Celine pressed herself back into the shadows and hunched down into the coverlet until only the barrel of Silent Sally stood out from the material.
The door to the coach opened and banged back against the wooden casing. Outside the sky and land were white with snow. But no figures appeared.
Instead a menacing voice resounded through the carriage. “We have your coachman. And we have a gun to his head. Put down your weapons and come outside with your hands in the air.”
“We’re going to have to do what they say.” Alasdair shivered in the breeze from the door.
Celine shook her head as Edward brought his gun away from his shoulder. “Talk to them,” she whispered. “Find out how many there are.”
“It’s cold outside!” Alasdair shouted.
Edward rolled his eyes. “It’s cold outside?” he mouthed.
“It’s all I could think of!” Alasdair’s teeth began to chatter. Celine was glad she was wrapped up tightly in the coverlet.
“It’s cold outside,” mimicked a second booming voice sarcastically from beyond the coach. “Sounds like we have a bunch of wall flowers in there, Pablo.”
Edward took in a breath. He recognized the voice.
“They should try doing this business with one arm,” the first voice said. “Sometimes it aches with frostbite even though it isn’t there. Come on out. I’m bored with this business.”
The booming voice filtered into the tense carriage. “Right you are, sir.”
“Two,” Edward whispered, still trying to place the voice. “I didn’t count on two of them together. Normally highway men work by themselves.”
“If you don’t come out of the carriage, we’ll fire some shots at it anyway. Gold doesn’t burn, but blood and wood do.” The first voice spoke again, the one the other had called Pablo. His menacing tones made Celine shiver.
“You go,” she whispered. Undoing herself from the coverlet she picked up one of the guns Edward had laid on the floor. Standing unsteadily on her right leg, she pulled Edward’s gun away from him.
“Celine, what are you—”
“Shhh.” Unsteadily she reached up and undid the top button of his shirt under his chin, and then the next, and the next. She looked up at him, and caught his gaze, as she slid the cold hard steel of Silent Sally across the hard warmth of his chest.
He shivered visibly. “Celine!”
She swallowed as her wrists brushed against his rippling muscles. Biting her lip she tucked Silent Sally under his arm. “Walk out with your hands up, but your shoulder clenched. You’ll know what to do when the moment comes. Leave me here with the ledgers.”
“They said we all should leave.” Alasdair clapped his arms at his shoulders. “Are you sure you can trust her, sir?”
Edward turned his gaze away from Celine. “At the moment she’s the only hope we have.”
Celine shrank back into the coverlet. What had she expected? A resounding yes! I love her?
“And yes, I believe we can trust her,” he said quietly.
Hope bloomed softly in Celine’s heart. “You had better go.”
Edward reached out and touched Celine’s cheek, with the barest of touches before raising his hands, his arms still bent at the elbows. “Alasdair, you go first.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Alasdair muttered audibly.
“Just the two of you?” The voice they had first heard was sarcastic. “And what’s in your carriage?”
“Ledgers.” Edward’s voice was quiet and firm. “I am an accountant.”
The booming voice that Celine had heard before spoke slowly. “Why, Mr. Fiske, we meet again. I did say we might catchup did I not?”
Celine shivered as Edward made no reply.
The deep voice continued. “You do remember me don’t you? Mr. Carandel from the armory. You were trying to extract some accounts I believe?”
Edward’s voice was short and to the point. “I do. I was.”
“What a coincidence we should meet again. You know, Pablo, it makes me think that there might be gold in the carriage too.”
Edward’s voice took on the prim and proper tone that Celine had heard so many times before, yet strangely not so recently. “I do not travel with money. I merely make entries in my books. All client monies are held at the bank.”
“So why have you got all your books with you then?” Pablo’s voice was menacing. “Moving house are you?”
“Why as it happens I am.” Edward’s voice was as calm as a flat sea.
“Get me one of your ledgers. Not you, Fiske. The other man,” Pablo said.
Celine strained her ears as a shuffling sound came closer to the carriage. Alasdair peered his head in. He blinked at her. At once she realized that she was sat on top of all the ledgers, and whilst she was in the shadows, Alasdair still needed to remove one of the books from the pile. Quickly she unwrapped herself from the coverlet and slid down the back of the ledgers where the guns had been kept, kicking a book out at Alasdair as she fell. She winced as she connected with her aching ankle and pulled the coverlet back on top of her.
The carriage shifted as Alasdair’s weight pulled it to one side. He grunted audibly as he picked up the ledger.
“Hurry up, you fool,” Pablo barked. “Do you think we’ve got all day to look at your blasted books?”
The carriage sprang back again as Alasdair obviously left.
“It’s certainly a ledger,” Mr. Carandel’s voice was bored. “The Pink Canary Club. Ah, the sister to my old company. Quite an interesting thing for a respectable man such as yourself to be working for.”
“A man takes his work where he can.” Edward’s voice was cool, but Celine could tell he didn’t like the direction that the conversation was turning to.
“Pink Canary Club,” Pablo’s voice mused. “You know that sounds rather familiar. I made a deal once with a man that owned the Pink Canary Club.”
“I’m sure there are many clubs of the same name in London.”
“Says here, 12 Portillo Street, Covent Garden, Pablo.”
“Thank you, Mr. Carandel.” There was a pause. “Of course, my dealings were with the man when I had two arms, you see. I was rather annoyed about losing my arm, and then being sent to prison. It’s only because of my associate Jimmy Carandel here that I got out.”
Celine shivered. Pablo’s voice was more arctic than the conditions outside of the carriage. Come on.
“You see Mr.—?”
“Mr. Fiske.”
“Ah yes. Mr. Fiske. That does ring some bells. Mr. Khaffar took my arm off after double crossing me with my own son.”
Bloody hell Pablo Moreno!
Edward’s voice remained calm. “Awkward.”
“Yes. Quite.” Pablo paused. “So I wonder how he would feel if I were to send back his accountant with only one leg. As a warning like?”
Celine gasped. She was no use inside the carriage. She shrugged her coverlet away from above her and grasped the long barreled gun she had taken from the floor of the carriage.
“I am no longer his accountant.” Edward’s voice cut through Celine’s movements. She paused and waited with bated breath for Pablo’s reply.
“What a shame,” Pablo said nonchalantly. “Then I shall send you to him with no legs as a warning that I’m after him then.”
“Perhaps I wasn’t quite honest when I said that all that was in the carriage were ledgers.” Edward’s voice was still unhurried. How could he be so cool in a time such as this? Was he frozen inside? “After all, what accountant that formerly worked for Mr. Khaffar would be honest straight away?”
Pablo laughed unexpectedly. “Quite true. I killed an accountant in a raid I made once in the East End. I was told not to kill anyone but the accountant had let me in, and would have told on us if I’d let him live. I was always surprised at the strangeness of shooting someone in a place that sold guns. Quite a coincidence my associate here Mr. Car
andel went to work at the same company wasn’t it?”
Edward stayed silent before saying, “Yes.”
Mr. Carandel’s deep voice echoed through the suddenly still air. “Pablo, let’s drop the farce. I don’t believe this slimy bastard. I’m going to check for money in the carriage. And then we can kill them both like we’ve been ordered.” The coach groaned and tipped as a heavy figure mounted the steps.
Kill them? Slowly Celine tipped the barrel of the gun up and through the stacks of ledgers.
Pablo’s voice was sharp. “No, Jimmy, I’ve told you before—”
Celine pulled the trigger. The roar of the gun caused her to sway against the carriage. It was followed by the distinctive popping sound, and a grunt of pain. A horse neighed and then there was silence.
A long low groan sang hauntingly through the air.
Gingerly, Celine rolled across the top of the ledgers again. A skeletal, extraordinarily long body lay on the floor of the carriage, face down, a pool of blood cascading towards the ledgers. He made no sound, the exit hole of the bullet a mess of rags and curdling blood on his back. Bracing herself against the eaves of the coach, she hopped around his head and peered outside.
Edward stood behind a man who looked furiously back at her, with black eyes that contained no hint of humanity. Alasdair sat on the floor surrounded by blood stained the snow.
“Can you walk?” Edward asked.
“Course I can’t bloody walk,” the man, Pablo, muttered. “You’ve got my only arm in a backwards grip, and I think you’ve bust my knee with your little pop gun. Owww—” he screamed and bent over.
Edward held the man’s hand higher in the air. “I wasn’t asking you. I was asking her.” He smiled at her. “And you should always bow to my lady.”
Celine couldn’t help it. The blush started behind her ears and traveled slowly to the front of her face.
Edward cocked his head on one side, a questioning smile crossed his face before it disappeared again. “Can you make your way to the front with your leg? They tied Robert up. He needs a little help getting free again. Alasdair would help, but I’m afraid he’s catching his breath as Pablo’s horse kicked him. And I’m sure you have something on you to cut through his ties.” This time his smile was knowing.
It made her blush even harder. In fact, it became hard to even look at Edward. Slowly she turned and hobbled down the steps of the carriage. Leaning against the large wheels she limped to where the horses blew long clouds of steam in the air. The coachman’s large figure lay on the ground, his beard a mass of snow. He looked into Celine’s eyes.
“Bloody hell!” She couldn’t stop her cry. “Robert the gamekeeper!”
CHAPTER 22
Edward kept his hands firmly on Pablo’s bent arm as he watched Celine carefully walk along the side of the carriage. He took in a deep breath as she exclaimed. So many secrets. Secrets within secrets. Not just for him, for her too it seemed.
“You think you are clever,” Pablo growled. “I have friends.”
“Had you stopped to think, Mr. Moreno, that we might be on the same side?”
Pablo remained silent.
“After all, Mr. Khaffar also tried to disembowel me shortly before I left London, with the same scimitar I might add, and shortly after I told him that I would no longer work for him.”
“Couldn’t take the heat?” Pablo sneered.
Edward jerked Pablo’s hand higher in surprise. In the melee he’d forgotten about his smoking jacket. The jar of lavender water that had cracked inside his pocket. The fact that Mr. Khaffar had missed him, when he could have hit him so easily. “Possibly not,” he said slowly, glancing back at Celine’s bent form that was valiantly sawing away at Robert’s ties. It had been no ordinary lavender water. “Who exactly sent you and Mr. Carandel after me?” He tugged at Pablo’s only arm.
“Ow! I won’t tell you anything,” Pablo screamed again. “Watch what you are doing!”
“I’m not quite sure what to do with you, Mr. Moreno.” Edward stared down at the supine form of the skeletal man outstretched in the snow. “You see, I need the information from you. Not only that, I want to know more about that accountant you killed and who ordered you to do it. And why, even with your orders to kill me, you still took the time to threaten to take my leg off for no reason at all apart from being associated with Mr. Khaffar.”
“What makes you think that I will tell you anything?”
“Because I will take off your other arm if you don’t.” Edward glanced back at Celine as a short sharp movement caught his eye. She’d finished untying Robert’s bonds, and faced Edward, her face, so prettily red before, now as white as the snow around.
“You wouldn’t do that!” Pablo’s choked voice held disbelief.
Edward shrugged his shoulders, and continued to hold Celine’s gaze. “Yes I would. Tell him the truth, Alasdair. Tell him about my family.”
“Mad as hatters,” Alasdair said cheerfully from his seat on top of the skeletal man on the floor.
Pablo struggled lightly. “That doesn’t mean—”
Alasdair carried on regardless. “The madness doesn’t take the same form every time, you see. Now then, let’s start with your old dad. Spent most of his time on all fours pretending he was a dog. Your old ma kept him in the stables as she said he kept chewing his slippers.”
Edward blinked. Barking like a dog…someone had said that recently but who?
“And then there was your grandma—”
Edward shook his head at Alasdair, breaking Celine’s horrified gaze. “He doesn’t need to hear about her.”
Alasdair looked up in surprise. “But she was the worst of the lot!”
Edward sighed. “All madness is relative, Alasdair. After all, I only tried to eat one bar of soap last week. It did great things for my metabolism.”
Pablo’s body stiffened in Edward’s hands. Ah he was beginning to believe.
“So you see,” Edward lowered his voice to a whisper. “If I twisted just a little bit more, I could debone you like a chicken roast, and then take off your arm with one rusty saw of my friend’s knife over there.” He nodded towards Celine.
Pablo stiffened, his eyes riveted on Celine’s figure. “Your friend? But she’s no friend of yours. I’m more friend to you than her. She works for him, for them.”
Edward froze. “Who is ‘him’?”
“If you know about them then you will be able to find out about him.” Pablo screamed as Edward wrenched his arm.
“Remember the chicken roast,” Edward whispered.
“I don’t know who he is. Mr. Khaffar did. He complained about him all the time. The business partner that he had to pay money to. The man that ordered me to steal from the armory. Ordered me to put Jimmy back in as foreman. He subcontracted that one to me not Khaffar.” Pablo sneered and then spat.
“And what had he to do with the Melinno Society?” Celine’s voice was steady. Edward hadn’t seen her stumble towards him, the tracks where she had dragged her injured foot cut through the fresh snow. Despite the cold, and her thin, oversized dress, she did not shiver.
Pablo barked a loud laugh. “I don’t believe it. The messed up courtesan and the mad accountant.” His voice lowered. “Do you know what happened to your predecessor when she left the Melinno Society?”
Edward watched as Celine froze.
“Angelique is safe,” she whispered.
Pablo grinned. “Your owners made sure that Angelique ended up right where she belonged, working for them again. Just in a different part of the empire.” He cocked his head on one side. “The thing is about Mr. Khaffar’s business partner, his tentacles run wide and deep.”
“I think, Edward,” Celine laid a light hand on Edward’s shoulder. “I think you should tie Pablo up, and then bind him to the outside of the coach, and take him to wherever we are going.” Edward strained his ears as she whispered. “Perhaps a little bit of cold wind and
freezing snow might give you an idea of what you men have done to us.”
Whirling away she limped back to the carriage and climbed inside.
Alasdair nodded. “Sounds like a sound plan if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” Edward said dryly. “But I agree with Celine. Out there he can do little harm.
“Saving all the fun until we get home, lad?” Robert lumbered to where they stood, following in Celine’s footsteps.
Edward almost laughed. “You might say that. Can you bring me the hauling rope please? The one we use in an emergency. I think it will do just the job in tying this man to the coach.” He jerked Pablo by the neck.
A thud caused all three of them to look up. Celine stood at the doorway to the coach clapping her hands together as snow billowed around Mr. Carandel’s long thin body that slid out of the coach and to the floor.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Nobody likes excess baggage.”
Robert roared with laughter and clapped Edward’s shoulder. “As soon as I saw her—”
“Let’s get Pablo tied up shall we,” Edward said sharply. Until he knew just what Celine was up to— she could have killed him with that lavender water for goodness’ sake.
Damn it all to hell. What was the phrase? Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer?
But what about your not quite lovers?
CHAPTER 23
Celine glanced up as Alasdair pulled himself on to the coach. Heaving the coach door closed, he gave her a weak smile and sank onto the seat opposite her. The coach jerked a few more times, and dull groans entered the carriage. Then a whistling started.
Celine watched as Alasdair buried his head in his hands. The whistling stopped and the coach door opened again, bringing with it a swirl of snowflakes that turned to water as soon as they hit the carriage floor.
“Drive on, Robert!” Edward shouted before stepping in and drawing up the coach steps. Celine pressed herself close into the corner next to the ledgers as Edward looked from Alasdair’s bent head to her own huddled form.
Maddening Minx Page 17