He would be just as guilty of treason as she, since he hadn’t told Adam. The parson’s noose was suddenly a macabre joke.
Phineas took a breath and pushed off the wall, crouching low in the coach’s broad shadow, running alongside as it maneuvered through the narrow gateway. He heard Adam’s indrawn breath, knew he hesitated only a second before following.
Once inside the yard, Phineas rolled away from the vehicle, landing in the doorway of the stable with Adam right behind him. Surprised horses stomped indignantly at the intrusion. Phineas slid into the shadows and waited for the shout that would come if they’d been seen, but every eye was on the coach as it came to a halt in the torchlit ring.
He stared at it, waiting for it to open, to reveal the man—or woman—inside, but for a long moment nothing moved.
Phineas stayed motionless in the moldy straw. The acrid smoke of burning pitch stung his eyes and dried the back of his throat. He blinked away sweat and watched the yard shimmer in a haze of dust and smoke. Leveling his pistol at the door of the coach, he steeled himself to shoot whoever got out first if he had to, even if it turned out to be the woman he loved.
Chapter 42
Isobel dangled from the side of Maitland House in the dark, trying to find a foothold.
Blackwood made this look like the easiest thing in the world, damn him, while she had almost fallen twice.
She had no idea how long she’d been out here, kicking her feet in the wind, so to speak, but her progress was dreadfully slow.
Her fingers ached, her arms were shaking with fatigue, and she clamped her teeth together to keep from shivering. She should have thought to bring a cloak, or a shawl. Or a ladder.
She almost lost her fragile hold on the wall as another coach turned the corner. The horses were moving fast, the clatter of hooves almost deafening in the quiet of the narrow street.
They’d come for her.
Her heart leapt in her chest, pounded against her ribs, strongly advising her to run, or fly, or climb, as fast as she could.
Turning her head, her cheek scraped the rough brick, and shock leapt through her whole body at the sting. She looked up at the window of her room, still only a few miserable feet above her. The curtains sailed outward on the night breeze, beckoning her back to safety like a lover’s arms, but she could not go back. She would not.
Robin needed her.
She lowered one foot and prayed for a toehold. Below her the door of the coach swung open, and she heard the creak of the steps being lowered. She shut her eyes for a moment, wishing herself truly invisible, a shadow on the face of Maitland House. Fear lent her courage to find the next handhold. She had to get to the ground before they discovered her room was empty and came looking for her.
She heard the sound of running feet on the sidewalk, a light, urgent, feminine staccato. Without a bonnet or cloak, the figure was immediately recognizable.
“Marianne!” she called out, her voice a rusty croak. She wondered if Marianne had even heard her, but her friend whirled, scanning the street.
“Up here.”
Marianne’s face tipped upward in the glow of the streetlamp, and the shocked gape of her open mouth swallowed the whiteness of her face.
“Don’t ring the bell,” Isobel said softly, but Marianne was already pushing through the hedge, coming toward the base of the wall.
“Oh, Isobel, I stole your letter. I’m so sorry, I thought—well, never mind, Adam was right all along about not interfering, it seems, though I’ll never tell him so. I came as soon as I could.” She paused. “Are you going up or down?”
“Down,” Isobel panted. “They’ve taken Robin. I need to—” Her foot slipped and she gave a whimper of fright. Her fingers constricted on the brick, and her body pressed hard against the pitiless wall and clung.
“Isobel! Wherever did you learn to do that?” Marianne asked.
Blackwood.
His name echoed in her brain. He had not received her note, that’s why he hadn’t come. Still, her heart nagged, she’d refused him, run away. She shut her eyes, forcing herself to concentrate on reaching the ground, getting Robin back safely. Her foot slipped and she swallowed a cry of frustration. Oh, how she wished Blackwood here!
But he wasn’t. She forced herself to move again, and her satin slipper snagged on the rough brick. Blackwood had done this in boots and his feet were bigger. The wind tugged at her skirts. Breeches, she decided, must make all the difference.
Then Marianne touched her foot, and Isobel knew she was almost safe. She sagged in relief and her foot slipped. Her torn fingers refused to hold on any longer and she tumbled backward.
The kindly hedge—and Marianne’s body—broke her fall. The two countesses lay panting in the shrubbery for a moment, tangled in their petticoats, trying to catch their breath.
Isobel dragged herself upright. “Marianne, I need to get to Waterfield Abbey.” She looked at the Westlake coach, parked by the curb. “May I take your coach? They have Robin, you see, and I have to get to him before—” Tears cut off speech.
It didn’t matter. Marianne grabbed her arm. “You can’t go alone, and this is partly my fault. I’m going with you.”
Isobel didn’t argue. She plucked a twig out of her hair and climbed into the coach.
“Kent,” Countess Westlake ordered the driver.
“Kent, my lady?” he asked in surprise. “The one next to Sussex?”
“Precisely. And hurry if you please,” Marianne said, then bent to rummage under the seat. “Adam keeps pistols here somewhere,” she told Isobel, and a moment later grinned and held one up. The dim light gleamed on the sinister metal of the barrel.
Isobel recoiled. This wasn’t a game. Guns were sober, deadly things. She imagined the pistol in Charles’s hand, aimed at her son.
She swallowed the bitter taste of anguish and replaced it with determination as Marianne passed the weapon to her.
“I’ll teach you how to use it.”
Chapter 43
Phineas wiped the sweat from his brow and stared at the dark windows of the coach. He imagined Isobel sitting demurely inside. Then he pictured her in his coach, perched astride him as he made quick love to her, her face flushed as he pleasured her, her ugly bonnet askew. His finger twitched on the trigger of the pistol.
The door of the inn crashed against the wall, and a burst of noisy song and the thick smell of sour ale followed the innkeeper out of the taproom. He stalked across the yard to the coach, his shoulders hunched belligerently.
The coach window slid open and Charles Maitland’s face appeared, fat and sallow in the golden light.
“Ho, there, my lord! Your bloody ‘package’ is eating me out of house and home! Says he won’t go until he’s finished his meal,” the innkeeper complained. “I agreed to do this for the gold, and I’m going to need more money. Fine French wine doesn’t come cheap, and he’s already had three bottles of the best.”
Adam nudged Phineas. “Not Lady M, then. Any guesses as to who the gentleman might be?” he whispered.
“We’ll know in a few minutes, I think,” Phineas replied. “It appears the Maitlands have come to fetch him.” He tried to see into the shadowed interior of the coach. Was the man another of Isobel’s lovers? The idea knotted in his gut.
“You’ve been well paid, damn you,” Charles snapped. “Enough of your insolence! Send the gentleman out at once.” But Phineas noted that Charles’s voice quavered and his tone lacked conviction. He mopped his face with a handkerchief.
The innkeeper folded his beefy arms over his chest, also aware that Charles was afraid, or nervous, or both.
“I said the payment wasn’t enough.”
Charles’s mouth worked without sound. He wasn’t quick enough to come up with the kind of reply that would put the greedy landlord in his place. Phineas raised an eyebrow and waited to see what Maitland would do.
“Bring the gentleman down at once, if you please, my good man, and I’ll see that you get t
he reward you deserve.”
Phineas’s gut clenched at the sound of the familiar female voice coming from the coach.
“Honoria?” Adam croaked in surprise, a little too loudly. One of the henchmen turned and frowned suspiciously at the dark stable. Phineas set his finger back on the trigger of his gun, but the man turned away again.
“Charles, go inside, fetch him down,” Honoria commanded.
“Wait a minute—” the innkeeper began, but Charles was already getting out, more afraid of Honoria than the bully, it seemed.
“I’ll pay you when his lordship returns,” Honoria promised, her tone so sweetly cajoling it made Phineas’s teeth ache.
“Another hundred,” the innkeeper demanded, peering into the coach. “Or some o’ the jewels you’re wearing will suffice, if they’re real. Is that an emerald?”
Charles hesitated, half turned, his hand fisted on his walking stick.
“Go and get Lord Philip at once!” Honoria insisted, her shrill voice making a dog bark in another yard.
“Renshaw?” Adam hissed. “Blackwood—”
He didn’t have to say more. Phineas felt the same chill race up his spine. Renshaw was here to exact his revenge on the French king, and the Maitlands were clearly part of the plot. The mission instantly went from dangerous to deadly. And it was personal too, if Isobel was involved.
“And you thought Maitland was just a petty smuggler,” Adam muttered. “It appears treason is a family affair at Maitland House.”
Phineas shut his eyes. Isobel had played him for a fool, taken his game and twisted it, using him. Anger tightened his jaw, and he stared at the dark window of the coach, waiting for a glimpse of russet hair.
“Would you care for a glass of ale while ye wait, my lady?” the innkeeper asked Honoria companionably, sure now of his payment. “The gent said you’ve got a long journey ahead of ye tonight.”
“How indiscreet of him,” Honoria said stiffly.
The man grinned. Phineas supposed he meant the smile to be charming, but he was missing three teeth, and his eyes were hard as stone, making him frightening in any light.
Phineas wished he could see Honoria’s face, but a lady bold enough to come to a rendezvous in this part of London wasn’t likely to be intimidated.
“If I can be of service again, my lady, you just come and see me. I like dealing with the person in charge,” the man said. “Your son doesn’t understand the business, if you ask me, doesn’t know how to strike a bargain to everyone’s advantage the way we do.”
Honoria didn’t answer. The innkeeper took it as encouragement and leaned closer to the window. “Now you and I, my lady, I think we could rub along together very well indeed. I have friends willing to expand the business, take in lace and fancy wine as well as brandy and gin. I know a few gentlemen o’ the sea who also have goods to sell, if an investor such as yourself makes it worth their while. More money for all of us, to my way of thinking.” He spoke smugly, addressing the pompous Dowager Countess Honoria Maitland with the familiarity of a fellow conspirator.
“Pirates too?” Adam hissed with a shipowner’s dismay.
The door opened again, and Philip Renshaw appeared, pulling on his gloves. Charles followed him. “I barely had time to finish my meal, inedible as it was,” Renshaw complained.
“My lord, time is of the essence,” Honoria called from the coach, waving a handkerchief to get his attention. She leaned out, adorned with a fortune in jewels that would make any smuggler or pirate drool.
“I trust all is in readiness?” Philip said gruffly.
“Of course! Everything is just as you wished. Get in at once, if you please,” Honoria said, opening the door herself and beckoning with a satin-clad hand. She turned to the innkeeper as Philip got in. “Open the gates at once. You have delayed us long enough.”
Someone leapt to obey her imperious command, but the innkeeper grabbed Charles roughly by the collar before he could board the coach. “Not so fast, my lord. What about my money?”
The flash of the gunshot lit the inside of the coach, the roar deafening. The innkeeper spun, lifted into the air as his face dissolved in a red mist. Phineas swore and cocked his pistol, on his feet now, ready for trouble. Adam was on one knee, taking aim at the nearest man, yelling for his sailors to move in.
“Charles, get in,” Honoria shrieked as the big man fell into the dust.
Leaderless, the innkeeper’s men panicked. Torches crashed to the ground and died, leaving the inn yard nearly dark. Charles clambered onto the coach as the driver’s whip snapped over the horses’ heads. In the chaos, Honoria was screaming orders to hurry as the landlord’s men began firing at the vehicle and anything else that moved.
As the coach passed the stable door, already picking up speed, Phineas leapt onto the side. He couldn’t let them escape, and he had to know if Isobel was inside.
The pain in his shoulder was sudden and intense, tearing the strength out of his arm. As the coach took the corner hard and fast, he landed on the greasy cobbles, the breath driven out of his lungs. He could feel hot blood flowing over his shoulder, mixing with the icy mud that instantly soaked his clothes. He couldn’t do anything but watch the Maitland coach disappear down the dark street at a full gallop. He shut his eyes in frustration.
Where the hell was Isobel?
Adam helped Phineas into the salon at De Courcey House, and he collapsed onto the settee. “Send for a doctor,” he ordered Northcott. “And wake her ladyship. We’ll need some bandages.”
“I’m all right, Adam,” Phineas grumbled. His arm was mostly numb, though his shirt was soaked and sticky with his own blood. Adam’s men had splashed rum over the wound and forced a goodly measure down his throat as well. He smelled like a sailor on a payday binge.
He forced himself to sit up. As soon as she finished wailing over him, Marianne was likely to shoot him again for getting blood on her new settee. He held his head in his hands and waited. A glance at the makeshift bandage showed blood leaking through the linen. The wound needed stitching.
“Her ladyship is not at home, Lord Westlake,” Northcott said calmly. “She went out a little while ago. Perhaps I could be of assistance?”
“Went out?” Adam asked. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know, my lord.”
Phineas drew in a sharp breath, which was a mistake. His head spun and spots appeared before his eyes, threatening to pitch him into oblivion. He leaned forward.
There was a crumpled letter half hidden under the tea table. He reached for it with his uninjured arm.
The smell of Isobel’s perfume hit him like another bullet.
Adam was grilling Northcott for clues as to where Marianne might be.
“Perhaps at Lady Porter-Penwarren’s?” the butler suggested.
Phineas turned the letter over. Odd. It was addressed to him at Blackwood House. How the hell had it ended up here, on the floor of Adam’s study? He knew, of course.
Marianne.
He read it, and read it again. The pain in his shoulder disappeared as every sense came to alert. A rush of dread ran over his battered body like a runaway horse.
“Adam, you’d better look at this,” he said, and held out the letter.
Adam’s face paled as he read the scrawled note.
“Why would Isobel Maitland write to you for help? She barely knows you.”
Phineas didn’t reply. “Northcott, did they bring my horse back?” he asked, forcing himself to stand.
Adam held up a hand. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere, Blackwood. I’ll send someone—”
“Marianne is with her, Adam. I found the note here, on the floor.”
He watched the emotions cross his brother-in-law’s face as Adam puzzled out just what that meant. It took only seconds. It was the first time Phineas had ever seen him sweat.
“Northcott, get my coach,” Adam said brusquely, then turned to Phineas. “You can explain on the way to Maitland House.”
“How the hell could you let this happen, Blackwood? My wife is in danger,” Adam growled after Phineas told him everything. The thought of Marianne in peril had Adam crazed, his usual dignity forgotten. “You might have told me the truth before now. If someone hadn’t saved me the bother, I’d shoot you myself.”
Phineas gritted his teeth against the jolting of the coach and his own fears. “Marianne wouldn’t be in danger if she hadn’t stolen the letter. Neither would Isobel.”
The bullet wound ached, and he clenched his fist against the pain. He stared out the window, gauging how much longer it would take to reach Maitland House.
“When this is over, I intend to marry Isobel,” he said aloud.
Adam drew a sharp breath. “Marry her? Don’t be a fool. The woman is a traitor.”
Phineas frowned. “She’s in danger, Adam, a victim.”
“Is she? I seriously doubt it, but your gullibility has certainly put Marianne in jeopardy.” He leaned forward. “Look at the evidence, Blackwood. That’s supposed to be what you’re good at, isn’t it, when lust isn’t clouding your judgment?”
Phineas felt his stomach twist as Adam counted Isobel’s offenses off on his fingers. “She prevented you from searching Philip’s office the first time you met. Does a respectable widow strike you as the kind of woman who goes around seducing strangers?”
The idea nipped at Phineas with sharp little teeth. “It wasn’t like that,” he muttered.
Or was it?
“And the night of Marianne’s ball, she seduced you again. I had to drag you out of her embrace to question a suspect. A suspect with Isobel’s handkerchief in his possession, if you’ll remember.”
“Coincidence,” Phineas said. “There’s no proof the handkerchief belongs to Isobel.”
But the sick feeling grew. M was for Maitland.
Adam sat back. “If it’s any comfort, you weren’t the only one fooled. Her disguise is brilliant. She plays the role of a mousey widow to perfection. I was certainly gulled. Unfortunately, so was my wife.”
Secrets of a Proper Countess Page 27