The Bed and the Bachelor (25 page)

His stomach pitched at the thought.

No,
he assured himself,
she must be fine.

With the warm weather and late sunset, perhaps she’d decided to attend the theater and take a bite of supper afterward. Still, it didn’t seem likely, as she was alone. At least he assumed she was alone. Mayhap she had gone with a friend.

His scowl deepened, a slow ache starting in his chest.

“There is one other matter, my lord,” Stowe said, breaking into his reverie.

Drake met the butler’s gaze. “Yes?”

Stowe’s upper lip curled slightly. “A man is here to see you . . . a Mr. Aggies, or so he says. His evening call is most irregular, but he insisted on remaining until he had spoken to you.”

Aggies? Here tonight?
He was one of Edward’s men, an ex-Bow Street Runner who’d been set to watch the house and the man they’d seen spying. They’d agreed that he would report on any further suspicious activity. The fact that Aggies had seen fit to arrive on his doorstep an hour shy of midnight did not bode well.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” Drake said, worry adding a clipped edge to his voice. “Where have you put him?”

“In the tradesman’s parlor, my lord. I didn’t know where else to have him wait.”

The tradesman’s parlor was little more than a closet with a pair of chairs inside. But Aggies wasn’t the fussy sort, so Drake supposed he’d been comfortable enough waiting there.

“Send him to my workroom,” Drake ordered. “And advise me the moment Mrs. Greenway returns. She ought to have been back by now.”

The ache in his chest spread another inch.

“Yes, my lord,” Stowe replied, striding quickly away.

Drake squeezed the ring box in his hand again and strode down the hall.

Aggies arrived less than five minutes later, his hat clutched in his grasp. A small, wiry man with a narrow face, he always reminded Drake of a hunting terrier, albeit a hairless one, the man’s bald pate gleaming dully in the candlelight.

“You have news?” Drake said without preamble as he took a seat behind his desk. Waving a hand, he indicated that Aggies should take one as well.

But Aggies remained standing, pacing a few steps before drawing to a halt again. “That I do, yer lordship. The kind what couldn’t wait.”

“Is it the man you and your team have been tracking? Have you located him again?”

“That we have, and he’s a right nasty customer, ’e is. Goes by the name of Jones, but I don’t believe that’s ’is real name fer an instant. Got that much from one o’ the girls what works the Garden. He left her in a bad way, he did, beat her senseless and more besides.”

Aggies’s face puckered with disgust, his mouth screwing up as if he wanted to spit, then thought better of it given his present surroundings.

“But that’s not the worst of it,” he continued, swallowing his gall. “One of me best snitches, good man even if he ’as been known to work the lightfinger trade on occasion, well, I set him on ter Jones. Wished I hadn’t now, since he’s gone missin.’ Ain’t seen ’im this last week entire. He might ’ave gone ter ground, Smiley’ll do that sometimes. But he’s left a fair lot ’o his possessions behind, and I gots a bad feelin’ about it. Awful thing is, if he does turn up in the Thames, might not be enough left ter recognize. Plenty ’o unidentified corpses fished regular-like out ’o that river.”

Drake frowned and slowly drummed his fingers against his desk. “What a dreadful commentary on our society. Let us sincerely hope your friend is not among such unfortunate souls.”

Aggies nodded in sorrowful agreement.

The other man’s gruesome tale made Drake think about all the possible dangers in the city, especially at night, and the fact that Anne still had not come home. Stowe would have alerted him if she had.

Where in the deuce is she? It will be coming on midnight soon.

Forcing the unsettling thoughts away, he refocused his attention on Aggies, who was speaking again.

“Afore Smiley disappeared,” Aggies said, “he had word ’o some exchange supposed to take place and the address of an ’ouse in Cheapside. Decent middling sort of place, not the kind you’d think to suspect. I put a man on it to watch. Ordinary couple lives there, husband, wife, pair o’ kids. There weren’t nothing unusual until today.”

Drake met Aggies’s gaze with interest. “Did Jones show up?”

Aggies shook his head. “No, but someone else did.”

Drake waited, taking note of the way the older man was absently turning his hat brim between his fingers in a nervous sideways motion.

“Well?” Drake prompted, wanting to get this interview over, so he could go out and look for Anne. “Who was it?”

Aggies swallowed and stopped turning the hat. “It were someone ye know, my lord. Someone none of us would ever have suspected. It was your housekeeper, Mrs. Greenway.”

Chapter 24

D
rake stared for a long, incomprehensible moment, his fingers grown abruptly still atop his desk. “
What?
” he said dumbly.

“Yer housekeeper. Who would ’ave thought someone so close to ye, someone from yer own household staff, would turn out ter be in league with the other side?”

Drake’s ears began to buzz with an odd sort of hum, his heart contracting in shallow draughts as if it couldn’t quite pump enough blood.

No,
he thought,
there must be some kind of error. Aggies could not have seen Anne doing what he said he had.

“Perhaps you are mistaken and it wasn’t Mrs. Greenway at all,” Drake countered.

Aggies shook his bald head. “Nah, it were her all right. Can’t miss a woman with so many shades o’ color in ’er ’air, an’ such a pretty Nancy besides.”

Drake’s heart gave another thick beat. “Maybe she was at that house for a different reason then. You said yourself the family seems harmless. Her presence could just be a coincidence, and she is nothing more than a friendly acquaintance of theirs.”

Aggies sent him a pitying look. “Might have thought that meself except one of the boys what lives in the house went running with a note as soon as she showed up. He came back near two hours later with another. She left not five minutes after his return, looking grim around the mouth.”

“Go on,” Drake said, forcing himself to take a breath.

“We followed her, of course, to see where she was off to and she led us to St. Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, then straight inside. She slid into a pew and waited. That’s when
he
showed up, Jones. Sat right next to her, and it were clear she knew who ’e was though to her credit she didn’t seem to like ’im much. You could tell from her face that she weren’t happy.”

Drake gripped the arm of his chair, Anne’s lovely face swimming in his mind’s eye as he imagined the scene. “Then what,” he said in a dead voice.

“They talked for minute, Jones lookin’ none too ’appy hisself, as if she’d done somethin’ she weren’t supposed to. Then she handed him a piece ’o paper, and his face cleared up right quick. Bastard smiled this nasty, toothy grin, he did, as if she’d just given ’im the crown jewels.”

Drake’s forehead drew tight as he considered the information. Anne had handed Jones a piece of parchment that visibly pleased him. Drake could think of only one item that fit such a description, and that the French—who he was sure Jones must work for—would give their firstborn to possess.

The cipher.

But it wasn’t possible. Even if Anne had somehow discovered his hidden safe, she wouldn’t have had access to the key. He kept it around his neck four-and-twenty hours a day. Except that lately, he reminded himself, she’d been spending a portion of those hours in his bed, including that first night together when he was sure he’d been drugged.

His scowl deepened at the implications.

“Where is she then?” he demanded, low and strained. “You have her in custody, I presume? And Jones as well?”

Aggies crushed his hat inside his hands. “Well now about that . . . we had ’em cornered right ’n’ tight, but Jones is no rube when it comes to such matters and must have caught wind we were there. Before we realized, he had her up and out through one of the doors behind the altar and into a nearby alley. Disappeared like a pair ’o black cats at midnight.” Pausing, he ran a palm over his smooth pate, eyes averted. “We searched for ’em for hours, which is why I didn’t show up here at yer town house afore now. Plain truth is, the pair ’o ’em could be anywhere by now. Even France.”

Even France?

But Anne was English, or at least he’d thought so until tonight. Now he didn’t know for certain who or what she was. For all he knew, her name wasn’t even Anne Greenway. She could be anyone since clearly she had lied about her reasons for being employed in his house. And in his life. Had she lied about that as well? Had she come to his bed to steal the key, uncaring that she had stolen his heart as well?

His hands turned to fists, sudden anger burning away the sick sensation in his belly, leaving a raw scalding heat in its wake.

And to think I was worried about her when she knew precisely what she was doing. What else had she known?

“Mr. Aggies, would you step out of the room for a moment? Tell Stowe to serve you a libation while you wait. I may have further questions.”

“O’ course, yer lordship. And that’s right generous ’o ye about the drink. I could use a dram after the night I done ’ad.”

Drake waited until Aggies had let himself out of the room and closed the door behind him. The instant he had, Drake sprang to his feet and crossed to the painting that concealed his safe. The chances were infinitesimal that she’d gotten inside and taken the cipher, but he had to know. Taking hold of the chain, he pulled the key from under his neckcloth and off over his head. Fitting it into the lock, he opened the safe with a gentle click.

The cipher was kept inside a small leather sheath that he habitually kept on the right side of the interior. Removing it, the burn in his chest increasing, he untied the fastener.

And there it was, the cipher folded and tucked away exactly as he’d left it. For a moment, he stood unblinking, wondering if Aggies had been wrong after all. Perhaps Anne—or whatever her real name might be—had met with Jones for an entirely different reason; although what that reason might be, he couldn’t fathom. Reaching in, he withdrew the page and opened it to reveal the numbers and symbols of the code, formed in his own distinctive black handwriting. He read it through, just to be sure the mathematical formula was the same, and found that it was. Puzzled but satisfied of its authenticity, he began to put the parchment away.

And that’s when it came to him, drifting upward like a taunt, a silent slap that made his blood run hot and cold at the same time.

The scent of violets.

And Anne.

N
ight darkness lay like a shroud over Sebastianne, the odors of sea brine, sweat and rotting fish permeating the hold of the small sailing vessel that was taking her home to France. The plan was to smuggle her in through Le Havre, since it had been deemed far too likely that the English would be suspicious of any ship making the shorter crossing to Calais.

Weary to the bone and numb with cold, she forced herself not to think of what—or rather whom—she had left behind. Ever since she’d left the town house on Audley Street late yesterday morning with Drake’s cipher burning like a brand in her pocket, she’d been surviving on sheer nerve alone.

Traitor, thief, betrayer had run like a litany through her brain as she’d walked to the rendezvous point in Cheapside. She hadn’t cared if Vacheau might be angry with her for not waiting until the next day to keep their scheduled appointment; she’d just wanted out. The protective house, which was not to be accessed except in an emergency, was the only way she could think of to get a message to him. But as far as she was concerned, the situation constituted an emergency. She didn’t dare remain at Drake’s town house, and who knows what might occur if she stayed in a hotel.

As Lord Drake’s housekeeper—former housekeeper—it was unlikely, but still possible that someone might recognize her, particularly if she stayed in a reputable lodging. As for the disreputable ones, she wasn’t going to risk her personal safety to satisfy Vacheau.

And so she’d gone to the contact house in Cheapside and sent her note.

Just as she’d expected, Vacheau had been furious.

“Didn’t I say I would find you
tomorrow
?” he’d hissed as he slid like a serpent onto the church pew beside her. “Your stupidity might have compromised us.”

But he’d seemed well enough pleased when she’d handed him the cipher. She’d shivered at the soulless smile that had crossed his lips when he’d received his prize.

Soon after, her heart had pounded with fear when he’d told her he believed someone had indeed followed them to the church and was watching. Fearing capture more than Vacheau, now that she’d stolen the cipher, she let him whisk her out of the church and down a series of narrow alleyways until he’d deemed it safe to stop. His concern had nothing to do with her welfare, she knew, but with the plan instead. Her arrest would have instantly alerted the War Office and made Vacheau’s work in England impossible and any chance of escape back to France extremely difficult indeed.

Setting events in motion, he’d put her in a coach bound for Southampton, where a fishing vessel flying a Dutch flag would smuggle her into France. The transfer had gone surprisingly well although she’d been compelled to bribe the ship’s crew for a blanket and something to eat. The bread, cheese and wine she’d been given had proven plain but filling. As for the blanket, it left much to be desired, the wool moth-eaten and musty-smelling.

She was so cold at the moment, though, she didn’t much care, huddling beneath the cover as if it were all that was keeping her from turning to ice. Listening to the chilly waters of the Channel slap rhythmically against the ship’s hull didn’t help matters either, nor did the misery that had settled upon her, thick and impenetrable as a fog.

Ever since Drake had kissed her good-bye, she’d been unable to shake her sorrow. Her heart still beat, but some vital part of her spirit seemed to have died, snuffed out like a guttering candle. Perhaps that was the real reason she couldn’t get warm because there was nothing but ice left inside her.

She wondered where Drake was and what he was doing. He must have returned to the town house by now, the new baby long since born. She wondered if the duchess had given birth to a boy or a girl, and realized she would likely never know. Just as she would know nothing more of Drake unless one of his mathematical exploits made its way into the newspapers or a scientific journal.

What had he thought of her disappearance? The original plan had called for her to hand in her notice in person and depart. But she’d known Drake would ask too many questions if she suddenly announced her decision to leave, and more if she abruptly tried to end their affair.

So she’d done the cowardly thing and left a note in her room, resigning her post. In it, she said only that she’d had a change of heart about the job and living in the city and that she had taken a new post in the countryside. In a way, it had not been a lie. She would be living in countryside, she simply hadn’t mentioned that it would be the French countryside and that her new post consisted of caring for her young brothers and elderly father.

As for her belongings, the few things she truly cared about—a silver-backed hairbrush and comb, a bottle of violet water, and a small brooch she’d brought with her from home—had fit easily inside her reticule. As for the rest—clothes, shoes and other essentials, she’d left behind. They’d been made for her as part of the role she’d played, and she had no use for them anymore. Besides, she would never have been able to carry a portmanteau from the house without notice, or drag it around London as she was fleeing from unknown watchers.

She wished she could have said more in her note. Told him she was sorry. Explained that she’d never meant to cause hurt to him, or any of the others for that matter.

She’d had no choice.

She’d done what she had to do.

But he would care naught for that, particularly if he had any idea what she’d done. Would he realize her true intentions? Would he discover she’d taken the code from his safe?

She’d tried to be careful, copying the cipher in precise detail before returning the original to its proper place. She didn’t believe she’d left any clues, and yet there was always room for error.

Had she made one?

Then again, did it matter any longer? Even if he found out that she’d taken the cipher, he could do nothing to stop its passing into French hands. It was already in their possession since she’d given it to Vacheau the day before, or at least that was what Drake would think.

Because the truth wasn’t always what it seemed.

Aware that Vacheau was both devious and cruel, she knew she couldn’t trust him for an instant. He’d used threats and coercion to force her into his scheme, promising that she and her family would be left alone once the mission succeeded. But she didn’t believe his assurances and feared he would try to double-deal her. Once she returned home, she suspected he might renege on his promises and come up with another “little job” she could do for him. After all, with the cipher in hand, what sway did she have should he and his masters decide they wanted more? She’d been used once, badly, and she had no intention of ever being used again.

And so, unbeknownst to Vacheau, she’d given him only the first part of the formula. The other part, the section of the equation needed to unlock the code, she’d kept for herself. Of course, once Vacheau realized what she’d done, her safety and that of her family, would once again be in jeopardy. Even her life might be in danger.

But by the time he figured it out, her part of the cipher would be hidden somewhere safe, a place Vacheau would never find and that she would die to protect. It was her insurance, her bargaining chip, which she would play in order to win her family’s freedom for good.