Nowhere Near Respectable

by Mary Jo Putney

  This accident had already cut into the margin of time before the ceremony. Trying not to fidget visibly, Kiri inquired, “Only two hacks?” Did he intend to leave her here for her own safety? If he dared suggest that . . . !

  “Will can’t ride with a broken arm,” Mackenzie said. “He can visit a surgeon in the next town while we ride into Westminster.”

  “I’ve traveled farther in worse shape,” his brother said dryly. “All of us must go. Remember, I’m a peer and have the right to attend the State Opening. If I’m there when this is explained, it will save time. If you can help me get onto a horse, I guarantee I’ll be able to stay aboard.”

  “He’s right,” Kiri said. “We all hold different pieces of this.” As she watched the postilion unharness a horse for Mackenzie to ride, she wondered if they would arrive at the Palace of Westminster just in time to see the bomb go off.

  One could have too much adventure.

  Chapter 41

  They made good time going into the city, but their pace slowed as they neared the Palace of Westminster. “A good thing we’re on horseback,” Mac said as they slowly worked their horses through the crowded streets.

  The State Opening had brought out huge crowds despite the unpleasant weather, and a carriage would have been stopped dead. At least horses commanded respect, so they were able to move faster than they could have on foot. Though not by much.

  Kiri rode behind him, a warrior queen in truth, steely and determined. No one could see her and not know she had royal blood. Will brought up the rear, his face gray with pain. Despite his broken arm, he hadn’t slowed the pace on their ride into the city.

  They turned a corner and were now beside the palace. An honor guard of soldiers lined both sides of the route taken by the sovereign. Will frowned as he looked at the royal standard snapping above the palace in the damp wind. “The royals have arrived and the official ceremony might be under way. Time for me to take the lead.”

  Moving with care, he urged his horse forward through the crowd. One of the men shouldered aside shouted, “’ Oo the bloody ’ell do you think you are, mate?”

  “Aye, we been waiting out ’ere in the rain all mornin’!” another man snarled.

  “Ain’t that Damian Mackenzie, the one what they said died a few weeks back?”

  Kiri raised her voice, cutting through the babble. “We are here on a matter of Princess Charlotte Augusta’s safety! Please, let us through! This is truly urgent!”

  No man could look at Kiri’s lovely face and pleading eyes and not be moved. “Let the lass and ’er friends through,” someone said. “Maybe they be chasing frog spies!”

  The burst of laughter that followed wasn’t particularly respectful, but the crowd parted enough to allow the horses through single file. They reached the entrance to the palace. Military guards completely surrounded the building.

  “We are here on a matter of the utmost urgency!” Will barked in a parade-ground voice. “Let us through!”

  “Sir, I have my orders,” a corporal said uncertainly.

  “And I’m countermanding them,” Will snapped.

  Recognizing authority, the soldiers stepped aside to allow the three riders through. As they swiftly dismounted, Kiri said, “I’ll go into the chamber. As a female, I might be able to get closer to the princess.”

  Mac, who was helping Will from his horse, thought his heart would stop. “Kiri, please don’t go in there! The bomb could go off at any second.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Damian.” She flashed a reckless smile that made him remember that she was warrior as well as queen. “Why should men be the only ones allowed to die for their country?”

  It took only moments for her to be off her horse and climbing the steps, leaving her tired mount for one of the guards to secure. A hard-faced army captain approached, narrow-eyed and suspicious. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Will straightened to officer posture. “I am Major Lord Masterson, and we have reason to believe there will be an attempt to blow up the House of Lords at any moment.”

  The captain looked offended. “The yeoman of the Guard have searched the cellars every year since 1605. There are no barrels of gunpowder hidden there.”

  “This year, the bomb is in the Woolsack and only a fuse shows in the cellars,” Mac snapped. “Can you swear the yeomen would have seen such a thing?”

  The captain paled. “Perhaps . . . not.”

  “We’re going into the cellars right now,” Will ordered as he headed into the building. “I’m a member of the House of Lords as well as a serving officer, and I have some idea where to look.”

  “And I know who will be lighting the fuse,” Mac said as he walked at his brother’s side, uttering every prayer he knew that they weren’t too late.

  As she approached the Lesser Chamber that housed the Lords, Kiri mentally summoned the arrogance of her royal Hindu ancestors. She was a queen with a life-or-death mission to perform, and she would not be denied.

  A colorfully dressed official in front of the massive doors turned his long staff sideways to block her passage. “Halt! No entry to the House of Lords!”

  She gave him her fiercest glare. “I am Lady Kiri Lawford, sister to the Duke of Ashton and Princess Charlotte’s chosen companion. I have urgent need to speak to Her Royal Highness and you will let me pass!”

  Before the guard could decide whether to block her passage, Kiri had swept the staff aside with the strength that men never expected her to have. She stepped into the vast hall, seeing the familiar moon-shaped windows near the high ceiling and the great tapestries on the walls.

  When Adam had brought his family here, the chamber had been empty except for the ghosts of lords past. Now it was packed to the gills with scarlet- and ermine-robed lords and well-tailored politicians and members of the House of Commons. MP gathered in the Lords to hear the royal speech because by tradition, the sovereign was barred from entering the Commons.

  The prince regent was seated at the far end of the chamber, his massive carved and gilded throne no less magnificent than his massive and sumptuously robed self. And damnably, Princess Charlotte was perched below the throne on the scarlet square of the Woolsack, her eager gaze darting around the room as she waited for the ceremony to begin. If the bomb exploded, she and her father would be killed instantly.

  Hearing pursuit being organized behind her, Kiri swept down the left aisle that ran the length of the room. Eyes began turning toward her. Lord Liverpool, the prime minister, looked startled. He signaled to guards to stop her. Kiri dodged the first and deftly put the second onto the floor.

  As she approached the Woolsack, Princess Charlotte turned and saw her. Face lighting up, the princess rose to her feet. She was wearing the perfume Kiri had made for her. “Lady Kiri! What’s wrong?” Charlotte waved the guards off. “Is this about the matter you discussed with me?”

  Giving thanks for the princess’s quick mind, Kiri said, “It is indeed, Your Highness.” Her voice dropped. “This chamber must be evacuated immediately. Please, come with me!”

  Before Charlotte could answer, the prime minister and the prince regent himself had converged on her. “What is the meaning of this?” the prince thundered.

  Kiri dropped to one knee, looking as humble as she knew how. Was the prince regent a Highness or a Majesty? Deciding to go with the higher title, she said in a low voice, “Your Majesty, I bring word of a traitorous plot. We believe a bomb has been hidden right in this chamber, and it might explode at any moment.”

  As the prime minister and prince stared at her, aghast, her brother appeared at her side. She hadn’t seen him earlier in the sea of scarlet velvet robes, but as a duke he was seated in the front row only a few steps away.

  Adam took Kiri’s arm and helped her up, his grip firm. “This is my sister, Lady Kiri Lawford. She has been helping to investigate a treasonous plot. If she says there might be a bomb and the chamber should be evacuated, I believe her.”

  “Your sister,
you say?” The regent’s startled gaze moved from Adam, dressed in the full ceremonial garb of a peer of the realm, to Kiri, who was filthy and wore her divided skirt, along with a number of splotches of Mackenzie’s blood. “You have the same eyes. Very well, Liverpool, evacuate the chamber until we decide the merit of Lady Kiri’s charges. Charlotte, come with me.”

  Looking more excited than afraid, Princess Charlotte said, “Yes, Papa.” She and her father departed by a small door tucked into a corner of the room near the throne.

  Kiri’s relief was so intense that her knees might have given out, but Adam still held her arm. “How probable is a bomb?” he asked quietly.

  “Very, very probable. The chief conspirator is Lord Fendall, so he had access to the House of Lords.” She shuddered. “The plan was to put it inside the Woolsack.”

  Adam stared at the Woolsack, appalled. “Fendall. I scarcely know him, but if I had to pick possible traitors in this house, he’d be on the list. He’s a dangerous combination of ambition and malice. But we can talk about that later. For now, we’re leaving the chamber.”

  Kiri scanned the seats where the peeresses sat. “Is Mariah here?”

  “No, thank God. She wasn’t feeling well.” Invoking ducal rank, Adam took a quick look around the churning mass of confused people, then led Kiri toward the same door the prince and princess had used, since it was closest and the least busy.

  As they headed away from the Woolsack, Kiri’s blood chilled in her veins as she smelled the unmistakable acrid odor of burning gunpowder.

  The nightmarish search through the cellars of the Palace of Westminster had Mac’s heart beating like a frantic drum. At least they knew the rough location since the fuse had to be below the chamber of the Lords, but it was hard to be sure of the right direction in the dark maze of corridors and dusty rooms stuffed with old furniture, piled documents, and less identifiable objects.

  “What are all those piles of wooden sticks?” he asked as he looked in the first room after they’d descended the stairs to the cellar.

  An elderly warder had joined them, and he was struggling to keep up with the younger men. “Tally sticks, sir. Used to record accounts for men who can’t read or write. Elm wood, you know. Notches are cut in the stick to represent pounds and pence, then the stick is split with half going to the creditor and half to the debtor. A receipt, so to speak.” He smiled fondly. “We have tally sticks going back to the Plantagenets.”

  Mac stared at the huge piles of wood in horror. If any kind of explosion was set off, the whole damned palace would burn like a Guy Fawkes bonfire. “Will, where to?”

  “This way.” A lantern in his good hand, Will led since he had been down there before and had an excellent sense of direction. Mac and the captain followed close behind with the warder farther back holding another lantern.

  Moving at a near run, they soon reached a long corridor lined with drab doors. Will said, “We’re right below the House of Lords now, aren’t we?”

  “Aye, sir, you’re right,” the warder confirmed. “There are a dozen storerooms along here.”

  “Then we’ll have to search all of them,” Will said grimly.

  The warder and captain set to work methodically at the near end of the passage. Will leaned against a wall and closed his eyes, his face damp with sweat.

  Frowning, Mac followed his nose to the end of the corridor. He’d become much more aware of scents since meeting Kiri, and he thought he detected a faint odor of burning black powder.

  His pace quickened as the scent grew stronger. Directly overhead, he heard shuffling sounds that might have been footsteps.

  Praying that people were evacuating the chamber, he reached the last door on the left side of the corridor. The scent seemed to be coming from the room, and an edge of light showed under the door. Wishing he was armed, he flung open the door, standing to one side so he wouldn’t be an easy target.

  Swinnerton was inside. Expression avid, he watched the long fuse that hung from a hole in the ceiling. Slow flame crept upward along the cord. He must be waiting till the last possible moment before escaping so he could savor the imminent disaster.

  Hearing the door open, Swinnerton spun around and reached into his coat for his pistol. “My God, Mackenzie!” he said incredulously. “Aren’t you dead yet?”

  Mac threw himself into the room in a rolling dive. He calculated his trajectory so that he was able to kick the pistol from Swinnerton’s hand as he rolled by.

  He halted under the dangling fuse and lunged to his feet, then leaped upward to grab the fuse above the burning section. The weight of his body yanked the fuse from the bomb hidden in the room above.

  In an instant, the fuse went from lethal to harmless.

  Not entirely harmless. Mac threw the burning fuse into Swinnerton’s face. “Like a cat, I have nine lives,” he panted. “I’m down to four or five, but I have enough left to take care of you.”

  Swinnerton stumbled back, swearing furiously, as the burning fuse lashed across his eyes. “God damn you! It was a perfect plan! I would have been rich, a duke of France. Except for you!”

  Mac scooped up the pistol, cocked it, and aimed. “It was a stupid plan. Do you really think blowing up half the government and peerage would make England want to make peace? Quite the contrary. It’s over, Swinnerton. You are about to get long-delayed justice for murdering Harriet.”

  From his expression, Swinnerton knew he’d lost. Eyes mad, he dug into a pocket and drew out a fist-sized explosive grenade. “Maybe so, but you’re going to die with me!” He grabbed the burning cord from the floor so he could light the fuse of the grenade. “Rot in hell, you bastard!”

  The grenade was only a fraction the size of the one they would have planted in the Woolsack, but it was big enough to kill the two of them in this small room. Mac fired the pistol at Swinnerton, trying to stop him before the grenade was lit.

  The pistol misfired. Swearing, he threw it at Swinnerton and bolted out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  As he sprinted down the passage toward Will and the others, the room exploded behind him. Mac was knocked from his feet but automatically tucked his body and rolled so he didn’t hit hard enough to break bones.

  He was lying on his back, gasping for breath, when Will reached him, moving faster than the others despite his injury. “What the devil happened?” Will studied the splintered door as he went down on one knee by Mac. “That wasn’t a big enough explosion to be a bomb in the Woolsack.”

  Mac pushed himself to a sitting position, then crossed his arms on his knees and rested his head on them while he shook. God, Kiri was up there! What if he hadn’t been in time? A good thing he’d had no chance to think until after disaster was averted.

  “Swinnerton was in that storeroom, and he’d lit the fuse running up into the chamber.” Mac gulped in more air. “When I yanked the fuse out of the bomb, he produced a nice little grenade to send the two of us to hell.”

  The captain approached the wrecked door and stared inside. Turning away hastily, he said, “Whoever it is, he won’t be setting off any more grenades.”

  Will stood and offered his good hand to help Mac to his feet. “What about fire?”

  The warder trotted up carrying a sand-filled fire bucket. “Here!” He handed it to the captain, who pushed the door aside and threw sand into the room. “Not much to catch fire in here,” the captain said, “but more sand wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “Let’s leave them to it,” Mac said to his brother. “I want to get upstairs and make sure that Fendall doesn’t escape in the confusion.”

  Will gave a faint smile as he turned to make his way from the cellar. “After that, can we collapse?”

  Mac certainly hoped so.

  Chapter 42

  The explosion in the cellar was enough to silence the questioning, chattering crowd that had been ushered out of the House of Lords. Kiri’s heart was in her throat as she waited to see if the whole chamber would blow up behin
d them, but it didn’t.

  “They must have stopped the main explosion,” Kirkland said. He’d made it to the opening even though he was far from recovered from his bout of fever. His scarlet robes made his skin look chalk-white. “Ashton, any idea where Lord Fendall might be?”

  Narrow-eyed, Adam scanned the mass of excited nobles, then pointed. “There! Near that door.” Fendall was some distance away, his expression furious as he tried to fight his way free of the congestion.

  “Let’s get him!” Kiri hissed, reinvigorated by the prospect of capturing the man whose selfish ambitions had almost caused such destruction.

  Moving in perfect harmony, she and her brother cut through the crowd, catching up with Fendall just before he reached a door that led from the building. “My pardon, Lord Fendall, but you are required to bear testimony to this most unfortunate matter,” Adam said in a silky voice. “Blowing up the House of Lords just isn’t done.”

  Fendall swung around, his feral expression revealing a resemblance to Swinnerton. Seeing Adam and Kiri closing in on him, he chose Kiri as the weaker target and lunged for her. “You’ll not stop me!”

  It was his last mistake. With a sweep of her leg and a twist of his arm, Kiri sent Fendall flying toward her brother.

  Adam moved too quickly for Kiri to see exactly what happened, but suddenly the baron was lying on the floor with his neck bent at an impossible, deadly angle. His scarlet velvet robes splayed around him like spilled blood.

  “You should not have attacked my sister, Fendall,” Adam said softly.

  Kiri remembered Mackenzie saying that her brother was one of the most dangerous men in England. She hadn’t believed it then, but she did now. Perhaps Fendall’s death had been an accident—but she wouldn’t have bet on it.

  The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod rushed up to them, his eyes a little wild because of the disruption of what should have been a solemn and stately ceremony. “The prince regent wishes to speak with you both. Follow me.”