The Earl of Morrey

by Lauren Smith

  The wall sconces had been doused, and all was quiet and dark. He peered at the darkened staircase that led to the bedchambers upstairs. He should have heard discussions coming from the library or the drawing room. At the very least he should have heard the muted whispers of maids working upstairs. Instead, there was only silence.

  He started toward the stairs, but stopped and knelt by the banister at the base of the steps. There was something on the floor. He pressed a gloved fingertip to it, and the tip of his finger came away coated in blood.

  A chill of dread crawled up his back. While it was always possible he was wrong, he was already certain of what had happened here. He walked toward the library and eased the door open.He thought he had prepared himself for what he would find, but he was wrong.

  His best men, loyal and true, lay dead throughout the library. Brave Jackson was slumped against the leg of a nearby reading table, a pistol resting in his hand. Trevor hadcollapsed in a window seat, a knife plunged into his chest, though one of his attackers lay dead at his feet.

  The rest of Avery’s friends were in similar positions. The destruction of the room made a blood-soaked tragedy play out in Avery’s mind. He looked toward the fireplace. Shengoe lay inches from it, a trail of blood showing clearly that he had dragged himself toward the fire as he lay dying. Avery gasped in shock as Shengoe twitched, his half-glazed eyes still holding a faint light in them.

  “Shengoe, my friend. I’m so sorry . . .” Avery rushed over and crouched down beside him, his throat closing as he struggled to calm himself.

  His hand was stretched out, blood-coated fingertips pointed toward something on the floor. Words had been drawn, patterns, clearly by Shengoe with his own blood on the floor.

  Whitehall will fall. The rest was too smeared to read clearly.

  “What’s happening?” Avery asked Shengoe. As he listened for Shengoe to respond, he examined the man carefully, assessing his multiple wounds. There was nothing he could do to save him.

  “King’s . . .speech . . .” Shengoe exhaled, his last breath trickling away in an eerie death rattle. Avery could have sworn Shengoe’s last word was “fox.” But what could that mean?

  Whitehall will fall . . .King’s speech . . . Fox . . .

  Although Whitehall was no longer used for the government, the name still stood for England’s ruling bodies. The warning suggested that the current government was in peril. The question was how. Whatever was being planned was but a week away. That was when the king would speak before Parliament, particularly before the House of Lords.

  Avery could stop the king from speaking, but that meant the plotters would slink back to the shadows, and the next time they made their move they would have no warning. No, the risks were too great. He had to find a way now to stop this.

  Avery closed Shengoe’s eyes with gentle reverence. The weight Avery carried upon his shoulders had grown tenfold.

  The embers of the fire were still burning. They glowed a deep orange, and the white bits of charred wood were as pale as bone. Avery reached for the poker and stoked the fire, not even sure why he did except perhaps out of habit. A numbness swept through him as he felt the loss of his men so deeply that it almost killed him.

  But the tragedy went much further than the death of his friends; it was the death of all he had worked toward as England’s chief spymaster. His reforms and ambitions for the Home Office had been undone in one fell swoop.

  Hugo Waverly had to be laughing from his watery grave. While Waverly’s hubris and lust for revenge had cost him his life, it had not left the nation in so vulnerable a state as it was right now. The irony was, only Avery and the killers would know that. While his lesser spies and informants would all still be in place, these men had been the linchpins that held his newly remade network together. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he was going to rebuild now, or whom he could trust.

  It was no wonder that Waverly had kept his men at arm’s length. Every man in this room tonight had been a friend, and they were all dead. And who else could he blame for it but himself?

  Shengoe’s urgent message still echoed in Avery’s mind. He’d warned that Arthur Thistlewood was being coaxed into violent action by someone. Until now, Thistlewood and his men had been men of words and little more. Whoever had pushed them toward this had to be the one responsible for what had happened tonight. Avery had to protect Whitehall, or else his friends’ terrible sacrifice would have been for nothing.

  He twisted the poker in the fire again. The reflection of the white marble fireplace was like polished glass. A shadow of movement flickered in that reflection. Avery had a second to spin around, raising the poker like a sword, ready to defend himself as a blade arced down toward him.

  Sparks flew from the clash of metal and iron. A brutishly tall man with dark eyes glared at him from the other side of their crossed weapons. Avery leapt back, swinging the poker at the man’s chest. The man barely dodged out of the way before he swung his sword again.

  Like a man possessed, Avery battled him until the old fire poker broke beneath the other man’s onslaught. Before the man could regain his footing, Avery shoved one of the bookcases over so that it came crashing down on top of him. The man cried out as the heavy oak shelves filled with books crushed him.

  Panting hard, Avery approached the man who lay half-buried and moaning in agony. By the way his face was turning reddish-blue, Avery guessed the man was being suffocated by the weight of the bookcase.

  “Who do you work for?” Avery demanded.

  The man shook his head, a stubborn set to his features as he contorted, trying to free himself.

  “Who?” Avery snarled.

  The man shook his head again, still trying to free his arm. Avery saw too late the pistol the man pulled out before he fired. Sharp pain struck his shoulder as he fell back on the ground. He put pressure to the wound and raised his face to the man. Sightless eyes met his, and the pistol fell a few inches to the floor.

  Avery’s head fell back, and he breathed deeply through his nose as he fought off the pain. He was alone. His most loyal men were all dead. He had no choice but to seek help elsewhere. He needed Adam Beaumont back in London.

  “Avery?” A feminine voice cut through his thoughts. He struggled to sit up, just as he heard the woman cry out.

  Caroline Beaumont knelt by his side and lifted him up, but her gaze quickly focused on the bodies of his men.

  “Lady Caroline…why are you here?” he asked, pain still making it hard to think.

  “I saw you on the street and I wished to speak to you about Adam and Letty…and oh… Avery, what’s happened?” she cried out, her eyes stark with terror.

  Avery shook his head. The last thing he needed to do was involve Lady Caroline in this matter, or tell her of the danger he would soon have her brother face. She’d suffered enough when she’d lost Lord Wilhelm.“I can’t—”

  “You will. Come on, let me assist you.” Caroline put an arm around his waist and helped him stand. “You need a doctor.”

  Avery allowed her to help him. Lord knew he needed it.

  She had a coach waiting outside, and one of the footmen who’d accompanied her leapt off the coach to help them.

  “Do you have a horse stabled nearby?” she asked.

  “I never ride. Too easy to be seen.” He collapsed onto a seat inside the coach. Caroline told her driver to take them home.

  “No, not yours. My brother’s,” Avery insisted. He would need Lucien’s help, now more than ever. Horatia and her sister were in Brighton, and they’d taken Horatia and Lucien’s little son with them. It would be safe. Lucien could offer Caroline protection if they needed it, and perhaps more.

  “Very well.” Caroline gave the driver the new address and then closed the coach door. She put pressure on Avery’s shoulder using a handkerchief she’d pulled from his waistcoat.

  “Avery, tell me what happened.”

  His hands shook as he tried to remain calm. He was losing blood.
His eyelids were too heavy to keep them open.Caroline slapped his face. Hard. Despite the magnitude of everything happening around them, Avery still managed to be offended by this, and he glared at her in shock.

  “Talk,”Caroline said firmly. “It will help you stay awake.”

  “One of my men sent me an urgent message. He’d infiltrated a group of men plotting treason. I arrived late to the meeting.”

  “And they were the ones who . . .” Caroline’s voice softened.

  “Yes. I’m sorry you had to see that, my lady.” Avery closed his eyes again, but he was in less danger of falling asleep now.

  “You believe your man was exposed and followed?”

  He nodded. “It is the obvious explanation. Before you arrived, I fought a man who’d stayed behind. They knew I would be coming.”

  “You know what the men are planning?” she asked.

  “To attack Parliament, the day the king makes his speech to the House of Lords.”

  “What sort of attack?” Caroline pressed.

  “Whitehall will fall . . . King’s speech . . . Fox . . .” Avery repeated Shengoe’s final clues. “That’s all I know.”

  “Fox?” Caroline’s eyes narrowed. “Like the animal?”

  Avery puzzled over the possible interpretations. “I don’t know. A fox in the henhouse, perhaps? An inside man? An assassin? But it’s not just the king they’re after. Whitehall will fall . . . Foxes burrow . . .A tunnel?” He shook his head, having hit a dead end.

  Suddenly Caroline gasped. “Tunnel. You don’t suppose he must mean Guy Fawkes? F-A-W-K-E-S? The gunpowder plot.”

  Avery’s eyes widened. Could it be? He considered the possibilities, then cursed. “Yes, that must be it.”

  “How does that poem go again?” he asked her.

  * * *

  Remember, remember!

  The fifth of November,

  The Gunpowder treason and plot;

  I know of no reason

  Why the Gunpowder treason

  Should ever be forgot!

  Guy Fawkesand his companions

  Did the scheme contrive,

  To blow theKing and Parliament

  All up alive.

  Threescore barrels, laid below,

  To prove old England’s overthrow.

  But, by God’s providence, him they catch,

  With a dark lantern, lighting a match!

  A traitor to the Crown, by his action,

  No Parliament mercy from any faction,

  His just end should be grim . . .

  * * *

  Caroline’s voice ended in a whisper. She looked at Avery. “They mean to blow up Parliament?”

  “It is the only way a small band could kill both the king and the lords at the same time, but how?”

  “Are there tunnels beneath Westminster?”

  “No doubt, but they would be secured, patrolled, even sealed off.”

  “Perhaps there is a fox in the henhouse after all?” Caroline suggested.

  “So we must assume they have access, regardless.” Avery was speaking more to himself than to her.

  “Do you know of anyone who might have the architectural plans of Westminster?”

  “Actually, yes,” Avery said as the coach stopped in front of Lucien’s townhouse. “My brother. He enjoys architecture, and I know he has a copy of the plans for it.”

  “The same brother whose house we just arrived at?” Caroline straightened as her footman opened the coach door and helped her out. She and the footman then braced Avery on either side as they helped him up the steps to Lucien’s townhouse. When the butler answered, he took one look at Avery and cried out.

  The butler shouted up the stairs, “My lord, come quickly!” He then called for one of Lucien’s footmen to go fetch the doctor.

  “What is it?” Lucien appeared at the top of the stairs nearby.

  “Evening, brother.” Avery chuckled.

  The blood drained from Lucien’s face.

  “Avery? What the devil?” Lucien met them at the bottom of the stairs and relieved Caroline of her burden. “Follow me,” Lucien urged the footman who held Avery’s other side. Avery was half carried into the drawing room and laid on a fainting couch. But just as Lucien began to ask questions, Avery slipped into unconsciousness.

  Caroline slapped Avery’s face hard when he passed out. Lucien shot her a startled look.

  “What? It worked before!” she protested. “And we have no time for politeness.” Unfortunately, it did not work this time.

  “Do you have smelling salts?” Lucien asked her.

  “My lord, do I look like the fainting sort?” She tried not to take offense, but the implication still riled her.

  “Apologies,” Lucien muttered and told his butler to fetch some. “Lady Caroline, what happened to my brother?”

  Caroline explained that she’d been riding through Grosvenor Square when she saw Avery walk past her in the other direction. She’d been wanting to speak to him about Adam and what else they could do to catch the spies who were after Letty and her brother, so she decided to turn around to wait for him. Her coach headed back the way she’d come, and she’d guessed that the only townhouse she was unfamiliar with was the one he must have entered. Her guess had been right. But after a short time, she’d worried that perhaps he wouldn’t come back out, and her matter was urgent, so she’d decided to knock. But when no one answered the door, she’d realized it was slightly open. Every instinct in her had warned her to be careful as she entered the house in search of Avery.

  She explained the horrific scene she’d come upon, the murdered men and Avery wounded on the ground. She relayed all this calmly, but when she caught sight of her shaking hands covered in blood, she realized how taxing all this had been on her, and she sank into the nearest chair.

  “I told him a hundred times he would get himself killed.” Lucien stared at his brother with a lost look.

  “He has nine lives,” Caroline said. “I’ve never seen a man with so much luck as he.”

  “Well, one day it may finally run out.” Lucien went silent as the doctor arrived.

  Sometime later, the doctor was done and Avery was bandaged up. The bullet had been removed and sat in a bloody mess of cloths in a bowl. Only then did Caroline and Lucien draw a joint breath of relief.

  “My lord . . . Your brother mentioned you might possess the architectural plans to Westminster?”

  Lucien turned to face her. “I do. Why do you need them?”

  “Because . . .” Caroline twisted her hands in her gown. “The men who attacked your brother plan to blow up Parliament, like Guy Fawkes.”

  “Guy Fawkes? Bloody hell.” Lucien looked heavenward. “What fools are these?”

  “Dangerous ones who were serious enough to kill all the men who worked with Avery.”

  “What of your brother? Is Morrey still at Chilgrave?” Lucien asked.

  “No, he went to Scotland to keep Letty safe. They’re at Uncle Tyburn’s castle near Inverness.”

  “Oh, yes. That is indeed a safe place. We almost couldn’t get Ashton Lennox’s wife out of her family’s castle in Scotland. We practically had to storm it to even have a conversation.” Lucien was trying to tease her, but she didn’t feel at all in the mood to laugh.

  “We must send someone to bring Adam back. As much as I do not want him in danger, we will need him. Avery cannot do this alone.”

  “He won’t be alone,” Lucien replied grimly. “I’ll send someone north immediately.”

  Caroline nodded. “If you can fetch the architectural plans for Westminster, I shall watch over your brother.”

  Lucien stood, and Caroline took his place on the edge of the settee. “You saved his life,” Lucien said quietly. “I owe you a great favor, Lady Caroline. Name it, and whatever it is shall be yours.”

  Caroline smiled. “Thank you, my lord, but what I desire, you cannot give.”

  When she was alone with Avery, she held out a hand to take his.
If only someone had been able to save John. Adam had been too late, and that moment had made him become a spy as well. It was only a matter of time before her brother’s luck ran out. Adam and Avery were both men who lived on borrowed time.

  17

  The rider came just after dawn on an exhausted horse, carrying an urgent message. Adam and Letty were in the drawing room with Tyburn when one of Tyburn’s footmen rushed inside.

  “What is it, lad?” All three people present in the drawing room stood.

  “A messenger, my lord. From England. He says he has an urgent message for Lord Morrey.”

  A pit formed in Adam’s stomach as he and Tyburn exited the room to speak with the messenger. The man who stood in the entryway looked travel weary.

  “I am Lord Morrey,” Adam told the young man.

  “My lord, Mr. Russell said you must return to London at once.” The young man gazed at him with fearful eyes.

  “What? Why?”

  “I was told to tell you that the fifth of November should never be forgot. That was all he told me, that and to come to the Marquess of Rochester’s home once you reach London.”

  Adam frowned. “The fifth of November?” The implications there were worrisome indeed.

  Tyburn pointed toward a door that led to the castle kitchens. “Thank ye, lad. Why don’t ye go to the kitchens and eat. One of my staff will show ye to a room where ye may rest.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” The young man left them alone.

  “Well, what does the message mean?” Tyburn asked.

  “Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot . . . It’s a reference to when Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators attempted to blow up Parliament.”

  “My God,” Tyburn said as he and Adam exchanged glances.

  “I have to leave for London, now.”

  “But ye’ve barely had time to heal,” Tyburn argued.