A Husband's Wicked Ways (35 page)

Alex nodded. “I’ll go to the right, you question the left.”

Greville strolled casually from group to group, inquiring with matching carelessness if anyone had seen his wife recently. Many remembered her dancing the quadrille, and a few remembered her leaving the dance floor with her partner at the finale, but that was such an ordinary occurrence no one had thought to see where she went next.

Until a maidservant appeared from behind a screen carrying something. She was making her way purposefully towards Hector, the Bonhams’ butler, who stood at the top of the grand staircase, keeping a watchful eye on all and sundry. Greville moved quickly after her.

He saw her curtsy apologetically to the austere butler and extend her offering. Greville, with a polite word, took the object from her. It was Aurelia’s fan. “Where did you find this?”

The girl look flustered, as if she was being accused of something. Greville said swiftly to the butler, “It’s my wife’s fan. I don’t mean to frighten the girl, but it’s important I know where she found it.”

Hector had not managed Viscount Bonham’s household for the last fifteen years without knowing when to
respond without thought or question. He said to the maid, “Just tell Sir Greville where you found it, Millie.”

“At bottom o’ the back stairs, sir,” the girl said, addressing Hector. “Lying on the second step up from the bottom. I don’t know ’ow a lady’s fan could ’ave got there, sir, indeed I don’t.” She sounded as distressed as if she’d been accused of stealing it herself.

“No, I’m sure you don’t, Millie. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. Thank you for bringing it back so quickly.” Greville smiled at the flustered maid, nodded to Hector, and walked away with the fan. His step appeared leisured, but he covered the distance between the gallery and the place where he had last seen Harry Bonham in the time it would have taken him to run it.

Harry was about to take the floor with his wife when he saw Greville. Something about the man’s progress alerted him, and with a murmured excuse to Cornelia he stepped out of the set. Alex was there to take his place so speedily Cornelia wasn’t sure how the transfer had happened.

“What’s going on?” she asked Alex, as they offered the customary bows and curtsies before the dance began.

Alex merely smiled and shrugged, extending his hand to draw her into a figure. “Not sure, but we’ll know in good time.”

Cornelia nodded and followed her partner through the motions, although neither of then were concentrating on the dance.

Harry reached Greville, who said only, “Fetch Franny.”

Harry gave a short nod of acknowledgment. “I’ll send Lester. It’ll draw less attention.”

“You know best. He’ll need the key to the back door and the words for Lyra…to get her to stand down.”

Harry listened, took the key, nodded again, and left the ballroom with a step similar to Greville’s in speed.

Greville went back to the gallery. He stepped behind the screen and went down the narrow staircase. There was no sign of a struggle. Aurelia had left her sign on the second step from the bottom. The door was still unlatched. He stepped out into the darkened alley and raised his face and silently howled at the moon for the idiot he had been. Criminal fool.

He had thought she would be safe in a crowded ballroom. He had barely taken his eyes off her for a moment. But it wasn’t Aurelia they wanted, or rather, she was merely a means to an end.

They wanted him.
They would communicate with him soon. Until then he could only pray he was not too late to take Franny well out of danger, and that they would keep Aurelia alive, at least until they had him.

He walked the alleyway slowly. A pile of dung marked where horses had stood for a while, close to the side door. It was still warm. He frowned down at it. Half an hour since it had been dropped. Maybe a little more. He bent to scrutinize the cobbles. Three rusty spots just behind the dung heap. His heart jumped against his ribs. It was drying but not solidified.

Aurelia was hurt, but not badly. And maybe she had
left the sign for him, as she had left the fan. She was still in control then. He followed the ruts of the carriage wheels out to the open street, but there was no way of telling which way they had gone from there. Too much traffic obliterated any small indication.

“Anything?” Harry, Alex at his side, appeared seemingly from nowhere.

“A few drops of blood in the alley. I think Aurelia wanted me to see them.”

“She’s hurt?” Alex sounded outraged.

“Not badly, I believe,” Greville stated dispassionately. “It’s me they want.” He gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Anyway, they’ll contact me soon enough if Aurelia’s their hostage. They’ll know I won’t surrender without seeing her whole, so for the moment she’s safe, and believe me, gentlemen, she has her wits about her.”

“And how will you escape the trap?” Harry inquired, sounding almost as nonchalant as Greville.

“That, my friend, depends on the trap,” Greville said. “Different snares, different teeth, different exits.”

“Whatever you need from us.”

Greville acknowledged Alex’s statement of support with a brief smile. “Once you have Franny safe, I’ll return to South Audley Street and wait for them to contact me.”

“Let’s go back inside. Cornelia and Livia need to know what’s happening, I’m afraid. They’ll hold the fort and maintain the illusion of normality for a while, but…” Harry shrugged.

“It can do no harm,” Greville said, still reluctant to involve anyone in his own business, but realizing this was no longer only his business. By taking Aurelia as his partner, he had thrown open his whole operation to the possibility that others, admittedly those in his own shadow world, would claim a part if they thought it necessary. And if Aurelia was in danger, then they thought it necessary. He had no choice now.

They returned to the ball and the orchestra played on; the guests danced, supped, and played cards; and their hosts, and two of their hosts’ guests, smiled bravely and kept watch for Lester.

Lester slipped his key into the kitchen door. It turned on beautifully oiled locks and he nodded his approval. The kitchen was lit by the low embers in the range, but nothing else. It threw enough light, however, for him to step to the door leading into the front part of the house. He knew about Lyra, and he knew a night watchman was on duty at the front door. But if an intruder had entered, then the watchman was in trouble.

He walked on cat’s paws, through the door into the hall. He saw the watchman slumped upon the floor. But he had no time to check his well-being. Someone had entered the house, and that someone had been intent on taking the child.
Was he too late?

Lester stepped silently up the stairs to the first landing. He stopped, listened, then heard the growl, soft
yet even more menacing for that. He moved towards the sound, then stopped at what he saw. He spoke the words he’d been told to the dog, and the hound, without raising her head from her captive’s throat, looked him straight in the eye.

Lester spoke further words as he walked softly towards the hound and the supine man. Lyra obeyed and raised her head, giving Lester room to put his own hand around the throat of the captive, pinning him to the floor. Lyra sat back on her haunches, beside her captive, watching while Lester ordered the terrified Miguel onto his belly and secured his wrists behind him.

“What a magnificent creature you are,” Lester said, reaching a tentative hand to touch Lyra’s head. The dog lowered her great head and allowed him to stroke her as if accepting praise for a job well done.

Lester yanked Miguel to his feet and kicked a door open onto a bedchamber. He shoved the man facedown on the bed and fastened his feet as securely as his hands, then wrapped a rope around his waist, fastening him securely to the bedposts at the foot of the bed.

“That should keep you until I come back for you, my friend,” Lester said cheerfully. “But just in case, we’ll have Lyra standing guard.” He spoke to the dog, who had followed him and sat watching the proceedings, head cocked in apparent interest.

Now for the child. The dog wouldn’t let him take her without the necessary words, but fortunately he had those. Whether he could get the volatile Franny down
the stairs and out of the house without a great fuss was another matter. Lester squatted, took the dog’s chin, and spoke the few words he’d been given, looking her directly in the eyes. Lyra listened, then gave a breathy sigh and lay down beside the bed, where their captive lay trussed.

Lester, relieved, rose to his feet and went, less quietly than before, up to the nursery. Daisy was asleep in her own bedchamber that adjoined Franny’s, but he was astonished to see the child sitting up in bed, gazing wide-eyed, but utterly fearlessly, at the door as he slipped in. A small night-light burned on the table beside the bed.

“Lester?” Franny whispered. “Have you to come to take me to the ball?”

“Exactly that, princess,” he said, scooping up blankets around her.

T
HE CARRIAGE RIDE SEEMED
to Aurelia to have gone on forever by the time the horses came to a stop. But it only seemed to. Greville had taught her how to keep a rough track of time even in the gloom imposed by the curtained windows of the carriage, and she guessed, by counting up to a hundred over and over at a regular speed, that they had been traveling for a little more than half an hour. The method was rough and ready, but it focused her mind and kept panic at bay.

She remained in her corner, eyes half-closed, her eyes on her abductor as the door was opened from the outside.

“Get out,” Vasquez instructed.

She shrugged with apparent nonchalance and stepped out into an unlit yard. She looked quickly up at the night sky. The Big Dipper hung low and bright. Her eyes followed an imaginary line upwards from its bowl to the vivid brightness of Polaris. The driver stepped back a little from the door, and Don Antonio jumped down, taking
Aurelia’s arm. She saw the silver glint of the knife in his other hand and controlled her shudder. But she said nothing, offered no resistance as he pushed her towards a low building looming at the far side of the yard.

The reek of horseflesh was strong in the air, and there was straw on the cobbles beneath her feet. It was a stable block, she realized, as she was thrust into a musty interior where the smell of horse was even stronger, mingling with the aromas of oiled leather and manure. The driver came in behind them, holding a lantern high, throwing shadows on the slatted walls and the stall partitions.

Vasquez unbolted a door to one of the stalls and gestured with a curt nod of his head that Aurelia should enter. She hesitated for only an instant, but it was enough for him to bring the knife up, laying its blade flat against her cheek.

“All right, all right,” she said testily, stepping back into the stall. “You’ve made yourself quite clear.”

“For your sake, I hope so.” He closed the bottom half of the door and bolted it. He leaned his elbows on top. “You will notice the metal rings in the wall at the rear of the stall. I will utilize them if you oblige me to. But I’m sure you’ll prefer not to be restrained, so I suggest you keep quiet.” He stepped back and slammed shut the top half of the door, shooting the bolt with a definitive snap, leaving her in semidarkness.

Aurelia waited until her eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom that was relieved by the glow from the lantern shining in golden bars through the ill-fitting slats
of the partition. The iron rings were all too obvious; presumably they were used to hold the halter of an unruly horse.

The comparison was not pleasant, she reflected wryly, sitting down on a bale of hay, leaning her back against the partition wall, and methodically sorting through what she knew and what she thought she knew.

First of all, Greville was Don Antonio’s target. But had something gone amiss with the Spaniard’s plans? It seemed that a man called Miguel was missing or had failed to keep a rendezvous. It seemed highly likely that he was to have had something to do with Franny. They intended to use Franny as a means to coerce her. Coerce her to go along quietly with her abduction…that seemed likely. Of course the blade of a knife and the willingness to use it had done just as well, she reflected grimly. But it was a clumsy means of abduction, and she had the sense that Don Antonio Vasquez did not care for clumsiness.

But why did they abduct her? Presumably to use her to trap Greville. But if that was so, they didn’t know their target at all. Greville wouldn’t walk into a trap, and he would certainly do nothing to jeopardize his own mission.

Not even to save her?
She pondered the question as coolly as she could. Greville would not abandon her, unless he had absolutely no choice. That she knew. But if he had no choice…or if the choice lay between Aurelia and the completion of his mission…? That she didn’t know.
It was a bleak recognition, but not a surprising one. Greville had never been less than honest with her.

So either she saved herself or found a way to ensure that Greville could save her without jeopardizing himself or his mission.

Very simple…and from her position on a hay bale locked in a stable in the middle of God only knew where, well nigh impossible.

Lester carried Franny into the house through the kitchen. The kitchen was crowded with servants still catering to the guests in the supper room. A few distracted glances were sent in his direction, but no one had time to wonder what he carried or where he’d been.

“Robbie,” he called sharply to a footman who was carrying a tray of glasses towards the servants’ stairs. “Leave those, and tell Lord Bonham I’m in the kitchen.
Now.
”

No one in this house questioned Lester, any more than they would question Lord or Lady Bonham. The man set down his burden immediately and hurried up the stairs. Lester settled Franny in her blankets into a chair close by the range.

“I thought I was going to the ball,” she objected. “But I can’t in my nightgown.”

“No, indeed, you can’t, lassie. But I daresay a little marzipan won’t come amiss.” Lester took two of the sweetmeats off a silver platter, ignoring the cook’s indignant splutter at his disturbance of the elegant arrangement.

Greville was first into the kitchen, and as soon as he saw the child, a wave of intense relief washed through him. Now he could give all his attention to Aurelia. He crossed to Franny and squatted on his haunches in front of her. “I’m sorry to have woken you, Franny. But your mother wants you to stay the night with Stevie and Susannah in the nursery here.”

“Where is Mama?” Franny demanded through a mouthful of marzipan.

“She’s dancing, sweetheart,” Cornelia said from behind Greville. She exchanged a quick look with him as she came up to the child. “Let’s go up to Linton, she’s waiting for you.” Cornelia scooped up Franny, ignoring incipient protests, and carried her away.

“There’s a chap trussed up and waitin’ on you, Sir Greville,” Lester said in his laconic fashion. “That hound of yours is worth her weight in gold, I’d say. Had him by the throat, just waiting for me to scoop him up.”

Harry, who had just entered the kitchen with Alex, let out a low whistle. “So they
were
after Franny, too?”

“So it would seem,” Greville said grimly, making for the outside door. “But I’ll find out soon enough.”

“I’ll come with you,” Harry said.

Greville raised a hand. “No, I need no help for this. I prefer to do my own dirty work, and there’s no knowing how difficult he’ll be to break.”

Harry shrugged. “As you wish. What
can
we do?” He glanced at Alex. “You’re with us, Prokov?”

“Of course.”

“Take a look around Vasquez’s lodgings,” Greville said, giving them the address. “There may be a clue, something…although I doubt it. The man’s a consummate professional.”

“He still managed to leave one of his men behind,” Harry pointed out.

Greville gave a short, hard laugh. “So he did…so he did.” He strode from the kitchen and out into the cool night air. They wouldn’t hurt Aurelia any more than they had already done, they would have no reason to, he told himself as he ran through the streets to his own house. They wanted him, only him. But it was false comfort, he knew. Vasquez would have no need of Aurelia once he’d got Greville, and he couldn’t afford to let her go as a living witness to who and what he was. But he would keep her alive until he had accomplished his mission.

Greville let himself into his house and stopped for a brief moment by the fallen body of the night watchman. The man was dead. Another score to settle with Vasquez’s henchman. He took the stairs two at a time, and heard Lyra’s low growl as he reached the hallway at the head. The dog was standing in a bedroom doorway halfway along the corridor.

“So that’s where you have him,” Greville observed, coming up to the hound, laying a calm hand on her massive head. The dog pushed her head into his hand,
then backed into the bedroom. She stood at the side of the bed, head cocked, as if offering him some newly caught prey.

“Well, well, what have we here?” Greville murmured at the prone figure. Miguel turned his head out of the quilt with difficulty and glared at Greville. Defiance was in the glare, but also fear. Miguel knew what to expect at the hands of the
asp
.

Greville shrugged out of his coat, laying it carefully over the back of a chair. He stood by the bed, rolling up his sleeves with exaggerated care. “Where is she?” he asked almost conversationally.

Miguel gazed up into those merciless dark gray eyes and a shudder went through him. Then he turned his face into the quilt in a gesture of rejection. Greville sighed.

It was growing cold in the stable and Aurelia’s gauze-and-satin ball gown offered little protection. She crossed her bare arms over her breasts and tried to control her shivers. Finally she stood up and banged on the door. “Don Antonio, I’m cold.” It seemed almost better at this point to invite violence than to continue in this freezing uncertainty.

The top half of the door opened. “I told you to be quiet.”

“Yes, but perhaps you didn’t realize how cold it is. And as you can see, I’m scarcely dressed for it.” Aurelia
was astounded at herself. She sounded irritated and impatient, as if she had a positive right to demand creature comforts. To her immense gratification, she saw that her manner disconcerted her captor.

“Surely there’s a horse blanket or something around here,” she said, trying to peer around him into the rest of the building. He slapped her face with the flat of his hand and she jerked her head back. The door slammed shut.

Aurelia retreated to her hay bale again. The slap had stung, but no worse than that. It was more a warning than an intent to hurt. After a few minutes, the top half of the door opened again and something landed at her feet. She picked it up and shook out the rough homespun folds of a stale-smelling horse blanket.

She wrapped herself up gratefully, then remembered another of Greville’s maxims.
Sleep when there is nothing else you can do.
Not that she thought Greville had expected her to need many of his maxims, those, at least, that applied to the riskier aspects of his work. But still, that one seemed to make sense in the present circumstances.

She pulled apart the hay bale and made a nest of sorts, then curled herself into it, snug in the blanket. She didn’t expect to sleep, but somehow she did.

She awoke with a start at the sound of the door opening. Lamplight flooded the stall, and she blinked from deep in her nest. Don Antonio stood above her.

“I apologize for disturbing your beauty sleep, ma’am,”
he said with heavy sarcasm. “But perhaps I could trouble you for your attention.”

Aurelia sat up, then stood up, keeping the blanket tight around her. Now she wished she hadn’t slept. Somehow the calm resolution of earlier had deserted her, and all she could see was the cruel line of his mouth and the bottomless black depths of his impassive gaze. Now, she thought, now, he would hurt her.

Greville regarded Miguel with dispassion and said in fluent Spanish, “So if you didn’t come here to take the child, why did you come?”

Miguel’s bloodshot, pain-filled eyes gazed up at him. “A lock of her hair,” he croaked. “Something to prove I had been close to her.” He began to babble as he saw his tormentor reach again for Miguel’s own little box of diamond-tipped tools. “He didn’t want the child…too much trouble…just something to get her mother to cooperate…to be afraid for the child.”

Greville nodded as if in complete understanding and agreement and inquired pleasantly, “So, where is Vasquez holding my wife?”

Miguel groaned. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come now, my friend, you can’t believe I’m such a fool. You were to take him the token…so where were you to take it?”

“I was to meet him outside the house…back of the house, when Don Antonio brought the woman out to
the carriage. But that damned dog…” Miguel coughed, turning his head into the coverlet.

“But you know where they are now.” Greville reached down and twisted the man’s head so that he faced him and Miguel stared into the inexorable dark eyes. “Tell me,” Greville murmured gently, before saying something softly to Lyra.

Miguel shrieked as the hound leaped astride him.

Aurelia looked at the parchment on the rickety wooden table in front of her. “This is a begging letter. My husband will know immediately that these pathetic words are not my own.”

“It makes no difference,” Vasquez stated. “It will bring him. Sign it.”

“It won’t bring him,” she said quietly. “It won’t convince him that I am alive. Only my own words can do that. He won’t step into your trap unless he believes that my life is at stake.”
And maybe not even then.

“Oh, make no mistake, my lady, it most certainly is,” Vasquez said barely above a whisper. The knife was in his hand once more and he saw her quick shudder. He had hoped that while he waited on the off chance that Miguel would finally appear, apprehension would soften her for him, but she’d given him no signs of it. But the knife frightened her. “And the
asp
will know that by now.”

The
asp
? But then Aurelia lost all interest in such a
name as Vasquez ordered Carlos to hold her hand flat on the table.

“You will sign in your blood,” Vasquez stated, laying the tip of the knife against the nail bed of her forefinger. “We shall see how long it takes to slice the skin from this pretty finger…about ten minutes, I should think. Ten very slow minutes.” The knife point slid beneath the skin at the base of the nail and the world spun around her.

“Wait,”
she gasped. “I’ll sign, but not this. If you want him to believe it’s worth trying to save me, you will let
me
ask him to come.” She flicked the parchment with her free hand. “He will think you forced me to sign a blank piece of paper and then wrote your own words above my signature. He will assume I am already dead.”