My Irresistible Earl

by Gaelen Foley

  A few minutes later, they were in London’s seediest quarter, the realm of the criminal gangs, to be sure, no place where any viscountess should venture, especially alone. Still following, Jordan kept a wary eye out for any signs of trouble heading her way from the locals.

  Fortunately, the worst criminal residents of these environs did not come out until well after dark, and at present, it was only teatime.

  Nevertheless, they were not far from the place where Mercer had been killed. And more to the point, they were near the last-known haunt of Dresden Bloodwell.

  Before long, Mara’s hackney ran into the same dilemma Jordan had encountered the night he had tracked Albert’s messengers. The coach could go no farther, unable to fit into the narrow, twisting lanes of the rookery.

  Jordan jumped off his horse and ducked out of sight behind a corner, aghast to spy Mara get out of the halted coach to continue on foot.

  What on earth was she doing? Had the woman lost her mind?

  Reaching into her reticule, she paid the hackney driver; Jordan could not hear their exchange, but the coachman’s gestures told him she was asking for directions.

  She nodded, then, to Jordan’s complete terror, she hurried away on foot into the shadowed labyrinth of London’s underworld.

  Something was terribly wrong. Something unspeakable.

  There was no further question of it in his mind.

  Leading his horse out from around the corner, Jordan approached the hackney driver. “That lady—where was she going?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Answer the question,” he clipped out.

  The jarvey scowled. “She asked me how to get to Neales Passage! What do you care?”

  “I need your help. That woman is in danger.”

  “What?” the man scoffed.

  “Guard my horse. There’s a hundred pounds sterling in it for you if you stay right here until I return.”

  “Stay here? There’s murderers about!”

  “Double it then!” Jordan pulled his billfold out of his waistcoat. “Here’s a hundred now. You’ll get another one of these when I return. You dash off, I come and hunt you down.”

  The jarvey accepted the bills with a nervous glance around, then he nodded, “Aye,” and took charge of Jordan’s horse.

  Then Jordan ran off silently in the direction Mara had gone. He found his way to the dark lane marked as Neales Passage, and just barely glimpsed her ducking into a wretched building ahead.

  Luckily, she paused to glance above the door at the number on the dismal brick tenement building before stealing inside and closing the door behind her. Jordan narrowed his eyes but wasted no time in following her. He slipped into the building a moment after her.

  Inside, he found a dim, cramped foyer from which a dirty staircase ascended. He could hear her light footsteps hurrying up the stairs. He followed silently, ignoring the claustrophobic stairwell with its greenish-painted walls that cast a sickly pallor over everything. The air reeked of urine and had a taint of squalor and disease.

  God. Where was this leading? He had the sickening feeling he already knew, even though his brain refused to accept it. But it was the only explanation.

  No wonder he couldn’t find Albert. It appeared Dresden Bloodwell no longer needed him.

  Jordan now considered it highly unlikely that his former whist partner was still among the living. But rage blasted through his veins to think that Albert’s final act of folly, no doubt in trying to save himself, had been to point Bloodwell in Mara’s direction.

  As Jordan continued following her, everything felt so dreamlike and strange, for this was his worst nightmare come true. To protect Mara from this sort of horror was the very reason he had given her up years ago. But it seemed you couldn’t run from fate.

  Perhaps a part of him had always known somehow that it would come to this. I’m so sorry, Mara.

  He cursed himself to Hell for ever agreeing to involve her in the first place, though admittedly, even before he had used her for his cover, she had already been a fixture in the Regent’s social circles. Albert would have known about her with or without Jordan’s being there.

  As he heard her light, quick footfalls turn and hurry up another flight of stairs, the grim realization sank in that there was only one motive strong enough to have brought her to such a place.

  Jordan closed his eyes against the gathering fury.

  Bloodwell must have taken Thomas.

  Why, Mara? Why didn’t you tell me? Have you truly lost all your faith in me? Can you not trust me anymore?

  With his heart nigh breaking in the silence to think that she had faced this on her own, he heard her footsteps stop above.

  He ducked out of sight when she paused to look back. Perhaps she sensed that she was being followed.

  Best to keep the advantage of surprise. If she spotted him, she might not be able to hide her emotions from Bloodwell.

  Then, once more, Jordan could hear her footsteps running up the zigzag staircase. He continued shadowing her as his cold fury grew and hardened.

  Her footsteps stopped.

  Jordan looked up, peering over the angle of the stairs to see on which door she had paused and knocked. Three anxious raps.

  At once, the door creaked.

  “Ah, Lady Pierson! Well, consider me impressed. You made excellent time. Come in.”

  Jordan had never heard Bloodwell’s voice before, but the sound of it sent icy hatred and almost primitive rage coursing through his veins.

  When he heard the door close, he emerged from the shadows of the stairwell, his blazing stare fixed on the door to the apartment above.

  Chapter 20

  Were you seen? Were you followed?” Bloodwell demanded as he pulled her into his rooms.

  “No. I got what you wanted. Now give me my son.”

  He shut the door. “Give me the list first.”

  “Where is Thomas?” she demanded in a shaky tone. “Return him to me, then you can have it!”

  He smirked at her effort to make a stand and grabbed hold of her reticule, wrenching it out of her hand with a jerk of the leather handle that would have broken her wrist if she had resisted.

  She stifled a small cry, watching in dread as he dumped it contents onto the floor. He ignored her money purse, the keys to her house, and her tiny appointment book, but bent to retrieve the folded piece of parchment.

  Mara swallowed hard, staring with her heart in her throat as he opened it.

  Bloodwell rose, laughing softly to himself as he scanned the list. “I knew it. Warrington! Rotherstone, as well,” he mumbled more to himself than to her. He furrowed his brow with a introspective stare. “Hold on. This is the Dante House set!” He looked at her in distracted astonishment. “It’s their fucking headquarters, isn’t it? Bloody Lucifer!” He shook his head to himself in amazement. “Well, I’ll bet that’s where they’re holding Niall.”

  He glanced at her though she had no idea who Niall was. “What a clever girl you are. It seems I have a lot of work ahead of me, but thanks to you, now it will be easy.”

  Mara swallowed hard this nauseating truth. “You have what you want. It’s my turn now. Give me back my son.”

  “Cool your heels. You cannot imagine how much I’m enjoying this. Let’s see, who else have we got? Beauchamp, hm. I think he tried to kill me a couple of months ago.”

  “Please! My child needs me!”

  “Shut your mouth!” he roared without warning.

  Mara jumped, startled, then backed away and dropped her gaze.

  “Don’t interrupt me when I’m trying to think,” he advised her. Then he turned his attention back to the list with a gloating look. “Now then, here’s a name I’ve heard before…Falconridge.”

  Her head down, Mara looked up fearfully.

  “Hm, yes, Albert mentioned him a while ago. The newest member of the Regent’s weekly card game, if I’m not mistaken. So, there’s the Order agent in the Regent’s set. Well, he’s
a dead man.”

  Unfortunately, Bloodwell heard her low gasp. She quickly looked away, but his cruel stare homed in on her.

  “Aha, you know this man? Rather well, I wager, seeing these fresh tears. How touching. There, there. Are you sleeping with an agent of the Order, Lady Pierson? Now, that is a very interesting prospect for me.”

  Mara refused to look at him, but she had started trembling.

  He laughed softly with hateful scorn, moving closer, and studying her, intrigued. “All you Society ladies are such whores. I hope he pleasured you well, this Lord Falconridge. I will enjoy killing him all the more for your sake.”

  “I want to see my son,” Mara choked out, cowering from him.

  “Yes, but, you see, it’s only what I want that matters, my pretty viscountess.” He lifted a stray lock of her hair. “You are too used to gentlemen, I think. You ought to sample plainer fare.” She shrieked as he suddenly grabbed a fistful of her hair. “I know how to bring you down a peg.”

  Without warning the door suddenly banged open, splintering off its hinges. Mara looked over in terrorized bewilderment as Jordan lunged into the room. He charged straight at Bloodwell, who immediately pulled a pistol out of his belt and turned to shoot.

  Mara saw Bloodwell’s finger on the trigger. Jordan was still three paces away. Point-blank range.

  Without any conscious forethought, she kicked Bloodwell’s hand as hard as she could; the shot went into the ceiling, then Jordan tackled him.

  They crashed to the floor, and Mara stepped back and watched in wide-eyed astonishment as Jordan’s fist smashed again and again into Bloodwell’s face. She was shocked by the brutal fury that had apparently been lurking all this time beneath the polished surface of her elegant, worldly earl.

  What was he even doing here? He must have followed her from Carlton House. Which meant he knew she had taken over Albert’s job as thief in the Regent’s office.

  While Jordan proceeded to beat the monster to a pulp, slamming Bloodwell’s head against the floor, at least Mara had the presence of mind to retrieve the list of Order agents.

  Barely daring to breathe, she picked it up as they grappled, but in the next moment, Jordan had battered his enemy into submission. Holding him down with his knee planted in the center of Bloodwell’s back, he drew his knife to finish him off.

  She gasped. “Jordan, no—he’s taken Thomas!”

  He paused, his chest heaving, wild fury in his eyes. He looked over at her with the diamond-hard glance of a spy who had no qualms whatsoever about cutting his enemy’s throat.

  “If you kill him, I will never find my son. He’s hidden him somewhere.”

  He seemed to absorb this after several seconds. He looked down at his captive with a noisy inhalation through his nostrils. “You will take us to the boy.”

  Dresden Bloodwell let out a garbled laugh, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “The hell I will.”

  Jordan leaned closer and pricked the bottom of Bloodwell’s eye socket with the tip of his knife. “You want to play nasty, eh? You will return the boy to us unless you want me to put out your eyes, one by one.”

  Bloodwell spat a curse at him.

  Mara watched, appalled, as Jordan pierced the flesh of Bloodwell’s face. He’s not really going to do it?

  Her jaw dropped as he slowly, inexorably, drove the tip of his dagger deeper into the skin.

  It was enough to convince Bloodwell, apparently, for the man suddenly screamed out, “No!”

  “Where’s the boy?”

  “Don’t do it. Wait. I will take you to him.”

  When Jordan withdrew his dagger, only the barest tip was bloodied, but Mara stared at him in shock.

  “Get to your feet.”

  Jordan exchanged his knife for his pistol and held the man at gunpoint. Bloodwell whispered another curse but obeyed, clearly shaken by his opponent’s remorseless attack.

  Realizing they were about to leave, Mara quickly bent down and picked up her things off the floor, throwing the odds and ends back into her reticule, her hands shaking.

  She perused the list. “This is what he wanted. I didn’t want to do it. He made me. It’s a-a list of names.” She swallowed hard. “Yours is on it.”

  She showed him the paper. He glanced at it and let out a low, dark laugh, keeping his stare on Bloodwell.

  “Should I burn it?” she offered in a shaky voice. “He’s already read it, though.”

  “No. We’re going to have to figure out who sent it. Give it here.”

  When Mara handed him the folded list, he hid it in his waistcoat.

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “It’s not your fault. Don’t worry, Mara. It’s going to be all right.”

  Tears filled her eyes when, even now, he refused to blame her.

  “Come, I’ve got a carriage waiting outside. You try anything,” he warned Bloodwell, “you’re going to lose more than your eyes. Now, walk.”

  Jordan half shoved, half dragged Bloodwell out to the waiting hackney, keeping the muzzle of his pistol thrust against the Promethean’s temple.

  When they reached the corner, he forced Bloodwell into the carriage, told the hackney driver to tether his saddle horse to the back of the coach, then ordered Mara to ride up on the driver’s box with the jarvey.

  She was looking at him strangely, but he supposed that should not surprise him after what she had seen him do.

  He was not quite sure what had happened to him back there. He stayed focused on his task, but it had been very difficult to stop himself from killing Bloodwell.

  They set off, Jordan riding in the carriage, keeping Bloodwell under control and his pistol pointed at him.

  His threats, both spoken and silent, dragged each subsequent piece of the directions to the place where Thomas was hidden out of Bloodwell. Jordan called them out to the driver, and before long, they arrived at an abandoned shack in a wooded grove on the outskirts of Town. That Bloodwell had not tried to deceive them was proved when they spotted Mara’s town coach parked nearby, hidden among the trees.

  The jarvey had barely brought the hackney to a halt when Mara was already jumping down off the driver’s seat and running toward the shack.

  Jordan eased out of the back of the carriage, still holding Bloodwell at gunpoint.

  “It’s locked!” she called frantically to him, banging on the door. “Thomas! Mrs. Busby! Jack!” She began fighting with the weathered door to the shack as muffled cries for help began coming from inside.

  Jordan suppressed another blinding jolt of rage when he heard the baby start to cry from inside the shack.

  “It’s all right, Thomas, Mama’s here! Mrs. Busby! Jack? We’re here to help you! Hang on, just another moment!”

  “Walk,” he ordered Bloodwell, moving closer.

  The Promethean glared at him with a promise of retaliation in his eyes, though his nose and mouth were swollen from Jordan’s blows, and blood still oozed slowly from beneath his eye, where the dagger had pierced him.

  Still keeping his pistol trained on Bloodwell, Jordan went over to the door.

  “Mrs. Busby, Jack, it’s Lord Falconridge. Get back from the door!” he warned the captives inside. “I’m going to kick it in.”

  He gave them a second to move away if they were behind it, then he smashed the door in with a thunderous kick like the one he’d used at Bloodwell’s. Mara immediately rushed in to save her child, but Jordan moved Bloodwell out of range.

  Seeing the rescue under way, the hackney driver must have had all his nerves could stand. Abandoning the other half of his reward, he ran back to his coach, leaped up to the box, and drove away with a look of fright over his shoulder, no doubt wishing he’d never laid eyes on any of them.

  Jordan felt a wave of deep relief but was still concerned as Mara carried Thomas out, hugging him to her, both of them weeping.

  Mrs. Busby staggered out, her wrists still bound with rope.

  “Mara! Go and get in your ca
rriage!” Jordan ordered. “Mrs. Busby, you go, too. Jack can drive you all to Dante House—”

  “He’s been shot, my lord!” the old nurse burst out.

  Dresden Bloodwell smiled. “Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that.”

  Jordan glared at him. “Mara! Put the baby in your carriage. Take my knife and free Mrs. Busby. Then go back in and see if Jack’s alive!”

  She nodded, looking grateful for such specific directions. Though still crying, she followed his instructions, placing Thomas in her carriage, then coming over to take Jordan’s knife.

  “Careful,” he murmured, but she soon freed the nurse’s hands and helped her into the carriage.

  Mrs. Busby weakly took charge of the two-year-old once more.

  As Mara hurried back into the dark, dingy shack, Jordan shook his head at the prisoner.

  “You’re going to pay for this, you know. A child? An old woman? You people never change.”

  Dresden Bloodwell said nothing, merely glared at him with a mocking smile.

  Mara reappeared in the doorway to the shack. “Jordan, he’s alive, though barely conscious. He needs a doctor, fast. He’s been shot in the abdomen. I can’t get him to stand up. Who knows how long he’s been like this.”

  He nodded. “Very well. I’ll get him. Come and take my gun.”

  “What?”

  “Keep it pointed at him.” He accepted his dagger back from her, sheathed it, then offered her his pistol.

  Mara stared at it. “Me?”

  “It’s all right. You can do it. I taught you how to shoot, remember?”

  “But what if he—” Her words broke off in dread.

  “Right. Better safe than sorry,” Jordan murmured. “Look away, my dear.” She turned her head but saw him from the corner of her eye as he gave Bloodwell a faint, cruel smile and aimed his pistol at the man’s knee.

  “Falconridge—”

  Boom!

  Bloodwell howled and dropped to the ground. A stream of curses poured from his lips as he clutched his bloodied leg and rocked and writhed in pain.

  “There,” Jordan said politely. “He shouldn’t be giving you any trouble now.”

  Mara gulped at her lover’s cool control while Jordan quickly reloaded the pistol.