Love Between the Lines (27 page)

Lizzy
picked up her jacket, ready to expand the search, when the landlady knocked on the door.

Mrs. Pruitt called through her door.
“Sir Gideon has come to see you, miss. He’s waiting downstairs.”

Lizzy
shoved her arms into the jacket and thumped down the stairs quickly. He must have seen Oyster—that had to be the reason for his visit.

He rose from a chair in the parlor
, and before she’d even greeted him, he said, “You can’t find the papers, can you?”

“
Say, how’d you know? Right. Of course, Mrs. Pruitt told you. I have no idea who took them. I can’t imagine who’d just walk into the house in the middle of the morning and take…”

Her v
oice trailed off. A pale Sir Gideon watched her with a pained, almost nauseated expression.

“
Gideon? Are you all right?”

He shook his head.
“The anonymous note that I showed you—I didn’t show you the whole thing. The rest of it said that you’d had the same thing happen in New York.”

She nodded.
“Yes, it’s true. I came home from an interview and found that many of my papers were missing. It was very strange.”

It struck her then, like a kick in the stomach. He didn
’t believe her. Worse, he stood in the shabby drawing room and looked down at her with pity. God, she’d rather see rage.

Something thick came with the
pain—frightened love. She loved this man. But her heart shriveled at the look in his eyes now.

“
There is no evidence, Lizzy,” he said softly. “None.”

No time for despair. She had to plan her own defense.
“But the ledgers, the notes about the houses. You’re not the only one to get anonymous notes. Remember the note someone sent to me?” She still had that—she’d seen that in her bureau under the jewels.

She ran upstairs and fetched it. Out of breath, she came back down and handed it to him.
“See? It’s the same handwriting as the address Smith had. Someone has set me up.”

He looked at her without speaking.

“What are you thinking? Tell me, Gideon.”

“
I had thought you almost unnaturally brave when you faced Smith. It would make sense that you’d be so calm if you hired him yourself through an intermediary.”

“
No. No. There were pages, books of the records. It was so elaborate. I don’t understand.” She would not weep. Although now he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at something on the floor.

“
I shall have to find some way to write a retraction,” he said.

“
Once I figure this out, I’ll write the story of the ledgers and how I was deceived—”

“
No.”

“
What?”

“
Lizzy, I understand you needed to make a success of your life here.”

“
You truly think I did it? You think I invented it all?” The words stuck in her throat, but she got them out.

He put his hands on her shoulders, squeez
ing them tight. “I was so angry at you, but I know you had your reasons.”

“
You don’t believe me.”

He looked at her then.
“I don’t know. But I have to do what I must for my newspaper and my reputation. I need cold, hard facts, and you have given me none. I can’t tell what is truth.”

“
No. That’s not how it works,” she cried. “You either do or you don’t believe me. I’m not saying I
thought
I saw something. I did more than that. I held the ledgers in my hands. I did not hire Smith to attack me. That’s absurd.”

He looked away as if her pain was causing him pain as well.

“I care about you, Lizzy. I will do what I can to help.”

“
Send me home?”

His brows darkened.
“If you must. But perhaps you could stay here, stay with me.”

Stay with him
, not with Langham House. “As your paid mistress.”

“
That’s a very coarse way of putting it.”

“
Live with you?”

He swallowed.
“I’d help maintain a household for you because you have no job and you can’t starve in the streets. I care about you, Lizzy. I thought, think I even…l—”

“
No more. Just stop.” She was struck by a sudden weariness, the kind that comes on the heels of utter misery, and she went to the front door and opened it. “Good-bye, Sir Gideon. I will survive, and I will find out what happened to me. Dear God, it might all have been aimed at me. Even the dead girl.”

She laughed wi
th no humor. “Miss Miles grew frightened at my name. It’s as if some spirit followed me from home and has tried to destroy me.”

“
You sound as hysterical—”

“
I know. As a madwoman. Go, Sir Gideon. I need quiet to think. I have to understand what happened and what I must do.”

He gave a single nod then
left.

Lizzy
’s horror was followed by a wave of homesickness. She longed to walk out this door and straight into Bill’s diner in New York and tell them about the absurd goings-on in London. She’d make the story so entertaining, they’d all collapse with laughter together and she’d wrangle a free meal out of Bill.

She
went to the window and watched Gideon’s tall figure stride away from her. Out of her life.

Sucking in a ragged breath, she wiped her wrist over her mouth
to hold in the scream. Work. Work. Any time life proved too horrible, she’d think about what she could write.

She
’d think about stories in New York, of course. This life was over. Perhaps she could write about the corruption of the baggage-smashers at the Grand Central terminal. The thieves, not the legitimate handlers.

She
’d inject the note of sympathy and paint portraits of the lives of the homeless boys who coerced people into letting them carry their luggage—and then stole the bags. She already knew the lads who’d be able to tell a convincing tale too.

The captain could help her track down a person who
’d lost most of his worldly goods to one of the little thieves. No, better to find a female, a little old lady. Both sides of the same sad story. If Tooley gave the nod to a series, she’d be off to City Hall to bother her favorite clerk into discovering what sort of solution was in the works. There was always a solution stalled somewhere in the works.

No
more intrigue. She wouldn’t start from scratch in her familiar territory where she rarely encountered uncomfortable surprises.

First
, she would find out who hated her so much that he’d ruin her life. She’d get the answers she needed. And then she’d take those answers and the tangible proof straight to Sir Gideon.

When
he offered her job back, she’d tell him to go to hell and she’d sail home at last. She imagined saying good-bye to him, and the tears filled her eyes again. She’d already done that. No need to torture herself again. She had work to do.

She found a note from Lord Ernest waiting for her at the hall mirror. Her landlady said it had been delivered by a messenger boy.

“We should discuss the article,” the note said. “Please meet me at our home.”

“Yes, we should.” Fine. The first person she would go see was that rat, Lord Ernest.

Wrapped in misery, she didn
’t remember leaving her house and walking like an automaton to Langham House in search of Oyster. The news that Gideon had panicked and would write a retraction hadn’t leaked yet, so the other writers still smiled and congratulated her.

Oyster waited
by her desk. They set off for Lord Ernest’s house. She walked in silence, head down, and he didn’t say a word. She didn’t know if it was because he could see her misery or because he was not in a talkative mood.

Her legs were tir
ed from all the walking, so Oyster waved down a hansom.

“
The papers we got from that lawyer are gone,” she said after they’d settled into the seats. “Gone. Someone took them all.” She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. After a long, shuddering breath, she banished tears once again and told him what had happened.

“
Lord Ernest is too stupid,” Oyster said. “Someone else did it.”

She gazed out the window at a crowd around what was either a brawl or a street performer. The hansom moved on
, and she closed her eyes. “Someone wishes to make my life a hell on earth.”

“
Huh. Someone from home?”

She shrugged.
“Lord Petersly always seems to be angry with me. At any rate, I have another story to investigate. All about me and that is precisely what I hoped to avoid. It’s quite a stunt, eh?”

They climbed out of the carriage in front of Lord Lutton
’s large but shabby house. The pillars supporting the Georgian facade were in dire need of repair. The stone was chipped in spots.

“
How odd to imagine this isn’t so many streets away from my lodging,” she said. “It’s a whole universe removed from respectable middle class.”

They knocked on the front door, but no one, not even a servant, answered. She sighed and leaned against
a wrought iron gate that led to a narrow little alleyway. “He said I should meet him here. I guess he changed his mind, the coward. Maybe we should go talk to that clerk at the lawyer’s office. Tell him the bad news about those papers.”

“
Miss Tildon?” A man called from the back.

She unlatched
the gate.

“
Me first.” Oyster gently pushed her aside. He walked down the passageway.

A
whole minute passed. She softly called, “Oyster?”

She grew nervous and wished she
’d brought along her gun and sap. Lord Ernest hadn’t seemed the type to provoke that sort of response.

“
Oyster?” she said, a little louder.

“
Here,” he said, with more emotion than she was used to hearing from him.

She looked up and down the street and then pushed through the gate.
A huge figure lay sprawled on the ground.

“
Oyster?”

She began to kneel by him when someone grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth with a damp cloth. She panicked as the sweet
, thick scent of ether suffocated her. Twisting to the side, she saw her attacker and gave an incredulous laugh. A mistake—her deep breath made the drug work faster.

Gideon was on his third version of the letter from the publisher. How could he grovel yet keep his dignity? To hell with his dignity. He’d throw it out the window along with those misplaced aspirations of his.

Professional prid
e
—
that was something else. Professional pride meant he wouldn’t cheat to get a story. He’d prevaricate to sources, perhaps, and occasionally steal evidence if he had to, but cheat? No.

The thought intruded again. Lizzy didn
’t lie. Trudy Tildon could have invented those strange adventures of hers, but he’d seen her on the path of a story—wig and all.

He threw the pencil across the room.

“Sir?” Brinker stood in the doorway.

He eyed the manservant
. “What are you doing here?”

“
I am looking for Miss Drury, sir. She had put off our tour for a few days, though she’d expressed a desire to go to Trafalgar Square and view the National Gallery. She asked me to call upon her, sir, yet she is not at her boardinghouse and she is not here either.”

Gideon made a strangled
, angry sound.

“
Sir?”

“
You’re not abreast of the latest developments. The lady is no longer in my employment. Get the hell out.”

Brinker flinched and then raised his chin.
“It was your express desire, sir, that I should approach the—”

“
Yes, yes. You’re right, and I’m sorry I snapped. It’s just that I have been a fool.”

“
Sir?”

He slumped down behind his desk.

Brinker didn’t leave. “I admit I am a trifle worried that she cannot be located, sir.”

“
Perhaps she’s gone into hiding. She’s had a terrible day or two.” Gideon rested his forehead on his hands and his elbows on his desk.

“
It appears you have as well, sir.”

He looked up. Two opinions offered by Brinker in a matter of a minute? The man must be truly upset.

“Go on, Brinker.” He meant keep talking, though perhaps Brinker might interpret it to mean get out of the office.

Brinker didn
’t say anything. He didn’t leave either.

“
You’re worried about her,” Gideon said.

Brinker coughed.
“I would hardly go so far as to say worried, sir. But when I inquired downstairs about her, the gentlemen said she hasn’t come in and neither has Mr. Oyster.”

Gideon got to his feet.
“That’s it.”

“
I beg your pardon, sir. I don’t wish to agitate you, and will return—”

“
No, come on. You and I are going to go find her. The rest of this can wait.” He bent, picked up the pencil, and tossed it back on the desk. “We’ll start with Lord Ernest.” If the story hadn’t been a pack of lies, and she wanted to find the missing proof, he’d wager that was where she’d start her search.

Brinker didn
’t say anything, but Gideon knew only his training kept him from peppering Gideon with questions as they rushed through the building.

He summoned his own carriage—who knew how many stops he
’d have to make.

“
I’ve wasted enough time,” he told the driver as he climbed in. “Go fast.”

“
London traffic,” the driver grumbled.

“
Fast.” Gideon settled back, slammed and latched the door. He stared out the window, searching the crowds for the two familiar figures of Oyster and Lizzy.

At Lord Lutton
’s house, the butler informed them that Lord Ernest was not at home, but he was certain Lady Edith would wish to know of their presence. Gideon was trying to think of a way to avoid the coming confrontation, when the lady herself appeared in the doorway.

She eyed him coldly.
“Why are you here? Have you come to apologize to my brother?”

“
Hello, Lady Edith. I am looking for him.”

She straightened her back.
“I think it best if you leave at once, Sir Gideon.”

“
I understand. Could you tell me where I might find Lord Ernest?”

Two pink splotches appeared on her cheeks
, and her jaw tightened. He suspected she was grinding her teeth rather than coming right out and telling him to go to hell.

“
I have not seen him today at all. I believe he is consulting with his lawyers.”

Yes,
of course, that was a good idea. Banks—that had been the name Lizzy had provided.

He bowed to Lady Edith.
“Thank you for your time. I am sorry for any distress you may be feeling.”

In a low voice
, she replied, “I am only glad I have not advanced your career. I should hate to be the source of your success.”

No mention of the loss of love—
so no one suffered a broken heart. That made him smile with relief.

She must have seen and misinterpreted the smile
—she gave a muffled little cry. “Good afternoon.” Lady Edith swept from the room.

The clerk at Banks’s office gave him as cold and fishy an eye as Lady Edith. “I ain’t at liberty to say if Lord Ernest is a client.”

The clerk
’s gaze dropped to the banknotes in Gideon’s hand. He licked his lips and grew less unpleasant. “No, sir. Nothing to say on the matter.”

He shifted
on his seat, moving into the light streaming through a window, and Gideon noticed a fresh bruise on the clerk’s cheek and eye.

Gideon leaned closer to inspect them.
“That eye will be colorful tomorrow, I imagine.”

“
It nearly cost me my job. And now you coming in, asking questions.” He looked over his shoulder at the door to Banks’s office. “I wish you’d go, sir.”

“
So someone attacked you here? In the office?” Gideon gently placed the money on the desk.

“
The big American did less than an hour ago.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Right in front of Mr. Banks, he accused me of all sorts of things. I have no idea where he came up with those strange notions. Selling client information. I’d never do that.”

Gideon held two more guineas so the clerk could see them. “What did the big American say you
’d done? Keep in mind I can always ask Mr. Banks about the accusations.”

The clerk swallowed
; his Adam’s apple bobbed. “He seemed to think a client had dropped off some papers when Mr. Banks wasn’t here and I’d given them out to someone else. It’s silly, of course. There are no records of such a thing. None.”

Gideon wondered how Banks could affo
rd to keep a bad liar on staff. And if this man lied, then the story Lizzy had told him… Hell and damnation. He had to find her.

“
What was your attacker’s name?”

“
I didn’t get his name, sir. I don’t want to associate with a ruffian like that.”

Gideon held on
to his temper and placed another bill on the desk.

A
fter another glance behind himself, the clerk whispered, “A brute of a man. He’d been roughed up too. Split lip, and he seemed to have a headache.”

Gideon
put the bills in his pocket. “What did he want? To get the papers back? To find out who’d left them here?”

“
I couldn’t say, since these papers don’t exist. I don’t know. Would you care to make an appointment with Mr. Banks?”

Gideon considered leaving—either that or give the clerk another black eye. If Mrs. Pruitt
’s house didn’t yield answers, he’d be back. Although if he had to return after the close of business…

“
What’s your home address?” he asked the clerk. He pulled out his money pouch again but didn’t open it. He sent the clear messag
e
—
more money would come the man’s way later.

The cler
k scribbled on a bit of crumpled paper and handed it over. “Thank you, and good afternoon, sir,” he said with another twist to look at the closed door. If Gideon didn’t have that rising sense of urgency—apparently Oyster had been attacked—he might have stayed in front of the clerk’s desk until the man begged him to leave and told Gideon everything he needed to know.

But his heart was pounding fast now
, and he ran out of the office and down the stairs, Brinker trailing behind.

“
You said you went to her boardinghouse?” he asked Brinker as they climbed back into the waiting carriage.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
We’ll go to Oyster’s house.”

They discovered Oyster hadn
’t been living there for at least a fortnight. A wave of fresh fear hit him. “Could he have something to do with all of this?” he wondered out loud as he paused by the carriage, ready to continue the search.

“
Mr. Oyster, sir?” Brinker allowed himself a frown. “Do you mean with Miss Drury’s, ah, disappearance?”

She
’d vanished. The words hung in the air, and his worry transformed to sickening fear. Gideon vaulted into the carriage and waited impatiently for Brinker to climb in. “We’ll go to that blasted brothel.”

He left Brinker in the carriage for that visit.

After Gideon announced his name, the large, impassive majordomo silently allowed him in, then led him straight to an office, where a handsome middle-aged lady greeted him.

She looked him up and down.
“I know who you are, and aren’t you in a whole universe of sorrow? I have ever so much to say to you, Sir Gideon.”

“
I am looking forward to it, but at the moment, I need to find Lord Ernest.”

“
Not here.” She leaned close. “You didn’t hear it from me, but he is one of our clients and so is Lord Petersly. But our financier? I think not. I and the other ladies are our own financiers, not that I want to see that in any of your publications. And those females who were attacked had nothing to do with us. Poor girls. You think the police haven’t tried to make it our business? They have, indeed. It was dreadful how they crawled around our houses, but that was ages ago.”

He studied her hard blue eyes and believed her.
“Do you wish me to run any sort of retraction?”

She frowned thoughtfully, tapp
ing her jeweled fingers together so the rings made a soft clink. “I think it best if from now on you pretend we don’t exist.” She smiled. “Although linking us with those men of stature, you’ve done us a favor, no doubt about it.”

Gideon quickly took his leave, wishing he could search the rooms fo
r Ernest. He’d look for Oyster at more public spots first.

He called to the driver
, “Home and back to the office.” He settled next to Brinker. “And then I suppose the next stop will be with the police.”

“Sir,” Brinker said faintly. He looked pale.

They returned home to discover Oyster waited for them. He stood in the middle of the room set aside for tradesmen’s visits.

Gideon wanted to embrace the man.
“Thank God. Where is she?”

Oyster shook his head
, then winced. “Someone thumped me over the head and grabbed her. And the papers I picked up at the lawyer’s office—someone took ’em all from her house.”

Gideon had to sit down but only until the black splotches
in front of his eyes disappeared. “There really were papers,” he managed to say. He’d known by now, but to hear the words and to recall all he’d said to her, his heart crumpled with fear for her, and anger at himself.

Oyster sat down too.
“’Course there were. Books, ledgers. All given to that clerk by Lord Ernest. She saw Ernie bring ’em in; I went and fetched them. Cost twenty pounds.”

“
Papers from Lord Ernest.” He tried to think of other men she’d implicated in the story. “Maxwell, Petersly.”

Oyster sniffed.
“Petersly ain’t home. I left word for him and thought about tracking him to his club.”

“
I’d have better luck with that,” Gideon said. “Brinker, you stay here.”

To his surprise, the manservant actually scowled and said,
“Sir! I can’t see how that helps.”

He never protested Gideon
’s orders, not even his most outrageous demands. How strongly did Brinker care for Lizzy? It didn’t matter—Lizzy was Gideon’s. If she forgave him for not believing her, and he’d make damn sure she would, he wouldn’t let her go.

Gideon
explained to Brinker, “I need someone to stay and take messages, someone who understands the situation.” It occurred to him that Brinker possibly didn’t fit the category of those who understood. “It’s the story in today’s paper.”

“
I know which one you mean, sir. The story about the murdered young lady and that house.”