Rake with a Frozen Heart

by Marguerite Kaye

  It was dark, was the overwhelming impression, and immensely stuffy, with smoke billowing from a fireplace over which was suspended a large iron pot. Smoke was billowing from that, too, and a smell of something rancid which, Henrietta suspected, had formed the basis for Scouse Larry’s previous week’s suppers.

  The man himself was short, wiry of build, with a surprising shock of ginger hair and a pair of exceedingly bushy eyebrows. The patch was on his right eye, made of black leather and tied behind his head. Despite the heat of the room, he wore a greasy black greatcoat in addition to a green corduroy jacket, a navy waistcoat, a shirt that may once have been white, nankeen breeches and a pair of boots through one of which his bare toe protruded.

  Having no option but to allow the small and horribly familiar female along with her intimidating companion into his lair, Scouse Larry retreated to his stool by the fire. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ he said to Henrietta in a wheedling tone. ‘Never seen you before in me life.’

  Since she had awoken in Woodfield Manor, Henrietta had been too caught up in the chain of events that had followed to give the man who had assaulted her much thought. Even this morning, on their way through the stews to meet him face to face, she had been much more concerned with what he would tell her about the crime of which she had been accused, and had therefore been completely unprepared for the surge of anger that gripped her when she saw him—and recognised him instantly.

  ‘Liar!’ she exclaimed, making her way purposefully across to the stool on which the housebreaker cowered. ‘Even without that eyepatch, I would know you instantly. That coat for a start,’ she said, wrinkling her nose, ‘it smells horribly familiar.’

  Scouse Larry looked outraged. ‘This here coat was given me by Honest Jack hisself. Look at them pockets, could have been made for a budge, pockets like these. Not much they can’t hold.’

  ‘They were certainly commodious enough to conceal whatever you used to beat me around the head,’ Henrietta said indignantly. She pushed back her cloak and stood with her hands on her hips, her face flushed from a combination of the oppressive heat of the room and the fire of her temper. Watching her fearlessly confronting the man who, small as he was, had proved himself perfectly capable of overpowering her, Rafe felt a stab of pride, though he was not precisely certain that her tactics would prove helpful.

  He hadn’t expected her to rush into this as she had done. He hadn’t expected to have to work so hard to keep his hands, which had instinctively formed into fists, by his side. It occurred to him for the first time that if he had not been out riding so early, if he had been able to sleep, then he would not have encountered Henrietta. She might well have died. That this pathetic excuse of a man, whose very existence he had sorely doubted, had been responsible for that made Rafe’s blood boil. He could think of nothing more satisfying than beating the cur to a pulp.

  His fists clenched tighter, but he restrained himself with some difficulty. Violence would not provide the answers they sought. Answers that would take them to the root of the conundrum, for now that he had set eyes upon Scouse Larry, Rafe knew for certain that he was no criminal mastermind. A dupe, at the tail end of things most likely. What they needed was to track down the dog that had wagged this particular tail. Ben was right. There was something rum about this whole affair. ‘Who put you up to this? I refuse to believe you have either the brains, the skill or even the guts necessary to carry out such an audacious crime. Come on, man, out with it.’

  The housebreaker reeled back in astonishment. ‘Audacious crime? What audacious crime? What the hell you talking about?’

  Henrietta cast him a contemptuous look. ‘You know perfectly well what we’re talking about. The emeralds.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘The Ipswich emeralds. The heirlooms that you stole.’

  ‘Ipswich emeralds!’ Scouse Larry fell back on to his stool. ‘I didn’t. I did no such thing! I don’t know— What do you mean?’

  ‘Enough of this,’ Rafe said sharply. ‘The game is up. Miss Markham here remembers you perfectly. We want the truth. You can tell it to us or you can tell it to the authorities at Bow Street. There is a Runner there who will be more than happy to lend you an ear.’

  ‘A Runner?’ Scouse Larry’s eyes darted from Henrietta to Rafe, his countenance ashen beneath the grime. ‘Are you on the level?’

  ‘I assure you. Lady Ipswich called in the Runners the morning after the crime.’

  ‘The morning after you hit me over the head and left me for dead,’ Henrietta said indignantly.

  ‘I didn’t mean— You got in the way. I panicked. I didn’t mean— I didn’t steal no emeralds, I swear. She promised. She promised it was a lark. I never thought— Bloody Norah! The double-crossing bitch!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘What the devil are you talking about?’

  ‘Her!’ Scouse Larry growled. ‘It was her.’

  ‘Henrietta?’ Rafe said incredulously.

  ‘Who? No, bloody Lady La-di-da Ipswich. It was her that hired me.’

  ‘Lady Ipswich! That is nonsense—why on earth would she want to steal her own jewellery?’ Henrietta looked at Rafe in confusion. ‘And why would she then accuse me when she must have known perfectly well— I don’t understand.’

  ‘Describe her to me and how you met,’ Rafe said to Scouse Larry. ‘I need proof that you are not spinning tales to save your neck.’

  ‘I never spoke to her but twice,’ Scouse Larry said sullenly. ‘At the Assizes it was, she said she was looking for someone to do her a bit of an unconventional service, no questions asked. Offered to find me a witness to get me off—which she did—and a goodly purse to boot, so—like I said, I only spoke to her the two times, but I asked about later and I know it was her. Lady Helen Ipswich. My orders was to fake a break-in at her country estate and disappear. Which is what I would’ve done if Missy here hadn’t ’ave stuck her oar in, opening her mouth as if she was about to scream fit to bust. I had to hit her.’

  ‘You could have killed her.’

  ‘I told you,’ Scouse Larry said, turning to Henrietta, ‘I panicked, no offence intended, miss.’

  ‘And you did not steal anything?’

  ‘I didn’t even go into the bloody house. I told you, on me mother’s life, I never stole no emeralds.’

  ‘Though I doubt very much that your mother’s life holds any value for you,’ Rafe said, ‘I believe you.’

  ‘She sold them herself, I reckon.’

  ‘I suspect you are right. Rundell & Bridge, on Ludgate Hill most likely,’ Rafe said. ‘They have back rooms for such business, I’ve heard.’

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ Henrietta said plaintively. ‘Why, then, did Lady Ipswich accuse me of being an accomplice?’

  Scouse Larry looked startled. ‘Did she now?’

  ‘Obviously your being able to identify the housebreaker queered her pitch, as they say,’ Rafe said drily. ‘And unfortunately this particular housebreaker is rather a distinctive one. Rather than take the risk of him being traced and blowing the whistle on her scheme, she decided to have you locked up where you could do no harm.’

  ‘Let’s face it, missy,’ Scouse Larry said, nodding furiously, ‘she done us both up like a pair of kippers.’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ Henrietta said, her voice faltering.

  Rafe put a reassuring arm around her shoulders. She was piteously pale and shaking, obviously shocked to the core at the extent of Helen Ipswich’s perfidy. ‘What is this, my bold Henrietta?’ he said breezily. ‘Come, don’t faint on me now, the floorboards here are quite unsavoury.’

  ‘I won’t. I don’t faint,’ Henrietta said with a wan smile.

  ‘Of course you don’t.’ Anxious now to be gone, Rafe turned his attention back to Scouse Larry. ‘We may need to call on you further if Helen Ipswich requires persuading to do the decent thing, but I sincerely hope not, for brief though this acquaintance has been, it is sufficient to make me quite certain I hav
e no wish to extend it. Much as I’m sure you wish to disappear without trace, you will oblige me by remaining on hand until we have this matter cleared up. Present yourself at the Mouse and Vole tomorrow, by which time I will know whether or not Helen Ipswich requires convincing. You will, of course, be remunerated for your trouble, but in turn I require you to keep that mouth of yours firmly closed as to this day’s events. Mr Forbes will inform me if you do not and I assure you,’ Rafe said, his words all the more menacing for being so quietly spoken, ‘that you will not be able to avoid the consequences.’ As the housebreaker made to duck, Rafe grabbed him by the throat. His strong fingers tightened on the man’s neck, making him gurgle. ‘Are we clear?’

  Scouse Larry gurgled again, his arms flailing helplessly.

  ‘Excellent,’ Rafe said, letting go and allowing him to crumple to the floor. ‘I’ll take that as a yes. Come, Henrietta, I think our work here is done.’

  Rafe took her arm. He left the room without a backwards glance, giving her no option but to follow him. He strode so purposefully when they re-entered Petticoat Lane that both Henrietta and Benjamin struggled to keep pace with him, and though the questions buzzed around like a swarm of flies in Henrietta’s mind, she had no breath to ask them. Once back out on Whitechapel Road, Rafe hailed a hack and helped Henrietta in. She was surprised, for it was but a short step to the inn, but also relieved, as her legs were really quite shaky.

  ‘Benjamin will see you back,’ Rafe said, nodding to the innkeeper to join her and closing the door behind him.

  ‘But where— What are you going to do?’ Henrietta asked, hurriedly lowering the window.

  ‘Confront Helen Ipswich, assuming she has returned to town.’

  ‘Then I’m coming with you.’

  ‘No. Not this time. You are much shaken and most naturally upset by all of this. Besides, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Helen Ipswich would have you arrested if you just turn up on her doorstep.’

  ‘But what are you going to say to her? How will you make her— What will you do? Rafe, I don’t want—’

  ‘Henrietta, look at you, you are in no fit state for confrontations. Just for once, trust me to deal with the matter alone.’

  ‘I do trust you,’ she said, ‘but—’

  ‘Then act as if you do,’ he replied tersely, signalling to the cabbie to go.

  The horses pulled away. Leaning out of the window, she saw Rafe hail another hack, heading in the opposite direction.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be long?’ she asked Benjamin forlornly.

  The innkeeper patted her hand. ‘No longer than he has to be, don’t you worry.’

  Which was much easier said than done, Henrietta thought.

  * * *

  As things turned out, Rafe took rather longer than he had anticipated. Lady Ipswich’s town house was situated in Upper Brook Street, just on the other side of Grosvenor Square from his own mansion in Mount Street. Though it was too early to worry about the carriages making their way to Hyde Park for the afternoon promenade, the brief hackney trip through Mayfair was fraught, for it seemed to Rafe that almost every house they passed belonged to an acquaintance he wished to avoid.

  At the junction of Mount Street and Park Street, the hack was caught up in the chaos caused by a high-perch phaeton whose horses were rearing in the traces. The impatient driver, more flash than substance, was ignoring his groom’s attempts to rein them in and lashing them into a frenzy with his inept handling of the whip. A town coach and barouche were attempting to pass, one either side of the phaeton, and the carriers of a sedan chair were shouting contrary directions in a misguided attempt to assist. It took almost fifteen minutes for the road to clear, for most of which Rafe had an almost unobstructed view of the porticos of his own house. Strange to say, he dwelt not on the ample supplies of clean clothes, the starched sheets and feather mattress of his own bed, nor even the prospect of a copper bath filled with copious amounts of steaming hot water. The bare, unheated chamber he shared with Henrietta at the Mouse and Vole seemed more like home. His own mansion, richly furnished and sumptuously carpeted, held no appeal at all, for it did not contain Henrietta.

  Depending upon the success of his visit to Helen Ipswich, Henrietta could be freed from danger as early as this evening. Free to leave his protection. Free to carry on with her life. Without him.

  He would miss her terribly. The realisation took him aback. He couldn’t decide whether to be more astonished at the simple fact itself, or at the fact that it was Henrietta, of all people, who had invoked such alien feelings in him.

  He would miss her. How the hell had that happened? He had no idea, but somehow, in the space of a few short days, being with Henrietta Markham had become an addiction. She made him laugh. She looked out at the world from behind those big brown eyes of hers in a refreshingly different way. He liked the way she looked at him, too. He more than liked the way she made him feel. Those infinitely kissable lips of hers—no, he had certainly not drunk enough of those. Just remembering her delectable body spread beneath him made him hard.

  He wasn’t ready to let her go. He would not let her go. Surely, dammit all, he could find a way of keeping her with him for a little longer? As the hack pulled up outside the late Lord Ipswich’s town house, Rafe racked his brain for a solution. Obviously he could not set her up as his mistress. Appealing as the idea was of swathing her in the silks and laces she admired, of granting her some of the luxuries she had always been deprived of, he knew her better than to suggest such an arrangement. Unwilling to even let him pay for her shot at the inn without keeping a tally, she was hardly likely to allow him to pay the rent on a house for her. In any case, it felt wrong. He couldn’t say why it felt wrong, but it did. No, he could not offer to make her his mistress. There must be another way. ‘God dammit to hell, there must be!’

  It was the fop, stopping in mid-mince to stare, that made him realise he’d caught Henrietta’s habit of speaking aloud. It was the same fop, eyeing him through a jewelled quizzing glass, which made Rafe aware of his somewhat dishevelled appearance. In Whitechapel, he had been, compared to the local denizens, the picture of elegance. Here on his home turf in the smart environs of Mayfair, his creased coat and dull boots made him look decidedly shabby. He cast an anxious look around, then ascended the front steps to the town house two at a time. At least the knocker was on the door, which meant his quarry had, as he had hoped, returned to town.

  Rafe was solemnly informed by her butler that, most unfortunately, Lady Ipswich was not at home at present. That same butler, knowing Lord Pentland by reputation, couldn’t help wondering what on earth had happened to make the famously modish and austere Earl appear so rumpled. ‘Madam is at Somerset House for the annual exhibition, my lord,’ he said. ‘Perhaps if you would care to call round later, or leave your card?’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ Rafe said firmly, handing over his hat and gloves, giving the astonished retainer no option but to show him into the first-floor drawing room and offer him refreshments.

  * * *

  Rafe had refused tea, Madeira, claret and brandy, and had spent the next hour pacing up and down the room, careful to keep away from the long windows that looked out on to the street lest anyone passing glance up and recognise him. As his wait grew longer and his patience wore thin, the state of cold fury that had enveloped him at Scouse Larry’s abode returned with a vengeance.

  Denied the cathartic effects of planting a facer on the housebreaker, he was determined to exact revenge on Henrietta’s behalf and his thoughts had taken a vicious turn. Though he could not forgive Scouse Larry for his callous treatment of Henrietta, Rafe could at least appreciate that the man had only taken on the job in order to save his neck. Helen Ipswich was a different matter. Her flamboyant lifestyle was obviously outrunning her widow’s portion, and he suspected her favours were not so much in demand as they once had been. No doubt she was deep in dun territory, too deep to rely on the pluckings of a few pigeons to pull
her out, else she would not be resorting to selling off the family heirlooms.

  It wasn’t surprising. Selling off heirlooms would mean little to a woman forced to sell her body. He didn’t blame her, in a way. He’d seen it himself too often, urchins born into penury biting the hand that fed them, robbing food from their adoptive families. Force of habit, born of necessity. He could see why Helen Ipswich wouldn’t place too high a value on a set of emeralds, even if they had been in her husband’s family for hundreds of years. Even if they weren’t hers to dispose of, but rightly belonged to her eldest son.

  Though he would refuse to recognise her socially, Rafe had no personal gripe against women of her ilk. Helen Ipswich had done well for herself, some would say. That she’d done it on her back made her bad ton in the eyes of most. True, she’d lied, cheated and cuckolded her husband, which made her contemptible and self-seeking and selfish, but Rafe was in no position to judge anyone harshly. What she had done to Henrietta, on the other hand, was far beyond contempt. For that, she would be made to pay.

  Rafe paced the length of the salon for the hundredth time. Picking up a brass toasting fork from the hearth, he swished it to and fro in time to his steps. ‘Heartless bitch!’ he exclaimed, remembering Henrietta’s white-faced shock as she realised the infamous way she had been used, her sheer disbelief that another human being could treat her so cruelly. Henrietta, who was more concerned about what agonies her parents would suffer if they ever found out, than she was by the possibility of rotting in Newgate. Henrietta, the most honest, brave, truly good person he had ever met. What might have happened to her had she not stowed away on his phaeton he couldn’t bear to imagine.

  The salon door opened. Dropping the toasting fork, Rafe saw that it was bent over upon itself, mangled beyond repair.

  ‘Well! This is indeed a fine way to treat my hospitality,’ Helen Ipswich said, eyeing the ruined article with astonishment. ‘I assume this is not a social call, my lord?’