Once Tempted (17 page)

“That is, if she is one,” she heard Pymm mutter into his cup.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Robert told them. “Who is it that you seek? If anyone can find him, you can count on Pymm to be able to ferret out your confidant.”

Olivia paused. She had never mentioned Hobbe to another living soul, and now her throat seemed to close around her attempt to utter his name.

Trust him,
the voice urged again.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed the name past her reluctant lips. “Hobbe. I am looking for a man named Hobbe. Do you know him?”

“Hobbe, you say?” Pymm’s hands fluttered again, this time in dismissal. “Never heard of him. Are you sure that is the name?”

“Yes,” she said. “Hobbe. I heard the name quite clearly”

While some of the memories from that night had faded and changed in her mind, the boy’s claim that Hobbe would help her had never wavered in her recollection.

Stroking his chin, Pymm sighed, then shook his head. “Never heard of anyone with such a name. He’s not in the Foreign Office, I assure you, and definitely not part of the Home Office.” The man turned to Robert. “Does it sound familiar to you? An officer in the Guards, perhaps even the Dragoons?”

Olivia’s gaze followed Pymm’s to face Robert. For the briefest moment, she caught something in his eyes—anger, betrayal, and most importantly, recognition.

Chills spilled down her arm, leaving goose flesh in their wake.

He knew.
He knew who Hobbe was. She would have bet her life on it.

But as quickly as she came to her elated conclusion, his eyes darkened and her confidence faded as the look she’d spied flashed away and was replaced with a practiced nonchalance.

But then she happened to glance at Aquiles, who looked about to chime in until an almost imperceptible flick of Robert’s fingers stopped the man. Aquiles’s lips closed as expeditiously as his master had hidden his own recognition.

Robert shook his head. “No, I have never heard of the man.”

His every word held a quiet fury, and she wondered at this sudden transformation in him.

More rightly, this change between them. Whatever thread had found a way to tangle them together it was suddenly yanked loose—broken and frayed by her admission.

He knew Hobbe and didn’t want her to find the man.

But why?

One thing for certain, she was as far over her head as she imagined her innocent and scholarly-minded father had been with Bradstone and Chambley. And look where that had left him.

The chills now ran down her spine, like the fingers of death prodding her forward, leaving her heart beating a wild tattoo.

It was all she could do not to bolt out of there. And fast.

“Then I don’t believe we can strike a deal, gentlemen,” she finally told them, after she’d caught her breath and calmed her pounding heart. If she’d learned anything in the last few days, it was that the information she carried in her head was too valuable for them to kill her outright. As long as she clung to her secret, her life was safe. It was her only hope and buoyed her shaken confidence.

“Miss Sutton, these games are costing men their lives. You will help us,” Mr. Pymm told her, his biting impatience blotting out her momentary sense of security and assurance.

“Why should I?” she asked. “Lord Chambley gave me much the same assurances, in fact he even promised me amnesty and look where that very nearly got me.”

Robert flinched as he shifted in his chair to face her. From the look of his wound it was already seeping. It tweaked at her conscience—he’d put his life at risk for her. But then again, many more had risked just as much to get their greedy hands on The King’s Ransom.

Despite what her heart was telling her, she knew that this man might not be any different.

“Rest assured, Miss Sutton, you are in good hands,” Pymm was saying. “We mean you no harm. We only seek information on Wellington’s behalf.”

Whatever she thought of Robert Danvers, she thought even less of his friend Mr. Pymm. “Wellington?” She laughed. “You expect me to believe that Lord Wellington is behind this noble endeavor?” Olivia waved her hand at his shabby apartment.

“There is nothing to laugh at,” Pymm told her. “While your experiences with Chambley were regrettable, rest assured,
we
are the side of right. I work for the Foreign Office, and Robert works on Wellington’s personal staff. Our credentials are impeccable. A far cry from Chambley’s shady dealings.”

“Yes, I can see that,” she said, glancing around the poor rat’s nest in which they were hiding. “Tell me, then, Mr. Pymm, exactly when did the Foreign Office and the Army take offices in this part of London?” When neither of them answered her, she continued, “Major Danvers, why don’t we go down to the Army offices and you can introduce me to the Duke of York. Perhaps he can instill the measure of conviction in your claims that I find lacking.”

The man let out an exasperated breath. “Very few are privy to my orders. I doubt anyone here knows about my mission.”

Olivia sniffed. “How convenient.” She turned to Pymm. “I suppose the Foreign Office would disavow any knowledge of you as well.”

Pymm frowned. “My connections are highly confidential, my business not commonly discussed. It would be most irregular and highly inadvisable.”

She nodded. “Why am I not surprised? And you shouldn’t be either, when I say that if you want answers from me, you are going to have to do better than this. In fact, at this point, I can assure you that the only man I would tell about The King’s Ransom is Wellington. You take me to him, and I’ll dig up your treasure myself.”

Pymm threw up his hands and paced the length of his apartment, stopping in front of his fireplace, muttering with each step about “impertinent and impossible females.” For a moment he stared into the flames and then glanced over his shoulder back at her. “And this is your final decision, Miss Sutton?”

“Yes,” she said. “So if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave.”

Pymm nodded and said, “As you wish, Miss Sutton. I can see you are a lady of integrity and I have to respect that. My apologies about the closet. Old habits die hard.”

She nodded her acceptance but couldn’t help wondering at his easy acquiescence to her refusal. The little weasel had a plan behind those beady eyes, but she couldn’t fathom what it was—not yet.

The door opened, and Cochrane came hustling in like a house afire. “I got the things but don’t see that there’s time for them now. There’s trouble brewing outside.”

“What kind of trouble?” Robert asked.

“Someone asking questions about her ladyship here,” the boy said, shooting Olivia a wary glance even as he set the packets of herbs and supplies she’d asked for before her on the table. “He’s offering gold for any information.”

“Chambley,” Robert said, as if the man’s name were the foulest curse.

“You might as well settle in, Miss Sutton,” Pymm said. “I can promise you that you are safe as long as you stay here.”

She glanced at Robert.

“I can’t protect you if you leave,” he told her. “You’ll be on your own.”

As much as Olivia wanted nothing more to do with them, she wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d find help in the Dials. Not with Lord Chambley’s gold whetting the appetite of every thief and snitch within the district.

“Well, I’ll stay for a bit, at least long enough to dress this wound.” She turned to Pymm. “Do you have any hot water in that kettle?” she asked, nodding at the pot hung over the coals. He nodded. “Good. I’ll also need something in which to steep these herbs. A clean basin or bowl.”

“Anything to help,” he said, far too cordial for Olivia’s comfort. “Cochrane, fetch the lady whatever she needs, then go keep watch. I want no more unexpected guests.” He opened the sideboard. “Oh, where are my manners? It is a good two hours past tea, and I haven’t made the least offer of hospitality.” The man rummaged around. “Ah, yes. A nice cup of tea to while away the time, eh, Miss Sutton?”

“That would be nice,” she said, setting to work sorting the herbs Cochrane had secured. Moments later, Pymm set a cup of tea before her, the sweet distinctive odor rising from a delicate china cup sitting on a matching saucer. She suspected these were the only two items in the place that weren’t chipped or dirty.

“ ’Twas my mother’s favorite blend and her dearest cup,” he said, taking a momentary sniff into his filthy handkerchief.

With such a sentiment, Olivia could hardly refuse, besides she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day. She took several sips and found the brew to be surprisingly pleasant. “Hmm, this is good,” she told him.

“Oh, drink up,” Pymm urged her, bringing a faded teapot forward and topping off her cup. “My mother would be pleased. She said a single cup was quite restorative.”

Olivia drank down the entire contents and set back to work on the herbs Cochrane had purchased.

But suddenly the careful piles she’d divided up began to blur and move. Her eyelids grew so heavy she could barely lift them. She sank to her chair and clung to the edge of the table. From a distance, she could hear Robert’s outraged voice, feel his hand on her shoulder supporting her.

“Dammit, what have you done to her, Pymm?”

Funny, he sounds so far away,
she thought. And yet hadn’t he been right next to her?

And even as Olivia felt herself slipping into a soft, dark abyss, she distinctly heard Mr. Pymm tell Robert, “Nothing much. Just seen to it we won’t be getting any more objections from the lady.”

She would have argued with the man if she hadn’t finally fallen prey to the comfort of oblivion.

Robert cursed again as he cradled Olivia’s limp figure in his lap. “What the devil is in that brew?”

“Just a little concoction my mother used to make,” Pymm said, carefully pouring the remaining contents of the teapot into a chamber pot. “She’s just asleep and should remain so until morning.”

“And she’ll be more inclined to talk then, after you’ve poisoned her?”

“Of course,” Pymm replied. “Because by then, you and Miss Sutton will be well out into the Channel and on your way to Lisbon.”

“Lisbon?” Robert exploded. “Are you daft?”

“It was her idea,” Pymm said, pointing an accusing finger at Olivia. “I quote: ‘The only man I would tell about The King’s Ransom is Wellington. You take me to him.’ Those were her exact words, not mine. And now it is your job to see this done.”

Robert’s next words were a string of oaths that left even Aquiles blushing. When he came to the end of his tirade, he took a deep breath.

Dammit if Pymm wasn’t right. What else could he do? He could continue to hope she’d finally trust him and tell him what he needed to know, or he could take her to Wellington and let his commander deal with her.

Then he remembered what she’d told Chambley about her notes in her valise.

“Perhaps I won’t have to,” he said, reaching for her battered case. Digging around inside it, he plucked out a worn journal and started paging through it. But to his even greater frustration the entire volume was written in a language he didn’t recognize. “Do you know what this is?” he asked Pymm.

The man peered down at it. “Code. Not likely any of us could break it. Or any of my best men. I’m afraid there is only one way to get what we need out of her, and you know what it is.”

Take her to the Peninsula.
Robert glanced over at her prone form. Damn her stubborn hide.

Cochrane stuck his head in. “I don’t know how long I can hold this feller off. He’s getting mighty persistent.”

“You’ll have to take her now,” Pymm said, shoving Olivia’s journal back in her valise and pushing it into Robert’s unwelcoming embrace. “There is a ship leaving on the evening tide for Lisbon. I can get you passage quite easily. The captain owes me a favor.” He picked up a sheet of paper and dashed off the directions and handed them to Aquiles. “Cochrane, show our guests out the back entrance.”

Aquiles hoisted Olivia over his shoulder while Robert gathered up the herbs she’d asked Cochrane to purchase. While he still suspected she’d probably ordered a pestilent potion to kill him, the way his shoulder throbbed, it didn’t hurt to err on the side of caution.

Pymm’s capable assistant was already one step ahead of all of them and had ordered a carriage brought around.

As they were climbing in, someone shouted from the corner, “Hey there, stop right this minute.”

Aquiles took the reins from the driver and immediately set the horses flying down the street.

As they made their way out of London’s most notorious neighborhood toward the docklands, Robert came to only one good conclusion about sailing to Lisbon with Olivia.

He could find out what the hell she knew about Hobbe.

And more importantly, Orlando.

Chapter 7

R
obert’s enthusiasm for returning to the Peninsula came to an abrupt halt when they got to the ship on which Pymm had directed them to take passage.

He stood on the gangway looking at the painted name on the side of the tidy and swift merchantman, the
Sybaris.
He should have known. How like Pymm and his perverse sense of humor to send him to his brother Colin’s ship. But before he could back away, a familiar voice hailed him from the rail. “Robert? Is that you, lad?”

“Livett?” Robert looked up to see the weathered face of the ship’s master staring down at him.

“Aye, sir. Good to see you. Come to see yer brother, I suppose. ‘Bout time the two of you made amends.”

“I’m not here for a visit,” Robert told him. “I need passage. For me and my companions.”

Livett took only a cursory glance at Aquiles, but when his gaze fell on the pair of slippers and muslin hem sticking out of the blanket they’d used to bundle up Olivia, his face turned stormy. “Cap’n won’t like that. He’s not even lettin’ her ladyship sail with us this time, so I doubt he’ll be all that pleased with your
companion
there.”

Robert didn’t doubt in the least that his brother would find Olivia’s presence aboard ship highly objectionable, but what his brother didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. At least, not until they were well out into the Channel.