My Unfair Lady (35 page)

   So Summer directed her arguments to the duchess. "Then you aren't concerned about His Grace's whereabouts?"

   "Why should we be?" rasped the duchess. "He goes to whatever house will put him up. I gave up trying to keep track of him ages ago. He'll probably show up sooner or later."

   "And the note?" insisted Summer. "It's obviously a fraud."

   "Is it?"

   "I can prove I never wrote it. My handwriting isn't even similar."

   The old lady sank back into the cushions. "I still think you're making a row over nothing."

   Lady Banfour tsked, and Summer knew it meant "I told you so." "All right, then, if you won't help me search for him, how about your servants?"

   "The servants have jobs to do, my dear," answered the duchess. "How do you expect us to get dressed and fed tomorrow if they've been out all night on a wild-goose chase?"

   Summer glanced around at these loco people and realized that, like so many other times in her life, she was on her own. They just didn't care about Byron. How had he managed to survive among such indifference?

   "I apologize for disturbing you," she said, her brown eyes narrowed at them. "Lady Banfour, shall we leave?"

   Summer turned toward the other woman and was surprised to find those lavender eyes narrowed in thought at the duke's family as well. They were halfway to the parlor door when Lord Karlton spoke up. "Mother, perhaps we can send a note to His Royal Highness? They are good friends after all… and even if Miss Lee is wrong, it wouldn't hurt to show our… concern."

   "Yes… yes, of course we should. How would that suit you, Miss Lee?"

   Summer didn't turn around. She no longer had any use for Byron's family. When they got in the carriage, Lady Banfour frowned at her. "She'll never forgive you, you know. You can't give a cut direct to a duchess."

   "I've already wasted too much time." Summer felt on the verge of tears. "I can't believe they care so little for him. But it doesn't matter, I'll just have to go look for him myself."

   "You have astonished me so much this evening, Summer Lee, that I'm afraid you're absolutely serious. A lady
cannot
go searching the streets of London in the wee hours of the morning."

   "No, but an injun can."

   Lady Banfour fiddled with the brooch at her throat. Her words of protest had sounded as if she spoke by rote, and she now considered the possibility that Summer would do as she said. "Can you really track him?"

   Summer shrugged. "I can try. It depends on how much Lionel can tell me."

   "But you don't even know where to look, or who might be trying to kill him."

   "So you believe me now?"

   The lady sat back with a sigh, her perfectly coiffed hair now dragging about her ears. "I didn't like the looks on their faces, that's all. And since I announced Byron's intentions toward me, their attitude is down right hostile."

   "Do you mean they might have something to do with this?"

   Lady Banfour shrugged.

   "But why? What could they possibly gain? He has no money—other than the interest in the railroad, two fallen-down estates, and a new business that's surely in debt."

   "The title," she replied. "Although Lord Karlton seems quite content with his situation, I know his mother has always wanted the title for her son. And then there's Lady Karlton… She wanted Byron, you know. When he wouldn't have her, she set her cap on the younger brother."

   Summer's head spun as she remembered Cook's opinions of the family, and that she hadn't taken that conversation seriously. What had Lady Karlton said to her tonight—something about Byron wanting to stay a bachelor until he met her? "If Byron doesn't have any children, does the title go to his brother?"

   Lady Banfour nodded.

SUMMER FROWNED. "THEY COULD HAVE HIRED someone—"

   "There's also the possibility of John Strolm," interrupted Lady Banfour. "He has an overdeveloped hatred of Byron. We can't rule him out either."

   Summer couldn't believe she was sitting here with Lady Banfour discussing possible suspects. Then she realized that they both had something else in common after all. They both cared for the duke. "But Byron told me the police had ruled him out as a suspect."

   "The police wouldn't think of questioning his family either. Not without direct evidence. It would be insulting… and you don't insult the aristocracy without good reason."

   Summer nodded at her wisdom. She'd learned that the aristocracy held more power in England than the richest man in America. Class seemed to be inbred in the English people.

   They had finally reached her home, and again she flew out the carriage door, the coachman not bothering to try to beat her to it this time, and ran up the stairs to her room, Lady Banfour on her heels.

   "Really, Summer. What are you doing?"

   She'd already stripped off her gown and fumbled with the ties of her corset. "Just help me, will you?"

   Summer dug to the bottom of her traveling trunk and, with a sense of coming home, pulled out Chatto's knife and strapped the sheath around her calf. Lady Banfour gave a gasp of outrage when Summer stripped naked and dragged out her buckskins. She ignored the lady and pulled the pins from her hair and started to braid it.

   Lady Banfour wrung her hands. "Even though I think you believe he's in danger—and that you're probably wrong—have you considered the presenta tion tomorrow? Even if you find him, the likelihood of you being able to attend… Well, I can guarantee that I would never be able to arrange another one for you."

   Summer gathered up her bow and arrows and looked in the mirror. She scooped some ashes from the fireplace and rubbed them over her face.

   Lady Banfour shivered. "A real lady could never do something like this. You look exactly like a savage."

   "No, she couldn't," muttered Summer. "I'll go back to being a lady again tomorrow. I think Byron's life is a little more important right now, don't you?"

   Lady Banfour's mouth opened slightly, then exhaled a resigned sigh.

   Summer ran down the stairs and gently shook Lionel awake from where he slept on the settee. The boy blinked and smiled at the familiar costume.

   "I need you to take me to your place," said Summer. "And to describe the duke's carriage to me and show me where it waited for you. Every detail you can remember, understand?"

   Summer towed Lionel behind her out the front door and leaped onto the horse that the coachman had just finished unharnessing from the carriage. As soon as Jeffries put a bit in the horse's mouth, she gave Lionel an arm up and kicked her heels into the animal's flanks.

   It seemed like years since she'd left the ball, although it had only been hours, but she felt the pressure of time running out as they galloped through the streets of London. Luckily, they missed any policemen who might be making their nightly rounds and reached Byron's rented home, on the very outskirts of the fashionable district, without incident.

   Lionel's face shone with excitement when she helped him off the horse. "Can I come with you?"

   Summer shook her head and pointed at the muddy tracks in the ground. Luckily, no cobblestones, but bare earth, making the impressions of horses' hooves and carriage wheels all the easier to distinguish. "Tell me what kind of carriage, how big were the wheels, where did it stand, exactly?"

   Lionel answered as best he could, remembering the way Summer had taught him to pay attention to details, never to look just straight ahead. "You might need my help."

   Summer frowned at the tracks, wishing she had Chatto's skill, hoping hers would be enough. "Are you sure this is the exact spot?"

"Yes."

   She hugged the boy. "Then we're in luck… One of the wheels had a crack in it, which makes a large enough print—see here? Enough for me to tell it from all these other tracks. We're just lucky there's a full moon tonight, but it's still going to be hard to follow with any speed."

   Summer gave the boy a gentle shove toward the door. She didn't have time to argue with him, and she understood that he wanted to help. But he'd only be in the way, and she couldn't say that to him. "You have to stay here, Lionel, in case your father returns. In case I'm wrong about this."

   Lionel nodded his head, but she could tell by the look on his face he didn't think she was wrong. That he felt the same horrible wrenching in his own gut. The same one that told Summer that the Duke of Monchester was in terrible danger, and she was the only one who could save him.

   Summer led the horse while she studied the tracks for that telltale mark. She lost it a few times, had to backtrack, cursed that she didn't have enough light, and in the next breath prayed for the sun not to come up, knowing that she'd wasted too much time and he might already be dead.

   The streets lay empty, and the few people she ran into took one look at her and hastily scrambled in the other direction. When she reached the outskirts of the city, it became much easier; far fewer tracks overlaid the one she'd chosen to follow.

   When only one road lay before her she leaped on her horse and galloped at a pace through the countryside that she hoped wouldn't kill her mount. Twice she had to dismount at a crossroads and check the trail; then she'd urge the horse on even faster.

   When she reached a rise in the road, she could clearly make out the outline of a small building and the orange and yellow flames of a fire that licked along its walls.

   Summer trusted her instincts and headed through the trees toward the fire. Halfway there she tethered her horse and silently crept through the underbrush, the thickness of it blocking her view of the flames. But the acrid smell of smoke made an even better guide.

   She balanced along a fallen log to avoid the crackle of leaves along the forest floor, stopped on the balls of her feet at the edge of a clearing, the light of the fire illuminating the two men who stood several feet away from the building. Over the crackle of burning wood, she could hear only snatches of their conversation.

   "… said to make sure the duke died this time…"

   "As if we didn't know what we was doin'…"

   "Told her… that carriage alive."

   They handed a bottle back and forth, taking swal lows between breaks in their conversation. Summer had pulled her bow and knocked an arrow after hearing their first words, then pulled back on the string to let fly. But she froze, unable to release it. She knew that Byron was in that building. That these were the men hired to kill him, and the only reason she'd found them was because she had trusted her instincts, the instincts that Chatto had honed to a fine edge.

   So, he couldn't be dead yet… or maybe he was, and they just stayed to make sure any evidence burned with his body. Summer shivered. The only way she'd find out was to get into that building, and they weren't going to just let her walk right in. Of that, she could be sure.

   She raised her bow and took aim. Then she remembered the man she'd killed, and the flat look in his eyes, and the way he'd haunted her life. She could hear Pa reading from the Bible,
Thou shalt not kill
. She felt that stain on her soul and knew she'd burn in hell.

   A portion of the burning roof caved in, and the two men laughed.

   Better her than Byron.

   A real lady would never be able to take another man's life. But she hadn't been raised like a flower, cared for and cosseted from the evils of life. She'd had to take care of herself, and because of that she'd never be a proper lady. And so she had the skill and ability to help Byron. She really had no decision to make.

   The arrow flew from her fingers and thudded into the wall in front of the men. Summer cursed and shot again, as low as she could, hoping not to kill them by shooting at their legs. Both of the men drew pistols and started to shoot blindly into the woods, one of the bullets kicking up bark from the log she stood on. She took a breath and aimed higher.

   They went down one at a time, like two dominoes falling on each other, and Summer sprinted across the clearing, kicked the fallen men, and felt a bitter relief when she saw that they still breathed. Another sprint and she stood in front of the burning building's door, pulled up the beam that locked it from the outside, and kicked it in.

   Heat hit her like a tangible wall, lashed across her cheeks, and made her gasp for air. The flames lit up the room, but the smoke obscured her view.

   "Byron!"

   Summer slung her bow over her shoulder and dropped to her stomach, crawling across the floor just the way Chatto had taught her when they scouted game. The smoke wasn't as thick; and she could see the leg bottoms of a couple of chairs, an old torn rug, scattered garbage across the floor, and what looked like a closed door across the room. Splinters dug into her palms, the sharp little pains almost distracting her from the heat that lashed at her face. She cried out when she reached the door and pushed. Darn splinters dug into her skin even deeper. Darn door must be locked, 'cause it wouldn't budge. She flipped around and spun onto her back, pushing at that barrier with her feet. It moved something behind it. Summer pushed harder, felt the blood rushing to her face from her exertion, even more heat flowing through the crack in the door.