Edith Layton

by The Devils Bargain

  “I believe you might know his whereabouts,” Alasdair said implacably. “But I can’t prove it. Could I prove it—or if I do—I tell you now you’d have to leave this country, or this earth, because I’ll be very vexed with you for not telling me. Lolly has influence here. I have influence everywhere. Remember that, and if you get a sudden insight into the matter, you know how to reach me.”

  “’Deed I do,” the little man said, ducked a bow, and faded into the shadows.

  Alasdair’s shoulders slumped. He’d spoken to every snitch and informer, every gossip and news-gatherer he knew in Whitechapel and the Seven Dials, as well as those who floated throughout London, selling secrets and surmises for money or favor. They all claimed ignorance of who’d lured Kate away.

  The Runners had been at work, too. The carriage had been found, deserted. They’d found the maid, wandering about with an aching head. She remembered getting a glimpse of a man in the carriage with Kate before she’d been struck from behind. But she’d never seen him before and hadn’t seen him well. Just a man, she’d said, a dirty, evil-looking man.

  Alasdair stood in the shadows and bowed his head. In that moment his face would have been unrecognizable to his friends and foes, even to himself. He was shaken to his soul. He could deal with men who committed crimes for profit, for money or personal revenge, because he himself had gone that route and knew the levers and lures to use to manipulate and catch them in their own schemes. But if no one knew who’d kidnapped Kate, then it could have been a madman bent on rape or murder or both. No one could predict such people, they had no handles. There was no way he could find them or move them if he did, and what would happen to Kate? What had already happened to her?

  He groaned low in his throat. He could imagine what might have happened. Too well. He could almost see it in his mind’s eye—the man bent over her, after beating or threatening her to hold her still long enough for him to cover her and then, with grunts of triumph, pump his vileness into her while she ran away deep in her mind, where nothing could touch her, ever again…No!

  Alasdair’s eyes sprang open and he stared wildly into the dark alley, seeing nothing, his body shaking, cold with sweat. This was different, this was now, this was Kate. He couldn’t allow himself to think that. He wouldn’t. He’d not got this far from pandering to self-destructive visions. Picturing horrors didn’t defeat them. Sickening as they were, they could seduce a man, lulling him into imagining he could rework and change the horrors that befell him, if only in his own mind.

  Alasdair knew that route, that ultimate lie. It was really a sickness that made a man relive crimes committed against him. Rather than healing him, reworking the horrors became a way he could punish himself for not having been able to prevent them. That kind of thinking only destroyed his resolve, cheating him of any opportunity of winning. What was done was over, dwelling on it never changed it.

  He wouldn’t imagine Kate’s fate, he’d fight for her instead. He’d search this damned city from sewer to palace, and find her. And if, God forbid, she’d been harmed, he’d cure her. If it took him the rest of their lives, he’d do it. He took a deep breath, straightened, and strode from the alley.

  Sir Alasdair St. Erth was not usually seen at London’s rat-and-dog fights, where huge amounts of money were wagered each night on which dog would kill the most and how high the stacks of dead rats would grow. Sir Alasdair was seen at them that night though. He dropped in on several of the most popular torchlit, crowded rooms featuring contests between rat and terrier. He didn’t mind the stench of tobacco, sweat, and blood as he made his way through the crowded galleries, having a word here with a beggar and there with a bored nobleman. He didn’t mind because he didn’t notice. He was wholly concentrated on news of Kate.

  He left with no news, but let it be known he’d pay for some.

  Sir Alasdair was also spied at several exclusive gentlemen’s clubs, drifting through the gaming rooms, stopping to talk, pausing to listen. He also visited some of the worst gambling hells, or best ones, depending on how mad a man was for the highest stakes and greatest risks. He wasn’t a gambler, but he knew their ways and the games they played. So he waited until the croupiers were raking in their chips, gathering their dice or shuffling their cards before he asked questions. He left each establishment after letting it be known that he’d pay higher winnings for answers, and ask no questions himself.

  The bordellos of London seldom saw Sir Alasdair. He usually made his own arrangements for pleasure. But tonight he visited a score of them, from the finest, those that looked like a lady’s salon, where only the customers and upstairs maids knew what the merchandise was, to the lowest, where rows of curtained partitions couldn’t hide the sounds and smells of the trade. In every one he left his card and his question. Every so often he’d grimace when he pulled out his watch and saw the hours ticking by. Each time he did, he also asked if there were any messages left for him, if any of the lads he’d hired to find him and tell him if there was news had left word. There never was.

  Alasdair had spun an invisible web, an unseen network stretched across London that night. Kate’s cousin Lord Swanson was making inquiries backstairs at fashionable homes where there were balls and musicales. Leigh was doing the same at the theaters, just as Lord Talwin was at the public masquerades. Other associates and friends of Alasdair’s, as well as several of Kate’s relatives, were at social affairs. They attended everything from public readings to prayer meetings, searching for clues.

  Night was blurring into morning when Alasdair returned to his house. He paused on his doorstep for a moment and closed his eyes, hoping there’d be a message waiting for him there. It was the closest he’d come to praying in decades.

  Alasdair hadn’t slept all night, but the next morning the only evidence was the shadowing under his eyes and the grim set to his mouth. Otherwise, he looked like himself: spotlessly neat, expertly barbered, cool, aloof, dressed in his usual impeccable clothes. He wore a dark blue jacket and buff pantaloons, with high-polished boots adorned with small gold tassels, every inch the powerful nobleman. Only his friend Leigh could guess his pain, from the bleak and lost look in the back of his eyes.

  “Nothing,” Alasdair reported, as Leigh entered the study where he was sitting. “She may as well have dropped off the face of the earth.”

  “And no demands from her abductor?” Leigh asked.

  “No,” Alasdair said softly. “This is very bad, Leigh, very bad.” He gazed out his window. “But perhaps it’s not the worst. I’ve been thinking about it.” Alasdair paused and laughed bitterly. “I’ve been thinking of nothing else since I found out about it. We’ve heard nothing, but some things begin to fall into place anyway. A madman wouldn’t have plotted so well,” he said, rising to pace the room.

  “Or at least I choose to think so. Because some madmen can lay elaborate plans, and this certainly was one. Still, usually those men leave a trail—in advance of their actions. They don’t suddenly take a fancy to a female and then go to such lengths to abduct her with this kind of finesse. Rapists snatch women on the spur of the moment. Elaborate plans are the work of rejected suitors or lovelorn admirers. They write letters, send messages to the object of their affections, pester them in public long before they resort to force. I’d have known if Kate had such an admirer. She’d have said something because the woman is nothing if not candid. Her family would have known, Sibyl, certainly. There was no such fellow.

  “So,” Alasdair said, locking his hands behind his back, facing Leigh, his face cold and set, “we’re dealing with someone who’s acting with some other purpose. An enemy, in short. Kate has no such enemies. I do. I have legions of such enemies, Leigh. That’s Kate’s misfortune, but maybe her salvation. Because her abductor must have seen us as we enacted my damned plot. He must have believed us and thought that taking her would hurt me. If that’s the case, my knowing is important to him because if I don’t know it and see what he’s done, it has no meaning. So she may
still be unharmed. I know how revenge works. Too well.”

  “But if that’s the case, why hasn’t anyone communicated with you?”

  “A very good question, because it narrows the field considerably. It’s someone who wants me to come to them, Leigh, someone who wants to see me beg and crawl, on their terms.”

  Leigh grew still. “And will you, if you must??”

  Alasdair smiled, it was a true smile, if a weary one. “Would I indeed? I’ve thought of little else and so I can honestly tell you that if they demanded a finger of me, or a leg, or my liver and lights, they could have them all. They could open my veins and bathe in my blood if they wished. Not only because Kate’s innocent in this, and I never intended to involve an innocent in my schemes to this extent—but because…I have a care for her.”

  It was such a cool thing to say after such an immoderate statement that Leigh almost smiled. But he couldn’t, because he realized what an enormous declaration about the state of his heart it was for Alasdair to make. “And so who have you narrowed the field down to?” he asked instead.

  Alasdair gave him a quizzical look as answer.

  Leigh recoiled. “You made sense until now! Damnation, Alasdair, the world doesn’t revolve around the Scalbys! Your obsession does, but that can lead you to look in the wrong places. You worked for His Majesty during the war. It could be an enemy you made in his name then. You’ve twisted noses in England, too. A man can’t build your fortune without stepping on toes.”

  “Toes and noses, Leigh?” Alasdair asked with a small smile, “You’re tangling your metaphors.”

  “Here or abroad, it could be anyone,” Leigh went on angrily. “The Scalbys are old now, they’re recluses too. Why should you still think of them?”

  Alsadair’s smile disappeared. “Because I promise you, they still think of me. I made sure of it. Because I have them now, and they know it. I uncovered their vile schemes, and best—or worst—of all, I learned they were enemies of His Majesty, too. Believe me, they think of me every day, every hour, as they wait for me finally to bring them to account. They’re old, yes, but so is evil, and it’s no milder because of it. They’re no less a menace than old serpents hiding under a stone. Turn over that stone, and you will be bitten. I’ve been courting Kate because she’s their relative. That must sting. I wanted it to, but I didn’t know it would cause Kate harm. I thought even they would draw the line at hurting a relative. I regret that more than you can know.”

  “But she is their relative. So there was no need for them to abduct her. If they summoned her, she’d have gone to them.”

  Alasdair gave Leigh a patient look. “And I’d have immediately known who’d taken her, wouldn’t I? Clearly, they wanted more amusement out of the situation.”

  “They say that madmen can involve the sane in their mad schemes because they grow so persuasive,” Leigh said sadly. “Almost, you persuade me. What are you going to do?” A sudden surmise widened his eyes. “Give up your plans for revenge? That would be very good, Alasdair. It would be the making of you, I think.”

  “The unmaking, trust me. But I’m a serpent, too. I’ll win her back. It will cost me a lot, but I’ll bring down their house even if I have to be in it when I do. I’ll see her safely out of it first, though, I promise you.”

  “But what good will that do her?” Leigh asked. “Because I’m convinced she has a care for you, too.”

  “What good will it do her?” Alasdair shrugged. “If she discovers my whole scheme and finds out just what kind of man I am, it could do her much good, or at least that’s what most people would say. They’d probably be right, too. But you underestimate me. I intend to win. It won’t be easy. It will probably be very painful. Victory never comes cheap. Maybe Kate will never have to know. I’ll go to them and negotiate. That will be the hardest part, believe me, because my self-respect and pitiful attempts at dignity will be demolished. So what? A man can live without dignity and self-respect. Just look at me.” He chuckled. “That’s just what worries you, isn’t it? Stop worrying, I’m not done yet, I’ve more than a few tricks left to play. While there’s breath left in me, they’ll have no peace.”

  “But if you’re wrong and they had nothing to do with this?”

  Alasdair lifted an eyebrow. “That would be unfortunate, wouldn’t it? Then I’d just be pathetic. Well, at least it will brighten their day.”

  “You’d degrade yourself so for Kate’s sake?”

  “I can’t think of a better reason.”

  “She means that much to you?” Leigh asked. “Alasdair, that’s wonderful.”

  “Wonderful? Hardly,” Alasdair said with a sneer. “But it would be detestable if a man refused to save an innocent young woman if he had it in his power to do so.”

  “Wonderful that you’ve found her! You need someone like her.”

  Alasdair fixed him with a steady look. “Wonderful? When I’ve lost her?

  “Only for now. I’m sure she’ll be found, and then you’ll see. She’s perfect for you. Good, honest, and sincere.”

  “So she is,” Alasdair said. “But a man can’t rid himself of evil by associating with purity. That’s like pox-ridden men thinking they can cure themselves by having sex with virgins. Nonsense. I’m not one of them, though my disease is as nasty and profound. Saving her won’t save me. I’m the one who put her in danger. Whatever my feelings toward her, that was wrong, and must be righted.”

  “Can I help?” Leigh asked eagerly.

  “Can you pray?”

  There was one more errand Alasdair had to run before he committed himself to the most desperate one.

  He stood in the Swanson salon, the three unmarried Swanson daughters staring back at him. Henrietta spoke first, her voice cold and hard.

  “You insult us, sir,” she said in response to his terse question.

  “That’s unfortunate,” he said. “But may I have an answer?”

  “You think we had something to do with her disappearance,” Frances said, and it wasn’t a question.

  He stood silent, watching them. He’d been evaluating their answers, but watching their smallest movements for a clue as to how honest they were. They were three of the least lovely women he’d ever known. They weren’t any easier to talk to than to look at, and even harder to confront. Now, for the first time since he’d met them, they looked vulnerable. He towered over them, they stood close together as though that gave them some comfort, making him realize that they were, after all, only three ill-favored women, and no one had ever given them the benefit of any doubt.

  “I have to pursue all lines of inquiry,” he said in a gentler voice.

  “She came from nowhere with neither title nor fortune, but she became popular and it made us look even less so. We wanted her to go home,” Henrietta said with dignity. “But we didn’t want her dead.”

  Alasdair felt ice trickle through his blood. “Who said she was dead?”

  “No one,” Chloe answered. “But she’s been abducted and gone a day. What are we to think?”

  He had no answer because he refused to consider the question. “Think what you will. But please, if you know anything at all, tell me now.”

  It might have been the “please.” The three exchanged glances.

  “We’ve been asking, too,” Chloe blurted. “We’ve given good money for answers. Servants know everything, and we’ve paid for information before. No one knows, Sir Alasdair, no one. She’s vanished. We didn’t—don’t—know her very well. But we certainly wished her no real harm.”

  “You, however, encouraged her to walk out with some rare examples of British manhood,” he said with a bitter smile.

  “They were fops and fortune hunters,” Frances said, her head high. “Not men who would ever hurt her—until they married her.”

  “Agreed,” he said. He watched them for another moment. “Thank you,” he finally said. “If you hear anything, you will let me know?”

  “You believe us?” Chloe asked harshly. />
  “Yes,” he answered. “You’re far too clever to lie to me.”

  That made them smile. But they were the sort of smiles that made the sisters look even worse.

  There was no more delaying, nothing more to be done except the one thing Alasdair least wanted to do. But he had to do it before he found an excuse not to. As he finally approached the Scalbys’ town house that afternoon he found it hard to breathe freely, and his heart knocked against his ribs as though he’d run all the way. He stopped and stared at the prim gray building as though he were looking at a grim fortress guarded by dragons.

  He stood rooted to the spot, a tall, powerfully built and handsomely dressed gentleman, standing in the street like a statue of himself. Passersby regarded him curiously. He didn’t see them. He’d waited for this moment all these years, had plotted it through most of his adult life, but now that it was here he wanted to leave. Not only because it wouldn’t be the triumph he’d sacrificed so much for. But because now that he was on their doorstep dreams fled, and he faced reality. He’d finally have to actually face them again.

  He felt queasy thinking of the triumph that would light her eyes, sicker at the thought of the glee that would be on her husband’s sly dark face. The only thing that stopped him from turning away was the thought of Kate and the possible danger she was in. Danger he himself had put her in.

  It had been such a simple plan. But he’d been defeated because he hadn’t bargained on Kate herself. Now he remembered an incident from when they’d first begun their charade. They’d been dancing, and she’d turned a sparkling gaze on him, and tilted a shoulder to indicate a pair of goggling tulips of the ton on the sidelines, watching them. “Am I making you respectable, Sir Alasdair?” she’d whispered. “Or are you making me a scandal?”