After the Kiss (27 page)

“What are you going to do, Michael?”

“I need the first
Journal
. There’s a chance that the first book might hold a clue to the identity of the traitor.”

“Why three books? Wouldn’t one have sufficed?”

“It’s a question I’ve asked myself. Less dangerous, I think, to have the information spread between three volumes. They were, no doubt, sent at different times
to the recipient in England.” He glanced over at her. “Where did Jerome get them?”

“I don’t know,” she said, thinking back to the day of the fire. “I had never seen them before.”

She glanced at him, startled by the thought that occurred to her. “Do you think Jerome might have been involved?”

He shrugged. “At this point, I don’t know who to suspect.”

“We’re both in danger, aren’t we?” she asked, afraid for him. By the look on his face she knew she was right.

“Be careful, Michael,” she said softly.

He enfolded her in his embrace and for long moments they remained that way, needing the closeness.

“I will not see Babby until the morning,” he said against her hair. “I will be safe enough. And I’ll set Smytheton to guarding you,” he said, in an obvious effort to lighten their mood.

“He will do nothing but scowl disdainfully at me,” she said, looking up as she wrapped her arms more tightly around him. She forced a smile to her face. An expression to ease his mind and hide the sudden chilling taste of fear.

M
ichael discovered Babby at home, and was gratified to find that his friend was not entertaining, nor was he regaling some intimate friends with newly discovered gossip.

The safest course was to ask to look at the book, giving Babby as innocuous a reason as possible, something that wouldn’t spark his curiosity. The last thing Michael wanted was Babby speculating about the
Journals
publicly.

Unfortunately, his caution wasn’t necessary.

“I’d let you borrow the book, Montraine, but I haven’t got it,” Babby said, looking crestfallen.

“Do you sell it, Babby?”

“Stolen, Montraine. Can you imagine? I get my library in some semblance of order finally, and the
deuced thing’s stolen. I would think my life cursed if I hadn’t found the most wonderful lady love in the past months. I must recommend her to you.” He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned at Michael.

“I’m married, Babby,” Michael said, smiling slightly. Stating it to Babby was the equivalent of sending a notice to the new Sunday
Times
. “And due to be a father,” Michael added.

The news didn’t even halt Babby in mid-breath. “Do I know her, Montraine?” Babby squinted up at him.

It was the first time Michael realized that his friend did resemble a hedgehog, albeit one with a waistcoat of bright yellow and embroidered with orange flowers.

“You do, Babby. It’s because of you that we met at all. Margaret Esterly, if you’ll recall.”

Babby’s eyes widened. “A plebeian marriage, Montraine?”

“Not at all,” he said easily. “Margaret is the least common woman I know.”

“A love match, then?”

Michael grinned, thinking that Babby, for all his silliness, had cut to the core. “Very much so,” he said.

“About the book, Babby?” he asked, to get his friend back on course again.

“It was the damnedest thing, Montraine. They didn’t steal all my books, just the one. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I hadn’t just had the whole place catalogued. Don’t think I would have even discovered it missing without that new secretary of mine. Every damn volume was on the floor. Took days to put it back together. I say,” he asked, his eyes brightening, “I don’t suppose that wife of yours has any more of
those books for sale? I’d offer to lend them to you at any time, of course.”

“I’ll ask her,” he said.

It was the easiest answer. But he had every intention of asking Margaret to give the books to the Foreign Office. It was, he reasoned, the safest place for them.

At first Margaret thought it was Molly returning from the market. But then, it was the maid’s half day off, and it would be unusual for her to return early. She walked out of the library, where she had been reading a thoroughly wonderful novel, and stood in the foyer.

“Michael?” His name echoed back to her from the dome. She looked up and smiled. It was a French blue-and-pewter kind of day. The sunlight streaming into the dome had a silver cast to it as if the threatening rain had dimmed the sky.

“Smytheton?”

She turned at a sound and her heart nearly stopped.

A man stood there, a stranger with a face like a bag of rocks. A giant of a man with huge hands. And in one of those hands he held a pistol aimed directly at her chest.

“Come out of the room,” he said. His voice was low, absurdly soft for a man of his size.

She remained frozen in the doorway.

“I’ve orders to take you somewhere,” he said, pleasantly. “If it’s necessary to shoot you first, then I will.”

Reluctantly, Margaret moved into the foyer.

He stepped into the library, gun still pointed at her, then took an envelope from his pocket and threw it inside the room.

“Whose orders?” Margaret marveled that she could speak.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked toward her, pressed the barrel of the pistol against her back. She began to move where he directed her, toward the rear of the house.

“Where are we going?” That elicited no response either.

Where was Smytheton?

“Where are you taking me?”

“Move along,” he said, pressing the pistol against her spine.

Slowly, Margaret walked down the hall and into the kitchen. Smytheton lay on the floor, his head bloody.

She ran to him, knelt at his side, but the giant grabbed her arm and pulled her out the door.

At the back of the townhouse a carriage was waiting. The man reached past her, opened the door, and pushed her inside. She struggled, pulled away from him, but he gripped her injured shoulder so tightly with one hand that she almost fell to her knees in pain. He pulled her up, threw her roughly back into the carriage. Margaret stumbled, righted herself, and sat heavily.

A moment later she heard the crack of a whip and the vehicle was in motion.

It concerned her that the driver had neither bound her nor blindfolded her. She peered through the curtains as they traveled quickly west. Evidently, he didn’t fear that she would speak of this abduction. Why? Because she was not expected to return from it?

She pressed her hand against her throbbing shoul
der, leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. Where was she going, and why?

Margaret knew her destination soon enough. They headed further west, then north, her suspicion realized with each passing landmark. They were headed toward Wickhampton, the Duke of Tarrant’s estate.

She licked suddenly dry lips, attempted to calm the frantic beat of her heart as Michael’s words came back to her.

It would have taken a massive effort to get Napoleon off Elba. Jailers were bribed and a ship arranged, acts that required both power and money
.

Was Tarrant the man behind Napoleon’s escape? If so, what did he want with her? She didn’t have the
Journals
with her, nor had the driver demanded them. Suddenly, she knew. She was only bait. And the prize? Michael.

The carriage pulled into the gates of Wickhampton, but instead of circling in front of the main door the vehicle halted in front of one of the wings.

The door was opened by the hulking driver once again. This time she didn’t struggle or call for help. She was no match for the man or his pistol. She simply kept silent as he retrieved a large iron key from his pocket and opened the vine-covered door at the end of the building. They climbed up a small set of steps to another door, one that opened into a corridor.

Evidently, this wing was not often used. The late afternoon sun streamed in through the windows and created a sunny tunnel of dust-laden light. But there was no sound other than their footsteps echoing on the bare wooden floors. No servants, no clink of dishes, no chattering maids. Nothing to indicate that there was any other occupant in this part of Wickhampton.

The burly driver still held tight to her arm and seemed to be counting the doors they passed. A moment later he opened one to reveal an empty bedchamber, the furniture adorned with dust sheets.

He pushed her into the room, then closed and locked the door. The sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway indicated that he had left her again. To tell the duke that she was his prisoner?

She wasn’t about to remain meekly in place and wait until the Duke of Tarrant decided her fate. She began to tear off the dust covers one by one, revealing two chairs, a table, and the dust laden counterpane of a fourposter bed.

There was nothing sharp, nothing pointed. No fireplace tools.

The windows were coated with a dulling layer of dust. The view they revealed was that of an immaculate lawn beneath a darkening sky. Not one servant or gardener in sight. She pulled at the windows, but they wouldn’t open.

She turned away, saw the bulge beneath the counterpane, and felt a surge of triumph.

A bed warmer. The duke’s maids were evidently not very industrious. The one who had last tidied this room might well be called lazy. Bedwarmers were normally removed in the morning, emptied of their coals or embers, and stored beneath the bed. This one had been left in place. Margaret blessed the lazy maid even as she realized what she’d found.

Her weapon.

Margaret’s arm was still so weak, she doubted she would be capable of more than one good swing with the bedwarmer. The one asset she had was the element of surprise.

Standing in front of the door, Margaret practiced
hefting the warmer. It was heavy even emptied of its long dead coals. If she aimed it at the middle of the door, she might be able to smash the pistol out of the driver’s grip. No, that was silly. She hadn’t the slightest idea how to fire a gun. She suspected there was a good deal more to it than simply pointing it. She’d be better off aiming for his head. She’d never coshed anyone before, had never had the idea of doing so.

To save Michael, Margaret realized she was capable of almost anything.

Michael took the precaution of visiting the draper before returning home. Samuel had not been contacted by anyone wishing to find Margaret. But he was all too happy to give Michael a few more bolts of cloth in honor of his marriage.

It was full dark by the time Michael reached home, armed with congratulations from the draper and his and his wife’s best wishes to Margaret. Michael decided that he knew just the way of delivering such affectionate greetings.

Despite the fact that his errand to Babby’s had been futile, Michael felt an almost exultant joy. An emotion not difficult to trace to its source. While he had been pleased with the tenor of his life and proud enough of his accomplishments in the past, it felt as if that man had been only a shadow of who he was now.

His life had been given over to Margaret’s care sometime when he was not looking. Not to patterns, nor ciphers, nor puzzles, but to Margaret. She had awakened in him something he had not before known. Sensuality, and an eagerness to explore his mind’s imaginings. He’d known companionship with
her, a most definite clash of wills coupled with amusement, tenderness, and wonder.

The only thing marring his happiness was the mystery of the
Journals
.

Light from the gas lamps around the square pooled on the cobbled streets, illuminated the doorway. But Smytheton didn’t silently open the door as Michael walked up the steps. Nor did he stand there, stiff as a sergeant-major. Michael found that odd, since his majordomo often anticipated him. What concerned him even more was the fact that the door was ajar.

He called out a greeting, but silence was the only response. Lighting a candle from the sideboard, he took the stairs two at a time. Margaret wasn’t in their chamber. He called out her name, but there was no answer. No smiling presence.

No Margaret. And no Smytheton.

He walked down the stairs again, entered his library. Perhaps she had become involved in a book and had not heard him. But she wasn’t in this room, either.

It was then that he saw the letter. He bent and picked it up, a sense of dread spreading through him as he opened and read the words. He was a man unused to fear; it was an emotion he’d felt little of in his lifetime. But he experienced it now as he flicked open the red ducal seal and read the words:

Margaret, in exchange for the
Journals
. The Duke of Tarrant. They had been correct, then. He folded the note slowly, slipped it inside his waistcoat. He walked to his desk, lit a branch of candles, and retrieved the
Journals
from the bookcase, slipping them into an empty dispatch case, all his actions done in a silent kind of fog.

He found Smytheton in the kitchen, leaning weakly against a wall. The blood from his head wound streaked his face and pooled on the floor. Michael bent and helped him to his feet, walked with him to the table. The older man sat heavily, his hand pressed on his still bleeding wound.

“Can you tell me what happened, Smytheton?”

“I only had a chance to see him, my lord, before he hit me with the butt end of his pistol. More than that I don’t know.”

“How long ago?”

“I was getting ready to prepare dinner, my lord. An hour? Perhaps a little more.”

An hour gone.

“I need your help, Smytheton.”

The old soldier’s training came to the fore. Smytheton neither whined nor offered his injury as excuse. He simply straightened his shoulders. “What can I do, my lord?”

“We must get word to Robert,” Michael said, and related the information he needed to convey.

“I will, my lord,” Smytheton said, and almost saluted him.

Michael left the front of the house, grateful to discover that his carriage had not yet been taken to the stables. He signaled James, gave him directions before climbing into the vehicle.

The journey seemed achingly slow to Michael, as if the horses’ hooves were mired in mud. He had never been to Wickhampton. But all he knew was that it was taking too long to travel there. Each rotation of the wheels seemed to resound with a curious warning.

Not soon enough. Not soon enough. Not soon enough
.

An eternity later, the carriage turned into the broad iron gates that led to Wickhampton. A mile further and the road finally curved in front of the structure. Darkness favored the great house. It was so enormous it seemed to block out the moon. The drive was covered with crushed stone that glittered in the moonlight. The carriage slowed, then halted before the tall front steps.

The structure that faced him was less home than monument. The original building, topped incongruously by a tower that seemed medieval in origin, was flanked by two wings. They jutted toward the front of the house as if to embrace a visitor.

He mounted the set of wide steps that led to the tall front doors.

His knock was answered almost immediately by a man of exceedingly large stature. He opened one of the enormous double doors without any seeming effort and stood aside as Michael entered.

The foyer was the size of his library, brightly lit, the task being performed by a white-gloved footman attired in blue-and-gold livery. Wickhampton was impressive, if not for its size, then for the floor-to-ceiling works of art being illuminated one by one. Right at the moment, however, Michael didn’t give a flying farthing for Tarrant’s taste in Italian artists.