Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (33 page)

Thomas looked from Richard to Rose. He tightened his grip on her hand. “So where?
Think
—where’s the place the children will want to go to, a building of some sort, deserted or close to that, somewhere the guards will let them go into with Roger alone?” Thomas paused, then added, “And it has to be somewhere reasonably close—Mayfair itself or in areas close by.”

“Because,” Barnaby filled in, “Phelps and Conner would never countenance being away from here for more than a few hours, and they’ve already been—”

“Seddington House!” Richard Percival looked at Rose, then raised his gaze to Thomas’s face. “It’s in Tilney Street, so quite close. It’s been closed up for the last four years, but Roger almost certainly has a key—Marmaduke has, so Roger will have.”

“Yes!” Gripping Thomas’s arm more tightly, Rose met his gaze. “William will remember the house—he was five when last he was there.”

“And now it’s his.” Richard raised his hands. “So easy for someone like Roger to spark William’s curiosity, and then fan it to a blaze.”

“Oh, yes.” Thomas met Barnaby’s gaze. “I can definitely imagine that.”

Penelope frowned. “But would Phelps and Conner let the children go with anyone into a deserted house?”

Thomas stared at her for a second. “But will they know it’s deserted?” He looked at Richard.

Lips compressing, Richard shook his head. “No. They—neither the guards nor the children—would know, not unless Roger tells them, which, of course, he won’t. Because of the risk of burglary, we’ve taken care to keep the house looking like it’s occupied. Gardeners come in regularly, and the curtains aren’t all drawn. Occasionally, I send my staff around to clean the main rooms . . .” Richard looked at Rose. “I always wondered if you might, at some point, seek refuge there.”

“So you’re telling us,” Stokes said, his voice hard, “that there’s nothing that would alert Phelps and Conner to the fact that Roger Percival is taking the children into a deserted house?”

Richard nodded. “Exactly.” His expression hardened into a grim mask. “We need to get around there.” He turned to the front door.

“No—wait!” Stokes caught Richard’s arm and bodily hauled him back. “We can’t just go barging in. If we’re right, and Roger’s there, he’ll have William with him, and we don’t know how Roger will react. We can’t predict what he might do if we charge in.”

“Indeed.” Penelope nodded. “Roger sounds like the sort to seize the opportunity and take advantage of the clamor to push Homer—William—down the stairs, and then claim that William was startled and tripped.” From behind the lenses of her glasses, Penelope held Richard’s gaze. “That’s not the outcome we want.”

The heightened, battle-ready tension that had gripped Richard eased—a fraction. Curtly, he nodded. When Stokes released him, he shrugged his coat into place, then raked the group with his dark gaze, finally looking at Rose. He studied her for a second, then looked at Thomas. “We can’t just wait and see what happens—we have to go there and get William and Alice away from Roger. We can’t take the risk of leaving them with him for a moment longer than necessary.”

Thomas inclined his head. “No, we can’t.” Even he heard the harder, more incisive note in his voice. “But we have to go in with a plan—one with a decent chance of succeeding, of allowing us to bring William and Alice safely out of that house.” He drew breath and turned his mind to the game. Focused on that and blocked everything else out. “Roger doesn’t know we suspect him. He has no reason to imagine we know anything at all about the previous murders, much less about his murderous intentions.”

Letting the scenario unfurl in his mind, Thomas drew in a deeper breath, then looked at Rose. “Roger can’t know what Rose’s standing is with Richard, Foley, and even his father—you all might have met this morning and sorted everything out. What Roger does know is that Rose and the children have been in London for the past few days, living openly, and are welcome visitors to this house. He won’t think it odd if, having been out for a walk and noticing the Adairs’ carriage drawn up by the curb before Seddington House, after speaking with Phelps and Conner, Rose enters the house, thinking to join Roger and the children in reacquainting herself with her old home.” Thomas glanced questioningly at Richard.

Richard nodded. “True. So I can go in with Rose and—”

“No.” Thomas’s tone brooked no argument. He caught Richard’s frustrated gaze and spoke decisively and increasingly rapidly; time was, indeed, running out. “You can’t accompany Rose because Roger will see you as a threat. We can’t know what the situation will be when we enter the house, where Roger will be in relation to where Homer and Pippin—William and Alice—will be at that moment. We can’t risk spurring Roger into deciding to act first, and think up his explanations later.”

Thomas glanced at the others—Penelope, Barnaby, Stokes, Montague, and Violet. “Rose has to go in, but the only one of the males here who can go in with her is me. Roger will see me as a semi-cripple with no connection to the Percival family and no reason to suspect him of anything. He’ll dismiss me as of no real importance and will focus instead on talking his way around Rose.”

Of them all, it was Penelope who, with critical detachment, studied him most closely, then she nodded. Decisively. “I agree. You are the best chance William and Alice have for leaving that house alive.”

A split second later, Barnaby also nodded. “You’re right.” He started hunting through the pockets of the old coat he still wore. “For today, for now, it has to be that way. We don’t need to capture Roger today, we just need to stymie him.” He, too, was speaking rapidly, urgency mounting in his tone. “What we need to do now is stop Roger from killing William and get the children back in our hands.”

“Yes.” Stokes, too, nodded. “We can deal with Roger Percival later. The rest of us will hang back, out of sight of the house, and watch, but we can’t go in—not until the children are safe.”

“Here.” Barnaby handed his police whistle to Rose. “Blow on this and we’ll come running.”

“But don’t use it until you know William is safe,” Stokes warned. “Until you have him and Alice in your keeping.”

Rose took the whistle and tucked it into her pocket.

Like her husband, Penelope had also been hunting, in her case in her reticule. She’d pulled out a small pistol and expertly checked it; she handed it to Thomas with a simple “It’s loaded.”

He took it and slipped it into his pocket.

Looking lost and a trifle wild-eyed, Richard looked from Rose to Thomas, then at the others. “I can’t believe I’m going along with this, but . . .” He handed Rose a key he’d removed from his keychain. “The key to Seddington House, in case Roger has locked the door behind them. No reason you wouldn’t have had a key from before.”

Rose took the key. “Thank you.” She met Richard’s eyes. “We will do our best to bring them back.”

“No,” Thomas said, taking her hand as they all turned to the front door. “We
will
bring them back, safe and sound.”

“Right, then.” Stokes pulled open the front door. “Hackneys to the corner of Tilney Street and South Audley Street—we’ll walk in from there.”

A
rm in arm with Rose, Thomas strolled along Tilney Street, cane gently swinging, an easy expression on his face, as if he and Rose were merely out to take the air, their goal most likely the grassy expanses of Hype Park, just across Park Lane. Penelope’s carriage drew his attention; it was drawn up outside one of the large old houses on the southern side of the street.

With his cane, he pointed it out to Rose, and after exchanging a comment, they crossed the street to investigate.

As Richard had told them, Seddington House appeared well tended and lived in. Windows were clean, and no litter, cobwebs, or other signs of neglect marred the face it showed the world. Wrought-iron railings separated the neat garden from the pavement. The house comprised two full stories, the upper topped by a low parapet overlooked by the dormer windows set in the steeply sloping slate roof. The ground floor was raised and small windows below suggested a working basement beneath. Architecturally, the house was a hodgepodge of older styles; a wide bay on the ground floor to one side of the front door supported a balcony above it, the balcony’s surrounding wall matching the parapet above.

Reaching the carriage and Phelps, who was standing beside his horses’ heads, Thomas smiled as the coachman bobbed a bow to Rose, then him. “Any sign?” Thomas asked with an innocent smile.

Alerted by Barnaby, who, still in his disguise of lowly workman, had sloped past and stopped to exchange a comment with Phelps, who had subsequently passed the message on to Conner, Phelps was understandably tense but strove to hide it. “No, sir.” Phelps touched a finger to his forehead. “None at all. They’ve been nowhere near any windows—least not the ones we can see.”

“Thank you.” Thomas glanced at Rose, who had been studying the house. She was doing well enough at concealing her agitation. Catching her eye, Thomas kept his smile in place. “Shall we go in?” The gesture that went with the words would, he hoped, be pantomime enough should Roger Percival be watching from anywhere inside the house.

Rose looked at the house, then forced a bright smile and nodded. She glanced up and met Thomas’s eyes. Her fingers tightened on his sleeve. “Yes. Let’s.”

With every evidence of embarking on a pleasant diversion, they walked through the gate Phelps swung open and continued up the gravel path to the steps that led up to the front porch. Standing apparently at ease beside the bottom step, Conner inclined his head as they approached. “Sir. Ma’am.” Only his eyes gave away his tension.

“Have you heard anything?” Thomas quietly asked.

“I’m pretty sure they went upstairs, and I haven’t heard them come down—the children were running, so I heard their footsteps.”

Thomas held to calm, stopped his eyes from narrowing. “How long ago did they go up?”

“About ten minutes ago.” Conner’s jaw tightened. “Call if you need us.”

“We will.” Thomas steered Rose on; the urgency riding her was becoming increasingly apparent, at least to him.

They reached the front door—and found it unlocked. Far from being at all reassured, Thomas found the blatant confidence of Roger Percival alarming. He’d left the door open so if—when—there was a scream or any such noise, Conner would rush in without encountering the oddity of an unexpectedly locked door, a door only Roger could have locked, and would then have to explain.

The man did, indeed, think quickly and was unquestionably, demonstrably, very thorough in dealing with details, with the minutiae that would have tripped up lesser men.

Ushering Rose over the threshold, lowering his head, Thomas whispered, “Remember your role.” She needed to cling to it, to preserve the façade of not suspecting Roger of anything.

Following her inside, Thomas looked around with mild interest as he slowly closed the door.

Rose halted in the middle of the front hall. She listened, straining her ears, but heard nothing. No giggles from Pippin, no scrape of Homer’s shoe. Inside, she felt as if her entire body had stopped, shut down—waiting. Turning, she looked at Thomas as he came to join her.

He caught her gaze. Smiled easily, and at normal volume said, “I wonder where they are.”

His gaze held hers, gave her strength, and encouraged her. Prodded her to keep to the script they’d rapidly devised as they’d walked down the street.

Turning to face the stairs once more, she raised her head and her voice. “William? Alice? Roger—are you there?” She paused for a second, then went on. “It’s Rose—Rosalind. Thomas and I were passing, and we thought we’d come and join you. I haven’t been here . . . well, since you two were last here. Years and years. So . . . where are you?”

With bated breath, both she and Thomas listened—and yes, that was a distant scuff, a shoe scraping.

She met Thomas’s eyes; he’d heard, too. He nodded at her to proceed.

Dragging in a breath, she infused her words with as much happy gaiety as she could. “Oh, is it a game, then? Are we supposed to search and find you—a game of hide-and-seek? Well, all right, but you know Thomas can’t run, so we won’t be quick, but . . . we’re coming to find you!”

Thomas nodded in approval and, still smiling amiably, walked with her to the stairs. “Up,” he murmured, “but don’t rush. Whatever happens, don’t run.”

They started climbing; Thomas had to take stairs like these one step at a time.

Reaching the landing, they started up the second flight. As they neared the top, Thomas murmured, “Cling to your act as long as you possibly can—don’t drop it until we have them in our arms and you’ve blown that whistle.”

She merely squeezed his arm in confirmation.

Stepping into the first-floor gallery, they looked around.

Thomas had been in deserted houses before. His senses remained well-honed, even more so after his accident, and they informed him that this house wasn’t empty, devoid of life, but he didn’t think the sound they’d heard had come from this floor.

He caught Rose’s anxious gaze. “Is there a nursery?” he whispered.

She nodded and, turning, pointed across the gallery to a narrow archway; in the shadows beyond the arch, stairs led upward.

Leaning closer to Rose, he murmured, “Describe what’s up there.”