The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 5

by MacMurrough, Sorcha

  The iron gate had opened a crack, and Alistair now shook free and broke into a run. He felt the swish and catch of a long knife as it stabbed into the side of his coat.

  "Alistair! Alistair!" he heard as he ran.

  He saw a carriage at the corner.

  Viola Morrison’s face was peeping out of the door. She had flung the door open wide, and now urged him, "Come on, quickly!"

  He didn’t need a second invitation. A couple of men stumbled behind him in the slime.

  Alistair sprinted and dived into the coach head first. He heard a gruff voice order, "Move, now," and shots ring out.

  The door slammed and they lurched forward just as Alistair’s assailants returned fire. Alistair could hear the thunk into the wood of several bullets, but the carriage turned the corner almost on two wheels, and picked up speed.

  He tried to get off the floor of the carriage, but George stomped on his back ruthlessly with the heel of his boot.

  "Stay down. We’ve got this covered."

  "But Viola—"

  "I’m fine, and re-loading."

  "Well, if you let me up I can as well," Alistair said in exasperation.

  George lifted his foot, hauled him up, and rammed him into the seat opposite.

  "Where are you taking me?" he demanded.

  "Where do you think you need to go? Those men are going to kill you," George said calmly, firing off another round, which finally convinced their pursuers to give up.

  "We need to get back to my house, let me get a few personal effects. Then back to my offices in William Street to go over everything again. There have to be copies there of all the papers they just took from me."

  George shook his head. "They’ll be waiting for you. That bloke nearly carved out your kidney. You can’t—"

  Alistair glared at him lividly. "What choice do I have? My client was killed tonight. As you say, they tried to injure if not murder me. Would have probably killed me in the alley like a dog and made it seem as if I’d been attacked by a cutpurse. The answers have to be somewhere. I need to find them. I’m not just going to wake up tomorrow and all is going to be normal or well."

  "All right, but I can only come so far with you. Viola too. We’ll drop you off and—"

  Viola glared at George. "You don’t speak for me. Sebastian sent him to me for a reason. And for all we know, my brother could be dead by now. You can walk away if you want to, but I need to know what happened to him. The way I see it, Alistair and I have common cause and need to stick together."

  "I’m sure Alistair has other friends who can—"

  Viola’s tone was one of barely suppressed fury. "But Sebastian doesn’t. In fact, far fewer than I had hoped, apparently."

  George understood the accusation only too clearly. "I am his friend. That’s why I want you out of this, Viola. He entrusted you to my care and—"

  Her eyes were as hard as emeralds now. "I’m past the age of consent, George. I don’t need a guardian, or a male protector. You haven’t had to nursemaid me at The Three Bells. I’ve kept out of trouble and earned my keep. So thank you for your help, but I’ll see you when I see you. For the present, I need to find my brother."

  George shrugged and sat back in his seat. "Suit yourself. Like you say, I can’t tell you what to do."

  Viola was astonished that he would put up so little fight. She had to admit, she was a bit disappointed too. She had always rather imagined that George rather fancied her...

  But no. It was unworthy of her to try to use her feminine wiles on her brother’s friend to get him to assist her. Especially since the nearness of Alistair was so magnetic that she could scarcely stop herself from bringing her hands up to stroke his worry-lined face.

  "I know I’m only a woman, Alistair, but you helped Sebastian, and that has to count for something. Even if he is dead, at least I’ll know the truth, and that we both tried."

  "I’m just so sorry."

  She shook her head. "Why? You didn’t kill him. Even if you had, you wouldn’t have known who I was, my name, where I was. He would never have told you where I was no matter what happened unless he had had a very good reason.

  "Look, I’m not naive. I know what he was. A male prostitute. If he had died in Newgate’s cells, I would probably have assumed it was a rape or a quiddle of the cod that had gone wrong. But you’re telling me it was in the visitors’ room. Who came to see him? Why was he there? Why were the two of them in there together? They didn’t know you were coming for Gribbens. There was someone who came to see both of them. Yet I don’t know of anyone called Gribbens, do you, George?"

  George shook his head. "Another quean, maybe, or a new lover?"

  Viola guessed, "Yes to the first, but not the second. Sebastian didn’t love men by choice, he did it for money or, well, other things. He adored women. It damn near broke his heart to lose his fiancee when we lost our fortune. He took it even worse than I did. Gribbens didn’t have a lot of money, did he?"

  Alistair shool his head. "No. He was a thief, but he never had a penny to his name that I knew of."

  "And Sebastian and I had money. I don’t know where Sebastian was getting it from, but he didn’t get it from me, and he wasn’t servicing anyone in that stinking hole, I’m sure of it. I offered him money. He said he was all taken care of."

  "Rich patron, perhaps," Alistair speculated.

  "Patron, perhaps," Viola said thoughtfully. "But why was he in jail? He never asked for help. He had said he was going away. Then sent a message telling me that he was all right, a bit busy, and would be seeing me soon. In fact, George, you passed on the message. Did you know he was in prison?"

  George looked uncomfortable.

  "You did know!" she gasped. "And you didn’t tell me? Why?"

  "He wanted me to keep quiet."

  "Well, what was he being charged with?"

  George remained silent.

  "I’m waiting."

  "I don’t know. The usual," he replied evasively.

  Viola’s brows shot up. "What? They don’t stick every prostitute in Newgate. Not to mention the fact that sodomy carries a capital charge without any questions being asked. If it were that, surely to God one of the two of you would have told me he was going to be executed."

  The carriage had by now drawn into Alistair’s street.

  George looked at the two of them and said gruffly, "I suppose this is where you’re getting out?"

  Viola lifted her chin defiantly. "Yes."

  He made a resigned gesture with one hand. "All right. Whatever the lady wants."

  The coach slowed just long enough to let them emerge, and then the horses clopped off down the street and around the corner.

  Only when George had gone, did Alistair realise he had never even told George his address…

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Alistair clutched Viola’s hand convulsively, suddenly uneasy, feeling naked and exposed out on the pavement devoid of any people. What was a charming quiet street by day had become a sinister location by night. He hurried her in the front door, wondering instantly why his butler was not there to dance attendance upon him.

  But he was too keyed up to worry about a little thing like someone taking his coat. Since he didn’t have one anyway, nor his hat, which he had lost in the scuffle at the prison, it hardly seemed to matter.

  He said to Viola now, "I’ll put you in the study with some refreshment, and my papers. Perhaps you can start looking over the depositions again. Look for inconsistencies. That was why I was going to see Gribbens in the first place. To clarify the chain of events he had reported to me, which didn't ring true."

  She returned the pressure of his hand. "I can try to help, but I’m no lawyer."

  "You don’t need to be. You can read, and you’re obviously bright. And I believe in women’s intuition. You may be able to winkle out some detail or other that I’ve overlooked. I know there’s something odd, but I just can’t make sense of it."

  He had by now led her into a c
omfortable room filled floor to ceiling with books, decorated with burgundy flock wall paper and matching upholstered furniture with walnut accents. A pang shot through her as she recalled her father’s own study having been very similar, though much more untidy.

  Alistair seemed to insist upon order and neatness everywhere. The room was devoid of any baubles or mementoes such as her father and Sebastian had often returned with from their rambles, such as a seashell, an interesting stone or feather.

  No, the chamber could have been any one of a hundred such others. What was Alistair trying to hide? Or was it just that his work was so important, it didn’t allow room for anything else?

  Even the walls were devoid of anything which might indicate the tastes of the owner. There was not a single picture to be found apart from one watercolour over the mantelpiece, which Viola went up to inspect now.

  It was prodigiously fine, a picture of a lovely sylvan glade with a rainbow streaking through it. In a bold handwriting on the white backing, someone had written, "Blessings to you. Do come visit any time you like. R."

  "This is, well, wonderful," she said, reaching up to touch it though she knew she ought not to. The colours were so vibrant, she could have sworn they were still wet.

  Alistair nodded and smiled. "Yes, my friend Randall Avenel, the Earl of Hazelmere, painted it. He and my other friends the so-called Rakehells all live down in Somerset. He just sent it to me in an attempt to get me to go down to visit them all. Philip, my assistant, has a house down there as well, though the lure of the big city to work in the courts with me proved too great a temptation for him."

  At her surprised look, he explained, "Philip doesn’t practice law for the money, he does it for the principle of the thing. He’s quite talented, if I do say so myself considering I helped train him.

  "But enough about my dull life. I need to gather my papers for you," he said, tearing himself away from the picture and the lovely woman by his side.

  Her blond hair glinted in the light like the rainbow in the watercolour. He found himself longing to stroke it to see if it actually burned with the inner flame he thought he could see.

  But that would never do. It was bad enough that he had kissed her before in the kitchen of the brothel.

  She has thrown in her lot with his in order to get to the bottom of what had happened in Newgate that evening. Therefore, she was under his protection in lieu of her brother or friend.

  Or was he her lover? No, he didn’t think so. George Davenant would never have left Viola so readily if he were. Or if he were, and had, then he was a fool.

  For surely George had to realise that Viola was absolutely spectacular, from her ripe breasts down to the delicate turn of her ankle and lovely little feet. Her eyes, lips and hands were most arresting. He found himself taking the latter once more with a gentle pressure as he led her over to his filing cabinets.

  "G for Gribbens. Make yourself comfortable. I can’t think where the servants have got to, but I'll chase them up for some tea, and I’ll be back shortly."

  "No need to bother about the tea—"

  "I insist. I’ll get you a small collation and then run two blocks over to my office to see what I can uncover there. That is if you won’t think me a lax host for leaving you alone."

  She shook her head and smile. "Not at all. I understand how important all of this is."

  "Very good."

  He stepped out into the darkened corridor, looking right and left. He frowned. Was it the servants’ night off and he had muddled the days? Where on earth was everyone? And why was there such an odd smell in the house? Like someone had spilled some cleaning solution or other. Or lamp oil?

  Alistair didn’t think too much of it until he saw a movement, black on black, as he headed toward the kitchen at the back of the house. He stiffened, and saw the glint of steel as the knife slashed horizontally, aiming for his throat. He batted it with his forearm, not even trying to ward off the blow to the limb. A few cuts to the arm were better than a slit gullet. He reached out, caught hold of oily wool, and began to pound his assailant.

  Suddenly there was a whispering and crackling sound, and a strange clicking behind him.

  Damn, he should have taken one of George’s pistols at the very least, he thought angrily as he swung the man into the wall and crunched his forehead against it.

  Alistair had never believed in violence, but in his job he had often learned it was best to be prepared for any eventuality. He and Philip had joined a gentleman’s sports club to keep up their boxing and fencing skills.

  Philip had been a natural at school, and years of practice fighting to preserve his virtue and his very life in the Australian penal colony had honed his abilities to near-perfection. He had certainly taught Alistair a few interesting things.

  But the susurration now became a conflagration. Alistair had been right. Someone had spilled oil all over the house, and was even now fleeing for the front door.

  "Stop!" Alistair went in pursuit of him as the violent flames licked at his boots like a fierce Bengal tiger. When he got to the door, it refused to budge. He yanked at the bolts, turned the keys in the locks, all to no avail.

  Damnation. Whoever had set fire to the house had somehow managed to bolt it from the outside.

  And with the fancy ornamental grillework he had had added to the house about six months before, as much for decoration as protection after an attempted robbery, there was no way to get out of the house from the ground floor.

  They were trapped.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Viola, alone in the study, thought she heard a thump, but turned back to her work locating the papers. G, Gr, Gra, Gre....

  She sniffed. Sniffed again. Looked over at the candle which seemed to be guttering. That must be what it was. A poorly made one, sputtering—

  She stared at the watercolour for a moment. The rainbow seemed to have changed, was actually growing larger, the red spreading out from the spectrum, enveloping all the other colours before eventually turning to a horrific scorched black.

  In sheer terror Viola ran for the door, all thoughts of the papers forgotten as she shuddered. Her skin crawled, her nipples peaked as though a lover were caressing them, and she felt hot and cold all over.

  Even more urgent than the need to get out of the seemingly haunted room, or away from the bizarre occurrence which had just taken place, was the need to find Alistair. It was almost a physical ache, propelling her on blindly even through the darkness of the strange house.

  She turned the corner into the foyer, and saw him swamped by a lake of fire. He was trying futilely to suffocate the waist-high flames with a tapestry he had ripped from the walls.

  "There’s no point!" she shouted, taking in the scene of devastation at once. "We have to get out of here!"

  "The door is bolted at the front. And the windows are barred. The scroll work is too narrow to squeeze through. They've trapped us," he rasped, still beating at the flames.

  "There must be a back door, or the servant’s entrance." She looked at the huge winding staircase, already burning right the way up to the next story. "Any chance of getting out through the windows above?"

  He shook his head. "Too high to jump. It would be twenty feet at least, possibly onto the iron railings below."

  "Then we need to try the back. Lead the way, and stay down. Smoke rises, and can kill faster than the flames."

  They fought through the blaze into the kitchen, but as Alistair had already guessed, the door at the back was bolted. The solid wooden portal was so thick that even had they had a fire axe, he could never have broken through in time.

  "Belowstairs?"

  "The scullery. There’s a door out to the street at the front. Two glass panels. You might be able to squeeze through to save yourself."

  "I’m not leaving you," she said firmly.

  "But Viola—"

  "I’m not leaving you, Alistair. Come on, we’re wasting time. If we can’t both get out, we need to try anoth
er way." She yanked the door open to the servants’ stairs. "Where does this lead?"

  "All the way to the top of the house."

  "Is there a roof door? Skylight?"

  He shook his head, already choking on the smoke. "None. There used to be."

  "Used to be?" she echoed.

  "We renovated the attics to modernise the servants’ quarters about a year ago."

  "But there are windows?" she demanded, her foot already on the first step.