Texas Viscount

by Henke, Shirl

  By noon, the waiters in the lounge were beginning to give her suspicious glances, wondering why she remained alone at the table for so long. Of course, being well conditioned to think that a respectably dressed woman in mourning should not be disturbed, they said nothing to her. But what if one of the Russians overheard them speculating about “the widow”?

  She debated leaving the sanctuary of the hotel and waiting out on the street as she'd seen Josh do, but that left a woman alone in a highly visible and vulnerable position. Just as she was beginning to think she was drawing too much attention, Natasha Samsonov came sweeping down the curving stairs with her maid trailing behind her.

  Sabrina tossed some coins on the table and made her way to the front door just as an expensive carriage pulled up and the ballerina climbed inside. Quickly hailing one of the many public conveyances waiting outside the hotel, Sabrina instructed the driver to follow at a discreet distance. He gave her a fish-eyed look, but when she offered him extra money for his trouble, he spit a noisome wad of tobacco into the gutter and nodded sharply, whipping his horses into a smart trot.

  Drat Eddy, he was costing her a fortune in hansom fees. And this on top of the huge amount he already owed her! To add to her woes, the ride was long and circuitous, as if Natasha were trying to avoid being followed. Several times Sabrina had the driver stop and put down the step as if she were going to get out. Then while she pulled in the step he quickly leaped back onto the box and caught up with the Russian's carriage.

  Twice she was certain they'd lost it, but by the time they reached Mayfair, the carriage was in sight again and pulling into an alley. Sabrina paid the driver, then slipped down and made her way on foot. Surely it could not be...

  But it was.

  The carriage had stopped at the mews behind Lord Hambleton's home. Her heart pounded. Josh had suspected from the first that someone employed by the earl was guilty of selling stolen information. Now she was about to learn who it was!

  She watched as the ballerina, now as discreetly veiled as Sabrina herself, slipped from the carriage, leaving her maid behind. She glanced about, satisfied that no stablemen were in the mews, then walked through the open gate to the garden at the side of the house. How well Sabrina remembered that garden and her encounters there with Josh. She forced aside such thoughts and concentrated on following her quarry undetected.

  Whom could she be meeting in broad daylight in the middle of the earl's topiary? Sabrina was pleased with the prospect of being able to eavesdrop through the shrubbery and hear whatever they said. But that was not to be. By the time she reached the edge of the wall and slipped inside, the Samsonov woman had vanished. Carefully, Sabrina prowled around the fountain, taking every pathway through hedges and around the willow trees. No sign of the woman.

  Where on earth has she vanished? I'm beginning to feel like Lewis Carroll's little Alice.

  Not a sound could be heard beyond the gentle trill of water and birdsong. Surely even if they were whispering, Sabrina would have caught some slight noise, but there was nothing. Discouraged, she took a seat on the bench where she'd had her first disastrous encounter with the Texas viscount. Pulling back her veil, she rubbed her temples in frustration, considering the possibility that Natasha had slipped out the front gate and had another coach pick her up, but no. She would have heard the horses' hooves. The quiet residential street had remained silent.

  Surely the haughty Russian would not have set off on foot down the street. A well-dressed female walking without escort would have been noticed by someone. She had to be in the house, but how had she gotten inside from the walled garden? It simply did not make sense, unless the Russian was capable of black magic. Well, she was a witch, of that there was no doubt, Sabrina thought grimly.

  Just then she heard the soft rustle of taffeta. Natasha was approaching. Sabrina leaped up and darted behind a hedge, holding her breath as she peered through the greenery, grateful for her dark clothing, which would not be readily visible. La Samsonov's brilliant scarlet cloak floated out like a bird of paradise as she whisked out the gate and past the mews. In a moment the sound of her carriage taking off echoed down the alley.

  Sabrina feared that La Samsonov had met someone inside Hambleton House who would know that the Japanese minister was not going to meet the Prime Minister tonight. Eddy was in the soup for sure unless she could find out who it was—and how these secret assignations took place. There had to be some kind of secret passage from the garden to the house. It was the only possible explanation this side of the supernatural. Where to begin looking? She started toward the side of the garden wall from which Natasha had returned but the sound of voices interrupted her.

  Two stablemen returning from their midday meal strolled from the kitchen to the mews, discussing how fast the viscount's big bay stallion could run if he were entered against the Caruthers's line at Epsom. Then a gardener greeted them, saying he was going to sharpen his shears and prune the boxwoods in the garden. She could hardly risk being caught by servants returning to their afternoon chores as she crawled about in the shrubbery!

  Although the spy must be a house servant, the outside help too were part of the gossip chain that included those higher in the hierarchy. Also to be considered was the ease with which anyone on the second or third floors could see out into the garden through the east windows. She would have to continue her search after everyone had retired tonight, under cover of darkness.

  * * * *

  “Do I look Japanese?” the slightly built agent in a ceremonial kimono asked nervously as he adjusted the elaborate wig on his head.

  “Do I look like Genghis Khan?” Michael joked as he surveyed with misgivings the theatrical makeup he'd applied to make Calvin Firth's eyes appear Oriental. Any close scrutiny would reveal his Caucasian ancestry.

  The poor devil wasn't even really a Foreign Office agent, but merely a clerk who worked on secret documents for Prime Minister Salisbury. He'd been asked to volunteer for this dangerous assignment because he approximated the size and build of Count Hayashi. Calvin Firth had no field experience whatever.

  “It'll be as dark as the inside of a dog in that carriage,” Josh said, sensing how spooked the fellow was. He couldn't blame him. “As soon as we spot the Russians, a dozen agents will bulldog and hogtie ‘em before they know what’s happening.”

  Jamison reviewed the route for the agents sitting calmly around the large table in Lansdowne's office. They would send the unmarked government carriage from Buckingham Palace along Pall Mall at precisely ten that evening. It would pass around the east end of St. James' Park to the dark, narrow confines of Downing Street, heading toward Whitehall.

  “The best case would be for them Russians to attack the carriage from the park, which will be deserted by that time. With two of us concealed inside and others following closely, we'd capture them without exposing Mr. Firth to gunfire as he alights from the carriage on Downing. However, the street is, as the viscount has said, narrow and poorly lit. Since it provides two means of escape for the conspirators after their attempted assassination, it might be the most likely place for them to strike. Remember, they know the route, the time and the destination. Doubtless they've sent men to examine all possibilities by this time. We must be prepared for any eventuality. Are we all clear, gentlemen?” Jamison asked.

  Josh watched him, cool and professional, as he fielded questions from his men and then informed each agent of his precise placement along the route. This was quite a different kettle of fish from the colonel's charge up San Juan Hill. Cantrell was glad the Englishman was on his side. Jamison had taken sole responsibility for the failure of their first subterfuge and the subsequent death of the prisoner. He had no intention of allowing Zarenko and his companions to escape a second time.

  Josh, as a member of the peerage untrained in espionage, was not officially supposed to participate in the exercise. But without him they would never have learned about Zarenko's and his sister's roles in the plot. He insisted
on going along, and there was no way even Michael could prevent him from being there. Josh had a vested interest in catching the assassins. It would prove that Sabrina's beloved cousin was a befuddled innocent, not a guilty traitor.

  It would also prove that Uncle Ab had nothing to do with Russian spies.

  * * * *

  The night could not have been better suited to Sabrina's purpose if she had arranged it with the Deity. Thick clouds scudded across a waning moon and a light drizzle had begun to fall when she slipped undetected from her room. The household was asleep, except for Josh, who was out trying to capture Zarenko and his henchmen with Mr. Jamison and the other agents. The earl had gone to his club and was not expected back until very late.

  She tried not to think of the danger her love might be in if they did foil an attempted assassination. The last trap had ended with a bullet slashing through his arm. What might happen this time? But if she was right about Natasha Samsonov's role in the conspiracy this afternoon, then Josh and his companions would be in no danger at all.

  Poor Eddy would be the one in trouble, and he was still under guard upstairs. She thanked heavens that the footmen paid no attention to her when she said she was going downstairs for some warm milk and intended to sit in the library and read because she could not sleep. They'd exchanged knowing smirks, certain she was worried about the viscount, who'd vanished on some errand unknown to them.

  After Josh had been injured and the earl had insisted that she spend nights here, giving her a room adjoining his heir’s, she'd known the servants would gossip even if nothing happened between them. But of course, something most certainly had happened between them. She only hoped that the rumors would not spread outside Hambleton House. If they did, she would lose the position Lady Chiffington had offered instructing Drucilla, which was her only hope of regaining her formerly impeccable reputation as a teacher. Even with the money the earl had promised for her school, she could not hope to establish it if respectable people believed she was a woman of loose moral character.

  But I am a woman of loose moral character.

  As she let herself out the kitchen door, Sabrina tried not to think of a future without Josh Cantrell...her Texan. But he wasn't her Texan; he was a viscount who would marry as his station dictated and leave her behind. The thought was so wrenching that she nearly dropped the small kerosene lamp she was carrying. Once beneath the shelter of the trees, she could light it if necessary.

  Focusing her mind on the task at hand, she made her way carefully down the wet steps to the backyard and headed toward the garden gate. After stumbling on several uneven bricks, she almost decided to light the lantern. Surely the stablemen were all asleep above the mews. No, they were too close. She dared not risk it. After a moment more, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Feeling assured, she slowly opened the heavy iron gate, whose hinges were always oiled so that it made nary a sound. Lord Hambleton's staff was extraordinarily attentive to every detail inside and outside his city house.

  Why would a man so punctilious about his affairs hire a boy as unreliable as Eddy? The question had been niggling in the back of her mind for some time. And why had he chosen her to tutor his nephew? He suspected, as did his servants, that she and Josh were lovers. He'd hinted at it rather openly just before Mr. Jamison had interrupted them, carrying in a wounded Josh. She was beginning to sense a very disquieting connection between this conspiracy and the earl's mysterious motives for employing her and Eddy.

  All the more reason to find out what the Samsonov woman was doing here and how she'd found her way inside the house. Lord forbid she'd come to see Lord Hambleton. Josh would be devastated if he'd crossed the Atlantic just to find that his only blood relation was the traitor the American president had sent him to uncover.

  It scarcely seemed credible. Lord Lansdowne’s clever Mr. Jamison would surely have suspected the earl if there was any reason to do so. Who was she to doubt a man who was the confidant of kings and prime ministers? Eddy’s life, and perhaps her own, hung in the balance, she reminded herself. For good or for ill, she had to learn the truth.

  Sabrina methodically worked her way along the wall, shoving aside bushes and running her hands over the damp roughness of the stone. She almost missed it. A tiny crack, far too straight to be the result of natural settling of the ground, was concealed behind a large weeping fig bush. Sliding her fingers into the crevice, she ran them up and down, encountering a slight resistance that immediately gave way. When a narrow doorway soundlessly glided open, she gasped and jumped back. Somehow she'd triggered a hidden latch.

  I've found the White Rabbit's hole!

  Inside was stygian darkness. Glancing nervously around the deserted garden and up at the windows overlooking it, she detected no one. Sabrina swallowed hard, forcing back the prickle of uneasiness that had been building ever since she'd set foot in the garden. The matches would not work even though she'd been careful to keep them dry. Fumbling nervously, she tried again. Finally one flared to life and she lit the tiny lantern as she stood inside the shadow of the door.

  A narrow flight of stone steps wound their way downward to some unknown destination. She had read about hidden passageways used during the English civil wars centuries ago to hide rebels and religious dissidents, but this was Mayfair in the twentieth century, and Hambleton House was certainly not old enough for such a thing. As she followed the stairs, she examined the walls and steps, realizing that they appeared smooth and new. No wear from countless people over years of use. This passageway must have been constructed in the recent past.

  By whom? And for what purpose?

  The stairway ceased its descent and began to rise again. If her sense of direction was not utterly off, she was now beneath the ground level of the house. In a few minutes she had climbed sufficiently to be at the first floor of the house...and at a dead end. A solid wall faced her once again. She held up the lantern and began to examine it. What lies beyond this?

  * * * *

  Josh crouched down in the darkness of the alley, smelling the noisome odors of garbage blending with bilious phosphorus fumes from a waterfront factory upwind. They had been waiting for over two hours since Calvin Firth, disguised as Count Hayashi, had entered the small room on Downing Street. No attempt had been made to shoot him during his ride from the palace to his destination. Their last slim hope was that the Russians were being extraordinarily cautious and waiting until he came out from his “meeting” with Lansdowne, who had been cooling his heels inside all this while to no avail.

  “I imagine the Foreign Secretary's pacing a hole in that splintery floor,” Michael whispered.

  “At least he's not squatting in this piss hole,” Josh replied. “Smells bad enough to knock a buzzard off a gut wagon.”

  Jamison chuckled softly over his friend's colorful American idiom, then stiffened as he observed the door across the street opening. “Our Japanese minister's coming out,” he said, preparing for action.

  Josh, too, tensed, as both men scanned the narrow street. There were agents on the rooftops of several key places, and men posted on Whitehall and in St. James' Park. If a shot rang out, there would be no escape for the assassins this time. But Firth made his way to the waiting carriage, his figure silhouetted in the lantern light, without incident. He climbed inside and the vehicle took off. Josh and Michael waited until the sound of the horses' hooves died away. The carriage would retrace its route back to the palace.

  Finally both men stood up, greatly disheartened.

  “If Zarenko'd taken the bait, it would appear reasonable that he'd have tried here or in the park,” Jamison said.

  “And we'd have heard the hullabaloo from here. Damn it all to hell!”

  “He paid Whistledown for information he did not use,” Michael said, rubbing his chin speculatively. The glint in his eyes was hard and cold as steel.

  A chill rippled down Josh's spine.

  * * * *

  Sabrina tried the same tactic she had employed on t
he outer door. At first it seemed not to work, but when she reversed her search to the opposite side, she encountered the same kind of latch. It clicked open, revealing a beautiful walnut panel. She stepped into Lord Hambleton's office, recognizing immediately his massive desk and the bookcase-lined walls around it. A secret passage into his inner sanctum! She speculated over what it signified.

  Such a device made sense if he held clandestine meetings with high-ranking members of the Foreign Office. But what had Natasha Samsonov been doing here this afternoon? That was the disturbing question. Sabrina set her lantern on the floor so the light would not shine through the narrow crack in the heavy velvet draperies drawn over the front window. Did she dare to search an earl's private office, especially one so highly placed in the government? If so, what should she look for?

  Not having the slightest idea, she began to go through the papers on his desk, then the drawers, being careful not to disturb anything. There were all sorts of scribbled notes about legislation pending or proposed for the next session of Parliament, reports from the factor who managed his estates scattered all about England. Nothing at all amiss for a peer of wealth and standing.

  “I would never have suspected you possessed the nerve to break into a peer's home,” snapped a nasty voice. “I should have known better.”

  Sabrina whirled around to confront the familiar figure standing at the doorway to the secret panel. The first thing her eyes fastened on was the pistol in his hand, pointed directly at her. In his other hand he held the note she had penned that morning.

  “So you're the White Rabbit,” she said.

  As he advanced toward her, he stared at her as if she were a complete fool.

  “Of course I am!”

  Bookmark”Chapter 19

  Chapter Nineteen