Must Have Been The Moonlight (37 page)

Pressing her face against the glass, Brianna cupped her hands around her eyes. Tree branches lashed the house in a frenzied tantrum. The wind rocked the carriage.

Suddenly, the front door opened and a man stepped onto the porch. Backlit by the lights that began to blink on in the corridor, she could barely make out his shape, though she couldn’t see much beneath the shiny slicker. One of her footmen must have gone to get someone to open the door. At this hour, most of the servants would be retired to their quarters out back of the house.

Anxious to see Alex and to get out of the storm, Brianna didn’t wait for the man to make his way out to her. The wind yanked the door from her hand and it slammed against the side of the carriage. Louisa awakened with a gasp.

“Wait here,” Brianna yelled over the wind. “Someone will come out and get you.” Holding her reticule with one hand, she gripped the hood of her cloak and slammed the door with the other. She turned and ran past the figure approaching her, his head bent against the slashing rain. “Get Louisa,” she cried, lifting her skirts and taking the slippery
stairs into the house where Barnaby would be awaiting her.

She didn’t know who was awake to greet her. Once inside with the door shut, the noise seemed to abate. “Look what I’ve done. I’m so sorry, Barnaby.” Laughing in frustration, she glanced down at her muddied boots and felt like a dog in need of a good shake. Water dripped on Christopher’s beautiful polished floor. “Are you the only one awake?”

“No.”

The strangely accented voice whirled her around. Brianna raked the hood off her face. Her hand froze.

“Jackals travel in packs, Sitt Donally. Didn’t you know?”

“Selim…?” Her voice was a whisper. Her heart frozen in her chest.

And the look on his face turned into a sneer of unspeakable evil. “Where is Major Fallon, Sitt?”

The light in the hall was dim, but not so dim that she didn’t recognize the eyes staring at her from the shadows. She’d last seen him alive on the caravan. He’d been the boy in her photographs. He wore no black turban and tagilmust. His black hair was long and dripped in tangles around his face. He was the youth who’d posed with Napoleonic fervor beside a camel and befriended her over a meal of couscous.

The horrible carnage at the caravan came back to strike her.

He was Omar’s son.

“Oh, Jaysus—” She started upstairs, only to be blocked. Her brain trailed seconds behind the action. “What have you done to Lady Alexandra?”

“You will not see her again, Sitt. You will not see anyone.” He shoved her and she hit the banister. She had a vial of rosewater in her purse and it clunked solidly against the derringer.

The derringer!

The front door opened and the man wearing the black slicker stepped inside ahead of the slashing rain. Sheathing a long knife, he spoke something in Arabic to Selim, sharing a laugh. Louisa had been the only one outside.

The door shut.

Her gaze suddenly caught the mark beneath the man’s sleeve. These people had tried to kill Michael.

“The letter from Alex’s physician wasn’t real,” she whispered.

“Fallon is a lot of trouble, Sitt. How do we get him out of hiding? Let me see?” He rubbed his bearded chin in sarcasm. “We have you.”

Something inside her broke.

They would not use her to kill Michael.

“To think that I felt sorry that you’d died.” Brianna swung her reticule, smashing Selim in the face. The bottle of rosewater shattered in her purse, striking a gash across his cheek. “He’ll kill you!”

Brianna made it up the stairs before Selim caught her ankle. Twisting around, she grabbed the spindles on the rail and kicked out with all of her might. Kicking again and again, she smashed Selim’s nose. With a piercing shriek, he tumbled down the stairs and crashed into the other man. Brianna’s reticule dropped and, grabbing the rail, she watched in horror as it hit the floor below.

Selim had recovered enough to call her a bitch. Brianna didn’t wait to see the knife he pulled from his tunic. She ran blindly up the stairs and down the long corridor. She darted into Christopher’s room and slammed the door, her hand freezing over the knob. There was no key in the lock. With a choked sob, Brianna scraped a chair across the floor. She braced the knob, then ran into the dressing room and flung open Christopher’s old military chest. She knew her guard and driver were probably dead. And what of Alex and Louisa? Alex’s staff?

Somewhere down the long corridor, over the raging storm outside, she heard doors slamming. She prayed that Christopher still kept his service revolver inside his chest. Brianna rifled through old uniforms, a haversack, and a holster. Her hands wrapped around the cold metal of the gun. It was an old 1857 Colt firearm. Outside the room, a shoulder slammed against the door. No door barred the dressing
room. Dropping to her knees, she searched the bottom of the chest, desperate to find cartridges. Her hand closed over the pack.

With a start, she realized that someone had come into the room.

Her fingers steadily loaded the gun. Early on, she’d felt that split second of blind terror before swinging her reticule. But now she felt more rational, and aware of every sound.

A dark shape began to form out of the shadows just beyond the dressing room. Lightning flashed, illuminating the room.

“Stay away!” The ammunition in her hand rolled to the floor. She’d only loaded one shell. Both hands gripped the handle and she cocked the revolver with her thumbs. “I swear, I’ll shoot you.”

The quiet that came over her was terrifying. Something banged against the roof of the house, a tree limb perhaps.

“Brianna…”

The voice was quietly beckoning and familiar. But Brianna had already pulled the trigger.

D
onally’s house, with its high sloping roof and gable windows, sat at the top of a rise delineated by the indigo sky. A wind gust swept the avenue of hornbeam and massive oaks that lined the gravel drive before dying to a tired breath. Detecting a sudden alteration in the manner of his horse, Michael wrapped the reins around his fist and held the horse in check. In the widening silence, he removed his gun. The man on the mule beside him stirred.

Michael had spent a restless night with a hundred others stranded at St. Anne’s abbey, huddled against a damp stone wall. By the time he’d reached this house, the day had again yielded to the closing darkness. A few moments ago he’d met Donally’s groundskeeper on the road.

“Most of the servants that work here live in the cottages out back,” the thick-set man told him, leaning forward in the saddle. “Her ladyship returned from Cairo in January. But she is visiting her pa right now.”

Michael gave his full attention to the man. “When was the last time you were here?”

“Before the rain. Day before yesterday.”

“And she was gone?”

“For two weeks, your Grace.”

Michael slid from the saddle and explored the ground with careful fingers. He found a recent indentation of a horse track.

“Stay here,” he said.

Moving toward the darkened house, Michael could make out part of the gazebo silhouetted against the encroaching lake. No recent carriage tracks marred the drive.

Bounded by a low stone wall, a garden terrace ran around the side of the house. Somewhere, a horse snuffled. From the gravel drive, his horse answered, and pulled Michael’s attention to the stables. His gun at the ready, he stood in the shadow overhang of the roof, his thumb easing back the hammer of the revolver. A barely audible answering
click
warned him of another person’s presence an instant before he swung his pistol around the corner of the house. Distant lightning flared, briefly throwing the face of the man standing before him into sharp relief, barely freezing his finger on the trigger.

“Christ, Donally.” Face-to-face with a.44 Smith & Wesson, Michael felt the ungainly slug of his heart against his ribs. His tone was dry and harsh. “How long have you been here?”

Michael knew Donally could see even less of him in the darkness.

“That’s a bloody fooking way to get your head blown off, Fallon.” Donally pulled back his revolver. “It’s the wrong night to be prowling my garden. Where the hell is my wife?”

Lady Alexandra was sitting down with her father when a stir and bustle in the corridor interrupted supper. “I’ll announce myself, Alfred,” a wonderfully familiar male voice was heard to say in an irrefutable tone, and then Christopher was standing in the doorway.

“What the bloody devil?” Austere in his black dinner coat and cravat, her father rose.

Christopher stepped beneath the archway, and his tall, black-garbed form filled the room. She was suddenly in his
arms. Holding him. He carried a rider’s quirt. His boots were spattered in mud. He wrapped his arms around her and held her pressed tightly against him. “Lord Ware,” he said, acknowledging her father with a curt nod. Then he pulled back and placed a possessive palm on her abdomen. “I’ve just spent a hellish three weeks on a cargo ship to get here.” He kissed her openly in front of her father and wrapping her arms around him, she returned the affection. “It took me that many days to get into this bloody city.” His lips curved against hers. “Finding you gone from the house has cost me my temper. So forgive the state of my arrival. Tell me Brianna is with you.”

Alexandra opened her eyes and saw Major Fallon standing behind her husband. With the exception of his shirt, his clothes were black—overcoat, trousers, and boots. Shock reeled her back. A growth of beard and stormy eyes that looked as if snatched from the sky added to the menacing impression. For Major Fallon was clearly in a dangerous mood.

“I don’t understand,” she said to Christopher.

“At your physician’s request, Brianna left Aldbury Park yesterday to join you, pending your early confinement. We believe she went to the manor house, unless you’ve started to wear attar of roses.”

“As you can see, I’m quite well.” She looked between Michael and her husband. “I authorized no such request. She didn’t even know I was here.”

“My daughter has been here for two weeks.” Ware leaned forward on his cane. “I thought it best…with my grandchild so near to term.”

“And you didn’t bother to bloody inform me?” Michael’s voice had lost its customary command. He’d already swung away when Donally called after him.

“We need daylight to check the roads leading toward the estate. Your horse won’t make it.”

“Standing here doing nothing won’t find my wife!”

Donally caught his sleeve. “And running in bloody circles won’t get my sister back.”

“She is alone out there.” His eyes bleak with violence, Michael threw off Donally’s grip. “She trusted me to keep her safe.”

What sane man could sit and do nothing, for Christ’s sake!

Michael rubbed his temple with one hand. Brianna had been lured away. But in the deepest part of his soul, he knew she was still alive. That she wasn’t meant to die. Indeed, he suspected that whoever had sent that letter to Brianna expected him to be with her. If he had not gone to see his grandmother yesterday morning, he’d have been at Aldbury when she received the physician’s letter.

“A letter was delivered to Aldbury Park by special courier from your physician, my lady. It bore your personal wax seal. Who else would have had access to your stamp?”

“No one.” Alex was growing hysterical. “My stamp is here with me.”

“Her physician has known her since she was a child,” Ware inserted. “He would not betray her or me.”

“Maybe she hasn’t gotten to the house.” Alex desperately clutched her husband’s coat. “A carriage just doesn’t vanish into thin air.”

Except people did vanish. Whole caravans of people vanished forever. “One can, if it’s planned.” Michael leaned a palm against the window and looked out over the muted glow of gaslights illuminating the sky over the city. All that he loved in the world was somewhere out there in the night. His wife and his child. “I bloody knew everything had fallen into place too easily here in London. I knew it and let myself get talked out of pursuing this investigation!”

“What did we miss?” Ware thundered. “There was no more information to follow after the warehouse raid. No evidence that we had not caught everyone involved.”

“Take an accounting of your staff tonight.” Michael turned back into the dining room. “Find out who else could have gotten hold of your seal. Do you have any new servants?”

“Her servants came from Donally’s staff and have been with the family for years,” Ware said. “A young lad delivers her posts from the manor.”

“I was only planning to be here for a few weeks,” Alex whispered. “My book is due at the publisher the end of the month. Mr. Cross was spending so much of his time traveling back and forth to the manor house. When my father’s invitation came, I took it.”

“Charles Cross has been here working with you?” Michael asked.

A hush deepened in the room.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“I received a note from him today telling me that he’s ill. Why are you looking at me like I just committed some grievous sin?” Her voice grew strained. Light from the candelabra on the table fluttered as she whirled around. “We’ve all known Mr. Cross for years. He works with Foreign Services. You would not have broken the investigation if not for him.”

“If Cross was Foreign Service, that would explain the consul general’s friendship with him,” Donally said to Michael, unaware that Michael had already made the connection. Now, with his name coming on the heels of Brianna’s disappearance, it seemed ominous and plausible that the two incidents could be connected.

“If he were involved, he would also have been in the position to supply the authorities with information about the warehouse. Especially since it was probably a matter of days before we discovered the cache there ourselves. He was bloody saving his own skin.” Michael looked directly at Ware. “Where does he live?”

“We have to approach this with deuced care.” Ware leaned both hands on his cane, unhappy with the direction of dialogue.

Alex pressed her fingers to her temples. “He let a house in the Green Park area. The widow Solomon’s estate.”

“That house hasn’t been lived in for ten years,” Ware said. “Who did he let the place from?”

“I don’t know. I only know that he’s worked hard to get to his place. He comes from humble roots and still managed to graduate from Oxford at the top of his class. In Cairo, he was always sending money and packages back to his mother. How can a man who does that be suspected of something so heinous?”

“That’s the most illogical nonsense I’ve heard you speak, Lexie,” her father said.

“Alex—” Donally folded her in his arms.

“You don’t understand.” She tried to shove away. “I introduced Brianna to him. What if I did this to her?” She pressed her fist against her abdomen as if to quell her pain. “What if he could have been using me to get to her? I want to go with you—” Alex broke into tears.

“You’re not leaving anywhere.” Donally lifted her and turned to Michael, Alex sobbing in his arms. “I’m going to take my wife upstairs.”

Michael looked down at Lady Alexandra’s softly swollen figure with a sudden fierce ache. Even if she hadn’t been nearly nine months gone with child, he wouldn’t have allowed her anywhere near Cross tonight.

“Papa,” Alex pleaded over Donally’s shoulder. “Help us find her.”

Michael was left looking at Ware when Donally was finally gone. “Her address book should be in her study,” Ware said awkwardly, and left.

Michael dropped into a dining room chair and buried his face in his hands. Everything inside him told him Cross was his man. But it would not make sense for him to take Brianna to the first place anyone would look. He would already be out of the city.

For the first time in days, Michael felt the ebony grasp of Morpheus close around him, a tenuous hold that lasted only minutes. Too often it was the way he’d trained himself. A catnap was often more than he used to get while in the field.

“My daughter’s address book, Ravenspur.” Ware leaned
over the dining table, a leather-bound notebook spread before him, his eyes sharp as he considered the pages. His brows lifted. “Are you up for a drive?”

“Try stopping me.”

Ware ordered his cloak and carriage brought around, his somber gaze grazing Michael as he spoke. “And another cloak for Lord Ravenspur.” He checked a watch fob in his pocket. “If we’re going to make a late night call to Cross, then you’ll need to look more refined than a thief.”

The trip through London took little time on streets that were nearly deserted. The rain had washed the garbage from gutters and the coal dust from the air. Street lamps marked the shiny pavement, the
clip-clop
of their horses mixing with the noise of an occasional hansom that was ferreting late night partygoers. Though the Season had yet to begin, most of London’s clubs carried a brisk business. Michael saw the towers of a church framed against the sky. Just beyond that, he glimpsed stone turrets of a distant house. Secluded behind a grove of knotty trees and a high iron gate, the medieval roof was all they could see from the street. There was a sleepy stillness to the night.

The carriage rocked to a stop. “This place is high-priced real estate for a man who came from humble beginnings.” Michael let his eyes go over the high stone wall that banked the property. The darkness was impenetrable; then the breeze stirred the clouds and laid a breath of gossamer moonlight over the shadows, allowing a glimpse of the house through the trees. Three stories high, the interior of the house was dark as the night. Iron grates covered the windows and doors like some aged fortress. “What happened to the widow who lived here?”

Ware leaned into the window. “They said she was insane. No one knows what happened to her sons. It doesn’t look as if anyone is home,” he said impatiently when no one appeared at the gate.

Michael checked the chamber on his revolver. “I suggest that if you can’t hike to the door, then stay with this carriage.
Make sure the constable who walks this beat knows who you are. He’ll probably pass by here in the next half hour.”

“Bloody hell, Ravenspur.” Ware tapped the top of the carriage and waited for the door to open. “He very well could be ill, like his note said. You’re not the bloody cavalry.”

Seated on a red velvet wing-back chair, Michael sat forward with his elbows on his knees. He lifted his head when Cross stepped into the room, his steward behind him. Michael unfolded his form from the chair.

“Lord Ware.” Cross acknowledged the older man. His eyes wide behind his glasses, he slid an uneasy glance over Michael. “Has something happened to bring you here at this hour? I sent a note—”

“I apologize for intruding,” Lord Ware began, “but it was important that we see you.”

Cross coughed into a handkerchief. The man looked as if he could barely stand. “If you don’t mind, I need to sit. Fever…you see.”