by The Rogue
The flunky aimed and Ethan saw his finger tighten on the trigger.
A shot rang out.
The man opposite Ethan went spinning off to one side, his shot going wild. Another one of Maywell’s men dropped from the wild bullet.
His opponent had been shot. Ethan didn’t try to analyze any further than that. He turned and discharged his black powder charge into the face of the man at his right.
With a roar, the man staggered back, clawing at his face. Ethan used the spent pistol to cosh the bloke over the head. Out of ideas, he threw the pistol wildly at the man to his left. Incredibly, it hit him square in the forehead, taking him down like a sawn tree.
Unarmed again, Ethan rolled out of the way of the firefight. When he reached the cover of the trees and darkness, he circled around the clearing to where he thought his mysterious rescuers might be.
There was only one man, standing in the shadows, juggling what looked to be at least four pistols, his silver hair gleaming in the light of the remaining torches.
“Jeeves?”
The butler turned. “Good evening, sir—”
Ethan saw one of Maywell’s men rise and aim. “Jeeves, get down!” He threw himself at the butler.
Something hard hit him, spinning him away from Jeeves. The butler jumped up and fired, then ran to where Ethan lay on the ground.
“Ouch,” Ethan said faintly, clutching his arm. “That smarts.”
“Yes, sir. I imagine so, sir.” Jeeves helped him to his feet.
“Well, what do you know,” Ethan gasped. “Winged in a duel in Hyde Park. All my gentlemanly aspirations have finally come true. My father would be so proud.”
The clearing was pandemonium. Men were shooting in every direction, waving pistols and torches and shouting. Apparently only that one man had had the sense to figure out where the bullets were coming from and he was on the ground, not saying much.
“Come, sir. This way.” Jeeves made to guide Ethan from the park.
“Jeeves, no. He still—” Ethan staggered. “He still has Lady Jane!”
Jeeves pulled him on. “I don’t believe he will harm her, sir.”
“No, Jeeves! I can’t let him put her back in Bedlam, I—”
Other hands had him now, larger, stronger ones he couldn’t resist. They rushed him into a waiting carriage that sped off down High Street, leaving the park and Jane far behind.
Ethan stumbled into the Liar’s Club on Jeeves’s arm. There was no one in the public area, for it was nearly dawn. Even the rotters were in bed at this hour.
Not so the men in the back room. Several jumped up to help Ethan to a chair without so much as demanding explanation.
In a moment, more men rushed in, some clad in dressing gowns and caps. Kurt loomed over Ethan for a long moment before turning away. Relieved, Ethan spared enough energy to wonder where a bloke like that had his nightshirts made. What yardage!
Then the scarred giant was back, this time with a tin pan full of steaming water and gleaming, dangerous bladed instruments. They looked eerily like devices of torture. Ethan began to push himself to his feet. “Sorry, sir. I must be go—”
The room dimmed and slid sideways. Dizzy, Ethan allowed hands to push him back down. Jeeves tugged off his blue coat, now shot through with a bullet hole and soaked with blood that would never come out.
Pity. The room turned another circle. He’d really fancied that coat . . .
Agony ripped through him, starting at his shoulder and echoing through every fiber of his body. He jerked back from the thick, blunt fingers that probed at his wound. The giant pressed him flat again with very little apparent effort and single-mindedly went back to his quest, ignoring Ethan’s incoherent cursing.
Someone tipped brandy into Ethan’s mouth, but he spat it out. He couldn’t allow his mind to dim, not when Jane—
“Jane!” Was that labored croak his own voice? He grabbed at Jeeves with his free hand. “We have to go back for Jane!”
Just then the giant twisted something inside Ethan, rather like a time key of pain, and blackness pulled Ethan in. Even as the room faded, he heard Jeeves’s sedate voice. “Do not worry, sir—we will find her.”
“Jeeves?” he muttered as he faded out. “What are you doing at the club?”
Ethan came to as Jeeves and the giant were wrapping his shoulder. They finished and stepped back.
“Move tha arm,” the giant grunted. After a moment, Ethan decided the man had asked him to try moving his arm. He couldn’t easily, for his shoulder was wrapped tightly, but he rolled it forward slightly. It throbbed fiercely, but Ethan could tell it wasn’t as serious as it had seemed when he was losing so much blood. He looked up at the man. “Thank you, doctor.”
The man grunted and showed several broken teeth. “Doctor.” He grunted again, then turned and walked away without another word. Jeeves nodded serenely. “I believe he likes you, sir.”
Ethan wisely did not comment on that dubious statement. “Jeeves, did I tell you to bring me here?”
The butler looked thoughtful. “No, sir. I don’t believe you did.”
Jeeves had been referred by Lillian something-or-other . . .
Lillian Raines. Just like the school across from the club. And of course, his name wasn’t really Jeeves, it was—
“Pearson.”
The butler raised a brow. “Yes, sir.”
“You’re a Liar, aren’t you?”
Pearson nodded. “In an honorary capacity, yes, I suppose I am.”
Ethan closed his eyes. “Sarah Cook?”
“She and I both work for Sir and Lady Raines, who run the Liar Academy.”
“Uri?”
“Uri works for the Gentleman, sir.”
Ethan’s jaw worked. “Tell me, Pearson . . . are my underdrawers my own, or are they borrowed from the Prime Minister?”
“Only you would know that, sir.”
“Where is Etheridge?”
“His lordship is conferring with some of the men in the next room, sir.”
Ethan rose shakily. Taking a deep breath, ordering his knees to tighten up, he strode into the next room to confront Lord Etheridge.
“How can you just sit here talking when one of your own people is in danger?”
Etheridge turned to him. “Who is in danger?”
“Lady Jane!” God, had no one been listening?
Etheridge tilted his head. “I don’t know Lady Jane.”
Ethan scoffed. “You don’t know anything about Lord Maywell’s niece, the only other spy that the government has been able to place there besides me—”
“What?”
Ethan wavered slightly. Etheridge pushed him toward a chair. “Explain.”
“No!” Ethan stood. “No more explaining, no more testing, no more performing! For God’s sake, just trust me! We have to get Lady Jane out of Lord Maywell’s clutches immediately! If you want your Chimera, Lady Jane is the one who can give him to you!”
Etheridge looked around the room. “You heard the man. Arms and knives.”
He turned back to Ethan. “Where would he take her?”
“Bedlam,” Ethan answered instantly, then hesitated. “But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? The way he told us, repeating it several times—”
“It feels like a decoy?”
Ethan nodded sharply. “Yes.”
Etheridge gazed at him levelly. “Then Maywell House it is.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
When pistols continued to fire, Jane slipped quietly out of the other side of the carriage. Crouching next to the fore wheel, she could see her uncle’s boots silhouetted against the torches. Past that, she could see several men milling around two bodies on the ground.
Neither was wearing a blue coat. Nor was Ethan among the standing. He’d escaped! For a brief instant, Jane indulged in her relief, clenching her eyes shut and pressing her cheek to the cool, gritty rim of the carriage wheel. She’d feigned collapse to fool her uncle, but her head yet ac
hed from his blow.
Then she began to work her way into the darkness, keeping the carriage between her and the men. She crept sideways, unwilling to take her eyes off the clearing for an instant. It was too bad she was wearing such a pale gown. Now would be a very good time to be dressed in a nice sensible brown dress. She could only hope to get out of sight before anyone thought to turn around.
Her heart was pounding with fear and tension and she thought she just might vomit from the strain of seeing Ethan held at gunpoint, but all in all she was doing quite well. Finally she was able to put a small grove of ornamental trees between her and the torches in the clearing. When they blinked out of eyesight, she ran for her life.
She stumbled and fell, rose and ran on. She was less worried about noise than she was about getting as far away from Lord Maywell as possible. There was no time to worry about trying to find Ethan in the darkness. She had no idea which way he’d run in the confusion.
Although the park was cultivated and not very wild at all, the trees were mere dark trunks against deeper night. She was repeatedly slapped across the face by low-hanging branches, but she only ducked and ran on, sweeping her hands before her in the darkness.
Then she heard splashing and the sleepy clucks of waterfowl ahead of her. She tried to remember her excursions to the park. Had she made it to the Serpentine already? She slowed, listening.
The ducks and swans seemed to settle, which only made her wonder what had disturbed them. Her own headlong passage? Ethan? Her heart leapt, then she halted warily. What if it was something more sinister?
For a long moment, the only sounds were the final flutters of sleepy birds and her own labored breathing. Jane turned in a careful circle, all her senses straining. There was no sound of pursuit, no outraged roar from her uncle, no light from hunting torches . . . there seemed to be no one else in all the world.
Jane let out a slow, even breath. For lack of anywhere to sit, she dropped to her knees right where she stood. She let herself simply breathe for a moment, then she pressed cool palms to her hot cheeks.
She had to think. How was she to get herself out of this? Where was she to go? Her uncle would assume she would try to find Ethan, she was sure of that. For her part, she had no objection to doing just that. The only problem was, she had no idea where to look. Ethan was too clever to return to his house now. He would know Maywell would be watching it.
Scratch. Jane jerked back as a small flame flared within feet of her. Blinking against the sudden glare, she scrambled backward, away from the small man who held a burning stick high to light his face.
Jane scrabbled backward over the damp grass until her back came up against a tree. The little man came no closer.
“Oy, there, milady,” he said gently. “No need for that. I’m on the right side, I am.”
“Everyone thinks they’re on the right side,” she pointed out.
The fellow chuckled rustily. Then the small light went out, accompanied by a heartfelt curse from the little man. Taking advantage of his distraction, Jane began to rise, working her way around the tree trunk as she slowly crept to her feet.
Then the small light flared again, catching her in mid-creep. She dropped her hands in frustration. “How do you keep doing that?”
The tattered little man smiled shyly. “The bloke what made ’em calls ’em ‘frickshun’ matches.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what that means, but they sure light up a treat!”
Then he looked around them warily. “I don’t like making so much light out in the open. Will ye come with me? I’ve got a place for you to hide.”
Jane hesitated. The little man was strange indeed, with his tatters and his sweet, broken-toothed smile and his seemingly magical matches—but somehow she was finding it difficult to be frightened. She reminded herself that he could have already alerted Maywell if he’d wished, yet he hadn’t. Now he was offering safety.
She bit her lip, but to be truthful, she didn’t really have anywhere else to go. Slowly, she nodded. He gave her a quick encouraging nod back, then reached for her hand. “I’ve got to lead you, my lady. Sorry, my hands are dirtyish.”
Jane nearly laughed at his gingerly concern, when her own hands were filthy from her own crawling escape. She smiled carefully instead and tucked her hand into his.
He blew out the match, which had been burning much too close to his grubby fingers. “That’s a relief, that is,” he said conversationally in the darkness. “My ’ands are my trade, so to speak. Wouldn’t want to dull my fingers with burns.”
Jane followed him carefully. She didn’t know how he did it, but he managed to lead her without causing her to encounter so much as a fallen stick with her sore banged toes. They moved toward the water, as evidenced by the sponginess of the soil and the small wet sounds of the man-made lake lapping gently at its bank.
The man lifted the hand he held, showing her the obstacle before them. They ducked under something about waist-high. He released her hand and encouraged her to crawl beneath it.
Then he scratched another friction match to life to reveal where they knelt in the mud. “You can wait here while I fetch yer chariot.” He blinked hopefully at her. He really was quite dear.
Jane looked about her in approval. “We’re under the footbridge! How clever.”
She could have sworn the little man blushed as he pulled a stub of candle from his pocket and held it out to her. “It ain’t likely to be seen, if you’re afraid of the dark.”
She almost reached for it, then shook her head. “No, we had best not take that chance. I shall be fine. I’ll stay here and rest until you come back.”
He nodded in approval, then blew out his match once more. “I’ll be comin’ right back for ye, I promise, my lady.”
She heard him crawl out from under the footbridge, but then he was gone as soundlessly as he’d come.
Jane wrapped her arms over her drawn knees and dropped her forehead down. She was exhausted, her wrists throbbed, and she was fairly sure she’d just crawled through swan droppings.
But she was safe, at least for now. She only hoped Ethan was doing as well as she was.
By the time Kurt was out of his nightshirt and the assembled Liars were armed and gathered, Stubbs the doorman stood waiting in the alley behind the club with the reins of several horses held in his blunt fingers.
Ethan blinked at the assembled mounts. “We have horses?”
Dalton nodded as he mounted a black gelding. “After those carriages nearly lost the day for us last time, I looked into buying our own hostelry.” His grin sliced the darkness. “It lies a few streets over, looking like any other. We actually make a bit of money from renting the lesser horses out.”
Ethan gave his mount a sour glance. “Even the horses have secret identities. You lot are mad, through and through.”
Dalton tilted his head. “ ‘You lot’? Don’t you mean ‘we Liars’?”
Ethan only turned his mount away to join the others trotting from the alley’s mouth. As the group took to a canter through the dark streets, Ethan bent low over his horse’s neck and kept to the fore. He didn’t want Lord Etheridge’s camaraderie. All he wanted was large numbers of men and arms to throw at anything that stood between him and Jane.
“We Liars.”
How seductive that phrase was. It was almost enough to make Ethan believe, for just a moment, that he was not alone.
Can you not feel them at your back? You could be one of them if you wished it. This is what it feels like to belong to something larger than yourself.
The siren call of that bond pulled at him. Ethan shut it down cruelly. They did not truly want him, and if they knew how close he’d come to joining Maywell, they would likely kill him.
Yet, for the first time in his life, he did understand what drove men like them. Having a higher goal made everything so clear for the first time in his life. He knew precisely what his purpose was. Jane must be kept safe. And because Jane loved England, Ethan would do whateve
r necessary to keep England safe.
There were no shades of gray any longer.
Jane looked dubiously at her chariot. Her tattered savior had pulled up a moment ago in a squeaking pony cart. In the back of the cart sat a large shabby trunk, the sort that one might take on a long voyage . . . if one were inclined to pack one’s things in a filthy container that had apparently taken part in the fine art of chicken farming. Small downy feathers still clung to the whitish droppings that dotted the interior.
“Swan droppings, chicken droppings,” she murmured to herself as she climbed in. “I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t hire it from an elephant keeper.”
Feebles shook his head quickly. “Oh, no. I didn’t hire the cart. I don’t believe in money, y’see.”
Jane shot the little man a last astonished look before the lid came down, sending her into a darkness even more complete than that of Hyde Park at night. Curled on her side, Jane suddenly wished that the trunk had held an elephant, for then it would be much larger.
She’d never cared much for close spaces before her adventure in the madhouse, but now the tight quarters brought back dark, howling memories of Bedlam and the constant fear that she had not admitted to. She was caged again, helpless, vulnerable—
Breathe. The trunk was solid, but had formed a few gaps between the planks through its hard use and evidently long lifetime. Air seeped in slowly, but Jane found she could breathe well enough, despite the smelly quality.
“I want a bath,” she whispered, just to comfort herself with the sound of her own voice. “I want a bath and a cup of chocolate and a bed with Ethan in it.”
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine those things, and not the way the trunk reminded her of a cage, or a coffin—
“A bath with lavender soap and big fluffy toweling, all warm from hanging about the fire . . .”
The cart began to move and Jane’s discomfort found an entirely new level. She was jostled painfully, portions of her coming into bruising contact with the trunk with every step of the pony.
“I . . . want,” she said between clenched teeth, “an axe!”