“Shopping,” Valen answered enigmatically.
Elizabeth rubbed her forehead, trying to make sense of it all. “How did we get back here?”
“I didn’t carry you the whole way if that’s what you’re worried about. I hired a hack.”
She turned up her nose again. “No wonder I smell so dreadful.”
He snorted, as if she were a silly child. “No, my dear. It would seem you and your brother have equally fragile stomachs. During the ride home, you would awaken screaming and, well... let us say, you ought to be deuced hungry. What little there was, is no longer with you.”
Egad!
She closed her eyes, horridly embarrassed. “Oh dear. I am not the sort who...”
“So you say.” He shrugged. “It is to be expected under the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” Lady Alameda stamped her foot. “I expect a full report, Valen. I am not accustomed to being left in the dark in matters pertaining to members of my own household.”
“Your household only?” he quizzed her. “My dear aunt, you do not like to be in the dark concerning matters pertaining to anyone in England. Indeed, I was surprised you did not have one of your informers standing outside Smythe and Sons.”
Lady Alameda frowned at him. “Humph. How very amusing you are. I’ll see to arranging for Lady Elizabeth’s weak broth and toast, shall I?”
Elizabeth felt a gnawing in her stomach. “And jam? If you please?”
“How delightful. Her appetite appears to be returning.” Lady Alameda waved her fingers as she left the room.
* * *
Robert dashed into Elizabeth’s room as soon as Lady Alameda left, his hair tousled and his cuffs untied. “What’s all the racket about? Servants said there’d been an accident. Are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt.”
“Then what are you doing in bed at this hour? And in your street clothes?”
“A scold? From my slug-a-bed brother who prefers to sleep until noon?”
He ran his fingers through his unruly hair. “Well, something’s amiss. I know it. Had a dreadful night. Kept hearing screaming in my head.”
Valen stretched out his long legs and rested one hand behind his neck, massaging the base, as though Robert’s mention of screams brought the chaotic events of the morning back down upon him. “Your sister witnessed a murder this morning.”
“A murder? Gad! Izzie what happened?” Robert glanced from her to the surrounds of the room as though he expected to find evidence of the crime in her bedroom.
“Don’t be daft. Not here.” She turned away from him to stare out the window.
“Well, for pity’s sake, tell me what happened.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Valen cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, my lady, there are a host of interested parties. A constable. Bow Street. The magistrate. All are quite eager to have your version of the events. They only allowed me to extract you from the scene on the promise that I would report, in minute detail, any information you might be able to give. Were it not for your inclination to swoon and to–”
“Yes. You mentioned that already.” Elizabeth didn’t want to hear it again.
“What?” Robert demanded.
“Retch,” Valen answered evenly.
She groaned.
“Oh, I see, fainted and retched. Didn’t know Izzie was the sort.”
“No. I wouldn’t have thought it either.”
She punched her pillow and tried to get comfortable. “May we please change the subject?”
“Yes. You can jolly well tell me what happened. Let us begin with where you were.” Her brother’s commanding tone surprised Elizabeth.
Still, he had no right to order her about, not after the morning she’d had. “I’m not ready to speak of it.”
Robert swelled up, and she recognized the imperious tone that her father used to take. “Izzie—” he warned.
“Your brother is right,” Valen cut in. “Regrettably, there is urgency, my dear. The blighter who shot Smythe is still running loose in the city.” He tapped his finger against the arm of the chair. “And there appears to be several circumstances surrounding the crime that are of particular interest to the officials.”
She groaned, guessing exactly which circumstances those might be. What would happen when the magistrate discovered she’d been consorting with a smuggler, or worse, a thief? “I can’t. I really can’t”
“Unfortunately, if I do not carry your story to them with some haste, I have no doubt the authorities will arrive here shortly to interview you themselves.”
“I need some laudanum.”
“No,” Robert ordered. “Won’t have it. Not you, Izzie. You detest it when mother hides behind the stuff. Tell us what happened and have done with it.”
She turned her face toward the pillow, afraid to look at either of them. “First, you must tell me, what the penalty is for consorting with a smuggler?”
The bed bounced as Robert sat down ungracefully on the edge. “I’ve no idea. Valen?”
“An innocent young lady, unaware of who she was dealing with—I doubt it will attract anyone’s notice. The important thing is to get to the facts of the murder.”
She sat up. “That’s just it. I wasn’t innocent. Mr. Smythe told me he had connections to a very exclusive source of French silks. I knew full well he meant a smuggler.”
“Bah.” Robert waved his hand at her. “You are astonishingly green at times. Duffers say that sort of thing in that district all the time, Izzie. Cheats, who sell Spitalfields goods at double their worth, pretending the wares are smuggled. Never say you fell for it?”
She glared at her arrogant brother. “I am not an idiot, Robert! This wasn’t some hawker standing on a corner. And these were, most assuredly, not common silks. Quite the contrary—I have rarely seen goods of such superb quality.”
She motioned to Lord St. Evert for confirmation. “You saw the fabric. Tell him.”
“I didn’t have time to examine them.” He seemed a million miles away, absently rubbing the stubble on his cheek.
“Then you will both have to take my word on the matter.”
St. Evert dropped the point entirely. “The murderer, Lady Elizabeth, what do you remember about him? I only saw the back of his head. He turned toward the window, so I was forced to step away.”
“Aha! So you were spying on me?”
St. Evert waved away her accusation. “I followed you. Merely a matter of concern for your safety. A young woman, unaccompanied, leaving the house so early in the morning—”
“You followed me.”
He frowned at her diversion. “The murderer, Lady Elizabeth. What do you remember?”
Too Much. Far too much. The elegant taper of his fingers as he held the cloth to her throat. Every nuance of his voice, each minute inflection of his accent as he told her she would die. The hateful glimmer in his brown eyes as he choked her. She gently touched the tender bruise at her neck. How would she ever forget? “He was French,” she mumbled.
Robert smacked the bed covers and snorted at her impatiently. “Well, naturally, he would be, wouldn’t he? What else.”
She turned to Lord St. Evert. “He thought he knew you. Which was rubbish, of course. I tried to tell him. When he saw your reflection in the mirror, it completely unhinged him.” Elizabeth hesitated. “He was a madman, I suppose. He called you by an odd name.” She tilted her head, noticing how very alert St. Evert’s eyes were and the sharp line of his nose. “He called you The Red Hawk.”
Valen and Robert turned to one another, their expressions laden with alarm.
“What?” she demanded. They would not have secrets from her. “What is it?”
Valen said nothing, but glanced away, pretending to study the gray clouds outside the window.
Robert traced a design on the bedcovers with his finger.
“Did this man give you his name?” Valen’s tone was stern, commanding.
Robert clutched the bedcovers in his fist. Valen turned and stared at her, his jaw flexing so hard she could see the muscles tighten from where she lay.
“What is it? Tell me. You must!” She sat up. “When he was choking me, he called me a spy. Absurd, isn’t it? Me?” She laughed, nervous, wishing they would laugh too and tell her it was all a mad joke. “He said you should have warned me about what he does to spies. For pity’s sake, tell me what it means.”
Valen stood up, towered over her, his face hard, unyielding. How in heaven’s name had she ever mistaken him for a fop?
“There’s no time. It’s vital that I deliver your report to Whitehall.”
“Whitehall? But, I thought the magistrate—”
“Robert, stay with your sister. Do not leave her side.”
Her brother nodded gravely as Valen strode toward the door.
Elizabeth leaned over and tugged on her brother’s arm. “You must explain. You must. I feel as if my whole world is turning topsy-turvy.”
St. Evert paused at the door, his back to them. “Robert, I trust you will remember your oath. For her sake, as well as for others.”
Robert sighed heavily. “It pains me that you should doubt it.”
St. Evert left without another word, and Elizabeth knew no matter how much she cajoled him, her brother would remain mum on the matter. “Since you’re not going to explain to me why I nearly had the life squeezed out of me today, I believe I will have some of that laudanum, thank you.”
He chucked her chin and got up from the bed. “None was offered.”
“Humph.” She threw the pillow at him.
13
Making a Silk Officer Out of A Fop’s Purse
Valen strode hurriedly to his rooms, rang for Biggs, and sat down in a chair in front of the mirror. Biggs ran up the stairs, bounded through the door, huffing and puffing. “The servants are humming like bees. What happened? I knew I should’ve come wi’ you.”
Valen handed his sergeant a pair of scissors. “Cut off my hair.”
Biggs took the shears and stared at Valen as if he couldn’t entirely comprehend the order.
“Cut my hair.” Valen reached back and pulled loose the leather thong that had been tying back his unruly mop.
“Aye, I heard you. But Captain, folding clothes and laundering is one thing. Cutting hair, that’s something else altogether.”
“Good grief, man. It isn’t as if I’m asking you to carve a statue of Nelson, just cut it short and trim the ends. And after you do, pull out the good clothes. No more of this fribble business.”
“It’s that glad I am to hear it, my lord. High time you showed these folks what’s what. But I expect you’ll be wanting someone else to chop that hair down for you. Unless, of course, you don’t mind it looking somewhat like this.” He yanked off his wig.
Valen frowned at the scraggly clumps of hair hanging around the edges of Biggs’s balding pate. He stood up and retied his hair into the leather thong. “Yes, well, I believe we will forego the haircut for the moment. However, as soon as possible both of us will make a trip to the barber. For now, do you think you might manage to find me something civilized to wear to Whitehall?”
“Whitehall?” Biggs cocked his head.
“Yes. You know, cravat, black coat, that sort of thing.”
“I know that, sir. But what’s in the fryin’ pan at the government offices?”
“It would seem our old friend Merót is in London.”
Biggs stared openmouthed before cursing roundly. “The devil, you say.”
“Precisely.”
* * *
Late that night, or rather, very early in the morning, Valen slipped quietly through the front door at Alison Hall, exhausted, but not wishing to disturb the servants. It had been a hellish sort of night. The war office had issued him fifty men to do a job that easily might have utilized three hundred. He’d set them to scouring the docks and wharfs, searching every outgoing ship in port, and questioning landlords and innkeepers. About midnight, they thought they might have located Merót’s lodgings.
With a dozen men, Valen rushed into a tenement in Blackfriars. They burst through the door and found the small room vacated. Heaven help him, he could almost smell the bloody French spy. Merót’s cologne was not musk or sandalwood, like most gentlemen wore, but a spicy floral scent, almost feminine. It clawed at Valen’s nostrils—sickening him. The bed had been fastidiously made up, and in the corner lay a stack of neatly folded silks. Valen had angrily shoved the chair posed at a perfect right angle to Merót’s desk. So close.
He organized a net of men encircling Blackfriars and the surrounding streets. No one would come in or go out without his men searching them. He also positioned men at the docks. They waited in vain. Merót was probably tucked up in bed somewhere snickering at their ineffectual attempt to capture the blighter. Valen changed out his sentries at three o’clock and decided he might as well slog home and get some rest.
After locking the door, he strode quietly up the marble stairs. Moonlight slid through the glass dome illuminating the rotunda with soothing silver light. Valen needed a few hours of solid rest before renewing his search in the morning. He felt certain Merót had slipped through his grasp. The net was simply a precaution, but with the ports sealed off, where would he go? Would he try to flee England? Or...
Merót’s history of vengeance gnawed at Valen.
He remembered all too well the tortured bodies of several of his paid informers. And then there were the bodies of several of Valen’s men. Men ordered to simply follow Merót and track his movements from a distance had fallen prey to a knife or pistol. Always the bastard left their bodies with a mocking message for The Red Hawk. Valen should have disregarded his orders and killed the madman long ago.
Valen stepped onto the second floor landing and heard her scream. A soft cry, muffled. Then louder. He raced up the next set of stairs to Elizabeth’s room and threw open the door. She screamed again, a breathy, helpless noise, as if the throat would not allow the sound to take full force. Pure panic.
He scoured the shadows as he rushed to her side and saw nothing out of place. “What is it!?” he demanded, taking hold of her shoulders. He saw none of the familiar arrogance in her face, no pride, just ravaging fear.
She gulped for air, gasping, and pointed toward the window. He saw nothing there. In his most soothing voice, he asked, “What was it? Tell me. What did you see?”
Her shoulders quaked in his hands. “Him. In the window.”
A nightmare. He understood then and hugged her against his chest, petting her hair. “Shhh. It’s gone. You’re safe now.” He would make certain she was safe. Her quivering subsided as he held her and stroked her hair and back. He listened, waiting for her breathing to calm down.
She clung to Valen as if her life depended on it. “I saw him. The murderer. At my window. Come to finish killing me. I know it.”
“Shhh. Breathe, Izzie. I’m not in a mood to have you cascade down the front of my shirt just now.”
That did it. She let go of him and leaned away, leaving his arms feeling regrettably empty. “You don’t believe me?”
It nearly broke his heart, that expression on her face. He’d wounded her. “I believe you. You thought you saw something.”
Her brow pinched together. “I did see something, I saw him! Merót.”
He nodded, unwilling to upset her any further. As she labored under the weight of so many emotions, her breasts rose and fell, innocent of the enticing effect it had on him. Gad, she was bewitching. Silver light floated over her, touching her hair and skin as he only dreamed of doing. He brushed back a dark tendril from her cheek. “You’ve been through far too much today. You must rest.”
; “He’s going to kill me.” She lowered her eyes.
He lifted her chin in his hand. “I won’t let that happen.”
She met his gaze. “I would think you’d only be too...”
He appreciated that she had the good sense not to finish the ridiculous statement, but he did it for her. “...glad to be rid of you?” He trailed his fingers over her cheek. “You cannot really think so?”
He left the question hanging and leaned toward her lips, capturing them in his. He did not plunder her mouth as he had last time. Although he knew instinctively she would let him. Knowing made him ache all the more to do it. But he held back. Kissing her as softly as the moonlight he was so jealous of, gently caressing her lips with his, scarcely holding her in his hands, leaving her the freedom to escape his grasp, or his kiss, at any time if she willed it.
She did neither.
When he reluctantly pulled away from her mouth, he realized he had completely forgotten to breathe. Now he was the one gasping, desperate. Reckless behavior. Foolish. Unfortunately his treacherous body was ordering him to do it again, and unless he beat a hasty retreat, he would not be able to resist.
“Come.” He stood up and pulled her to her feet. “I want to show you something.” Valen led her to the window and unlocked the sash, swinging it open, and then he leaned out. The cool night air blew some sense into his wobbling brain. “Take a look down here.”
She peeked nervously over the edge.
“Do you see? It’s three stories down.”
“I know that. But I’ve heard stories of thieves and brigands who can climb—”
He nodded. “Up drain pipes and trellises. There is neither a drain nor a trellis outside your window.”
“But his face, I saw it so clearly. Right here. I woke up. It sounded as if someone were fiddling with the latch. And there he was, outside the glass. Here.”
Valen stared out of the window, squinting into the darkness, wondering if the ledge under her casement was wide enough to hold a deranged French spy.
Robert straggled into the room in his nightshirt carrying a candle. “What’s all the to do? Kept hearing screams in my sleep again. I swear, Izzie, I should have left you home with Mama. Never should have tried to bring you to town. Too much bother.”
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