CHAPTER 38
The darkness of dusk gathered in the morning room, creeping towards where Henry and Earl Harding sat sprawled in large wing backed chairs. Henry’s footmen closed the curtains to the night around them as Smythe served another brandy. Outside the carriages clattered up and down Mount Street with audible clacks of their wheels.
“How’s Albert getting on with that Asian man?” Earl Harding swung a long booted foot and kicked the underside of the stool in front of him.
“What? Oh. Haven’t heard from him in a while.” Henry heaved himself up from his own comfortable chair and, with heavy feet, crossed to the dresser. Flipping open a small green leather-bound book, he ran a finger down the page. “Stanton, Standish, Jaquard, Lassiter ah. Albert. Hmm. I believe he might not have been feigning some of his illness which got him out of the Moreno debacle. He occasionally sends me the odd note. Apparently the mysterious Asian man hasn’t done very much up until now.”
“What about Stanton? Have you spoken to him yet?”
“I did on the night of the house party in Brambridge. He was quite surprised.” Henry crossed back to the chair and, placing the book on the low table between them, sat back down with a thump.
“Is he any closer?”
Henry sighed deeply. So many questions. “Depends on what you are asking about. Closer to taking a bride? Hmm perhaps. Closer to finding out what’s going on in Brambridge? Definitely. He had better hurry up, though. Renard says he won’t put into port again until the situation with the custom’s officers is closed down.”
“I’m thinking about moving my operation to Dover.”
Henry gave a discreet hand signal to Smythe who stood ramrod straight at the back of the room. “I didn’t think you had an operation. I thought you were more in the line of strategy?”
Smythe moved forward with the coffee pot. “More coffee, Earl Harding?”
“Thank you Smythe. Jolly nice to be catered for. Everyone seems intent on serving alcohol these days.”
“Sandwich?”
“Don’t mind if I do. All I seem to get at home is biscuits. Can’t think when I last had a decent meal.”
Henry shuddered. If he didn’t get a decent meal he knew he was liable to do things that he regretted. “Food is very important.”
Earl Harding took a sip from his cup. “I beg to differ,” he said with a smile on his face, “coffee is more important.”
“You can’t live on coffee alone.”
The earl seemed reflective. “Mmm, I seem to manage it.”
“Beg pardon sir, but a message has just come for you.”
Henry looked up, confused; he hadn’t noticed that Smythe had slipped out of the door and back in again. “Thank you, Smythe.”
The butler placed the message on a silver tray and left it on the sideboard.
“No. I’m still into strategy. Got a bit of time on my hands. Had the heave ho from the War Office. It seems that now stuff on the Peninsular is settling down, they don’t seem to have any need for someone of my skills.”
“Short sighted fools.”
“I thought that too. Aren’t you going to have a look at your message?”
Henry nodded. He had been getting quite comfortable in his fugue state. It wasn’t often that he had the opportunity to speak man to man to someone cut from the same cloth as himself. Even if he had planted that man a facer five years before, and even that had not deterred him from going after his property. Holding a hand in front of himself, he coughed. Earl Harding had good taste. That was all. Good taste in baggages.
Pulling himself out of the comfortable chair, he stretched his legs and strode to the sideboard. The parchment was folded in half in the middle of the silver salver. Licking a thumb, he picked up the note and pulled it open.
He stopped in shock, the words swimming in front of his eyes. Patting at his waistcoat with his free hand, he pulled out his pocket watch and flipped it open.
“I say Henry, everything alright, old chap?” Pages rustled behind him.
Henry nodded slowly. Placing the note lightly back on the silver salver, he scrabbled at his pocket watch and drew out the scrap of paper that had lined it for five years. Carefully, he slipped it onto the plate next to the message.
The handwriting on the scraps of words around the signature ‘IHΠ’ were a match, right down to a small curl on the letter y.
“Here, this book is nothing but a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen!”
Henry couldn’t even muster up a smile. He’d wondered if the earl would fall for his trick. He’d thought he’d appreciate it.
“Very clever, Henry. You got me this time.”
Henry swallowed. Fingers shaking, he spread the new message out against the platter.
Come to Hanover Square Rooms now, unarmed, otherwise I will kill Agatha Beauregard at day break. Do not tell anyone, otherwise I will break all of her fingers before I kill her. I will enjoy doing so. The little slut.
He slammed his fist against the platter, the note burning against the fleshy underside of his hand. They were going to break her fingers. “Dear god. I think I’ve nearly found Monsieur Herr.”
“What’s that?”
Henry drew a hand across his forehead. Do not tell anyone… “Nothing. Err. Harding, you will have to excuse me. Something has come up.”
“Can I help?”
“No. I don’t think you can. But I will tell you this.” Henry turned and leant against the sideboard. “Agatha is definitely not Monsieur Herr.” He needed a few moments to plan, just a few moments please.
Earl Harding cocked his head on one side and stared at Henry. “You never thought she was, though.”
Henry shook his head. “I never thought she was, but it was a convenient enough reason I gave myself to not try harder to persuade her into marriage with myself five years ago.”
“And ever since.”
Henry nodded. “My mother and father had a loving marriage. Full of trust. But then my father left my mother by getting himself killed, and she died of a broken heart.” He shook his head. “I’ve just found out she actually died of consumption. Why am I telling you this?”
The earl stood up and gathered up his coat. “Because you need to. The time is right. As Confucius said, ‘Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Henry stared out of the window. “I didn’t want that to happen for Agatha and me. I don’t want her to worry about me, to die of a broken heart if something goes wrong. I trust Agatha, have always done so.” He was wasting time. Shaking his head, he turned to the door. “You need to leave. I have business I need to attend to.”
The earl nodded and followed him into the hall. “Of course.”
Without seeing Earl Harding out, Henry left the room, and took the stairs two at a time to his bedroom. He pulled off the bright floral cravat that he wore, the golden waistcoat, and light cream breeches. In their place he hitched up a pair of dark blue finely cut military breeches, a white shirt, which he covered with a dark red waistcoat, a deep green cravat and over the top, a loose tailcoat of dark blue superfine. His reflection in the mirror looked out at him with a stony look to its face.
Henry turned away from his dark reflection and pulled a small box from under his bed. He opened the box, his fingers shaking, and lightly stroked the pistol that lay within.
“I’m coming for you, Agatha.” He closed his eyes for an instant and pulled the pistol roughly out of the box. “And you too, Monsieur Herr, whoever you are. You had better be ready.”
CHAPTER 39
Agatha waited till Janey was safely away in the cab. As it pulled away from the curb, she started to walk, following the garden walls and the forbidding doorways of large villas, away from the safety and watchful eyes of Colchester Mansion, before hailing a passing hackney cab.
The carriage driver pulled his horses to an abrupt halt and looked down at her from the top of the perch. He sneered and jerked at his reins. Agath
a glanced downwards; the ties on her coat had come undone, revealing the pinky brown of her dress.
Clutching at her cloak, she pulled a couple of gold coins from its pocket and held them in the air. The sneer left the man’s face immediately as she had known it would.
“Take me to Hanover Square Rooms, please.”
The carriage driver smirked. “Hanover Square Rooms? Is there a recital on tonight?”
“Of a kind.” Agatha rubbed the coins together.
The smirk on his face grew bigger. Agatha refused to be discomforted. This wasn’t the worst she was going to have to endure by the end of the night. Lifting her chin high, she held out her hand. “Do you want the money or not?”
The man jumped down from his perch and opened the door. “Anything for a lady.”
Agatha glared at him. He offered no hand to help her from the low road into the tall cab. Grasping hold of the window on the cab door, she pulled herself inside, lurching sideways against the wooden seats as the driver climbed back on the coach, causing it to sway madly with his weight on the springs. Taking a deep breath, she took her seat on the wooden benches that lined the carriage and hung on to the window as the cab jolted into motion.
The coach journey took half an hour through the winding streets. Braced against the wall of the carriage, Agatha pulled her notebook out of her skirt, and began to methodically rip out its pages, littering them on the seat next to her. When just the cover was left, she plunged her hand back into her pocket and, with shaking fingers, pulled out the foul smelling paper packet. As the paper peeled away, a greasy black cake was revealed. Breaking a piece off, she picked up a mangled page from the seat next to her and wrapped it around and around the gunpowder. The parcel needed to be so large, with a twist of the paper at the end like so… Agatha added another page to the package. She needed to build up more pressure. Prodding at it with a thumb, she nodded, and made another.
Pushing the packets back into her skirt, she drew out the jam jar. Holding her breath, she opened the lid. A sweet pungent smell filled the carriage. Who ate fig jam anyway? Using one of the pages of the notepad, she scooped out the moldy growth of jam and tossed it out of the window of the carriage. Breaking off a larger piece of the black cake, she thrust it inside and bored a hole half an inch wide in the lid with her knife. Screwing the lid back on, she thrust the whole back into her skirts.
Agatha looked up through the glassless window as they turned into Bond Street. The hustle and bustle of the day had been replaced by the carousing of the night. Every five shops a tavern appeared, its patrons spilling onto the pavement and much merriment emanating from within. Agatha looked back longingly at the brightly-lit oil lamps as they passed into Tenterden Street and through Hanover Square. Soon darkness was complete as they turned into Mill Street. The carriage pulled to a stop opposite the looming Hanover Square Rooms. The road was the length of the recital hall, being only a small turning off the residential end of Hanover Square.
No light emanated from the windows of the Hanover Square Rooms. The road was utterly dark.
“Are you sure that you wish to stop here, miss?” the coach driver asked doubtfully, opening the cab door. “There ain’t no concert on ’ere tonight.” He sniffed. “’Ere, it smells rather funny in—”
“—Yes.” Agatha shook herself to try and dredge up a braveness that she did not feel. Stepping out of the carriage, she pushed the door closed and handed a gold coin to the man. “I’ll be fine.”
With more confidence than she felt, she walked to the main doors which she had left through earlier in the day. As she trudged up the steps, scuffing her feet against the rough stone, she felt the eyes of the coach driver on her back. At the top step, she hesitated, but then pushed out her hand for the large brass handle of the doors.
Even though it was a heavy oak door, it swung inward lightly as she pressed on it. It opened slowly then stopped, thudding gently on something soft. She slipped halfway through the door, stumbling as she tripped against an object on the floor.
Hanging on to the door handle, Agatha looked back desperately to see if the coach driver was there, but the dim light of the moon showed that he had already left. Abruptly letting go of the door, she fell over in a tangle of cloak and dress onto the polished walnut of the porchway. Gasping for breath, she pulled her fallen hood back away from her face and screamed. Scissoring her legs beneath her she slid across the polished floor, away from the entrance.
A man’s booted legs lay in front of her, sprawled against the open door. The legs gave way to a bloodied and coatless torso. The head was turned away. In the dim light, Agatha could not tell what color his hair was.
Agatha scrabbled back across the floor, sobbing as she slid across the wooden parquet. Surely there hadn’t been time for them to have killed him already?
“Oh no. Oh God no. Henry I need to tell you—” Agatha bit her words off. Her skin crawled at a soft movement in the corner of the hall. There was someone there watching her.
“I know you are there!” she yelled wildly. “What do you want with me?”
A soft laugh reached her as footsteps padded away. Quickly she grasped the head of the prone man by his hair and drew it to her. It turned with a dull thunk.
It was not Henry.
The once habitually sneering face was now peaceful in death. Charles’ handsome features shone with a deathly pallor in the moonlight.
Agatha’s mouth rounded in an O. God help her for the relief that trickled through her. She leaned over him and gingerly touched his face. His skin, whilst warm, was cooling rapidly on the wooden floor. Closing her eyes, she shuffled forward and kneeled above him, putting her ear to his face. No breath of air blew back her hair.
Scuttling sharply away from his body, her knees stuck to the polished floor. She stood slowly, gently feeling at her skin. Her fingers came away wet, the distinctive iron-like smell of blood filtering through the air. She glanced back at Charles, her eyes catching on the dark pool of shadow by his body, a black trail leading across the floor to where she stood. Forgive me, she thought, forgive me for feeling nothing but relief for your death.
A door shut ahead of her. She should have left as soon as she saw it was Charles on the floor. But now it was obvious that whoever was perpetrating the intrigue would not stop at just threatening notes; they had killed someone, why wouldn’t they hesitate at killing more?
Agatha rubbed at her arms and looked longingly back towards the large entrance doors. No. She was wasting time—they already had Henry. Oh dear god. Rising to her feet, she walked slowly across to the door at the end of the entrance vestibule and stepped into the familiar long dark carpeted hall, the doors on the left leading to the different recital rooms and the blue room at the end; the wall on the right lined with square panes of dark windows giving out onto a garden beyond.
Shuffling up to the wall on her left, she walked crab-like along it, hugging the wall, trying to keep to the deepest shadow. All the pot plants had been put away. Nothing moved in the corridor, her footsteps masked by the soft carpet.
Gingerly she pushed open the first door and slipped inside. It was unusually dark. Agatha had thought that all the recital rooms had windows that would let in at least a small amount of light. She put her hand out to the right of her and, trailing it against the wall, started forward. She could only go forward two steps before the wall stopped. In front of her, instead of a further wall, rows of shelves pressed against her body, right from the floor to above her head. Blindly, she felt along the shelves, fingers running across strange smooth cases that lay tightly packed across the wood, closed with metal clasps.
Agatha chose a case at random and flicked open two clasps. The lid lifted up easily. Biting her teeth against her lip, she reached in. Immediately her fingertips encountered a sharp edge and then a rising bridge. Her questing fingers brushed lightly to the side of the bridge, eliciting a thrum from the case.
With a gasp she jumped backwards, fingers pushed into her
skirts. Shaking her head, she started forward again and laid her hand against the vibrating case until the sound ceased. The object in the case was an instrument, a violin or a viola. The thrum had started when her fingers had brushed against the strings of the instrument.
With increasing confidence, Agatha felt along the walls; she was in the music store cupboard of the recital rooms. The room was only a few paces wide and a couple of paces deep, with each wall lined with more instruments, even larger than the violin. Some, which must have been cellos, were even taller than her herself.
There was nobody else in there with her, of that she could be certain. But she couldn’t stay in there forever. Slowly padding along the wall, she found the door handle and pulled at it, wincing as the hinges squealed. But the corridor remained quiet. Slowly she stepped out and flattened herself back against the wall.
With one hand forward, she advanced towards the door that led to the recital room she had been in earlier that day. Faster and faster she walked until she fell with a shocked “oomph,” brought up short by a large cloaked solid form. Strong hands picked her up and yanked her up against the wall.
“I have a knife to your belly.” The voice was decidedly male, its tones causing warm shivers to caress her spine. “Who are you and why did you ask me to come here?”
Agatha gulped, working saliva into her throat. The tip of the knife gently pricked at her stomach and the man’s other hand stretched her chin upwards. She licked her lips. Henry could not have been the one to lure her here, could he? There was no way he could have arrived in such good time…
“You received my note?” she croaked.
“Agatha?” The voice then swore softly. “You mean they haven’t got you? Dammit to blazes woman, why aren’t you at home safe in bed?”
The firm male hand gently released her throat and the knife point disappeared. Agatha relaxed as relief filled her.
“Your note?”
Agatha nodded silently and then realized that he couldn’t see her completely in the dark.
Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) Page 25