An Unlikely Alliance (8 page)

Lord Kerrigan switched his attention to her. “In the excitement of last night we were never properly introduced. And you can hardly expect me to call you Mademoiselle Magda. What is your true name?”

“My name is indeed Magda. Magda Beaumont.”

“Magda.” It was an exotic name, at odds with her demure appearance. Dressed as she was, he could have mistaken her for a maidservant were it not for the cool intelligence that hid behind her hazel eyes.

Breakfast appeared within moments. Luke chattered away about nothing in particular, but Alexander’s attention was all for his mysterious guest. Magda Bowman ate her meal with the elegant manners of a lady. So much for her claim to be a seamstress. No mere sewing girl would have dared sit down to breakfast with a peer of the realm.

Used to Alexander and Luke’s enormous appetites, Cook had sent up a hearty meal for their guest. But she consumed only a small portion before laying down her knife and fork with obvious reluctance.

“Finished so soon? But you ate barely enough to keep a bird alive,” Luke said. “Is there something else you would like?”

“No, this was wonderful, truly,” Magda replied. “I can’t remember when I’ve eaten so much.”

From the looks of her it was all too easy to believe. Without the enveloping costume there was no hiding the finely drawn lines of her face or the unnatural thinness that spoke of illness or recent hunger. Alexander fought off the impulse to urge her to eat more.

“We need to talk about last night,” he said instead, deliberating breaking the mood.

“The more I think of it, the less likely it seems that our meeting last night was a coincidence. What were you doing in Covent Garden?” she challenged.

He decided to give her at least some of the truth. “I was there to speak with Mrs. Brightwell, in hopes of tracking you down. But I happened to find you instead. It was lucky for you that I did.”

“I suppose,” she said, her right hand creeping up to touch the bandage at her neck. “But I’m sure my friend would have been able to take care of me.”

Even if his intervention had been for purely selfish reasons, the least she could do was show a little more gratitude. “And what if the men who attacked you knew about your friend? They seemed to know just where to find you before.”

Her eyes widened. It was clear she’d never considered this possibility. “I don’t know how they could have known I would go there for help. I was so lost I didn’t know where I was until I was almost there. And I still don’t know why they came after me. I thought they were in your employ—”

“Most definitely not.” Bob Parker was too experienced an investigator to try such a harebrained stunt without talking to him first. And Luke, while capable of such a scheme, had denied all involvement. Alexander believed his friend. Luke had no reason to lie. Besides, he knew Luke’s flair for mayhem. If Luke had been behind the kidnapping then Magda Bowman would have disappeared exactly according to plan, with no messy consequences. “Is there someone else who has reason to harm you?”

She shook her head firmly. “No, no one. At first I thought they had mistaken me for someone else, but that doesn’t make sense, either.”

“I know you wish that was true, but from what Alexander told me it sounds like they were definitely after you. And they knew just where and when to find you,” Luke interjected. From the wry expression on his face, Alexander knew that his friend was still disappointed that he had missed the excitement last night.

“They must have been waiting for me,” she said, her eyes wide with remembered fright. “They must have followed me from Damon Lane. I wasn’t paying attention to the passersby when I left my lodgings, but as soon as I turned into the alley, there they were.”

Luke gave a low whistle. “Damon Lane’s a pretty rough area. So how does a seamstress wind up living in such quarters?”

“There are worse places than Damon Lane. My friend has lived there for years. It’s close to the theaters and relatively cheap. Not everyone can live in Mayfair,” she added pointedly.

“My apologies if I offended you,” Luke said.

Alexander wasn’t as concerned with her feelings. “You said your
friend
lived there?” Perhaps this was the connection he was looking for.

“Mrs. Brightwell. She’s a dresser at the New Majestic theater. I’ve known her for years. I was a shop assistant to Mrs. Spenser, but when I fell ill this winter I lost my position and the lodgings that came with it. I’ve been staying with Mrs. Brightwell ever since.”

He recognized the name of Mrs. Spenser, a popular mantua maker. He would check her story out, of course, but somehow he knew that she was telling the truth. No wonder she had been so hard to find. Who would have believed an unemployed seamstress was really the celebrated Mademoiselle Magda?

“What you really want to ask is how I became a Gypsy fortune teller.”

“I was getting to that.” He wondered why she didn’t try to play on his sympathies and elaborate on the hardships she had endured. But instead she glossed over her misfortune as if it was of no account, refusing to be pitied. He felt a reluctant admiration for her spirit.

“Mrs. Brightwell works in the same theater where Madame Zoltana performs. When Madame Zoltana had her accident, Mrs. Brightwell suggested that I could take her place that night. She knew I could use the work, and between the two of them they were confident they could teach me enough for one evening’s performance.”

“You hardly learned to cardsharp in a single day,” he pointed out drily.

“Oh, that.” She actually blushed, displaying yet another trait that clashed with his preconceptions. “When I was young there was a Monsieur Villeneuve, who was a friend of my mother’s. I suppose he was a gambler but to me he was simply an older man who liked to speak French with Maman. Not knowing how else to amuse a small child, he once taught me how to stack a deck. After that, whenever he came to visit we would play cards and cheat each other outrageously.”

“Now there’s a practical skill to teach a child,” Luke said admiringly.

“Not really,” Magda disagreed. “I hadn’t played in years and when it came to that night I botched the reading. I really meant to predict that Foolish Pride would win.” She reached over and placed her hand on Alexander’s arm as if to convince him of her sincerity. “Everyone there agreed that he would win, so it seemed the safest thing to say.”

He moved his arm away, reaching for his coffee so it did not seem as if he were pulling away. But he did not want her to touch him. He did not want to think of her as a person with hopes and feelings of her own. He had a mystery to solve, and for now she was still under suspicion. He could not let his emotions get in the way. “But someone knew differently. Someone had arranged for him to be tampered with, and knew he would lose.”

She nodded, unsurprised. “I thought as much. After you questioned me at Lady Burnett-Hodgkins’s I knew it had to be something of the sort.”

She had an answer for everything. But it was all too easy, too perfect. Before he had left England he had been a trusting fool. But in India, Alexander had learned to depend on his instincts in situations where knowing who to trust meant the difference between life and death.

Now his instincts were telling him to proceed cautiously. She had told him the truth, but not the whole truth. She was holding something back. It could be nothing but it could be the clue that would link her to the horse race and answer the question of why she was attacked.

“I must thank you for your kindness last night and for the breakfast this morning,” she said. “And now I really must be on my way. My friends will be worried over my absence.”

He had no intention of letting her out of his sight. Not until he was absolutely certain that her secrets held no bearing on this matter.

“I have hired a Bow Street runner to look into this for me,” he said. “I am meeting him this morning and I’d like you to come along so you can describe your attackers to him.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“I thought you’d be grateful to have Bow Street looking for these men. Unless you’d prefer to meet them again on your own?”

A look of fear flashed across her face but she swiftly brought herself under control. “It seems you have thought of everything,” she said in a tight voice. “Tell me, do you feel responsible for me because you think you saved my life? Or is it simply that you still don’t trust me?”

“A little of both,” Alexander said, surprising himself with his honesty.

He could swear there was a look of disappointment in her eyes. But what cause had she to be disappointed? He had never pretended to be other than he was.

“I’ll tell John to have the carriage ready,” Luke said, breaking the awkward silence. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No need. I am sure you have your own errands to keep you occupied.”

“As you wish,” Luke said, nodding almost imperceptibly in the direction of their guest to show that he understood. While Alexander and Magda were busy with the runners, Luke would be seeking out the truth of her story.

The meeting had been arranged for a tavern known as The Pickled Egg. Alexander helped Magda into the carriage, then took the opposite seat. They rode in silence, and he used the opportunity to study her. She wore a red countrywoman’s cloak, borrowed from one of the maids. It was a good color for her, bringing warmth to her features. With a few decent meals she would be almost pretty, he mused. It was a strange direction for his thoughts to be taking, and he blamed it on the awkward silence.

“Er—” He opened his mouth to speak, then realized he had nothing to say. “Are you comfortable?” he asked lamely.

Magda gave a brittle laugh. “Isn’t this amazing? We really have nothing to say to one another.”

It was absurd. There ought to be some topic they could converse on. But they were also from two very different worlds, and every topic that came to mind was unsuitable. If she were a gentleman he would speak of business affairs and politics. If she were a lady he wouldn’t need to make conversation, for a lady would already be chattering away with the latest
on-dits
. But what did one say to someone who was the next thing to a servant? For a moment he wished he had Luke’s free and easy way of dealing with people. Luke would have no trouble making conversation, of that he was sure.

Luckily they arrived at their destination before he was reduced to mentioning the unseasonably cold weather.

“Pull the hood over your face before we go in,” he warned her. “No point in drawing more attention than we need.”

At this hour of the morning The Pickled Egg was mostly empty, and the few patrons paid them no heed. Alexander led Magda to a high-backed booth in the rear of the tavern. She sat down and then he slid in next to her, where he could keep an eye out for Bob Parker. The booth was so narrow that his body pressed against hers in an enforced intimacy.

Bob Parker and his assistant Harry arrived a few minutes later. His eyes widened as he caught sight of Magda but he made no comment as he and his assistant slid into the opposite bench. An imperious look brought the tavern-keeping scurrying over with four tankards of ale.

“Would you gents like anything else?”

“No,” Alexander said shortly. The tavern-keeper bustled off, and Alexander pushed a tankard in Magda’s direction. “This is for show, but I wouldn’t drink it if I were you,” he advised. “You ate so little it will go right to your head.”

Bob Parker took a deep draught of ale, then sighed with contentment. “Ah, that tastes good after a hard night. I had news for you, my lord, but I think you have news for me as well,” he said, nodding in Magda’s direction.

“Yes,” Alexander said. “This is our mysterious Gypsy. I found her last night, after she’d had a little accident.” He reached over and pulled back her hood, revealing the white bandage around her throat.

“Nasty bit of work,” Bob commented. “And now she’s had a change of heart and is going to help us find her old mates that are looking to get rid of her?”

“What my lord forgot to tell you is that I don’t have any accomplices,” Magda said frostily. “I know nothing about what was done to the horse, or why anyone would want to attack me.”

Both runners looked at her skeptically but Bob was too canny to put his thoughts into words. His assistant, however, was not as discreet. “You saying you know nothing?”

“I tell you it’s true,” Magda insisted.

Galling as it was to admit that he might have been wrong, Alexander knew it was time to speak up. “I know it sounds strange, but for now let’s give her the benefit of the doubt,” he said.

Bob Parker looked over at Magda and then again at his employer for confirmation. “If you say so. But where does that leave us?”

“You tell me. Last night someone tried to grab Miss Bowman so they could have a private chat. A friend of hers intervened and got himself killed for his trouble.”

“Sloppy,” Bob mused. “You got that from a knife?”

“Yes,” Magda answered. “The man held a knife to my throat so I would come with him. When Matt Sweeney came by I was able to break free. I think that’s when I got hurt. Luckily for me it wasn’t serious.”

The runner was staring at Magda with an odd look on his face, as if she was part of a puzzle he couldn’t place. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, then turned his attention back to Alexander. “Well, my news is old news now. I came to tell you that word is out over the East End that you’ve tied this Mamzelle to the men who fixed the race.”

Damn. So much for a quiet investigation. Now anyone could be looking for Magda, in hopes of making a quick reward or of silencing her before she could speak. It could even have been one of the runners themselves that attempted to bring her in for questioning. “Do you think any of your boys would have done this?”

“No,” Harry said quickly.

“The lad’s right,” Bob said after a moment’s consideration. “I used a new man on the job and he opened his mouth in front of the wrong people. I won’t use him again, but in the meantime, we’ve got a problem.”

That was an understatement. Their one promising lead had turned up empty. And now Alexander had to accept the fact that his actions may have placed an innocent woman in deadly jeopardy. If the men behind the scheme thought she could identify them, they would have ample motive for trying to silence her permanently.