by Amanda Scott
“Why have you been so attentive, then?” she demanded, shocked by his words.
“Naught but fun and gig to create trouble between you and Ravenwood—a little revenge, if you will. But matters got a trifle out of hand.” Cicely did not attempt to struggle with him, but she retained a firm hold on the pistol despite his bruising grip on her wrist.
“What will you do now?” she asked grimly. “You cannot mean to let them kill me.”
“She is quite right,” Sir Conrad said to the others. “It is known that I collected her from her house, and I doubt Ravenwood would believe for a moment that I simply misplaced her. We cannot release her, of course, but I shall have to leave the country, and I think it would be as well for Breck and Alf to do the same. Nothing is known against you, George, so you may carry on as before.”
“She may have told them about this place,” Vaughan said.
“Not a chance,” Sir Conrad chuckled. “I don’t doubt for a moment that she followed Breck here, but I daresay she kept mum, hoping she could get her precious pearls back before Ravenwood discovered what she had been up to. We’ll take her with us in case we have need of a hostage. Don’t fear she’ll escape us, either,” he added, grinning. “I’ll see she behaves.”
“We’ll all of us see to it,” Alfpuddle murmured, leering. “Might be a bit o’ fun in it at that.”
“To be sure.” Sir Conrad didn’t trouble to disguise his amusement at her fury. “Give me the popgun now, sweet coz. You don’t want it any longer.”
But when he moved to take it from her, Cicely’s fury exploded, and she struggled frantically to retain possession of the weapon. But he was far too strong for her. Quickly realizing she could not win, she squeezed the trigger, discharging both barrels. The resulting explosion of sound seemed to reverberate from all four walls.
There was a scream, and to her astonishment, she saw the fox-faced man reel backward into the wall, clutching his shoulder. In the split second after the weapon discharged, Sir Conrad snatched it from her, but in so doing, he released his grip upon her wrist, and Cicely whirled to face him, launching a kick with every ounce of strength she could muster behind it. The toe of her leather boot caught him just under the kneecap, and he howled, grabbing instinctively for the afflicted joint, at which time she doubled up her fist and slammed it against the side of his chin. As he staggered from the blow, both Vaughan and Alfpuddle recovered from their momentary stupefaction and flung themselves at her. Ducking under the latter’s arm, she grabbed a large bronze candlestick from the table and swung it in a wide arc, catching his outstretched hand with the force of her blow. It was enough to make him jump back again with a yelp of pain. Breathing heavily now, she hoisted the candlestick again to fling it at him, but at that moment Vaughan closed in from behind, grabbing her upper arms in a viselike grip.
His touch acted upon her senses like a torch to a pile of dry kindling, and she fought him like a madwoman, kicking out at the same time to fend off the approaching Alfpuddle and screaming the while at the top of her lungs.
“Hush that row!” Alfpuddle snapped, attempting without much success to grab her flailing legs. Behind him, Cicely could see her cousin straightening himself and knew it was but a matter of moments before they would render her helpless, but the thought only made her shut her eyes to the sight of him and struggle the harder, blindly using even her fingernails and teeth whenever the opportunity was afforded her, determined to cause as much grief as possible before they managed to subdue her. There was a sudden flurry of noise, and the patrolman released his grip, but another, stronger one took its place. Thinking it must be Sir Conrad, she tried desperately to reach his hands with her teeth, twisting and turning wildly when she realized Alfpuddle was no longer grabbing for her legs.
“Cicely, stop! Damn it, you little vixen, it’s all right. You’re safe. Cilly, it’s me!”
His voice reached her at last, and she opened her eyes, feeling both relief and dismay. “Ravenwood!”
Eyes narrowed, he held her away, looking her over from head to toe. Her hair was a mess, and her cloak had been ripped away entirely, but he didn’t seem to see much amiss with her. “She’s little, but she’s mighty, my friends,” he said. She looked around her then to find the grinning faces of Sir David Lynsted, Sir Reginald Blakeney, Roger Carrisbrooke, Lord Toby, and even Mr. Wensley-Drew. The latter held Sir Conrad by one arm while another plump, familiar figure had him firmly by the other.
“Mr. Townsend! But, Ravenwood, what on earth?”
“Tell you all about it presently. Have you any notion how much damage you’ve done here?” he demanded with a wry grin. She looked around the room. The fox-faced man lay slumped against the wall, his bloodstained hand pressed against his shoulder. Sir Conrad, glaring at her, had a large bruise forming on his chin and sported a decided limp when they led him from the room; Alfpuddle’s hand was bleeding and his face was scratched in several places. Of Vaughan there was no sign. Cicely’s mouth dropped open.
“You gave quite an accounting of yourself in this little match, my dear,” Ravenwood drawled. “I must introduce you to Gentleman Jackson as a bright young comer. That is,” he added, lowering his voice so that only she would hear him, “if you survive the round you’ve got coming with me.”
18
WITH A TINY GASP SHE turned to face him. He was still smiling, but the smile did not, for once, reach his eyes, where the expression was a good deal more in keeping with the harsh note she had heard in his voice. She had accepted his display of amusement at first, simply because her head was still spinning and because she had not wanted to question it. But now she realized his laughter had rung false, and his jokes had been a trifle forced. She saw him glance at the silver-mounted pistol lying some feet away on the floor, then to the muff, likewise on the floor, with the string of pearls clearly visible at one end. From there his gaze drifted to the wad of money on the rickety table, where Vaughan, in his initial shock at seeing her with the pistol, had dropped it. Then he looked at her again, and she could have no doubt from his expression that there would be a reckoning between them.
Sir David stepped forward to pick up her cloak and muff from where they lay, and Ravenwood helped her to her feet. Swallowing with difficulty, she shook out her skirts and managed to accept her things from Sir David with a smile. Clearly Ravenwood wished to keep their differences private, and she certainly didn’t want to suffer what promised to be a rare trimming in front of the others, so her mood must seem to match his. Though no one, she realized, would blame her if she seemed a trifle distraught over her recent misadventures. Indeed, Sir David regarded her anxiously.
“Are you all right, Lady Cicely? Those villains didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“I am perfectly all right, thank you, sir,” she responded with a grateful look for his concern. He glanced uncertainly at Ravenwood, and she knew that he at least was not fooled by the viscount’s outwardly light manner.
“She seems to have suffered no serious harm, Gil,” he said quietly.
“It is to be hoped that her adversaries may say the same,” retorted his lordship. “I should dislike any one of them to die before he may be properly hanged.”
Lord Toby, who had gone out with the others, now stepped back into the room. “The others have gone with Townsend to lend him a hand. My carriage is at your disposal, Ravenwood.”
“Thank you. Take Cicely with you. I’ve got my horse.”
“I’ll tend to your mount, Gil. You belong with your wife,” Sir David said firmly, his gaze challenging Ravenwood to debate the matter. But the latter merely shrugged.
“Much obliged to you. Come along, Cicely.”
“What about my cousin’s coach?” she asked Sir David.
“Gil sent it back to Uffington House before we came in. Properly put the wind up that old coachman, too,” responded Lynsted, smiling at her.
“How did you come to be here at all?” She wanted to keep talking so as not to think about what wa
s passing through the mind of the big man beside her.
This time it was Lord Toby who answered. “You behold in us, my lady,” he said with a confidential air, “special agents of Parliament, if you can believe it.” He chuckled, patting his paunch fondly. “’Tis all due to Henry Grey Bennet’s being a cousin of Carrisbrooke’s, don’t you know.”
“Henry Grey Bennet? Is he not the man who organized the select committee everyone has been speaking of?”
“The same.” They had reached his coach, and a footman sprang forward to open the door and let down the steps. Only Lord Toby, Cicely thought with genuine amusement, would ride to a criminal raid in a luxurious coach attended by liveried servants. He seemed unaware of her amusement, however, since he was too caught up in his tale.
“There was much opposition to Bennet, of course,” he went on, following her into the coach but hospitably taking a forward seat so that Ravenwood might sit next to Cicely. “Fact is, the magistrates insisted the city had never been in a more tranquil state, but everyone knew that was fudge, of course.”
“But how did you come into it?” Cicely asked, profoundly aware of her husband’s weight as he took his place next to her. His thigh and arm touched hers, and she resisted an urge to squeeze further, into her corner, away from him.
Lord Toby rattled on. “We were bored, don’t you know, what with the peace and all, and when his cousin told Carrisbrooke he had little faith in the police being able to investigate the corruption in their ranks, Carrisbrooke suggested that the Inseparables might be able to lend a hand. Bow Street was thought to be above reproach at first, and so Bennet had already spoken to Sir Nathaniel, who recommended Townsend. It was Townsend who suggested we assist him in place of men from his own foot patrols. We thought he was being a bit finicking, but turns out he had the right of it. Fact of this fellow Vaughan being a Bow Street man will surely set the cat among the pigeons.”
“It has already become the most elaborate investigation into the London police that Parliament’s ever undertaken,” said Ravenwood suddenly. “Shouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t result in some sweeping reforms at last.”
“That Vaughan fellow got away, you know,” Lord Toby put in. “Not that it will make much difference. They’ll catch him.”
“What will happen to Sir Conrad?” Cicely wanted to know.
Ravenwood looked at her, and his expression softened. “Not much, I’m afraid, unless you want me to charge him with abduction.”
“He d-didn’t abduct me, sir.” She wished her voice had been steadier, but she couldn’t seem to speak properly. His next words, though spoken matter-of-factly, did not help.
“I thought as much.”
“Just conspiracy, then,” Lord Toby said quickly. “A fine, no doubt, and he’ll probably want to absent himself from Town for a good long while. Hard upon his poor mama, of course.”
Cicely did not think there was much love lost between Lady Uffington and her son, but family feeling kept her from expressing these sentiments, so she merely nodded.
“What about the others?”
“Breck will hang, of course, if he don’t die from the bullet you put in him. Damned pretty shooting,” Lord Toby said approvingly.
“It was unintentional, I assure you,” she said, trembling a little at the thought that she might actually have killed a man.
“Well, anyway, it don’t matter. And if he implicates that Alfpuddle fellow, he’ll hang as well. Good job, too, if you ask me. Nasty piece of work. Seems there’s a gang of them operating throughout the city,” he said. “Already got evidence against five police officers—six, counting your friend Vaughan. Planning robberies for others to carry out so they can arrest them for the reward money. They’ve fingers in other pies as well, we’re finding.”
He rambled on, going into minute detail about both the villains themselves and the efforts of the self-styled Parliamentary agents to gather evidence against them. Most of the work of the latter group, as it transpired, had been of a statistical nature, the gathering of information from various magistrate’s courts, which was then interpreted by Mr. Townsend to show clearly that police officers must indeed be involved in a city wide conspiracy. Vaughan had been suspected for some time, simply by virtue of his uncanny knack for recovering stolen property whenever the reward was a lucrative one.
“When you told me about the chandler’s shop,” Ravenwood put in quietly, “it proved your sneak thief was connected with Vaughan.”
“How?”
“The shop belongs to Vaughan’s mother-in-law,” he explained. “We’ve had an eye on it for some time.”
He lapsed into silence again, and Cicely began to realize at last what sort of business she had stumbled into. No wonder he was angry with her, when her meddling might have jeopardized a parliamentary investigation! Worse than that, she told herself. It might have gotten her killed. She had a notion that Ravenwood knew the whole, too—about her pearls and the fact that she had paid Vaughan to recover them. They were safely tucked in her muff again, but he had surely seen them when Sir David retrieved the muff from the floor. He had also seen her pick up the money from the table, but he had said nothing about it. Nor had anyone else questioned her right to it.
Ravenwood had said he would make her regret she was ever born if she meddled again. The thought came unbidden, and her hands clutched at each other inside the muff. The oblique glance she shot at him did nothing to reassure her, either, for he gazed straight ahead, his expression stern and unyielding. No doubt he was thinking ahead to the accounting that was due him.
She would be lucky if he did not strangle her for this business, she thought. Why, then, did she have the absurd desire to reach out to him, to smooth away the tension in his jaw? No, more than that, she wanted to snuggle in his arms, to hold him and let him hold her. She looked away again, unable to bear watching him, knowing he must be furious and yet unable to comfort him.
One does not comfort rage, she thought, mentally shaking a finger at herself. The very notion showed how addled her thinking had become. One might wish to soothe another’s fury for one’s own sake, but how silly to think of soothing Ravenwood’s for his own sake. It was just that she loved him so very much.
She gave a little sigh as the thought clarified itself in her mind. It was no blinding revelation, of course. She had simply resisted admitting it to herself before. But she could scarcely acknowledge such absurd notions as wishing to kiss away his anger, or wanting to send poor Toby to the devil so that Ravenwood could bellow at her in privacy, without acknowledging as well that she loved him. Above all things, she wished they might have the reckoning over and done, so that they might be comfortable again.
That they would be comfortable again she had no doubt, for she would see to it herself, and he was amiable and even-tempered enough, and possessed of sufficient humor that it would not be especially difficult, despite the fact that he had given her no reason to think he returned her love.
Toby nattered away, but he might just as well have been talking to himself for all the heed she paid him. The ride was beginning to seem interminable.
At last, however, the coach turned into Charles Street, and Lord Toby announced unnecessarily that they had arrived. He also informed them that he was expected elsewhere and could not stay to drink a dish of tea with them. The fact that neither pressed him to remain weighed not at all with him, and he bade them a cheery good day, much as if they had been out for a simple turn about the park.
Ravenwood drew Cicely’s hand firmly into the crook of his arm, and she went with him up the steps, thinking that now it would come. The reckoning at last.
Wigan opened the door, “Good afternoon, my lady. Her ladyship is in the first-floor drawing room,” he added blandly.
“Whose ladyship?” Cicely asked stupidly.
Ravenwood shot his butler a speaking look and Wigan nodded. “’Tis Lady Ravenwood, sir,” he beamed.
“How do you do, Ravenwood.” The fragile,
lilting voice wafted down from the gallery, and Cicely looked up to find her mother-in-law peering down at them through her silver lorgnette. “Pray do not look so overjoyed to see me, my dear,” she said, speaking directly to her son. “I promise you, there was nothing else I could do. She would come, will you nil you, so what would you? Dear me, I sound like that Shakespeare person.”
Cicely hadn’t the faintest idea what her ladyship was talking about, so she looked to her husband. But he was regarding his mother and shaking his head a little, a rueful twinkle in his eye.
“It will be all right, ma’am. Where is she?”
“Here.” Lady Ravenwood waved her lorgnette, and to Cicely’s astonishment, a grinning young woman appeared beside her at the railing.
“Meg!” she squealed, pulling away from Ravenwood without a second thought and racing up the stairs to hug Meg Hardy. “Oh, Meg! Where have you been? Everyone’s been looking and looking for you!”
Lady Ravenwood turned the lorgnette toward her daughter-in-law, then lowered it and turned back to peer down at her son, lifting an elegantly arched brow. “I’d not the slightest notion your wife was such a hurly-burly girl, Ravenwood,” she said.
“Quite beyond control,” he agreed with a little smile.
But Cicely scarcely heard him, for she had flung her arms about Meg and was demanding to be told the whole.
“Have you been with her ladyship?” she asked, astonished.
“Aye, the master took me down and said he would throttle me an I so much as sent a message to you or to anyone else.”
“Then you did come here! I knew you would, just as soon as you were free!”
“I never, Miss Cicely. First I was with Mr. Carrisbrooke until his lordship and Mr. Pavenham fetched me down to Ravenwood. Oh, and ’tis a beautiful place, Miss Cicely.”
“Never mind that! What happened to the men who abducted you, and how did you get to Mr. Carrisbrooke?”