by Jane Feather
“What’s going on?” Harry demanded, tossing his hat and whip onto the bench and drawing off his gloves.
“Lord Stevie,” Morecombe stated in sepulchral tones. “Such goings-on…I knew things would come to a bad end after my lady passed away. I told our Ada and our Mavis so, didn’t I just?” He appealed to the twins, who murmured assent.
Harry didn’t respond. Instead he strode towards the parlor where he assumed he would find the women. Cornelia’s voice rose above the rest as he entered the room without ceremony, but he couldn’t make out what she had said. She was standing in the middle of the room, a sheet of paper in her hand, her face set in stone, pale as alabaster, her eyes oddly blank. To Harry it looked as if she was holding herself together by an act of supreme will, as if at any moment she would fly apart in a thousand pieces.
“What’s happened?” He went swiftly towards her. “What is it, Nell?”
She looked at him for a moment as if she didn’t know who he was, then she shook her head impatiently and returned to her intent scrutiny of the paper she held. “I have to go at once,” she said in a strange detached voice. “They won’t hurt him if I go at once.”
“Stevie’s been kidnapped,” Aurelia told him swiftly. “He was in the square garden with Daisy and the girls, and he disappeared.” She opened her hands helplessly. “Gone…not a sign of him.”
“But then Nell got this letter,” Livia put in. “It arrived just a few minutes ago.” She went over to Cornelia. “Nell, let us see the letter. Or at least tell us what it says.”
Cornelia folded the letter and thrust it into her pocket before saying adamantly, “No. No one’s to see it. This is my business and only mine. I’ll deal with it in my own way. I have to go now.” She took a step towards the door.
Her voice did not sound like her own, and Harry could hear beneath the brittleness how close she was to breaking. He went over to her, taking her shoulders gently. “Whatever this is, love, you can’t manage it alone. Give me the letter.”
She jerked herself away from him, saying vehemently, “This is nothing to do with you. It’s a family matter.”
“I understand that,” he said with deliberate calm. “However, I can help you. I want you to give me the letter.”
She stared at him. “How could you possibly help? Someone has taken my child. Do you understand that? I know what I have to do to get him back, and that’s what I’m going to do. Just me…no one else can be involved. Now get out of my way, Harry.” She attempted to push past him, but he remained where he was, once again taking her shoulders.
“Nell, give me the letter. Now.” He made his voice almost harsh in his need to break through the carapace that prevented her from understanding anything beyond her child’s disappearance. “There’s little time to waste. I need to see what they want you to do.”
And now she looked at him with sudden awareness, hostility and mistrust bright in her blue gaze. “What do you know?”
“More than you think,” he returned grimly. “Now give me the letter.” He snapped his fingers imperatively. He turned suddenly to where Aurelia and Livia stood staring at him. “Leave us.”
It was a command they couldn’t imagine ignoring. This was not the man they knew. This incarnation of Viscount Bonham was almost frightening. Without a word, they left the parlor.
“Now,” Harry said, “the letter, Nell.”
She felt numb, powerless to resist him. But still she protested. “They’ll hurt him if I show it to anyone.”
“That’s not going to happen, love.” His voice now was gentle and cajoling. “I won’t let it happen. Trust me now and give it to me.” He held out his hand.
She reached into her pocket for the letter and handed it to him, unsure why she trusted him but knowing that she did.
Harry took in the contents of the letter in one quick sweep of his eyes. His mouth hardened, his nostrils flared with a surge of anger, as much at himself as at the idiot Nigel Dagenham. It had to be Dagenham’s handiwork, even though he was only a tool in a much broader game. It was pathetically amateur, but Cornelia wouldn’t see that. How could she when she thought her child was in danger? How dared that stupid, self-indulgent, weak-minded dunderhead cause Cornelia this agony.
Harry handed her back the letter. “Leave this to me, Nell. Just stay here, don’t leave the house. Do you understand?” He looked at her closely, seeing the flash in her eyes, the set of her mouth. “I mean it. Stay here and wait for me. I’ll bring Stevie back, I promise.”
Unable to bear her stillness, the terror and confusion in her eyes, he pulled her against him and kissed her hard on the mouth, holding her tightly trying to impart his own strength to the suddenly fragile figure in his arms.
She let him kiss her, but it was as if she didn’t feel his lips upon hers. She remained stiff in his arms, then finally pushed him away.
He stepped back, looking at her uncertainly. He didn’t know whether she’d heard him. And even if she had whether she would follow his instructions. But there was no time to waste. He had to get to the child before Dagenham’s masters did. He was confident Nigel wouldn’t hurt the child, but Nigel was a puppet, a cat’spaw. And those who used him wouldn’t give a fig for the health and welfare of a five-year-old boy. If Cornelia took matters into her own hands, she would only get in the way, endanger herself as well as the child.
He spun away from her and left the parlor. The tableau in the hall had changed, and only Morecombe and the twins stood at the foot of the stairs in some kind of confabulation.
“Where’s Lester?” Harry demanded as he crossed to the front door.
They didn’t seem particularly surprised by the question. “Went out, when the letter come,” Morecombe informed him.
Lester would have gone after the messenger, and he would have caught him soon enough. Harry picked up his hat and whip and left the house. As he’d expected, Lester appeared at a run from the far side of the square.
“I hoped you’d be along, m’lord,” he said, panting slightly. “I caught the lad, but he didn’t know anything, said a cove had given him a message and a penny to deliver it to the house.”
“Where did he get the message?” Harry had hold of his horse’s reins now preparing to mount.
“Just a few streets away,” Lester said. “Did you read it?”
“Aye.” Harry nodded, swinging onto Perseus. “He’s got the boy at a tavern on Gray’s Inn Road, at least that’s what I’m assuming. I don’t think he has the wit to hide the boy somewhere different from where he’s expecting the ransom. It’s the Greyhound Tavern. Follow me there. It may take two of us if he’s got reinforcements.”
“I’m on your heels, sir.”
Harry raised a hand in acknowledgment and urged Perseus into a trot.
The child struggled against the suffocating folds of the blanket. A voice, a familiar voice, told him that it would be all right, that he should lie still and be a good boy. The blanket was lifted and he opened his mouth to scream. Before a sound could emerge a spoon went between his lips and his mouth was immediately filled with a vile-tasting liquid that made him choke and splutter. From a distance he heard the same voice, soothing, telling him it was all going to all right. He’d see his mama soon.
Cornelia waited only until she was certain Harry had left the house before she looked again at the letter. It was badly printed and misspelled, but the message was unambiguous.
If you want to see the lad agin, bring the thimbel with the ritin on it to the Greyhound Tavern at Gray’s Inn by tomorrer forenoon. Don’t tell no one or else.
How did these people know she had a thimble? What if she hadn’t found it in the flour barrel? Cornelia shuddered, hot and cold alternately. Why the thimble?
But what did it matter? They wanted the thimble. And she had it. She opened her workbox and took it out, turning it around, trying to make sense of the engravings. They didn’t strike her as writing, although the note described them as such. What if it is the wro
ng thimble?
No, that wasn’t to be thought of. She dropped the object into her pocket with the note and hurried upstairs for her pelisse.
Aurelia and Livia were waiting in the hall as she came out of the parlor. Aurelia had dispatched the wailing children and their frantic attendants to the nursery, and an eerie silence had settled over the hall.
“Cornelia, what can we do?” Aurelia reached a hand for her as she brushed past her on the way to the stairs.
“Nothing…nothing, Ellie.” Her voice was impatient, her desperation clear. “Please, just let me go.”
Aurelia fell back, exchanging a helpless glance with Livia, and Cornelia ran upstairs.
In her bedchamber she stopped, forcing herself to think clearly, to calm her fast and shallow breaths. What would Stevie need when she found him? He had a coat and hat…. Linton wouldn’t have let him out of the house without those. Would he be hungry…thirsty?
Oh, God, what had they done to him?
She grabbed up her old cloak and rushed to the door. Then remembered she had no money for a hackney. She found her reticule and rushed back downstairs, hatless, her hair coming loose from its pins.
She raced past her friends who still stood at a loss at the foot of the stairs, and headed for the front door, which still stood ajar. Outside in the chilly sunshine she paused for a second, trying to decide where she had the best chance of finding a hackney.
She headed for Mortimer Street, trying to control a little whimpering sob of panic at the time she was wasting. Then she saw one, the horse between the traces a broken-down nag, the driver looking as if he’d be more at home in Newgate Gaol than plying his trade in Mayfair. But he pulled over for her.
“Greyhound Tavern, Gray’s Inn Road,” she gasped as she wrenched open the door into the greasy, evil-smelling interior.
The jarvey stared at her in momentary stupefaction. Gray’s Inn Road was hardly a common destination for the ladies of Mayfair. Then he spat a juicy wad of tobacco onto the road and cracked his whip.
The cab started off with a jerk, and Cornelia sat bolt upright on the torn, stained squabs. Despite her desperation, she was still too fastidious to allow herself to sink into their depths, which she was convinced were infested with a colony of fleas.
She felt for the thimble in her pocket, closing her fingers around it as if it were a talisman. And now while there was nothing else she could do, the questions she hadn’t had time for flooded in. What did Harry know of this business?
More than you think? She heard his voice as he had said that, saw again the cold light in his clear green gaze. He had told her he would bring Stevie back, but he hadn’t asked for the thimble. If he was going to rescue her son, why would he not take the ransom with him? Not that she would have let it out of her sight, but why hadn’t he mentioned it?
She took out the thimble and looked at it again in the dim, swaying interior of the frowsty carriage. Icy certainty gripped her. There was only one explanation. Harry had known, or guessed, that this, or something like it, was going to happen. He’d known about the thimble, knew what secrets it held. And for some reason, despite the ransom demand, he had considered it irrelevant. He had known, and he had made no attempt to protect them, prepare them even. He’d stood to one side and watched as the trap had closed around them. And she could think of only one reason for that. It had suited his purposes to use the little household on Cavendish Square to bait his trap.
Maybe she was being melodramatic, but Cornelia didn’t think so. She knew enough about what she didn’t know about Viscount Bonham to be certain he was somehow responsible for this horror. Maybe he hadn’t orchestrated it, but something he had done, an omission if not a commission, had brought this upon her.
And only she could get her son back.
Impatiently, Cornelia grabbed the worn leather strap and leaned forward, thrusting aside the strip of leather that formed a curtain across the window aperture. How far had they gone? Were they getting close? It was a part of the city she knew nothing about. A grimy downtrodden street of tumbled houses, kennels overflowing with filth, the carriage bumping over uneven cobbles.
Harry rode past the Greyhound Tavern as if it was of no significance to him, but his swift appraisal had taken in the narrow alleyway to the left of the building, barely separating it from the decrepit hovel next door. He could see no sign of unusual activity, no indication of anyone on the watch from the tavern. But that didn’t mean that there weren’t eyes watching the street for unexpected visitors.
Lester’s support would be reassuring, but Harry decided he couldn’t wait for him. He rode about a hundred yards farther down the street and saw an urchin kicking a stone in desultory fashion through the muck in the kennel, splashing the cobbles with dirty water and unnamable refuse.
“Hey, you!” Harry called to him in peremptory tones, and the lad paused and looked up at the tall figure riding towards him.
“You wan’ me, guv?” He looked alarmed, glancing around him, clearly ready to flee.
“Yes, I do, if you want to earn yourself a sixpence,” Harry said, drawing rein beside him. “Take my horse and hold him here.” He dismounted and examined the boy closely. “Do you hear me? Don’t leave this spot. Just hold him and wait for me to get back. Is that clear?”
The boy looked up and down the street again, licking his lips nervously. Then he nodded and reached up for the reins. “Awright, guv.”
Harry looped the reins around the filthy, clawlike hand, and closed the scrawny fingers tightly over the leather. “Sixpence,” he said. “And you’re to be right here in exactly this spot when I come back.”
The boy nodded, but he looked scared rather than delighted at the prospect of the coming largesse. There was nothing remotely benign about the gentleman, and the threat, while unspoken, was clear enough to the boy. Failure to perform this task was not an option.
Harry fixed him with a hard stare for another second or two, then nodded, and strode away, back towards the tavern.
There was still no sign of Lester. Harry ducked into the alley beside the tavern. It was dark and barely the width of his shoulders. He sidled rather than risk brushing against the slimy walls, trying not to breathe too deeply of the fetid air.
The passage opened into a tiny, high-walled courtyard with a well in the center, a noisome privy in the far corner, and empty ale barrels rolled haphazardly across the unpaved ground. Harry stepped into the yard and examined the back of the building. There were only two windows, one above the other, and a narrow door.
He approached the door and listened. Raised voices, the clatter of pots and pans, the squawk of a chicken in distress. Nothing untoward, he decided, reaching down into his riding boot for the knife he always kept tucked out of sight. The knife and his riding whip were his only weapons, but he was adept with both.
He raised the latch on the door, then kicked it open so that it banged against the inside wall. He entered the small, smoke-filled kitchen, knife in one hand, whip hand raised in menace. The room’s inhabitants, a slatternly woman flourishing a ladle, an ancient man hunched on a stool by the open range, and a man holding a flapping chicken by the neck stared openmouthed at the intruder.
“Good morning,” Harry said pleasantly. “Would you all be so good as to stand over there in that corner.” He gestured with his whip to the far corner of the kitchen beside a Welsh dresser and well away from a door that he guessed gave access to the taproom.
Still staring at him they shuffled into the corner, the man still holding the flapping chicken.
“Thank you.” Harry turned and swiftly dropped the heavy bar across the door he’d just come in by, then crossed the kitchen in two strides and closed the other door, standing with his back against it. He wanted no surprise visitors in the next few minutes.
“Now, ma’am, perhaps you would tell me who else is in the tavern.” His voice was quiet, even, and deceptively amiable. His mouth smiled, but his eyes were as frigid as an arctic blizzard.
For a moment no one answered him. The chicken let out another despairing squawk, and, with a reflex movement, the man holding it wrung its neck with a swift and efficient twist of his hands. The bird dangled inert.
“Who else is in this building?” Harry asked again, a slight edge now to his voice.
It was the woman who answered him. “There’s two in the taproom, an’ them upstairs.”
Harry’s gaze sharpened. “Them? How many?”
The woman, who seemed to have recovered from her surprise, demanded, “What’s it to you?”
“Rather a lot as it happens,” Harry said, tapping his whip against his boots. “Oblige me, if you please.” The edge was sharper.
The woman shrugged, and her tone was sullen. “Don’t rightly know. Sometimes there’s one of ’em, sometimes more. I don’t keep watch on the street door.” She shrugged again. “Better things t’do with me time.”
Harry frowned, and the man with the chicken volunteered hastily, “They pays regular, sir, fer the use o’ the chamber, and they comes and goes as they pleases. We don’t ask no questions if’n they pays regular.”
Harry accepted that he’d received all the information he was going to get. He raised the latch on the door leading to the taproom. “Where will I find this chamber?”
“Top o’ the stairs, on the left,” the woman told him, still sullenly.
Harry gave her a brief nod, and left the kitchen, closing the door softly behind him. The two men in the taproom, raised their eyes incuriously from their ale pots as he crossed the floor, the soles of his boots sticking to the clotted sawdust. He ignored the drinkers and softly climbed the narrow staircase at the far end by the street door.
At the head of the stairs he paused outside the door the woman had indicated. It would be locked, of course. How many of them were in there, waiting for Cornelia to bring the thimble? He glanced back down the stairs, wondering whether to wait for Lester. But then he saw again Cornelia’s anguished eyes, and he knew he couldn’t wait. He needed to get to her child.