Royal Regard (42 page)

“Being of use is better than the alternative,
I find.”

“Call ‘round the curricle, if you please. And
quickly.”

“I’ve already done so. With a driver who is
not in his cups.” Nick turned his head and stared. “I have been in
your employ almost twenty years, Your Grace. I’d like to believe I
understand something of your disposition.”

“A pay rise when I return.”

“My wages can be settled with your new
duchess. I might suggest you allow me to tidy your person, but I
believe that would put too great a strain on your patience. I think
the countess will forgive the lapse.”

Nick took the stairs two at a time, threw
himself out of the front door and onto the seat of the one-horse
conveyance, next to the driver, his momentum almost oversetting the
man, if not the carriage. “As fast as you can to Russell
Square.”

The driver whipped up the horses, and did his
best to weave through the London traffic, staying mostly to side
streets where he could pick up speed, at least for a few minutes at
a time. Finally, however, when they reached the turn to Bella and
Myron’s town house, carriage traffic jammed in both directions,
impeded by a horse that had balked. With drivers screaming
invective from all sides, the coachman of the stalled hack seemed
further and further from calming the rearing horse that had broken
from the traces.

Rather than wait, Nick jumped down and
ordered his groom to meet him at the Huntleigh house and wait. By
sheer luck, the brisk drive had cleared his wits enough to keep him
from tripping over his own feet, so he ran, if clumsily, the last
quarter-mile.

When he arrived at the front door, breathing
hard, he banged with his fist until Watts opened the door.

Breathing hard, bent with one hand on his
knee, Nick demanded, “I must see Lady Huntleigh immediately.”

“I’m afraid, Sir, there is no—”

Charlotte flew into the vestibule at the
sound of his voice. “Wellbridge! What is it?” She looked around and
spoke in almost a whisper, “Is Bella with you?”

He looked at her in puzzlement. “With me?
She’s here.”

“No. No one knows where she’s gone. I knew
she had intended to… well, of course, I said nothing. Michelle told
the doctors she must be shopping, but neither was anywhere to be
found when I arrived.”

“Bella left my house with Michelle an hour
ago.”

Charlotte’s eyebrows shot up. She waved him
into the front hall and Watts out, then dragged Nick up the stairs
to the library, shutting the pocket doors and sending the footman
to the kitchen.

The servants had already prepared the room
for callers: tea things and food set out on a low credenza, so that
anyone might serve him or herself should servants and scheduled
mealtimes be disrupted. Presumably, the half-eaten trays of cold
hors d’oeuvres
had already been picked through by the
doctors, no longer in evidence, all to the good, as far as he was
concerned. The smell of cold capon was enough to turn his
stomach.

Nick opened and re-closed the doors, ensuring
no eavesdroppers.

“Where is she, then?” Charlotte demanded.

“I have no idea!” He began to pace. “She
refused to allow me come back with her. We were—” He swallowed the
explanation he would never give anyone, and with naught but the
small clue in his eye, so did Charlotte. “She refused my presence.
Her abigail came to—damn!” Nick remembered where he had seen
Bella’s maid.

Charlotte stepped back, eyes wide, but to her
credit, ignored the foul language. “What is it?”

“Malbourne.” The last vestiges of Nick’s
drunkenness disappeared faster than he could say the name. “Forgive
the discourtesy, but Huntleigh is dead, is he not? It was no
trick?”

“No, he is gone two hours past.”

“So, just after she left for my house.”

“I don’t know when she—what has Malbourne to
do with this?”

“The maid.”

Charlotte stared at him blankly.

“She knows him,” Nick explained, more
desperate than was seemly. “I saw them together at Vauxhall but
didn’t get a good look. I assumed she was a lightskirt.”

“Of course she is no lightskirt. I hired
Michelle myself! Are you certain it was—”

“I’m sure. Entirely sure.”

The more he repeated it, the surer he became,
which would normally be enough reason for him to think twice. Right
now, though, he could barely think once. “Yes. I’m sure. It was
her, and since the maid knows Malbourne,” he said, “we have to
assume foul play, but I have no idea where he would take her.”

“Nor I.”

She stuck her head out of the library door.
It was a measure of her concern that rather than demurely calling
for a footman to quietly fetch her husband, she yelled up the
stairs at the top of her voice, “Alexander! Alexander! I need you
downstairs at once!”

Nick paced ineffectually, banging his fists
against his thighs, wishing he were banging his head against the
wall. He tried to rein in his terror by stabbing at the fire with
the poker, but it only made him want to take off Malbourne’s head
with the cast iron instrument. When he found himself wrapping both
fists around the handle, he gently placed it back on the stand and
stepped away.

“Have you lost all dignity, Lady Firthley?”
her husband chided over the banister. “This is a house of
mourn—”

Firthley broke off when he saw Charlotte’s
face and ran down the stairs. “What is it?” He saw Nick and nodded
his greeting. “Wellbridge.”

Charlotte pulled him into the library and
shut the door again. “Bella’s gone missing,” she wailed.

“What?” Firthley’s posture slumped and he
leaned against the door jamb. “Missing?”

“Yes! Missing! She’s gone missing!” Charlotte
repeated as she nudged Firthley into the room to close the door.
Both men could hear how close she was to tears, and the look they
exchanged said neither thought they had time to comfort her. “She
was with Nick when Michelle found her, and he thinks Malbourne has
taken her.”

Firthley eyed Nick, his back stiffening
again. “What was she doing with—”

“No matter,” Charlotte insisted, pinching
Firthley’s arm hard enough to bring his attention back to the most
salient point: “Malbourne has her.”

Firthley nodded and rearranged his
priorities. However, he retained the speculative, protective gleam
in the corner of his eye, a judgment withheld, but landing directly
on Nick. If Bella said one word against him later, Firthley would
call him out.

“What has Malbourne to do with this?”
Firthley asked, his eyes and ears as open as only a former
soldier’s could be. “I know Huntleigh doesn’t—didn’t—like him, but
it is a bit far-fetched to—No,” he shook his head. “Surely you
don’t think—?”

“She left my house with her maid at a quarter
to five in a black town coach. They should have been here long
since, and it hasn’t been four nights since I saw the woman kissing
Malbourne. I didn’t see her well, but she has brassy hair, possibly
dyed, and she’s older. Older than me. Forgive the vulgarity,
Charlotte, but she walks like a whore.”

Charlotte looked at Firthley, twisting her
hands together. “It could be Michelle. It sounds like
Michelle.”

“It is the same woman. I’m telling you.” His
hands flailed as he paced, beseeching her not to waste time
arguing. Finally, noticing the silent language being passed between
the married couple, he stopped to grasp the sleeve of Charlotte’s
gown. Firthley inserted himself to break Nick’s hold on his wife,
so Nick grabbed Firthley’s coat instead, losing his balance to
vertigo when it struck him he had no idea what was happening, and
no way to find out.

“Do you have any idea where he might have
taken her?” Nick begged an answer he knew no one could deliver.

“No!” Charlotte cried, “If I knew where he
had—”

Firthley reached to steady Nick’s arm and
held his hand up to stop Charlotte’s increasing hysteria.

“Calm yourselves, both of you. I know
something.” Charlotte and Nick froze, and Firthley looked toward
the ceiling as though there were a fresco painting there that might
elucidate in oils whatever it was he had heard in passing.

“Someone said a week or so ago at White’s—I
think it was Shelderhill. Yes, Shelderhill. I’m sure of it. He told
me Malbourne was blackballed at Boodle’s again. Of course, neither
White’s nor Brooks’s will even entertain the idea of his membership
anymore. You might think he would stop trying.”

“His club memberships hardly signify—”

“Quiet, Wellbridge. I’m trying to remember
what was said more than a week ago. We were all a bit, well, it had
been a
festive
evening—apologies, my dear, for discussing it
in company. Malbourne told Shelderhill he was tiring of London and
planned to go back to France. Something to do with his family
château…
some land being sold? Or he was selling it. I’d be
surprised to hear he was buying anything. Everyone knows he is up
the River Tick.”

Nick’s hands were held firm at his sides by
the best of intentions. “Think what he can buy with Huntleigh’s
fortune.”

Charlotte’s head bobbed up and down. “I
suppose he knew he had played out his hand. So, it is France or
Gretna Green, and Scotland is the wrong direction.”

“And not nearly so friendly to a Frenchman as
Calais.”

Nick surmised, “The Dover Road to his
estate.”

Firthley crossed to Huntleigh’s desk, keeping
his eyes trained on Charlotte like a guard dog.

“Or a riverboat. Either way, he will cross at
Westminster.”

The Firthleys’ foreheads, eyebrows, and chins
indulged in a four-course argument in the time it took for Nick to
look back and forth between them.

Before either could voice the fear choking
everyone, Nick named it: “Looking for one carriage, one boat, among
hundreds? More than an hour ahead? It’s a fool’s errand.”

Charlotte’s mettle slammed into Nick like a
billiard ball when she barked, “You would rather leave Bella to
Malbourne?” reminding him, and apparently Firthley, of their sense
of valor. Both men straightened up and squared jaws and shoulders
before they dared look her in the eye.

“Of course not,” Nick snapped. “I’m just not
sure how we—” Charlotte glared and Nick capitulated, but with
muscles now tensed and ready for battle. “Firthley, are you with
me?” With one glance, the Firthleys’ argument was ended.

“Of course.”

Firthley strode to a
Régence
secretary
desk, but the drawers were locked. “Huntleigh has—had—dueling
pistols in here, but I don’t know where he keeps the keys.”

Nick took up the poker from the fireplace and
slammed it into the antique, breaking the drawers into pieces,
retrieving the dueling pistols, two unmatched guns, and three
knives, then filling his pockets with shot.

While Nick was destroying the furniture and
loading the weapons, Firthley kissed his wife and told her, “Have
the children brought here. Stay with them every minute and send
riders to Bow Street and the palace. The king will not yet have
heard about Huntleigh, and it would be helpful to have more than
the two of us on alert. I’ll leave word of our direction at Charing
Cross.”

She nodded. Firthley took out his pocket
watch and checked the time. “His Majesty may yet be at St. James’s
Palace.” He pulled his signet ring off his little finger and handed
it to her. “Send this with the rider, or he’ll be waiting on an
audience for days.”

Charlotte stood up on her toes to give her
husband another kiss, whispering, “Be careful, my love, and bring
her home.”

Nick and Firthley rushed out to Nick’s
waiting curricle. As it was a two-seater, Nick told the driver to
protect Charlotte and her children at any cost and took up the
ribbons himself.

It only took twenty minutes to make it to
Charing Cross, but once there, they hadn’t a clue where to look or
even whether they were on the right track. The crossing was not
just busy, but frenzied, horses and carriages everywhere and a
steady stream of business on and off the river craft docked at the
wharf. By Nick’s pocket watch, it had been almost two hours since
Bella had left his house.

Nick stared at Firthley in sheer
bewilderment, unable to make the least decision out of fear of
making the wrong one. Firthley took the reins and directed the
carriage slowly through the crush to the Royal Mews.

“We need riding horses, and it will be
fastest to borrow them from the king. I daresay Prinny won’t
begrudge the loan. If we are lucky, someone there will help in the
pursuit.”

Both the Duke of Wellbridge and the Marquess
of Firthley were familiar, at least by name, to the equerry in
charge of the king’s stables, so they were quickly able to make
their needs known. Without delay, two of the fastest available
mounts were saddled, Nick’s horse was being fed, watered, groomed,
and stabled, and three soldiers had mounted to follow them. A
contingent of half a dozen men prepared to take the Dover Road,
another group left for Gretna Green, and another began a search of
the Westminster docks.

Once mounted, Firthley turned his horse
toward the nearest coaching inn, the Golden Cross.

“Where are you going?” Nick snapped. “We have
no time to stop for a pot of ale.”

Firthley held the reins tightly, his horse
dancing to and fro in anticipation of a hard run. “With so little
time, it beseems we should ask questions before making guesses. If
you’d like to fly off willy-nilly, I will catch you up when I know
something of use.”

Firthley ducked his head walking the horse
though the archway to the courtyard, where the activity was just as
frenetic as the pier. Nick followed him into unending chaos. On two
sides of the square, three floors of rooms were stacked like a
layer cake, a cacophony rising from the walls—children crying,
parents yelling, men and women in various stages of intimate
congress, coachmen barking orders to grooms and multiple
businessmen all demanding their loads be handled first. The third
side of the building housed a stable and feed barn emitting its own
earsplitting noise, and the fourth wall, through which Firthley had
just entered, was the façade facing the tumultuous street.