Stephanie Laurens - B 6 Beyond Seduction

by Stephanie Laurens

  He looked at Gervase. “Regardless of what happens here today, I’ll be on my way to Cornwall this afternoon.”

  Gervase’s face hardened. “Madeline and I won’t leave here until we find Ben.”

  Dalziel nodded. “I’ll help in whatever way I can, but this might be our last chance at catching this man and I can’t let it pass.”

  “We’ll have to find Ben first,” Madeline said.

  Dalziel nodded again, more curtly. “I’ll put all the forces I can muster at your disposal before I leave—”

  “No, you don’t understand.” Her voice held a hint of suppressed humor, enough to make Dalziel frown at her.

  “What don’t I understand?”

  She knew she was supposed to be intimidated by that voice, by his chilly diction, but she now had his measure. She held his gaze calmly. “The Lizard Peninsula is large—you won’t be able to watch all the beaches, nor will you be able to monitor access to the peninsula itself—there are too many ways to reach it, including by sea. To catch your last traitor, you’ll need to know which beach he’ll be heading for. And until we find Ben, you won’t know that.”

  Dalziel’s frown didn’t lift. “But we know which beach the brooch came from.”

  She nodded. “Indeed. But as Edmond—another of my brothers—pointed out, it’s more than likely Ben will lie.”

  The frown evaporated; frustration took its place. After a moment, Dalziel flung himself back into his chair. “Haven’t you taught him not to lie?”

  She inwardly grinned at the disgruntled grumble. “I have, but the lessons don’t take well with Ben. Perhaps when he grows older. Regardless, at present, he lies quite beautifully—he’s so…”—she gestured—“fluent, even when I know he’s not telling the truth, he makes me think I might be wrong.”

  Dalziel stared at the floor, then grimaced. “All right.” He lifted his head; his eyes pinned Christian, then moved to Gervase. “So how are we going to locate the whelp?”

  Suppressing a smile, Madeline turned back to the desk. She completed the last of Christian’s notes while around her a wide-ranging discussion of how to scour London, especially the slums, raged.

  Dalziel was making plans to contact various commanders in the Guards as she laid the last note on the pile. She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to twelve. She turned to Christian, intending to suggest he send for the footmen they’d told her Gasthorpe would provide, when the knocker on the front door was plied—not just once or twice but with persistent, repetitive force.

  The three men broke off, turning to the door. It was shut, muting sounds from the front hall below, but the knocking had stopped.

  Ears straining, Madeline listened…heard a light, piping voice politely ask…

  She was out of her chair, past Dalziel and flinging open the library door before any of the men could blink. Sweeping to the stairs, her heart in her mouth, she paused on the landing, looking down into the hall, to the group before the front door. Then she grabbed up her skirts and rushed headlong down.

  “Ben!” She couldn’t believe her eyes, but there he was; she saw the relief that washed over his face as he glanced up at her call, disbelieving her presence as much as she had his.

  Reaching him, she swept him into her arms, hugging him wildly, only just remembering in time not to lift him from his feet, bending over him and clutching him to her instead, her hands patting over him.

  “Are you all right?” His clothes were dusty and disarranged, rumpled and soiled, but not torn or filthy.

  He nodded; he was clutching her quite as fiercely as she was clutching him. But then he pushed away; reluctantly she forced herself to ease her hold. He looked up into her face. “There was this man—”

  He broke off as he noticed Gervase, who had come down the stairs, Dalziel and Christian at his back. Ben smiled, a trifle shy. He nodded to Gervase. “Hello, sir.” His gaze traveled on to rest on Dalziel, then Christian; his eyes widened, then he looked up as Gervase neared.

  Smiling, Gervase laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder and lightly squeezed. “You’ve no idea how glad we are to see you. But how did you get free—and how did you know to come here?”

  Ben looked into his face. “You told me, remember? When we were fishing, you told us about your club in London. You said it was in Montrose Place. When those horrid men pushed me out of the carriage in an awful street”—he glanced at Madeline—“it was smelly and dirty and the people looked mean, I found a hackney cab.”

  Turning, he pointed to the heavyset, frieze-coated individual watching the proceedings through the open front door. “Jeb’s hackney. I told him I was a friend of yours—Lord Crowhurst of Crowhurst Castle—and if he brought me to your club in Montrose Place, then the people here would pay him twice his fee.”

  Looking up at Gervase, Ben made his eyes huge. “You will pay Jeb double for bringing me here, won’t you?”

  “Not double. Triple. With a tip.” Dalziel moved past Gervase to the door, fishing in his coat pocket. “Indeed, quadruple the fare is not too much in the circumstances.”

  Jeb looked beyond awed. He took the coins Dalziel handed him, stared at them. “’Ere—this is way too much.”

  “No,” Dalziel said. “Believe me, it’s not. If I had my way you’d get a medal.”

  Jeb looked uncertain. “All I did was drive ’im here from Tothill. It ain’t even that far.”

  “Nevertheless. You did your country a great service today. If I was you, I’d take the rest of the day off.”

  “Aye.” Jeb shook his head, studying the largesse in his palm. “I might just do that.” He bobbed his head, started to turn away, then looked back, weaving to look past Dalziel and Gasthorpe at Ben. “Anytime you come back to the capital, nipper, you keep an eye out for Jeb.”

  Ben beamed his huge, little-boy’s smile. “I will. Good-bye. And thank you!”

  “Seems it’s me should be thanking you,” Jeb mumbled as he headed off down the path to the street where his mare stood patiently waiting.

  Dalziel turned back to the group in the front hall.

  Ben looked up at him, curious and intrigued. “I don’t know you.”

  Dalziel smiled at Ben; Gervase blinked. It wasn’t the sort of smile he was accustomed to seeing on his ex-commander’s face. Boyishly charming wasn’t the half of it.

  “You don’t know me yet, but you will.” His gaze on Ben’s face, Dalziel waved to the stairs. “Let’s go up to the library and you can tell us all—all the gory details of your kidnap, confinement and escape.” Effortlessly, with no more than a look, he drew Ben to him and turned with him to the stairs. “Have you breakfasted yet?”

  “No.” The thought of food brought Ben up short; he started to turn to Madeline.

  “No matter. Gasthorpe—you’ve met the redoubtable Gasthorpe, haven’t you?”

  Ben shot a shy grin at Gasthorpe, who had shut the door and was now waiting by the side of the hall for his orders.

  “Gasthorpe,” Dalziel continued, with just a touch on Ben’s shoulder steering him up the stairs, “will bring sustenance suitable for your years. You can eat while you set your sister’s mind at rest.”

  Ben glanced back at Madeline, but seeing her following in his wake with Gervase beside her, meeting her encouraging if misty-eyed smile, he grinned, looked ahead, and happily trooped up the stairs.

  When they were all in the library, comfortable in armchairs set about the hearth, while Ben wolfed down the cheese and ham sandwich Gasthorpe had provided, Gervase caught Christian’s eye and saw his own bemusement reflected there. It was patently clear who had elected himself Ben’s interrogator.

  For one moment, Gervase wondered if he should resent Dalziel’s claim, but he wanted Ben to look upon him as an unthreatening, always trustworthy friend, and acting as an interrogator, even in relatively mild fashion, wasn’t a good way to nurture such a connection. So he sat back and watched, quietly fascinated, as his ex-commander displayed a side of himself none of his ex-operat
ives had imagined he possessed.

  Sitting opposite Ben, who was ensconced in the chair between Madeline’s and Gervase’s, Dalziel exuded the sort of blatant confidence guaranteed to fix a boy’s attention; the command that confidence concealed was subtle, yet still there, giving his performance a near-irresistible edge.

  He waited with feigned patience until Ben had finished the sandwich and drained his glass of milk before commencing, with an easy, encouraging smile. “Now—let’s start from when you were sitting on the bench outside the inn in Helston. The man who approached you—what did he say?”

  Wriggling forward in the chair, Ben dutifully replied, “He asked how to get to the London road. He said he had to meet a man with a carriage there, and was lost, and time was running out. He offered me a shilling to show him the quickest way.”

  Ben colored and shot a glance at Madeline. “I know I shouldn’t have taken the money, but it wasn’t far, and it was daylight and people were about.”

  Madeline reached out and touched his hand.

  “Indeed,” Dalziel said, his tone even. “So you’ll know not to do it next time. So you showed this man to the London road, then he picked you up and slung you in the carriage.”

  Ben nodded. “It was a big black traveling carriage—it had four horses.”

  “And they tied you up and gagged you and whisked you off to London.”

  “Yes.” Ben paused, then volunteered, “But they didn’t hurt me or anything, not even when I kicked their shins.”

  Dalziel nodded. “They were under orders to keep you hale and whole.” He paused, then went on, “So they brought you to London, to some place in the slums.”

  “Was that the slums?” Ben glanced at Gervase, who nodded. “It was awfully dirty.”

  “I expect it was,” Dalziel allowed. “You reached there early this morning, and they kept you there, but not for very long.”

  “They’d told me in the carriage at the start that they were just fetching me for some gentleman who wanted to ask me something. I couldn’t understand why I had to go to London, but they said they didn’t know what he wanted to ask—they were just carrying out his orders and doing what he told them. They told me he wasn’t one for explanations.” Ben paused, then slid his hand across the chair’s arm to grasp Madeline’s. “They told me if I knew what was good for me I’d tell him what he wanted to know, and quickly.” He looked at Dalziel. “They weren’t joking—I think they were trying to warn me.”

  Dalziel raised his brows. “Sometimes one finds honor among thieves. So…they took you to meet the man this morning.”

  Ben nodded. “They stayed with me in a smelly room through the night, then after ten o’clock this morning—I could hear bells pealing the hours—they said it was time to go and meet him.”

  “Where did they take you?” The tension in Dalziel’s voice was hard to detect, but there.

  “It was only downstairs. To another room—I didn’t see it because they blindfolded me, but it seemed cleaner.”

  Dalziel exchanged a quick glance with Gervase. It sounded like a brothel—a cleaner room downstairs for meeting “guests,” a room that would have been deserted in the morning. Dalziel looked at Ben, and repeated, Gervase suspected for Madeline’s benefit, “You were blindfolded, so you didn’t see the gentleman—the one who questioned you.”

  Throughout, Dalziel asked few questions. He made statements, told Ben’s story, and left it to Ben to correct or expand.

  Ben shook his head, brow furrowed as he recalled. “He was a gentleman—he spoke like us.” Head on one side, he looked at Dalziel. “He sounded a lot like you.”

  Dalziel slowly nodded. “A gentleman of the ton, a member of the aristocracy—that’s who we think he is. As you say, one of us. So he spoke with you—what did he say?”

  “He told me that if I answered his question, he would order the men to take me into the streets a little way away and let me go. That I would be free to return to Cornwall and my family, as long as I answered his one question—he warned me he’d know if I was lying.” Ben blushed.

  Dalziel smiled. “So you answered his question, and told him that you and your brothers found the brooch you gave your sister for her birthday on…which beach?”

  Ben frowned at him. “How did you know that was what he wanted to know?”

  “Because he’s a traitor I’ve been chasing for some time. And your sister and Crowhurst here realized it was something to do with the brooch.” Dalziel paused as Ben mouthed an “Oh,” then prompted, “So…which beach did you send him to?”

  Ben shifted, then looked at Madeline. “I did lie—I didn’t want him finding our treasure, if there’s more of it buried in the sand, and I didn’t think you’d mind if I lied to him.” His jaw firmed. “He was a bad man, stealing me away like that.”

  Madeline smiled, and squeezed the hand she still held. “It was perfectly reasonable to lie to him.”

  Reassured, Ben looked at Dalziel. “I told him we found the brooch in Kynance Cove.”

  Gervase caught the look Dalziel sent him, the faint lift of one brow. “It’s on the other side of the peninsula from Lowland Point—the beach where they found the brooch and where Charles and Harry are keeping watch.”

  “Will they notice if our quarry heads down to this other beach?” Dalziel shifted forward, preparing to rise.

  Gervase shook his head, doing the same. “It’s nowhere near. Our man could take a small army down to Kynance Cove and only a few farmers—”

  “Shush! Wait.”

  He broke off; glancing around, he saw Madeline waving them to silence.

  Her gaze was fixed on her brother. “Ben—why Kynance?”

  Ben squirmed, shot a glance at Dalziel—who reacted not at all—then glanced at Gervase, before looking back at Madeline. “Because it’s the cove the wreckers use. Not just to hide their stuff—there hasn’t been any this season—but their boats are in some of the caves, and they meet there, too.”

  He drew in a breath, then looked at Dalziel. “I sent the man there because he was a bad man, and anyone with him will be bad, too, so if they’re going to stumble across any of our people, it ought to be the wreckers—they’re even worse.”

  Dalziel was still for a moment, then he looked at Gervase. “You really have wreckers down there?”

  Gervase felt his face grow blank as he envisioned what might occur. “Oh, yes.” He refocused on Dalziel. “It could be a bloodbath.”

  Dalziel considered, then raised his brows. He looked at Ben; his lips curved. “A trifle bloodthirsty, perhaps, but overall that was very well done.”

  Ben looked relieved; he turned to Madeline and grinned.

  Dalziel rose, as did Gervase and Christian; he smiled genuinely, with the air of a wolf in fond expectation of his next meal. “So all that’s left is for us to fly down to Cornwall, and trap our fine traitor at Kynance Cove.”

  Chapter 18

  Madeline had had more than enough of being jolted about in a flying carriage. The one aspect that made this second breakneck journey infinitely more bearable than the first was Ben; he was lying curled up on the seat, his head in her lap, dozing as they raced along.

  It was now midmorning; as before, they’d traveled through the night, stopping only to have fresh horses put to. Gervase, Ben and she were traveling in the lead in their hired carriage, with the same two Cornish coachmen on the box. Christian and Dalziel were following close behind in a well-sprung carriage with the marquess’s coat of arms blazoned on the side.

  That, and the unvoiced rivalry between Christian’s coachmen and their two coachmen had, more than anything else, contributed to their remarkable pace. They’d left London within an hour of Ben revealing all; now, not even twenty-four hours later, they were nearing their goal.

  Madeline saw a familiar landmark flash past. “We’re nearly into Helston.” Looking across the rocking carriage, she met Gervase’s eyes. “Where should we head first?”

  His lips curved, mor
e in reassurance than a smile. “I told the two maniacs up top to go straight to the Park. They know the way.”

  She nodded and looked out of the window again, conscious of a strange urgency building—to reach home, to confirm that Harry and Edmond were there, unharmed, that no action had taken place while they were away. An underlying itch to make sure all in her domain, all those she cared for and thought of as in her keeping, were safe, that everything was as it should be.

  That the unknown traitor hadn’t already made some move.

  As usual, Gervase seemed to read her mind. “Our villain might arrive before us, but he won’t escape us, not this time. He’ll go down to Kynance Cove, and we’ll trap him there.”

  She searched his eyes, darkly amber in the carriage. “Do you think the curricle ahead of us is him?”

  Gervase nodded. “It seems likely.” They’d questioned the ostlers at the posting inns they’d stopped at; once out of London, as they’d traveled through the night it became clear there was a curricle ahead of them, flying through the dark. Only one occupant, unfailingly described as a dark-haired tonnish gentleman, but not one anyone recognized enough to put a name to.

  Not many people chanced the roads—even the highways—at night, not at the speed they were risking. Gervase continued, “He had at least two hours’, possibly more, head start, and he’s driving a curricle with four in hand—much lighter and faster than us. He would have reached the peninsula this morning, but even if he goes straight to Kynance and starts searching, as there’s nothing there to find and it’s a good-sized beach, he’ll still be searching later today—when we get there to capture him.”

  Madeline frowned. “He’s not going to be searching alone. One look at Kynance—Ben said he simply told him that beach—and he’s going to realize he’ll need help.” She caught Gervase’s eyes. “He’ll have others there—who will he recruit?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s possible he already has men in the area he can call on, like the two who lured Ben away. He usually plans carefully, and he’s extremely cautious. He’s had to be to keep out of Dalziel’s clutches.”