Dangerous Lover, page 14
Nicholas laughed aloud. “I can just see Ralph’s face when you appear to help, dressed as a—”
“Actually, it would be a good idea to have a carriage waiting,” Tizsa interrupted, glaring at him. “Perhaps with Miss Battle.”
Nicholas drew himself up, scowling. “I will not have Miss Battle—”
“That is a good idea,” Lady Griz interrupted. “And Alex will like to help. A hired carriage, perhaps, rather than one emblazoned with the Swan’s arms.”
Tizsa, frowning, appeared to be reconsidering. “A carriage would make a useful means of escape, too, should anything go wrong. Or a means of pursuit if the villains have their own vehicle.”
“Good,” Lady Griz pronounced. She smiled dazzlingly at Nicholas. “Will you speak to Alex? Or shall I?”
Chapter Fourteen
That afternoon, Alexandra took Evelina to the first of their arranged meetings with other children. It was an informal affair, the governesses sitting on benches, while their charges circled each other warily and eventually began to play. Since Miss Farnsworth had two pupils, Alexandra had worried that Evelina might be overwhelmed, and indeed she was, just at first, but she soon joined in the games, while the governesses chatted together and dispensed snacks as required.
As they returned home, Alexandra felt pleased with the outing, for Evelina had clearly enjoyed it. And for Alexandra, it had been a blessed relief from the oppression of her own feelings.
Back in the house, as they climbed the stairs, Alexandra laughing at one of Evelina’s stories about her new friends, she saw at once that the drawing room doors were open. And when Sir Nicholas strolled through them, her heart plunged. She felt like a trapped deer.
Fortunately, before she was forced to meet his gaze, Evelina flew at him with her usual joy, diverting all attention as she poured out to her father where she had been and whom she had met.
He listened patiently, even asking questions that made her laugh, while Alexandra stood awkwardly to one side, trying to make herself invisible. And then a female figure appeared from the drawing room.
“Griz?” Alexandra said faintly.
“Off you go to Anna,” Sir Nicholas said, “and I will hear the rest at dinner.”
So, he was going dine with them? The butterflies in her stomach began to panic.
“Miss Battle,” Sir Nicholas said amiably, “join us for a few minutes if you please. Lady Griz has a proposition you may happily reject.”
Alexandra glanced warily from one to the other, then at Sir Nicholas’s ironic bow, she followed Griz into the drawing room in front of him. Since Griz sat on the new sofa near the impressive but empty fireplace, Alexandra sat beside her, removing her bonnet, while Sir Nicholas chose to stand leaning negligently against the fireplace. She wished she wasn’t so aware of his presence, his tall, muscular body, which had been pressed so close to hers last night.
Griz spoke quietly and matter-of-factly. “Tonight, Sir Nicholas’s brother is paying the ransom for his son. The exchange is meant to take place in or near a coffee shop by Covent Garden. Dragan means to follow the kidnappers once young Henry is safe. I will watch from close by, but we thought it would be good to have someone else close by in a carriage, hopefully merely to look after Mr. Swan and Henry, but possibly to rescue anyone else in need of it, or even to follow the kidnappers if they have a vehicle of their own.”
Alexandra followed all this with unusual difficulty, finally working out who she had in mind. She blinked. “Me?”
“It is not part of your duties and not required,” Sir Nicholas said sternly.
Alexandra thought of Evelina’s abduction and Sir Nicholas’s terrible anxiety. His brother’s had been going on for several days, and the boy was still in danger. “I would like to help if I can.”
“I told you she would,” Griz said to Sir Nicholas, whose enigmatic gaze was focused on Alexandra.
“I believed you,” he said. “Which is why I have already arranged for my man Ingram to accompany you. He is quick, observant, and useful in a fight.”
“A fight?” Alexandra repeated, startled.
“Let us hope not. The alternative, of course,” he added, including Griz in his sweeping gaze, “is that we send Ingram without you.”
“Though he is likely to be less use in comforting Henry,” Griz pointed out.
Alexandra gazed at her. “And you will be no use in such a role because you will be with Dragan.”
Griz smiled.
“Does he know?” Alexandra asked cynically.
“Probably.”
With fresh courage, Alexandra met Sir Nicholas’s gaze. “And you, sir?”
“With Tizsa, if all goes as planned.”
“Good,” Griz said, rising to her feet. “Then I will go and prepare. I’ll let Sir Nicholas tell you the finer details. Until tonight!”
Any panic she might have felt at being left alone with Sir Nicholas vanished as he unfolded a map and spread it out on the table. Wordlessly, she went over to join him, and he pointed out the location of the coffee house, where Griz would be standing, and where they wanted the carriage to be waiting.
It struck her that her role was largely superfluous. That Henry would have the comfort of his father and, very soon after, his mother. If there was any trouble, Mr. Ingram would be far more use than she. However, there was a certain pleasure in being part of the plan, in bending her head so close to Sir Nicholas’s as they studied the map.
And, she acknowledged to herself, part of her hoped there would be cause to chase the villains, for the sake of pure excitement as well as satisfaction from bringing them down. It was a long time since she had done anything riskier than prevent a child from falling in a shallow pond. Such reprehensible longings were, she supposed, part of the attraction of Griz, about whom had always hung an air of chaos that seemed to have blossomed into constant, thrilling adventure since the advent of Dragan Tizsa in her life.
Sir Nicholas glanced at her. “You are taking this very much in your stride.”
“I lived with my father for twenty years,” she said wryly, and hastily straightened, because he was too close, and because the flash of interest in his eyes warned her to be careful. “Is the ransom being paid with your money?”
“Why else would I involve myself?”
She couldn’t help searching his eyes or the faint smile that curved his lips. “Because he is your brother, and the boy, your nephew.”
“That’s part of the same thing.”
She shook her head. “No, it isn’t. Please excuse me while I change for dinner.”
*
Nicholas always liked to see Alexandra in her evening gown. Not that it was much more elaborate than her dull, grey day gown, but the color became her, and he could admire the elegant, creamy slope of her shoulders.
Funnily enough, despite the increasingly intense desire she engendered, he also liked to see her in company with Evelina. He hadn’t realized it before, but she behaved more as a mother to the child than Eva ever had. She seemed genuinely interested in Evelina’s chatter, asked questions, and laughed at her jokes. She gently corrected the child when she grew too loud or broke table manner rules. As a result, Nicholas, who would always have died for his daughter, began to appreciate her more as a person than a possession to be taken care of.
It was, he thought ruefully that evening, as if they had become a little family. And it had taken the outsider, Alexandra Battle, to make them so.
When Evelina had gone upstairs with Anna, and Ingram arrived, he realized with irritation that he was not the only man to recognize Alexandra’s charms. Ingram, of course, was perfectly polite and would remain so, but Nicholas did not like the admiring look in the other man’s eyes.
It was with some reluctance that he left them alone together while he changed his clothes for the outing. Returning ten minutes later in a lacy shirt and loud waistcoat with a red kerchief knotted at his throat, he saw Ingram grin openly.
“You find something to amuse you in my appearance?” Nicholas drawled, slurring his words just a little, as though well on his way to inebriation. “You will laugh on the other side of your face when my play is the toast of Europe!”
“I certainly will,” Ingram agreed.
“I’m reverting to my youth,” Nicholas told Alexandra. “The role comes worryingly easily.”
“I look forward to seeing you on stage,” she said lightly.
He wondered if he imagined her face tinged with color, as though she found his new character not unattractive.
“Mr. Tizsa is at the door with a hackney,” James announced.
Nicholas nodded and turned briefly back to the others. But they both had their instructions. There was no more to say.
“Thank you both for this,” he said abruptly and strode from the room. In the hall, he snatched up his hat, which he wore at a rakish angle, and an ornate walking stick, and went out to meet Tizsa.
Lady Griz was in the carriage with him, enveloped in a large cloak. God knew what she was wearing beneath.
“What does the duke, your father, think of your mad starts?” he asked suddenly.
“I imagine if he ever heard of them, he would be displeased,” Griz said without much interest. “You do look the part, Sir Nicholas. Well done. Dragan just looks as he always looks.”
“My wife is disappointed I won’t play dressing-up.” Dragan observed.
“It doesn’t seem to matter,” Nicholas replied. Somehow, the man could pass in any company. “As long as you can play the unthreatening drunk.”
“I was a soldier for nearly two years. I can be any drunk you like.”
At Covent Garden, the carriage drove around the back streets until, at the corner of the square, Dragan said, “There’s Nell,” and knocked on the carriage roof for the driver to halt.
“And Junie,” Griz said, throwing off her cloak to reveal an astonishingly gaudy gown of sparkling pink and some clashing dyed and drooping feathers in her hair.
As she was about to jump out, Dragan leaned forward suddenly and caught her wrist. “Griz. Be careful.”
Griz cast him one of her unexpectedly dazzling smiles and dragged his hand up to kiss it. “And you.”
The last Nicholas saw of her as she sidled up to the screeching women, she had her hand on her hip and was tossing her head until she was drawn in among them.
“Is she really safe there?” Nicholas asked.
“As safe as they can make her,” Tizsa said grimly. “But I’ll be glad when we can get this over with.”
The carriage dropped them on King Street, and they sauntered up the road, weaving slightly, before turning the corner into a narrower, quieter street that led to the coffee house. No obvious watchers hung around the area. A hackney was driving past. Two respectable looking women hurried home from whatever work they did.
A man was just leaving the coffee house. Tizsa performed an amusing “excuse me” dance in the doorway with him before simply falling back and raising his hat with the exaggerated civility of the amiable drunk. The man muttered rudely and stalked off toward King Street.
Nicholas laughed, and pushed Tizsa in before him. They were, it seemed, the only customers at that point. But since the shop could have been watched surreptitiously from outside, or the staff themselves could be complicit, they did not allow their roles to falter. While they drank copious amounts of coffee, and the street outside darkened, they got into discussions about Shakespeare, quarreled about the qualities of various playwrights and actors, and moved onto an invented play featuring lots of classical allusions. Throughout it all, they kept taking nips from their flasks to reassure watchers that the coffee was doing little to sober them up.
Ralph came in during one such tipple. Nicholas snorted out a laugh to have been caught, but Ralph, well instructed, ignored them both, merely took a table at the window, and ordered coffee.
On the empty chair beside him, he placed a small carpetbag, presumably containing the ransom money. He looked nervous, his eyes darting, his fingers drumming, his shoulders rigid. Nicholas, reminded brutally of his own emotions when Evelina had vanished, knew a surge of pity for his brother.
It would change nothing, of course. But it was interesting he could still sympathize with him.
No sooner had Ralph’s coffee arrived than a face suddenly darkened the window beside him. A boy’s face was pressed to the glass from outside.
“The thing you are missing,” Tizsa said insistently, stabbing his finger on the table in front of Nicholas, to drag back his attention, “is the completely unfeasible…”
With an audible gasp, Ralph jumped to his feet, so it was definitely Henry at the window. From the corner of his eye, Nicholas saw the boy beckon. So the exchange would not happen in the glare of the coffee house lights.
Ralph stumbled forward toward the door in his desperation to get to his son.
“Your bag, sir,” Tizsa called politely after Ralph, who dashed back in some horror at his narrowly averted mistake, seized the bag, and bolted outside. By which time Tizsa was holding forth some other rubbish as though paying no attention to the drama unfolding.
“Oh, take a powder, Tizzy,” Nicholas said impatiently as an excuse to stand and throw down some coins to pay for their coffee. “I’m off.”
“I’ll come with you,” Tizsa said generously. “Happy to take powders.”
“You’re three sheets to the wind,” Nicholas said contemptuously.
“It’s nearly ten in the evening, old boy. No point in being sober, and if you try to tell me you are…”
This exchange got them as far as the door. In the shadows further down the road, a gaudy gaggle of women lurked. Griz, looking as outrageous as any of them, swigging something from a flask, jerked her feathers to the lane beside them. As one, Tizsa and Nicholas started toward them, remembering to keep up their slightly weaving gait.
Some yards beyond the women, Nicholas made out a carriage and two horses. Its lamps were lit, and the coachman remained aloft, as though his master was visiting someone in one of the houses nearby. Inside, Alexandra and Ingram should be waiting.
“Ladies!” Tizsa beamed at the very unladylike group of females. “May we buy you a drink?”
Of course, his gaze was not really on the women, and neither was Nicholas’s. A group of men lurked in the lane. Ralph was easily recognizable, rigid and several feet from the others whom he faced. He dropped the bag and kicked it some feet to a space roughly halfway between him and the others.
A man detached himself from his companion and came forward, holding the arm of a boy perhaps eight years old. In his other hand, he carried a dim lantern. They stopped, and the man crouched down, opened the bag, and peered into it.
He said something and rose, giving the boy a little push.
“Ladies, if you will,” Dragan murmured, and the “ladies” stomped off down the lane, hurling abuse at their drunken admirers, who followed, wheedling.
At any other time, Nicholas would have been vastly entertained by the insults flung at his head. But his attention was on his brother, now clutching the boy to him. The man with the bag and the lantern was vanishing into the darkness with his companion.
“I’m so glad to see you, Papa!” the boy’s muffled voice exclaimed, not quite steadily. “I have had such an adventure!”
Nicholas glanced over his shoulder. Alexandra’s carriage had edged nearer the coffee house and stopped. Its door opened, and Ingram’s face peered out, lit up clearly by the carriage lamp.
“The coach at the end of the lane,” Dragan said to Ralph, low and insistent. “Get in it, and my friends will take you straight home.”
Ralph, looking like a terrified, hunted rabbit, nodded as though he needed to be told what to do and began to hurry his son along the lane. At one point, his eyes met Nicholas’s, and he actually nodded. An acknowledgment of his help? Or a mechanical politeness to someone he did not recognize?
It didn’t matter. Henry was safe. And he and Dragan—and possibly Dragan’s wife and three prostitutes—were in pursuit of the villains.
Chapter Fifteen
“Have you worked a long time for Sir Nicholas?” Alexandra asked Mr. Ingram as the carriage waited fifty yards or so down the road from the coffee house.
“Almost ten years,” Ingram replied.
“What exactly is it you do for him?” She spoke mainly to fill the tedious waiting time, but having asked, she found she really wanted to know the answer.
Ingram smiled faintly. “Whatever he asks me to. For the last six years or so, I have carried out his orders concerning the British parts of his business. I am a good organizer. Since he has come home, my duties have become more…diverse.”
“Such as looking for his lost daughter and helping find his brother’s abducted child?”
“Among other things. It has been…interesting to meet him at last.”
Alexandra dragged her gaze away from the fascinating sight of a gaudily dressed Griz walking among several “ladies of the night.”
“Interesting in what way?” she asked.
“All ways. Until I met him, I thought he was just another wealthy gentleman getting richer off the backs of the poor souls who worked for him. Though admittedly, he paid better than most.”
“I believe he is involved in several charitable projects,” Alexandra remarked. A man had fallen out of a nearby public house and was heading straight for Grizelda’s group, who had paused at the corner of a lane.
“And some,” Ingram said, faintly amused.
Alexandra glanced at him inquiringly.
Ingram shrugged. “I mean, he is doing some good with his pots of money. He isn’t as heartless as he would have you believe.”
Alexandra had already come to the same conclusion herself, but now that she had heard it confirmed, she wanted to know more. She had to bite her lip to prevent displaying unseemly interest. She was only the governess, after all. What he did with his money was not her concern, as long as he provided what Evelina needed for her education.
