Maiden Lane

by Lynne Connolly

  The clash of metal alerted me to Freddy, whose sword had withstood the first attack. I had time to take stock, but I waited, one lethal weapon in each hand.

  Four men, all dressed in dark, shabby, heavy garments, bore down on us. I had tangled my feet in my voluminous skirts and for now I couldn’t move, but I wasn’t entirely without defence.

  If I could find the damned thing, I had a pistol in my other cloak pocket. I transferred a dagger, so I held two in my right hand, and groped for it. Only one shot, but the hilt would provide a useful club.

  But the cloak was as tangled as my costume, and I struggled to right myself while keeping a close watch on our assailants.

  Richard’s slash found its mark, and with a strangled cry, the man dropped the cutlass that Richard immediately swept up. He spared the first attacker a fleeting glance before turning on the second. The third came for me.

  Or would have done had I still been there. At the last moment I plunged to the ground, ending on my back. I couldn’t roll as Richard had, my panniers and my condition didn’t allow that, but I could kick, and I did, hard, the high heels of my shoes striking soft, yielding flesh. A howl of pain told me I’d hit my mark.

  They’d expected wealthy socialites, easy marks, but they’d found—us.

  At last I found my pistol and dragged it out of my pocket. I heard the rip but merely wondered if I could use the torn fabric as a sling. I was better lying on my back because my feet were better weapons than my hands, and I was glad we were in the better part of London, where the filth was more refined. It stank less.

  My blow had only kept my attacker off me just long enough for me to tear the pistol free. He glanced at it and sneered, his dirt-streaked face open to show gaping holes and a few yellowed teeth. In the flickering light of the flambeaux from a nearby house I saw him make his decision, and he reached for my pistol.

  His effrontery in thinking he could disarm me so easily infuriated me, but recalling my senses I tilted the weapon to one side before I fired, trying to inflict a painful wound rather than a deadly one.

  Dark blood blossomed at his shoulder and he cried out, clapping a hand over the wound before he staggered and fell, crying something about dying. Like hell he was.

  Scrambling to my feet, I saw that the man Richard had knifed had stayed down, but the other two were proving more troublesome. One of our footmen had run over to us and had a weapon trained on Richard’s assailant, but they moved in the light, dancing around each other, the quickness of their movements an impediment to the footman. I exchanged a glance with the other, who was currently racing around the corner to join us.

  With a last thrust Freddy dispatched his man, the blade driving for his gut in a way that told me that person was dead, or would be very soon. He turned to help Richard, but my husband slashed down his attacker’s body before driving the blade in deep in another killing blow. Blood gushed out of the wound, and the man groaned. Richard didn’t stay to watch the man fall, but turned on his heel and headed for me.

  Shouts and alarmed screams came from the direction of the Cobham house, and occupants of other houses on the street were heading in our direction.

  Richard ignored them all. He gripped my upper arms in none too steady hands and examined my face. “Did you fall hard? Do you need a doctor?”

  I was out of breath but forced a few deep breaths through my body so I could respond. “I’m fine. My clothes softened my fall and he didn’t lay a hand on me after that.”

  After a moment he glanced down at the man I’d shot, then towards the footman. “Take him. I have a few questions for this cully before I’ll allow anyone else near him.”

  Ignoring the man’s howls of pain, the footman jerked him to his feet and led him away, presumably in the direction of our carriage.

  I glanced around to see Freddy watching me equally anxiously. “Are you all right, Rose?”

  “I think so.” A faint sensation in the vicinity of my stomach told me the baby was stirring. But not distressed, I was certain of it. I made sure to land on my back. Better that than the baby get hurt. I thought I’d bruised my back, but I wouldn’t draw attention to it. I was lucky to get away with just a few bruises.

  Freddy had suffered a shredded coat sleeve and his opponent had drawn blood, but when he ripped off his coat and tossed it to a footman, he wasn’t badly hurt.

  With Richard’s arms around me, I felt absurdly safe. My saviour, my protector, and the man I loved. His first thought had been for me when he put me behind him, and after the fight he hadn’t checked his wounds before he came to me.

  My first thoughts were for him. If Richard died, I wouldn’t have much to live for. I’d already promised him, we’d promised each other, that we’d ensure our children were safe and cared for, and that meant living, but my life, my existence, would have no meaning. When we met, I might have used that as rhetoric. Now I knew it was true.

  I grabbed his arm and pushed the fabric aside to get to the wound. Deeper than Freddy’s, but not as deep as the wound I’d helped to stitch when I first met him. He bore the scar of that wound and I kissed it often. And other parts of him.

  This wound wouldn’t need stitching, but it would need binding and soon. I pushed it up, gripping it, and after a look of sheer astonishment, he laughed and held it up himself.

  “The bleeding will stop faster.” I turned to a footman. “Get me a cloth. Something to bind the wound with until we get home.”

  I wouldn’t let them leave until I’d accomplished the task, by which time Freddy’s wound had stopped bleeding and we were surrounded by spectators. “The more the merrier,” Richard said.

  I took my time binding Richard’s arm, aware of Carier hovering in the background and Nichols, who was my bodyguard as well as my maid, keeping a sharp eye on the spectators.

  Freddy was talking to some people, explaining how we were set upon, to the consternation of some people. He disappeared, strolled around the corner, and when we emulated him, we found him already in our carriage. “Thought it was better they had nothing much to talk about. They’ll have the bodies cleared away.”

  “We have the other one. Carier had him conveyed to Thompson’s. We’ll see him in the morning before we deliver him to Newgate. I intend to lay information against him. We can’t have the gossip escalating.”

  The carriage jolted as it moved, but we found our route to Brook Street relatively clear. Freddy took it on to his house, and there seemed little else we could do that night.

  Once home I ensured Richard’s wound was properly cleaned and bound, but when I tried to discuss the matter, he laid a gentle finger against my lips. “No, my love, we’ll talk everything over tomorrow. You’re exhausted. Let Nichols undress you now and I’ll see you in bed in ten minutes.”

  That he didn’t want to do it himself meant one of two things. Either he wanted me undressed and in bed quickly, faster than he could do it, or he wanted to have a quiet word with Carier. Or both. But by the time he came to bed I was asleep, because he was right about the other matter. I was exhausted.

  Chapter Ten

  BACK AT THOMPSON’S, Alicia joined us when we questioned our man.

  He gave us little because he knew little. Someone had paid him to attack us and told him he could get rich pickings because we were wealthy and foolish, and told him Richard wouldn’t put up much of a fight. He expressed disgust that anyone should mislead him in that way. He was working as a chairman, which explained his muscular appearance. He didn’t know the other attackers, but they frequented the same inn, on one of London’s less savoury streets. That explained how they’d been recruited.

  Richard left the room grim-faced, giving instructions to have the man taken to Newgate and into the custody of Fielding. He’d visit them later, he promised. “John employed someone to do it, if it was he.”

  “Who else could it be?” I demanded.

  “We must always remember that we have other enemies.”

  “The Drurys?” Fred
dy said.

  Alicia poured tea. “I’ve heard nothing from the household except that Steven Drury is less involved with the club than he used to be. He still attends, still visits, but he’s widening his interests, visiting the coffeehouses that aren’t solely dedicated to one thing. He gambles, but not too much, and doesn’t seem as driven as his wife. She could have done this herself, but she’s more focussed on her new young lover.”

  Richard clapped a hand to his head. “Kneller.”

  Alicia nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  Our worst nightmare—our enemies banding together against us. Inevitable.

  “It seems that Steven Drury might become our way in,” Richard said.

  “I’ll take him.” Freddy picked up his tea dish with a word of thanks to Alicia and a quirked brow at the distinctively scurrilous cartoon printed on the vessel. “I didn’t see this one in the print shops.”

  “You had to ask for it,” Alicia said. It would take more than that to overset her sangfroid. “Not that I did. I have no interest in where Newcastle puts his Acts of Parliament, but I doubt he keeps them there.”

  Nobody looked shocked. That small detail pleased me.

  “I think Kneller might be getting impatient—or desperate.” Richard leaned back in his chair that creaked ominously but held itself together. “He knows his marriage certificate has little chance of success in the courts, so it’s becoming an empty threat. The more I behave to him as if I don’t care if he’s there or not, the worse it becomes for him. He wants acceptance, maybe recognition for him and his sister. Not that I think he cares about Susan any more than he cares about us.”

  “He probably expected to find her a willing accomplice. He’d have realised she was a prostitute, but not a courtesan.” I ignored Richard’s wince. “She is about to cross the line into respectability and the last thing she needs is him to stir the waters. Susan wants a quiet life with her squire, not a turbulent one as an adventuress.”

  “I wonder where she gets that from,” Richard mused. “Certainly not me.” He steepled his fingers, flexing the tips against each other, no sign of any discomfort from his injury marring his pattern. “I think it’s time to add some pressure. Push him a little. Perhaps make someone ask him if he is my son and see him deny or accept it in public. A carefully controlled public. Or query his origins in the North. We know he was engaged in smuggling there, but we can’t prove it. Or we haven’t been able to so far, although I have agents hunting down information.”

  I might have known Richard had a plan. The jaws of the trap would begin to close, relentlessly adding pressure until Kneller had to give in or turn and fight. It would be bloody and violent and I dreaded it. But I couldn’t say that now.

  “I’ll go back to the club and try to talk to Drury,” Freddy told us.

  Richard nodded. “Thank you. I’ll collect what we have together and see if there is anything we’ve missed, another way Kneller could attack us. Needless to say, I’ll manage my parents. I don’t think my father was too impressed with Kneller’s appearance tonight, and he definitely helped to keep Georgiana away from him, so I’ll speak with him. It’s time Kneller was banned from the house, even if my mother still approves of him elsewhere.”

  “Why is she doing that?” Freddy enquired.

  Richard gave a wry grin. “To keep me in my place, I believe. Gervase too. My mother won’t choose the boy over us, if forced to the point, but she can threaten to give him her support just to keep Gervase and I dancing to her tune. She must realise by now that it isn’t working, but she’s nothing if not stubborn.”

  “Determined to get her own way.” I saw no need to conceal my feelings for her, as I did everywhere else. Lady Southwood would do anything to get what she wanted, not just for the furtherance of the family. Had she become a Cavendish, say, or a Pelham-Holles, she would have acted in the same way. For her own aggrandisement.

  Richard got to his feet. “I’m tired of waiting for his next move.” He flicked his coat skirts into place. “I want him out of London, and I want him forgotten or out of the running. I will not continue to react, and I will use every means in my power to stop him. So don’t ask me for mercy. I have none.”

  I exchanged a glance with Alicia. I wouldn’t conspire with her against Richard, but I wouldn’t allow him to be responsible in any way for the death of his son. That would not happen, I was determined on it.

  Richard glanced at me and I let him help me to my feet, his hand warm in mine. He didn’t offer me the formal aid of his arm but gripped my hand and didn’t let it go once I was standing. “Will you go home and rest now, my love?”

  I’d insisted on attending this meeting where he’d have preferred me to stay in bed, but I was perfectly fine. If he’d had his way, he’d probably have kept me in bed for the whole of my pregnancy. A nine-month confinement didn’t bear consideration. I’d already promised not to go out tonight, and he would have to content himself with that.

  SO IT WAS THAT LATER that day I sat in my small parlour, my feet up on a footstool, reading the latest scandal sheets, a novel lying on the small table next to my chair. I had marked a few entries about John, Richard and me, and a few mentions of Gervase that worried me. The scandalmongers had remarked that Gervase was rarely seen in public without his secretary and “constant companion”, the Hon Ian Golightly. The vultures were beginning to close in. I hadn’t realised that before although I knew that the moment Gervase decided to make a stand, or side with someone else in public, someone would use his connection to my brother to try to rein him in.

  In the past Gervase had squired a female or two around to cover his activities, but these days he’d become totally obsessed with Ian, as Ian was with him. Deeply in love, very happy and oblivious of the gossip. I began to understand that Gervase’s reckless streak went deeper than Richard’s. Richard conformed, but in his own way, on his own terms. Gervase had the ability to channel all his talents, all his abilities into one concentrated stream, ignoring everything else. I had to speak to him, or to Ian, and soon. Ian’s problem was his relative inexperience in society and how vicious the gossips could become. Perhaps he’d see reason and arrange for a few smokescreens. Gervase was well liked, which meant that people would overlook his peccadilloes these days, and he was inordinately wealthy, which helped too, but everyone had their enemies and Gervase’s were talking. This turn of events made me uncomfortable. Better deal with it before it became distressing.

  The doorbell clanged, but although surprised at a caller at this hour, it didn’t alarm me until a footman brought me a note. “There is a man waiting for a reply, my lady,” Patterson said, in impassive tones.

  I unfolded the note.

  My dear Lady Strang,

  I apologize for the necessity of contacting you in this way, but I need your presence urgently. I fear your husband has taken his responsibilities too far and he is presently at the Cytherean Club in Maiden Lane, closeted in a room with one of the house’s most prominent members. I fear for his safety and his reputation, since a resident of Grub Street is also present. I know you will wish to help him evade this potentially disastrous situation.

  Yours,

  John Kneller, Esq.

  I glanced up. “I’d like to see my maid and Carier. And tell the messenger that he may go.”

  Nichols and Carier arrived promptly, but unfortunately so did Patterson, returning with an apologetic bow.

  “The messenger says he must have a reply, or his master will let him go. Shall I have him ejected forcibly, my lady?”

  I sighed and got to my feet, ignoring my solicitous maid’s efforts to help me. “No, I don’t want the disturbance. I’ll speak to him.”

  I went downstairs, leaving Carier and Nichols reading the letter. I’d send Carier with a couple of footmen to the club, but I seriously doubted that Richard would be foolish enough to do any such thing as walk into the lion’s den without useful men at his back. And Freddy volunteered to take that particular chore. I’d w
ager he wouldn’t go in alone, either.

  I took a moment at the top of the stairs to look over the balcony at the messenger, concerned that Kneller had come himself. I wouldn’t put anything past him. But it wasn’t, only a man dressed as a respectable servant, one I didn’t know. The door lay open to the night, letting in a gust of cool air. Not a practice I approved of.

  So I went down to him. The footman stationed in the hall straightened up and I sighed. Instead of our usual hall boy, a rather undersized youth, we had a footman in livery, one burly enough to repel intruders. I hated this, it made me feel as if our comfortable house in Brook Street had become a fortress, but I understood the necessity.

  I walked slowly down the stairs, having learned the value of a good entrance, and approached the man. “Could you tell your master there is no reply?” I said. As I came closer I grew aware of an unpleasant odour of stale beer and perspiration. While familiar with the aroma, I had no wish to have it in my house. He held a note close to his chest and held it out, but not too far.

  I should have realised, I should have known what he was about, but as I touched the paper, he strengthened his grip on it and dragged me towards him, spinning me around so my back was pressed against his chest. His arm went around me, holding me close, and I felt a cold, metallic cylinder pressed against my temple.

  At the footman’s horrified gasp and surge forward, my abductor took a step back. “Don’t even think of it. She’ll be dead before you get this far.”

  “You won’t kill me.” John didn’t want me dead.

  “You don’t know me and you won’t find me once I’ve done it. I will if I ’ave to.”

  I hadn’t thought of that aspect. This man didn’t care. He could disappear into London’s rookeries as if he’d never existed. His threat was real.

  I heard a movement at the top of the stairs. Nichols and Carier, or one of them, creating a distraction for the other to slip down the backstairs and get into place outside the house. All I had to do was delay him.