Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 03]

by One NightWith a Spy

  Marcus regarded him with some amusement. “Nice weskit.”

  Elliot’s lips twitched, showing a hint of the old version. “Thank you, my lord. I thought you’d like it.”

  “So the other rig was courtesy of a certain valet?” The fastidiously stylish Button served former spymaster Simon Raines but also did his duty as costumer for the Liar’s Club, a fact the Liars sometimes secretly lamented.

  Secretly, for Button was known to take vengeance on anyone who criticized his flair for fashion. Marcus shook his head in sympathy. “What did you do to deserve that?”

  Elliot made a face. “I’d rather not say, my lord. He might be listening even now.”

  Marcus laughed. “So you’re here as yourself. To make your report directly to me? That isn’t procedure.”

  “No, my lord. The Gentleman asked me to convey his apologies personally.”

  The Gentleman was Lord Etheridge’s code name among the Liars. “Apologies? For stepping on the toes of my investigation?”

  “I was here first,” Elliot pointed out.

  Marcus grinned. “So this apology goes more like ‘Why the hell don’t you lot ever tell us anything? How are we supposed to operate if you keep us in the dark?’ “

  Elliot bowed his head slightly. “Well done. That was nearly word for word.”

  “So you must be one of the recent additions to the club. I received that file shortly before—” Before I met Julia. He halted himself. “I see that I should have read it more carefully.”

  “I graduated shortly after the Tremaynes,” Elliot said. “I am specializing in infiltration.”

  “You’re very good at it,” Marcus said with a laugh. “I suspect your ‘Elliot-the-dandy’ will be making many appearances in the future.”

  Elliot sighed. “Now I’ve done it, haven’t I? I’ll be wearing poison-green weskits for the rest of my career.”

  “It could be worse. I’ve heard that valet is very fond of rosy hues.”

  “Pink.” Elliot closed his eyes briefly. “I must be very nice to him, I can see.”

  Marcus let Elliot into the study and shut the door. “Now, tell me what you really came to say.”

  “It concerns Lady Barrowby. Have you found her again, my lord?”

  Marcus worked his jaw. “At the moment, her ladyship is still at large.” He most seriously hoped she stayed that way—invisible.

  Elliot rubbed the back of his neck. “My lord, I wish I could ask this more delicately—”

  “Speak,” Marcus ordered, his tone dangerous. “Do not dance about with me.”

  Elliot nodded shortly. “Very well, then. I informed the Gentleman that you and Lady Barrowby were engaged in an affair. His response was to wonder—” Elliot hesitated.

  Marcus didn’t move a muscle, but his expression turned to stone. “The spymaster wished to know if I am in love with Julia. What did you tell him?”

  Elliot drew a breath. “I told him that I had never seen a man more so, not even himself. And might I add that Lord Etheridge is most infatuated with his lady.”

  “I know,” Marcus muttered. “They’re obnoxiously blissful.” He spread his hands. “I cannot deny it.”

  “Indeed. Upon which the Gentleman sent me to inquire of you … what would you do if you learned that Lady Barrowby—and this is purely hypothetical, you understand—if you learned she was indeed highborn?”

  “I have never doubted Julia’s innate quality, but—”

  “Er, perhaps I should have said very highborn.”

  Marcus stopped. “Julia?”

  Riding astride, more centaur than horse and rider. Rolling with him in the leaves, as uninhibited as a wood nymph. Laughing with all her being, flopped back on the sofa in the parlor.

  Passionate about her people. Devoted to the Four.

  Loyal and steadfast to the end.

  “I would say I am entirely unsurprised.” Marcus lifted a brow. “Hypothetically.”

  “Would you consider asking her for her hand in marriage—hypothet—”

  Marcus interrupted. “I already did, most forcefully.”

  “Ah. The Gentleman wondered about that. In which case his lady wished me to ask if you remembered to tell her you love her first?”

  A jolt went through Marcus. “Of course I did! I’m sure I did.” He blinked. “I … I don’t think I did.”

  “Her ladyship surmised as much. I am now commanded to call you an idiot.” Elliot shrugged, a gleam of his earlier self rising in his eyes. “My apologies, but I was under orders.”

  Marcus passed a hand before his eyes. “She’s right. I am an idiot. That was not the cause of her decision. She knew she’d risk imprisonment or death if she came back with me.”

  Elliot gazed at him pityingly. “And did it occur to you that she might need a reason that would make coming back worth the risk?”

  Marcus felt his jaw drop.

  Elliot shook his head. “The fact that you already proposed leads me to the third command. Only on that condition was I ordered to show you this.” He strode to the mantel and pressed the upper right three of the carved roses there. With a click, a panel of the wall—which had a painting of the lake—came loose and slowly swung their way. Marcus gaped. “How did you know about this?”

  Elliot looked over his shoulder with a grin. “Liar secret. And Lady Barrowby told the Gentleman.”

  He reached in to extract a leather-bound folder of an unusual green color. “I believe this is the one.”

  Marcus took it and opened it to remove the contents. He took them to the lamp and began to examine them. “This is a record of a Liar’s Club investigation more than six years old—” His eyes widened at what he read. After he’d consumed every word, he gazed up at Elliot in astonishment and growing fear.

  “We must find her at once.”

  24

  If I never again felt the embrace of another’s arms, I should despair indeed.

  Marcus and Elliot had scarcely mounted their horses and begun to gallop down the drive when they saw a rider coming from the other direction at a mad, breakneck speed. When the rider, a scrawny fellow mounted on a giant charger, reached them he fell to the gravel as if he couldn’t bow to them fast enough.

  “Pardon, milords, pardon—” he panted. “I come from Kettigrew village, up the north road—I’ve a message—the man, ’e said ‘e’d wring my neck if ‘n I didn’t deliver it—’e will, too, milords! ‘E’s mad, milords, stark raving mad!”

  Elliot glanced at Marcus. “One of your friends, perhaps?”

  Marcus sent him an impatient glare. “More like one of yours.” He turned to the messenger. “We have no time for this—”

  “That’s Kurt’s horse,” Elliot said abruptly. “It’s the only one in our stable that will carry him!”

  “Again, I have no time for the cares of that lot.” Marcus reined his horse around the messenger, who watched him with the despair of a man sure of his own impending doom. “If you want to chase down mad assassins,” Marcus told Elliot, “then that is your concern.”

  “Marcus, don’t be a fool. Kurt is rarely employed within England herself. What target do you think he might have been aimed toward—in this locale, at this moment in time?”

  An icy shaft went through Marcus. Julia. He turned his horse about to face the messenger.

  “What is this communiqué?”

  The man cowered before the intensity in Marcus’s expression, but apparently he feared the giant Kurt more so.

  “ ’E ain’t dead.”

  Marcus clenched his jaw. “Happy to hear it.” He began to turn his horse toward the road—and Julia—once more.

  “ ’E orta be, after ’e were shot like that.”

  “Shot? Kurt?” Elliot’s shock was apparent.

  Marcus sighed and returned to the conversation, such as it was. “This surprises you? I rather think it’s the sanest possible reaction to the man.”

  The messenger nodded fervently. “Too right, milord.”
<
br />   “So he’ll recover?” Elliot pressed the man.

  Marcus could not have cared less for the merciless Kurt’s welfare at the moment. “Did he tell you what he was doing in this vicinity?”

  The messenger looked back and forth at the two of them, then apparently decided that Marcus was the more menacing.

  “ ’E said he come to find a lady—and he found her—”

  “What?”

  The man shrank and began to edge away. “ ’E said ’e found her, then someone shot ’im and took her away.”

  “Oh, thank God!”

  The messenger seemed unsure. “I don’t know, milord. ‘E—-the giant—’e were real worried about the lady. ’E said to tell you—to tell you—”

  “To tell me what?” Who could be more danger to her than Kurt himself?

  “ ’E said to tell you that Denny got ‘er.”

  Denny. The Chimera. Marcus sent one anguished glance at Elliot, who returned it in equal measure.

  They turned their mounts as one and raced down the drive, lying low and letting the gravel fly. Marcus had only one thought that echoed beneath the pounding hoofbeats and the racing of his dread-filled heart.

  What if I’m too late?

  In Kettigrew, they found that Kurt wasn’t merely shot, he’d nearly died. If a passing shepherd hadn’t paused to investigate a freshly collapsed stone wall, he’d never have spotted the large man lying in the rubble.

  Kurt’s great mount had lingered nearby, which was fortunate for Kurt, since no other horse could have carried his limp hugeness down the hill to the village of Kettigrew, where the local midwife was able to remove the bullet and stop the wound.

  Even so, in her words, “Tha fallow orta died.”

  From what Marcus could see past the wild hair and the overgrown beard, the mighty Kurt was looking ill indeed.

  Elliot immediately went to the large man’s side. “Kurt? Kurt, can you hear me?”

  Marcus hung back, seized by an abrupt wave of rage as he looked at the massive hands lying limply on the covers. Julia had been in those hands.

  She knew what Kurt was. She would have known the minute she saw him what his intentions would be. Marcus couldn’t bear it. He pushed past Elliot to grab the giant by the front of his hastily pieced together nightshirt.

  “She ran from you, didn’t she, you vast bastard!” he shook Kurt in his rage, lifting the man half from the bed. “She knew you’d come to kill her, didn’t she? Who sent you?” He leaned into Kurt’s hairy face. “Who sent you?”

  Elliot pulled at his arm. “Marcus, let him go! Good God, the man’s half dead!”

  Marcus turned his head to snarl at Elliot. “He’ll be full dead if he doesn’t speak,” he growled.

  “Didn’t …”

  Both Marcus and Elliot jerked their gazes back to the man in the bed. Elliot pushed Marcus away to lean over the bed. “Didn’t what, Kurt?”

  “Didn’t come … to kill ‘er. Come to find ‘er … bring ‘er back … Himself said not to kill ‘er lessen I must.”

  Marcus shoved past Elliot’s restraining arm. “Who? Who told you to find her? Etheridge?”

  A massive hand wrapped itself around Marcus’s upper arm. “Shut … up … milord. Don’t matter. Denny … took ‘er away …,’e was talkin’ to himself … she were out …’e thought I were out … she’s ‘is ticket ‘ome, he says. She’s got to give ’im the money.’ Passage to France, passage back to his true life’ … that’s what ’e said.”

  Kurt’s hand fell away and his voice began to fade, “’e were real happy ‘bout it. Enough to give a bloke the shivers …”

  “What else? Where did he take her?” Marcus grabbed Kurt again, but Elliot pulled him off.

  “He’s out, Marcus. Come on. We know enough.”

  Marcus blinked, trying to marshal his chaotic emotions and teeming thoughts. Money. Passage.

  There was only one place where the Chimera could expect to gain both the money from Julia’s accounts and illegal passage to France.

  Marcus straightened. “London.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Marcus clenched his jaw. “We’re going to shout ‘Hey, Rube!’ “

  In the small filthy room above the crowded London Street, Julia feared she was going to lose her will to continue fighting. How could she defeat him? She could not, she realized. There would never be enough power for her to defeat him. She began to doubt everything, her strength, Aldus’s confidence in her, her own mind, Marcus’s love, everything.

  She might doubt Marcus’s feelings for her, but her own love for him was a shining light. She understood his difficulty, she didn’t blame him for his conflict. He would make a good Fox, a fine and effective Fox, while she was fast beginning to doubt everything that had ever made her think she could do it.

  The cracks in the ceiling plaster seemed to waver before Julia’s vision. He was starving her now—although if he knew how out of sorts she became when she wasn’t properly fed, he might have reconsidered. She struggled to focus her vision on the largest crack, the one she’d named the Thames. It meandered from one side of the grimy room to the other across the stained ceiling.

  Once she’d properly brought it into focus, she turned her attention to the lesser tributaries. One by one, she forced her eyes to obey her enough to make them come clear. The Fleet, the Tyburn, the Westbourne, the Black Ditch …

  Julia sighed. Her body ached and her head throbbed. She would have rolled over onto her stomach, but the chain didn’t allow it. She had only the slack she required to lie on the bed and to use the chamber pot.

  He hadn’t enjoyed cleaning up after the first beating he’d given her and had been forced to change her situation to prevent more offenses to his fastidious nature.

  She barked a dry, coughing laugh. Odd for a man who blew up privies.

  “Oh, Aldus, I’ve properly let you down this time,” she whispered to the rivers above her. “You were wrong about me. I tried to tell you, but men never listen, do they? You were wrong and Liverpool and Marcus and the others were right. I don’t have the strength needed to be one of the Royal Four.”

  She blinked and drew a harsh breath, looking about her carefully. She’d slipped again. Thank heaven he wasn’t around to hear her.

  Abruptly tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes. “See?” she whispered. “I’m nothing but a silly girl after all, crying about nothing.”

  She was weakening by the hour, she could feel it. She was like the child with his thumb in the dike, holding back the flood of information inside of her. Sooner or later, he was going to realize that she was more than a simple widow—probably because she was going to stupidly let something slip—and he was going to get every single thing she knew from her with ease.

  When he’d beaten her this morning, she’d ached to cry out the truth, just to make him stop for a moment, just long enough for her to take a breath. If she’d had an ounce of air in her lungs, she would have.

  She was a danger to England, just as Liverpool had said. She was nothing but a weakling, best kept locked away in silence because she wouldn’t be able to keep her stupid mouth shut much longer!

  She slid her feet to the floor and shakily stood. She couldn’t allow herself to lie about. It would only make her weaker. She set herself to the task of walking from the reach of the chain, by the bed, to the other reach of the chain, by the window.

  She extended her body and reached for the sill yet again, but her arms had not grown in the last hour, nor had the chain stretched. She would have broken the glass and screamed for help long ago if she could have, although from the rough sounds coming from outside and from the other rooms, she didn’t know if anyone would even notice another woman screaming.

  Certainly no one had heard her yet.

  She stood on tiptoe, pulling her full weight against the chain. If she stood just so, she could see people on the street below. She would have to stop after a few moments, for the strain on her w
renched shoulder would become too much to bear, but someone, just once, might look up into her window. Some curious soul might see her signaling madly up in her tower and come to find out about the madwoman in the window.

  Unlikely, but not impossible. She was quite prepared to cling to even that slim hope.

  Her vision swam and her knees weakened. She blinked rapidly, pulling herself together with will alone. She hadn’t eaten in … three days? It didn’t matter anyway. She would eat when she ate. That was not currently under her control, so there was little point in worrying about it.

  Although, when next she ate, she first planned on having all the bangers and mash one woman could hold—

  Igby walked down the street beneath her window.

  Julia blinked, then shook her head. No, it couldn’t—

  It was, plain as day. He was stopping a washerwoman with her heavy basket, showing her a paper—a sketch, probably, for there wasn’t a soul within miles of here who could read—and listening closely to the woman, who shook her head regretfully.

  “Igby!” Julia screamed. Her voice could not penetrate the glass and the street clamor outside. She cast about for something, anything—

  The chamber pot! In less time than it took to think about it, Julia had grabbed up the filthy thing and flung it fully through the glass. “Igby!”

  Her voice was lost in the outcry outside from the people doused with the contents of a well-used chamber pot. Igby turned to watch what must have been quite the contretemps, then lifted his gaze to see where the object had originated from.

  Julia pulled so hard against the chain that it cut into her flesh. “Igby! Igby!” She waved wildly as close to the glass as she could manage. She saw him hesitate for a moment, saw his gaze pass incuriously over her broken window, and then saw him turn and amble away, out of her limited sight.

  No. Don’t go. Gray flecks surrounded Julia’s vision and she sank to her knees, her bleeding wrist still stretched out behind her. No.

  The raucous Cheapside streets seemed sinister, as if every beggar and baker were conspiring against the search for Julia with their jostling and commotion. Marcus fought the despair clawing at his throat. He knew she was near, for they’d tracked the hired cab that had carried a small kindly faced man and his ailing wife thus far.