by Merry Farmer
By the time they arrived at Croydon House, Marigold was a bundle of frazzled nerves. Alex helped her down from the carriage and took her arm as he led her up the stairs to the front door, which Mr. Poole held open for them. But she wasn’t entirely ready for the shock that met her in the front hall.
“My dear, I’ve been worried sick about you all night.” Lady Stanhope stepped out of the front parlor, her arms outstretched to embrace Marigold.
Marigold blinked at the woman, astounded that she, of all people, would be standing in the front hall to greet her under such dire circumstances. But between the confidence in Lady Stanhope’s fierce expression and the weariness that clung to every fiber of her being, Marigold was so overwhelmed that she broke away from Alex and rushed into her friend’s arms.
The comfort of Lady Stanhope’s greeting was cut short a moment later as Lord Malcolm growled, “What the devil are you doing here?”
A surge of tension encompassed Marigold until Lady Stanhope let her go. Marigold stepped to the side as Lady Stanhope stiffened her back and stared at Lord Malcolm. Her eyes narrowed, and a wicked grin played across her lips, making her handsome, angular face shine with challenge.
“Good evening, Malcolm,” she said, taking a few, swaying steps toward him.
“You have no business interfering.” Lord Malcolm stepped forward to meet her, his eyes narrowed as well.
They came to within a few feet of each other, Lord Malcolm glowering and Lady Stanhope staring down her long nose at him with a grin that grew by the second. The air in the hall crackled, and Marigold felt her temperature rise by several degrees.
“I heard you might need me,” Lady Stanhope said at last, when it felt as though the standoff would ignite the house and burn it down.
“I’ve managed well enough without you so far,” Lord Malcolm replied.
“Have you?” One of Lady Stanhope’s eyebrows twitched up.
A tense silence followed as the two stared each other down. Marigold glanced past them to Alex. The frustration dripping off of him was obvious. Marigold couldn’t blame him. They had more urgent matters to deal with than the friction that obviously existed between Lord Malcolm and Lady Stanhope.
“How do we make contact with your men in the field to discover what they’ve found out?” Alex stepped in, breaking Lord Malcolm and Lady Stanhope apart.
In an instant, the tension in the room lessened. Lady Stanhope continued to smirk as though she’d won the confrontation. Lord Malcolm frowned at her, then turned to Alex.
“I have runners scheduled to report to me when they learn more,” he said.
Alex didn’t seem at all appeased. “They should have already reported in. Someone must know something by now.”
“As soon as we discover where James is being kept—”
“We already know where James is being kept,” Lady Stanhope interrupted, her voice sharp and a tad bored. Both men and Marigold snapped to face her. She shrugged. “As I said, you might need me.”
“This is no time for your petty games, Katya.” Lord Malcolm marched back to her, but his frightening glower barely made a dent in Lady Stanhope’s regal calm.
“Who’s playing games?” she asked, batting her eyes as though they were at a parliamentary debate instead of desperate to rescue a helpless three-year-old from a man who wouldn’t think twice about killing him. “I had my people out looking the second I heard James was taken.”
“You don’t have people,” Lord Malcolm rumbled.
Lady Stanhope returned his stare with fire in her eyes. “I can assure you, I do. Reliable people. People who know Shayles’s operatives on sight and who spot them the moment they arrive by train.”
“Shayles?” Marigold pressed a hand to her thundering heart.
“Yes, my dear. I’m afraid Lord Shayles is the mastermind of this whole, dreadful thing. Turpin counts Shayles as a friend. Shayles sees Turpin as his vote in Commons. The Devil is loath to lose his power.”
“Your operative saw Miss Goode with James at Paddington?” Alex stepped forward before Lady Stanhope could finish shooting her grin of triumph in Lord Malcolm’s direction.
“Yes,” she answered, rolling her shoulders and assuming a more business-like mien. “Your Miss Goode is one Amelia Blunt, one of Shayles’s toadies. She was followed to a house on Pollard Street in Bethnal Green.”
“Then we should go at once,” Alex said. He marched to the door, Lord Malcolm following him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Lady Stanhope called after them.
Marigold gaped at her. “Why not? The sooner we recover James, the better.”
Lady Stanhope shook her head, resting a hand on Marigold’s arm. “They will know that you’re coming,” she told the men, who had reached the door which Mr. Poole held open. “They will know, and they’ll be ready for you. If you take the direct approach, without adequate planning, you’ll put yourselves and James at risk.”
“Whether they know we’re coming or not,” Lord Malcolm argued, “they won’t have had enough time to plan against a full assault of my men.”
“They’re present and accounted for and ready to move in?” Lady Stanhope asked.
“Yes.”
Lady Stanhope shook her head. “All the more reason to proceed with caution. Shayles and Turpin know your men just as you know theirs. If they’ve seen them lurking anywhere near their safe houses, they’ll already have a plan.”
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Alex hissed.
“No, you can come up with a better plan,” Lady Stanhope countered.
Marigold was torn between the two. She wanted more than anything to trust her husband, but to her ears, what Lady Stanhope was saying made sense. All the same, she couldn’t bear the thought of James in trouble for a moment longer than he needed to be.
“Every minute we stand here debating is a minute lost,” Lord Malcolm said at last. He glanced to Alex, then nodded to the door.
Alex sighed, glancing quickly to Marigold. “I’ll find him,” he said. “I’ll find him and bring him back.”
Marigold rushed across the hall to grab his arm. She lifted to her toes to kiss him. “Hurry,” she whispered.
He kissed her back, nodded, then rushed out into the night.
Chapter 20
London in the dark was a menacing place, no matter what Alex’s reason for being out. It was well past the hour when decent people were sound asleep, as the hired hack wound its way through one of the more dangerous sections of town. Phillips and Ruby had arrived at the house as Alex and Malcolm rushed out, and with a little persuading in the form of a gold sovereign, the hack’s driver had been convinced to take them and Phillips on to Bethnal Green.
“Speed is of the essence,” Malcolm explained, his Scottish accent more pronounced than usual. “If Turpin and Shayles have noticed my men keeping an eye on them, they might very well be ready.”
Alex grinned in spite of the seriousness of the situation. “Don’t tell me you agree with Katya.”
Malcolm made a bitter scoffing noise. “Not even if she told me the sky were blue.”
The mystery of Malcolm and Katya’s tangled relationship kept Alex distracted as they journeyed on through streets teeming with men who kept their faces hidden and women who left very little to the imagination. The sense of time ticking away plagued Alex, and along with it, the sickening sensation that the entire situation was completely his fault. If he had been a better father, if he had put his family before his career, if he hadn’t rushed to attack Turpin with the information about Ruby, none of this would have been happening. Turpin wouldn’t have lashed out at him, causing the carriage wreck. Marigold would still be carrying his child and capable of carrying more. Lives had been shattered because he let ambition rule him. He wouldn’t let James’s life be ruined as well.
“Stop here,” Malcolm called out to the driver, though they were several blocks from Pollard Street.
The driver dutifully bro
ught the hack to a stop under a flickering, gas streetlight. Malcolm jumped out of the carriage first, Alex and Phillips right behind him.
“Wait here,” Malcolm told the driver, handing him another large coin. “We shouldn’t be long, but we may need to beat a hasty retreat when we come along.”
“Can’t pay me enough for this,” the driver mumbled under his breath, but he hunkered down into his coat all the same. He set the reins aside and looked ready to wait things out, which was all that mattered.
“This way,” Malcolm whispered, gesturing for Alex and Phillips to follow him.
Between the feeble glow of a few streetlights placed far apart and the light of the moon as it flickered in and out of clouds, Bethnal Green left Alex with an unfriendly feeling. Almost all of the windows in the craggy and dilapidated houses around them were dark. The only sounds were the occasional bark of dogs or human coughs that reminded them they weren’t alone. A man stepped quickly into the alley between two houses as they rushed down the main street, then turned onto a darker, narrower one.
“Psst.”
The signal came from the shadows at the corner of Florida and Pollard Streets. Malcolm abruptly stopped, leaving Alex and Phillips to collide as they tried to stop as well.
“What news?” Malcolm asked the shadow.
A grey-haired, grizzled man, leaned toward them from the corner of a house. “They’ve got the child there, all right.”
Alex’s chest tightened painfully, and he stepped up to Malcolm’s side.
“He was crying and kicking, so Fulton dosed him with laudanum to shut him up,” the man went on.
Rage spread through Alex like a wildfire. “We have to get him out of there.”
Malcolm nodded. “Do you know where in the house he’s being held?”
The man in the shadows shook his head. “I only saw them take him in and heard Fulton talk about dosing the boy. Don’t know where they went once they were in the house.”
“It’s likely they’d’ve taken him in as deeply as possible,” Malcolm said, his expression darkening. “Do they know we’re coming?”
The man in the shadows rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “Hard to say. They’re playing it close to their chests, they are.”
“We haven’t got a moment to lose,” Alex said. “We need to go in, even if we have to break down the doors to do it.”
The man in the shadows didn’t seem impressed by Alex’s bravado. He let out a breath and reached for something in his coat. “If you’re planning to storm the castle, you’ll need these.” He drew out two revolvers, handing one to Alex and one to Malcolm.
Alex swallowed. He hadn’t used a weapon since his days in the army, decades ago. He’d believed he was past such uncivilized behavior. It was strange how quickly his instincts returned once he had the cold metal in his hands.
“Hurry,” Malcolm said, nodding to the man in the shadows, then walking on. “The longer we wait, the more of a chance they have to guess we’re here and what we’re up to.”
Alex followed him, mouth pressed tightly shut. He’d never been to that part of the city and didn’t know where they were going. He was at Malcolm’s mercy, and glanced furtively at the houses looming around them. None of them stood out from the others, but all of them had an air of mischief at best, evil at worst.
A few yards down Pollard Street, Malcolm held up his hands, bringing them to a stop. He pointed to the only building on the street that had a light in one of its windows. Then he held up his gun. With a gesture toward the alley beside the house, he set off, silent as a specter.
They slipped around the corner of the house. The scent of sewage and rubbish hit Alex’s nostrils, adding to the sense of danger pressing down on him. In spite of his determination to find and rescue his son, no matter what it took, things didn’t feel right. The house was too quiet, their progress too easy. He paused to glance over his shoulder at Phillips, who stood out, white as a ghost, even in the dark. Phillips returned his look with one that said they were a bunch of fools to go charging in, but he continued to follow.
When they reached the back of the house, they were joined by three other men. Alex swallowed his initial instinct to shoot as Malcolm gestured to the trio, signaling that they were his men. They evidently knew how to take silent orders as well, and within seconds, their band of rescuers closed in on the kitchen door.
Before they could reach the door, it burst open. Light poured through, enough to blind them, as half a dozen lanterns were uncovered. They blazed throughout the house’s cramped back garden, completely stunning Alex. He raised his arm to his face to shield his eyes, his revolver useless in his hand. He didn’t think to use it before someone shouted, “Stop where you are!”
The next thing he heard were shots being fired. Before he could get his bearings, pain seared through his arm, then his side. Then the world went black.
The clock in the downstairs hall at Croydon House chimed three in the morning, and Marigold sighed in agony. Time was crawling. Alex and Lord Malcolm should have been back hours ago, as far as she was concerned. She should have gone to bed, but it would have been pointless. Not to mention the fact that Lady Stanhope was still with her. She stood with her elbow propped against the mantel, her face more angular than usual, as it was pinched in thought. Marigold watched her from the sofa across the room, her legs tucked under her. The pensive scene was rounded out by Ruby sitting on the very edge of one of Alex’s overstuffed chairs, as though it might burst into flame under her. Ruby’s expression of guilt was as powerful as Lady Stanhope’s ruminative look.
A thousand questions ricocheted through Marigold’s mind. Where exactly had the men gone? Why were they taking so long? Would they have help, or were they on their own? But more than anything, prayers poked their way up through the questions. She prayed for Alex to stay safe. She prayed for James to be returned to her whole. She would sacrifice her entire life for that boy, if only he were returned to her arms.
A clatter at the front door seemed like an answer to her prayers at last, and she leapt to her feet. Lady Stanhope sucked in a breath and turned away from the fireplace. Together, they marched from the parlor into the hall, Ruby jumping up to follow.
But the bustle and throb of energy that shot through the front door wasn’t what Marigold hoped for.
“We need to get him upstairs,” Lord Malcolm shouted at Mr. Poole.
“Yes, my l—” Mr. Poole’s words dropped into stunned silence.
Marigold gasped, a small scream escaping her as she saw what Mr. Poole had. Lord Malcolm and Mr. Phillips carried Alex’s limp, bloody form between them through the hall and up the stairs.
“My God, Alex, Alex!” Marigold shouted, tearing up the stairs after him.
Lady Stanhope was hard on her heels. “What happened?”
“It was an ambush,” Lord Malcolm growled. “Alex got in the way of a few bullets.
“No!” Marigold yelped, trying to push her way past Mr. Phillips to see if her husband was still alive.
Lady Stanhope held her back as the men rounded the landing and mounted the last of the stairs, heading down the corridor to the master bedroom. “You’ll get in the way,” she said.
“But Alex,” Marigold panted, beside herself. “He’ll die.”
Lady Stanhope’s hand tightened on Marigold’s wrist. “If they’re hurrying, then he isn’t dead. Which means he lasted all the way from Bethnal Green to here. Which means he has a fair chance of making it through, if we don’t get in the way.”
“But—”
“Go fetch Dr. Armand Pearson,” Lady Stanhope ordered the small cluster of anxious servants that had gathered at the bottom of the stairs, cutting off Marigold’s protest. “Don’t fetch any doctor other than Dr. Pearson. Do whatever you must to get him here. He lives at—”
“I know where he lives, my lady,” Mr. Long, the footman interrupted, shooting straight toward the still-open front door.
Marigold clutched a hand to her chest
, sending her prayers with him, then continued up the stairs.
“Ruby, do you know the Pollard Street house?” Lady Stanhope continued to take command of the situation.
“Yes, my lady.”
“Then get there as fast as you can and watch to see if they move James. Which they’re bloody well likely to do at this point,” she added in a grumble.
“Yes, my lady,” Ruby said, curtsied, then dashed out into the night as well.
Marigold didn’t wait to see if Lady Stanhope gave any more orders. She picked up her skirts and ran along the hall, bursting into the bedroom she shared with Alex. Lord Malcolm and Mr. Phillips had deposited Alex on the bed, bloodying the coverlet as they did.
“How did this happen?” she asked, pushing past Mr. Phillips as he backed away to sit by Alex’s side. She started to reach for his hand, but was taken aback by the blood soaking his right sleeve.
“The bullet only grazed his arm and his head,” Lord Malcolm said. “It’s the one in his side I’m worried about.”
“He has a bullet in his side?” Marigold’s voice rose to a terrified squeak.
“It’s not deep,” Lord Malcolm insisted, though he didn’t sound certain. “Phillips staunched the bleeding as best he could.”
Marigold spared a quick glance over her shoulder to Mr. Phillips, who looked equal parts furious and anxious, and was wearing only his jacket without a shirt underneath. She didn’t have time to worry about him, though. She turned back to Alex, taking his hand in spite of the blood.
“Alex, Alex, my darling, can you hear me?” she pleaded with him. “Alex, wake up.”
He didn’t respond. Blood was still seeping from a wound under his hairline, slowly dampening the pillow beneath his head. The worst of the bleeding in his arm seemed over, although it still oozed. It was Alex’s tightly-bound middle that had her shaking.
Gingerly, she lifted the hem of his bloodied shirt to get a closer look. Mr. Phillips had done an admirable job of binding whatever wound lay under what looked like torn pieces of a shirt. He must have used his own shirt to stop the bleeding. A circle of red marred the white cotton all the same. There was no telling how bad the wound beneath it was.
