Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 05]

by The Rogue

  He sent a searching look toward Collis, who nodded once, sharply. “There’s still time.”

  Collis understood. Collis had Rose. Bolstered by the knowledge that these two men—all these men—would not stop, would never stop, until Jane was found, Ethan caged his rampant terror at Jane’s fate and put it aside, deep within him. He could still feel it gnashing at his heart, but he forced his mind to calm until he could gaze back at the Liars with nearly the same control he saw in their eyes.

  Time to go to work, he saw around him. Time for the job now, time for the fear later, if ever.

  He nodded once. “Right. What now?”

  “Let me through, ye big buggers!” Feebles’s breathless protests reached them first, before the smaller man pushed the larger Liars aside to reach Ethan and Dalton.

  He halted before them, gasping. “Lady Jane—I found her in the park—”

  Hot jets of joy shot through Ethan. “Where is she?”

  Feebles shook his head. “I had her in a cart—got her to the club but then I lost her. The bastards took her right out from under my bloomin’ nose—the cart went east, the milk driver on the street saw that much—”

  Dalton stepped up. “When?”

  “Not an hour past, milord.”

  Dalton nodded briskly at the men. “Get the horses. We’ll cover the city east of the club. Someone had to have seen something.”

  Feebles nodded eagerly. “The pony, milord—’e ’ad a black spot on his arse, looked the very image of the Prince Regent, like an ’ead on a coin.”

  Dalton blinked, then shrugged. “All right, lads, there you have it. A pony with the Prince on his arse. What are you waiting for? Mount up!”

  Collis held out a hand to indicate Lady Maywell. “What about her ladyship?”

  Dalton rubbed his chin, considering. “Would you call that murder or patriotism?”

  Ethan burned to ride after Jane. “The law isn’t our problem, is it?”

  Dalton slid him an indecipherable look. “Not strictly, no.”

  Ethan opened his hands. “My lady, did you shoot your husband?”

  Lady Maywell gazed back at him calmly. “No. I found him thus.”

  Ethan turned back to Dalton. “There you have it. His lordship was shot by an intruder. Since his traitorous activities will end with his death, I see no reason for the Liars to have further involvement in her ladyship’s affairs. Let her call the magistrate and let us get our sorry selves out of here!”

  Dalton regarded him sourly. “Is there anything else?”

  “Oh, yes.” Ethan turned to Collis. “Get her ladyship’s daughters back in the house, will you?”

  For the first time, Lady Maywell showed some animation. She turned on Collis, mother tiger to the fore. “My girls? What do you mean? Where have you taken my girls?”

  Ethan left Collis behind to explain, running from the house with Dalton fast on his heels.

  It wasn’t over yet. Jane was locked in a trunk somewhere in the city, east of the Liar’s Club, being pulled along by a royally blemished pony.

  Once, Ethan would have found all this darkly amusing. Right now, he felt only driving urgency. There would be no laughter left in him if he didn’t find Jane.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jane woke to find a strange, small man briskly slapping at her cheeks. She flinched away, then blinked suspiciously at the man leaning over her.

  She was fairly sure it was not the same strange, small man who had put her into the trunk. She sat up clumsily, almost losing her balance. It was raining, an icy fall of water that dripped onto her face and hair from the tattered roof over her.

  She was moving, she realized. She was half-lying on a seat, riding in a two-person surrey that currently lurched down a dark road. The only light came from the two cheap lanterns attached to the sides of the surrey. A dingy brown horse pulled them sluggishly, his soaked coat and slatted ribs showing harshly in the swinging light.

  The small man sat back and smiled grimly at her. “It is about time you awoke, Jane. I thought perhaps you had died in that trunk.” He didn’t sound terribly upset about that possibility.

  Jane pressed herself back against the corner of the seat, clinging to the jostling surrey frame with one hand. “I—I know you, don’t I?”

  The man didn’t bother to look at her again. “Do you?”

  “You—” She peered at him. “You work for my uncle!”

  Something flashed across the small man’s face, turning his profile frighteningly grim for a moment. Then the distant amiability returned. “Rather, one might say, he worked for me,” the man said cheerfully.

  “You?” Oh, dear. If her uncle had considered her a danger and had threatened her life, then what might her uncle’s superior do with her? Her stomach chilled as Jane realized that this was the mysterious Chimera.

  There was no possibility that he was going to let her live.

  “I’m sure I don’t know anything about Uncle Harold’s business.” It was a feeble attempt, but worth a try, nonetheless.

  Unfortunately, the small man only snorted. “Please, do not trouble yourself to deny that you spent your entire visit with your family investigating your uncle for someone in the British government. Robert has been giving me every bit of mail that left the household for the past several months. It was I who had Robert bring that last letter to your uncle’s attention.” He slid a look toward her. “What, no demure protest? No insistence that you were only writing to your dear old mum?”

  “Very well,” Jane said slowly. “I won’t deny it.”

  He shook his head. “Mother. Do you know, for a time you actually had me believing you were nothing but another silly debutante?” He pursed his lips. “Mother . . . now, who could Mother be, do you think?”

  Jane remained silent. If he didn’t know who she worked for then perhaps she yet had a chance. If she were him, and she had someone who worked for the other side in her possession—well, someone other than Ethan, that is. Ethan, Ethan, darling, where are you?—she would keep them alive and well until she had squeezed every drop of information out of them that she could before she killed them.

  For a moment, she was distracted by the thought that she might actually be capable of killing. How dismaying.

  The surrey rocked and jolted, catching her off guard. She fell against the small man. He shoved her back hard, nearly casting her right out onto the road. Jane caught herself by the iron handhold on the side used to pull oneself into the surrey, barely keeping herself from a spill. Her braid dangled dangerously close to the open chimney of the carriage lantern. With effort, for her body ached horribly, she pulled herself upright once more.

  A moment later, she was wondering if perhaps she ought to have let herself fall. Her bruised body protested as the surrey jolted onward down this endless, deserted road . . . Where were they going?

  In the thin light from the carriage lanterns, Jane could make out nothing but large, featureless, dark buildings set a short way back from the road. They had large plain doors, like those of a barn. There was no light anywhere, as if no one lived here.

  A warehouse district, perhaps, like down by the docks. Buildings that amounted to little more than sturdy walls and roofs to keep the goods dry until they could be loaded onto the ships . . .

  Oh, dear. Ships.

  Fear gripped her soundly for the first time. “Where are you taking me? Why slow yourself down with a—” Hostage. She halted, biting her lip. Best not to give the fellow any ideas. “With an unwilling companion?”

  The small man made a chucking sound at the horse, which ignored him but for a defiant swish of its filthy tail. Jane envied the creature its insouciance. After all, the small man wasn’t likely to kill his only mode of transportation. She only wished she could be so confident of her own fate.

  “I have a ship to catch—or rather, we have a ship to catch. A cabin of our very own all the way to San Sebastián. There’s someone near there who I’m sure would love to mee
t you.”

  Jane’s heart sank. San Sebastián lay on the coast of Spain, nearly on the border with France. He is taking me directly to Napoleon himself. The idea of being squeezed for information began to take on a new shade of horror.

  “I’ve made considerable mischief in my time here, but I have not achieved certain goals I was given. I think you’ll go some way toward making up for any shortcomings when we arrive in Paris.” He chuckled dryly, a sound like sand on her nerves. “Do you know, this particular ship is carrying weapons to the British troops?”

  He smiled at her. “Do you not enjoy the irony?” When she did not respond, he shrugged. “It required a hefty bribe to get aboard,” the small man said, shifting the reins to one hand in order to pat his pocket. “I was forced to clean out his lordship’s safe box to buy this passage. Wartime does drive prices up terribly, doesn’t it?”

  Jane didn’t like the sound of that. Uncle Harold was as tightfisted as only a self-indulgent man could be, willing to waste a fortune on gaming, unwilling to part with a farthing to buy decent shoes for his daughters. To clean out Lord Maywell’s safe box, said Lord Maywell would have to be quite definitely dead.

  “Oh, poor Aunt Lottie,” Jane murmured.

  The small man laughed nastily. “She’s better off and I’ll wager she knows it.”

  That reminded Jane. All the members of the family must have seen the small man at some point. Horror rippled through her. “You haven’t hurt them, have you? Aunt Lottie and the girls?” Suddenly Jane felt more than capable of murder. She found that bleakly reassuring.

  But the small man only snorted. “Why would I? Bloody lot of work, when they’ll never be able to recall more than the fact that I wasn’t tall, or handsome, or particularly well dressed.”

  Unfortunately, Jane knew her cousins would say precisely that. If a fellow wasn’t viable prey in the husband-hunt, he might as well not fully exist to them.

  “The British aristocracy are fools,” the man went on. He hunched his shoulders and put a peevish look on his face. Instantly, he was transformed into a young fellow not yet twenty, with the sullen attitude to match. “Whot you lookin’ at?”

  It was very eerie. He looked nothing like the ordinary middle-aged solicitor Jane had first seen in the halls of Maywell House. Then he straightened, peered down his nose at her, and spoke in cultured tones. “Is there something amiss, my lady?”

  Jane blinked. Put him in the proper clothing and he could pass in the finest ballroom as a member of Society.

  The man relaxed, letting the lordly demeanor slide from him like an unwanted cape. He sent her a bland look, once again the chilling, unemotional kidnapper.

  No wonder he wasn’t worried about being recognized by the ladies of Maywell House. It was just as well for them, for that obliviousness had saved their lives.

  It was not, however, such a good thing for Jane, for how could Ethan find her if he didn’t know who had taken her?

  She sat back, considering her options carefully. There was no one about to hear her call for help, there was no way to leave a clue about what ship she was on, or even that she’d been carried off English shores at all! She would simply disappear, leaving Ethan to wonder forever.

  She was afraid yet again, she realized. It was a familiar sensation. She’d been frightened for a great deal of her life—frightened of what would become of her and her mother, frightened of discovery while in London, frightened of Bedlam, of her uncle, of dying in the trunk . . .

  The anger, on the other hand, was something new. It erupted within her like a long-dormant volcano, looking for any fissure to vent through.

  Slowly, Jane turned to stare at the man sitting beside her on the seat of the surrey. Yes, she found the idea of killing rather easy to contemplate at the moment. She turned back to stare at the dark buildings around her without awareness, for her entire attention was focused on her outside hand.

  She felt her way along the side of the surrey to the rusted fixture that held the lantern. The heat rising from the sooty glass shield scorched her bare hand and the loop of wire handle above it seared her fingers and palm as she gripped it.

  She made no noise, only maintaining her vacant stare, as if she had given up, as if she had let all the fear of her lifetime wear her down to helplessness.

  The rusted catch of the fixture resisted her. Her fingers were burning as she twisted the wire against the stubborn catch. She slid a glance toward her captor, then pressed her free hand to her belly and groaned.

  He shifted his attention to her. “What is it?” he snapped.

  Jane shook her head wildly, then clapped her hand over her mouth and twisted convulsively to lean over the side of the surrey. She was distantly proud of her own realistic vomiting noises.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” her captor said scornfully behind her. “If you’re the seasick sort, I might just have to kill you right now.”

  Jane ignored him and continued retching spasmodically as she fumbled with the carriage lantern clasp with seared fingers. At last, it came free.

  With all the strength left in her battered body, Jane swung the oil-filled lantern in a two-handed arc directly at the small man’s face.

  He was too quick for her. He ducked away swiftly, leaving the lantern to smash harmlessly against the back of the seat. It bounced, slipping from Jane’s grip to fly forward. In a burst of fury, the small man had Jane by the throat. “I think I will kill—”

  The horse screamed in alarm. Both Jane and her captor froze, turning their heads to see the horse’s tail aflame from the leaking lantern that had struck it. The hapless nag reared and hopped in its traces, sending Jane and the small man jolting wildly on the seat. Then, with another fearful scream, the horse bolted.

  Her captor released Jane to grab for the reins that now flapped wildly behind the horse. A part of Jane urged her to grab the side of the surrey and hold on—but the fury that swept her made her turn on her captor with all the pent-up rage of being beaten, kidnapped, crated, and jostled until she simply couldn’t bear one more moment. She flew at him with teeth bared, clawing at his face and neck, nearly throwing both of them from the wildly racing surrey.

  He beat her back mercilessly, until her ears rang and she tasted blood in her mouth, but she could not stop. She struck him with fists and open hands, without design or even thought. Only her rage fueled her, rage at being made afraid one too many times.

  The out-of-control surrey careened wildly, rising up on one wheel, then slamming back down. Jane was thrown back against the seat back. Her captor took the opportunity to deal her a brutal blow, stunning her nearly unconscious. She slid away from him, barely aware that he now scrabbled frantically for the loosed reins.

  The chance came too late, for the surrey began to overturn. With a cry, the man sprang free. Jane could not react quickly enough. The world spun over and over, until her head came in contact with the cobbles and all went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Collis and Ethan found the pony in a grimy hostelry a mile east of the Liar’s Club. In his panic, Ethan had resorted to dismounting and grabbing every man he saw by the lapels. “Have you seen a pony with Prince George on his arse?”

  He definitely qualified for Bedlam now.

  At last, astonishingly, one fellow had blinked, sputtered, then said, “Yes, sir!”

  The pony and cart had been traded to the hosteler for a horse and surrey, with the addition of an outrageous pile of coin. The hosteler was unrepentant. “ ’E said ’e ’ad to get his sister out o’ the chill. Said ’e was takin’ her somewhere warm by ship. She looked ill enough to me. ’Ow was I supposed to know she were kidnapped?”

  Ethan tried not to think about what condition Jane might be in to be so obviously ill. She was alive and he was finally on the right trail. Still, he sent Collis an anguished look.

  Collis nodded. “I’ll send word to Dalton at the club. He’ll have Dr. Westfall waiting for her.” He looked around. “Ethan, we should g
ather the others.”

  “The others are on their own,” Ethan said grimly. “Let them catch up as they can. Didn’t you hear the hosteler? Even with a lame horse, it would only take an hour to reach the docks from here! They’re nearly there now!”

  He put his foot into the stirrup and mounted his horse. “You can wait if you like.” With that, he reined the horse around and kicked it into a gallop, heading in the direction taken by the mysterious man with the “ill sister.”

  Jane ached from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. For a moment, that was all she was aware of. Then other sensations rose to the fore. She was cold. She was wet.

  She shifted her body away from the wet only to realize something else. She was pinned beneath something heavy. Alarm coursed through her, bringing her entirely to consciousness.

  She was facedown on the muddy ground, her cheek half-submerged in a puddle. Something—the surrey?—lay across the backs of her legs. It didn’t hurt, but she could not move. She pushed her upper body up out of the mud as best she could and looked around her.

  The overturned surrey covered her like a canopy. The rain had stopped but the dark and deserted road beyond was still soaked. The other carriage lantern must still be burning, for Jane could see light from beneath the edges of the surrey.

  A sound behind her made her twist to peer from under the other side. The small man was mounting the bedraggled horse bareback, having stripped it of its traces. Other than a singed tail, the horse looked to be in better condition than Jane was.

  Jane almost cried out to him for help but stopped herself. He obviously thought her dead or too injured to journey with him. Let him think so. She was fine where she was, only damp and uncomfortable and sore, aside from the pounding in her battered skull. Only let him get out of earshot and then she would bring London itself down with her howls.

  She carefully lay back down, keeping an eye on the horse’s hooves as it was turned away from her. She watched it leave the circle of weak light from the lantern and listened until she could no longer hear the stumbling clop-clop of the poor thing’s hooves on the cobbles.