“What the bloody devil?” Austere in his black dinner coat and cravat, her father rose.
Christopher stepped beneath the archway, and his tall, black-garbed form filled the room. She was suddenly in his arms. Holding him. He carried a rider’s quirt. His boots were spattered in mud. He wrapped his arms around her and held her pressed tightly against him. “Lord Ware,” he said, acknowledging her father with a curt nod. Then he pulled back and placed a possessive palm on her abdomen. “I’ve just spent a hellish three weeks on a cargo ship to get here.” He kissed her openly in front of her father and wrapping her arms around him, she returned the affection. “It took me that many days to get into this bloody city.” His lips curved against hers. “Finding you gone from the house has cost me my temper. So forgive the state of my arrival. Tell me Brianna is with you.”
Alexandra opened her eyes and saw Major Fallon standing behind her husband. With the exception of his shirt, his clothes were black—overcoat, trousers, and boots. Shock reeled her back. A growth of beard and stormy eyes that looked as if snatched from the sky added to the menacing impression. For Major Fallon was clearly in a dangerous mood.
“I don’t understand,” she said to Christopher.
“At your physician’s request, Brianna left Aldbury Park yesterday to join you, pending your early confinement. We believe she went to the manor house, unless you’ve started to wear attar of roses.”
“As you can see, I’m quite well.” She looked between Michael and her husband. “I authorized no such request. She didn’t even know I was here.”
“My daughter has been here for two weeks.” Ware leaned forward on his cane. “I thought it best…with my grandchild so near to term.”
“And you didn’t bother to bloody inform me?” Michael’s voice had lost its customary command. He’d already swung away when Donally called after him.
“We need daylight to check the roads leading toward the estate. Your horse won’t make it.”
“Standing here doing nothing won’t find my wife!”
Donally caught his sleeve. “And running in bloody circles won’t get my sister back.”
“She is alone out there.” His eyes bleak with violence, Michael threw off Donally’s grip. “She trusted me to keep her safe.”
What sane man could sit and do nothing, for Christ’s sake!
Michael rubbed his temple with one hand. Brianna had been lured away. But in the deepest part of his soul, he knew she was still alive. That she wasn’t meant to die. Indeed, he suspected that whoever had sent that letter to Brianna expected him to be with her. If he had not gone to see his grandmother yesterday morning, he’d have been at Aldbury when she received the physician’s letter.
“A letter was delivered to Aldbury Park by special courier from your physician, my lady. It bore your personal wax seal. Who else would have had access to your stamp?”
“No one.” Alex was growing hysterical. “My stamp is here with me.”
“Her physician has known her since she was a child,” Ware inserted. “He would not betray her or me.”
“Maybe she hasn’t gotten to the house.” Alex desperately clutched her husband’s coat. “A carriage just doesn’t vanish into thin air.”
Except people did vanish. Whole caravans of people vanished forever. “One can, if it’s planned.” Michael leaned a palm against the window and looked out over the muted glow of gaslights illuminating the sky over the city. All that he loved in the world was somewhere out there in the night. His wife and his child. “I bloody knew everything had fallen into place too easily here in London. I knew it and let myself get talked out of pursuing this investigation!”
“What did we miss?” Ware thundered. “There was no more information to follow after the warehouse raid. No evidence that we had not caught everyone involved.”
“Take an accounting of your staff tonight.” Michael turned back into the dining room. “Find out who else could have gotten hold of your seal. Do you have any new servants?”
“Her servants came from Donally’s staff and have been with the family for years,” Ware said. “A young lad delivers her posts from the manor.”
“I was only planning to be here for a few weeks,” Alex whispered. “My book is due at the publisher the end of the month. Mr. Cross was spending so much of his time traveling back and forth to the manor house. When my father’s invitation came, I took it.”
“Charles Cross has been here working with you?” Michael asked.
A hush deepened in the room.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“I received a note from him today telling me that he’s ill. Why are you looking at me like I just committed some grievous sin?” Her voice grew strained. Light from the candelabra on the table fluttered as she whirled around. “We’ve all known Mr. Cross for years. He works with Foreign Services. You would not have broken the investigation if not for him.”
“If Cross was Foreign Service, that would explain the consul general’s friendship with him,” Donally said to Michael, unaware that Michael had already made the connection. Now, with his name coming on the heels of Brianna’s disappearance, it seemed ominous and plausible that the two incidents could be connected.
“If he were involved, he would also have been in the position to supply the authorities with information about the warehouse. Especially since it was probably a matter of days before we discovered the cache there ourselves. He was bloody saving his own skin.” Michael looked directly at Ware. “Where does he live?”
“We have to approach this with deuced care.” Ware leaned both hands on his cane, unhappy with the direction of dialogue.
Alex pressed her fingers to her temples. “He let a house in the Green Park area. The widow Solomon’s estate.”
“That house hasn’t been lived in for ten years,” Ware said. “Who did he let the place from?”
“I don’t know. I only know that he’s worked hard to get to his place. He comes from humble roots and still managed to graduate from Oxford at the top of his class. In Cairo, he was always sending money and packages back to his mother. How can a man who does that be suspected of something so heinous?”
“That’s the most illogical nonsense I’ve heard you speak, Lexie,” her father said.
“Alex—” Donally folded her in his arms.
“You don’t understand.” She tried to shove away. “I introduced Brianna to him. What if I did this to her?” She pressed her fist against her abdomen as if to quell her pain. “What if he could have been using me to get to her? I want to go with you—” Alex broke into tears.
“You’re not leaving anywhere.” Donally lifted her and turned to Michael, Alex sobbing in his arms. “I’m going to take my wife upstairs.”
Michael looked down at Lady Alexandra’s softly swollen figure with a sudden fierce ache. Even if she hadn’t been nearly nine months gone with child, he wouldn’t have allowed her anywhere near Cross tonight.
“Papa,” Alex pleaded over Donally’s shoulder. “Help us find her.”
Michael was left looking at Ware when Donally was finally gone. “Her address book should be in her study,” Ware said awkwardly, and left.
Michael dropped into a dining room chair and buried his face in his hands. Everything inside him told him Cross was his man. But it would not make sense for him to take Brianna to the first place anyone would look. He would already be out of the city.
For the first time in days, Michael felt the ebony grasp of Morpheus close around him, a tenuous hold that lasted only minutes. Too often it was the way he’d trained himself. A catnap was often more than he used to get while in the field.
“My daughter’s address book, Ravenspur.” Ware leaned over the dining table, a leather-bound notebook spread before him, his eyes sharp as he considered the pages. His brows lifted. “Are you up for a drive?”
“Try stopping me.”
Ware ordered his cloak and carriage brought around, his somber gaze graz
ing Michael as he spoke. “And another cloak for Lord Ravenspur.” He checked a watch fob in his pocket. “If we’re going to make a late night call to Cross, then you’ll need to look more refined than a thief.”
The trip through London took little time on streets that were nearly deserted. The rain had washed the garbage from gutters and the coal dust from the air. Street lamps marked the shiny pavement, the clip-clop of their horses mixing with the noise of an occasional hansom that was ferreting late night partygoers. Though the Season had yet to begin, most of London’s clubs carried a brisk business. Michael saw the towers of a church framed against the sky. Just beyond that, he glimpsed stone turrets of a distant house. Secluded behind a grove of knotty trees and a high iron gate, the medieval roof was all they could see from the street. There was a sleepy stillness to the night.
The carriage rocked to a stop. “This place is high-priced real estate for a man who came from humble beginnings.” Michael let his eyes go over the high stone wall that banked the property. The darkness was impenetrable; then the breeze stirred the clouds and laid a breath of gossamer moonlight over the shadows, allowing a glimpse of the house through the trees. Three stories high, the interior of the house was dark as the night. Iron grates covered the windows and doors like some aged fortress. “What happened to the widow who lived here?”
Ware leaned into the window. “They said she was insane. No one knows what happened to her sons. It doesn’t look as if anyone is home,” he said impatiently when no one appeared at the gate.
Michael checked the chamber on his revolver. “I suggest that if you can’t hike to the door, then stay with this carriage. Make sure the constable who walks this beat knows who you are. He’ll probably pass by here in the next half hour.”
“Bloody hell, Ravenspur.” Ware tapped the top of the carriage and waited for the door to open. “He very well could be ill, like his note said. You’re not the bloody cavalry.”
Seated on a red velvet wing-back chair, Michael sat forward with his elbows on his knees. He lifted his head when Cross stepped into the room, his steward behind him. Michael unfolded his form from the chair.
“Lord Ware.” Cross acknowledged the older man. His eyes wide behind his glasses, he slid an uneasy glance over Michael. “Has something happened to bring you here at this hour? I sent a note—”
“I apologize for intruding,” Lord Ware began, “but it was important that we see you.”
Cross coughed into a handkerchief. The man looked as if he could barely stand. “If you don’t mind, I need to sit. Fever…you see.”
The steward hastily prepared the pillows on the chair. The old man was of Arab descent. Ware made no secret of the fact that Brianna was missing, and as the former diplomat spoke with quick, authoritative tones, Michael remained silent.
Charles Cross had changed in the month since Michael had seen him in London. His white stock, loose and unkempt at his neck, accentuated the weather-burnt pallor beneath the pale skin. Black lashes shadowed his strange gold eyes, attentive behind his spectacles. But no formality of posture could hide the gravity of his appearance. One look at the man’s pallid complexion dispelled any doubt that Cross was seriously ill.
“We’ve come to inquire about a certain amulet that was given over into your possession some time ago,” Michael heard Ware say. “Lord Ravenspur spoke to you about the matter when he was here in London last.”
“I have seen that the amulet was returned to the museum in Cairo. Your daughter is aware of this.”
“Have you received anything else…that you would term illegal?”
Michael had put too much hope in the expectation that Cross would be his man. Brianna wasn’t here.
No longer able to contain his restless energy, he stood as Ware spoke inanely. Rich hangings, silken carpets, and exquisite lamps lined the walls and floors. The salon was a throwback to history, an antiquated museum of eastern artifacts and furnishings, from the ivory-inlaid tables to bamboo and Chinese ebony chairs. Photographs shared the walls with a tiger’s head and fanged beasts. He stopped in front of a photograph, the kind usually taken at fairs. Two boys sat on each side of a pretty woman, embraced by a palm frond sitting in a vase at her back. She wore a simple dress that was in fashion ten years ago. One boy looked about fifteen, the other ten. Both were leaning into the woman, their hands in their laps. The boy on the left was clearly Charles Cross.
“You have a brother?” Michael asked. Realizing that he had interrupted, he turned. “My apologies, your lordship,” he said to Ware.
“He attends Oxford,” Cross said behind his handkerchief.
“This is your house?” Michael asked, letting his gaze go around the room. Indeed, for a man of humble beginnings, he had come far.
“This house belonged to my mother. She passed away shortly after that photograph was taken.”
Lord Ware stood. “We apologize for disturbing you, Mr. Cross.”
“Please convey my apology to Lady Alexandra,” Cross said at the door. “As you now understand, I felt it best to stay away from her.”
The house was still. Michael glimpsed the unmarked layers of dust and shrouded furniture in the rooms on either side of the entryway. Yet, some subtle atmosphere in the air bothered him. Something more than the hint of disinfectant that surrounded Cross, and the realization that he’d smelled that same scent in the passageway of the steamer the night someone had jammed the door.
“You like fresh flowers?” Michael casually asked. “Not many florists sell roses this time of year.”
“Mine does.”
This time when the handkerchief came away from Cross’s mouth, Michael saw the blood. Slowly, he lifted his gaze. Their eyes met.
Michael knew! Goddamn, he knew!
Cross’s expression no longer benign, he dabbed the corner of his mouth. “Do you think it incongruous that I would wish to fill this place with something patently innocent? Look around you, Fallon, and tell me that even a single rose would not add life to this sordid existence?”
Ware’s fingers wrapped around Michael’s forearm. “We have kept you too long, Mr. Cross,” Ware said.
“You should have let me kill him, brother.” The words were spoken from the shadows behind Charles Cross.
Charles stood at the long window overlooking the yard. “What have you done with her?” He’d spoken in Arabic without realizing. He despised the crude language and didn’t like that he’d slipped. The opium made him careless.
“She did not get out of the room,” Selim said.
Charles finally smelled the roses. The scent was coming from Selim. There was still the shattered residue of attar of roses on his clothes. The house probably reeked of the scent. Damn Selim for his stupidity!
Charles dropped the edge of the curtain. He held his arms to his side and let his faithful steward remove his jacket to check the bandage beneath. “You are bleeding. You must return to bed,” the older man said. They’d served many years together. “You will die, effendi….”
Selim stepped forward into the light, his youthful countenance no longer recognizable behind the bruises and swelling on his face. “Why do you bother with the girl after what she has done to you? Her presence condemns us all. He will tear down this house looking for her.”
Charles lifted his gaze to the ceiling. The hunger he had lived with since she’d left Cairo returned to gnaw at his gut with burning force. Brianna had not understood his devotion to her. She had no idea how he’d protected her. How he still protected her. Selim had wanted to kill her, but then, Selim had always hungered for blood, more so since the girl had blackened his face.
He moved slowly into the entryway, every step agony. He’d recognized the glacial look in Fallon’s eyes, and knew that only Brianna’s presence had kept them all alive tonight. But maybe it didn’t matter anymore. Already his plans had changed.
He gripped the balustrade as he eased up the stairs. The staircase window was high and latticed with stained glass. A chande
lier filled the space above the entryway, and as he raised his gaze, he couldn’t remember ever having seen the crystalline fixture alive with lights.
“Light them,” he told his steward, who had remained behind in the shadows. “Light everything.”
“I’m a liability,” Ware rasped over his breath. “You should leave me and go for help.”
“Stay in the shadows.” Without taking his eyes off the gate, Michael had worked the revolver from his waistband. “I should have killed the son of a bitch….” His long coat brushed his calves as he walked with Ware. The driveway was matted with weeds. Moonlight spattered across the ground like broken eggshells.
“It looks like someone beat you to it,” Ware asked. “He’s coughing up blood. Gunshot?”
“Which explains why he’s still in London. He has no intention of leaving that house alive.”
“If his mother has been dead for ten years, it’s obvious what Cross has been sending back to England. He couldn’t have been working alone.”
But Michael was no longer listening as he attempted to remove himself as a walking bull’s-eye. He could feel the pulse and danger of the night swirling around him. His hands and stomach were cold with fear and rage. But as suddenly as his fury and panic had come upon him, it ebbed into something deadly. This wasn’t a walk that he preferred to take, but there was too much at stake. If he broke off now, Ware would be left unprotected. Nor could he charge into the house, any more than he could have dragged Cross outside if he ever wanted to see Brianna alive.
“When we get to the carriage, I want you to find the constable.”
Ware slowed. “You’re going back alone?”
“He won’t be alone.” Donally spoke as Michael passed through the gate. “She’s my sister, Fallon.” Dressed in clothes that blended with the night, the black stubble on his face, the former Public Works minister for the khedive was leaning against the stone wall. The streetlight picked out his blue eyes as he shifted them to Ware. “You’ve surprised me by breaking the law so blatantly, my lord.”
Must Have Been The Moonlight Page 35