In Pursuit of a Scandalous Lady

by Gayle Callen

  The innkeeper snorted, but was persuaded to give them directions.

  Out on the busy street, Julian said, “It’s too far to walk. We’ll have to hire a hackney. And that will leave us precious few coins for tonight.”

  She slid her hand into his arm. “Should we wait until tomorrow? We can earn money then.”

  He frowned at her. “We will be doing no such thing.” He looked down the street to where the wharves along the canal streamed with cargo. “I can’t sit here and wait. Perhaps we can learn something at this institution.”

  It took over an hour to reach the Royal Manchester Institution in heavy traffic, but they were in luck. Artists from all over the city sold their wares outside the impressive multi-columned building. With just a few questions, they found that many people wanted to talk about the growing fame of Manchester’s native son, Roger Eastfield. Soon, they even learned the name of the street his mother lived on, and the fact that Roger was still in town.

  “The directions put it only a half hour’s walk from here,” Julian said, tamping down his eagerness.

  “But if we’re out after dark…”

  He looked down, surprised by her hesitation. “Don’t you want to know the truth at last?”

  “I do, but we aren’t the only ones who know I wore the diamond in the painting.”

  “More than enough reason to get to Eastfield and warn him,” he said grimly. “And I’ll protect you along the way.” A growing feeling of urgency could not be denied.

  She seemed unconvinced, but nodded her acceptance of his plan.

  Twilight began to overtake the streets as they walked. At least they were in a more middle-class neighborhood, where little gardens lined alleys behind small houses.

  Someone brushed by them on a run, and Julian braced himself to deal with a pickpocket, but it was a grown man, respectably dressed, clutching his hat to his head. Soon two children passed them as well, followed by a woman, who didn’t yell at them to stop.

  “What is going on?” Rebecca asked in confusion.

  Before Julian could answer, someone shouted, “Fire!”

  And then Julian’s sense of unease changed into fatalism. “Hurry!” he said to Rebecca. As he gripped her arm, he forced her to increase her pace to match his.

  To the north, the darkening sky began to give way to a pale, unnatural brightness.

  “Oh my,” Rebecca breathed. “You don’t think—”

  She broke off, saying nothing else, even as they both began to run. At the end of the corner, they saw a growing crowd of people gathered across the street from a two-story home. Smoke poured out of the windows, but they could not yet see fire. The fire brigade hadn’t yet arrived to combat it.

  No one seemed to know if anyone was inside, but all agreed that this was the Eastfield home. Rebecca stared up at it in dismay.

  “Follow me!” Julian said, pulling her away and down the next alley.

  She didn’t question him when he reached the garden behind the threatened home. The gate was unlocked, and they were able to approach the rear entrance. Julian flung the door back and dark smoke billowed out, rumbling like an old man’s belch.

  Rebecca grabbed his arm. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t go in there!”

  “I must.” He pulled the scarf from around his neck, dipped it in the small fountain, and tied it around his neck, ready to pull it up over his mouth and nose.

  Her eyes were wide with terror. “You could be killed! We have the jewel—what more do you need?”

  “People could be trapped, Rebecca.”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, even as she clutched her hands together. Frantically, she seemed to search the back of the house. “Look in the windows first!”

  “No time.” He gripped her upper arms and gave her a little shake. “Stay here—promise me!”

  Somewhere in the distance, they heard the clang of a fire engine, then the shouts of the crowd at the front of the building and the growing din of a house about to die.

  “I—I promise,” she cried, then flung herself against him.

  He cupped her head to tilt her face to his and kissed her roughly, passionately. The wetness of her tears touched him, created the first open wound of tenderness for her. And then he pushed her away, pulled the wet scarf over his lower face and ran inside.

  Immediately he ducked low as the smoke rose in a haze, getting trapped up at the ceiling. Somewhere he could hear the crackle of flames, but he couldn’t see fire yet. He almost wished he could, for the lack of light made maneuvering difficult. Blindly, he ran with his arms forward to protect himself from running into furniture.

  “Eastfield!” he shouted, but his voice seemed swallowed by the dull roar of fire, closer and closer to him.

  Then he stumbled over a body lying on the floor. Using his hands, he could tell it was a woman dressed in plain clothing, perhaps a servant. She was already unresponsive. Dead from the fire?

  But he felt the stickiness of blood on her forehead. She’d been injured—but the house had not yet begun to come down around them, although it groaned in protest at the blazing siege.

  Had this woman been deliberately harmed? If so, that meant the fire wasn’t an accident.

  He left her behind, heading to the front of the house, hoping that someone would be in the lower rooms, for he didn’t know if he could make it up to the first floor.

  When he reached the front hall, flames flickered around the edges of an open doorway. Heat wafted out at him in waves, making the skin of his hands and face feel seared. On the far wall, fiery draperies framed the front windows in which glass was starting to pop. The flames had traveled over the ceiling, licking toward the hall—and Julian—like the grasping hands of the devil.

  There were two more bodies on the carpeted floor.

  Hunched over, he raced into the room and dropped to his knees. The man stared sightless up at the ceiling, flames glistening in his lifeless eyes. He, too, had suffered a fatal wound to his head. There was nothing that Julian could do.

  Next to the dead man lay a gray-haired woman, her body half covering his as if she’d clutched him in grief. Then she groaned, coughing feebly. Julian didn’t hesitate—he scooped her into his arms and started to run back the way he’d come. The front entrance was surely closer, but the flames from the parlor had already reached it.

  His eyes streamed tears, his lungs began to burn with the smoke that seeped through the wet scarf. He heard a crash behind him, felt a wave of blown heat, but he didn’t look over his shoulder. He vaulted over the dead servant, his eyes straining for the rear entrance.

  And then he was out into the garden, the dark, cold sky of night above him, lit from behind by the fire.

  “Julian!” Rebecca screamed his name, her voice full of relief and tears.

  Dazed, he let her guide him to the back of the garden, away from the dangerous home being consumed.

  “Set her here,” Rebecca said, gesturing to a bench.

  He did so, even as his protesting lungs began to cough. He tore the scarf from his face, then braced his hands on his thighs, coughing and coughing until he thought his lungs would burst. He vaguely watched Rebecca on her knees beside the old woman. She was holding the woman’s head to the side while she, too, coughed weakly. The sound rattled in the woman’s lungs in a way that didn’t bode well.

  When at last her body seemed to wilt as the onslaught of coughing weakened, the old woman murmured, “Roger…Roger…”

  Rebecca looked questioningly at him over her shoulder, and Julian pressed his lips together grimly as he shook his head.

  “I am so sorry about your son, Mrs. Eastfield,” she murmured. “But you must be quiet now and gather your strength.”

  Mrs. Eastfield pushed at her soothing hands. “For what? There’s nothing…left. I was…already dying, but I never thought…that my poor boy would leave this earth before I.” She closed her eyes and wept silent tears, her body shaking.

  �
�The flames didn’t kill Roger,” Julian said as he knelt beside Rebecca. “Something else did.”

  Rebecca gasped as she searched his face, but didn’t interfere.

  “Murdered,” the old woman said, her voice raspy. “Murdered…right in front of me. Oh God…” She started coughing again.

  The sounds of a clanging siren had grown louder, the roar of the fire beginning to compete for attention. But no one came back into the garden. Julian knew the firemen would be most concerned with keeping the fire from spreading to the houses on each side.

  “She needs help,” Rebecca said urgently. “We can find out about Roger later.”

  “There won’t be a ‘later,’” he murmured.

  Mrs. Eastfield lifted her head. “Roger?…Did you know my son?”

  Rebecca took Julian’s wet scarf and tried to dab at the old woman’s sooty face, but she pushed her away.

  Rebecca sighed. “I knew him in London, Mrs. Eastfield. He was a gifted artist.”

  “Then you…should know. You can tell…the police. My son was…murdered.”

  “You can tell them yourself,” Rebecca said gently.

  “No! I…I’m dying. I have been for a long time. I need you to know…what happened!”

  The old woman flailed, agitated, setting off her coughing again, as Julian met Rebecca’s frightened, sad, eyes.

  “We’ll listen,” he said, putting a hand on Mrs. Eastfield’s bony shoulder. “Tell us what you can.”

  They fetched water from the well in the rear of the garden, propped the woman on Julian’s folded coat, and after several sips she began her halting story.

  “Three men burst in…demanding he tell them about a necklace, a diamond. Roger…Roger said he didn’t know what they were talking about, but…they hit him”—she gave a weak sob—“and he admitted that he’d had it. Said it was paste—paste! But they didn’t believe him…and at last, even I believed that it was…priceless. But poor Roger had lent it…to one of his models. Oh God, they hit him again. The man…in charge…said it was his, that Roger had only been hired to paint his wife…and said my boy had stolen it.”

  Julian exchanged a quick glance with Rebecca. A tear tracked through the dirt on her face as she stared down at the fading old woman.

  “Roger…wasn’t a thief! Oh God, they kept hitting him, and…at last he admitted the man’s wife had given him the jewel. The man…wouldn’t believe it…and Roger was forced to say he’d been…intimate with the woman. She said…she was bored with the diamond. I never saw such…fury and hatred…in a man. He refused to believe the words, said his wife told him Roger had stolen it…and he hit my boy, hit him hard with a vase. He didn’t move again…my poor boy…”

  Her next cough was far weaker, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Every breath was a gasping effort.

  Rebecca was openly crying. “Mrs. Eastfield, you must rest.”

  “Too late,” she moaned, her head rolling back and forth. “Too late. They didn’t care…about me. I clutched my boy even as they set fire to my home to…hide what they’d done.”

  “Do you know who they were?” Julian asked urgently.

  She shuddered, her body arching. “Windebank,” she whispered. “They called him…Windebank. He said…he was going…home. Oh, Roger—Roger—” Then she collapsed back onto the bench and became still.

  In that moment of silence that cocooned them, they both stared at the woman’s body. Rebecca sniffled and rubbed at her eyes. Julian felt frozen, stunned, telling himself to think logically, calmly, even as a rising tide of fury seemed to choke him.

  “Julian?” Rebecca said, shaking his arm. “What is it? Do you know that name?”

  “My uncle,” he said between clenched teeth. “He’s my uncle.”

  Chapter 15

  Still on her knees, Rebecca gaped up at Julian, his expression harsh and forbidding. With his dark features and heavy brows, the width of his shoulders, he looked like a man to be feared. But she didn’t fear him.

  She was angry with herself, had stood outside a burning building and let him take all the risk, wondering if she’d ever see him again. He’d coddled her, as she’d allowed everyone in her family to do for her entire life. A person of action would make her own choices. Instead of proving that she could be his partner, she’d wrung her hands and waited while terror and helplessness choked her.

  Now he faced a revelation that might be worse to him than the danger of a burning building. An ache of worry and sympathy tied a knot beneath her breastbone. He finally had a connection to the theft of the diamond—and it was within his family.

  Had his own uncle stolen the Scandalous Lady?

  Before she could speak, she heard a crash at the back of the garden near the alley. Julian came swiftly to his feet and began to run. The growing fire lit the night, throwing wild shadows against the garden wall. A tall bush shuddered back and forth, although there was no wind.

  Rising, she watched in amazement as Julian flung himself toward the bush. It bore his weight, and he swiftly scaled it so that he could look over the wall. He froze, suspended, and she thought he might throw himself over and leave. But instead, he lowered himself back to the ground and returned to her.

  “What did you see?” she cried.

  “A man at the far end of the alley. Running away from the fire. It would have been useless to chase him.”

  “Why would you have even considered it?” she asked.

  “I think he was left to watch for the fire, to make certain no one escaped alive. He also could have been ordered to look for us.”

  She swallowed heavily and shuddered. “On orders from—Windebank?”

  Julian shrugged and said nothing.

  She looked down at the poor dead woman. “We must do something for her.”

  “It’s too late to help her, Rebecca.”

  “But—”

  “They’ll think she crawled out of the fire only to die. We can’t involve ourselves. Can you imagine the questions?”

  “But we have some of the answers! It was all about this—” She broke off, putting a hand to the hidden jewel at her throat. It almost seemed to burn her, as if men killing for it made it evil.

  “Windebank will soon know we were here. We can’t waste time, or he’ll find some way to elude punishment. And do you want the world to know of our involvement—together?”

  “It isn’t about us, or some foolish notion of impropriety!” she cried, rocking back in outrage.

  “I don’t want it to be about our deaths either!”

  She stared up at him, with no way to counter such a truth. She watched in shock as he knelt down and gently lifted Mrs. Eastfield’s head so that he could retrieve his coat.

  “No one can know we were here,” he murmured, looking at Rebecca with his piercing gray eyes. “Come with me.”

  She didn’t hesitate—what would be the point? Climbing to her feet stiffly, slowly, she didn’t protest when he took her arm and half lifted her. He grabbed their portmanteau, and they went out through the garden gate to walk several blocks away from the fire.

  “Where will we go?” she asked at last. His face was so forbidding that she wished to distract him—for the moment. But they would soon have to discuss what they’d learned. He needed to talk about it, though she sensed he wouldn’t want to.

  “We can’t afford the inn where the wagon left us,” he said.

  “Can there be any place worse than that?” she asked with faint sarcasm.

  He nodded. “A lodging house in a poorer section of the town.”

  “Will it have food?”

  At last he seemed to really see her. “No. We’ll look for a tavern after we make arrangements for the night.”

  As the last gray of twilight faded, they found a lodging house where Rebecca saw a truth she’d never imagined before. Each floor was one open room, and people of both sexes, even children, slept wherever they could, on pallets and bedding or even on straw. Though the windows and doors were ope
n, the smell made her nauseous. Several candles guttered on broken crates, and she could see more than one child stare at her listlessly.

  “I’m sorry,” Julian said in a low voice. “We have barely enough coins to eat.”

  “Don’t apologize. It isn’t your fault.” She clutched his arm when a rat boldly scurried past them. “Can we find a tavern before we sleep?”

  “Of course. But first I have to clean off this soot.”

  He paid a halfpenny for some rags and a basin, and drew up water from the well in the middle of the courtyard shared by all the surrounding tenements. He washed his face as best he could, then she took the rag from him and searched for the last smudges he’d missed. He watched her, his face so close to hers, those opaque eyes revealing nothing. One eyebrow seemed singed at the end, and he had several red patches on his hands and face. He’d come so close to being seriously injured.

  “I can’t wear this filthy shirt,” he said, and pulled it over his head.

  She felt flushed with embarrassment that he should be half clothed so openly, but of course anyone here who saw him thus would be suitably wary before challenging him. She bit her lip and said nothing as he pulled out his only fresh shirt from their sack. How could she clean them while staying in such a place?

  At last he put his arm around her and she welcomed his strength and protection as they left the lodging house. She felt abashed that in all her dreams of grand adventures, she never imagined what some people had to live with every day, with never a hope to escape. And what did she want to escape…parties where she ate the best food, wore the most expensive clothing? She wanted to bury her face against him so she wouldn’t have to confront the truth about herself.

  To her surprise, a nearby tavern proved half decent, and several cleanly dressed women were sitting among the men, eating. When Julian would have taken any table, Rebecca asked the barkeep for one in the back, where they could have privacy. Again, they sat in a settle, whose high wooden back protected their conversation from the table behind them. In front of them was the hearth with its coal grate empty on the warm spring evening. The room was large and noisy enough that people across the room would never be able to hear them—not that anyone looked their way.