Our Wicked Mistake (38 page)
Read Our Wicked Mistake Online
Authors: Emma Wildes
She nodded, the muscles in her slender throat rip pling as she swallowed.
Moments later they were climbing into his carriage.
He fully understood what it was like to be a help less bystander when someone you loved was in grave danger. In his case, he hadn’t been able to prevent the tragedy. This, though,
this
would be different.
this
would be different.
Mrs. Stewart lived on a fashionable street a short drive away, but when the door was answered by a middle aged maid, she shook her head when asked if her mistress was home.
Luke didn’t often use his title to intimidate or per suade, but he said curtly, “I am Lord Altea, and this is Lady Brewer, Mrs. Stewart’s cousin. Where did she go?”
“Packed up.” The woman wiped her hands on an already soiled apron. “I’m the last one left, milord. Just finishing cleaning up the house.”
Madeline made an inarticulate sound of distress next to him.
“Where?” he demanded.
“Don’t rightly know,” the servant squeaked in response to his lethal tone. “I swear it, sir. Sailing off is me guess. I heard her tell her personal maid to leave out her heavier walking dress, for the sea breezes can be cold. We was all given our notice and a full week’s wages.”
Even if they had to search every ship readied for departure, he vowed, handing Madeline into the carriage without ceremony, they’d find her son.
“The pier,” he told his driver, and clambered inside as the vehicle started rolling forward.
She didn’t understand. Not any of it. Not why Alice would ever take Trevor, not why she was leaving England again so soon, not why Luke had arrived in a flurry of concern earlier. He clearly knew something she didn’t, and it was supported by what had just happened.
If he hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have known what to do.
Actually, Madeline still didn’t. Paralyzed by fear, her hands wound together so tightly her fingers ached, the swaying of the racing vehicle almost toppled her to the floor once or twice, she held herself so stiffly.
Oddly enough, she was grateful Luke wasn’t trying to tell her all would be well. He was worried. She could see it in the tension in his broad shoulders and the grim set of his mouth. Nor was he feeding her platitudes or false hopes, and despite the chasm in her soul at the moment at the idea of Trevor, perhaps frightened and alone, needing her, it was calming to not be told to stop worrying.
As if she could. She was petrified.
But it was clear she wasn’t alone. Luke sat across from her, his long legs extended, his eyes somber and concerned.
“Why is Lord Longhaven having Alice watched?”
“I am not sure. Michael is”—his mouth twisted a bit—“not all that he appears. Yes, he is the son of the Duke of Southbrook, glib when he chooses, charming occasionally, and women pursue him, but they don’t know him by half. Quite frankly, I’ve never been so glad in my life that he is what he is.”
A nonanswer if there ever was one, but Madeline felt she understood nonetheless. She nodded. There was something he wasn’t saying, but if she needed to know it, he would have told her. It mattered, or it wouldn’t be a secret, but it didn’t pertain to retrieving her son. “He’ll help us?”
“No one can help us better than Michael,” he confirmed tersely.
And that was
all
that mattered.
all
that mattered.
When they came to a lurching halt, Luke climbed out in one lithe movement and reached for her, swinging her out without ceremony. “We’ll find out if she’s booked a passage.”
But thirty minutes later they hadn’t. They’d only managed to talk to the captains of three different ships, and it was getting later. . . .
Misty, cold, dreary with the smell of fish in the air and sailors passing by . . . Madeline was far colder inside than out, though her cloak was soaked by now.
Trevor
.
.
At the fourth ship they struck gold. Not in the form of an informative ship’s officer, but of the same man she’d seen once before—the one who had delivered the journal back into her hands, scar and all, his smile ironic as he emerged from the growing shadows, his boots loud on the slick, wet surface of the dock. “Lord Altea, I’ve been looking for you. I think we are at cross-purposes at the moment.”
Luke nodded and squeezed Madeline’s hand. “Alice Stewart?”
“We have her. Longhaven had an agent following the lady, and he nabbed her trying to board yon ship.” He pointed into the shadows at a hulking vessel still bobbing at her moorings. “It would have sailed in the morning for France.”
Perhaps, just perhaps, her heart began to beat again. Madeline wanted to weep with joy.
“Did she have a child with her? A young boy?”
The scarred man’s gaze slid briefly to Madeline’s face and then back to Luke. “No. She wishes to negotiate.”
The joy vanished.
Negotiate?
Negotiate?
Luke asked hoarsely, “How so?”
“Safe passage for the location of the child.”
Though she’d never fainted in her life, Madeline swayed, the change from fear to relief to fear again so acute she wasn’t sure she could breathe. “You don’t have Trevor?”
“We had only one man following her, my lady.” The scarred man’s voice was gentle and surprisingly cultured, considering he wore old breeches and a shabby coat, not to mention a dilapidated hat with a worn brim. “After she left your residence with the young viscount, she met up with someone else and he left with the boy. Our operative had to make a choice of whom to follow. His orders were to keep on Mrs. Stewart’s trail and he followed his instructions, but he did send a note as soon as he realized she was going to board a ship.”
Luke said a word under his breath Madeline had never heard before, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t flattering to Alice. “Where is she?” he asked in a voice much colder than the spitting rain. More like slick, black ice on a midwinter country road in a frozen landscape. It chilled Madeline, and she wasn’t sure she could get much colder.
“I’ll take you.” The scarred man nodded once. “Follow me.”
Michael had the lady, her trunks, and a young man with a very businesslike pistol ensconced in a small, abandoned office in one of the warehouses just off the main docks. It was a dismal enough space, lit now by several lanterns, with only a few chairs and a desk that hadn’t been used in years, judging from the layer of dust on it. Looking unsurprised at their arrival, Alice Stewart sat composed in a rickety chair, her dark hair drawn back in a neat chignon, her smile slight and perhaps even a shade condescending.
“Where’s my son?” Madeline, Luke observed, lost no time crossing the filthy floor, under the arc of the old sagging ceiling above, her slender hands drawn into small fists, her pale hair gleaming with moisture. “Where is Trevor?” she asked fiercely.
For such a normally genteel and elegant woman, she looked positively ready to attack her husband’s cousin.
“Safe for now,” Alice said with remarkable coolness, considering Madeline’s outrage, Michael’s brooding regard, and Luke’s no doubt visible anger, not to mention the gun still pointed her way. “I’m so glad you arrived so soon, Mad. I was afraid it would take much longer. The ship I will be on draws up anchor at dawn.”
“How could you do this?” Madeline asked, spots of angry red on her otherwise colorless cheeks. “He is Colin’s son.”
“The heir. Yes, I know.” Alice’s laugh was mirthless and her eyes glittered. “The beautiful child you dutifully produced like a little paragon of a wife. Such the nauseatingly perfect life you had before Colin decided to turn up his toes.”
The patent dislike shocked Madeline. Luke could see the effect almost as if she’d been slapped. She stared at the woman in the chair as if she’d never seen her before.
And perhaps she hadn’t, he thought, noting the thin sneer on Alice’s mouth. Mrs. Stewart said, “And if you’d like the precious little viscount back, let’s bargain.”
Luke stepped forward, doing his best to insulate Madeline from such overt venom. “What the devil do you want?”
“Lord Altea.” The woman’s hostile gaze transferred to him. “How unlike you to be so attentive to one lady. Madeline must be everything my cousin found her to be and perhaps more, yes? His journal was . . . fascinating. She looks like such a lady, but apparently has the inhibitions of a whore. Has she worn the garters and black stockings for you yet?”
He’d never actively contemplated violence against a woman, but perhaps he could reconsider. Through his teeth he said, “Money?”
For the first time, Michael spoke, his tone perfectly polite, as if they weren’t in some seedy, abandoned dockside building, interrogating a kidnapper. “I take it you wish funds and clemency?”
Alice Stewart sat up a little straighter, but her voice was still cool and silky. “In exchange for the child. That was my purpose for taking him. Trust me, I wouldn’t want him otherwise.”
Luke caught Madeline’s arm.
Michael, however, simply looked thoughtful. “You’d think I would put more than one agent to following you, Mrs. Stewart. I suppose I could be forgiven for not doing so; I was suspicious, yes, but there wasn’t much to indicate you were worth such an investment of the time of what humble staff the Crown provides me. I must say you are quite crafty. If the agent followed you after you gave Lady Brewer’s son to your colleague, you had the leverage of a hostage. If the agent followed Lady Brewer’s son and your accomplice, then you could get clean away and we wouldn’t know where you’d gone. A rather inventive plan.”
“She must have seen me watching her,” the young man with the pistol muttered. “I swear, sir, I—”
“We’ll discuss it later,” Michael interrupted smoothly. “For now the matter at hand is apparently a small impasse. Trust is always an issue in a case like this. For instance, should I agree to let you go, Mrs. Stewart, how can I be sure you’ll give me the correct location of Lady Brewer’s son? On the other side of the coin, if I promise you safe passage, how can you be sure I won’t change my mind when I have what I want? Always such a devilish dilemma.”
“Roget told me about you, my lord.” Alice Stewart leveled a stare in Michael’s direction. “I will only negotiate with Madeline. I assume, since her lover is one of your best friends, you will not want his harlot to lose her only child? You can have Trevor when the tide goes out tomorrow, but not before. My friend has his instructions. If you try to take the boy before that, it could be
unfortunate
.”
unfortunate
.”
“Colin was good to you!” Madeline looked again as if she might hurl herself at her husband’s cousin—so much so that Luke reached out and pulled her into his embrace. “Your fathers were brothers.”
“Twins, no less, and all I had to show for that few minutes’ difference in their births was a modest dowry my husband promptly spent on wine and willing women. Oddly enough, the fool died quite young.” Her laugh was both mocking and chilling. “I wonder how
that
happened.”
that
happened.”
Luke could tell from Madeline’s aghast expression not only that she had no idea the simmering resentment ever existed, but that she never entertained the idea Alice was a murderess. After a moment, she said quietly, “My husband gave you money before he died. Why?”
“I was under suspicion here and decided it was prudent to leave England. I informed my dear cousin I was with child and the father wasn’t interested in taking responsibility. It wasn’t true, but the very idea of such a situation made him immediately put sufficient funds at my disposal for a swift exit from the country.” Alice Stewart’s features twisted. “He was most scandalized. Tell me, Mad,”—her voice held idle malice—“how would Colin feel about your casual liaison with Lord Altea?”
“It isn’t casual. I love him. Now where is my son?”
Said so matter of factly, it was a startling declaration, especially under the circumstances. Madeline loved him. Luke found he wasn’t surprised either. He’d looked into her eyes and tasted her kiss, and he had enough experi ence to know the difference between desire and some thing altogether different.
What they had together was the latter.
“How . . . quaint,” Alice murmured, but her eyes narrowed.
To her credit, though Luke could feel her trembling under his restraining hold, Madeline didn’t even blink an eye at the bitter sarcasm. “Where is my son?”
“Where is my promise of freedom?”
“How much?” Luke asked, the money nothing to him, but Madeline’s happiness everything. “Name your price.”
“You are reckless, aren’t you, my lord? Let’s say . . . twenty thousand, for you are fond of that sum.”
“Done.” He would rouse his banker from bed if need be, considering the circumstances.
Alice went on, “But it will do me no good unless you convince Lord Longhaven to release me tomorrow morning so I can board my ship.”
That Michael said nothing was telling. Luke had been in enough life or death situations that he understood the power of timing. “I’ll give you the money, but I have a feeling Michael needs a concession, as well, Mrs. Stew art. In the spirit of the game, of course. Roget might be a good place to start.”
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