My Scandalous Viscount

by Gaelen Foley

  “It’s all right.”

  “Took you long enough!” he spat. “Where is he? I’m goin’ to kill him.”

  “Easy . . . Good God, how long were you down there?”

  “Too long,” he growled. As he strode out of the room, Beau stole a quick glance into the hole and saw it had actually been rendered more comfortable than the dank hovel above. So, at least Nick had made sure their friend was comfortable. Nevertheless, it was still a prison.

  Then Beau rushed after him into the other room. “What are you doing? Trevor, calm down!”

  “Easy for you to say! You haven’t been in a hole for the past few months.” Tearing the kitchen area apart in search of any sharp object, Trevor turned to him and practically snarled at the question. “What the hell took you so long?” he growled over his shoulder.

  “It’s a long story. I’ve had every asset at my disposal looking for you.”

  Trevor growled in response.

  “How are you?” Beau asked.

  “How am I?” he repeated, his gray eyes blazing, his thick brown hair grown past his shoulders. “How. Am. I . . . Well, let me tell you, Beauchamp. Back in Spain, we had a massive skirmish with thirty Promethean hirelings. We killed them, of course, accidentally blew up a church in the process. Then I got shot. Spent a few weeks as an invalid, then realized my best friend had lost his mind when he tried to talk me into becoming a bloody mercenary.

  “Oh, but that was just the start of the fun. Because then, when I refused, he took advantage of my weakened state to kick me into his own makeshift prison. Hell, I’m talking to myself down there in the dark. Whole conversations, and sometimes the furniture talks back! Of course, my dear old friend, Nick, will still come and talk to me through the door since the rat bastard has got no one else to talk to. Of course, most of the time, my only answer to his conversation is ‘Bugger off, you snaky serpent shit.’ By the way, he told me you got married.”

  “Yes.”

  Trevor harrumphed. “Nice you had the time to find a bride and court her, what with how busy you must’ve been looking for me.”

  “It was a short courtship,” he said with a wince.

  “Mine’s probably ruined, you realize. Laura’s probably written me off for dead. I haven’t gotten laid in half a year, not that you give a damn. Do the Elders know about Nick?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Because they probably think I deserted like he did. Don’t ask me to run, either. Bastard kicked my knee out in one of our recent brawls when I tried to get out. I’ll probably limp for another month yet. And to top it all off, I look like”—he gestured toward his long hair and bearded jaw—“the mad, bloody hermit living in the far corner of somebody’s wooded acreage! So does that answer your question of how I am?”

  “Quite,” Beau replied. “I understand you’re irked, but I’m glad as hell to see you alive.”

  “He wasn’t going to kill me!” Trevor scoffed. “He’s just abused my friendship and my trust past toleration and for that, I will make the bounder pay.”

  “You’ll get your chance, I promise.” Still stunned that Nick would do this to Trevor, Beau watched his friend lay hold of a kitchen implement that could easily do some damage in the hands of a trained Order agent. But Trevor tossed the roasting spit aside and put out his hand.

  “Give me your pistol.”

  Beau stared at him. He was wearing a pair of Mantons in the holster belt round his waist. But he hesitated. “We need him alive, Trev.”

  “I know that! When I said I’d kill him, I didn’t mean it literally, for God’s sake.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because it would be understandable.”

  Trevor took a deep breath and let it out, slowly beginning to turn back into the relatively civilized human being Beau remembered. “All right,” he said at length. “I’m all right now. I just needed to get some of that off my chest.”

  Beau smiled. Then he handed him the gun. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Trevor nodded, looking even more like his old self once he had a means of self-defense securely in hand. He tucked the pistol into the waist of his dusty tan trousers. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You, as well, mate.” He gave Trevor’s shoulder a brotherly squeeze.

  He was not sure he had the heart to tell Trevor that Rotherstone’s team had just been sent to the Tower of London, though. One thing at a time.

  “So, do you know where he went?”

  “Where, no, but I do know what he was doing. Every day he goes to check the drop point to see if they’ve left him the name of the person they want him to kill.”

  “He’ll be back soon?”

  “Any moment.” Trevor paused and looked at him.

  “Good,” Beau murmured as he reloaded the pistol he had shot at the door. “Then we’ll be waiting for him.”

  Driving a delivery cart was harder than it looked, Carissa was finding. Her arms and shoulders ached from laboring to manage four very strong carthorses, and a whip, to boot. But she had seen the general route Beau’s carriage had taken.

  It took some searching to find his parked coach. She had got lost twice and had to turn around in a cramped alley, which had involved getting down from the driver’s seat and taking the lead horse by the bridle.

  She got under way again once they were headed in the right direction, and at last, she spotted her husband’s glossy black coach-and-four parked on the side of the street.

  The gunsmith’s apprentice came jogging over with a look of alarm as she pulled up behind it.

  “Where is my husband?” she demanded, but Michael quickly signaled for quiet, a finger to his lips.

  “Milady, it isn’t safe for you to be here.”

  “Well, I am here now, and I’m not leaving until I speak to my husband!”

  “His Lordship is inside, but for your own safety, will you please stay out of sight?”

  “We’re near Nick’s hiding place?” she asked dubiously.

  “It’s just around the corner. We’re waiting for him to arrive.”

  “Then I suppose you’re right. I’d better hide. He’ll recognize me if he sees me and realize Beau’s inside.”

  Michael nodded. “We can’t let him see my master’s name on the delivery cart, either. If you’ll wait inside Lord Beauchamp’s coach, I’ll drive the cart around the block. You’re going to be here by yourself, so you’d better stay hidden if he comes by.”

  “Very well.” Remembering Nick’s cloaked death threat against her, she slid down from the driver’s seat of the cart. The lad steadied her with a polite hand as she caught her balance. Then he waved her toward Beau’s coach.

  As soon as she climbed inside, Michael ran back to the delivery wagon and drove away, to keep it out of sight.

  His timing proved impeccable, for he no sooner drove it around the corner than Nick himself appeared, riding across the intersection on horseback.

  Carissa ducked with a gasp as Nick rode by.

  When the sound of his horse’s hooves had clip-clopped past, she peeked past the edge of the carriage window.

  He was out of sight. But she had to know what was happening. She slipped down from the coach and sneaked over to the corner, peering around it.

  Her eyes widened as she watched the rogue agent dismount, walk his horse into the mews, and then reappear a moment later, heading for a door toward the back part of the building.

  She ducked behind the wall, her heart pounding, when Nick glanced around, looking back over his shoulder, a man perennially on guard. But as he reached for the door handle, he suddenly noticed something wrong with it and froze.

  In the next heartbeat, Nick backed away from the door, and Carissa knew he was about to get away again.

  “Beau!” she hollered as loud as she could. “He’s just outside the door!”

  Nick whirled around to see where her shout had come from, but the door blasted open behind him, and Beau fle
w out, charging straight at him.

  In the barest of seconds, she saw Nick hesitate, his hand drifting toward the holstered pistol at his side. Before he could decide whether or not to draw on his boyhood friend, Beau plowed into him, tackling him to the ground. Slam! They began to brawl: two trained killers.

  A tall, muscular man who looked to her like some sort of pirate with a shock of long, dark brown hair and a scruffy beard came racing out of the building right behind Beau. Despite slightly favoring one leg as he ran, he dove into the fray. That must be Lord Trevor Montgomery! Beau’s other missing teammate.

  Glad that Beau had freed him, she ran toward the fight, leaving the shelter of the corner, but she could not see clearly what was happening. Both men were on top of Nick, pummeling him and getting him under control.

  Trevor pulled back his right fist while holding Nick’s jacket with his left hand. He was perfectly aligned for a shattering punch to the face, but something inside him must have held him back, for he did not land the blow. “Damn you,” was all he said. Roughly releasing Nick’s jacket, he pivoted and took a few, uneven steps away, his chest heaving.

  With a grim scowl, Trevor struggled to bring his anger back under control while Beau hauled Nick to his feet.

  “Who’s the target?” he demanded, holding fast to his arm while making the implied threat of his pistol.

  Nick just looked at him.

  “Search him,” Beau said to Trevor.

  “I already destroyed the message,” Nick said wearily.

  “No, you didn’t,” Beau clipped out. “Not when you know full well it’s the only evidence that can exonerate you if anything were to go wrong.”

  “Did you hide it in your watch, as usual?” Trevor asked.

  “You boys are really something else,” Nick muttered.

  But Trevor pulled Nick’s fob watch out of his waistcoat by its chain and clicked the metal back of it open. “Ah, what have we here?” he taunted, drawing a tiny, folded piece of paper out of the watch itself.

  “You’re getting predictable in your old age, man.”

  “Only to you,” Nick replied dryly.

  “What does it say?” Beau asked.

  Trevor paled as he read the slip of paper. Then he lifted his gaze to Nick’s in shock. “You son of a bitch. Were you really going to do this?”

  Nick said nothing.

  “Who’s the target?” Beau repeated.

  Trevor glanced at him. “The Prime Minister.”

  “Good God! You weren’t really going through with this, were you?”

  “I don’t know!” Nick erupted in sudden fury. “I only got the damned thing minutes ago! You think I expected this?”

  “You should never have taken the job in the first place!” Beau roared back in his face. “You don’t even know who hired you!”

  “I do,” Carissa spoke up uneasily from several feet away.

  This was the first the men noticed her.

  Already furious, Beau turned at the sound of her voice; his eyes narrowed to angry slashes at the sight of her, but she held her ground.

  “I found the artist,” she informed him. “The ‘disposable man’ Madame Angelique described. If you can make him talk, you’ll have your proof about who hired Nick.”

  “You found him?” Beau demanded.

  “Yes!” she said. “And if you’ll listen to me for once—just give me a chance—I can take you to him.”

  Chapter 25

  “Who is this woman?” Trevor asked bluntly.

  “Beauchamp’s wife. Hullo, Carissa.”

  “Nick,” she answered with a wry look.

  “The wife!” Trevor exclaimed.

  “How dare you ignore my orders once again?” Beau demanded.

  “I didn’t want to do it, believe me. Especially after all that’s happened between us. But I had a sudden insight, and I had to check on it—for your sake. For all of us!” she insisted, refusing to back down. “And it’s a good thing I did, because it turns out I was right.”

  Beau stared rather coldly at her. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “Mr. Charles Vincent owns the waxworks museum in Southwark, where all his bloody fantasies of revolution are on display for all the world to see. I know for a fact he is connected to the so-called Prophet, Professor Culvert, Ezra Green’s mentor—”

  “I know who he is,” Beau snapped.

  “I saw Culvert and this artist together with my own eyes at a bookshop in Russell Square. Culvert was giving a speech and I-I went to hear it, after you told me about him. I wanted to find out more—”

  “You went to hear him speak?” he cried, throwing up his hands.

  “I wanted to tell you!” she exclaimed, her cheeks flushing. “But then Nick paid his call on me and rather changed the subject. So I just let it go. I didn’t think I had learned anything useful, anyway! And I didn’t want you to be angry at me. Look, I’m sorry,” she said impatiently. “But let’s keep our minds on the problem at hand! If it was Culvert who sent the artist to hire Nick to assassinate the Prime Minister—who’s to say that Ezra Green wasn’t in on it from the start? You already told me you thought he was out for the Order’s blood. What just happened at the docks proves that you were right.” She glanced around at the agents. “You all are being set up. Nick was merely the tool with which they meant to destroy you.”

  His jaw clenched, Beau conceded this with a nod. “Back at the docks, Green did just say a few cryptic things to me about a new England coming. Together with what you’ve just told us, his words begin to make sense.”

  “Then what are we waiting for? If you can get hold of Charles Vincent and persuade him to reveal the names of those who sent him to France, then you can turn the tables on that odious lizard man. So, do you want to stand here fighting with me, or do you want to get to the bottom of this?” she flung out.

  Beau and his friends exchanged a sardonic glance.

  “You do know how to pick ’em,” Trevor drawled.

  Carissa scowled at him, but Beau eyed her dubiously. “You say he’s down in Southwark? Whereabouts?”

  “Come on, I’ll take you to him. There’s no time to lose.” She pivoted on her heel and began marching back toward the carriage. Despite her outward show of confidence, her knees were shaking after she had made her stand before her outraged husband.

  They had greater worries to deal with at the moment, but she was not naïve enough to think that this was over.

  Upon their arrival in Southwark, Carissa tamped down her anxiety, watching out the carriage window as Beau and Trevor went across the street toward the waxworks museum.

  She told herself not to worry. Charles Vincent was no match for two Order agents. Yet from the second they went through the door and disappeared inside, every minute dragged.

  “He’ll be fine, Mrs. Beauchamp,” Nick muttered, sitting across from her, his wrists bound with the very ropes he had previously used on Trevor.

  Michael, the gunsmith’s apprentice, was also in the carriage; sitting across from their prisoner, he was keeping Nick in the sights of his pistol.

  Nick gave the lad a darkly mocking stare and seemed to be contemplating all the ways he could’ve bested him, a green, untried youth.

  Carissa knew firsthand that Nick was a force to be reckoned with. Nevertheless, she sensed the heaviness of his utter remorse ever since Beau had related how their comrades had been arrested at the docks and thrown into the dreaded Tower of London.

  “Quit staring at me,” Nick rumbled at her in a low tone.

  She tilted her head. “I’m sorry, I just can’t stop wondering, would you really have shot Lord Liverpool?”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered, gazing out the window in disgust.

  “Would you?” she persisted.

  He let out a sudden, bitter scoff. “What does it matter what I say? Even if I’d have refused, who’d believe me now?”

  “You know who would,” she answered softly. “Beauchamp.”


  “After I threatened his lady?”

  “You didn’t scare me,” she replied.

  As he gazed at her, a rueful half smile slowly curved his lips. “I’ve known Beau a long time, my lady. For what it’s worth, I think you’re exactly what he needed.”

  She gave him a wistful smile in spite of herself and lowered her head. “I hope you’re right,” she said. At the moment, she feared Beau was kicking himself for ever getting involved with a meddling lady of information.

  “Bloody hell,” Trevor murmured, as they prowled through the dark, macabre labyrinth of the wax museum. “This is what he does in his spare time?”

  “At least he’s got talent. You’ve got to give him that.”

  Charles Vincent had employed every visual trick known to art and science to enhance his sinister scenes. He used mirrors and trompe-l’oeil painting like a magician; lighting techniques and clockwork mechanical devices borrowed from the theatre gave some of his figures motion and made them seem even more alive.

  Beau scanned each new, gruesome scene they passed, his gun at the ready, but concealed in his coat pocket to avoid alarming the other visitors at the museum.

  Their presence complicated matters, but even so, he had to admit it felt good to be doing the sort of thing he was trained for instead of all those endless rounds of hostile interrogation.

  “Your lady was right. There does appear to be a theme,” Trevor remarked wryly, as they passed the waxen beheading of King Charles.

  “I can’t believe she came here by herself,” Beau growled, but Trevor laughed softly, both of them watching everywhere, searching the shadows for the pale, lanky artist Carissa had described.

  “So,” Trevor said in amusement. “A redhead, eh?” He looked askance at him with a jolly glimmer in his eyes.

  Beau ignored him with a huff.

  “Never thought I’d see the day.”

  “What?” he retorted.

  “You’re madly in love with her.”

  He snorted. “At the moment, I’d like to wring her neck. She’s completely impossible.”

  “Hmm, who does that sound like?”

  “Uh, shut up.”

  Trevor laughed quietly as they both continued advancing, guns drawn. “So, Beauchamp’s met his match. Well, when I think back to how you and Nick used to rail on me for being so smitten with Laura.” He shook his head.