Edward eyed the bandaged wound on Celine’s delicate leg. “I haven’t found out yet.”
The doctor sighed. “There isn’t much we can do for rabies. A course of leeches perhaps, but I’m personally beginning to believe that their use is limited.”
“I’m not sure we are at the leech stage yet.”
The doctor shook his head. “What this girl needs is rest. I think that she didn’t properly bandage the wound when she first got it. Her boots have rubbed against it causing it to continue to bleed. You’ll have to tell her to keep off her feet until she is better.”
“But—”
“I’ll send my bill to the usual place shall I, Mr. Fiske?”
“Yes do. Please.”
Edward stood back as the doctor pushed his way past him. The doctor stopped at the door. “Had a very odd experience on your doorstep.” He hesitated.
“Yes?” Edward sat down on the bed by Celine.
“Some rather dangerous looking man approached me and demanded to know why I was visiting your house.”
Edward touched Celine’s hair gently. “That’s strange.”
“Yes. He brought out a large sword, but unfortunately as you hadn’t told me why I was wanted I couldn’t give him any more information.”
“A large sword!” Edward ran to the window, but it was snowing so heavily he could not see the street beyond.
“Yes, curved thing. Looked pretty dangerous. Personally I thought he was as mad as a syphilitic lunatic. Waving a large sword around in a public place! He’d have been barking like a dog next. Ahem.” The doctor glanced at Edward. “Sorry. Perhaps there is a back way I might leave your property?” he asked hopefully. “I’m not over keen on seeing the person again at such close quarters.”
“Alasdair!” Edward stood reluctantly from the bed. “I’ll find my colleague. He’ll take you out via the cellar. If they are watching the front then they’ll be watching the back of the building as well.”
“They?” The doctor clutched his bag to himself. For the first time his professional demeanor slipped.
“Some business associates of mine.”
“Oh.” As if it was perfectly understandable, the doctor let go of his bag. “And the back way?”
“Will lead out of the house five down and on the street behind this one.”
“Most useful.”
“Yes.” The architect had been extremely surprised when Edward had commissioned the tunnel. He’d said that he was a chemist and that he needed an escape route long enough so that if there was an explosion he would be able to run far enough away that he wouldn’t be blown up. The architect of the villas had not questioned what would happen to the buildings around the house, nor pointed out the fact that Edward could merely have stepped out the front door if he was near enough the cellar in order to make good his escape.
Some people were mad.
As the doctor left, Celine stirred on the bed. Edward strode quickly to her side, and pulled the coverlet over her, leaving her feet exposed. He looked down into her face. In sleep the allure of her face cast a different shadow, a more innocent tint to the relaxed lips, an amused quirk to the eyebrows.
It was even more potent than the smoldering glances and coquettish drape of her hair that Edward knew intimately. He sat again by her side. This was the real Celine, not the courtesan by day and sometime by night.
Celine gave a sigh and rolled slightly. Edward frowned. Celine was asleep and yet she didn’t snore.
His gaze caught on the bag that Celine had brought with her. Alasdair had already laid Silent Sally on the table by the bag. Furtively Edward reached in and drew out the rest of the contents.
A scarf, an expensive bottle of lavender perfume and a book were all that filled the meagre sack. He pulled out the scarf, marveling at its warmth. Pausing only to pull a long black strand of Celine’s hair from the material, he wrapped the scarf around his neck and pushed the bottle of lavender into his pocket. He laid a hand on the book and turned to look at Celine. She lay silent and unmoving on the bed. Fatigue, the doctor had said, combined with loss of blood. And who knows what else.
He turned back to the book, running his hand down the bound leather of the ledger. Taking a deep breath he opened the book, only for a note to fall from the pages to his feet. Bending over, Edward picked up the note slowly.
“Meet me at the Cheshire Cheese, Wednesday. Despite appearances we are together in this. G.”
His jaw clenched. It wasn’t hard to work out who G was. Gunvald. Celine’s next lover. The handsome, devil may care Swede. A man against whom no cowardly accountant could match up. He crumpled the note in his pocket, pulling his arm out hard against the seams. Hands rough against the pages, he pawed at the book, but it was no diary of illicit love affairs and clandestine meetings. The entire book was empty apart from one page dated 5th August 1885. The first column had only one entry, Goods Received 1. And then for the second column a line of entries ran down the page, each totaling £20. At the bottom of the page a line was ruled across, under which was marked in a strong, but scratching hand, Total Payment received £500.
Another line ruled underneath showed in grainy lead against the yellowing paper.
The book was a ledger—but it didn’t make sense. If goods had been received, then payment should have been made, not received for them. And what type of goods had Celine received when she was only very young, not born even?
He picked up the ledger and walked downstairs, all the way to the cellar. In the darkness with the musty smell of paper his senses calmed. He hesitated, before pushing the ledger in with the Rochester files, high up away from the mice.
“Sir, are you down there?” Alasdair’s shadow appeared at the kitchen door. “Only, Mr. Khaffar’s men aren’t bothering to hide themselves anymore. They’re standing outside the house.”
Edward picked up some ledgers and strode up the stairs, slowing as he gained the last step. He brushed away a cobweb by rubbing the back of his head against his shoulder. “Please find me my comb, Alasdair. I will have a word with them.”
“Are you sure you want to confront them, Mr. Fiske?”
Edward nodded as Alasdair stood back. “I would like you to load everything in the cellar into the cart standing outside 5 Newbury Street.”
“Through the tunnel?”
“Yes. We will need to make a fast get away.”
“And Celine, sir? What will we do with her?” Alasdair ran after him as he strode down the hall to the front door.
“She will be coming with us of course.”
As Edward opened the front door, the wind blew in a small amount of the snow that had settled. It would be hard going to where he wanted to be, but at the very least, that would stop the men following them.
He wasn’t surprised to see Mr. Khaffar already on the garden path.
“Going somewhere, Mr. Fiske?” The curved and tempered steel of Mr. Khaffar’s sword gleamed in his hand. He seemed two dimensional somehow, as if his only motivations were menace and portent. What were his human motivations, Edward wondered, did he have a wife?
Edward stepped forward. “I have completed my review of your business, and I am happy that all the accounts are up to date.”
Mr. Khaffar smiled a wide smile. “You were impressed, were you not, with my facilities?”
“My surprise visit to the Pink Canary Club, and the Armory?” Edward nodded. “Very. I have here all the necessary accounts.” He held out the ledgers, but Mr. Khaffar made no motions to keep them.
“You are my accountant, you keep them.” Mr. Khaffar proceeded to clean his fingernails with the tip of the scimitar.
“But that is where I regret to say you are wrong.” Edward quietly dropped the ledgers into the slush on the garden path.
“What the hell? Raffi! Yogi! Pick up the books!”
Mr. Khaffar and Edward stared at each other and then at the ledgers that lay in the slush.
> “Raffi? Yogi?” Mr. Khaffar waved his sword menacingly. “What is it with you all? Pick up the books!” Two of Mr. Khaffar’s men walked with reluctance at his order across the waterlogged garden and pulled the sopping books off the wet ground.
Mr. Khaffar raised his sword again in Edward’s direction. “Why did you do that?”
“Because despite giving you sound business advice, which is still contrary to British law, you have persisted in going one step further, Mr. Khaffar.” Edward crossed his fingers. “I can tolerate a certain amount of misdeeds, but unaccounted for payments without adequate descriptions and bad inventory keeping are not good enough. I cannot work in those types of conditions with men such as Mr. Carandel.”
“Bloody Mr. Carandel. Try and do your business partner a favor and all you get is trouble.” Mr. Khaffar narrowed his eyes. “You talked to him about the theft didn’t you? What did he tell you? You’ll do what I say or face the consequences.” Mr. Khaffar’s voice rose in a cadence.
“I won’t—”
Mr. Khaffar didn’t wait for the end of the sentence, he swung the scimitar in a halfhearted sweeping cut at the loose coat material by Edward’s side. Edward watched horrified as the sword swung narrowly under his arm and against his suit. A small cracking sound filled the air, as his coat began to smoke.
Mr. Khaffar jumped back as a burning smell filled the air. “Sorcery!”
Horrified, Edward swirled, trying to free himself from the steaming brown jacket. He pulled himself from the sleeves as Mr. Khaffar circled him. In one final pull he threw the jacket in the air towards Mr. Khaffar and ran back into the house behind as Mr. Khaffar yelled.
He didn’t stop on the front step, nor on the stairs, nor at the bedroom door. Celine’s eyes gazed at him wide and fixed as he rolled her in the coverlet and pulled her into his arms. In one turn he pulled Silent Sally from the table and ran back to the door, down, down the stairs and into the cellar to where Alasdair waited with a lamp.
“Go, just go,” Edward panted. “No time, Khaffar is coming.”
The flame of the lamp streamed as Edward followed Alasdair through the deep tunnel. He’d always envisaged that he would use it when it became known that he was Lord Rochester. Never that he would be running away from a murderous man, with a half conscious woman in his arms.
“Nor far now,” he muttered into Celine’s hair. His arms brushed against the dank cold stone as he hefted her body as fast as he could.
A large oak door with studs stood open at the end of the tunnel. As soon as Edward passed through it, Alasdair slammed it shut and shot the large bolt that held it closed. A flight of steps rose upwards into a house above. The house was empty, no furniture or people. Their feet echoed as they ran along the narrow hallway to the front of the house.
With practiced ease Alasdair threw open the front door and ran outside onto the waiting coach. He turned and put out his hands.
Slowing for only the first time in the past fifteen minutes, Edward handed Celine up to Alasdair and then climbed onto the coach. With two raps of his knuckles, the coach drew away.
“We’re going back then,” Alasdair said dryly.
Edward nodded, catching at the coach as it swayed. Alasdair had placed Celine’s wrapped up form on top of the piles of ledgers he had moved out of the cellar. Quickly he swung across the coach and braced his body against hers.
Her eyes peeked out of the enclosing white coverlet. “Where are we going, Edward?” she asked weakly. She struggled, only managing to pull her hand half out. He took her fingers and kissed each fine tip slowly, before covering her mouth with his.
“We’re going back to where it all began,” he muttered into her hair. “To where madness has a home, and I,” he drew back and stared into her eyes, “I really become someone else.”
CHAPTER 21
Balanced on the ledgers, and pinned against the side of the coach by the hardness of Edward’s body, Celine could not decide whether or not to laugh or cry. Every now and then Edward’s strong hands would grasp hers and caress her fingertips before absentmindedly letting go again and turning to speak with Alasdair.
“Who is driving the coach?” she asked weakly, in a moment when she could not bear her own silence any longer. Edward turned and smiled down at her.
“A friend of mine.”
“Lord Anglethorpe?”
Edward hesitated. “No, a much older friend.”
“Another accountant?”
Edward shook his head and grasped her fingers again. “No. He is a man of the woods.”
“In London?”
“No. From back home.”
Celine let her head rest back on a ledger. “You never told me where you came from.”
Edward smiled. “We never did speak much about each other’s backgrounds at all did we?”
Celine swallowed. Edward’s words were phrased with such finality that it was as if he were saying that anything they had was over.
“You can’t take me back to Melinno Yard,” she said quietly.
Edward quirked an eyebrow. “I had no intention of doing so.”
“Oh.”
“But why can’t I take you back there?”
“Pithadora has told me never to come back.” Celine shivered.
“But I thought she brought you up.” Edward frowned.
“She made me make a choice.”
“What about?”
Celine closed her eyes. “I’d rather not say.”
Edward’s voice became gravellier. “Sometimes it is better not to mix work and pleasure.”
Celine snorted. “Gunvald obviously thought the same way too.”
“So you left him behind.” Edward drew away from her.
Celine shook her head. “Of course.”
“I don’t understand how you can be so callous.” Edward’s voice was low, guttural, menacing.
Celine tried to sit up straight, wincing as a ledger caught into her side. “I—”
“Ahem.”
Celine lay back on the ledgers as Alasdair leaned backwards into view.
“We are getting closer to the cottage, sir. Perhaps we should stay there for the night before going onwards, just in case Khaffar tries to join us?”
Edward nodded.
Celine frowned. “Cottage?”
Edward looked down at her. “I’ve had an escape plan made for a while.” The menacing sound had ebbed from his voice, and instead a sad note tinged his words.
Celine shifted as a book spine dug into her back. “Since you started working for Mr. Khaffar?”
Edward sighed. “Since long before then.” He gave her a long look. “And no, I don’t always run away from things. Sometimes one escapes to fight another day.”
Celine bit her lip. “If you hadn’t taken me in, then I would have had nowhere to escape to.” In a smaller voice she added, “I was running away too.”
Edward took in a deep breath. “I tried to join the army but Lord Granwich prevented me.” He shook his breath. “I’m sure Gunvald will come after you. He left you a note.”
Celine put out a hand to steady herself against the rocking carriage. “You did? He did? Where is it?”
Edward sighed and patted at his coat. “I don’t have it anymore.”
“You don’t have my note from Gunvald?”
Edward’s brow creased. “I put it in my pocket but then…Mr. Khaffar swung his scimitar at me—”
“Don’t you mean his ornamental knife?” Celine snapped.
“Highwaymen!” Alasdair shouted suddenly.
Edward turned away from her. “Where are the guns?”
Alasdair wrung his hands. “Behind the ledgers, I didn’t have time—”
Edward crouched to his feet and bent over Celine as Alasdair talked. “Bloody hell, Alasdair, they’re right down the back.” He leaned further and further over until his full body covered Celine’s. His cheeks pressed against hers as h
e groped down the back of the ledgers. One by one he drew out musket after musket, a blunderbuss and then a large Spanish gun.
As he braced his hands either side of her face he pushed his body upwards. He looked down at her and grinned suddenly, before swooping and stealing a searing kiss. “Never miss a chance,” he breathed. “Does Gunvald kiss you like that?” He stopped and stared. “Do all the men kiss you like that?”
Celine turned her face away as a wave of shame swept over her. There was no way that she could convince him, here and now, that sometimes a kiss is just the mechanics of moving your lips, of going through the motions, as facile as eating an apple or applying kohl to one’s eyes.
But when real feeling was involved, then, then starburst reeled in the sky, toes curled and for Celine, the world rocked on its axis. Only with Edward. Only ever with Edward.
She glanced back at him, and pulled the coverlet that kept her cocooned even tighter. His eyes, normally so cool and assessing, burned with heat so intense, she thought she might catch fire. Slowly his gaze cooled.
“They’re coming to the door!” Alasdair’s frantic whisper cut through the tension.
“Can you sit up?” Edward asked.
Celine nodded. He pushed Silent Sally into her hands, powder already filled its small pan.
“I believe you already know what to do with it.”
Celine grasped the cool hard stock of the gun and slowly edged her legs over the ledgers. “But what about you? You’ve never shot a gun—” she paused, the dreamlike quality of the strange conversation between Alasdair and Edward coming back to her.
He winked. “Edward Fiske hasn’t.” Hands moving with practiced ease, he pulled the guns from the floor, checked them, and then primed them ready for firing. “But I have.”
“You aren’t Edward?”
He sighed. “I am Edward. Just not Edward Fiske at the moment.”
Celine frowned “But—”
Alasdair’s shout broke through their words. “Look lively, they’re here.”
Edward turned away from her and pulled the butt of his gun into his shoulder. “I hope Robert’s still on the top of the carriage.”
Maddening Minx Page 16