by Jane Feather
Elinor looked doubtful but, since neither of her elder daughters or their swains offered any objection, decided it would have to be.
"Edward can see me to my carriage, however," Theo said. He had an answer to give her.
Edward handed her into the town chaise with the Stoneridge arms emblazoned on the panels.
"Well?" When he didn't immediately respond, she said blandly, "I'll have to go without you if you won't come."
"And I'll tell Stoneridge what you're up to," he fired back.
"You don't seriously expect me to believe that, do you?"
Edward sighed. It was, of course, inconceivable he should do such a thing. "Very well," he said with obvious reluctance. "I'll wait at the corner of Curzon Street in the morning."
"Bless you. I knew you hadn't changed that much." Theo kissed him soundly. Edward closed the door, and the coachman set his horses in motion.
While his wife was busily plotting at the Vanbrughs' rout party, the Earl of Stoneridge was at White's, playing faro at the same table as Neil Gerard. The bottles of burgundy circulated as the groom porters intoned the odds at the hazard tables, and voices rose and fell in various degrees of inebriation as the evening moved into the early hours.
Neil was playing with a degree of flamboyance, but like the earl's, his glass was always full but rarely enriched by the circulating bottles.
The earl was talking to Gerard about his imprisonment in Toulouse. His plan was a simple one, but what he knew of Neil Gerard made it certain to succeed. The man had no strength of character or will, and he was already panicked. Sylvester was going to drive him to the breaking point. He was going to corner him and goad him until he spilled his guts to whoever happened to be around.
Sylvester's tone made light of his prison experience, as the rules of masculine society dictated, and he gave the appearance of a man chatting with an old friend about something they both understood. Now and again he would muse aloud about what could have happened before he surrendered. His tone was low enough to be heard only by Neil Gerard, but it was also clear to the captain that he wasn't unduly bothered by the subject's being aired in public
Once or twice a curious look was cast in their direction when a word or two was overheard, and Sylvester would immediately include the man in his conversation, which again he made sound as if it were perfectly innocuous.
It became clear to Gerard that this was not the man at the court-martial – a man confused and shamed by an implicit accusation against which he had no defense. And Gerard began to feel like the hunted. Only by reminding himself of his plan could he keep the panicky flutters from obscuring cool thought.
Sylvester finally rose from the table, several hundred guineas ahead of himself. "A better night next time," he commiserated with Gerard, who had been scrawling IOUs to the bank for the last half hour.
"Oh, I'll come about yet," Neil said, remaining in his seat. "The night is young."
"So it is," Sylvester said. "For some." He smiled, and Neil had a sudden vivid picture of Lady Stoneridge as she'd been in the Fisherman's Rest, vibrant, bubbling with sensuality. And as she'd been that morning, laughing white teeth, sparkling eyes, red lips. And how she'd be in the morning, when they drove to Hampton Court.
"Of course, marriage offers inducements for an early night," he said.
"Oh, Stoneridge is still a bridegroom," a man bellowed jocularly from the far side of the table. "Won't last, dear fellow. I assure you."
"I can't argue with experience," Sylvester said with a mock bow. "Nevertheless, I bid you good night, gentlemen." He strolled off, and Neil Gerard settled down to his cards with a sigh of relief. Now he'd be able to concentrate.
"Oh, by the by, Gerard." Sylvester was back again, smiling. Neil looked up at him. The light of a chandelier fell on the earl's face, illuminating the scar, and the gray eyes held a strange glitter. His mouth smiled, but it was a smile that sent chills along Neil Gerard's spine. "Jud O'Flannery – that was your sergeant's name, wasn't it?"
Neil could feel the color draining from his cheeks, and he imagined he could feel the blood pooling in his feet The room spun, and black spots danced in front of his eyes. If Gilbraith found O'Flannery, he would pay whatever the blackmailer demanded for the testimony that would clear his name. He was now wealthy enough to pay a lump sum that would exceed several years of accumulated blackmail payments. Jud would jump at it.
"Perhaps you don't recall," Sylvester was saying, his voice coming from a great distance. "I'm certain it was that. It's a puzzle to know where to find him, though. Somewhere in the East End, I should think, wouldn't you?"
Neil shook his head. Even as he tried to answer with suitable carelessness, he knew his unspoken reaction had given him away. "Perhaps. I wouldn't know. He was a nasty piece of work. They probably hanged him ages ago. Either that or he's rotting in the prison hulks at Greenwich."
"Probably," agreed Sylvester casually. With a wave of farewell, he walked off.
Panic weaved a red mist around Neil Gerard. He couldn't wait. There was no time for a subtle cultivation of the lady. He would have her in his phaeton tomorrow morning; it would have to be then. He pushed back his chair abruptly, casting in his cards.
"Forgive me. I've remembered another engagement. You have my IOUs, Belton?"
Lord Belton nodded with a grunt, gathering up the papers and stuffing them into his waistcoat pocket.
Neil Gerard left White's. He had little time and a lot to do.
Sylvester strolled home, well satisfied with the evening's work. Gerard was about to break. He was like an overripe plum – one prick at the right point, and he'd split asunder.
The threat of violence would do it, of course. Gerard was a coward. He could still see him blubbering and cowering in the halls of Westminster School, begging on his knees to be left alone as the grinning circle of bullies surrounded the perfect victim of a regime of terror.
He would do anything to avoid pain. But Sylvester needed witnesses to any coerced statement, and he couldn't see himself threatening to beat Gerard to a pulp in front of the objective spectators who would be the only credible witnesses on Horseguards.
So it was a simple question of coming up with the right pressure to effect the break, and the right set of circumstances in which to engineer it.
Light shone from beneath Theo's door as he passed along the corridor. Marriage did offer inducement for abandoning the card table at a relatively early hour. Smiling, he opened the door.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Theo was still deeply asleep when Sylvester awoke in the morning. A dark ringlet tickled his nose, and he brushed it aside, propping himself on an elbow to look down on her sleeping face. She seemed peaceful enough now, but there'd been a wildness to her in the night, a fervid, almost febrile, quality to her sensual excitement He hadn't found it cause for complaint at the time – far from it; but thinking about it now, he felt a faint flicker of unease. Was she plotting something?
Not that she'd tell him if he asked. He'd just have to try to second guess her. At the moment, innocently asleep, she presented him with no problems. Smiling, he brushed his lips over her forehead before sliding out of bed, careful not to wake her, pulling the sheet up over her bared shoulder.
Softly, he left the room in the gray light of dawn. He'd engaged to drive his mother and sister to Brook Street after breakfast; Elinor had nobly offered to accompany them on a visit to the Elgin Marbles. Later he intended to continue his goading of Neil. He could smell blood now; if only he could get the man to fall apart in one of their clubs.
Theo awoke when Sylvester was breakfasting dutifully with his mother and sister. She'd dined with them the preceding evening before going to the Vanbrughs', so felt quite justified in breakfasting in peace abovestairs. She was dressed when they left the house at nine-thirty to drive to Brook Street and watched them leave from her bedroom window, Mary swathed in a heavy pelisse, Lady Gilbraith tapping her foot impatiently on the pavement as the footman to
ok an instant too long to open the door to the barouche.
Sylvester climbed in behind his mother and sat beside her, his expression stoic as he inclined his head to listen to what looked to the watcher above to be some considerable diatribe.
It couldn't have been a more convenient absence, Theo reflected. He'd be well out of the way when Neil Gerard came to collect her.
Critically, she examined her image in the mirror. Gerard hadn't seen her new haircut, and she had every intention of making the most of the surprise.
She wasn't planning seduction, but with cold-blooded certainty Theo knew that the more alluring she could look, the more likely she would be able to slide beneath his guard. A chip straw hat with dark-blue velvet ribbons allowed the glossy ringlets full play as they dangled over her ears and wisped on her forehead; her driving dress of blue velvet matched the ribbons; kid half boots offered a nice touch to a neat ankle. York tan gloves and fur muff completed a picture that her mother and Madame Hortense, the milliner, had gone to a deal of trouble to put together, without much help from the Countess of Stoneridge, the countess was obliged to admit. However, examining her reflection, she decided that maybe she would pay a little more attention to such details in future. They were very useful when one needed to call upon them.
She tripped lightly down the stairs, offered Foster a sunny smile, and said she would await Captain Gerard in the library. She didn't have long to wait, however, before the butler announced the gentleman in the flat tones that Theo knew denoted disapproval. Foster did not like the idea of the countess's going out with a strange man. While he wouldn't bat an eyelid at her unescorted excursions around Stoneridge and Lulworth, driving out alone with a strange gentleman through the hazardous streets of London town was another thing altogether.
"What should I tell his lordship, should he inquire your whereabouts, Lady Theo?" he asked ponderously, holding open the front door.
"Why, that I have gone for a drive with Captain Gerard," Theo said with an innocent smile. She intended to come back from this drive with her present for Sylvester, so it wouldn't matter if he knew who she was with once they were on their way. "The captain will return me safely. Won't you, sir?" The innocent smile turned arch.
"But of course, ma'am. I'm aware of how precious is my charge." He bowed, his flat brown eyes skimming over her countenance.
Theo felt a tiny prickle of unease, quickly dismissed. The toad didn't know she suspected anything. But why was he interested in cultivating her? The wife of his enemy.
And why hadn't she thought of that before? But it was too late now. She'd been so busy pursuing her own plans, she hadn't stopped to wonder why Neil Gerard should have played so neatly into her hands.
Anyway, it didn't matter. She had her pistol and Edward was following her.
Smiling, she laid her hand on Gerard's arm and allowed him to hand her into his phaeton, resisting the urge to look behind her to see if Edward's curricle was waiting at the corner.
Edward waited until the phaeton was halfway up the street, then set off in pursuit The streets were busy, and it was easy to keep a reasonable distance behind his quarry without drawing attention to himself. They proceeded along Piccadilly and into the Strand. Edward assumed Gerard would turn down New Bridge Street and cross the river at Blackfriars, but instead he headed up Ludgate Hill.
Odd, Edward thought Presumably he intended to cross the river at Southwark. It was eccentric, but perhaps he wished to show Theo some site or point of interest.
A brewer's dray lumbered into the road ahead of Edward's curricle, its four shires with braided manes planting their massive iron-shod hooves on the steeply rising road with noisy deliberation. Edward cursed. He still wasn't comfortable maneuvering his horses in a confined space one-handed. He was learning to hold the reins in his teeth while he directed with a flick of his whip, but it was tricky at best, and not something to be tried in a crowded thoroughfare when anything might spook one of his animals.
He was forced to hold back until the road widened a little and he was able to pull out and pass as they crossed Old Bailey. Only then did he see that the phaeton had disappeared. The dome of St Paul's Cathedral crowned the top of the hill up ahead, and there was no sign of Neil Gerard and his phaeton.
Edward's heart began to thump with uneasy premonition. Could they have turned down toward the river, retracing their steps to Blackfriar's Bridge? Theo had disappeared in the company of a man intent on murdering her husband. He swore as the bitter taste of his own futility washed through him anew. If he'd been able to pass the dray, he wouldn't have lost them. Why had he allowed Theo to coerce him into this? He'd known it was a mistake. He knew his limitations, but he just didn't want to accept them.
He glanced to his left into the dark shadows of a narrow court, and his heart jumped into his throat. The phaeton was drawn up before a door at the rear of the court. Instinctively, Edward drove past the entrance to the court, pulling into the side of the road a few yards up the hill.
"Hey, lad!" He beckoned an errand boy carrying a basket of loaves on his head. "Hold my horses for a couple of minutes. There's sixpence in it."
"But me loaves'll go cold, guv," the lad objected. "Master'll 'ave me 'ide if 'e gets complaints."
"Two minutes, and a shilling," Edward said brusquely, clambering down.
The lad deposited his fragrantly steaming basket on the pavement and gingerly took the reins. "Don't 'old with 'osses," he muttered. "They won't bite me, will they, guv?"
"No. Just stand still with them," Edward threw over his shoulder as he ran back to the entrance to the court Standing in the shadows, he stared into the gloomy, noisome three-sided space created by the backs of tall, narrow houses. The kennel running down the middle of the court overflowed with garbage, and the mired cobbles were thick with filthy straw.
The phaeton still stood at the door. Gerard and a massive man in a leather apron stood on the steps of the carriage, looking down into the interior.
Where the devil was Theo? Edward's heart was beating so hard, he could hear the blood roaring in his ears. The big man bent and hoisted something into his arms. Edward felt sick as he stared helplessly at the scene, recognizing the unresisting bundle the man threw over his shoulders.
What had they done to her? Why hadn't she used her pistol? He took a hasty step into the court and tripped over a bundle of sacking that cursed vilely. Looking down, he saw a pair of hollow, burning eyes glaring at him, filled with a malevolence that sent chills down his spine. A clawlike hand in fingerless mittens clutched a stone jar.
"Gi' us a shillin', guv." Edward stepped back as the fetid stench of stale gin exuded from a toothless cavern. The claw reached out and seized his ankle. Edward kicked out, fighting a moment of panic as he felt himself unbalanced, with only one free leg and one arm. If he went down to these slimy cobbles, he'd have the devil's own job to get to his feet again, and he couldn't afford to draw the attention of Neil Gerard or his henchman.
The fingers slipped from him, and with another foul curse, the shape huddled into its sacking again, lifting the stone jar to its mouth.
The man carrying Theo had disappeared through the now open door, and Gerard was following. Edward turned and ran back to his curricle. The lad greeted him with a grin of relief, took his shilling, touched his cap, heaved his basket of bread onto his head again, and went off whistling.
Edward sat for a moment fighting with himself. His blood ran hot with rage, urging him to burst into that house and wrest Theo from her captors. But he knew he was no match for one man, let alone Gerard and that massive ruffian, even if Theo were conscious and able to help. He had to get help.
He turned the curricle with a skill born of desperation and drove as fast as he would have done with two good arms along Fleet Street and the Strand. He had no idea where he would find Stoneridge, and beneath this urgent need lurked the terror of what they were doing to Theo at the moment. What if they moved her while he was away? If they got back to that
house in Hall Court and found it deserted? The thought of the vast maze of London streets hammered in his fevered brain. She could vanish into that maw without a trace.
He made a tight turn onto Haymarket, shaving the varnish of a landau and hearing the indignant bellow of the coachman and the squeals of the vehicle's female occupants. His horses tossed their heads, sensing that the hand on the reins wasn't really steady enough for this pace, and he forced himself to pull back on the reins a little. And then he saw Jonathan Lacey on the other side of the street, strolling casually in the sunshine.
Edward hailed him but without immediate result. He drew rein and bellowed again in an agony of urgency. He couldn't drive across the stream of oncoming traffic Jonathan would have to come to him. But still Clarissa's swain continued to stroll on, his head presumably full of idyllic settings for his sugary portraits, Edward thought viciously. Standing up, he yelled with the full force of his lungs. The other man stopped, looking around him in puzzlement.
"Jonathan!" Edward's voice was hoarse as he waved frantically, finally catching the artist's eye.
Jonathan waved back with an amiable smile and looked for a minute as if, greeting made, he were about to continue his walk. Edward beckoned furiously, and finally Jonathan got the message. He stood on the pavement looking both ways, waiting an eternity for an ambling tilbury to pass, before he crossed.
"Good morning, Fairfax." He greeted Edward, looking somewhat puzzled at the imperative summons.
"I need you to find Stoneridge and give him a message," Edward said without preamble. "Immediately, Jonathan."
"Find Stoneridge?" The young man blinked. "But where would I find him?"
"I don't know." Edward struggled to hang on to his patience. "If he's not at Curzon Street and Foster doesn't know, try his clubs, or Mantons, or Gentleman Jackson's. Someone will know where he is."
"He was at Brook Street earlier," Jonathan said vaguely. "But he left before I did."
"Then that's not much help, is it? Now, listen, when you find him, tell him to meet me at Hall Court, off Ludgate Hill. Tell him it's of the utmost urgency and he must come prepared."
