The Faithful Siren

by Farmer, Merry

  “I’ll write down the name of the ship you should seek out at St. Katherine’s Dock,” Rufus said, darting ahead of them. “But whatever you do, don’t delay.”

  Thaddeus didn’t need to be told twice. He took Imogen’s hand and marched toward the door. The sooner they slipped in and out of Marlowe House then fled to the ship waiting for them at the river, the better.

  Chapter 7

  Imogen’s confidence was almost restored by the overwhelming support she and Thaddeus found at Caro’s school. For the first time, she was beginning to have more than just faith in Thaddeus’s ability to whisk her away from her horrific life and give her everything her heart had ever desired, she was beginning to see how it would be possible.

  “We need to be careful making our way back to Marlowe House,” she whispered as the two of them rode in one of the school’s carriages. “We do not know when Father and Lord Cunningham will return to the house.”

  “We shouldn’t even let this carriage be seen,” Thaddeus agreed. “The school’s crest on the door will give us away as surely as anything else.”

  “Then what should we do?” Imogen asked.

  Thaddeus’s brow knit in thought for a moment. He glanced out the window at the passing houses, then knocked on the ceiling. “Stop,” he said, leaning his head out the window slightly so the driver would hear him. “Please stop here.”

  The driver brought the carriage to a stop along the side of the road, leaning over to say, “Is there a problem, my lord?”

  Thaddeus was already opening the door and hopping out when he said, “We don’t want the school carriage to be seen by anyone in the house. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

  Imogen scrambled out of the carriage when Thaddeus offered her a hand, her heart knocking against her ribs.

  “Won’t you be even more obvious traveling on foot, my lord?” the driver asked.

  “Not if we sneak in the back way,” Imogen said, taking Thaddeus’s hand. It gave her a thrill to think that she would be the one taking charge for a change. “Thank you for everything,” she called over her shoulder to the driver as she and Thaddeus hurried on.

  They dashed to the end of the street, then crossed over into the mews that led behind her father’s house. It was past midday, and the mews were buzzing with activity. Scullery maids and hall boys from the grand houses on either side of the mews rushed about, emptying slops and dirty wash water. Maids were beating rugs and a few footmen had taken their shoe polishing out to the open air. Every set of eyes widened as Imogen and Thaddeus raced by, but no one tried to stop them.

  “There,” Imogen said at last, when they’d reached the far end of the row. “That one is ours.”

  Thaddeus grinned. “I remember. I would recognize that wall I climbed up any day.”

  Imogen giggled at the memory of Thaddeus’s daring stunt, then blushed and heated all over as everything they’d done that evening flooded back to her. She would have given anything to feel the press of his body against hers again, to taste the salt of his skin. He’d done so much to her while she lay helpless and bound beneath him, but she wanted to do so many things to him in return. There were parts of him that she’d glimpsed in the flickering lamplight that she wanted to explore for hours in all the ways The Secrets of Love had suggested.

  Thoughts of her beloved book and the sisters who had the other pieces stopped her thoughts from spiraling too far out of control. “We have to find a way in that doesn’t put the servants in a dangerous position,” she said as Thaddeus started forward.

  Thaddeus paused and twisted back to face her. “Can’t we just walk in and steal up to your room to fetch your things? I believe there isn’t a soul in your father’s house who wouldn’t help us.”

  Imogen bit her lip. “Father’s valet, Mr. Barker, could cause trouble.”

  “Is he loyal to your father? More than Mr. Monk?”

  “I think he’s more afraid than loyal,” Imogen said, marching forward and past Thaddeus. She had a feeling that her father’s servants already knew they were there, even if none of them were pouring out the kitchen door to greet them. “He’s the only one in the house who might report back to Father that we were here, but even that is bad enough.”

  “Then we’ll need to be careful,” Thaddeus said.

  He took the lead once more, pausing outside of Marlowe House’s kitchen door to peer inside. Whatever hope Imogen had that they could sneak in and out unnoticed was dashed immediately as Dotty, the kitchen maid, came striding out. Her thoughts must have been miles away, because she nearly ran headlong into Thaddeus. She let out a shriek, but quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “It’s only us, Dotty,” Imogen said, rushing forward.

  “Oh, my lady,” the wide-eyed maid said, going pale. “The house has been in such a state since you left. We…we heard you’d run off and disappeared.”

  “Not quite disappeared,” Imogen said. “We need to see Alice.” With a flash of inspiration, she asked, “Can someone be sent to fetch her? And to tell her to bring a few of my things down?”

  Dotty wrung her hands in her apron. “No, my lady. Lord Marlowe locked her in her room and threw away the key. None of the servants is to go above stairs at all, let alone into her room.”

  “No one is allowed above stairs?” Thaddeus seemed encouraged by the idea.

  “That’s what Lord Marlowe said,” Dotty whispered.

  “Is he here?” Imogen asked.

  Dotty shook her head. “He came flying in over an hour ago, as angry as I’ve ever seen a man, my lady. He gave us all a heap of orders, then he and that terrible Lord Cunningham left again.”

  “But this is perfect,” Thaddeus said, his grin widening and calculation lighting his eyes. “If no one is upstairs, we can slip into Alice’s and your rooms and get what we need, then be off and on our way to the docks as fast as lightning.”

  “If we can get past Mr. Barker and the others,” Imogen said.

  “Mr. Barker is in a right state, my lady,” Dotty whispered. “He keeps wailing about duty and being sacked.”

  “Can you keep him and the rest of the staff distracted in the servants’ hall while we slip past?” Imogen asked.

  Dotty looked beyond pleased to be asked to do something so important. She nodded quickly, her cheeks pink with pride. “I can, my lady. For you, I can do anything.”

  Dotty whipped around and disappeared back into the house. Imogen reached for Thaddeus’s hand, squeezing it and wondering what Dotty would do and how she would know when the time was right for her and Thaddeus to dash into the house.

  Her answer came moments later in the form of an almighty crash. Several people raised a cry immediately after, and Thaddeus started into the house, tugging Imogen with them.

  “You useless clod! Look at the mess you’ve made,” the cook, Mrs. Folger, was bellowing in the servants’ hall as Imogen and Thaddeus slipped into the kitchen. “Now we’ll all have to clean it up.”

  Even with the commotion in the servants’ hall, it was a surprise that the kitchen was completely empty. Pots boiled away on the stove and the scent of roasting meat wafted from the oven. Someone should have been minding the food, no matter what was going on in the other room. That alone convinced Imogen that, within the space of seconds, Dotty had enlisted Mrs. Folger’s help to keep everyone distracted.

  Indeed, when she and Thaddeus tiptoed past the doorway to the large room where the servants ate their meals and did their handiwork, the scene they caught a brief glimpse of was nearly comical in its intensity. A massive tureen of stew had crashed to the floor, and every servant in the house seemed to be trying to clean it up at once. In the middle of the group was Mr. Barker, who everyone seemed to be trying to distract. At one point, Mr. Monk straightened and looked right at Imogen. His eyes went wide, and he gestured for her to hurry on her way.

  It was hard for Imogen to keep herself from laughing at the madness of it all as she and Thaddeus tore up the stairs and th
rough a doorway into the main part of the house. She didn’t dare tell Thaddeus how funny and encouraging the thought of the whole thing was, or even where they were going as she took him down the hall to the grand staircase and up to the first floor, where her and Alice’s rooms were.

  “I don’t think Alice would mind if we gathered my things before going to see her,” she finally whispered once they were safe in Imogen’s room.

  “Tell me what to pack and I’ll get a bag ready while you speak with her,” Thaddeus said, dashing to the wardrobe.

  “I don’t care what we bring,” she said, racing to the table beside her bed to snatch up her section of The Secrets of Love. “The more we carry with us, the harder it will be to make a run for it.”

  “You’re right,” Thaddeus said, finding a small sack tucked beneath her gowns in the wardrobe. “But surely a few small items won’t slow us down too much.”

  As he started stuffing the sack with underthings from the wardrobe’s drawers, followed by a couple of her gowns, shuffling came from the other side of the wall that connected Imogen’s room to Alice’s.

  “Is that you, Imogen?” Alice’s muffled voice came through the wall.

  Imogen dashed to the wall and laid her hands on the paper, as if she could reach through to embrace her sister. “It is,” she said. “Oh, Alice, I’m so worried about you.”

  “You are worried about me?” Even through the wall, Imogen could hear the incredulous shock in her sister’s voice. “I’ve been terrified for you since Father came home and said the wedding had been ruined, then locked me in here. What happened?”

  “Thaddeus rescued me from the church,” Imogen said, sending Thaddeus a broad smile as he came forward to take The Secrets of Love from her and slip it into the sack. “I knew he would save me. He is a hero of the finest order.”

  “I would do anything for you, my love,” he said, then stole a kiss that had Imogen’s head spinning.

  “But why are you here?” Alice asked through the wall, unable to see how distracted Imogen had suddenly become.

  Imogen dragged herself away from Thaddeus’s lips to say, “I had to say goodbye to you, to let you know what has happened. And to retrieve The Secrets of Love.”

  “You cannot stay here for a moment longer,” Alice urged her. “Father may be out looking for you, but he could return at any moment. He said he would—”

  “He would not rest until he saw you dead and you married, as you should be.”

  Imogen gasped and whipped around to find her father standing in the door to her room, glowering and murderous. She let out a strangled cry and grabbed hold of Thaddeus’s arm, clinging to him.

  “You won’t get away with this,” her father said, stalking forward, balling his hands into fists. “I refuse to be humiliated in this manner.”

  “Where is Lord Cunningham?” Thaddeus asked, standing straight and tall. He blocked Imogen from her father and radiated confidence, as though ready to fight for her honor until the end.

  “Cunningham is a fool,” her father growled. “He did not believe me when I said you were soft and would return to the house to see your sister.”

  “No, Father, no!” Alice shouted, banging on the other side of the wall.

  “Silence,” her father shouted. Imogen broke out in shivers and Alice went silent.

  “Lord Cunningham is not here?” Thaddeus went on, as confident as ever.

  “No,” her father said. “He—”

  He stopped, his eyes going wide as he realized the situation he was in. Thaddeus acted fast, letting go of Imogen and shooting toward her father. He barreled into him, throwing him back and pinning him against the wall. With a sickening crunch, Thaddeus threw a punch that landed square across her father’s face. Blood poured from his nose onto his fine suit, but Thaddeus didn’t stop there.

  He wrenched her father away from the wall, throwing him toward the bed. “You are a cruel and wicked man,” Thaddeus shouted. “How dare you use your daughters as pawns in your own game?” He threw another punch that sent her father sprawling across the bed. “What sort of a villain treats his own flesh and blood as cattle?”

  He lunged for her father, closing his hands around his neck. Her father made a horrible choking sound.

  Imogen shrieked in fear, then found the words to say, “No, don’t kill him.”

  Thaddeus pulled back, letting go of her father’s neck but keeping him pinned to the bed. “He would kill me.”

  “But you are a better man than he is,” she insisted. “You are not a murderer.”

  Thaddeus snarled for a moment, as if he wished he were capable of murder, then slammed his knee into her father’s groin. Her father bellowed in pain, clutching his privates and rolling to one side.

  “The only reason you will live is because your daughter is an angel,” Thaddeus growled. “But I will give you a taste of your own medicine before I rescue Imogen from your villainy forever.”

  “What are you going to do?” Imogen asked, clasping a hand to her chest, amazed by the turn things had taken. She knew full well that her father was an older man and no match for Thaddeus’s youth and strength, but he had always held such sway over her and her sisters.

  Thaddeus stared at her father’s crumpled form for a moment. A sly grin spread across his face. “I’m going to do the same thing to him that he did to you. I’m going to humiliate him.”

  He lunged for her father once more. Her father flinched, but instead of attacking him, Thaddeus attacked his clothes. He tore away her father’s coat and waistcoat, yanked off his boots, and ripped his shirt and breeches from him. It was disturbing for Imogen to see her father undressed, to see how shriveled and pallid his naked body was. She couldn’t look at him for more than a moment and turned away.

  Only when Thaddeus growled, “There,” did she turn to look again.

  Her father was tied to the bed in much the same way she had been and just as naked. He shivered and whimpered, but didn’t seem to be able to form the words to beg for help. The man that had terrorized her and her sisters so much looked like nothing more than a weak, old man as he lay there, his wrists and ankles tied, weeping.

  “We need to go,” Thaddeus said grimly, marching to pick up Imogen’s sack of belongings and to take her hand. “The tide won’t wait for us.”

  Imogen followed him into the hall and nearly all the way to the stairs before remembering her sister. “Alice,” she said, letting go of Thaddeus’s hand and dashing back to her sister’s door. She tried the handle, but the door was locked.

  “Go,” Alice said from the other side. “Get out of here as fast as you can.”

  “But I don’t want to leave you,” Imogen said, laying a hand flat on the door.

  “You have to go,” Alice said. “Whatever you did to Father in there, he will get free in short order. He won’t admit defeat yet.”

  “She’s right,” Thaddeus sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.

  “You have to get away from here as fast as possible,” Alice went on. “Run fast and run far.”

  “I will come back for you if I can,” Imogen promised. “We three will be together again someday.”

  “We will,” Alice agreed. “But for now, you have to save yourself.”

  It was the hardest thing Imogen had ever done to drag herself away from Alice’s door and to follow Thaddeus back down through the house. They didn’t return downstairs to leave through the kitchen, but rather dashed out through the front door.

  The school’s carriage was still waiting for them where they’d left it. The driver seemed relieved to have them back again.

  “Did you get what you needed?” he asked.

  “We did,” Thaddeus said as he helped Imogen into the carriage. “Now help us get down to the docks as fast as possible.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the driver said with an energetic grin.

  Imogen’s heart felt both heavy and ready to take wing at the same time as she climbed into the carriage. The future lay ah
ead of them, but it was painful to think of Alice and all she was leaving behind.

  Chapter 8

  It came as a shock to Imogen to realize there were vast parts of London that she knew nothing about, in spite of having spent a great deal of her life in the city. The world of the riverfront around St. Katherine’s Dock was like an entirely different country. Even late in the afternoon, it was a riot of activity. Tall ships were lined up in marinas and along the water’s edge like soldiers waiting for battle. Hundreds of rough, muscled men worked to load and unload cargo. Supporting—and sometimes hindering—them were a second army of warehouse workers, women buying and selling wares—even themselves—children who were either playing, working, or thieving, and animals of every description.

  “Surely my father and Lord Cunningham will never find us in this sea of humanity,” she said as the carriage stopped in front of an inn that barely looked respectable.

  “That is why we have come straight here instead of staying at an inn in Mayfair or some other, less colorful section of town,” Thaddeus answered with a wink.

  It was a joy to see his spirits so improved. He hopped down from the carriage as soon as it stopped and turned to give Imogen a hand down. Imogen was still dressed in her wedding gown, and more than a few of the passersby stopped to gape at her. They probably wondered what a lady as refined as she was could be doing in the rough and tumble docklands, even though Imogen didn’t feel particularly fine at the moment. She was exhausted and not as fresh as she had been when the day began, what felt like a lifetime ago.

  “If we’re lucky,” Thaddeus said as he hefted her bag over his shoulder and offered his arm to escort her into the inn, “the innkeeper will see fit to have a bath brought up to our room.”

  “Our room?” Imogen’s eyes went wide.

  He sent her a teasing grin as they ducked under the low doorway and into the noisy common room of the inn. It was already bustling with dockworkers who had come in for a meal and travelers waiting for their ships to depart.