Most Eagerly Yours: Her Majesty's Secret Servants

by Allison Chase

  Yet through the distortion, Laurel perceived the drawl of a French accent.

  Against her, Aidan went rigid.

  Though they could still hear the voices, the footsteps stopped. Whoever it was must have reached the laboratory. Laurel and Aidan waited, then waited some more. Then, slowly, Aidan began to move. First he struck a lucifer, the sound so loud in the silence that Laurel thought surely they would be discovered. He relit the lamp, turning it as low as it would go without extinguishing the flame. Making his way over the rubble with painstaking care, he helped Laurel down as he went.

  “They must be in the lab,” he whispered against her ear when they once more stood in the main tunnel.

  Taking her hand firmly in his, he led her, creeping step by silent step, along the tunnel until they reached another fork. Aidan checked the map and chose a direction that led them into another series of drainage ducts. Here, he began to breathe more easily. Taking his cue, Laurel allowed some of the tension to drain from her stiffened limbs and sore neck.

  “We must be near the Cross Baths,” he murmured. “According to the map they drain to the south of the city, and that should put us where we’ll want to be.”

  Though puzzled by his words, she held her questions in check. Her body ached. Her feet and hems were soaked, the shoes, gown, and cape ruined as he had predicted. His evening wear hadn’t fared much better. But bother their clothing. They had narrowly escaped being apprehended by possible murderers.

  For all that, she would not have wished herself elsewhere, not unless Aidan were there as well. Soon enough they would part; he had made that much clear. Until then, she would savor every moment, however cold or wet or dangerous.

  They stopped frequently so Aidan could pinpoint their location on the map. While the drainage system curved away to spill out beneath the Broad Quay wharves, a tunnel led them into a tiny, damp cellar. In one corner, a narrow wooden staircase climbed to a trapdoor in the ceiling.

  Aidan started up. “Let’s hope this is it.”

  Chapter 24

  With a shove, Aidan dislodged the trapdoor from its frame. He laid aside the wooden planking and poked his head up through the opening. “Hand me back the lantern.”

  When Laurel passed it to him, he reached up to set it on the floor above him before climbing the rest of the way. Pewter light peeked through gaps in the wooden walls around them, signaling the arrival of dawn.

  He helped Laurel up, then drew her into his arms and kissed her soundly. “Thank God we made it out of there in one piece. I’d never have forgiven myself if . . .”

  Her arms around his neck, she smiled broadly. “Don’t think about what might have happened.”

  How could he not? There had been a terrifying moment when his thoughts had slipped out of his control. His mind had run amok with fear, and he had pictured Laurel dying at the hands of those men back in the tunnel.

  Rousseau? He believed so. Fitz? He honestly couldn’t say. All he knew was that while time had hung suspended like a sojourn in hell, he had finally comprehended the despair that had prompted his father to place a pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger.

  He didn’t wish to ever feel that way again. The pain was too great, too crippling. He had made a grave mistake in bringing Laurel with him and he would die before he made the same error in judgment again. He had his life; she had hers. It was time they accepted that those lives were never meant to intersect, and must not do so ever again.

  Outside, the air gradually filled with shouts and rumbles and hammering, the sounds of the dockworkers beginning their day.

  “Come, we’d better be fast before it gets any lighter out.” After closing the trapdoor, he made his way past barrels and crates to the nearest window. The shutters were fastened tightly, secured with brackets and a metal bar, just as he had suspected the morning he had first visited this warehouse.

  Behind him, Laurel asked, “Shouldn’t we see what Rousseau is storing here?”

  It was his turn to smile. They hadn’t discussed what this place could be, but apparently she needed no explanations.

  “If we don’t leave now, someone will see us exiting the place.” Looking about, he spotted a small crate and dragged it over to the window. Sliding the bar from the brackets, he cracked the shutters and peered outside. “Good, it’s the alley and not Broad Quay. I’ll go first and help you out.”

  He stepped onto the crate, levering first his torso and then his legs over the sill. It was a good ten feet to the packed-dirt alleyway below. Lowering his body, he hung by his hands for a moment and then dropped. When his feet hit the ground, he bent his knees and rolled to his back to absorb the impact.

  The sun not yet up, deep shadow draped the alley. Though the clamor of morning activity continued to resonate from beyond the buildings, here all lay still. Nonetheless he huddled close to the wall, listening and searching the immediate darkness for movement. Seeing none, he stood up and faced the window.

  Laurel’s features stood out small and moonlike in the surrounding gloom. He held out his arms. “I’ll catch you.”

  “What about the lantern?” she whispered back.

  “Leave it, it doesn’t matter.” He would have preferred leaving no trace that they had been here, but it couldn’t be helped. There was no way for them to reinsert the bar over the window shutter.

  She threw her cape down to him first. Wrestling with her skirts, she managed to swing her legs over the sill. She lowered herself and hung by her hands as he had done, only longer.

  “I promise I’ll catch you.”

  She let go. Her skirts ballooned, and then her body struck his chest. His arms closed around her and together they fell. His back struck the ground, cushioning her fall but sending bolts of pain through his side.

  Laurel must have heard his grunt, for she instantly rolled off him. “I’m sorry!”

  If his ribs hadn’t been broken previously, they almost certainly were now. “Just help me up.”

  Holding an arm to his side, he crept to the mouth of the alley. Laurel followed close. His back flat to the wall, he inched his head around the corner of the building. A welcome sight sent relief pouring through him.

  On the street, the cabriolet stood waiting. Though the horse appeared to be dozing, Phelps sat alert in the driver’s box. In plain sight, he held his pistol across his thigh as a warning to any who would be tempted by the sight of the costly vehicle.

  “Laurel,” Aidan said, “run.”

  Laurel still hadn’t caught her breath when, some five minutes later, they climbed to the third floor of a tenement building on Avon Street—the same tenement to which she had followed Aidan that day she saw him at the bank.

  He knocked on the door of a flat, sending chipped paint sprinkling the floor at their feet. After some moments a husky voice from inside demanded, “What d’you want?”

  “It’s Barensforth.”

  “Do you know what bloody time it is?” The door opened to reveal an individual who clearly had just dragged himself out of bed. His nightshirt askew, his hair standing up in a dozen different directions, he attempted unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. Yet the sight of Laurel brought a spark of clarity to his eyes. “What the devil?”

  “Don’t worry, she’s working for us,” Aidan said as he pushed past the man and into the room.

  “What he means,” she explained calmly as she, too, crossed the threshold, “is that at the moment you both work for me.” She extended a hand. “I am Laurel Sutherland. How do you do?”

  “Phineas Micklebee, at your service.” He shook her hand, then scratched his head. “I’m clearly still asleep.”

  “This is no dream, and what we discovered last night was no illusion.” Wasting no time in launching into an explanation of their exploits beneath the city, Aidan shrugged out of his evening coat and sank into a kitchen chair.

  His groan sent Laurel to him. She crouched beside his legs and gently laid a hand against his side. “He was injured in a fall,” she
said over her shoulder to Mr. Micklebee. “Have you anything with which we might bind his ribs?”

  “Never mind that, I’ll be fine.” Aidan silenced her protests with a finger across her lips, though a lingering hint of longing in his eye told her he would rather have used his mouth instead.

  “So you believe you heard Rousseau in the tunnels,” the Home Office agent said, working through what they had told him so far. “Are you certain there was only one other individual with him?”

  Laurel took a seat beside Aidan at the table. “Yes, as far as we could tell, but sounds can be deceiving in those tunnels. We only recognized Rousseau because of his accent.”

  “Rousseau has a particular inflection that distinguishes his speech patterns,” Aidan said. “But as far as the other voice, it could have been any Englishman. The echoes made it impossible to differentiate. Although it couldn’t have been Fitz.”

  “How can you be certain?” Mr. Micklebee asked.

  “That stutter of his. I’d recognize it anywhere, even with the echoes.”

  “All right, for now we have identified one participant.” Mr. Micklebee set about lighting his cookstove and readying a pot of coffee. “What did you find in the laboratory?”

  Aidan pushed out a mirthless laugh. “Rousseau is brewing absinthe. That’s the secret of his elixir, the reason people feel invincible and behave recklessly but have no sense of being intoxicated.”

  Laurel questioned him with a frown.

  “Absinthe,” he repeated. “Also known as the Green Lady or the Green Goddess. Far more potent than any wine or even whiskey. Yet for reasons no one quite understands, the mixture of alcohol with wormwood and the other herbs we found produce what’s been termed a ‘euphoric clarity of the mind.’ People under the influence of absinthe are certainly intoxicated, but in such a way that they are fooled into believing their mental capacities have been enhanced, not hindered.”

  “Alchemy of the mind, I’ve heard it called.” Mr. Micklebee joined them at the table while the coffeepot began to hiss aromatic jets of steam.

  Aidan nodded. “Based on the effects Laurel and I experienced, I’d say Rousseau has been lacing his mineral water with just enough of the stuff to bring on a state of exhilaration, without allowing the taste to raise suspicions.”

  “Enough to persuade them of the elixir’s magical qualities,” Laurel added, “and send them straight to the bank to invest in the spa, the only place Rousseau’s elixir will be available.”

  “Except that in the end there will be no such place,” Aidan said. “Only a great deal of disappointment and many depleted finances.”

  “And, of course, a handful of individuals with heavier pockets than they had at the outset,” Mr. Micklebee said in conclusion. Rising, he rummaged up three earthenware cups, filled them with coffee, and passed them around.

  At a knock at the door, the three of them jumped. After last night’s events, Laurel would rather they remained silent until whoever it was gave up and went away, but Aidan and Phineas Micklebee exchanged a guarded look before the latter man rose.

  “Who is it?” he said gruffly through the closed door.

  “Ben, sir.”

  Micklebee opened the door crack. “What’ve you got?”

  “A message, sir.”

  Standing on the threshold was a lad of about seventeen. Laurel caught a quick glimpse of tousled brown hair, ragged clothing, and a pair of faded old boots. A dirty hand extended a folded missive. Mr. Micklebee snatched it and examined the seal before fishing a coin from a pair of trousers slung over the foot of the bed.

  “Thanks, Ben. Come back before noon. I’ll have outgoing for you.”

  “Yes, sir.” With that, the boy turned and left.

  “He’s worked out well for you?” Aidan asked.

  “Ben finds being a courier preferable to life in Marshalsea.” Micklebee used a kitchen knife to slit the seal. “This will take a few minutes.”

  Laurel found his next actions puzzling. Taking a quill and inkpot from a cupboard, he moved nearer to the light seeping through the window and began scratching out words between the lines of the message.

  “May I ask what you are doing?”

  Without looking up from his task, Mr. Micklebee replied, “Code.”

  “What?”

  “It’s written in code,” Aidan said. “Micklebee is making the words coherent.”

  Several minutes later, the agent said, “You were right about the investment firm. Bryce- Rawlings seems only to exist on paper. Our people found nothing at the address on Red Lion Court.”

  “Not surprising.” Aidan stood and went to peer over the man’s shoulder. “Do we know yet who established the company?”

  “No, but . . .” Mr. Micklebee set down his quill. Even in the dim light, Laurel saw the color drain from his face. “You’ll want to sit back down for this, mate.”

  Laurel started at Aidan’s abrupt movement, and in the time it took her to blink, he had taken possession of the letter. “Why the devil should I sit down?”

  He scanned the contents. Then his hand dropped to his side and the paper fluttered to the floor. He turned as white as Micklebee. Whiter.

  His distress brought Laurel to her feet. “What is it?”

  His mouth worked, but no words came out. His features pulled taut. His hands fisted.

  “Aidan, please.”

  The agent stooped to pick up the letter. He gestured to Aidan. “His theory all along has been that if he could discover who owned the warehouse you were in this morning, he’d learn not only who was ultimately behind the Summit Pavilion scam, but also who murdered the MP Roger Babcock. This letter contains the name of that person.”

  “Isn’t it Rousseau?”

  Aidan shook his head. Mr. Micklebee continued. “Rousseau and his elixir are an essential part of the deception, but another financier lies at the heart of the swindle.”

  “Lord Munster, then?”

  The agent started to reply, but Aidan spoke over him. “The name the Home Office found is Melinda Radcliffe, Countess of Fairmont.”

  The bells of Bath Abbey struck nine in the morning, startling Aidan out of his thoughts. The carriage listed as Phelps weaved the cabriolet in and out of slower traffic, and every now and then the manservant shouted for vehicles to move out of the way. Though the quality were still abed or enjoying their breakfasts, the streets of Bath were alive with delivery wagons making their way to the back doors of shops and the service entrances of elegant homes.

  Sitting beside Aidan, Laurel broke the tense silence that had fallen between them. “Where are you taking me now?”

  They had just left Abbey Green, where she had changed her clothes, washed her hands and face, and restored her hair to order. But even Micklebee had agreed that she should not be left alone at her lodging house, not until everyone involved in the Summit Pavilion fraud had been apprehended. And especially not until they learned how Roger Babcock had died. If it hadn’t been an accident—and Aidan was certain it had not—then his murderer could be anyone. Anyone at all.

  Dear God, even Melinda might bear some responsibility for the MP’s death. Aidan refused to believe his godmother could be capable of taking a life, but until he learned the entire truth, even she remained a focus of his suspicions.

  “Somewhere you won’t be alone,” he said. “Not Melinda’s.”

  Under ordinary circumstances, Fenwick House would have been his first choice. Given their situation, he hadn’t yet decided where she would be safest. He had merely told Phelps to head north.

  “I see no reason why I should not remain with you and see this through.” Laurel tilted her chin in a show of stubbornness.

  He gripped the hand strap with undue force as the cabriolet turned a corner. “Yes, well, I can cite several reasons. And I don’t care whose authority you invoke—from now on we’ll do this my way.”

  “I should be present when you confront Melinda.”

  He gritted his teeth and sa
id nothing.

  “Aidan, don’t believe for one moment that she has done anything illegal or immoral. If she purchased that warehouse, it is because she was duped into doing so.”

  “As she was duped into donating her land to the Bath Corporation for the pavilion?”

  Shock turned Laurel’s eyes to saucers. “What?”

  “It’s true.” He sighed and angled a gaze out the window. His insides churned with misery and frustration.

  “That hillside used to belong to the Fenwick estate. So you see, Melinda is waist deep in the mire.”

  Her hand closed around his chin; she turned his face to hers. “There is an explanation.”

  He shrugged.

  “Aidan, stop it.” She framed his face between her palms and set her lips to his, a light, sweet touch that triggered an almost crushing need to pull her into his arms and bury his face in her hair, her neck, her bosom. He kissed her back but resisted the rest.

  He drew back and said, “I’m not going to see Melinda. Not yet. It’s time for me to end a friendship first.”

  “Lord Munster?”

  “I’m going to get the truth out of Fitz if I have to beat it out of him.”

  Her cheeks blanched. “You can’t go there alone,” she whispered. “You said he might have murdered that man.”

  He leaned back against the squabs and gathered her to his chest despite his resolve to begin distancing himself from her. “The thought may have crossed my mind, but I don’t believe it. I’ve been shadowing George Fitzclarence for over three years now.”

  Somehow his fingertips found their way to her hair. He stroked reassurances while being careful not to dislodge the newly arranged curls from their pins. “He has trusted me, and I probably know him better than most of his siblings. He may be an unprincipled scoundrel, but he simply isn’t the murdering kind.”