by Anne Gracie
* * *
Having nothing else to do, Cal rode over to Mayfair and rang the bell at Ashendon House. Were any servants in residence at all? If not, he’d have to put Emmaline and the girls in a suite at the Pulteney while domestic arrangements were made.
To his surprise, the door was opened by a butler, a man he’d never seen before. The two men stared blankly at each other.
The butler was young, as butlers went—about forty. He bowed slightly. “I’m afraid the family is out of town at present, sir.”
“No, we’re not,” Cal told him. “I’m Ashendon. This is my house. And you are?”
“Burton, my lord, I’m terribly sorry, I—”
Cal waved his apologies aside. “Who hired you?”
“Mr. Phipps, your man of affairs, my lord.”
Cal handed the man his hat and coat. He should have known it. Phipps trod a fine line between being ultra-efficient and interfering. “I came to warn you to expect my wife, Lady Ashendon, and my wards, Lady Rose, Lady Lily and Lady Georgiana.”
The butler’s eyes widened slightly, but he said smoothly, “When do you anticipate they will arrive, my lord?”
Cal glanced at the hall clock. “Sometime this evening, I expect. Midmorning tomorrow at the latest.”
“Very good, my lord. The staff will be in readiness.”
“There is a staff, is there?”
“Yes, my lord, all new, like myself, but I fancy we are working well together. Shall I fetch them for an introduction?”
Cal waved off that suggestion. “No need. My wife will do all that. The running of the house is in her hands.”
Burton inclined his head. “Do you require anything at present, my lord?”
“No. I just dropped in to let you know to expect the ladies. I’ll be going back out shortly.”
“What shall I tell Lady Salter, my lord?”
Cal blinked. “Aunt Agatha? Why, nothing, of course.” He frowned at the man’s expression. “What’s she got to do with anything?”
“It was Lady Salter who instructed Mr. Phipps to hire the staff for the house and prepare for your arrival. She didn’t know the date, of course, but she’s been checking up on us, and giving orders.”
Cal swore under his breath. Giving orders would be right. Nothing Aunt Agatha liked better.
“Is there a problem, my lord?”
“No, just—just don’t tell Lady Salter anything.”
Burton gave him a pained look. “She visits daily, my lord.”
“Daily? Good God!” Cal gave a hunted glance behind him. “Has she been here today?”
“This morning, my lord,” the butler said in a soothing voice. “She normally comes each morning around eleven.”
Cal made a note to be out of the house every morning around eleven. “I’m going out again now—I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Is there a key?” Burton fetched him a key. Cal pocketed it and left.
* * *
“Robert and Joseph Gimble have no relatives listed, except for their wives,” Radcliffe said when Cal returned to Whitehall. He didn’t look unhappy, though.
“And the good news?” Cal asked.
Radcliffe tapped the file in front of him and allowed himself a small grin. “One of the wives listed a next of kin—”
“The two wives are sisters.”
“Exactly. And they have an aunt who lives in—wait for it—Whitechapel. She’s married to a weaver.”
“You think that’s where he’ll be?” Cal felt a surge of excitement. Whitechapel was just a short distance from Whitehall.
Radcliffe nodded. “They have small children, don’t forget, so they can’t stay just anywhere. I’ve sent men to the aunt’s house.”
Cal’s jaw dropped. “But I—” He broke off.
“Wanted to be in at the kill? Understandable, but we can’t risk losing him. There’s a rabbit warren of lanes and alleys around the aunt’s house. I’ve sent a dozen armed men. Don’t worry, you’ll get the credit for his capture.”
“I don’t care about that,” Cal said impatiently. “I just wanted to lay hands on the bastard myself.”
Radcliffe gave him a cool look. ‘Revenge for Bentley, yes. But you know as well as anyone that the work we do is a team effort, and no one man matters, as long as the outcome is the one we want.”
Cal glanced at the clock. “When did they leave?”
“An hour ago. They’ll be in position by now. We should hear one way or the other sometime in the next hour or so.” He produced a bottle and two glasses from a drawer in his desk. “Brandy?”
Cal nodded. If he had to wait and do nothing, he might as well have a drink.
An hour crawled past.
Radcliffe had busied himself with paperwork. Cal did his best to tamp down on his impatience. He tried to read a newspaper but couldn’t concentrate. After all this time, a hunt across the Continent and England, to have to wait tamely in an office while other men captured that swine . . .
When the clock softly chimed the passing of the second hour, Cal stood up. “We should have heard something by now. I’m going to Whitechapel.” Radcliffe opened his mouth to forbid it, but Cal held up his hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay well back and out of your men’s hair. I know better than to interfere in an operation, but I want to be there when he’s taken into custody—to see him and be certain he’s the man I saw. And if something goes wrong, I might be able to help.”
Radcliffe frowned.
“It’s dark. I’ll be invisible in the background. You know I can do it.”
After a moment Radcliffe nodded. “Very well, but stay well back.”
* * *
It started to drizzle around ten. Cal, propped up against a cold and grimy brick wall in the shadows of a dim and noisome alleyway, pulled his coat collar up and wished he’d had a little more of that brandy. The rain sputtered to a halt just after midnight.
Radcliffe’s men had reported that the little house in Whitechapel had contained three women, a huddle of small children and only one man—the weaver. Joe Gimble—the Scorpion—was nowhere to be found. The women tried to pretend they knew nothing about his whereabouts—had never heard of him, in fact—but they weren’t very skilled liars. And were obviously frightened.
Two of Radcliffe’s men had remained inside the house, waiting for Gimble’s return. The rest of the men melted into the shadows, posted at every approach to the house, watching and waiting. Cal lurked in a dark alleyway, his every sense primed for the appearance of the man he’d pursued for so long.
The alleyway reeked, the odors of the filth and rubbish of the streets intensified by the rain.
Despite the rain and cold and the late hour, the streets were far from empty: a rag and bone man pushing his cart, a pieman, workers, prostitutes, beggars, drunks and thieves—the usual rabble of the poorer streets of London.
Cal scanned every face. He’d donned enough disguises to look beyond the obvious—even the women. But the only face he recognized was that of the drunk he’d interviewed weeks before, the skeletal wreck of a man whose hands shook so badly he could barely hold the gin bottle he now hugged to his chest. A new gin bottle.
The man glanced at him, stared, reeling and befuddled, as if he recognized Cal from somewhere but couldn’t place him, then staggered on. He was in even worse shape than he’d been when Cal saw him last. He stumbled into a narrow alley that Cal knew from previous investigation was a dead end, and collapsed in a heap.
As the hours passed Cal became increasingly certain that Gimble wasn’t going to return. Someone must have warned him.
Radcliffe joined him around four A.M. and told him to go home. “There’s no point in you hanging around all night. Go home. My men will stay on for as long as it takes. If there’s a development I’ll let you know.”
Cal was cold, wet, tir
ed and dispirited. The investigation was out of his hands and only stubbornness was keeping him here. “All right, but keep an eye on that drunk.” He indicated the huddled shape collapsed in a corner of the alley. “He’s not Gimble, but he’s a former Rifleman and I don’t trust coincidences.”
* * *
It was almost five in the morning when Cal entered Ashendon House again. The gaslights in the entrance burned low. He shrugged off his wet coat and hung it on a hook in the cloakroom, then made his way upstairs. Then paused.
Which room was his bedchamber? The half-dozen or so times he’d stayed at Ashendon House in the past, he’d had a small bedchamber on the third floor. Now . . .
Deciding that the new servants would probably have put him in his father’s old room, he made his way there. He opened the door and glanced in. The room was unoccupied but a lamp had been lit, a fire was burning in the grate and the bed had been turned down.
He began to undress, pulling off his neckcloth, unbuttoning his waistcoat and pulling his shirttails free. Looking around for somewhere to put his damp clothes, he saw a partly open door. His dressing room?
He went in and saw that it connected to another bedroom. Emmaline’s? Quietly he entered and, in the dying firelight, stood gazing down at his sleeping wife. Her dark hair was spread over the pillow. She was sleeping on her back, one hand curled to her breast, one hand flung across the empty half of the bed, palm up, fingers slightly curled.
She looked young and peaceful, and utterly enticing.
A lock of hair lay straggled across her cheek. He bent and smoothed it back. Still fast asleep, she made a breathy little sound and snuggled into his hand. He stood there a long minute, cupping her soft cheek in his palm, hoping she would waken, but unwilling to disturb her.
She must be exhausted. She’d just made a long trip squashed in a carriage filled with noisy young women and a gangly great dog with a flatulent habit.
He could just slip into her bed—to sleep, not for any other reason. He wouldn’t have to wake her.
He pulled his shirt over his head, intending to slide in beside her, then stopped, wrinkling his nose. Not only was he damp to the skin, but his clothes, and possibly his skin and hair, had been imbued with the stench of the street. He looked down at his sleeping wife and sighed.
He couldn’t bring that to her bed.
He turned away and stripped in the dressing room, leaving his clothes piled on the floor, then slid between the cold sheets of the master bed.
He lay there, waiting to get warm, his body aching for Emmaline. How long had he been married? A week? And already he missed sleeping with her?
It wasn’t a good sign.
* * *
A sliver of cool gray light pierced a gap in the drawn curtains. Daylight. Cal yawned and stretched lazily, peering through sleep-filled eyes at the ormolu clock on the overmantel. And blinked and looked again. After ten? He never slept that late.
He rose and rang for hot water, and while he was waiting, he tiptoed through the dressing room and glanced in. His wife’s bed was empty, neatly made up as if she’d never been there.
A man who claimed to be his new valet arrived with the hot water. Another of Phipps’s appointments. Did the man not realize Cal was leaving in a few weeks?
Cal shaved himself, waving away the valet’s services, completed his ablutions and dressed in the clothes the fellow insisted on laying out for him. Cal shrugged himself into his coat, glanced down at it and frowned. Emmaline must have packed all his clothes and brought them up to London for him. Used to traveling light, he’d shoved a few things in a saddlebag and ridden out.
Another convenience of a wife. He felt mildly guilty.
He went downstairs, intending to have a quick breakfast and head off to Whitehall to see what had happened overnight.
He was halfway down the stairs when a voice accosted him. “There you are, Ashendon.” A thin, immensely elegant elderly lady stood in the middle of the hallway, watching him critically through a lorgnette. Aunt Agatha, the elder of his two aunts.
Her hair was iron gray, with two dramatic wings of silver swept up from her temples. Like Aunt Dottie, she’d aged, though in quite a different fashion; the two sisters had always been chalk and cheese. She wore a smart black-and-white outfit that nobody would imagine was for mourning. “Lolling abed till all hours, were you? I cannot abide slugabeds.”
Cal hoped his sigh was not audible. “Good morning, Aunt Agatha.”
She sniffed and held out her gloved hand to him. “That remains to be seen. Where is this wife of yours? I wish to meet her.”
Cal looked around, hoping to see Emmaline somewhere about. Burton the butler cleared his throat. “Yes, Burton?”
“Lady Ashendon and the young ladies went out earlier, my lord. Shopping, I believe.”
Aunt Agatha made an exasperated sound. “No doubt she’ll purchase all the wrong things. Nobodies from the country invariably do. Now explain to me, Ashendon, if you please, the reason for this disgracefully hasty marriage to a complete and utter nobody! Did you give any consideration to what you owe your name? Obviously not!”
“I beg your pardon?” said Cal, outraged by this description of his wife.
“Apology accepted,” Aunt Agatha said regally, “but you still haven’t explained yourself.”
“My wife,” he began stiffly, “is not a nobody. She is—”
“Oh, pish tosh, of course she is. Nobody has ever heard of her, and those that have know nothing good of her. A governess, Ashendon! Could you find anyone less distinguished? A washerwoman, perhaps, or a milkmaid? Milkmaids have good skin, or so I’ve heard—does she have good skin, at least?”
Cal leashed his temper. “My wife is well educated, well born and—”
“Well born? Nonsense! According to my sources she is a nobody, a spinster long past her prime with neither background nor looks to recommend her.”
“Rubbish!” snapped Cal. “She is the daughter of a baronet—”
“Exactly—not even a member of the nobility!”
“She is perfect for my needs. I wrote to you and asked for your help with the girls, remember? And you washed your hands of them and me. Told me to solve my own problems. And I did. Marrying Emmaline was the best thing I could have done.”
“Nonsense. If you’d asked me to find you a suitable wife, I would have found one—someone with birth, breeding, background and looks. A wife you could be proud of. And you would have been married decently, in front of everyone, all the ton, not in some hasty, scrambled marriage in the wilds of—”
“In Bath Abbey, by the Bishop of Bath and Wells.”
“I know that,” she said irritably. “I wrote to the bishop, if you recall, and arranged for him to conduct the ceremony. Otherwise you would no doubt have married in a wayside chapel or—heaven forbid—a civil ceremony in a dusty office somewhere.”
“Emmaline has done wonders with the girls already.”
“Well, of course she has—she’s a governess. That’s her job! But you don’t marry women like that, you hire them.”
Cal clenched his jaw. He’d rather have all his teeth pulled than admit to Aunt Agatha that in fact he had tried to hire Emmaline at first. If she ever got hold of that, he’d never hear the end of it.
“I am very satisfied with my marriage—more than satisfied.”
She snorted. “You have to say that. Rutherford men never admit to an error of judgment—or any other kind, for that matter. Pigheaded. Your father and brother were just the same.”
Cal’s fingers curled into fists. Why nobody had yet strangled his aunt was beyond him. “Delightful as it is to chat with you, Aunt Agatha, I’m afraid I have an urgent appointment and must leave you now.”
Burton instantly glided out of nowhere with Cal’s coat and hat. He must have been listening; he probably couldn’t help but hea
r. Not that it would have made the slightest difference if he’d remained by Cal’s side the whole time. To Aunt Agatha, servants’ ears existed for one reason only—to take orders. Otherwise they were deaf, dumb and blind to their betters’ conversations.
“That’s right, rush off, don’t even offer me tea. No manners at all, this generation,” Aunt Agatha declared.
Cal, stupefied by the statement, opened his mouth, closed it, bowed over her hand and made his escape.
* * *
Cal made straight for Whitehall, but when he got to Gil Radcliffe’s office he found it empty. Mr. Radcliffe, he was informed, had just this minute left for Whitechapel.
Cal headed immediately for Whitechapel. He arrived at the same time as Radcliffe. He glanced at his surroundings but could see nothing much different from the previous night. “What’s going on?”
“There’s no point in maintaining this vigil,” Radcliffe told him. “Gimble obviously knows we’re here. We’ll have to flush him out by other means.”
“How?”
“I’m going to take the women and children into custody. I’ll put the word out that they will only be released if Joe Gimble comes forward.”
Cal frowned. That didn’t seem right to him at all. “You’d lock up innocent women and children? But they’ve done nothing to deserve that.”
Radcliffe shrugged. “You don’t know what they know, whether they were in on the Scorpion’s activities or not. But it doesn’t matter. Seems to me everything Gimble and his brother have done has been to get the women and children to a better place, to give them a better life. If I’ve read him aright, he won’t abandon them now.”
“What if he does? How long will you keep them imprisoned?”
Radcliffe gave him a hard look. “For as long as it takes.”
He beckoned to one of his men, who came over. Radcliffe issued a series of terse instructions; the man nodded and signaled to the rest of the men to come out of concealment. A short briefing, and then they approached the house in a tight semicircle, some with pistols at the ready. They banged on the front door, shouting, “Open up in the name of His Majesty.”
