Saving Grace (Victorian Vigilantes Book 1)

by Wendy Soliman

  ‘I believe the diamond is enormous,’ Eva said. ‘So how could the thieves hope to profit from the crime? I mean, it can hardly be sold and stealing something so well protected must cost a huge amount.’

  ‘Certain wealthy individuals in India require it back and are willing to pay handsomely to ensure that happens,’ Lord Torbay replied.

  Eva frowned. ‘But even if they achieve that ambition, they can’t publicly display it, or even admit to having it.’

  Lord Isaac laughed. ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Lady Eva. They will simply say they took back what was rightfully theirs and assume England won’t declare war on them for the sake of a piece of rock.’

  ‘There is nothing you can teach me about possession,’ she said with feeling, thinking of her imprisonment that went by the name of marriage.

  ‘No,’ Lord Isaac said softly. ‘I am sure there is not.’

  The two men exchanged a prolonged glance, causing a strange sensation to streak through Eva’s body when she observed it. She had just crossed some sort of line, shown too much of her inner feelings, which simply wasn’t done. Even so, she thought their speaking look was a little extreme and wondered what it implied.

  ‘Never think, even for a moment, that we suspected you of involvement in your husband’s treachery,’ Lord Torbay said, inclining his head in a gesture of great civility. ‘We were certain you knew nothing about it.’

  ‘Thank you for your faith in me.’

  His lips quirked. ‘You are entirely welcome.’

  ‘If you know that my husband is masterminding the plan, Lord Torbay, why not simply arrest him?’

  ‘Because we have no definite proof,’ Lord Isaac replied.

  ‘Your people saw those Indians beat that poor man to death. Surely that is sufficient reason to shut him down.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s necessary to allow smaller crimes to go unpunished, at least temporarily, for the greater good.’

  ‘Smaller crimes!’ Eva felt heat invade her face. ‘Need I remind you that a man lost his life under the most violent of circumstances?’

  ‘He was a thief, Lady Eva,’ Lord Torbay said softly. ‘He picked a man’s pocket in the street close to the warehouse and almost brought the law down on the place. He couldn’t be forgiven for that.’

  ‘Even so, he didn’t deserve to die, especially not so violently.’

  ‘No, he did not, and you may rest assured the men responsible will pay for their crime…eventually.’

  ‘All right,’ she replied, mollified because she observed the firm set to his features and believed him. ‘I accept you know what you are doing.’

  ‘We don’t like it any more than you do,’ Lord Isaac assured her. ‘But we have learned to exercise patience.’

  ‘I do bow to your superior understanding, but surely foiling the plan by detaining those involved until after the exhibition would be the best way to proceed? You could use the beating to death of that man as your excuse.’ She elevated a brow. ‘Presumably the Home Secretary possesses the power to imprison people for as long as he sees fit.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Lord Torbay sent her a challenging smile. ‘But think for a moment. How did your husband become involved with such a plan in the first place?’

  ‘Actually, that’s a very good question.’ She tilted her head as she thought about it. ‘And one which I really cannot answer. He does business with India, of course, so presumably that’s how the connection was made.’

  ‘Your husband imports Indian silk, tea, rugs and assorted trinkets. The merchants he deals with are a far cry from the influential people involved with this plot. To the best of our knowledge, Woodstock has never been to India himself and there is no reason to suppose his willingness to behave dishonestly would have reached the ears of the Maharajas behind this scheme.’

  ‘Probably not, and so—’ She bestowed a darkling glance upon Lord Torbay. ‘I believe you know the answer to your own question. Please don’t leave me in ignorance.’

  ‘Someone high up in the government doesn’t want the exhibition to be a success,’ he replied succinctly.

  She gasped. ‘There’s a traitor within government ranks?’

  ‘Unfortunately yes, but the Home Secretary doesn’t know who it is,’ Lord Isaac replied. ‘And therein lies our problem.’

  ‘The only way we can find out his name,’ Lord Torbay added, ‘is to keep your husband under close surveillance and see where that leads us.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She paused, frowning as she considered his words. ‘But I still don’t understand how you thought I could help.’

  ‘Well, we—’

  ‘You can’t,’ Lord Isaac said abruptly, cutting across whatever Lord Torbay had been about to say. Lord Torbay regarded his friend steadily, quirked one brow, and remained silent. He appeared composed but, Eva thought, a little annoyed as well. It was most peculiar.

  ‘Then why bring me here?’

  ‘We had hoped that you might know whom he meets with. Perhaps you entertained government officials at your house, or you might have seen letters…something.’ Lord Torbay shrugged. ‘However, it’s of no consequence.’

  Eva mulled over what she had just heard. The room seemed unnaturally quiet as the two men watched her closely, saying nothing and leaving her to her cogitations. Tension vibrated through her. There were things they obviously weren’t telling her, and what they had said made precious little sense. Why would they go to so much trouble to find her, just on the off chance that she might know something of value to them? There had to be more to it than that. Besides, they already had their own man inside William’s house who could recount the names of those who came and went. He was also in a position to learn a lot more about William’s activities than she would ever be.

  ‘Wait a minute.’ She fixed Lord Torbay with a hollow stare. ‘Did you mean to—’

  ‘Lady Eva,’ he said at the same time.

  She waved aside whatever he had been about to say and he had the goodness to fall silent. In a blinding flash of comprehension their true purpose had just become plain to her and the debilitating pain that followed was almost her undoing. She had let her guard down and allowed herself to feel safe here because she was amongst people of her own standing: people who pretended to care about her and had gone to a lot of trouble to find her. An odd, recurring sensation in her mid-section had made her wonder if there was a connection between her and Lord Isaac that was stronger than her own will, transcending every modicum of common sense.

  Such thoughts ought to have shocked her. Instead she found them exciting, stimulating, and sinfully tempting.

  Now she knew she was nothing more to them than a means to an end. What a fool! Had she learned nothing during the years of her marriage? Never confide and never trust because no one cared two figs about her. These gentlemen were better bred than her husband, hid their purpose behind an elegantly polite façade, but when it came down to it they were no different than William. They planned to use her to get what they wanted.

  ‘You want to me return home and spy on my husband,’ she said, drilling Lord Isaac with a hostile gaze. ‘That is what this is all about, is it not?’

  Chapter Five

  ‘She’s not returned yet,’ Stoneleigh informed William. ‘We have people posted all over Whitechapel so we know she’s definitely not in the district.’

  ‘Then where the devil is she?’

  Stoneleigh shrugged. ‘No one’s seen hide nor hair of her since this morning.’

  ‘Damn it, man, track down the jarvey who picked her up and find out where he dropped her off.’

  ‘We’re trying, but dozens of cabs use that route. It might take some time.’

  ‘Don’t bother me with details, just do it.’ William, pacing his study, turned on his heel and glared at Stoneleigh. ‘I want to see the room she rented. There might be a clue there. Take me there now.’

  ‘Right you are, but there’s nothing that will help.’

  �
�I’ll be the judge of that.’ William sent his man a damning glance. ‘You imbeciles are getting nowhere with your dithering. I had best see to the matter myself.’

  William and Stoneleigh made the journey to Whitechapel in taut silence. William glanced out the window as their conveyance left the wide, leafy streets of the smart part of town and the roads rapidly became narrower, noisier and a great deal dirtier. William had grown up in this sort of squalor, pulling himself out of it by dint of his own wits and stark determination. His Eva, on the other hand, had never set foot in such a district. He thought of the million and one fates that could easily have befallen someone as out of place as she would be and his blood ran cold.

  Aware of Stoneleigh sending him covert glances, William kept his expression passive, but his mind churned in harmony with his gut. Unless she could persuade one of her upper-class friends to take her in then she would have to return to William eventually. That was the thought he had been holding onto, relying upon, this past week. Now, her continued absence had obliged him to think the unthinkable. Would she actually sell herself in preference to returning home? A single man of means could easily set her up as his mistress somewhere beyond William’s reach.

  William clenched his fists, rage surging through him in unstoppable waves. He would find her if he had to scour every corner of the country. If he couldn’t have her, no one would. All the time he didn’t know what had become of her, he imagined increasingly wild scenarios that drove him demented with worry and jealousy. At a time when concentration was vital to his future prosperity, he couldn’t think about anything other than finding his wife. Eva may not love him as passionately as he did her—he accepted that—but she also had no reason to complain about her life. She had every luxury at her fingertips and a daughter upon whom she doted. No, she would never willingly walk away from Grace. Presumably seeing a man beaten to death had addled her brains and she had lost her memory.

  Yes, that must be it. William had hit upon an explanation he could live with—one he could spread amongst his employees to help save face.

  Except women with memory loss did not possess the wits to hire rooms or pawn rings. Damn it, what had he done to disgust her so much? Eva was his life, his raison d’être. The grimy depths to which he had been forced to plummet, some of the actions he’d had to take to make something of himself, seemed worthwhile when he had Eva beside him. Everything he had striven to achieve was for her benefit. Making Eva look upon him with respect, restoring her to her rightful place within society’s ranks, was what drove him. He had never had a clear idea of what went on inside his wife’s lovely head, which sometimes infuriated him. Even so, it had never occurred to him that she despised him so much that she would be prepared to live it this rat-infested hellhole rather than in comfort with him.

  ‘This is it,’ Stoneleigh said when the carriage rattled to a halt and was immediately surrounded by a bunch of urchins.

  ‘Are you sure?’ William asked dubiously. The row of tumbledown buildings with peeling paint and crumbling steps looked even grimmer than William had anticipated. His Eva would never stoop so low.

  ‘This is it,’ Stoneleigh repeated.

  The driver cracked his whip and the urchins scattered. William alighted from the carriage, sniffed the putrid air and almost gagged. A young crossing sweeper stepped forward, apparently the person who had identified Eva. William showed him a miniature of his wife that had been painted the year before and the man nodded.

  ‘That’s her.’ He sounded absolutely certain. ‘I saw her not two hours ago.’

  William flipped the lad a coin. He doffed his cap and scampered off.

  ‘It’s this way.’ Stoneleigh led the way into a dilapidated house that smelled of boiled cabbage, and worse.

  ‘Lord have mercy,’ William muttered beneath his breath, trying not to breathe as he climbed the rickety stairs.

  Stoneleigh pushed opened the door to a tiny room and stood back to let William in first. A woman in a grimy gown entered behind him, presumably the owner of the premises, a calculating expression in her eye as she sized William up.

  ‘Did you rent this room to this lady?’ William again produced the miniature of Eva.

  The woman screwed up her eyes and took her time to think about it. ‘It looks like her. Pale she was, but well-spoken and polite.’

  The woman’s words forced William to face the truth. Only Eva would consider it necessary to be polite to such a woman.

  ‘Did she occupy this room alone?’

  The woman pushed out her scrawny chest. ‘I don’t hold with no funny business here. This is a respectable house.’

  ‘Is it indeed?’ William cast a scathing look around the room. ‘What time did she go out this morning?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ But the avaricious look in her eye told a different story.

  William reached into his waistcoat pocket and tossed a half-sovereign her way. ‘Nine-thirty,’ she said promptly. ‘She asked me the best place to hire a Hansom cab and I directed her to Mitre Square.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’

  ‘No, sir, and I didn’t ask.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  The woman described the same gown Eva had been wearing on the morning she disappeared.

  ‘You can leave us,’ William told her, satisfied she knew nothing more.

  ‘How is it that my wife wasn’t recognised before now, given she only had that one gown to wear?’ William asked. ‘It’s way too fine for this district.’

  Stoneleigh opened a rickety closet, inside which hung a garment in a dull grey that looked fit only to polish William’s carriage with.

  ‘I reckon there’s your answer,’ Stoneleigh replied.

  ‘So, she was going somewhere today that required her only good gown.’ William rubbed his chin, pacing three steps one way, then three the other—the maximum movement the limited space permitted. ‘But where?’

  There was a newspaper on the narrow bed, several days old, open at the situations vacant page. William snatched it up and perused the positions on offer. Almost immediately his eyes alighted on the requirement for an educated lady. William rolled up the paper and smacked it against his thigh.

  ‘Come along,’ he said, striding from the room. ‘I’ll wager I know precisely where my wife went to today, and why.’

  So animated was he, that William no longer cared if he looked like a cuckold, incapable of controlling his own wife. He would go to the address shown in the advertisement and find out who had been advertising for an educated lady to carry out organisational duties. He especially wished to know what those duties entailed.

  That was where he would find his Eva.

  ***

  Isaac and Jake excused themselves and moved to one side of the room, leaving Lady Eva seated beside the fire.

  ‘We can’t ask her to do it, Jake,’ Isaac said firmly. ‘She has been through enough already. Besides, she’s petrified of her husband and he will beat her to within an inch of her life if she goes back to him.’

  ‘Greater considerations are at stake here, Isaac.’ Jake grimaced. ‘I know you’re taken with her, and I don’t blame you for that. I felt the same way when I first saw her six years ago but—’

  ‘No buts, Jake. We will just have to use Franklin to rescue her child and get the information we need from Woodstock.’

  ‘Isaac, no matter the sorry of state of her marriage, she is still married.’

  Isaac snorted. ‘You think I’m likely to forget that?’

  ‘I think…well, that you’re not actually thinking. At least, not coherently.’ Isaac simply fixed his friend with a steely gaze. ‘All right.’ Jake threw up his hands and sighed. ‘We’ll do things your way, but first I have to answer her question. I suppose I could invent some plausible story for bringing her here.’

  ‘Invention is what you excel at, Jake. It’s one of the reasons why the Home Secretary thinks so highly of you. When it comes down to it, you’re a spy a
nd spies learn to be economical with the truth from the word go, otherwise they wouldn’t last long in their chosen career.’

  They both glanced towards Lady Eva. The disappointment reflected in her eyes reignited Isaac’s protective instincts.

  ‘You can see just from looking at her that deception is now all she expects from life. I can’t stand it.’ Isaac clenched his fists, truly impassioned. ‘She has become conditioned to it, being married to that ogre, and expects the same thing from us. But unlike Woodstock, we are gentlemen and simply cannot do it to her.’

  ‘You win, my friend.’ Jake clapped Isaac’s shoulder. ‘I shall find another way, but in return I need you to remain focused on the mission, not Lady Eva.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  They returned to their seats.

  ‘Yes, Lady Eva,’ Jake said. ‘To answer your earlier question, that is precisely why I brought you here.’

  She swallowed. ‘Thank you for your honesty, at least.’

  ‘But since hearing the truth about the state of your marriage I have had a change of heart. I don’t believe you can help me after all.’

  She elevated one brow. ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘No, I can quite understand why you would still be suspicious. Will you at least accept my apology?’ Jake spread his hands and sent her an engaging smile. ‘In my line of work it’s sometimes easy to overlook peoples’ feelings for the sake of the greater good.’

  Isaac could see that Jake’s candour had taken her by surprise and she didn’t quite know how to answer him. The air between the three of them was taut with a tension Isaac would give much to know how to dispel. Lady Eva happened to glance his way, their gazes clashed and the crystalline silence intensified. Isaac cleared his throat but didn’t attempt to speak. It was Lady Eva who found her voice first.