Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) (30 page)

He picked the topmost book up and strode out to the hall. “How did Melissa find these books?” he asked baldly.

Carter took the proffered book and looked at it. “I don’t know. But I do know that she asked me how you had got hold of ‘her’ books as she called it.”

“Her books?”

“Yes. She was quite specific about it.”

Mrs. Hobbs coughed. “She was very keen on retrieving some books of hers that had been given away by her mother,” she said softly.

“Mmm, and didn’t she talk about the fact that the Viper wanted a specific book? Perhaps she thought that one of them was what he wanted?” Mr. Hobbs added.

The Hobbs were right. Melissa had revealed that the Viper was after a book. But she had not said that she had owned a specific set of books that had been given away. Hades cursed strongly, making Mrs. Hobbs blush. Why hadn’t she been honest with him?

“Did she leave with a book?”

“No,” Carter said. “All she said was that she was off to the Royal Society.”

“Yes,” Hades said irritably. “You have already said that… wait a minute.” He stopped. “The Royal Society?”

Carter nodded. Hades turned to Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs. “Did Melissa, Miss Sumner ever go to the Royal Society when you knew her?”

“Never,” Mr. Hobbs said staunchly.

Had Melissa possibly made a connection between the Viper and the Royal Society? If so how? Hades hadn’t told her… no, he hadn’t, had he? He had been as guarded with the truth as she had become with him. It was his fault. If only he had had the ability to trust her earlier.

“What was she doing before she left?” he demanded.

Everyone looked blank.

“I heard her come down the stairs and open the under-stairs cupboard,” Carter volunteered. “Arturo stood on the street barking after her for quite some time.”

“She was awake long into the night,” Mrs. Hobbs said with a piercing gaze at Hades. He slid his glance away.

“She took those books you brought back in the saddlebag. She took them upstairs with her, Miss Sumner did, I mean.” Carter stumbled over the words.

Taking the stairs three at a time, Hades ran towards Melissa’s bedroom, Carter behind him, hot on his heels. He slammed open the door and took in the books on the dressing table. He leafed through them, but they all seemed very ordinary. One of the authors was Mr. Leonard Trump. Hades grunted. He should have seen this coming.

He caught sight of a small glass bottle on the desk. Its stopper was sealed closely with wax. So that was why she had gone through his drawers—she had been rummaging for wax to seal the bottle. But he had no idea what was in it. He picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. She had left it in a prominent position on the dressing table. It was therefore important to her for some reason.

“There were more books than this in that sack,” Carter said, examining the pile on the dressing table.

Hades swept the room with his eyes. First he noticed the collapsed candle on the bedside table and then the counterpane which was rumpled as if someone had slept on top of it but not in it. He moved closer to the bed and immediately the location of the last book became evident, pushed slightly under a pillow, still open at the last page. With a swift movement, he swept it up and looked at the author. Professor B. Lisle. He might have known.

But the book was not what he expected. Opening it at the first page, he gazed surprised at the bold hand written across the elegant printed script.

“5
^th
December 1800—I hate him
…” it began. Hades blinked and turned to the last page.
“BERNARD LISLE IS A TRAITOR”

Oh dear God
. He pushed the book into his pocket and strode quickly to the door of the room.

“Get the carriage ready, Carter. We need to go to the Royal Society.” He prayed that Melissa was still there, had even reached there at least.

As Hades waited in the cold hall for the carriage to be brought round, he flicked quickly through the pages, starting from the beginning. As soon as the owner of the bold handwriting mentioned Melissa, he knew that he was reading her father’s words. Hades shifted impatiently from foot to foot. Where the hell was his carriage?

Reading on, his eyes lingered on the wish of Professor Lisle to buy Sumner’s house in Buckinghamshire. But that was not all. The mention that Whites was a hotbed of government intrigue and discussion disgusted him. It disgusted him that his peers could have been so indiscreet that this man could pick up and overhear state secrets.

He knew that Melissa’s father had died when she was younger, but he hadn’t been aware that foul play might have been involved. It was clear in the way the diary was heading. His heart ached for Melissa reading this by herself.

A rap on the front door broke his intense concentration. “Go away!” he shouted.

“You can’t say that to your own mother!”

Hades threw his hands in the air. His
mother
? She was the last person he needed to talk to right at this moment.

“Wait, I’ll come out and speak…”

But it was too late. His mother swept into the hall. “You know if I don’t want people coming in, I normally lock the door,” Dowager Lady Harding said dryly. “Although God knows what your staff are doing outside. They seem to be rather upset.”

“She’s gone,” Hades said brokenly, closing the book, “and it’s my fault.”

“Nonsense,” his mother snapped, placing her pelisse on the hall table. Hades noticed that she didn’t use her cane. In fact, her cane was nowhere in sight. “She probably just wants some time away to think. I was exactly the same with your father.”

Hades grimaced. Through the open front door he could see the stamping hooves of the horses that pulled his carriage. His staff were clustered around one of the wheels of the carriage, pointing and gesticulating. Thrusting the book into his pocket, he edged round his mother towards the front door. “You don’t seem to understand, Mama, a man called the Viper has in all probability taken her.”

Dowager Lady Harding put her hand to her mouth. “Not the one that is all over the papers, the vicious killer of at least twenty men?”

Hades twisted a grin. His mother had parroted the headlines easily. But his grin faded quickly. “Yes,” he said tiredly. “And I don’t know where he is holding her.”

“What about one of your famous strategies? You can’t let this woman get away,” his mother said urgently.

“The Viper is definitely a man, Mama. I have to go, Melissa was heading for the Royal Society but she was meant to meet me here. I need to follow her.”

“I don’t mean the Viper, I mean your woman, Melissa. You can’t let her get away.”

At the front door, Hades stopped. “But I thought you would disapprove…”

“Nonsense. She has shown backbone and grit. And she hasn’t given up on you. That is the main thing.”

“But she keeps running away from me!”

“Oh, dear boy. Why do you think she chose to hide in your home and retrain your staff? She hopes for the future. That is not much of an escape tactic. Despite your namesake, Melissa is no Persephone. Abducted though the wife of the underworld might have been in the beginning, this one wants to
stay
.”

Hades nodded. His mother was right.

“You don’t think that she’s at the Royal Society, do you?” Lady Harding asked. Hades shook his head, numbly watching his horses shake their magnificent heads.

Carter rounded the carriage and hurried up the steps to the house, waving a slip of paper. “A note has come for you, my lord,” he said breathlessly. “There wasn’t time to catch the messenger, what with the broken wheel on your carriage and your mother turning up…” Carter looked from Hades to Lady Harding and gulped visibly. A red flush rose up his neck from his immaculate wing collars.

“Get me Cloud,” Hades snapped. Impatiently he slit open the note.

‘I have Melissa. Do not come after me or I will kill her. You know the way that she will die. We won’t meet again. Viper.’

With a roar, Hades slammed his hand into the wall of the hall. He hadn’t needed the proof in the message, but it was like a slap in the face nevertheless. He supposed a small part of him had hoped that she had run away after all and that she would come back of her own accord.

He wouldn’t obey the note. Knowing the Viper as he did, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Melissa.

“He’s got her.” Hades nursed his hand. Dear God. Where had the Viper taken her?

“Do you have any other leads?” Lady Harding said suddenly.

“Only one.”

“Then why are you not pursuing it?”

“He professes not to know any information.”

“Perhaps you haven’t asked him the right questions?”

Hades looked at his mother in admiration, and drew out Melissa’s discarded book from his pocket. There was perhaps one thing he could ask Pedro.

Striding back to his mother, he bent and kissed her gently on the cheek. She blushed in surprise and pleasure.

“Do get her back safely,” she said. “I would like to know her more.”

“There will be plenty of time when she is your daughter in law,” Hades said, smiling slightly.

“Oh!” Lady Harding said, her rigid posture relaxing for just a few seconds. “How lovely.”

“Just tell me one thing. When did you decide you didn’t need a cane to walk anymore?”

“Oh, at the same time when I met Melissa. I only used it in the hope that you would think that I was getting older and that you would please me and get a wife before I died. It seems to have worked, hasn’t it?” Lady Harding smiled delightedly. “Now then where’s that delightful dog of yours?”

Arturo!
They’d already mentioned he had disappeared and Carter had heard the dog barking in the street. He’d known that Melissa was in trouble. Knowing the persistent spaniel, he had probably run after Melissa.

“Mama, I have to go.” With a quick kiss to his mother’s cheek, Hades pushed past the milling servants and ran to the corner of the street. Quickly he relieved Carter of Cloud’s reins and with a loud “Hah,” set the horse back to Freddie’s residence.

Willson the butler greeted Hades with his customary enthusiasm and quickly directed him towards the back of the house. Bill and Freddie still sat in the dining room, but now they were rather disheveled and panting. Pedro was no longer in the same chair, but looked furious. He was tied to a chair, a table leg, and the fireplace. He had a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth and a hat pulled down over his eyes.

All Hades could do was raise his eyebrows. Bill massaged his large knuckles with a wince and Freddie was rubbing his leg.

“The blighter managed to get free of his bonds and tried to make an escape for the door,” Bill said, grimacing.

“He would have got there too if Bill hadn’t planted him another facer. On top of yours it knocked the man out cold.”

“Is he awake now?” Hades asked curiously. The jerk of Pedro’s head was enough assent that he needed. He took off the man’s hat and pulled the handkerchief out of his mouth.

“Bleh,” Pedro spat. “I need water. Lots of water.”

“You’ll get some when you have answered my questions,” Hades answered calmly, although he seethed inside. “Where is the place in Buckinghamshire?”

Pedro spat again and shouted, “Water!”

Hades nodded to Freddie, who tipped a jug of water over Pedro’s head. “Answer the question, Pedro,” he said firmly. “Answer the question or we find Lord Anglethorpe and his wife and get them to contact your father. I think perhaps for Agatha Beauregard, Pablo Moreno might be quite forthcoming.”

Pedro licked at the water that cascaded down his face, and swallowed audibly. “It’s a large house in a place called Chalfont St. Peter. I’ve never been there. I’ve just heard him gloating about how he got it from an old acquaintance of his. That’s the only place he ever talks about. That and the sodding Pyrenees.”

“Chalfont St. Peter is only twenty miles from here.” Freddie swung his leg from his seat. “You can take my carriage if you wish, but I’m afraid I can’t join you. My leg has gone again, I’m afraid, from diving over the table to grab old fleet-foot here.”

“Twenty miles. That will take around two hours. He has had an eight hour head start on me.”

“I would get going if I were you, then,” Bill said. “I’ll look after Pedro. Stanton’s gone and Freddie’s no use with his leg.”

“Be careful. If I’m not back in twenty-four hours, call Lord Anglethorpe and Lord Granwich and tell them where I’ve gone.”

The two men nodded. Freddie pushed the handkerchief back into Pedro’s protesting mouth and shoved the hat back down below the villain’s eyes. “I don’t want to hear anything more from you,” he growled.

Hades paused as he left the dining room. Although haste was of the essence, he knew he would not be able to rescue Melissa alone. With Stanton and Freddie indisposed, he was left relying on his staff. Not knowing what was ahead, he would have to employ the same strategy again in approaching the house in Chalfont St. Peter.