The Duke's Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  Bet Simcox and Sandy Trenor came into the room quickly but hesitated on the threshold. "It's all right." Mélanie walked forwards to draw them into the room. "Mr. Trenor, I believe you're acquainted with everyone here." She turned to Frances, Archie, Raoul, Laura, and Cordy. "May I present Miss Elizabeth Simcox?"

  Bet was pale and wide-eyed but she curtsied and inclined her head. If the others had any idea of Bet's origins and profession they gave no sign of it. "We're sorry to barge in," Trenor said, when he'd handed Bet into a chair. "But we thought this was important."

  "I've had word from Robby." Bet sat bold upright in her chair, hands folded in her lap. "That is had word of him. My scapegrace brother hasn't been in touch with Nan or me. But Gwen at the Dolphin says he was there last night. Had a quick pint and said he had to be back out on the street. That it might be a matter of life or death." Bet shook her head. "Robby always could exaggerate. But Gwen says he only drank half the pint, said he wanted to be sure to keep a clear head. That doesn't sound like Robby. I can't but think—"

  She broke off as Valentin entered the room again. He'd learned not to stand on ceremony in the midst of an investigation. "There's a Mr. Lumley in the hall

  Chapter 37

  Gerald Lumley pushed the library door to behind him. "Someone's following me."

  "You're sure?" Malcolm got to his feet and walked towards the new arrival. Lumley's face was pale and his hair disordered, as though he had tugged his hat off with no concern for it, but his gaze was level and alert.

  "I caught a reflection in the window when the street turned," Lumley said.

  "Clever," Malcolm said.

  Lumley drew a breath, then went still, taking in the number of people gathered in the room.

  "It's all right," Malcolm said. "They're all part of this." Which was probably true—all the mysteries seemed to be intertwined. He quickly introduced Lumley to the others.

  Lumley nodded with punctilious courtesy, then looked back at Malcolm. "I feel quite out of my depth. Why on earth would anyone be after me?"

  "I don't know, but let's try a test. Give me five minutes and walk back outside with O'Roarke."

  Malcolm went out into the garden, round through the mews, and back into the square. The sky had turned inky purple and twilight shadows slanted across the square. Lumley and Raoul emerged from the house shortly after, chatting with a good appearance of ease. Lumley was handling this well. Moments later, Malcolm saw a dark form detach itself from the area railings of the next house over and fall into step behind them. Malcolm leaped from the shadows and landed on the follower's back. The man he tackled kicked but Malcolm tightened his grip on the man's shoulders. He twisted with the instincts of a street fighter. Raoul ran up and grabbed the man's arms. Malcolm got to his feet. Raoul pulled the man up, an iron grip on his arms.

  "What the devil do you want with Lumley?" Malcolm asked the man. He was young, probably not much more than twenty, with disordered fair hair and blue eyes that were somehow familiar as he stared at Malcolm with a mixture of alarm and belligerence.

  "Who?" the young man asked.

  "Me." Lumley ran up.

  The young man's jaw tightened. "Haven't been—"

  "Spare us." Malcolm said. "I saw you."

  "What do you have against me?" Lumley asked.

  "I'm not—"

  The door of the Berkeley Square house thudded open. "Robby!" Bet Simcox ran into the street. "What are you in the midst of?"

  Malcolm stared into Bet Simcox's blue eyes, the twin of those of the young man Raoul held. "This is your brother?"

  "My idiot brother." Bet stared at him, arms folded across her chest.

  Mélanie ran out of the house after Bet, Cordelia and Laura behind her. "Inside, I think. Mr. Simcox, we promise no violence if we aren't met with any in return."

  "I'm not going to be violent," Robby said. His face was still set with determination but he was making no attempt to break Raoul's hold.

  "Julien St. Juste hired you to follow Mr. Lumley?" Mélanie said when they were all gathered in the library. Raoul had patted Robby Simcox down for weapons, retrieved a knife, and then steered the young man to a chair and released him, though he continued to stand watch.

  "No, he—that is"—Robby sucked in his breath. "Never heard of anyone called St. Juste."

  "Robby." Bet fixed her brother with a firm stare. "We know he hired you. Sam told us. We didn't know why, but it's clear now."

  "Though not why St. Juste would be after Lumley," Raoul said. He was standing where he could block the path to the door.

  "He's not after him," Robby insisted. "That is, St. Juste isn't after Lumley. All right, yes, he did hire me to follow Lumley, but I was supposed to protect him."

  "Protect me?" Lumley said on a note of amazement. "From what?"

  "He didn't say. Just that I was to follow you and report on where you went, and be prepared to protect you if you were attacked."

  Lumley scrapped a hand through his hair. "It's daft."

  "Maybe so, but it's the truth." Robby Simcox's lower lip jutted forwards. "Are you calling me a liar?"

  "Not necessarily, " Malcolm said. "But with everything we're involved in, it's hard to imagine a man like St. Juste's main interest is in Lumley. At least on the surface. " He looked at Lumley. "Could Miranda have told you something?"

  "You mean something that got her killed?"

  "Miranda was murdered. And Julien St. Juste, who, whatever else he is, is no fool, thinks you're in danger."

  "But St. Juste didn't know Miranda," Cordelia said. "Did he?"

  "Not that we know of," Raoul said. "Which especially with St. Juste is no guarantee of anything."

  "Miranda didn't tell me anything," Lumley insisted. "Even if she knew this St. Juste, she never mentioned him to me."

  "It's likely something you don't realize is important." Archie sat forwards in his chair, gaze on Lumley. Assessing, as Mélanie knew all the spies in the room were doing. Was he an innocent caught up in something over his head or a very good agent playing them?

  "Do have a cup of tea, Mr. Lumley." Lady Frances lifted the teapot from a silver tray on the sofa table. "In fact, I think we could all do with one. Perhaps—"

  A crack cut through the library. Mélanie felt something sharp hit her neck. Malcolm slammed her to the floor and fell on top of her. Only then did she realize the sound had been the report of a gun.

  Chapter 38

  Mélanie pushed herself to her knees. Archie had flung himself over Frances. Sandy Trenor had his arms round Bet Simcox. Raoul had somehow crossed the length of carpet to Laura's chair. Laura looked at him and shook her head. Cordelia had a hand to her head. Lumley was staring at the broken glass that littered the carpet beneath the shattered window.

  "Is anyone hurt?" Malcolm asked as wind whistled into the room through the hole in the glass.

  As the others shook their heads, Mélanie put a hand to the back of her neck and felt blood.

  "Are you hit?" Malcolm's voice was sharp.

  "Just a scratch. A piece of broken glass hit me." She plucked the glass from the carpet and set it on a rosewood table where no one could step on it.

  Malcolm was on his feet and drew the curtains in an instant. Raoul touched his fingers to Laura's cheek and then was across the room again, running his fingers over the paneling.

  "Laura, Cordy," Malcolm said in a conversational voice, "let's get the children out of the parlor and gather them up at the back of the hall. Behind the stairs. Make a game out of it. Tell Valentin to stay with you."

  Laura and Cordelia were on their feet and out of the room without questions.

  Raoul pulled the knife he'd taken off Robby Simcox from beneath his coat and pressed it into the golden oak of one of the bookcases. "A rifle," he said, holding the bullet out. "Downward angle."

  "The Hollingsworth house across the square is being painted." Malcolm glanced behind one of the curtains. "The painters will be gone at this hour and the family are awa
y with no staff left on duty. I suspect he shot from the first floor."

  "For God's sake, darling, come away from the window," Mélanie said.

  "I doubt he'll try again now we're alerted." Malcolm moved back to help her to her feet. "Not this way."

  "Someone shot a rifle across Berkeley Square?" Trenor asked, his arm still round Bet.

  "Yes, that's something we've never encountered before," Malcolm said.

  "This proves it," Robby Simcox said. "Someone's after Lumley."

  "Probably," Malcolm said.

  "Probably?" Lumley demanded. "What else—"

  "They could have been shooting at Raoul." Frances blotted the tea that had spilled in her lap.

  Robby swung round to look at Raoul. "Someone's trying to kill you too?"

  "Possibly."

  "Probably," Laura said.

  "A carriage came close to running me down earlier today," Raoul said. "It could have been an accident, but I doubt it."

  Malcolm glanced at the wall where Raoul had dug out the bullet, at Raoul, at Lumley. "Lumley was sitting in front of where you were standing. Difficult to be sure which of you the sniper was aiming at. Let's all go in the hall with the children. No access from the windows if we stay behind the stairs."

  Laura, Cordy, and Valentin had dragged chairs in from the breakfast parlor and wedged them beneath all the doors that opened onto the hall. The children were sitting on the floor. "Is someone trying to break into the house?" Colin asked when his parents appeared.

  "Something like that." Malcolm touched his fingers to Colin's hair, then went to stand with Mélanie, Raoul, and Archie, who had drawn together by the stairwell.

  "That was the work of a professional," Archie said. "And also a desperate shot. Trenor's right, people, thank God, don't go about shooting off rifles in London, even agents. Perhaps especially agents. Much too risky."

  "Quite." Raoul studied the bullet he still held in his hand. "So something's happened to escalate things and he'll try again quickly." He looked from Archie to Malcolm to Mélanie. "How would you do it?"

  "I wouldn't wait for the target to leave the house," Mélanie said. "He has to know we're professionals as well and that we're on our guard now. And he'll know we'll have the wit to stay away from windows."

  "So he has to get inside the house," Malcolm said. "The area door or the kitchen windows are most likely. If he's done any research he'll know we're understaffed."

  "You're mad." Trenor had drawn close and was staring at them. "All of you."

  "Quite mad," Malcolm agreed. "But we're in the midst of a mad world. " He glanced round the protected portion of the hall. Bet was holding her brother's arm, as though to anchor him to the spot. Frances, pressed into a chair by Archie, was stroking Chloe's hair. Chloe looked a bit surprised but was putting up with it. Laura was kneeling with her arms round Emily and Jessica, and Berowne in her lap. Valentin was on the floor between Colin and Livia. Cordelia, Drusilla in her arms, had been talking to Lumley, the sort of seeming nonsense designed to soothe, but now she broke off and looked at Malcolm.

  "You should all be quite all right here," Malcolm said, in the same level voice he'd been using ever since the rifle bullet ripped into their house. "Mel, Raoul, and I need to reconnoiter. Uncle Archie's going to stay here."

  Archie nodded. His bad leg, which could slow him down, wouldn't be much of an issue should—God forbid—anyone get into the confined portion of the hall.

  Mélanie smiled quickly at the children. Best not to stop and think too much. She followed Malcolm and Raoul through the baize-covered door at the back of the hall that led below stairs. Midway down the pine stairs they all caught it. The smell of smoke.

  "Damnation," Malcolm said. "Why didn't I think—"

  He and Raoul already had their coats off. Mélanie yanked at the tapes on her petticoat and ripped it off. They caught the glow of flames as they rounded the last bend in the stairs, fabric pressed over their faces.

  The door to the kitchen was ajar, probably to allow the smoke to escape upstairs. They raced through and met a blast of heat. The flames were in the center of the room, on the deal kitchen table. They threw coats and petticoat over the fire. Mélanie and Raoul flung themselves on top. Malcolm jerked open the area door. Draped across the table, smoke in her nose and eyes, Mélanie heard a thud and a crash and a muffled cry. Raoul helped her to her feet. Malcolm came through the area door, dragging a compact, sandy-haired man. Even in the gray, smoky light, Mélanie recognized the hunch of his shoulders and the set of his face.

  "Billy," she said. Billy Hopkins might serve other masters, but in all Mélanie's encounters with him he'd been working for Lord Carfax. Save once, when Carfaxs daughter Louisa had engaged his services with tragic results.

  "Don't look at me like that, Mrs. Rannoch," Billy said. "I know I've been a damn fool."

  "Quite." Malcolm tightened his grip. "Though in fairness, if you hadn't got your feet tangled in the area railings, I wouldn't have caught you. At least we know who is behind this. Out with it, Billy—whom does Carfax want killed, Lumley or O'Roarke?"

  "O'Roarke?" Billy said on a note of disbelief. "Granted he gets in the way, but why would Carfax want to get rid of him now?"

  "Why indeed?" Raoul grabbed a kitchen knife and pressed it to Billy's throat. "Why does Carfax want Gerald Lumley dead?"

  Billy went very still but didn't appear particularly perturbed. "You won't use that."

  "Not usually, perhaps," Raoul said, the blade steady against Billy's throat. "But you just shot a rifle into a room where my entire family were assembled, including the woman I love who is carrying our child, and then set fire to the house they're all in. Such moral scruples as I have have been severely strained. Talk."

  "I can talk," Billy said. "But you won't know if I'm telling the truth. In fact, I probably won't be."

  "Try this," Malcolm said. "Don't talk, and I'm taking you with me to see Carfax. You can sit there while I tell him how you failed."

  Billy snorted. "It was mad anyway. I told him so, but he insisted. Usually he's more practical."

  "Why?" Malcolm folded his arms across his chest. "Why does he want Lumley dead?"

  "When does Carfax ever say why he wants anything done? If he explains at all, he explains more to you than me."

  That was a good point.

  "When did he hire you?" Malcolm asked.

  "This morning. That's what I mean about mad. Summoned me to Newgate—don't ask how, there are ways—told me if Lumley got anywhere near you, he had to be eliminated. By whatever means necessary. That isn't the way Carfax normally talks."

  "No," Malcolm said, "it isn't. Is anyone working with you?"

  "When have you ever known me to work with someone else?"

  Malcolm watched Billy for a moment, then nodded. The smell of charred cloth and burnt wood drifted through the smoky air. "Mel, can you get me a rope?"

  Mélanie found a length of kitchen twine. Malcolm lashed Billy's wrists, loosely bound his ankles, so he could walk but not run, took the knife from Raoul, and pressed it against Billy's side. "Upstairs, Billy, march. And though I might not use this to get you to talk—mostly because I don't think we could trust anything you might say—I won't hesitate to use it to keep you from escaping."

  Billy gave a grunt of acknowledgment and the four of them trooped up the stairs. Malcolm and Raoul took Billy into the library. Mélanie went to the back of the hall, and said it was quite safe for the children to return to their game of hide and seek in the parlor. Laura and Cordy went with them with looks that implored Mélanie to tell them the whole later.

  "I'm afraid there's a bit of a mess in the kitchen," Mélanie said to Valentin.

  "Nothing I can't handle, madam. I'm very grateful the threat is over."

  The others went into the library, where Malcolm and Raoul had Billy seated in a chair in the center of the room, away from any exits or anything that could be turned into a weapon.

  Lumley stared at Billy. "W
as he—"

  "You were his target," Malcolm said. "We still aren't sure why."

  "Not so mad now," Robby said. He frowned. "Didn't do a very good job of protecting him."

  "You may have kept him safe on his way here," Malcolm said. "And you put us on our guard. Without you we wouldn't have known whom he was shooting at."

  Lumley continued to stare at Billy, as though he were a creature from an alien realm. "I've never seen you before. I don't have anything against you."

  "I don't have anything against you." Billy's tone was matter-of-fact for all he was tied to the chair. "It was a job."

  Lumley shook his head. "God, if I was back in Rivendell—"

  Malcolm swung round to look at Lumley as Mélanie drew in her breath. "But you grew up in Surrey," Malcolm said, voice taut with the effort to maintain control.

  "We moved there when I was eleven," Lumley said. "When my father got the living. Before that, he was the curate in Rivendell. That's where they lived when I came to them."

  "Came to them?" Mélanie asked.

  "Yes." The gaze Lumley turned to her was wide and open. "They took me in when I was ten. I'd been living in an orphanage."

  "Where?" Malcolm asked in the same taut voice.

  "Where?" Lumley looked confused by the questions as though he couldn't see the point. "In Brittany. I know I don't have much of an accent—Miranda used to tease me about how I'd lost it. But I'm actually French."

  Chapter 39

  Malcolm slammed his hands down on the scarred table. "You tried to have the dauphin killed."

  Carfax cast a quick glance round his cell.

  "Damn it, sir. We have Billy Hopkins. He shot a rifle into my house. Into the room my wife was in. And Aunt Frances and Laura, who are both pregnant. My children were across the hall."

  Carfax's face seemed to go pale, though it might have been a trick of the shadows. "Billy's too good a shot to miss."

  Malcolm dropped into the chair across from Carfax. "Billy did miss. O'Roarke dug the bullet out of one of our bookcases. And then Billy set fire to our house."