Pots. Potter. Porter. Rosalyn Porter. Rosalie. Potted roses.
She tied a blue silk ribbon into the wayward hair twisted on her nape.
“Rosie Porter,” she said aloud, staring at her reflection. The duke thought she was beautiful. But today her face showed strain and-she blinked. Suddenly she was standing at a mirror in a green room as a gorgeous actress threw herself against the door. “It can’t be. It can’t be her.”
She spun around, startled, as her bedchamber door creaked open. “Good gracious, Harriet,” Lady Powlis said. “I have been tapping at your door for-”
“Oh, madam, do get out of the way for once.”
Lady Powlis gasped. “I beg your pardon.”
Harriet bobbed a belated curtsy, eyeing her employer like the kingpin in a street game of skittles. “And I’m sure I’ll be begging yours for the rest of our lives, but for the love of good St. George, if you don’t move your bum, I’m going-”
Lady Powlis planted herself across the doorway. “Duchess or not, you shall not knock me down.”
“It’s about Edlyn,” Harriet said urgently. “I know the woman who has taken her, and if you don’t understand what I’m talking about, I shall have to explain it later. The person in question was a player at the theater when I started out. Rosie Porter, she called herself, and the besom couldn’t act her way out of a chair.”
Lady Powlis leaned back against the door. “How long ago was this?”
“Five years or so. She left with a traveling troupe of players when the director told her she sang like a sick cow.”
“We had a troupe perform at the castle two years ago,” Lady Powlis said, paling at the realization. “Edlyn was enamored of the actress who played Queen Titania. I thought she was positively dreadful.”
“That’d be Rosie,” Harriet said.
“She must have been in contact with Edlyn all this time,” Lady Powlis said in a faint voice. “I never thought to ask about her letters. I thought corresponding was good for her.” She shook her head in horror. “The entire time we were arranging to come to London, that woman was making plans to abduct my niece.”
Harriet slipped on a pair of sturdy half boots. “I think the first thing to do is ask at the theater.”
“No,” Lady Powlis said quickly. “I am afraid to be alone. You can’t go, Harriet. What if the kidnappers come back for me, too? To double the ransom they’re asking. They might be watching the house to see when I’m left alone.”
Harriet wavered. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that dragging Lady Powlis anywhere against her will was liable to attract the attention of every spy, soldier, Horse Guard, Bow Street Runner, and concerned citizen in the metropolis. But fear was a powerful force, and Harriet would not be responsible for anything that might happen if she left.
“I have to get word to Sir Daniel. That’s the important thing. He has to know where to look. We shall have to send Trenton to Lord Heath’s, Raskin after Sir Daniel, and the coachman to Lord Drake’s for good measure.”
“Won’t that leave us rather unguarded?” Lady Powlis asked hesitantly.
“Madam, you have me to defend you. And Butler.”
“Oh, dear.”
This was hardly the time for Harriet to expound upon her past career, so she curbed herself and said, “Think calmly. What are the chances that a criminal is going to break in to this house before the duke comes home?”
Lady Powlis looked unpersuaded. “I’d feel better if we brought Griffin’s brace of pistols to the drawing room while we wait.”
“Fine, madam. If that gives you comfort.”
“Oh, I have a pistol in my reticule, too. Fetch it for me, dear, with my cashmere shawl.”
“Yes, madam.”
Lady Powlis put her hand over Harriet’s. “While this is not the moment of happy celebration I have dreamed of, let me offer my congratulations. It was obvious to me that you and Griffin had fallen in love.”
Harriet paused. “You wouldn’t have given his grace a little nudge in my direction?”
“Of course I would. I told you that I’d do anything to make sure he didn’t marry the wrong woman.”
Which wasn’t exactly the same thing as being reassured that she was the right woman to become duchess. Still, Harriet decided it was good enough. And with any luck, she and her future aunt-in-law would celebrate the impending nuptials over a glass or two of sherry without firing a shot.
Chapter Thirty-four
The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Epipsychidion
It was amazing how love could energize a man. Griffin had been going night and day on raw nerves. Whenever his energy flagged, he had only to think of Harriet, warm and tousled, in her bed, and he found his strength bolstered. He was going to find Edlyn so that they could become a proper family. Or as close as a Boscastle could aspire to propriety when seeking that happy state.
Fortunately, the footman whom Harriet sent from the house had located Sir Daniel without delay. And one of the Runners who wrote down the name immediately remembered an actress called Rosie Porter, a comely lady who flashed her legs at the audience and assaulted her leading man. He thought she might have run off with another woman’s husband.
It was the best lead the private detective had been given. Still, no one had seen Mrs. Porter in years.
Griffin sat drinking hot coffee at the station with Sir Daniel as he interviewed dozens of past and former members of the King’s Theatre where Rosalie Porter had performed.
Harriet Gardner’s name came up a few times, too, with a fondness that irritated Griffin to no end. He listened in stony silence whenever an actor or agent digressed and wondered aloud what had happened to the pretty red-haired actress who’d made them laugh.
Still, in the end, hours of lengthy interviews and poring over musty records retrieved from the Fleet Street police station tendered no helpful clues to Mrs. Porter’s current whereabouts.
By late afternoon, a gang of would-be reward collectors had congregated at the station door in the hope of overhearing a helpful tip.
“Go back home,” Sir Daniel told Griffin, pulling on his coat. “I’ll walk in the opposite direction. The reward seekers are more liable to cause harm than help.”
“You’ll send for me if anything happens?”
Sir Daniel nodded. “I might visit your house in a short while. It should be time for Mrs. Porter to make her last appeal.”
“Or not,” Griffin said, suddenly realizing that a woman who had plotted a crime for years was capable of things he was afraid to contemplate.
Why had Edlyn not trusted him?
He knew the answer. The truth wouldn’t change. She blamed him for killing her father. She had never accused him, but, in fact, it was remarkable that during one of their countless quarrels, she had not thrown that suspicion in his face.
He walked home, heading north on Drury Lane, past the academy, to Oxford Street, and from there to Berkeley Square. His cousins had begun teaching him his way around London. He passed the Bruton Street brothel at which the Boscastle men had a standing invitation and laughed. Harriet would roast him over a spit if he mentioned a seraglio in her presence.
He slowed his pace as he approached Bedford Square. It only now occurred to him to wonder why Sir Daniel meant to come to the house. Had he been hinting that Lady Powlis and her companion could be in danger? Griffin had never once considered that Edlyn’s abductors might grow desperate and-
He turned on impulse and walked around the square to the back walk of his house. The sunken gate to the garden was closed. Or was it? He did not even remember if he had checked. But he had ordered the gates and doors to remain locked at all times, and someone had stuck a knife in the latch. His heart skipped a beat. It was five thirty. The street was still busy enough.
He pushed the gate open and heard footsteps on the pavement behind him. One of Sir Daniel’s men strolled by with a walking stick. H
ad the man noticed the knife?
“Out for an after-dinner stroll?” he called to the tall-hatted figure.
The detective’s man paused. He knew who Griffin was, and he knew they were not to acknowledge each other in public. “This isn’t your knife in the latch, is it, by any chance?” Griffin asked after a hopeful pause.
The man removed his hat. Griffin noticed three other gentleman pedestrians, one with a hound, advancing on the pavement.
“Your grace,” the agent said in a low voice. “This is a sign of criminal entry. I advise you to stay here until the house is searched.”
Griffin slowly shook his head. “I am going into my house through the servants’ entrance. In the event that I come upon any criminals, I shall deal with them as I must.”
“Your grace, if I may at least accompany you?”
“Yes. But you had best go to the front door. My aunt and her companion are not exactly what one would refer to as shrinking violets. And I must warn you that in all probability they are both armed.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival of my father.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
Harriet trained her pistol on the gaunt figure that had appeared like a ghost in the doorway. Dear God. She could have shot him for a stranger. He had tied his unkempt blond hair back with a bit of string. His coat and trousers stank to heaven. She was a little stunned to realize that from a distance one might actually consider him to be handsome.
“Should I shoot him first, Harriet?” Lady Powlis asked in a quavering whisper from behind the sofa.
“Don’t shoot at all. In fact-” Harriet bit her cheek, stepping around the sofa to remove the dueling pistols from Primrose’s unsteady grasp. Her ladyship was liable to shoot Harriet or herself the way those guns were bobbing up and down. “If anyone shoots our nasty visitor, it’ll be me.”
Grim Jack held his battered hat to his heart. “Is that any way to talk to your beloved sire?”
Lady Powlis’s eyes widened. “What did he say?”
“Nothing,” Harriet snapped. “He’s just some confused street gent who wandered in here by mistake. And he’s going to leave-”
Grim Jack brushed around her. “Madam, you’ve naught to fear from ’arry’s dad. We’re all friends, ain’t we?”
“Your-” Lady Powlis sniffed the air like a pointer. “What is that unusually pungent odor?”
“That would be my father,” Harriet said, passing Lady Powlis a scented handkerchief. “You’ve met him. Now he’s getting out, or I’m calling the constable.”
“’ang on a minute,” Grim Jack said, eyeing the fine Japanese vase on the mantelpiece. “I’ve risked life imprisonment, transportation, maybe even ’anging to come ’ere.”
“Nice of you to bother,” Harriet snapped, prodding his hand away from the table with her pistol. “You’re supposed to be dead. You killed someone-”
“In self-defense.” He stepped back, suddenly gaping at her as if he had seen a ghost. “It’s been a long time, ’arry. You look so much like her. I-I-”
“What do you want?”
“I know where she is-that duke’s girl that got abducted-if you’d give me a chance to slip in a word.”
“You dirty lying bag of-”
“Why don’t you let the man finish, Harriet?” Lady Powlis asked through her handkerchief. “And open a window while you’re at it.”
“Madam.” He bowed to her. “I apologize for my indecorous aroma. But I was in dire straits, and I’ve risked capture to be of service to the duke, when ’e’s at ’ome.”
Harriet walked him to the window, her voice shaking with contempt. “You know where Edlyn is? Is that what you want us to believe? Where is she? You, who couldn’t find a chamber pot if you stepped in it. You-”
“I saw ’er face,” he said. “I swear it. She was behind a barred window in ’anging Sword Alley. She even ’eld out a hand to me. I thought at first she were an angel. Then I saw all them posters.”
“What did she look like?” Lady Powlis whispered.
“White as a bloody corpse. Sorry, my lady. It was dark, and I thought I was seein’ things.”
“Could you find her again?” Harriet asked, dimly aware of a door opening in the servants’ quarters.
“Yeah. But it ain’t where I’d go. I went back there, see, right back to that lodgin’ ’ouse, after I realized who she was. Then I remembered that it’d been some bloody awful screamin’ that woke me up in that wheelbarrow.”
“Screaming?” Lady Powlis said faintly. “My niece was screaming?”
Jack frowned. “No. But some ravin’ shrew behind ’er was.” He bent his head to Harriet’s. “I watched a bit. The young lady never came back to the window, but after a while a man came out, so I followed ’im, careful like, to Blackfriars Bridge.”
“And he didn’t notice you?” Harriet whispered after a skeptical pause.
He scoffed, stopping himself before he swatted her with his hat. “I saw ’im meet up with a bargeman. I couldn’t ’ear everything, but I put together they was makin’ plans to sail tonight, if they ain’t already done so.”
Harriet regarded him without a hint of affection. “If you’re lying, so help me God, I’ll not only watch you swing, I’ll hang on to your ankles and turn somersaults between your feet.”
“I think he’s telling the truth,” Lady Powlis said, looking as if she were going to be sick, whether from Jack’s story or his smell, Harriet did not know.
She did know, however, that she’d never felt so relieved to see anyone as when suddenly the duke entered the room, the look of unmasked emotion on his face the stuff of fainting damsels and impossible dreams. His eyes dropped to the pistol she was holding at her side. She shook her head. His aunt started to cry.
“It’s all right,” Harriet said, swallowing over a knot in her throat. “But there’s no time to waste. This man-my father-thinks he knows where Edlyn is.”
He nodded tersely. His gaze holding hers, he strode past Jack and motioned from the window. Harriet noticed a man across the street, another appearing on the corner. There could have been a hundred armed guards about the place. It was Griffin’s presence that made her feel safe. She had known other gentlemen willing to overlook her imperfections, to offer themselves as her protector. But she had never met a man who needed her to protect him as desperately as he did.
He took the two dueling pistols Harriet had hidden behind the teapot, tucking one into his belt and handing the other to her father. “Can you take me to the house where you saw her?”
“I could, but someone’s gotta be on the bridge, just in case.”
Harriet had to turn away for a moment. She had seen the surprise on her father’s face at the implicit trust that Griffin had given him. She thought then of her mother, of how Jack would talk about her when he got drunk, and how he cursed the world for taking her when he’d have gladly gone in her place.
She had never considered that she might have been a product of love and that there had been goodness in Jack Gardner before he became the brutal man she remembered. Who would have guessed he’d turn hero at the last hour?
He put his hand out to hers. “I’ve been think-in’-”
She blinked.
“-you could always see better than anyone in the dark, ’arry. We could watch each other’s backs, just like in the good-”
“Absolutely not,” Griffin and Primrose said in unison.
“In fact,” the duke added, “I am having two of Sir Daniel’s men posted inside this house while I’m gone.”
Jack shifted his feet. “Let’s ’ope they do a better job guarding the ladies than they did of keepin’ me out.”
Harriet vented a sigh. “I have never felt this utterly useless before.”
“Now you know how a woman of my capacity feels when she begins to grow old,” Lady Powlis murmured, misty-eyed again.
Griffin caught Harriet under her elbow and drew her against him for a last word of caution, if not an embrace. “Be good. Don’t give Sir Daniel another reason to arrest you.”
“I love you, Griffin,” she whispered.
He broke away, gesturing for Jack to follow. Harriet stood, offering Lady Powlis reassurances she wished to believe herself. She had always dreaded the day that Griffin would meet her father. Her mind had played out many humiliating scenarios. She had not once, however, imagined the pair of them forming an alliance that would fill her with pride.
Chapter Thirty-six
The magic car no longer moved; The Daemon and the Spirit Entered the eternal gates.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The Daemon of the World
Given a good tide, a waterman could ferry his customers from London to Gravesend in a matter of hours. From this port in Kent, one could secure a ship to France or vanish into any number of quiet villages. Even as twilight fell, the River Thames pulsed through England like a vital artery.
At Grim Jack’s urging, Griffin had abandoned his carriage on a stone bridge clogged with the traffic of carts and coaches carrying city merchants home. He had no choice but to trust Harriet’s sire, a confidence he realized that Jack did not necessarily share.
Without warning, Jack halted in a hidden alley that led to the waterfront. On the damp steps below, street vendors cried their wares and bargemen exchanged ribald insults that echoed in the air.
“I’m not takin’ another step, duke or not, until you answer me one thing.”
Griffin cursed. “Yes, the reward is yours.”
“I don’t mean that.” Jack paused as a low whistle came from a corner behind them. “I want to know that you’ll take care of me daughter.”
“I’m going to marry her.”
The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife Page 20
