Dangerous Lover, page 7
“It is possible,” Alexandra said cautiously. “Though I still can’t think how she got out of the garden to do so. The mews gate was locked, and she did not go through the kitchen or the main house.”
Mrs. Dart wheeled in a tea trolley, briefly distracting them. “I’ve put a cup for you there, too, Miss Battle. And sir, there is a policeman called to speak to you about Evelina.”
Pitiable fear crossed Sir Nicholas’s face. “Has he…?”
“He hasn’t found her, no, sir, but he wants to talk to you.”
“Send him up,” Sir Nicholas commanded.
While Alexandra set about pouring tea, a brisk man walked into the room and bowed.
“Sir Nicholas. Ma’am. I’m Inspector Harris, based at Scotland Yard. Word came to me about your daughter’s disappearance. I gather she is still not found.”
“No,” Sir Nicholas said curtly, waving him to a chair.
Since Mrs. Dart had supplied a third cup, Alexandra poured him tea.
He seemed surprised to receive it, though he helped himself to sugar and milk while he talked. “I want you to be aware, sir, that you may receive a ransom demand.”
“Ransom?” Sir Nicholas repeated, startled.
“I am investigating one such case, a gentleman’s son, and suspect two more who reported missing children and then miraculously found them. It’s my belief they paid the ransom. The case I know of, the ransom demand also instructed the parents not to inform anyone, least of all the police. I gather you have not yet received such a note?”
Sir Nicholas shook his head. His face was white.
“You probably wouldn’t until tomorrow, if this case follows the same pattern.”
“Tomorrow?” Sir Nicholas said hoarsely. “But she cannot be away all night. She will be terrified…”
“It’s cruel, sir, I know. On the other hand, it is good to remember that the other children came home unharmed. And, of course, we do not yet know if that is what has befallen your daughter. Children wander, alone and in company, good as well as bad. But I ask you, if you receive a note, to send me word. My men and I wear plain clothes and would not alert people that we are police.”
An unhappy smile curved Sir Nicholas’s lips. “You may not be in uniform, sir, but I suspect most practiced villains could spot you for what you are a hundred yards away.”
“It depends on the villain,” Inspector Harris said with dignity. “And the policeman concerned.” He hesitated, then added, “I would not normally recommend it, but if you feel you cannot take the risk of the police, then you might contact a man called Tizsa. I can give you his address, and he is not a policeman.”
“He already has mine, Inspector,” Sir Nicholas said dryly. “He is out looking for my daughter as we speak.”
“Is he, by God?”
“Miss Battle here is a friend of Mrs. Tizsa.”
“I see.” Inspector Harris drank his tea, set down his cup, and rose. “Then I have no more to say at the moment, except to assure you of any help you need. I hope she is found before nightfall.”
Alexandra rose to see him out since Sir Nicholas seemed to be lost in his own private hell from which he could not move.
However, when she returned to the library, he was at his desk, feverishly jotting things down on a piece of paper.
“I am thinking of places she was interested in. The children who live around the corner will have been asked already. But she also showed interest in her cousins—my brother’s children—in Brook Street. And I know she wanted to see where the Queen lives in Buckingham Palace. Then, there is the park where you took her.”
“If she walked that way, she will be found quickly,” Alexandra assured him, although she still could not see how the child could have got out of the garden so quickly without help. She did not like to think of that help.
“There is also the possibility,” he said more heavily, “that someone, some enemy of mine, might have taken her to get back at me or to force my hand.”
“Do you have many such enemies?” she asked, startled.
“I would not have thought so.” He straightened, raking his hand through his hair. “I’m clutching at straws. But at least if I look there, I am doing something. Miss Battle, I want you to remain here, in case she returns one way or another before I do. She trusts you.”
Alexandra did not quite know what to say to that. Nor was she good at simply waiting. But before she could come up with an alternative task for herself, he said abruptly, “I heard what you said to her after her tantrum this morning. And I heard her response. You may only have been here a few days, but you are good for her.”
Alexandra swallowed. “I shall remind you of that the next time we disagree, and you threaten to dismiss me.”
A brief smile flickered in his eyes, but he was already turning away. “We shall see who dismisses whom in the end.”
For lack of anything better to do, Alexandra trailed after Sir Nicholas downstairs, where he grabbed his hat and coat from the stand and strode toward the front door.
“Sir Nicholas!” came Mrs. Dart’s voice from the back of the house. “Wait!”
As Alexandra sped up, the housekeeper came into view, hauling a grubby street urchin with her.
“Sir, the boy says they found her!”
Alive or dead?
Chapter Seven
Alexandra had to grasp the banister in sudden, paralyzing fear. She couldn’t begin to imagine Sir Nicholas’s feelings.
“She’s alive, sir,” Mrs. Dart said urgently. “She’s fine. The boy has an address and will take you to her.”
Nicholas stumbled toward the boy, who held out a grubby, folded piece of paper as though to ward the man off.
Nicholas all but snatched it, while Alexandra ran down the rest of the stairs.
“Not a ransom demand,” he threw out. “It’s signed G. Tizsa. She’s at an address in Covent Garden with Evelina. Mrs. Dart, order the carriage brought round.”
“I already have. It will be but a moment.”
He nodded and swung on Alexandra. “Miss Battle, I am instructed to bring Alex, which I presume means you. Child,” he said to the boy, “you shall ride with my coachman to wherever you came from.”
In a flurry of breathless activity, Alexandra found herself in a luxurious town coach opposite Sir Nicholas, whose black brows were lowered into a heavy frown. His fingers drummed on his thigh.
“Why did Mrs. Tizsa not bring her home?” he demanded abruptly. “Why send for us, unless she is hurt?”
“The note said she was fine. There will be complications, which Griz attracts like moths to a flame.”
He grunted, peering out of the window onto the busy Strand. “We would be quicker walking,” he fumed.
With an effort of will, it seemed, he stilled his impatient fingers and focused his attention on Alexandra. She wasn’t fooled. She knew she was merely a distraction to an unbearable wait and was happy to oblige.
“Did you work previously for her family?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I worked for the Lacey family in Hampshire, and for the Paxtons in London and Essex.”
“You can’t have worked long for either.”
“A year with the Laceys and five with the Paxtons.”
“Why did you leave?” he asked curiously.
“I left the Laceys for the Paxtons because they offered a better salary.”
“And?” he asked steadily.
She shrugged. “And I did not care for the Lacey family in the end. The Paxtons were a pleasant change.”
“And yet you left them, too.”
“Only because their children grew up or went away to school. You will find it all in my references. Are you looking for another reason to dismiss me?”
“I am looking for a reason for my luck.”
“Was that a compliment?” she asked sardonically.
“Actually, yes. What did you do before? What took you to governessing?”
“I explained it all to Mrs. Dart when she interviewed me for the position.”
“You are right, of course. I should have been there, too. You haven’t answered my question.”
“I lived abroad most of my life. After my father’s…demise, I returned to England with the Laceys, who had offered me the position of governess in their family.”
“And who was your father? What did he do?”
“Alexander Battle. He was a pianist.”
Unexpectedly, Sir Nicholas’s eyes widened. “He was indeed! I heard him play in Rome and in Vienna. Alexander Battle was your father?”
“Is that a problem?” she asked, her heart sinking.
“Should it be?”
“I understand the daughter of a public performer is not considered respectable enough to teach English gentlemen’s daughters.”
“Perhaps, for those more concerned with birth than education,” he said with unexpected contempt. “Or for those who want an excuse to pay a qualified person less than their worth.”
Which was close enough to the truth to deprive her of words.
“We must be almost there,” he said, gazing out of the window once more.
They were skirting the Covent Garden market and soon cut up a nearby lane. Sir Nicholas jumped out almost before the coach had stopped and handed Alexandra down with a hurry that crushed the courtliness of the gesture.
By then, Dragan Tizsa had appeared in the nearest doorway. He led them through a narrow stone close and through a door on the left.
“Papa!” Evelina hurled herself across the bare room and into her father’s arms. To Alexandra’s anxious eyes, she looked a trifle grubby but unharmed. “Miss Battle!”
Griz stood by the window, looking pleased. At her knees were two small children no older than three. And seated at the table, with a baby, was a gaudily and somewhat scantily dressed female who looked worryingly like a lady of the night.
“I knew you would come!” Evelina exclaimed as her father pushed her a little way from him to scan her face for injury or distress. “I was a bit surprised to see Lady Griz, but Mr. Tizsa sent that boy to find you.”
“But how the devil did you get here?” Sir Nicholas asked, clearly too anxious and bewildered to mind his language.
“I ran away from the bad men and hid in here, and then I couldn’t leave them, could I? Because they are too young to look after themselves, and they were hungry.”
“I think you had better sit down,” Griz said. “I’ve made tea.”
Alexandra looked about her. “Are you sure we should be consuming these people’s supply of tea?”
“Oh, we bought some,” Griz said vaguely. “There’s a shop at the corner. I asked you to come too, Alex, because I’m not quite sure what to do with these children.”
“George and Jilly,” Evelina said, turning to the older children with her father’s hand held proudly in both of hers. “This is my Papa. Oh, Lady Griz, we could have the pastries now!”
“We bought those, too,” Griz said hastily. “Before we get to explanations, this is Nell.” She indicated the gaudily dressed woman, who smiled a challenge to the room. “It’s Nell we really owe for Evelina’s safety.”
Nell got up and fetched some chipped plates from a cupboard, along with a box of pastries. Griz poured tea.
“What happened?” Sir Nicholas demanded of his daughter, who was tugging him to sit down. The tiny children squashed onto the chair beside her, and Alexandra sat next to them.
“I was playing in the garden with Anna,” Evelina said, “but it was time to go in. I went to pick up the ball—which Anna, not I, threw into the bushes, by the way—and this man appeared on top of the garden wall. I said Good afternoon, very politely, and he said something I didn’t even understand. Then another man appeared, and before I knew it, the first one leaned down and just hauled me up. I couldn’t even scream, though I tried, and then one of them put his hand over my mouth, jumped down with me, and dragged me into a wagon. I bit his hand,” Evelina said with satisfaction. “Twice.”
“Good for you, my pet,” said Nell stoutly.
“I wriggled and kicked as well,” Evelina boasted, and her father put his arm around her, hugging her convulsively.
“Did they hit you?” he asked, low. “Hurt you in any way?”
“Well, only in that they wouldn’t let me go or make a sound. So I stopped struggling until I could see out the back of the wagon, where the tarpaulin didn’t close properly, that we were right by a market. So, while my bad man was talking to the other, I suddenly pulled free and jumped out.”
“She did,” Nell confirmed. “Exploded out the back of that wagon and ran like a hare. I knew at once she weren’t running just from a heavy-handed dad. And I’ve seen men like that before, too. They knocked over a stall chasing after her. I sent her down this street, and me and some others got in their way. They never saw where she went.”
“Did you see where they went?” Sir Nicholas asked. Though he sounded calm, there was murder in his eyes.
“They were attracting too much attention,” Nell said. “A policeman was running toward them, so they jumped up behind their poor little donkey and headed off in the direction of Long Acre. You won’t find them now.”
Sir Nicholas held her gaze. “And is this your house, madam?”
She grinned. “Bless you, no, it ain’t. Madam, though,” she added to Griz. “I could get to like him as much as your man.”
“What made you come in here?” Alexandra asked Evelina.
“I just tried the doors, and this one opened.”
“Dear God,” her father whispered.
“It’s respectable down here,” Nell assured him. “I knew she wouldn’t come to no harm.”
“And you found these other children on their own?” Alexandra asked Evelina, who nodded. “Have they no parents? No one who looks after them?”
“They have a Papa,” Evelina offered.
“Work,” uttered the little boy, George.
“Their mum died birthing the youngest,” Nell said. “Her next door is meant to look in on them during the day, but she’s got her hands full. Expect she forgets sometimes.”
Alexandra took in the awfulness of this, of a man who was forced to leave his children in order to work so that he could feed them. Her throat closed up.
Sir Nicholas swung suddenly on Dragan. “When I saw them here with Evelina, it struck me they were the other children taken from their homes for ransom. How do you know they aren’t?”
Dragan raised his brows. “Nell.”
“He don’t trust a witness like me,” Nell observed, mocking but apparently unoffended.
“Why not?” Evelina asked her father in surprise. “Nell is kind.”
“Oh, I am,” Nell agreed, casting a cheeky smile at Sir Nicholas, who seemed more amused than put out.
“I do not doubt it, madam.”
“Besides,” Griz said, “the children talk to Evelina. She understands them if we do not.”
Nicholas glanced from her to Dragan and back. “How did you find them?”
“There were hoof and cart tracks on the other side of your garden wall,” Dragan said. “Which meant we had different questions to ask your neighbors. They had not seen Evelina, but they’d seen a donkey and cart emerge from the side path and head toward Covent Garden. We thought we had lost them there, but luck was with us in the shape of Nell, who is an old friend.”
“Not so old,” Nell objected.
Alexandra gazed at Griz in fascination. She did not appear to mind, or even notice, that her new husband had just claimed old friendship with a woman who was clearly a prostitute.
“If it weren’t for Nell and her friends,” Dragan said, “we would not have found the murderer of Nancy Barrow, the duchess’s maid.”
Now Nell did look embarrassed and finished her tea with a hearty slurp. “Yes, well, that was Junie, mostly, but I’m always glad to help you, my love,” she said cheerfully, “and even your sweet lady. I’d better rush, for their dad won’t like to find the likes of me with his kids.”
But she was too late. The door opened casually, and a man in working clothes and a cap walked in and stopped dead, his mouth dropping open. His children slid off their chair and waddled toward him.
He scowled, hugging them to his legs. “You ain’t taking them to no orphanage,” he growled. “They get food and shelter with me.”
Sir Nicholas stood. “We wouldn’t dream of interfering in such matters. As it is, we must apologize for invading your home. My name is Nicholas Swan, and this is my daughter, who ran in here to escape her kidnappers. This is Mr. and Mrs. Tizsa who found her, and Miss Battle, my daughter’s governess.”
“And I’m Nell, though you don’t want to know.”
The man cast her a harassed glance.
“My daughter did not want to leave your children until you came home,” Sir Nicholas added.
“We found her cutting bread for them,” Griz offered.
The scowl deepened. “Mrs. Brand next door is meant to give them food, make sure they’re safe.” His gaze flickered to Evelina, who, sensing their imminent departure, had gone to the smaller children. They left their father’s legs to hug her.
“I’m afraid they have also had cake,” Alexandra offered.
Griz said, “The leftovers are in the cupboard, along with more tea, since we’ve been drinking it uninvited in your house. But we’ll get out of your hair now.”
“Can we come back and visit, Miss Battle?” Evelina pleaded.
“Well, that is really up to both fathers,” Alexandra said hastily. She fully expected Nicholas to make polite noises and lead Evelina firmly out of the depressing room. But again, he surprised her.
“You cannot be alone in your difficulty,” he said to his fellow parent. “If I think up a viable solution, I will be in touch. I’m eternally grateful for your unwitting shelter. Goodbye!”
The other father, who hadn’t uttered a word after his initial declaration, gazed after them in bafflement as they left his house. The carriage waited in the street. The coachman appeared to be trading insults with the driver of another vehicle who was having difficulty passing.
