An Irresistible Alliance

by Stephanie Laurens

  As if she felt it, too, she swayed toward him…but then caught herself.

  She tried to pull back, to step back—he saw that in her eyes—but she couldn’t seem to manage it.

  He dragged in a breath, but with his gaze still captured, with his entire being still focused on her, despite knowing he should, he couldn’t get his feet to step back. To move away from her.

  They were on the open street, with carriages passing and others on the pavement not that far away. They couldn’t give in to the sudden compulsion that had clearly seized them both.

  His protective instinct came to his—their—rescue. He heard himself say, “I don’t suppose you’ll agree to leave investigating the warehouses to me, even if I promise to keep you apprised of any and all developments?”

  She blinked, and the spell was broken. She refocused on his face, her gaze direct and determined. “No.” She breathed in and eased back, now-familiar stubbornness investing her expression.

  He felt the heightened tension between them subside—and just for one instant, he considered throwing caution to the winds, hauling her into his arms, and kissing her… Then reality impinged, and regretfully, he jettisoned the notion; God alone knew what might happen, but regardless, she wouldn’t be dissuaded from further participating in the mission. He felt his features set. His voice hard, he said, “Very well. I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock.”

  Her gaze grew distant, then she shook her head. “No—better make it half past eight.” When he arched his brows, she added in explanation, “The sooner we find out if the barrels are still there, the happier we’ll both be.”

  He couldn’t deny that.

  Cleo read acceptance in his eyes, then he dipped his head.

  “Eight-thirty, then.”

  He raised his head, and their gazes met.

  Again, she felt a welling compulsion to step forward—into his arms, into the unknown. The impulse surged inside her; her eyes widened as, looking into the dark chocolate brown of his eyes, she realized the same impulse was riding him, too. Equally strongly.

  But then he slid his hands into his pockets, angled his head in farewell, and stepped back. “Until tomorrow.”

  She forced herself to straighten, to hold her head high and draw in a breath, then incline her head in response. Then she turned and climbed the steps to the door. She rang the bell, then looked back.

  He was standing on the pavement, watching her.

  “Good night,” she said. Then Morris opened the door, and she went inside.

  Michael watched the door shut. He stared at the glossy panel for several seconds, then turned on his heel and started walking northward, toward Grosvenor Square and his bed.

  The October night wrapped cold about him, yet even so, given the fevered nature of his prevailing, persistent, and insistent dreams, he seriously doubted that enjoying a “good night” lay in his immediate future.

  Chapter 11

  This time, Tom drove the small black town carriage Michael had commandeered from the St. Ives House stable for the duration of the mission into and down Morgan’s Lane.

  Tom drew the carriage up outside the first warehouse—the one on the left closest to Tooley Street. The hour was just nine o’clock; Cleo could hear the city’s bells pealing on the other side of the river.

  Attired in his usual clothes—fashionable enough to mark him as a gentleman, but also sufficiently austerely styled to avoid drawing unnecessary attention—Michael stepped down to the cobbles. After a comprehensive glance up and down the street, he reached into the carriage, gripped her hand, and assisted her down.

  She was garbed in her customary business style, in a fitted jacket and matching full skirt in a rich, warm brown worn over a white blouse adorned at the throat with a lace-edged mock cravat. A distinctly unfrivolous bonnet capped her head; she hoped the firmly fitting bonnet would restrain her wayward hair. Her cloak was a paler brown, as were her leather gloves and half boots. She’d selected each article with a view to strengthening the image she wished to project. She’d already decided on her story and the part she would play to induce the warehouse managers to reveal what she and Michael needed to know. Luckily, just being Miss Hendon of the Hendon Shipping Company was really all she needed to be.

  A frown in his eyes, Michael was looking up and down the street. “Either the barrels are still here, in one of the three warehouses, or they had already been moved before Saturday evening.”

  She opened her mouth to remind him of Winchelsea’s theory that the barrels would remain in place for a time… Instead, she said, “You mean that unloading the barrels here was just a staging point?” She studied his face. “That they were moved on more or less immediately?”

  Continuing to glance about, he grimaced. “Put it down to the thoughts of a fevered brain in the small hours. Drake stressed how cautious these villains have been, to the extent that what passes for normal procedures—such as not killing your own helpers—are not being followed, so we can’t rely on anything being as one might think.” He met her gaze. “Knowing that the barrels were delivered somewhere here on Wednesday morning and that they haven’t been moved since Saturday evening doesn’t mean they’re still here.”

  She considered that, then shook out her skirts and determinedly raised her head. “Against that stands the fact that our villains took the trouble to arrange for the barrels to be stored in a warehouse where the presence of such barrels, hidden among lots of similar barrels, wouldn’t be readily detected.”

  He inclined his head. “There is that.”

  “Indeed. They brought the barrels here, to what ranks as possibly the best hiding place they could find. If, as Winchelsea maintains, there’s a reason to have a pause between one stage and the next, unless they had a still-better place to secrete the barrels—and that’s hard to imagine—why run the risk of moving them again?”

  He gripped her elbow. “Your reasoning is sound. I just no longer have faith in our ability to predict what these villains will do.” His expression set, he tipped his head toward the warehouse outside which they stood. “Let’s see what we can find.”

  She faced the warehouse. “Indeed.” She took a step forward, only to have Michael halt her.

  He eyed the façade. “How are we going to approach this?”

  She smiled confidently. “You aren’t. I am.” She cast a swift glance over him. “Just back me up and look guard-like.” She met his eyes. “As you usually do.”

  Michael stifled a grunt. He gentled his hold on her arm, steadying her over the cobbles to the warehouse door. He pushed it wide, then released her and followed as she swept—frigate-like—into the rather dim space.

  She halted a few yards inside the door, in a cleared area that appeared to be some sort of receiving bay. Michael halted by her elbow, his expression impassive.

  Directly ahead, two large laborers were manhandling crates onto a handcart. They barely spared a glance for Michael and Cleo.

  But through a dusty window, a clerk in an office to the left saw them. He put down his board and came hurrying out.

  The clerk halted before Cleo. His gaze darted from her to Michael, then back again. “Yes, ma’am?”

  Her voice firm, her tones ringing, Cleo stated, “I am Miss Hendon of the Hendon Shipping Company. I would like to speak with the manager, if you please.”

  The clerk’s eyes had widened at the mention of the Hendon name. He bobbed repeatedly. “Yes, of course, Miss Hendon.” The clerk gestured behind him and started to back away. “If you’ll wait just a minute, I’ll fetch him.”

  Cleo regally inclined her head, and the clerk scurried back into the office.

  In significantly less than a minute, a small, round man, his jacket straining to cover his paunch and with strands of greasy hair combed over his balding pate, hurried out of the office. Clasping his hands, rubbing them together, with his eyes alight, he came to stand before Cleo and bowed. “An honor, Miss Hendon.” He straightened. “How can we help you?
”

  “My family’s company has a long-standing client in Jamaica who has appealed to the firm for assistance in fulfilling an order for ten barrels of gunpowder.” Cleo held up a finger to stay the manager’s obvious exuberance and eagerness to launch into a sales spiel. “I should stress that this is not normally something our company does, but this is a special client. Consequently, we’ve made inquiries and have discovered that the local gunpowder mills have a waiting list. As our client’s need is urgent, I am making inquiries at those warehouses—such as yours—that supply various factories with gunpowder in one-hundredweight barrels.”

  The manager was so eager to speak he was all but bobbing on his toes, but Cleo continued to hold up a restraining hand. “While I know you—and, very likely, several of your competitors—will be able to supply me with ten barrels of gunpowder, there is another stipulation. I will need to inspect the barrels to ensure they are suitable, especially with respect to the quality of their construction. As I’m sure you understand, the journey to Jamaica is a very long one, and from experience, we know that the barrels must be of a certain quality for us to be assured the gunpowder will still be useable when it arrives.”

  “Of course, Miss Hendon.” The manager’s expression had grown calculating, as if he was running through a mental inventory of the barrels he had in his warehouse.

  In distinctly superior accents, Cleo continued, “In the circumstances, we are prepared to pay a premium to secure suitable barrels. We are looking for barrels that have been delivered recently—within the previous week, if possible. The shorter the time they’ve been sitting in a warehouse, the better for our client.”

  “Indeed, Miss Hendon.” The manager waved to a bench seat set before the office wall. “If you would consent to wait just a moment, I’ll consult my inventory, and then you may inspect our stock.”

  “Thank you.” With a faintly arrogant, rather haughty air, Cleo allowed Michael to take her arm and steer her to the seat.

  There, with a soft shush of skirts and petticoats, she sat.

  Michael sat beside her. As soon as he did, with her head high and her gaze fixed across the warehouse, Cleo murmured, “While the manager shows me the barrels on his inventory, you’ll need to search for any barrels that aren’t on his list.”

  He nodded. Before he could add anything, the manager reappeared.

  “Here we are!” He brandished several sheets. “We had a delivery early last week—Tuesday, I believe it was.” He squinted at the top sheet. “Twelve barrels, all told.” He looked hopefully at Cleo as she rose. “If you’ll come this way?” He waved toward a narrow path that led deeper into the warehouse.

  With a haughty nod, Cleo followed the manager along the path. Michael prowled at her heels. Piles of stacked merchandise towered to either side—crates of split bamboo, others trailing cotton fuses, still others stuffed with printed sheets, as well as large rolls of paper in a rainbow of colors.

  The manager babbled, “We store our barrels toward the rear. They’re easier to move than the crates, you see.”

  “Indeed,” Cleo replied repressively.

  After one faintly startled glance back at her, the manager hurried on.

  Amused—and greatly impressed by her invention of the persona of the haughty Miss Hendon and her execution of the role—Michael leant closer to her and, lowering his head, murmured, “I think I’m in love.”

  Even as the words left his lips, as their import registered, something in him seized. He’d meant…

  She glanced up, startled.

  Almost equally off-balance, he met her wide-eyed gaze and saw the slight shiver she failed to suppress.

  And understanding dawned.

  She dragged in a tight breath. Her eyes narrowed, and she glared, then she faced forward and swept quickly on in the warehouse manager’s wake.

  Leaving Michael…facing the truth.

  The words he’d uttered had bypassed his brain. They’d gone from some point deep inside him straight to his lips.

  Yet as he followed, more slowly, in Cleo’s wake, it seemed pointless to deny that, unsettling though the realization was, the sentiment he’d expressed was accurate.

  Decidedly accurate, and a truth he—his inner self—had, apparently, already embraced.

  They finally reached the area toward the rear of the packed warehouse where barrels—not just of gunpowder but also of materials such as fine sand and oil—were stored. He let Cleo and the manager go ahead and started searching. Given the two laborers steadily working in and out of the stacks of goods, he suspected that any barrels left elsewhere in the long building would have been quickly found and moved into the correct area.

  The manager started pointing out large barrels to Cleo, the remainders from earlier deliveries of gunpowder, at which she turned up her nose.

  Michael scanned all the barrels they passed. Most were smaller. The three he spotted of the right size were stamped and labeled as gypsum. There was no place he could see inside the warehouse walls where barrels might be hidden out of sight.

  He caught up to Cleo as the manager was proudly displaying a stack of hundredweight barrels five wide and two high, but there were only four barrels in the upper row.

  The manager was consulting his sheets. “We did have twelve. All delivered last Tuesday morning.” The manager looked hopefully at Cleo. “Perhaps you might take these nine, and then you would have only one more to find.”

  Cleo didn’t immediately reply. She was peering this way and that at the barrels, then she pointed to a mark on one. “This brand—what does it signify?”

  The manager perched a pair of spectacles on his nose, looked, then smiled. “That means these barrels hail from the Camfrey mill down Rochester way. And these”—he pointed to two dates stenciled on the barrel’s side, one above the other—“give the date the barrel was filled and the date we received it. Tuesday last.”

  Cleo stood back and regarded the barrels, then turned to the manager. “If we fail to find ten barrels of a more recent delivery, we might come back.”

  Michael was standing close again. With an effort of will, she blocked her awareness of his warmth, his strength, and put her mind to sweeping the manager before her, up along the other arm of what had proved to be an elongated horseshoe-shaped path through the warehouse.

  She did her best to distract the manager with questions, yet most of her attention was focused behind her—on Michael. A swift glance behind showed he was, indeed, checking the other barrels stacked at the end of the warehouse.

  When she and the manager reached the cleared area inside the warehouse doors, she filled the time until Michael joined them by inquiring as to the other warehouses nearby and asking which the manager thought might have received a recent delivery of gunpowder.

  Not wanting to lose a potential sale, the manager professed to have no notion.

  From the corner of her eye, Cleo saw Michael nearing the end of the path. She pasted on a superior smile and graciously thanked the manager for his time.

  The poor man all but deflated as she turned away. With Michael once again assuming his guard’s position at her shoulder, she led the way out of the door and into the lane.

  Michael reached past Cleo, opened the carriage door, and handed her up. He followed.

  As he sat beside her, she asked, “No other barrels hidden away?”

  He shook his head. “The closest I found were four barrels of flash powder. No gunpowder other than the barrels he showed you.” He glanced at her. “But at least we’ve now seen what barrels of gunpowder look like, and that was interesting about the stamp—the brand.”

  “Yes. It seems that the barrels we’re after should carry a stamp from some Irish mill.” She glanced briefly his way, but didn’t meet his eyes. “So that’s one warehouse searched.” She peered out of the carriage window. “Should we try the one across the lane next?”

  He hesitated, then said, “No. Let’s drive to the end of the lane and check the place
down there.” When she arched her brows in question, he explained, “It’s closer to the river and appears to be a more disreputable enterprise. It seems more likely to be the place we’re seeking.”

  She sat back. “You mean because it looks run-down, it’s more likely to have been chosen to provide a hiding place for items involved in an illegal plot.” She cast him a distinctly superior look. “I should warn you that in business, more than in any other endeavor, looks can be and often are deceiving.”

  He humphed. “Let’s see.”

  He leant out and told Tom to drive to where the lane made a dogleg into the area before the riverbank. Tom eased his horse forward and, a minute later, drew up before the front of Wallington’s Warehouse.

  Once again, they approached with Cleo in the lead and Michael hovering behind her shoulder. She prayed that, this time, he kept his lips firmly shut. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by silly, ill-considered remarks.

  To her relief, he obliged and remained silent as she swept into the warehouse. Outwardly shabby it might be, with its peeling paint and run-down air, but inside—as she had warned him might be so—Wallington’s Warehouse was a hive of well-organized activity.

  It was easily three times as busy as the first warehouse; aside from all else, there were two other customers waiting to be served ahead of them. Rather than make any push to be served immediately, she joined the queue and patiently bided her time while both she and Michael surveyed the scene.

  Crates and containers of all sizes and shapes were stacked literally to the rafters. Several heavy ladders mounted on wheels were being moved by pairs of men; they positioned the ladders beneath certain stacks, then climbed up and brought down various goods—for the waiting customers in some cases, but to Cleo’s experienced eye, the men also appeared to be filling orders.

  This was a warehouse with a large clientele. She suspected the goods they stocked would turn over rapidly—probably too rapidly to allow any barrels to sit undetected for more than a few days.

  Michael nudged her shoulder. When she glanced his way, he tipped his head toward the side wall. Cleo looked and saw barrels of the right size to be the ones they were seeking neatly stacked along the wall as far as she could see.