Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) (12 page)

Agatha nodded. Nathalia was right. She had to deal with the more pressing problem of the pelisse, and focus on throwing the knives. Only then could she deal with Charles.

Gravel crunched heavily as Pablo appeared at her elbow, breathing hard from the acrobatic display. Agatha had heard the oohs and aahs of the crowds for the last hour. It had seemed to pass by in a blur. Large torches flared in the darkness amongst the crowds.

Silently he handed her the golden mask which she fitted across her face. She tied her hair back into a knot, imitating what she had been told was Bertino’s style. They assured her that in the dark no one would see that her brown hair wasn’t black.

“You look just like Bertino,” Pablo sighed. “I never said I kept all of my promises. Your fate is up to you now.” Roughly he pushed the pelisse of coins into the pocket of her outfit.

Promises? He’d kept his promise to her, although after this Agatha never wanted to meet him again. She shuddered as his breath blew across her ear.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured and pushed her out into the flickering light.

A hushed silence fell across the crowd as she walked across the dry ground towards the pathway where the brightly painted board had been affixed. What was Pablo sorry for? Nathalia smiled fixedly at the crowd at her side. She had taken off her coat to reveal a costume that did not leave much to the imagination.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice boomed from the crowd. “I give you the Grande Salvatore!”

The crowd turned to face Agatha. Nathalia stood expectantly by the board. She gestured to the board, smiled and gestured again. Frowning at Agatha, she repeated her routine.

A small drop of salty water ran down the inside of Agatha’s mask, heat rising from her neck. What was she to do? She couldn’t, shouldn’t speak, for she would be undone as the Grande Salvatore.

Shaking the droplet of water from her chin, she gazed at the gathering of well-dressed men who lounged against the hedges of Vauxhall Gardens. They were accompanied here and there by ladies dressed in gaudy clothes. Eyes glittered, riveted on the spectacle of the knife thrower and the girl.

She nodded at Nathalia and then looked out once more at the crowd.

One of the gaudily dressed ladies stepped back, revealing a familiar, tall, muscular figure. Agatha froze as Henry gazed back at her and frowned.

How did he know she was there? He couldn’t possibly. There had been no one in the hall when she had left the house.

“He does not know who I am,” Agatha said as if in a mantra under her breath. “He doesn’t know about the knives. I am the Grande Salvatore.”

Still, his eyes bored into hers as if he knew who she was. Oh god. Henry was there watching. He said he always knew where she was, and now she’d found out the hard way.

Licking a trembling finger, Agatha held her hand in the air. The wind was travelling from the east, across her line of aim. The torches flamed and gusted sideways. Hmm, about three miles an hour. She needed to throw fifteen yards, the knife she had been given was about forty grams heavier than her potato knife…oh god. Henry was watching.

If only she’d had a bit more time to perfect the mechanics. She had left Hope Sands at a very inopportune time, in fact she had calculated she was only one potato peeling session away from really getting the hang of letting her knife go at the right time and hitting her target on the wall at the end of her depressing room. Of course it had played havoc with the plaster, all the gashes had become quite noticeable.

Now then. Her hypothesis was that she needed to let the knife go when it was perpendicular in her hand to the ground. Hopefully it wouldn’t hit Henry. Agatha shook her head and resumed calculating. It would require five revolutions before it reached the board a foot to the right of Nathalia’s head. Hmm.

Nathalia opened her mouth as Agatha pulled her hand back. Narrowing her eyes, Agatha weighed the knife up and down in her hand. Could she do it? She had never yet
hit
the target with her knife—a potato peeler at that.

Nathalia screamed, “You can’t be serious—”

Agatha drew back her arm and this time placed a little more pressure on her thumb.

“I’m telling you A…a…a…Salvatore,” Nathalia shouted.

With a flick of her arm, Agatha threw, the violent action causing her mask to slip before the knife had left her hand. Blindly she nodded, trying to dislodge the sticky mask, putting a hand to her face to push it back up, and froze. A large bang rang through her ears, and a blaze of pain ripped across her knuckles.

The crowd roared. As she pushed the mask back up onto her face with shaking fingers, she realized they were looking at Nathalia, who stared at the knife which had planted itself in the narrow space between her ankles.

Oh dear.
There was no chance that Agatha could risk such a close shave again—it seemed she was not destined to find out how to throw knives. Shaking her head, Agatha looked for Henry. He was nowhere to be seen, the crowds of people turned away from her as they talked excitedly amongst themselves. She turned and ran towards the edge of the gardens, holding on to her slippery mask.

A hansom cab waited at the west entrance, the horses stamping their feet in the cold air.

“Quick, Toby, get going,” she yelled at the carriage driver she had hired. Scrabbling at the footplate, she fell exhausted into the carriage, collapsing against the seats.

The shadows opposite her deepened. Opening her mouth, Agatha screamed and clutched at the leather of her seat as a large, predatory form moved forward.

“Mr. Salvatore, I presume?” Henry reached a long arm from the dark of the carriage and plucked her mask from her face. For a while he stared at her. “Miss Beauregard. I might have known.” He stared at her again for a long moment and then opened one hand, in which a small bronze bullet nestled. “Is this another one of your experiments or does someone really want to kill you?”

CHAPTER 14

Henry cursed as Agatha clutched her hands together and then drew them away with an audible gasp. Sticky bloody ran darkly through her hands from her knuckles.

He swung his body across the carriage and sat heavily into the seat next to her. Gathering her into his arms, he held her tightly as the tears began to roll down her face. Henry pressed his face into her hair—she smelt of soap and gunpowder. It was a strangely intoxicating mix. Drawing his body away, he leant back against the seat, releasing her.

“Bloody hell Agatha.”

Agatha sighed and felt at an object on the seat before handing it to him. “Victoria’s pelisse.”

He stared at it for a long second, and dropped it on the seat next to him. Taking a deep breath, he forced as much flatness into his voice as possible. “I need to know how you became mixed up with Pablo Moreno. He has a rather unsavory reputation.”

Agatha wrapped her arms around herself and leant forward. “One of his… associates stole my pelisse from me.”

“And he gave it back to you.” He paused, weighing his words. “But who would want you dead? What was different about today?”

She sat up straighter. Good, his words were having an effect.

“What was different about today?” Her voice rose an octave. “What was different about today, apart from Charles telling me to jilt him in your back garden, being pick pocketed, having my hands stood upon, being seen by Charles again wearing
this
outfit back there—” Agatha jabbed a hand in the direction of the disappearing Vauxhall Gardens— “throwing knives at a semi-dressed girl on a board, and
then being shot at
?”

Henry breathed out. “Charles asked you to jilt him in our garden and then recognized you in Vauxhall?

Agatha nodded and took a deep breath.

He frowned. “Something is
off
in this situation.”

“You were the one who wants me to marry him in the first place!”

Henry shivered as the accusation filled her voice. “I think I was wrong.”

“Of course you were bloody wrong!” Agatha rubbed at her face, her skin raw where she had worn the mask tightly. “He forced me and you wouldn’t listen.”

Henry stared at her. Her story had never changed, it wasn’t just for form’s sake. She really didn’t want to marry Charles, despite what Henry had thought. “I… I don’t want you to marry him.”

“Thank you, neither do I, but thanks to you I have to go through with it.”

Henry looked down at Agatha. “I’m a member of the same club. I know a few of Charles Fashington’s secrets. I’ll persuade him to drop the proposal. I promise, Agatha.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly. “I’ll set everything
right
.”

Right for him too. This was the opportunity that he needed. A wife, Granwich had said. After this affair she would hate him even more. He swallowed. So much the better.

Agatha gazed at Henry, her hazel eyes wide in the dark, the glint of tears shining on her cheek. With a muffled oath he pulled her towards him.

Dropping his head he brushed his lips along the tops of her cheeks where the tears gleamed.

“Agatha—”

She tipped her head towards him. With a groan he covered her mouth with his, caressing her tender lips. She gasped, the intake of air rushing against his tongue.

“I—”

Henry pulled away as the carriage stopped; any longer and he wouldn’t have been able to help himself. Agatha stared at him, the gold suit rumpled against her soft skin. He shrugged off his coat and shook his head, pushing the warm cloth around her shoulders. As he smoothed the cloak over her frozen shoulder, she shivered visibly.

“The gold suit is quite noticeable.” He pulled the cloak closed over her lap. “A large amount of the ton were in Vauxhall Gardens tonight. You will be instantly recognizable if you reveal the color underneath.”

Agatha nodded once and turned her face away from him, tumbling from the carriage. He watched as her legs wobbled beneath her, hitting the hard slabs of the pavement. Stumbling, she clutched at the cloak and started up the steps to the house. Henry did not follow her. At the top she paused and turned.

“Aren’t you coming in?” Her voice tremored audibly on the last word.

“I have some matters I need to take care of,” he said shortly through the carriage door. “I’ll be back to talk further. Don’t do anything hasty.” Henry knocked his cane on the roof of the box and turned to face forward as the carriage rolled off into the gloom.

Henry sat back into the cushioned seat, well used to the cobbles of London and the rolling like nature of the carriage. He hitched his soft, merino undercoat closer to him, pulling out the cuffs to protect himself against the springtime cold.

He knew just where to find Charles Fashington. The government man may have been a member of the same club as Henry, but that is where the similarity in their tastes ended. Routine enquiries into the allegiance of all government members as part of Henry’s war work had noted Fashington’s predilection for a certain tavern in town where the ladies were of easy cheer and even easier virtue. But there had been nothing on any leaning towards the French, which made the list Charles had found in his clothes all the more strange.

The tavern, the Hare and Hounds, was situated just off Great Russell Street in the rookery of St Giles. As he walked through the door, a girl barely more than fifteen reached to take his coat, her hands tracing themselves over him.

“Can’t you see I’m not wearing a coat?” Catching her hands, he pulled her from him and, with a gentle push, turned her away.

The girl gaped at him and slapped her thigh with a gin sodden cackle. “Ere Betsy, this one was so eager to see you he took his coat off before he even reached the door!”

The tap room erupted with a raucous cheer. Henry ran a hand slowly through his hair. Agatha had rattled his customary calm. He would have normally entered the tavern unnoticed, but thanks to her he had now caused a scene. Deliberately flattening his shoulders and breathing deeply, he stared into the distance for a few seconds, and then flipped the girl a coin. With a sly grin, he acknowledged the cheers and sauntered into the throng, becoming one of the crowd. Making a beeline for the singled out Betsy, he encircled her waist with his arm and banged on the bar with the other.

“Landlord, a drink for the lady!”

“Coo guvnor, you really are keen aren’t you?” Betsy simpered at Henry, her ample breasts spilling out above her brightly colored, but soiled gown. Henry’s hand tightened around Betsy’s waist, squeezing hard. He crowded Betsy, turning her to face away from the other drinkers in the tavern. His other hand brought Betsy’s chin up to make her face look at him, seemingly charming, but in reality his fingers flexed into the flesh just below her jawline. As she winced in shocked pain, he lowered his voice.

“Where’s Charles Fashington?”

“Who?” Betsy gasped. Henry grimaced. He thought back to what Fashington had been wearing.

“Tall, black coat, black hair, likes the ladies. Permanently drunk.”

“You should have said,
sir.
He goes by the name Miles… Miles Trebin. We all call him Flash, cos he’s flash with his money. Different girl every night.”

“Where is he now?” Henry ground out, before Betsy could tell him more of ‘Flash’s’ interests.

“Upstairs with Millie, she’s his favorite… he has certain tastes…”

Henry dropped Betsy with disgust, his fingers clenching and unclenching. Betsy sank to the floor in shock. Single-minded, he took the stairs to the upper rooms two at a time. He cursed himself at the top of the steps; he hadn’t asked which room
Miles
was in. Shaking his head, he grasped the handle of the door opposite him, and pushed.

The first room was empty apart from a large canopied bed and a dressing table. Without bothering to close the door, Henry moved onto the next closed door. The second bedroom along the hall was occupied. The couple in there were too busy to notice the intrusion. The gentleman, though, was blond, not black-haired.

The third room yielded results. Charles lay on the bed in just his breeches. ‘Millie’, completely naked, stroked his body with a feather, and giggled. They both turned to stare at Henry with a look of drugged pleasure on their faces. Millie was the first to realize that she did not recognize the man at the door. Shrieking, she dropped the feather and reached for a camisole on the floor.