Three Nights with a Scoundrel: A Novel (39 page)

He bowed deeply. “Forgive the interruption, my lady. But an urgent message has just arrived for Her Grace.”

Amelia took the note and opened it. Her blue eyes shuttled back and forth as she scanned the lines of text. “Oh, no. It’s Claudia. She’s in labor. I must go to her at once.”

Lily was surprised indeed to learn of the note’s contents. But she was stunned immobile by the envelope’s reverse, where the words “Her Grace, the Duchess of Morland” had been hastily inscribed in black ink.

Lily knew that penmanship. Knew it as well as she knew her own.

“Oh my God.” Without even thinking, she leapt from her chair and ripped the note straight from Amelia’s hand. “Who sent this?” But she didn’t lift her gaze to receive a reply. Rather, she read the brief missive for herself.

Your Grace
,

Lady Claudia has entered her labor pains. I have taken the liberty of sending for the doctor
.

—P.F
.

“P.F.? Who is P.F.?”

Amelia gave an answer as she tugged on her gloves. Lily couldn’t catch it.

“Write it down,” she insisted, urging the quill and inkpot toward her friend.

“I can’t right now,” Amelia said, gathering her shawl. “Claudia needs me. I must go at once.”

Lily slammed the inkpot on the table, ignoring the spatter of ink, and thrust the quill in Amelia’s face. She trembled so violently, the feather quivered in her grip.
“Write
. Write it down.”

While Amelia addressed the footman, Meredith took the quill and quickly scrawled something on a scrap of paper.

Lily read it. “Peter Faraday. Who is Peter Faraday?”

“Amelia’s houseguest,” Meredith explained. “Rhys and I brought him from Cornwall, and he’s been staying at Morland House. He’s injured. He … He was with your brother, the night he was attacked.”

A wave of dizziness dropped Lily back into her chair. She was completely disoriented. This bit of information … it both explained so much, and opened up entirely new questions.

One thing was clear. She had to get to Woolwich, and quickly. Julian had no idea what he could be facing.

Meredith touched her hand. “I’ll go with Amelia now. She needs help.”

“Yes, of course,” Lily said, pushing to her feet. She helped her friends to the door. “I pray all goes well with Claudia.”

“Thank you.” Amelia put a hand to her brow. “I only wish there were some way to get a message to Spencer.”

“Don’t worry, dear. He’ll learn of it soon enough.”

Lily intended to deliver the news herself.

“There they are. Those two, on the ridge.”

From their sentinel post atop the scaffolding, Julian followed Ashworth’s gaze. Two convicts labored on a rocky breakwater, some yards distant from the riverbank. The men, dressed in standard-issue buff breeches and brown coats, were shackled to one another at the ankle. Under the watchful eye of a cutlass-wielding officer, they passed and piled massive rocks, building up the breakwater. Julian noted with satisfaction that the prisoners’ tattered, soiled garments hung loose on their frames.

Good. They’d known hunger these past six months.

“You’re positive it’s them?” he asked.

Ashworth nodded. “Had a chat with the officer down at the dock. He confirmed the names. Nasty sorts, the two of them. Hardly—”

The boom of cannon fire forced him to break off. Between the clanging of heavy machinery and the occasional blast from the artillery range, the armory wasn’t a quiet place.

“Hardly model inmates,” Ashworth finished at length. “That’s why they’re working in shackles. When their day’s labor is finished, a guard will be striking the irons. An officer will give them each ten shillings and their papers, and then they’re on their way.”

“And so are we.”

Once Stone and Macleod left the warren, they would follow and bide their time. No doubt the convicts’ first order of business would be a pint at the local tavern and a visit to the closest brothel. With any luck, they’d apprehend the men once they were well into their cups, trousers tangled at their ankles. Three against two, and pistols in their favor. No contest. Perhaps they’d wrangle a name from the brutes then and there, and Julian would at least have a direction for his efforts. He wouldn’t be able to go home to Lily quite yet, but he would feel as though he were journeying in that direction.

Until then, they would wait and observe from here. “Here” being an unused bay in the dockyard. This small inlet for the repair and rigging of ships was flanked by high platforms on either side, accessed by rough-planked stairs.

By revealing himself to be the famed Lieutenant Colonel St. Maur, Ashworth had easily talked their way into the armory and dockyard. No one suspected. They were just a friendly group of gentlemen out for a ride, curious to have a look at things. Their greatest struggle had been shaking free of the many officers angling to tour them around.

Light footsteps clattered on the wooden steps. The men frowned at one another before turning to see who would join them. Another starry-eyed young officer, likely, hoping to trade battle tales with Ashworth or curry the favor of a duke.

But it wasn’t an officer who emerged on the platform.

It was Lily. His wife, clad in a violet traveling dress and dark winter cloak, rushing straight for him. Her heel caught on a board, and his heart plummeted, only sputtering back to life when she caught and righted herself.

“Jesus Christ,” Julian blurted out, taking his wife by the shoulders. He couldn’t help but give her a little shake. To be sure she was safe. To be sure she was
real
. “Lily, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m chasing you.” She panted for breath. “You unmitigated ass.” Her eyes blazed with fury, and she trembled in his arms. He’d never seen her in possession of such intense, evident rage and fear.

But she wouldn’t be here if her love didn’t surpass both of these.

His heart rolled in his chest. “This much, Lily? You truly love me this much?”

“Of course I do, you hateful man. Damn you.” She clutched her side with one hand and raised the other in a fist. Lowered it. Raised it again. Then punched his shoulder, hard.

He kissed her full on the lips. She struggled for a moment, having stockpiled all that nervous energy for the cause of defense. But he would not be pushed away. He held her tight with his arms and cherished her lips with the softest of kisses, tasting the sweetness of her skin and the salt of her tears. “I love you,” he murmured against her lips. “I don’t know how it’s possible to love you so much. I will die of it.”

The platform trembled beneath their feet. A powder explosion in the armory, perhaps. Or maybe just this kiss, shaking the foundations of the earth.

“See here!” the duke called.

With reluctance, Julian lifted his head, ending the kiss.

Morland waved them over, jerking his head toward the breakwater. “Looks as though they’re slowing work. Perhaps they’ll be released early.”

Julian turned to Lily and signed, “Go. You must go home. Now. This is men’s business. Dangerous.”

“No,” she said, still holding her side. “You don’t understand. It’s Peter Faraday.”

Peter Faraday? How the devil had she learned of Peter Faraday?

“He was with Leo that night,” she huffed. “They were … They were lovers.”

“What?” he signed. Julian was certain he’d misheard her.

“Lovers?”
Ashworth and Morland echoed.

So. It would seem he hadn’t misheard.

She nodded, looking around the group. “Yes, lovers. I’m sure of it. I have letters from Faraday to my brother. They leave no doubt.”

For a prolonged moment, the armory was strangely silent. He and Ashworth and Morland looked from one to another. To their boots. To the horizon. Looking around in vain for explanations, he supposed. Or maybe just escape.

Considering Julian’s own history of debauchery, he’d never felt himself in the position to judge others’ sexual affairs. And to be sure, he’d known his share of mollies. His own tailors, for a start. It was no secret Schwartz and Cobb were more than just business partners. In his youth, there’d been a molly house just a block from Anna’s coffeehouse. And even within the
ton
, there were always those “confirmed bachelors.”

But those were
other
men. They weren’t Leo.

Lovers. Leo and Faraday,
lovers
.

Julian briefly considered reconstructing his mind to accommodate the concept. Then he pushed the idea away. Renovations on such a grand scale took more time than he could spare right now. “We already knew Faraday was there. He took the attack meant for me. I was supposed to be with Leo that night.”

“But you weren’t,” Morland said. “Faraday was. And if they had some kind of relationship …”

“A crime of passion?” Ashworth put in. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Wait a minute. You’re forgetting Cora Dunn. You know, the
female
prostitute Leo picked up that evening?” Yes, Julian reminded himself. He’d been with a woman. Lily had to be wrong. “Cora saw two men attacking them, and the brutes she described looked like Stone and Macleod down there. They were apprehended in the same neighborhood, on the same night. We’re here for a reason.”

Of all the untenable notions, that would be the most impossible to accept—that they were here for nothing. That after all this, no answers awaited him. No future.

Morland swore. “I have to leave. Jesus Christ, that man is in my house.”

“Faraday had nothing to do with it,” Julian insisted. Lily tugged at his sleeve, but he pulled his arm free and gestured toward the two convicts on the breakwater. “If those men killed Leo, we can’t let them walk free. He was our friend.”

“He was my
brother,”
Lily argued. “I’m his closest kin. If there’s a question over how to deal with this, shouldn’t it be mine to say?”

Click
. The sound of a gun being cocked, uncomfortably close.

“I loved him. It’s mine to say.”

Julian wheeled around to see another man had joined them on the platform. Peter Faraday—standing tall and fit, armed with a double-barreled flintlock pistol.

Hatred flickered in the man’s gaze as he raised his gun. “No one move.”

Chapter Twenty-four

A shot cracked the air.

Julian had no time to raise his own weapon. No time to do anything, save throw his body in front of Lily’s. Faraday fired again, and a ball whistled past Julian’s ear.

After a split-second inventory of his vital organs to assure himself he was alive and unharmed, Julian whipped his head around, following the shots’ trajectory. Through the acrid cloud of black powder, he glimpsed Stone and Macleod reeling on the breakwater. The two convicts made slow, insensate dives into the Thames, shackles and all. If they weren’t already dead from their gunshot wounds, they would drown within the minute.

“No!” Julian cried. He surged toward the edge, in his desperation thinking to leap straight off the shipyard platform. How many feet down to the riverbank? Fifteen, perhaps? If he survived the jump with no broken bones, maybe he could fish the men out of the river.

But Lily wrapped her arms about him, holding him back. “No, don’t! There’s nothing you can do.”

Julian froze, swearing with helpless rage. He had no choice but to stop. It was that, or drag Lily over, too.

“It’s done,” Faraday said, coming to stand beside them. “It’s over.”

Yes, it was over. And Julian was done for. God damn it to hell. With those men went his only hope of identifying his enemy. His future was sinking to the bottom of the Thames like a lead weight. Nothing was left to mark Stone and Macleod’s presence on this earth, save a few ripples. The officers seemed not to have noticed a thing. It had all happened so fast, and what was the sound of two gunshots in the midst of an armory?

He choked on a sob. What did he do now? Numbness struck him in the knees. Feeling hopeless and doomed, he turned, took his wife in his arms, and held her. This was what he would do. He would hold on to Lily for as long as he could.

No one knew what to say.

Finally Morland said to Faraday, “I thought you were an invalid.”

“I was for a time.” He lowered his still-smoking weapon. “I got better.”

No doubt about it. Julian scarcely recognized Faraday as the same person they’d visited in Cornwall. Aside from his miraculous physical recovery, the man’s whole demeanor had changed. The Peter Faraday of Julian’s recollection had been vacuous, irreverent, shiftless. This Faraday was collected and sure. Ruthless, in a strangely professional way.

“Rot in hell,” the man said through gritted teeth, glaring hard at the breakwater.

Morland said, “You seem certain they were the right ones. Thought you said you couldn’t identify them.”

“I lied. I’d know them anywhere,” Faraday said. “They were the ones. They killed him.”

Another prolonged silence.

“Impressive marksmanship,” put in Ashworth at length, in some absurd attempt at small talk. “From your form, I would have marked you as military trained. But I’d know if you’d served in the army.”