Lynne Connolly (17 page)

The doorbell clanged, but although surprised at a caller at this hour, it didn’t alarm me until a footman brought me a note. “There is a man waiting for a reply, my lady,” Patterson said, in impassive tones.

I unfolded the note.

My dear Lady Strang,

I apologize for the necessity of contacting you in this way, but I need your presence urgently. I fear your husband has taken his responsibilities too far and he is presently at the Cytherean Club in Maiden Lane, closeted in a room with one of the house’s most prominent members. I fear for his safety and his reputation, since a resident of Grub Street is also present. I know you will wish to help him evade this potentially disastrous situation.

Yours,

John Kneller, Esq.

I glanced up. “I’d like to see my maid and Carier. And tell the messenger that he may go.”

Nichols and Carier arrived promptly, but unfortunately so did Patterson, returning with an apologetic bow.

“The messenger says he must have a reply, or his master will let him go. Shall I have him ejected forcibly, my lady?”

I sighed and got to my feet, ignoring my solicitous maid’s efforts to help me. “No, I don’t want the disturbance. I’ll speak to him.”

I went downstairs, leaving Carier and Nichols reading the letter. I’d send Carier with a couple of footmen to the club, but I seriously doubted that Richard would be foolish enough to do any such thing as walk into the lion’s den without useful men at his back. And Freddy volunteered to take that particular chore. I’d wager he wouldn’t go in alone, either.

I took a moment at the top of the stairs to look over the balcony at the messenger, concerned that Kneller had come himself. I wouldn’t put anything past him. But it wasn’t, only a man dressed as a respectable servant, one I didn’t know. The door lay open to the night, letting in a gust of cool air. Not a practice I approved of.

So I went down to him. The footman stationed in the hall straightened up and I sighed. Instead of our usual hall boy, a rather undersized youth, we had a footman in livery, one burly enough to repel intruders. I hated this, it made me feel as if our comfortable house in Brook Street had become a fortress, but I understood the necessity.

I walked slowly down the stairs, having learned the value of a good entrance, and approached the man. “Could you tell your master there is no reply?” I said. As I came closer I grew aware of an unpleasant odour of stale beer and perspiration. While familiar with the aroma, I had no wish to have it in my house. He held a note close to his chest and held it out, but not too far.

I should have realised, I should have known what he was about, but as I touched the paper, he strengthened his grip on it and dragged me towards him, spinning me around so my back was pressed against his chest. His arm went around me, holding me close, and I felt a cold, metallic cylinder pressed against my temple.

At the footman’s horrified gasp and surge forward, my abductor took a step back. “Don’t even think of it. She’ll be dead before you get this far.”

“You won’t kill me.” John didn’t want me dead.

“You don’t know me and you won’t find me once I’ve done it. I will if I ’ave to.”

I hadn’t thought of that aspect. This man didn’t care. He could disappear into London’s rookeries as if he’d never existed. His threat was real.

I heard a movement at the top of the stairs. Nichols and Carier, or one of them, creating a distraction for the other to slip down the backstairs and get into place outside the house. All I had to do was delay him.

“What do you want?” I hated the way my voice quavered.

“You.”

“Why?”

“I don’t ask, I just do. Shut up, you talk too much.” A note of satisfaction entered his voice, but that was the last thing I heard. The pistol moved from my forehead, and I wondered if Carier had the time yet. Then a stinging blow struck the side of my head, and before the numbness had turned to pain, blackness fell and I knew no more.

Chapter Eleven

“I’m sorry about this, Rose.”

“Eh?” My senses swam, my head ached, but I recognised the voice of Steven Drury. I groaned.

Something cool touched my forehead and I dared to open my eyes, squinting into the pool of light cast by an oil lamp. A black oil lamp, the kind that watchmen and others used outside at night. Still, I was glad of the soft glow, but the stink of burning oil turned my stomach.

I reached up my hand and found a cool cloth placed reverently over my forehead. “Oh no, not again!”

“It’s not my doing.” Steven stepped back and water splashed into a bowl. He returned with another cloth, which he gave to me to place where I wanted.

When I touched my temple where the ruffian had struck me, I winced. “Ouch.” I flexed my feet and hands, and took mental inventory. Nothing appeared broken and my baby was quiet, but not ominously so. “Whose idea was this? And do you know what Richard will do to you?” My heart sank. The worst, the absolute worst. He’d come down like an avenging angel, in force with firepower. And probably kill his son, the very thing I wanted to avoid.

“I know. I sent word to him, but I don’t know where he is, so it might take my man some time to find him.”

“So tell me what happened.” I peered up at Steven. He wore modest evening attire, dark green, I noted, but not ball dress. “And where I am.”

“You’re at the club.” I might have guessed. “Kneller has some harebrained scheme of luring your husband here to incriminate him.”

“Incriminate him in what?”

“Taking part in the activities here.” Steven shoved his hands in his pockets. “I tell you, Rose, I’m tired of the whole thing. The club, the obligations, everything.”

If I hadn’t been sure it would hurt, I’d have laughed. So typical of Steven, thinking of his own problems first. “Does she have anyone from Grub Street or the gossip sheets here?” Hawked on the street, many people bought the gossip sheets in preference to newspapers, more expensive and mainly available for free at the coffeehouses. Word spread fast and escalated with every person it reached. Instability spelled death to business arrangements, financial loans and the intricate network that kept the country afloat. Not that John Kneller worried about any of that.

“Would you like a drink?”

I thought I might, but when I sat up, the world reeled and I retched. Steven found a pail, and I was copiously sick. Then I took the glass from his hand and rinsed my mouth out, tasting the rank blandness of boiled water. I preferred my boiled water in tea and coffee. I felt weak, sick and my head throbbed with a pulse I knew would only increase. I’d been struck on the head by that vicious criminal. I was lucky to be alive.

Steven sat next to me and hauled me up against his shoulder. “Any better?”

I groaned in response so he gave up and laid me back down. I lay on a wooden settle, a lumpy and none-too-clean pillow at my head, but I wasn’t about to complain now. The room also held a bed, and I wondered at Steven’s not putting me down there, but considering the vaunted activities of the house, I was more than pleased I lay here. Heaven knew what awaited the unsuspecting occupant of the bed. Bugs, diseases and stains, I’d be bound. I shuddered.

“I’m sorry, Rose.”

“Stop saying that. You’re a pathetic excuse for a man, Steven Drury.” Pain made me tetchy. Richard had discovered that when I gave birth to Helen. At the reminder, I covered my stomach with my free hand and felt a small movement, a quiver. Thank God. “Why don’t you control your menace of a wife? You married her, doesn’t that mean you control her finances?”

“Unfortunately, no. We have an allowance from her father, enough to meet our daily needs, but she has control of a trust. Her father thinks she has a good business mind.” He took a turn around the room. I hoped he wasn’t planning to leave. He was the weak point and I was safer while Steven remained with me.

“She probably does.”

“No she doesn’t. She spent all the money on this place. It’s an outside risk, long odds, a gamble and I don’t think she’ll win.”

I could find more out while I was here and thinking about it would fight off the terror that slowly crept along my bones. I wouldn’t let it take control. Couldn’t. “What would you do?”

“Set up a portfolio.” I remembered now. Steven had always been interested in financial matters, but he’d never had the money to indulge. And with Julia keeping him short of cash, he probably couldn’t now. “I’d invest in ships and in transport, as well as putting some away in sure investments, savings, property, that kind of thing. Not that I’ve been able to put more than a pittance away.”

“You have a portfolio?”

He swung to face me, alarm widening his eyes. “Don’t tell her. Please. She’ll have that too. She’s pushing every penny into this place. She’s obsessed, Rose.”

Ah. I had something to hold against him. But not now. If he thought I planned to use it, he could kill me. Not that I thought that a probability, merely a possibility, a result of panic. Until someone who knew me saw me here, I was in danger, because they could kill me, put my body somewhere else or even drop it in the river. So I said, “I won’t say anything. I just want to get out of here.”

“You do?”

“That’s all. Steven, did you say you’d sent for Richard?”

“Sent someone to look for him. But I don’t know how reliable the man is. I couldn’t use anyone here, word would get back, so I found someone on the street. A fruit seller. Gave him a guinea and promised him another if he succeeded.”

“Did you send a note?”

“No, I said to say that Rose was in danger and needed him.”

I groaned. “Just like the message that Kneller sent to me? Richard will go after him first. Is he here?”

Steven took the cloth from my forehead and wrung it out in the cold water again. He replaced it tenderly. “I don’t know. But I said ‘Rose’, not your full name, so I hope he realises it comes from you. It was all I could do. If I don’t hear soon, I’ll go out myself.”

Maybe he should have done that in the first place.

“But I don’t know what they’ll do if I leave you alone.”

Ah yes, that. Somewhat of a problem there. “Are they mad? Richard won’t stop until he sees them dead if they do more to me.”

“You think I don’t know that?” His voice rose, panicked. “I know what he can do.” Ah yes, he’d seen Richard at his most murderous.

“So does John.” Why the younger man persisted in thinking his father effete and ineffectual I wasn’t sure. I’d have thought last year would have taught him a thing or two. John still bore a scar from that, when Richard had driven a knife through his hand, pinning him to a table. He’d been lucky to keep the use of his hand.

Steven gave me a glum stare. “He took it as a challenge. They spent days laughing at you two, which I didn’t mind in the least, but their underestimation of your husband and what he’s capable of is more a result of blind arrogance. They can’t imagine that anyone is better than they are.”

Another weak spot. Arrogance. “After what we did to your assassin? You saw him after, didn’t you?”

The man they’d sent to kill us. Richard had disabled him, ensured he couldn’t use his hands to effectively manipulate a weapon and sent him back as a message to Julia. Who had killed him. I’d pleaded for the man’s life, and Richard had allowed it. Not for the man, but for Richard, who felt every death hard and suffered for it more than he let anyone know. I wanted to shield him from that, and I tried to ameliorate his activities or send the perpetrators to jail and perhaps the gallows, but at least Richard couldn’t hold himself responsible for their deaths.

“I saw him.” Steven paused and cleared his throat. “I thought it worse to let him live like that. Julia didn’t want witnesses.” That was the closest I’d ever heard to him admitting that they had killed Abel. He spread his hands and burst out, “I don’t want this, Rose! When you rejected me in favour of Strang, I was eaten up by jealousy. Then Julia seduced me, and I thought myself such a man.” He slapped his palm against his forehead. “But she’s tangling herself up in business she has no way of controlling.”

Up until then I’d despised him. Now I realised he was probably the more sensible one of the two. We knew from Pitt’s interest that Julia had stirred some hornets’ nests she should have left alone. If we didn’t bring her down, Pitt and his minions would. And they’d do it with a humiliating public flourish. It appeared that Steven understood it and Julia didn’t. They wouldn’t allow her to go too fast, too soon, especially by such blatant manipulation and extortion as she planned. They’d trim their branches, drop the allies who’d become an embarrassment, and use new ones instead.

“So what do you want me to do?” I felt weak and sick. I wanted nothing more than to lie in a darkened room for a day. Maybe two or three.

“Tell them and help me control her. Your husband has money and influence. I’ll do what I can to help.”

But only because he saw his precious new life of wealth and comfort easing away from him. Julia would leave him with nothing but herself, and from Freddy’s description, she’d be too addled with disease to be worth anything at all.

“We’ll be in touch.” I moaned, an involuntary sound dragged out of me. The door creaked as it opened.