Leslie Lafoy (33 page)

And, Simone hurriedly assured herself as her heart sank into her stomach, Tristan was still very much alive. He had to be or Lucinda wouldn’t have had any reason to kidnap her and Emmy in the first place. And there most definitely wouldn’t be any reason for her and Emmy to still be alive.

“Waking up finally, are you?”

Simone’s heart leaped and hammered against the walls of her chest.

“Why are you doing this?”

The relief that Lucinda wasn’t talking to
her
was instant and full. It was followed in the same second by stunned realization. Sarah Sheraton? Lucinda was holding Sarah captive, too? Why? Simone strained to hear over the thundering of her heartbeat.

“Because,” Lucinda said, “it’s simply too perfect an opportunity to pass up.”

God! If it wasn’t Emmy on the bed … What had Lucinda done with Emmy?

“Opportunity for what?”

Good question, Sarah. But you almost cried while asking it. Buck it up a bit, girl.

“Tristan caught in a lovers’ triangle. You have to admit that it’s incredibly believable. The authorities won’t have the slightest doubt as to what happened when the scene is discovered. Oh, the horror of it will shock, of course. It will be terribly messy. So messy, in fact, that they won’t think to look past the obvious and ask any troublesome questions.”

“Triangle?”

God, Sarah, don’t cry! We’re in this deep and it’s
—

“You, Tristan, and Lady Simone Turnbridge.”

“Oh.”

That’s all you can muster? “Oh”?

“I’ll allow you a choice of your role in the drama,” Lucinda went on. “Would you prefer to be the body found in bed, wrapped in poor dead Tristan’s arms? Or would you prefer to be the one found at the foot of the bed, the wronged woman who killed her lover and his mistress before tragically turning the gun on herself?”

Good plan. Interesting in a decidedly sick sort of way. It did answer the question of why she and Sarah were still alive. And it was a sure bet that Lucinda wouldn’t kill anyone until Tristan arrived. Of course, the basic facts left quite a few questions unanswered, too. Gunshots tended to draw attention and crowds. How Lucinda intended to get everyone into position at just the right time to make three quick shots count just as she needed, though … Then there was the getting-away-afterward-without-being-seen part. That would be tricky. Especially when people would be running toward the sounds of the shots.

And how did Emmy fit into the grand scheme? Had Lucinda ever intended for her to be kidnapped? Had she been dumped out along the road somewhere when the mistake had been discovered? God, Simone hoped so. Emmy could be with Tristan now, telling him what had happened and … and what else? Precious little if she’d been tossed out like refuse before they’d reached the room.

“I’d prefer,” Sarah said, an encouraging bit of steel of her voice, “to be the survivor only wounded in the assault and able to tell authorities what happened when the crazed Lady Simone burst into the room.”

Oh, that’s low! Trying to throw in with the bitch to save your own skin!

“It’s an idea,” Lucinda allowed. “And if I thought there was even the remotest chance that you wouldn’t expect to be financially rewarded for your complicity, I might seriously entertain it. But since I don’t like to share, and a surviving witness isn’t at all necessary for the plan to work beautifully, I’ll have to decline the kind offer.”

There, take that, Sarah.

“I do very much appreciate,” Lucinda went on, “how your mind works, though. You appear to be a woman after my own heart.”

Which is another reason you really have to die.

“Which is probably the most important consideration, my dear Miss Sheraton, in why I cannot allow you to live to see another day.”

Well, close enough anyway.

“Where are Tristan and Simone? Are you having them kidnapped, too?”

“Lady Simone is on the floor on the other side of the bed, neatly trussed and drugged unconscious with chloroform. Tristan will be along shortly to play the fair knight and attempt to rescue his damsel in distress.”

I’m not in distress. I’m biding my time.

“Actually,” Lucinda drawled over the rustle of bombazine, “now that I think on the matter, I’m afraid that I must withdraw my offer of letting you choose your role, Miss Sheraton.” The floorboards creaked. “Tristan will be far easier to get to the bed if it’s Lady Simone lying on it, waiting for him.”

“Where are you going?”

Thank you for asking that, Sarah.

The doorknob squeaked as it was turned; the hinges groaned. “To secure the brawn necessary for switching your and Lady Simone’s positions. Don’t go away now. I’ll be right back.”

The door closed softly. As it did, Sarah sobbed.

“Oh, stop the blubbering,” Simone snapped, rolling onto her back and sitting up. “We have two seconds to get the hell out of here.”

“You’re not unconscious!”

Awkwardly gaining her feet, Simone countered, “Was I supposed to have announced otherwise?”

“No, I guess not.”

“And thanks for offering to sell me out to save your own damned hide.”

“I was desperate. You would have done the same thing.”

No, she wouldn’t. “Lower your voice,” Simone instructed as she wobbled around the end of the bed, “so the whole world doesn’t hear us. And sit up.”

Sarah obeyed, her movement supplying Simone with two bits of information. The first was that the curls atop the woman’s head were a hairpiece that was in danger of sliding off at any moment. The second was that whoever had kidnapped her hadn’t been very experienced at such things.

“God, I can’t believe they tied your hands in the front,” Simone said, stopping beside her. “Not that I’m ungrateful for it. Roll off the bed and then reach down and under my skirt hem. On the calf of my right leg is a knife. Get it and be careful with the blade. It’s sharp.”

Well, Sarah did deserve credit for following instructions well. She lost a bit of the regard when the hairpiece hit the floor and she choked back a sob, but, overall … When she managed to get the knife out without cutting either one of them, Simone turned her back and presented her bound wrists.

“Where are we going to go?” Sarah asked, sawing at the rags. “There’s only the one door, and if we go that way, we’re likely to meet Lady Lockwood coming back with her brawn.”

“Given her larger plan,” Simone countered as she pulled her hands from the binding and turned to take her knife, “there’s probably a choice of exits right outside the door.” Severing Sarah’s bonds with a quick slash, she added, “In fact, I’ll bet you ten pounds that one of them is less than two steps away and leads straight outside.”

Sarah bent to retrieve her hairpiece. “And if there isn’t?”

“There is,” she assured her, leading the way to the door, her brain working both efficiently and well ahead of the moment. “Have you seen Emmy?”

“Who?”

“Lady Emmaline. Tristan’s sister. We were taken from the conservatory together.”

“No. But then, I’ve been asleep since the carriage overturned.”

Carriage overturned? As curious as she was, the story would have to wait for a few moments. Pressing her finger across her lips, Simone listened at the door. Hearing nothing, she turned the handle, eased it open a crack, and peered into the hallway on the other side. There were quite a few doors, all of them alike and spaced evenly down the corridor.

An inn. And, with peeling and grimy paint, a not very reputable one. As though Tristan would take any woman to a place this shabby.

Simone pushed Sarah off her back and eased the door open just enough to poke her head out. Ah, it was so nice to be right. There were three doors that didn’t lead to rooms. One at the far, far end of the hall that opened to the outside, one in the middle that obviously led into the main part of the structure, and one to her left.

“I win ten pounds,” she whispered, pulling the door wide and moving quickly across the threshold. “C’mon.”

There was no need to instruct Sarah twice. Nor was there any need to check to see if the woman followed. In the short distance and time it took to reach the other door, she stepped on Simone’s heels three times.

“For a halfpenny,” she muttered as she wrenched open the door and vaulted outside. Sarah shot past her, the hairpiece in one hand and her skirts fisted in the other, holding her hems high above her ankles. Simone paused just long enough to quietly close the door behind them, then shifted the hilt of the knife in her hand, lifted her hems, and took off in Sarah’s wake.

“I could leave you to fend for yourself,” Simone finished, glaring at the woman’s back and matching her pace. “And if we weren’t in Whitechapel…”

The inn was out of sight and a good distance behind them when Sarah finally slowed, sagged against a deteriorating stucco wall, and gasped for breath. Simone trotted up and considered her. “You don’t fence, do you?”

She ignored the hard look Sarah gave her and went on, saying, “You said the carriage overturned. Which carriage? Where? When? Who was with you?”

“On the road south of London,” Sarah supplied, holding her hand against her side. “Early this morning. Lord Noland was with me.”

“Is he all right?”

“He was alive when they dragged me out of the wreckage and slapped the rag over my face. What happened after that … I can’t tell you.”

Simone hoped Noland was not only still very much alive, but also that he’d come straight back to London and found Tristan. If he wasn’t … If he hadn’t … She glanced up at the sky, trying to judge the time and guess what might have happened in the hours since she and Emmaline had been taken from the conservatory. Had the servants heard the struggle and summoned the authorities? Had Emmy found her way home and relayed the story of what had happened?

Did Tristan have even the slightest inkling that Lucinda had set her plan in motion? If he didn’t, where would he be at this time of the day? Where should she go to find him, to warn him? The warehouse? His town house? God, did he have a club?

There was so much about him that she didn’t know, so many things that she thought she’d have forever to learn. Over toast and coffee and the morning paper in bed. Late at night in the garden, watching the moon rise with Tristan at her back, his arms wrapped around her and holding her close. On the carriage rides to and from the theater and the country houses and at parties and …

Simone seized a slow breath and swallowed down her fear. The rawness of her throat brought her mind fully back to the moment, back to the need to think clearly and rationally.

Tristan not knowing that the plot was afoot was one thing. That he did was another matter entirely; it changed everything. If he knew, what would he be doing and where would she be most likely to find him to let him know that she was safe? He could be anywhere. The warehouse, his town house, Lucinda’s.

Lucinda.

Oh, dear God. What if Lucinda had already sent the invitation? Was Tristan even now on his way to the inn and about to walk into the deadly trap? What would Lucinda do once she discovered that the bait had slipped off the hook? Flee? Only in a world where there were no such things as greed, resentment, and revenge.

Her heart twisting and her stomach turning to lead, Simone squared up to Sarah and gambled for love.

Chapter 19

Tristan paced back and forth across his study, silently railing at having absolutely nothing else to do in the situation. Waiting was something small children and the elderly did, not successful merchants and peers. He glanced over at the chair and wondered for at least the hundredth time how the duke could sit there and calmly read a book.

“Because I know Simone,” the man said without looking up from the page. “If there’s the slightest opportunity for her to turn the tables, she will.”

“And if there isn’t that slightest opportunity?”

“She’ll make one out of nothing. Have faith in her. She’s remarkably resourceful.”

Tristan scrubbed his hands over his face and then raked his fingers through his hair.

At his exasperated sigh, the duke added, “And if not, you can amaze her with your resourcefulness when Lady Lockwood summons you to the scene.”

“I’m not interested in amazing her, Your Grace. I just want her safe. Preferably in the next minute and a half.”

“You know what they say about patience.”

“It’s for saints,” he growled, pacing again. A saint he wasn’t, had never been. And considering that he intended to kill his stepmother the first chance he had, the odds were stacked against his ever being one.

*   *   *

Simone eased her shoulder off the crumbling plaster wall, pulled her hems to one side, and then looked away just long enough to kick the curious rat toward the rear of the alley. Ignoring the squeaking and scurrying, she turned her attention back to the front of the inn. There were the usual weekday-afternoon-in-Whitechapel people moving up and down the walkways, the usual traffic in the street.

It was what didn’t belong there that interested her: the Townsend family carriage. It and two other vehicles—a rented hack with
AT AT MARQUAT’S
painted on the back and a battered open-bed delivery wagon—had already been parked along the walkway in front of the inn when she’d made her way back and into the shadows of the alley. There was no sign of the Townsend driver. No sign of Emmy, either. The reins of the delivery wagon were tied off, too. Only the hack had a driver in place and he was taking a nap in the box.

Jesus. How long was it going to take Lucinda to come bolting out the inn door and into her carriage? Surely by now the woman had discovered that she and Sarah had escaped. Without the two of them, the plan was ruined. Unless, Simone realized, her stomach twisting, Lucinda was willing to forgo the elaborate staging and be content with simply shooting Tristan the moment—

No,
Simone hurriedly assured herself. Lucinda needed a carefully crafted scene. If she didn’t have one, she’d be a certain suspect in Tristan’s death and that would put the insurance money at risk. Not to mention the inheritance. Lucinda wanted all of it, free and easy; that was the main reason for all of this, for all the murders. No, she wasn’t likely to give up and go running off to hide.