Drake's Lair (32 page)

“I don’t feel comfortable here.”

“Is it because o’—”

“Because of what?” Melly flashed. Her conscience was bothering her. She was certain what was in her heart was written all over her face.

“Well, Zoe said—”

“What did she say?” Melly interrupted defensively.

“That his lordship was up to your rooms a couple o’ nights ago.”

“I shall have to speak with Zoe. She’s talking out of turn.”

“She was worried, miss. She said you was sounding like something was wrong, but she was that afraid to come in, he’s been acting so strange.”

“There was nothing amiss,” Melly said steadily, though she’d begun to tremble. “I… I had forgotten to mention something regarding Mr. Ellery when Mr. Redmond questioned me, and his lordship wasn’t aware of something I did tell him. He wanted me to explain, and I did. Zoe shouldn’t be carrying tales.”

“I’ll give her a talking-to, don’t you worry.”

Melly was just about to reply, when Prowse entered with instructions for Cook to prepare nuncheon for the work crew, and all three converged upon him en masse.

“What are they doing up there?” Melly queried.

“I’m not allowed to say, my lady,” he responded loftily.

“Oh, you’re not?” Mrs. Laity chimed in. “Well, what’s to stop us three from marching right up those stairs to see for ourselves?”

“His lordship,” the butler pronounced succinctly. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“We’ll find out when Smithers and Fowler take up the nuncheon fare,” Cook said smugly, with a crisp nod.

“I’m afraid not. Nuncheon is to be served on the sideboard in the little dining room,” the butler triumphed.”

“And, just how long is this to go on?” Mrs. Laity inquired.

“Until the work’s done,” he replied flatly.

“Fie!” the housekeeper snapped at him. “You just go on and keep your secret. Have your nuncheon in the little dining room, well outa’ the way. I’m sure we’ll all find out soon enough, more’s the pity—something crack-brained, the way his lordship is behaving, and by the looks o’ what’s been coming up the lane all o’ the morning by the cartload.”

“Take care,” Prowse warned her, “I am in charge here, and you overstep your bounds. It isn’t like you, Mrs. Laity, and it won’t be countenanced. I’m astonished at you!”

“Has there been any word of Mr. Ellery?” Melly put in, anxious to quell what had the makings of a genuine shouting match over naught, in her opinion.

“Mr. Redmond is still waiting for word from London, miss,” he replied. “It’s too soon yet.”

“He’ll be staying on, then,” she moaned. If he weren’t underfoot, she might be able to slip away. It didn’t look promising.

“Yes, miss, just in case, ‘till Mr. Ellery’s caught.”

They continued their scrapping match despite Melly’s diversion, and she crept out unnoticed and went up to her suite. Curling up on the window seat in her bedchamber, she watched the groundskeepers below setting the dovecote to rights. It seemed a waste of time in flaw Season. It would only blow down again when the next storm rolled up the coast unless they sunk the supports deeper.

Her eyes filled with tears, but she refused to cry. Why had Drake kept his distance after nearly ravishing her? If it weren’t for Zoe, the stars only knew what would have happened in that bed. And now there was all this secrecy in the study. He had to be mad. There was no other explanation for his peculiar behavior. It didn’t matter, and that’s what was breaking her heart. Mad or sane, she loved him, and she was trapped.

She would take her nuncheon and dinner alone in her rooms again. There was no denying that she was a prisoner now, no matter what fancy name they chose to give her incarceration. She may as well act the part. Mulling that over, she bitterly wished she’d never set eyes on the beck, or the wood, or the enigmatic phantom of Drake’s Lair.

*

It was twilight, and teaming with rain when James Ellery finally reached Mayfair. He was exhausted—bone weary—and soaked to the skin, watching just inside the edge of the park down the lane from Drake’s townhouse. Hidden amongst the trees he was protected from the downpour somewhat, but the leaves still dripped raindrops when the wind stirred them, and he turned up his lapels to keep them from running down his neck.

He shuddered. He wished he hadn’t left in such a deuced hurry, wished he’d taken his portmanteau when he’d sneaked out of the inn in the dead of night to avoid the innkeeper once his room rental expired; Drake’s superfine cloak was in it. How he could use that right now. He wasn’t concerned for having left it behind there. The innkeeper would have confiscated his belongings by now to compensate for the money he owed on the room, and he would certainly have snapped up such a well-made cloak of superfine. That alone would have paid his tab and then some. Even if the Runner by some chance had gotten hold of it, a cloak was a cloak after all. He would be hard-put to connect it to Drake. He’d done a good job on that thick skull of his. It wasn’t likely that he’d ever be himself again, and with the
on-dits
buzzing about of how addled he was to begin with, who would take anything he said seriously?

No. What worried him most was that those meddling bankers might have gotten word to the townhouse ahead of him. Drake may be addled, or unconscious, or dead, hoping for the best scenario, but Bradshaw and Mills were not. They would act with or without Drake on the strength of what was in the ledgers that he hadn’t been able to destroy, the ones that were in that damned valuables chest… with the Shelldrake diamond. How he wished he could get his hands on that bauble right now.

It was only a matter of time before they caught him if he wasn’t very, very careful. There was nothing for it. He would have to go abroad. If he could just get into that house, into that chest, he’d have the blunt to do it. He would winter somewhere safe on the Continent. He would have to adopt a new name, of course, give himself a bogus title, and he would have to remain abroad… Switzerland perhaps, or Belgium; nobody ever went to Belgium. Deliberately. To stay, that is; too provincial. Yes. A bogus title would not be so easily questioned in Belgium. They would welcome a nobleman with plenty of blunt to spread about with open arms.

He had been watching the townhouse for hours, and thus far there had been no unusual activity. But then, there wouldn’t be, would there? If the house were under surveillance, the Runners certainly wouldn’t be posted at the entrances. They would be lurking somewhere unseen in order to apprehend him when he arrived. Mustn’t be too hasty. He would wait a little, just to be sure. If there were Runners about, others would come to relieve them soon. If that didn’t occur by the dinner hour, it should be fairly safe for him to attempt to gain entrance. Then he would be in and out and quickly on his way.

The plan sounded viable, and he waited there for nearly an hour before the black coach with the Bow Street device emblazoned on the doors and boot tooled around the corner and came to a halt in front of the townhouse. Four Runners poured out and sprinted up the walkway.
Damn and blast
! They weren’t watching the place at all. They had just now come. If he had gone in when he first arrived, he might have finished his business and been on his way with no one the wiser. There was no hope of that now.
The devil take the luck
. Another coach pulled up behind the first now, and still more Runners climbed down. The place was swarming with them.

He spat out a string of blasphemous expletives under his breath. Days wasted riding to Town, and more would be wasted now riding back. He had no other choice. Without money it was hopeless. He needed Demelza’s blunt. He would have to take her with him—at gunpoint if necessary. He gave Drake’s holster pistol strapped to his leg a little pat to reassure himself. That was the one thing he had taken with him when he left the inn. She would never go willingly. Not now that the truth was out.

He wished he knew from what he was running. Was Drake alive or dead? Was he simply wanted for embezzlement, or was it murder they’d come to charge him with? Either one would see him tossed into Newgate Prison. No matter what he certainly couldn’t go home openly, even though, by the looks of things, they would be looking for him—expected him—here, in London.

He soothed the snorting Andalusian. There was nothing for it. He hated to part with the valuable horse, but he would have to sell the animal soon and purchase a cheaper steed, if he were to have blunt enough to eat. Not yet. He needed a fast horse underneath him at the moment. Soon they would be searching the park. Exhausted though he was, he had to go now, before they came out and started doing just that, before they sent word back to Drake’s Lair that he hadn’t been found. He needed a head start, and he doubled back through the park and came out on the other side, losing himself in the crosshatched network of roads and lanes that stretched southward, then west, out of the city proper.

He needed a new course of action, quickly, and he began mulling over his options. If Demelza had taken lodgings in the village, it would be a simple enough matter. If she were incarcerated at Drake’s Lair, it would be more difficult, of course, but hardly impossible. There was a surefire means of luring her away. All it needed was planning, and he had the whole return trip to fine-tune the logistics.

His confidence in the new scheme he was hatching grew with every clop of the horse’s hooves carrying him toward the coast. Let the nodcock Runners wear themselves out looking for him in Town. By the time they figured out his strategy, he would have the gel’s blunt in hand and be well on the way to Belgium, with or—unhappily for her if she resisted him—without the lovely Lady Demelza Ahern.

*

Drake wouldn’t be able to keep his secret for long, not with that houseful of curious inmates, but he was determined to keep them guessing as long as he could—especially Melly, since he had no idea how she’d take it. She would either view the new conservatory and herbarium as what it was, a gift of his love, brought about by the winds of change that had stirred up a gale in his heart, and softened something he never would have believed malleable—ever again, or she would take it as just one more manipulation, simply one more interference in her life meant to imprison her, turning his gesture into a monument to his stupidity.
Drake’s folly
, they’d already begun to call it, just one more testament to his madness, as if he needed more.

It didn’t go with the rest of the architecture, and it certainly wasn’t practical—far from it with all that glass, but he wasn’t about to let the elements best him. It was on the west side of the house after all, out of the brunt of gale force winds, even though the conservatory portion, which would rise from a slate floor to allow for watering, would extend outward from the façade. The glass panes would be small and leaded, shored up with timbers at the stress points, with the herbarium, fitted with shelves and tables and whatever else she might need occupying the study space adjoining. One good storm would weather the timbers and give the leading a nice patina, and by next Season it should look like it was part of the original design.

He had kept his distance since he’d invaded Melly’s sanctuary—not out of choice, out of necessity. If he took her in his arms again, he would never be able to let her go. Every night since, he’d climbed those stairs and stood with his hand hovering over the gilded door handle wondering if she had taken his advice and locked the door, praying that, if she hadn’t, reason would prevent him from turning that handle and entering in. Thus far, he’d found the strength to resist temptation, a phenomenon he attributed to the fact that he’d worn himself out with physical labor in the study during the day, then worn Bradshaw and Redmond out with idle conversation well into the night, until his head began to ache, and his body was bone weary—too weary to act upon his fantasies and do them justice. Tonight, not even those sterling methods served him. Exhaustion had betrayed him. It had charged his libido as it always did, and he succumbed to wearing himself out on Griggs for lack of any other willing candidate.

Dr. Hale had permitted him to bathe, so long as his burned shoulder was kept dry. Having slathered on a coat of Melly’s salve as a precaution, he sank into a tub of tepid water, and groaned for the blessed relief it gave his aching muscles.

“I’m keeping you up,” he said to the valet. “Sorry, old boy. I’ve been giving you a bad time of it haven’t I?”

“No more than usual, my lord,” Griggs grunted, adding more water from the kettle. His hands were still bandaged while he attended to his duties, but much improved. Drake surmised this was due to the fact that the valet was accustomed to following orders, and consequently adhered to Dr. Hale’s instructions tenaciously as a matter of course, unlike he had done, literally defying the man on all fronts out of pure obstinacy, for which he was paying the price of a slowly healing shoulder.

“Do you think I’m addled?” he queried, almost afraid of the answer, since he’d begun to question his sanity himself.

“No, my lord.”

“How is that, when everyone else is ready to fling me into the madhouse?”

“Because, begging your pardon, I, too, was once young and foolish, like yourself, my lord.”

“
You
Griggs? When was that—not since I’ve known you?”

“No, my lord, ‘twas long before your time.”

“What happened?”

“She died, my lord.”

“I’m sorry, old boy.”

“Will you permit me to overstep my station, and hear a bit of advice from one with naught but age to recommend him, my lord?”

“Out with it. I’ll hear anything at this point. I’m in that much of a muddle here.”

“Very well, then, don’t let her go, my lord,” the valet counseled. “She’s pure gold, and you’d have to be blind not to see how she loves you, even if she doesn’t quite know it yet herself, for the shameful way you’ve scared her half to death.”

“I never meant to frighten her, Griggs, but you know why… what was behind it.”

“Forgive me for saying it, but you never loved the lady Eva, not the way you love Miss Melly, and if you’re fortunate enough to win her, she will never play you false.”