by Gaelen Foley
How brazen.
It was hard to say for certain if she was right. But she had the queasy feeling she had stepped into someone’s twisted fantasy. All of a sudden, an invisible door painted into the background creaked open, and a thin, rather gangly man in black started to step out of the back wall.
“Oh! Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he mumbled, starting to withdraw. “I didn’t know anyone was here yet—”
“It’s all right!” She smiled, masking the flare of recognition in her mind.
He had a forgettable face, but it was absolutely he, the man she had seen that day at the bookshop. She was certain the second she saw him.
“I don’t mean to intrude. I was just going to fix something, make a little adjustment—I’ll do it later. I’m always fussing with them,” he admitted with a self-deprecating little laugh. “I won’t disturb you, Miss. Good day.” He started to retreat backwards through his hole in the wall.
“Oh—I say, are you the artist behind all these magnificent scenes?” she spoke up quickly, her heart pounding. She was startled by her own daring, but this was her chance to try to find out what she could.
She just prayed to God he did not recognize her, in return. She did not recall him looking at her that day.
He had paused. “Yes, I am. Why do you ask?”
“To offer you my compliments, sir. Your work is simply excellent!” she flattered him with a nervous smile.
“Why—you are too kind, ma’am. Thank you.” He hesitated, blushing like a schoolboy. “Do you really like them?”
“They’re incredible!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like them!”
He stared, taken aback by her praise. “Thank you very much. W-we do try to give our visitors a unique experience.”
“Oh, it’s far more than that. It’s educational, as well,” she pointed out as she glanced at the angry mob figures. “You’ve truly re-created the spectacle of historical events. It gives such a greater impact to see it before one like this rather than simply reading about it in some dry old history book. Everything is so lifelike.” She shook her head, laying on the praise as her best hope of coaxing answers from him. “It really makes you feel like you’re actually there.”
He stammered incoherently, as though he had never received a compliment from a woman before in his life.
Carissa was astonished that this shy, soft-spoken, mild-mannered, little milquetoast of a man could be the force behind these wild, violent scenes.
But if he was, then he might well be the ‘disposable man’ that others had sent as their liaison to Madame Angelique. Keep him talking.
She gave him her best smile. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about how you create all this? I’m the leader of a ladies book club, you see. I organize our events, and I was investigating your museum as a possible outing for our members.”
“Your ladies won’t find it all too frightful, I hope?”
“Oh, no,” she assured him, and he laughed nervously. “I have them reading Gothics.”
“Ah, Gothics. Well, I would be more than happy to answer any questions you and your ladies might have,” he said, as if he were the most agreeable person on the south bank of the Thames. Not the sort of chap who’d ever go in for hiring assassins. “We don’t get many visitors from the fashionable world,” he added with a probing glance that scared her half to death.
That Charles should’ve already realized she was highborn brought her attention back to the risk that she was taking with her own safety. His perception of her rank was too much already for him to know about her. Especially since hers was a level of Society that he clearly didn’t like.
Still, she held fast to her nerve, knowing that this would likely be her only chance to try to find out more information—details she could bring to Beau. She cast about for another useful question. “So, how do you choose your scenes?” she asked with a disarming smile.
He shrugged. “For their historical importance and the drama to be had from them, and of course, whatever might be entertaining to our guests. We survive by our ticket sales.”
“I see. And how on earth do you make your figures look so real? They seem almost alive.”
“Ah, that’s my secret! No, I’m only jesting,” he assured her with an awkward laugh. “I studied as a surgeon at the royal medical college,” he admitted, “but medicine was not for me. I had too much of the artist in my nature. But I did stay long enough for the anatomical studies.”
“I see. Then you have put your talents to good use.” She smiled cheerfully, but a chill ran down her spine, for she knew that the anatomical studies at the royal medical college were made on real corpses.
If milquetoast Charles had not been too squeamish to cut up dead people, then hiring an assassin ought to be a trifle for him.
It occurred to her presently that if he suspected the real reason she was asking all these questions, she could end up a corpse herself.
Groin, throat, eyes. Plus, she had the pistol in her reticule. Thank God for Sergeant Parker.
Glad that she had some defense, this did not change the fact that she was standing alone in a darkened space with a man who had once dissected dead bodies. A man who hired assassins and consorted with revolutionaries and Radicals. A man who probably thought that aristocratic heads belonged in baskets.
I want my husband.
Beau would throttle her if he knew the danger in which she had placed herself. Time to go.
Still smiling, she started backing oh-so-slowly away. “Well! This has been fascinating. My lady friends will love it.”
“May I assist you in making arrangements for your group’s visit, Miss—?” He walked through the mob scene and jumped up out of the dropped floor of it that allowed visitors to look down on the proceedings from a few feet above.
“Oh, yes, that would be most helpful. Do you have a card for your business so I know who I am speaking to?”
“Mother keeps them at the front desk. Have her check the book. I hope you will come back soon.”
“I’m sure I will. Again, wonderful work. I’ve really enjoyed it.” She kept walking backwards, past the Indians. King Charles seemed to eye her with a silent stare of baleful warning as she passed.
God, now this place had her well and truly spooked.
“I don’t mean to keep you from your work.”
“It’s all right. My friends will wait. They’re not going anywhere,” he jested, laughing, but she had a feeling he spoke in truth. Odd as he was, those waxen people might be the only friends he had.
A disposable man. Someone that the people who sent him into the lion’s den didn’t care about. It had been fairly clear that day that Professor Culvert had wanted to brush him off and get rid of him as quickly as possible.
Oh, dear. Perhaps she had flattered Charles too much, for he was altogether attentive and obliging, walking her all the way out to the receiving room and making sure the old woman there attended her at once.
“Mother! This lady wants to bring her group. Will you help her make the arrangements?”
“Oh, that’s very nice, dearie. I’m sure we’ll be glad to have you. How many?”
“Um, ten.”
“And when would you like to come?” the mother asked with a toothless smile.
Before Carissa could answer, the son chimed in: “If you know the date, I can make myself available to answer any questions your friends might have about my scenes. We could close for a couple of hours to all other visitors in order to accommodate your group.”
“How kind!” Carissa said, wincing with guilt at getting their hopes up. She felt strangely sorry for the odd pair. “I’m sure I would not wish to inconvenience you, or deny others the pleasures of your museum.”
“Not at all.”
“Did you have a date in mind, Miss?”
“You know,” she said, “I’ll have to discuss it first with my group. I want to make sure everyone is available, so none of them will miss it. If
you would be so kind as to furnish me with your card, I will most certainly be in touch with you to schedule the date and time.”
“Excellent! Here you are, Miss.”
As the old woman handed it to her, Carissa quickly skimmed the card: CHARLES VINCENT, THE GALA OF HISTORY. Then she looked across the desk at them with a smile. “Thank you so much for your time. You’ll be hearing from me shortly.” When my husband comes back to arrest you. “Good day!”
“You forgot to tell us your name!” Charles Vincent exclaimed as she fled for the door.
“Williams,” she said absently, seizing the first name that popped into her head. “I am Mrs. Williams.”
There had to be a hundred Mrs. Williamses in a five-mile radius of here. It wasn’t as though she could say she was Lady Beauchamp. One hand on the door, she bade them farewell with a nod, then rushed out and sped to the edge of the street, flagging down a hackney.
She had to tell her husband what she had learned. Beau was going to have an apoplectic fit, but her information was dire enough to warrant the battle that this was going to lead to.
She had to warn him. He’d know what to do.
“Faster!” she shouted to the hackney driver, then she angrily told him through the window that she would pay him extra if he would gallop his horses all the way there.
At last, he brought her to her home. She jumped out and gave him a handful of gold coins, her hands shaking with her terror at her discoveries. A moment later, she burst through the front door of her own home.
Vickers, their butler, nearly jumped out of his skin. “My lady! What on earth—”
“Where is my husband? Quickly! Fetch him now!”
“His Lordship is not here,” the flustered man replied.
“Where is he? I must speak to him at once!”
“My lady, what on earth are you doing back in London?”
She ignored him. “Beauchamp?” she hollered up the stairs. “Where is he?”
“My lady, with all due respect, I’m sure you should be in the country. There is serious business afoot—”
“Dashed right there is, and I think I’ve found out who’s behind it. I have to see him!”
“Madam, I must strongly recommend you wait here for His Lordship to return.”
“There’s no time!” She waved him off, shaking her head. “Just tell me where he’s gone, Vickers. Has something happened? Is something wrong?”
Vickers clasped his hands behind him and fixed her with a quelling stare.
She lost her temper. “If you do not at least tell me where my husband is, I’ll have you sacked!”
His chin came up a notch, but he looked down his nose. “My lady, I have been with His Lordship’s family for twenty-five years. I have not risen from errand boy to my current post by disregarding my master’s instructions. You might like to follow suit, with respect,” he added with a supercilious bow.
“Well, I never!” Carissa reached into her reticule and pulled out the pistol. She aimed it at him. “Talk.”
“Good heavens, Madam!”
“I assure you, I do not wish to shoot you, Vickers. Head servants of your quality are extremely hard to find. But you must tell me where Lord Beauchamp has gone! I have learned the most alarming information directly concerning my husband and his more, er, mysterious pursuits,” she said obliquely, though she was sure the loyal butler must know his master was a spy.
“Answer me!” she insisted just as there came a knock at the door.
They both looked over.
She narrowed her eyes. “No tricks. Go on, you may answer it,” she muttered, waving the pistol toward the door and feeling like a proper highwaywoman.
Vickers was one cool customer. With his usual gravity, he marched over to the front door and peered out the sidelight window.
No one looking at him ever would have guessed he had a weapon aimed at him as he answered the door, though in fairness, he probably was very sure she had neither the will nor the ability to shoot him.
“May I help you?” he asked their caller.
“Sir, my master, Hans Schweiber, the gunsmith, sent me over. He said Lord Beauchamp wished to speak to me.”
“Yes. Do come in.” And never mind the crazy woman waving a pistol, his droll stare seemed to add as he widened the door.
A lanky, freckled lad of about nineteen stepped in, hat in hand. “Gor!” he exclaimed when he saw the armed viscountess waiting in the entrance hall.
“I’m sorry about this, but it can’t be helped,” she said.
“I-I can come back later,” the boy started.
“No,” Vickers interjected. “Lord Beauchamp is waiting for you, young man. Michael, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He is not yet back, but he wished for you to go and find him. Please do so without delay. You have important information for His Lordship, I believe?”
“As do I!” Carissa cried indignantly. “This stranger is allowed to see my husband, but I’m not?”
Michael sent her a puzzled glance, then looked at the butler again. “Where shall I go to him, sir?”
“Yes, do tell!”
“I am telling this lad, my lady. Not you—with respect. I humbly beg your pardon and hope you will understand.”
“I understand you’re a bounder,” she muttered. But she stepped closer to try to hear what the butler said as he leaned toward the lad and murmured in his ear.
The gunsmith’s apprentice nodded and turned back to the door. “Very well, sir. Good day, milady.”
“Wait!” She dashed after him. “I’m coming with you!”
“My lady!” Vickers started, but she backed him off with her pistol.
“Stay out of this, you! Don’t worry, I’ll let your master know you tried to head me off.” With that, she ran out after Michael, who was climbing into his heavy delivery wagon. “Where are we going?” she asked as she jumped up onto the driver’s seat beside him.
“We?” He furrowed his brow and looked at her as if she were insane.
“You can tell me. I’m his wife, I’m Lady Beauchamp!”
“Er, the London docks, milady.”
“The docks! Of course!” she whispered to herself. Max and the other Order husbands must have arrived!
This was excellent news. Beau would get some help. As long as Nick did not go trying to shoot anybody within the next hour or so. “Well, let’s go, then!”
“I’m going,” he mumbled.
She put the pistol back in her reticule as they lumbered off. “Can’t you drive any faster?” she exclaimed.
But this was a foolish question for any lad of nineteen. The apprentice looked askance at her with a lively twinkle in his eyes. “Aye, ma’am. I was trying to be polite.”
Lord, males and their chivalry. “Don’t be! Just drive!”
“Hold on, then.”
She did. He cracked the whip, and his powerful carthorses lunged against their harness.
“That’s more like it!” she cried heartily, not caring who turned to look. She held on to her seat as the cart went rattling over the cobbled street.
They made a beeline for the docks.
Chapter 24
The wind picked up as Carissa and Schweiber’s apprentice neared the open breadth of the river. The London docks bustled with activity. The Thames bristled with countless masts. Fishing boats trawled the current, and watermen ferried people back and forth to the south bank.
Unfortunately the street was clogged with so much traffic around the fish market that the gunsmith’s wagon barely progressed at a crawl.
“Come on, people, move out of the way,” Carissa muttered under her breath. “Did our butler tell you why my husband came down to the docks?” she asked, as they inched along through the mob.
“No, ma’am, only where I was to go to.”
“So much traffic! Are they having a sale at the fish market, for heaven’s sake?”
“I think they’ve blocked off the road ahead.�
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He was right. Leaning forward, Carissa saw some soldiers directing carriages away from a section of the docks. Oh, no, she thought.
“I wonder what’s happening,” Michael said.
Then she felt her heart lurch in her chest as she spotted Ezra Green crossing the empty space that the soldiers had cleared. He was marching toward the water.
As their cart neared the cordon where they’d be forced to turn, she had a fairly good view of what was going on from the height of the carriage seat.
There was some sort of a row going on down at the river’s edge. Ezra Green was shouting at more soldiers he had brought, waving them on ahead of him . . .
Toward her husband.
She spotted Beau standing on the dock near a moored schooner, his coat and blond hair blowing in the wind. He turned to face the approaching soldiers, roaring at them to stand down. She drew in her breath, aghast, as a dozen soldiers of the King aimed their weapons at him. Beau, in turn, was trying to protect the small group of people who had apparently just arrived on the boat.
Lord Rotherstone, the Duke of Warrington, Lord Falconridge, and another man and woman she didn’t know. “Stop the carriage!”
“But, ma’am, they want me to keep moving.”
“I don’t care! Look!” She pointed.
“What is the meaning of this?” Lord Rotherstone bellowed as the soldiers closed in.
The Duke of Warrington was more a man of action, however, and pushed two of the King’s men into the water, one with an elbow, the other with a well-aimed kick.
“Seize them!”
Carissa stared with her heart in her throat as the scene on the narrow wooden pier turned to barely controlled chaos. The soldiers went after Warrington first.
Beau yelled at his friends to cooperate. She did not know the young woman who had come ashore with the men—or why she was wearing trousers—but when the soldiers tried to lay hold of the black-haired man beside her (the infamous Drake? Carissa wondered), the girl whipped a bow and arrow off her back and smoothly took aim at the oncoming guards. “Don’t you touch him!”
“Emily, no!” Jordan yelled. “They’ll shoot you where you stand! Hold your fire!” he bellowed at the soldiers, holding up his hand.