a leaf in the wind. She'd seen him handle Theo in this way, lifting her in and out and on and off things with a brisk lack of ceremony that her sister never seemed to mind. But Emily wouldn't repeat the experience for all the tea in China. She sat back with relief as Stoneridge ordered her driver to move off and her brother-in-law's black countenance retreated.

Stoneridge turned back to the house, running up the steps, his clipped voice giving orders before he'd reached the hall. "Foster, have my curricle brought round again. But not the chestnuts, they've had a long run already."

"Yes, my lord." The butler kept his expression impassive before his employer's tightly reined anger, but like Emily his mind was filled with furious speculation.

Five minutes later Stoneridge was on his way to Dock Street, driving a team of roans, forcing from his mind the dreadful images of what might even now be happening on Dock Street as he drove at breakneck speed through the narrow streets, oblivious of the stares and curses from startled pedestrians as they leaped out of the way of the white-faced man with the livid scar on his forehead.

Neil Gerard stared at Jud O'Flannery's disfigured countenance. His ex-sergeant was grinning, revealing his one black tooth. "Cat got yer tongue, cap'n?" he inquired with mock solicitude.

"I don't know what the devil you're talking about." Neil tried to sound angry and contemptuous, but it came out more as a bluster, his fear slippery beneath the bold front, like ice under snow. He could feel the eyes on his back as Jud's customers drank their ale and regarded the scene at the bar counter with squint-eyed curiosity. His gaze fixed on the tavern keeper's massive fists, curled loosely on the counter. A pelt of dark hair covered the backs thickly and sprouted over the knuckles.

One blow from those fists would put a man under the table with a broken jaw. The grip of those fingers would squeeze the life out of a man in a minute. And one flick of his eyes would bring the group of ruffians to their feet, moving across the tap room toward Neil Gerard.

"Well, I 'as me sources," Jud was saying in a musing tone, but his one green eye was sharp with a glint of sardonic humor. He knew Neil Gerard was scared. The man scared easily. No one knew that better than Sergeant O'Flannery.

"An' like I was sayin', these sources tell me that you've been patronizin' another tavern. Quite 'urt me feelins that did, cap'n, sir." He took a healthy swig of ale from his tankard. "You comes in 'ere, regular like, never takes a drink or says a civil word to an old comrade in arms, an' then I 'ear you goes into the Fisherman's Rest an' drinks and chats somethin' chronic in there. Better class of folk Long Meg 'as? That it, cap'n sir?"

Neil felt sweat break out on his forehead. He wanted to wipe it off, but to do so would draw attention to his fear. How much did Jud know?

"A man's entitled to drink where he pleases," he said, hearing how feeble it sounded. He plunged his hand into his pocket and took out his purse. "Here." He shook out the five golden guineas and turned to leave.

"Jest a minute, cap'n, sir." Jud's voice had hardened.

Reluctantly, Neil turned back. "Well?"

"I wouldn't like t'think you've bin lookin' fer a way to stop this nice little arrangement we 'ave. Now, you wouldn't be doin' anythin' like that, would you, cap'n, sir?"

Suddenly, he leaned over the counter, so close Neil could smell the beer and the reek of decaying teeth on his breath. An arm shot out, grabbing the captain by the fine starched cravat that had taken him a full half hour to tie to his satisfaction.

"You wouldn't be doin' anythin' like that, would you?" Jud repeated in a fine mist of saliva. Neil tried to turn his head away from the menacing stare.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said again.

Jud nodded his head slowly, his grip tightening on the cravat. "I think p'raps one of me friends could explain it better." He pushed his captive backward with a violent shove, and Neil went reeling into the arms of a grinning henchman, who picked him up as if he were a baby and threw him across the room. Neil crashed into a table. A mug of ale went flying, its contents spilling over his immaculate driving cape and dripping onto his buckskins.

"Eh, careless!" someone bellowed as he struggled to his knees. "Spillin' me drink like that." A man, red-faced with mock indignation, grabbed him by the cravat and hauled him to his feet. Holding him steady, he drove his fist into Gerard's jaw.

Neil saw stars, tasted blood, felt the ultimate humiliation as warm liquid trickled down his leg. Then he was released amid a burst of raucous laughter.

"Be seein' you next week, cap'n, sir," Jud called cheerily after him as he stumbled out the door into the crisp, sunny afternoon. The lad who was holding his horses stared in unabashed curiosity at the gentleman, whose right eye was rapidly swelling, blood trickling down his chin, staining his torn cravat. The reek of beer and urine wafted from him as he cursed the lad, knocking him aside as he stumbled up onto the driving seat of his curricle.

" 'Ere, what about me fee, guv?" the lad cried. "That's me pa in the Black Dog."

Neil threw a vile curse at him, but he had no desire to renew the acquaintance of anyone in the Black Dog. He dug a sixpence from his pocket and hurled it to the ground at the feet of the grinning lad, who scooped it up and dashed off down the street before anyone bigger and stronger decided to relieve him of his earnings.

Neil whipped up his horses, and they plunged forward in the narrow alley. The leader caught a hoof in an uneven cobble and almost went down to his knees. Gerard hauled back on the reins and tried to get a grip on himself. Physical violence terrified him. The simple threat of violence had reduced him to a gibbering wreck as a child and made him the perfect target for the bullies who stalked the halls of Westminster School. How he'd envied Sylvester Gilbraith, who, even as a ten-year-old new boy, had faced the tormentors with fists and tongue and refused to be intimidated. They'd beaten him often, but he'd always bounced back, and finally they'd left him alone. Not so Neil Gerard, who'd suffered hells during those years that he could barely endure remembering.

And it had just happened again. At the hands of a group of dockside ruffians, laughing at him and enjoying his terror even as they'd beaten him. And he'd have to go back next week and face the grinning Jud O'Flannery. Next week and the next week and the next week. An eternity of humiliation stretched ahead, because he could no longer look for hired assassins in this neighborhood.

He was passing the end of Dock Street, heading for Tower Hill. His eye darted down the street toward the Fisherman's Rest. Who had recognized him there as Jud's gentleman mark? Someone in that fetid hole had reported his negotiations to O'Flannery. The man he'd sent into Dorset had been angry when he'd refused to pay for failure and therefore to compensate him for the time and trouble he'd taken. The man had cursed him and threatened him with vengeance. But Neil had dismissed it as so much bluster.

A hackney was drawn up outside the Fisherman's Rest. A most unusual sight. He watched as a cloaked figure jumped lightly to the cobbles. A woman. Curiosity for a minute made him forget his throbbing jaw and the foul condition of his raiment. The woman was saying something to the jarvey, her head tilted as she looked up at the box. The hood of her cloak fell back, revealing blue-black hair.

Now, what in the name of all that was good was the Countess of Stoneridge doing at the Fisherman's Rest? Alone!

If Sylvester paid another visit, it wouldn't be surprising. He'd learned nothing from the first visit, and he was bound to try again. Not that he'd discover anything. Neil was never going to cross that threshold again, and no one could put a name to him, or even an accurate description.

But what was his wife doing here, alone? Looking for information for her husband? It was extraordinary. And he couldn't believe that Stoneridge had countenanced it. He'd made no attempt to hide his annoyance when she'd appeared before. And no reasonable man could blame him. Wives didn't follow their husbands to such places. And they most certainly didn't go to them alone.

An idea glimmered as he started his horses again. Lady Stoneridge might well be worth cultivating seriously. Supposing she could provide the route to her husband? She was obviously unconventional and indiscreet. How else would one characterize her presence at the Fisherman's Rest? Insanely impulsive? Recklessly courageous? Such a person could surely be led up the paths of fatal indiscretion with the right carrot. If he could find the right carrot.

He suddenly understood that he didn't have to remove Gilbraith, merely neutralize him. Blackmail was the way to end his own calvary at Jud's hands. If he was certain that Gilbraith would never open his mouth about Vimiera, even if he knew the truth, he could afford to tell Jud what he could do with his threat of exposure. Well, perhaps not that. The thought of such an encounter flooded him with a nauseating terror. But his visits to the Black Dog could cease without explanation.

He would disappear from London for a while in case Jud decided to pursue him, but he was fairly certain the ex-sergeant would quickly turn his attention to other pigeons worth plucking. And if Jud decided to go to Horseguards and tell his version of events at Vimiera, it would be considered no more than the ramblings of a disaffected old soldier with a grudge against his commander… so long as Gilbraith wasn't able to confirm the story with his own recollection of the truth.

He wiped blood from his split lip with the back of his gloved hand as he encouraged his horses to a smart trot. His panic was over. The cultivation and manipulation of an attractive but naive and clearly reckless young woman was a much pleasanter prospect than arranging accidents at the hands of hired dockside killers. And blackmail was a much cleaner tool than murder.

Theo, happily unaware of the witness of her arrival at the Fisherman's Rest, pushed open the door and stepped into the dim, reeking taproom. It was almost deserted at this time of day, although an old man sat nodding by the fire, puffing a clay pipe. A slatternly young woman, a baby at her breast, leaned against the counter.

"Twopence of gin, Long Meg."

"I'll see the color of yer money first," Long Meg rasped from somewhere in the darkness behind the counter.

" 'Ow about a bit o' credit?" the young woman whined. "Gin puts the babby to sleep."

Long Meg reared up out of the darkness, as big and crimson-faced as Theo remembered her, when she'd come after Tom Brig with a rolling pin.

"I told yer last time, no more -" She stopped, staring at Theo. "Well, well," she said slowly. "What 'ave we got 'ere, then? You want somethin', young miss?"

"I'd like to ask you some questions," Theo said, smiling in a friendly fashion as she picked her way through the sodden sawdust.

"An jest who would be askin' 'em?" the woman demanded, her eyes narrowed, mighty arms akimbo.

"My name's Pamela," Theo said, having prepared for this.

"You was in 'ere t'other night," Long Meg said suspiciously. "Wi' that gentleman cove. Jest what's the likes o' you got to do wi' the likes o' me?"

"I wanted to ask you about one of your customers."

Long Meg threw back her head and laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. "We don't answer no questions around 'ere, missie. Me customers mind their own business an' I mind mine. We don't want no snoops around 'ere." She lifted the flap of the counter and came into the room. She seemed even larger in this small dim space than she had the other night, and Theo felt the first stirrings of alarm.

"I'm not snooping," she said, although it seemed as accurate a term as any for what she was doing. "I'll pay for any information -"

"Oh, will you, now?" The woman stepped closer until she was towering over Theo. "An' jest what've you got in that dainty little reticule, then?" She made a grab for Theo's reticule. Theo danced backward, snatching her arm away. Long Meg lunged forward, and Theo swung her reticule at her head as she brought one leg up and aimed a kick at the mountainous belly.

Long Meg roared, and two men suddenly appeared from the back regions. The slatternly young woman with the baby still leaned against the counter; her eyes, dulled with gin, followed the scene, and she moved aside in desultory fashion as the two men barged through the opening in the counter.

Theo knew she didn't stand a chance against three of them. Why hadn't she thought to bring a pistol? Why hadn't the possibility of robbery occurred to her? She jumped backward, hurling a bench between herself and the purposeful advance of her assailants. If she could get out into the street, she could make a dash for the hackney.

But the men were flanking her now, their eyes fixed on her as they moved sideways, and Long Meg kept on coming, a vicious expression on her face. Theo's kick had hurt her, but not enough to slow her down, only enough to enrage her.

Desperately, Theo grabbed up an ale pot on the table and threw it into the face of the man approaching on her left. The other one lunged at her, catching her arm. She jerked her arm upward, twisting her body and catching him on her hip, breaking his hold. But she knew she couldn't keep this up.

Then suddenly a shot exploded through the dark room.

"Get away from her."

"Edward." Theo turned in dazed relief. He stood in the doorway, a flintlock pistol in his one hand.

"Hurry," he said, and she realized that he couldn't reload and that it wouldn't take more than a second for her attackers to recover from their surprise and understand both that and the fact that her rescuer had only one arm.

She took the three paces to the door at a run as Edward stepped backward into the street. Long Meg and her two assistants rushed after them, and Theo spun and kicked the door closed in their faces.

"Run!" She grabbed Edward's arm and then stared wildly down the empty street. The hackney carriage had disappeared.

Edward swore as he struggled one-handed to reload his pistol. His own hackney had disappeared as completely as Theo's, and he guessed that the sound of the pistol shot had driven both jarveys away to a less volatile neighborhood.

The door of the Fisherman's Rest crashed open, and the two men leaped into the street, Long Meg on their heels.

Edward abandoned his attempts to reload and turned to run with Theo. Their pursuers bellowed as they came after them, and Theo realized grimly that they were calling for support. She stumbled, fell to one knee, and was up and running again in the same breath. The pounding of heavy booted feet behind her seemed to be in her blood, and she could almost feel the hot breath of their pursuers on her neck. Edward couldn't run as fast as she could, his body was unbalanced, and she hung on to his hand, desperately trying to keep him from tripping.

And then the curricle bowled around the corner from Smithfield. The galloping team drove straight past the fugitives and came to a plunging, rearing halt in front of their followers, who fell back in terror before the flailing hooves, the wildly rolling eyes of the four magnificent animals.

Theo and Edward gulped air into their tortured lungs, allowing the slow relief of salvation to seep through them. The Earl of Stoneridge said nothing to the three from the Fisherman's Rest, but he sat still as a graven image, the curricle and team blocking the street. His hands moved on the reins and the horses reared again. The two men and Long Meg retreated backward to the door of the tavern and disappeared behind it.

Only then did the earl bring his horses under control. The street was too narrow for him to turn his equipage. He cast a glance over his shoulder to where Edward and Theo stood, still gasping for breath.

"Get up," he said. "Both of you."

Theo gazed at her husband's face, and the realization crept inexorably over her that she was about to exchange the frying pan for the fire.

She stepped up to the curricle. "You mustn't blame Edward for -"

"I don't," he interrupted with icy calm. "Get up."