The Secrets of a Lady tj-1

by Jenna Petersen

  His thin lips pulled back from his teeth. “Probably. And this is one monster you should fear. Not many people get to look their killer in the face, Audrey. Enjoy the knowledge of your fate.”

  ***

  Even in the study Griffin and Noah heard the pounding on the door.

  “What on earth is that?” Griffin asked.

  “Sounds like the front door, but if it is, it certainly isn’t a respectable guest. Who knocks like that?” Noah crossed over to the door to open it. He stepped into the hall with Griffin close behind.

  They watched as the annoyed butler sprinted to the door and wrenched it open.

  “My God.” Noah hurried forward.

  Griffin craned his neck to see around his friend and what he saw made his blood run cold. Hannah lay in a heap on the front step.

  In two steps, he was kneeling beside the woman. “Is she injured?”

  The two men exchanged a glance of horror as they both barked out, “Where’s Audrey?”

  Noah slowly rolled the woman over and she opened her green eyes. “Hello Noah,” she said with a weak smile. “Do you think you could pry this gun out of my hands? Ever since I used it to kill that bloke who tried to murder me, I’ve been too frightened to let it go. Now I don’t seem to be able to.”

  Griffin’s eyes immediately went to her small hands. Sure enough, a pistol was clutched in the grip of her left hand, while her right arm hung useless at her side, held up only be a crude sling made from… from a strip of fabric from the beautiful amethyst gown Audrey had been wearing earlier in the day.

  “Bring her inside!” he ordered as Noah pulled the weapon from the woman’s hand and gave it to a chambermaid who looked as though she was ready to swoon at any moment. “You, get some hot water and some bandages,” he barked to the nearest person. “You, fetch a doctor!”

  Following Noah into the parlor, Griffin helped his friend lay the weak woman across the settee. His heart was racing as he wondered where Audrey was, though he already knew the answer. Ellison. Ellison had her. The only question was, was she in worse shape than Hannah?

  Noah pushed a few sweaty strands of hair from Hannah’s face. “Tell me what happened.”

  She told the story quickly, all the way up until Ellison’s order to kill her.

  “How did you manage to escape?” Griffin nodded to the girl who’d brought them bandages. He handed them to Noah, who removed the sling made from Audrey’s hemline. When he handed the torn fabric to Griffin, the two men locked eyes. Then Noah turned away, his face ashen.

  “I still had one good arm and two legs,” Hannah chuckled. “The poor boy never saw it coming from a woman. I’m afraid he wouldn’t listen to reason once I had the gun away from him, so I had no choice but to shoot him.”

  Griffin couldn’t help but smile at the bravery of the woman lying before him. Though it was obvious she was in great pain, she’d fought like a wildcat and come out the victor.

  “I realize you’re hurting and you just want to give in and sleep,” Noah said gently. “But I need to know one thing. Where is Audrey? Is she hurt?”

  Hannah’s eyes began to glaze over. “He hit her.”

  Griffin winced, hating that the woman he cared for had been hurt. Helplessness was the worst feeling in the world.

  “But is she hurt beyond that?” Noah pressed. “Try to remember.”

  There was a long pause as Hannah seemed to search for words. “He took her away. I could hear her telling him where he could go the whole way down the hall.” Hannah smiled. “One of the men said something about St. James Park.”

  Noah jumped to his feet. “Very good, Hannah.”

  Turning to Griffin, he said, “I need to go find Lord Golding and let him know of the situation. We’ve lost a great deal of time as it is, but we can still assemble a few men and save my sister. You stay here and make sure Hannah is treated by the doctor.”

  “Like hell!” Griffin shook his head. “Either I’m going with you or I’m going to that park. I’m not going to stand here while the woman I…”

  He trailed off and turned away from Noah.

  Noah arched an eyebrow. “The woman you what?”

  “Never mind. The point is, I’m going to help her.” Griffin’s head reeled from new emotions and fear for Audrey’s safety.

  Noah put his hands on his hips. “If you were going to say the woman you love, I must say two things. One, it’s about time you realized this. Two, your feelings are all the more reason for you to stay here. Rushing in with too much emotion could put Audrey in more danger. Leave this to the men who were trained for it.”

  “No! I-”

  Noah scowled. “You’re wasting time. Don’t argue with me.”

  His friend hurried from the room with no further discussion. Griffin glanced down at Hannah, who had slipped into a pain-induced unconsciousness.

  “Fine, my friend,” he muttered as he heard the front door slam and Noah calling for his horse in the courtyard. “I won’t argue. But I never agreed, either.”

  ***

  Audrey had never seen St. James Park so crowded. Thousands of people milled around her, but no one seemed to notice her torn gown or disheveled hair. She’d long ago given up calling for help when she realized most of the crowd thought she was a light skirt paying her vowels with the money she made from drunken revelers.

  “Stop pulling, will you?” she snapped. “You’ll rip my arm out of the socket.”

  Ellison turned to glare at her. “Where you’re going, it won’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  His malicious tone frightened her into silence, but she noticed he didn’t pull her nearly as hard as he had been moments before. They weaved in and out of the crowd, going always forward, but toward what she couldn’t tell. She was just too short to see over the throng.

  Finally they ascended a small hill in the middle of the park and she caught a glimpse of their destination through the trees, a giant, gas-lit pagoda that graced the center of the park. The yellow and black shrine sat on the bridge over the canal where rowboats had already begun the reenactment of the Battle of the Nile. The cheers of the crowd were deafening as they drew nearer, near enough that she could see the pagoda’s blue trim in the moonlight.

  Ellison opened up a small door at the base of the structure and shoved her inside with little fanfare. “In we go.”

  “What are we doing here?” she asked, looking around her as Ellison pulled the door behind them. The pagoda was enormous with a winding stairway that lead to the top high above.

  “Well, you are dying,” he explained with a chuckle as he hurried her to the stairs and urged her up with a series of jabs with his pistol. “And I am about to kill the Prince.”

  “From this distance?” She looked out of the small windows in the structure as they wound their way up floor after floor. “You don’t even have a rifle.”

  “No,” he admitted. “But I’ll give the signal that the games are to begin. Then my men will do the rest.”

  Audrey’s stomach lurched. If it was too late for her, she swore she’d keep Ellison from doing any more harm than he already had. She whirled on him with venom in her eyes.

  “Why? You’re a successful businessman with some level of acceptance in the ton. Why are you plotting to kill the Prince Regent? What will you obtain from all of this?”

  “I wondered when you’d ask me why.” He placed a hand on her shoulder to push her down to a sitting position on the top floor of the pagota.

  She followed his painful order with a glare, but didn’t fight back. Now wasn’t the right time, though it was close. If she could get him talk until he was distracted, she could strike.

  “It’s complicated, my dear,” he said, as he glanced down on the revelers below while he continued to keep an eye on her. “You wouldn’t understand all of it. You were raised in privilege. You never wanted for anything. But I had to raise myself up in the world. My mother was a common whore,” he accentuated the word with a hiss. “My
father her ‘protector’ until she told him she was carrying a child. Whatever protection he’d given her departed with him. I swore I would never depend on anyone as long as I lived. I stole to get where I am, I sold my soul.”

  Audrey wrinkled her brow. “But what does that have to do with our future king?”

  He scowled. “The war with France brought me my fortune. It began with the simple buying and selling of commissions in the army. Then I realized there was more that could be done. I ventured into shipping, loading up boats and charging the military to transport them, then hijacking the shipments myself and calling it the dangers of the sea and war. I then sold the materials to the other side. There’s more profit to be made than you realize.”

  She shook her head in disgust. The man was so driven by money that it sickened her.

  “When the war ended in April, most of my wealth was cut off. I still had legitimate businesses, of course, but none brought in the cash I desired. I made contact with a group of men who are trying to bring Napoleon back to power. They agreed to give me an enormous sum of money to assassinate the Prince.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I can’t lose. The nation will go back to war, which is profitable to me, and I receive the bonus this group has offered me.”

  Audrey drew in a sharp breath. “So all this…” She waved her hand around the empty building. “The plots, the murder? It’s all for money?”

  “Not you.” He crouched down to touch her face. She moved away, but he grasped her cheeks and held her in place. “What was happening with you was all too real. You offered me position and money, but I also wanted you. But you’ve ruined it all now.”

  With a sigh of disgust, he thrust her face from his hand and strode over to the window again.

  “You won’t get away with this,” she said. “Even if you can kill the Prince, there will be a manhunt for you. You won’t be able to get out of London fast enough.”

  “Except that one of my ships waits for me even as we speak,” he murmured, still looking away from her though she sensed he was concentrating on her very closely. “There will be so much turmoil after the Prince is dead that I’ll have plenty of time to escape. I’ll be in France before anyone realizes what has happened. And then there will be so much infighting over who should rule the country that I’ll be a mere spot in the distance.”

  Audrey frowned at the truth in his words. Princess Caroline and her daughter Charlotte would pick fights with the Dukes. Everyone would rush to marry and produce the next heirs to the throne. The country would be in turmoil.

  “All I need to do is shut off the gas and the plan will be set into motion.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “The pagoda can be seen from all over the park. The second it goes dark, my men will strike,” he said with a smile as he strolled over to the covered flame in the middle of the room. The fire was large enough to hide the gas source beneath.

  As he bent to cut off the source, Audrey leapt to her feet and charged him with a guttural yell.

  “Not unless you kill me first!” she screamed as she threw herself onto the man’s back.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Griffin spun around in a circle looking for Audrey. It was impossible with the people all around him surging up to block his view. With the throng screaming out at every volley and boom of the battle reenactment in the canal, he couldn’t even try to listen for her voice if she was calling out. His frustration was at a peak, for he knew with each moment he couldn’t find Audrey she was in greater danger.

  Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the glowing pagoda on the bridge in the center of the canal. That would be the perfect place to survey the entire park for Ellison and Audrey. At least it would give him a better vantage point than he had from the ground.

  Using elbows and sometimes a few well-aimed boot toes, Griffin made his way through the crowd. They were a good-natured bunch due to all the alcohol they had consumed during the festivities. Most laughed when he pushed them aside. He was happy for that. The last thing he needed was a fight, as much as he wanted to hit something.

  Finally he stood at the bottom of the pagoda. It rushed up high above his head, as tall as, and even taller than most buildings in London. He was surprised the small door on the West side was cracked open, he’d been sure he’d have to break it down to enter.

  Thankful for this one piece of good luck, he stepped in. The interior consisted of a wide staircase that spiraled toward the top. Because the enormous building was so empty, every noise echoed around him. As he started to climb the first few stairs, he thought he heard a sound. Freezing, he listened.

  “No!” came a scream from above.

  Audrey!

  He almost shouted her name before he realized he had the upper hand. If Audrey and Ellison were fighting then the villain wouldn’t hear him approach.

  He climbed the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. Griffin damned each of the seven stories as he climbed ever higher. Finally he reached the landing that supported the gas lighting structure in the center.

  “Get off me, you bitch!” Ellison yelped from within. “Stop your biting!”

  Then there was a smack and a thud. With a curse, Griffin burst into the room to see Audrey on the floor. Despite a bruised cheek and bleeding lip, she was struggling to her feet to charge at her captor again, while Ellison desperately fiddled with the pagoda’s gas lighting.

  “Audrey!” he called out as he hurried toward her.

  “Griffin!” Her voice was a mixture of relief and shock. When he took a step in her direction she held up both hands as if to ward him off and said, “No, not me, him! If he snuffs out the light they’ll assassinate the Prince.”

  Griffin pivoted on one heel and immediately switched his focus to Ellison. He charged toward the other man and took great satisfaction when he knocked him from his feet. With a grunt, he flipped the man over and punched him squarely in the face. Ah, that’s what he’d been waiting to do for weeks.

  “There will be no holding back, Ellison,” he growled as the man blinked up at him in surprise. “I should have finished this the night of the ball.”

  “He’s got a gun, Griffin!” Audrey pulled herself to her feet and took a step toward them.

  Griffin turned his head in her direction. Her warning still rung in the barren room around them as he felt the cold steel of a gun barrel press into his neck.

  “I should blow your head off right now,” Ellison said. He sneered as he wiped the line of blood from his face. “I’d take great pleasure in that.”

  “Griffin,” Audrey whispered, her blue eyes filling with tears.

  He was going to die and hadn’t even told Audrey he loved her. That he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life.

  “I’ll be fine. If he was going to shoot me, he’d have done it already,” he taunted, hopeful he would draw enough attention away from Audrey that she could escape to find Noah.

  But instead of edging toward the stairway, Audrey stood just where she was, watching the two men square off with horror in her eyes.

  Ellison chuckled. “Don’t be so sure. I still may. In fact, I probably will. But timing is everything, isn’t it?”

  Griffin joined in with the laughter in hopes it would appease Ellison. The other man began to bend sideways to turn off the gas supply to the light. Just as his hand touched the lamp switch, Audrey let out a scream. Griffin took advantage of Ellison’s distraction to throw another punch that dropped Douglas to the ground. The gun spun out of his reach, clattering as it bounced down the stairs.

  As Ellison fell back, his foot caught on the lamp edge, flipping the fire on its side and catching Ellison’s pant leg on fire at the same time. He let out a blood-curdling scream and tried to beat out the flames. As he thrashed and yelled, Audrey covered her ears in the corner.

  “Put him out!” she screamed. “Put him out!”

  “I’m trying,” Griffin grunted, trying to turn over the burning man. His flailing mad
e it difficult.

  “Hold still.” He pounded out the fire that had burned Ellison’s legs so badly.

  The flames were quickly spreading across the floor toward the stairs. “This whole place is going to go up.”

  Griffin stared down at Ellison. The man was badly burned and had lost consciousness from the pain. As much as he wanted to leave him behind, Griffin couldn’t. He turned to Audrey as he scooped the limp Ellison over his shoulder.

  “Go! I’ll carry him down after you,”

  She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then ran, hurrying down the stairs as the fast-burning fire trailed after them, devouring the dry wood, paper and chemicals that made up the pagoda.

  “Be careful,” she warned, “The stairs are starting to buckle under my weight.”

  “Just keep moving, sweetheart.”

  Griffin tossed a glance at the limp man in his arms. If the stairs were having trouble with Audrey, how would they handle two full-grown men?

  Blocking out the thought, he hurried down behind her, coming ever closer to the bottom. They were only about two stories up now, but the fire was blazing hot above them. With each step the stairs creaked and moaned under his feet. Audrey had gotten ahead of him and stepped off the last stair. Turning, she glanced up at him.

  “Get out!” he said, “Get out before you…”

  He never finished the sentence. At that moment, the stairway gave way under his feet, sending him crashing downward in a pile of rubble and fire.

  Audrey’s scream seemed very far away from him as he hit the ground hard. His breath was knocked from his lungs as a hail of wood and embers covered him.

  When he’d finally regained his breath, he called out weakly, “Just go. I can make it out myself.”

  Of course, she didn’t listen. Both annoyance and relief surged through him as she picked her way into the flaming rubble. Tears streamed down her grimy face as she ran to his side.

  “Are you trapped?” She pulled dusty beam fragments from him.

  “No.” He coughed and his lungs ached with inhaled dust and smoke. He took her proffered hand and rose to his feet. The second he tried to put weight on his right leg, pain shot from his ankle to his knee.