Most Eagerly Yours (29 page)

In his line of business, emotions such as those could prove deadly liabilities, for they robbed a man of his perspective and ran roughshod over his ability to think rationally.

Yes, with Laurel, logic took a backseat to desire.

Broad Quay bustled with morning activity as steady streams of workers scrambled between the warehouses and the docks to load and unload freight from the river barges. Aidan weaved a circuitous path among them, keeping well out of the way. He hadn’t dressed the part of a laborer, but at this time of day it didn’t seem to matter. These roustabouts were too busy to take much notice of him, and besides, he didn’t intend asking questions and therefore had no need to fit in or gain anyone’s trust.

Locating the warehouse with the rotting timbers and crumbling roof, he examined the structure from several vantage points before making his approach. His conclusion corroborated the hunch he’d had, that like the boat slips beside Pulteney Bridge, the property went unguarded during daylight hours.

Circling the building, he discovered that the front and rear loading bays were secured with chains and padlocks. The shutters on the building’s few windows seemed not merely latched but barred from the inside. Those facing the secluded alley were a good ten feet off the ground. Finding a gap in the building’s timbers, he attempted to peek inside. Dusty shafts of light speared through holes in the roof, illuminating a few rectangular shapes shoved into one corner. Otherwise, the place seemed as decrepit and abandoned as the exterior would lead one to believe.

In a rear corner, he found two broken planks. Crouching, he grabbed hold and tugged. The warped wood groaned but gave barely an inch. He would need more than his bare hands to break through.

He found that interesting. This warehouse was sturdier than appearances suggested.

Not wishing to push his luck, he left the quay, continued over to Dorchester Street, and climbed into a battered hackney. He stopped home briefly to freshen up and have his valet, Phelps, bind his ribs and help him change his clothing, as well as further conceal the bruising on his face.

By early afternoon he set out again, returning first to the bank, where he gathered the latest investment figures on the Summit Pavilion. The records confirmed his suspicions that, since the picnic, investments in the project continued to burgeon.

He pressed on to an impromptu meeting with the members of the Bath Corporation. His unexpected and unannounced appearance threw the aldermen into a bit of a panic, but once they calmed, they were able to assure him that construction on the pavilion would commence within the next few weeks. Whether that would prove true or not, Giles Henderson and his associates seemed genuinely convinced of it.

His next stop brought him back to the Cross Bath, where the MP Roger Babcock had died. His visit here served two purposes. While he casually questioned patrons about poor Babcock’s misfortune, he also immersed himself in the thermal waters. He left with no new revelations but with fewer aches from last night’s beating.

Last, he headed to Avon Street to confer with Phineas Micklebee. Together they considered the previous night’s events.

“So, four of them,” Micklebee said, “Devonlea, Taft, de Vere, and Stoddard, all went on their way up Northgate.”

“Probably to Stoddard’s to play cards. I don’t consider any of them as suspects. Not even Devonlea. It’s Fitz’s and Rousseau’s actions that garner my suspicion.”

“Not surprising. However, don’t let your suspicions begin and end with them, milord. I’ve got a bit of news for you.”

“Go on.”

“Our man in Hampshire checked with the local parish and found no records of any Sandersons having been born, married, or interred in Fernhurst within this century. Furthermore, there are no deeds registered anywhere in the area on an estate owned by anyone of that name. Sorry, mate, but either your lady is lying or she’s a ghost.”

Evening had settled over the city by the time Aidan arrived back at his Royal Crescent residence. There he discovered an invitation on his post salver, one that proved as cryptic as the “ghost” who had sent it.

 

Across town, Laurel stood at her bedchamber window and opened the locket pinned to her bodice. Ten minutes after nine. Swinging a black velvet cape around her shoulders and pulling up the hood, she scampered down the lodging house stairs and out to Abbey Green. A hackney cab flagged by the maidservant waited at the curbstone.

“The Circus,” she told him.

Just before she stepped up, footsteps thudded across the green. She peered into the skeletal shadows cast by the old oak growing on the sward. Like a phantom, a figure cloaked in black from head to toe, as she was, darted to the southwest corner and disappeared into the street beyond.

A chill swept her shoulders as she thought of the hooded stranger at the theater. Had he somehow found her? Perhaps he had been at the picnic, or the concert at the Guildhall. The lights at the Theatre Royal had been dim and she had not gotten a good look at him. She might have passed right by him on another occasion, even knocked elbows with him at a buffet table, without recognizing him.

Had he been standing beneath the oak tonight, watching for her?

“Goin’ or stayin’, ma’am?”

She gazed across the square for another moment, then shook her fears away. How silly of her. Hers was not the only residence lining the square; any one of a number of gentlemen might have been crossing to Abbey Great Street on his way to his evening’s activities.

“Sorry,” she said, and climbed in.

They traveled north, their progress hindered by the snaking procession of carriages, horse riders, and pedestrians zigzagging across the city to their sundry social engagements. The congestion thickened as they entered the Upper Town. Laurel’s confidence began to plummet. When she had conceived of her plan earlier today, it had seemed a sound one. Now doubts darted through her mind with the menace of cloaked figures.

She had spent the afternoon with Melinda and had come away more determined than ever to find the evidence needed to either incriminate or absolve George Fitzclarence. Armed with Aidan’s words of warning, she had tried to deter Melinda from consuming another drop of Rousseau’s elixir. To her consternation, the countess would not be dissuaded. Melinda had laughed at the notion of the elixir containing a mind-altering drug, or any properties other than the herbs and minerals that Rousseau claimed made up his formula.

“Dearest, if people behave differently,” Melinda had insisted, “it is due to the elixir’s restorative properties. A touch of audacity is the natural result of renewed vitality. Blaming brash deeds on the elixir is rather like blaming a murder on the gun.”

Despite her animated protestations, the countess had looked decidedly peaked to Laurel, renewing her concerns for the woman’s health. She supposed fatigue could still be to blame. Perhaps Melinda hadn’t been sleeping well. But if indeed she owed her pallor and pinched appearance to the elixir, then all the more urgent that the formula’s true nature be exposed. Laurel had left Fenwick House with a new resolve and a drastic plan that meant breaking part of her promise to Victoria.

She prayed she wouldn’t be making a mistake.

At the Gay Street entrance to the Circus, she rapped on the ceiling. The carriage rolled to a stop and she glanced out the window, looking for Aidan. Earlier she had sent a note to his home asking him to meet her here at precisely nine thirty.

She saw no sign of him anywhere along the circular sweep of Bath’s most exclusive residential enclave. Few people were about, although bright lights shining from windows and carriages parked along the street indicated that several house parties were under way. Two carriages clattered past hers, raising startling echoes against the elaborate facades of the town houses. A third vehicle exited by the northeast route onto Bennett Street, likely conveying its passengers the short distance to the Assembly Rooms.

Surely Aidan must have received her note. Laurel slid closer to the door, straining to see into the shadows. A low fog swathed the cobbled street, but the mist was nowhere near as dense as on the previous night. The columned facades of King’s Circus, divided into four quadrants of attached town homes soaring three stories high, loomed fortresslike and forbidding. Her misgivings mounted.

In her lap, Victoria’s silver pistol was a solid weight inside her reticule. She considered removing it and holding it at the ready, but this was not some thief- infested expanse of riverbank. It was King’s Circus, home to Bath’s finest nobility. The worst adversity she could expect was a show of indignation on Aidan’s part once he learned of her plan.

A personal invitation from George Fitzclarence had sent her here, and had earlier prompted her to deliver her entreaty to Aidan. Lord Munster was holding a supper party for a number of intimate guests, and Laurel had decided to seize an opportunity that might not come again.

She now knew that, for whatever reason, Aidan, too, was investigating the earl, the elixir, and the Summit Pavilion. And while she’d had every reason to distrust him when she had first arrived in Bath, enough had changed since then to convince her they were not at cross-purposes.

He had been the first to suggest a truce. Why, then, should they not work together?

Footsteps and the abrupt opening of the carriage door sent her heart thrashing in her throat. Aidan had arrived, but would he agree to her plan or call it daft and send her home?

“I feared you might not come,” she whispered as he leaned into the vehicle.

His gloved hand gripped her upper arm. She was hauled along the seat and yanked out of the carriage. A cry escaped her, ricocheting along the building fronts. In the blur of images assaulting her, she glimpsed a black cloak, and a face hidden by a hood with a scarf wrapped high to cover the mouth. Only the eyes were visible. Cold as steel, they sliced through her.

She knew those eyes. This was not Aidan—it was the man from the theater.

Before she could scream for help, his arm came around her, facing her away from him while he clamped a palm over her mouth. The bitter tang of leather made her stomach roil. She raised a desperate gaze to the coachman. Why didn’t he help her? The man gaped back in mute fear. Her assailant shrieked unintelligible but nonetheless threatening words. The driver swore and cracked his whip, spurring the horse to a canter and leaving her to fend for herself.

She thought again of the gun in her purse and fumbled to reach inside, but the man slapped the bag from her grip. Panic fractured the last of her hope as he dragged her along the street and forced her into the cave-dark gap between the western quadrants, where the streetlamps didn’t reach and where no one would see her.

The hands released her arm, only to grip her shoulders and spin her about. A shove brought her up against a wall. One hand returned to her mouth. The other hovered in front of her face, the leather-encased fingers curled around the hilt of a blade that flashed reflected moonlight in her eyes.

A whimper of terror rose from deep inside her as his hand slid from her mouth to enwrap her throat. Her breath cut short, she didn’t dare move, not even to blink. His hot breath chafed her skin. “Lissette . . . Lissette de Valentin?”

“Please.” Her voice was a feeble rasp. “I don’t . . . understand.”

His fingers tightened around her throat. The hiss of his words made no sense until her mind seized upon one she understood—
flamme
—French for “flame.”

Did he mean the fire that killed her parents and destroyed her home? When she didn’t respond, he drew back. The flat of his palm whipped across her cheek. Her head snapped back against the stone wall behind her, but through her terror she barely felt the sting of the blow.

From within her fright, determination to survive surged. With a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she swung her fists upward, connecting with her assailant’s jaw. The shock of it thrust his head back. Laurel lashed out with her knee. A solid thud sent the man staggering backward. He cried out, but just as quickly launched himself at her again.

She screamed and jumped back as his blade slashed through the air in front of her; closer, closer it came, filling her vision. She slid along the wall, trying to evade him. He caught her shoulder and swung the knife. With a loud rent the blade tore through her velvet cloak.

Then, from somewhere beyond the building, a shout echoed. Impossibly, she heard her name being called. Her attacker flinched, went rigid. She seized the opportunity to rush at him, shoving him with both hands. Together they toppled, landing on shrubbery, rolling into soft grass and then onto the cobbled walkway. The stones tore at her elbows and knees. The dagger flashed at the edge of her vision, then suddenly receded as she felt herself being gripped from behind and hauled to her feet.

“Laurel, go!”

Aidan’s command sent her to the corner of the building, but the knowledge that he was now grappling with her attacker halted her retreat. The dagger swung between them, flashing in the light of the streetlamps. The tangle of limbs and billowing cloaks cast a gyration of grotesque shadows.

A grunt of pain set Laurel into motion again. She must run to the nearest doorstep and plead for help. As she started for the street, a clanking close behind her brought her up short. She turned back around to behold the dagger bouncing end over end across the pavement. An oath rang out, and Aidan said, “De Vere?”

In the next instant the attacker shoved him against a wall. Aidan sprang instantly forward, but the cloaked figure turned and fled, blending into the inky gloom to the rear of the town houses.

His shoulders heaving, Aidan clenched his fists and stood poised to run. On wobbly legs Laurel scrambled to his side and wrapped both hands around his arm.

“Let him go. Please, don’t go after him,” she begged.