“And you have come to see her.”
“Aye, madam. But if she is not at home…”
Nuala was not about to let him escape, given the odd circumstances of the young man’s visit. Why in the world would he wish to speak to Deborah, and come so far out of his way to do so? He had defended her in Whitechapel, to be sure…
And did not Frances say that he helped her again when I was away from London?
Every one of Nuala’s well-honed instincts were on high alert. What had she been missing?
“Please, come into the house,” Nuala said. She paused to make sure that he was following and led the way into the kitchen. He glanced around at the scrubbed worktables and cupboards, unease apparent beneath his dispassionate demeanor.
He would, Nuala decided, be even more ill at ease if she asked him into the drawing room. “Will you be seated, Mr. Davies?” She took her own seat at the large table in the center of the kitchen and waited for him to do the same. “I do not wish to invade your privacy, Mr. Davies, but it is quite important that I know why you have come.” When he didn’t answer at once, she prodded him. “Might it be because of the newspaper article?”
A man such as Mr. Davies would not be one to reveal undue emotion, but he flinched, and his mouth tightened in anger. “It is all lies, madam. I only wished…I hoped to…”
“Lady Orwell is not here, Mr. Davies. She has run away.”
His chair scraped the floor as he shot up from the table. “That is not…If I had only…I must find her at once!”
Nuala closed her eyes. How could I have been so blind? So terribly blind about so many things?
“Compose yourself, Mr. Davies,” she said, taking firm hold of her own emotions. “You must answer me honestly. Have you and Lady Orwell been seeing each other?”
“No.” He flushed. “Yes, but you must not think—”
“I don’t doubt your honor, Mr. Davies, or Deborah’s. Do you love her?”
His astonishment was manifest. “I…I am only a common man, Lady Charles, hardly worthy of—”
“Do you love her?”
His chin came up. “Yes.”
“And she loves you?”
“If she did, she would not have run away.”
The pain in his voice cut Nuala to the quick. “I do not believe that even love could have stopped her. In fact, I think it was her love for her friends that sent her away.”
“But I would never judge her, even if the things they wrote…” A dangerous look flared in his eyes. “No one has the right.”
“I agree, Mr. Davies. That is why I must know everything you know.”
He gazed at her from under dark brows, weighing her sincerity, wondering if she could be trusted with something as precious as his feelings for Deborah—feelings of which she might very well disapprove. But as she met his gaze, something fell into place between them, a sudden and powerful bond of trust that required no magic or spoken vows.
“Did you know,” he began slowly, “that Debo—Lady Orwell had been threatened?” he asked.
Nuala wanted to cry out at her stupidity. “How, Mr. Davies?”
“By the same man who accosted her when your ladyship was present in Whitechapel.” He proceeded to explain the sequence of events that had occurred on Deborah’s last visit to the rookeries. “I deceived her, madam,” he said, his voice cracking. “I told Lady Orwell that I could not find any evidence that Bray was telling the truth about her supposed parentage. I thought I had silenced the bas—” He cleared his throat. “I did not expect he would ever dare go so far.”
A fierce, hot anger sparked in Nuala’s blood. “What was his motive? What did he hope to gain?”
“I do not know, your ladyship. Such men are generally in need of money.”
Blackmail. Had Bray attempted to extort money from Deborah in exchange for maintaining his silence? Had she refused?
“I failed her,” Davies said, clenching his fist on the table. “Now it is too late.”
“Not too late,” Nuala said. “I have sent word to friends who are discreetly making inquiries about her departure and possible destination. We shall find her, Mr. Davies. And we shall protect her from anyone who seeks to do her further harm.”
They gazed at each other, in perfect accord. “There is still Bray to deal with,” Ioan said. “I could not find him.”
He didn’t need to say what he would have done had he located the man. Nuala was glad he hadn’t. She wanted to be there when the blackguard faced his just punishment.
“You know Bray’s haunts,” she said, “where he might be found?”
“Yes, madam. If he has not run away.”
“Then I suggest we make another attempt to locate him.”
Unexpectedly, Ioan Davies smiled. It was not a pretty expression. “I have not had the privilege of knowing your ladyship long,” he said, “but I count the acquaintance a great honor.” He sobered. “I will, of course, leave London once Lady Orwell is found.”
“To preserve her reputation?” She leaned across the table, touching his hand. “If you hope to reassure me, Mr. Davies, you are going about it the wrong way. I care nothing for the difference in your stations or fortunes. If you love her, and she loves you…nothing in this world matters more.”
“Your ladyship…” He swallowed. “You are very kind.”
“I am not kind at all.” She rose, and he quickly followed suit. “I shall be ten minutes, and then we will leave for Whitechapel.”
“But madam…a lady such as yourself should not enter the places I must go.”
“Rubbish. Mr. Davies, I have been looking after myself for far longer than you have been alive.”
The quizzical lift of his dark brow told her that he didn’t believe her. “Nevertheless…”
“It will do you no good to argue. You may wait for me in the mews.” She returned to the house, sent Jacques to summon Bremner, and asked Booth to help her change into more appropriate dress. Ioan was pacing beside the coupé when she emerged from the house, while Bremner and the footmen looked on in bemusement.
Nuala wasted no time in instructing the coachman as to their destination. The carriage was just pulling into the street when someone shouted for Bremner to stop. Nuala stiffened as Sinjin’s face appeared in the window. He was in the carriage before she could think to prevent him.
He cast a bemused glance at Ioan, who touched the brim of his cap, and sat beside Nuala.
“I must speak with you,” he said.
She shivered at the furnace heat of his body. “I am otherwise engaged, Lord Donnington.”
“With this gentleman?”
The sharpness of his tone might have seemed like jealousy in another man. “Lord Donnington,” she said coolly, “may I present Mr. Ioan Davies. Mr. Davies, Lord Donnington.”
Sinjin took the younger man’s measure with a searing stare. Mr. Davies met his gaze without humility.
“Mr. Davies and I are on our way to Whitechapel,” Nuala said, withdrawing as far from Sinjin as she could without becoming too obvious in her desire to escape him.
“To Whitechapel?” Sinjin echoed. “Why?”
“I do not see that it is any of your business, Lord Donnington. If you would be so kind—”
“It has something to do with Lady Orwell.”
“Why should you believe that, Lord Donnington? Have you information you did not share before?”
His expression tightened. “None.”
Nuala signaled that Bremner should stop the carriage. “If you would be so kind as to leave us.”
“Not until I know what you’re up to.”
Ioan straightened. “Lady Charles,” he said, “do you require assistance?”
“No, Mr. Davies.” She caught Sinjin’s glare. “We intend to find the man who has done his best to ruin Lady Orwell.”
“I know him,” Sinjin growled. “His name is Ferrer, and he resides here in Belgravia.”
“Mr. Ferrer, your good friend?”
>
“No friend of mine. He has been spreading rumors—”
“Whatever Mr. Ferrer may have done, he is not the one we seek.”
“Who, then?”
“A man called Bray,” Ioan said. “He is responsible for giving the story to the newspaper.”
“I know nothing of this man. Why would he wish to hurt Lady Orwell?”
In brief, clipped phrases Nuala relayed what Ioan had told her, omitting any mention of his relationship to Deborah. By the end, Sinjin’s outrage was unmistakable.
“By God,” he said. “You are not going without me.”
Sinjin’s anger seemed quite genuine. It was as if he had come to regret his cruelty with regard to Lady Orwell and wished to make up for it.
Was that enough? Hope flared again, unwelcome and frightening. Could she trust him? There seemed little chance of dissuading him, and the time it would take to do so would impede her purpose and delay her pursuit of Bray.
“If you come with us,” she said, “you must not interfere.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you intend to do?”
“Whatever is necessary to be certain that this man will never injure Deborah again.”
“In that case, you will require my assistance.”
“We will not, Lord Donnington,” Ioan said in a low voice.
“You’ve no say in the matter, boy.”
Ioan began to rise. “I have every—”
“That is enough, both of you,” Nuala said. “Lord Donnington, you will either defer to me in this matter or leave.”
He nodded curtly, though his eyes burned black. The three of them maintained a tense silence all the way to Whitechapel.
Sinjin was first out of the carriage, followed by Mr. Davies. Both men offered their hands to Nuala at once. She took Ioan’s. She instructed Bremner to wait in a relatively secure location, and gestured for Ioan to take the lead.
Bray was not in any of the taverns or similar low dives Ioan recommended. The calculating smirks on the faces of the men who saw Nuala, a fine lady encroaching on their territory, quickly faded when they caught sight of Lord Donnington. Ioan looked like a panther about to spring.
But even had they not been with her, Nuala would have been perfectly safe. She felt the magic flowing through her body along with her blood, sparked into life as if it had never abandoned her. The wall that had held it captive had crumbled. Perhaps it was her conflict with Sinjin that had set the magic free. Perhaps it was her outrage over what Deborah had suffered. But it was with her, within her, and she knew it would answer her will, no matter what she required of it. Even the rough rookery denizens, blind to the unseen, felt her power and cringed when she turned to stare.
All but Sinjin and Ioan Davies, too focused on their hunt to notice.
By late afternoon they had dispensed with all the locations that Ioan had searched before, and Nuala knew that Bray would not be discovered in the usual way. She found an excuse to stand a little apart from the men and began to chant a spell of finding, drawing up the words from memory, allowing her power to infuse each syllable.
The spell was more successful than she could have hoped. She found the dull, cruel spark of the creature named Bray and reached a little further into her memory. She added phrases to the spell that she’d never dared use before, felt a peculiar grayness enter her mind.
Then it was done.
“I know where he is,” she said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IOAN, HIS FACE DRAWN with exhaustion, stared at her with incomprehension. Sinjin’s jaw was set. Perhaps he knew. Perhaps he had only guessed. But he would not try to stop her now.
The men followed Nuala, one to either side of her. She stopped at one of an endless row of half-fallen houses, rank with rot and rubbish. Sinjin moved ahead to stand before the door, which was nearly broken from its hinges.
“He is here,” Nuala said.
“I’ll fetch him out,” Ioan said grimly.
“We shall go in together,” Nuala said.
“He may be armed,” Sinjin said.
“He will not be able to fight.”
The men exchanged glances. In silent agreement, they pushed the door open.
“Upstairs,” Nuala said, when Ioan would have searched the ground floor. He and Sinjin ran up the rickety stairs. A series of thumps and a faint cry echoed from an upstairs room. Nuala reached the landing and followed the sounds.
A woman in a much-mended red dress stood in one corner of the room, her hands clutched at her nearly naked bosom. Bray crouched beside a sagging cot. His face was twisted with rage and fear, his body contorted as if he were fighting against invisible bonds.
Sinjin lifted him to his feet. Ioan raised a clenched fist. The man made no move to defend himself.
“Please,” he whispered, his gaze darting to Nuala. “Please.”
But the very concept of mercy was alien to Nuala then. She chanted a spell, and Bray’s body went limp, then bounced up again like a marionette dancing on a string. In the space of a heartbeat he was flung across the room, striking the wall with a crack.
Sinjin turned to Nuala, expressionless. No, he would not stop her. Neither would Ioan, if he began to guess what was happening. They both wanted revenge. But she deserved to mete out Bray’s punishment. She was responsible. She had failed Deborah, in every way.
No one struck a single blow, but when it was finished Bray’s wrist hung at an unnatural angle, his face was dark with bruises and he had soiled his trousers. Nuala compelled herself to stop, though the darkness raging inside wanted nothing more than to silence him once and for all.
“You shall never trouble Lady Orwell again,” she said.
Bray groaned through swollen lips.
“You shall go to the papers and retract everything you said about Lady Orwell,” she said. “You shall see that an apology is tendered by the editors, or you shall suffer for your failure.”
“Nuala,” Sinjin said quietly.
“Do you understand?” she asked Bray.
He nodded, curling into the wall. Nuala glanced once at the nameless woman in warning, and left the room.
“Duw,” Ioan muttered as he fell in behind her. “I should not wish to be your ladyship’s enemy.”
Nuala paused on the staircase to lean over the banister, afraid she might be sick. A vast weakness had overcome her, and the room had begun to spin.
Strong arms lifted her and half carried her out of the house. Sinjin’s string of curses was so much babble in Nuala’s ears. Between them, Ioan and Sinjin got her to the carriage. She slumped on her seat, seeing nothing but gray.
Someone issued instructions to the coachman, and the carriage began to move. When they reached Nuala’s house, only Sinjin was still with her.
In silence he helped her into the hall. She had an impression of shocked faces staring after as he carried her up to her room. She felt those strong hands lay her down on her bed, a voice calling for her maid. Immediately, Booth entered the room, and Sinjin retreated.
Some time passed, and Nuala’s dizziness receded. Booth sat beside the bed, bathing Nuala’s forehead with a cool, wet cloth; gradually the nausea eased, as well, and Nuala was able to open her eyes.
“Sinjin?”
He was still with her, standing in a corner well out of the way. “I’m here.”
“Thank you.”
He said nothing. His face was a stony mask, his disapproval—no, something much worse than that—hanging like a cloud in the room.
“Please help me sit up.” Nuala asked Booth. The maid did as she asked, fluffing the pillows to provide a firm support for Nuala’s back. “You may go, Booth. Please tell the others not to worry.”
Booth shot a wary glance at Sinjin, clearly about to protest at the inadvisability of allowing an unmarried man of Sinjin’s reputation to be alone with her mistress. But she accepted the inevitable defeat, curtseyed and left the room.
“You can speak freely now,” Nuala said.
Sinjin moved to stand in front of the door. “You can’t go on this way, Nuala,” he said softly.
She had known this was coming, had tried to prepare herself while she was recovering under Booth’s ministrations. But she was not prepared. The part of her that instinctively desired to explain, to apologize, was not nearly as strong as the part that rose to meet Sinjin’s chastisement with defiance.
“You are not my husband,” she said. “You have no right to tell me what to do.”
“You’re correct, of course. I have no right. But I can warn you, Nuala.”
“Warn me? After the way you have acted?”
He was unmoved. “You’ve gone too far.”
She sat up higher on the pillows. “Because I wished to protect an innocent person from a fiend bent on her ruin?”
“Protect her? Is that what you think you were doing?”
“And how was what I was doing any different than what you would have done had you been in my place? Do not try to tell me that you and Ioan would have shaken the man’s hand and asked him politely to leave Deborah alone.”
The muscles in Sinjin’s jaw flexed and released. “One of us would have done the job, and the blackguard would have had a chance to defend himself. It would have been a fair fight.”
“He didn’t deserve a fair fight.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, kicking her skirts out of the way. “He will heal eventually, but he’ll not forget what can happen to him if doesn’t heed my warnings.”
His eyes were bleak. “Nuala, you might have killed him.”
“But I did not.” She glared at him with contempt. “I can see now that your former delight in Deborah’s predicament was the more genuine emotion. You were never really interested in helping her at all.”
“Do you think she’d welcome your kind of help?”
“She would rather suffer than defend herself because she doesn’t wish to hurt her friends. Well, I shall speak for her. If anyone dares to mention these slanders again, I shall—”
“Thrash everyone in Society to within an inch of their lives?”
His voice was too still, too calm. Nuala tried to catch her breath, recognizing that her anger was spiraling out of control.
“Please understand, Sinjin,” she said. “I must rely on my own judgment in these matters, just as I have all my life.”
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