by Jane Ashford
They had nearly reached the windows when light flared in the garden. Someone had opened a dark lantern, Alan thought, or perhaps more than one. And the beams were directed full on the figure framed by an arching trellis—the “ghost” of Bess Harding. It looked the same as before—the old-fashioned gown, the bone-white face, the splatters of supposed blood, the illusion of floating above the ground. But this time the figure threw back its head and held out its arms as if beseeching the crowd. Several female guests shrieked.
“Get out of my way,” said Alan, pushing past a cluster of transfixed partygoers. “Pardon me. Let me pass.” He twisted and shoved until he made it to the nearest open window. Without pausing he threw a leg over the low sill and ducked under the sash, straightening again in the flowerbed just outside.
The light on the ghost vanished. This time, Alan was certain he heard the squeak of dark lanterns. His first impulse was to race to the spot where the figure had appeared, but then he stopped to think. The woman, whoever she was, would be expecting that, and she would have moved. It would be wiser to listen for the sounds of flight and follow.
He was straining his ears when Ariel tumbled out of the window behind him in a rustle of silk. “Where is she?” she cried, stumbling slightly on the hem of her gown, then hurrying across the flowerbed toward the site of the latest haunting.
Alan looked to the right, where he expected to find one of the men he had stationed at the doors of the building. The fellow was there. Alan summoned him with a gesture and gave the order to search the garden. But he knew it was too late. The hoaxers had found a way in, and they were certainly departing through it right now. All he had managed was to keep them out of the house.
“There’s nothing here,” she said when he joined her under the trellis.
“Naturally,” he replied.
“She might have dropped something, or—”
“These people are far too clever for that.”
“People?”
“I heard dark lanterns. The woman has confederates.”
“At least we found out something then.”
“We also could have heard which way they went if you had not set up an infernal racket.”
“You were just standing there! If you had told me you were listening—”
She was interrupted by a rapidly increasing volume of curses and sputters of outrage from the garden path. “Damn Bess,” said the prince regent, appearing at full trot from behind a screen of trees. “How dare she do this to me? Half the town is laughing up its sleeve, and the other half is making me out as some kind of demon worshiper. Where the devil…?” He glimpsed Alan and changed course to stand before him. “There you are. Haven’t you caught her?”
“No, sir,” Alan replied tightly.
“Well, why not? By God, this can’t go on. It’s…it’s damned disrespectful.”
“We will increase the watch. No one will get in again.”
“Ghost doesn’t have to get in, does she?” retorted the prince, his chubby face petulant.
“There is no longer any question of the supernatural,” Alan said. “The woman had very real confederates using dark lanterns.”
In the torchlight, the monarch’s pudgy features were suddenly shrewd. “Did she now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That puts a different complexion on things.”
Alan refrained from pointing out that there had never been a ghost.
“It’s someone tryin’ to embarrass me, then,” the prince concluded.
“Most likely, sir.” Alan also refrained from mentioning that he had told him this from the beginning.
“We can do something about that!” He rubbed his fat hands together.
A spark of hope ignited in Alan. “Perhaps, then, you no longer need my help, sir? Others might be better able…”
“What? No, no, you’ve done a fine job. Carry on to the end, eh? See the thing through.” The prince cocked his head and held up an admonishing finger. “Might get on faster if you cut out the dalliance,” he finished, leaving Alan gasping at the unfairness of the accusation and the irony of its source.
By the time he had recovered, the prince was gone. The wind whispered in the branches. Footsteps and scraps of conversation could be heard from the edges of the garden, where the men were still searching. The buzz of noise inside Carlton House had resumed.
“I’m very sorry I kept you from hearing them escape,” said Ariel quietly.
Turning, he gazed down at her.
“I should have realized that was the thing to do,” she added. “I will remember next time.”
A female admitting she was wrong, Alan thought with amazement, actually acknowledging she had lost an argument. She seemed to mean it, too.
“You know,” Ariel added diffidently, “if it is a matter of dark lanterns…”
“Yes?” he prompted, curious to know what she would say next.
“Well…my mother’s former coachman. John.”
He waited.
“He… I believe he had a good deal of experience with dark lanterns.”
“What sort of experience?”
She shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, I… I think perhaps he was a highwayman before he came to live with us.”
“What?”
“I think he may have stopped my mother’s coach and tried to rob her.”
Alan gazed at her, finding nothing whatsoever to say.
“And failed,” added Ariel hurriedly.
“And so she naturally hired him as a coachman.”
She grimaced. “I don’t know what happened. She would have started talking to him, of course. She wouldn’t have been able to resist.”
“Resist!”
“To find out about him,” Ariel explained, “to discover what it was like, being a highwayman. She did that with everyone. For her work, you see.”
He shook his head. He did not begin to see.
“She collected incidents and emotions,” explained Ariel, “and then she used them when she acted. She would have been thinking of plays with highwaymen in them, and how she might use John’s experiences for her own part, and so she would have asked him questions, and…” Ariel shrugged. “One thing would have led to another. John is… he isn’t a criminal, really. He is only a little…”
Alan waited.
“Lazy,” concluded Ariel finally.
“Lazy?”
“He doesn’t like to work hard. I think he was quite happy overseeing my mother’s stable and selling the occasional…” She stopped, and he wondered what other sort of mischief she had decided not to reveal. “He is not a bad man,” she finished.
“Just a highway robber.”
“This was years ago,” she protested. “And anyway… I’m not sure, you see. I’m not talking about facts—just a combination of hints and interpretations. But I did wonder… when you said dark lanterns…”
“Indeed,” he replied grimly. “I believe we will redouble our efforts to find John the coachman.”
“He won’t talk to anyone but me,” she told him.
“We shall see about that.”
“Really. If he discovers that you know where he is, he’ll run.”
“He won’t be given an opportunity to do so.”
She put a hand on his arm. “Please. I have to see him. If Bess was in any kind of trouble, she would have asked for his help.”
In the face of her pleading gaze, he couldn’t refuse.
Eight
With this spur to their efforts, it took the prince’s men only two days to track down the coachman. “But he is staying in a very unsavory part of town,” Alan told Ariel when she pressed him for news. “Not a place you could go.”
“Yes, I can.”
“You have no notion of the kind of place we are ta
lking of,” he replied.
“Oh? I am not some sheltered daughter of the haut ton, you know. I won’t be overset by some dirt.”
“Or by footpads and bullyboys?” he inquired dryly.
“I assume we will be taking some of the prince’s men with us,” she responded. “Surely they can keep us safe.”
Alan examined her delicate features and slender frame. Who would have thought to find such courage, and such obstinacy, in this guise? “Is there anything that would stop you?” he wondered aloud.
Her hazel eyes glinted. “A stout rope, I suppose. Or perhaps chains?”
Startled, he laughed aloud. Then he found himself gazing at her. She met his eyes briefly, then looked away. It was fortunate that they were in agreement on the nature of their connection, he told himself, even as another, less rational part of him suffered sharp disappointment. “Very well,” he conceded. “I will see what I can arrange.”
Ariel looked triumphant. “Thank you. You really have been so helpful.”
“Always glad to be of service,” he replied ruefully, but Ariel didn’t seem to hear.
* * *
Two nights later, they drove through twisting streets made dim by the overhanging upper stories of sagging houses. The coach wheels splashed through refuse, and at one point Alan glimpsed the body of a dead dog lying in the stream of liquid slops in the center of the lane. He glanced quickly at Ariel, but if she had seen, she gave no sign. The houses grew meaner and smaller, the people they passed either sullenly glaring or furtive. Alan made no comment. He had already voiced all his objections, most particularly to their making this visit at night, but they had been overridden by the man who had tracked down the coachman, who regretfully told him that he could only be sure of laying his hands on the fellow in the evening.
Following this man’s directions, they pulled up at the mouth of a narrow alley, hardly more than a cobbled path between two ramshackle buildings. “This way,” mumbled their guide, not looking happy. “We’ll come in the back and surprise him. He won’t have no chance to do a bunk on us.”
Alan climbed down from the carriage and looked around. “This is impossible,” he began.
“Keep your voice down, my lord,” said their guide, alarmed.
“It is merely filthy,” declared Ariel, stepping to the broken pavement. “And we have Tom and Fred with us as well as Roger.”
She had remembered their names after only one mention, thought Alan, watching her pick up her skirts and move away from the coach. And she wasn’t showing the least sign of fear. He looked at each of the men in turn. They nodded and fingered their cudgels. Alan gripped the pistol in his pocket, drawing it out, then gave the signal to proceed.
They made their way slowly down the alley. About halfway, Alan realized that what he had thought was a pile of garbage was in fact a ragged man, rolled into a ball with his head on his knees. He surged forward as Ariel hesitated, then bent over the unfortunate fellow and reached out as if to touch his shoulder.
“Nothin’ you can do,” Roger told her.
To Alan’s profound relief, she accepted this, stepping around the huddled figure with obvious reluctance. He made no sound, no move to show he even saw them.
“In here.” Their guide pushed open a crooked door and motioned them forward. They crossed grimy floorboards and went through to a larger room. It was very dark, with only one candle guttering in the far corner. The air was fetid and dead. When Alan’s eyes adjusted, he realized that there were people there, four or five lying on the floor or slumped against the walls. He increased the pace, grimacing as he passed a woman who sat as if broken, her legs splayed wide, her arms limp at her sides. She was dirty. Her dress was torn, and her black hair hung in lank strings. Her eyes were closed, and she was snoring slightly.
“Who are these—” began Ariel.
“Hush,” commanded Roger. “We’re nearly there.”
He strode silently across the filthy room and opened a door on the far side. Stronger light streamed in; it came from a hallway, Alan saw as he joined the man. There was noise, too, the sounds of men talking and clinking glasses.
“Tom and me will fetch him,” whispered Roger when they had gathered in the hall. “If we all go into the alehouse, there’ll be a riot.”
Alan nodded.
“Don’t frighten him,” said Ariel.
Roger looked almost comically nonplussed.
“Don’t do him any damage,” put in Alan.
“Aye,” answered Roger.
In a few minutes, he and Tom returned with a struggling figure locked between them.
“John,” cried Ariel. “Let him go.”
Making sure his pistol was clearly visible, Alan nodded his agreement. The two stepped back slightly, leaving their captive free but in easy reach.
“What the bloody hell…?” he said.
Ariel stepped forward; Alan at once blocked her way. “He won’t hurt me,” she said.
“He won’t have any opportunity to do so.”
John glared around at all of them. His clothes were rumpled and looked as if they could use a wash. His dark hair lacked its customary dapperness. His eyes were bloodshot and pouched, as if he’d been drinking more than was good for him.
“John, it’s Ariel.”
His gaze swiveled to her face.
“Ariel Harding,” she added. “Bess’s daughter.”
His eyes narrowed. He seemed to struggle to focus on her in the dim light. Then he frowned. “Ariel? You’re… older.”
She smiled. “I’ve been away at school for a long time. But I haven’t forgotten how you taught me to ride, and hold the ribbons on the coach box as well.”
John’s expression shifted from bewilderment to comprehension and back again. “What the dev…deuce are you doing here?” he demanded. He looked around, more alert now. “Who are these people? You shouldn’t have come to a place like this. ’Tisn’t proper.”
“I had to speak to you,” she said.
“To me?” His eyes dropped. “Why would you be wanting to speak to me?”
“I am determined to find out why Bess died,” she told him.
“Shh.” John threw a glance over his shoulder, then peered down the other end of the hallway. “Don’t mention that here.”
“Why?” asked Alan sharply.
“Because they don’t like that kind of talk,” John snapped. “You’ll get us all thrown out in the street, and I can’t afford that.” He looked at Ariel. “Who’s he?”
“This is Lord Alan Gresham. He is helping me to find—” She broke off as John held up a warning hand.
“Lord, is it? Why not be satisfied with what you’ve got, my girl, and let the past lie?”
“He is only helping me,” said Ariel. “And I must hear your story of what happened that night. Please, John.”
“I wasn’t there,” he replied quickly.
“You weren’t at the house?” Disappointment made Ariel’s voice sharp.
The man moved uneasily, eyes on the floor.
“Roger, perhaps you should go and ask some of John’s friends in the taproom if they know anything about this matter,” suggested Alan.
“No!” was the alarmed response. “Stay out of that, then.”
“If you tell us what you know,” Alan agreed.
“I know damn little,” he growled in response.
“Why won’t you help me?” cried Ariel. “I thought we were old friends.”
John looked hunted, then he grimaced. “Come on.”
Turning, he led them up a set of grimy stairs at the end of the hall, and along another corridor to a small room that held a rickety table and some stools. Leaving one of their men to watch the stairs and lower floor, Alan stepped inside. After carefully shutting the door, John turned to face Ariel. “I liked your mother,” h
e said. “You know I did. And you, too. But I can’t afford to get involved in any investigations—with magistrates and Bow Street crawling about and sticking their noses where they’ve got no business being.”
“They wouldn’t lift a finger,” said Ariel. “I am doing this on my own.”
John gave Lord Alan a sidelong glance.
“I have no connection with the magistrates,” he conceded.
“So what are you doing here, if you’re not…?” This time, the sidelong glance was at Ariel.
“He was summoned by the prince regent to rid Carlton House of Bess’s ghost,” Ariel explained before Alan could stop her.
For the first time, John smiled. “Ah.” His smile broadened. “Bess would have loved that. When the tongues began to wag about Prinny’s ghost, I thought mebbe it was her. Just the sort of thing she’d want to do.”
“Please tell me what happened that night, John,” said Ariel quietly.
He sighed, looking suddenly older and tireder and gentler. “What good will it do anybody?” he asked. But he seemed to be speaking mostly to himself. He went over to the table, gesturing to the stools as he sat on one of them. Ariel obediently took another; the other men remained standing.
“I wasn’t in the house,” John began. “I’d gone out to the stable to check on one of the horses. Then I stayed out for a smoke, as Bess wouldn’t have tobacco in her house.” He smiled very slightly. “You remember how she used to rail about the ‘filthy habit,’ Ariel.”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “And she was in the mood to rail that night. So, I leaned against the stable gate and looked at the stars for a good while. By the time I came in, everyone was abed. There wasn’t any sign of trouble. Then in the morning…” He shifted a bit on the stool. “We thought she was sleeping. But finally Clarisse knocked, and when we couldn’t rouse her, I broke the door.” He let out a breath and put a hand to his forehead. “She was there on the floor. Lord, I’ll never forget the sight.”
There was a short silence.
John looked up. “You should talk to Clarisse.”
“We have,” Alan informed him.