Cobby came deeper into the room, looked. Gradually, he, too, frowned. “Things are not quite the way we leave them—either you or me. Take the brushes on the dresser. They aren’t in any sort of order. Neither of us leave our weapons like that—even if they aren’t exactly weapons.”
Del ran a hand through his hair. “So I’m right. Someone has been searching. Who?”
Cobby pursed his lips. “Haven’t been many hotel staff about up here—just the maids cleaning, and me and Janay usually hang about then.” He darted a glance at Del. “Could it be one of Miss Duncannon’s people?”
“I can’t see how. She’s known them for years, and there’s no way the Black Cobra could have known she and I were going to travel together, that her staff would ever have any chance at the scroll-holder. He wouldn’t have had time to put his usual persuasions in place.”
The Black Cobra’s usual persuasive tactic was to get a family member into his clutches and use their safety to ensure their relative did as he bid them.
“You’re right.” Cobby nodded. “And I have to say they’re a straightforward lot. I haven’t had any qualms.”
“So it has to have been a member of the hotel’s staff. Spread the word to the others—we’ll need to stay alert while we prepare to leave.”
A tap on the door heralded a lad with a jug of steaming water. Cobby received it, then shut the door. He poured a basinful for Del as he stripped. “So what time are we leaving? You didn’t exactly say last night.”
Del considered as he washed. “Let’s say ten on the steps, ten-thirty away.” He towelled his face, then mopped his chest. “Pass the word to Janay. I don’t know how long it’ll take for Miss Duncannon’s household to get ready.”
“Oh, we heard we’d be leaving last night, so we’re ready. All of us. Just finishing up breakfast, the rest are, so as soon as you and Miss Duncannon give the word, we can go.”
“Excellent.” It was early, but Del had a definite appetite. “You can leave my clothes out, then go and rustle up breakfast. We’ll have it in the suite as usual. I’m starved.”
And so, he suspected, would be his charge.
As Cobby rummaged in the wardrobe, Del added to himself, “And then we can start out, and see what the day brings.”
December 15
Grillon’s Hotel
Sangay felt torn on the one hand, and desperate on the other. From the back of Grillon’s foyer, half concealed behind a palm in a big pot, he watched the flurry of activity as the colonel-sahib’s and the memsahib’s households prepared to depart.
He wished he could go with them. They’d been kind to him, all of them, even though they didn’t know him—not really. They’d all accepted him as one of their party. He’d been careful to avoid gatherings where they’d all been together, where one household might have said something to alert the other that he wasn’t theirs. That he didn’t really belong.
So far, the gods had smiled on him, something he didn’t understand. He was not acting honorably—he was being the hand, the tool, of an evil man—yet thus far the gods hadn’t struck him down.
Thus far the gods had left him to carry out the evil man’s instructions.
He’d searched, he’d done all he was supposed to, but he hadn’t laid eyes on any scroll-holder. He could guess what it would look like—his old captain had had similar holders for his maps and orders—but he hadn’t seen anything that might be it. And now they were all leaving.
He’d failed.
Despair dragging his heart into his thin slippers, he sucked in a breath and, with one last look at the almost gay commotion surrounding the three carriages lined up outside the hotel, slunk down the side corridor to the alley door.
He slipped out of the door, then cautiously made his way to the corner where he’d met the man before, praying with every step that the man wouldn’t simply kill him when he reported his failure. More, that he wouldn’t feel moved to have his maataa killed, too.
Nerves at full stretch, he rounded the corner. Nearly lost his brave face when, once again, he all but ran into the man.
“Well? Do you have it?”
Sangay fought not to squirm. He lifted his chin, forced himself to look in the direction of the man’s face. “I have searched all the bags, all the rooms, sahib. The scroll-holder isn’t there.”
The man swore, strings of bad words Sangay had heard often enough on the docks. Stoically, he waited for his punishment, for a blow, or worse. There was no point trying to run.
He felt the man’s irate gaze boring into him. Steeled himself. The man’s fists were clenched, hanging heavy at his sides.
“What’s all the activity?” The man tipped his head toward the front of the hotel. “Where are they going?”
Sangay pulled the answer from his skittering thoughts. “I heard they are going to some big fine house—a Somersham Place—in a country called Cambridgeshire. They hope to reach there by this evening, but they are worried about the weather—they say it is coming on to snow, and fear that that might hold them up, or at least slow them down.”
The man’s scowl grew blacker. After a moment he asked, “Are the other two men traveling with them?”
“Yes, sahib, but as I understand it, they won’t be in the carriages. They’ll be riding ahorse.”
“I see.”
The snarl wasn’t encouraging, but the man had made no move to lay a hand on him. Sangay started to wonder if the gods truly were watching over him still, despite all.
“So they’re leaving, and you’ve sighted no scroll-holder, no letter of any kind, and you’ve searched everywhere?”
“Oh, yes, sahib! I looked everywhere in every room, even the servants’ rooms. There was no scroll-holder or letter anywhere.”
“So one of them is carrying it with them. Fine.” The word was a rough snarl. “Either the Colonel or one of his two men would be my guess. So you stick with them, and you keep a close—a really close—eye on those three. They’ll put it down sometime, somewhere. When they do, you snatch it and scarper—got it?”
Sangay risked a frown. “Scarper, sahib?”
“Run like the dickens. Like the devil himself was after you—and remember that your precious mother’s continuing health depends on you getting away. Wherever you are, you lay your hands on that scroll-holder and you run—I’ll be close, watching, waiting. I’ll see you, and I’ll come and meet you.” The man’s lips curled. “Just like this.” He leaned close, putting his face close to Sangay’s. “Understand?”
Eyes like saucers, Sangay couldn’t even swallow. “Yes, sahib. I understand.” He would rather have faced a real cobra eye to eye.
The man seemed satisfied with what he saw in Sangay’s face. He slowly eased back, straightened.
Sangay inwardly trembled, but felt forced to say, “They might not put the holder down this day, sahib, not while they are traveling.”
“True enough. More likely they’ll put it down once they reach this house. It sounds like someone’s country house.” The man glanced at him. “Like a palace to you.”
“Apparently the man who owns it is a duke.”
“Is that so?” The man was silent for a moment, then said, “Likely it’ll be huge. You meet me there tonight, at ten o’clock, behind the stable there. There’ll be a big stable, for sure.” Once again, the man’s pale eyes locked on Sangay. “If you get the holder, you bring it there tonight, but even if you don’t lay hands on it, you come and meet me there, you hear?”
Sangay hung his head, forced himself to nod even as misery washed over him. His nightmare was still not at an end. “Yes, sahib.”
“You wouldn’t want anything to happen to your mother, would you?”
He looked up, eyes wide. “No, sahib! I mean, yes—I will be there. I don’t want anything to happen to my maataa, sahib.”
“Good.” The man tipped his head. “Now get back there before they miss you. Go!”
Sangay turned and all but fled. Back down the mews and u
p the alley, but instead of going through the side door and across the hotel foyer, he followed the alley to the street and peeked around the corner.
The flurry about the carriages was in full swing. Likely no one had missed him. Mustaf, Kumulay and Cobby each stood on the roof of a different carriage, stowing the bags that an army of footmen, under Janay’s directions, handed up. The women in their colored saris, bright shawls wrapped about their heads, stood on the pavement and pointed and directed and argued with Janay and the men over where this bag, that bundle, should go. The colonel and the memsahib stood on the pavement closer to the door, haughtily surveying and waiting.
They all had been so much kinder to Sangay than any other people in his entire life, and yet he’d have to repay their niceness, all their kindnesses, by stealing from the colonel.
Sangay felt as if dirt was being ground into his soul.
But there was no help for it. If it had been only his death to be feared, Sangay hoped he would be brave enough to tell the man no, but he couldn’t let his maataa be killed—and killed horribly, too. No good son could have that on his conscience.
Dragging in a breath, Sangay straightened, then, seeing the women start to enter the carriages, he hurried out and quietly joined the melee.
Eight
December 15
Albemarle Street, London
Her hand in Del’s, Deliah climbed onto the step of the front carriage. Pausing to, from her temporary vantage point, look over the heads at the others entering the two carriages behind, she noticed the young Indian lad—the one Bess called the colonel’s boy—scurrying up from around the corner. He spoke to Janay, then conferred with Mustaf, who pointed at the roof of the third carriage. The boy nodded eagerly, and with the agility of a monkey, swarmed up to the roof, settling amid the bags and bundles secured there.
With a quirk of her brows, Deliah ducked and entered the carriage. As she took her seat, she decided she envied the boy. He’d have a good view as they traveled north through London, and with all the luggage around him, he’d have reasonable protection from the elements.
It was a still day, pervasively cold with gray clouds hanging low and a scent in the air that foretold snow. Not yet, however. Once they reached the open countryside, they would get a better sense of what the day might bring.
Del had paused on the pavement to exchange a few words with the head porter. Deliah settled her skirts, sank into the comforting leather. Del’s household and hers had merged into an effective team. The women had banded together and commandeered the second, slightly larger carriage. They would sit and chat and gossip through the journey. The men had been consigned to the third carriage; that no doubt would travel north in greater silence.
The doorway darkened as Del climbed in. He sat beside her, and the head porter, beaming and touching the brim of his hat, shut the door.
The carriage tipped fractionally as Cobby climbed up beside the driver, then a whip cracked, the carriage jerked as the horses leaned into the harness, and they were away, rolling slowly through the streets on their journey into Cambridgeshire.
Deliah glanced at Del. He was looking out of the window at the streetscapes sliding by. Her thoughts returned to the boy. She wondered how he’d come to be part of Del’s household, felt sure there would be some story there. It was tempting to ask, but…having Del there, seated beside her, reminded her of other things. Other things she really should take the time to think about.
So she did. Let the observations and questions she’d set aside over recent days, that she’d allowed to be overtaken by recent events, finally form in her mind.
Let her thoughts dwell on him, and on what had happened between them, what now existed between them—what label it was most accurate to attach to their…liaison.
Chief among her mental questions was how long that liaison would last.
As they rattled and rumbled through the streets of London, a comfortable silence enveloped them, contrasting with the bustle and noisy hustle outside, the buzz of humanity natural in any large city. And London was the largest of them all. It had spread and sprawled since she’d last traveled through it.
They’d chosen not to take the Great North Road, the obvious route to Cambridgeshire. With its constant stream of carriages, coaches and carts, wagons and riders, that route would be no help in tempting the Black Cobra into an attack. They’d opted instead for the lesser road through Royston. They should reach that minor town in the open country beyond London’s sprawl by lunchtime.
It was after that, once they’d lunched and taken to the road again, traveling along a straight but less frequented stretch to Godmanchester, then along a series of progressively quieter country roads to Somersham, that they expected their invitation to be accepted and the fiend to stage an ambush.
The view beyond the carriage window was growing more countrified. Deliah stirred, glanced at Del. “This house—Somersham Place. Why are you, and Tony and Gervase, so sure no attack will be made after we reach there?”
His lips curved in clear reminiscence. “You’ll understand when you see it. It’s a principal ducal residence, and it’s huge—massive. You could lose a company in it without effort.” He glanced at her, met her eyes. “I visited there years ago—in my school days. I knew houses could be large, but it was a revelation.”
“Is it the duke you know from…Eton?”
He nodded. “Sylvester Cynster, as he was then, known from the cradle by all as Devil. For good reason.”
She arched her brows. “Are you sure—if he was named that from the cradle—that it wasn’t simply a case of him living up to the title?”
He smiled. “That, too. Regardless, when the word went out for extra troops, cavalry in particular, in the lead up to Waterloo, Devil and his Cynster cousins joined as a body of six. We’d kept in touch. Through a feat of string-pulling, they were attached to my troop, so we fought together there.”
“Side by side?”
“Mostly back to back. It wasn’t pretty fighting, that day.” His voice, his expression, had turned grim.
She waited.
After a moment, Del shook aside the darker memories, refocused, then smiled again. “You’ll meet them—the six cousins. Apparently they’re all at Somersham with their wives.” That he was waiting to see. The idea of those hellions brought to heel by a pack of ladies…he wasn’t quite sure he believed it, but he was certainly curious, and looking forward to meeting the ladies involved. “They—the whole family—always gather at Somersham for Christmas, but this year the six families came early so the men could assist with Wolverstone’s plan. They know the other three couriers who are ferrying in the scroll-holders almost as well as they know me.”
“So it’s a reunion of sorts?”
He nodded. “A reunion with the benefit, at least for the Cynsters, of seeing some action again.”
“I wonder how their wives feel about that?”
He wondered, too, but didn’t reply to the faintly caustic question. “The only other couple who will be there, at least that I know of, is Gyles Rawlings, the Earl of Chillingworth, and his wife. Gyles, Devil, and I were all at Eton in the same year. Devil and Gyles were the friendly foes, and I was the peacemaker.”
Deliah glanced at him—an assessing, slightly cynical, but affectionate glance.
He pretended not to notice. “But to answer your question, the reason we consider the Place a safe house, one where no attack is likely after we’ve settled there, is because once Ferrar or Larkins gets the slightest inkling of the number of ex-military men in the house, they’ll pull back. The original idea was to use it as a bolt-hole—a safe place for us to run to once we’d engaged with the cultists, hopefully drawing them along, snapping at our heels, straight into the Cynsters’ arms. Whether we manage that or not—” He broke off, lightly shrugged.
After a moment, he went on, “Wolverstone’s waiting on one of his estates conveniently nearby, so the Place is ideally situated to be a secondary barracks
of sorts. We’ll learn more when we get there.”
Deliah paused to take mental note. It seemed she was shortly to meet a duchess, a countess, and at least five other ladies of their circle, all most likely a few years younger than she. Certainly a lot more haut ton than she. At least, courtesy of their visit to Madame Latour’s salon, she had a suitable wardrobe.
Dismisssing the distracting thought—she’d deal with the ladies when she met them—she refocused on the here and now, on Del and his mission.
With a better picture of the wider plan taking shape in her mind, she murmured, “So once we reach Somersham Place, any chance of the cultists mounting an attack on us will be past?”
Del nodded. Folding his arms across his chest, he volunteered nothing more.
He didn’t have to; she could read his hopes and fears with ease.
They hadn’t sighted a single one of the Black Cobra’s own men, except perhaps for the man she’d seen in Southampton, the one Del thought was Ferrar’s gentleman’s gentleman. Despite their plans for the day—plans she now realized were a final throw of the dice—Tony, Gervase, and even more so Del, were tending glum.
They felt they were failing in their mission—in their decoy’s task of drawing out the enemy and reducing his numbers. She could imagine how they were going to feel tonight if they reached the Place without incident.
If they failed to tempt the Black Cobra into the open, into risking his cultists against them.
Relaxing against the seat, she faced forward and thought of their strategy, and of the time they had left.
They were deep in the countryside with signposts to Royston flashing past at every crossroads when she said, “This isn’t going to work.” Turning her head, she caught Del’s eye. “Not if you want to draw out however many of the cultists are following us.”
Arms still crossed, he frowned. “We’re in slow carriages overburdened with females and luggage, and traveling on increasingly less populated byways. At some point, Ferrar—or Larkins, more likely—will risk his hand. He’ll feel he has to.”
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