A brisk knock on the study door broke through his reverie and he turned to find Christian and Lord Alec Deveril stepping into the room.
“We thought you might care for some company,” Christian explained, lowering his tall form into a low wing chair.
Deveril nodded, carefully ensuring that he did not wrinkle his splendid velvet coat as he took a seat across from Monteith. “And we have news.”
This caught Lucas’s attention. “What news?”
“It would seem,” Christian drawled, stretching his long legs out before him, “that you have a traitor in your midst.”
“A traitor to the crown?”
“Oh, fear not.” Deveril raised a placating hand. “You will not be guillotined by the teeming masses. This traitor is far more mundane than that. He is, instead, someone planted in your household for the purpose of gathering information about you and your wife. And your search for her father’s journals in particular.”
“Who the hell is it?” Lucas demanded, his blood running cold at the idea of someone in his own household carrying tales. “And who is he reporting to?”
“Whom he reports to, I do not know,” Deveril said, “but as to who has been carrying tales, I fear it is your new footman, the fresh-faced young George.”
Lucas stalked to the door and threw it open, intending to summon the butler, but he was forestalled by the sight of the footman being held between two hulking fellows he recognized to be from Bow Street.
The taller of the two runners, his lank hair pressed down into his head by a porkpie hat, tugged what bit of his forelock he could grip, like a country lad meeting the squire. “Your Grace,” he said, his voice raspy, “Mr. Winehouse sent us to apprehend this here lad. Colonel Lord Monteith swore out a warrant.”
Deveril and Monteith stood.
“Bring him in here for a moment, Harker,” Deveril instructed the man. Clearly he and Christian were on friendly terms with the fellows.
“Something didn’t sit right with me the day Cecily was shot,” Christian explained, as if reading Lucas’s thoughts. “I was speaking of it with Deveril at White’s, and we decided to do a bit of digging.”
The three men stepped back as the two men from Bow Street half dragged, half led the scowling footman into the room.
“What bothered me,” Monteith explained, “was that when I arrived at Winterson House in response to Cecily’s note, that footman seemed a bit too interested in her comings and goings. He rather … hovered … as if he were listening for information.”
“Go on.” Lucas glanced at the man they spoke of and noted that his expression now was as impassive as a statute. His gawking attitude must have been part of the ruse, he decided.
“Well, when we got out of the hack at the footbridge, I could have sworn I saw the same fellow ducking behind the magazine. But then when the shots were fired from the other direction I decided I’d been seeing things.” Christian shook his head ruefully. “But I couldn’t let it go. When I talked to Deveril about it, we decided to do a bit of checking on the fellow.”
Before Lucas could ask, Deveril added, “We knew you had other things on your mind. And besides, there’re only so many ton activities a man can stomach before he begins to think that all tea must be weak and all biscuits stale.”
“And,” Christian went on, “with the help of our own servants—who really do have the best understanding of what goes on upstairs and downstairs—we discovered that before he decided to become a footman, young George Grimly worked as a clerk for—”
“The Egyptian Club,” Deveril finished.
Lucas shook his head in disbelief. “I cannot thank you enough,” he told his friends. The thought of the sour-faced man before him in the same house with Cecily, watching over her, for God’s sake, chilled him to the bone.
“Your Grace,” the shorter, stouter runner said, “we should be taking this fellow in to the magistrate.”
“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” Lucas told the two men. “But I would like to question this man before you take him in. He may have valuable information about who ordered the shooting of my wife.”
Attempted murder of a peeress was no joking matter, so when the duke suggested they retire to the kitchens for a bit of ale and one of cook’s famous blueberry tarts, they were quick to abandon their charge to the three gentlemen and retire below.
“Now, George,” Lucas said, his voice deadly soft. “Why don’t you tell me how a young man goes from clerking at the Egyptian Club to taking a position as a lowly footman in a ducal household.”
It was not a question but an order, but the young man slumped in the chair before them only tightened his jaw, refusing to answer.
“Why don’t I give it a try,” Christian said, leaning back against Lucas’s massive desk. “It seems to me that a young man such as yourself, growing up at the edge of poverty, might be tempted, should he find himself working in a place like the Egyptian Club, to help himself to one or two of the baubles that come across his desk.”
“And perhaps a club member discovered your little thefts. And maybe in exchange for keeping your crimes a secret, he made you try to get a position at Winterson House?” Deveril’s voice was light, as if he were merely making a friendly inquiry. But the friendliness in his tone did not match the deadly seriousness of his eyes. “Is that what happened, son?”
“I don’t have to say noth … anything,” he corrected himself, “to you.”
“No, indeed,” Lucas agreed, “but I fear you are mistaken if you believe that your benefactor will get you out of this mess. After all, you are now implicated in the attempted murder of the Duchess of Winterson. That is a serious charge. A hanging offense. And unless your patron is the king himself, there is no way he will be able to save you.”
But the boy sneered. “My father is a powerful man. He will protect me.”
“Your father?” Lucas paused. “Who is your father that he can stop the hands of justice?”
They were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was the head footman, James.
“Your Grace,” he said, his expression grave, “I have brought George’s belongings. I thought perhaps they might help you find out more about him.”
Lucas took the kit bag and dismissed the man.
In full view of the perfidious footman, as well as Monteith and Deveril, he unceremoniously dumped the bag’s contents onto the surface of the desk. He looked up to see a flare of something in the young man’s eyes. Fear, perhaps?
He pawed through the man’s belongings. A penknife, a few letters, a marble. A journal with only a couple of pages used. Does everybody in the kingdom keep a bloody journal? Besides the journal, there was a three-volume set of books. Surprisingly enough, an account of Lord Geoffrey Brighton’s travels in Africa.
Opening the first volume, he saw the inscription, and his blood ran cold.
“To my dearest son: One day all my worldly treasures will be yours.”
It was signed “Brighton.”
* * *
When they arrived at Hurston House, it was to find the establishment in an uproar.
Young George Grimly had been persuaded to tell them where his father could be found after Monteith casually made mention of the techniques the French had employed upon him during the time he’d spent as a prisoner of war. The three men neglected to inform the footman that Monteith’s time in captivity had lasted all of two days, during which time he’d been completely unconscious. It seemed better that way.
And when the boy choked out that he was meant to watch Lucas while his father followed the young duchess to Hurston House, it had taken all of Lucas’s willpower to keep from shaking the rest of the information from the boy. Deveril convinced him that however he might wish to throttle the erstwhile servant, it would go better for Cecily if they simply sprinted the short distance to Hurston House.
The butler showed the three men into the drawing room, where Violet lay prostrate on a settee, her maid holding a slab of beefsteak
to her jaw, which already showed streaks of purple fanning out from it. Flanking their aunt were Miss Juliet Shelby, Lady Madeline Essex, and their respective mamas.
On seeing Lucas, Violet struggled to sit up.
“Thank heavens you are here, Winterson!” she cried, waving off her maid, who seemed willing to bodily restrain her mistress if necessary. “You must go after them at once. You may take as many footmen as you wish, only hurry.”
“Hurry where, ma’am?” he demanded, dropping to bended knee beside her. “Where has he taken her?”
“It’s Lord Geoffrey Brighton, of all people,” she said, as if still coming to grips with the idea herself. “He has taken her to the Egyptian Club, I think. He keeps an office there, where he conducts research.”
She pointed to her jaw. “He thought I was unconscious, but I was only feigning it. I heard everything he said to her. And I also heard him give the direction to Mixon, the butler. I sent a footman to find you; he must have just missed you.”
“The bastard was confident he’d not be followed,” Christian said. Then, realizing they were in mixed company, added, “Your pardon, of course, ladies.”
But Violet was unconcerned with the proprieties. “He made Cecily write a note for you,” she told Winterson, thrusting the paper at him.
“She meant none of it, I assure you,” she continued as he scanned the words. “Cecily would never have written it if he hadn’t insisted upon it.”
His jaw clenched as he scanned the words. He knew better than to believe the content of the note itself. It was the nonsensical postscript at the bottom that made his heart stop. In the same code they had seen in his brother’s letters, he read her real message to him: He means to kill you. Do not risk it.
If Cecily thought for one moment that he would sit by while she fought a madman, then she was mistaken. Crumpling the note, he strode from the room, leaving the others to follow behind him.
Twenty-three
When Cecily and Lord Brighton arrived at the Egyptian Club in his closed carriage, instead of entering through the front door, he instructed the coachman to take them around back to the mews.
Her hands bound behind her back, Cecily was draped with a light cloak that hid her captive state. The gun, which Lord Geoffrey secreted in the folds of his greatcoat, never wavered from its aim at her, and she did not doubt for an instant that he would shoot if she tried to escape.
“Here now, my dear,” he said, opening the carriage door and letting down the step. Like a courtly gentleman of old, he carefully helped her alight from the vehicle, his care in sharp contrast to his earlier sneers. But Cecily knew it was all part of his act for the servants. They did not know, after all, that their master was a madman who had already killed two people and had tried to kill two more. To them he was simply an indulgent uncle offering his beloved niece a tour of the club where he spent so much time.
Cecily considered raising a ruckus, but she would not put it past the man—she refused to think of him as her beloved uncle—to shoot anyone who got in his way. And so she allowed him to lead her up the back steps into the club without saying a word.
Seeing the Egyptian Club in the light of day, something she’d longed to do for so many years now, was bittersweet at best. All the affection she now held for the establishment was tied to the night she’d spent there in Lucas’s embrace. The hallway Brighton now led her down was the same one that she and Lucas had traversed that night, a candle their only illumination. She thought about all they’d shared since that night, and prayed that if for some reason she was unable to save herself, he would not believe the vile letter Lord Brighton had left for him.
“Come this way,” her captor said, leading her into the workroom where she and Lucas had been trapped. “Does it look familiar?” he asked.
“It was you?” Cecily demanded. How could she not have seen it? she wondered.
He gave a little bow. “Yes, indeed,” he said. “I thought if you were married off to the young war hero, he would keep you from getting in my way. Were you not pleased? He is after all a handsome fellow, even if he is not quite so smart as he is pretty. And I’ll wager he keeps you well enough entertained in the marriage bed, eh?”
His lascivious tone brought on another bout of nausea.
“Oh, do not be such a prude, my dear,” he said, reading her revulsion correctly. “If you’re anything like your mother you enjoy a good tupping well enough. Besides, you need not worry about that sort of thing anymore, anyway. When I’m through with you you’ll be sleeping peacefully with your beloved Egyptians. Unfortunately, unlike them, you will begin the journey to the afterlife in the same way your dear brother-in-law did.”
Cecily scanned the room, noticing that the implements and materials on the table were all that was needed to begin the mummification process. Understanding dawned, and swiftly behind it, horror.
“You … you … cannot!” she stammered. She had seen the twisted expression on the face of William Dalton, looked at his hands, which were flat as if they’d been pressing against the lid of his sarcophagus as he died.
“I’m afraid I can, my dear,” Lord Geoffrey said, shutting the door of the workroom. “It is what happens to those who defy me. Even your dear mama, as beautiful as she was, made that mistake. Are you not pleased that I spared you? I am a hard man, true, but even I draw the line at murdering a child.”
Suddenly, Cecily was assailed with memories of that long-ago day when her mother had begged her to hide in the trunk. She remembered hearing her mother’s voice, and that of Unc … Geoffrey Brighton, raised in an argument. Ill, she remembered the sickening thud that had stopped her mother in mid-scream.
“You knew,” she said, trying to force calm into her voice. “You knew I was there. Hiding.”
He sneered. “Of course I knew, foolish girl.” He laughed. “Allowing you to live has caused me a great deal of trouble. If I had it to do over again, I would have stifled my pangs of conscience and silenced you too. After all, how much more affecting it would have been to see mother and child dead together.”
Cecily looked around the room, desperate to find a weapon of some kind. Swallowing, she realized that her mouth was dry. Perhaps she could ask for a glass of water and he’d be forced to untie her hands.
“I … I’m feeling faint, Uncle Geoffrey,” she said suddenly, swaying on her feet a little.
He looked impatient, but stood up and helped her into a hard wooden chair just inside the door.
“I do not like that foolish nickname,” he snapped. “Call me Father. Perhaps I would have been your father. If your mother hadn’t abandoned me for Hurston.”
She licked her lips. “F-Father, could I please have a drink of water? Please? I am so thirsty.”
He shook his head in disgust, but moved to the table on the other side of the room, where a water pitcher and glass were arranged.
Plunking the glass down before her, he only rolled his eyes a bit when she lifted her tied wrists to remind him that she’d need help.
“I will untie you,” he said, “but you must promise me not to leave the room. If you leave, then I will make sure that your last moments are very bad indeed.”
She nodded mutely, and when her hands were free she did not feign her eagerness to drink from the glass before her.
Moving back to his place on the other side of the table, Brighton began mixing various liquids and potions in a large vat near the window. He was careful always to keep her in his line of sight, but when he dropped a small vial of perfumed oil, he looked up at her, as if gauging whether he could trust her long enough to let him pick it up. Then a flash of an idea shone in his eyes.
“Come here, Cecily,” he said, stepping aside so that there would be room for her on his side of the table.
She got up on shaking legs and walked toward him. When she stopped a few feet from him, he nodded to the bottle on the floor.
“Pick it up,” he ordered, a gleam of malice glittering in his gaze.
Carefully, she leaned forward, reaching down and grasping the bottle in her right hand. As she began to unbend herself upward, she paused when her head and shoulders were pointed at Lord Geoffrey’s middle.
And shoved with all her might.
The move took him by surprise and gave her just enough time to slam the bottle as hard as she could into his nose. She heard a satisfying crunch and her hand was covered in warm liquid—whether it was blood or oil, she didn’t know or care.
At that moment the door to the storeroom burst open and Lucas, Monteith, and Deveril, followed by several Bow Street runners, pushed into the room.
Cecily almost collapsed from relief as she watched the rescue party file in. Lord Geoffrey, furious at having been bested by a woman, growled even as he clasped his rapidly reddening handkerchief to his nose, the vat of potions forgotten in his pain and anger.
“Cecily!” Lucas cried, rushing toward his wife.
She allowed him to gather her into his arms, and for long minutes they just stood holding each other close.
“Thank God,” he said against her hair. “Thank God you are safe.”
“I love you,” she said, not caring who heard her. “I am so sorry I didn’t say it before. But I love you.”
At a loud noise behind them, Cecily twisted to see if Brighton had been subdued and was relieved to see that two of the runners were holding his arms quite fast, while he screamed epithets about his “dose.”
“Take me home, Lucas,” she said to her husband once they had watched the runners lead their prisoner from the room. “I don’t think I ever want to see this place again.”
“But I thought getting into the Egyptian Club was your highest ambition?” he said, kissing her forehead.
How to Dance With a Duke Page 33