Jilting the Duke (31 page)

* * *

Aidan was sleeping. The heavy curtains of his bedroom windows were pulled to block the afternoon light. But his sleep was disturbed. In the dream, disaster was looming, and he was running to avert it. Running, but not fast enough. Never fast enough.

He heard Tom calling his name, calling for help, heard him beating his dragon-headed cane against a door. But the door wasn't one Aidan knew: framed in metal, it was surrounded by glass, and beyond it Aidan could see a pond, filled with water and lilies. Half-buried in the mud, Aidan found a toy soldier, the banner-bearer. He picked it up, but it was crushed, and the pieces fell apart in his hand.

The sound of the beating grew louder, louder, mirroring the pounding of his heart. Tom's voice calling his name over and over. And the dragon-headed cane pointed toward the pond.

He awoke to Barlow's beating on the locked bedroom door, calling his name. But he knew already. Sophia was in danger. Aidan hoped this time he wouldn't be too late.

* * *

Sophia examined herself in the mirror. She'd taken a shirt and a pair of trousers from the back of her wardrobe. Both had been Tom's, and she used them sometimes to work in the garden. Well worn, but still serviceable, they would give her an advantage: The blackmailer would expect her to be encumbered by skirts and petticoats. He wouldn't expect a woman in pants.

From Luca's room, she'd retrieved an old Scottish dagger given to him by Tom; why, she'd never known. She held it, felt its weight, tossed it in her hand to gauge its balance. It had been years since she had sparred with her cousins in the portrait gallery, her aunt Clara watching and applauding their efforts as if they'd been in a play. Perhaps that had been Clara's contribution to Sophia's education, adding skills of the body to skills of the mind. Funny how she'd never valued that before, but if she and Lily lived, Sophia would add fencing and boxing to Lily's curriculum.

The dagger had a sheath and a leather strap she could use to tie it to her waist, but she had no wish to be subtle. No, she would meet her adversary, dagger in hand, like the old engravings of Shakespeare's Imogen going into the cave.

If her adversary had wished to unleash a Fury, he could have found no better way than to threaten her children. For the first time, she understood exactly how her mother had felt, spurred by injustice to act, and to act regardless of any personal consequences.

Sophia was ready. But there were one or two items she still needed before her meeting, and she would find them in the garden.

* * *

Barlow was accompanied by Dodsley and the Italian, Luca. Barlow must have found their urgency convincing to have allowed them to accompany him to Aidan's bedroom door.

Aidan was only half-undressed. They told him their stories as he pulled on the rest of his clothes.

Luca had been drawn from the house by a forged letter from Aidan, asking for his help and secrecy. The meeting place was a tavern in the City, but even before the time of their meeting had come and gone, Luca had realized he'd been duped.

Dodsley had returned from Aldine's office to find Sophia gone from the library, and the note from the blackmailer open on the desk. He'd returned to the front of the house to find Mr. Grange beaten and bleeding, stumbling up the porch. Grange confirmed what they had already come to fear: in the park, four men had stolen Liliana. Dodsley had determined Aidan was their best help, and, on his way to Aidan's house, he'd met Luca on the street, with the same destination.

Aidan read the blackmailer's doggerel, feeling the blackmailer's injunction that Sophia could ask no one for help as a stab in the gut:

Aidan didn't know where Sophia had been told to go, but she had clearly understood. The rhyme made clear that the starting point was her bedroom. He shoved the letter in his pocket and ran to his shortcut through the mews.

In the distance, he saw a young man leave the Wilmot garden with a sack over his shoulder. Perhaps a thief, perhaps something else. The young man turned in the opposite direction from Aidan and began walking swiftly away from the Wilmot house.

The young man was important. Somehow Aidan knew it. Aidan shoved the riddle in Dodsley's hand. “You, solve it.” Then he turned to Luca. “You, find my men.”

Aidan had only looked away for an instant, but the young man was already out of sight. He ran. Barlow followed, ready to convey a call for help back to Luca and Dodsley and Aidan's men.

Sophia's house was the second from the corner, and shortly down from the Wilmot yard, the alley turned a sharp right, to parallel the street. On the left were the walls enclosing the yards of the houses, interrupted intermittently by doors. Aidan counted twelve doors. On the right were various entrances to different stables. He could see to the end of the long block, too far away for the young man to have reached it and exited onto the street already. But through which of the garden doors or openings to the mews had he gone?

If Aidan had to, he would break into each yard, and have his men search, but that would likely take too much time.

He'd been too complacent; he'd thought to wait patiently, to let her see that he could be everything he had not been before. But he still didn't know who was threatening her. Now he prayed he wasn't also too late.

* * *

The riddle had told Sophia to look north from her bedroom window, and when she saw a monument in glass and iron, she would know her destination. It was the third house to her left, the first after the turn of the corner. Attached to the back of the house was a conservatory, and at the top of the plated glass and iron was a statue of Flora, goddess of flowers. That much she could see from her bedroom.

The garden door facing the alley was unlocked and recently greased. It pushed forward easily. She had anticipated someone might be standing behind the door, but no one was. The garden was green with the recent rain, and the open spaces were heavily overgrown with weeds. A path to the conservatory door had recently been beaten down. It would be easy to watch her approach from the upper walks of the conservatory. And just as easy to intercept or harm her.

But under the trees where little or no light fell, there was little undergrowth. She turned away from the obvious path to skirt the edges of the garden nearest her own garden wall. When she had visited Mr. Anderson at the Apothecaries' Garden and told him where she lived, he'd exclaimed with delight that she must visit a prototype of a new kind of conservatory not three doors down from her. He'd shown her the plans, and she recalled a side entrance, concealed by the stoves that heated the space. It was her one advantage.

The side door was ajar, but from the debris between the door and its jamb, it had been standing so for some time. Not a trap. She slipped through easily. From behind the large stoves she could hear two men's voices, arguing. One sounded especially familiar.

“You didn't have to hit me so hard.”

“You wanted them not to suspect you; now they don't.”

“I want my money. I've done everything you wanted, drugged the child, made sure her uncle got the letter, everything. Pay me.”

“A little longer. If you are patient, you could be richer than you ever imagined.”

“All I want is the money we agreed upon. Pay me . . . or else.”

“Else what?”

“I'll return the child to her home. You have nothing to bargain with without the child.”

The voice that wanted money was agitated, the other almost preternaturally calm. Sophia thought the agitated one should be more careful; he was in danger.

“I've given up a great deal. Even if she believes I was attacked, I still lost her ward. It's unlikely Lady Wilmot will write me a recommendation after that. Pay me my money, and I'll disappear.”

Mr. Grange.
The traitor.

She peeked between the pipes of the stove. Between her and the kidnappers was a deep, large pond, meant for water lilies, but the plants had either died or been removed. Liliana had been placed, bound and unmoving, on the stone edge of the pond. All her adversary had to do was push Lily over the edge into the pond, and, if Sophia were delayed at all, Lily would drown before Sophia could reach her.

The men continued to argue. Grange foolishly recounted everything he knew: the location of a barn filled with something valuable, the names of several associates he would convey to the police. But she paid little attention; she was trying to imagine a way to save Lily and herself.

She heard a shot and looked toward the noise. Grange fell to the floor, moaning, and the calm one—he must be the one who had threatened her in the opera box—moved to stand behind Lily. “I know you are there, Lady Wilmot. You should show yourself before I end this game with a swimming lesson.”

If she revealed her position, she had no advantage.

If she didn't, Lily would die.

* * *

Aidan heard the shot of a pistol. Concentrating on his memory of the sound, he chose the garden door he had just walked past. He didn't let himself imagine who had been shot. He didn't let himself consider what might have happened if he'd been farther down the alley when the shot rang out, knowing Sophia was in danger and unable to choose the right door. At least this way he knew he had the right garden.

The path was well trodden, and, Aidan, caring little for surprise in his fear for Sophia, ran up to the open door of a glass conservatory. The blackmailer was positioned on the other side of a large, deep pond, a bound child before him on the water's ledge, her feet tied to a large rock. He'd clearly chosen his position both to be visible from the entrance and inaccessible behind the pond.

Aidan couldn't see much of the body lying on the ground, but he could see trousers and hear groaning. A man's voice. Not Sophia. He still had time to tell her he loved her.

The blackmailer looked up from the injured man, turning the second in his pair of pistols in Aidan's direction.

“Well, Forster, I didn't expect you. Lady Wilmot made her dislike of your company quite obvious this week, or so my colleague here has told me. I'd also expected her to abide by our little agreement. She promised not to tell you and to come alone.”

“Where is she?”

The man shrugged. “I didn't anticipate that she'd let her husband's by-blow die a watery death. Wilmot thought she was devoted enough to him that he could force her to raise his bastard. Apparently he was wrong. Perhaps I've offered her a solution. I must admit I like her the better for it.”

Sophia set her bag on the ground, hoping that between her tools and Aidan, she would have enough to save Lily. She laid the croquet mallet and the three croquet balls on the floor before her. She picked up one ball and bowled it to hit a large planter several feet away and to her adversary's right. A distraction.

“Ah, so Lady Wilmot has joined us. Come out, your ladyship, where I can see you.” Her adversary kept his gun aimed at Aidan, but he spoke in the direction of the planter she had hit. “If you don't come out, next time you move, I'll shoot you or Forster.”

She needed to distract the blackmailer enough for either her or Aidan to get close enough to save Lily, or to gain enough time for others to come to their aid. Aidan, she expected, would not have come alone.

She needed the next ball to go farther, to sound as if she were moving closer to the blackmailer. She bowled again. The ball at first appeared to be falling short of her goal, slowing almost to a halt. She caught her breath. But then the ball quickened as if going downhill and hit her mark. Sophia caught the barest hint of orange bergamot. Half expecting to see Francesca behind her, she turned. There was no one there, and no oranges on the trees.

Her adversary fired his pistol into the avenue nearest where her second ball had struck. “Still alive, Lady Wilmot?”

Aidan listened for the fall of a body or a rustling of plants that would indicate Sophia was hit. But to his relief he heard nothing.

The kidnapper had used both of his shots. Aidan inched slowly around the edge of the pond. If he could get far enough, he would try to run the blackmailer down. If Sophia was still alive—God, Aidan's heart stopped at the idea that she might be wounded or dead—then she might be able to run for Lily before the child was pushed into the water and drowned.

“Stop there, Forster. You cannot reach the girl in time if I push her in. The pond is deep; I've weighted her with rocks; and she's had just a bit of laudanum, so she won't know to hold her breath. Have you brought me my papers?”

“We've never found any papers. But whatever and wherever the papers are, I'm sure they are not yours.”

“But you did find the papers I left for her ladyship. It was very disappointing to hear that the officers found nothing.” The blackmailer laughed.

“How many have you killed for those papers: Aldine's clerk, the courier, Wilmot?”

“Wilmot was a dying man; I did little more than help him along.”

Sophia gasped.

“Ah, Lady Wilmot, not dead yet? Come out, or I'll kill your ward.”

Sophia had no choice, but he had used up the shot in his pistols. Now the only worry was his knife and how good he was at throwing it.

She picked up Tom's dagger and tucked the last of the croquet balls under her arm, concealing it in the folds of her oversized shirt.