He would miss this aspect of her. But, Lady Sirena was a plain-spoken woman also.
She rose and rang for a servant. “We’ll have a last tea together.” Aside from that glorious bosom, she looked altogether too thin, her skin tightly drawn, her years starting to show.
No different than before, but how had he not noticed it? “Will it be poisoned, Jocelyn?”
“No, my dear. It is well past time for you to marry. I was a young bride once, and I would not play the distraction for a young woman’s husband.”
Servants brought tea and closed the door on the way out.
“You are going to marry?” She finished pouring and met his eyes.
“Shaldon wishes it so.”
A grimace. “And whatever Shaldon wishes he gets.”
“Lord of the realm.” He popped a biscuit into his mouth.
She settled back like a cat, kicked off her shoes and curled her feet under her. “I know what you’re up to.”
“Really?” He sipped some tea. Denholm’s wife must have set the rumor mill turning.
She nodded. Her eyes slitted and her lips curved up. “And I approve. We had quite a chat last night.”
“Indeed.” Well, Denholm did say his daughter was broad-minded.
“Pity you won’t be able to tell me about Shaldon’s reaction to the news. But perhaps she will relate it to me eventually. I believe she and I will be fast friends.”
The hair on his neck rose. He leaned back and stretched out his legs. She meant Lady Sirena. And if she thought his wife would be friends with a courtesan, even an aristocratic one...
But Jocelyn’s reputation was not such a wild one. She’d been faithful to her husband, as far as anyone knew. In fact, she’d waited two years after the man’s death to take Bakeley as a lover. Though there were men who whispered of their conquest of her, they were all well-known liars, the sort who claimed imaginary trysts, not worth the aggravation of a duel to defend his mistress’s honor, if he were so inclined. Which he wasn’t.
He opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it. There was no sense attempting to argue her out of the idea “Why?”
“I like her. And, your little fiefdom does not need another infusion of cash.” She shrugged. “And really, Bakeley, she needs you.”
A scratch at the door brought the butler announcing another caller.
He got to his feet. “What do you know about her?”
She bit her lip and looked away. “Only what I’ve said. Though, I suspect, she guards her cards. To truly win her may require all your arts of seduction.” Rising, she kissed his cheek. “You may count me as an ally, my friend.”
The walk to Lady Sirena’s lodgings gave Bakeley a chance to think. Why did Jocelyn care about Lady Sirena? Years before, Jocelyn had famously swept the elderly Arbrough off his feet, but she had not been an impoverished orphan adrift. She’d come from Welsh gentry, she’d said, and he’d heard she’d brought a respectable dowry.
And how had she known of his interest in Lady Sirena? Well, that was obvious. He and Sirena had been absent at the same time. If Jocelyn had noticed, so had at least some of those at the musicale last night. Pelham hadn’t, because his brain had been filled with the vision of Jocelyn’s breasts.
Shaldon would have noticed, yet he’d said nothing about it at breakfast.
She is off limits, Shaldon had said. You have dodged for the last time. You will marry.
Uneasiness crept through him. He should have brought that intemperate horse for a brisk ride instead of taking a brisk walk, something to settle his mind.
Shaldon’s opposition to Lady Sirena. Jocelyn’s support of the girl. Rumors and obsession. All because of a few stolen kisses, which reminded him how well his hand had fit upon her bottom, and how smooth her skin was at her shoulders.
Perhaps he should point himself toward Shaldon House, or better yet, the bachelor lodgings he hadn’t visited in months. A bottle of brandy and some time to brood in peace might soothe him.
He turned a corner and found himself on the same street where he’d met Lady Sirena, mere doors from her rooms.
Yes, well, he hadn’t promised to do more than call on her, and that he would do.
The door of Lady Sirena’s lodgings opened before he could knock. The thin woman who answered was not the same maid who’d admitted them the day he’d visited with Perry. She was older, perhaps Lady Jane’s age, and plainly clad like an upper floor servant.
“Oh, sir, thank you for coming. Lady Jane is aflutter.” She ushered him into a sitting room. “Lord Hackwell has arrived, my lady.”
Lady Jane’s mouth dropped. “Oh, Barton, this is not Hackwell. This is Bakeley.”
“I do beg your pardon.” The servant called Barton, a lady’s maid, he’d guess, settled a shawl on Lady Jane’s shoulders.
“I did not know what to do,” Lady Jane said. “Cheswick is still in the country. I sent for Hackwell.”
His heart quickened. “Where is Lady Sirena?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. She went out this morning as usual and she hasn’t come back.”
Chapter 9
Barton directed Bakeley to the shops Lady Sirena frequented. Yes, the shopkeepers had seen her that morning. No, they hadn’t seen where she’d gone. No amount of coins could pry that information from them. He wasn’t sure if they were suspicious of him or if they genuinely didn’t know.
He stepped outside the last shop and a boy ran after him. “Sir, I did see something.”
Bakeley’s heart quickened.
“The Irish lady, she talked to two men, both of them Irish also. I was cleaning the windows round the corner. They didn’t notice me, I think.”
“What did they say?”
“They was to meet someone in the East End, by the docks. A tavern, something about a bull. The men wanted her to hire a hackney, but she said no, they would walk.”
Bakeley handed the boy a coin. “Describe the men.”
“They had rough clothes and caps. Sailors, maybe. Not gentlemen like you.”
“Thank you.” He handed him another coin.
“It’s usually just the one she meets.”
He froze. She’d been meeting with an Irish sailor. Could it be her lost brother? Or a conspirator, like one of the Cato Street ilk?
“Do you know him?”
“Walter, she called him. And he called her my lady.”
“Why would you remember this?”
The boy blushed deeply, and he realized the lad was older than he seemed. “Only that the lady was so pretty and always so nice.”
“What is your name?”
“Henry.”
He pulled out a card. “If you think of anything else, find me here. Speak only to me. No one else, understand?”
“Yes, milord.”
The East End. The docks. With two Irish sailors? Was the woman mad? His heart raced and he hailed a hackney and climbed in.
He had no knife on him, no pistol, no weapon of any kind, not even a walking stick. He gave the driver an address and told him to make haste. Bink’s home was right around the corner.
Sirena’s hopes crashed when she saw Walter step out of the third tavern they’d visited, alone. The man they were supposed to meet was, once again, missing.
“We must get you out of here, milady.” Walter’s hand kept going to the side of his coat. He was armed, she’d guessed. So was she. Her heavy wool shawl draped her from the top of her head to her hips, hiding her bonnet and fair hair and covering the sheathed knife tucked into a very unfashionable sash.
The docks were busy with arriving ships offloading cargo. Josh’s mere presence had kept lookers at bay, though they’d kept up their leering, the sailors stumbling from drinking all night, other seamen making their way from the arriving ships, porters, cart drivers, merchants, pickpockets, and street whores, even at this hour.
She set off with her two protectors. A group of rough men blocked their way. “How much for your whore?�
� The big man who spoke had glittery dark eyes that made her shiver.
A taller man shoved him aside. “I’m to be first.” He lurched at her, and Josh blocked him.
She drew herself up. “Here now.” She used the King’s English her governess had tried to pound into her a decade ago, before the woman’s wages had to be put to buying whiskey. “I am not a prostitute. You will move out of my man’s way this instant and let us pass.”
That at least made them pause. She slid the knife from her sheath, hiding it under the edge of her shawl.
The taller man stepped back from Josh and scratched his head.
“There are lasses down on the next corner who will gladly take your coin,” Walter said in his most pleasant brogue.
The bigger man, the one who had spoken first stepped up. “Go on with you boys, if that’s what you want. I had my heart set on a real lady.”
He lurched again, knocking into Walter. Sirena stumbled out of the way and her head covering slipped bringing her bonnet down with it.
“A yellow-haired lass,” a man shouted in a heavy foreign accent.
Someone pawed at her, and Walter’s fist lashed out.
“Behind you,” she shouted, trying to move out of the way. She heard a whistle. The river police would come in time, she hoped.
Fists flew, and there were strange oaths and the sound of cracked jaws and oofs. Walter and Josh were taking a beating for her. She must stop this. A crowd had started to form, ringing them, shouting out odds and wagers.
In front of her, the tall man pushed Josh to the ground and bent over him, pounding. His cap had flown off, and a greasy black queue slid over his back.
Bam. Crack. Oof.
She must do something.
She threw off her shawl, jerked him back by his queue, and dug the point of her dagger into his neck.
“Leave off,” she shouted. “Or I will slice this devil. Leave off.”
He squirmed and the point pricked him. The crowd quietened. The men hitting Walter looked up.
Josh crawled onto his knees. Whistles and pounding footsteps approached and the watchers started to slip away, including some of the men who had started the melee.
“Get him up.” She made eyes at Walter, jerking her head.
He gripped his assailant and one other by their necks, and let Josh help himself up.
Her heart twisted. The O’Brian boys might have a price on their heads from the new Lord of Glenmorrow. They had risked everything to help her. If they swung from the gallows it would be her fault.
Two respectably clad men ran up, the river policemen, she guessed, by their dress, and in the distance behind them she saw the blur of two other dark-clad men.
The policemen stopped short in front of her. “Put down the knife, lass, there’s a good girl.”
She summoned the English again. “I am not your lass or your good girl, sir. I am a lady, and these men beat up my servants and threatened to violate me.”
“She’s lying,” the man in her grip said. “She wanted more money.”
Josh was up by now, fist raised, but a look from Sirena stopped him.
The policemen exchanged glances. "Yes, yes, well, we’ll take all of you in and sort it out."
“Lady Sirena.” A deep voice boomed through the crowd, as if the man who owned it was taking charge of everyone from the East End to Mayfair and every street in between.
Her heart jangled and she sucked in deep breaths to quell the dark spots that appeared. She would not faint. She would not.
A dark handsome head bobbed high over all the others, a ginger one following, shoving the curious out of the way.
Relief flooded into her, followed by dismay. She had no right to warm feelings. Lord Bakeley was not her friend. His brother, she wasn’t sure about, but he was Shaldon’s spawn too, and that made him also suspect.
“Lord B-Bakeley.” Drat, her voice shook. Moisture flooded her eyes and she blinked hard.
He nudged a policeman aside and covered her knife hand with his. “My dear.” He spoke with such tenderness, she blinked hard. He eased the knife from her hand, while Mr. Gibson fell upon the villain.
Lord Bakeley drew out a handkerchief, wiped off the blade, and let the cloth fall to the ground like the tainted object it was. “There. I’ve cleaned off that scurvy rat’s blood. Sheath this, will you, my lady?”
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t see. He found the sheath at her waist, his hands touching only the leather, not her. Not like last night.
“I don’t have another handkerchief,” he murmured. “Hold those tears, love.”
That swelled her eyes more. She wiped at them with her sleeve and then she squeezed her eyes tight for a moment.
When she opened them, she saw Walter and Josh, rounded up with the villains. “What are you doing?” She summoned her English yet one more time again, imitating a duchess she’d heard speaking to Lady Hackwell. “These two are my men. They were protecting me. Unhand them right now.”
Mr. Gibson eyed his brother. “And it looks like they took the worst of it.”
“At least five against two. Such valor will not go unrewarded. Gentlemen, I’m Lord Bakeley. Her ladyship and her men will come with me. I’ll see that they get medical attention.”
One of the two policemen looked speculatively at her.
“I am the daughter of the Earl of Glenmorrow. I am not a...a woman of the streets.”
“Odd that an Earl’s daughter would be here.”
She opened her mouth and clamped it shut. Peeresses did not explain themselves to lesser beings.
“Milord, they must give statements. All of them, including the lady.”
“I’ll see to the statements,” Lord Bakeley said. “Brother, explain please.”
Mr. Gibson drew the more suspicious officer aside.
Lord Bakeley fixed his gaze on Walter. “Who are you?”
Walter had propped Josh against the wall and was busily mopping blood from his brother’s poor battered face.
“These are the...the Smith brothers,” she said. Oh, she was a poor liar, yet she must protect them. “This is…Michael, and this is…John who was beaten so fiercely. You boys saved me.” The dratted tears came and she swiped at them, angry with herself for being such a crying ninny.
“Well, you saved me, milady,” Josh said.
“I am so sorry, boys.” She glanced at Lord Bakeley. He should not be here. Why was he here?
The memory rushed back. He’d said he would call on her and he’d done it. But how had he tracked her down?
Fear rippled down her spine. His father was having her followed. If that were so, then the O’Brians were in danger. She must take them somewhere. The money she’d planned to use for a bribe—that would pay for a room for a time. They’d know where to go, and she’d throw her own self upon Lady Jane’s mercy.
“Bakeley,” Mr. Gibson said, “I’m taking these men with me. Come along, then, John, Michael. I’ll find us a hackney.”
“No,” Lady Sirena said fiercely, “they’ll go with me.”
Neither Michael nor John budged at Gibson’s order. One of the officers took a threatening step toward her.
Bakeley drew her a few steps away from the men. “You’ll all come with me. They need medical attention, and you and I need to talk.”
She shook her head, her face going pink even while she blinked away tears.
Blast it. His only concern was getting her to safety. To hell with her men.
Her men. Who were they? Bakeley looked from her to the two boys, who were both well into their thirties. The names were no doubt fraudulent—the shop boy had mentioned a Walter—and why they were here, he knew not. He could kick their arses for letting her come down here.
Though, knowing her, she would have come by herself without protection, so he must thank them for not abandoning her.
Two Irishmen using aliases. They were wanted by someone, probably his father.
“I won’t turn them over to
Shaldon, I promise you. Now, is that yours?” He pointed at a large heap of black wool. She wore no pelisse or mantle and was shivering.
“Yes.”
He held on to her arm and retrieved the shawl, draping her with it. “What you’re feeling is shock.”
He was feeling it himself. That first horrific vision of her with a knife to a ruffian’s throat, the man at her feet beaten, had sent a panic through him.
He should have been quicker. She should have not come here. Foolish, foolish girl.
He scooped her up in his arms.
“I can walk,” she cried. But her face was wet, and her tears were shredding his composure.
His sister, Perry, never cried. But she might if someone had beaten up her footmen and tried to assault her. The mere thought made his blood boil.
“Shush.” He hurried back to the hackney that had brought him and, flipping a large coin, sent a boy for another.
Her servants, the Smith brothers, staggered up behind with Bink at their heels. Both men looked wild-eyed, tired, afraid, like the fox after a long chase. He set Lady Sirena on her feet while they waited and kept her locked at his side.
“None of this was their fault,” she said.
“I told you I’m not turning them in.”
The man called John sagged in his brother’s arms.
“Listen,” Bakeley said. “Both of you need a surgeon. I’ll see you patched up. Then you may leave.”
“Get in.” Bink hauled John up as gently as possible. “And don’t think to stab me with that blade you have hidden. Bakeley, take the lady in the other transport.”
She tried to push away. “You will take them to—”
“We will all go to the same place, lass,” Bink said. “Bakeley, where is that to be? My home?”
“No.” Bink’s home included Kincaid, who was deeply loyal to both of the Gibsons, but he had served as one of Shaldon’s operatives for more years than anyone could count. He would see this situation the same way Shaldon would. “There is another place. Get in.”
He gave each driver the same direction and helped Lady Sirena into the hackney.
This second carriage was a small affair, only big enough for two. She slid into the corner and huddled there.
The Viscount's Seduction: A Regency Romance (Sons of the Spy Lord Book 2) Page 7