Dangerous Lover, page 9
She wanted it to be genuine.
As she was about to leave her bedroom for the schoolroom, sounds in the garden drew her to the window. She looked down onto the garden, where a huddle of men stood among the bushes by the righthand garden wall, where they had found the trap door to the cellar yesterday.
One of the men was Sir Nicholas, negligently leaning one shoulder against the wall. Another looked very like Inspector Harris, who had called yesterday about Evelina’s disappearance.
Alexandra reached up and opened the window a crack, enough to air the room. And to hear the voices drifting up from the garden.
A policeman’s hat appeared through the door, followed by his body. “Nothing down there, sir,” he reported. “It’s quite empty and seems to have been blocked off decades ago from the cellars beneath the house.”
Nothing? It had been jammed with brandy and wine, tobacco and spices…
Another policeman followed the first. “Signs of recent movement, though, sir.”
“What signs?” Harris asked.
Alexandra made the mistake of glancing at Sir Nicholas, who had not moved, and yet she was sure he gazed straight at her.
She dropped her hand from the window and walked away, thinking furiously. Where had all the contraband—if that is what it was—gone? Had Sir Nicholas got rid of it? Had the man she had seen in the library with him taken it away? Was that the agreement Sir Nicholas had talked about ending? There was, surely, a clear connection between the trap door and the men who had climbed over the wall and kidnapped Evelina. But where on earth did Sir Nicholas fit in? Had he known the contraband was there? Had he turned a blind eye or agreed to its storage?
Alexandra went early to the schoolroom. She wanted to be there when Evelina emerged from her bedchamber. So, she sorted out the lessons for the day while she waited. Clara brought breakfast in, just as Evelina emerged with Anna.
Evelina grinned at Alexandra and ran to the table. “Breakfast!”
“Well, don’t fall on it like a little piglet,” Alexandra ordered, and Evelina giggled, though she sat calmly down at the table and waited for Alexandra to join her before she reached for the bread and butter. Breakfast here was more in the European manner than the heavier fare of England.
Anna went casually back into the bedchamber, no doubt about her duties, and Evelina did not appear to notice.
They had just finished breakfast when Sir Nicholas strolled into the room.
“Papa!” Evelina greeted him with her usual delight.
“Buttery fingers!” Alexandra warned them both, but Sir Nicholas only laughed and swung his daughter up and around in his usual, boisterous greeting to her.
“I’ve got something to show you,” he said, planting her feet back on the ground. “In the garden.”
Something changed in her eyes, an echo of the haunted look Alexandra had seen last night. “In the garden?” she repeated hesitantly.
“Yes. Miss Battle should come, too. And Anna,” he added as the nursemaid hovered in the doorway.
Evelina took his hand trustingly, although it was clear she didn’t really want to go. Alexandra and Anna exchanged glances and followed.
The sky was overcast, as though it was about to rain. Sir Nicholas led Anna straight toward the spot she had been abducted from. Surprisingly, James lurked there already. Still, Evelina lagged back, looking up at her father in alarm. He smiled reassuringly and said something that made her laugh, and she walked on.
“Look,” Sir Nicholas said, pointing to the trap door. “The police came this morning and confirmed there is nothing stored down there, and now nothing will be.” He crouched and rubbed his hand over the place the iron ring had been. “We removed the handle, and we’re going to cover it up with rocks and earth and plant a tree over it so that no one can get in again. And over there,” he pointed to the wall, “we’ve blocked off either entrance to the passage. I wanted to show you, so you know you’ll be quite safe here in your own garden. Now, will Miss Battle permit a quick game of tag before lessons begin?”
“She will,” Alexandra said.
She could not deny he was doing the right thing, replacing yesterday’s fear with a much more pleasant memory. As she watched him play with his daughter, chasing her and running comically away from her, diving behind trees and leaping over flowerpots, she could not help smiling. Despite what she had overheard yesterday evening, today, her suspicions seemed quite unfounded. Here was no dangerous, arrogant man with criminal connections, merely a doting father with no thought of his dignity.
Despite the rain, which put an end to the tag game, Alexandra made sure that Evelina passed a busy day with lessons, including a little history, painting, and music. They were just having tea when the schoolroom door opened and Griz sauntered in.
“Good afternoon,” she said brightly. “I see I am not interrupting important lessons.”
“Only tea. Let me send for another cup,” Alexandra offered.
“Oh, no, thank you. I am awash with tea.”
Evelina laughed at this idea and explained it to Anna in Italian, calling through the schoolroom door to the playroom.
“You may excuse yourself,” Alexandra interrupted, “and go and speak to Anna more quietly.”
Evelina popped the last of the scone into her mouth and slid off her chair.
“Oh, Evelina,” Griz said, “one of the reasons I came was to ask if you had any toys that are too young for you now that you might like to give to George and Jilly.”
“They didn’t have any toys,” Evelina said, frowning.
“Exactly,” Griz said.
Evelina, forgetting all about the tea washing around Lady Grizelda’s insides, ran through to her playroom with more purpose.
“And your other reason?” Alexandra murmured.
“They fished two bodies out of the Thames this morning,” Griz said, low. “We believe they might be Evelina’s abductors.”
Alexandra blinked. “What makes you think that?”
“One of them owned a donkey. And a covered cart. I know it’s hardly conclusive, but the timing makes us suspicious. A botched kidnapping and two men with a donkey are murdered the same night?”
“Murdered?” Evelina repeated, much to Alexandra’s horror. She had crept up with her arms full of toys. A small, brightly painted rocking horse fell to the floor, and she bent to pick it up. “Did my father kill them?”
Alexandra’s mouth fell open. Her gaze flew wildly to Griz, then back to Evelina, who did not seem remotely upset.
“What makes you think that?” Griz asked lightly, picking the rocking horse up from the table where Evelina had put it.
“He did it before,” Evelina said. “I think George would like the horse and the monkey, and Jilly would like this doll and the bear. What do babies like?”
“Perhaps something else cuddly, like the bear,” Alexandra said faintly. “Or ask Anna if you have an old teething ring that isn’t a family heirloom…”
As Evelina trotted off again, Alexandra and Griz stared at each other.
“Did he?” Griz asked.
“How would I know? I’ve only just got here.”
“But could he have killed our men? For what they did to Evelina?”
Alexandra’s breath caught all over again. Was that the reason he had let the man leave last night? So he could kill him away from home? “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what he’s capable of or what he isn’t.”
There were footsteps in the passage, men’s voices.
“You should also know,” Griz said hurriedly, “he asked Dragan to find out what he can about you. But I think we need to find out about him.”
The schoolroom door opened on Alexandra’s bemusement, and Sir Nicholas strolled in with Dragan Tizsa.
Predictably, Evelina erupted from her playroom, rushing at her father. A knitted dog with large ears dangled from one hand. “I’m going to give this to George and Jilly’s baby because she doesn’t have any toys, and neither do they, so I’m giving them a few of mine.”
“That is very kind and definitely the right thing to do,” Sir Nicholas said.
“If you don’t mind,” Griz murmured.
“Of course not. They are Evelina’s toys. Something more basic needs to be done for such families, but this will do to begin with. Have you visited them again, Mrs. Tizsa?”
“No, though Dragan spoke to Nell,” Griz replied, apparently unconcerned about her husband consorting with such a woman.
“She’d look in on them if she could,” Mr. Tizsa said, “but their father isn’t keen on such company for them.”
“I don’t suppose Nell is very keen on some of the company she keeps either,” Sir Nicholas said unexpectedly. “For these people, everything is about survival.”
“Is Nell not respectable?” Evelina asked.
“She was kind to you and the other children,” Alexandra said hastily, “which is what is important.” She felt Sir Nicholas’s gaze on her but refused to look round.
“Sit down for a moment,” he said to his daughter. “Would you look at a couple of pictures that Mr. Tizsa drew, and tell us if you recognize the people in them?”
She glanced up at him warily, as though she knew what they were going to show her. Then she nodded and sat. Mr. Tizsa took a notebook from his pocket and flipped through it. He showed her first the sketched head and shoulders of a handsome young man. It was extraordinarily detailed and lifelike, from the texture of the hair to facial expression.
Evelina shook her head. “I don’t know him.”
“What about him?” Dragan turned the page and showed another, very different man. Although he must have drawn it from the dead body rather than the living person, and there was no real expression in the eyes, he did not look like a corpse dragged out of the river. He did not look like the man who had emerged from the library last night either.
Evelina sat back, reaching for her father, and nodded. “That’s him,” she whispered. “The man who grabbed me. Is he dead?”
“Yes,” her father replied, without expression. “What about this one?”
Alexandra pressed a hand to her twisting stomach, but this man was not Sir Nicholas’s visitor either. She could think whether that was good or bad.
“It looks like his friend,” Evelina said, glancing at the next sketch. “But he was driving the donkey. I didn’t see him much.”
“Thank you, Evelina,” Dragan said, taking the notebook away and shoving it back in his pocket. “You’ve been very helpful. And you know you’ll never run into these characters again.”
She nodded.
“Do you have a few minutes, Tizsa?” Sir Nicholas said. “I’d like to talk to you about something else.”
Mr. Tizsa exchanged some brief, wordless communication with his wife. “I am at your service,” he said civilly and followed Sir Nicholas from the room.
Evelina made no objection, concerned as she was with putting the donated toys in a box. Since it was still raining, Anna took her through the playroom.
“Come to my room,” Alexandra murmured and led Griz along the passage to her spacious bedchamber, which Griz duly admired.
“You have found a comfortable position here,” she observed.
“Physically, yes. When did he ask Dragan to investigate me?”
“Yesterday.”
“But why? What does he suspect me of?”
“I don’t believe he truly suspects you of anything. He is merely being careful of the people around his daughter.”
Alexandra scowled. “Is that not something he should have done before he engaged me? To have shown any interest at all, rather than palming the trivial task off on his housekeeper?”
“I understand he is new to such matters. Apparently, although he saw Evelina often, he was not involved in her day-to-day upbringing until her mother died. I think what happened yesterday brought a few things home to him. Why are you so upset?”
Alexandra strode to the window, flapping one dismissive hand. “It is the lack of trust when I thought… when I thought we understood each other.”
Grizelda’s eyes bored into her back. “Is it? Or is there some dark secret in your past that Dragan might find?”
Alexandra flapped one impatient hand. “Of course not. I’ve never done anything wrong, Griz.”
“I know.”
Alexandra glanced at her, but she only took off her spectacles, polished them, and put them back on her nose.
“To be honest,” Griz said, “I am more concerned with this man Evelina says her father killed. I don’t altogether like you being here with such a man.”
“We don’t know the truth,” Alexandra said, her first instinct, stupidly, to defend the man who trusted her so little.
“Well, we can’t ask Evelina. The nursemaid came from Italy with them, did she not?”
“Anna? Yes, and James was with him there, too.”
“Well, I can talk to Anna under pretense of investigating you and see if I can’t learn more about him and this man Evelina said he killed.”
“Why don’t I talk to Anna?” Alexandra said suddenly. Why shouldn’t she question his servants when he was using her friends to investigate her? “She is beginning to trust me now after a rocky beginning. We shared anxiety, I suppose, over Evelina.”
“That would probably be simpler,” Griz agreed. “Your curiosity would be more natural.” She ran her fingers idly over the bed covering. “He is something of a mystery, is he not? Why does he live here, of all out-of-the-way places?”
“Apparently, his brother has grown used to the family townhouse in Mayfair.”
“Yes, but he could easily rent or buy another in a much better district than this.”
“It would be safer,” Alexandra agreed, then frowned. “Or would it? There a+re other children vanishing from better addresses than this.”
“Which is another odd thing. If there is someone ransoming wealthy children kidnapped in Mayfair, why come all the way to Hungerford for one? Are there not enough of them further west?”
Alexandra walked slowly back to the bed and sank down on the side opposite Griz. Her heart beat fast. The words hovered in her throat, but she didn’t know whether or not to speak them, to tell Griz about the man in Sir Nicholas’s library last night.
*
In his library, Sir Nicholas took a pamphlet from his desk drawer and threw it down in front of Tizsa, who sat opposite him. “Ever seen this before?”
Tizsa glanced at it but did not pick it up. “Should I have?”
“A man of your political persuasions? It is certainly a possibility.”
Tizsa was silent for a moment. For a man with such intense eyes, he was not easy to read. “I have seen it before. Once. When my brother-in-law, Lord Horace Niven, asked me to investigate its origins.”
“Did he, by God?” Nicholas murmured.
“I told him what I will tell you,” Tizsa said deliberately, “that I will not investigate cases involving free speech and free press.” He held Nicholas’s gaze. “I had already told him that neither will I indulge in sedition against the country that gives me refuge.”
“Is it seditious?”
“I am not a lawyer.”
“Nevertheless, I would appreciate your opinion.”
“There is little in it I disagree with.”
Nicholas smiled. “Then you have read it.”
“Of course.”
“Would you ever consider writing something in the same vein?”
“No,” Tizsa replied. “There are too many political points being made. I do not argue that one needs politics to effect necessary change, but I am no politician. I never was.”
“And yet you are well acquainted with several figures of radical reform. In Europe and here in England.”
“I will discuss poverty, housing, medical care, unemployment, with anyone.”
“And if I could find you a platform? An anonymous platform, if you prefer.”
Tizsa frowned. “I have never said anything I am not prepared to own publicly. I do not intend to start. But if you know who is responsible for this pamphlet, they should take care. It has disturbed Lord Horace’s department.”
“Perhaps I am equally disturbed by it.”
“Perhaps you are,” Tizsa retorted. “But in a man who has invested so generously in Lord Trench’s housing project, I would doubt it.”
Nicholas smiled faintly, meeting Tizsa’s curious gaze with one of limpid innocence.
“Tell me,” Tizsa said. “You are a wealthy man who made his fortune largely abroad. Where, on such a journey, did you develop such reforming tendencies?”
Nicholas shrugged. “I suppose it was gradual. I left home when I was very young, angry and driven, determined to prove myself more successful, a greater provider than my father ever was. I did. Of course, I was lucky from the first ship I bought into, and I have a knack for choosing good people to work for me. Perhaps it was that which made me discontented, restless. To look below the surface of my wealth and that of other people.”
“And still, you are angry.”
Nicholas blinked. “I?”
“I think so.”
“Aren’t you?” Nicholas asked, playing for time.
Tizsa shook his head. “Not now. Anger leads to uncontrolled events, to revolution, war, even greater oppression. The evidence is all over Europe.”
“But you have not given up,” Nicholas said swiftly.
Tizsa’s lips twisted. “There are those who will tell you I have. I married an aristocrat and live off her wealth.”
“Do you? I thought you held down a government post while running your own business and studying for medical examination.”
“Grizelda’s dowry and His Grace’s gifts are not unwelcome, for all that. Why did you choose this house?”
Again, the sudden question took him by surprise. “It was mine, it was empty, and it was unexpected. Perhaps it was a rude gesture to my origins and the kind of blinkered yet powerful people who live in Mayfair.”
“That power keeps the area safer than Hungerford or many other places on the banks of the Thames.”
