The Mercenary Major (22 page)

In the morning room Briggs, wearing a broad smile, told Victoria that her ladyship had received a call from Mr. Carr not minutes earlier and was closeted with that gentleman. Victoria paused to consider the effect on her own fortune of a second attachment for her father and thought it worked rather to her advantage with the major, but of course, the preoccupation of her parent and her friend did not help the immediate situation. She then went in search of Gilling, but he had not been seen since before the ball. She knew him to be something more than a valet to the major and imagined that he had already found his way to Jack’s side.

She was getting nowhere and returned to consult Briggs about the availability of a carriage and a stout footman to accompany her. Briggs, however, was reluctant to supply either, citing the warnings in the newspapers about being abroad on this particular day because of the Spa Fields meeting. She thanked him for his caution, and retired to her room to rethink the matter. She did not wish to be rash, but if the man she loved was in jail and the police, obliged by their concern for public safety, were ignoring his situation while the means to free him of any charge of fraud hung round his stubborn neck, she could not bear it.

She wrote Katie a brief note explaining the purpose of her outing, put on a warm bonnet and cloak, took up her gloves, supplied her reticule with the appropriate coins, and descended the stairs again, watching for a moment when the entry was empty of servants to make her escape. One quick dash and she was out in the cold air of an overcast December day. She strode resolutely toward the end of the street, keeping an eye out for a passing hackney. A familiar-looking carriage slowed, and she heard her name called. The carriage halted, and a footman came around to let the steps down for the lady inside. The Condesa de Villasantos emerged.

“Miss Carr, where can you be going without your maid?” the
condesa
asked.

Victoria hesitated. She could not be sure whether the
condesa
was Jack’s friend or his enemy. “Good day, Condesa,” she said. “I am just bound for the park.”

“Then it is lucky I saw you,” said the
condesa
. “Your friend the young viscount has told me how Major Amberly was taken to the police. It is a great scandal, no?”

“It is a grave mistake,” Victoria replied as civilly as she could.

The
condesa
gave her a shrewd glance. “Of course. That is what I told my betrothed. Lonville has connections to this Bow Street office. I sent him to assist the Favertons’ friend.”

Victoria regarded the
condesa
doubtfully. Lonville did have connections to Bow Street. She had heard the name in Jack and Bertram’s conversation at the first Spa Fields meeting. But Victoria could not be sure the
condesa’s
intended would be a help to Jack. “Has the major been released?”

“Yes, it is what I was coming to tell you,” the
condesa
said. Then her expression turned mournful. “But Major Amberly is leaving England. He will not return to his aunt’s house in disgrace. He begged me to tell you that he would like to see you.”

Victoria thought that perhaps the
condesa
was overdoing it. She could not imagine Jack Amberly
begging
anyone for anything, but he certainly might wish to see Victoria. He had guessed that she understood about the ring. “Do you know where he is?”

There was something odd in the
condesa’s
face at that moment, but Victoria could not stop to puzzle out the vagaries of the Spanish woman’s character. “Yes, he has gone to . . . a friend in the city. This man, Wallen, has a shop in Snow Hill.”

Victoria thanked the
condesa
for her information and urged her to call upon Lady Letitia with the news of Major Amberly’s release. As she turned away, Victoria hoped she gave the appearance of continuing her walk. She did not want the
condesa
to deduce her true intentions.

Descending from a hack in front of Lady Letitia’s, Gilling saw Miss Carr in conversation with the
condesa
on the pavement just a few doors away. He observed both ladies as they parted, and what he saw made him uneasy. There was an air of resolution in Miss Carr’s stride that suggested she was up to something and unattended at that. The
condesa
, on the other hand, appeared too self-satisfied by half. Gilling halted at the foot of Lady Letitia’s stairs and called out for the hack, hailing the driver and once more engaging his services.

Victoria found the jarvey of the hack she stopped eager for a passenger but reluctant to take her into the city.

“Posted the Riot Act, they have,” he told her.

But Victoria’s willingness to pay double the agreed-upon fare led the man to shrug his shoulders and mutter that it was no skin off his neck if a proper young miss got herself into trouble going where she oughtn’t to go. Victoria accepted his censure and urged him on.

Snow Hill, a neighborhood of inns and shops, seemed strangely deserted for a Monday midday, until it occurred to Victoria that this second Spa Fields meeting must be even larger than the first. The hack left her at a sort of island of shops in the center of an intersection. Across the street she could see the sign that said WALLEN. The proprietor’s name was directly below his trade: GUNSMITH.

Victoria took a deep breath, acknowledging to herself certain misgivings about her adventure, but the shop looked perfectly respectable, and having come so far, she was not going to go back without at least inquiring within about the major.

She crossed the street and approached the gun shop. Standing under the portico, she could hear men’s voices shouting within and a quieter voice, one that she knew well, answering. She pushed open the door.

Five men armed with guns of various types turned to stare at her. Behind them, his hands tied, his feet tangled in his coat, stood Jack Amberly. Victoria remembered telling the major that she meant to bring a pistol on their next adventure. Now she was sorry she hadn’t.

**** 18 ****

J
ack thought he had them convinced. To be duped by the Home Office, to have the hunger and humiliation they’d suffered used to trick them into futile violence in which they were likely to be the first casualties did not sit well with men who knew the difference between good officers and bad. They had shouted and cursed him, but they had been coming around. “Who’s the spy?” they demanded. Then the door opened.

His heart stopped. Victoria Carr’s gray gaze took in the scene and came to rest on him. In her eyes he read her intention to leap into danger for him. Her hand released the doorknob, and she stepped into the shop. He had resisted his desire for her and refused a false position in her world, but her courage made him weak. He stifled a groan.

Her eyes flashed as if daring anyone to stop her, and she moved toward him. Only when she saw Bertram’s crumpled form did she show alarm. She gasped and went to the fallen man’s side, kneeling down to touch his wrist.

“Hengrave,” pleaded one of the sailors, “what do we do now?”

They looked at one another, shifting uneasily. It seemed to Jack that seeing themselves in Victoria Carr’s eyes had revealed to them the horror they were about to unloose on the city.

The spy squeezed the butt of the pistol in his hand and peered from his vantage point in the back hall into the main room of the shop. His palm was slick with sweat. He would have to act. The sailors no longer held their guns at the ready. The rage he had worked so long to build in them had burned out.

And he knew who to blame. Jack Amberly his hands bound, his feet hobbled, had yet retained his easy power to sway men, had talked them out of their anger and despair. Even the sergeant was wavering.

The spy felt his own anger rise like a boiling tide in the back of his throat. Amberly must not escape. The spy calmed himself. The girl’s arrival was working to his advantage. He had seen Amberly’s fear for her, and now she and the major were having a hushed exchange, delaying escape. A few more minutes was all that was needed. By this time the signal had been given. The first Sprats would reach Snow Hill any minute and sweep into the gun shop. A detachment of constables would not be far behind, and the proud major would become his prisoner. He would win.

The shop door banged open, and Gilling rushed in. “Mob. Coming this way. Two hundred, maybe more.” He halted, his eyes widening as he took in Jack’s bonds and Victoria kneeling at Bertram’s side. Gilling’s gaze shifted to Hengrave. “Good God, Sergeant,” he said, “what are you about?”

Hengrave’s head snapped back as if he’d received a blow. He looked from Gilling to Jack. Jack returned the look. In the sergeant’s eyes the years of longing for home warred with the cold welcome he’d received there. The years of watching out for one another in battle warred with the humiliations of these bitter weeks in England. Jack held his breath.

A suspended moment passed.

Then Hengrave lowered the rifle he had been holding on Jack. “Lock the door,” he shouted at the sailors. “Move one of those cases up to block it.”

Jack heard the warning voice in his head. He twisted to look over his shoulder. The bearded watcher from the Swan stood framed in the door to the hall, pointing a pistol at Jack.

“Halt,” yelled the spy.

The others turned.

“Thoresby?” Hengrave’s voice registered surprise.

“There’s your spy,” said Jack.

Hengrave shook his head as if to clear it. “Thoresby, a Home Office spy?” As he said it, recognition of the truth gleamed in his eyes.

A rumble sounded from the street.

The sergeant swung around toward the front of the shop. “The door, men,” he shouted.

The sailors stood undecided.

“Stop,” Thoresby ordered. “Nobody move except the lady. For your safety, miss, best come with me,” he said. He smirked at her, crooking the fingers of the hand without the gun.

“No,” Jack shouted, throwing himself between his heiress and the spy. He crashed against one of the glass cases, and it shattered.

Before Jack could regain his balance, Thoresby leapt forward and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him upright and putting the pistol to his head.

“My prisoner,” he snarled as Hengrave and Gilling lunged toward them. He yanked at Jack’s bound hands, and Jack staggered back.

“Jack,” Victoria cried, starting toward him.

He gave her a steady glance and yielded to the pull on his arms, backing out of the room with the spy. “Stay with Gilling,” he urged. He was helpless to protect her if she left the gun shop.

The rumble became a roar as the mob apparently turned into the street outside the shop. A brick shattered a windowpane, sending shards of glass flying into the room. Victoria gasped and spun toward the sound. The sailors ducked.

“The door,” shouted Jack. The spy jerked him hard.

Victoria saw Gilling spring for the door as three men burst through. Stunned, she shrank back from the tangle of flailing arms and guns and the spray of broken glass.

Hengrave yelled, “Square up,” and the sailors formed a tight chain shoulder-to-shoulder and began pushing the screaming intruders back.

Another moment of hesitation passed. Victoria glanced at George Bertram, who lifted his head and reached for the knob of a cabinet to pull himself to a sitting position. Then she grabbed a small pistol lying on one of the open cases and ran after the man who had Jack Amberly.

The hall led straight to the rear of the shop. Another sailor lay sprawled at the foot of some stairs to the upper floors, but Victoria did not pause. The door to the outside hung open. She dashed for it, stepping on her skirts and nearly pitching down two steps to an alley. She threw out her left hand and caught herself with a jarring impact against the railing, then bunched her encumbering skirts in her fist, hiking them up.

At the foot of the stairs she found Jack’s coat. That meant his feet had been released. To her left the alley turned a corner not fifty feet from the rear of Wallen’s store. She darted for it, but the jagged lane took another turn. She hardly paused. Her bonnet slid back on her head, the strings choking her. Instinctively she reached to loosen them, but her skirts fell, tangling around her legs. She stopped and flung the bonnet down and twisted her skirts tighter around her fist.

When the narrow, winding alley reached a wider passage, she was relieved to see she had not lost them. The bearded man drove Jack along with the gun in his back. Jack had been blindfolded with his cravat. The left side of his waistcoat and shirt hung in bloodied strips over the band of his evening breeches.

“Jack,” she screamed.

The bearded man halted and turned, baring his teeth. His pinched, snarling mouth gave him the look of a cornered rat. He shoved Jack hard, and Jack lost his balance, slamming against a brick wall, scraping along it with his left shoulder, leaving a smear of blood. He staggered and righted himself.

“Victoria, go back,” he shouted.

The bearded man jabbed his gun up under Jack’s jaw. “Do as he says, miss,” he called. “No one gets my prisoner.”

“Where are you taking him?” Victoria yelled. The bearded man could not be a Runner, she realized. He had none of the calm detachment of Mr. Ramsey. He was more like a madman. He did not answer.

Victoria raised her own pistol. “I’ve got a gun, Jack,” she called as the spy reached a street and dragged Jack from her view.

When she came to the spot, she saw that the passage they had been following continued on the other side. A group of shouting sailors ran by, halting her progress. One man veered toward her, and she waved him off with the pistol and plunged into the street and across to the other side. The spy was pulling Jack around another turn, and she pushed herself to keep up. She must not lose sight of them among so many turnings. Her lungs were fiery with each breath of cold air, and she pressed the pistol to the sharp stitch in her side. In her ears the sound of her own ragged breathing drowned out all other sounds. But she gained on them.