To Tempt a Saint (27 page)
Authors: Kate Moore
“Do you think Jones won’t cast you off to save himself ? You don’t know men, Niece.” When she dropped her hand from her jaw, he could see swelling and a bloody cut where the lip had split.
Cleo held the pen he gave her above the paper he wanted her to sign. The words were fairly straightforward, an indication that she had been misled by Alexander Jones and that she did not wish to be married to him. She tried to think how to distract her uncle.
“What happens to Charlie?”
“Why, he remains my ward, and I’ll remove him from the harmful influence of that whore’s house on Hill Street.”
“Will he go to school?”
“I hope your brother has the wit to appreciate his own home as you did not. Like your father, you have no proper sense of what was simply handed to you.”
“You lied to me about Papa, Uncle. There were no gaming debts, were there?” She signed, hoping her uncle would not examine the signature closely.
“I’m busy, Niece. You’ll have to excuse me. Others will see to your . . . comfort. A vehicle waits to take you where you can await his reply. Your new situation will encourage you to have a proper understanding of the stakes in this matter.”
H
ENRY Norwood brought grim news to Will and Xander at his chambers at noon. He had found Isaiah trying to revive Amos in the entry of the house and had sent for a physician to see to Amos’s care. Isaiah explained where the other members of the house were, but he did not know what had become of Cleo. Under the physician’s care Amos revived long enough to describe the men who had taken her.
ENRY Norwood brought grim news to Will and Xander at his chambers at noon. He had found Isaiah trying to revive Amos in the entry of the house and had sent for a physician to see to Amos’s care. Isaiah explained where the other members of the house were, but he did not know what had become of Cleo. Under the physician’s care Amos revived long enough to describe the men who had taken her.
Xander saw in his mind the man who’d attacked her in the street tumbling backward into a donkey cart.
“March has her.” Even as he said the words he understood something he had denied to himself in the bank as he betrayed her. He could not let her go. He had seen her and wanted her and taken her and told himself a lie that he wanted only her money.
“He’ll take her to Woford House.” Henry Norwood looked relieved and then thoughtful. “He may try to force her to repudiate the marriage in front of witnesses.”
Xander shook his head. He did not share Norwood’s optimism. “Evershot says there’s a reversion clause in Cleo’s trust. If she dies without issue, her husband must repay the trust. March never counted on the courts to dissolve the marriage.”
Abruptly Xander remembered the detail that had eluded him the night March attacked her.
Hops
. She’d been covered with broken bits of the fragrant plant from the sack they’d thrown over her head. He had seen no lettering on the donkey cart, but he knew well where that particular cart was likely to come from. Bredsell had preached from such a cart with
Truman’s Brewery
in red lettering on the side. He saw the whole strategy unfold. “March’s habits are well-known. He’ll be at his ease in his club when some accident befalls his mad niece.”
Hops
. She’d been covered with broken bits of the fragrant plant from the sack they’d thrown over her head. He had seen no lettering on the donkey cart, but he knew well where that particular cart was likely to come from. Bredsell had preached from such a cart with
Truman’s Brewery
in red lettering on the side. He saw the whole strategy unfold. “March’s habits are well-known. He’ll be at his ease in his club when some accident befalls his mad niece.”
Will nodded. “I wouldn’t put it past him to burn down a building with her in it. Do you think he’s got her somewhere on Bread Street, Xan?”
“Where else? No one would come to her aid there.”
Norwood was shocked. “But March’s legal quest has been to discredit you, to claim that he is protecting his niece by acting against your marriage. It makes no sense to harm her.”
Will watched him closely. “Xan, you can’t go to Bread Street alone. Officers don’t go there except in numbers. Bashing in heads is the local industry, and don’t forget you’re a man at large, and there’s a reward.”
“March doesn’t leave anything to chance, does he? How much?”
“Five hundred pounds.”
“Quite a sum. Divided among four Runners, it would be a good day’s wage.”
Will’s brows lifted. “A year’s more like. What are you thinking?”
Xander grinned at his brother. “That you don’t deserve all the glory of my arrest.”
Chapter Twenty
N
ATE Wilde watched the comings and goings at the lawyer’s office, judging how he could get past the porter at the door. Snow covered the wide square and dusted the sooty old bricks. He was too old and too knowing to delight in an early snow as he once might have, and besides, the unexpected snow was keeping folks indoors, making it hard for him to pass as an errand boy as Bredsell boys were trained to do.
ATE Wilde watched the comings and goings at the lawyer’s office, judging how he could get past the porter at the door. Snow covered the wide square and dusted the sooty old bricks. He was too old and too knowing to delight in an early snow as he once might have, and besides, the unexpected snow was keeping folks indoors, making it hard for him to pass as an errand boy as Bredsell boys were trained to do.
There were barriers everywhere he looked. High iron gates with spiderwebs of scrollwork closed off one end of an open square bounded by the stone and brick buildings. The old buildings stood straight and starchy and had all their doors and staring brass knockers, not like his neighborhood. Busy Oxford Street was a much better lay for a Bredsell boy. This place was like a regular graveyard, it was.
He tucked his hands under his arms and stomped his feet against the cold. He could not complain about being a Bredsell boy. Bredsell himself was an annoyance, but the school had more holidays and gave away more cake than any school he ever heard of. The hours with the masters were few, and boys who knew their letters and numbers got jobs and wages. Sometimes he delivered brown wrapped packets to gentlemen. Sometimes he watched their comings and goings. His current job was the best yet. He loafed around a bunch of toffs all day, watching them and reporting back on them to Bredsell or the big, swell toff behind it all. He got the job because he was smart. He saw things and remembered them, and he knew his way about London. He could get from Park Lane to Bread Street faster than a grown man, and he knew the art of invisibility in a crowd.
The job was like being a Runner in reverse. He watched them, he reported on them. He was pretty sure, too, that he was working for smart, powerful men, men who knew how to get what they wanted in life. And he didn’t have to do a click to have money in his pocket. Bredsell gave him three and six a week for his reports. Three and six for loafing and watching and not doing a thing for which the law could touch him. He could see himself already a high mobsman with a purple silk waistcoat and gold rings and fellows to do his work for him.
And now he’d been trusted with a bigger job and promised five shillings for it. All he had to do was find a Mr. Henry Norwood and repeat the message he’d learned earlier in the day. And he knew, too, because he paid attention to such things that his message was trouble for the copper Will Jones and his top-lofty brother. He grinned at the thought, though the cold made his teeth ache.
His chance came when two groups of wiggy gentlemen in flowing black robes tried to enter the building at one go. Nate came up behind one group as the other group finally gave way to let them pass, and then he was in the shadowed doorway. He knew right where he had to go. He was up the stairs, knocking on number five before the wiggy gentlemen knocked the snow from their shoes.
“Message for Henry Norwood,” he told the young clerk who answered the door. Nate figured he probably got paid as well as the clerk, even if the fellow’s shirt points were so very high and he did have a fine gold watch chain hanging across his belly. He’d lose that fast on Bread Street, and his shoes and the contents of his pockets.
The toffy clerk made him stand in the doorway until a stout old fellow with eyebrows like white cat’s tails came to peer at him closely. The old fellow made him sit in a hard chair.
“Now then, lad, let’s have your message, please.” The old fellow held out his hand.
Nate just shook his head and grinned. “Nothin’ on paper, sir.” He tapped his head and remembered to take his cap off. “It’s all here.”
The old gentleman signaled his clerk. “Then we’d best take it down. In case our brains are not so exact as yours.”
Nate squared his shoulders. The warm room, the hard chair, and the fixed stare of the old gentleman were making him uneasy.
He had the message all clear in his head, but he had to get it out in one burst, so to speak, and he didn’t want his teeth to chatter. Some of the grand words meant nothing, though he knew, right enough, that the whole of the message was a threat. “Presumption has its price. A letter repudiating your marriage signed before a notary and delivered to Woford House by five today secures your release from further prosecution.”
Nate finished, and to his surprise the clerk finished, too. He’d expected to have to repeat the message more than once, but the flashy fellow seemed to think he’d got it all down.
“Is there anything else, lad?” The old fellow with the white eyebrows looked at Nate, too closely for comfort. He looked like a fellow who might remember what he saw.
“No, Yer Worship. I’ve been straight with ye.”
“Have you, now? Well then, Bob,” the old fellow said, turning to his flashy clerk, “get this boy something hot to drink before he steps out into the cold again.”
Nate was on his feet at once. He had his orders, and hot drinks weren’t among them. “Nowt for me, Yer Worship. I’ve done my job; best be off to let ’em know ye got the message.”
The old fellow nodded. “Right you are. Let’s get you a cab then.”
“Cab, me? You must be joking like.” No one said he couldn’t take a cab. It’d be a lark, wouldn’t it? A cab would never go up Bread Street, but Nate could ride up High Holborn in a cab. Nate tried then to look like a decent errand boy, an honest lad, the sort folks trusted. The old fellow watched him so closely, he wasn’t sure he succeeded at all. “Thank you,” he said.
“A cab it is then.” The old fellow turned to his clerk. “Bob, get your coat, and see this boy off.”
That didn’t sound quite right, but Nate could see no danger in Bob. Bob looked like he knew as much about the world as a babe in nappies. Bob went off to get his coat, and there was a good bit of moving about in other rooms that Nate couldn’t see. Doors opening and closing and feet shuffling like three clerks instead of one, and then Bob was back, and Nate let old Bob slog into the slush and flag a cabman. He settled back against the squabs, thinking about when he would ride in cabs all day, anytime he liked. He didn’t look back once.
W
ITHIN the hour Bob returned from following Nate Wilde to Bread Street, and Xander saw his path clear. He would stage his own arrest there. Will’s role was to assemble a cohort of trusted men from among his fellow Runners, no one with ties to March. While Xander worked his way up the street, Will would lead the group of officers down from the school, drawing attention, and claiming to look for a notorious pickpocket, spreading the rumor of a reward. Between them they would search the street from end to end. Number Forty remained a likely place for March to conceal Cleo. Xander remembered its basement rooms. The search would end there.
ITHIN the hour Bob returned from following Nate Wilde to Bread Street, and Xander saw his path clear. He would stage his own arrest there. Will’s role was to assemble a cohort of trusted men from among his fellow Runners, no one with ties to March. While Xander worked his way up the street, Will would lead the group of officers down from the school, drawing attention, and claiming to look for a notorious pickpocket, spreading the rumor of a reward. Between them they would search the street from end to end. Number Forty remained a likely place for March to conceal Cleo. Xander remembered its basement rooms. The search would end there.
Once Xander found Cleo, he could allow himself to be arrested, and their police escort would get them away from Bread Street without any interference from March’s hirelings.
Will had only one word of caution. “Careful, Xan, March may have sent Wilde to lure you into a trap.”
They shook hands and parted. Timing mattered. March had clearly sent Nate Wilde to make them think that he still pursued legal means against their marriage, but that reversion clause stuck in Xander’s mind. He did not think March intended Cleo to survive the night.
Chapter Twenty-one
C
LEO woke flat on her back in darkness so complete,
LEO woke flat on her back in darkness so complete,
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