One Night With a Spy (28 page)

"Pardon, milords, pardon—" he panted. "I come from Kettigrew village, up the north road—I've a message—the man, 'e said 'e'd wring my neck if 'n I didn't deliver it—'e will, too, milords! 'E's mad, milords, stark raving mad!"

Elliot glanced at Marcus. "One of your friends, perhaps?"

Marcus sent him an impatient glare. "More like one of yours." He turned to the messenger. "We have no time for this—"

"That's Kurt's horse," Elliot said abruptly. "It's the only one in our stable that will carry him!"

"Again, I have no time for the cares of that lot." Marcus reined his horse around the messenger, who watched him with the despair of a man sure of his own impending doom. "If you want to chase down mad assassins," Marcus told Elliot, "then that is your concern."

"Marcus, don't be a fool. Kurt is rarely employed within England herself. What target do you think he might have been aimed toward—in this locale, at this moment in time?"

An icy shaft went through Marcus.
Julia
. He turned his horse about to face the messenger.

"What is this communiqué?"

The man cowered before the intensity in Marcus's expression, but apparently he feared the giant Kurt more so.

" 'E ain't dead."

Marcus clenched his jaw. "Happy to hear it." He began to turn his horse toward the road—and Julia—once more.

" 'E orta be, after 'e were shot like that."

"Shot? Kurt?" Elliot's shock was apparent.

Marcus sighed and returned to the conversation, such as it was. "This surprises you? I rather think it's the sanest possible reaction to the man."

The messenger nodded fervently. "Too right, milord."

"So he'll recover?" Elliot pressed the man.

Marcus could not have cared less for the merciless Kurt's welfare at the moment. "Did he tell you what he was doing in this vicinity?"

The messenger looked back and forth at the two of them, then apparently decided that Marcus was the more menacing.

" 'E said he come to find a lady—and he found her—"

"What?"

The man shrank and began to edge away. " 'E said 'e found her, then someone shot 'im and took her away."

"Oh, thank God!"

The messenger seemed unsure. "I don't know, milord. 'E—the giant—'e were real worried about the lady. 'E said to tell you—to tell you—"

"To tell me what?" Who could be more danger to her than Kurt himself?

" 'E said to tell you that Denny got 'er."

Denny. The Chimera
. Marcus sent one anguished glance at Elliot, who returned it in equal measure.

They turned their mounts as one and raced down the drive, lying low and letting the gravel fly. Marcus had only one thought that echoed beneath the pounding hoofbeats and the racing of his dread-filled heart.

What if I'm too late?

In Kettigrew, they found that Kurt wasn't merely shot, he'd nearly died. If a passing shepherd hadn't paused to investigate a freshly collapsed stone wall, he'd never have spotted the large man lying in the rubble.

Kurt's great mount had lingered nearby, which was fortunate for Kurt, since no other horse could have carried his limp hugeness down the hill to the village of Kettigrew, where the local midwife was able to remove the bullet and stop the wound.

Even so, in her words, "Tha fallow orta died."

From what Marcus could see past the wild hair and the overgrown beard, the mighty Kurt was looking ill indeed.

Elliot immediately went to the large man's side. "Kurt? Kurt, can you hear me?"

Marcus hung back, seized by an abrupt wave of rage as he looked at the massive hands lying limply on the covers. Julia had been in those hands.

She knew what Kurt was. She would have known the minute she saw him what his intentions would be. Marcus couldn't bear it. He pushed past Elliot to grab the giant by the front of his hastily pieced together nightshirt.

"She ran from you, didn't she, you vast bastard!" he shook Kurt in his rage, lifting the man half from the bed. "She knew you'd come to kill her, didn't she? Who sent you?" He leaned into Kurt's hairy face. "Who sent you?"

Elliot pulled at his arm. "Marcus, let him go! Good God, the man's half dead!"

Marcus turned his head to snarl at Elliot. "He'll be full dead if he doesn't speak," he growled.

"Didn't…"

Both Marcus and Elliot jerked their gazes back to the man in the bed. Elliot pushed Marcus away to lean over the bed. "Didn't what, Kurt?"

"Didn't come… to kill 'er. Come to find 'er… bring 'er back… Himself said not to kill 'er lessen I must."

Marcus shoved past Elliot's restraining arm. "Who? Who told you to find her? Etheridge?"

A massive hand wrapped itself around Marcus's upper arm. "Shut… up… milord. Don't matter. Denny… took 'er away…'e was talkin' to himself… she were out…'e thought I were out… she's 'is ticket 'ome, he says. She's got to give 'im the money.' Passage to France, passage back to his true life'… that's what 'e said."

Kurt's hand fell away and his voice began to fade. " 'e were real happy 'bout it. Enough to give a bloke the shivers…"

"What else? Where did he take her?" Marcus grabbed Kurt again, but Elliot pulled him off.

"He's out, Marcus. Come on. We know enough."

Marcus blinked, trying to marshal his chaotic emotions and teeming thoughts.
Money. Passage
.

There was only one place where the Chimera could expect to gain both the money from Julia's accounts and illegal passage to France.

Marcus straightened. "London."

"What are we going to do?"

Marcus clenched his jaw. "We're going to shout 'Hey, Rube!' "

In the small filthy room above the crowded London Street, Julia feared she was going to lose her will to continue fighting. How could she defeat him? She could not, she realized. There would never be enough power for her to defeat him. She began to doubt everything, her strength, Aldus's confidence in her, her own mind, Marcus's love, everything.

She might doubt Marcus's feelings for her, but her own love for him was a shining light. She understood his difficulty, she didn't blame him for his conflict. He would make a good Fox, a fine and effective Fox, while she was fast beginning to doubt everything that had ever made her think she could do it.

The cracks in the ceiling plaster seemed to waver before Julia's vision. He was starving her now—although if he knew how out of sorts she became when she wasn't properly fed, he might have reconsidered. She struggled to focus her vision on the largest crack, the one she'd named the Thames. It meandered from one side of the grimy room to the other across the stained ceiling.

Once she'd properly brought it into focus, she turned her attention to the lesser tributaries. One by one, she forced her eyes to obey her enough to make them come clear. The Fleet, the Tyburn,
the Westbourne, the Black Ditch…

Julia sighed. Her body ached and her head throbbed. She would have rolled over onto her stomach, but the chain didn't allow it. She had only the slack she required to lie on the bed and to use the chamber pot.

He
hadn't enjoyed cleaning up after the first beating he'd given her and had been forced to change her situation to prevent more offenses to his fastidious nature.

She barked a dry, coughing laugh. Odd for a man who blew up privies.

"Oh, Aldus, I've properly let you down this time," she whispered to the rivers above her. "You were wrong about me. I tried to tell you, but men never listen, do they? You were wrong and Liverpool and Marcus and the others were right. I don't have the strength needed to be one of the Royal Four."

She blinked and drew a harsh breath, looking about her carefully. She'd slipped again. Thank heaven
he
wasn't around to hear her.

Abruptly tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes. "See?" she whispered. "I'm nothing but a silly girl after all, crying about nothing."

She was weakening by the hour, she could feel it. She was like the child with his thumb in the dike, holding back the flood of information inside of her. Sooner or later, he was going to realize that she was more than a simple widow—probably because she was going to stupidly let something slip—and he was going to get every single thing she knew from her with ease.

When he'd beaten her this morning, she'd ached to cry out the truth, just to make him stop for a moment, just long enough for her to take a breath. If she'd had an ounce of air in her lungs, she would have.

She was a danger to England, just as Liverpool had said. She was nothing but a weakling, best kept locked away in silence because she wouldn't be able to keep her stupid mouth shut much longer!

She slid her feet to the floor and shakily stood. She couldn't allow herself to lie about. It would only make her weaker. She set herself to the task of walking from the reach of the chain, by the bed, to the other reach of the chain, by the window.

She extended her body and reached for the sill yet again, but her arms had not grown in the last hour, nor had the chain stretched. She would have broken the glass and screamed for help long ago if she could have, although from the rough sounds coming from outside and from the other rooms, she didn't know if anyone would even notice another woman screaming.

Certainly no one had heard her yet.

She stood on tiptoe, pulling her full weight against the chain. If she stood just so, she could see people on the street below. She would have to stop after a few moments, for the strain on her wrenched shoulder would become too much to bear, but someone, just once, might look up into her window. Some curious soul might see her signaling madly up in her tower and come to find out about the madwoman in the window.

Unlikely, but not impossible. She was quite prepared to cling to even that slim hope.

Her vision swam and her knees weakened. She blinked rapidly, pulling herself together with will alone. She hadn't eaten in… three days? It didn't matter anyway. She would eat when she ate. That was not currently under her control, so there was little point in worrying about it.

Although, when next she ate, she first planned on having all the bangers and mash one woman could hold—

Igby walked down the street beneath her window.

Julia blinked, then shook her head. No, it couldn't—

It was, plain as day. He was stopping a washerwoman with her heavy basket, showing her a paper—a sketch, probably, for there wasn't a soul within miles of here who could read—and listening closely to the woman, who shook her head regretfully.

"Igby!" Julia screamed. Her voice could not penetrate the glass and the street clamor outside. She cast about for something, anything—

The chamber pot! In less time than it took to think about it, Julia had grabbed up the filthy thing and flung it fully through the glass. "
Igby
!"

Her voice was lost in the outcry outside from the people doused with the contents of a well-used chamber pot. Igby turned to watch what must have been quite the contretemps, then lifted his gaze to see where the object had originated from.

Julia pulled so hard against the chain that it cut into her flesh. "Igby!
Igby
!" She waved wildly as close to the glass as she could manage. She saw him hesitate for a moment, saw his gaze pass incuriously over her broken window, and then saw him turn and amble away, out of her limited sight.

No. Don't go
. Gray flecks surrounded Julia's vision and she sank to her knees, her bleeding wrist still stretched out behind her.
No
.

The raucous Cheapside streets seemed sinister, as if every beggar and baker were conspiring against the search for Julia with their jostling and commotion. Marcus fought the despair clawing at his throat. He knew she was near, for they'd tracked the hired cab that had carried a small kindly faced man and his ailing wife thus far.

Knowing that he was in the exact area they had been dropped off should have been a comfort, but as he looked about the crowded twisting ancient streets and the hordes of Londoners who gazed suspiciously at his fine clothes, Marcus wondered how one set about finding the single silver pin in a case of tin ones.

Julia would have won the lifelong loyalty of every Cockney within miles by the time the bells of St. Mary-le-bow chimed the hour and found her quarry in half that.

Marcus had taken Elliot's drawing of her to every shopkeeper and resident and ragman he could find, as had the old staff of Barrowby, roused by his unabashed cry for help in the square in Middlebarrow.

Even now, Meg the cook, Beppo and the Igbys were working other streets in this festering pit of humanity, all carrying hasty sketches of the round-faced man and their lost lady.

If she was here, she would be found.

Yet the growing dread in Marcus's soul would not be appeased by hope or common sense. He'd lost her too many times—the last because she didn't trust him.

And now she was slipping away in earnest… he could feel the very fibers of their bond deteriorating. He closed his eyes.
No. I cannot let you go
.

Someone bumped him and moved on without apology. Marcus could hardly breathe for the fetid odors of these churning back streets. Slop ran down the center of the lane as if they lived four hundred years ago. The shouting and clanging and rumbling of coarse humanity swirled about him as he stood immobile as a rock in a muddy river.

Or perhaps it was sheer panic stealing the air from his lungs. She was here, in the hands of a brutal, ruthless killer, and he ought to be able to find her, to feel her, to sense her very heartbeat. If love was enough, he would fly directly to her side.

He'd seen the work of the Chimera, the wreckage of the ranks of the Liar's Club, the cold-blooded murder of the master's own pawns when their usefulness ended. He knew how ruthless the man could be—and yet he'd let Julia ride away from him, alone and vulnerable, kept from following her by his own stupid pride.

He could scarcely remember being that man now. His pride was gone, swept away by regret and agonizing fear for her.

Elliot left a tobacconist's shop and joined Marcus at the foot of the church steps. "The fellow took a quid for information, then told me he hadn't seen either one of them." Elliot shook his head. "It doesn't matter," Marcus said. "It's only gold."