An Irresistible Alliance

by Stephanie Laurens

  “Which brings us back to our gunpowder carters, or at least, to their horses and carts—their rigs.”

  “Indeed. And on top of that, there are so many carters working in and around London, carting this and that down every street and lane, let alone along the highways, and they’re all guild men and seem to know each other at least by sight, then if a non-guild man had been driving a gunpowder cart all the way from Kent into London, one of the guild carters would have noticed and reported him. That has to be the way the guild system works. By the sounds of it, they’re rigid about protecting their turf, and the gunpowder carters are one of the most highly paid branches of the fraternity. I imagine the guild would act quickly and decisively to protect their monopoly.”

  She nodded. “True enough. And from all we’ve heard from the carters we’ve spoken to, none would even contemplate lending their carts to someone else—someone not of their number.”

  “Which is to say”—he looked down and caught her eye—“that our suppositions are sound, and we need to persevere and work our way through the entire list if need be. At least one of the men on it must have been the man behind the reins of a gunpowder cart that traveled from the Kent coast to London. Even if he doesn’t immediately admit to taking the job, he’ll react, and with him being a guild member, I’m sure we’ll eventually persuade him to tell all.”

  She let herself absorb the confidence in his eyes, in his tone, then nodded and looked ahead.

  They found the next address, which proved to be a lodging house. Michael raised his cane and beat a crisp tattoo on the dingy, faded door.

  After a moment, heavy footsteps approached, then the door swung open to reveal a large woman with frizzy, pale hair, several chins, and a multitude of layers—a bodice, spencer, shawl, petticoats, heavy skirt, and apron among them. She was drying her reddened hands on a cloth, but her gaze as she took in the sight of them was shrewd and alert. Her eyes widened fractionally, then she focused on Cleo. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Good morning. I’m looking for”—Cleo glanced at the list to confirm the name—“Mr. Terrance Doolan. I understand he lives here?”

  The woman slowly nodded. “Aye, that he does. I’m his landlady.” The woman’s gaze grew sharper. “And you are?”

  Cleo was rather surprised at the question and its tone, but she trotted out her name, the company’s name, and that she wished to speak with Doolan over a job he might recently have taken.

  The landlady’s features eased. “Sorry, ma’am, but I did wonder, you see…” Her expression turned openly anxious; her fingers clenched on the cloth, twisting the material. “I’d like to speak with Terry, too—he went off on a job four days ago now, and he hasn’t returned, and that’s just not like him.”

  Cleo’s pulse leapt. “Four days ago…that would be Tuesday?”

  The landlady nodded. “Odd, it was—he’s usually off by first light to any job, but this one, he left in the afternoon. Tuesday afternoon.” Her lips turned down. “Chipper and chirpy as usual, he went off with that apprentice of his up beside him, and I ain’t seen hide nor hair of him since.”

  Cleo exchanged a look with Michael. Doolan had left for a job at the right time, and now, he was missing. Surely this had to be the connection they’d been searching for.

  Michael dragged his gaze from Cleo’s face and looked at the landlady. “The apprentice—do you have a name and address? Have you seen him since Doolan left?”

  “No—I ain’t seen Johnny, neither.” The landlady shifted in the doorway. “Johnny Dibney, he is. Lives in Mrs. Hendrick’s lodging house over on Cock Lane.” The woman pointed west. “It’s off Chamber Street over that way, just up from Rosemary Lane. It’s not far.” She twisted the cloth tighter and added, “If you do find Johnny and he knows what’s happened to Terry, I’d take it kindly were you to get Johnny to come tell me straightaway.” She paused, then her face fell, and she heaved a huge sigh. “I need to know what to do with Terry’s things if he ain’t coming back.”

  Michael nodded. “If we hear anything of Doolan, we’ll let you know. One more question. Doolan—was he Irish?”

  “Aye, that he was. Even though he’d been here in London since he was a mite, he still had all of the charm of those Irish beggars. Always had a twinkle in his eye, did Terry.”

  “Thank you.” Michael shot a glance at Cleo.

  She met it, then turned to the landlady and thanked her for her help. They left the woman standing in the doorway, slowly wringing the cloth between her hands.

  “She doesn’t think Doolan is coming back,” Cleo whispered as they walked back down the lane.

  “No, she doesn’t.” Michael scanned the streets, then nodded to their right. “This way.” He tightened his grip on Cleo’s elbow, and they set off in search of Doolan’s apprentice.

  * * *

  They paused to consult Tom where he waited with the carriage drawn up by the curb in Church Lane. He directed them south to Rosemary Lane and recommended they follow that until they reached the southern end of Cock Lane. “Just past Leman Street. It’s a tiny little lane runs between Rosemary and Chamber Street—you can’t miss it.”

  Once they reached the tiny lane—and tiny was the appropriate adjective—by dint of asking passersby, they found their way to Mrs. Hendrick’s door, midway up the street.

  After rapping on the door, Michael murmured, “Let me lead this time.”

  He raised his head as the door swung wide and nodded politely to the short, buxom woman who stared at them in surprise. “Good morning. Mrs. Hendrick, I presume?” When the woman nodded, he continued, “We’re making inquiries about the conditions of apprentices working under the carters’ guild, and we were wondering if we might have a word with”—he pretended to glance at the list Cleo still held in her hand—“Johnny Dibney.”

  On their way to Cock Lane, Cleo had realized Dibney’s name was on the list, indented beneath Doolan’s.

  “We understand,” Michael smoothly rolled on, “that Johnny is apprenticed to Mr. Terrance Doolan.”

  Mrs. Hendrick nodded. “That he is, and a good lad, make no mistake.” Her brow furrowed. “See here—Johnny’s not in any trouble, is he?”

  Michael widened his eyes. “Not that we’re aware of.”

  “It’s just that he hasn’t been home the last nights—not since he went off to join Terry Doolan on Tuesday. Off on some job, Johnny said, but I did wonder, what with the timing.”

  “What she means”—a large man loomed behind Mrs. Hendrick; he put a huge hand on her shoulder and nodded politely to Michael and Cleo—“is that this job was starting in the afternoon, and Johnny said as he didn’t expect to be back until the next day.” The man glanced at Mrs. Hendrick. “We didn’t rightly know what to make of that.”

  “And then Johnny never did come back.” Mrs. Hendrick’s face wrinkled in distress. She glanced up at the man. “I was thinking as perhaps I should go and ask at Terry Doolan’s place, and see if his landlady has had any word.”

  “Sadly, she hasn’t,” Michael said. “We’ve just come from there.” He paused, then said, “It’s certainly rather troubling. I wonder—can you give us any indication of what, exactly, Johnny did in his work? Did he assist Doolan with loading, taking care of the horses, holding them, stabling them?”

  “All that and more.” The man leant against the doorframe. “Johnny was almost finished his training. He was cleared to drive carts, even those gunpowder rigs. Good bit of money in it once he’d got to journeyman, and Terry—he done well by the lad. He’d got him registered to drive, but of course, Johnny hadn’t yet moved on to taking his own jobs.”

  “So Johnny and Doolan got along?” Michael asked.

  “That they did,” Mrs. Hendrick replied. “Terry was the master, of course, but Johnny was a hard worker, and Terry appreciated that.”

  The man nodded. “Aye—that were the way of it.”

  Michael exchanged an impassive glance with Cleo. Her eyes were just a touch wide. H
e turned back to the pair in the doorway. “Thank you. We’d best get on. We’ve other apprentices we must check on.”

  With a nod, he drew Cleo away—before Mrs. Hendrick or the man started asking awkward questions.

  As they headed back to Rosemary Lane, Cleo murmured, “So Doolan’s apprentice is missing, too.” She looked up at Michael. “What now?”

  “Now,” he said, once more winding her arm with his, “I suggest we find a suitable place to discuss what this means, where it leaves us, and our next moves.”

  Chapter 6

  With respect to a suitable venue for said discussion, when appealed to, Tom suggested the Queen’s Head, which proved to be a snug public house at the corner of Queen Street and Rosemary Lane, literally in the shadow of the Tower. Michael instructed Tom to pull up in the tiny stable yard and consign the horses and carriage into the care of the ostlers; leaving Tom to take his meal in the taproom, Michael ushered Cleo to a table in the dining room.

  The inn wife bustled up, beaming and ready to take their order. They both opted for portions of venison stew, and Cleo ordered a glass of cider, while Michael settled for a pint of ale.

  After the inn wife left them, Michael studied Cleo’s face. He wasn’t at all happy with what they’d found—what it suggested; when she looked up as if to speak, he shook his head. “Let’s wait until she comes back with the food.”

  Cleo nodded, apparently as ready as he to delay putting the inevitable conclusion into words.

  But eventually, serving girls brought out their plates and drinks, set everything down, and left them in peace.

  Michael quickly spoke first; if he could steer the conversation, so much the better. “Given Doolan and his apprentice left London on Tuesday afternoon supposedly on a job, then I believe we can safely conclude that they are the ones who traveled down to Kent, loaded up the ten barrels of gunpowder from the cave under Ennis’s land, almost certainly meeting Connell Boyne in the process, then—as far as we can tell—they transported those barrels into London, presumably arriving sometime on Wednesday morning.”

  Her head bent, Cleo raised a mouthful of stew to her lips. She chewed, swallowed, then said, “Why did he—Doolan—take his apprentice? Did he always do that, or was it because he needed two drivers?”

  “I imagine the latter, because of the ten barrels. Given their size, even if they’d been filled with sawdust, I don’t think they would have fitted in one cart. So Doolan needed two carts, and he therefore needed Johnny to drive the second, and as we just heard, Johnny was registered to drive such carts.” He frowned. “Do any of the other carters have apprentices? I wonder if that was behind Doolan being chosen for this job, rather than that he was Irish and might have been drawn in as a Young Irelander sympathizer.”

  Cleo drew out the list again; it was getting distinctly creased and worn. She ran her eyes down it. “Now I know that these subsidiary names are apprentices…” She reached the end of the list, then looked up. “Only one other carter—a Mike Oldham, who we’ve yet to speak with—has an officially listed apprentice.”

  “Hmm. Well, we can check whether Oldham was approached, but for my money, Doolan was most likely chosen because he was Irish, and whoever is behind the organization of this plot had reason to suppose he would work for the cause.” Michael grimaced and reached for his ale. “That would fit with the plotters’ methods thus far.”

  “What I would like to know,” Cleo said, poking at the remnants of her stew, “is where Doolan got the second cart—the one for Johnny to drive. Doolan was, by all accounts, a guildsman through and through—he even trained apprentices. He wouldn’t have broken the rules”—she met Michael’s eyes—“so he would have borrowed a properly registered cart from one of the other gunpowder carters, wouldn’t he?”

  Slowly, Michael nodded. “You’re right. And as we’ve asked all the carters we’ve spoken with whether they’ve loaned their cart to anyone recently and thus far drawn a blank, then the carter who loaned a cart to Doolan on Tuesday must be one of the four on the list that we’ve yet to interview.”

  Cleo glanced at the list, then tucked it back into her reticule. “It must be one of them, and presumably that other carter who has an apprentice—Mike Oldham—will know what a carter with an apprentice would do. Who he would turn to for an extra cart.”

  “We’ll ask when we get to him, if we haven’t already found out.”

  Cleo nudged her plate aside and reached for her glass. They’d danced around the subject long enough. “I understand what Doolan and Johnny Dibney must have done, and that as far as we can tell and must presume, they returned to London, but why are they missing?”

  Michael raised his gaze to her face, hesitated for a moment, then he looked at his plate, slowly set down his cutlery, and pushed the plate aside.

  Debating just how much to tell her; Cleo waited, wondering if he would come to the correct conclusion.

  Somewhat to her surprise, he did; he raised his gaze and, across the table, met her eyes. “In your office, when I first told you of the plot, I mentioned that three people—two gentlemen and a lady—had already been killed because of it. Connell Boyne—the Irishman who arranged for the gunpowder to be shipped to London and stored in a cave on his brother, Lord Ennis’s estate—killed his brother and sister-in-law after learning that Ennis planned to tell Drake of the plot. Subsequently, however, Boyne himself was slain—by whoever he had been working with.”

  Michael watched her take that in; murder was a gruesome subject at any time—generally considered unfit for a lady’s ears—and in this case, there were overtones of betrayal as well, but better she know and appreciate the true dangers inherent in the mission.

  Eventually, she tilted her head—something he’d noticed she did when especially curious or puzzled; her gaze on his face, she asked, “Why do you—and Winchelsea—think Connell Boyne was killed?”

  “We had two reasons, not necessarily mutually exclusive. One, that because Boyne had murdered his brother and sister-in-law and was being actively pursued by the authorities, he had become too much of a liability. However, it’s also possible that Boyne was killed on the principle that, as Drake puts it, dead men tell no tales.” He paused, then continued, even as he followed the thoughts in his head, “Originally, why Boyne was killed didn’t really matter—he was dead. However, with these latest disappearances…”

  After a moment, she quietly filled in, “You think Doolan and Johnny Dibney have met with a similar fate.”

  He grimaced, then looked at her—took in the delicacy of her strawberry-blond, peaches-and-cream beauty, the fragility of her fine-boned frame, and felt protectiveness, deeper and more powerful than he’d ever felt before, rise and flow like a wave through him. “I can’t see any other reason for them to have disappeared.”

  Her own gaze steady, she returned his regard, but after a moment, her gaze grew distant, and a frown gradually formed in her eyes. “That seems an odd way to manage a plot.” She refocused on him. “Killing those who assist.”

  He nodded; even as he did, memory bloomed, and after a second’s pause, he stated, “It’s unusual, yes, but if there’s something about this plot that those who are ultimately in charge of it want to—perhaps need to—keep from all those helping them, then killing people once their individual tasks are completed makes sense.”

  She frowned more definitely. “You mean, for instance, concealing from Connell Boyne that the plot isn’t actually a Young Irelander plot?”

  “That, too, but taking it a step further”—he recalled the possibility Drake had aired—“what if the true target of the plot, whatever they’re planning to blow up, isn’t something the Young Irelanders or any of those who’ve helped them, like Doolan and Johnny, would agree with? What if the target was something those people wouldn’t support—wouldn’t stand for to the point of going to the authorities?”

  “That’s…” She paused, then concluded, “Rather diabolical. If, through guile, you use someone to att
ack something that someone wouldn’t want attacked at all…” She shivered slightly. “Only an astoundingly manipulative mind would think like that.”

  “Much less put a plot like that into action. But so far, this plot has all the hallmarks of a Young Irelander plot—even Doolan fits that bill—yet Drake has proved the plot has absolutely nothing to do with the movement. The Young Irelanders are being used—ruthlessly used. Not only are their sympathizers being drawn in and then killed off, had it been anyone other than Drake investigating, the Young Irelander movement would very likely be blamed for whatever the end result of the plot actually is, and they would suffer whatever retribution the authorities mete out.” He paused, then went on, “And if the target is something sufficiently unthinkable that Young Irelander sympathizers would balk, then that retribution will be…dramatic.”

  She looked pensive. “It appears that whoever is behind this plot is no friend of the Young Irelander movement.”

  He blinked, then raised his brows. “Good point.” He thought, then added, “I’d be prepared to lay odds that despite the latest rumors that Drake’s off investigating, it won’t be the Chartists behind it, either.”

  “Perhaps the Chartists are another group those behind this—the true perpetrators—want to damage.”

  He nodded, then restlessly stirred. “We’ll know more once Drake gets back. Meanwhile”—he looked at where she’d set her reticule on the chair beside her—“I suggest we interview the final four carters. One of them must have loaned Terry Doolan his cart, and, pray God, Doolan might have said something that will give us some inkling of who he was dealing with.”

  “Indeed.” She picked up her reticule and rose. “Let’s forge on and see what we can learn.”

  He ushered her out of the dining room, summoned Tom with a look, and together, the three of them walked out to the carriage.