“How far down are you?” Solomon asked, gazing around the warehouse to find anything that might help him get Aldric out of the hole.
“Five or six feet. Not far, but I do not see anything I can use to climb up with.”
“I see a rope hanging on the wall. I will get you out.”
Concerned about the weakness of the remaining floor, Solomon trotted to the cobweb covered rope on the wall and took it down. Uncoiling it, he thought it just might be long enough to throw over a beam above the hole and cast it down to Aldric. It was, and Solomon hoped he had the strength to pull Aldric’s dead weight up.
“Tie that around your waist,” he said, gazing down even if he could see nothing.
“You cannot pull me up by yourself,” Aldric protested. “Fetch some help.”
“There is no one around and you are bleeding. I would use one of the horses, but I do not think the floor can withstand their weight.”
“Most likely not.”
“Tell me when you have the rope tied securely.”
“It is.”
Taking the other end, Solomon threw it over his shoulder and hurled all his weight against it. The rope wanted to slide out of his grip, burning, but he held onto it tightly. Groaning with the effort, he took one slow step at a time, straining, cursing under his breath. Behind him, he felt Aldric’s body rise, slowly, but he heard nothing from his friend.
Fearing the rope was cutting off Aldric’s breath, he redoubled his effort, throwing his considerable weight into hauling his friend higher and then higher still. Five feet. I can do five feet. Bent nearly in half, the rope crushing his shoulder, Solomon inched further away from the hole, knowing that if the rope slid through his hands or he stumbled, Aldric would tumble back down inside. And Solomon might not be able to try again.
Forcing greater strength into his muscles and his back, Solomon took two more firm strides forward, then felt some slack in the rope. Pitching his body forward another two steps, he heard Aldric scrambling to gain a handhold on the wooden floor. “I am up,” he gasped.
Spinning, Solomon dropped the rope and dashed back, reaching for Aldric’s wrist. Fearing the floorboards would cave in under both of them, he hurled himself backward, dragging Aldric with him. Nor did he stop until they were both safely away from the gaping hole and close to the door. Gasping for breath, he helped Aldric to sit, then slumped to the floor beside him.
“Are – are you all right?” he asked, breathing hard.
Aldric tried to untie the knot in the rope around his chest, but it had drawn too tight for him to loosen easily. “Killing me,” he muttered thickly.
Kneeling beside him, Solomon worked the knot and finally freed Aldric’s chest from it. He noticed dark red blood staining Aldric’s grey trousers and coat, and pulled the coat away from his torso. “Think you can ride?” he asked, seeing Aldric’s white shirt stained red. “I think the bleeding has stopped.”
Aldric nodded, his hair falling across his brow, his cheeks stained with dirt and blood. “I can ride.”
Standing, Solomon helped Aldric to rise with his hand gripping his wrist, then eyed Aldric closely, observing his greyish pallor. “Are you sure?”
Aldric raised a faint grin. “I have little choice. You certainly cannot carry me home.”
Aldric limped as he walked beside Solomon back down the road where they had left the horses, but seemed otherwise all right after his fall. Solomon flexed some of the soreness from his shoulder, feeling grateful he was able to pull Aldric up. “Do you have someone to look after your wounds?” he asked.
“There is a physician not far from my home,” Aldric replied. “Perhaps once you see me in, you will be good enough to send him along to me.”
“Of course I will.”
Aldric mounted his horse with difficulty, but once he was in the saddle, he smiled wanly down at Solomon. “I forgot my manners it would appear. Thank you for the rescue.”
“It was my fault you were there,” Solomon replied, swinging up onto his stallion. “My apologies for placing you in danger.”
With a snort, Aldric replied, “Nonsense. There is always a risk when inspecting old buildings like these. I will be fine in a few days.”
Riding away from the river and the deathtrap of a warehouse, Solomon and Aldric reached the main thoroughfare through London. Riding at a quiet walk amid the rushing traffic, it took them nearly an hour to reach Aldric’s home. By that time, Aldric was clearly in pain and his pallor had increased alarmingly. Footmen rushed from the door to help their master down from his horse, and Solomon dismounted to see Aldric inside and cared for before he departed.
Aldric’s young wife, Lady Stephanie, cried out in alarm as she found her husband being half carried and half dragged up the stairs. “What happened? Your Grace?”
She barely remembered to curtsey as Solomon stepped toward her. “He fell through the rotten planks of a warehouse,” he said gently. “Can you please send for a physician and bring him along here to care for Aldric?”
Lady Stephanie nodded, and catching the attention of a footman, ordered him to fetch the physician. Then she hurried up the stairs after her husband and the footmen. Solomon retraced his steps to return outside, then mounted his stallion as Aldric’s grooms came to take his horse to care for. Undecided, Solomon chewed his lower lips and he fought to decide what to do. While he wanted very much to be at Aldric’s side, he also needed to find Thomas and consider their next step in discovering who was trying to kill him. Finally admitting to himself there was little he could do for Aldric at the moment, he turned his stallion toward the Wolcott townhouse.
***
Miss Teresa Wolcott
Teresa’s current bodyguard was not nearly as friendly or sociable as Mr. Simms, and she did not like him at all. He sat most of the last few days on a stool in the kitchen without speaking a word to anyone in the family. When Teresa went out to shop the markets for teas that might assuage Amelia’s nausea, he loomed over her like monolith, following her so closely that her chest grew tight enough to start closing off her ability to breathe.
When she turned to demand he step away from her and give her space, one glance into his stony expression and fierce dark eyes made her swallow her words without uttering them. Had not Solomon assured her that these men were honorable, she would have insisted he leave the house. She dared not, and learned to tolerate his gloomy silences and lack of anything resembling respect.
“This tea really seems to help my nausea,” Amelia said, sipping from her cup as they sat together in the reading room. “Thank you for getting it for me.”
“I am glad,” Teresa replied, glancing up from her book, her own cup at her elbow. “Your color appears more natural now.”
Amelia gazed down at the swelling under her gown. “Six more months and our son will arrive,” she murmured with a smile.
“You truly think you will have a boy?” Teresa asked, setting her book aside.
Amelia glanced up. “I do. I feel it in my heart that I am carrying our first son.”
“There is an old woman at the market who claims she can determine the gender of an unborn baby,” Teresa commented. “Do you want to go see her?”
“No, sweetheart,” Amelia replied. “I prefer to trust my heart, and not some witch out to make a wild guess for my coin.”
“Well, she would be only half right,” Teresa said with a laugh.
A knock at the door interrupted her and Elsa entered before either of them could respond. “His Grace, the Duke of Thornehill wishes to see you.”
Solomon loomed in the doorway behind the small Elsa, appearing disheveled and dirty, his coat filthy and torn in places, with dark smudges on his cheeks. Alarm filled Teresa as she rose to curtsey.
“Sol?” she asked. “What happened?”
He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I had hoped to find your brother here,” he said. “Might I impose upon you ladies until he returns?”
“Of course, Your Grace,
” Amelia answered, “please come sit here. This is the most comfortable chair.”
Solomon smiled. “I would not take that from you in your condition, Mrs. Wolcott. I will be fine right here.”
“Elsa, please bring tea for His Grace,” Teresa ordered.
Elsa curtsied and hurried out, but left the door open. “Will you tell us what happened?” she asked when the girl had gone.
He sighed. “Our trap worked,” he said heavily. “We caught Albert Johnson.”
“But that is excellent news.”
“He is not talking, however,” he went on with a quick glance at them both. “I had hoped Thomas was here and might inform me if any progress was made in getting him to be a bit more cooperative.”
“Is that how you came to be in such a state, Your Grace?” Amelia asked.
Solomon glanced down at himself. “No. My friend, the Earl of Oakshire, fell through some rotten wood in a warehouse we were looking at. I had to pull him out.”
Teresa exchanged a long look with Amelia. “Will he be all right?”
“I hope so.”
“Sol,” Teresa began slowly. “You do not think that was a potential trap for you – do you?”
Solomon stared at her. “I did not think so at the time,” he replied. “Now I am not so sure.”
“What an evil world we live in,” Amelia stated.
“Yes, it is,” Solomon agreed. “I will go back to that warehouse tomorrow and take a closer look at the flooring. I was far too concerned with Lord Oakshire’s injuries to question it.”
“Had you been alone and fallen in,” Teresa went on, her worry for Solomon growing, “you might not have been found.”
He smiled, but even Teresa recognized its lack of sincerity. “Someone would have found me. That area is sparsely populated, true, but there are folks around there.”
“Perhaps you should have a bodyguard,” Teresa complained. “Please take mine away from me.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Teresa does not like him,” Amelia confided. “Nor do I, for that matter. He never speaks and seems more like a villain than a protector.”
Solomon pursed his lips briefly. “I will look into it, ladies.”
Elsa brought a fresh pot of tea with cups and plates of biscuits. Setting the tray on a table, she poured for the Duke first, and handed him a plate with a small dip of her knee, then served Teresa and Amelia. Retreating, she left the room, and nearly collided with Thomas as he entered.
Dodging the small maid, he bowed to Solomon. “I fear I do not have good news for you,” he said, pulling up a chair for himself and slumping into it. “Johnson refuses to say a word. I put my best man on interrogating him, but thus far he is proving tough.”
“Stay with it,” Solomon replied with a small smile.
Thomas looked him up and down. “You did not look that bad when I left you earlier today.”
Teresa stood up to pour Thomas a cup of tea and took it to him as Solomon explained how Lord Oakshire went through the planks in the warehouse. Thomas frowned. “It sounds like a trap. And does this prove Oakshire’s innocence?”
“I wish I knew on both counts. Will you go back there with me and help me determine if this was a true misadventure or a planned attack?”
“Yes, of course I will.”
“Surely he is innocent of trying to harm you, Sol,” Teresa commented, setting the pot back after refreshing Sol’s and Amelia’s tea. “A guilty man would not place himself in a deadly situation just to prove he is not guilty. Would he?”
“He may not wish to harm me,” Sol answered sadly. “Nor does it prove he is not the one stealing from me.”
“I will get a few hours sleep this night,” Thomas told him, “and search Edward Crane’s office in the early morning hours.”
“Thank you. I also hope and pray he is not the one stealing from me,” Sol went on, his expression gloomier than normal. Finishing his tea, he stood up, forcing Teresa, Amelia and Thomas to also stand. “I am going back to the Oakshire house,” he said. “I want to see how Aldric is faring. Thank you for your hospitality. Please sit, I can show myself out.”
As Thomas bowed and Teresa and Amelia curtsied, Solomon left the room and vanished down the stairs. “I hope his friend will be all right,” Teresa murmured, sitting back down.
“I met him today,” Thomas said with a sigh, rubbing his eyes. “He seems like a good man.”
“Will you be able to get this man to talk, Thomas?” Teresa asked.
Her brother gazed at her, his expression both weary and worried. “I truly do not know, little sister.”
***
Deeply asleep, Teresa dreamed of Solomon kissing her amid laughter and plans for their wedding when the shattering of glass downstairs woke her. The dream vanished as she sat up in her bed, alarm racing through her veins. Hastily donning a robe, she opened her door to find Amelia, frightened, emerging from her door. “What happened?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“Oh, God.”
Teresa stared down the staircase at the red orange glow of flames below them. “The house is on fire. Is Thomas gone?”
“What? Yes, he is.”
Teresa grabbed her by the arm. “We have to hurry before the flames spread. Come on.”
Hurrying Amelia down the stairs, she saw her bodyguard beating at the flames in the drawing room with a blanket, but despite his efforts, the flames burned through the carpeting, spreading eagerly to the furniture and climbed the walls. “Leave it,” Teresa screamed at him, opening the front door and shoving Amelia out.
The man ignored her. Turning, Teresa rushed to the small room at the back of the house where the cook and Elsa slept. Bursting through their door, she woke them, tossing them clothing. “We have to get out now. The house is on fire.”
In near panic, the women threw robes on over their night clothes. Urging them out, Teresa discovered that in her absence the lower level of the townhouse had filled up with smoke. Voices shouted, and she heard coughing as the mercenaries called her name. “Coming,” she yelled back, finding her own lungs filling with hot, acrid air.
Coughing, her eyes tearing from the heat and smoke, she pushed the others ahead of her toward the front door. The fire ate through the wooden bannister and crawled up the stairs, the kitchen and breakfast room already engulfed. The intense heat crisped her skin, and she found her robe on fire. Panicking, she tore it off, feeling the flesh of her hands, arm and neck burn even as she dropped it and ran toward the group of men.
The cook and Elsa stumbled through the door, coughing, weeping and retching. Rushing forward down the hall, her foot struck something hard and unyielding, sending her sprawling headlong into the burning carpet.
Teresa screamed.
Chapter 19
Solomon Eli Dunn, the Duke of Thornehill
Awakened by the pounding of a fist on his door, Solomon rolled out of bed, reaching for his trousers. “Your Grace!” In the other chamber, Jack hurriedly lit a lamp, and wearing a dressing gown, opened it onto an agitated Jarvis Hall. With only a cursory bow, Solomon’s butler entered the room.
“A man is here, Your Grace,” Jarvis said, his normal toneless voice filled with concern. “He says he must see you immediately. It appears there was a fire at the Wolcott residence.”
Solomon swore, making Jarvis wince at his language. “Tell the grooms to saddle my horse.”
Jarvis bowed and left, leaving Solomon to finish dressing. Forgoing a waistcoat and cravat, he threw a coat on over his white shirt, and sat on a chair as he yanked on his boots.
Taking the stairs three at a time, he found Jonas Simms’ second in command, Anson Walters, in the entryway. He bowed as Solomon leaped to his side.
“What the hell happened?” Solomon barked.
“A horseman, Your Grace,” Walters explained as he strode beside Solomon out the door. “He had a flaming bottle and threw it through the window. We ran to catch him, but he was gone before we got close.”
<
br /> “Was anyone at the townhouse hurt?”
Jogging across his lawn toward his stable, Solomon was nearly halfway there when he realized Walters had not replied. Half turning, he hesitated, his worry growing. “What are you not telling me?”
“Miss Wolcott was burned, Your Grace.”
Choking on his fear and useless cursing, Solomon resumed his run to the stable. A lamp had been lit inside as he ran in, his grooms saddling one of his horses. “Get on that one,” he barked at Walters.
Title Sinful Tales of Desirable Ladies Page 46
