The Greatest Challenge of Them All

by Stephanie Laurens

  For once, the ladies had played no active part, but Drake, Sebastian, and Michael accepted the wisdom of keeping their coinvestigators fully apprised of developments, even when those developments amounted to very little.

  “As predicted,” Drake said from his usual armchair, “we found no sign of any barrels of ale that were not filled with liquid.”

  “Nor,” Michael added, “were any other suspicious barrels or packages found.”

  The ladies looked at each other, then Cleo asked, “So what now?”

  Louisa watched as Drake raked both hands through his hair. It wasn’t a gesture she’d seen him make before; frustration was clearly riding him hard.

  After several seconds, he lowered his hands. “Where is the gunpowder now?”

  Understanding that to be a leading question, she promptly supplied, “As far as we know, it’s in ale barrels, and given the effort expended to disguise it in that way, there’s no reason to suppose our plotters would have transferred the gunpowder to some other receptacle. So the gunpowder is still masquerading as fifteen barrels of Phoenix Brewery’s Bright Flame Ale, and it’s somewhere in London, most likely north of the Thames in one of the places to which the brewery delivers.”

  “Although,” Antonia said, “it’s possible the barrels were removed from the brewery at night, in which case, we have no way of knowing where they might be.”

  “I don’t think the gunpowder was taken out at night,” Michael said. “I had Tully check with all the footmen and grooms who had been on watch—none of them saw any ale barrels moved at night. Apparently, delivery-wise, the area is virtually a graveyard at night, so they’re confident that if any barrels had been moved then—at night, between Monday night and Thursday night, during which period the watch was maintained without a break—they would have seen them and noted the sight as odd.”

  Sebastian nodded. “So our fifteen barrels were moved out of the brewery as part of a delivery—therefore either by dray or by barge.”

  “If,” Drake said, fingers now steepled before his face, “we accept that the barrels were sent out as part of an ordinary delivery by Friday morning at the latest, then presumably the delivery’s destination was always a part of the plotters’ plan.”

  “Except for one thing.” Michael looked at Drake, then at Sebastian. “Over the past hours, we’ve checked hundreds if not thousands of barrels of ale. How?”

  After a silent second, Drake’s lips tightened. “Indeed. The instant the Phoenix delivery men picked up the barrels containing the gunpowder, they would have known the barrels didn’t contain ale.”

  “Exactly.” Grim-faced, Michael went on, “And Flock, the manager, insisted he was missing only four men—the ones we now know helped Chilburn on Monday night.”

  “The three of those four who’ve been found dead were killed by the garrotter on Wednesday and Thursday morning.” Drake leant forward. “Two of those men drove drays. Might they have delivered those particular barrels on Tuesday, before they were killed?”

  Silence reigned as they all considered that. Louisa eventually stated, “That’s possible, certainly, but regardless, any such delivery would have gone to one of the customers on our lists.” She paused, then continued, “However, there’s also the possibility that the killer waited until all deliveries were completed on Friday and, sometime after that, murdered two of Phoenix’s delivery men. If so, Mr. Flock might not be aware that he’s missing more men.”

  “If our plotters wanted to make their trail as hard to follow as possible,” Drake said, “then killing the delivery men on Saturday and Sunday, closer to the day we presume they intend to use the gunpowder, makes perfect sense—it leaves us very little time to check.” He glanced at the others. “For argument’s sake, let’s say that a delivery team from the brewery was bribed to take the gunpowder-containing barrels out of the yard. Were the barrels delivered as part of some customer’s normal order? Or were the barrels left unmarked and taken somewhere else by the delivery team?”

  Louisa and Cleo exchanged a glance. “I don’t think,” Cleo said, “that the barrels would have been left unmarked. From what I gathered while there, any barrels left unmarked could be taken to make up extras for this customer or that—a group of fifteen barrels would have been broken up and distributed to numerous customers, and that distribution is decided by the order clerks, not the delivery teams.”

  “I doubt the plotters would have chanced that,” Louisa said. “They would have had to bribe many more men, and the brewery isn’t missing any order clerks.”

  “Yet,” Drake said, then inclined his head. “However, I agree that scenario is unlikely. There’s too many steps, too many people involved, and too many stages at which things could go wrong. Conversely, if all fifteen barrels were sent out as part of a customer’s regular order, then other than the delivery team—assuming they carry the barrels into a customer’s warehouse—the plotters wouldn’t have to bribe anyone else.”

  Again, silence fell.

  Louisa broke it. “Correct me if I’m wrong”—she fixed her gaze on Cleo—“but unless our fifteen barrels were sent out for delivery as part of a regular order to some customer, they wouldn’t have left the brewery, not all together, and as we know the barrels had left the brewery by Friday morning, then they couldn’t have been diverted elsewhere by the delivery team. If they had, then some customer would have realized, certainly by Friday afternoon, that they were fifteen barrels of Bright Flame Ale short and have sent a complaint to the brewery. If not by Friday, then at least by Saturday morning. The brewery was open until noon. If Mr. Flock had received any such complaint, he would have sent word—he knows we’re looking for fifteen barrels supposedly of Bright Flame Ale.”

  Drake’s lips thinned, but again, he nodded. After a moment, he said, “This is all speculation, but at the moment, that’s all we have to work with. Let’s say our fifteen barrels were delivered successfully to some customer’s cellar somewhere north of the river. Why wouldn’t any of those barrels be tapped by the customer?” He looked at Cleo and arched a brow. “Wouldn’t that be a major risk?”

  Louisa sat straighter. “As I understand it, that might not be a risk if they’ve chosen the right customer—one who isn’t the final customer for those barrels.” She paused, then said, her tone increasingly enthusiastic, “Think of our lists.” She looked at Cleo. “The delivery had to be one of ninety-three, so let’s take it as settled that our barrels are with one of those ninety-three customers. But there were two hundred and eighty-seven possible final customers, and we don’t know when the barrels will be moved to those final customers, so our barrels might well be sitting in some wine-and-ale merchant’s warehouse, still waiting to be delivered.”

  The others all frowned.

  Louisa looked at Drake. “When you were hypothesizing about how you would run this plot, you said you wouldn’t move the barrels to the target site until less than twenty-four hours before blowing them up. So by that logic, the barrels should be one move away from their final destination.”

  Suddenly alert, she looked around. “Where are those lists?” She spotted her reticule, dived on it, and wrestled the tightly cinched neck open. She reached in and hauled out the folded lists. She unfolded them, scanned them, then tucked several sheets back and held out the rest to Cleo. “You have a pencil.”

  Cleo hunted in her significantly larger reticule, pulled out a stub of a pencil, and reached for the lists.

  “Assuming the gunpowder is not at the target site,” Drake said, “cross all the non-merchants off the list.”

  “Once we do that, how many are left?” Her gaze on Cleo, Louisa all but jigged. “Will it be possible for us to search them all?”

  Cleo ignored everyone and concentrated on working her way down the sheet, crossing entries off as she went. Eventually, she returned to the top of the list and counted down. “Thirty-six,” she announced.

  “That’s a lot better than ninety-three, let alone two hundred and
eighty-seven,” Louisa pointed out.

  Drake looked at Sebastian and Michael. “Can the four of you search thirty-six merchants’ premises tomorrow? Louisa and I have other avenues we need to pursue.”

  Michael looked at Sebastian and Antonia. “Now your engagement ball is over, we can get most of the footmen army released to us, at least for the day.”

  Sebastian nodded. “With the ball behind us, we’ll be free—or at least can legitimately lie low socially.”

  “Sadly,” Antonia said, “you speak for yourself.” She looked rueful as she met Sebastian’s eyes. “Now I’m officially your marchioness-to-be, there are countless events I absolutely must attend—starting from luncheon tomorrow.”

  Sebastian blinked. He looked faintly horrified. “I don’t have to go, do I?”

  Antonia’s smile was wry. “No—you’re not expected. This is purely the female half of the ton—and I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’m making on our behalf.”

  Sebastian closed his hand about one of hers and squeezed. “Oh, I do. I definitely do.”

  Michael waited a beat, then clapped his hands together. “Right, then. Sebastian and I—”

  “And me,” Cleo stated.

  Michael turned a smile on her. “And Cleo will just have to manage. If we divide the thirty-six warehouses and the footmen army between us, we should be able to get it done.”

  Antonia sniffed and waved a hand. “I’ll hold the fort ton-wise. Just find that gunpowder.”

  Sebastian looked at Drake. “What will you and Louisa be doing?”

  “One of the four missing brewery workers has yet to turn up dead.” Drake paused, his gaze on Louisa, then said, “Neither Louisa nor I was convinced by the man’s wife’s behavior.”

  “It wasn’t that she wasn’t anxious,” Louisa quickly said, “but it wasn’t clear what she was anxious about—whether she feared he was already dead or, instead, feared a threat to his life.”

  “Meaning,” Drake said, “that he’s still alive. If he managed to escape the attentions of the garrotter, then if we can find him, it’s very possible he might know something that will help us find the damned gunpowder.” He raised his brows. “Or even the garrotter.”

  After a moment of imagining that, Drake glanced at Sebastian. “We also need to attend Chilburn’s funeral. I doubt the garrotter will show his face, but Chilburn’s family and connections and any acquaintances he still had will almost certainly be there. Someone among them must know something—who he was friendly with most recently, who he might have been working with, if he had any particular obsession he might have chosen to act on.” He looked again at Louisa. “There has to be something more we can drag from his nearest and dearest.”

  None of the others needed it explained that of them all, Louisa was the most likely to succeed in drawing useful confidences from bereaved members of the ton.

  Drake looked around the circle. “All right. So we know our plan of action for tomorrow.”

  With murmurs of agreement, as a group, they rose. They walked out of the library and down the corridor into the front hall.

  Louisa glanced at the others’ faces. She was keenly aware—and was sure they were, too—of a pressing sense of time running out. In essence, they had one more day in which to find the gunpowder. If they didn’t, Drake would go out on a political and social limb and institute a search that would send public and governmental pigeons into a frenzy.

  Despite the implication that they were losing this race, that the mastermind would triumph and something terrible would occur, far from being downcast, all of them were determined to push on—to battle to the very end.

  That, ultimately, was who they were.

  She halted two yards behind the others.

  Michael and Sebastian helped Cleo and Antonia don their cloaks.

  Drake brought Louisa’s cloak and, from behind her, draped it about her, then he rested his hands briefly on her shoulders.

  She raised a hand, placed it over his, and glanced up and back to meet his eyes. And whispered, “I’ll see you later.”

  With a last, deliberately provocative smile, she faced forward and walked to join the others.

  Drake lowered his hands and strolled behind her as she glided out of the door. Michael led Cleo to his waiting carriage, handed her up, then followed. Sebastian and Antonia, together with Louisa, paused on the pavement to wave the pair off, then with a last wave to Drake, the trio set off along the pavement toward St. Ives House.

  Drake stood on the porch and watched them go. His gaze resting on Louisa’s straight back, he wondered what she’d meant by “later.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Her “later,” he discovered, meant eleven that night.

  The clocks throughout the house had just chimed the hour when, anticipating a full and frustrating day ahead, leading to a very long night of searching, Drake walked into his bedroom and learned the answer to his earlier question.

  Louisa lay curled on her side in his bed and was already asleep.

  He had no idea how she’d got there, but decided that question could wait until the morning.

  For now…

  He stood looking down at her for several minutes—simply enjoying the sight and plotting. Then he stirred and ambled about the room, going through his habitual routine before stripping, raising the covers, and joining her between his sheets.

  Louisa woke to the sensations stirred by large, hard, hot hands roving over her body. Over the dips and curves, delving into the hollows. Warmth rolled over her, through her, and brought her fully awake on a crest of pleasure.

  Smiling, she reached for him, drew his lips to hers, and kissed him.

  Was kissed in return and slowly devoured. Slowly, with steely control, he led her along a path of burgeoning passion, of escalating desire, and building need.

  Hunger prowled behind his façade of sophistication, a hunger she wanted to welcome, to release and embrace.

  Challenge.

  It would, she felt sure, always lie between them, in this sphere as in all others. Not a direct challenge, one against the other, but more a contest wherein each was challenged to be all and everything they could be.

  Only with him did she feel that link; only to her did he respond in that way.

  That was a part of the unique connection that had always existed between them.

  Now, with lips and tongue, with her hands and her body, she pushed and pressed and urged him on—dared him to show her more.

  He, meanwhile, insisted that instead of rushing ahead as she wished, they let the passion surging between them build and build, grow and swell—until need burned like wildfire down every vein and set every nerve ablaze.

  Drake clung to patience. Pressed by her artful, willful play, he’d used his weight, his strength, to manage her, to hold her back from plunging recklessly on and, instead, give passion time to flare from smoldering embers to a firestorm.

  But now they were burning, their breaths short and shallow as desire’s flames licked their skins, and he finally gave way, rolled to his back, and with his hands about her waist, lifted her over him.

  He set her down astride his hips.

  The look on her face as she felt his straining erection nudge her entrance was priceless.

  Then eagerness flooded her expression. Gripping his forearms, she took her weight on her knees and, with her eyes locked with his, slowly—excruciatingly slowly—slid down, impaling herself on his rigid length.

  She took him all. Then she caught her lush lower lip between her teeth and wriggled—then she used her inner muscles to squeeze…

  He felt his eyes crossing and lowered his lids.

  Then he felt her hands flatten on his chest. He quickly opened his eyes to find her leaning forward on her braced arms. She shifted her hips experimentally, then arched a sultry brow at him and commanded, “Show me.”

  He was only too happy to comply.

  As usual, she was a quick study.

  Soon,
they were both panting, their skins awash with passion’s heat as she rode him with flagrant abandon.

  She was an excellent rider, her thighs firm and strong. He watched and marveled at her open enthusiasm, at her reckless delight as she whipped them both on.

  He swept his hands up from her waist to cup her breasts, kneading, then tweaking her tightly budded nipples. She was gasping, reaching, demanding yet more from them both. Sensing the tide rising within her, he half sat and set his mouth to her breasts.

  He suckled, and she shattered.

  He held her, held still within her until the ripples of her contractions faded, then he rolled, taking her with him, her thighs anchored on either side of his hips.

  He set her beneath him, lifted her knees to his shoulders, and plunged deep.

  She gasped, eyes opening to stare up at him in sensual shock—which with his next thrust converted to sensual appreciation.

  She wrapped her arms as far about him as she could reach and held on as he rode her.

  Hard, fast, straight into oblivion.

  Into satiation so deep, it swallowed them whole.

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1850

  CHAPTER 48

  Their final day in which to find the gunpowder dawned gray and cool, yet wrapped in each other’s arms, Drake and Louisa slept on.

  Beyond the windows and outside the door, the morning unfurled, and others started their day.

  A peremptory knock fell on the door.

  Before Drake could even blink, much less growl a prohibition, the door opened, and Finnegan strode in.

  Drake’s eyes flared, but before he could utter a word, Finnegan hurriedly said, “Don’t shoot.” He halted yards from the foot of the bed and studiously kept his gaze fixed forward. Staring at the window, he continued, “It’s so dark in here, I can’t really see anything, and even if I could, I would never breathe a word.”

  Drake sat up and pushed his hair off his face. “What the devil?”

  “A message from Inspector Crawford, my lord. Urgent. They’ve fished out more bodies from the river, murdered in the same way as before, so they assume it’s the same murderer. The inspector and Sir Martin send their regards, and can you come and take a look as soon as possible?”