An Unexpected Earl

by Anna Harrington

  “Best be ready when it comes.” He opened the door to the chambers and stepped back to let Pearce pass. “All hell’s going to break loose.”

  “Then we’re in a good place for it.” He hurried down into the lower chambers.

  When he reached the bottom, Pearce slowed his pace and moved casually through the series of rooms, not wanting to draw any attention to himself. Not that anyone would have noticed, given that the men who filled the rooms were distractedly engaged tonight in the same debauchery as before. Smoke from the same incense pots, cigars, and hookah pipes saturated the ruins, the same exotic music pulsed against the stone walls. Drink flowed into golden goblets just as quickly, and disappeared down throats just as fast. The women were there, too, wearing the same flimsy costumes as they danced or draped themselves over the laps of the members.

  Pearce didn’t give a damn about any of it as he slipped past, except that it had allowed the men of the Armory to take their positions inside without being noticed. Only when he reached the dark passageway that led down to the river did he pause. Trusting that no one in the room cared what he did here, he removed a lantern from its hook and started down the tunnel.

  With his left hand holding up the lantern to light his way and his right hand beneath his coat on a loaded pistol, he moved carefully down the sloping tunnel in the shadows, expecting a guard to appear out of the darkness at any moment. But none materialized, the passage remaining empty.

  When he reached the wooden door that barred his way, he paused to glance over his shoulder. He was alone in the tunnel. No movement, no sound. Not even muffled noise and lingering smoke from the party above. Only the dank, damp, and musty stench of the polluted river splashing quietly beyond the door.

  He said a silent prayer and reached for the door handle, prepared to shoot the damn lock open if necessary. But the rusty handle gave way with a faint, metallic groan. He shoved it open just far enough to let himself into the darkness on the other side, then pushed it closed behind him.

  Hanging the lantern from the door handle, he took a step toward the stone sarcophagus, and his boot sank into filthy water up to his ankle. The river had risen from the day’s rain and overflowed its culvert, flooding up onto the stone ledge.

  Christ! He ran to the sarcophagus, afraid that it had filled with water. The lid rested in place, but a half-inch crack had been left open at the top to let in air.

  “Amelia!” His pulse pounded with dread as icy cold as the water that had surely seeped through the porous stone.

  Silence.

  “Amelia, can you hear me?” Panic surged through him like an electric jolt. Was he wrong? Had Arthur Varnham hidden her someplace else? “Please, Amelia, answer me!”

  If the bastard had hurt her, he’d rip the man apart limb by limb with—

  “Brandon.” The breathless whisper came so softly that he barely heard it over the rushing river. But her fingertips reached out tentatively through the slit between the stone lid and the case.

  “I’m here, darling.” With a strangled sound of relief, he grabbed her fingertips to reassure her that she was going to be all right. Dear God, she was cold as ice! “You’re safe. I’m going to get you out of there.”

  Heart-wrenching sobs echoed from inside the stone box. Choking and guttural sounds, as if she couldn’t catch her breath between cries. Each one clawed at him in agony for her.

  “You’re safe, my love,” he repeated to reassure her. “But I need you to pull your fingers back down inside, all right?”

  When she didn’t let go, he reluctantly released her, only for a muffled scream to tear from the coffin. Her fingers stretched into the air as far as possible, desperately reaching for him.

  “Don’t leave me!” Her voice was raw from hours of screaming for help in the black darkness, now little more than a hoarse rasp of terror. “You promised—you promised you wouldn’t ever leave again!”

  Guilt slammed through him, and he grabbed again for her fingers to calm her. “I’m not going anywhere.” He leaned over the sarcophagus to try to look inside, only to see nothing but blackness. He lowered his mouth close to the gap and promised, “I’m not leaving here without you. But you have to pull your hands down so that I can move the lid out of the way. I don’t want to risk pinching your fingers against the stone.”

  “Then keep—keep talking to me,” she begged, sobbing loudly in hysteria. “Let me hear your voice—let me know you’re still there.”

  “All right. What should I talk about?” He forced himself to keep his voice calm, despite the rising panic. They were running out of time. “About that day we went exploring along the river in Birmingham and got caught in the storm? Or when I taught you how to shoot a bow and arrow?”

  “You—you nearly shot your uncle’s mule.” Her fingers released their stranglehold on his, and he slowly slipped his hand away.

  “Details, details.” He tsked dismissively. “But you have to admit that the old beast never moved faster than when that arrow flew at him.”

  “I–I thought… I thought your uncle would sk-skin you alive for that.” Her fingers still shook, but they’d ceased their frantic grabs for him.

  “He most likely would have, too, if he hadn’t blamed that group of canal workers who’d stumbled into the innyard right then, foxed to the gills.”

  “If you hadn’t told him they did,” she corrected with a forced and strained laugh. One she only gave, he knew, because she thought he’d expected it. The soft sound of her bravery nearly broke him.

  “In wars and innyards, it’s every man for himself.” He leaned over the lid to let her touch his cheek, giving her this small reassurance that he was still there. “It’s time now, love.” Clayton would be blowing the horn soon, and when he did, all the men would gather in the Inner Temple, and Pearce could spirit her away. “I need you to lower your hands so I can move the lid back. Wrap them into your skirt at your sides, all right? When the lid falls away, I will be right here.” He placed a kiss to her fingertips. “With you.”

  Tentatively, in a show of great trust, she pulled her hands down in small jerks until her fingertips slid over the edge of the slit and disappeared back into the darkness inside the stone coffin.

  He placed the top of his shoulder against the lid. “Keep them down. Ready? One…two…three!”

  He shoved, straining with his entire body to move the heavy stone. A fierce groan of exertion tore from him, and the lid moved with a grinding of stone on stone. Another shove and groan, more slow grinding of stone. The lid fell away, tumbling into the water on the ledge with a loud splash and thud.

  “Amelia!” He yanked her out of the coffin.

  Carrying her in his arms, he kicked open the door and set her down in the dry tunnel. She was soaked from the layer of icy water that had seeped through the stone, and her weak arms could barely lift to encircle his neck. She shook violently against him with both cold and terror.

  “Amelia, are you all right?” He ran his hands over her to check for any sign of injury on her face and head, down her body, arms, legs—

  She nodded even as she sobbed, choking on her tears as she tried to gulp in mouthfuls of air.

  “You’re safe. I have you now.” Shedding the white robe, he wrapped it around her like a blanket to stave off the cold, then pulled her into his arms to let his body warm hers. But he couldn’t hold her close enough, even as his arms held round her like iron bands, his hands fiercely rubbing her arms and legs. Her pulse pounded strong and vibrant, and finally, he let go of the terror he’d been holding in check in order to concentrate on rescuing her, finally let the rush of rage at almost losing her sweep from him. “I told you that I would never let you go. I meant every word.”

  “Wild horses,” she whispered. Barely a sound, but his heart heard every word.

  “Wild horses.” He squeezed his eyes closed as relief overwhelmed hi
m.

  Twenty-six

  “So very sweet you are.” Arthur Varnham smiled as he dragged a fingertip across the woman’s bare midriff, drawing a figure eight in the pool of golden honey puddled there.

  She giggled. “That tickles!”

  She lay on the table in the middle of the banqueting hall, the room closed off to the other club members while that night’s dinner was being prepared. He’d attended her himself, as he always did with the women who formed the center of the feast, taking great care in the presentation. But this one was special. She’d been drizzled with honey and rolled in sugar until her skin shimmered, then finished with strategically placed dollops of jam and biscuits to just barely hide her most intimate places.

  “Why am I like this?” she protested with a sticky wiggle.

  “Madame Noir explained your role to you, I’m sure.” She was new to the club. He’d replaced Marigold Humphries that afternoon, not needing her any longer. And anyway, he preferred this one’s larger breasts and ample hips. All the more fleshy goodness to savor. “You are to be tonight’s sacrifice.”

  That drew a wanton smile from her. “I’ve never been anybody’s sacrifice before.”

  “Trust me, my pet. You’ll enjoy it.” But not nearly as much as he would, when dinner was over and he claimed her for his own dessert, licking off every bit of sweetness that his tongue could reach.

  “But the honey and jam’s all sticky! Why did you have to pour that over me?”

  “Because tonight I had a craving for tea.”

  Then he helped himself to an early taste by taking her honeyed foot into his mouth and licking up the sugar between her toes. She squirmed, which only stirred his lust more. Perhaps there would be time before the ceremony began to—

  A bleating noise shot up his spine. He cursed and released her foot. The horn blared a second time from the outer chamber, just as unsuccessfully, just as shrilly.

  “What the hell is going on?” The horn signaled the start of the ritual, yet he hadn’t ordered it to begin.

  He looked at the two men in the room with him guarding the door, but they only shrugged. So did the footmen who carried in the platters of food from the makeshift kitchen in a hollowed-out antechamber adjoining the banqueting hall.

  When the horn went off a third time, Varnham flung open the door to the Inner Chamber.

  A hooded monk stood on the dais, holding the ceremonial horn in his hands. The white-robed members gathered in the room, waiting for the ritual to begin. More filtered in from the other chambers. All of their hoods were pulled down low over their faces, ready to begin the ritual, exactly as usual. Only too early.

  Varnham flipped up his own red hood and walked through the crowd. They parted to let him pass. As he drew nearer to the dais, a suspicious tingle twined down his spine. Something wasn’t right. The room looked the same as usual, with the same white-robed members and the scattering of guards in their brown friars’ robes. But something was…off.

  Pushing down his unease, he mounted the dais. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded in a low hiss to the monk with the horn. “It’s too damned early for the ritual to start.”

  The hooded man shrugged apologetically and lowered the horn to his side.

  Biting back a frustrated curse, Varnham faced the men.

  “Brothers.” He spread out his arms in greeting as he always did. The smile on his face not hiding how irritated he was that the ceremony had started early. The damn man would be fired for this. “You are welcome to the Temple of Bacchus.”

  “Thanks be to Bacchus,” the crowd of men answered in unison.

  “And to the Armory,” a lone voice called out from the back of the room.

  On cue, a half-dozen men pulled down their hoods.

  Varnham stared at the strangers who had been lost in a sea of white robes, mixed in with the members. Stunned, he wheeled to face the monk behind him who had blown the horn.

  The man yanked down his hood and grinned. “Hello.”

  Then he pulled back his arm and swung.

  * * *

  “Now then.” Clayton Elliott placed one of the chairs from the banqueting hall on the dais in front of Varnham, where he sat tied to his own mock throne. Clayton still wore that damnably silly friar’s robe, but his hand now throbbed delightfully from ramming it into Varnham’s face. If given half a chance, he’d gladly do it again. He straddled the chair backwards and rested his forearms over its back. “Let’s have a little chat, shall we?”

  Around them, the stone chambers were finally silent and empty after the fight that had broken out in the Inner Temple when the men of the Armory revealed themselves. Most of the club members had wisely rushed to leave. But a few had stood to fight and raised fists the way they’d paid Gentleman Jackson dearly to teach them to do, only to be leveled to the floor after a few swings, then physically shoved out of the chambers and deposited on the church steps on their arses. The Armory men had swiftly cleared the place of both brothers and nuns—and a naked woman who was oddly covered in honey and sugar—thankfully with no sign of Pearce or Miss Howard.

  Clayton hadn’t expected to see them. He was certain that Pearce had whisked Amelia away to safety at the Armory, where Marcus and Merritt would be waiting with a riot-freed and freshly interrogated Frederick Howard. If all their plans had gone well.

  Right now, though, Clayton’s concern was Arthur Varnham.

  “What do you want?” Varnham replied, surprisingly calmly for a man in his situation. “Why did you and your men invade my club?”

  “Because the Home Office doesn’t appreciate acts of sedition.” He gestured toward the red robe and throne. “Even ones in fancy dress.”

  “We’re just a gentlemen’s club, gathering to have a good time. That’s all.” He laughed. “You can’t take what we do here seriously.”

  “Here? Not at all.” He shrugged dismissively. “Here was just a group of middle-aged gentlemen behaving like a bunch of randy schoolboys on their first trip to a brothel.” He fixed his gaze on Varnham’s. “But you blackmailed an MP.”

  Varnham smirked at the accusation. “Do you have any idea who my brother is?” He leaned as far forward as the bindings at his wrists and ankles allowed. “Not only will I be exonerated of all charges, but your own career in the Home Office will be over.”

  Clayton sighed patiently. “Your brother is a man so dedicated to Crown and country that he had a fellow MP arrested for corruption. Do you really think he’d come to your aid once he learns that you’ve criminally extorted a fellow peer and kidnapped Amelia Howard? That’s enough to dangle you by the neck at Newgate, don’t you think?”

  Varnham paled.

  “I know what you’ve done, and I promise that I’ll argue on your behalf for leniency if you cooperate and answer my questions.” He paused to let that offer settle. “What’s your connection to Scepter?”

  Varnham’s eyes flared. “How do you know about Scepter?”

  He certainly wasn’t getting that information. “We know that you gave Howard a list of their men to be placed into government positions. What we want to know is why.”

  He laughed. “If you know about Scepter, then you know that they’ll kill me before I have the chance to swing.”

  “Not if they can’t find you. I can arrange for you to be exiled. You’ll be halfway across the ocean before they realize you’ve disappeared.” Blackmail was a passive act, committed by cowards who didn’t have the courage to wage battle head-on. Clayton would have bet a thousand pounds that Varnham wouldn’t have the spine to keep his silence and go to the gallows for Scepter. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll take you to the Home Office tonight where you’ll be kept safe. You’ll be given a new identity, put on the first ship out of London, and Scepter won’t be able to touch you. Neither will Brandon Pearce, who’s most likely waiting outside that door rig
ht now to beat the life out of you.” He paused for emphasis. “Although I’m deeply inclined to let him.”

  Varnham said nothing, but Clayton could see his thoughts churning, weighing his options and finding no means of escape except for cooperation. He finally answered, “Yes, I’m part of Scepter, and yes, we’re seditious.” His lips curled. “We’d all love nothing more than the overthrow of the British monarchy.”

  Icy fingers of uneasy warning slithered up Clayton’s spine, but he kept his face inscrutable. Revolutionary groups existed in all corners of England these days, but none were as dangerous or powerful as Scepter. “Why?”

  “You really have to ask? Take one look at Mad King George and his worthless spawn, and you’ll have your answer. More useless princes God never created. Especially Prinny. Fat, arrogant, pompous, disrespectful of everyone who serves this country, and just as mentally unsound as his father. A man who wastes the hard-earned money of Englishmen on palaces, food, and mistresses.”

  “You’re talking like a Frenchman.”

  “Not at all. The French failed in their revolution. But we’ll succeed in ours.” His eyes gleamed. “Scepter will make certain of it.”

  The man certainly knew madness, all right. “Revolutions can’t be controlled.”

  “Oh, but they can be.” He tilted his head, studying Clayton closely. “The Americans succeeded in casting off their monarch, while the French have been forced back under the rule of one. What was the difference in the end? It was who started the revolution. The American aristocracy—businessmen like Samuel Adams, wealthy landowners like George Washington, high-ranking political figures like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, intellectuals like Thomas Paine—they planted the seeds of revolution in America and guided it through to the end.”

  Varnham leaned back on his throne, pleased that he had Clayton’s close attention

  “But in Paris,” he continued, “the revolution was led by a mob. The French upper class was destroyed by vindictive and jealous peasants, leaving a power vacuum in both society and government. Those few intellectuals who were left were forced to chase the mob and never gained proper control, leaving the revolution to be guided by the likes of Robespierre and Danton—part of the mob themselves, wolves who eventually devoured their own pack and helped to put not just a despotic king into power over them but an emperor.”