Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) (35 page)

That was true, the watcher thought. “Look, if it is all the same to you, the men I believe to be their kidnappers scurried toward Henrietta Street, likely heading for Oxford Street. You had better go after them.”

“Sure we will, just as soon as we get you settled, won’t we, mate?” Dogwart asked his prissy, grinning friend.

“If you do not believe me,” the watcher tried. “Then take me to Sabr—to her grace. She will tell you who I am and she will listen to me, by God, which is what you should be doing. You will rue this morning’s work. Her boys are taken, I tell you.”

“What do you say, Doggett? Think we should take the scoundrel inside to see if her grace knows him?”

“We can’t go scaring her Ladyship, now, can we? But we can put ‘em in the cellar, truss ‘em up right ‘n tight, and wait till Himself comes back.”

“You are making a terrible mistake,” the watcher said, as he was dragged along, tripping over his accursed leg. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“The king of England?” Prissy-man suggested.

“Nah.” Doggy-breath cackled. “‘E’s the bloody queen.”

“I happen to be—”

“Not so bloody sturdy and thick-limbed as you’re s’posed to be, I can tell you that,” Dogwart said, shoving him forward again, forcing the watcher to center his concentration on remaining upright.

If he fell and cracked his senseless skull, he would be no use to Sabrina or the boys, he thought. And this time he must be. God, he must. “At least go and see if the boys are in the nursery,” he said.

And the fools laughed again.

More than an hour later, Gideon dismounted, threw his reins to his stable lad, and made for the house.

Grandmama had been more than willing to pack up on the instant and take her “sweet daughter-in-law and dear grandbabies,” into Kent with her to protect them, a concession for which Gideon was incredibly grateful.

Though his wife did not yet know it, she would soon be safe away and in possession of an account with money enough to keep her comfortable. At this point, all he cared about was keeping her and the children safe and cared for. Nothing else mattered.

He had barely made it into the kitchen when Waredraper and Doggett came racketing down the backstairs, attacking him with frantic, meaningless prattle before he could draw breath.

“The lads,” Doggett said.

“’Twas a half hour before we even looked.” Waredraper groaned. “And only then because of that yapping pup. We just don’t know.”

Gideon raised both brows. “What are you talking about?”

“Could have rolled ‘em up in the carpet.”

Doggett shook his head. “Bloke’s a blackguard. He didn’t know for sure.”

“Then where are the missing carpets?”

“Stop!” Gideon shouted, a sick feeling churning in his gut. “Tell me first that
the lads
are
not
Rafe and Damon.”

Doggett and Waredraper glanced at each other. Doggett swallowed. “But they are.”

“What about them?” Gideon snapped.

Doggett backed up a step. “Gone.”

“Are you saying you lost my children?” Gideon’s voice rose. “How could that be, when they were in their beds even as I put you on watch?”

Gideon saw his guard-dogs cower, forced himself into a pretense of calm, and took a deep breath. “You will excuse my outburst. Where do the boys usually hide?”

“If they are hiding, it is not in this house.”

“Are you certain?” Gideon asked. “Did you look in the park, across the street, where we hunted cat?”

“Hunted what?”

“Across the street, Man. Did you look across the street?”

Doggett nodded. “We looked.”

“Everywhere,” Waredraper added.

Gideon named a dozen places the boys might hide, but his men insisted the boys were in none of them.

“I will find them, myself, by damn.”

Waredraper grabbed Gideon’s arm to stop him as he stepped determinedly forward. “Wasting time. Signs of a struggle.”

That was Gideon’s undoing. A struggle. He could barely breathe. Fear grew in his belly like a canker. Who would do such a thing?

Veronica was the first person who came to his mind. “What have you told her grace?”

“Nothing.” Doggett shook his head. “Didn’t want to give her a fright.”

Gideon released his breath. “Do not. Not yet. Veronica is trying to draw me out. I am certain of it.” Except that he had learned, only that morning on Bow Street, that Veronica was likely more dangerous than any of them suspected.

“What if her grace looks for them?” Waredraper asked.

The question stopped Gideon’s scrambling thoughts. “Wait a minute. It is past nine. Why has Sabrina not discovered the boys missing for herself? Are you certain they are not with her?”

“The babe’s fussing up a storm,” Doggett said. “Spots. Her grace doesn’t want the boys catching it again. Told Minchip to keep—”

“Minchip!”

“Hysterical. Knows nothing. They were gone when she woke.”

Gideon’s heart raced, guilt snapped at his heels. He would have served the boys better if he had stayed, rather than gone. His fault they were missing. His doing. “Have my horse saddled, at once.”

“Where are you going?” Doggett asked Gideon, as Waredraper left to tend the horse.

“Lady Veronica Cartwright’s. Keep this … situation quiet, until I return.” He turned to Alice, standing on the far side of the kitchen, her mouth pursed as if she had sucked a hot-house lemon. “Say nothing to your mistress,” Gideon told her. “That is an order.”

He waited for the maid’s nod before regarding Doggett. “Come with me, while I get my pistols. If I am lucky, I will have the boys back before Sabrina ever realizes they went missing.”

Gideon loaded his pistols as efficiently as if he were the second in a duel. “After I leave, go for the runners and hurry them up,” he told Doggett. “I went to Bow Street this morning and left a request. They will help when you tell them the situation has worsened.”

From atop his horse, five minutes later, Gideon regarded his watchdogs. “If you do not hear from me in half an hour, then you must tell her grace. If it comes to that, keep her here at all costs. Do you understand me? I know who is behind this, and I believe the boys are safe. I must believe it.” He nodded before turning his horse. “I will have them back in a trice.” Please God.

Doggett and Waredraper watched Gideon ride from sight.

“Blast it,” Doggett said. “You forgot to tell him about the bloke in the cellar.”

“I forgot?” Waredraper shouted. “Me? I was supposed to tell him?”

“No matter. You’ll be forgiven. Says he has everything under control.”

Minutes later, Gideon stormed Veronica’s house without resistance. Obviously, she had neglected to inform her servants that he would no longer be paying their wages. So much the better, under the circumstances.

He cut through her dressing room, and when her maid both curtseyed and crossed herself, upon seeing him, he knew what he was like to find.

He did not even try the knob on the bedchamber door, but kicked that portal open.

The bed’s copulating occupants separated in shock, the both of them cursing like guttersnipes. Veronica’s nameless partner jumped to his feet, then the puny fellow had the audacity to bow. No small insult, given his nude state.

“I daresay, he is smaller, Ronnie, than you used to prefer.” Realizing the man must be a rookery acquaintance, Gideon was bedeviled into insulting his height, but as a result, all of them regarded his limp little wick, instead.

God help him, despite all panic and good sense, Gideon laughed.

The man growled and demanded satisfaction.

Gideon ignored him. “Give me the boys, Ronnie. If you give them to me now, your perfidy will go no further.” He wanted to tell her what he learned of her treachery this morning, but this was no time to anger her. “Kidnapping is too cruel, even for you.”

Her lover straightened. “Kidnapped, you say? Well, in that case, I shall let your insult pass, due to the overabundance of anxiety you must be feeling.” The little man pulled on his trousers with haste and turned to the bed. “Good bye, my dear.” He seemed almost to grin, except that his lips remained a slash of firmness. “Thank you. It has been...interesting.” As quick as that, the curious little man was gone.

Veronica waved him away, even as she regarded Gideon with narrowed eyes. And like a black widow spider, still hungry for a mate, she threw back her covers, for all the world, as if she were inviting him into her bed.

“I want my boys,” Gideon said, more disgusted than ever, but determined not to reveal it. “Just give them to me, so I may go.”

“If you are referring to the children of that slut you married, does this mean that you have misplaced them already? By accident, or by design? I knew you could not stomach raising another man’s get.”

Gideon wondered when she had become so destructive a woman. His brother had gotten his throat cut in a bordello, the runners recently discovered, and they said it was an establishment Veronica owned.

She rose from her bed now, employing all the wiles of a temptress, though she fell so far short of the mark, as she stalked toward him, it was all Gideon could do not to reveal how ill her ploy, their very association, made him. He understood, now, the difference between making love and the physical act, itself.

“You loved me, once,” she said. “Surely you could do so again.”

“For a time, I bedded you, to our mutual, physical gratification. That time has now passed.”

Shedding her cunning, like a snake sheds its skin, Veronica Cartwright looked every inch a strumpet, screeching in mortified fury.

Her fists raised and poised to do damage, she rushed him.

Gideon stepped from her path.

She turned and rounded on him. “You are a fool, Gideon St. Goddard. Do you mean to say that you think you care about that whore you married?”

“She is not a subject I will profane by discussing her with you.”

The woman who was nothing more to him now than a caricature of depravity, laughed. “The more fool you.” She took up her dressing gown and slipped into it. “I am sorry to be the one to break the news, darling, but you had best resign yourself to having me. Because your harlot of a wife is on her way to save her precious brats even now.”

Gideon grasped her shoulders. “What do you know?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Your grace,” Alice said, entering Sabrina’s bedchamber and holding forward a sealed note. “This has just arrived for you.”

Sabrina tore open the missive and was trembling before she finished the first line. “Dear God,” she whispered. “He says he has the boys. Alice, go upstairs and fetch the twins, or stay with Julie while I—”

“They are not there, your grace.”

Sabrina stepped around her maid. “I will go for them myself, then—”

“The boys are missing.”

“No,” Sabrina wailed. “Please no,” but she could tell from the look on her maid’s face that it was true.