Unmasking Sin, page 2
The thieves exchanged glances as though wondering whether to make a fight of it.
“Run along,” her rescuer advised. And rather to her surprise, they did, loping off the path, past the lanterns, and into the bushes, under her companion’s watchful gaze. “What the devil do you have in your reticule? Stones?”
“Yes,” she replied, walking forward on legs that shook only slightly.
A breath of laughter escaped him. He walked beside her, casting her a frankly curious glance. “You are a most surprising lady.”
“Since I came with no escort, it seemed a sensible precaution. Who is Renwick?”
“The owner of the Gardens. He takes a dim view of blatant thievery on his property. Bad for business.”
“Just blatant thievery?”
“Well, I’m sure he waters the wine and spirits for those unlikely to notice. And I wouldn’t play cards with him for any price. But he won’t tolerate that kind of crime.”
“Thank you for your assistance,” she said with difficulty.
“I’m sure it was unnecessary, but it’s good to have an ally while beating up the opposition.”
Unexpected laughter caught in her throat. Hysteria, no doubt. “You make me sound like a prize fighter.”
“Well, if you ever take up the profession, let me know. I will lay good money on your success.”
“You are ridiculous, but I’m still grateful.”
As they approached the gates and the booth in front that sold tickets of entry to the Gardens, it struck her that she might have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. He seemed gentlemanly, in an unconventional kind of way, but even gentlemen often expected some kind of payment for their services.
“Do you have a carriage, or will you take a hackney?” he asked.
“My carriage will be waiting,” she said, infusing some distance into her voice.
He nodded. “One moment, if you please.” He veered toward the ticket booth and spoke quietly to the young man lounging against it. The boy straightened and hared off up the path without a second glance.
“I don’t fancy their chances now,” her rescuer said without notable pity, presumably referring to her attackers.
There was only one hackney at the stand, its driver standing at the side, gossiping with her coachman. James, the footman, lounged against her own town carriage behind the hackney, but caught sight of Rebecca first, called to the coachman, and sprang straight to open the door for her.
The stranger walked beside her to the carriage without touching her. She wondered what would happen if she offered to take him back to town. Would he try to take liberties or ask first if she was open to such?
Am I? A rush of desolation swept over her.
He held out his hand to help her into the carriage. She took it, gazing straight up into his eyes. They were interesting eyes. Deep. A dark, rich hazel-brown, quite at odds with the color of his hair, which was very fair—or perhaps silver-gray? Beneath the mask, he may have been younger than she had first guessed. His mouth and chin were firm. An experienced man with enough poise and presence to scare off a couple of opportunistic villains. A man who saw more than he spoke, and yet who had understood her loneliness. Because he was lonely, too.
Dare I? She laid her hand in his, felt the strength in the fingers that closed around hers and guided her up the steps and into the carriage. The words died on her lips in fear and self-preservation.
And in any case, he had already bowed and stepped back.
“Thank you,” she managed as James pushed up the steps and closed the door. She lifted her hand as the horses began to move, and he vanished from her sight.
Chapter Two
Ludovic caught up with his occasional assistant in the gardens of Barclay Square. “Well?”
“Nothing’s moved that shouldn’t,” Napper replied, yawning. “Her ladyship’s carriage came back a few minutes ago. Footman saw her inside, and the coachman drove round to the mews. Nothing’s stirred since.” He nodded across the square to the Cornish house. “Lights all out as you see.”
“Home with you, then,” Ludovic said. “I’ll see you in the office tomorrow about ten.”
Napper nodded, yawned, and scratched. “You staying to keep watch, gov?”
“Maybe for a little.”
Napper shrugged. “Seems a respectable house to me.”
“We’ll see,” Ludovic said laconically. “Goodnight, Napper.”
Napper slouched off into the darkness, still managing somehow to look soldierly. Although he was not Ludovic’s servant, as such, he found him an interesting man. He had served for years in Wellington’s army and was finally cast back into the civilian world without a job. A short career as a prison guard had ended when he had helped a convicted lordling escape Newgate and gone on the run with him. But since the escapee had since been proved innocent, he and Ludovic between them had secured a pardon for Napper, who now worked officially for said lordling, who was currently on his wedding journey. Napper hated to be bored, and so Ludovic paid him to watch people and to ask questions that certain people would not answer to a gentleman.
Ludovic was thorough, but some answers could not be acquired from mere documents. Such as how Rebecca Cornish could possibly have killed her husband. Either of her husbands. Watching her, speaking to her tonight, he had the feeling she was not who she pretended to be, though whether that was a good or bad thing for his clients’ hopes, he did not yet know.
He settled down to a few hours of boredom. When his legs got too cramped, he wandered off, round to the mews, and found the Cornish coach house and stables dark and silent. Since he could not watch front and back at the same time, he returned to the square, from where he could see both the front door and the area door to the kitchen.
He would give it until dawn, and if no lover appeared, he would go home and grab a few hours of sleep before looking in at the office. He had, unfortunately, promised his brother, Adam, he would attend his charity luncheon at Grillon’s Hotel. Adam claimed it was a great way to meet clients. But then, Adam, being a financial wizard, did business in the open. Ludovic’s business was increasingly of the more discreet kind.
He sat up suddenly, for without warning, a dark passer-by had veered down the area steps of the Cornish house. Ludovic crept closer. The nocturnal visitor was not dressed as a gentleman. In fact, he appeared to be a Cornish servant, for he simply opened the area door and walked inside with such quick familiarity that Ludovic didn’t even see him use a key.
But no light shone in the little window beside the door or in the larger window beneath the steps. The servant appeared to move in darkness. Did he sleep in the kitchen basement or in the attics? No light appeared beneath the eaves.
Ludovic was just contemplating going around the back of the house when a muffled commotion came from the direction of the house. A light appeared suddenly in one of the upper windows and then in several. Something very like a scream reached him, just as the main front door flew open, and the man he had seen going in bolted out as if all the fiends of hell were after him.
Ludovic didn’t blame him, for a man with a nightcap on his head and a poker in his hand appeared right behind him, flanked by maids with kitchen implements and a young man with a large, heavy vase.
“Leave him, he’s gone,” the nightcapped man said impatiently. “Go to her ladyship, make sure she and the child are unharmed. Tilly, you’d better make a soothing drink for her…”
The front door closed, and Ludovic, giving up his idea of lending aid in the house—for Lady Cornish appeared to have a number of fearsome protectors—ran after the fleeing man, who appeared not to be a servant but a rather strange housebreaker.
Ludovic found him eventually, crouching behind a tree in Grosvenor Square, pretending to be invisible, but panting so hard from his exertions that his position was quite obvious. Ludovic, who had slowed to a walk as soon as his quarry’s footsteps had paused, eased himself down by the trunk of the same tree.
The housebreaker jerked around, as poised to flee or defend himself as he could be while panting for breath and all but sitting on the ground.
“Hard night?” Ludovic asked sympathetically.
The housebreaker relaxed. “You have no idea. I hope.” He peered at Ludovic through the darkness. “That wasn’t you following me, was it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You the law? You don’t seem much like the Watch. You ain’t a Runner?”
“No,” Ludovic replied. “But I have friends in high places. Why did you rob that particular house?”
“I didn’t rob a damned thing,” the burglar said indignantly. “Someone set up a screech fit to burst your ears, comes at me with a piece of firewood! I wasn’t hanging around for that, so I bolted, and before I knew it, there’s a load of other people chasing me down the stairs with pokers, and I don’t know what!”
“Damned cheek,” Ludovic agreed. “You were only a stranger who’d broken into their house to rob them.”
The burglar peered at him in the darkness. “Didn’t break into nothing. The door was unlocked. I just walked in.”
“Did you, by God?”
“Which is what I’ll tell the law if you inform on me. Got the house wrong, see, because I’d been drinking.”
“Your own residence being which house in Barclay Square?” Ludovic asked politely.
“Not my house, going to see a girl I met in the Gardens, ain’t I? She’s a kitchen maid in one of the big houses.”
“Inventive,” Ludovic allowed. “Though I’m not convinced it would save you in a court of law. How come the door was unlocked?”
“No idea, but never look a gift horse in the mouth, I say, so in I went. Bloody lunatics.”
“Was it a trap?” Ludovic asked. “Were they waiting for you?”
“Nah. Though they were pretty damned fast off the mark. I opened the wrong door. Think it was a baby’s room, some woman looms at me, scared the wits out of me, and then this other comes after me with a chunk of firewood, and I’d had enough.”
“Can’t blame you. Did you hurt anyone?”
“Didn’t get bloody near anyone, did I? It was them set out to hurt me!” He seemed positively aggrieved by the indignity.
“What made you pick that particular house?” Ludovic asked.
“Luck,” the man said warily. “Easy to get in.”
“But the unlocked door surprised you,” Ludovic pointed out. “And you didn’t try any other doors.”
The man looked at him in silence. Ludovic hoped he didn’t have a weapon hidden in his clothes. “You watching me, gov?”
“I happened to be in Barclay Square. Did someone send you to that house?”
The burglar heaved himself to his feet. For safety’s sake, Ludovic rose, too.
“Don’t be daft. And you can’t recognize me in the dark anyhow.” With that, the burglar stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered off.
The man had said quite a lot without revealing anything about himself. Though one word stuck with Ludovic as he walked back to Barclay Square. Gardens. The burglar had said his claim of innocence would be that he’d met a kitchen maid at the Gardens.
Back in Barclay Square, there was a light shining from the kitchen window, although the rest of the house was in darkness once more. Ludovic envisioned the manservant in his nightcap, who was probably the butler, sitting in a chair in the kitchen, clutching his poker and daring anyone to enter his mistress’s house.
There seemed little point in continuing his watch, so Ludovic went home to bed, mulling over odd connections.
*
Two attacks in one night, however different, did nothing for Rebecca’s nerves.
Of the two, the second was by far the most serious. Tom slept in the room across the passage from hers, and she had wakened to the sound of his nurse’s scream. Annie, the nurse, was a sensible woman, so Rebecca had leapt up in sheer panic, seized the first weapon that came to hand—which happened to be a hefty and jagged piece of firewood—and rushed across the passage. By the pale nightlight from the nursery, she had glimpsed a dark figure bolting out of her son’s room.
At sight of her, no doubt looking madly ferocious like some weird nightgowned Viking berserker, the intruder had swerved and run in the opposite direction. Nurse had pursued him, stumbling in the darkness, while Rebecca had rushed into the room to Tom.
Tom had seemed more bewildered than frightened, and certainly, he was unhurt. Annie must have screamed before the intruder got anywhere near the boy. Rebecca had been torn between chasing the intruder with all the fury of a mother’s protective instincts and staying with her child in case the man came back, in case there were more of them.
A wild clattering from the servants’ stairs had told her the servants were now all in pursuit, Dawson, the butler, giving clear commands. According to Annie, he had passed everyone by sliding down the banister, brandishing a poker. A vision that only became delightfully funny in the full light of day.
While Dawson had, unfortunately, slid down to the basement, the intruder had crashed through the baize door on the ground floor and fled across the hall, bumping into things before unbolting and unlocking the front door and fleeing into the night. Dawson had only just missed him with the poker.
By this time, Tom had already fallen asleep again. And Rebecca only left him when Nurse returned.
“He’s gone, my lady,” Dawson reported grimly. “But there is some hope. I saw someone in the square hare off after him, and he didn’t seem to be an accomplice. Hopefully, he will rouse the Watch and catch the varmint, but shall I send James to inform them anyway?”
Rebecca almost said yes. Then sense prevailed. “There is no point, Dawson,” she said tiredly. “Please just make sure all the doors and windows are locked before you retire.”
“Absolutely, my lady. Tilly is bringing you some warm milk to help you sleep. Might I suggest a splash of brandy mixed in?”
“You might,” Rebecca agreed. But she didn’t add the brandy. She didn’t want to sleep too soundly.
She breakfasted with Tom in the nursery, as usual, refusing to allow her declared enemies to change her routine through fear. For the same reason, she would go to the charity luncheon, as she had promised, even though her heart quailed at the thought of leaving Tom for an hour or two.
Being with Tom did not untie the knot of anxiety that seemed to have lodged permanently in her stomach, but it made her forget about it for a little while. She could chat with him, laugh at his antics, play with him.
She wondered if things had been different, if Lady Cornish and her awful brothers had been different, if she would ever have consented to give Tom to their keeping. She didn’t think she would, for it was not just selfishness that drove her. A child should be with his mother.
And as things were, as he grew older and in less need of her, though she could not keep them from seeing him, she would never voluntarily give up her guardianship.
“If you go out today, Annie,” she instructed the nurse, “even if it’s just across to the square, take one of the footmen with you, and never let Tom out of your sight.”
“I never do, my lady,” Annie said with dignity.
“I know,” Rebecca replied, “but I feel better repeating it.”
She retreated to the morning room to wrestle with accounts and correspondence, though it was difficult to concentrate. She actually welcomed the interruption of Dawson’s knock.
“Might I have a word, my lady?”
“Of course,” she said, shoving the ledger away from her with some relief. She was surprised when he actually closed the door before walking toward her.
“I went round all the doors and windows again after last night’s contretemps, just as you asked.”
“I knew you would,” she assured him.
“They were all locked,” he said carefully, “apart from the area door.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Is that how he got in?”
“Apparently so. But the thing is, my lady, that door was locked and bolted before I went to bed. It always is. And neither the bolts nor the locks nor the hinges were damaged.”
Rebecca took that in, sitting back in her chair. “Then either you are mistaken,” she said slowly, “and only thought you locked it as usual. Or someone unlocked it again.”
“That is my fear.”
A new knot was forming beside the old in the pit of her stomach, a worse one because it seemed the defenses of her fortress were not secure after all.
“Were all the servants in bed when you retired?”
“Yes, my lady. I was the only one up in the house when you came home, apart from Miss Simpkins, of course.”
“Of course.” Simpkins was her maid and always waited up for her in her bedchamber. “Did James go to bed immediately? Did John Coachman come in?”
“No, John didn’t come in. He must have gone straight to bed over the carriage house as usual. His wife will have been waiting for him. And James went upstairs while I was putting out the lights. My lady, it goes against the grain to accuse any of the servants, but someone unlocked the area door and made it possible for that intruder to get in.”
“You think that was the reason? That one of the servants was working with the burglar?”
“Makes you think all sorts,” Dawson said ruefully. “It may have been bad luck. I know James has a girl he sees on his day off. He may see her at other times, too, for all I know.”
“Meaning he crept out to meet her after we were all in bed and left the area door open to get back in? Wasn’t he chasing the intruder along with the rest of you?”
“Yes.” Dawson sighed. “It’s not a great theory, my lady. And in truth, I cannot believe anyone here would have willingly robbed or harmed you.”
“They could have been bribed or otherwise…forced into it.” She doubted it was chance that the intruder had been found in Tom’s bedchamber either.
