A Wild Justice

by Gail Ranstrom

  “That’s the pity of it, Lady Annica. I could post a man at every dock and wharf, but looking for a particular ship is like searching for a particular grain of sand on a beach.”

  She opened her reticule and withdrew all the cash she had brought with her. It amounted to nearly twenty-five pounds, and she handed it over to the Bow Street Runner without blinking.

  “Keep on, Mr. Renquist. Hire more men if you must. Send them to work at the Surrey docks and tell them to keep their eyes and ears open. Whatever it takes, Mr. Renquist, do it.”

  “Aye. I will, milady. The situation is out of hand. Did you hear that a woman disappeared Friday night and another on Saturday night?”

  “No, Mr. Renquist, I had not. I am afraid I’ve been somewhat distracted. Who were they?”

  “Working class, Lady Annica. A governess and an upstairs maid from the Kensington area. Just the sort that make good victims.”

  She stiffened her spine and lifted her chin. “If you do not send for me before then, we shall meet here again on Thursday at two o’clock.”

  “Very well, Lady Annica,” Renquist said. “One more thing.”

  “Yes?” Annica turned back.

  “That tavern where my man met the dock worker? There was another man there, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Geoffrey Morgan.”

  Her mind reeled. Everything just kept becoming more and more complicated. “Please determine if there is a connection between Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Morgan, and the missing women.”

  Renquist narrowed his eyes. “What do you suspect, Lady Annica?”

  “I am of a divided mind. A part of me cannot credit Geoffrey Morgan with rape and murder, but another part believes he could be dangerous and that he is engaged in something nefarious.”

  That evening, at the Lundy soiree, Annica watched the elegant widow dodge the approach of Roger Wilkes. Grace was in a very uncomfortable position, having pretended sympathy to obtain a sample of his handwriting. Now she faced the unpleasant consequence—Wilkes’s annoying gratitude.

  Taking pity on her friend, and knowing Wilkes would not dare subject himself to another cut, Annica waved and called, “Over here, Grace! Heavens! Where have you been?”

  The look of utter relief on Grace’s face was comical. She headed straight for Annica, glancing neither right nor left. “Annica, my dear! I feared you’d forgotten me in the crush.”

  She slipped her arm through Annica’s and led her toward the game room, chatting pleasantly about the excellent weather and how the almanac had predicted rain.

  Once they were safely out of sight, Annica unfolded the note and scanned the scribbled lines. Blotched, heavy strokes together with a cramped style told Annica everything she needed to know. The words were unimportant. “Curses! I was so certain!” She crumpled the paper in her fist.

  “Not the same at all, is it?” Grace agreed. “But if the murderer is not Wilkes and not Morgan, who could it be?”

  “I cannot even imagine. There is no shortage of villains in the world, but finding one particular villain in the crowd is becoming a great problem.”

  Grace nodded enthusiastically. “And now we have another investigation looming ahead. Find the fifth man—the one who wrote that warning.”

  “At least we are free to finish with Wilkes.”

  Grace’s Cupid’s bow lips curved in a satisfied smile. “Shall we go tell Sarah and the others?”

  “The sooner the better. I am anxious to have it done.”

  “What if he slanders Sarah?”

  “I would like to cut his tongue out! I have the heart for it, Grace, but not the stomach. That is why, should it become public, I shall swear Sarah was with me the night she was assaulted. I do not like to lie, but I shall do it with a straight face and my hand upon a Bible, if I must.”

  “Nick!” a voice called as they passed the game room on their way back to the ballroom. “I say, old boy, come join us in a hand, eh?”

  Annica spun around to see Julius Lingate, Geoffrey Morgan, Horace Lundy and Alfred Neeley sitting at a green, baize-covered card table. A nearly empty bottle of port stood at Julius’s elbow and he wore a silly grin. She wondered if he was in his cups. With a promise to rejoin her shortly, she let Grace go on without her and went into the game room.

  “‘Pears to me as if your table is full, Jules,” she observed, mimicking a male voice.

  Horace Lundy got to his feet and held his chair for her. “You may have my place, Lady Auberville. Morgan has already relieved me of the last of my ready, and Clara will be looking for me to play host. Besides, I have no idea how to play the games that ladies play.”

  Annica sat and watched Mr. Lundy hurry from the room. When she turned back to the table, she was amused to find Geoffrey Morgan and Mr. Neeley looking at her with disbelief. Julius, however, watched her with approval. He, at least, was learning.

  “Well, gentlemen? Were we playing ladies’ games?” she asked.

  “No,” Neeley told her. “We were playing—”

  “Vingt et un,” Morgan interrupted.

  “Lingate was just giving Lundy a graceful exit. He lost more than he should,” Neeley explained. “Geoff is unbeatable tonight.”

  Annica turned to Morgan. “So you are having a run of good luck, eh, Mr. Morgan?”

  His eyes, a bit golden tonight, met hers. “Until now, Lady Annica. Have you come to change my luck?”

  She raised her eyebrows at the veiled challenge. “Why would I want to do that, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Because you like to win?” He gathered the cards from the table and began to shuffle.

  “Not enough to—”

  “Cheat?” he finished.

  Annica did not flinch. She regretted her harshness with him at their last meeting. Now, in the face of his apparent innocence, his anger seemed justified. She could not atone for her suspicions, but she could try to restore a measure of civility between them. For Constance’s sake.

  “I was not going to say that, Mr. Morgan. I was going to say that I like to win, but not enough to gamble.”

  “You do not like risk, Lady Annica?” Morgan persisted.

  “One is never more alive than when there is something at risk. But a card game hardly qualifies, sir. And the things I cherish cannot be gambled.”

  “I beg to differ, Lady Annica.”

  “How?”

  “You made a great show of cherishing your freedom over the past several years, yet you gambled all that Auberville would not exercise his right to remove it when you said your vows.” He slid the deck of shuffled cards toward her.

  Accepting the challenge, she cut the deck and slid it back across the green cloth to him. “You have me there. It would appear I do gamble.”

  Alfred Neeley pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “Sounds too serious for me.”

  Julius sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I fear the stakes have just got too high for me. I am out.”

  “Vingt et un?” Morgan asked.quickly. Sixteen

  She nodded. “As you know, I learned it a few weeks ago. The wager?”

  “Shall we wager something you truly cherish, Lady Annica?”

  The first uneasy stirrings of fear raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck. “What did you have in mind, Mr. Morgan?”

  He dealt one card facedown for each of them, then placed the deck on the table between them. “Your judgment.”

  Confused, she tapped one cheek with a finger and pursed her lips in a thoughtful pose.

  There was a trap here—she was certain of it—but it eluded her. How could she lose her judgment? “Deal,” she said.

  He took one card, a seven, off the deck and placed it faceup on top of her other card. The next card, his, was a nine. Annica lifted a corner of her first card and peeked. A five.

  Geoffrey Morgan watched her, cool and confident, not bothering to look at his own bottom card.

  Annica calculated the risks of fifty-two cards could put her over
. Therefore, thirty-eight were safe. Three of those could be accounted for, leaving thirty-five. Fairly good odds. Better than two-to-one.

  “Lady Annica?”

  “Again,” she said.

  His graceful fingers flipped the top card off the deck to land atop her other two. A jack. Twenty-two. The odds had failed her. She kept her face impassive as she waited to see what her opponent would do.

  Very slowly, very deliberately, he turned his bottom card up. It was a queen. Nineteen points.

  Annica took comfort from the fact that she would have been defeated whether she had drawn from the deck or not. Ah, but she had to give Mr. Morgan credit for nerves of steel. She hadn’t turned her card up, so he couldn’t know she was over.

  A niggling of doubt began to tease at the back of her mind. She had heard of marked decks, where only the marker knew how to read the secret clues on the backs, hidden in the patterns. She narrowed her eyes as she studied the red-patterned deck for any irregularity.

  In one fluid movement, Morgan spread the entire rest of the deck across the table, to facilitate her suspicious study. Julius laughed, a wink telling her that he knew, too, what she had been thinking.

  “Best two of three, Lady Annica?” Morgan offered, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “No, thank you, Mr. Morgan. You won—fairly, I suppose. Now you must tell me what is it that you’ve won.”

  “The benefit of the doubt.” He gathered the cards again and began shuffling. “You see, Lady Annica, the next time you are faced with such a choice, you will remember this conversation, and that you owe me a debt of honor. You cannot help but consider a better motive for my actions than you are accustomed to ascribing to me. An element of doubt may cloud your usual certainty. I may benefit from it, or I may not. But…” he grinned at her with all the charm he possessed “…you will have considered it. And that is what I have won.”

  She smiled. Mr. Morgan was more clever than she’d thought. And more dangerous. And now she owed him a debt of honor!

  Chapter Sixteen

  The midafternoon sunlight did not penetrate the dim alley where Annica’s coach waited. There was little risk of her being seen by anyone she knew in this part of town. After matching wits with Mr. Morgan the previous evening, Annica decided to take action. If she could clear him of suspicion, then her debt to him would be paid.

  Naughty Alice arrived, climbed up into the coach, pulled the door closed and left the stuttering, white-faced Hodgeson standing on the cobblestones.

  “Drive, Hodgeson, and do not stop until I tell you,” Annica instructed.

  She fished through her reticule, brought forth a sovereign, then turned to the blowzy blonde and pressed the coin into her palm. “Here. I know your time is valuable, and I would not want you to suffer for helping me.”

  “So it’s you, eh? I had a note from Nick,” the woman said.

  “I am Nick,” she admitted, somewhat ashamed of her ploy. “I thought you’d be more likely to meet me if you thought I was male.” She glanced out the coach window to find Hodgeson still standing at the curb. She took note of the lengthening shadows on the brick wall in the alleyway.

  She would have to be home for supper soon. Mrs. Eberhart was preparing her special mutton stew, and Tristan had left a note this morning promising to tell her stories of his youth. “Hodgeson, are you just going to stand there?”

  “He thinks I ain’t no sort for the likes of you to be seen with,” the woman guessed. “Are you the one that come looking for me a while back? The one what got carried upstairs?”

  “Yes, Alice. That would have been me.”

  “Edwina said you was real brave. The man who took you was ever so fierce.”

  Annica shivered at the memory and wondered briefly what Tristan would do if he knew about this meeting. Still, she had honored his wishes by not going to the bawd’s place of business. She had brought the bawd to her. “Alice, you helped us with Mr. Farmingdale, and I hope you will be able to help us with one or two of his friends.”

  “An’ who might they be, yer ladyship?”

  “One is Roger Wilkes. Another is Geoffrey Morgan. And, of course, anyone else who kept company with them.”

  Alice’s lips compressed into a thin line. “I did not know Mr. Morgan went about with the others. As for the rest—that’s a bad lot, yer ladyship. Mr. Morgan, too, but not in the same way.”

  The coach rocked as Hodgeson climbed into the driver’s seat. Annica waited, but there was no further movement. Hodgeson was going nowhere. He really was becoming quite unmanageable. The staff at Clarendon Place were proving to be an inspiration to him. They appeared to walk a fine line between friendly compliance and cordial disobedience. Hodgeson had hinted that they’d been hired for their discretion rather than their subservience. He was learning their techniques.

  She returned to the matter at hand. “Bad lot? How many are in that lot, Alice? Farmingdale, Wilkes and…who else?”

  “I ain’t sure,” she said evasively. “Most of ’em don’t use their true names. Men of that sort do not tell the truth to women of my sort. But women of my sort have our ways of finding out things.”

  The pragmatic statement made Annica smile.

  “Farmingdale’s a wicked one. I wouldn’t put nothin’ past ’im. Like as not, all those that run with ’im are as bad,” Alice continued. “Wilkes is, for certain. So was Taylor. There was some others that used to come with ’em, but I never knew all they was up to. Wish I could be more help, Lady Annica.”

  “You’ve been of immense help,” Annica told her. “Truly, we could not have ruined Farmingdale without you.”

  “I ain’t so sure I did you a service there, milady.”

  “Lord only knows how long he might have continued his perfidy.”

  “He’s still alive, milady.”

  “I know.” Annica tensed as a burning began in her belly. Farmingdale might not be a threat to Englishwomen, but it would never do to start thinking of unlucky Jamaican women just now.

  “As for the rest,” Alice was saying, “Wilkes comes, once in a while, and the girls draw lots to see who’ll take him.”

  “Can you find out who else was associated with Roger Wilkes?”

  “I could, but I ain’t sure I should.”

  “Alice, we are desperate. Frightful threats have been made against my group. Murder has been done. Women have gone missing. I am very afraid all those events may be linked and have something to do with Wilkes or someone he knows.”

  Alice pondered this while she patted her brassy curls into place. “I’ll think on it, milady. ’Tisn’t that I’m loath to help, but our customers are our livin’, if you catch me. If word got out that we repeated names—well, you can imagine what that would do to business.”

  “I can assure you, Alice, that my source would never be revealed.”

  “An’ yer servant?” Alice gestured toward the driver’s box, where Hodgeson sat unseen.

  “Hodgeson is the very soul of discretion. He would never betray me. Never.”

  “I’ll think ‘pon it. How can I reach you, milady?”

  “Leave a message with Madame Marie LeBeau at her shop off Piccadilly. Or send a message to ‘Nick Sayles’ at the Auberville residence, Clarendon Place. Be certain to seal it.”

  “Auberville?” Alice’s face drained of color. “You’re related to Lord Auberville?”

  “He is my husband,” she admitted.

  “Harry Bouldin never told me that,” Alice gasped. “He said you was gentry, and a spinster.”

  “My marriage to Auberville is a recent development, Alice. It came about after Mr. Bouldin’s untimely demise.”

  Alice composed herself with aplomb and accorded Annica new respect. “I believe I’ll send to Madame Marie, if it’s all the same to you, milady.”

  “Do you know my husband, Alice?” Annica asked uneasily.

  “By reputation, milady. Blimey! I never would have guessed he’d countenance h
is wife in such an undertaking! But there’s no figurin’ the Quality, eh? Him, doing what he does—and you, doing what you do. It’s a peculiar world.”

  “What do you mean, Alice? What does Auberville do?”

  Alice sobered. “I only hears rumors, milady.”

  “He has taken his seat in the House of Lords, if that is what you mean. In truth, my activities could cause him embarrassment if they were known.”

  Alice gave her an odd look, as if there had been some sort of misunderstanding. “As you say.”

  Reassuring the woman was foremost on Annica’s mind. “He has no idea about my secret activities, Alice, nor must he ever. Do you understand? He would take exception—”

  The expression on Alice’s face turned to one of horror. “Lord! ‘Twere Auberville who carried you up the stairs that night! Edwina and Fanny said it was a demon, but I thought they fancied it. They was closer to the truth than they knew!”

  “Alice! Collect yourself! Auberville is a perfectly ordinary—well, not ordinary, perhaps—but harmless—oh, well, not precisely harmless, I suppose—but reasonable…Oh, never mind. Shall we just say that he is ignorant of my pursuits and must remain so?”

  “The last thing I want is trouble with Lord Auberville,” Alice vowed. “But he ain’t a good one to try to keep a secret from. He just seems to know things, if ye catch my meaning.”

  Annica picked up a bottle and dabbed rose water behind her ears. Her dark hair was arranged in a fall of little ringlets down her back and lay in stark relief against her French-blue gown. Lord, but she was sick of blue!

  She needn’t have hurried home from her meeting with Alice. Tristan had sent his apologies that he would not be able to join her for dinner. Business. Again. Who was punishing whom? She went to her dressing room, determined to find something red, orange or chartreuse—anything loud and tasteless!—to wear down to dinner. Tristan never need know.

  Mary found her there, rummaging through wardrobes and bureaus. “Milady! Your aunt is below demanding that you receive her at once. She’s in the front parlor, and Master Gilbert is with her.”

  Annica had a sinking sensation. She abandoned her plan to change her gown. Something was afoot, and she suspected what it was.