TheCharmer (26 page)

Collis was dragged into the hall. Rose wasn't far behind. When she passed through the door she saw Mrs. Blythe and the Prince Regent in similar straits. The Prince seemed nearly unconscious and nearly unrecognizable, for his face was rapidly swelling from the beating he must have taken. Mrs. Blythe, a stout but handsome woman, was shrieking foul epithets upon the heads of one and all. Finally one of the men cracked her across the face with the back of his hand.

"Where's the other one?"

Startled, Mrs. Blythe gulped back more shrieks. "Other one? What other one?"

The surprise on her face was too real to be feigned and the biggest man swore. "They must have split up. The bloke what sent us said there were three."

Someone had slipped up. These men thought they were after three men. Thinking quickly, Rose shot an urgent look at Madame. Then she burst into tears, wailing loudly. "I ain't done nothing. I was just supposed to give the gent a good tossing! I ain't done nothing wrong!"

She saw the madam's eyes widen. Then the woman joined in. "You let her go, you hear me! I paid good copper for her and she ain't worked it back yet!" Mrs. Blythe grabbed Rose by the sleeve and pulled. The two louts holding her shifted in their shoes and looked questioningly at their leader. Rose saw the man thinking hard, his heavy brows beetled and his eyes narrowed. He didn't look as though he practiced the art very often. She increased the volume of her wails. Mrs. Blythe matched her in curses. Finally the noise proved too much for the man and he stepped back.

"Let the whore go," he said disdainfully. The two men holding Rose let her go with obvious relief and stepped smartly away. Rose flung herself into her benefactress's arms and continued to wail loudly until the men had dragged Collis and George down the rickety stairs.

Then she pulled away abruptly. "Thank you," she said fervently, and dashed back into her room to pull on her shoes and shawl and to strap on her knife sheaths. She was twisting her hair up out of her way when Mrs. Blythe followed her into the room.

"Who told them we were here?" Rose asked as she sorted herself out. "Did anyone of your people know who your guest was?"

Mrs. Blythe shook her head. "I'm the only one who knows anything. It didn't come from my house."

Rose nearly asked the woman to take a message to Lord Etheridge, then halted. Could she be sure the woman wasn't an informant? Perhaps Mrs. Blythe was not as dependable as the Liars thought. Rose's recent realization of their fallibility furthered her caution. No, for now, she kept her own counsel in all things.

"What was that all about?" The woman looked worried and suspicious… as she might whether guilty or innocent.

Rose shook her head. "You don't want to know any more than you know already."

"But where are you off to?"

Rose hesitated, then decided there was no harm in stating the obvious. "I'm going to follow them, of course." With that, she was gone, flying down the stairs and slipping out the door into the rain.

«
^
»

Rose was able to follow the band of thugs easily enough, for they obviously saw no reason to fear being trailed. After all, they'd captured the
men
. No reason to worry about repercussions from a house of women.

The ruffians had tossed their prizes into a waiting cart and had set off at an unhurried pace. Rose followed them at a distance, keeping well to the shadows of the early-morning streets, using her shawl for cover. There wasn't much chance of them spying her through the mist of rain, anyway.

Still, the last thing she wanted was to call attention to herself while wearing a borrowed prostitute's gown. Fear for herself felt almost wrong, however, especially when she saw the cart pulling into a heavy iron gate placed in a high, intimidating wall.

The sign above the gate, picked out in black iron against a gray sky, said:
WADSWORTH & SON, MUNITIONS
.

Oh, no.

As the gates creaked to a close, meeting in a heavy crash of metal, Rose turned and ran. Help was only a few miles away.

Finally, the edifice of the Liar's Club loomed gray and lightless in the dim rain-swept morning. Rose pelted past the front door without truly recognizing the fact that Stubbs was not on duty there. Collis's position was growing more dangerous by the moment.

To the right of the main door was the short stair from the street down to the service entrance. There were eight steps. Her feet touched only two.

She pushed through the door so fast it impacted the wall behind her. The storerooms were dark and unheated, but then, they always were. Rose took the steps up to the kitchen at a run to burst hurriedly into the kitchen.

Into pitch-darkness. The kitchen was always occupied. Even when Kurt was out or on a mission, Liars were forever scrounging in the larder. Rose had never seen it fully dark, and never, never was it cold. The great stove seemed to burn eternally. "Kurt?" There was no answer.

She groped her way to where the stove was and felt in the darkness for the small wooden box kept there. The new friction matches were much prized and the Liars were urged to keep them for use only on missions, but Kurt lived a law of his own. He always kept a good supply on hand, and some of the Liars were known to barter theirs for an extra serving of Kurt's superb pastries.

Rose spared not a moment for her usual wonder as she swiftly lit a twist of paper she pulled from where it waited for the giant stove. The weak yellow light flickered to show a room abandoned in the middle of cooking. Vegetables lay wilted on the table. An opened sack of potatoes had emptied itself across the floor. Kurt's favorite cooking knife lay stained and bloodied next to a graying slab of beef.

It didn't look as though there had been any sort of attack. It more seemed as if Kurt had simply dropped everything to walk out of the club—for days. And if Kurt was gone—

Icy fear lanced through her. She fumbled for a nearby candle and lit it quickly. With one hand shielding the flame from the draft, she ran back into the common room of the true club.

Deserted, as were the map room and the code room and his lordship's secret office, which she wasn't even supposed to know about.

They were all gone and had been so for at least a full day, perhaps longer. What disaster could have pulled them all from the club? What level of emergency? Only invasion by the French themselves came to mind, or some sort of royal crisis—

"Oh, God.
George
."

Of course they'd depart in a panic! George must have seemed to disappear in a puff of smoke! Hadn't they received word yet from Lord Liverpool? "Oh, Collis, we've done it now."

She made for the tunnel to the Lillian Raines School, cringing at the necessity of going underground again. There was no one in the school, either. Everyone must be hunting the city like mad. Rose pressed her fingers to her temples. "Hunting the nation, no doubt. Oh, God, what am I going to do?"

Her own shivering chill finally registered. Quickly she rummaged for a set of her training kit, an old pair of boy's knee breeches and shirt. She found a pair of boots that would protect her better than Mrs. Blythe's satin slippers and grabbed a waistcoat and short jacket from another student's room. She shoved her hair under a borrowed cap and ran back to the main club.

Her first duty was to leave a message for the spymaster that the Prince and Collis had been taken by Louis Wadsworth. Her next duty was to go back to them. But alone? She'd be no more help than she had been before. To go back alone would only ensure that all three of them would be killed.

Rose banged on the door of Etheridge House until her fist throbbed, but it still took several minutes before someone opened the door. Denny stood blocking her way in, gazing at her sourly.

"Oh, it's you."

Rose didn't have time to play. "Denny, let me in. I need to see his lordship!"

Denny sneered. "Gone. Him and Sir Simon and even the Sergeant. All gone, leavin' me to answer the door like a bloody underfootman. I hope you're happy about what you done. They're all in a right tizzy about you kidnapping the Prince Regent."

"Denny, stop it. Tell me where they are. It's urgent!"

Denny folded his arms. "Tell you what. Give me your message and I'll see he gets it."

Message. Rose went still as she remembered. "Collis sent the message to you about where we were, didn't he? Why didn't you give it to Liverpool?"

That surprised him completely, she was sure of it. "Why would I? It didn't say nothin' about Liverpool. Just that you and him and Prinny was to be found at that brothel house."

Rose narrowed her eyes. "It didn't say anything like that. Collis would never be that explicit."

Denny gave her a superior smile. "I been around Liars since you was cleaning chamber pots,
Miss
Lacey. I knew right off that when Master Collis said he was with his uncle George, he was with Prinny. Master Collis ain't got an uncle George."

There was something else here. Rose knew it. Collis had sent that message yesterday evening. The spymaster and Liverpool should have arrived within a few hours at the most. "Collis sent you a message to take to Lord Liverpool. What happened to it?"

Denny looked genuinely confused. "I don't know. Cor, I could have done it, too. They know me around Westminster, they do!" Disappointment twisted his features. "You probably lost it."

"I never saw it, you idiot. Collis gave both messages to that boy he paid." The child might have dropped one. He wouldn't likely admit it when he reached his destination, would he? Of course, he probably couldn't read. The sort of children who ran the streets didn't come with educations.

Damn it, time was running out! "So his lordship has gone to Mrs. Blythe's?"

"Been and gone. They're all out in the city now, trying to track you lot. How'd you do it anyway?" Denny asked curiously. "How'd you go and disappear that way?"

She couldn't ask him to come with her. Rose wouldn't trust Denny with a dirty tea towel. "Spy secrets, of course. Listen, if you see his lordship, tell him I left a very important message for him at the club."

"I ain't your servant!"

Rose had had enough. She stepped forward and shoved the blighter once in the chest. "Denny, Kurt taught me everything he knows. Do you truly want to plague me off?"

Denny's eyes widened and he pulled back in alarm. "Right then. Tell him I will." Then he shut the door on her, leaving her standing outside.

On her own. Again.

Rose left Etheridge House and headed back toward the factory. Where to find help? She could fight her way back through the city to Sir Simon's house—but they'd have joined the hunt along with every able-bodied servant they had.

There was no time left to risk it. She must find help closer at hand. She closed her eyes and fought back her weariness long enough to
think
.

One name came to her. Someone Collis believed in completely. "
I've known Ethan Damont since school. I'm sure he is to be trusted
."

Ethan Damont, gambler and likely ne'er-do-well—her only hope. Dear God, would he be any better than Denny? Scowling through her dread, Rose ran from the fine square that held Etheridge House to run toward the only help she could think of. The rain had stopped. She could see the clouds lightening— moving west, driven by a fresh wind from the sea.

Ethan Damont, the "Diamond." Only dire panic would spur her to go to such lengths. That and the knowledge that Collis would do the same or more for her.

"Collis," she muttered to him across the miles, "I hope you're a better judge of friends than you are of valets."

Ethan Damont poured himself another brandy… almost. Only an unfortunate trickle flowed into his snifter to swirl sadly round the bottom. He threw back his head to call, "Jeeves, bring more brandy!"

The shout brought no response, of course. There was no such Jeeves. No valet, no butler, not even a charwoman. Such people would insist on being paid a fair wage or any wage at all, neither of which the Damont household could supply at the moment.

And no more brandy, either, unless he'd somehow overlooked a dusty bottle in a corner of the cellar. Unlikely, since he'd scrounged everything that was left to eat, drink, or sell. Lady Luck had spurned him a few too many times lately. His fortunes at the tables had been dismal.

Fickle bitch.

Ethan glanced upward. "I didn't mean that. So sorry. You're a beauty, a vision, a veritable goddess. I could go on for hours, if only you would knock on my door once more."

Knock, knock
. There was no knocker on the door (good brass castings were worth nearly a week of grub, after all) so only the insubstantial tap of knuckles echoed through his empty rooms.

"Company," Ethan muttered to no one. He didn't feel much like answering. Likely it was only a creditor come to claim the last of Ethan's possessions. And he didn't much feel like giving up his shoes. Good thing he'd drunk all the brandy after all. He tossed back the last dribble, just in case. While his head was still tipped back, he smiled wistfully up at his neglectful lady.