Letters to a Lover, page 16
His little hallway was gloomy even at this time of the early evening, so he opened the stair door to let in a smidgeon of light from above and sat down on the first step. Taking from his pocket a small book and the sandwiches made by his puzzled cook, he settled down to assuage his hunger and wait.
*
At about nine o’clock, Griz and Dragan took up position at the mews gate nearest Charles Street. She wore the old, grey gown she generally wore for her charity work in St. Giles, together with the white cap of a maidservant. Reluctantly, since she wanted to see what was going on, she removed her spectacles. They made her too recognizable. And besides, they had a tendency to steam up when kissing.
Kissing Dragan had never been a hardship. Nor was being held in his arms and nuzzling his neck. Her only worry was that she might get distracted from the main purpose and miss their quarry or, worse, the arrival of Azalea.
“Perhaps he’s here already,” she murmured into his ear.
“It doesn’t matter if he is. Trench is there, too.”
“I hope he can keep still.”
“He is a still man. We’ve been here long enough. Slip through the gate into the garden, and we’ll emerge a little further along.”
They did that a few times. Sometimes Griz took off the cap. Sometimes, Dragan wore a hat and a bright kerchief. Servants rarely had the time to spend an hour kissing in an alley, so for the benefit of any watchers, they wished to appear as several different couples in different places, from all of which, they could see the door to the Number 70 stable.
After about twenty minutes, when they had just arrived at their third spot on the other side of the lane, Dragan breathed, “Look.”
She peered over his shoulder, too short-sighted to see more than a blurry shape in the gloom. He walked quickly from the Charles Street direction, a tall thin man with a top hat pulled low on his head. He seemed to be contemplating his feet rather than the way ahead, so she doubted even Dragan could see his features.
In any case, he veered suddenly right and in the stable door of Number 70.
*
From his step, Trench heard the door creak. He stood, hastily and soundlessly, closing the stair door. Then he crouched, putting his eye to the keyhole, and listened.
It was too early to be Azalea.
The footsteps were heavy but unhurried, easily heard echoing about the empty stable two doors away. This was the blackmailer, making certain all was well.
After a little, the door between the tiny hallway and the stable opened. Trench held perfectly still as a tall, thin figure walked past his keyhole. He couldn’t see the man’s face, but he heard him moving to the carriage house, pausing and returning, again flashing past Trench’s keyhole. He closed the stable door behind him.
As the footsteps receded, Trench realized his hands were clenched. How badly he wanted to knock down, to seriously hurt this man who dared to threaten his wife. Whoever he was. From what he had made out, the blackmailer’s coat had been well made and well-fitting.
The outer door creaked again and closed in silence.
Trench left the stairs, closing the door behind him, and leaned against the wall of the little hallway to wait.
*
“He’s coming out,” Dragan murmured.
They were hiding now behind a tree at the bottom of one of the gardens behind the stable buildings. It was almost dark, so Griz could only hope they were not visible. With her spectacles back on, she peered around the tree and saw the hatted figure walk back the way he had come.
Only he didn’t walk as far as Charles Street. He stepped smartly through a garden gate and vanished.
“He’s hiding, watching for Zalea,” Griz breathed. “Is that good?”
“I don’t know. I’m just glad Trench didn’t leap out and murder him.”
Which gave Griz another bad moment. “What if he murdered Eric?”
“No,” Dragan murmured confidently. “He is determined, not stupid.”
*
At twenty minutes to ten, Azalea, dressed in an ivory silk evening gown with matching wrap, walked down the front steps of Trench House and into her waiting carriage. Bravado had chosen her gown. She did not plan to linger for long in a grubby stable, and she wanted the blackmailer to know he was despised and she unafraid.
“Berkley Square,” she said pleasantly to the coachman on her way inside.
During the short journey, she sat bolt upright. Her heart beat too fast, and there was a twist of nervousness in her stomach. But she was glad to find she was not afraid. She wanted this man taken, and her letters returned, and she had the feeling that once they were, everything would come back to her about why she had written them and what had happened at the Roystons’ ball.
“Where in the square, my lady?” the coachman asked through the speaking tube.
The carriage had just turned into Berkley Square and was heading toward the corner of Hill Street. No vehicles had stopped on this side of the square, although a hackney passed them at a fast trot, and another carriage was moving along the far side.
“Here is fine,” she replied. “Wait, if you please. I should not be long.”
The coachman’s boy jumped down as soon as the carriage halted and let down the steps for her. Since she had brought no escort or footmen, they must have assumed she was visiting one of the elegant houses on the square. She didn’t disabuse them. She just hoped that if they noticed her vanishing into Charles Street, they did not try to follow.
She hoped, too, that they would see nothing odd in her unhooking the dainty lantern from inside the coach and taking it with her.
She heard no following footsteps, saw no dangers in the well-lit square or in Charles Street as she hastened toward the mews lane. The mews were lit, too, some by lanterns outside the stables.
She knew from what Eric had told her that Number 70 was on her right, but she looked at both sides as she proceeded, past a couple of high garden gates and mews buildings, until she found the right one. Every hair on the back of her neck stood up. She felt a thousand unseen eyes watching her. Further down the lane, a groom was soothing a restless horse, trying to persuade it into its stable.
Mentally squaring her already rigid shoulders, Azalea turned toward the stable door and pushed it open.
She lifted her lantern, glad and slightly surprised to find that her hand did not shake. The stalls were empty, like the rest of the dingy room. The only furniture seemed to be a stool beside the door topped by a dingy cushion. But she did not feel like sitting down.
She walked forward, wanting to call out, Eric, are you there? But she did not dare. The blackmailer could be hiding behind that door at the back, or he could be watching her from outside the open door onto the lane.
She walked slowly, circling the room, listening intently. Come, you worm, hurry up and show your cowardly face…
The quick footfall from the lane almost took her by surprise.
She spun around to face the open door.
The silhouette of a man in a top hat stood there, the flaring light of his lantern distorting what was visible of his features above the scarf which covered his mouth. Clearly, he still didn’t wish to be recognized.
Bad luck.
The man stepped inside. One thing she and the others had feared was that he would bolt the door from the inside, but he did not even trouble to close it. He just stepped inside and bent to set down his lantern on the floor.
She held out her hand. “My letters.”
He didn’t speak, just picked up the musty cushion from the stool and began to walk toward her. Her heart leapt. Had he hidden the letters inside the cushion?
Certainly, he was holding it to his chest as though it were precious. But his other hand was also delving deep into his coat pocket. The oddity brought a frown to her brow.
“Zalea, down!” Eric’s voice cried suddenly. Uncomprehendingly. For he had burst through the door behind her and crashed into her, just as a muffled crack echoed and a sudden, searing pain pierced her arm.
A patch of scarlet bloomed on the sleeve of her ivory gown, growing… and mingling suddenly with another image in her mind—of blood spilling over a knife that slid so easily into human flesh. Pain and noise engulfed her, and the world tilted and darkened.
*
Trench only realized what was happening when it was too late.
Through the same crack in the door that he had seen Azalea arrive and walk around, he also saw the tall, thin figure of the blackmailer enter and pick up the cushion. It was such an odd gesture that Trench watched the man’s other hand, realizing he was using the cushion to hide what he was doing, what he was taking from his pocket. The letter?
A weapon.
He didn’t see it, not then, but understanding flashed through his mind, even as he burst into the stable in a desperate bid to save his wife.
The blackmailer had had enough. Since Trench had punched him in Grosvenor Square, he’d known the game was over. He had even said so. He was now tidying loose ends with a cushion to muffle the sound of his shot.
Although Trench shouted to her to get down, she didn’t understand what he meant. How could she? He heard the muffled crack just as he snatched her, throwing her down on the floor with him. She emitted a funny cry of surprise, but it wasn’t at his rough handling. He had already seen her arm jerk, and the dark spot of scarlet on her pristine sleeve was already visible when her lantern fell and went out.
The blackmailer dropped the cushion and fled.
Trench barely noticed, for he was cradling his wife in his arms.
“Azalea,” he whispered in shock. “Azalea, for God’s sake, speak to me…”
Her eyelids fluttered. Her staring eyes came into focus, blinking. “Eric, what happened?” She winced, pain flooding her eyes.
“He shot you,” Eric said grimly, ripping the sleeve of her gown to see the damage.
“Trench?” That was Tizsa’s voice rushing toward them. He must have snatched up the lantern from the door, bringing it nearer. “He’s bolted, right—Dear God, what’s happened?”
“He shot her,” Eric said again, the words still sounding unreal, unfathomable.
Dragan pushed him aside. “I’m a doctor, remember? Go after him.”
“No!” Eric objected. “My wife is—”
“My wife has gone in pursuit!” Dragan said savagely. “I’ll look after yours if you look after mine.”
Unexpectedly, a hoarse laugh broke from Azalea. “Do it, Eric, it makes sense, and I won’t be shot for nothing.”
Feeling as if he was being torn in two, Trench leapt to his feet and across the stable. He felt like screaming.
“Which way?” he flung over his shoulder.
“Charles Street,” Tizsa barked, already wiping blood from Azalea’s arm.
Trench bolted outside, more than half of his mind still on his wife, so that he almost ran into two horses pulling a carriage along the mews at a fast clip. Forced into awareness of his surroundings, Trench veered back into the wall and began to run once more.
Beyond the carriage, he could see the figure of a woman standing at the end of the mews and looking to her left along Charles Street.
“Griz?” he demanded when he caught up with her. By then, she had turned left into Charles Street and was walking briskly past the first of the terraced townhouses. “Where is he?”
“He vanished again,” she muttered in frustration. “How does he keep doing that?”
“He doesn’t. He simply goes somewhere else. Where can he have gone this time?”
“He definitely came this way,” Griz said. “Turned left from the mews, but by the time I got here, there was no one.”
Trench, still wrenched apart by competing urges to return to his injured wife and to lay savage hands on the man responsible, stopped under the street lamp. “How far could he have gone in the time it took you to get here? Could he have got as far as Berkley Square? Crossed to the other side of the road?”
She shook her head impatiently. “No, I’d have seen him. I’m sure he couldn’t have got further than one of these first two houses.” Neither had gardens to hide in or a route to the back except through the house. “I heard a sound, like a door closing,” she recalled with sudden excitement, and she began to stride onward. “It can’t have been the first house, or I’d surely have seen the movement. I think it’s the second, this one.”
“Could he have gone down the area steps?” Trench demanded.
“I heard no sounds of that. Only swift, level footsteps.”
And both front doors opened off the street. As Griz strode up to the second front door, he caught her arm. “Wait there,” he said grimly. “The man is armed.” He hadn’t even told her that her sister was shot. Don’t think of that. Catch the bastard!
His hands were clenched and ready as soon as he struck the knocker. It felt tarnished under his fingers. The paint on the door was peeling in places.
Hurried footsteps sounded inside, and the door opened little more than a crack.
“Yes?” said a breathless maid. Her gaze widened as it swept over him, and she added, “Sir. Her ladyship is indisposed and won’t be receiving callers for a few days. Besides,” she added severely, “it’s late to be calling uninvited.”
“You are entirely right,” Trench allowed. “Perhaps I have the wrong house? I was looking for whoever owns the empty mews building—Number 70, just around there. And I thought I saw someone from there come in here.”
She regarded him as though he were mad. “No one’s come in here at all since seven o’clock! Good evening, sir.” And she closed the door in his face.
“That went well,” Griz observed. “Well, we’re not going to catch him there tonight, short of breaking in or fetching the police, which I doubt would work… Eric, where are you going?” She had to run to keep up with him, for he was already striding back toward the mews.
“I should have told you,” he said abruptly, without slowing. “He shot Azalea.”
Chapter Seventeen
“He shot me?” Azalea repeated to Dragan. Her mind felt oddly sluggish. It must be the shock. “With a cushion?”
“Through the cushion to muffle the noise. It upset his aim, thank God, for the bullet seems only to have grazed you. Still, I think it will need a stitch or two. For now, I’m going to bind it.”
Fascinated, she watched him make a pad of his handkerchief and some other fabric that looked like her embroidered petticoat.
“It is,” he said apologetically, reading her thoughts.
She smiled faintly. Don’t think about the blood. He pressed the pad firmly to her wound, causing her to hiss with pain. In truth, her arm throbbed like the devil. One-handed, he removed his necktie, and with swift efficiency, bound the dressing tightly in place.
“Where is Eric?” she demanded.
“He went after Griz. And our man. I’m sorry. We were still yards away when we heard Trench shout, and he bolted out the door. I never expected he would leave again so quickly, never imagined anything like this.”
“He tried to kill me,” Azalea said, understanding at last. She stared at Dragan’s grim, anguished face, impossibly handsome in the lantern’s glow. “I won’t die, will I?”
“No. No, you won’t die. But I won’t say the same for the monster who did it. If ever I’ve seen murder in a man’s eyes, it was in your husband’s when he left. Is your carriage in Berkley Square, as we agreed?”
She nodded.
Dragan took a flask from his pocket and unscrewed the stopper. “Take a mouthful of this.”
She swallowed obediently. “Brandy.”
“Good for shock and dulls the pain.”
“Not sure you have enough for that,” she said shakily, handing him back the flask.
“No, I’ll give you something better for the pain once you are safely home. Can you stand?” He rose carefully, helping her with his arm at her waist.
She seemed to be shaking. Her legs were certainly wobbly, but they proved to be capable of carrying her out of the musty stable into the mews.
Dragan released her but pulled her good arm through his. “Hold on to me,” he commanded. “And tell me if you feel faint again.”
As she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, she was aware of Dragan looking constantly around them, to each side and behind. He tensed as two figures appeared at the end of the mews, then relaxed as they broke into a run. Eric and Griz.
She had never seen Eric frightened before. He had risked his life to save hers and stared down at her with such stark fear. That fear was still there now, mixed with hope and relief that she was walking, and something else so turbulent that it brought tears to her own eyes.
She leaned forward and against his chest, and though she hadn’t felt Dragan release her, it was Eric’s strong arms that closed around her. And despite the huge mess that still surrounded their lives, despite the spectacular failure of their plan tonight, she knew everything would be well in the end.
*
“We need to think about involving the police,” Griz said more than an hour later.
She, Dragan, and Eric were all perched on Azalea’s bed, while Azalea, herself, after the torture of having her wound thoroughly cleaned, stitched, anointed, and rebandaged, reclined against the pillows, wide awake and eager to talk.
“We can think about them,” Eric agreed, “but I’m not sure I want them blundering about in this. Unless you think we could persuade them to search that house in Charles Street?”
“Unlikely,” Griz said, producing a calling card from the pocket of her gown. “I’ve just discovered who it belongs to—by rifling among the truly spectacular number of cards you have in your desk drawer, Zalea.”
She reached forward and placed the card on the covers over Azalea’s lap.
“Lady Darchett,” Azalea read, astonished. “Darchett’s mother! But that means…” She frowned. “What does that mean? Aren’t we already sure Darchett is not our blackmailer? Are we wrong?”
“He didn’t seem much like Darchett to me,” Eric said. “And it is certainly not his mother!”
