To Distraction (21 page)

Inwardly wincing, he turned to Edith. It took him no more than a minute to subvert the conversation, then to separate his and Edith’s discussion from Audrey’s and Lady Cranbrook’s.

“So unfortunate that Phoebe fell ill. Did you and she visit many households today?”

Edith smiled sweetly, encouragingly, up at him. “Only three. Two this morning—old Lady Crenshaw and then later Mrs. Fortinbras, but then this afternoon, Phoebe insisted on calling on Lady Chifley.” Edith heaved a put-upon sigh. “I really don’t know
what
Phoebe was thinking—Lady Chifley is always so tiresome, endlessly reciting all her equally tiresome sons’ exploits, as if they were in any way distinguished.”

A touch of color appeared in Edith’s lined cheeks; she lowered her voice. “Spoiled, you know—every last one.”

“Oh.” Deverell raised his brows, feigning polite interest. In reality, his interest was rabid. “How old are her ladyship’s sons? I don’t believe I’ve ever met them.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t have,” Edith assured him. “They’re much younger. Only the eldest is down from university yet, and although it pains me to be so blunt, Frederick can hardly be termed a welcome addition to the ton.”

Deverell fought to keep a frown from his face. “Why’s that?”

Lips firming, Edith lightly rapped her cane on the floor. “He’s objectionable.
Quite
objectionable.” She met Deverell’s eyes, her normally limpid gaze razor sharp. “Phoebe thought so, too. We met him briefly before we left Lady Chifley this afternoon.”

Deverell looked down into Edith’s old eyes and couldn’t decide if she knew what she was telling him. The terrifying thought bloomed that she did and was doing so deliberately….

He straightened, then swept her a bow. “Pray excuse me.”

Edith smiled, sweet and soft and unterrifying again. “Of course, dear.”

With a nod for Audrey and Lady Cranbrook, he turned on his heel and rapidly quit the ballroom; seconds later, he left the house.

The instant he set foot inside the club, Gasthorpe came hurrying from the back of the hall.

“My lord, Grainger sent a message just five minutes past. About half an hour ago, Miss Malleson drove up in a carriage to the back of the agency. She went in. Shortly after, she and two men—one her groom—came out and they left
all together, once more in her carriage. As per your orders, Grainger remained on watch at the agency.”

Deverell shut the front door behind him and comprehensively swore.

Whisking maids away, objectionable sons. It wasn’t difficult to guess what Phoebe and her agency—he was perfectly sure it was hers—were up to. Or why.

But this…unless managed carefully, “abducting” maids from the center of London was an action guaranteed to be fraught with dangers—plural, not singular.

Mentally kicking himself for not asking Edith the obvious pertinent question, he refocused on Gasthorpe, standing before him, waiting to assist. “Where’s Chifley House?”

A narrow alleyway ran along the backs of the large houses on Dover Street; Deverell found Phoebe, cloaked and hooded, a slighter shadow picking her way down it alongside a bulky, heavier shadow moving with a ponderous, lumbering gait.

A few yards wide, the alley was bounded by the high stone walls along the rear of each property. Sliding into the dense shadows about its mouth, Deverell followed Phoebe and her guard, a good fifty yards behind. He wanted to see what happened, how their “abduction” was orchestrated, before he made his presence known. He’d already identified one major strategic error on their parts and capitalized on it; their carriage was pulled up to the curb on Hay Hill, just past the alley mouth. Their driver sat alert on the box, reins in his hands, ready to drive off, meanwhile keeping watch on the carriages and passersby traveling up and down Berkeley Street across the end of short Hay Hill.

The carriage should have been positioned before the alley mouth, not beyond it. To the inexperienced, beyond seemed safer—easier to leap in and drive off, escaping any pursuers racing up the alley. If the carriage were before the alley
mouth, the pursuers might intercept it—that was how that reasoning went. However, with the driver facing away from the alley mouth, he hadn’t seen Deverell approach from the rear and slide into the shadows, hadn’t noticed him gliding in the wake of Phoebe and her guard.

The lumbering giant, too, although clearly alert and watchful, was searching every shadow except those behind him.

Phoebe slowed, looking up at the backs of the houses. Deverell guessed she was counting; Chifley House was in the middle of the block, halfway down the alley. As she swung to walk on, he noticed she was carrying a small shielded lantern, presently fully shielded. The night was dark, overcast, with no real moonlight; with the tall town houses rising on either side, the alley was one small step from pitch black, yet she made no attempt to use the lantern to light her way.

The damned woman knew what she was doing was dangerous. That she should do everything possible not to draw attention to her presence in the alley.

Lips grimly set, Deverell hugged the darkest, densest shadows along the opposite wall and steadily closed the distance between them.

The giant reached out and touched Phoebe’s shoulder. When she halted and looked his way, he gestured to a door set in the grimy alley wall.

Again, Phoebe looked back along the alley, scanning the houses; her gaze didn’t swing far enough to detect Deverell, now twenty yards away.

Phoebe nodded. Deverell strained his ears, but neither she nor her guard spoke. The giant reached for the door latch and lifted it, but it was locked. Phoebe stepped closer; partially unshielding her lantern, she shone a narrow beam on the old, heavy lock as the giant crouched down and went to work on it.

Deverell could have had it open in seconds; the giant took
two minutes, but eventually he rose and nodded to Phoebe. He lifted the latch and eased the door open just enough to confirm that it was no longer barred. Then he glanced at Phoebe.

She looked down, fiddling with the lantern, then looked up and nodded to the giant.

He swung the door open, held it wide with one huge paw, stepping across Phoebe, shielding her with his bulk. Phoebe ducked and angled the lantern beneath his brawny arm, then unshielded it.

The light beamed out, then was shuttered. Once, twice. Then came a pause, a count of seven, followed by one last flash of light, then Phoebe stepped back, reshielding the lantern. The giant pulled back, swinging the door almost closed—then they waited.

Seconds ticked by, then the quiet was broken by a distant shout, muffled within walls. Before the sound faded, pattering footsteps, faint, then growing louder, reached Deverell’s ears.

He saw the startled glance Phoebe shot the giant, then another muted bellow reached them, this time more definitely from within Chifley House.

The footsteps reached a frantic crescendo. The garden door was wrenched open; the giant stepped back as another female figure, hooded and wrapped in a cloak with a small traveling bag clutched to her chest, shot out into the alley.

It was instantly apparent that something was wrong. Babbling hysterically, the maid pointed frantically back at the house.

Phoebe and the giant looked.

From the house, a furious male voice rang out, then pounding footsteps rattled like gunfire in the night, racing closer.

Phobe swooped, putting her arm around the maid, urging her to flee.

The giant swore, hauled the door shut and turned, sweeping his arms, protectively herding Phoebe and the maid on.

The door at his back flew open.

A young man appeared, lips drawn back in a vicious snarl. He took in the figures before him in a blink; before the giant could turn, he raised his arm high. Deverell heard the blow rather than saw it—deduced the cosh the young man had used on the giant before he saw it dangling from the man’s hand.

The giant crumpled and went down.

Poised in the shadows, every muscle tensed to act, Deverell waited, willing Phoebe to travel the few yards more to take her past him, so neither she nor the maid would be between him and their attacker.

But Phoebe had heard the giant’s grunt; she glanced back and saw him hit the ground. With a stifled cry, she pushed the maid on. Completely disregarding the vicious gentleman clambering over the giant’s fallen bulk, she rushed back, her attention fixed solely on the giant.

Deverell bit back an oath and glided forward, still concealed by the dense shadows.

To his surprise, the gentleman didn’t spare Phoebe so much as a glance but, swearing like a trooper, started after the fleeing maid. He still carried the cosh in one hand and hefted a suspiciously thin walking stick in the other.

The maid glanced back, saw; with a smothered sob, she came stumbling along. Deverell stepped out of the deeper shadows into the middle of the lane—into her path. She shrieked as he materialized in front of her. His gaze beyond her, fixed on the gentleman—presumably the eldest Chifley scion—he caught the woman by her shoulders, in a few efficient moves divested her of her cloak, then pushed her on. “Go! There’s a carriage waiting at the end.”

He’d kept his voice low, but his tone wasn’t one any sane
person questioned. Terrified, the maid gulped and fled.

As he’d expected, Chifley took him—a tall, large male shielding his fleeing quarry—for another lumbering guard. Spewing profanity, Chifley tossed aside the cosh and ripped the scabbard from his swordstick.

Brandishing the lethal blade, he came at Deverell.

Balanced on the balls of his feet, Deverell waited, still helpfully cloaked in shadows…until just the right moment to whip the cloak up, entangling the slim blade. Then he twisted and wrenched.

Chifley made a gurgling sound of surprise as the rapier was hauled from his grasp.

Deverell flung both blade and cloak aside, unbalancing Chifley. It was so easy after that. One powerful punch driven from the shoulder connected perfectly with Chifley’s outthrust jaw and the bastard’s eyes rolled up, then silently, like a limp rag, he sank to the ground.

A panicked sound from behind him had Deverell glancing back. Contrary to all wisdom, the maid had stopped, perhaps paralyzed by fear. Her back to the stone wall, one fist pressed to her mouth, she was battling to hold back hysterical sobs. She was quivering uncontrollably.

He held up a hand, palm out. “Stay there.”

Eyes huge, she managed a shaky nod.

Turning, he swiftly scanned the backs of the nearby houses. People had to have heard; they had no more than minutes if they were to get away unseen.

A few quick strides brought him to Phoebe and the giant. She’d managed to wrestle the huge man into a sitting position against the wall. Ignoring her and her utterly shocked gaze, he bent and spoke to the giant. “How bad is it?”

One hand to his head, the man glanced up at him, then winced. “Near to cracked m’skull.” He sucked in a breath, then added weakly, “Luckily, it’s thick.”

Deverell managed to make out the words through the giant’s heavy Scots accent. He nodded, then reached for Phoebe; closing his hands about her shoulders, he physically lifted her and set her on her feet. “Get the maid, and get into the carriage.”

His tone brooked no argument, no dissension; when she hesitated, looking down at the giant, Deverell gritted his teeth and tersely added,
“Now!”

Even she heard the warning. With a wary glance at him, she went.

Deverell shifted to the giant’s side; as the man struggled to his feet, Deverell grasped one huge arm, ducked, and, pulling the arm over his shoulder, hauled the man upright.

He was unsteady on his feet; clamping one arm across the man’s back, Deverell guided him up the alley. Glancing ahead, he saw Phoebe shaking out the cloak she’d disentangled from the rapier, then she swung it about the maid’s shoulders and solicitously urged her on.

“Thank ye.” The giant staggered forward as fast as he could; he’d accepted Deverell and his help without hesitation. “Someone musta heard that rooster. I’m thinking we need out of here right quick, afore they gather their courage and come looking.”

“I’m glad to hear one of your little band has some sense.” Ahead, Phoebe and the maid reached the mouth of the alley and turned toward the carriage.

“Aye, well. It’s the first time anything’s gone wrong.” As they lurched toward the alley mouth, the giant added, “I keep telling her it ain’t safe, specially fer the likes of her, but will she listen?”

Deeming the question rhetorical, Deverell made no answer. He was, however, determined that when he spoke to her, Phoebe would definitely listen—and learn.

Fifteen minutes later, he looked out of the carriage window as the huge trees of Hyde Park slipped past.

They’d escaped the alley and Hay Hill without anyone seeing them. Reaching the alley mouth, he’d seen Phoebe hovering before the open carriage door, watching. She’d caught his eye, and even over the distance she’d sensed his displeasure. Turning, she’d quickly clambered into the carriage.

He’d bundled the giant in, then followed, creating a crisis. With both him and the giant inside, space was tight; he’d ended sitting alongside Phoebe, with the still shivering maid opposite and the giant, whom he’d recognized as Phoebe’s groom, wedged into the corner opposite Phoebe.

She was worried about the giant. In light of that, he’d held his tongue, biding his time. He would much rather have been across from Phoebe, able to see her face; as it was, in between quick, concerned glances at the giant, she kept it studiously averted.

Regardless of what she thought, what he could imagine she might fondly wish, she wasn’t going to be able to fob him off, not after this evening’s work.

And once he’d learned the whole of her secret, again no matter what she might fondly wish, she would not—not ever again—embark on any similarly dangerous enterprise such as he’d stumbled on—and rescued her from—tonight.

Just the thought of what might have happened had he not followed her…

Jaw setting, he kept his gaze on the park and continued to keep his thoughts to himself. For the moment.