“It has to be.” He tore up the steps, with Denford at his heels. “Harrison!” he called over his shoulder. “Walk the horses. I may need the carriage again right away.”
The butler, hovering in the hall, confirmed that shortly after Damian left the house, a message had been delivered to Her Ladyship and she had left the house.
“On foot? I had the carriage.”
“She took John with her and he summoned a hackney.”
At least she had a footman with her, but he didn’t like the sound of the message.
“There seem to have been a lot of messages turning up on this side of the square,” Julian said, reflecting his own thought.
“Do you know where she went, Ellis?”
“Her Ladyship didn’t inform me, but her maid may know.”
“Send her to me in the library and hurry. Come, Denford.” The last time he’d been in the room, he and Denford had nearly destroyed the furniture and each other. His excellent servants had removed all signs of the fracas. “What the hell is going on?”
The duke appeared ready to explode. “It’s your bloody rotten government that’s responsible, of course. Those bully boys in the Foreign Office will stop at nothing. Apparently diplomat is another word for criminal. Read this.”
“We need the whereabouts and sleutel of the Falleron collection. If not, Lady Windermere will suffer. Someone will be in touch.”
“If Grenville’s ruffians so much as scratch her . . .” Damian couldn’t ever remember seeing Julian so agitated.
He stared at the note, written on a nondescript scrap of paper in no hand he recognized. “It doesn’t make any sense. We don’t even want the pictures. The prince came to terms without them. It has to be someone else.”
“Someone forgot to call off the hounds.”
Damian made himself stop and think. Tearing out of the house with no idea where to go would be futile. “I’ll grant that occasions sometimes call for unofficial action,” he said, thinking aloud, “though such operations are certainly not the common method of diplomacy.” This drew a derisive snort from Julian, and Damian wasn’t overly confident of the truth either. He’d heard rumors about some of the skulduggery undertaken by men like Ryland. “But the man who would certainly know about something like this is the one who informed me the prince had given in. Not an hour ago he told me I need no longer try to persuade you to sell the collection. If Cynthia is in danger it’s not from that quarter.”
“Then who? Why? Have you a better suggestion?”
He tried to apply logical processes to the cryptic ransom note. “What do they mean by the sleutel? Is that Dutch? Not one of my languages.”
“It’s Flemish and it means ‘key.’ Whoever wrote that note knows that the pictures are in the southern Netherlands and that their guardian will hand them over on hearing a key phrase, a password, that only I know.”
“Good God! No wonder you haven’t been able to get the collection out.” This was no time to discuss the political situation in Belgium. “Who knows about the sleutel?”
“Aside from my man there? No one, or so I thought. The only other is dead.”
“You wanted to see me, my lord?” Cynthia’s maid spoke from the doorway.
“Come in, Matthews. Did Her Ladyship tell you where she was going this morning?”
“She had a message from that nasty Spitalfields place,” she replied with deep disapproval. “Very upset, she was. Said she had to go at once. She never takes me there, not after the first time, that is.”
Damian could imagine that the Flowers Street household would not sit well with the ladies’ maid, very conscious of her status as a senior servant. “Thank you, Matthews. You may go. I assume,” he said to Julian, “that you know about Flowers Street.”
“Of course. In a sense I helped finance it.”
“If Cynthia heard she was needed there, because one of the children was hurt or something like that, she wouldn’t wait. At least she has a footman with her. I’ll take the carriage and my other man and follow her there. I just pray I’ll find her there, safe and sound, and it’ll turn out someone is playing a game with you.” He hesitated for a moment. “Will you come too? If there is trouble, an extra man would be useful and you are a fair fighter.”
“You mean an unfair one. The best kind.” The set of Denford’s face, combined with his black topcoat, reaching almost to his booted ankles, made Damian very glad that in this battle Julian and he were on the same side. The duke fingered the knob of his cane but turned aside. “Much as I would prefer to take action, I had better stay at home and await instructions from the abductor. He’s either mad or ruthless, or both, and I’m not going to risk annoying him. The only thing that matters is to get Cynthia back safely. Will you be able to do what’s needed?”
“The art of diplomacy includes knowing when to apply force.”
Damian made himself remain calm while he loaded his pistols. Suppose some rogue element of the government was responsible, operatives more secret and more ruthless than Ryland. The idea made his skin crawl and he was impatient to get to Spitalfields. If she wasn’t at Flowers Street, the trail began there. Causing a most undiplomatic furor at the Foreign Office was also an option, one reason he didn’t believe it would be necessary.
Through the rising panic the thought intruded that only Julian would be involved in something so outlandish. He had always possessed a flair for the dramatic. “If they get in touch—assuming they are serious—what do you intend to do?”
“I shall tell them where the pictures are and give them the sleutel.” Julian looked utterly weary. “Enough people have died because of the Falleron art collection. I don’t want Cynthia’s life on my conscience too. Especially not hers.”
Damian realized that he had been embroiled in a sequence of events that extended far beyond the relatively simple business of satisfying the whim of a princeling. And there was at least one man he could think of who could be quite unscrupulous when it came to acquiring paintings.
“James,” Damian said to the second footman on his way through the hall, “you come with me. Run out and make sure Harrison has the carriage pistols loaded. You’d better come too, Ellis.”
“Me, my lord?” asked the scandalized butler.
“Yes, you. I’ll explain in the carriage.”
Julian spoke to him through the window as the coachman prepared to head to the east of London. “Take care of her, Damian. She’s worth too much to be sacrificed to this damnable mess of mine.” His narrow face looked gaunt, emphasizing the hawkish nose, the brilliant blue eyes dulled by unease.
“You would really give up the greatest collection of pictures you will ever lay hands on, for Cynthia?”
“In some ways it would be a relief. They have been nothing but trouble to me. If I were a fanciful man, I might think they were cursed.”
Chapter 24
The door closed with a thud and a click of the lock without Cynthia getting a look at her abductors. There had been two: one to knock poor John into the gutter, the other to throw a sack over her head, cast her over his shoulder, and carry her to this place. The hackney driver had been part of the conspiracy. He had stopped, unbidden, at an unsavory corner on the way to Flowers Street, and driven off once the villains had pulled Cynthia and John from the carriage. Before the fetid sackcloth blinded her, she’d glimpsed the group of idle men who frequented this particular street turn away and go about their business of being idle, and very likely criminal. No help to be expected from that quarter.
Sparing a thought to hope her poor footman wasn’t dead, she studied her prison. Judging by the small amount of light that came in through a narrow window close to the ceiling, she was in a cellar. In the gloom she made out a number of bulky sacks, perhaps two dozen in all, arranged in tidy piles. Untying one sack, she found a pale, chalky powder. It was no surprise to find a storeroom for fuller’s earth in Spitalfields. The weaving factories would need vast amounts of the substance, used for trea
ting and cleaning cloth.
Thankful not to be bound or blindfolded, she perched on a sack and considered her plight. Her first thought was of Wilfred Maxwell, the only man she knew who both managed a factory and had a grudge against her. Yet she couldn’t see why abducting and imprisoning her here would serve his purposes. If he demanded a ransom, Damian would doubtless pay it. But after that, if Maxwell wasn’t arrested, he would be ruined in the eyes of his employer. Even her uncle would surely draw the line at kidnapping. Of his niece. Given his attitude to rape, the abduction of an unknown woman probably wouldn’t bother Joseph Chorley one jot.
In a dark corner she found a spade. Not much protection, but if Maxwell laid hands on her she wasn’t going down without a fight and inflicting some damage of her own. Eventually she’d be missed at home and Matthews knew where she’d been going. Surely someone would be able to set searchers on the right path. Meanwhile she practiced swinging the heavy tool.
A scratching made her jump, but it came from the window, not the door. Someone was out there, obscuring the light so she could hardly see a thing. The unmistakable sound of breaking glass was followed by a boyish whisper. “My lady. Are you there?”
“Tom! How did you find me? Are you in the street? Can anyone see you?”
“I’m in the alley aside of Finch Street. I was there when they nabbed you out of your carriage and followed the culls that did it.” This was not the moment to scold Tom for loitering on the streets with bad company.
“You must go to Hanover Square and Lord Windermere. Go home first and Mrs. Finsbury will give you money for a hackney. Quickly. I don’t know how long they will keep me here.”
Damian missed Tom, who was heading west in a hackney, but Mrs. Finsbury at Flowers Street conveyed his message. He hoped he and James were intimidating enough to gain entrance to the impressive premises of the Finch Street Silk Weavers without having to draw their weapons. Ellis, six inches shorter, attempted to look dangerous, but Damian could tell that the butler’s dignity was sorely tried by the effort.
In the event it was easy. Mrs. Finsbury, who had begged a neighbor to watch over the children, knew one of the porters and Damian slipped him a guinea. She went off to speak to the workers in the loom rooms while the porter led Damian and his servants down a back staircase into the basement level of the building. “This is where the fuller’s earth is kept,” he said.
“Do you have the key?”
“Only the master has keys to the storage rooms. I need to be getting back to the door. Don’t break anything.”
“Cynthia!” Damian called. “Can you hear me?”
“Damian?” she said faintly. The door must be a thick one.
He breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to disregard the advice of the departed porter. Alas, the combined efforts of James and himself proved fruitless against the stout door. Maxwell had chosen his prison well. He was about to try shooting off the lock when Ellis intervened.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“Yes, Ellis.” Damian was hot and bothered. “Do you have any special knowledge of how to break a door?”
“No, my lord, but I believe I could open the lock.” He pulled a set of skeleton keys from his pocket and knelt down. “It seems quite a simple device.”
“What use does a respectable butler have for such tools?” Damian asked.
Ellis selected one of the slender pieces of metal and probed the lock. “A good butler dislikes damage and I have observed that locksmiths are not as careful as one would wish when called in to assist with a missing key. I decided to study the art myself.”
“You are a pattern card of your profession, Ellis. Remind me to increase your wages.”
“Thank you, my lord. Now, if you don’t mind, this is a delicate business and better done in silence. It shouldn’t be long now.”
A minute later Cynthia was in Damian’s arms. “Thank God! What did you do to Mr. Maxwell? Why did he do this?”
“I don’t know and it’s time to find out. Let’s beard him in his office.”
The first thing that struck Cynthia about Maxwell was his waistcoat of embroidered crimson silk, surely too fine for a day’s work, even in a silk factory. The fellow had always been something of a dandy, but judging by his current appearance, he had prospered since she last saw him.
He blanched at the sight of her, shooting up from his seat behind a new desk that could have been one of the gaudiest excesses from Hamble & Stoke. He flared his nostrils, blinked rapidly, and summoned all his swagger. “Lady Windermere! What a pleasure. I take it you are Lord Windermere. We never had the pleasure of meeting.”
Damian, at his most opaque, flicked his eyes over the man as though he were beneath his notice, then patted Cynthia’s hand resting on his arm. “Will you speak, my dear, or shall I?”
“Thank you, my lord,” she said. “I believe I am the most directly concerned. I should like to know, Mr. Maxwell, why I was abducted.”
“Goodness me, my lady. I am shocked. Surely you don’t think I had anything to do with such a thing?”
“Since I was imprisoned on your premises, you’ll forgive me for doubting your denial. You never struck me as a man who allows activities in his factory that he does not control.”
“You have made ugly accusations against me before, my lady.”
“Ones you didn’t trouble to refute since the victims were of no importance. I think you will find it harder to escape retribution when you prey on a lady with a powerful husband.”
“Quite so,” Damian murmured. She was grateful that he allowed her to confront Maxwell. It would be so like a man to charge in and hit the villain. Not that she had any objection should he wish to inflict some damage later, after she had said her piece.
Maxwell picked up a paper knife and pretended to clean his fingernails. “What can I say? I’ve often complained to the magistrates about the lawlessness rife in Spitalfields. Anyone could have taken you and used my premises to hold you. You can’t prove I knew you were locked in the storeroom.”
She couldn’t hold back a triumphant grin. “Was that where I was? I don’t think I mentioned it. You’ve given yourself away.”
Maxwell continued to bluster until Damian cut him off with a frown and a raised hand. If she didn’t have a thousand excellent reasons to be glad of their marriage, the sight of him so elegant and unruffled, in contrast to the wretched Maxwell, would have sealed the pact.
“Enough, Maxwell,” he said. “Your reign of terror is over. My servant has gone to summon the constable and the magistrate, but I’m going to give you a chance. Answer my questions truthfully and you may escape the noose, which I am sure is the penalty for kidnapping a peeress. Who ordered you to seize Lady Windermere?” Cynthia regarded her husband sharply. He seemed to know that Maxwell hadn’t acted alone. “Who tried to obtain her ransom by demanding certain information from the Duke of Denford?”
“I don’t know anything about the Duke of Denford.”
“That wasn’t my question. It’s obvious you are a minor cog in this machine.”
“Is my uncle involved in this outrage?” Cynthia asked, still shocked by the unexplained involvement of Julian.
Maxwell shook his head. “Chorley’s soft over you. Wants his grandnephew to be an earl. There’s more than one behind this and I don’t know ’em. Get my orders in writing. I swear it,” he added when Damian took a pistol out of his pocket and examined it carefully.
“I think he’s telling the truth, Damian. You’ll have to ask Uncle Chorley. He should know whom Maxwell works for.”
James came into the room. “The magistrate is on his way, my lord.”
“You promised,” Maxwell said.
“You weren’t very helpful, were you?” Damian said. “Perhaps a few nights in jail will improve your memory. If it does, or even if you remain forgetful and somehow manage to escape the law, there’s one thing you can count on. I shall make sure you are never employed again in any position where you can prey on
innocents.”
Cynthia beamed at him. “You couldn’t make me happier, my lord.”
“I think I can. There are some people who are anxious to see your fall, Maxwell. Open the door, James, and invite the ladies in.”
Almost a dozen women crowded in from the passage. Among them Cynthia saw Mrs. Finsbury, Aggie, and the other women from the Flowers Street household, as well as several others she didn’t know. All Maxwell’s victims had been invited to witness his humiliation. Thinking of the terror and pain he had inflicted on these women, Cynthia knew it was unlikely he would receive the punishment he deserved. The punishment, sadly, would be for keeping a countess in a cellar for a few hours, not for the violation of numerous powerless women and girls. Each one of them regarded the monster with a similar expression of fierce satisfaction. In a world where they had no expectation of justice, a small measure of redress was enough for them. Her husband couldn’t have bought her a better Christmas gift. She couldn’t wish for a better husband, or one she loved more.
The magistrate took Maxwell away, to the cheers of the assembled women. James reported that his fellow footman John had been found with a sore head, stripped of his livery, but otherwise unharmed. And Julian and the boy Tom alighted from a hackney as they left the weaving factory.
The duke held Cynthia’s hand to his chest. “You are alive, thank God.”
She smiled back at him with what appeared to Damian great fondness. “Of course. I don’t think my murder was ever an issue.”
“You don’t know whom we are dealing with here. These people stop at nothing.”
“Did you hear from them?” Damian asked. “Do you know who they are?”
“I don’t know exactly who is behind Cynthia’s abduction, only that they are dangerous. I gave up the sleutel as requested. I had just sent off the messenger when Tom arrived looking for you.”
Cynthia demanded an explanation, which she heard with a good many eager questions and exclamations. “If only Tom had arrived a few minutes earlier you wouldn’t have given in to their demands. Thank you, Julian, for what you gave up for me. Can’t you get it back?”
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