Dangerous Lover, page 15
In the street, the drunk she had noticed earlier, seemed to have taken a shine to Griz, perhaps sensing her differentness. This was one of those dangerous moments when they must be ready to rescue her.
“I see,” Ingram murmured when she glanced at him. “But I don’t think he wants to get on the wrong side of her companions.”
He was right. The other women were seeing him off with insults and ridicule. One was even waving a bottle at him in a threatening kind of way. The man, after hurling a few vicious insults back, loped off toward King Street.
“You can’t imagine they make much money that way,” Ingram observed.
“We are paying them,” Alexandra said wryly. “Otherwise, they would be in trouble with the men who take most of their earnings.”
Ingram blinked at her, clearly intrigued. “How do you know so much about the unseemly side of life?”
“I have eyes,” she retorted. “And I have lived in many cities across Europe.” And her father, while looking after her in his own way, had seen no point in sheltering her from the harsh realities of life—not least to illustrate why he broke the law to keep her safe from such an existence as these poor women led.
Two working men and a boy emerged from the lane near where Griz and her friends stood. Alexandra’s heart began to race, for surely there was no need for one of the men to be holding the boy’s arm? The child must have been about eight or nine, his clothes too grubby to reveal their quality. And his hair stuck up as though it hadn’t been brushed for days.
As they watched breathlessly, the man with the boy halted at the edge of the coffee house window. The other man walked on to the other side of the door and lounged against the wall.
The first man shoved the boy toward the window, and he flattened his face against the glass. He didn’t seem frightened, Alexandra thought, wondering if this was really Henry Swan or some other random child. But then he jumped up and down with excitement at what he saw inside the coffee house—presumably his father—and began gesticulating.
“They’re coming out,” Ingram breathed.
The boy was hauled back from the window and all but dragged back toward the lane. He didn’t protest, but he clearly didn’t want to stray again from his father. Ralph Swan bolted from the coffee house, a carpetbag in his hand, and caught sight of his son waving to him as he was hurried round the corner of the lane. Ralph, looking pitiably demented in his anxiety, ran after them.
Ingram stuck his head out of the carriage window. “Wait a moment, then move forward to the edge of the lane, so that we can see…”
While he gave his instruction, Alexandra watched the other man at the coffee house, who slouched off after Ralph. This made her uneasy. Did they mean to trap Ralph, hurt him? The man turned his head, looking across the road, and gave a definite nod before he sped up and strode after Ralph.
Alarmed, Alexandra tried to make out who or what he had nodded to. A shadowed doorway seemed to move. But then she was distracted by the sight of Sir Nicholas and Dragan Tizsa weaving down the road and raising their hats to Griz and her companions. Clearly, a reason to be there while secretly peering down the lane at whatever was going on. Unexpected laughter caught at her breath. Who would have thought the imposing Sir Nicholas would be such an actor?
As the carriage ambled forward, a movement near that same shadowy doorway seized her attention. A shapeless man enveloped in a cloak moved rapidly away from them in the direction of King Street.
“I think there’s someone else, Mr. Ingram,” Alexandra said urgently. “He’s just left that doorway across the road and is hurrying away from us.”
By then, the carriage had halted again opposite the lane, where Nicholas and Dragan were in apparent pursuit of the women.
“There’s an exchange going on in the lane,” Ingram replied. “Watch your man. Mr. Swan and the boy are coming this way…”
This was their task. To receive the no doubt traumatized boy and his father and take them home quickly and safely. And yet, the cloaked man worried Alexandra. Of the men involved, only he had been hidden, while the others risked themselves openly. And he had done nothing but supervise from a safe place. Was this their leader? The man who organized the abduction of children from their wealthy parents for ransom?
Ingram was hanging out of the coach, waving encouragingly to Mr. Swan and the boy. He got down to help them inside, and Ralph blinked in surprise to find her there.
“We have met,” Alexandra said comfortingly. “I’m governess to Sir Nicholas’s daughter.” She smiled at the slightly bewildered boy. As far as she could tell in the carriage’s poor light, he seemed unhurt and not particularly afraid, although he sat very close to his father. “You must be Henry. I am Miss Battle, and this gentleman is Mr. Ingram, who works for your uncle. Did these men treat you well?”
“Yes, I suppose so…”
“Did they feed you, Henry? Did they hurt you?” Ralph burst out, clutching the boy’s hand convulsively.
“Yes to food, no to hurt,” Henry said with surprising cheerfulness. “I was so glad to see you, Papa! It has been quite an adventure, but I’ve had enough now and want to go home.”
Alexandra, along with everyone else, searched his face again. “Home is clearly the best place for you,” she said with resolution as the coach moved on its way toward King Street. She peered out of the window, looking for any cloaked figures.
She could be quite wrong about him, of course. The nod of the kidnapper could have been that of mere acquaintance or not aimed at the cloaked figure at all. He could have nothing to do with the kidnappings. But he could have been watching everything unseen. He could have suspected the inebriated actors were more than they seemed.
Sir Nicholas and Dragan were following two men, and could be trapped by others, under the command of the cloaked man, coming from a different direction.
Anxiety gone mad, she chided herself. Pure speculation.
And yet, if the cloaked man was involved and he got away… If Nicholas walked into a trap…
And there he was! Surely that was her cloaked man crossing King Street and vanishing up a lane leading away from Covent Garden.
“That’s him,” she exclaimed, rapping on the carriage ceiling to tell the coachman to halt his horses. “Mr. Ingram, I believe I might need your protection. Mr. Swan, you will be taken directly home. Good evening!”
“Miss Battle!” Ingram exclaimed as she leapt down from the carriage. “You cannot go—”
“I will, whether you come with me or not,” she said calmly and strode across the street without waiting to see if he followed. She had to admit she was glad when he did, especially when the coach continued on its way west toward Mayfair, and she realized he had thought to bring a lantern.
“Miss Battle, this is madness!” Ingram protested, striding along by her side. “Sir Nicholas will string me up if I allow you—”
“You cannot stop me, and Sir Nicholas, I hope, will be glad of your presence with me.”
“In pursuit of someone we don’t even know is involved?” He glanced suspiciously up the lane as Alexandra strode boldly into it.
A cloak fluttered around the corner at the end.
“He’s heading toward Bow Street,” Ingram said. “What if he is a policeman?”
“Then why take the back alleys?” Alexandra demanded.
Unseen eyes seemed to bore into her from all sides, making her hair stand on end. The stench of waste she didn’t like to think about filled her nostrils, while rubbish she didn’t look at crunched under her feet.
Ingram held his walking stick like a weapon, his gaze darting all around as they hurried along. “We’re skirting Bow Street. That’s Drury Lane. Seems to me we’re now heading in the same direction as Sir Nicholas.”
“Then perhaps he is one of the kidnappers.”
They moved quickly, yet never seemed to draw any closer to their quarry. At least they were lucky enough not to be attacked or robbed or even accosted. So lucky, in fact, that Alexandra began to wonder if they were benefiting from whatever protection hung over their quarry.
And then, they lost him.
By this time, they were deep into St. Giles slum territory, surrounded by tiny, almost-hidden passages. He could have hidden down any of them, and they would never have seen him, even with their own lantern. They stood at the end of the alley, looking in either direction, up and down the next. A few people hung around here, gossiping or drinking on doorsteps, though none of them wore a cloak. Opposite was a rare open space scattered with stone rubble, perhaps from a building that had been knocked down or simply collapsed. It was surrounded on three sides by other tall, dreary buildings.
“Now what?” Ingram asked flatly. “We have no clue. We might have come too far. He might have gone into any of these buildings, and we have no business, let alone ability, to search them.”
“Let’s just cross this clearing—it’s open enough that we shouldn’t be attacked—and see what we can from the far side. And if nothing, we will have to give up.”
With the end in sight—although they would still have to negotiate their way to respectable streets and a hackney stand—Ingram set off across the rubbly ground with renewed vigor, pausing only to help Alexandra over difficult obstacles.
They were almost at the end of this difficult ground, and able to see further alleys leading through the buildings ahead, when she noticed the shadows.
They approached from either side, and when she jerked her head around, she saw they were behind them as well.
“Mr. Ingram,” she said warningly.
He raised the flickering lantern—another worry, because if it went out, they would have an even harder time finding their way out of this dangerous warren. As it was, it still supplied enough light to make out the figures of three men to the left, another three to the right, and two more behind.
There was nothing to do but hurry on and hope to prevent themselves being encircled by people who clearly meant them no good. But when they sped up, so did the men, and it was clearly only a matter of time until they were surrounded.
Ingram halted and swung up his stick, trying to ward them off. They crowded closer, sneaking up behind so quickly that Ingram spun around, waving his stick in a wide arc that halted only just short of Alexandra before he whipped it back again. The men halted, some even stepped back, though most were grinning in amusement.
“Stay close,” Ingram hissed between gritted teeth and charged between the nearest two men in the hope of breaking through. But one merely made a grab for his stick, and the two men tussled for it, while the others crowded Alexandra.
She had nothing worth stealing, save the purse Sir Nicholas had given her for expenses. And then she realized the wretched poverty of these people. Her ten-year-old evening gown and bonnet could be sold for a few meals. The purse would not buy them off. They would have everything.
Someone aimed a punch at Ingram, who ducked, wrenching his stick free at last, and lashed out with it at his most immediate attacker, taking him across the ribs. But someone else lashed out with his feet, hacking at Ingram’s ankles to trip him. It would have worked, too, had Alexandra not grabbed his elbow to steady him. But a punch from behind sent him staggering, and hands pawed at Alexandra’s wrap.
Whose idea was this? Why do I never listen to good sense from anyone else?
And then a shout went up, loud and commanding, and another man all but catapulted out of one of the alleys ahead and strode toward them.
“Stop that!” he ordered. “Stand back, or by God, I’ll have your hides!”
The shout was that of a sergeant major, but the accent was cultured, and the voice sounded ridiculously like Sir Nicholas’s. Oddly enough, the men did pause and turn uncertainly to face the newcomer, giving Ingram time to stagger to his feet.
The newcomer wore a top hat and was dressed like a gentleman. In the gloom, no one could see the ridiculous waistcoat or the bohemian shirt and necktie. But it was undoubtedly Sir Nicholas.
“Get going,” he growled, “before I flay the skin off your miserable backs. Madam, this way.”
And astonishingly, a path opened up. Alexandra and Ingram stumbled forward toward Sir Nicholas. She expected a blow, a snatch, at any moment, but none came. Sir Nicholas took her arm, turning his back on the dog-like pack behind.
“Hurry,” Sir Nicholas muttered. “We haven’t got long.”
Somehow, the three of them were off and hurrying down the alley Sir Nicholas had emerged from.
“How on earth did you do that?” Alexandra asked in awe.
“I have no idea,” he all but snarled in response, though he was glaring over her head at Ingram. “But you’re damned lucky I took it into my head to examine the lay of the land when I did! What the devil do you mean bringing her here? Where is my nephew? My brother?”
“In the carriage going home,” Alexandra replied before Ingram could open his mouth. “In fact, I imagine they are safe in Brook Street by now. We saw another man and wanted to be sure he was not part of a trap for you. Besides, if you had lost the others, I thought he might lead us to their den.”
In the gloom, his eyes blazed fury at her.
She tilted her chin. “You may thank me later. Or dismiss me. Mr. Ingram, who could not stop me, only came to protect me.”
To her surprise, a grunt of laughter escaped him. “You have my pity, Ingram.”
“Where are the others?” Alexandra demanded. “Did you see where the kidnappers went?”
“Here,” Sir Nicholas said, pointing down a narrow passage to a door, before which, in the glow of a dim lantern, huddled Dragan and Griz. Her gaudy costume was now covered with Dragan’s coat, though her feathers still nodded sadly. “Reinforcements,” he added to the Tizsas as they turned.
“Did our man come here, too, then?” Alexandra wondered. “Just a few minutes ago? A man in a cloak?”
“No one’s gone in since our men with the money,” Griz replied in a whisper as she moved back toward them. “We’ve looked through the keyhole, and they’re definitely in there. As are at least three sleeping children and two women who are talking to the men.”
“Are they abducted children?” Alexandra asked.
“No way of telling for certain until we get in there,” Dragan said. “But I could swear the child who asked for a drink of water doesn’t belong here.”
Griz said, “We’re trying to decide whether to go to the police or barge in now and take the children away. Unless they’re the women’s children, of course, but at least we could get Mr. Swan’s money back.”
“If we wait for the police, the men could scarper with the money,” Nicholas said impatiently. “And the children.”
“Well, now that there are so many of us,” Dragan said, “some could wait here while the rest fetch the police.”
“There aren’t many policemen about here,” Ingram said dryly. “How do you even get out of this warren? Alive, I mean.”
“That’s a good point,” Nicholas agreed. “We need to keep together for safety.”
“Between those buildings there…” Dragan pointed to the right, “…is the way through to Holborn, a policeman, and a hackney stand. Five minutes at the most.”
Griz gazed at him thoughtfully.
“If those children are frightened,” Alexandra said firmly, “we have to take them out of there tonight. Imagine if one of them was Evelina. Or your sister’s child,” she added to Griz.
“Three of us and two of them,” Sir Nicholas said, with an expressive shrug.
“Provided the neighbors don’t rush in to help,” Dragan said dryly. “And don’t discount the women!”
“Let’s get on with it,” Nicholas said impatiently.
Dragan shrugged. “Very well. I suggest we take them by surprise. I’ll pick the lock, and we’ll charge in. Griz and Alex, you try and keep the children calm and safe until we have the adults secure.”
Ignoring the fact that lock-picking was hardly a gentlemanly talent, Alexandra focused on the practicalities. “How long would that take? They would probably hear you. Besides, the door is probably bolted.”
They all looked at her. “Good point.” Nicholas allowed. “I’m sure you have a suggestion.”
“Knock on the door. If I’m right, they’re expecting the cloaked man. And even if they’re not, surely curiosity would make them answer.”
“And then we charge in.”
Chapter Sixteen
In case the villains looked through the keyhole, as Griz and Dragan had done from the other side, they hid on either side of the door while Sir Nicholas scratched at it in a furtive manner. Receiving no response, he knocked loudly, and that inspired sudden commotion within, chairs being pushed back, hasty footsteps, and the sound of bolts being pulled back.
The door opened a mere crack, but Sir Nicholas shoved it hard with his shoulder and barged in, Dragan and Ingram at his heels.
“Hey!” a man’s voice shouted. “You ain’t—”
Slipping inside behind the men, Alexandra had to step nimbly out of the way as one of the villains shoved Sir Nicholas in the chest. He was a large bruiser of a man, not the one who had carried the lantern and made the exchange earlier. That individual was lunging at Dragan, fists flying.
Sir Nicholas, meanwhile, brought the wrought silver head of his walking stick up smartly under the chin of his attacker. Even through the sudden din in the room, Alexandra heard the snap of the man’s teeth before he collapsed to the floor. Sir Nicholas stepped elegantly over him to haul the other man off Dragan.
Alexandra and Griz edged quickly past to the back of the room, where the three children were standing, looking terrified.
“Just stay where you are,” Alexandra said calmly. “No one will hurt you. My name’s Miss Battle, and I’m a governess.”
“Governess?” a boy repeated blankly. “Do we have to have lessons here, too?” His tone implied that that would be the last straw.
