He set down his candle and unfurled the rolled paper. This was a pencil drawing, a fanciful tableau of horses and...
He looked closer. Not horses. Unicorns. In all the corners, Celtic knots, and in the center, the coat of arms he’d learned to draw when he was old enough to hold a pencil.
His chest tightened. The ballroom floor design.
In the parlor, both men looked up.
“What is this?” Bakeley held up the paper and let the design unfurl.
“It’s your ballroom floor, Bakeley. Lady Perpetua commissioned the design.”
His stomach roiled. “I see. Who is that man chalking the floor?”
Shaldon sat up straight. “Old Nate’s a good craftsman for following a design.”
“Old Nate hired a crew,” Bakeley said.
“Yes, I know.”
“Yes, well, there’s one man left, and Lloyd mentioned he’s working late to finish.”
When they’d returned to rescue Sirena from Hollister, Lloyd had also mentioned that Perry had found Sirena speaking with the workman. “We must go home, Father. Now.”
A tic started near Shaldon’s eye. He pulled a wad of notes from his coat.
Fox stared at the money in Shaldon’s hand.
“You need it, and I trust you to pay me back. And I trust that any disputes among us have long been settled.”
Fox took the money and flipped through it.
“Sirena and Perry are home alone,” Bakeley said.
Fox’s gaze narrowed. “Is he a tall man? Scarred?”
His hand fisted around the parchment. Was he? Damn, damn, he’d been negligent. “I don’t know.”
“Fair-haired?”
He’d barely looked in on the man. Bakeley closed his eyes and tried to retrieve the image. “He wore a cap.”
Shaldon rose.
Fox stood also, wobbling. “I’ll come—”
“No,” Bakeley said. The man was ape drunk.
“My son is right. Get something to eat. You don’t need to live like this. Come see me when you’re ready to work.”
At the door, Fox’s voice stopped them. “My Lord,” he said, and Bakeley caught the hard note.
Shaldon only waited.
“I...became acquainted with Hollister, you know, some time back. Not terribly useful, but I ran into him recently and he invited me for a drink. While I was with him, your man visited his quarters. I had the floor drawing with me.”
“Thank you, Fox.”
“I shall send over a watercolor in repayment.”
Shaldon nodded, his face a shade grayer as he exited.
“That money will be a down payment on a portrait of his lordship,” Bakeley said. “And you and I will talk more about the bespectacled girl in your picture.”
The coach ride seemed interminable, with Bakeley’s nerves stretched so tight they might burst from his skin. At this fashionable hour, when they hit Mayfair, traffic slowed. It was less than a mile to their townhouse, but a creeping mile it would be.
Anxiety gnawed at him. Perhaps the floor artist was Donegal, and perhaps he was not. How much could they trust Fox?
And, he reminded himself, they had a houseful of able servants to protect the women there.
“So, you employed a colonial spy to paint your family,” Bakeley said.
Shaldon’s hand tightened around his cane. “He would say he’s never been a colonial. He was born after that war ended.”
Father had dodged his question, but of course, the answer was an obvious one.
“Did he originally spy for the Americans?”
“He stopped here on his way to Paris to study art. And yes, to spy for the Americans. But he was not enthralled with the French version of liberté, nor with Napoleon.”
“Yet he went back.”
“It was necessary.”
“Do you trust him?”
“He did me a good turn.”
The coach shuddered to yet another stop, and Bakeley reached for the door latch. “I’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”
Shaldon called out to one of the grooms, and the man peeled off the back of the coach. Bakeley heard the pounding steps behind him as he raced down the nearest mews.
He must get to her before Father’s web entangled her any further.
Sirena’s skin rippled as fingers trailed along her neck. A quiver went down her spine and through her legs all the way to her trembling toes.
Help would be along soon. She must play this out. She must stall this man, whoever he was.
She squeezed her eyes shut, dredged up some courage, crafted a hurried plan. The man was looking for information on Jamie, Shaldon had said.
Feather-brained, she would be. A muffle-headed blonde lassie.
She squeaked and jumped up, scooting away from him. “Goodness. Goodness, you startled me.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “Well, and why not use the door?” She batted her eyes and dredged up some tears that were all too real. “But, oh, never mind. Oh dear. There’s a fine brandy on the sideboard there. I shall just pour us a dram...Jamie.”
A big hand clamped on her shoulder. The same hand that had been raising her gooseflesh.
The candlelight made the scar come to life, wriggling and jumping with his chuckle. “Well then, why not a kiss for your long-lost brother?”
Her skin writhed. The accent had changed again. It was not Irish. Not Irish. She couldn’t tell what it was—some English north country tangle.
“I’m in shock, Jamie.” Real tears rolled down her cheek.
Blast it, she wasn’t a weeper.
It was terror, it was. She’d not tasted fear like this since her cousin’s attack, not even at the dock.
She swiped at her cheek and let her nose drip. The hand lifted, and he went to the sideboard.
He didn’t like tears. This was good. Tears of happiness, they might seem, and she’d not even had to try to fake them.
She let them flow and sniffled. “Have you a clean kerchief, Jamie?”
One glass slapped the table and brandy gurgled, splashing over the rim.
“Do I look like a swell with a snot rag for the lady?” Smirking, he tipped back his drink.
She moved round the table, and he matched her, blocking her way to the door. “No, but I wouldn’t expect that, though you are a gentleman, Jamie. You’re a lord. Where ever have you been all these years? Mother’s heart—”
“Do not be thinking of the door, your grand ladyship. I’ve locked it.”
She took a step back. Her hands curled and she realized she still fisted the stout pencil. That, and her great act of stupidity wasn’t much, but help would come and soon. The footman would have noticed him missing. Lloyd would come to check on her, carrying his key.
She gave her head a quick shake and let a few tears fly. “I don’t understand.”
Cold air rippled along her neck. She was nearer the window. He’d advanced though, keeping pace with her.
If he’d come in through the window, she could surely go out it.
“It’s a long drop out that window, your grand ladyship.”
“You came in that way?”
“Yes, but then I’m good with an upper-story window.”
She was running out of ways to play stupid. “Who are you?”
“Did you not call me Donegal?”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want what you want, Sirena. I want your Jamie.”
Her breath hitched. “Is he alive, then?”
He laughed. “Well then, you’ve finished playing the nick ninny, your grand ladyship.”
Her grip on the pencil tightened. “Is my brother alive?”
“Is my brother alive?” He mimicked her in a high falsetto. “Mayhap he is.” He stepped closer and chuckled. “You’ve no big clod-hopping boys here tonight like that day at the docks, your grand ladyship. No lord running up to rescue you.”
She screamed, and his face twisted into a grin.
“There now
. That footman won’t come, yer butler is off to the kitchens and he won’t hear you. The others are abed. And your man will stay out all night again.”
She eased back. He was wrong. She prayed he was wrong. Bakeley, where are you?
“I have money—”
“Money? Well, I’ll have it. But first I want a taste of what you shared with Glenmorrow before you made your grand marriage.”
Her rump hit the window sash. Fear raced through her, numbing her hands.
His broken teeth gleamed yellow in front of her.
“You will stop right there.”
The smell of brandy covered more putrid ones—dirt, sweat, and the decayed, rasping breath of a man thinking to take his pleasure.
The window was open. There’d be at least one groom in the still-empty stables, people traveling to parties, the watch making his rounds.
She sucked in those odors and screamed again, like a banshee of death.
She saw the fist and ducked. Not in time. The blow pounded the edge of her ear, knocked out her hair pins, and crashed into the window frame.
In the stables, a horse screamed. Banshee. If only the horse were here with her now.
Donegal cursed and drew back his fist again.
Bam, bam. “My lady?”
Lloyd. Lloyd was outside, pounding the door.
He glanced back. She yanked at her skirt and jabbed her knee into his cock, and heard a sharp rip of fabric.
Enraged now, he came for her, hands circling her neck, pushing her back through the window.
His fingers pressed and she arched away, struggling for breath, trying to scream.
Panic raced through her. She must make him let go. Her legs were pinned. He pressed against her, her only air his foul breath.
She had but a moment. He bent closer, eyes gleaming, lips pulled back. She flailed and struggled, and clawed, and—
The pencil. She swung her arm up and aimed at his eye. She missed, but the point hit something that caused a bellow and loosened his grip. One hand clasped his cheek. He grabbed for her, his hand dripping blood.
She drove her heel into his breeches. This time he doubled over.
They were battering the door. And why not use the key?
“Lloyd,” she shouted.
“Aye, bitch,” he huffed. “I fixed the door. Fix you afore they break it. If you’re dead, your Jamie will come.” He pushed at his knees, still struggling for breath.
She looked around wildly. There were shovels and pokers near the fireplace. But he was bigger, and faster, and might wrest them from her before she could bash him.
Bam, bam, bam. Lloyd had taken up something heavier than his fist.
And Donegal would soon be recovered.
She yanked up her skirts and swung through the window, stepping onto the narrow frieze that girded the building.
Needing repairs, Perry had said. Old Nate would be engaging someone soon for the wood and the brick repair.
He lunged from the window, and she lurched away, grasping for a handhold.
There. Her fingertips tightened around the edge of a brick. She looked down. She could not see the ground below, but it couldn’t be far.
There were lights in the stables. Someone would come for her.
Donegal stretched a leg through the window and paused, looking down.
Well, and he had somehow managed to come in that way, teetering on this fascia board like an elephant dancing on a tea saucer.
His other leg came through.
“Help,” she shouted.
“Sirena.” That bellowing voice was Bakeley. He was right below her.
“Bakeley,” she shouted.
Donegal stepped out on to the same length of board where she tottered. It gave way.
She shrieked, and slid, hands scratching along the brick façade, finding no purchase until her toes hit a jutting casement above a ground floor window.
“Blast it.” Her fingertips gripped the one other brick in the entire house needing tuckpointing.
“Sirena, jump.”
She heard scratching from the shadows. Donegal was perched on another window.
He was coming for her. Below her was all bricked gangway. The spymaster’s home was not surrounded by bushes or trees that would obscure the windows or allow a climber in, no. Someone risking this climb would also risk a broken limb or worse.
“Come, love. I’m here.” A hand gripped her ankle and relief flooded her.
“Bakeley.”
“Slide into my arms, woman.”
He pulled her foot from its perch and she shrieked, balancing on the one foot still supported by wood.
“Now,” he said, and grabbed her other foot.
“Wait.” She closed her eyes and reached a hand down for another purchase. He caught at her other leg and slid her along his body, while she braced her hands against the window, sliding until she was leaning on him, his arms locked around her, her bottom cradled against where his stiff manhood would be if he ever again felt any desire for her. His scent—leather, bergamot and horses curled around her too, and his breath came in great gulps like he’d just run all the way from Knightsbridge—or wherever he’d been. She began to shake in the same rhythm.
He squeezed her tighter. “My God.”
A thud sounded nearby.
“It’s him.” Her voice was a whisper, a mere breath.
Bakeley loosed his grip and shoved her behind him. The thud of two feet hitting the ground had been loud enough. The stealthy movement that came after, he sensed more than heard, and it was close.
The stitch in his side still pained, but it was nothing compared to the rush of panic, and then relief, and now rage sweeping through him.
Her trembling rattled him also. She tugged at his arm, trying to yank him away from the dark, invisible figure lurking.
He pulled the pistol from his pocket. “Go.” They were near the servant’s entrance. “Wait for me in the kitchen.”
A loud crash sounded above and a beam of light burst from the library window, erasing the shadows around them.
Just in time, Bakeley ducked.
The fist coming at him shattered a ground floor window. Bakeley ripped a sharp blow to the man’s jaw with his left fist, and the man went down.
Footsteps clattered, growing louder.
Blast it, he couldn’t fire without risking hitting one of the servants.
“My lord! My lord! My lord!” Cries came from all around, above, from the back of the house, from the front.
He aimed the gun at the man. “You’re cornered, Donegal.”
Donegal burst to his feet and crashed into two servants. They snatched at him, missed, and looked to Bakeley.
“Get him,” he cried. He shoved the gun in his pocket and joined the pursuit.
The villain ran down a walk, through the garden, into the mews. Servants reached for him. He was like oil, too slick to be held by the grooms when they grabbed him.
He burst through the mews, fled down the alley and disappeared, the two servants in pursuit.
Bakeley stopped and rested his hands on his knees, panting. When this was over, he’d best get back to his boxing and fencing.
“My lord.” Lloyd hovered over him. “Are you hurt?”
“Where the hell was everyone?”
“The library door lock was jammed. They will catch him.”
He shook his head. “They won’t.”
Sirena. He must get back to her.
Lloyd’s boots trudged behind him back to the house. At the servant’s door, he took a lantern from a groom.
“Sirena,” he called.
The housekeeper hurried over, attired in her night robe.
“Shall I call for the surgeon?” she asked.
“Where is Lady Sirena?”
Lloyd looked at the housekeeper and the footman who’d joined them. “Where is she?”
“Sh-she’s not here, my lord. I came down when I heard the shouting and she hasn’t been here.”
His chest tightened as if someone had ripped out his own heart.
Another footman ran up. “Mr. Lloyd, my lord, we have checked all the rooms. The ladies and the staff are safe and there are no other intruders.”
“Did you see Lady Sirena?”
“No my lord.”
His hands went numb. Sirena had been taken.
He fought for composure and lost. “Search again, damn you.”
He went outside and circled the building. A clatter of hooves in the street reached them, and the muffled scream of a woman. The lantern slipped from his hands and he ran.
He spotted his father’s coach turning the corner, but in front of the house, another carriage pulled away. Unmarked. Too fine to be hired.
A stocking-clad foot kicked out while a hand gripped the edge of the door, trying to close it.
Two horses, too fine to be hired.
Sirena. Sirena was in there.
He darted toward the square, judging the flow of the traffic. He’d catch a break when they reached the main street and the crush of traffic slowed them.
He ran, lungs burning, side aching, fists pumping against the air.
As they turned into Regent’s street, a carriage crossed their path. The horses pulled up.
Bakeley reached it in time and yanked open the door.
He roared. Sirena lay sprawled, eyes closed, in the arms of a man—
No. Not a man.
“Take him.”
Pain exploded in the side of his head, and he was yanked and pushed to the narrow floor of the coach.
Chapter 24
“There, there. Get it all out.”
A man’s gentle tones penetrated the fog in Bakeley’s head, and the sound of retching that accompanied them slammed around inside it.
He put his hand to his temple and felt dampness.
“He’s alert.” That low timbred voice he knew. “Do you feel better now, Bakeley?”
He opened his eyes and turned, the mere act making his brain rattle.
A slim figure in men’s clothing came into focus.
“Thank God.” She leaned in close examining him.
Jocelyn. His mind raced, remembering. The carriage…Sirena abducted…
More retching sounded from somewhere behind him.
“There, there. This will pass very soon.”
The Viscount's Seduction: A Regency Romance (Sons of the Spy Lord Book 2) Page 24