His expression unchanging, Montague held Violet’s gaze for several seconds, then he sighed and, rather bleakly, looked at Stokes. “If that’s the case—and I agree it might well be—then our chances of identifying that debt, which might have been incurred more than a decade ago, are . . .”
“Not nil, but as near as makes no difference?” Stokes supplied.
Lips setting, Montague nodded. “Much as it hurts to admit it, yes.”
Rose glanced at Thomas, but his expression was as bleak as Montague’s, and he said nothing.
Glancing around, Rose cleared her throat. “I acknowledge that we’ve had no suggestion of any attack against William since we arrived in London, but I have to admit . . .” She drew breath and felt Thomas shift; his hand closed over one of hers, and she lifted her head and continued, “To an increasing nervousness over how much longer our luck will hold.”
Rather than dismissing her concerns, Barnaby gravely inclined his head. “I feel the same—the sense of a clock ticking, of time running out.”
Stokes nodded curtly; Griselda looked sympathetic.
Sitting back, Violet stated, “I can only imagine the anxiety you must feel, waiting for the moment when something does happen.”
“Exactly,” Rose said.
Somewhat to her surprise, sitting beside her, Penelope, who had been frowning at the carpet, sighed heavily. Raising her head, she looked at the others, then grimaced. “As to something happening, I’m not sure that something hasn’t.”
“What?” Stokes asked, instantly alert.
Penelope held up a staying hand. “This happened this afternoon, and I have no idea how meaningful it might be. It was when we were coming out of the lacemaker’s shop in Conduit Street.” Penelope glanced at Rose. “Our last stop, and the carriage was there, by the curb, waiting.” Penelope looked at Stokes. “Some man, a gentleman’s gentleman by his attire, came walking around the corner from Savile Row. He saw us—and stopped and stared. He looked at Rose, then at Homer and Pippin. We were all there, gathering to get into the carriage. Then he saw Conner and James, and he turned around and walked quickly away.” Penelope glanced at Rose. “I would lay odds he recognized Rose and Homer.” Penelope looked back at Stokes. “But it all happened so quickly, I can’t be certain I would recognize the man if I saw him again.”
Silence held for several moments, then Stokes blew out a breath and sat back. “Well, I’d say that’s torn it, but it was bound to happen sometime, and at least there was no immediate danger.”
“I suspect,” Barnaby said, his tone much harder, “that from this point on, we should assume that Percival knows that Rose and the children are in town.”
“At least he won’t know where they are,” Griselda said.
Under cover of the wider discussion, Rose turned to Penelope. “You didn’t say anything this afternoon.”
Penelope met her gaze. “I didn’t want you to react in front of the children, and later . . . well, there was no point. The damage, whatever it might prove to be, was already done, I knew you would be bringing the children here tonight, and so you and they are still safe and guarded, and telling you then . . .” Penelope looked into her eyes. “You would only have worried for longer.”
Rose couldn’t deny that; with a wry grimace, she accepted the explanation, felt Penelope squeeze her fingers and squeezed briefly back, then they both returned their attention to the discussion that had raged, but which, it seemed, had already reached consensus.
“So we’re in agreement,” Barnaby stated. “We’ve become distracted by our investigation and have forgotten the simple fact that Rose heard Richard Percival declare himself a murderer and state that his next target was William. It was that unequivocal statement, directly from him, that started this entire sequence of events. As identifying his motive for the initial murders is taking too long, and, indeed, may never be achieved, we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by pursuing the alternative strategy of proving Percival’s guilt via his intent toward William.” Barnaby glanced around the circle. “In short, we need to set a trap and lure him into incriminating himself.”
Stokes didn’t disagree, but he wasn’t happy. “Trapping him, meaning catching him in some revealing act and thus unequivocally demonstrating his intent, might sound easy, but it has to be very craftily done so that there’s no chance he can explain his actions in any acceptable way.”
All eight of them fell silent, thinking of what scenarios might serve.
It was Stokes who, eyes narrow, eventually suggested, “If we can set things up so that Percival turns up at a certain spot in the clear expectation of illicitly seizing the boy . . . put together with what Rose heard him say, that ought to do it.”
“Indeed.” Thomas’s voice was harder, colder, and more utterly implacable than Rose had ever heard it. As she glanced at him, he continued, his expression matching his tone, “But we cannot risk Homer—William—even for that. Even to secure his ultimate safety.” No one argued; along with Rose, the others all waited.
Thomas seemed to look inward, then, lips cynically twisting, he refocused and glanced around. “Courtesy of my past, I’m really very good at devising schemes. So . . . what about this?”
The plan he outlined was straightforward and clear, and not at all difficult to execute. More, even Rose could see how it would play into Richard’s desires, how it would, indeed, lure rather than overtly force.
Stokes, Barnaby, and Montague all grew increasingly eager; Violet and Penelope both grew animated, adding various touches of verisimilitude to the evolving plot.
Even Griselda ultimately gave a nod of matriarchal approval.
Finally, Thomas turned to Rose; on the sofa between them, he gently grasped her hand. “We can plot and plan and hold ready to act, but it’s you who must decide.” He searched her eyes, then arched a brow. “Will you trust us to pull this off?”
Drawing in a breath, she looked around at the faces, all eager, but waiting on her word, then she looked back at Thomas, met his eyes, and faintly smiled. “Yes. Of course.”
That decision hadn’t been difficult; Rose trusted Thomas—with herself, with the children, on every level and in every way.
When, with their plan fully detailed and everything arranged, they’d finally left Albemarle Street, Pippin had been too deeply asleep to rouse, so Thomas had carried her. Rose hadn’t been certain he could manage it, but he’d settled Pippin in the crook of one arm, held her safely against his chest as he’d negotiated the three steps down to the pavement, then, used to the awkwardness, it seemed, he had pulled himself up and had ducked into Penelope’s waiting carriage without even jiggling Pippin.
When they’d reached the hotel, he’d continued carrying the sleeping child upstairs to their suite and on into the children’s bedroom, with Rose steering a sleepy Homer in their wake.
She and Thomas had switched charges and, between them, got the children into their beds; both were asleep before, following Thomas from the room, Rose drew the door shut behind her.
She followed Thomas into their bedroom. As the distraction of having things to do—children to manage, other people to speak with—faded, her mind calmed and her rising anxiety shone through.
Not for William; he wouldn’t be anywhere near danger and would be kept safely guarded throughout. Thomas’s plan had ensured that.
It was Thomas who was the focus of her concern, his safety the question that now dominated her mind.
That, and the prospect of losing him.
When he turned and glanced at her, she smiled and went forward. To him, into his arms.
He was a little surprised, clearly wondering at her tack; they usually undressed separately. But he closed his arms around her and looked down into her face.
Studied it, then his gaze steadied on hers and he raised his brows.
She looked into his eyes, into the crystalline-sharp medley of greens and golds, and saw him, the real him, the gentle, loving, caring man he now
was, looking back at her, and she simply said, “I don’t want to talk.”
Freeing her arms, she reached up and framed his face, setting her palms to his lean cheeks, one perfect and cool, the other knotted with scars; the feel of both was now dear to her—a distinguishing feature that meant him. “Not about anything.”
Stretching up, she set her lips to his and kissed him—supped from his lips, and in return allowed all the pent-up yearning inside her, all the feelings that were welling and burgeoning, to flow through the caress into him.
She might have loved him before, but now she knew the depth of her longing, the breadth and strength and power—the reality of what he now meant to her.
He was safety and security; he was passion and wonder.
He was joy.
The kiss deepened, and she encouraged, evoked, and set the magic free so that it could sweep them both away.
As ever, he went with her, ready and willing to follow wherever in their landscape of passion and desire she led.
Drawing back from the heated melding of their mouths, feeling desire rising in a warm wave beneath her skin, with passion already a low thunder in her veins, she stepped away and disrobed . . . for him.
He held still and, his chest rising and falling dramatically, watched her unveil herself, the gold in his eyes glinting hot as the flames that rose beneath her skin.
Naked, bathed in the wanton glow of her desire combined with his, sensing the power that was hers flowing through her, she returned to him, placed her hands on his chest, stretched up—and touched her scorching lips to his.
The kiss scalded; their tongues tangled and flames ignited, desire erupting, hotter and sharper—more compelling.
She broke from the engagement, drawing back, stepping back.
He made an inarticulate sound and reached for her, but she caught his wrists, trapped his gaze. “No—let me.”
He hesitated; eyes locked with hers, he teetered . . . but then he hauled in a huge breath, and nodded.
Once. As if once was all he could manage.
She didn’t ask for more, but set herself to strip him. Slowly, lingeringly.
Drinking him in.
She had no guarantee that this wouldn’t be the last time, the last chance Fate allowed her to set her hands to his skin, to pay homage to the undeniable strength of the heavy muscles cording his torso. His injuries had distorted what must once have been male perfection; he was no longer symmetrically shaped, but in her eyes, that only added to his beauty.
He was real. No polished god, no false icon.
He was true. Steady and strong, and always as he appeared.
And that, she worshipped. All that he now was.
Just as he had committed, unasked and willingly, to give his all—his freedom, his future, his life if need be—to saving William and freeing her, too, so she, now, gave herself to him.
Without reservation, without restraint.
Without guarantees.
Without thought for tomorrow.
She put all her anxieties aside and devoted herself to this, to now, to him.
To them.
As she had accepted, so, too, did he—guided, it seemed, more by instinct, by fate, than by any logic or deliberate thought.
Thomas couldn’t think, too overwhelmed by the feelings. Not by their passions, not by their desires, potent though both were.
It was that deeper power—the one he still refused to name, still refused to acknowledge because he couldn’t bring himself to believe he would be allowed to keep it—that surged through him and overwhelmed his mind, leaving him no option than to follow her lead, to let her take his hand and lead him to the bed.
They sank into each other’s arms; eyes wide, gazes locked, they caressed, and knew again.
Learned again all the joys they’d previously found, indulged again. With passion and abandon, with growing hunger and escalating need, they gave and took, and shared.
They came together in a rush of wild delight, on a sweeping flight of passion so intense he could barely breathe.
He bent his head and their lips locked; his body surged and plundered, and hers flowered in welcome and she clung.
They rode their wild ride into the heart of passion’s storm, up and over the crest into ecstasy.
Into the sun of that ineluctable glory, to where their senses fragmented and their souls fractured, then melded into one.
To where bliss waited to cradle and soothe them, to fill the achingly empty void.
To where togetherness and closeness welled and overflowed, and eradicated the loneliness of two originally separate hearts.
Later, long after they’d eased apart, turned down the lamp, and drawn the covers over their cooling bodies, Rose lay in Thomas’s arms and listened to the slow cadence of his sleeping heart.
For long moments, she simply wallowed.
Of their own volition, as if instinctively seeking to imprint every last minute detail of him on her senses, her hands gently drifted over his damaged side, her fingertips tracing his scars, the knots, whorls, and ridges she’d come to know so well.
Those scars marked him more than he realized; they were the physical signs that he had changed so very much from the man he once had been. They were the markers of his journey; they stood in silent testimony to how far he’d traveled from the identity that now threatened to reach out and reclaim him, and make him pay for those past sins.
And what of her?
Was she to pay, too?
If she lost him, she would. And if it came to that, she would.
If Fate forced her to let him go, she would.
Not for Fate, but for him.
Because she knew what he thought, knew how he saw himself; she knew she had to let him walk into the darkness of whatever lay ahead—so he could learn what lay beyond.
And so she would.
But until she knew that there was no hope, no possibility, not even a tiny kernel, until the last bell tolled, she would fight and hold fast. To the chance, to the promise.
To their love.
Chapter
13
They set their plan in motion the next morning. Regardless of to whom the man who had recognized Rose and William might report, the risk that Percival had already been notified that William was in London, most likely in Mayfair, left them no real choice—no further time to investigate.
As William’s principal guardian, if Percival got William into his hands, getting the boy free again . . . none of them felt confident that could even be done. Rose’s testimony alone could be too easily dismissed as the hysterical imaginings of a female mind weakened by understandable grief.
Stokes reached Hertford Street before the bells tolled eight, and he joined his man on the South Audley Street corner. Dressed in an old coat the better to blend with his men, Stokes nodded to O’Donnell. “Any movement?”
“No, sir. Not yet.” O’Donnell, again dressed in the garb of a street-sweeper, leaned on his broom. “But Morgan slipped close before first light and pushed your note under the front door, just as you ordered. The maids would’ve found it by now.”
Stokes nodded. Their scheme to elicit a sufficiently incriminating reaction from Percival was simplicity itself. The note in question, courtesy of Phelps, Barnaby’s coachman, written in an unpolished, masculine hand, read:
We heard as you want the boy, William Percival, to disappear. If such is the case, bring one thousand pounds to the Salisbury Stairs at eleven o’clock today and speak to the man in the plaid cap and mayhap we’ll be able to help you out.
With advice from Barnaby and Montague, Thomas had crafted the wording. When, on reading the script, Stokes had looked doubtful, Thomas had pointed out that if Richard Percival was an honest man, on receiving such a note, his first stop would be Scotland Yard. If, instead, he elected to go to the Salisbury Stairs and paid the cash, what would that say of his motives?
Stokes had had to agree. If Percival left his house and went to the Sal
isbury Stairs, a set of water steps on the banks of the Thames, and paid the man in the plaid cap one thousand pounds . . . together with Rose’s testimony, that would be enough to at least get Percival into police custody. And then they would have time to wring more from him, his staff, Curtis, and whoever else Percival had been consorting with.
Thomas. Stokes realized he’d thought of the man by his first name, not the more distant Glendower. Stokes wasn’t sure when the change had occurred, when he’d started acknowledging the man more personally, but after last night, when Stokes had seen Thomas carrying young Pippin to the carriage, seen the nature of his smile as he’d encouraged Homer—William—to follow with Rose, Stokes couldn’t doubt the reality of the man’s feelings toward his charges, charges he hadn’t had to assume yet had, apparently without hesitation.
The feelings that had shone so clearly in Thomas’s face were feelings with which Stokes was intimately familiar. The fact that Griselda, who was no easy mark, and who, Stokes had been aware, had observed Thomas with an initially highly critical eye, had been moved to wholeheartedly approve of the man—not his standing, his actions, but the man himself—had further shifted and solidified Stokes’s view.
Quite how this would end Stokes didn’t know, but he no longer bore Thomas any ill will. The man had paid, comprehensively and on many levels, for his past misdeeds. If Fate consented to allow him a second chance, Stokes, for one, wouldn’t stand in his way.
Beside Stokes, O’Donnell shifted. “Daresay we won’t see any action until himself consents to get out of bed.”
Stokes considered, then grimaced. “We wrote ‘Urgent’ on the note, so with any luck his staff will see the sense in putting it on his breakfast tray and setting that before him soon.” He pulled out his watch and consulted it. It was already fifteen minutes past eight o’clock. “He’ll have to move by ten-thirty at the latest if he’s to reach the Salisbury Stairs in time.”
Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) Page 26
