A Stolen Heart (33 page)

When Willa returned thirty minutes later, Alexandra went down to breakfast. She walked into the dining room and stopped abruptly. There, sitting at the table with her aunt, calmly downing a plate of ham and eggs, was Sebastian.

“What are you doing here?” she asked ungraciously. “Do you plan to plague us from morning till night?”

He smiled in the manner of one who enjoyed delivering bad news. “More than that, my dear. I have moved in.”

“What!” Alexandra stared at him. “Are you mad? You can’t live here!” She could scarcely imagine anything worse than having to be around Sebastian every minute of the day, always seeing him, wanting him, her heart breaking all over again every day.

“I don’t know why not. Your aunt invited me.”

“Aunt Hortense!” Alexandra swung on that good woman, who was placidly eating her eggs, long since used to her niece’s temper. “How could you?”

“Quite easily, my dear. The Countess and Sebastian and I talked about it at some length last night after you went up to bed. We decided it was the wisest course.”

“Obviously Murdock’s presence hasn’t been enough protection. I have brought over two or three of my other servants, including Punwati.”

“Punwati! Whatever for?”

“He is quite adept at the Eastern arts of hand-to-hand combat. A good man to have in a fight.”

“Do you plan to turn our house into an armed camp?” Alexandra asked scathingly.

“If I have to, in order to keep you safe. When you go out now, one of us will accompany you—Punwati, Murdock or I.”

“I am to be a prisoner in my own house, then?”

“Not a prisoner, dear,” Aunt Hortense said, shaking her head. “It’s for your protection.”

“You will protect me into an early grave! I cannot bear to have Murdock and Punwati and God knows who else hanging about all the time!”

“You’ll scarcely notice they’re here,” Sebastian assured her. “Murdock and my two servants will primarily patrol the outside of the house. Punwati will keep a watch on the inside. And, of course, it is I who will be with you most of the time.”

“You are the one I want to have around least,” Alexandra retorted bluntly. “Talk about a scandal! If it was such an awful thing for the two of us to be stuck together one night because of that silly balloon taking off, imagine how the tongues will wag at the idea of your living here!”

“Since I plan to marry you, the scandal will not last long.”

“Then I would say you are pinning your hopes on shaky ground. I have no intention of marrying you.”

“You’ll see the advantages of it eventually,” Sebastian replied imperturbably. “Anyway, there’s no reason for scandal. We will be in a house with your aunt, your mother and Miss Everhart. We couldn’t be more well chaperoned. The Countess approved of the idea, and she knows all the ins and outs of Society.”

“I don’t give a damn about Society,” Alexandra snapped. “I just don’t want you here!”

“Careful, my dear, you may wound my feelings.”

“You have none,” Alexandra replied scornfully, “or you wouldn’t be doing this to me.”

“Doing what?”

“I know what your scheme is. Don’t think I’m not on to you.”

“My only scheme is to keep you safe.”

“You think that if you are around constantly, you can wear me down, convince me to marry you. Well, I won’t.”

“Then you need not worry about my being here.” He met her gaze blandly.

“Oh! You are the most infuriating man I ever met!”

“Sit down, my dear, and eat your breakfast. It will improve your temper.”

“Nothing will improve my temper except your leaving.”

“I am sorry to hear that. I suppose we will have to endure your bad mood for a while, then.”

Alexandra scowled at him and plopped down in her chair. She had thought that things could not be worse this morning when she woke up, but she was quickly learning that they could. How was she to endure having Sebastian around all the time? Even now, annoyed as she was by him, she kept thinking about how much she would like to run her fingers through his thick, dark hair. She had the awful feeling that she would soon make a fool of herself.

She was contemplating these dark thoughts and pushing food around on her plate with her fork when the butler walked into the room.

“Miss?”

Alexandra looked up inquiringly. Their usually calm, dignified butler looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Yes?”

“There is, ah, a person who wishes to speak with you, miss.” Every line of the butler’s face showed his opinion of this person.

Alexandra’s curiosity was aroused. “All right. Show him in.”

“It is a female person, miss, and I—well, I think you would rather not see her here.”

“I wouldn’t?”

“She is, er, a trifle, well, dirty, miss. I would not normally bother you. No doubt she is begging. I tried to turn her out, but she was extremely insistent that you would wish to hear what she had to say. She said that she had information. About the attack on you the other day.”

“What the devil!” Sebastian jumped to his feet, and so did Alexandra.

“Take me to her,” she said calmly.

S
EBASTIAN AND
A
LEXANDRA FOLLOWED THE
butler to the kitchen, where they found several of the servants standing on one side of the room watching a woman who stood on the opposite side. She was returning their gaze equally warily.

She was short and quite thin, dressed in an odd assortment of layers of clothing, none of them particularly clean. On her feet were an outsize pair of men’s brogans, caked with dried mud and muck. Her hair was tied in a scarf, and it looked as if it had been some time since her face had seen a washrag. She was completely out of place in the tidy, sparkling kitchen, but she faced the situation boldly, her chin thrust out and her eyes snapping, as if to dare any of the servants to complain about her presence.

“Hello,” Alexandra said, forcing herself to speak calmly and pleasantly. “I am Miss Ward.”

The woman turned to look at her, then her gaze slid beyond Alexandra to Sebastian.

When the woman said nothing, Alexandra went on, “I believe that you wanted to tell me something?”

“I got sumfing you’d like to ‘ear,” the woman responded.

It took Alexandra a moment to figure out what the woman had said. The thick London accents still confused her. But Sebastian understood immediately.

“Indeed? And what would we like to hear?” he asked in an indifferent, even bored voice.

The woman let out a snort. “You fink I’m tellin’ ye, just like ‘at?” she asked scornfully. “I has important information, I do, an’ I figure it’s worf sumfing to ye.”

“I can hardly judge that, can I, until I hear what it is?” Sebastian responded.

“’Ere! I ain’t talkin’ to you, any’ ow. I’m talkin’ to the lady.”

“That’s true,” Alexandra interjected, frowning at Sebastian. “And I am very much interested in hearing what you have to say. What does this information concern?”

“It concerns my man, that’s wot—the one you’ve got up in Newgate.”

“In jail?” Sebastian looked sharply at the woman. “Are you saying that your man is the fellow who attacked Miss Ward the other day?”

The woman gave a firm nod, pride evident on her face. “That’s ‘im. Red Bill Trimble.”

“And you are going to give us evidence against him?” Alexandra asked doubtfully. The woman seemed too proud, even fond of the man to be giving evidence against him.

“No. Wot’s wrong with you? I’d never do nuffing like ‘at. But it ain’t right ‘im sittin’ there rottin’ and the one wot ‘ired ‘im runnin’ about free, now, is it?”

“Hardly,” Alexandra agreed, her pulse quickening. “Do you know who hired him?”

A crafty look crept over the woman’s face. “Mebbe I do. Wot’s it worf to you?”

“It’s worth you not going to jail,” Sebastian interjected hotly. “If you know who hired your man to harm Miss Ward and don’t tell, that makes you an accessory to the crime.”

“’Ere!” The woman recoiled. “There’s no cause to do that! I ain’t done nuffing wrong! I just offered to help, like, an’ you’re tryin’ to put me in jail!”

“Sebastian, do be quiet,” Alexandra said crisply. “You are not helping matters any.”

“I’m not going to let that woman extort money from you on top of everything else. She’ll bloody well tell us what she knows—”

The woman backed up quickly, her face going pale beneath its layer of dirt. “’Ere now, you got no cause—I ain’t askin’ you for money!”

“Of course not,” Alexandra assured her, shooting a speaking glance at Sebastian. She moved toward her, holding out a hand. “Here, why don’t you sit down at the table and have a nice cup of tea, and we will talk about this like reasonable people.”

“I can see you’re a real lady,” the woman said, raising her chin and casting a triumphant look at the servants massed across the kitchen from her. She sidled over to the table and sat, keeping a careful eye on Sebastian.

“Thank you. Mrs. Huffines, tea, if you please,” Alexandra said to the cook. “The rest of you, I am sure, have work to do—somewhere else.”

The cook sniffed and bustled off to brew a pot of tea, and the other servants took themselves off reluctantly. Alexandra sat at the large wooden table across from their visitor, and Sebastian, after a moment, sighed and sat beside her.

“Now, then, Miss—” Alexandra began.

“Maisy. Me name is Maisy Goodall.”

“All right, Maisy.” Alexandra said. “If you don’t want money, what is it you do want?”

“You could get Bill out of jail, you could.”

Sebastian made a noise of disgust, and Alexandra shot him a warning look.

“I doubt that I have the power to do that,” Alexandra told her. “Of course, if he were to tell us who hired him, I am sure that the magistrate would go easier on him.”

“Not ‘im,” Maisy replied honestly. “Red Bill ain’t one to rat out ‘is mates. ‘Sides, ‘e don’t know ‘oo it is.”

“But I thought you said—”

“I
seen
‘er.”

“Her!” Alexandra sat forward. “It was a woman?”

Maisy realized that she had let some of her precious information slip. “I din’t say ‘at.”

“You said ‘her,’” Sebastian reminded her. “Now, come clean. Tell us what you know about her.”

“I’ll do what I can to help Red Bill,” Alexandra told her. “The person who hired him is the one I want to see behind bars.” She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out a coin, which she laid on the table between her and Maisy. “Here’s a little something to help tide you over until your man’s out of jail again.”

Maisy looked indecisively from Alexandra’s face to the coin, then to Sebastian’s implacable countenance.

“I don’t know ‘er name. I only seen ‘er. She come to our place a couple weeks ago, told Bill she wanted ‘im to take care of the old lady.”

“The old lady? My mother?”

Maisy nodded. “I guess. She told ‘im where she was and all. So Bill ‘ired someone to do it. Only that silly oaf Peggoddy made a mull of it!” Her voice dripped scorn. “So she come back to Bill. Spittin’ mad, she was. Says ‘e made a mess of it and she refuses to pay ‘im. Bill weren’t ‘aving none of that, though, and finally she says she’ll pay ‘im, but ‘e’s gotta finish the job, like. An’, she says, ‘e’s got to get rid of that innerferin’ American bitch, too.”

Sebastian made a choked noise, and Alexandra shot him a quelling look. “Indeed?”

“So Bill did it ‘imself. ‘E din’t trust nobody else again.” She sighed. “Worse luck for ‘im.”

“How did she get hold of him? I mean, how did she know to come to Red Bill?”

Maisy shrugged. “Ever’body knows Red Bill. If she asked around, she’d ‘a found out well enough.”

“You have no idea what her name is?” Alexandra asked.

Maisy shook her head. “She wouldn’t tell us sumfing like ‘at, now, would she?”

“What did she look like?” Sebastian asked.

Maisy looked thoughtful. “I din’t see her real good like. She wore a cloak, see, and pulled the ‘ood forward so ‘er face was in shadow. She wore a half mask, too.”

“Could you tell anything about her?” Alexandra asked. “Was she young or old? Tall?”

“No. She weren’t tall. Leastways, not tall as you. But not as short as me, either. I couldn’t see if she was young.”

Alexandra sighed. Since Maisy was quite small and Alexandra was a very tall woman, most of the women of London would fit Maisy’s description.

“What about her voice?” Sebastian asked. “You heard her speak, at least. What did she sound like?”

“I dunno.” Maisy gazed at him blankly. “Like a toff, like you.” She turned toward Alexandra, a thought dawning on her face. “But not like you, miss.”

“So she was English. Not American.”

Maisy nodded. However, she seemed to have come to the end of her knowledge. Not all the prodding or questioning that Alexandra and Sebastian could do could dislodge any further nugget of information from her. Finally, Alexandra slid the coin across the table to the woman and promised to speak to the authorities on Red Bill Trimble’s behalf. Maisy was quick to take the coin and jump up from the table. Alexandra watched her hurry through the kitchen and out the back door, and she turned to Sebastian.

He was watching her, his face faintly questioning. “Well?”

“Well, what? Do you believe her?” Alexandra stood and started out of the kitchen.

Sebastian shrugged as he rose from his chair and joined her. “I don’t know. She certainly didn’t give us any real description of the person—not tall, not short, disguised by a hooded cloak as well as a mask. It certainly wouldn’t be hard to make something like that up. She made a coin out of it, as well as whatever help we might be able to give her Mr. Trimble.”

“It would be just as easy to tell the truth as a lie, I would think.”

“Provided she knows it.”

“You don’t think she is who she says?”

“Oh, I presume she is probably the common-law wife of the man who attacked you. Obviously she knew enough about the matter to come to you with her ‘information.’ And she knew that Peggoddy was hired the other time. But whether she actually saw the transaction between Trimble and this other person—” He shrugged again, then added, a twinkle in his eyes, “Although, I must say that comment about getting rid of that interfering American bitch does have a certain ring of truth about it.”

Alexandra made a face at him. “You would latch on to that, of course. Still, it does make it seem authentic. I’m not sure we can credit Maisy with enough imagination to think up such details. I am inclined to believe that she is telling the truth.”

They walked down the hall to the drawing room, but neither of them sat down. Alexandra wandered to the window and stood looking at the street. Sebastian lounged in the doorway, watching her.

“Why do you think it’s the truth?” he asked.

“Because she said it was a woman. That is too strange. If one were making it up, the natural thing to do would be to say it is a man. Isn’t that what you were expecting? Weren’t you surprised to hear her say ‘she’?”

“Yes,” Sebastian admitted. “Of course, I suppose she could have said it to throw us off the trail—if she wanted the money but was scared of the man coming after her if she betrayed him.”

“Or if someone hired her to tell us the story so that we would be led astray.”

“Do you honestly think that?”

“No,” Alexandra admitted quickly. “That seems far too devious. The truth, I find, is usually simpler—and rarely clever.”

“I agree. If she didn’t tell the truth, I think it was because she didn’t know it or was scared of the person who hired Trimble.” He paused and looked at Alexandra. “It seems we are talking all around the real issue here.”

Alexandra sighed and nodded. “Yes. Who is the woman?”

“It
can’t
be Lady Ursula.”

“Who else could it be?” Alexandra countered. “The woman we know it can’t be is Aunt Hortense—or any other person in my family. Maisy was definite that the woman was not American.”

“Unless she disguised her accent in order to fool them.”

Alexandra grimaced. “An American who is able to sound so like a toff that an Englishwoman is fooled?”

“I agree. It sounds unlikely. But I don’t think we can rule out your American family entirely. They could, after all, be operating through an English friend or distant relative.”

“Then they would be letting yet another party into the situation—it seems unlikely. The obvious answer is an Englishwoman who would stand to lose something if I am the Countess’s granddaughter. And who else could that be except Lady Ursula?”

Sebastian shook his head. “I have known the woman all my life. She is overbearing, annoying and sanctimonious. But I cannot imagine her killing to keep her mother from claiming you as her granddaughter.”

“Then who else could it be? Penelope?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Who, then?”

“There must be some other person who we don’t know about. Some reason they want your mother silenced and you out of the way.”

“What other reason could there be?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. At least when I am engaged in a fight, I usually know who my opponent is.”

“Perhaps we should leave for the United States. It is just that I am scared to do so while Mother is still—”

“It’s impossible. You cannot move her now. Besides, I—”

Alexandra turned toward him, her chest tightening. “You what?”

“I do not want you to.”

“It is the only answer.” Alexandra tried to keep her voice steady. “It will nip the scandal in the bud.”

“So will marrying me.”

“That is a rather large sacrifice on both our parts, don’t you think, for being forced to spend the night together by a freak accident?”

He crossed the room to her, his eyes boring into hers. “It was more than that. What they are whispering is exactly true. You were in my bed. We made love.”

Alexandra found it difficult to breathe. Her knees trembled, and she was afraid she might embarrass them both by slumping against him.

“It isn’t as if I were a naïve maiden,” she told him shakily. “I went into it with my eyes open.”