The Bad Baron's Daughter

by Laura London

  “Unless Zack has gotten a message… ?” he said.

  “Well, I haven’t,” returned Zack testily. “As I’ve been telling Linden here a good half-dozen times. I’m as stymied as you are. The last I heard, the baron was nosing after some married woman in Dorset, whose name I don’t know. I suggest you check that.”.

  Linden’s only concession to the heat was a half-open lawn shirt. He had been leaning against a tubbed palm tree, his arms crossed in front of him, the onyx hair curled only slightly more than usual against his chiselled cheekbones.

  “I’ve checked there,” said Linden blandly. “He went to Dorset, yes. And visited his ladyfriend. After that, he disappeared. She has no idea where he went.”

  “The lady told you that?” questioned Zack. “My compliments on your powers of persuasion.”

  “A persuadable lady,” replied Linden with a noncommittal shrug. “She’s twenty-two, her husband’s sixty-eight. She’s lonely and bored in the country.”

  Drew’s interest was drawn away from the subject previously under discussion at the reception of the latter intelligence. “Twenty-two, eh?” he said. “What’s her name? I’ll keep it to myself,” he added as an afterthought.

  “She’s Maria Enfield. It won’t do you much good, though,” said Linden. “Her husband is recently retired from the Admiralty. He’s very doting on his beautiful wife and in constant attendance. It took me some time to get her alone to query her on this… subject.”

  “Enfield,” said Katie thoughtfully. “I’ve heard that name before. Why, Zack, how queer you’re looking. Are you getting heat sick?”

  Zack was indeed looking singularly scarlet. “Her husband, the admiral, couldn’t have been there,” he said flatly. “You must be mistaken, my lord.” He stared at Katie for a few long seconds, until suddenly she covered her mouth with her hand, the pastel blue eyes widening into sugar biscuits.

  “You’re right, Zack,” said Katie with a gasp. “He couldn’t have been there because Winnie and Patrick and their friends kidnapped him! Enfield was his name, wasn’t it?”

  “It was Enfield all right,” said Zack glumly. “But it couldn’t be… I mean, Jesus… there couldn’t be two Admiral Enfields, could there be? Brothers, perhaps? No, I didn’t think so. When did you go to Dorset, my lord?”

  “Wednesday last, before Ivo Guy came for Katie.”

  “And you’re sure this Admiral Enfield was there?” asked Zack.

  “Yes, of course I’m sure,” said Linden with a snap. “I know I’ll regret asking this, but what kidnapping are we talking about?”

  Zack pulled a gray handkerchief from his pocket and pushed back his hair with it, obliterating a miniature tidal wave of sweat. “Has Katie talked about Winnie at all?”

  Linden glanced at Katie. “Yes. The Declaration of Independence.”

  “Exactly,” continued Zack. “Winnie’s the queen of London’s ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ set. Nothing her and her half-witted cohorts like better than to cause some disturbance or engage in a petty intrigue. They decided that kidnapping an admiral would be an effective way of gaming some attention. They thought they’d have the government in the palm of their hands, but the government has been paying them no attention at all. And now we know why. The brainless wonders got the wrong man!”

  “The wrong man,” said Linden thoughtfully. He walked to Katie and pulled her to her feet. “Go fetch your bonnet, sweetheart. We’re going for a ride.”

  Lady Brixton’s town carriage was upholstered in titian blue velvet with gold frogging, which made elegant contrast with the high polish of the mahogany fittings. The carpeting was etched with the Brixton ducal crest, and was so clean and bright that it looked as though it had never known a shoe print. Katie could hear, from inside this plush cradle, the conversation between Lord Linden and Zack, who, with Andrew, were mounting horses to accompany the carriage.

  She heard Linden’s voice. “You say he’s being held in a warehouse? Have you ever been to this place?”

  “Yes, but not since the kidnapping. Very atmospheric. You’ll like it.”

  “God,” said Linden.

  The team moved sluggishly in the heat, their hooves in slow walking rhythm. Katie leaned back against the cushions Drew had arranged for her. Traffic moved imperceptibly on the London streets. No dogs barked, they panted instead. The pigeons on Bennett Street didn’t fly, but flocked, complaining about the reeking incandescence. Katie was excited and her wounds ached, but the heat was weakening her and, coupled with the carriage’s pacific sway, it soon slipped her into sleep.

  She did not awaken even after they had reached their destination and the carriage had halted. It took a gentle hand on her good shoulder to rouse her. Katie tried to sit up, but was prevented by the pressure of that hand.

  “Wait. Wake up a bit first.” Katie looked up into Linden’s impassive face. He was stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. “We’re now at the radical redoubt, about to make contact with an organized threat to the security of the Crown.” He helped her to her feet and, going before her to street level, turned and lifted her down. She leaned against him unsteadily, flinching against the harsh white light. They were stopped in a warehouse district, in the rotting heart of London; red-shingled warehouse roofs were being beaten under the hammer of the sun upon the anvil of the hard-packed, deserted dirt streets. The reek of decomposing rope and the stench of the Thames were suspended in the air. Above them stretched the cream and yellow rough bricks of their destination. From close by came the deep, hollow slap-slap of sluggish river water on the side of a tethered barge. Zack had dismounted and was standing near them, shifting his feet. Drew was still on horseback, standing in his stirrups to get a better look at the building.

  “Well, now what happens, Zack?” asked Linden. “Do we make our way through a subterranean tunnel littered with the rotting bones of their previous victims?”

  “No,” said Zack, grinning. “We’re not quite that atmospheric. This warehouse has a door. Follow me.” The foursome made their way along the edge of the building until they came to a large double door set off the ground by about three feet. There was a scuffling movement from behind the door, and a gun barrel slid out of a knothole, nearly colliding with Zack’s nose.

  “Watch it with that thing, would you?” said Zack. “It’s Zack, you booby.”

  “That’s not th’ password,” came Winnie’s, muffled voice, with the tremor of a laugh in it.

  “Devil take the password, you paper-skulled puzzletext. Open up this door!” Zack commanded.

  There was the raw sound of a deadbolt being removed and the double doors swung outward, revealing a smirking Winnie, leaning seductively on an ancient musket, dressed in a long, flowing red frock, barefoot, with large brass hoops in her ears.

  “ ‘Ello, Zackie,” she said. “ ‘Ow’s me better ‘alf ?” Winnie stopped, looking over Zack’s head to see Zack’s companions. “Glory be, is this a raid?”

  “Pretty close to,” said Zack. “Where’s that admiral you’re holding? Haven’t let him go, have you? No? Good. Because we want to see him.”

  Winnie’s jaw dropped. “Want to see ‘im?” she repeated stupidly. “Why?”

  “Because, Win, the fellow ain’t Admiral Enfield, Lord Linden here’s come from Dorset this past week and seen your admiral there frolicking in his garden without the cares of a bachelor bunny. Your admiral upstairs is a fake!”

  “‘E ain’t a fake, neither!” said Winnie, angry and a little frightened. “ ‘E says ‘e’s th’ admiral!”

  Zack gave a snort of disgust. “He did, did he? The old… Winnie, if I was to tell you I was an admiral, it wouldn’t make me one, would it? Best thing for you to do is to take us up and see.”

  Winnie ran her tongue worriedly around the toothed-sized gap in her mouth. “Ya kin if ya like but this lift ‘ere ain’t never carried no earls before. God strike me blind, but this ‘ere’s a ‘andsome crowd. ‘N why a war ‘ero like yerself,
Lord Linden, ‘d want to ‘elp a band o’ cadge-paws like us is more than oi kin figger out.”

  “Disabuse your mind of the illusion that I’m doing anything to help you,” said Linden acidly. Zack had hopped onto the ledge beside Winnie and he reached out for Katie. Linden handed her up to him, two hands about her waist. “What does your kidnappee look like?”

  Winnie tugged one brass earring. “Dunno if oi could say, really. Only seen ‘im oncet, an’ it was fair dark at th’ time. Th’ fellow tried to give me a slip on th’ shoulder! So oi stays away from ‘im, see, ‘n mostly watches th’ door while oi’m ‘ere.”

  Zack pulled the door shut; Winnie laid her musket on the floor, and began a hand-over-hand motion on a pair of ropes stretched between two pulleys in the corner. The floor lurched and Winnie cast a sapient look toward Katie, and advised, “Someone best watch over th’ little mort there, looks like she’s fixin’ to flash her hash.”

  Drew went quickly to thread a sustaining arm over Katie’s shoulder, and Zack frowned at her threateningly. “That’s all that’s needed, Katie, for you to get sick in this sweatbox! Look, this is only an old lift. See, we work the ropes and soon we’ve pulled ourselves up to the second floor! We’ll be there in a minute, so hang onto your insides.”

  A gray light filtered in from above and Katie could feel the shudder and pull as the floor tugged upward beneath them. She could see grafitti scratched on the walls by young revolutionists of diverse interests and read them to herself, “Impoverish the Rich,” “Hazel of Gump Street likes it with her shoes on,” and in runny whitewash letters, “Give me chastity and give me continence but not just now!” signed by an individual who styled himself “The Scarlet Tiger.”

  “That’s new since I’ve been here,” said Zack, pointing to this last motto. “Who’s the Scarlet Tiger, Winnie?”

  “At’s wot th’ boys call th’ admiral, fer a joke, like,” she replied, between long pulls on the ropes. “Th’ admiral ‘n some o’ th’ blokes got a little lushy one night, then came down ‘ere ‘n th’ admiral wrote that.”

  “Ho!” said Zack. “If your Scarlet Tiger is really an admiral, I’ll eat my feet unsalted. Winnie, you’ve never met Katie’s father, have you?”

  “Nah, ‘e was away from Essex th’ time we stayed there, at th’ ‘orse races, ya remember. Why’re ya askin’ me?”

  “You’ll see,” said Zack. “Holy Mother, will you see.”

  The lift came to a creaking halt. Zack helped Winnie secure the pull ropes and slid up a wooden seven-barred gate that led into an expansive storage room, with a high unplastered ceiling supported by great raw oak pillars. Dusty silver light sank in from the high-set windows to spot the room in sober smoky shadows. Across the long tar-coated hardwood floor was a partitioned corner that had been a shipping office before the building had been abandoned to the rats and the rascals.

  Zack strode purposefully toward this room, his worn boots making soft sucking squeaks as each step cleared the hot tar. Katie looked uncertainly toward Lord Linden, received an encouraging smile in return, and followed Zack.

  Zack was the first to reach the scarred pine door that led to the receiving office; he gripped the handle and flung it open to expose a small stuffy room, the floor littered with ancient shipping manifests; and over a ropespring cot that sagged against one wall, there hung a four-year-old calendar advertising the Universal Pill. But it was the center of the room that drew Zack’s attention. Here sat three men at their leisure around an overturned barrel topped with a warped board. That these worthies had been drinking and playing cards was obvious; evidence attesting to both these activities was strewn over the makeshift table. All three seated gentlemen had discarded their shirts in deference to the heat, but one it was seen, had retained his hat. It was a forlorn affair, with tarnished nautical insignia that sat askew on the wearer’s red, red curls. Beneath the flaccid brim, one found a pair of limpid robin’s egg blue eyes which had opened in surprise at Zack’s arrival, and a very freckled nose.

  Zack was, for that moment, speechless but Katie cried, “Papa!” and flew into the hatted gentleman’s open arms.

  Lord Linden leaned against the door’s unfinished frame, tipped his hat to the back of his head, and said, “Kendricks. I thought so.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  One of the three cardplayers seated around the table was a husky youth of medium height wearing a pair of loose trousers, with a black handkerchief knotted around his neck. Zack hooked his fingers through this neck cloth and dragged the youth to his feet, backing him against the wall.

  “Patrick, you idiot,” said Zack furiously. “That’s not Admiral Enfield. You’ve kidnapped Baron Kendricks!”

  “ ‘Ave ya cracked yer bughouse, Zackie?” said Patrick, disentangling himself from Zack’s grip.

  “No! Watch this.” Zack walked around the table to stand before the red-haired cardplayer. “Sir! Is this your daughter?” he declaimed dramatically, gesturing at Katie.

  The baron had pulled Katie onto his lap, tugged the pretty bonnet from her strawberry hair and kissed her soundly. They made an attractive pair that might have been more easily viewed as sister and brother than father and daughter. The baron was still four years short of forty and he looked more like four years short of thirty, with his slender graceful limbs and unlined boyish face. He set Katie back a bit and subjected her to a careful scrutiny.

  “Think so,” he said, with a grin that Linden had seen before on Katie’s delicate lips. “Her mother always claimed she was and God knows she’s the living spit o’ me.” Kendricks gestured toward an empty chair. “Anchor your arse, boy, and tell me what’s toward. But first make me known to your handsome friends by the door there.”

  “Oi’ll be damned!” cried Winnie. “That’s ‘ow ya pass it off, wantin’ th’ bloody introductions ta be made ‘ere? ‘N all th’ time pretendin’ ta be somebody ya ain’t? Ya should ‘ave tole us right away!”

  “That’s bloody telling him, Win,” snapped Zack with approval. “Damn you, Morin, sitting up here on your bumfuddle for weeks on end wearing that quiz of a hat, corrupting these boobies with your cardshark trickery, leaving me to set Katie’s feet on the ground in The Sisterhood. Which, let me tell you, she didn’t like, and called me a damn Judas for it!”

  “Strike me blind if I’ve ever seen you in such a peeve, Zack,” observed the baron. “Truth is, it suited me fine to play least in sight for a while. In fact, it saved my bacon. The constables are on me for my defaults, y’know. It’s to be debtor’s prison if I’m caught.”

  Patrick returned to his seat by the table, gathered his disordered cards, and exchanged glances with his cardplaying cohort, a lanky, towheaded lad who was half drunk judging by the state of his bloodshot eyes and the loosely gripped, half-empty rum bottle he had in one hand.

  “Damned if oi knows wot ta think,” said Patrick, shaking his head severely at the baron. “It’s th’ surprise o’ me life. Still, the government might care as much ‘bout a baron as ‘n admiral.”

  “Not this baron, ya jackanapes,” said Winnie. She turned on the baron. “Ya know, it’s a very serious offense impersonatin’ ‘n admiral. Ya could get in a lot o’ trouble fer this!”

  A sharp chortle came from Drew’s corner, but by the time Winnie turned to glare at him, he was innocently expressionless.

  “There’s a good side ta this. Winnie,” said the towheaded cardplayer with drunken optimism. “Oi was worried ‘ere ‘at we’d end up wearin’ th’ sheriff’s picture frame fer this caper, but if th’ Scarlet Tiger ‘ere is wot they’re sayin’ ‘e is, ‘e ain’t likely ta infect us wi’ ‘emp fever.” He frowned blurrily at his cards. “Dash it all, Zack, ya’ve messed up Patrick’s ‘and there ‘n now th’ thing’s got ta be redealt. ‘N oi was sittin on two aces!”

  “Ah, cork yer bottle, Whit,” said Winnie. “Yer drunk as a priest. As fer you, Baron Whoe’er-ya-are, ‘ow come ya was sneakin’ out o’ th’ admiral’s ‘ouse wearin’ th’ admira
l’s clothes in th’ dark o’ night?”

  Kendricks collected the discarded hands and began shuffling them with a gambler’s grace. “You wouldn’t ask how come if you’d ever seen Maria Enfield. Why, she’s the sweetest armful this side of the Atlantic. Save the one I’ve got here,” he said, tickling Katie’s cheek with his finger. “But her husband, the old admiral, is cram full of bourgeois jealousy and got his head full of nasty notions. But like I said, I was paying Maria a friendly visit one evening. I was upstairs showing her a few card tricks…” he winked, “… a little sleight-o-hand, you might say, when the admiral arrives. We heard the old fool bellowing belowstairs so she sent me out through the dressing room. I had to give the servants the go-by, so I borrowed one of the admiral’s topcoats, and this hat. I’m sneak-in’ around the corner outside, almost in the clear, when there comes a snaky blow from behind and I wake up here. Whose deal?”

  “Mine,” said Whit on his left, who took the deck and began to deal, slapping the cards down with boozy deliberation. “Oi ‘ave ta say oi couldn’ta liked ya better if ya was an admiral, Scarlet Tiger. Ya brought more’na touch o’ th’ good life ta th’ place. It was a good move winnin’ our wages off us ‘n then usin’ ‘em ta send out fer some ‘igh quality moonshine. Taught our palates a lesson they won’t ferget.” He turned a lamb-like gaze on Zack. “Let me pour ya some, Zackie? Looks like ya could use it. Drive off th’ ‘eat.”

  Zack snarled a demur.

  The baron fanned his cards. “Ah, keep your breath to cool your porridge, Zack. Too damn hot for emotion, boy. No doubt you’ll introduce me to your friends by the door there in your own good time.”

  “This,” said Zack grimly, “is Lord Linden. Yes, that Lord Linden. And I might as well tell you that he’s a very particular friend of Katie’s.”

  The baron sent a friendly smile toward Linden. “Ho hoi Sits the cock on that fence?” He patted his daughter’s cheek. “It seems like yesterday you were playing jackstraws on the front steps.”