by Amanda Quick
“Of course something bloody well happened. I told you what occurred.” Anthony shot to his feet and started to stalk the room. “Emeline was very nearly run down by that carriage. She could have been hurt. Perhaps seriously.”
“I got the impression she felt that you and the boy were the ones in danger.”
“She was in peril too, but she seemed oblivious of that fact.”
Tobias contemplated his fingertips. “Thought we agreed that the driver’s intention was to deliver a message, not to murder anyone.”
“How the hell can we be sure of anything, least of all the coachman’s intentions?” Anthony’s jaw was so rigid it could have been forged from steel. “I tell you, Tobias, I’d give a fortune to get my hands on the bastard for even five minutes.”
“I understand.”
“I must confess that it wasn’t until I went to bed last night that the full implications of the incident finally struck me. The possibilities kept me awake almost until dawn. I stared at the ceiling and kept thinking about what might have happened.” Anthony waved one hand. “What if the coachman had lost control of his horses? What if Emeline had panicked the way the boy did? What if she had just stood there, frozen, in the path of the vehicle? She would have been trampled.”
“Luckily Miss Emeline appears to share her aunt’s tendency not to panic at awkward moments.”
“When I did manage to fall asleep last night, I had nightmares,” Anthony muttered. “The dreams all involved scenes in which I could not get to Emeline in time to pull her out of the path of a rushing carriage.”
Tobias thought about the occasional nightmares he had experienced since making Lavinia’s acquaintance. “I’ve had a few unpleasant dreams of that sort myself.”
“This morning while you and Mrs. Lake and Mrs. Dove went to consult with Vale, I had a conversation with Emeline. I told her that I thought she should give up this notion of following in her aunt’s footsteps.”
“Did you, indeed?” Tobias took his boots off the corner of his desk and got to his feet. He went to the small table to inspect the remaining portion of the salmon-and-potato pie. “I expect I can hazard a guess as to the nature of her response to your suggestion.”
“She got very angry with me. Refused to even consider my advice. As good as told me that I had no right to make decisions for her or to interfere with her life.”
“You don’t say?” Tobias picked up the knife and cut himself a hefty wedge of pie. “Now, there’s a stunning surprise.”
Anthony came to a halt and watched with a dark frown as Tobias took a bite of the savory pastry. “Are you mocking me?”
“I assure you, you have my complete sympathy,” Tobias said around the mouthful of pie.
“Bloody hell.” Anthony shoved his fingers through his hair. “I daresay you find my predicament vastly amusing, do you not? No doubt you believe that it is a fitting comeuppance for all the times that I have advised you not to behave in a dictatorial, overbearing manner toward Mrs. Lake.”
Tobias said nothing. He took another bite of pie. Whitby was an excellent cook. But, then, Whitby was good at almost everything. The man who served him as a combination of butler, cook, valet, and occasional doctor even managed to appear more elegant in his clothes than most gentlemen of the ton, including himself, Tobias reflected.
“If it’s any consolation,” Anthony muttered, “I confess that I now possess a much clearer appreciation of the depth of your own sensibilities on the matter of Mrs. Lake’s inclination to take risks.”
“Always nice to know that one’s sensibilities are understood and appreciated.”
“I don’t suppose you have any useful advice for me?”
“Certainly, I have some advice.” Tobias handed him the plate. “Have some more of Whitby’s salmon pie. It is very good. The leeks add a nice touch, I think. When you have finished you can go back to the business of tracking down Banks’s valet and chatting with streetwalkers.”
Anthony took the plate reluctantly. He looked down at the pie as though it were an alchemist’s crucible. “I’m doomed to be driven mad by Miss Emeline, am I not?”
“Most likely. But I’m certain that you will find it reassuring to know that you are not the only incipient crackbrain in the vicinity. I appear to be doomed to a similar fate, thanks to Mrs. Lake.”
“IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG, EMELINE?” Lavinia put down her pen and studied her niece’s somber face. “I vow, we are accomplishing very little here. You have been in an exceedingly low mood since yesterday. Was it the incident with the carriage?”
Emeline put aside the paper on which she had been refining her impressions of the responses of the servants whom she and Anthony had interviewed at the Banks mansion. She gave Lavinia a troubled look.
“In a manner of speaking,” she admitted.
“I knew it. You did not sleep well, did you? I noticed at breakfast that you appeared a bit wan.”
Emeline’s mouth curved ruefully. “Is that a polite way of saying that I am not looking my best today?”
“I blame myself. I should have insisted that you take a drop or two of sherry before you went to bed.”
“Anthony called upon me while you and Mrs. Dove and Mr. March interviewed Lord Vale today.”
Lavinia frowned. “Anthony was here? He came into the house? I trust Mrs. Chilton was present?”
“She was here. But as it happens, Anthony did not come into the house. He invited me to walk with him in the park.”
Alarm shot through Lavinia. Visions of what happened on the occasions when Tobias took her for a walk in the park made her blanch.
“How dare that young man even suggest such a thing? What on earth does he think he is about? Is that what has upset you today? I shall demand that Tobias have a stern talk with him.”
Emeline made a face. “You need not concern yourself with the proprieties. We merely took a short stroll in a very public section of the park. We certainly did not disappear for an hour or more the way you and Mr. March are inclined to do when you two take your little walks in the park.”
Lavinia felt herself turning pink now. She cleared her throat. “Mr. March and I have discovered that long walks are extremely invigorating for persons of our age.”
“Indeed.”
Lavinia narrowed her eyes. “What was it about your conversation with Anthony that disturbed you?”
“He is starting to sound altogether too much like Mr. March, if you must know.”
“I beg your pardon? In what way?”
“He told me that, in his opinion, I should reconsider my decision to follow you into the private-inquiries business.”
“I see.” Lavinia pondered that information. “What on earth made him say that, do you suppose? He seems such a sensible, modern-thinking young man.”
“I believe he was somewhat shaken by the incident with the carriage.”
“Interesting. I would not have guessed that he possessed such delicate nerves. Judging from his demeanor yesterday afternoon when you both returned, I would have said that Anthony gave every appearance of being just as cool in a crisis as Tobias.”
“It was not his own brush with danger that unsettled him, although it certainly gave me a terrible jolt,” Emeline said. “Last night he evidently allowed his imagination to get the better of his common sense. He managed to convince himself that I had been in the path of danger and that were it not for a bit of luck I might have been hurt.”
“I see.”
“The entire affair has rattled his nerves and he has concluded that I should, therefore, pursue another career.”
“I see,” Lavinia said again, very neutrally this time.
“I was obliged to endure an extremely tiresome lecture on the subject of how I ought not to put my person in danger. There was also a good bit of boring twaddle on the nature of suitable careers for ladies. In the end I fear I lost my patience and told him exactly what I thought of his overbearing manner. I bid him good afternoon and lef
t him standing there in the middle of the park.”
“I see.” Lavinia planted her hands on the desk and pushed herself to her feet. “What do you say we have a little nip of sherry?”
Emeline frowned. “I expected something more inspirational from such a clever and resourceful lady. You are a woman of the world, after all. You have had some experience of men. Is this the best you can do? A drop of sherry?”
“If it is inspiration you seek, I suggest you consult Shakespeare, Wollstonecraft, or a religious tract. I fear that when it comes to advice on the subject of gentlemen such as Mr. March and Mr. Sinclair, a drop of sherry is the most I can offer.”
“Oh.”
Lavinia opened the sherry cupboard. She removed the decanter, poured two small measures, and handed one of the glasses to Emeline. “They mean well, you know.”
“Yes.” Emeline took a tiny sip of the sherry and immediately assumed a more philosophical air. “Yes, I suppose they do.”
Lavinia sampled the contents of her own glass and sought to organize her thoughts on the subject of men.
“In my experience,” she said slowly, “gentlemen are inclined to become tense and occasionally extremely overwrought whenever they feel that they are not in full control of a situation. This is especially so if the situation involves a lady toward whom they feel a certain responsibility.”
“I understand.”
“They compensate for these attacks of nerves by giving stern lectures, issuing orders, and generally making nuisances of themselves.”
Emeline took a little more sherry and nodded wisely. “It is a most irritating habit.”
“Indeed, but I fear it is the nature of the beast. Perhaps you can now see why I find Mr. March so exasperating on occasion.”
“I confess my eyes have been opened.” Emeline shook her head. “No wonder you are given to frequent quarrels with him. I can already foresee any number of rows with Anthony on the horizon.”
Lavinia raised her glass. “A toast.”
“To what?”
“To exasperating gentlemen. You must admit that they are, at the very least, quite stimulating.”
Twenty
THE WEAK SUN DISSOLVED RAPIDLY IN THE FOG that crept over the city the following afternoon. The mist had nearly succeeded in bringing a hasty end to the pleasant day by the time Lavinia arrived at the premises of Tredlow’s antiquities shop. She came to a halt at the front door and peered through the windows, surprised to see that no lamp had been lit. The interior lay in heavy shadow.
She took a couple of steps back and looked up to examine the windows above the shop. A quick survey showed that the drapes were pulled closed. No light glowed around the edges of the heavy curtains.
She tried the door. It was unlocked. She stepped inside the unnaturally silent shop.
“Mr. Tredlow?” Her voice echoed hollowly among the shadowed ranks of dusty statuary and display cases. “I got your message and came immediately.”
Tredlow’s brief, cryptic note had arrived at the kitchen door less than an hour ago: I have news on the subject of a certain relic of mutual interest.
She had been alone in the house at the time. Mrs. Chilton had taken herself off to purchase some fish. Emeline had gone shopping to purchase gloves to wear to Mrs. Dove’s ball.
Lavinia had wasted no time. She’d seized her cloak and bonnet and set out at once. Hackneys were scarce at that hour, but she had managed to find one. Unfortunately, the traffic had been heavy. It seemed to take forever to arrive in the cramped street outside Tredlow’s.
She hoped he had not given up on her, closed his shop for the evening, and taken himself off to a nearby coffeehouse.
“Mr. Tredlow? Are you about?”
The stillness of the place was disconcerting. Surely Tredlow would not have failed to lock his front door if he had left or retired to his rooms above the shop.
Edmund Tredlow was not a young man, she thought uneasily. And as far as she knew, he lived alone. Although he had seemed to be in good health the last time she saw him, there were any number of dire things that could happen to a gentleman of his years. She had a sudden vision of the shopkeeper lying senseless on the floor after having been felled by an attack of apoplexy. Or perhaps he had taken a tumble on the stairs. Mayhap his heart had failed him.
A chill of dread flickered down her spine. Something was wrong. She could feel it in every fiber of her being now.
The logical place to search first was the shop’s cavernous back room. It was three times the size of the space allotted to the display area, and it housed the vault where Tredlow kept his most valuable antiquities.
She hurried toward the long counter at the rear of the showroom, rounded the far end, and grasped the edge of the heavy dark drapery that concealed the entrance to the back room.
Pulling the curtain aside, she found herself gazing into the deep gloom of the unlit storage area. A single narrow window high in the wall provided barely enough illumination to reveal the jumble of statuary, artfully broken columns, and the occasional outline of a stone sarcophagus.
“Mr. Tredlow?”
There was no response. She glanced around for a candle, spotted one stuck upright on a small, metal stand on the counter, and hurriedly lit it.
Holding the taper in front of her, she went through the doorway into the back room. Icy fingers touched the sensitive spot between her shoulders, and she shivered.
A well of intense shadow just beyond the curtain marked the steep staircase that led to the rooms upstairs. She would investigate that portion of the premises after she had made certain that Tredlow was not down here.
A seemingly impenetrable wall of crates, boxes, and chunks of stone monuments confronted her. She forced herself to move deeper into the shadows, eerily aware of the stern, inhuman gazes of the ancient gods and goddesses that surrounded her. Several broken, heavily carved gravestones blocked her path. She stepped aside to avoid them and found herself face-to-face with the figure of a crouching, armless Aphrodite.
She went past a pair of large statues of Roman emperors, their aging, unhandsome faces incongruously affixed to the elegantly modeled, extremely well-endowed bodies of young Greek athletes, and found her way barred by a massive stone frieze. The flaring candlelight fell on a cluster of mounted warriors locked forever in a scene of bloodshed and savage death. The desperation and ferocity on the faces of the men were echoed in the twisted bodies and slashing hooves of the horses they rode.
She turned away from the frieze and wove a path among a maze of urns and vases decorated with scenes from orgies. Just beyond, a sleeping hermaphrodite reclined languidly. To her left a large centaur pranced in the shadows.
She caught a glimpse of an open door and drew a sharp breath. Tredlow had proudly pointed out his strong room when he had taken her on a tour of his establishment. It was a specially fortified stone chamber that had been part of the original medieval building that once stood on this site.
Tredlow had been thrilled to discover it when he moved into the space, she recalled. He had converted it into a large safe and used it to store his smaller artifacts and those that he considered most precious. Presumably, since it was fitted with a bolt on the inside, it had originally been designed as the entrance to a secret tunnel constructed for the purpose of allowing the homeowner to escape his enemies. But the underground pathway had been sealed shut with stone blocks a long time ago.
Tredlow had installed a heavy iron lock on the outside of the door. He always carried the key on his person.
The strong room should have been locked, she thought. Tredlow would never have left it open. Certainly not willingly.
She started toward the strong room. Her toe collided with one of the three bronze legs that supported an ornately carved Roman brazier.
Swallowing a gasp of pain, she glanced down. The light fell on several dark spots on the floor. The slight glistening of the patches indicated that they were still damp.
Water, she told
herself. Or perhaps some tea or ale that Tredlow had spilled recently.
But she knew, even as she stooped to take a closer look, that it was not water or tea or ale that stained the floor. She was staring at half-dried drops of blood.
The small splashes made a ghastly trail that ended abruptly at the edge of a stone sarcophagus. The lid of the coffin was in place, sealing shut the interior and whatever lay inside.
She reached out uneasily to test the spots with the tip of her gloved finger. At that instant she heard the unmistakable squeak of the wooden timbers that formed the ceiling overhead.
Fear as sharp as a shock of electricity singed her senses. She straightened so swiftly and awkwardly that she lost her balance. Frantically, she reached out to brace herself on the closest object, a life-size male figure. The statue held a sword in one hand. In his other fist he grasped a repellent object.
Perseus holding the severed head of Medusa.
For a terrifying instant she was unable to move. It was as if she had been frozen in place by the Gorgon’s gaze. The creature’s unrelenting stare was truly mesmeric in its intensity. The snaky locks that writhed around the creature’s stone face appeared horrifyingly realistic in the wavering light of the candle.
Wood creaked again in the terrible stillness. Footsteps. Directly overhead. Someone was up there, crossing the floor toward the staircase that descended to this level. Not Edmund Tredlow. She was very sure of that.
More squeaks.
The intruder was moving purposefully now. The footsteps came more rapidly. The person upstairs was aware of her presence. He had no doubt heard her call out to Tredlow.
Another sizzling shot of electricity freed her from the stare of the stone Medusa. She had to get out of this place quickly. The intruder would soon be on the stairs. It would take mere seconds for him to reach this room. She could not possibly get through the curtained opening that divided the shop in time to escape through the front door.
That left only the back entrance, the one Tredlow used to receive his stock of artifacts and antiquities. She whirled around, candle held on high, and searched the shadows. Through the forest of looming bronze and stone figures and the canyons of crates and boxes stacked to the ceiling, she caught glimpses of the back wall.