He gave the order to the driver before she could say a word in reply.
Gabrielle made a quick decision, and decided to accept. "Thank ye kindly, sir."
She dragged Simon to the door and rammed him head first into the relative darkness of the interior of the coach. The stranger gave her a hand up with him, then lifted Lucinda before she fell.
"You really need to avoid the demon drink in this game," the handsome young man said knowingly, giving Lucinda a long look and shaking his head.
He almost looked as though he would stroke her flaxen hair back from her cheek, but withdrew abruptly and fixed his gaze upon Gabrielle now.
"You drink in this game, you'll never be out of it. And you'll get careless and clapped or knocked up, or you'll be killed. I know, believe me. I've seen it too many times in the molly houses. I expect in your place it must be terrible too."
"Oh aye," she said, staring at him, while Clarissa too shot him a stunned look. Just went to show you never could tell...
"If you care about your friend, take her to the Bethnal Green Clinic. Ask for Dr. Herriot. He'll help her, help all of you if you ever want to get off the game."
"Th-th-thank you," she stammered, wondering how on earth he knew Antony. Was he another Rakehell?
But he said he knew all about molly houses, which catered for men seeking other men, a capital crime if they were ever caught.
"Thank you. But we're fine as we are," she said with a brash toss of her head.
She had interpreted Clarissa's worried expression correctly. They needed to go, now. This man knew too much already.
"Very well," the handsome blond man said reluctantly. "But promise me you'll remember what I said. Dr. Herriot, Bethnal Green. Straight up Blackfriars Road and Bridge, then east, if you chance your mind about going to Mistress Sin's. Good luck and God bless."
The young man stared at them pensively as Clarissa and Gabrielle scrambled in and shut the door. Then Gabrielle banged the roof of the coach and told them to hurry for Tavistock Crescent.
With a shake of his head and a deep sigh of regret for the virginal looking blonde, Sebastian followed his tall dark friend George into the asylum to enquire for the Earl of Oxnard's insane wife.
Chapter Twenty
The rather debauched-looking quartet took the kind young man's coach as far as Tavistock Crescent, where three of them went up to the door and pretended to knock.
Gabrielle said to the driver as she offered him a gratuity, "Thank you. Who does this coach belong to?"
He waved away the tip airily. "Mr. George Davenant."
She stared and frowned. No, surely not... Their helper had looked such a respectable man.
It just showed how deceiving appearances could be. Davenant was said to be a theatre owner, pimp and criminal mastermind.
Yet the man they had spoken with had looked a great deal less dangerous than she had imagined from all she had heard about him.
And how did he know about the clinic? Antony must have treated some of his girls at some point, she concluded.
She shrugged. She didn't have time to worry about that now. He hadn't recognised Clarissa or herself, for all he had said he knew of the clinic, so there was an end to the matter.
They pretended to be waiting for an answer at the door until they were sure the coach was safely out of sight. As soon as the coach was gone, she gestured to the others to rejoin her at the curb. Clarissa held up Simon on the pavement still shielding his eyes while they secured another ride.
Once they had piled into the second cab, they headed south once more, this time for the coaching inn at Wimbledon Common, where they took a single room for the three of them.
Gabrielle laid her sister in a trundle bed and Simon on the main bed, where she began to tend to him with cold compresses.
She was eager to get out of London as soon as possible, but they needed to inquire about timetables to the west, and certainly couldn't be seen in public.
Clarissa made inquiries, but was told there wouldn't be room for a party of their size riding inside until ten the next morning.
She relayed the bad news to Gabrielle, who bit her lip and felt annoyed at this unexpected obstacle never occurring to her.
"I could ride up top..."
Clarissa shook her head. "You'd perish in this weather. Besides, the fewer the witnesses, the better."
Simon lifted the cool cloth off one eye to look at her. "She's right, you know."
"Why not take a coach anywhere out of London, and double back?"
Clarissa went back to see what she could find, but got varying degrees of the same story. No coach seats riding inside the carriage were available until at least midmorning the following day.
"I tell you what, I'll take cab back to the clinic and my home to fetch more of my things, and enough money to hire a private conveyance for the trip down to Somerset."
Gabrielle shook her head. "We couldn't ask you to..."
"I'm offering."
"But the expense..."
"You might also need to hire someone to help you with Lucinda, unless of course Clarissa would be willing to come with us?" Simon suggested, his eyes still watering from the brightness now that he was free from his cell at last.
Gabrielle shook her head. "Oh, no I couldn't ask you to come all the way to..."
"I'll do it," Clarissa said promptly. "I'll tell Dr. Herriot I need a few days off, and find someone to look after the children. It will give you one less thing to worry about. Simon isn't fully well yet, after all. And we don't want anyone asking too many questions about Lucinda."
Gabrielle thought about it for a time, but in the end, she agreed to the new plan.
Clarissa saw Lucinda settled comfortably, while Gabrielle watched over both of her charges with the pistols ever at the ready, and promised she would be back as soon as she could.
She went off and Simon and Gabrielle nestled in the bed exhausted, and clung to each other tightly, with the door firmly bolted and both weapons on the nightstand.
"Lord, that was so close. And that man Davenant was our guardian angel, helping us get away so quickly," Simon said after he had kissed her thoroughly.
"Fallen angel, more like," Gabrielle said with a smile. "Who would ever have thought he would have anything to do with molly houses, a fine man like him. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would say he was quite taken with Lucinda."
He shrugged one shoulder. "I'm sorry I couldn't see anything because I was covering my face against the sunlight. I'll take your word for it, though. So all I can say is, people will do all sorts of things for money, or principle. In any case, the carriage belonged to him, and he was very kind to lend it to us when he saw us in need."
After a time, he said, "I thought you said he was a theatre owner and pimp?"
"That's right."
"He sounded young."
She thought for a moment, then nodded. "Aye, not much older than Lucinda, I should think."
"That sounds quite young to be so succcessful, so infamous. Perhaps he was only a brother or colleague."
She shrugged one shoulder. "That's true. Well, whoever he was, he saved us all. I was so afraid you were having a seizure. I don't know how we would have managed without his intervention."
"Aye, I thought I was having one too. But it was just the sunlight."
"Are you in much pain now?" she asked softly, before planting a kiss on his cheek.
"No, but I fear my eyes may be permanently weakened as a result of my incarceration." He sighed.
"Best not to overdo things for a time, then."
"I'm not talking about overdoing things, my love, I'm talking about not being as blind as a bat."
"If you need to do any reading, I can do it for you. Not that I need to with all the volumes you have in your head."
"Aye, which nearly killed me," he said bitterly. "It's my good memory which got me into this situation in the first place."
"So you're saying that you have a code
book of sorts in your head?" she surmised.
He nodded, gritting his teeth against the inevitable pain.
"Yes, I can see the page, and only I and the person who sent the code will know. A one book, one page code."
Now it suddenly started to all make sense to her. "So the two of you have the same book, or books, and you tell the page number and use the letters to code and decode. So the only way they would believe the message came from a legitimate source was by knowing which book or books were acceptable."
He nodded. "Yes. In my case I never even had to carry the book."
Simon gasped then, but the pain wasn't as severe as he thought it would be, and he stared at her in surprise.
She smiled at him in sheer relief.. "It's all starting to become clear sense now. You were able to run all of Wellington's communications in the Peninsula and later on during the French campaign in that way. So they've kept you because the knowledge is so valuable, but they've just not used it yet."
"And someone sold me to be tortured because the price on my head was so high, and they got greedy."
"Once the French had you, they wanted the title of the book. When that didn't work, they asked you to code things for them, false messages. So what did you say in the message?"
He shook his head. "I don't dare tell you, and I don't dare report it."
"Report it?"
"To my old masters."
Her brows knit. "But if they were keeping an eye on you, they already know. You said to me once you were bait. So they wanted you to send the message. You have no reason to look so despairing."
"But the message..."
"Yes, I heard it. ‘Free the eag...'"
"Don't say it. Can you not guess what it means?"
She shook her head.
Simon looked at her bleakly. "It means that even now a ship is on its way to St. Helena. The Governor there will release Napoleon, and Europe will be plunged into war again soon."
Chapter Twenty-one
Gabrielle stared at Simon in horror. She gripped his upper arm hard and gasped, "Release Napoleon from his prison? Are you sure, darling? Simon, are you certain that's what it means?"
He nodded, though his eyes were still closed against the pain. "The eagle was Napoleon's symbol on all his battle standards. He escaped from Elba, remember? There are still people all over the world sympathetic to his cause.
"Look at his brother Joseph. He was the worst king of Spain imaginable. He looted and pillaged Madrid like a child raiding a shop window at Christmas. Yet he ended up getting off scot-free and now lives Philadelphia, the seat of American liberty. Disgusting."
"At least he lost most of the treasure he looted from the poor Spaniards at the battle of Vitoria," she pointed out softly.
"True. I was there. He left baggage trains behind him for miles and a string of women, children and court followers. They fell prey to the mercies and not so tender mercies of the British and the Spanish. It was dreadful." He shuddered at the recollection.
Gabrielle soothed him with one hand, slowly rubbing his chest.
He sighed. "I'm so tired now, my love."
"Yes, darling, I know you are. You've done very well. Been so brave. Why don't you sleep? I'll watch over you."
He squinted open one eye to look at her earnestly "Promise me you'll keep the pistols near at hand. And understand that I can't ever go back. I'll shoot myself first before I'll let them..."
"Don't say it," she insisted. "Don't even think it. And don't worry. I hate the idea of more war just as much as you do, and I'm damned if I'm going to lose you. Not after everything we've been through, especially weaning you from the opium.
"So please, let's not allow our fears to get the better of us. It may not be as bad as you think. Perhaps the Governor of St. Helena won't believe the message. Maybe he will want independent confirmation before he takes so drastic a step. You're not the only one with the codes, are you?"
"I would be one of very few people," he said, then winced.
"It will be all right. Even if the Governor does release Bonaparte, St. Helena is far away, and we have some time. Someone will stop him. It's been nearly six years since Waterloo. I'm sure the French don't want war again any more than we do."
"I pray to the gods you're right, but I fear that as long as men hunger for power like the Little Corporal and his followers, there will always be something to fear."
She traced his handsome mouth with one forefinger. "Then we just have to trust in fate. It's been pretty kind to us so far."
He cupped her buttock to tuck her more tightly to him. "Yes, and you've been most brave. They would have poisoned me for sure if you hadn't been there."
"You mean poor Spence and that darling little kitten being there to save us all," she said with a sigh.
"Aye. We've been more fortunate than I can ever imagine."
She cradled him against her tenderly. "Sleep now, darling. Things will look much brighter once you've rested and eaten. And we can do whatever you like now that you're free. Take a couple of days to go down to Dorset or wherever you like..."
"No," he said, shaking his head on the pillow. "Lucinda needs to be settled. All the jouncing around in the coach won't be good for the baby. You're my family now, and I need to look after you all."
"Not until you're really well."
He sighed and hugged her close. "But you've already borne so much of the burden."
"It's been no burden at all. I did it gladly. I love you, and Lucinda."
"Still, we're going to need money, a place to live."
"My cousins will help," she reassured him, hoping she sounded more confident that she felt. She still wasn't sure what she was going to tell them.... "We will all find a place in their household, I'm sure. They're good people."
"If they're anything like you they must be." He kissed her softly, and soon their garments were in a heap upon the floor, with Lucinda slumbering peacefully on her pallet on the other side of the toilette screen.
They made love silently under the covers, gently, though every nerve ending in her body screamed for him to take her as fiercely as a battering ram to reaffirm their life and love.
"Please," she begged urgently.
"It's all right, cherie. It's all here for the asking. Just tell me what you want..."
"All of you, right now, as hard as I can bear it until I tell you to stop," she whispered back.
"Demanding little thing, aren't you?" he said with a grin, still thrusting slowly until she drummed her heels on his buttocks in frustration.
"If this is one of your erotic games, well, then, for once I want to give the orders."
Desire sparked fiercely in his eyes, rendering them molten gold. "All right, I'll play your game. What is your heart's desire, my dearest love?"
"All of you, right now, as hard as I can bear it until I tell you to stop."
"With pleasure, my love."
It was a long time before she ever said that word. Finally she took pity on him.
Simon collapsed at last, having lost track of how many times his spine had sizzled.
Gabrielle dragged herself out of bed long enough to don her chemise and check on Lucinda, who was still sleeping with her thumb in her mouth.
A short time later, Clarissa arrived with all their supplies, and caught more than an eyeful as Simon finished scrambling into his clothes and dived back under the covers with a blush.
Clarissa grinned. "Quite a man you've got there."
"One in a million." She shuffled back to bed, every muscle in her body aching from their cataclysmic lovemaking, and sat on the mattress with her friend to go over Clarissa's news.
"Are you all right?" Simon asked, with a meaning look.
She smiled happily. "Everything is perfect. I have everything I could ever want, my darling Simon. We're safe, and free. And the next time we have so much fun, it can be your turn to give the orders."
"Keep 'im under your thumb, dearie, that's wot I say," Clarissa a
dvised in her broadest accent, with an even broader wink.
"Aye, I certainly love the way she handles me," Simon rejoined with a cheeky grin.
"But enough of this joking about," Clarissa said, her brisk self once more. "I've got a coach ready to leave at seven. It's a private party going to pick up some poor relations in Bristol, and willing to do it for half the price it would usually cost."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 6 Page 21
