Beguiled (24 page)

He grinned but didn't open his eyes. “You could put it to the test tomorrow morning.”

But the next morning Agnes learned that Edward had left orders that he was not to be disturbed. Upon their arrival home the evening before, he'd gone into his laboratory.

“He'll come out for meals and to tuck the children in, but little else,” said Mrs. Johnson. “ 'Tis his way when an idea is upon him.”

That was Agnes's first disappointment of the day.

She filled her pomander and went to the music room. After a fitful night filled with disturbing dreams of Edward, she desperately needed inner harmony. An hour later, she conceded defeat. Soon she must face her growing feelings for him. The coward in her hoped they found the assassin first.

Riddled with worry for both her family and his, Agnes went in search of Hannah. She found her sitting on the carpet in the Elizabethan wing. Chattering a steady stream of gibberish, the girl spoke to her menagerie of carved animals, which she'd herded into groups on the floor. As usual, she avoided books, drawing paper, and writing utensils.

Edward had not exaggerated the girl's aversion to letters. Agnes thought Hannah believed there was a finite number of letters, and that Christopher possessed them all.

Agnes spent a fruitless morning trying to teach the girl the alphabet. Sarah had the skill of teaching. At the thought of her sister, Agnes felt loneliness settle over her. She glanced at the tapestry covering the alcove. Behind it lay the locked door that led down to Edward's dungeon laboratory.

Fighting melancholy, she got to her feet and extended a hand to Hannah. “Would you like a slice of c-a-k-e?”

Trancelike at the notion of letters, the girl stared at nothing. “Want Papa.”

Tears choked Agnes, and she pulled Hannah against her, swaying from side to side. “I know, and he misses you, too. But he's making important things.”

Her sweet face puckered with sweet concern. “ 'S'progress.”

“Yes, it's very great progress.” Agnes's father had seldom locked himself away. At five years old, she and her sisters had mounted their ponies and ridden with him into the fields at harvest time. They'd slept in haystacks and sung songs around the fire.

But the MacKenzies of Ross had never been plagued by an assassin.

Agnes's second disappointment of the day came when she Learned that no messenger had arrived for her from London. What had arrived at Napier House was another bouquet of Lindsay roses.

She plucked at the petals. After that dreadful gossip from Mary Throckmorton, Agnes longed to know what was occurring in her sister Mary's life. Passion ran high between Mary and Robert Spencer, the earl of Wiltshire. But was passion enough? Mary didn't think so. Edward believed that physical intimacy constituted a promise, and Mary and Robert had undeniably become intimate. Would Papa see it the same way?

Agnes didn't know, but instinctively she thought the choice should be Mary's. Had Papa been forced to wed any of the women who'd conceived Agnes, Mary, and Lottie, he would not have married Juliet White. That would have been a tragedy, for Juliet was the mortar that held the MacKenzies together.

Agnes felt apart from them now. Even in Canton, she had not felt so isolated. The reason for her loneliness frightened her. She was falling in love with Edward Napier, and she couldn't find the will to prevent it. Her life's course had been charted years ago on a dockside quay. Family came before romantic entanglements, and Agnes needed her family now.

Word would come soon. Papa wrote to his children on Saturday. Sixty hours later, she'd have the news.

With Auntie Loo and the others to watch Hannah and Christopher, and Edward barricaded in his dungeon, Agnes put the Moroccan dice in her bag and left for her appointments. Her first stop was Saint Nicholas Hospital, where she left half of Lindsay's flowers and twenty pounds. To deliver the other half of the roses, she traveled by barge for the second time across the river to the orphanage. She'd visited the home before and hired some of the girls to clean the tower. Today she left a purse of twenty-five pounds and references for the maids.

After an informative meeting with Penelope Throckmorton, Agnes staved off a wave of guilt. She had used the girl, coaxed her into disloyalty, drained her of information, and received a gift in return. Through teary eyes Agnes stared at the small book in her hands. A book of sonnets. A memory of the night before.

Penelope had been sent back to the inn early for the crime of putting a lizard in Mary's lute. “Made her screech like the monkey she accused me of being,” Penelope had bragged.

In parting, Agnes committed a further act of betrayal against her new young friend; she'd convinced an unsuspecting Penelope to leave the mercantile first. Only the shopkeeper knew of the meeting, and her silence was easily bought for the purchase of a butter-colored apron for Mrs. Johnson and nightcaps for the children.

The carriage rumbled down the unpaved streets. Surrounded by fields and hills, Glasgow was a city of merchants and tradesmen. Only London boasted more wealth and commerce than Glasgow. Every year tons of American tobacco found its way here. Shipbuilding thrived. The textile industry flourished.

The driver shouted. The carriage lurched. Agnes braced herself, but not before she was thrown against the side. Pain shot through her shoulder, and she gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. She should have worn the sling last night, but vanity had defeated good sense. Edward hadn't protested.

What fiend of man made that dress?

A cocky compliment, and the most original she'd ever received. What was he thinking now? She pictured him poring over drawings, blunting quills, crumbling paper and tossing it into the hearth.

Rancid smells assaulted her nose, and she covered her face with her gloved hands. Shouting people and braying animals announced that the market lay ahead. A tripe shop and a peruke maker shared a storefront. In the next block a plumber and a sign painter stood cheek by jowl.

Trimble kept his office in the top floor of the Anchor and Wheel Tavern, a respectable establishment near the brewer's guild.

He opened the door, yanked a napkin from around his neck, and waved her in.

She stopped. “I've interrupted your meal.”

He wiped his thick mustache and tossed the napkin onto a table. The remains of his lunch, a pile of quail carcasses and a hunk of bread, littered a platter. The sweet odor of cabbages hung in the air.

Patting his flat stomach, he said, “I've had my fill. Come in and sit down. I'll put these dishes in the hall.”

Past fifty by a year or two and gray from forehead to nape, Trimble had a youthful air about him. He could be stern and harsh when circumstances dictated, but when he met with success, he rejoiced like a lad who'd collected his first wages.

Agnes removed her cloak and hung it on a rack with an array of similar garments. Then she took the chair nearest the window.

Trimble set out the rubbish and began tidying the table. Across the room, boxes were piled to the ceiling. Packed inside were garments of every kind, from lepers' rags to princely robes, disguises used when necessary by those in his employ. Agnes had worn a costume or two in the course of her search for Virginia.

Trimble had established a web of knowledge gatherers that stretched from the Baltic to Canton. Some of his associates were retired soldiers, same as he; others were ship's captains, nannies, and roomsetters.

He made a fist and pounded the desk. “Congratulate me. I've found your bowman.”

Agnes slumped in the chair. “Good work, Trimble.”

He laughed and poured her a glass of ale. “It's not the item of information we long for, but it will save Napier's life.”

The item he spoke of was Virginia's whereabouts. For five years, he'd been in Agnes's employ, but from the start, he'd adopted her cause. In private they dropped formalities. He was practical about the search and mindful of the odds; Agnes was neither. The differences between them formed the basis of their unusual friendship. He'd traveled with her to Canton and enlisted the harbormaster into his web.

Agnes touched her glass to his. “Tell me about him.”

Trimble whistled. “Name's Van Rooks, and we've not seen his like before.”

“A Dutchman?”

“Yes.” From a niche in his desk he produced the quarrel she'd given him. “A queer one the Rook is. That's what the fletchers in London call him. The Rook. How many of these”—he brandished the arrow—“do you have?”

She recalled each of them. One in her shoulder. The second in Edward's chair. A third in the Napier crest. The fourth skewering the dove in the MacKenzie plaid. “Four, why?”

He chewed his lip, a sure sign that the subject troubled him. “He commissions only five for each job.”

Odder still, this assassin. “What if he doesn't succeed in five tries?”

“Hasn't happened. That's why no one questions his price.”

“Which is?”

“Five thousand pounds. One for each arrow.”

It was Agnes's turn to whistle. “He must be good.”

“They say the word hasn't been uttered yet to equal the Rook's skill.”

Agnes gazed out the window. A group of seamen swaggered down the lane; a pack of scrawny children followed. Sunlight turned the panes of glass to mirrors. Did the bowman stand behind one of those windows?

Agnes scooted her chair back. “I was bothered when he did not kill the guard. Now I know why and it frightens me. He is an honorable assassin.”

“There's worse news, so I won't argue the point.”

Impossible, she thought. “If you tell me he is a ghost, I will tell your wife that you gifted your mistress with a new carriage.”

In mock misery, he wrung his hands. “Crafty women, you Highlanders.”

He'd always teased her about her heritage. Agnes took no offense. “Give me the ill tidings and end my misery.”

“He's skilled with a blade.”

Bitterness filled her. “Does he poison them as well?”

Trimble shook his head in shame. “No honor in that.”

Agnes didn't necessarily agree, but she wouldn't broach the argument either. “The fletcher who makes the quarrels. I don't suppose he can be bought.”

“Everyone can be bought.”

“Well then?”

“Not every price can be met.”

“Oh, now
that's
symmetry of thought, Trimble. I'll pay dearly to learn the Rook's location and a description of his face.”

Trimble sipped the ale. “The fletcher has a brother in the workhouse of Saint Andrews, Holborn. Gain his release and you'll get the location of the Rook and a likeness of his face.”

Holborn was a district of London. “But that will take a fortnight at the least. I'll have to hire a barrister in London. Take it to Sessions.” She stopped. She understood. “ 'Tis a price we cannot meet.”

“Exactly. The Rook will have finished the job by then.”

“Or the job will have finished him.” Agnes didn't wince at the prospect of taking the man's life. The world would be better off without the Rook.

Trimble leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clutching the glass with both hands. “He's very dangerous. His peers and those who know him say the first scruple has yet to find him.”

She straightened her fingers and made a slicing motion. “But can he bring a man down with the edge of his hand?”

“No.” He sat back. “But you'll have to get within arm's length of him first, and I tell you, Agnes, it will not be easy. Those ruffians in Burgundy? That childmonger in London? Those were amateurs. I'll wager my firstborn son that the Rook knows all about you. He'll be prepared to deal with your unusual abilities.”

Some people did not speak kindly of Agnes's skills. Other people did not believe in weaponless fighting, but she no longer took offense at their disparaging words. “Perhaps I'll brew up a little Chinaman's poison.”

He scoffed. “You never would stoop to that. 'Tis a coward's weapon, and you're no coward. That brawl in Canton convinced me.” His voice dropped. “The Rook will not stay long in Scotland. Word from the fletchers' guild says he'll come and go within a fortnight.”

“That doesn't give me much time.”

He turned his attention to her sling. “Are you healing well?”

“Aye, I have an excellent doctor.”

“Cathcart's a ruddy good man. In the event you are interested, he hasn't visited his mistress lately.”

Feigning boredom, Agnes examined her fingernails.

Trimble wasn't done. “Every Wednesday and Saturday, regular as England will war with France, she entertains him. Stays over, they say, but only on Wednesday.”

“Then we can assume that the widow MacLane does not snore.”

Trimble howled with laughter. “Dismiss those deadly hands and feet, Agnes MacKenzie. A solid prick of your tongue, and a man'll bleed to death.”

“I learned it from Lottie.”

“So you've said.” Wiping his eyes, he sniffed. “One of my sources saw you in the carriage with the Napiers.”

She told him about visiting Saint Vincent's Church in search of Mrs. Borrowfield. “Have someone question the sedanchairmen and the runners in the area. See if Mrs. Borrowfield, or however she styles herself, hired a ride on Sunday mornings between nine-thirty and ten o'clock. She did not attend services. Learn where she went, whom she met.”

He jotted down the information in a small book. “I should have thought to check with the churches. Anything else?”

Agnes felt another twinge of guilt over her treatment of Penelope, but tucked it away and explained her suspicions about Sir Throckmorton.

Nodding in agreement, Trimble made another notation. “If he brought that many women with him, the laundry maids at the inn will probably aid us out of spite.”