Gilded Lily (20 page)

Barnabas didn't know what he was himself, these days, but he knew enough not to ask Dan for his opinion on the subject. “Miss Murcheson has had a very long, tiring two days. If you believe you can get her home discreetly, dressed as she is, I'll urge her to take your offer. That way we'll all know she's secure, and we can all stop worrying.”

“I'll still worry,” Dan assured him. “But aye, if you can convince her.”

The deciding factor was the number of bathtubs with water laid on in Sophie's house. Two. One for Barnabas, who could think of only one thing he'd ever anticipated more keenly than that particular bath. And one for Phineas, who had spoken scarcely another word since his arrival, other than to offer to leave on foot and find an inn or hostelry where he could bathe in peace.

“You'd have to walk for hours from here to find an inn that would let you in the door,” Barnabas pointed out. “You can hardly stroll into Claridge's looking and smelling like that, even if you had the money for it.”

“I do, as it happens, have the money for it.” But Phineas couldn't argue that his presentation was less than desirable at the moment.

“Phineas and I will stay,” Barnabas decided for them. “Once he's had a wash, Phineas can find a hotel, and I can come along to Murcheson's house. Meanwhile, Pinkerton will see Freddie safely there. After breakfast tomorrow we'll go driving, and Phineas can meet us in the park. We can regroup then.”

“We need to get back to—” Freddie clamped her mouth shut, eyes cutting to the side to find Sophie. She must have recalled that Lady Sophronia knew nothing of the details of their outing. Nor would it be prudent to reveal them at this time, with the mood already so fraught. “We need to retrieve that
thing
from where we left it, and attempt to stop that event we discussed yesterday from taking place.”

Phineas nodded. “You can both have a rest. I'll stoke up the trap later and go in search of more fuel for . . . for the thing. Then I'll go back to fetch it. Go for your drive after luncheon, unfashionable though it may be, to give me plenty of time. I think I know of a closer place that can accommodate the thing. We can meet and embark from . . . wherever that is.”

“I'm not sure I trust you with the thing,” Freddie said with a scowl.

“I was entrusted with it by its rightful owner, long before you ever laid eyes on it. I'll take good care of it, rest assured. Make sure it's safer from prying eyes than it is right now too.”

“It certainly sounds as though you all have a full day before you tomorrow,” Sophie said wryly.

Barnabas concurred. It sounded like a busier day than he was up to, but he supposed he would have to manage. The only way out at this point was through, although through
to what
he had no idea. Wasn't sure he wanted to know.

“You need to rest too,” he reminded Phineas. The dark circles under his brother's eyes were not part of his disguise, nor was the slump in his shoulders. He'd had two hard days and a rough night in between. Far rougher than Barnabas's own night, which had not quite been restful but indecently comfortable. “You look ready to drop. And we ought to talk.”

“I suppose we must, but not tonight.”

Dissatisfied but sensing it was wiser not to press, Barnabas left off for the moment and nodded to Dan. “What about Miss Murcheson's things? Will you tell the house they were sent after her? Won't it arouse suspicion if she doesn't return when her luggage does?” She had packed as if for a weekend of frolic in the country, which evidently required an enormous steamer trunk.

Dan shrugged. “We'll bring it with us. Miss Murcheson can play the part of the lad I took pity on in the street and paid tuppence to help me carry the thing upstairs. If she keeps her head down, it should work well enough. As long as nobody gets within sniffing distance.”

Barnabas wasn't sure it sounded like a good plan at all, but his own head was swimming from fatigue and Freddie's eyes were drifting shut as she swayed gently on her feet. He wanted to do something, kiss or hold her, even touch her. But what they'd already done was dangerous enough. Bringing it to everybody's attention was out of the question. For now, at least.

“Rest well, Freddie.” He allowed himself that much, and earned a smile in return.

“The same to you. Both of you. And thank you, Sophie. You're a true friend.”

“I'm not so sure. We can hash it out another time, though. See she gets home safely, Daniel.”

Pinkerton tipped an invisible hat and opened the parlor door for Freddie, who gave Barnabas one last, long look before following the big man out of the room.

S
HE WAS TIRED,
deservedly so. That was the excuse she gave herself later on, anyway. But Freddie still thought she should have suspected something was amiss from Dan's broody silence, in place of his usual broody lecturing. Or by the absence, which really ought to have been conspicuous, of any servants in the carriage house, or the garden, or the kitchens, or anywhere else on their journey from the mews to the door of Freddie's room.

Or the mere fact of the bath laid on for her there, steaming hot and enticing, so she needn't wait a moment to get clean. And supper, still warm under its cover even when her bath was done, a comfortingly large serving of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with a slice of berry tart for afterward. A cup of tea or some lemonade wouldn't have been unwelcome, but she was too tired to call for it. The wine somebody had thoughtfully poured was more than sufficient, for all it was a bit stronger and sweeter than she had expected.

So
tired. Hardly had she finished the meal than she fell gratefully into her bed, and into what she expected to be a restful, well-earned sleep. Instead she dreamed of swimming through black water, filthy and thick, knowing she must surface to breathe but terrified of some unnamable
something
she knew was waiting for her there. And later, of chasing Barnabas and Phineas down an endless dock, but her feet wouldn't move, and when she opened her mouth to call out to them, no sound would come out.

It was not a peaceful night. She awoke to a noon-bright room, a foul taste in her mouth, and the feeling that she had forgotten something important.

The tub was gone, as was the supper tray. She hadn't heard them being removed, but now a tray with breakfast sat on the small round table by the window. Sadly the teapot was cold and the tea appeared too stewed to be drinkable. The toast and kippers were also stone cold, as though they'd been sitting there for some time. Her stomach was uneasy anyway, and she pushed the stuff away.

Ringing for a servant seemed to accomplish nothing, and after waiting several minutes—brushing her hair out and pondering what on earth to wear to go on a drive through the park culminating in a submersible ride to find invisible squid—she decided to peek out the door to investigate. No need to get herself into clothes yet and go looking for help if one of the girls happened to be dusting right outside her bedroom.

The door wouldn't open. It wasn't just stuck either, as sometimes happened on damp days. When she yanked hard on the knob as she turned it, and at the same time kicked a certain spot near the hinge, nothing useful happened. Nothing even budged. She hadn't really expected it to. It was not a damp day, for one thing.

She peered through the keyhole, but saw only the blue striped paper on the hallway wall opposite. A glance under the door confirmed that the key had not simply fallen from the lock. Not that it should have been there in the first place, as she rarely bothered to lock her door and certainly hadn't done so the previous night, but she would rather test all avenues before accepting the awful truth. At last she tried folding a slip of heavy paper from her writing desk and slipping it between the door and frame. Sliding up from the floor, the paper was stopped by the door catch, as she'd expected. But continuing up, she encountered another obstruction a few inches higher. Something on the outside of the door frame, that was very solid and that she was certain she would have noticed had it been there before.

Freddie cast her mind about for some other alternative, some other truth to frame these facts with, other than the unpleasant one she didn't want to accept.

She was bolted in.

Her stomach lurched as the realization set in, and she had to sit for a moment while the fog of sudden, intense anxiety cleared from her head. Soon it occurred to her that the fog was not all anxiety, and a dawning suspicion made her lift the lid from the teapot again and dab one finger in the liquid. Tasting the smallest amount possible, she tried to analyze. Tea, of course. But honey-sweet, not her preference at all, and beneath the honey was a subtle, wretched bitterness she had apparently failed to recognize in last night's wine. Laudanum, or something as like as made no difference. She spit as much as she could out of her mouth into the napkin, wiping her tongue with the linen until no trace of the medicine remained. No wonder she'd slept through half the day, unaware of the meals being traded out or the lock being installed on the outside of her door.

A look at the clock on her mantel confirmed that it was nearly lunchtime. In another hour or so she ought to be taking her drive with Barnabas. Being locked in her room was going to make that far more difficult to accomplish.

“Damn you, Father!”

She considered ringing the bell again, pulling the cord until she got some sort of response. But that would really only create annoyance for the servants, not for her father, who might not even be in the house. And it also assumed he hadn't disconnected the bell, anticipating her attempts to summon someone. Should she ring it, just in case that was what he was expecting her to do, to make him think she was that predictable and throw him off track when she did something wildly unexpected later?

And what exactly might that be?

The pessimistic voice in her head took the opportunity to remind her, also, that she really deserved no better treatment than this, and was lucky her father hadn't had her thrown into a stockade somewhere. Or perhaps Newgate. She wasn't really sure what his relationship was to the military, or whether he had the authority to throw anyone in a stockade, but he could certainly have turned her over to some sort of authority for any number of crimes she'd committed. Which did he know about? She'd stolen things, broken into a classified military base, stolen things
from
the classified military base . . . really she'd done quite a lot of illegal things, lately. Normally her stealth and subterfuge were merely employed to allow her to pursue her chosen line of work. Since Barnabas had arrived, however, things seemed to have taken a decided turn for the larcenous and vice-ridden. Not that he'd encouraged any of it, except a few of the vices.

He'd been against the rest of it from the start, of course. That was the basis of his employment. In their last few encounters, though, he seemed to have forgotten all about that. And really now that she was looking back and trying to clarify her hindsight, shouldn't that be suspicious in itself?

Somebody
had to have tipped off her father to trigger this incarceration. He'd obviously known when precisely she would be back. The hot bath and meal, perfectly timed. The drugged wine, already prepared. And then the locksmith who'd evidently been plying his trade here in the middle of the night. It all spoke of preparation, premeditation.

Just as she'd tried to find some other explanation for the locked door before accepting it as truth, Freddie scoured her mind for other possibilities, other ways her father could have learned she was up to more than her usual no good. Phineas had come into the picture only recently, and if he'd been pretending not to know her in the sub yesterday, he'd done an excellent job fooling everyone. He couldn't be her father's man still. He didn't even know whose man he was; he'd said as much himself. And even she hadn't known she'd end up at that particular dock at that particular time. Not Phineas, then.

Not Sophie either, she knew in her heart. Sophie might care for her, might want her to avoid dangers both physical and moral, but she would never give Freddie's secrets up to a man who might lock her in a room because of them. It simply wouldn't occur to her to even consider such a thing. Besides, Sophie had had years to develop a tolerance for Freddie's doings. She'd volunteered to help in the first place, and urged Freddie to find her own path if the one offered to her was too bleak to contemplate. If she'd wanted to change things, she could have simply stopped abetting the sneaking about. The same was true of Dan. And neither of them had anything to gain by ratting her out. Quite the opposite. They were best served by preserving the status quo, dubious though it had been.

Although there had been that odd exchange between Dan and Barnabas, at Sophie's house. She hadn't overheard it, but Dan had looked thunderously displeased and Barnabas wore his smoothest, mildest, most harmless expression throughout. Giving nothing away.

Change.
That was what it all came down to, the fixed point her mind kept circling. The status quo had clearly
not
been preserved, so what had changed? What new element had unbalanced the delicate machinations by which she had maintained the structure of her life?

Her stomach clenched again as she focused in on what had to be the truth. There was nothing else left. Barnabas had known her whereabouts and her plans. He'd helped her, followed her, been vocally concerned about her safety, and she'd trusted him with . . . well, with everything. But now he had found his brother, and they had the smugglers to foil and the squid to save, and what if Barnabas had grown
too
worried at the prospect of Freddie accompanying them? That was the kindest slant she could give it, that he'd meant well. She could almost bear it if she thought that was the reason, that he'd turned Freddie in to her father to protect her. Bear it, but not forgive him.

Because the alternative . . . Freddie wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold herself together as panic and anguish came crashing in. If he had played her for a fool, strung her along to get to his brother and the smugglers, turned her in to get her out of the way once he'd served his own ends—
and
stolen her heart in the process, not to mention her maidenhood—she would have to get out of this room. And she would have to find Lord Barnabas Smith-Grenville. And she would have to punch the treacherous smile right off his beautiful face.

 • • • 

“B
ARNABAS.”

Something wiggled his foot, and he snatched it to safety under the covers, trying to find his way back into his dream. It was a lovely dream, featuring a nebulous but alluring fantasia of Freddie, naked in a clean bed, with her legs parted just enough that he could almost see—

“Barnabas.”

And it was gone.

“Bloody fucking
hell
, Phineas.”

“You were supposed to go back to Murcheson's last night. You fell asleep in the bath instead. Fortunately the butler came along and heard you snoring.”

Barnabas had a vague memory of a groggy conversation with the butler, and of being shown to a room, but he couldn't have attested that it was
this
room, or to any other particulars of the evening. He no longer smelled like dead fish and sewage, though, and he counted it among his blessings that he had evidently finished the functional part of the bath before he fell asleep.

“Well done, Lady Sophronia's butler.” He sat up and rubbed his hand over his face, grimacing at the stubble and at the sleep sand caught in his lashes. “What time is it?”

“Half past eleven. You slept for nearly twelve hours.”

“Blast. How can I return to Murcheson's now, after being gone all night and half the day? How do I explain it?”

“Mrs. Wallingford already did. She sent a note saying you'd injured an ankle getting out of the carriage to assist her down when it stopped here, and she'd insisted you remain here while she summoned a doctor to examine you. Later, of course, she sent another note stating that the doctor had recommended you stay in bed with the offending limb elevated for at least a night and a day.”

“Murcheson's house isn't two miles from here. I could've traveled that. She made me sound like a bloody Jane Austen heroine.”

“It seemed believable. She also invited Freddie to take luncheon with her today. She should be here within the half hour, so get dressed.”

He was wider awake now, and the full peculiarity of the situation was dawning on him. Phineas was standing next to the bed. Phineas, whom he hadn't seen in years until the mad adventures of the past two days. Having a conversation with him as if it were the most normal thing in the world. He continued to look like a pirate, however.

“Why are you still wearing that ridiculous thing on your face?”

“My fine mustache?” Phineas twirled one of the long, tatty ends around his finger.

“
That
is disgusting, but I was referring to the eye patch.”

His brother touched the patch, the rakish charm vanishing from his face. “
That
is to keep the sun from my eye.” He lifted the edge of the thing briefly, and Barnabas winced at the sight of blood red where white should be, and a scrabble of short, vicious-looking scars fanning out from the corner of the lid. “And to keep from frightening the innocent.”

“I'm far from innocent.”

“As I'm well aware.”