A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior (24 page)

“I have no idea why you would think that anyone would be here at the side entry to Ainsley House, miss. Please call at the front d—”

Theresa took a deep breath to scream. Almost immediately another hand reached around the first fellow and yanked her inside, slamming the door closed behind her. “Unhand me at—”

“You are not supposed to be here,” the Duke of Sommerset growled, still gripping her arm hard.

Despite her abrupt uneasiness, part of her was immensely relieved. “Your Grace. I’m looking for Colonel J—”

“I heard you the first time.” His gray eyes hard as steel, he dragged her back from the door. “Sit down.”

As he released her, she sat down hard in a chair. For the first time, she looked around her. A dozen tables and thrice that many chairs lay scattered across a
wide, open floor, a comfortable sofa and more well-padded chairs at the back of the room in front of a fireplace. Books lined the back walls, and two tall, narrow windows overlooked the lovely Ainsley House garden, with a billiards table and a pianoforte beneath them.

Several of the chairs were occupied, with a half dozen or so men all staring at her and none of them looking very happy to see her there. “What is this?” she asked.

“None of your business,” the duke returned, sitting opposite her. “What makes you think your Colonel James would be here?”

Whoever these men were, Tolly likely wouldn’t appreciate them knowing his business. She sat forward in her chair so she could lower her voice. “He came here to bring you some…reading material,” she said quietly. “Please don’t assume I’m a fool. All I want to know is if he is still here, or when he left.”

Sommerset gazed at her for a long moment. “I haven’t seen him today,” he said finally.

Her heart stopped. “But he came specifically to ask your opinion on a newspaper editorial approach,” she hissed, clenching her fists. “Your Grace, he left James House before eleven o’clock this morning.”

He didn’t move, but she had the abrupt sensation that a great sleek panther had come awake. “You’re certain he came here?” he asked in a low voice.

“Positive. He brought a draft of his account. We thought that—well, that doesn’t matter now. I have four men pounding at your front door at this moment trying to reach you. Perhaps your butler turned Tolly away, too.”

“My butler would not have turned Tolly away.” With a low curse he stood, offering her a hand up. “Come with me.”

Swiftly he led her across the length of the room and through another door that led into what looked more like the inside of a very wealthy gentleman’s home. “What was back there?” she asked again, indicating the other room.

“A refuge. Pray don’t mention it. You’ve come through the servants’ entrance. Is that clear?”

“Yes, of course.”

A moment later they were in the foyer, and he gestured for his butler to stand aside. “This way, gentlemen,” he said.

“It’s about damned time,” Stephen snapped, then noticed Theresa. “How did you manage to break the siege?”

“I came in through the servants’ entrance,” she said. “His Grace says Tolly never arrived here this morning.”

They entered a large sitting room, but Theresa, at least, couldn’t remain still long enough to join the men in the chairs. He’d never arrived. Somewhere between James House and Sommerset’s residence, he’d…vanished. Where? And why? It had to have something to do with the man watching James House, but what, precisely?

“How long have you been assisting my brother with this damned East In—”

“What are you doing here, Montrose?” Sommerset interrupted.

The marquis sent a quick glance at Theresa. “My interest is in Miss Weller. But whatever my personal
feelings about Colonel James, I’m not some villain. If he’s missing, I will do what I can to assist.”

“Then you will also be expected to keep several confidences. I don’t want to threaten you and thereby lessen the impact of your…selfless behavior, but I think you know what I can do to you if I am betrayed.”

“Yes, well, if you threatened everyone I would feel a bit better, but I understand. And I agree.”

With a nod, Sommerset gave the men a swift review of their literary plans and why they’d decided to keep it all a secret. Privately Theresa didn’t see why they needed to waste time with explanations, but at the same time if she refrained from interrupting they would finish with the nonsense more quickly.

“Have you heard any stirrings from the East India Company?” Michael asked, his own expression growing grimmer by the moment. “Any indication that they know what’s afoot?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” Sommerset replied.

“If they know anything, then they’ll know not to inform you,” Theresa stated, gazing again out the window.

“True enough.”

“Lackaby, tell him about the man watching James House,” she ordered.

It was
men
, as the valet explained it, apparently taking turns and none of them familiar to either Tolly or Lackaby. Why hadn’t Tolly told her? Theresa shook herself. She would be very happy to have the opportunity to yell at him later.

“So where do we begin looking?” she asked, facing
the men once more. “Because I’m finished with chatting about who might know what.”

“Determining who might know what,” the duke returned, “is the best way to figure where Tolly might be.”

“The East India Company,” Lord Gardner ground out, his jaws clenched, “seems to be our one and only suspect. What would they do with my brother?”

“Kill him, I would imagine,” Sommerset answered.

Theresa froze, her blood turning to ice and her heart stopping. “No,” she whispered, everything going numb.

Her brother grabbed her as her legs gave out. “Damnation, Sommerset,” he growled. “My sister is in love with him, if you haven’t noticed. Show some decency.”

“No,” she said, fighting her way upright again. “Decency won’t help Tolly. What if we made it known that there is another copy of his account out there? Surely they wouldn’t harm him if doing so would give his story credibility.”

Thankfully no one mentioned aloud that her plan would only work if he wasn’t dead already, but she knew they all had to be thinking that. She was. Instead, Sommerset rose. “You are a very bright young lady.” He pulled open the door. “Have Khan saddled. Now.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the butler returned, hurrying out of the foyer.

“What’s your plan?” Tolly’s brother demanded.

“This little parade is going to call on Lord Hadderly and inform him of exactly what Miss Weller
suggested. The sooner the better.” He looked over his shoulder, his gaze remaining on Theresa. “I recommend that you return home.”

“And I recommend that Lackaby return home, so if Tolly reappears someone will know where to come and inform us. If there’s a hunt, I’m going to be in on it.”

And if something had happened to Tolly James, she would wither away and die. But before that, she would make damned certain that what he meant to accomplish, happened. No matter what.

B
artholomew kept his eyes closed for several minutes after he regained consciousness. Appearing more or less dead had saved him once before, and he wasn’t about to discard that strategy now.

Distant sounds touched his ears: a dog barking, several voices yelling as they hawked wares, the heavier sound of a coach or a cart. He seemed to be still in London, and close to a thoroughfare of some sort.

He was sitting upright, his arms aching and numb, and his neck stiff. Slumped into a chair, then, his arms bound behind him. Experimentally he flexed his good knee, and his leg remained immobile. Legs
tied as well, then. A quick twitch of his jaw told him that he was gagged, and beyond the faint smell of his own blood he could make out a damp mustiness that conjured the image of a cellar.

His head pounded, but he set that aside. The devil knew he’d been injured far worse before. Anything short of being shot and cast into the bottom of a well seemed survivable by comparison. Especially now, when he had another reason to survive. If whoever had snared him had had any intelligence or courage at all, they would have killed him outright.

Something scuffed very close to him. At least one other person in the room. He took a slow breath in through his nose, since his mouth was covered. Best get on with it, then. Slowly tensing his muscles, he made a show of rocking his head and moaning.

“He’s coming around,” a low male voice said. “Go tell him.”

Footsteps tromped away and then up what had to be stairs. They were definitely in a cellar, then. Bartholomew opened his eyes and lifted his head.

“This is a fine idea,” a tall, slightly pot-bellied man said, hefting the brace they’d obviously removed from his leg. “Hold the bones and muscles steady so you can still ride.”

He was dressed like a gentleman, but not a nobleman—a clean linen shirt and fairly inexpensive-looking waistcoat and long jacket, with a simply knotted cravat at his throat and five shilling boots on his feet. A clerk, then, like the pair who’d followed him back from Sommerset’s house the night he’d discovered Theresa also there spying on him.

More boots thudded on the stairs again, somewhere
behind him. The cellar itself was well insulated, with the faint scent of cork and wine now coming to him as his companion moved about. Considering that he’d already concluded he was in some well-appointed gentleman’s wine cellar, seeing Lord Hadderly come around into his line of vision wasn’t even surprising.

“You’re a damned nuisance, Colonel,” the earl said. He lifted a stack of papers in one hand. “Seems as though we’ve met at just the right moment.” He glanced beyond Bartholomew’s shoulder. “Turn him around.”

Two men took the seat and back of the chair and dragged it around a hundred and eighty degrees. Several racks of wine lined the walls, and what looked like a spare set of dining room chairs stood half-covered under a sheet. There were seven of them; he apparently rated the eighth. And they were fairly sturdy looking things, too.

Hadderly strolled into view again. “You’ve placed me in an awkward position, you know,” he said conversationally. “I’m responsible for a great amount of commerce. Money, employees, even the stability of England all fall under my purview.

“Did you ever think,” he continued, “that if you hadn’t survived that so-called attack, we might have been able to invent some heroic end for you and your men? Saving natives from a flood or a fire, or some such thing. One thing I know you didn’t do, however, is this.” He shook the papers in his hand.

“We’ve already had to create one report simply because of your continued presence. That in itself cost the Company over a hundred pounds, and that doesn’t even take into account how many wealthy
young men waiting for adventure and a place to invest might have been frightened away from India and the Company by you. That’s enough of a loss.”

He walked over to the small lead and iron stove in the corner opposite the dining room furniture, squatted down, and lit the newspaper and tinder inside. Once it was burning well, he rolled up the pages of Bartholomew’s India account and one by one pushed them into the fire.

When he’d finished, Lord Hadderly straightened again. “That’s one part of the problem eliminated. I don’t suppose you’ll tell us if you have any copies of that lying about.”

Tolly didn’t make a sound. It wouldn’t serve any purpose that would aid him, and he had absolutely no intention of doing anything to point a finger at Theresa. Hopefully she was still at James House, and hopefully Lackaby was keeping a close eye both on her and on the house in general.

“Very well,” the earl continued. “Make yourself comfortable. We have a few things to determine, and since you’ve made a nuisance of yourself by appearing at soirees and reconciling with your family, someone will notice you’ve gone missing. They might point at the Company, and we can’t have that. So I suppose we’ll have to start a rumor or two about you…despairing of ever recovering the reputation you threw away by lying about the Thuggee. Once that’s all sorted and we settle on a nice, remote place to put you under the ground, well, we’ll be back to things as they should be.”

Ah. At least it was just business. In a sense, that
had been the Thuggee philosophy, as well. How else could they pretend friendship and then strangle the very men with whom they’d shared a meal thirty minutes before? Money, profit, greed. He hadn’t needed to travel all the way to India to find that.

“There is one thing, though.” Hadderly walked up to him and jerked the cloth from around his mouth. “If you simply tell us whether you’ve left any further copies of that thing lying about, I will give you the opportunity to write a last note to your family. A chance to bid them farewell. Wouldn’t that be worth something? You could tell your sister that she’s not to blame, that it’s for the best if you disappear. And that lovely Miss Weller who’s been spending so much of her time at James House. You could add a word for her. Wouldn’t it be lovely, to have such a pretty creature shed a tear at your demise?”

Bartholomew settled a calm stare on the earl. “When I kill you,” he mused coolly, “is there any sentiment you’d like for me to convey to
your
loved ones? I thought I should ask now, since you’ll be coughing blood and shitting yourself after I stab you in the throat.”

Hadderly blinked. “You’re a very violent fellow, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

More feet tapped on the stairs. “My lord, you’re needed upstairs.”

The earl nodded, backing for the stairs. “Put the gag back in his mouth. I doubt he’ll be so brave without an audience, and I don’t want him screaming.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And stop fooling with that damned thing, Mr. Peters.” Hadderly grabbed the leather knee brace out of the clerk’s hands and trotted up the stairs.

Thankfully they left him facing the front of the cellar as Mr. Peters yanked the gag up again and made certain it was tight around his mouth. Because with his back to them, he could work on the knots binding his hands. Violent man or not, he knew something about pain. And about how to put it aside when the need arose.

And considering that Hadderly had named both his sister and Theresa, nothing was going to stop him from getting his hands on the earl and choking the life out of him. It might be just business for the earl, but for him it was about his life. And his heart, which for him equaled the same thing.

If Theresa hadn’t been worried out of her mind, the sight of four very fit, quite handsome young men flanking her would have been enjoyable, if not outright amusing. Of course one of them was her brother, but Michael hardly resembled the good-natured, teasing muggins who called her Troll and chuckled at the number of suitors she’d gathered.

Considering that Sommerset’s butler had very nearly succeeded in keeping them at bay, she was rather glad that His Grace had joined the hunt. She doubted there was a servant in England who wouldn’t admit him into a house. Lord Hadderly’s man hadn’t so much as batted an eye before showing them into a sitting room off the foyer.

Sommerset walked over to stand beside where she
waited by the window. “Do you know Hadderly?” he murmured.

“We’ve been introduced. I stay well away from him because my grandmother loves cats, and Hadderly breeds dogs.”

His jaw twitched. “Does Hadderly know of his lack of popularity with the Weller family?”

She wondered why that mattered, but if they had to wait, she supposed he was doing her a service by distracting her for a moment. “He doesn’t seem to notice much that doesn’t directly concern him.”

“Ah, you’re wrong about that, Miss Weller. He notices far more than he sees himself, because he has people watching on his behalf.”

“You mean the men Tolly saw watching James House report to Hadderly?”

“That’s only a guess, but given what I know of him, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I say this because I intend to confront him fairly directly. I leave it to you to notice what I cannot. Tolly has several times mentioned your skill at observation. Can you do this?”

She nodded once more. “Now that I know how directly he may be involved, I don’t intend to blink,” she whispered fiercely.

“Neither do I.”

The sitting door swung open, and the Earl of Hadderly strolled into the room. “Your Grace, my lords, Miss—Miss Weller? My goodness. What brings you all here and looking so serious?”

“My brother is missing,” Stephen said. “Considering his recent return from India and the way his
claims dispute the official stance of the East India Company, we thought to come here.”

“And in very large numbers.” His expression concerned, Hadderly motioned for them all to sit. “Let me assure you that whatever our ‘stance’ as you call it, in the past Colonel James has served the Company well and honorably. If there’s anything I can do, you must tell me.”

Sommerset left Theresa’s side, walking forward to sit on the couch directly across from where Hadderly had taken a seat, himself. The earl looked as impeccably-dressed as always, cravat neat and conservatively tied, his coat well fitting and padded at the shoulders to disguise any imperfections in his posture. Whether he was involved with this horror or not, she didn’t like him. She never had, really, however amusing her grandmother’s venom toward him was.

“Did you ever read the report taken from Colonel James’s account?” the duke asked smoothly, his tone less confrontational than Tolly’s brother.

“I don’t know that there ever was an official report,” Hadderly returned. “Not one where he was interviewed by his commanding officers, anyway. I of course read the independent one submitted by his superiors to Lord Hastings in India.” He glanced at Stephen. “I don’t know what merit discussing that would have on finding the colonel today.” He sat forward. “Do you have no idea where he might have gone? A friend, or a fellow officer’s home? I do know that our report has made things a bit…difficult for him.”

“‘Difficult’?” Stephen repeated forcefully.

“Please, Lord Gardner. I don’t mean to make things worse. I’m genuinely trying to help you here.”

“Why?” the duke asked.

Hadderly blinked. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

“I said, ‘why’? Colonel James gone means one less man to dispute your Company’s stance, as Lord Gardner calls it. Why do you wish to assist us in finding him?”

“Well, he’s a fellow nobleman. Whatever might have become of him, or whatever he may have…done to himself, I think it’s important to find him.”

“Ah. So you favor suicide.”

“For God’s sake, Sommerset,” Stephen growled, his face white. “I don’t need to hear such nonsense, and neither does Tess.”

“No,” Theresa protested. “I want to hear of any and every theory and possibility.” She didn’t, but she did want him to be able to follow his line of questions with Hadderly. She knew the man to be unpleasant unless he was intentionally attempting to be charming. Today, unless she was greatly mistaken, he was being deliberately charming.

“What would you suggest, then, Your Grace?” Hadderly said, frowning. “I don’t want to dwell on the worst possibility, but in all honesty this is a man who staked his reputation on a story that is now known to be untrue.”

“Hmm. Do you think that a man with a close-knit family would take his own life?” Sommerset went on, crossing his legs at the ankles and apparently completely unconcerned with the topic at hand. Theresa was relieved that he’d spoken to her beforehand; even Montrose looked rather dismayed at the duke’s sangfroid. “A man in pursuit of a young lady?” He motioned over his shoulder in her direction.

“Please, Sommerset. Of course such a man would take his own life. How else to save his family from being dragged into scandal with him? And this young lady is known to have several suitors. Lord Montrose, you’re one of them, aren’t you?”

Alexander nodded. “I am.”

“Well. A possibly hopeless pursuit, then.”

Theresa took a deep breath, beginning to wish she was a man so that she could punch this very annoying earl in the nose. “Not hopeless, my lord,” she said aloud. “As a matter of fact, Colonel James and I became engaged nearly a fortnight ago. We are to be married.”

All eyes in the room turned to look at her. Of all of them, only Sommerset didn’t look surprised. In fact, he sent her a brief smile and a nod. “Congratulations, then, Miss Weller.” He faced Hadderly again. “This does put a bit of a wrinkle in your theory, doesn’t it?”

Hadderly frowned at her, then returned his attention to Sommerset. “Not a theory, Your Grace. A possibility. One of many, clearly. And I have to ask, considering that Miss Weller’s news is clearly a surprise both to her brother and to Colonel James’s, do you think you have any idea at all where he might be? You seem to know very little about him, begging your pardon.”

A pair of Hadderly’s cat-menacing wolfhounds trotted into the room, nuzzling up to their master and wagging their tales. As the men continued their debate over where Tolly might have gone and why, she watched the dogs. Personally she had nothing against the animals, but they were very slobbery looking and had large teeth.

One of them was carrying a leather toy in its teeth, strips hanging off it and reaching nearly to the floor. No, not strips. Straps. Theresa sat forward again.
Dear heavens
. Her fingers shaking and her heart even more unsteady, she stuck her hand out toward the beast. “Come here, boy,” she cooed, knowing she recognized that leather mess even before she could logically have been sure of anything.